INTRODUCTION
I have met alot of competitive drifters over the years. Some come and go, some have stayed, some are debating on leaving. Ranked drifting was important as it gave them a reason to push forward, but most competitive drifters created their own leaderboard to supplement this which is fine. This is not exactly ideal but, I understand their reasons behind this. Competitive players are unable to climb the leaderboards as a patch ruined the way points are obtained. Anyways those are not really issues relevant to this topic.
The issue in which I would like to discuss is the probability for A class lobbies. As I am currently writing this message I have been cycling open drift sessions for 30 minutes straight and only getting A class lobbies. A class lobbies there are really just not that many options in comparison to the S1 class counterpart. As A class you have the Willys Jeep and the Bmw Isetta just completely dominate as its the only thing that can really compete in that class making the lobby stale and not as interesting (Ignoring the occassional Blower, Hoonigan Bel Air, and the Mk2 transit). S1 you have the willys and isetta once again, but this time there are cars that can actually keep up with them. The Volkswagen Beetle, 959 and 959 Rally, FD Supra, Hotwheels Metro and many many more which keep things interesting. Alot of the competitive people I play with or have met are backing away from the franchise as it seems the drifting community is being completely forgotten. The reasons I had mentioned before as well as the extremely tedious cycling of sessions trying to get into an S1. Something interesting needs to happen or I am afraid of what is to come of the drift communities.
So what do we do to keep the drifters entertained? Well looking back at Forza Horizon 4 we had alot of things that are currently missing now. In Drift Adventures we had B-S2 Lobbies also they limited to rwd or awd. We understand that ranked will never come back which is okay, but why get rid of B class and S2 class as well as the rwd awd specifics included within (though the difference is about 2 percent… it would make a ton of people happy). Racing tends to get the extra treatment in this case as they have alot of open spots as well as a custom event where you can choose the lobby. Why doesn’t drifting get the same treatment? I have spoken to others in the past and they were saying that the racing community is larger than that of the drifting community. Which may be true. Yet, this doesn’t explain why there are a ton of half full A class lobbies and completely filled S1 lobbies that are rare due to it being the favorite. If there are only two classes and B and S2 are completely out of discussion why not let us choose between A class or S1 for open drifting like custom events do with racing?
CONCLUSION
The drift community is dying, and it is dying quickly. It is extremely upsetting as people I have known for 4-5 years are quitting. This is due to a list of several things. The reasons include: No Ranked (Which is understandable as Forza is trying to focus upon turning Horizon into a creative, fun, peaceful place for everyone where Motorsport is the competitive title), Leaderboards completely broken (Hacked leaderboards are already common. Which was stated in the livestreams that it was being looked into. Yet drift leaderboards are in critical condition. Since the point system changed nobody can improve their scores with the addition of the hacked scores mentioned earlier), No AWD/RWD separation (personally I don’t see this as much as an issue though unless your extremely competitive… as mentioned before its only approx 2% of a difference in points, but its commonly asked for), and the abundance of A Class Lobbies causing some extended wait times (My record of cycling was 50 minutes until finally getting an S1 lobby, and at that point it didn’t even feel fun as once those three rounds were over the cycling continued again) Those are all things that I am sure are shared in a voting system somewhere here on the forums. This is what I propose for this system to gain attraction back to the drifting community without implementing Ranked (As I realize the Staff are trying to really push that away)
Voting
Please reply if you would like to add your personal feelings or opinions towards this. Respective Criticism is nice, but please do not take this as a shameful discussion to the developers. They are looking at the voting system to see the impact it made upon the community, and I don’t want this conversation to sound rude. I only spoke of what I have commonly noticed over my many many years of playing Forza (Since FM1) as well as the drift communities and the heart felt forums posts here.
So What Am I Voting For?
- The Return of B-S2 Lobbies Like Forza Horizon 4’s Drift Adventure (B-S2 AWD Restricted/RWD Restricted), or a custom lobby at least… like the racing so the never-ending cycling will end.
Author Notes
Thank you all for reading. Again, I am not lashing out towards the staff by any means but speaking out from the heart. Watching major drift communities disappear/collapse in a matter of less than a week is very sad to me. Cycling sessions for this long can be agonizing and in return can make you feel like that time was wasted. Time that will never be returned, and it has been putting quite a strain on every drifter out there, regardless of skill level.