What Horizon 5 NEEDS and can learn from Horizon 4

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 5 FH5 Discussion
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This is gonna be long but I appreciate those who took the time to read.

We already know the next generation Xbox Console is coming holiday 2020 and Motorsport 8 is most likely gonna be a launching with it. Turn 10 will have 3 years of solid development time for the next gen Motorsport game so it would make no sense whatsoever for a new Horizon game to launch next year. So I think Playground too, will have an extra year of development time. Phil Spencer even confirmed he is giving the Forza teams more time than ever to make their next big instalments in the Forza franchise that means Playground will have 3 years to make Horizon 5. Probably a 2021 release?

There are key things Playground should definitely get right with Horizon 5 because as a long time fan I feel Horizon 4 has been lacking quite a lot compared to Horizon 3 and the atmosphere and feeling of the game doesn’t feel the same. It’s still a phenomenal game just not the best Horizon this generation to be honest.

So I want to point down a few things I and maybe other people in the community would want too so here goes.

  1. JAPAN PLEASE

We’ve been asking for Japan since Horizon 2 (2014) and I feel like it’s time we get it. France and Italy were cool and it was fine considering it was the first Horizon game on Xbox One. Australia (Horizon 3) was actually really damn good so I think I’d give Playground credit for that one but Horizon 4 and the decision to go to the studios backyard, Britain, wasn’t that interesting. The map isn’t bad by all means but it’s so lacking and the diversity in the terrain and landscape like Horizon 3 isn’t there at all. Instead of different biomes, like the Outback and Rainforest, determining the diversity in the map they went with seasons. Seasons are cool but the map is still not that interesting.

SO as I was saying I think it’s damn time we go to Japan. It’s LONG overdue and we just want the Japanese car culture and the landscape of the country in a Horizon game. I really really hope they do this and the fact that the game will be on the next gen Xbox it can be miles bigger than any map before and far more detailed!

  1. SOUNDS!!!

Gonna make this one short. We all know our terrible the sounds are in this game. Multiple cars having the same sound is absolutely unacceptable and some cars, for example the Viper, SOUNDS WORSE THAN THE HORIZON 1 VERSION! So please Turn 10, Playground Games you got to make the sounds 50x better than Horizon 4. Or fans will outrage even more .

  1. CUSTOMIZATION

With Need for Speed being the customization king for 5 years now I think it’s time Forza steps it up. Customization has been a joke in Forza for years now even after Horizon 3 introduced Bodykits for the first time. We want A LOT MORE widebodys, variety of spoilers, variety of splitters, variety of diffusers, variety of cardinals, variety of side skirts, more bumper options, more exhaust parts, exhaust tuning, more engine swaps, LIVERY PAINT ON WINDOWS, more brake calibers, rims, variety of tires and tire decals, variety of headlight and taillight tints, variety of brake discs AND MUCH MORE! It’s about time Forza steps their customization up because they are seriously falling behind.

I’d like to know what you guys want to see in Horizon so feel free to share your thoughts. Sorry if this was long but I just want the best for the franchise!

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#2 Sounds MAY be a need. The other two are wish list items. I have no desire to have Horizon set in Japan.

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Yeah I played Need for Speed Heat just for the customization options. The physics are terrible, but Need for Speed’s customization is so far ahead of Forza it’s ridiculous.

I get why Forza doesn’t have as many options as Need for Speed. Forza actually considers things like airflow, weight, tire thickness, etc, whereas in NFS everything is just cosmetic and has no impact on gameplay. Even still though, there are some easy things to bring to Forza that I KNOW they have the licencing to do, like putting real tire brand’s lettering on the side of tires. And we desperately need more than 1 generic wing and splittter set to add to cars.

Japan would be nice. Honestly that’s another thing I’m liking about Heat over Forza Horizon 4. I like the seasons in theory, but having winter forced on me (as opposed to an option, or something I could at least avoid) is still a massive pain, and kills the game for me once a month. I too appreciated Australia a lot more.

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Let’s not forget that games like NFS have something like 50 cars while in forza we have over 650 cars so it’s mutch more job to same amount customization. But i agree that we need more more custimization options. Also i would like to see more sense with engine swaps, dont just slam same damn engine swaps every single car, i dont wanna see lambos using ferrari engines or M-B using BMW engines.

But more important would be actually finnish to game, FH4 is over year old and we still have bugs that have been there since day one like if you want to make game being shared online then make it work, like still if i want to play rivals by having rewind that works i need to go horizon solo before going in rivals, sounds so stupid that game that is designed to be shared online experience feels better when playing online without having any friends that play forza.

Oh boy and speaking abaout rivals i really hope that they have learn that community wants class base rivals and that would be in game since day one if not im out. Also i hope PG is learn something abaout mess that online adventure is been and they actualy try to make fun online gameplay. Abaout fun gameplay how abaout in FH5 not having ridiculous OP leaderboard cars or even worst when those are not even actual cars like we have in FH4 where we have god damn tractor that dominates lower class leaderboards.

And i would like to see having enough garage space so even most hardcore players are not complaing that dont have enough garage spaces. Lets say if final amount cars would be 1000 then make at least 1500 garage slot and at least 1000 slots to save designs and tunes.

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Well that means we’re never getting Japan, since Toyota are the ones preventing their cars from being in video games.

NFS heat has 150 cars I believe, and there is quite a bit of overlap with Horizon 4 cars. Obviously Playground Game’s job of adding body customization is a lot harder, both due to number and due to the fact that Forza actually considers the impact on performance. I’m not asking for Forza to match NFS, but after choosing between 6 to 8 unique aero options per car, it’s painful to come back and see my only option (on the same car no less) is the ugly, generic Forza wing.

Sometimes I just want to get silly decking out my car, and NFS is just so much better at scratching that itch. Too bad driving the cars is so bad it’s painful.

I get not wanting or needing a ton of body options for a classic car, but seeing how few options there are for the 90s and 00s Japanese cars hurts me sometimes.

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Yeah i agree that it’s feel painfull to put same generic forza wing on every car and it shouldnt be too hard to get few different kinda aero options at least most of the cars, like Audi quattro from this week trial forza wing in that one is so damn ugly that i didint even use that to get car better.

@FlashyClamp5213 i raither take 500 cars over 50 cars most mistakes that forza do with their cars are something that i wouldnt never even realize without this forum.

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On the annoying things, there are 4 major immersion ruiners:


Drivatards


PR Stunts


Waypoint/Event marks, and drive by (approximation) pop-ups

And another minor (just not as severe) annoyance since we can basically “Drive Anywhere”…

Why can’t we “Drive Anytime”?

Though I’m a hater for those (most of them) non-sense aeros… I basically agree with the idea.

50 cars with good details or 500+ cars with wrong details on nearly every one… Quality or quantity?

This is thought-provoking…

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We’ve been asking for Japan since Horizon 2 (2014) and I feel like it’s time we get it

Japan without Toyota, what a sublime idea mate. Wow. 10/10.

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Lmao so we shouldn’t go to Japan solely because one auto manufacture is acting stupid? I didn’t know Toyota is the only manufacturer that resembles the entirety of Japanese car culture.

I would love for Toyota to return but not going to Japan because they’re not in the game sounds dumb.

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I don’t see how Japan as setting would work without Toyota. It would look ridiculous.

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#4 : do not force players to comeback in freeroam after each multiplayer sessions (which is very annoying) and bring back the vote system like in FH1 and FH3.

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1/ Make sure there are no bugs.

2/ Improve the Ai so that you get closer races, not give the Ai a 200% boost at the end of a race if they are winning, not have them drop back if they are losing. Close races make better videos sell the game better. Also give the Ai more Drift, but less crashing off the track.

3/ Improve the camera choices.

4/ Improve the sounds.

5/ Improve the Auction buyout choices, have the game know what a rare car is.

6/ Better music with no gaps in it, and that doesn’t repeat the same part 50 times.

7/ Sell cars without the auction, but with restrictions on too cheap prices so that you can’t sell to yourself with multiple accounts.

8/ Give players more to buy with their 999999999 credits.

9/ Put the car paint choices as a background for the livery designer so that you can see what the mask is doing.

10/ Character designer to include a face designer, and to merge dance routines together seamlessly to create your own dance routines.

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I’ll take 500+ cars. Most of the wrong details are not that big of a deal anyway.

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Well… This sort of explains the death of quality.

The absence of a car has no impact on who don’t drive the car, while the wrong details on a car does make an impact on whoever drives the car.

…Though the real problem is, people tend to drive different car.

Here comes another point: Do you really drive this many cars?

If you don’t, these extra cars become essentially… disposable.

Insisting on something disposable… at the expense of the quality on things that do matter.

Is it really worthy?

…If I’m not mistaken, both you seldom (if not never) play in cockpit view.

I admit many details become less of a deal when the dashboards can be logically concealed… along with their problems.

Though it doesn’t really help the situation…

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If you care about exact details that is. Could care less if the dash or whatever has a wrong detail. Is it good for racing? That’s what I care about.

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Without all the details… Is your “racing” still that “racing”?

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I already have a list of what horizon 5 needs and can learn from horizon 4 go to where do you want forza horizon 5 to take place next forum literally pretty much the whole thing is a wishlist LOL but to those who wants it to be in JAPAN come and join me and give this post a 1k likes if possible though because in my personal opinion I think that JAPAN is winning here (even though I could definitely be wrong here and if not JAPAN I’ll be happy either way even though I really want it to be in JAPAN) and no offer here but to those who don’t want it to be in JAPAN nor does those who don’t understand why JAPAN would be awesome well here’s 1 reason and 1 reason only and it’s TOYOTA there enough said LOL (and I’m sorry for already offended anybody and anyone who sees this part of my post cuz you’re definitely absolutely 777% entitled to your own opinions and views of where you want to go to FH5 and your feelings about JAPAN I just want to clarify and also to let everyone know I’m a really am a nice friendly person)

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More and more I find myself wanting a good racing game that breaks free of the car collecting grind and super rare unicorns that Gran Turismo unleashed on the racing game genre. I find myself spending nearly all my gaming time in Forza grinding out weekly events and jumping through hoops to get the new cars such that I don’t actually get a chance to really enjoy the new content.

Taking that in mind, I think that Forza Horizon 5 would really benefit from a renewed focus on making the game about driving and enjoying cars, not grinding and jumping through hoops to collect them. At the same time, I do enjoy progression which doesn’t work if all the cars are just unlocked from the start.

The solution I’ve come to on this involves a couple of major changes to the game structure:

  1. Split the game into story mode and sandbox mode. Loosely this would be a split along SP/MP lines, but not completely. Story mode could be played coop with friends and other players could be randomly encountered in the game world. Story mode would be designed to be repeatable and could have multiple save slots so you could start over and work your way up again without having to nuke your whole game save. Sandbox mode would be closer to what Forza is now, and could also take some notes from TDU1 where you start the game with a large pile of cash and can go out and start unlocking nice cars right away if you want. Sandbox would be persistent and keep track of cars you’ve unlocked, with cars being able to be unlocked through any game mode (story, sandbox events, online MP, etc) so you always have access to these vehicles without having to deal with artificial scarcity. Remember, the focus on this game should be enjoying cars, not grinding to collect them. All the vehicles should be unlockable within 40-60 hours (standard AAA game length), and new content should be available to all players without time gates.

End-game content could consist of rivals-like challenges and multiplayer. No need to use time gates and exclusive vehicles as carrots to try to drag players back in week after week, focus on making the gameplay enjoyable instead so players come back on their own accord without being coerced. It’s fine (and healthy) if a player wants to move onto something else.

In terms of other gameplay features, I’ve got tons of ideas. In a nutshell, look at what TDU1/TDU2 did with making the world and vehicles more interactive. That’s what I want to see in Forza Horizon. Add the ability to organize cars into collections which can be displayed and other players can view them, and interactive car dealers in the world, with the ability for players to get out their cars and walk around.

For cars specifically, would like to see a lot more customization and tuning options (especially on the high end with stupidly powerful drag vehicles). Working vehicle systems like convertible tops, blinkers, headlights and start/stop engine for example. More realistic damage modeling with damage to vehicle systems, and better modeling when vehicles are offroad (especially with wet grass, sand, mud and water) so road vehicles really will need to stick to roads. Also, the PI system needs a total overhaul and more classes.

In terms of world design, I would love Japan, but at the same time unless the devs are planning to finally add RHD models for all the cars that have RHD variants I would almost rather see Forza head back to a LHD country (especially since the last 2 games have been in RHD locales). I’m honestly not too picky on the actual location, I just want it to be something that has a wide variety of terrain. Preferably an island so we can have realistic world boundaries and road routes. Doesn’t even have to be a real place, something like the islands from the Just Cause games would be perfectly fine. Also, the world needs to be a LOT bigger. Again, look to TDU for inspiration.

TL;DR Make Forza Horizon 5 more about driving and enjoying cars, not grinding out credits/logging in at the right time to unlock them.

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Hello everyone it’s me again LOL and I have a suggestion for what horizon 5 needs and can learn from horizon 4 and that is to NEVER EVER have something like the ELIMINATOR EVER again and I absolutely know that y’all have to be all trendy and hip and what not and I get that and I also absolutely know that y’all have to please everyone whether they are from age 5 or through age 30 or so and also just please atleast ask us the community for opinions and point of views for ideas like the eliminator cuz if I had a say in it I definitely would have said NO! And also could y’all please get rid of the cheating routes for the cross country events like y’all have in FH4 cuz in my opinion it’s not fair for those of us who really want to win the race to get the awesome rewards I mean it should be a fair race not a unfair race just atleast please think about it playground plz have all the new cars unlocked unlike in FH4 and believe me this will hopefully and prayfully will solve some of y’all’s problems with FH4

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Call me old fashioned but I’d like to see lobbies brought back instead of the current faffing about setting up an online event, searching for a game, having to accept and then waiting for others to accept, I don’t see what good being able to drive as this happens is as you don’t have enough time to do anything meaningful so you just aimlessly drive about but it’s slow enough 95% of the time that it starts becoming a chore.

Lobbies were so much simpler and better, you wanted Playground Games in Horizon 1? Select it and you would be put in a lobby in no time, you didn’t have to wait for people to accept because anyone else you seen had already chose to be there just like you and you had ample time to select your car while waiting if the lobby wasn’t full.

And please, no Jaimin or any of the other people from this festival except Keira.

And a better soundtrack, I am actually embarrassed by having the loading screen’s tracks coming out of my TV whenever they’re on, it’s either

  1. Generic modern garbage, 1 of which has a woman making a noise that just makes me laugh everytime because it’s such a silly noise.
  2. 2 terrible ‘rock’ songs with mostly incoherent shouting.
  3. That song that constantly asks you ‘Don’t cha?’, don’t I what?
  4. And the other is asking don’t I know that it’s coming when I still have no sodding idea what ‘it’ is after over a year, and nor do I want to.

So in short

  1. Lobbies
  2. Lose the cringeworthy cast and shockingly bad dialogue.
  3. Music that doesn’t make me facepalm and hoping nobody else can hear it.
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