I’ve been heavily thinking about this major problem that exists in Forza HORIZON 4 AND Forza HORIZON 5 and it’s good to see a racing game reviewer bring this up.
The festival playlist system has becoming extremely tedious, repetitive and bland. And major changes need to be made to ensure healthy, accessible and fun gameplay for everyone in future HORIZON games.
The absence of unique, new solo, offline events along with the time-limited FOMO factor of the Festival Playlist Series that has been heavily affecting the playerbase’s experience.
As a longtime HORIZON fan, one of the best features of HORIZON games is the wide vehicle variety compared to any other racing game available.
I am not a fan of FOMO in racing games and I believe punishing new and long-term players, who for any reason at all, could not unlock the car of their choice during the seasonal playlist, and are now forced to deal with exorbitant auction house prices and auction house manipulation to unlock the car that they want to drive.
Many new players fall prey to modders and greedy sellers who ask even more than the maximum auction house price of 20 Million CR in FH4 and FH5.
This is not a healthy, sustainable or positive experience both in terms of gameplay loop and player base.
The number one reason why people play your racing games - is to be in the driving seat of some of the most prestigious, quirky and wonderful cars in the world that most of us could not have access in real life, while having the freedom to customize, drive and explore the world how you want.
Like many players, I want your HORIOZN games to succeed perhaps set a standard of how a racing game treats its players.
Here are my sincere suggestions to the development team of the next Forza HORIZON game to significantly improve the gameplay and player base experience:
1. Remove the time-limiting and FOMO barrier and allow people to play the previous Festival Playlists to unlock the car of their choice whenever they want at their own pace.
2. The AutoShow is a staple of Horizon games and must not be neglected. All playlist cars should be added to to auto sow at the end of the month/season. Both the players and the developers get to see the evolution of autoshow vehicle content over time.
People who want early access to the vehicles can still play the festival playlist events and those who cannot get access to the cars in the auto show at the end of the month.
By doing this, you not only give players the agency and freedom to buy and build the cars of their choice but also prevent new and long term players from falling prey to auction house scammers and modders.
Players do not have to wait hours or minutes playing with the in-game menus to refresh auction house or deal with menu bots to get their favorite cars.
With these major changes, the auction house can solely be used for selling custom and unique tuning and livery builds while everybody has access to the base vehicles.
3. No car should cost 20 million credits in the auction house. The economic system needs to be fully revamped to match the game’s payout systems.
Again, the auction house should be place to sell unique tuning and livery builds.
4. Allow the Festival Playlists to be fully playable offline and solo. Not everyone has the time, skill and connection or like to play PvP in FORZA Horizon.
Thank you very much for reading. And I hope the gameplay experience is far healthier, accessible and positive in the next HORIZON game.
