I have played several thousand hours in FH5. I love the game. But there are some ugly downsides. In online freeroam, there are fake drivers among us. These are next level AI drivers. It is difficult to distinguish them from real players. My problem (and probably many others) is that these drivers act in freeroam to systematically provoke and humiliate me and others. The idea is possibly to create commitment and competition among the players, and possibly in that way to retain as many players as possible over time. Since I spend 98% of my time playing in freeroam, where I solely accumulate points by drifting, it is extremely tiring to be constantly challenged by fake racers, when I never want to race anyway. They are noise and I wish they were deleted. Then I could fully concentrate on drifting and the euphoric feeling drifting gives me. I want to feel great, and not humiliated by fake players.
Challenge? Like… Head to Head requests?
Can’t you just turn that off in the settings?
Points? Do you mean Skill Points?
Thank you for your input. I turned off head-to-head a long time ago. What makes driving in freeroom tiring is when the drivers cross my lane, right in front of me, out of nowhere. Or when they stand still, and suddenly start racing, as I approach. Or when I stand still and give full throttle in the arena (without driving off the spot), and suddenly a bunch of crazy drivers appear from nowhere, behaving like savages. Or right before I cross certain spots on the roadways, someone comes straight at me at breakneck speed, sometimes out of nowhere. Please note that these are only a few examples of behaviour. Maybe not so bad, you might say, but when the exact same actions happen literally hundreds of times a day (after many hours of play), day after day, it eventually becomes extremely tiring. I’ve also tested when I’m in pause mode. I can see on the map that many cars are standing around waiting. I’ve often found that they start moving as soon as I touch the throttle, even though I’m still in pause mode. Such behavior often happened a little earlier, somewhat less so now. The examples I have mentioned are very notorious, very similar all the time, and could not possibly be done by different players.
But they’re ghosted, so not all that much of an issue.
Yes, I know it’s not a problem for most people, but for me, who plays this game a lot, these provocations have become annoying noise. And it wouldn’t surprise me if certain others experience it in the same way.
In freeroam you can be online in what they call Horizon Life. There will be minimal npc traffic that’s always slow and sometimes gets in the way. The players in this are actual players and are ghosted unless you are in a convoy with them.
In Horizon solo, which I think is what you are describing, the other “players” are drivatars that are not ghosted and generally ruin the experience imo. I don’t really see them changing this but there should be a thread about it in the suggestions hub in these forums. If you can be in Horizon Life I would recommend it. It requires one of the game pass subscriptions if you are using a console.
Yeah, that’s what’s confusing me about @Tafffi’s question. If they’re ghosted, then it’s just other players and if that’s an ongoing problem, just switch to Horizon Solo and then Back to Horizon Life again and be connected to entirely different players. The same problem can’t be happening THAT much to be an annoyance.
And if they’re not ghosted, then Tafffi is definitely in Horizon Solo so just get on Horizon Life and all should be good.
Systematic harrassment though? No idea. It sounds to me like they just want to drive around in free roam by themselves without other players or drivatars or possibly even traffic for that matter. I don’t get it.
Thanks, WB42, but I’m actually referring to live and not solo.
Just go solo and back to live. You should reconnect with completely different users.
I change online groups all the time, in an attempt to escape the repeated provocations.
Ok, I’m a bit confused by your description. Do you by any chance have your convoy settings open so anyone can join?
I don’t see that I have enabled convoy, if that’s what you meant?
Well I’m stumped. Never seen this problem myself and I play in free roam a lot too. I don’t feel / think anyone’s ever tried to provoke me in anyway let alone do it repeatedly.
Yeah there’s an option to allow anyone to join you, friends only or everyone must ask and you accept or deny. Otherwise all the players would be ghosted. When the game is paused and you open the map do the other players have grey circles with a “D” or just a grey circle?
Well, all the players are ghosted, and they are marked with a circle. And I have to say that if you don’t experience systematic and repeated similar behavior on these “online players”, then I don’t understand anything.
Ok, I tend to ignore them or just get a new session like @GaymerGirl67 said. Or alternatively I’ll go to a safe house for a minute and then back. If I’m in the middle of something and don’t acknowledge them they’ll generally move on. I’m not really bothered by the fact that they’re there but can’t say that I see as many as you describe. Maybe it just comes down to what bothers each of us.
I have seen a lot more real players in freeroam than I used to though. If you drift a lot you might get matched with more like minded players, or at least it seems that way to me. It could be I just end up at popular drifting areas.
Edit: I will say that when I’m in online freeroam I haven’t ever noticed any that seem fake. That’s only been the offline drivatars where it’s clearly computer driven. AI is a bit generous of a description.
I myself have no doubt that I experience fake online players, or something else strange. It’s not possible for so many different groups and players to do exactly the same things for as long as I’ve been playing. I would add that the behavior of the players varies during the day. At midnight (Norwegian time), for example, they become much more aggressive. This happens at exactly the same time every night, at H Festival Mexico. Besides, I just like drifting around in the open space, and rarely participate in competitions. And… yes… people have different thresholds for what they can accept or not.
Interesting. Haven’t experienced it but it’s believable these days.
I would also like to add that often I only see a glimpse of cars crossing directly in front of me. I have recordings of these “phenomena”. When I examine the footage, the cars appear in only one of the frames in the frame rates. So there are some cars that probably cross in front of me at an insane speed, which can barely be captured by the videos. It’s like the twilight zone has manifested itself in the game… oh man.
And since this post is my opportunity to express my displeasure with “online players”, I can also say that there has been a strong increase in cases where various players crash into traffic cars, so that they hit me at high speed , and I lose credits. A new creative variation today was when a bus appeared out of nowhere with a player who had crashed into it so that it was standing across the road. I had such a high speed that it was impossible to stop. I would say that no real online player has the authority to manipulate a bus into appearing out of thin air.