I am new to digital racing. I’ve had Forza 7 for a couple of months and are finally getting comfortable with it. Now that Horizon 4 has been issued, there are various aspects that I’m having real beginner’s confusion about. Note that I’ve only had the game for a couple of hours so I really haven’t figured much out yet. So here are the noobie questions (please note I’m on Win10 not Xbox and using a Logitech G920 wheel and pedals):
Is there a beginner’s guide anywhere that takes you through the start of this game? I managed to get to the point where I chose a car (Charger) and now I’m blasting around (the brilliant re-creation of) Edinburgh aimlessly hitting everything I can find. I have no idea if that is what I am supposed to do.
I understand that you get points for destruction, etc. but am I hitting AI drivatars or are those real gamers? I’m smashing the heck out of them and I sure hope that they’re not real and I’m going to get banned.
How the #$%& do you quit this game other than just get the mouse to the bottom of the screen and hope you can bring up the taskbar and then close the icon window? There has got to be an easier way than that!
Why are the buttons programmed differently on wheels from Forza 7? The Ebrake is in another location, the view selection button is on the other side… IMHO there’s no real reason to have them not in the same place.
The “feel” of the Charger (can’t comment on others as I don’t have them yet) is completely flat and arcade-y as compared to the realism of Forza 7. Is that by design to allow for the far looser physics in Horizon 4 or am I missing something here?
I have the video set to HIGH and my GTX970 is running about a steady 80C. So is my i7-8700K (not OC’d). The temps I experience on Forza 7 are much lower. The GPU is around 60C and the CPU about 50C. Are the much higher temps on Horizon 4 normal?
Basically a noob myself in regards to the Forza series, so here goes:
There seems to be no beginner guide, at all, AFAIK. I’m guessing you chose the car the ‘friendly’ staff at Horizon gave you for the road racing series (blue marked flags).
If you continue doing a few more the game should open up a little more, and other types of races, like dirt/cross country/etc, should be added (and you’ll get another car for these specific events)
The drivers you’re seeing are AI ATM, though they do have the names of actual Xbox players (hell, you’ll even see a few forum members names). So don’t worry too much about ramming them, it actually seems to be par for the course of this game, anyways xD
In the menus there should be an option to exit to desktop under the Home tab, but from what I’ve seen you can actually only access that when you’re out on the road… TBH IMO the menus are rather messy and not too user friendly… In general I go for the Alt+F4 to be done with it quickly.
Sorry can’t help you there, as I play with an X360 controller, but from what I’ve read you should at least be able to rebind the keys on your wheel to match FM7 (or check if there isn’t a preset amongst the settings that resembles what you want). No such luck for me, can’t seem to rebind anything on my controller.
Basically I got this game myself as it was a ‘Scotland-lite’ based map, and labelled an Arcade Racer (with just a faint whiff of simulatesqueness™), so I’m guessing that’s the main difference.
Taking a potshot here, but I suppose that’s the difference between having a track based game (where the devs can ‘cheat’ quite a few GFX effects/looks) and an open world one. So I’d think it would take a bit more horsepower under the hood to run FH4 compared to FM7.
I can only really answer three of your questions, so hopefully other Windows/Wheel users will help with the others!
The opening sequence gives you as much training about driving in this game as you’re going to get. Now that you’ve chosen a car, you’ll also see a couple of races marked on the map. Go and do one of these and then it’ll give you more, and so on. You enter the race by driving to its location and hitting ‘x’ (or whatever your window’s equivalent is). After you’ve taken part in a few different events, more and more things to do appear on the map…
At the beginning, all the other cars are AI ‘Drivetars’ - even if they have some of your friends names above them. I think it’s level 20 when the game lets you out into the ‘real’ online world. It plays you quickly through 4 seasons first. When you are online, you can’t collide with any other ‘real’ players unless they are in your ‘convoy’, which means they are likely to be real friends and so therefore fair game!!
In your ‘home’ screen, you’ll find options for mapping the controller - I can only presume this is the same on Windows. There’s about 16 options on xbox, so surely you can make it match FM7 - I have to say on xbox the default setting has always been the same across the series (in my experience, FM3, FM4, Horizon, Horizon4 and FM7).
At first, I thought driving around the map was pretty sparse and empty, but plug away at the initial events and get yourself up to level 20, then you’ll see that there is loads and loads to do, and the online stuff becomes better too. I really like the hourly Forzathon live events - loads of cars charging across the landscape to a kind-of team goals event. And to slightly answer 5, yes, it’s an arcade-y, silly, thrill ride. It looks gorgeous, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and continues to give me loads of smiley, laughable moments. And some good racing!
Yes I’m on my second car now and I am starting to understand the dynamics of the game. I think it’s a bit strange that you just have to plunge in and see how the game unfolds since at first there really is no clue as to what you’re doing and no direction to be found anywhere. So, as I said, I just drove around for a while.
Thank goodness that the other drivers are AI as I am having a heckuva time driving the two cars I’ve had so far. It’s almost as if everything I have learned on FM7 has to be relearned here. I’m actually quite surprised at how different the driving experience is between these two games. It’s almost as if they were issued by different publishers.
Thanks for the Alt + F4 trick. That’s a big help. Yes, I really despise the menus too. And I thought the FM7 menus sucked, but these are way worse!
I tried to change a couple of buttons around on my G920 and got stuck, so I set everything back to default. I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it.
Yes, I have found that the difference in the car driving is massive. As the second car that the game courteously offered me, I chose the Subaru WRX as I have that in FM7 and drive it a lot, so I know how it “feels”. The FH4 version is absolutely a different car! It’s really strange to switch back and forth between games on exactly the same vehicle and get a 100% different ride. I’m also amazed at the wheel action as FM7 has a very solid feel but FH4 seems to transmit only bumps and has virtually no “effort” to steering. Yes, I’ve tried all the different settings for steering and none of them even come close to matching the “real car” steering of FM7. The overly loose feeling of the wheel in FH4 as compared to FM7 would have to be my number one problem with this game.
Definitely the load on the GPU seems to be much higher on FH4. I’ve been experimenting with the two games and there seems to be a significant difference in GTX970 temps. That’s the most significant increase, but the i7-8700K is seeing higher temps as well, albeit not as high a delta as the GPU.
I will say that now that I have been able to explore less than a quarter or so of the terrain, that it is ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT. It’s eye candy of the highest order. I’m finding the visuals while driving around so realistic it makes me feel like I am back driving around those same Scottish roads. The mini-Edinburgh is especially awesome and I actually remember some of the blocks from my several trips there. So I love looking at this game and casually driving around… but am not really enthused about racing in it…
I am definitely getting the hang of the way the game is laid out, but I thought I had missed an introduction when I first started playing it… and was very surprised when I realized there is no intro! I’m still not really clear on the difference between the points and the influence and the whatever else. But I guess I’ll figure it out as the game keeps going.
It’s a really good thing that these are AI drivatars because I can’t make either the Charger or the Subaru WRX go around corners worth a darn. I can make the WRX fly in FM7 but in FH4 the only flying I’m doing is flying off the road and into trees.
Yup, I tried and failed to remap the wheel so I’m getting used to it even though I’m not happy about it.
I guess I bought this game expecting an FM7 with an open world map and was rather disappointed by the game overall so far. I especially HATEHATEHATE those silly interventions by those refugees from The Sims. Complete waste of time and horrible animation to boot. They seem to be at a much lower level of realism than the landscapes and they’re jarring to say the least. If I were King of Turn 10 I’d delete those wastes of pixels ASAP. Thanks for the encouragement and I have to state that I’m definitely LOVING THE LANDSCAPE VISUALS. They are stunning!!!
Sorry when i hijack your thread but guess this is also kinda noob question
What is the rule during driving i multiplayer free roam hunting?
Its a track fro A to B but sometime the opponent drivers just leave the route.
So i have to stay on the track or try to follow the first opponent??
Tried to find out the rules but its not realy clear what to do there…
The physics in Horizon are more on the arcade side, but also keep in mind that the starter cars you’re given aren’t stock. I didn’t choose the Charger myself, but I’m sure it has a number of upgrades that probably make it handle better.
I would like to help you but I’m just starting out so I don’t have any idea, I’m sure that more experienced drivers on this forum would be able to tell you.
I’ve played around with some of the settings and the wheel still feels much “lighter” than on FM7, so the only thing I can guess is that it is done on purpose as if the wheel proportionately passed along similar “road feel” to FM7 it would have to fly right off the desk when you land after a big jump. Still, it’s a disconcerting sensation to go from a heavy, realistic steering feel to one that feels like there is no resistance at all.
