Playground’s July 24th “Winter” livestream showed off the new Car Mastery feature in the Cars menu. For those familiar with previous Horizon games, Car Mastery works like the Skill Shop: various driving feats trigger Skills which earn Skill Points which accumulate for you to spend on unlocking Perks. In FH3, there was one Skill Shop perk tree for your overall gamesave. In FH4, each car now has its own Car Mastery perk tree.
SKILLS
Skills register automatically as you perform them while driving. Each Skill performed adds to your current Skill meter, which when full awards you with a Skill Point and starts to refill again. Chaining Skills together before they’re banked (or lost due to a collision) fills your meter more rapidly. Some example Skills and Combos:
Air: Get all four wheels off the ground.
Kangaroo: Air + Air + Air in short succession.
E-Drift: Use your e-brake to lock your wheels and slide sideways (at # speed).
One-Eighty: Brake/spin/accelerate in the opposite direction.
Wreckage: Hit something breakable (such as street signs and fences).
Wrecking Ball: Wreckage + Wreckage + Wreckage.
Snowman: Wreck a Snowman (seasonal availability of course).
PERKS BY CAR
Perks are bonus factors or additional benefits. There are from 8 to 16 Perks to unlock for each car. Unlocking the first Perk in a Car Mastery then allows you to unlock the adjacent Perks in the tree, and so on. Car Mastery trees start fresh for each additional car bought from the Autoshow, but remain unlocked when the car is sold through the Auction House.
Perks List
Absolute Speed - Speed Skill scores are increased by [20%-40%]
Blessed - Lucky Escape Skill scores are increased by [10%-20%]
Check the Glovebox - CR: 30,000
Collector’s Item - Instant 5,000 Car Collection Influence.
Concours D’Elegance - Earn [150%-250%] more Skill Score for Clean Skills
Convoy Favorite - Earn 10% more Influence from Skills while driving your car in a Convoy.
Custom Sound System - Skill Multiplier builds much faster when a Skill Song is played.
Daredevil Driver - Daredevil Skills are increased by [5%-30%]
Dirt Monster - Extra 20% Influence for the next 10 Dirt Racing Events in your car.
Door Panel Surprise - CR: 100,000
Drag Reduction - Drafting Skill scores are increased by 10%
Drift Destroyer - Sideswipe Skill scores are increased by [5%-20%]
Exceptional Handling - Skill Multiplier builds [2x, 3x] as fast.
Extra Life - Each Skill Chain now takes two collisions to break
Fan Favorite - Skills banked while racing gain a [100%-200%] Influence bonus for the next 10 Campaign races.
Fingers Crossed - Wheelspin
Flying Car - Earn 20% more Skill score from Air Skills.
I’m really delighted by this feature - they’ve really tried to increase the longevity by giving completists a huge amount of stuff to go for. I look forward to maxing every skill tree
Me too, they mentioned something about being able to max out a cars perks, but if you get an identical car you car it will have its own skill tree. I can see myself making a lot of money on the AH selling maxed out perk cars!
interesting.…
I intend to spend a lot more time painting in Horizon 4 than in recent FM/FH titles so this feature could come in very handy - you’ll probably have a regular customer here!
I haven’t delved too much into this specific feature, but I don’t imagine that’s how it will work. I don’t believe the perks will be tied to the car … I think the perks will be tied to the user’s account and will be enabled when the user is driving that specific car. I can’t imagine that you’d be able to sell cars with all the perks unlocked to a buyer who has not unlocked them in the game. Just don’t see that happening.
This reminds me of the 1000 club in Horizon 1. That continues to be my most favorite Horizon feature of all time! I am looking forward to this feature in Horizon 4.
Frankly I like this feature, it rewards you for playing the cars you already love and doubles as extra goals to accomplish the more you explore the car roster.
Especially cars that already happen to be Forza Editions. That Capri FE already had a Skills bonus and really had some powerful stuff going on with the Masteries.
Yup, it was discussed in some depth on the stream. Unlocked perks are tied to the car - if you buy another one, you can unlock different perks if you like. If you sell one, the perks go with it.
Being able to sell cars with perks unlocked will be nice as long as they allow the free market to set the prices instead of forcing us to buy/sell within a certain range like they did in FH3 and FM7.
To be totally honest, I’d rather have brand or division trees if they want to go this route. A tree for every single in the car sounds to me at least like a grindfest. I liked the old FM way of having affinity levels for each brand.
You don’t have to grind if you don’t want to. You have the option of buying the car with the perks on it in the auction house.
I do agree that the affinity system was good though. I was disappointed that it wasn’t in FM7 or any of the Horizon games. The only thing I’d change about it is I’d remove the level cap.
interesting.…