I have never seen a more inefficient and slow online play system in my life.
I just spent probably 15 mins just sitting in a lobby waiting for a nice, clean A800 Road Race to start. All of the menus, loading, sitting in a barren, empty husk version of the game world with a floating, horrible “RACE IN PROGRESS- LAP 1/3” sitting at the top of the screen waiting for it to finish, only for the supposed A class championship I was waiting for actually just finished up and I was queuing up for S1 Cross Country. That’s time I’m never getting back in my life and I completely resent Horizon for wasting it. And that’s it. I’ve snapped with this GOD-AWFUL SYSTEM. I AM GOING TO LIST EVERYTHING WRONG WITH HORIZON OPEN AND HOW IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED.
Load times are completely unacceptable. I’ll wait probably 3-5 mins at the most for a new race to start, just staring at the load screen.
Load screen crashing happens probably 1/4 times I actually boot up Horizon Open. I just get put in an infinite loading screen and am forced to reboot.
STOP PUTTING ME IN IN-PROGESS CHAMPIONSHIPS. THIS IS STRAIGHT-UP UNPROFESSIONAL. EVERY TIME I QUE UP TO PLAY ONLINE I’M SITTING IN A BARREN LIFELESS LOBBY WAITING FOR A RACE TO FINISH, ONLY TO DISCOVER THE RACE I WAS WAITING FOR WAS THE LAST IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP.
You can’t choose on-road or off-road racing, it’s all messily thrown into one. 9/10 times I’m getting an absolutely awful championship, like S1 Cross Country
The game keeps letting rammers perform their disgusting tactics, and the game FORCES you to rewind as if it’s a SINGLEPLAYER race. Missing ONE CHECKPOINT YOU WERE RAMMED OUT OF DOOMS YOU TO LAST PLACE AND THE RAMMER GETS OFF SCOT FREE.
HERE’S HOW TO FIX ALL OF THIS:
I DON’T KNOW I’M NOT A NETWORKING GUY. BUT MAKE YOUR NETWORKING GUYS NETWORK HARDER OR FIRE THEM
SEE ABOVE.
DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PUT ME IN A LOBBY WHERE A RACE IS IN PROGRESS, SKIP OVER IT AND KEEP LOOKING FOR ONE WHERE A RACE IS ABOUT TO START, OR EVEN BETTER, A COMPLETELY NEW FRESH CHAMPIONSHIP
SPLIT IT INTO ASPHALT RACING (Road Racing, Street Scene) and OFFROAD (Rally Racing, Cross-Country) AND FURTHERMORE LET US PICK BETWEEN SLOWER CLASSES (D, C, B) AND FASTER CLASSES (A, S1, S2) AND PERHAPS A THIRD OPTION FOR (B, A, S1) AS THOSE ARE THE BEST ALL-ROUND CLASSES FOR RACING
INSTEAD OF FORCING THE PLAYER TO REWIND, GIVE THEM A SLOWDOWN, LIKE IF THEY TRIED WALLRIDING. AND HAVE A SYSTEM THAT DETECTS IF THEY WERE RAMMED, LIKE IF THERE WAS FORCEFUL CONTACT LESS THAN A SECOND BEFORE THE PERSON WAS RAMMED OR WHATEVER. I DON’T KNOW.
Whats funny is, im still clueless about what “horizon open” means. There is an event in this season (and probably all seasons) about completing an horizon open event.
Well, i did an horizon arcade twice and an horizon tour, plus playground games and none of that did count to complete that one. At this point im clueless, i dunno if its broken or what.
Of course i know what horizon open is… dude, thats the whole point of the problem, it doesnt matter if you complete an event listed in there, it will not count towards the completion.
I don’t think it’s a good name as I was puzzled what it meant as well but it’s basically what was called quickplay adventure in FH4 I think it was or unranked, there’s a Horizon Open section in the menu and you can choose racing, drifting, playground games, Eliminator.
I agree with the OP the racing is bad and I’ve not even bothered trying again, it’s hard to believe they have such huge player numbers with all the nonsense you have to go through joining existing games and waiting ages to get one race or you’ve waited for nothing.
I think they intentionally not let player choose race type and no server browser.
In older FH players mostly not interested in offroad.
9 out of 10 times vote for road race. I think they try to force everyone into one game mode + fill up those empty offroad room.
I think there are not many mp room(I think about 4~6 room when I search)
So the game keep putting people into those on-going races.
They don’t want to show there are not many room in their million players game.
Project Cars 3 actually have a old style server browser and everyone can open room and setup race type and rules. Sadly the game are pretty dead since day1
Same with the F1 games, creating a decent MP in a racing game really isn’t rocket science.
When you can say Sumo Digital’s universally panned offering (FH2 on the 360) has done something better than it’s 7 years more advanced counterpart you know something is badly wrong.
I preferred FH2 on the 360 to the Xbox One version. The latter was a bit prettier but the extra features were a net negative to me. The rain was technically impressive but wasn’t conducive to better racing, and that goes double for the offroad rush and cross country sections which the 360 didn’t have at all and was better for it as far as I was concerned. Also, I never liked team racing in FH2, so the 360 version lacking that was good too.
The fact FH5 still puts you into a lobby in the final race and makes you wait potentially ten minutes before you get an entirely different race type to the one you thought you were getting, is terrible. But the people in charge of the design decisions for this game don’t care about wasting our time and getting us frustrated. And they have the cheek to make the false claim that FH5 lets you play the way you want to.
Now that’s a “hot take”. I was really badly disappointed by FH2, especially looking over to people who had an Xone at the time (I was still on x360). Now I know that parts missing from 360 (off road) I can live with but back then it was painful. As you said, rain & windshield wipers still to this day best in Forza games (the Xone version).
My favorite “feature” from 360 version - white / silver cars became green-ish at night.
Most people are quitting out of dirt and cross-country races, anyway. The most people I see in a dirt race is 4-5, while cross country races are always dead. Street and road races always fill up to a full 12.
If you were not aware, there is a fixed rotation of race types that cycles around. The number of lobbies needs to be dynamic with the fixed rotation of races to accommodate the number of players. The bottom line may simply be that not many people are playing multiplayer open racing in this game.
I wish they can focus on racing, give us FM7 hopper and stop adding mini game (Battle Royal what…)
C / A+B / S1+S2 x Apex+Street / Dirt / CC
I think simplify option are better for matchmaking.
I am road racer but I disagree about voting system. It is unfair to rally player.
Hotwheels unleashed online mp is the fastest online matching I have ever seen.
No useless rewards screen. Almost no waiting. (Why do we need to watch exp bar going up? for 1000times?)
30sec ~ 1min jump into a race.
On top of what OP said, I find myself being limited with car choices. I cannot go with the cars that other people use for the race, given that I own them and they are in the required class.
Yup, you are forced to buy a car from the autoshow in the very moment you realize you need a specific class car and category. Its ridiculous, because not only that you also need to have it tunned for the right requirements of the race lol.