Horizon Tour discussion

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 5 FH5 Discussion
1

Is there any benefit to making us drive between events?

I just played this mode for the first time, not even knowing what it was. I guess it’s the replacement for the Trial? It has the same flaw as the last one, that it will inevitably result in people using non-upgraded cars which included me just now, so my car was very slow and not good to drive. Driving to one of the events involved driving a long distance and the destination was up a steep mountain so my car couldn’t get up there without going the long way round.

Why not provide everyone with the option of an auto-upgraded rental car so the experience is better for players? And consider whether driving between events is fun and worthwhile or not? (I noticed you get accolades for various things during these though, so I guess there is no chance of them being removed.)

2

I did that last night for the first time. It was C class muscle cars, I think, so I went and tuned up a muscle car. And by the time I got back to the event, it had changed to something else in S1. So I realized that each session is different. Then I waited until something came up that I had something tuned for, which I thought was Anything goes in A class. So I picked a car I had tuned up to top of A, and waited. Then, it forced me to pick a different car, and the only car available was the Lotus Elise, which was still bone stock. The only clue I had, as far as I noticed, that should have tipped me off that this would be a problem, is that the event name was “Rule Britannia”. If there was any other hint that the car should have been British, I missed it.

So you can’t really prepare for the event in any meaningful way. You’ve got to have a car ready to go for whatever the next session will be, or wait until something comes up that you’re already prepared for. So kindof like the Trial, but with Online Adventure car selection. Now that I know that, I suppose I can prepare for it better. But it was still kindof annoying at the time.

So I ended up doing dirt races in a bone stock Lotus Elise.

First race was terrible, as it had similar problems to the Trial from FH4; griefers ramming into you, and basically making a mess of the whole race. I might mention unprepared players showing up in a car not remotely tuned for the event, but I’m in a bone stock Elise that I kindof got saddled with at the last minute, so it was kindof unavoidable.

And yes, there does not seem to be any point to driving between events, except to socialize with the lobby, and have a chill cruse in the open road. No pressure, no big deal, unless you’re not interested in doing that sort of thing. But it was fine. Only one guy was using his mic, and I think half the time he was talking to his cat.

Second and third race weren’t too bad. The griefers dropped out, and two of us were able to hold the lead. I did pretty well, despite being in an untuned car in the wrong division. I would have preferred being able to take a couple more positions in the 3rd race, but one of our teammates had a much better race that time, and was able to make up for it.

3

Yes this is the thing, with the specific requirements, not just class but also car type, it means you and/or others are likely to turn up in the ‘wrong’ car often. I noticed today there’s an achievement for beating all the drivatars in five different races (only races, you don’t have to beat them in all three races five times or that could be annoying). I don’t know how hard that will be yet but it’s only got a 0.15% success rate on Xbox overall so far. I’m going to try and get this one done next. I imagine if I’m in a competitive car it won’t be a problem but then again, with the FH5 AI being a bit faster than FH4, I don’t know yet…

4

I’ve yet to try any online mode and will probably refrain from doing so until PGG patch the game multiple times. I remember the early days of online in FH4 (and even the later days if I’m honest) and it was an absolute rage inducing affair. I feel they’ve yet to find a way to make online truly enjoyable in this game.

5

I just got that achievement, was pretty easy. Was lucky to get two lobbies where we all had stock cars so the AI did likewise. The AI didn’t put up much of a fight.

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6

Thanks for that observation, FullNietzsche. It was rare for me to beat all the AI in a single race in FH4, and I have done the tour twice now and have beaten all of the AI in 5 of the 6 races. I knew something was suspicious, or that they had dummied down the AI, because in all honesty, I am an average to slightly above average driver at best.

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7

IMO AI in Horizon Tour is much easier than unbeatable in solo - assuming that it is unbeatable like a Trial in FH4.
But I really hope that it is not the new Trial - cause every round is in different category, so you can’t be prepared.

8

Nah, this isn’t meant to replace the Trial - we’ll see the actual Trial return next season.

Horizon Tour seems to me as a non-competitive interpretation of the Road Trip mode from Horizon 2, where you’d travel around and do races together. I like it a lot personally, it’s much more laid back than Horizon Open.

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9

I like this mode. Really good to be able to turn up and be required to have a vehicle which meets set criteria. The races are fun and I haven’t seen much ramming yet. Drivatars are fairly simple to beat so ends up being some fun PvP racing, with a combined goal to beat the AI overall.

That said, I agree the driving between races is a waste of time. Why do they not run this type of stuff past an experienced team of players in some sort of focus group beforehand? There is no way the majority of players would want this included and it obviously doesn’t need to be. It’s FRR without even having it as an actual race.

I also agree that the requirements for the event need to be more clearly set out. Some of them (upgrade heroes for example) can’t even be worked out from the car list. It needs a car list to be accessible from the event selection screen. My other concern is that the number of events may be fairly limited as I’ve already seen a few duplicates and I haven’t done many events - it needs to be regularly updated if so to avoid becoming stale.

10

I’d wager they did, and people enjoyed having downtime between races, especially when joining as a convoy with a Discord call or such in the background.

If you want moment-to-moment racing, go to Horizon Open. Tour is clearly meant to be a more laid-back experience.

11

Hmm, I can see a small number of people enjoying that but I would be fairly certain that if we take a vote on this thread the vast majority would be very clear that they don’t want it. I suspect most in a convoy can manage three races which probably last less than 10 minutes and then have some joint downtime.

12

I like the idea behind the game mode but a few things could be improved:

After only 4 Tours I already had an exactly duplicated event being A800 Super Saloons with Mulegé tracks. I hope it was bad chance and not a lack of variety. This mode has the potential to offer excellent class/car type/track combos. It should be utilised. They could even let the community create those and integrate them into the selection.

The AI difficutly could be upped by one or two levels. It certainly doesn’t need to be a Trial which requires serious racing but currently it’s too much of a Sunday drive for me.

While I’m not a fan of the in-between point to point routes I can see why they did this. A goal of the mode seems to be the connection with new players, race together and eventually stay bonded after the Tour. That’s why the in-between sections serve as downtime between the “harsh” racing and you get asked after the Tour to form a convoy. I’m okay with that and actually kept one player in our convoy.

The car requirements should be easier to see. Since I’m tuning all of my cars by my own (and by “all” I mean all that I own) and keep a variety over all classes I’m mostly prepared anyways but that’s certainly too nerdy to be a standard.

13

I agree that will be the intention Rayne but I don’t see how in practice it assists. I would hazard a guess that you added a player to your convoy because they were fun to race with, not because of anything they did in the Freeroam. I did D class buggies last night - the races were fantastic as everyone was in the same stock car and a few were fairly evenly matched (even one of the drivatars was competitive) but the 15 km Freeroam was utterly painful and the two Freeroams combined must have taken longer than the three races. It turns a fun 10-15 minute event into a chore.

On the difficulty point, I agree that the drivatars need to be better. It’s very rare that the humans (at least those who try) don’t win easily. Race wins get ticked off as victories over unbeatable drivatars though, so either this is a bug (possibly as my settings are on unbeatable and it just carries through even though the actual level is not meant to be that high) or possibly this is the same standard AI we will see in the trial.

14

You’re oddly devoted to changing a game mode which clearly isn’t designed for you. Just play Horizon Open instead, that sounds much more like your deal.

15

No offence but just because I disagree with one element of it, which happens to be something you are probably in a small minority of actually liking (seemingly because you need “downtime” in a 10 minute activity), doesn’t make my view any less valid. My view is that there is a very good game option there - and I will continue to happily discuss how it can be improved.

16

Yes and no. In one I had to use rental Porsche 917?, old racecar. Every player was in rental and I was only one that was able to pass easily AI. Had to block drivatars to let them overtake.

17

Maybe it’s the “older” person in me but I enjoyed the relaxing drive in between races…after the first round I did, I was drifting with another player to the destination (probably annoyed those who wanted to get there quickly!). I was surprised to see the drive to destination added…I enjoyed doing it in FH2 in solo mode stuff…would be nice to get some XP from it though to make it rewarding.

Have only done the one run of it for the Playlist but I found the whole thing enjoyable, probably helped by the fact that we were all in tuned cars (well, i was in an untuned Puma FE but that is as good as a tuned car anyway) and relatively evenly matched in terms of skill…had some great racing

18

I literally waited for more than 60 mins and it covered all classes from D to S1 but I have yet to encounter an S2 class. It is part of the achievement. Have devs forgotten to include S2 in Horizon Tour ? Anyone completed the associated accolade?

After 60 min mark, now I am getting repeats but still no sign of S2.

19

I have also not seen any S2 races in the Tour.
I’m currently waiting here for a suitable race to complete the VW daily challenge, I’ve downgraded it to A800 but still nothing suitable has come along.

20

For the VW Challenge, A Class Road are at 10 past the hour and 58 minutes past.

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