I know it might sound wild but i think horizon needs this in order to brake a little bit the staleness of the racing experience.
The handling in horizon while remaining very forza like has become a lot more understeery. Like a properly tuned car going into a corner sometimes will feel like a brick that weights a 1000 tons. If anyone has played the rally expansion you would probably know what understeer feels like. And as a user Runoff1999 has mentioned on multiple occasions forza isnt very good at 90 degrees cornering. I could argue its not very good when it comes to a map thats designed to be a little more technical. Ive played a WRC game recently and im convinced these games or a Dirt game for that matter is significantly better not only at rallying but at dealing with more technical roads design. By being more understeer prone i think its become a lot safer as well.
I’d like to draw a comparison between the last 2 horizon games.
In horizon 4 the handling felt a lot more slidy and less forgiving. In horizon 5 its a lot more forgiving and stable. Safer and cleaner driving belongs more in motorsport than it does in horizon. And since they introduced the handling improvements in motorsport i would hope that for the next horizon game they don’t go too crazy with it.
Comparing say online racing in horizon 4 vs 5. Its gone a lot more safe. A lot more cleaner. But thats just both a great thing and a bad thing. I know a looot of players complain about rammers in online but i think we need that uncertainty in the racing to some degree. Im not saying don’t punish rammers. Im just saying for an arcade racer as horizon is, we need a little bit of excitement and chaos.
I know a lot of players avoided online racing in horizon 4 because it was a lot more chaotic, especially in the begining when the game didn’t have the ghosting system or wall collution penalty. But i can see the players now complaining that they dont want to do online racing because of rammers which is an issue but its definitely being exaggerated beyond the ordinary. Or some even suggest that they want to be fully ghosted which to me just seems to defeat the entire purpose of competition. And its going to become not just safer racing but ridiculously more boring as well.
There is a reason why forza motorsport needs to promote safer and cleaner racing. Because usually you’d be on an actual REAL racetrack, taking the most optimal racing line, being able to hit the correct braking points, trying to hit the fastest lap time and all. And i understand punishing reckless driving there because it is literally motorsport. But Horizon actually needs reckless driving to a reasonable degree of course. And it does need to punish rammers but at the same time it shouldn’t strike for the safest and most stale experience ever.
For example traffic in street races. I know it may annoy many but it brings some chaos to the ordinary racing that the game definitely needs. Whatever they do with the handling model, they better be careful as to not sacrifise fun for even more safety.
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I agree with most of this. I’m not a fan of Open rules or the “don’t touch me” attitude of a lot of players, which actually goes both ways, because I get apology messages from players hitting me. like it’s a fake street race in Mexico, don’t worry. I like traffic, I like seasonal differences in the same race (water levels particularly)
I guess the one thing I’ll say is, the stock pi experience is very understeery, but you can tune your way around that with most of the cars in the game. very few are meta, very few are useless.
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another thing - they’ve got so many people terrified of being banned for incidental contact. I have yet to hear of such an incident though.
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Not what I expected from the title. Personally, as someone who does a lot of Rally Adventure Open (plenty of tight corners for people to ram), FH5 has done a very good job with keeping the chaos in check, which in my eyes is a good thing. Ghosting for the first 30 seconds was a brilliant move and prevents somebody doing a Hungary 2021 Bottas move and taking out a bunch of other people. That isn’t fun. Neither is having someone bump into you into the first corner, spinning your car around. Wall penalties are a good idea in theory but they do have their flaws, as people can easily push you into a wall and get you a penalty while they go unpunished.
Unfortunately, FH5 can’t stop all of it, and stuff like this still occasionally happens.
To me, a bunch of early wrecks and being spun around and hit is not my idea of a fun or exciting race. Maybe it’s just me. But I don’t need constant chaos to make races exciting. My idea of an exciting race is lots of overtakes, close driving, and a thrilling battle for the lead (or any position for that matter) all the way to the end. But do it cleanly. I think FH5 has done its best to promote that, at least on the Rally map where I do most of my online.
But hey, if you really want chaos, just race the AI! They love to swerve around and ram people, causing huge accidents! Especially in Tour and Trials.
I don’t find FH5 particularly understeery, especially compared to the other games I play. FH5 does have a lot of understeer tuned into cars by default when fully upgraded, but so does PC2 and Dirt Rally 2.0. WRC generations has kind of laughable physics outside of the Rally 1 and Rally 2 restrictions, but those cars all have a short wheelbase and aggressive torque vectoring IRL. Hard to make those cars understeer unintentionally.
What you might be feeling is the anti-spinout hidden assist in FH5. It’s very difficult to have a legitimate spinout in FH5, which can make cars feel way more stable than they should be.
There is also the fact that static friction is too strong and kinetic friction is too weak in the Horizon franchise, which makes grip racing ideal even in situations where it shouldn’t be, like loose surface racing. Grip racing is always going to feel more understeery vs drift racing, and drift racing is (correctly) more ideal for loose surface racing in a game like Dirt Rally 2.0.
I’m all for making the physics in FH more realistic at the end of the day, so while I might disagree with the details, I agree with the broad strokes point of this post.
Side note: while you should be aggressively bashing out the understeer in FH5 and PC2, you actually do want at least some understeer in your cars for a proper rally game. That’ll allow you to accelerate properly out of a corner exit while adding stability to the car, and once you master corner entry for loose surface drift racing, maintain more power through the corner with less risk of a spinout.
I don’t agree with the “understeery” feeling. There is definitely some cars that have inherent understeer tendencies. The Datsun 510 is a car that seems to have a ton of understeer baked into especially with the wide body kit. I have been able to tune that out.
As for racing online. I can get my elbows out when I need to. I tend to race people clean and when it gets “chippy” I can give it back and chalk it up to hard racing. There is definitely some people that don’t know the difference between some incidental rubbing and out right ramming.
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Starting line ghosting is fine. Ive never objected to it. But full ghosting the entire race? Isnt that restricting the competitve and fun side of racing just because a player want to feel safe. Its ridiculous. Whats is it left to racing when you effectively leave the physical aspect of having cars on the track out of the equation? Because thats what im arguing there.
Collusion system punishes you for say hitting a wall and not only by ghosting you but slowing you down soo much. A lot of the times there arent even cars around. Like you wont even hit anyone but the game decides you will get slowed forever. It makes no sense at all.
If you really think that online racing is sooo bad right now because thats how the average experience is. Then what was it then in horizon 4? I say its 1000 times safer in horizon 5. And its probably the safest its ever been. Yet players still find reasons to say online bad because someone rammed them therefore online racing is terrible and we shouldn’t play it. There is a problem with rammers but its light years away from how it was in Horizon 4.
You just have to anticipate that there will be unsportsmanlike behavior. Sure it should be punished but that doesnt mean the game has to lock up any possibility out there for it to even occur.
You dont really need 10 layers of safety hats. More than anything the racing has to be fun and exciting. And too much safety isnt actually fun. Its restricting it. And more than anything horizon right now needs to be exciting and not stale and safer.
Very well said. There’s a big difference between a bit of contact while racing closely vs Hungary 2021 Valtteri Bottas bowling.
The game doesn’t ghost you for the whole race, at least not on RA. Just the first 30 seconds.
The reason racing is “safe” in this game is because there will always be people out to ruin the experience. It’s better to prevent that and have safer racing than to open it up to complete chaos and ramfests for the sake of excitement.