Perhaps this is a controversial opinion, but except for street races, I’d honestly like to see checkpoints be done away with entirely. Ever since Horizon 2, I feel like the developers have been using the checkpoint system as a crutch/excuse to not properly enclose the races like an actual racing festival taking place on public roads would.
Not to mention we’ve lost a lot of track detail since the first game. There’s no licensed sponsorship boards anymore. There’s far less spectators. There’s barely any areas where track marshals, cameramen, and EMS would be stationed. Chuck out the checkpoint system, and bring all of this back and then some. Brake markers, rumble strips, and breakable tire walls would also be welcomed.
4 Likes
Interesting idea. The more open the maps have become, the harder they have made this. As you say, there is no festival feel anywhere as compared to FH2, where those partiers weren’t even put off by Storm Island!
In FH2 this was mainly a thing with the new cross country races, which were really inventively done. It really felt like they’d looked at the map and designed races to fit it. Ever since then it has felt like they’ve designed the map around the races instead, and it makes for a much less interesting game. Especially with FH4 you can look at the map and see the road layout designed around circuits even when it doesn’t look natural.
As to your point, yeah I would love to go back to a less open map in general as it has made roads almost completely pointless. FH2 was great fun because you learnt the road paths between the festivals; since then it has mainly been beeline bushwhacking with the occasional pyramid or invisible walled town in the way. One has not got to know the map in the same way and that’s a shame. FH2 had by far the best combination - open enough for cross country races while closed enough for roads to still be the main traversal method and, as you say, artificial closing walls for races.
In summary, I would love to see the right balance again to mean checkpoints are largely unnecessary, especially the nasty ones that don’t let one cut corners, but I feel there is no way back. Maybe just remaster FH2!
3 Likes
Slightly different approach but I have an idea:
I despise the checkpoint system because it punishes you so hard when you miss a checkpoint, in an online race it just kills your race pretty much
What if there was a sort of score system for how much you’ve cut a checkpoint?
Here’s how it would work
You’re racing, and you miss a checkpoint by accident, instead of having to rewind, you’re given a big visible number, say, from 1 to 10
1 is just barely missing the checkpoint
10 is an offence so strong that you are forced to rewind
But with anything less than 10 you can just reduce said counter by not taking the outside line on the next corner
So you undercut a checkpoint, but have to lose just a miniscule amount of time on the next one
Just a very basic concept but thoughts?