This may sound odd but I believe the starter cars are the biggest flaw in Horizon 4 and even 2 & 3. I know people go on and on about them being too fast for a starter car and while I totally agree, that’s not the main issue I have with them. Let me get this straight out the way, they are too fast. If someone wants t give me a charger, TTS or RS for my first car please do because where I live (Ireland but similar insurance wise to England) I couldn’t even get a quote on a 1.4 Suzuki Swift as my first car. I still believe that we should be put in a slower car to start with. Something like a Capri would’ve been perfect imo or a smaller hot hatch like a Fiesta ST or Fiat 500. I think it ruins the progression a bit being in cars so quick right away, especially considering the economy is insanely forgiving anyway.
My main complaint is that we have multiple choices. Here’s what I mean by that. In FH1 you started off in a Volkswagen Corrado. Not only was it a more believable car to start off in, not only was it slower and old, but it was the only car to pick. You were stuck with it. It felt like a true Rookie car, a nobodies car. Here’s the thing, I never even knew about the Corrado before FH1, but because you were stuck with it for a while, I became attached to it and so did a lot of others. The car meant something and if it didn’t and if you despised it, the first car you bought meant something because you were happy to get out of the Corrado. Giving multiple choices makes the cars feel meaningless imo unless you really love them anyway.
I actually find myself agreeing with you. Pick a relatively unknown, relatively slow, slightly older British car that might otherwise be overlooked and provide it as the starter for everyone. The game gives out enough credits that players who want something else won’t have to wait long to earn enough credits to move up.
This also hits on another point I’ve been thinking about. For all the other improvements the later Horizon games have brought, one place where the original still shines brightly over the others is game progression. It actually felt like I was working my way up through a racing festival, whereas the more recent games have left me feeling like a rich playboy right from the start with virtually no sense of progression or accomplishment beyond exploring the world map and collecting cars. Sadly, it doesn’t look like FH4 will change this at all.
Having played the original Forza Horizon recently for the first time on the Xbox one, that game was so diferent to the FH2 or FH3 and like you said really gave a sense of progression in terms of events/cars and etc.
On the cars point of view they should do like the first Horizon or the likes of NFSU2 and NFSMW, were they give a car choice but you have limited budjet just enough to buy one of the many cars avaiable under like 15-20000 Cr in the forza series
In recent games the progression feels a bit meh and then there is the massive amount of championships that in my opinion are boring, at least do it like NFSU2 URL’s, make the championships part of the races to complete the festival to instead of doing the races and then to fully completing thoose races you have to do individual championships per race.
I also agree with OP, but compared to FH3, they went one step in the right direction in FH4. I mean in FH3 it was an M4, a Mustang GT350R, and some Australian muscle car… cars that were way too fast and expensive for starter cars.
Not particularly, since having such a low rate of income makes getting the high-end cars a major grind. I’m not asking them to be handed out for free, but I don’t want to have to grind for several hours for each one of them.
Going back to FH1, I like how that game paced things. Cars weren’t handed out like candy like in the more recent games so you appreciated each one a lot more, but the barn finds and showcases ensured that you still got some of the more expensive cars earlier on without having to grind them out. The massive payout for completing the final event for the first time was really nice since it allowed the player to get just about anything they wanted as a reward for completing the game.
The driver levelup bonus is still pretty small, if it scaled with level it might have worked better. Back when I played through FH1 I didn’t know about Forza Hub (was it even a thing back then?), but the game progression still seemed to be pretty good (except for those pesky 10 mil Ferraris). These things (along with VIP) pretty much break progression, if you have a relatively high Forza tier and VIP credits are almost too easy to come by, but for players who don’t have VIP and don’t know about Forza rewards, it can be tedious to get enough credits to unlock everything. I would like to see these sorts of things done away with so we can have a good, well-thought-out progression
The idea is to have the main career have fairly well controlled progression, but once it’s completed have the game open up and make it much easier to get the remaining cars instead of turning into a grindfest replaying the same events over and over since the player has already completed all the events. It sounds like FH4 might be doing something like this (at least addressing the endgame grind) with the businesses that could potentially provide a steady income to help unlock everything without grinding for ages (or happening to be great at painting/tuning and marketing your wares).
FH1 was like the FM4 of Horizon games to me. It was vastly different from how the current Horizon games feel.
But on the topic of starter cars, these aren’t too out there compared to the ones in FH3. I will agree they could’ve gone with slower starter cars. With the demo, choosing the Charger plus the 30,000 credits you already have means you can build an 750-hp A-Class angry American muscle car before even the first race. XD I know what I’ll be choosing when the game comes out.
I agree with the seemingly backwards steps with regards to progression. Let’s look at what we are expected to get in the first couple of hours of the game on the 28th:
Starter road racing car
Starter rally racing car
Formula Drift Pack
James Bond Day 1 Pack
Preorder bonus car (from specific retailers)
Potentially a batch of cars from Forza rewards (not confirmed, but was the case in previous Horizon games)
Potentially a car(s) tied to the Mixer level influence gathered by playing/streaming the demo
We’re potentially going to end up with 30-40 cars for free during the opening of the game, perhaps 80% of which will be pretty damn quick. It has happened on previous games and although fun, does detract slightly from the feeling of progression in my own opinion. It’s not fair to judge on this until the game arrives though, I hope they pull it off in a fun way.
I think if youre an older player youd be more inclined to start from the bottom and work your way up because thats what every game was like in the past, but this newer generation have no idea what its like to earn anything so i think this decision was based off of what the newer generation of gamers expect rather than the older one.
I agree with you as well. I would rather start in some base econo hatch, or a 90’s car.
Nothing against FH3 or FH4, but this whole thing about being a rich important guy running a festival kind of beats the charm of excitement of making your way through the ranks.
In older games like Horizon 1 or Grid one of the best parts was working up to race Darius Flynt or Ravenwest Motorsport. The whole “world-building” aspect helped give those games an identity. Its really hard to give a sense of progression without a defined opponent and unfortunately due to Forzas emphasis on drivatars and social gaming doesn’t seem like something we’ll get back.
I think it’s a tough balancing act between those who like steady progression and those who want to drive every car right away. I’m in the steady progression camp because that is what I grew up with but I think gaming as a whole is moving towards instant gratification. Plus, as Novacat pointed out, any progression is out the window with all of the free cars we’ll receive in the beginning of the game. Hate to say it, but I think the days of progression in Forza are long over.
I would have been perfectly fine if the starter car was a Vantage, 918 and Ferrari 812. There’s 450 base cars in the game, 500+ when all is said and done. I totally get wanting to rise up through the ranks but I feel there’s way to much content to cover and there isn’t a story to frame such a thing in the first place.
I will echo that the utter absence of progress and buildup in FH3 is far and away my most hated thing about it. I had no motivation to ever do anything, because, why bother? The only progress I’m making is the percentage I see on every third load screen, it all feels so empty and pointless
All you gotta do to appease both camps is star the player off with some hooptie, and then just make it rain every single time you do a race. 6th place? 35,000 cr. First place? 90,000
That way, you feel like you’re building up, but then the fortnite kid who’s responsible for the aimless games of today can afford what he wants after just a couple of races, even if he didn’t win any of them. Sorted
It would be nice if they made it more RPG-like where you start off with slower, cheaper cars and build your way up. And didn’t allow you to use Forza Hub and loyalty rewards to get all the good stuff straight away.
I just had another idea to add to the posts above that could potentially help resolve the tug-of-war between the players who want progression like in FH1 and those who just want to be able to mess around from the start.
Why not have two different game modes?
One of the talking points of FH4 compared to previous Horizons is that there’s multiple ways to play the game. Taking inspiration from the Motorsport games which have Free Play vs Career, why not have a “sandbox” mode that’s even more open than the current Horizons, where any car can be rented right from the start, custom events and multiplayer are unlocked right away, and credits come fast and easy. Cars unlocks could be tracked via a car collection system similar to FM7.
For players who want more progression, there could be a separate career mode. This would use the same world map, but would otherwise be a completely separate game mode with a different credit balance (that doesn’t get free handouts from Forza Rewards or VIP/Forzathons) and its own separate event progression so things could be much better balanced (with a difficulty option to tailor the pacing somewhat). World unlocks done in career mode (road discovery, bonus signs, stunts, etc) would transition over to sandbox mode, but not vice-versa. When the main story of a career playthrough is completed, the credit balance and garage collection (maybe only the cars that haven’t already been collected to prevent duplicates of special cars?) could be added to the sandbox mode.
This would allow players to have multiple careers simultaneously while still having the sandbox mode keep track of overall game progress in a persistent mode.
