THE TRIAL - General guide lines and tips for a fun and successful co-op experience

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 5 FH5 Discussion
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The Trial has always been a subject of complaints from Forza Horizon players. I thought maybe something like this could help a little. Maybe not, but hey, worth a try.

Below you will find info, tips, tricks and tactics to help create a fun and successful experience when doing The Trial (or other co-op races, like Horizon Tour).
I will update this list with comments in this thread.
Hope this will help players have a more satisfying experience when playing co-op races.

RECOMMENDED CARS FOR SERIES 1, SPRING (HOT SEASON):

Again a multi-class trial. Going for A800, maximum PI is recommended.
Personally I used the 1973 BMW 2002 Turbo and that worked.

HOW IT WORKS

  • The Trial is a 6v6 PvE race. 6 players vs. 6 Drivatars
  • The players are part of one team (Blue Team) and the Drivatars are part of the other team (Red Team).
  • Each player/drivatar gets 100 points for each competitor they passed and an additional 50 for being in first place
  • To win a race your team needs more points than the other team. This can be achieved without a team mate finishing in first place.
  • Current team score can be seen in the upper right corner of the screen. That is also where you can see each driver’s current position and score.

PREPARATION

  • If you are unfamiliar with the tracks it might help to practice the tracks playing solo to get an idea of them
  • Make sure you have a well prepared and properly tuned car. The general idea is to have a car that is maxed out for the race you are facing, so if it says A800 you arrive in an A800 car. Some cars perform better at a certain PI than others, so a little research might help here. You don’t have to be an expert tuner yourself to do this. There are plenty of good ‘Trial’ tunes available.

GENERAL

  • The Trial is a group effort. Fighting against your team mates for a better position is absolutely pointless.
  • Try to race cleanly. We all make mistakes, but at least TRY.
  • Acknowledge when a team mate is faster and let them pass you.
  • Give team mates space at check points. A team mate passing a checkpoint is much more important than you beating the team mate (which as you can see above is pointless). Be mindful of players passing you on the inside of corners. While your reaction would be to want to close the gap, allowing them to pass is likely better for the team.
  • Keep an eye on the total score and your personal score. Depending on the score you can decide if it is worth it taking more risks or if it might be better for your team if you drop out of the race. Please notice (as shown below) that for each drivatar you pass you not only gain 100 points, but the Red Team loses 100 points too (as that Drivatar loses the points for having passed you), making it a 200 point difference each time. This goes the other way around too of course.
  • The way points are distributed means that you can win the race with 1-6 people, there is no NEED for 6 people, so by quitting you don’t ‘let down’ your team (unless you are in first place every time :slight_smile: )

TACTICS

  • A good tactic can be to hang back a bit and ‘guard’ the rear of a pack of teammates, holding off Drivatars. If done well you can create a huge gap between the drivatars and your team mates. This is especially a good tactic if you know you will likely not pass any drivatars anymore and are lagging behind a bit anyway. Please do realise that there is the danger of Drivatars passing you, so if they are not close behind you anyway, don’t risk it.
  • If you are in last place, you can earn 600 points (100 points for every drivatar that beat you, and you are at 0 points anyway) for your team by quitting before the finish. Especially when you are in race 2 or 3 and your team would lose the championship anyway, doing this might ensure a win for your team mates while you lose nothing. If you have passed 1 drivatar, this decreases to 400 points (see below).
  • While ramming your team mates is frowned upon, ramming your opponents is fine and can actually be beneficial, however, do watch out for accidentally ramming team mates, accidentally ramming Drivitars into team mates or causing a pile up of cars which might give the lead drivatars a chance to gain a big lead.
  • A slightly unconventional tuning tactic is to race in a LOW PI car. The idea behind this is that the computer roughly mirrors the PI of the players’ cars. So if you have 5 high and 1 low PI car in the Blue Team, the Red Team will also have 5 high and 1 low PI car. Obviously the low PI car in the Red Team will be easier to overtake by the other drivers. This only really works if you are not good enough to contribute in any other way or good enough to beat high PI cars in a low PI car.
  • If you are bored or generous with your time and don’t want or need to win the trial you could spend some time entering the trial in a low PI car, then quitting during the first race. You will help the people racing by introducing a low PI car in the Red Team that is easily beatable, while you take the low PI car (your car) out of the Blue Team by quitting. Since the car you introduced in the red team will be easily beatable by the remaining drivers you increase their chance of winning.

A BIT MORE ON SCORE

The score on the top right only shows your positive score (the drivatars you passed), but doesn’t compensate for the drivatars above you.
Your compensated contribution to the team, so you can see if you add to the win or if you ‘cost’ points:
0 drivatars passed → -600 points (0 for the Blue Team - 600 for the Red Team)
1 drivatar passed → -400 points (100 for the Blue Team - 500 for the Red Team)
2 drivatars passed → -200 points (200 for the Blue Team - 400 for the Red Team)
3 drivatars passed → 0 points (300 for the Blue Team - 300 for the Red Team)
4 drivatars passed → +200 points (400 for the Blue Team - 200 for the Red Team)
5 drivatars passed → +400 points (500 for the Blue Team - 100 for the Red Team)
6 drivatars passed → +600 points (600 for the Blue Team - 0 for the Red Team)
6 drivatars passed and in first place → +650 points (600 for the Blue Team - 0 for the Red Team + 50 for first place)

Because of the 50 bonus points for first place, you only start to contribute to the win after you passed 4 drivatars.
It is not a problem if you ‘cost’ your team points. As said before it is a group effort and if the group can make it it doesn’t matter if individual players can’t.
However, knowing if you contribute or cost points can help in determining if dropping out of a race is a good decision for you and your team.

FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

  • Accept that this is what the Trial is.
  • It may not seem like it, but most of your team mates try to win, as they also want the reward. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
  • Frustration will only be detrimental to your experience and the experience of the other players.
  • If a race is not what you hoped it would be: Quit!
  • Don’t enter the trial to quickly ‘tick it off’.
  • Be prepared to do multiple runs before winning.
  • Stay calm and focus on your own driving.
  • Enjoy the good races and accept the bad ones.
  • Have fun!

POSSIBLY HELPFUL LINKS

FH5 S1 Winter: Trial - A Fine Addition (And A Total Mess!) - YouTube - Quadro40k having a successful attempt at the much loathed Series 1 Winter Trial. This illustrates some of the tactics, do’s and don’ts for taking part in the Trial.

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Unfortunately, 95% of the people who need to see this post aren’t on this forum.

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1 in 20 sounds like a decent score for a post like this :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks! Especially the tuning and preparing are key elements I forgot!!
I am not sure the part about the ramming is true. I have never seen any confirmation that the AI reacts to that so directly. Most of the ramming I see is either being rammed back when you bump AI out of their driving line or being rammed in a glitchy way because of connection issues of another player.

Contrary to the info on the left I have been driving a little longer than since 2021 and I have seen quite a few other complaints on this forum.

However, this is not about the AI. All the trials I have lost in FH5 were due to players not driving well, not to AI being too overpowered. Sure, I saw it is harder to get to first place, but you don’t need that to win a Trial with your group

ps: I’ve updated the first post

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Its ALL about the AI. As long as the AI keep going on rails, and being inmune to barrerl rols, bumps, water and whatever, it will always be about the AI.

This just proved me that you are completely clueless, and why is people even reading something from you…? escapes me lol.

I hope you realize that in EVERY single racing game there are always newbies, that cant be avoided. The problem is, it wont matter if in the trial you have ALL pro drivers.
You are going to fail, no matter what if the trial is cross country. Period. This wasnt so straight forward in FH4, but in FH5 it is what it is.

Jeezus stop blaming players for being new when its a problem of game mechanics, that are literally copied from FH4.

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Wow, you are seriously grumpy.

Let me rephrase: Of course if it was easier to beat the AI, it would be easier to win the Trial. The AI are quite difficult to beat and they are unfair. I agree.
However, they are beatable by a team that races well, also when the race is cross country.
Two weeks ago it was Cross Country and I was in a team that beat them. And no, I am no pro driver as I stated before.

There are enough people that complain about the AI on this forum. That is one approach.
I take a different approach and try to help people get better and race well cooperatively.
Neither of the two might have a serious effect, but hey… in the end it is only a game anyway.

It was never my intention to blame new players. I was just trying to make a post to help new players. If you read my post carefully you would see that I take the side of the new players against the ‘pro’ players if anything,

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Best chance for a fun and successful Trial co-op experience would occur if the broken AI got fixed. How to fix the AI?

  • Give AI vehicle tires realistic traction. As is now, AI tires have infinite downforce and cornering ability no matter the road or weather conditions.
  • Get rid of the power boosts and related rubber banding that put AI vehicles one or two classes above player-driven vehicles.
  • Have the AI follow non-ideal lines and make mistakes instead of being lined up on the ideal race line like a freight train and running perfect races.
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The more I’ve played since launch, the more my view of the AI has changed so posting this for discussion.

I’m not an expert player with thousands of hours play time, I played FH1,2,3 for a few months after discoving FH1 late, then ~800 hours of FH4 over 3 years mostly in the first 12 months, then not much for the last 2 years, yet I can bolt a few parts onto a car, tweak it a little and then beat ‘unbeatable’ fairly consistently without ramming etc. up until S1, S2 and X class are a bit more sketchy as I don’t have the reflexes. I’ve played this Trail 30+ times as A class in the rain is entertaining and I’ve beaten the AI with the I8, Corvette and I think a Porsche in about half of the races, including 11th, 12th to 1st a couple of times. The AI are fast and consitent, but I can clip corners, run wide etc. to carry speed. The more familiar I get with the track, the easier it gets. Same last week in the Cross Country Trial. I practiced the tracks with rewind to pick the key braking points and was able to beat the AI in 2 of the 3 races.

Often once I cleared the pack (cleanly), (other players usually the biggest issue in not beating the AI) I have to hunt down the AI corner by corner and in the majority of corners I am faster, though I make more mistakes and miss occasional check points. I can see if I make a mistake that I lose time and if I’m taking the fast line I am gaining. It’s not perfect but on an aggregate basis the AI don’t seem to be doing anything special and if you get your car along side the usually bale out.

I really haven’t seen any strong evidence of the ‘rubber banding’ other than if you set a low difficulty, the AI will not let you pull too big a gap. The only thing I’ve experience is some oddities in the Goliath where I came up to the tunnels flat out and suddenly the AI catches up but I was in a stock Porsche GT3 so perhaps the PI is bias a little wrong and the lead AI car had more speed as I was able to gain in most corners. The car models are just skins on an AI opponent that runs at a precalculated speed so the ‘handling and power’ of specific AI cars mostly irrelevant.

Yesterday someone posted about Street Scene @ unbeatable in the stock 2018 Civic. So I tried it and the stock car was terrible, braking for a 90 degree right had to be really early, the car was unstable and I was trying to rotate it around the checkpoint losing most of the momentum. After some changes for handling, I could brake really late pick the point to chuck it in and I gained so much time in the corner I passed the 3rd place car on the exit and hit square in the back of 2nd which I was expecting to be long down the road. The difference was night and day from losing time in the corner to gaining time and the degree of control on my line. The only car changes were weight, handling, brakes, aero. I was then able to beat the ‘unbeatable’.

I think the tyre and suspension changes are significant in that the base cars are now way worse while the AI always has a pretty decent setup for cornering.

I’m sure the game does cheat, but it’s not a much as seems to be posted.

@OP Really need to include car tuning. Unlike in the real world a rental isn’t always fastest.

Edit: To add, one thing I think really helped my game was playing some FM7 against AI. I was very much a chuck it in and sort it out in the corner player but with the low grip in a lot of FM7 I was forced to be more considered.

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Yes it can be done with a convoy. I have done all of them with a friend and 4 randoms.

Same goes for Horizon Tour, but we found some stability issues when entering Horizon Tour with a convoy

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I can add a few tips here:
-Dont RAM the AI. It will answer back and will polute the data of the AI. Thats why the AI is ramming because is learning. If a player rams, some AI will ram too. this is how i know we have players that ram.
-Prepare for the races. Do them in offline or non trial mode. Get comfortable with the tracks.
-Prepare your car. Tuning or download a tune. Try before race. Adapt your car for the wheater conditions and the length of the track. Acceleration vs Speed matters. Twisty tracks need acceleration, grip an cornering. Stright-ish races means speed and some handling.

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'tis but a fairytale.

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in this game ai behaves always aggressive no matter if you clean overtake from left or right they will go out of their perfect line and try to side ram you, there is no learning going on here, for comparison i have offline version of the game that never was connected to the servers and ai behavior is identical
in fact you can clearly see that it’s like a hive mind, because you always start at the rear at least in higher difficulty ai will work together, rear i call traffic at least 4 cars will start fast overtake you then slow down in the corners by double blocking you, by that time front of the pack will pull away from you far enough that you will never catch up, you can see clearly as soon as you overtake 3rd or 4 th car they look like they give up the chase and just chill instantly
when i lose particular race, i come back in rivals and beat ai time of the lead car by 3 seconds at least, so naturally if i wasn’t blocked from the start I’d won the race

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Yes, i felt it also. :slight_smile:
In FH4 if rammers players were present the AI rammed also(theory, my opinion). or maybe there was some random thing.Not sure.
AI had force fields but they were never this hard. Was a good team quality indicator for me.

In FH5 as you and other noticed, doesnt apply anymore. I agree with you, with the observed ai strategy stated above. But this was present if other older forza titles.
Just get in front very fast and somehow they get dumb except sometimes the first AI car, which will try. Dont let them take off. :slight_smile:

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It’s pretty sad when an event that’s meant to be a collective effort of players against AI is easier to complete when you have less human players.

I completed both the Trial this week and last with only myself and one other player against the AI. Any other attempts with more players ended in failure.

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Only when it comes to cross country and some specific dirt races. Something not a single advise can fix even if you are the best driver in the world.

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The Trial is definitely better if you can find a group of people that you regularly drive with to run it as then you know what they are likely to do or not do…of course, it’s harder if you don’t race with anybody regularly (or at all)

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With randoms expect carnage at the first turn. Since Fh5 is new there will be a lot of newbies that will ‘miss’ that first turn. Either be first and out of the range in the turn or stay on the inside but expect to be destroyed. If you see agresive players try to wait till you can clearly overtake. Most of the time they will hit a wall or miss a checkpoint.
You will also see wall riding , ignore it. Nothing fun about it.
The game should have something like a driving school for kids or something and a visible stat related to how well you drive. A reputation system. Bad players should play with bad players.

As other said it’s not about beeing first. It’s about having the most points at the end.

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I guess this is the forum version of ramming your team mate in a corner.
What happened to team effort?
The ‘good’ carry the ‘bad’ and hopefully we all get better.

If you only want ‘good’ players start your own convoy and be all nice and elitist together!

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Team effort when they all try to race properly. Not sitting on start line doing nothing, beeing the last one always or just ramming you by ‘mistake’, because they want to be first.
Btw i always play with randoms because all my friends play other games. Yes, seasonal games, trial and that almost working forzhaton games only.

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You inspired me to add the ‘for your mental health’ section.
I completely understand your frustration, especially if you are one of those drivers who could easily win a trial if it was only you.
But accepting that this is what it is, is the only way to have a (half) decent experience in your case…

Thanks! Changed some of the wording based on your post.

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