First off it’s going to be very difficult to express what I feel I need to get across without cursing or being any kind of belligerent, but I’ll give it my best go. The level of frustration I have with the ‘AI’ in this game is well high. I’m not sure how they’re programmed, but every single pass involves them ramming and attempting to push me off the road. Even when they pass me. WHAT IS THAT? Who thought this was a good idea? And it feels like every difficulty level above expert gives them cheats. I’m spent with nearly every aspect of this game other than the great level of detail that went into the visuals. The sound engine is horribly mixed, the cars feel lazy, and the customization is very lacking. Need for Speed has you absolutely stomped in the customization department. No Window decals, no exhaust tips, not nearly enough body kits, not nearly enough tire options, and really nothing else other than the ability to create our own decals that we can use to really make these vehicles our own. Also seems like someone at Hospital records paid a serious amt of loot in order to get you guys to cram their really undesired music down our throats every chance you get. I can’t start a race or drive past the festival without hearing it. Someone there is either extreme butt buddies with some fools at Hospital, or some of your sound guys are on the label. It’s VERY apparent in the sound design. Severe lack of low end in the game sounds is intentional so this music can take front stage. I am nearly 100% certain of this. This needs to change. I have to set nearly every channel in the audio mixer to 1 and crank the car channel to 10 and tires to 4 just to get remotely close to anything resembling immersive. Even then that isn’t enough. You chose to ruin immersion by allowing the very important exhaust notes and car sounds to play 2nd fiddle to generally undesirable music. Damned shame too considering the driving physics are 2nd to none in this genre. It’s hard for me to stop playing this for that reason alone, but I’m getting closer and closer to doing so. I own every Forza game. Every single one. If the trends I’m seeing in this one continue that will come to an end real fast. Well over 2/3 of the cars aren’t anywhere near accurate in the audio dept. The V8s sound waaaay too thin. Car idle is waaaay too quiet. Next up the clothing in the wheel spins… At what point do you see ANY racer dressing anywhere near as silly as anything you have available here? I would much rather there be a store where ppl can buy this stuff than having it crammed down my throat via wheelspins where I wouldn’t mind winning more than $2000 8 out of 10 spins. Super wheelspin awarded me 3 clothing items I have 0 interest in a bit ago. Haven’t had that happen since launch 'n that’s what made me make this post. A super wheelspin I spent my hard earned Forzathon Points on awarded me with nothing but the worst cheese ball clothing that I couldn’t care less about. Appreciate it. The solo racing is very frustrating for the reasons I mentioned above. Just once I’d like to get around the track without some AI drivatar jerk hitting me, or attempting to push me off the road, or using cheats to stay well outta my reach. Had that happen in my last race before I made this post as well. Expert difficulty level. That’d be fantastic. Idk how much you know about racing, but that kind of behavior is generally frowned on quite a bit. I will say that the drifting is quite fun tho so well done in that area. The rest is just driving me absolutely nuts. I hope that many of the issues I’ve mentioned are being worked on else you’re going to lose a very loyal customer.
The customization has always been a bit lackluster. This entry is actually the best it’s been in the series. And it introduced an improvement after launch.
And perhaps it’s because I’ve more than one or two racing games in my life, but when AI gets aggressive with me I have no problem getting aggressive right back.
Whomever is responsible for the AI in this game should be fired.
I’m not kidding, I’m not angry, this is the worst AI I have ever played against in my life, and I’ve been racing games almost 25 years now.
It’s like they decided to mix racing with a destruction derby. It’s complete garbage that no actual racing fan wants.
If the real racers and players get fed up with the game, the casuals follow. Casuals are sheep.
This game has most likely already lost customers for FH5, between horrible AI and basically nothing online, I LITERALLY CANNOT RACE.
I also have my sound at 1 for everything, tires at 4 and engine at 10. But if I happen to find a car that really sounds good (pretty rare compared to FH3) I have to turn the radio off and avoid the festival area.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I was right with GT5 and GT6 and GTS, and now somehow, these guys seem to think they should start following a lot of GT’s mistakes?
Bad AI, bad sound, unfinished/not working functions throughout the entire game…
I’m incredibly disappointed. The cars and graphics are great, but that only holds up for so long.
Don’t believe me? Check out Gran Turismo and their reduction in sales despite dominating the console war this time.
PGR was worse. Some of the NfS games were worse. Ridge Racer 6 was worse. The Crew and its sequel are worse. That’s off the top of my head. I’m sure I could name more if I had a mind palace instead of a mind junkyard.
As for “cheating” by being fast, that might be pricks like me with uber-builds. I always race unbeatable and don’t typically have a hard time catching them, so long as I can get through the destruction derby that is called “racing” throughout FH4.
Also the huge jumps in cross country where you have a 50/50 shot at crashing. I like these different types of racing, but having 5 huge jumps where you will crash on at least one is like super-arcade. I feel like someone that enjoys this, probably doesn’t even like cars or racing at all.
And the sound is about the mix. I want to hear BOTH, my car AND the music, and while technically I can, the car is mostly drowned out by the music even with music at 1 and the car at 10.
I guess maybe they decided the game shouldn’t be so much about cars and trucks and racing as it should be about being a bored kid smashing stuff around.
The shame is FH3 had a pretty good mix, and that’s what I loved about it. I could race when I wanted, and I could act like a kid if I wanted. Now it’s mostly just goofing off.
I’ve played most every NFS game ever made before 2015, and unless I’m having a serious memory lapse, it was never the case that AI would just ram into the side of me just because we were side-by-side.
Just driving in a straight line, next to each other, Bam! It’s time for the destruction derby bruh! War with cars.
I agree, AI is really bad in this game but it’s not worst that i have seen. But i really hate how mutch AI drivers love to rams in this game.
Forza’s AI has never been amazing, but it took a nosedive when they introduced the drivatar system in FM5. The idea was that each specific racer would mimic the driving style of a real player.
As you can see, this hasn’t worked out all that well. In online play a lot of players drive like they’re in a destruction derby, so their drivatars will drive that way as well. New players often learn to drive by watching other racers (AI or otherwise) and you get a vicious cycle of terrible driving. Add the bugs in the AI (runaway uncatchable drivatars in some races, oblivious AI racers that follow the racing line like they’re on rails regardless of other vehicles) and rampant cheating at higher difficulty levels and you get pretty terrible AI racers that are annoying to race against.
My solution is to use an OP tune with AWD and power to blow past them at the start so they’ll be behind me for the rest of the race. For the runaway drivatars, I’ll ram them on a tight corner at the end of a long straight, using rewind as necessary to make sure I end up in front after the collision (and hopefully spin them around so they’re facing the wrong way or get them stuck on the wall). It’s dirty, but until they fix the AI (or add a penalty system) I have no regrets.
For the other points, I do also feel like this game is lacking in a lot of areas. It’s by no means a bad game and is still the best open-world racer on the market, but there’s a lot of obvious (to me at least) cut corners and a distinct lack of overall polish compared to many of the earlier Forza games.
I’ve a serious thought about the AI. Due to the AI’s behavior in races and that collision is imminent, it is because of the AI that Horizon online players tend to play demolition derby in multiplayer. If the AI’s were clean and not have cheat mode or super speed, offline races doesn’t need that pushing and shoving off, cutting corners or braking late. People take that habit in online and the results speak for themselves.
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I often times race with expert or above level drivatars. Expert is a challenge for my level and if I race anywhere from new racer to pro I can lap them 10 to 20 seconds on most races. Everyone has a different skill level, a different craving for challenge, and different preferences in general. Higher difficulty drivatars cheat, you say? Drop it down to new racer and I guarantee you can smoke them on the track.
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“Drivatars” aren’t just AI. They are AI. That is, AI that takes into account tiny influences in real player’s racing styles. From what I’ve seen since this system came out in Horizon 2, T10’s word on the Drivatar system does stand true. Some of my Xbox friends’ drivatars take corners better than others. And I’ve raced all of them online before. Surely enough, those friends that I see know how to take corners well… their drivatars take corners just as well, too, lol. If you want to stay ahead of drivatars at expert difficulty or higher, get a good tune and race more. Practice makes perfect, and good tunes sure to ease some of the requirement for racing skill.
Yes, I know that’s two smiley faces so far.
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Lack of customization is particularly not one of my big pet peeves. I would like to see some more customization options, but I don’t see it as a necessity. Horizon is meant to be more casually playable for those who don’t want to race in Motorsport, so I know what audience the “want” is coming from. I’m included in that crowd, but I’m way in the back and not even chanting. Not a big issue for me. However I have been wondering where the LB kit is for my 458… nonchalant whistling.
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Don’t listen, then. I understand people might not want the radio on while racing, but if you don’t like the music then don’t listen to it. Personally, I think I’ve forced myself to psychologically ignore the background music while driving near or within festivals. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know. But as far as the desirability of the music styles go… how can you say that? There’s been a wide variety of music styles since FH1… and might I say even as far back as FM2. If you want to play different music, run it through Groove or download the VLC app and run it in the background. And as for the “generally undesirable” context, I never really cared for most of the music in the Horizon series. But I have to admit, there have been more than a few songs I’ve downloaded and listen to quite often. Anyone remember Chromeo or Ladyhawke?
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I for one, don’t much appreciate the avatar system much, either. It’s not useless but it does add the versatility for many, many more Horizon memes. Ever since I first started the game, I didn’t think of the clothing rewards in wheelspins as completely negative. As a matter of fact, for the time being I think of them the complete opposite. I’ve been purposely buying super wheelspins with Forzathon points so I can get all of the clohing, quickchat messages, and dances. You wanna know why? Because if you grab up all of them, (presumably) they’ll no longer show up in wheelspins and then you can move on to complaining about the 2,000 CR spins.
Yep, that’s three.
- You’re welcome to abandon the franchise, but I’m going to remain loyal to Forza for now because it’s basically the only game series I really have ever played since FM2 in 2007. All of the other racing games I’ve played seemed to suck compared to Forza. Except for Mario Kart 64… that’s almost up to par with Forza. Almost…
There you go. Four text smiley faces. Lighten up, man. These games have their pros and cons, as does every other racing game. I don’t think one game will ever get everything “right”, let alone fulfill the wants of every player.
It’s not about that. The ability to disable music completely is gone. Streamer mode has to be turned on every time yet I still have to hear this crap at the festivals.
Man, I’m disappointed that FH4 didn’t feature any new tracks from Chromeo’s newest album that came out last year, FH2 did that with their previous album. I’ll also vouch for Hospital being a great series staple after already recognizing some of the artists they had in FH2. Also should have brought back Porter Robinson but I guess the developer’s preferences change over time.
Looks like the TC has been a life long fan since 24th Oct 2018.
You hate this game, you love drive club. We get it, there’s no need to write an essay on a message board. Just move on and go back to playing what you enjoy.
Once they add solo mp, I don’t think I’ll have a worthwhile complaint about the game.
Whoa now, let’s not get hasty. I can think of a few more things than that lol. At least give me OFFLINE custom adventure so I dont have to waste 30 minutes declining groups to get the race type I want.
I like all the race types in horizon, so I’m good thanks.
And I like all of the car types, so I’m not satisfied with the current online adventure which excludes everything below A class completely, and renders everything but awd vehicles capable of going off road almost completely useless. I’m fine with cycling the race types, but you really only need a tuned awd offroader of each class at this point
You like one race type with different classes. The race type being tarmac tracks. Turn 10 make a game to suit your needs. Why are you playing this?
I second that. It’d be another functional change. I’ve been wondering why the class minimum is set to A-class… and it only goes from A-class to S2/998… why?
I’d like to race some B or even C-class offroad because typical AWD setups suffer greatly, especially in those lower classes. And it’s within those lower classes where RWD rally and offroad racers shine. The overwhelming power in S1/900 offroad cars isn’t there to take away from the maneuverability, and top speed and overall acceleration can’t reach terribly absurd rates. And since those race types focus mainly on non-asphalt surfaces, there’s more strategy and skill needed rather than speed. I’ve yet to be overtaken by numerous cars in online C-class circuits in FH3, unlike how I’m often passed by a large chunk of the players in session on the straightaways.
And I’d also like to think ramming would become less common in those lower class lobbies, especially C/600 and D/500, because the top speed and insane acceleration isn’t there. Therefore, it’s easier to recover from the bombardment of opponents trapping you in the pileup into turn one, the normal situation for A-class races and higher.
There’s every need to write an essay with so many things wrong with this game. Forza has always been a buy at pre-order for me. I did the same with this one. I don’t love Drive Club either. I only used that as a reference point to get the ‘feel’ of fast cars right. Just cos last year is the first time I decided to start using these boards don’t mean I don’t own every Forza game made. Once they fix the audio engine, and give us the ability to put decals on teh windows I won’t have a complaint either really. The AI bugs me, but it’s not really game breaking. I have a problem with them pouring so much into the visuals but killing the immersion with crappy audio.
Ya just living the Horizon Life. The AI’s are just training you for online combat. The Warthog has become my favorite all around A class vehicle. The Mog is a beauty, but a little sluggish, love it in offroad though. But the Warthog is a beast, hard to wreck and drives fairly decently.
For the event races that require specific cars you just need to tune them for defensive combat strategy.
Drivatars were introduced in FM5. In that game as you played, you would be notified as your Drivatar became fully synced to your driving style. I don’t believe that system is still in place.
I have friends who are terrible at this game, friends who have hardly played, and friends who are good drivers. From my experience there is no rhyme or reason to how the drivatars perform if you consider the real world person who that Drivatar represents. Vast majority of the time the drivatars who begin near the front will be the top dogs.
Personally I don’t find the drivatars bad at all in terms of ramming when I am playing solo. It’s only in online co-op that I have problems and that is due to lag.