Sure, it’s not the most serious of racers on the planet, but with a fairly competent physics engine and upgrade system; the single player feels surprisingly thoughtless with very little in the way of strategy or consequence. Why upgrade my cars if the AI just level to me anyway? What am I actually buying cars for? Where’s the incentive for actually winning a race and why can’t I see if I’ve actually achieved a decent position on that race before? How can I see improvement in not only my own skill but the cars I’ve bought upgraded? The race is marked as gold or ‘done’ even with a lousy finishing position. So that’s the goal, churn through races until you hit an XP level?
I mean, if the end goal was to be just a game about driving for the hell of it and collecting cars, then mission accomplished I guess.
Yeah, I don’t see myself doing SP races at all outside a head-to-head once in a while, especially since I have enough dough to buy literally anything I want ten times over.
In other words, it has already turned into a cruise game for me even though I’m nowhere near “completing” the races. Pretty sad for a racing game, really.
Forza as a series has always been primarily a sandbox of races to take at your own pace and desire while unlocking cars along the way. What were you expecting?
Indeed. There is also zero direction in the single player, as opposed to having to choose the next roadtrip location in 2, and being offered new events based on level and popularity level in 1. We have the fans and festival upgrade systems, but those max out well before we’ve done most of the events.
And to top it off, there is absolutely no incentive to win races in this title, as nothing is required of us as the boss.
You’ve got a point cause I find myself at first trying to figure out the progression of races and what to do next. At least in FH2 you knew you were in the middle of a championship by looking for the remainder of the four events clearly marked out on the map. But with just one city and topographical racing regions, we have here a game layout very similar to the first Forza Horizon set in Colorado where the map is littered with race locations buttons and other events. I guess that’s the reason the studio released FH to Xbox One just before this game was released - so that we can get reacquainted to the old but new format. I can’t wait to see what the expansion pack brings and how it will affect the map!
UM the incentive is to level up, collect all the cars and complete the game. There’s plenty of drive to do this if you decided to do the races before you upgraded everything. That’s pretty much the sole reason I didn’t do much online because you were finishing everything way too soon or doing odds and ends stuff.
For me it’s the complete opposite of 2. I HATED how you had to do constant road trips and pretty much had no control. Now I can do whatever I want, whenever I see fit. This game drives me a lot more to complete everything.
I only play this game single player and some of the tracks I really could do without (namely some of the offroad courses), but I have to agree with what others have said. it seems this game has gone the route of participation is good enough and who cares what place you finish.
for the past few days I have done absolutely nothing to try to be competitive in races. I have only selected skill HE cars and concentrated on maxing out my skill bonus every race. I gained over 100 levels in about 6 hours of playtime (using the skill perk as well) and finished 12th or 11th in almost every “race”
that being said, the game is still insanely fun with all the different ways to accumulate skill points, and once you get the “i have to win at all costs” mindset gone, its quite enjoyable.
Nothing’s really wrong with this. People complained in every motorsport game that the player was rail-roaded into driving cars that they did not want in order to complete the game.
Forza Horizon 3 is essentially the sandbox Horizon. You unlock more content to play with as you go, but still need to make money to buy what you want.
Earn fans with each race to unlock the next festival upgrade, which gives you more events. Max out the whole map and you will have events for days on end. Then there is Horizon Blueprint, where you can set your own standards for the race.
What’s different here from the last horizon is that you set your own pacing.
Nothing to complain about here. We got exactly what we asked for. If you want to continue upgrading your car (which you ultimately have to do unless you plan on just using faster stock cars to pass the traps and win multiplayer competition) then you can and are encouraged to do it.
Seriously, is there a point to this thread rather than pointing out what the marketing for this game has thrown in your faces since day one? It’s your festival. Do with it what you will. Or if you are going to sit and whine about the fact that there isn’t enough limits (seriously?) then you can do that, too.
=> I most definitely LOVE it that way! I want to have the freedom to drive and race bare bone stock cars! I don’t want to be forced EVER AGAIN to upgrade cars like in FM6!!!
=> This I agree on. I’ve been doing races with all assists off on unbeatable difficulty since that rewards me the best credits over time and it’s very relaxing, but also dull. The HE cars also make the game dull since the most efficient cars to drive in are the credits and XP HE cars, all the other 350+ cars are inefficient.
It’s up to you to set your own motivations. If your motivation is for challenging races, you set your difficulty appropriately. If your motivation is money and ‘efficiency’ as you put it, absolutely, set to the highest difficulty with HE cars. Nobody is responsible but yourself for how you experience the game.
You level up all the festivals fairly quickly without any real thought, strategy or skill. Buying different cars or tuning the ones you have is completely unnecessary from a strategic/gameplay perspective. Hell, making your cars faster just seems to make the game harder. Want an easier race? Pick a low powered car that handles well. Increase the power of a RWD car and you’re just giving the edge to the AI and their superhuman ability to apply the power out of a bend. After the credits roll, you’re left with a stack of races whereby your finishing position means next to nothing (I’m fairly sure finishing in 4th gives you the same credits/xp as last) and you can’t apply your own criteria as the game doesn’t record your best position or set any kind of benchmark as being ‘done’ aside from simply turning up on the start line. There’s almost zero ways for the player to see their skill progress. A pretty fundamental part of gaming. How is the player supposed to set their own motivations? My motivation was going to be, finish all races with gold/top 3. Can’t do that. The player is rolling in money almost from the get-go, so the incentive to win is even less.
Games usually either go one of two ways. Keep everything consistent and make progress skill based. Or, let the player build and upgrade their ‘character’ to become more powerful and give them that power-trip of smashing what once was tough opposition. FH gives you neither of these things. At least not in SP.
RIVALS. RIVALS. RIVALS. Pit yourself against the best time of another player, beat them, and then move up to a faster player.
Also, I’m inclined to suggest you almost contradict yourself. Why bother tuning your cars if its harder to drive, yet you also say there is no challenge? Why not challenge yourself to be able to drive the tuned, more difficult cars?
Picking a slower car is easier to race? GREAT! People who are struggling can still play the game. They don’t need to pander to only the players who want an extreme challenge. How hard is it for you to decide you will drop a V12 in a vintage car with tiny tires and take on the challenge of keeping it under control? Do you REALLY need the game to be proud of you to feel validated? You CAN set the goal, to finish in the Top 3, you are capable of noticing if you are in the Top 3 when you finish the race. I agree that everything being recorded as gold is a little tragic, but I fail to see why its so hard for you to set your own goal that the game doesn’t give you, and why the game being able to played by people less hardcore than you is such a bad thing.
I have to say that I was also surprised by this one. I would have expect that we should finish in the first 3 positions, in order to have the exhibition/championship completed (marked as gold on the map).
I like the “sandboxiness” of Forza Horizon 3’s Single Player; I can choose to play however I want and not be forced to drive cars I don’t enjoy like in Forza Motorsport 6.
Nobody is every satisfied. This game is too rigid! This game is too open! Appeal to the casual or the hardcore, either way someone is going to be upset that they weren’t the most important.
You have missed out on a HUGE but under-marketed part of the game. Go to ANY event, any one you want, and select RIVALS. It gives you a person’s time to beat (the first one is usually an easy benchmark). Your next one is always faster than you and you have to work, tune, change, improve, in order to beat them. This is EXACTLY what you have just described and its been around since Forza 5.
So don’t use them! You can’t complain about a game being boring and uninteresting if your mission is to be efficient. You found a strategy to complete something as quickly as possible and then were upset it didn’t take you long enough?
This ^ However I’d also like to point out that games of often criticized for holding your hand and making you do things.