Why this thread? Because there have been things overlooked, or simply left behind in FH4 Multiplayer, and some ongoing wishlists on the forums are too generic. I believe it is better to address the matter with its dedicated discussion. Hopefully, this will improve its visibility and raise the attention of the devs highlighting what the community do like or not for what concerns Multiplayer Racing exclusively.
My Forza experience is only based on FH4, so my wishes for the next iteration are on what I’ve seen there
Return of Ranked/Unranked modes from day one in FH5. Including future DLC tracks and circuits as well (like The island in FH4 that was left out of multiplayer).
Return of Rivals from day one
Removal of Free Roam Rush from Rally / Dirt Races or at least to have the option to disable it even without joining a convoy.
Give to all types of races the option to choose the class you wish to race B, A, S1, etc. As of how was left FH4 MP, you can choose it only for Street and Road.
Addition of inverted tracks/circuits ( you begin the race from the Finish line of the given track just like in GT for PS) to improve replayability and variety.
On ranked/unranked mode, only the specific categories of cars are allowed to race in it. I don’t know you, but to me, it is upsetting and outrageous seeing a Daytona Car smoking Rally Cars in Rally races even though the first was not built to race on dirt. One may find it fun to race vintage cars that don’t even have the aerodynamics or weights to race on dirt. I do not, and I think others share my idea, especially when these cars are outclassing the other cars racing where they belong. A possible solution for the problem may be as follows
Add dedicated Muscle and Vintage car races on unraked and ranked mode for the sake of those who like it.
Either they need to commit way more server resources into creating a smooth experience, or they need to allow private lobbies. The experience of playing FH4 with friends in a convoy was abysmal. You spend more time having to all matchmake and requeue into sessions than actually driving.
Was so disappointed to hear they are going the always online route again. It caused so many technical issues in 4, that only got worse as the game went on. Only now has it gone back to a somewhat acceptable level.
It’s ironic, by going always online, they turned the online experience into a sloppy, disjointed, horrifying mess. Playing the game with 5 friends should be the best way to play. Instead it’s a haunted house of technical bugs causing massive delays and severely curtailing the experience.
Col off is a completely different racing game in my view. Essentially that is then just Rivals - racing against ghosts to see who can take the best lines. No problem with that approach as an option (as it currently is in custom) but it removes the skill of overtaking so I’d be reluctant to see that as the main gameplay. Really, the ideal is they implement a system that properly deals with rammers in line with your second suggestion.
I agree with that. One thing I’d love to see in Rivals is an ability to specify multiple Rivals. Would be fun to have multiple ghosts on the track with different times, and you could keep lapping until you’ve beaten all the Rivals (or you give up). They should also have tons of data on people doing an entire 3-lap race, and it’d be fun to have that as an offline option similar to Rivals, but more of an actual race. Yes, it ultimately would be a time trial, and as you rightfully point out, there wouldn’t be any real overtaking, but in some ways it’s nicer than racing AI because you get to see actual driver throttle control, braking, etc., instead of the AI which are practically always on rails (no meaningful oversteer, etc.).
The general impression I’ve got is that ranked online racing will be even less of a feature in FH5. Mike mentioned Eliminator twice in the first couple of minutes of the show yesterday and I suspect that will be the focus of “competitive” gameplay. At this stage, I’ll be pleased to even see a ranked mode as good as FH4, despite its flaws. Hope I’m wrong though and they’ve actually taken on board feedback and improved the ranked gameplay as well.
That’s the impression that I get, too. It makes me a little bummed, because I really like the racing aspect of Horizon and I find the AI to be lacking. I don’t care about the ranking aspect of it so much – I mean, I’m never going to have enough time invested to be grandmaster or whatever – but I find it enjoyable to race other humans when the racing is mostly clean (it does happen sometimes) and I’m not as interested in the playground modes or eliminator (but by all means those should continue to be included as long as others find them to be fun!).
I know it’s way too late for FH5 feature requests (maybe it could hit for an update or DLC sometime), but I like the idea of replacing the freeroam rush with a cooperative mode similar to forzathon live events, where basically the idea is for everyone to convoy over to the next race start and the group gets rewarded with forzathon points for getting there quickly and for earning skill points on the way.
It would also be really cool if they could improve the immersion/continuity between the end of the race and the start of the freeroam rush/convoy. Like switch to an external camera view and have an AI driver take over, but have the AI driver line up to like a parking spot after the finish line, get in/out of the car to celebrate or whatever, and then have everyone drive off in a caravan from the parking spots. Race concluding information could be overlaid on the screen, but I just really like the idea that you’re not leaving the world to go to a splash screen or whatever. Bonus points if you integrate the results into a real-world feature like a stage or billboard-sized monitor. The cars could line up in front of the stage like a drive-in theater or something. Would be super fun and I think it’d really fit the Horizon party/street/open world vibe.
To me, saying “flaws” is a bit too generous for my standards. FH4 online as it was left, is pretty bad. On one side I understand that the large garage is a bit of bait to keep players engaged, especially online. But the gameplay optimisation shouldn’t be left as a lower priority.
Currently, Fh4 is a well-polished game and a beauty, but with gameplay that is at times more frustrating than fun when you deal with PvP.
I’d like to make a comparison, to give a meeter, with Starcraft 2 Battle net. It can be said a lot about Blizzard, bad and good, but they used to be MASTERS in creating the internet gaming mode of their games, setting the standards for how online gaming should be for 20 years. Whether arcade or comptetitve ranked.
Faster matchmaking, way less useless transition screens telling me I got 3000xp and 8000 credits. Just pick a parameter (asphalt only, drift etc.), hit connect and it will drop you in lobbies with those type of races. Just like Call of Duty does it with “quick game” or whatever it’s called.
That all sounds great – though for faster matchmaking, I think it’d help if I could specify like a primary and secondary parameters for the lobby – maybe I’d prefer a dirt race, but road racing would be fine if it means that I get a faster match. I do like to see the XP and credit tally, but they could do it a lot faster.
I’ve never played CoD so I don’t know how their system works, but I think it’d be nice if I could partially specify lobby parameters. I think the Motorsport 7 lobbies can sometimes be really vacant because they are so specific – like just a specific division, or specific class, but then also specific rules on top of that. I often would just prefer to be dropped into the lobby with the highest attendance and lowest matchmaking time, so I can just get racing. Maybe have a slight preference like a specific class, but I’d be open to any car division within that class.
For a Horizon 4 example, I’d love to be able to say something like B-class, A-class, S1-class Dirt race preference, but if that’s not available, just give me any lobby that isn’t street.
They had this in FH2, people whined and complained until it got removed, probably never coming back even though I would love to see it return.
This would be great, but I suspect $ are more important to them than actual gameplay and player experience.
Racing itself got started on dirt long before the rally car was even a thing. Moonshine runners modified classic cars to out perform the police on back roads, and even bounding into Free Roam Rush territory. NASCAR started on dirt tracks, I’m old enough to have actually watched these events. If you study the history of racing, you’ll find that the original rally cars were old Ford’s, Chevy’s and Dodge.
I hope that they fix the ridiculous point scoring system in ranked online play. It is incomprehensible and confusing.
Why on earth do I lose points when I come third or fourth in a lobby when the other drivers are all higher levels than me.
Why can’t it simply be that you are allocated the points that you earn at the end of the championship??
If the high ranked drivers get 100 points or 60 points by winning all of the races then so be it. I would rather earn 30 or 40 points in a lobby than to lose 10 points.
Well, they’ve fixed it by removing ranked racing completely, so you won’t have that problem in FH5.
The problem with the system you propose is it’s just a longevity reward. For a proper ranking system, there has to be a balance of winning and losing points depending on your results. I’m sure it would be possible to tweak the system in FH4 so it is fairer but there would always need to be some jeopardy of losing points.
You came 3rd or 4th. Wait until you win the lobby but still lose points.
Jezza is right, it wouldn’t make sense if people were given points just for playing more than others, even if they are less skilled. It would be unfair on the skilled group and make a nonsense of the rankings.