Most of us have put way too many hours into this game, and the structurally-similar FH4 for years before it. Any game you play for that long is going to have some aspects that you wish were different. I’m not talking about the big-picture issues, like “The AI is fundamentally broken in many respects,” or “the Playlist live-service model is inherently predatory and encourages FOMO,” but the small things instead. Here are a few that come to mind for me:
The smallest of all, and yet somehow the most annoying: you finish a race in a championship, and you fast-travel to the next race start…only you can’t actually select it until the game finishes showing how much XP and credits you earned from the past race. So you sit there for 10 seconds twiddling your thumbs. This wasn’t a thing in FH4 because every race there showed the results screen, and yet somehow that was still faster than it is in FH5.
In the same line, completing a PR stunt and having to sit through all of the leaderboard pop-up nonsense. Depending on what kind of stunt it is, this can interfere with another attempt on the same stunt. It’s worst with speed traps, where you can get really close to a tough target time, want to rewind just a little bit to try again, and then not have it register for multiple seconds. I’ll wind up stuck in this back-and-forth rewind limbo until the dumb messages finally clear and it’ll register a new attempt again.
Again similarly, when you’re trying to get X number of a certain skill for a task, but the skill timer runs out, so the game stops showing the skills you’re completing until it gets done with counting up your total score. The common thread here is that there’s plenty of screen real estate. Show me this less useful information somewhere else so that I can do/see what I’m trying to do in the moment.
That “new car added” pop-up when you first open the menu after getting a new reward car from an event or Playlist/wheelspin claim. I already know I got the new car, you told me so when I first got it. I don’t need to hear it again when I’m on my way to delete my latest dupe Chevy Impala.
Similarly, the extra final confirmation window when you want a new car delivered to you. I get an extra confirmation for fast travel, since it’s fairly easy to accidentally bump the wrong button when you’re on the map screen, but to choose a new car you need to go two menus in, select the right make or category, then hit select twice on the car you want. I don’t think anyone’s doing all of that by accident. This is probably a holdover from FH3, where instant delivery of a new car cost credits (speaking of awful design decisions…), but there’s no reason for it to be here now.
The forced claiming of wheelspin prizes while in multiplayer events. Literally everyone in the game hates this. Hell, why not give us a prompt to sell any sort of event reward, not just wheelspins? It’d save a lot of time over having to delete multiple dupe Autoshow cars every single week.
The braking line markers are frequently inaccurate. Any number of corners will have the line go full red at spots where you can easily make the corner without lifting. It’s less common, but there are other spots that require a lift or even braking where the line doesn’t appear at all. Shout-outs to that one Hot Wheels circuit with the unmarked sharp hairpin that I know about yet somehow manage to forget every time.
Why does simply changing a car’s paint color necessitate creating a “design” for that car? At the bare minimum I should be able to switch between manufacturer colors at will without needing to delete extra entries later. As a result I almost never change the color of a car after first getting it.
That giant “Arena Shrinking” or head-to-head text in the Eliminator that’s plastered right across the center of the screen, which almost guarantees I’ll smash into a tree/rock. As if I needed more help smashing into trees and rocks in the Eliminator…
I hate how Horizon Rewind works differently than every other radio station in the game. Unlike the others, it doesn’t shuffle when you’re not listening to it, so every time you flip to it during a race you’ll always be subjected to “Fly.” Even filed a bug report about this one, but surprise surprise it got closed without any action.
Are there any I didn’t list here that bug anyone else? I’m sure I’ll remember a few more as soon as I create the topic.
Podiums are dark & manky on a dirty ill-lit scaffolding/stage. Can’t see other players livery properly, can’t see my own. Very annoying.
You should look fully solid at all times - even when ghosted.
I dislike the way the podium abruptly cuts away in the 2nd race.
A civilian car has the licence plate placeholder there but it’s an unpaintable surface.
It annoys me that a lighting bar isn’t available on the roof of most vans otherwise perfect for an emergency vehicle livery. You’d think that’d be the obvious thing to do in an open world game.
I dislike when I grab a tune for a co-op, got my race livery in place and whoever has tuned it has a police light bar plonked on the roof making my once fiercesome car look silly.
Tunes that I download has stock rims and my car has a race livery.
No adequate labelling in garage. There’s times I’ve unknowingly pulled a drift tune with vintage tires into a race co-op. Nor can I tell the difference between off-road & dirt builds from just looking at the garage.
At night the moon stays fixed in one place above your head and out of normal sight.
I like Ford but rummaging through the Ford section is torture. Surely it could easily be divided up into Ford USA, Europe & so on?
As per above, I get a subtle sense the devs often make the User Menu Experience awkward as somehow part of the in-game challenge? Cut that out please.
One highlighted by extended nights in the previous series – a lack of adequate lighting for painting cars outside player homes.
The absence of car stats in the tuning menu (i.e., power, weight, etc.) which I at least would find useful so that I don’t have to kept backing out of the tuning menu to check what they are. (All right, forgetfulness on my part.)
The absence of any indication (as there was in FH4) of the kind of car I’m driving when I go into a race against the drivatars whether you subscribe to Anything Goes or not. Admittedly, old person problems as I can never remember whether it’s, say, retro rally or what. I’m there to race against other cars of the same sort not against some ludicrous potpourri of inappropriate vehicles.
The lack of information about the level-of-difficulty setting of the drivatars in race blueprints if it’s fixed.
The lack of information about the number of drivatars in race blueprints.
Having to switch back to my usual radio station in custom races.
Custom races having Horizon Pulse and almost never anything else.
The inability to filter cars by special categories such as Movie Icons.
Eligible cars for seasonals and the Trial should include all the cars in my garage that I could use in them even though they may be the wrong PI (marked as such).
When I do a drag racing rivals event … spawning in and going immediately. Theres no light tree or element of having to time the start. Its just … go. If theres a trick to it, I dont know it. And if there is, it shouldnt have to be a trick. And the HUD stuff usually doesnt appear until after a gear change is made. I guess this stuff goes for all events too.
In driver cam, a rear view mirror view would be nice. The car’s rear view mirror is not in the FOV.
The slow motion letterbox effect that plays when you approach the finish line with drivatars hot on your tail which is then followed by the slow motion fade to black after your cross the finish. This isn’t Hollywood PGG. Can we please go back to a simpler race finish animation like the first three Horizons?
You can’t fast travel to PR stunts or Showcases because pressing X on the gamepad instead opens up the leaderboard.
Dirt drift zones showing up in Horizon Arcade drift events.
Not being able to manually cancel a drift or speed zone other than driving far enough off the road until you fail it.
Rewinding sometimes doesn’t bring you far back enough, forcing you to rewind again. Or it brings you back way further than necessary.
Having to travel to EventLab Island for seasonal playlist EventLabs. I wish the game could just warp you to the race and then send you back to the main map after the race is finished.
Yellow cars are washed out, which is frustrating because cars that actually looked good in yellow in previous Horizons now look awful in FH5’s engine.
The special colours tab in the Paint Editor takes AGES to scroll through.
I hate when you try to paint the roof panel of your car black with vinyls only to find out that the pillars are UV mapped to the top view as well so you have to awkwardly put vinyl masks over the pillars.
Cars with off center vinyl UV mapscough cough '99 Viper GTS ACR
Offroad vehicles showing up in street races.
The black and white barriers in the default races aren’t available in the EventLab builder.
The stick camera movements in the EventLab builder are way slower than the up/down movements of the triggers.
The race loading screen with the player emoting on a stage with their car spinning around on a podium is entirely counterproductive to the purpose of a loading screen.
Some of the Forzathon weekly tasks make zero sense for the car you’re forced to drive. Remember last week when we had to yeet a Nissan GT-R off a ramp to test how “lightweight it’s carbon fibre parts” are? Or in Horizon Wilds when we had to do a street race in the Gymkhana Focus. (a rally car I might add so it would need to be tuned with longer gears so that you don’t top out at 142mph on a long straight)
I ranted about this before but what’s the point of having hundreds of horn variations for muscle cars and trunks if you can only use one at a time instead of having a default horn for each car which you can then customize?
Also having to hold down R3 when using certain horn sounds. Why can’t the police siren be an on/off toggle and non-looped sound effect horns just require a single tap?
Drivatars almost always use Forza aero.
Many of the extreme track toys don’t come with unmarked semi-slick tires despite coming with the Hot Wheels and Horizon lettered semi-slick variants.
The rally and offroad race tire textures. There’s actually another dirt tire texture used on cars like the Ford F-150 Raptor R, Ford GT70 and the rally raids which looks way better.
Photo mode’s aperture setting is terribly implemented and always blurs the subject.
Drivatars displaying gamertags over their heads. Like what’s even the point? Sure it’s useful in multiplayer for identifying your team mates. But for solo racing with just drivatars, knowing which real life human being the drivatar is meant to be isn’t really all that useful to know imo. Wish there was an option to only turn it off for solo drivatars.
The Modern/Retro/Classic splits for most car types. I sort of get it for Classic Racers and Vintage Racers, but where this gets irritating is with supercars, sports cars, rallies, muscle cars and hot hatches since these all split into different eras. I dunno, I think it’d be cool if we could merge all the say for example supercar classes into one regardless of era so you have an old vs new scenario.
Certain smashable objects like lamp posts and tree branches break your skill chain.
Chase cams are positioned more towards the rear of the car instead of the middle, meaning if you rotate the chase camera to the front of the car using the right analogue, you can’t even see the front bumper. It’s further exacerbated when you’re driving.
None of the road pieces in the EventLab builder come with sidewalks apart from the highway pieces.
Not being able to customize plates for individual cars.
Certain cars having a recess or mount on the front bumper for a number plate which goes unused because we still don’t have the ability to put front plates on cars. Examples include the Audi RS2 Avant, Audi RS4 Avant, Mazda RX-7 Spirit R and the TME front bumper option for the Mitsubishi Evo VI.
Wheel spacers are very inconsistent.
When I boot up the game, I have to wait 15-20 seconds before I can press the Start Game button.
Most of the road piece props don’t have footpaths or railings built into them.
Custom car restrictions are useless due to the max limit of up to 50 cars. Bearing in mind this is a game with 900 cars and most car types already have over well over 50 cars, so you won’t be able to combine car types.
“Would you like this car delivered?”- How else is it getting here?
The track builder that feels like it was put into the game for the purpose of punishing creativity.
Inconsistent AI. sometimes they drive like they’re auditioning for a dashcam crash compilation video, and sometimes you get Lewis Hamilton- and you don’t get to pick. A setting between “Rolling chicane” and “no chance” would be nice.
Arbitrary PI assignments. There are some cars that cannot be made competitive in any class… because reasons.
Different handling models when racing vs AI or online. Because all that work I did setting up my car perfectly should obviously be tossed right out the window when I actually want to race it.
4x4 vehicles that get completely stuck if the rear tires lose traction and can’t climb rocks.
No weather on series events. Load in to a race with my fastest car for the class… and of course, it’s raining, and I’m on slicks.
Half of the skill score achievements are not explained, and new players must use Google to figure out what they’re supposed to do for the achievement (ie “hard charger” or “Daredevil”)
Cannot skip cutscenes when replaying story missions.
Weekly events that stipulate a class, and the put the PI so low that most of the cars in that class cannot be used, or so low that only completely unaltered vehicles can be used. It wouldn’t be so bad if the aI actually adhered to the same rules, but PI shown for their cars is just a number with no basis in reality.
I’ve turned that stuff off. Clean screen baby! I highly recommend giving it a try. I don’t miss it. The only issue with my approach: the radio ui is tied to a setting that it makes absolutely no sense to be tied to. So I just got to manage the radio by ear (I usually just keep it off and play spotify in the background).
Oh it gets worse. On an ultra or superultrawide screen, as soon as the letterbox effect starts the sides of the screen get cut off. So I’m trying to finish a close race and the game says “You know what would be great? If you tried to complete this race with only a quarter of your screen working.”
I kept waiting and waiting, expecting they would replace the backstage pass, or at least be redeemable for them. I’m willing to bet that PGG forgot they existed.
I never understood why letting a song end and starting the next one mid-race was so terrible. Another reason why I listen to spotify in the background instead.
Great thread. You guys got most of mine already, though I just had to highlight a few select ones. Here’s what I got off the top of my head and I don’t think were covered yet.
FH4 Lego expansion had a whiteroom. I thought that it was a test and going forward the franchise would always have a whiteroom. I guess that made too much sense to happen.
The “you are currently offline, please wait 15 seconds while we harass you into going online” every time I start the game and want to start playing.
The in-client grouping tools stopped working at some point in the first few weeks, and never got fixed or even acknowledged as broken.
On PC, you have to log in to start the game, and then you have to log in again once in client to continue playing. Oh and for some reason the save file seems to always need to sync before playing, even though I never play on any other computer or device.
Favourited eventlabs just appear in a random order in your favourites tab, with no way to further organize or curate them. I’m not sure if this is a small or a big issue, since this one kind of kills my motivation to interact with eventlabs.
When you are at your Lego house and paint your car, you’ll be transported to the whiteroom if I recall correctly. It’s been a while but I’m fairly certain that’s how it works.
I’m gonna add some more-
The Super 7
You cannot “set route”, only the destination.
There is a 90% chance the car is going to spawn in pointed backwards or stuck inside a nearby object.
If the person who made the challenge was running mods- you will not be able to complete it.
The search function seems to work about 10% of the time.
Other gripes:
I cannot use the terms “front wheel drive” or “FWD” in a tune description because the language filter has a problem with it.
The vinyl editor will often delete all vinyl other than the side you’re looking at when saving.
The center lines of the vehicles is not the 0.00 mark on 99% of the cars in game.
“Copy all from left/right side” will ALWAYS mess up the placement.
Tinting the windows removes factory decals.
PGG/T10 seem to be more interested in deleting threads and comments about the rampant cheating than they are about stopping the cheating.
Servers bother me more than anything to be completely honest. I know its important to test things like this especially to work on/improve upon as time goes by but at the same time Fh5’s servers are a tad rough sometimes. I miss the static servers where all players were on the map at once. Instead of the proximity servers where only those around your area can be seen. Fh4 felt much more alive in comparison due to this (of course their servers still had issues too though…). I remember back in fh4 everyone wanted private servers (personally I just wanted to make new friends/meet new Forza people). Fh5 somehow found a way to make servers feel like a mix between the two sometimes…
Even if it meant a smaller maps anything to be able to see all players at once. Used to have convoys of 24 in fh4 (2 separate convoys of 12) in the same session. This isnt possible in fh5 and sometimes even the 12 in proximity still have issues connecting. Despite this more than likely being a technical limitation. A person can still hope that the older servers come back
That would be such a huge improvement from trying to paint cars (or swap wheels) from the player house now. Even the test track lighting is awful, and makes selecting wheels a guess at best.
Dont want to upset you but this isn’t something Forza can fix. They are not using their own filters. This is the filter Microsoft uses and most Microsoft games use it.
No voice chat. I dont know if this was to make the game “less toxic” but its way more toxic without it. And not being able to talk to people seems like a big step backward in online gaming. If people talking are annoying they can always be muted.
You would think that having a language filter that flags terms that are used to describe objects in the game in the most clinical sense possible would have thrown a red flag. The language filter itself might not be a T10/PGG invention, but using it was a decision they had to make.
The fact the terms used in the game are flagged by the game says they eiter didn’t bother to test it, or they just don’t care, neither of which is acceptable on a AAA game.
