Is Online Championship Scoring Gone?

I don’t understand how the new online racing is scored. In FH3, skill-based / clean driving was scored across a number of races, the accumulation of which was used to determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. It was less about being a free-for-all, in which the pursuit of individual podium finishes superseded the broader importance of comprehensive skill, and more about the opposite of that. IOW, the more consistently skillful you were, the greater the reward.

Having said that, my question isn’t about the value of the change. I simply want to understand how scoring is done now in online races (team adventures). It looks like online championships are gone completely—along with individual standings. It seems like the format has flipped; with free-for-all now being the focus.

Do I have this wrong? And can anyone give me a quick breakdown on how online races are scored?

Well, they are all team events now with 6V6. Every driver you come out ahead of from the other team awards you 100 points and the first place finisher gets an extra 50 points, meaning if you were to come first in a full lobby you can score a maximum of 650 points. But even if teams were mismatched it’s still fair as, if your on a team of 2 against 6 you can still get 650+600 if your teammate comes second. The other team in this scenario would score 0 points. The points awarded to all drivers on a team are tallied up. Between each event there is a “freeroam rush” which is a checkpointless race to the next main event. The scoring is the same. There are two freeroam rushes and three main races. The winning team is best of five. Solo online championships have been removed.

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I think I understand, thanks. To be clear, though, if my primary interest is in competing against other drivers for an individual championship standing, I’ll need to go back to FH3. Is that correct? You’re saying that is completely gone now in FH4, yes?

yeah it’s terrible now. you wreck everyone regardless of team colors to finish 1st.
it’s a complete disaster and not worth the time and effort to reach a league ranking.

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That’s a crying shame, but at least now I understand.

I couldn’t figure why so many drivers have been going out of their way to crash me. I don’t mean to whine, I really don’t, but what’s the use of mastering driving/racing skills when they no longer serve any real purpose in online championships? If the majority of FH fans prefer this format, who am I to argue. At the same time, I don’t understand why they couldn’t use both formats. One for those who prefer a more aggressive, free-for-all, MMO-type of racing; then another for those interested in more skill-based, competitive racing.

Maybe Top Ten thought those fans would be better off playing the Forza Motorsport games. Again, who am I to question that? At the same time, what I loved so much about Horizon was its hybrid format. It was both racing simulator and arcade game. It took the best parts of Motorsport and placed them inside a beautifully rendered open world.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine why they thought that unique format no longer had any value. And it saddens me, as. true fan of FH, to think that it’s gone forever. At least I know now, in time to avoid throwing away money. I recently invested more than I should have on a number deluxe preorder versions of upcoming games. I joined Game Pass, just so I could start playing FH4–until I could justify buying my own copy of the ultimate edition. Instead of doing that, though, I’ll just go back to FH3–assuming there are enough like-minded people going back for the online championships.

In any event, thanks for the information. Now I can make some informed decisions.

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Before completely abandoning FH4, I thought I’d at least try the Ranked Adventure section of online racing. My hope was that it might be at least a bit better than the free-for-all, demolition derby in Quickplay Adventure. Someone here pointed out that it’s not worth the effort, but I at least wanted to try it. However, for two days, when I try to connect, it will spend at least 5 minutes trying to find a session. Then when it does and I press X to join, it will show 12 out of 12 players added, after which it closes the connection, saying there weren’t enough players to start the series.

So even when I try to give this game the benefit of the doubt, it treats me as if I don’t even belong.

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I’m interested if anyone else is considering abandoning the online side of FH4 and returning to the online championships of FH3, where I assume skill based racing and individual standings remain intact? Do you know if they will continue to support that online format? I’m just trying to decide whether to give up on FH4 entirely. Maybe FH5 will return to the online championship format that was so much better. In which case, I’ll gladly move forward.

Thoughts?

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The first week I did most the solo stuff…2nd week I did enough to do forzathon stuff for points and finish up a few solo things then go race in FH3 most the weekend…this week…I’ve logged in twice I think did a few forzathon things then played SOD2 and FH3…

I like FH3 championship better they really didn’t need to change that part .

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I feel you, brother. How hard would it have been to at least give people a choice. Keep the online championships, and then have this new format for those who prefer the opposite.

Wheeeeeze

You mean drifters won all the championships because winning every race didn’t actually matter, no matter how clean you were. This lead to people trying to brag that they won an “xp” championship when really all you had to do was drift in the back the whole time, no skill involved there. This is worse though.

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I’m not sure it was as simple as hanging back and drifting to win a championship. People made the same argument about the Horizon Edition cars that awarded boosted skill and XP scores. There were plenty of times when I used the HE cars, drove clean and tried to use a variety of skills and skill multipliers, and still got spanked by better drivers in regular cars. Not only did I not mind that, I enjoyed it. Competing against better players forces you to learn and improve. That simple desire is no longer even possible in FH4.

I’m sure there were hacks and tools who exploited the format to claim false victories—no format will rid that completely—, but getting rid of individual standings in online championships altogether is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Under the previous format, I always knew right away when I was in a good group of clean competitors who were there for all the right reasons. I also knew when I was in bad group, in which case I could just drop out and try another.

Now every group seems bad. Now when I race online, other drivers are intentionally knocking me off the course every few seconds or crashing me into walls. I mean it doesn’t even feel like racing anymore.

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This is a fallacy. Very rarely have I won races and NOT won the championship as well. If you aren’t, it will be because you’re not racing clean enough or scoring enough points - which you CAN do while also winning. The game is designed pretty well, to give you plenty of opportunity to score XP while still driving fast enough to come first.

I feel you, almost all of my time spent in fh3 was online championships in A and B class/Asphalt only. I just hope to god they add these features back into the game in the future or this game will be dead to me. It’s quite baffling that this is how it is at the moment.

Me too, friend. For me, “baffling” is putting it mildly. I keep trying to give Top Ten the benefit of the doubt by imagining some plausible rationale. For the life of me, I can’t.

Do you guys think they will continue to support the online championships in FH3? I’m a tech neophyte, but I assume older online services are phased out at some point.

As of now Horizon 2 online is still working so H3 should be good for another couple years I would imagine. I have hundreds of hours in 3 so paying over $100 for 4 and not wanting to play it anymore doesn’t exactly thrill me. So angry they ruined the online in this series.

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After a week of trying unranked and occasionally getting into a ranked team adventure, Ive giiven up on online with FH4.

I think most of us that feel this way should just boycott FH4 Online completely and all go back to FH3 until they get the hint and fix what theye broken!

Maybe, just maybe, when they see more online players on their servers on FH3 than on their ‘new game’ questions might start to be asked?

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Me too, man. Maybe someone with some juice will say, “These people wouldn’t complain if they didn’t love the game so much.” Although once a developer invests so much money and resources into something, regardless of how flawed it is, they may be unwilling or unable to admit they were wrong. And I’m not saying the change was unequivocally wrong. I’m just saying it shouldn’t have been that difficult to add the new format as an option—rather than replacing online championships outright. Of course, if we are an undeniable minority, that’s a different story. It’s just hard for me to believe there are too few of us to take seriously.

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I just spent time back in FH3 in the online championships, and am stunned at how much better it is than this new mess. Seriously, it’s like night and day. Not only does it look better, but the gameplay is so much smoother and stable. Not only that, but there must be an awful lot of people who don’t like the new online portion of FH4. The game didn’t take forever to connect me to a session, and every session I joined had the max number of players.

And more than all that, it FELT LIKE racing. There was a logical and competitive point to the whole thing. In one championship, I got spanked in the first race, and was low in the overall standing. But then I found my rhythm and focused on the skills that make racing racing. I raced clean and looked for opportunities for slingshots, drift taps in corners (which is hard to do), drafting, speed, and corning—especially without breaking my skill-chain or anyone else’s. By the 4th race, I had worked my way up to 3rd position overall, and in the last race it all came down to skill. And while I won overall, it was by a small enough margin that it could have easily gone to someone else. And then in the very next series, I got bea but good by a couple of master drivers.

In my mind, that kind of racing is infinitely more fun and exciting than what we have now in FH4. Which begs the question: why does FH4 even have skill-based XP? If it is in no way factored into the final results of a Team Adventure, it serves about the same purpose as the clothes and emotes. Which is no purpose at all.

In any event, if you’re as frustrated with the new online experience, there is still a large community of racers in FH3 Online Adventures. And like I say, it also seems a lot faster and stable than FH4.

I’m just glad I tried FH4 on Game Pass before buying. I gladly purchased the ultimate editions of 2 & 3, and am so happy I didn’t do that this time. I’ll be keen to see if they fix this mess in FH5.

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