In FH1, there was no such thing as a dirty lap. It was sort of “no holds barred” racing, the main encouragement to race clean was that it was often faster. With the public roads and off-road shortcuts, it would make no sense for a lap to be “dirtied” for going “OFF” (whatever THAT is). Collisions with traffic cars, too- why dirty the lap/race for that? Unrealistic as the collisions were, the guy who didn’t hit an oncoming car will go faster.
So, they removed the concept of a dirty lap entirely. This had an interesting effect in Rivals mode: racers of all skill levels could now use the rewind feature while hotlapping with no penalty (other than credits, but those weren’t exactly hard to come by). This was controversial, especially among some of the faster Forza guys (many of whom frequent these forums). Now, I sort of consider myself the “missing link” between casual and hardcore when it comes to Forza. I love to drive, I love nailing a good line and drifting and all that, but I can’t be bothered to tune or pay attention to racing IRL. I do prefer to race clean in terms of collisions with other racers/walls/etc, and staying on the track (obviously the last bit only applies to track racing in FM5), but I was never against rewinding.
I figured, what’s the difference between running 10 laps to get a really good time, and running each corner individually 10 times to get a perfect line through each, really? If player A has more skill/better car/better tune/any combination of those than player B, and each of them can “polish” their lap like this, Player A will still have the better time, I think. I didn’t always use it, but the times I did, I was glad I could. It’s also always nice to be able to rescue an otherwise-good lap from a single blunder, no?
What do you think? Should FH2 be the same in this regard? I think of it as a magic hourglass built into the shift knob, which can be flicked upside-down for a few seconds…
Some really valid points you raised, and I really like the rewind feature as it can be such a pain when you do 15 mins of racing only to overcook it right at the end and ruin a race.
In regards to leaderboards, I personally think the dirty/clean lap racing should stay, but not be dirtied by going “offroad” or anything, but mainly for collisions and for rewinds. imagine going round a corner that you can take at, say, 80 mph. using a car as a sort of moving buffer pillow you could ride “against” them and cut the corner faster and quicker.
I think the enjoyment of hot-lapping is more for the personal challenge. It’s more a trying to learn the track and learn the area instead of the same corner, but also maintaining the whole car around the combination of turns and being able to right the mistakes as quick as possible. over 10 laps your tyres are going to change as well, so I do think there’s a difference potentially in terms of temp and wear and what not. I think it’s more of a challenge to do 10 turns perfectly in a row than it is to do 10 turns over and over again until you get each one perfect
I prefer hot lapping because I personally find it more fun and enjoy the challenge, but i think it’s also more of a subjective point dependant on peoples playstyles. they’ll never be able to keep everyone happy!
Collisions & rewind use should automatically dirty your lap. Collisions can make you faster, and there’s no skill in spamming rewind to get the fastest lap theorically possible.
For this, I’m not sure. First of all, going off-track would definitely not uncertify a lap/race because of the cross-country races. I’m unsure about collisions, though. Maybe hitting a wall would give a time penalty, like in FM1 and FM2. Or, the barriers could have so much friction that someone can’t even get out of it without releasing the accelerator, to penalize the wallriders. Rewinding? That can be very beneficial; beginners shouldn’t be penalized by using it.
Forza Horizons are considered the more casual games, so we have to keep that in mind. I don’t think you can consider a lap dirty in the Horizon series. You’re right in that it’s a no-holds barred dash to the finish, besides which, there’s a lot in Horizon that isn’t in Motorsport. Traffic, drivable terrain/offroad, breakable barriers. Ya, you can cut corners in Motorsport to a certain degree but that’ll usually mess up your driving line and usually you’ll lose any traction you had, regardless of the speed you were driving at; in Horizon drifting, traffic, offroad, and collisions can all give a tactical advantage, largely unseen in Motorsport, which epitomizes the street-racing aspect of the Horizon franchise.
If a certain race wants to have certain rules like “Traffic collisions will increase your race time” then you can have dirty laps, otherwise it shouldn’t matter. In the real world, if a street racer “broke the rules” (oh noooo) then he might lose some bragging rights but the truth of the matter is that everyone would consider the complainer a sore loser and the winner still would’ve won.
Having said all of that, I don’t remember ever using Rewind in Horizon. You cut me off going into that corner? Alright, I’ll PIT you at the next one.
Rewind was why I quit trying in FH1 and got bored quickly since the multiplayer was boring.
For this type of game everything should be fair game except rewind. That’ll add at least some difficulty to the game. That, and no more rivals where you can set a time of a few seconds on a layout that should be a few minutes.
I think if everything is fair game then rewind should be too. I had more of an issue with wallriding in fh1. In fh2 we will need to see if the increased freedom means there is no such thing as keeping it on the track.
I am not worried about rewind - it just makes it quicker to run a good lap. It shortens the process but does not provide someone with skills to go quicker. They can only run each corner to the best of their ability.
I agree with this last bit 100%. If I’m the faster driver, my opponent can rewind all they want. Unless they “level up” IRL as a result of the rewind grinding (all the power to 'em if they do), it’s not gonna help.
Proof of concept: pick a stupid-fast leaderboard time as your rival (≈top 50) in FM4 or 5, and see if rewinding alone gets you a faster (albeit “dirtied”) time. I’ll bet dollars-to-doughnuts it won’t though!
So true. Having fought my way up through the rivals times just to find rail/wall riding at the top was depressing in FH1. If you’re going to put leaderboards/rivals into a game it needs to be protected from cheap tricks, otherwise what’s the point?
Depending on the race type there probably will be wall riding to some degree. If its a street race then the breakable barriers should prevent it in a lot of places, but if its a circuit race then there’ll probably be unbreakable barriers to wall ride. Considering how integral off-roading is to the Horizon franchise, I doubt they’ll be able to completely get rid of wall riding unless they implement uneven and unbreakable walls, which shouldn’t actually be too hard. It would just be pretty unfair if you get knocked into the wall or shave it while passing and then the wall hits you with an uneven bit and spins you out.
One consideration worth bearing in mind is the random-ness of Horizon. I’ve personally run events in Horizon at completely different times of day which can have an impact on how challenging the event is. Also there’s the matter of traffic vehicles, which I have found don’t always appear at the same points in an event. On one run there might be a car in my way on a straight, which is easy enough to avoid. Another time I might find that the car is sitting perfectly on the line I want to take round a corner - even if I’m running the same split time as my previous run.
It’s difficult therefore to argue what’s fair, as you might have one player setting their leaderboard time in the middle of the day with very little traffic obstruction and another player completing the same event in the middle of the night with traffic preventing them from taking the ideal line.
My simple outlook for what is considered dirty and what I would like to see in fh2. A dirty lap simply put is hitting anything at all, drafting or cutting the line to much and getting that dirty signal. If u have to rewind that would also make it dirty. If any of that happens your lap should be behind the guy that was able avoid doing those things. Yes it makes it more difficult but that’s the point of leaderboards and what makes them so challenging. It’s not supposed to be easy to get a really fast leaderboard time so why should we expect it to be handicapped.
I personally would like dirty laps to be slower and i know alot of racers feel the same way I do. Most High end racers biggest gripe about horizon 1 was the dirty lap indicator didn’t mean anything so they felt no reason to try and went back to motorsport 4. To keep everybody interested and trying for that perfect lap instead of that perfect wall bounce or car rub I would like that dirty lap sign to mean something
I was going to keep this to myself but I will say it without naming names. There was a really quick Forza player who complained about rewind in horizon. But on the odd occasion that they ran monthly rivals they were wallriding with the best of them.
The additional comment I would make to the person who said well shouldn’t the same logic apply to fm is this - fm is a game that is a more serious game than horizon so I believe there is scope for a different approach.
Having said that whichever way it goes it will be the same for everyone so it shouldn’t really matter.
SatNiteEduardo, I’m glad you say that the Motorsport branch is more serious than Horizon. In FM4, Clarkson mentions in the kind of dramatic intro how racing is in decline because of the reality, but there’s still hope that it’ll last for a long time. Then, Forza Horizon’s story is pretty “bro-tastic” with guys like Ali Howard, and Duke McGuire.
