No more FOMO mechanics

Suggestions Hub FH6 Features SHUB Economy / Progress
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Back in FH4 and FH5, the Festival Playlist was the one feature that gave players an incentive to play for cars added to the game for free through updates, but this later created a FOMO (Fear of missing out) phenomenon where if you missed out on one week, your chances of getting that reward car would be next to nothing unless you either get extremely lucky at the Auction House, hope that the car comes back as a reward with no telling when it will come back, or wait until it’s added to the Backstage pass.

A lot of people are beginning to see this as more of a chore rather than an engaging way to play, and that most would use valid reasons like school, work, or basically being away from home, with no access to the game, as reasons why they can’t keep up, as if punishing players for failing to play the Festival Playlist.

Here’s a solution to this:

If the Festival Playlist still exists, all previous reward cars should be available to purchase in the Autoshow as soon as the next playlist starts.

This gives players an incentive, where should they want to get the car for free and earlier than others, they can play through the Festival Playlist to get the reward cars, but for everyone else, it’s always available to buy in the Autoshow, but take note: players still need to earn credits to buy these cars, so that the progression to get them is more meaningful.

This is also so that the Backstage shop can be abolished altogether, as it isn’t any good as a solution: you needed a separate currency (Backstage passes), and that you are only allowed to buy one example of a car at a time (no duplicates). Should you sell or get rid of a car then, you would have thrown your chance at that car.

Also, the cadences of cars added to the Backstage shop would be a pair of cars, with the winning pair hand-picked by popular vote every week, so it’s hit or miss if the car you need gets added.

Lastly, any cars won from Horizon Stories, Accolades, or any restored Barn Finds should be available to purchase if obtained at least once.

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Mainly the cars I want no more FOMO mechanics.

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rather than having the cars introduced to the autoshow, i would like to replay older playlists to get those cars, or just get rid of the festival playlist completely and replace it with a different system, maybe like a revamp of Motorsport 7’s Forzathon

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I agree with this. I had posted this comment before but I’ll post it here again:

They need to root it (FOMO) out by making these Monthly playlists permanent and just make them repayable with a Backstage Pass. In fact, they should double down and add more in depth theming to these events, and make them more about the cars being added. (The Mach E 1400 had its own Horizon Story, for example)

Backstage Pass can be reworked such that it can be implemented from the start instead of waiting till the end of service to reduce FOMO. It works by replacing the 40pt reward car (as it is now) with the backstage pass.

But this time Backstage pass means that you get to replay one season from any prior Series. In theory this means that you can replay entirety of Series 1 (4 weeks), by getting 40 pts each week in Series 2.

This can also allow for more player freedom because players can pick the exact week they want to replay (to unlock the car or to receive a duplicate). They just make sure that all the cars are acquirable with just the offline events.

It also means that if you start playing the game at Series 20, you will be able to unlock each prior season week by week and play all twenty series with no FOMO.

You can even add these Backstage Passes to the Forzathon Shop or make them available as rewards for other events.

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That sounds a bit too complicated, and like I said, the Backstage pass really isn’t any better as a solution as: (a), you need to buy them with separate currency (Backstage pass tickets), (b), you cannot buy duplicates, and (c), the selection of cars added there are very slow and are hand-picked by popular vote.

What you’ve proposed is still hardcore FOMO but “softened” by a little bit into a double-edged sword (making them replayable only with a Backstage pass, and still keeping the mechanic intact).

My solution as the way to go is that all Festival Playlist reward cars go directly to the Autoshow once the next playlist theme begins, so that players can buy them with in-game credits. That way it’s fair, but not too overly generous as you still need to earn credits to buy them (and especially so, since progression is a recurring theme in FH6), and so that the Backstage pass can be abolished altogether.

You have incentives, where if you want the car(s) for free and earlier than others, you can play through the Festival Playlist, but if you miss out for an entire week, you don’t have to worry as the cars are available to buy in the Autoshow as soon as the next playlist theme starts.

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Hello.
I have an idea: Buy festival playlists with in game credits.

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Making them purchaseble in the auto show sounds fine, but then you’d make the entire economy rely on credits again. Which will make exploits (like auto driving races, auction house sniping, skill points methods) all too powerful. This also means that VIP owners will need half the effort to purchase a car on top of these exploits.

Making live service content permanently available as a complete able event is a parallel progression that can be done regardless of how many credits you have, and will reward players for actually playing the game. It will also allow festival playlist cars to be valuable and rarer while also being within an arms length of anybody wanting these.

A lot of people usually have tens to hundreds of millions after the first year of the game. They will not get any meaningful post game events of the cars are directly added to the autoshow.

As for the duplicates, you should be able to repeatedly obtain the car from playlist every time you’ve completed the 20 pt reward. Making these events repeatable. There can also be an option to buy these cars after the first unlock using forzathon points.

On a wider note, these festival playlist points should be forzathon points (and forzathon events should therefore scale accordingly). Playing 20pts in the festival playlist should give you 20 pts. Prior festival playlist cars (if unlocked once already) should be available for 40 pts for purchase in the “Horizon Backstage”.

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No FOMO, that’s it, its all i ask for, keep the playlist if you wish but make cars avaliable at all times not limited times.

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Absolutely. Forza Motorsport 2023 made this same mistake. Single player content that expires. That should -never- be a thing and was one of the countless things that made that game doa.

And the festival playlist is absolutely single player content; even queuing for the trial and playground games is a single player activity, but they would need to not be part of the playlists for visiting older lista to work. They could be separate and restricted to purely cosmetic reward systems … or just not be things. Not like anyone would miss those!

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I’m not pre-ordering and waiting to see how they will handle releasing new cars/playlists, if it’s the same as FH4 and 5 I’m skipping this game entirely.

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Great to see this getting a lot of votes. It will be hard for them to move away from the seasonal playlists, but here’s hoping!

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Or, just give players access to previous Playlist and Series. Like FM23 now.

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Hmm… maybe this could work like Collection Files in Phantasy Star Online 2?

What I’m thinking for adapting the Collection File system to FH5 is that you have to complete events of a specific kind to increase a bar that will unlock a car for you to use, which in this case could be cars from the specific Collection File, usually related to the way you increase the gauge - to use a FH5 example, this could take the form of events in a specific category (example: Dirt Scrambles to get the WRX ST), stunts (example: Drift Zones to get the AE86), or Either of them in a specific car category (example: Street Scene Sprints in Extreme Track Toys to unlock the X-Bow GT4).

DLCs, Eliminator, and Hide-and-Seek do not have Collection Files, but DLC races and use of DLC cars count towards the Collection File. That way, no content is locked behind Eliminator or Hide-and-Seek.

Maybe this will incentivize people to play the game without locking them out of Festival Playlist exclusive cars if they miss them?

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i posted this in the forums, ideas to remove FOMO mechanics and assist in progression: Progression / Playlist 2.0