There was a recent thread here on this topic that used some unfortunate language and got locked, but had the potential to start an interesting discussion which I’m hoping can be had here.
The new Festival Playlist has kind of brought to a head a lot of issues around exclusive vehicles and the weekly Forzathons. My personal take on this is that the weekly events (and even the Festival Playlist) are good ideas with (very) poor execution (and a severe lack of communication on how they work).
New events each week are a great idea to keep the game interesting for players long-term. Unfortunately, the time-gated exclusive content locked behind them and the new completion percentage requirement takes what could be a fun system and makes it feel like a chore. Because exclusive vehicles have been handled poorly (IMHO) in FH3 and FH4 with common RL vehicles being made exceptionally rare with zero guarantee of future availability, it feels like these weekly events are effectively mandatory unless you want to risk permanently missing out on a potentially awesome or highly anticipated vehicle. Forza has been heavily advertised as a “play it your way” game, but when these weekly challenges effectively become mandatory, then suddenly I’m not playing it how I want to, but instead having to jump through whatever annoying hoops the devs have set up.
This might be good for player login numbers, but it also creates resentment when players feel like their dream cars are “being held hostage” by the devs and locked arbitrarily behind time gates (or worse, online events if you don’t like multiplayer or don’t have gold). Part of the appeal of Forza is that the game is chock-full of real world vehicles for players to drive and enjoy. This also means that each vehicle has special significance that a fictional item would in other games generally won’t have. A car, even if it’s an uncompetitive, ugly beast, is still a unique piece of content that has far more meaning than say a new gun in Destiny.
I understand the place of exclusive vehicles (even if I get really annoyed at how hard it is to get some of them) since it motivates players to go above and beyond what they normally do to try to get them, but when cars that are very common IRL (like the 2010 Golf R) are made arbitrarily rare for Reasons, it does make me resent the game designers.
Personally, I think that exclusive vehicles should be limited to Forza editions, and the base car should ALWAYS be in the autoshow (this includes one-off reward and barn find cars, which could unlock in the autoshow after they’ve been unlocked through gameplay). That way if a player really wants a particular vehicle, there’s a guaranteed way to get it, but more hardcore players who want something special and exclusive to work towards still have their carrot.
Additionally, the Festival Playlist percentages should be reworked so not all players HAVE to participate online to get the main rewards. If it’s really all about playing the game my way, then the events and completion percentages should be balanced such that I can pick and choose what I enjoy doing (including playing offline exclusively) and have enough events to choose from and completion points awarded from them to have a way to earn the rewards through that path if I so choose. Same for online. If players really enjoy playing online, then by all means they should be able to earn the rewards by playing the game the way they enjoy. There should also be the option to mix and match (like we have now) so players can dabble around in multiple event types and offline and online if they so choose.
There should still be 100% rewards for the hardcore players, but it shouldn’t be an exclusive vehicle, rather a pile of credits/wheelspins (maybe an exclusive cosmetic or badge next to their name) to reward them for going all out, but also recognizing that only a small percentage of players is going to do this so it shouldn’t be something that will create a bunch of resentment among players if it’s missed (a good example of how NOT to do this is the 100% requirement for the Porsche 914/6, which is a highly anticipated car for a lot of players).
Ultimately I want the flexibility to play Forza as a casual, relaxing game where I can step away from the game when RL demands it and come back later to hop in awesome cars at my leisure without feeling like I’ve forever missed out on a dream car because I couldn’t play a particular week, while at the same time having new challenges each week to participate in if I’m feeling like it, but no compulsion to do so if I’m not.
Anyways, what are your thoughts?
