Great Scott!
At least I’m not the only one that’s noticed the increased difficulty in the AI Drivetars,
Ive been trying to get the lotus elease V8 all week, And no mater what car I use or what tune I use Be it mine or somebody else’s, The tunes on the AI cars are just that much better, I’m lucky if I can just keep up with the pack leaders even on the straightaways, Let alone the curves where its like there on rails no mater how fast there going,
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Get someone to run it in co-op with you
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Not fun. I forgot what I used for that race. I will have to look back and see.
I don’t really get your point. How is single player racing dying in FH? The trial is the only event that forces multiplayer that’s recurring every week. You don’t really have to do the other one or two multiplayer events that sometimes show you in the seasonal playlist. With enough friends you can play them without random players joining.
Most importantly, no one forces pvp racing. Thank god because I hate it. When it comes up in a weekly playlist that’s just a few points. It’s completely optional.
We used to have unlimited single player endgame in the form of custom championships. Now single player endgame is less powerful, less flexible, and dripfed through the playlist only.
Most single player and especially convoy only activities involve too much menu and loading time for the time spent racing. It’s tedious and completely unnecessary, made all the more frustrating because the franchise had a perfect solution and it was removed for no reason whatsoever.
Also do you know how difficult it is to gather 12 and only 12 people together? Even in a populated and active online community that can be like herding cats. Never mind the fact that the convoy system is held together by spit and string and regularly boots people from large groups just because it was feeling moody or whatever.
And I’m only pointing out the surface level stuff. You go and play FH3 right now and one of the things you’ll notice is how much more active and involved just driving around the open world is. It’s a lot of subtle differences that add up to a lot. The experience in FH5 is compromised (even in solo mode) in order to funnel us all into a puddle deep online only multiplayer hellscape.
Yes, we don’t have to play it, but looking at the trend of the franchise, it’s clear that single player and convoy only options were compromised or sacrificed in order to push online and playlist engagement. I like the playlist, I like the subtle push to get me out of my comfort zone and trying new things. But it should have been added alongside what already existed, not replace it. It’s a very poor substitute for racing endgame.
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Same trend that (imo) ruined so many classic FPS single player campaigns such as COD. It’s nice to have it available if you want it, but fortunately within FH5, it’s not the only option. For many, I think the total amount of available content for other activities is what ultimately allows it to survive, but it’s clearly on the backside of the bell curve overall.
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I was more referring specifically about the experience just freeroam driving in FH3’s world, which is active and involved, vs FH5’s, which is vapid and desolate, but your example works here too.
Chasing trends can often “sour the milk” of a franchise. I like multiplayer games. But I like them when they were built from the ground up to be multiplayer by studios who wanted to build a multiplayer game. These trend chasing, out-of-touch, and often top down decisions to pull studios and even entire genres out of their wheelhouse, often sacrificing the elements that made these products so great to begin with to get there, they need to stop.
The FH franchise worked as a single player open world racing game that had a multiplayer mode. But as the franchise tries harder and harder to force multiplayer to be the core element of the game, the more compromised and shallow the true core of the game has become.
The industry is going to go through some change soon. We’ve got a lot of failure coming out of the established players. Ubisoft is over a cliff financially, WB is doubling down on it’s own failure, Microsoft can’t buy it’s way out of mediocrity… But we also have a lot of new and resurging players ready to take the next step, and independent studios trying to make the model work. Hopefully, these new players will learn the lessons taught by the previous generation and it’s failures. I just worry that the racing genre, and open world racing in particular, might take a long hiatus while this industry turmoil plays out.
PGG has a real opportunity to capitalize on the situation. They just need to get their head out of the clouds and back on track.
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I wasn’t even aware there’s convoy activities but I usually play alone and I agree that more endgame content would be awesome especially when you can choose to do it single player!
Yeah having functionally unlimited single player endgame in FH3 was awesome. Then they took it out of the franchise for no reason that I can deduce other than trying to promote playlist and multiplayer engagement in FH4, and then they doubled down in 5.
Vote here if you’re interested: I want custom championships back
I also made my own suggestion which would function basically the same: Horizon Custom Tour
Maybe with single player endgame re-established, AI will actually get attention.
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I think much of it is as simple as chasing the most lucrative revenue stream, which online content helps support obviously & FH has been pretty articulate about integrating the need for online service access for many aspects of the game other than just direct multiplayer interaction.
Will they go down the Ubisoft way? If yes, I won’t buy it.
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