I know, I know. Controversial title. But please, hear me out.
Forza Horizon games should not have progression. That’s not what these games are. They used to be like that, but not anymore. And that’s a good thing. There is a huge audience of people who don’t want a grindy game with no WS and 1k per race. Not everyone enjoys that. Not everyone has time to grind for 6 hrs per day to get the 80,000 CR Corvette that they want. This way, it’s more open to everyone. If you want to start with mediocre cars and work up to Ferraris and McLarens, you can do that. Just don’t spin your wheelspins and remove cars you don’t want. Plus, I feel like a grindy game where you have to spend hours to earn anything isn’t what Horizon is about. Horizon is about fun and freedom. And that’s part of why I love these games. If I do a few races or a Forzathon, I can easily get the 1,000,000 CR Pagani I want.
Anyways, that’s why I think Forza Horizon should not have progression like some people want. This is an arcade-style racing game. Save the grindy progression for FM.
EDIT: As many misunderstood, I want to say that I don’t think FH is grindy now, I think it isn’t and should stay that way, despite what the majority of people think.
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You want the game to be the worst game in the world? OK.
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I still don’t understand where the game is grindy…
I have all cars, I only need play once a week 2 hours for that, the ingame money just addup every week and is totaly useless.
btw. I barly bought cars in the autoshow, every single car is available at somepoint in the weekly playlist…
IMHO there is no grind anywhere in FH5
just for info I played a lot elite dangerous I know what real grind is…
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Not everybody likes the super grindy sim racer. Some of us like more casual games
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I just gifted at least 6 McLaren’s, an Aston and a Saleen and only gave away a Zonda R, a couple of Trans-Am FE’s and a Carrera GT amongst others. It’s not massively grindy and in my opinion its not up to the game to make time for people who unfortunately do not have it. 
(You get the fastest car in the game for free and can set it to guaranteed story completion btw.)
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It’s not really a big thing for me, but I do think we’re already at a point where there is no grind. It is very, very easy to get most of the cars with minimal playtime.
Sometimes I think the people who complain about money in this game are the same people buying out stock cars for more than they are worth in the autoshow. People seem to be very dumb with their credits.
A part of me does wish for a harder grind, not because I enjoy the grind, but because when cars are harder to get, it makes the ones you do get more special. Like I said before though, not a big deal for me. Certainly not something I’m going to kick up a fuss about, just adding my 2 cents to the topic.
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It isn’t grindy 1 bit but there’s so little depth to anything in the series now.
Something for more serious players to get their teeth into would have no ill effect on any part of the player base as long as exclusives weren’t tied to it.
Maybe I’m just weird but even as a young kid playing GT3 my favourite events were not the short and easy Sunday Cup or Like The Wind where I could use the Escudo speed glitch to fly around the Test Course, it was the 5/7/10 race championships when I could get really invested in the races and the experience wasn’t over in the blink of an eye.
Personally I wish the progression to HOF in 5 wasn’t so easy, I don’t think many will argue against the poor quality of the average Trial teammate, I think part of that is down to the fact you can do practically zero racing yet reach HOF then go and jump straight in the Trial vs the hardest difficulty AI + on courses you’ve probably never driven 1 single time.
When I first seen HOF was required for the Trial I really liked the idea but that was in theory, the way it’s actually implemented it may as well not be there because it makes so little difference.
For progression as a whole I don’t know to be honest, I’d like more to be asked of the player personally but at the same time I know how ridiculous + obnoxious live service games can get once they start demanding more of people’s time, FH doesn’t ask enough time or skill in my opinion but too little is certainly a lot better than too much.
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You want to remove any sense of progression and just have the entire game open to you from the get go and games have NEVER been about that. You need some form of structure and progression to keep gamers engaged. I know it sucks not being able to enjoy content when life is busy, but it’s such an incredibly niche requirement. What you’re asking is pretty much the antithesis of gaming and how it works.
I strongly disagree that it is grindy, the weekly events give you a TON of unlocks, wheelspins, and cars, and they take about 30mins, an hour tops. If an hour/week is still too much “grind” for you then it just seems like you don’t have time for games at all.
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For me the lack of cups and structure that it brings is the biggest thing I miss from this game. It’s hard to accept that FH5 is the pinnacle of casual gaming, because they put so much effort into the cars and the experience, you kind of just expect the whole thing that other racing games offer. But ya, they are fully an open world casual racing experience.
I’m hoping an EL expansion happens at some point and they let you build structured cups. That’d be amazing.
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Sometimes I wonder if I’ve banged the drum loud enough for the return of custom championships.
Not criticising you, just seeing your post makes me think I haven’t.
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lol yeah it definitely feels like a subject that is dear to a LOT of gamers. TBH even with the way FH rolls, it’s a weird omission. Games thrive with structure and the reward feedback loop - constant progression and achievement with a prize. Building out cups with a progression system that is only tied to that would be enough, and the rewards can be something as simple as an XP boost at the end.
Building from that into a curated experience, where popular cups can be checked by a dev side team to make sure they’re legit can then be given a “PGC certified” badge, and a “real” reward can be added, say a car or credits or just a wheelspin.
But I think we’re far away from it, IF it ever happened. What would be great going forward would be a more dynamic track editor (start from anywhere so we can build reverse tracks) and the general expansion to Eventlabs. But it really needs a curator team. All custom content in games is in need of a curation and a certifying system so people can filter out blueprints that are built to be objective-hitters.
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I mean just 2 words of that post would add so much more to the game and surely it can’t be that complicated to add in, reverse tracks.
We’re doing the Colossus as 1 of the tracks for the Rivals challenge on here this week, some sections of it are just several of the sprints in the opposite direction and yet it makes them feel like completely different courses.
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I like the idea of reverse tracks. Most racing games have it, Motorsport series included IIRC.
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This is what I would do…
Remove weekly seasonal playlists.
Add new 3 month long season. Each season you start at level 1 and progress to level 100. You progress by gaining experience by playing the game. That is you can progress by doing whatever you like. As you progress you gain points which you can spend on rewards. Every 10 levels you gain unlocks a new set of rewards which you can spend your points on. There are good rewards scattered throughout the levels but there’s always ultimate rewards at level 100 which everyone wants such as a car horn or new tee.
Each week there are new optional content added that offer bonus experience and points, something akin to the current chore list. But players can ultimately ignore this chore list without missing out on rewards.
If you like the sound of this new progression/level/award system then basically what I have explained to you is the system used in Fortnite. GG.
Unlike some of the others, I do think Horizon 5 has more of a grind than previous games, but I can concede that the grind is really dependent on how you play. For instance, I want to be the original owner of all my vehicles, so naturally, its going to take some time to get the Ferrari 250 GT California with an 18.5 million credit price tag.
However, I genuinely feel like a proper progression system would actually remove whatever grind Horizon 5 has left. For instance, in the first Horizon, you were rewarded with credits often, and the amount of credits earned only increased as you moved further up the game. As a result, you could drive a hypercar early on, but you just couldn’t use it in events yet. I also feel like a progression system like this would actually improve the driving skills of most of the casual players too since way to may of them jump into the hypercars so soon and they rely on assistants that are honestly more debilitating than helpful.
If your thoughts around a progression system are tailored to teaching people how to drive then the best solution here is to add optional tutorials that new players can do to learn how to drive.
The lack of progression is the biggest thing holding FH back. What the heck are you smoking?
The problem with FH5 is it’s nothing but a mindless dopamine rush of bright colors, stupid wacky events, and millions of credits and high-end cars being thrown at you left and right, it’s precisely curated for little kids.
Is it really that terrible that you need to spend a handful of hours in a Mk1 Golf or NA Miata before getting to gradually more expensive and faster cars?
You clearly know nothing about game design since you attribute progression to mindless grinding when there can be a balance, and it’s funny you used an 80k credit car as an example; 80k credits is less than worthless in Forza’s end-game
If anything, the FH campaign itself is grindy. Random, unconnected events that you just do whenever. It’s a slog to get through when the game goes “here do whatever you want however you want” It’s just busywork that nets you even MORE rewards.
I want a somewhat linear start-to-finish campaign with decent progression, tiny bit of grinding, and enjoyable enough to replay. I never see anyone talking about replaying through FH5 or FH4 because their is NOTHING to replay, it’s the same crap over and over again. God, I want a campaign good enough to have an NG+ feature implemented.
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Given this game has been out for nearly 6 months now I would focus more on end game multiplayer content such as new game modes similar to the Eliminator but better.
In terms of a campaign, I would reintroduce stories from FH4 and come up with some interconnected meaningful story where you start out in a basic car and as you progress you can unlock new cars that you can use within the story. Meanwhile retaining the benefits from FH4 stories where completing them resulted in weekly income of credits. If you 3 star the stories you get more weekly credits then 1 staring them. Which then leads into the story being replayable to some extent.
They could deliver on both of these in the first expansion. Give the people want they want but make them pay for it. Maybe even split the game into 2, story mode and online and sell them separately like many other games do.
I think your partially misunderstood my post. I’m not saying it is grindy, I’m saying it ISN’T and it should stay that way, despite the popular opinion saying otherwise. I’ll edit my post to clarify.
Honestly, you’re kinda darned if you do, darned if you don’t in this case. You have casual gamers and people who don’t have a lot of time to play who prefer the current strategy, and veterans who want the series to go back to it’s roots, when you had to work for days to get the 3 million CR car that you want. I think the best way to do this is having two game paths: One is the way it is now, starts you with great cars, has WS, really easy to get CR. And then a second path that gives you crappy cars to start, and you have to really work for it to get anything better. Basically the only way to satisfy the community as a whole.