I’ve stated this in a couple of other threads, but thought I would throw this out in a formal manner to see what others think:
I believe Forza Horizon 4 was originally intended to be a loot box (microtransaction) focused game due to how the game’s progression is laid out because after the Prologue… The game becomes a mind-numbing grind to achieve things that were present (and not present) in previous Forza games. I believe Microsoft / Playground Games were forced to remove the loot boxes (paid for Wheel Spins) at the last minute due to the legal backlash loot boxes have generated around the world; Loot boxes have been deemed illegal in certain countries and prohibit sales of any games containing them.
The little progression there is in FH4 is laid out like a typical F2P game:
The Prologue is a primer (tutorial) on what players can do and front-loads a lot of rewards early on designed to invest players’ time and interest in the game such as giving frequent Wheel Spins, starter vehicles and unlocking Showcase events. Once the Prologue ends is where the real game begins… Except all that is left is to grind race after race to unlock cars, more Wheel Spins, useless avatar clothes, emotes, properties and even more races.
This is where I believe FH4 may have been previously loot box focused and may have had “Pay to Progress” Wheel Spins players could buy for real money to help lessen the grind. This is why FH4 feels and plays more like a F2P game than a finished, AAA game, IMO.
If true, this would explain why certain features from FH3 (and others) were left out of FH4… One big one being players having the ability to sell cars in their garages for in-game credits. This would undermine a economy dependent on players not having alternative means to raise credits. This might also explain why there is also less content (70 races vs. 140 in FH3) at launch due to FH4 being a Games As A Service game instead of a stand alone game like FH3, and previous games were? Most F2P and GAAS games rely on limited base content and force players to grind the same limited content over and over for various rewards until something new is added.
You have fair concerns for sure, but Horizon 4 absolutely still feels like a AAA game to me. Its frustrating that I need to farm wheelspins for the Austin FX4, but the vast majority of content feels immediately, at worst realistically, available to me.
You also -could- suggest that people are indirectly lured to spend IRL money on wheelspins through buying a Gold subscription to take part in Forzathon Live to buy spins. Buuuut thats a bit of a stretch.
This all feels true. We know that loot boxes were removed from FM7 and were also going to be part of FH4 so we still have the framework of something built around microtransactions.
FH3 had much more race content (many championships, pick any car for rivals, etc.) and a better online multiplayer experience (not just S1/S2/A races) at launch.
FH4 is free with XBOX Game Pass so they will slowly add content over time to keep people subscribed month after month. Or if you bough the $80 physical copy then they want you to hold on to that instead of selling/trading into the second hand market.
Too bad there is no real “open world” competition out there this year. The Crew 2 is a flop. But I hear rumours of a possible Test Drive Unlimited 3 which would be great.
There’s no proof of the bolded part anywhere, as a matter of fact, they even said the were not going to add microtransactions to FM7 and had no plans to add them to future titles, iirc.
People can make a case for anything they want, it doesn’t make it true.
Developers drip feed content to increase the longevity of the game, not because of microtransactions or to keep people subscribed. There are other titles that are not on Game Pass that are doing the exact same thing.
The first Horizon you can. It’s how I get cars I want since my save got deleted and I don’t feel like grinding that game anymore. But the 2nd and 3rd you couldnt. This whole thread is misinformation it seems like lmfbo
Am I missing something here?? Have you seen the Auction House?
And you dont need wheelspins to progress. Levelling up the categories in Horizon Life bring in lots of cars , money and wheelspins.
Have people really got nothing better to do than make up their own little theories? How about go play a game, any game.
Clearly you are missing something if you’re quoting my response and question.
I don’t agree with the OP’s theory. In fact, I think it’s based on something that isn’t true.
Speaking of better things to do, if you are going to spend your time complaining about people’s posts - be sure to understand what you’re commenting on.
I believe they were referring to just selling cars back to the game, but yes, the AH is always there to sell unwanted cars, I’ve used it in the capacity in several of the last few games.
The loot boxes that were never a part of this game. They are complaining about something that hasn’t existed in this game. And I’m starting to wonder if any of the people complaining about progression and grinding have actually played this game or if they’re just feeding off of internet outrage. I haven’t had to “grind” once to reach the level I’ve hit so far. I’ve played the game. Cars have been plentiful. I have I’m guessing 200+ maybe closer to 300 cars? I’d have to check. Point is I’ve purchased maybe a dozen of those. The rest have been wheelspins and level up rewards. I had my first duplicate car yesterday. It went to the auction house and earned me 30k. There is only so many cars to work with. If they gave out anymore they’d run out of cars to give out. This game is designed to be played for a long time. If you’re getting bored play something else for a bit. Come back to it in a week. Bottom line is no game will please everyone. They’ve attempted to please a very diverse fan base. And they have done well in my opinion. Maybe tweak the online play a bit… But besides that, great game.
I’m fairly new to the franchise, only started played FH3 Hot wheels as my youngest son was into it and I’d got a deal. Enjoyed the open world aspect much more than the motorsport series and then played most of the original horizon in a couple of days. As a mainly PC gamer, the controller takes a lot of getting used to. Any how, back to the point. I’ve logged around 40 hours in FH4, no glitching, pure honest time. I now have around $20m credits, all the houses except the castles (not sure why I got so many houses as Fast Travel makes them redundant). Also have around 350 cars, almost all the FE cars most of which I got from the AH and I still have around $5m untapped in perk cars. I consider this a reasonable haul for 40 hours play. At level 20 road race I can bang 10 laps around Holyrood (or whatever it’s called) and get almost $100k + a wheelspin + ~27k influence all in 10 minutes. I’ve only just unlocked Goliath despite being at level 260ish as I was doing other stuff. A massive part of my cash and cars came from unlocking wheelspins + influence with perks in my many cars the game keeps throwing at me. On average it’s around 10 perk points per wheelspin and you can farm hundreds on per points without a lot of effort. I’d been doing forzathon and just hooning around driving to races and managed to rack up over 600 perk points in a weekend. Fleshing out the juicy bits on my cars (wheelspins and influence) working purely alphabetically I levelled around 40 times and picked nearly $5m along with a ridiculous amount of tat apparel I’ll never use. Every perk point you spend is 200 influence. It was just silly how many wheel spins rolled in. Getting approx 30% cash, 30% cars though few decent cars and I now have about half of the accessories and I can definely notice the wheelspin prizes are improving through super wheelspins are still terrible getting mostly tat. Overall the amount of effort required to get perk points and get wheelspins seems comparable to the $ per minute you get from racing (which does improve as you level in the series). While there are only 70 core races, plenty more seasonal ones + the tracks are somewhat different in the different weather and you can use a whole variety of different cars. I bought a driving game to drive the cars so I don’t really consider it too much of a grind. The only real issues the economy for me are the silly pricing of the castles and the Ferrari cars through I expect that ‘reassuringly expensive’ was part of the licencing deal. No matter, I have no interest whatsoever in driving Ferrari cars around so I’ll be just fine with the hundreds of others the game chucks at you. For anyone struggling to rack up perk points who doesn’t have an FE car handy, the Escort Turbo is a great little perk magnet with the triple rate build. Easy to hit the max multiplier and then let it cool down when hooning about, though it does need a few power upgrades to make the most of it.