There are about 17 1/2 million players in FH5, last time I checked. Like every group of people, there’s a ‘bell curve’ of racing competence that we all lie along somewhere, with long tails on both ends - some of us total noobs and some of us elite racers at the very peak of competence and most of us somewhere in the middle bulge of the curve.
A highly elite racer, I’m suggesting, would be someone who could race in the trials against the FH5 unbeatables and consistently finish first. Or maybe consistently finish on the podium.
There may be 17.5 million players who logged into the game, but most “players” would have played the game for less than a day.
A highly elite racer IMO is a grand master. Unfortunately there’s no ranked racing in FH5 and therefore it’s hard to judge how many if any “highly elite” players bother to play FH5 in it’s current state.
Last I looked, the count was 17,776,303 and I’m in the top 25k (top 1%), but that is based on Accolades. I can beat unbeatable with rewind, but that wouldn’t be counted in a proper evaluation of skill. It’s a fun game that falls far from what I would consider “simulation”. If you really wanted to find the “highly elite racer[s]”, as you call them, you would have to strictly define the criteria upon which to judge them. There are too many aspects to this game to just make an overall ranking. From what you’ve described, though, I think the weekly even called “The Trial” in the Festival Playlist might be a good place to begin.
None,it’s a made up fantasy status indicator to make you feel special. The only elites are the cheat engines,because I dont care how many gold stars the game stamps on your forehead, you are not beating the cheat engine.
I put in some good times in Rivals and back myself in the Trial to be the quickest driver of the 6 in a random team but I’m definitely not an elite racer, I play too many other games and have too casual a set up to be called that, I even race on Tourist outside the seasonal stuff.
An elite racer for me would be someone who plays little else but racing games and is very good across them all without assists.
I like the term “the cheat engine”. It’s not as obvious as the one in GTA, but if you really know how to drive an arcade car, and cheat the machine, you can see it clearly.
I’m probably lower middle. Most are in that center bell curve, as suggested and proven almost universally across all games. In DiRT Rally 2.0, I got top 10% times right after starting career mode. In all Horizons except for FH5, I’m ranked at least top 10% on speed traps, danger signs, etc. But when it comes to racing, the only games in which I’m concerned with lap times are FM. Even on FM7 I get top 10% if I stick at a track for long enough (usually about 20 minutes or so). I rarely use external tunes, so it’s probably both trash tuning and mediocre skill on my part.
I’m definitely not elite as I usually can’t be bothered to race with rammers, even if they’re on my own team. Happens too often in Horizon since FH3. Became absurdly prevalent in FH4, and I suspect is even more common in FH5. FM6 and 7 haven’t had a huge problem with rammers, but they’re around for sure. Aren’t a whole lot of toddlers on motorsport anymore, they mostly moved to Horizon.
I’d like to think I am up there, maybe not an elite racer but I have every rival time in the top 2000. I have a few top 50, top 100 and top 200 times with the majority of my times being in the top 600 times in the world.
I am usually the fastest driver when doing the Trial and can consistently get a podium, if not first. Depending on the discipline - road/street racing and dirt I am better than cross-country. I do use ABS and manual but no other assists, and usually have the drivatars on unbeatable or pro difficulty for non-seasonal stuff.
Essentially if you think you are elite, you are almost definitely wrong. An elite racer is the best of the best of the best of us. It’s the people who possess both the ability to drive quickly on any given track rarely making a mistake and being able to do that in an actual racing environment. Putting up a top 0.01% (that’s the top 1 in 10,000) rivals time might make you an elite driver but rivals are about you essentially versus yourself, the track and a ghost (that cannot actually impact your race other than mentally).
The elite Forza racer doesn’t just consistently get podiums in the Trial. They can get 1st 99% of the time if they want to.
You know you’re racing an elite driver when you’re torching the rest of the field, doing really strong laps, thinking ooo I’m catching and the driver in front of you straight up starts pulling 360s just to flex. There are a few aliens in this game and it’s awesome on the occasion you get see one
In this game, I take nothing for granted. The person flexing might be elite or might have some cheat enabled that gives him the freedom to flex and not be worried. If I saw someone doing that I would be looking into his profile and the leaderboards to see what kind of numbers the gamer is putting up. I personally don’t think I’ve run into an elite driver in FH5. Unfortunately I’ve run into some elite AI and some elite cheaters (mostly in Eliminator).
I’d love to come across an elite driver on my team in the Trial sometime. It can get tiring as an above average to fairly good driver to have to carry the team a lot of the time. I get excited when on a team with a couple of other fairly good drivers.
There are certainly quite a few who consider themselves “the elite” you always them racing off at the start of a race and then later all piled up in a mess at the firs corner usually in events like the trial and tour other than that they will be the ones behind you trying to take you out so they can pass you which then results in the team you are on losing the race.
There are a few aliens in this game and it’s awesome on the occasion you get see one