I love the Forza series. It’s my first Forza Horizon game that I really tried to play (I think I’m influence level 80 something ?) because the others weren’t great to me. I’m used to Forza Motorsport games, which are what makes me play the Forza series, but Playground Games, unlike Turn 10, to some extent, isn’t really into realistic driving it seems. So I’ll just make a list of the things that I don’t like about this game :
Driving :
Driving in cockpit view doesn’t feels right. The movement of the steering wheel doesn’t seems to be linked to the movement of your own steering wheel or joystick, which isn’t the case in Forza Motorsport 7. It just feels like I’m driving in Burnout Paradise, cars are too easy to turn around and it’s a little confusing.
Progression & rewards :
Too many cosmetics for the reward wheels. It just feels like I’m playing more of a fashion game than a racing game, and earning useless emotes and clothing items is super frustrating because we’re all here for cars, or at least credits. I don’t get who profits from the “bad luck” rewards like, as I said before, clothing items. I really don’t understand how come this even exists. I can somewhat understand different horns but even there, there’s just too many.
The game relies a little too much on the online mode for seasonal rewards. We should be able to do all the seasonal challenges and races solo, because real players aren’t exactly reliable. Even in team events, they’ll try to push you out of the road, at the risk of lowering your team’s total points and even their own place if they lose control of their vehicle in the process.
The game is blatantly pay to progress. I don’t think that relying on spinning wheels to get rich is good. It’s not great either to rely on selling cars at auction to get money, now I don’t mind people that do it, they can do whatever, it’s a game, but I don’t like selling cars. I don’t think I should have to sell my cars to get money, because I play in one of the highest difficulties (Pro I think it is ?) and I just struggle to earn anything. First pos will make me earn like 12 to 15K, which is nothing. In FM7 I earn 100+K per race due to the fact that you can chose the length of the race, even in solo (Most of my races last 15 minutes each). I also play with no assists except for traction control, becaue the AI seems to have it enabled at all times. Mind you, in FM7, playing with no assists doesn’t changes the money you earn at the end of the race. I know that there’s a VIP pass, but I don’t feel like I should be paying a VIP pass for this game because it’s litteraly ridiculous when you compare it to FM7. I have the VIP pass on FM7, but before that I still earned at least 50K per race before due to the length of the races. I didn’t “needed” the VIP pass, whereas it seems to be mandatory for FH4 if you really wanna progress (Which to me, is collecting cars. I love cars, I don’t love collecting clothes, I don’t love driving around listening to whatever the hell this song playlist is, and I don’t love spending half my time with stupid players [No you’re not a stupid player. It’s a minority, but it’s such an annoying minority that without race regulations it’s not even an option to play PVP for me.].)
Surface diversity :
What attracted me to FH4 wasn’t seeing Scottish sheep running around, but was the driving surface diversity. Respectively, road, gravel and dirt. However I feel like the map is a little small and too much of it is roads. I honestly don’t think England was the best setting for that game, I’d have enjoyed a wilder setting much more, because there’s not many possibilities for dirt or gravel “tracks” right now, which is a shame since I really like the driving on those (Good having a break from realistic rally games). So yeah, bigger, more diverse map next time. Also you guys should rely a lot less on cross country. Not gonna lie, it’s not interesting really.
DLCs :
I already talked about the VIP pack, and I bought the Lego DLC and the Car pack. The Car pack is alright, there’s some interesting cars in there and I don’t have too much to say about it. A shame I couldn’t get a discount on it because I think that I actually paid half of what I paid for the game itself. I’ll talk about the Lego pack…Yeah, once again, not gonna lie, it’s an empty shell. There’s only three Lego cars as far as I can tell, and they’re alright, but I really expected more. Same with the house which is litteraly just a reward you get from completing objectives…I really expected much more creativity, so much could’ve been done with that DLC and yet it offers so little. Some areas of the map still have normal game trees instead of Lego trees. Civilians aren’t driving Lego cars… Kinda feels like it’s more of an event than a real DLC because it retains too much of the original game. The tracks are cool tho, and I love the “desert” part. It’s really nice. Also good to have added some kind of race track, the game kind of needed one. Other than that idk what to say about this DLC, it doesn’t have much to offer.
So yeah, in the end I expected a lot and got…A very average experience. I’d say a 12/20.
Driving
Eased at max so that even the little kids can play BUT good players will give you much challenge. For the wheel, I can’t say.
Progress & rewards
Stuff is only the first weeks of game, once you have all them, wheelspin has no more. For sure, for whoever is coming for racing it is frustrating to earn something that is useless to gain any car.
Playlist has to much online. Possible but that is where is the heart of FH. Nevertheless many top cars are available with only 50% of completion.
For CR, the very beginning of the game is frustrating but 1 star or 2 star prestige you start to have enough to get what you need and playlist is huge provider of top cars. Even 50% progress by playlist you will still get car and progress, slower than people doing 80% getting all the cars but won’t block you
Wasting your duplicates is a choice but AH provides you with an indicator of the value of the cars and some duplicates are worth millions, up to you not to sell those but it is the game principle to get CR without paying anything more, again, slower but not blocker.
I think there is not pay to win in FH4. there is nothing you can’t get with a few hours of game.
Surface diversity, the rendering is quite a deception mainly concerning Winter for which the grip of cars is clearly unrealistic but there are some variation of type of surface and weather. Up to me, it’s already a good achievement it is correctly set in the sense of dry gives more grip that dirt, itself more grip as snow itself more grip than ice.
DLC,have to be taken as they are, just tiny games based on the same engine. Only thing I found bad there is Lego cars polluting the mainland, rest was just like DLC of FH3
What is surprising to me is that you are not mentioning anything of what is upsetting people lately, possibly you did not stay long enough to face those limitations of the game.
Yes it is the same in Forza Motorsport 7. That game also has a hidden steering assist which decides how much, and how quickly, you are permitted to turn the wheel.
I only race cockpit view and I see nothing wrong with the way this view works in this game. Actually, I find the steering input a bit more responsive than in FM7.
Can you elaborate on the “pay to progress” aspect you mentioned? Other than the treasure map, I haven’t paid anything else outside of the initial purchase to progress. I have all cars(minus 3 POs), all houses, mainland and expansions are done.
“game relies a little too much on the online mode for seasonal rewards” - Two… just two events a season (Trial and playground), plus one round of ranked adventures per series. If you can’t cope with racing against real people, run it with clubmates or trusted sane friends. Motorsport multiplayer lobbies are just as obnoxious, if not more so.
“the map is a little small and too much of it is roads…Also you guys should rely a lot less on cross country. Not gonna lie, it’s not interesting really.” - So, bigger, wildrer map, but with fewer roads? Sounds like heavy off-road/cross country to me. You may want to check out the Fortune Island expansion as it is trail/rally-oriented. In case you weren’t aware, cross-country is the most under-utilized route type with the fewest number of routes. Admittedly, in H4 the devs seem to have lost inspiration designing a number of the xc courses, resulting in events lacking effort (generic circular and figure-8 layouts) and spirit (‘fake’ obstacles and ramps), as well as creating lackluster routes while omitting many surrounding dynamic physical landscape features (mud 4x4 circuit area just one example). Personally I love all offroad as its way more challenging to compete in and tune for; I think it’s the S2/asphalt/superhyperuncontrollacar is whats not really interesting. But of course you were happy to see a track put in LEGO valley - thats the last thing we need, more Motorsportification.
If you want motorsport so badly, go play motorsport! At least it’s all only serious racing there - oh, wait, they have Infected games there too - well at least theres no silly drivatar clothing to deal with - oh, wait, the driving gear… - well, at least that economy is… - oh, their auctions have same issues as here… - well, hope that leaving broken-Horizon 4 for even more broken-Motorsport 7 works out for you
Also there’s no spinning wheels in FM7. Every single item that you buy is your own choice. There’s no random rewards. Also I never complained about the principle of auctions ? I litteraly pointed out that everybody is free to sell their cars if they want to. Also no one plays infected on FM7, we all play classic races. [Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D]
I wasnt insinuating you complained about auctions, I was mocking you over game economy, which auctions are a piece of. Originally there were additional economy mocking examples that followed, but I edited for brevity and left it at that, point was made. However, I find it mildly amusing that you try to pin me as the one whining when you’re actually the OP of that narcissistic announcement that you left and uninstalled the game and included some tedious laundry list whining about old issues that have been covered ad nauseam since launch and other issues totally lacking merit or attention, such as your concerns that civilians don’t drive LEGO cars and that there are still some trees in LEGO Valley that aren’t made of Legos. (that’s a sarcastic thumbs up, btw)
I have to admit I was pretty fed up with the clothing nonsense in wheelspins to start with …
but as has been said above, after a while you will have most of them and then stop getting them … if I continued to get duplicates I think I would have gone nuts.
I am so glad i can chop in the duplicate cars now - that is so much better
Lego ; mmmmm yeah a bit meh … I did like the brick challenge thing as a way of presenting lots of challenges (pinning them was great) and you do them when you feel like it in the order you prefer.
Personally I would like to have seen them do the Isle of man for this … I know it is famous for motor cycles but to have that genuine track to play with would have been amazing (having ridden on it on mad Sunday IRL)
Fortune island: much better if you like drifting there are always a ton of people doing the needle climb (3 star set at 250k …should have been more like 350-400k)
The trial … in recent weeks my experience is you only need 1 or 2 good team mates and a suitable car - it’s worked for me
I have had a few occasions recently where I have a really good team mate gallop off into the distance and I play tail-gunner slowing up following reds (TBH it’s probably I am just slow ) … this gives a chance to slower team mates to make passes … these team mates might not actually be slow , they might just have been shoved off /missed a gate and just need an opportunity to get back in the fight
there’s no point trying to beat your #1 team mate.
Anyway wasn’t a fan - now warming to it as I have had good experiences recently (I avoided it for weeks when the playlist first started)
Pay to play? Really ? I have played other games that are micro transactioned to death … have left them because of it (you needed to buy X to compete - nah forget it).
Other than buying the expansion I haven’t - not really bothered about DLC only cars that I cannot buy in the auction (I wish it only showed cars you can buy) …
I am pretty sure I have ALL non DLC plus have a few DLC that have been given away as prizes
Not pay to play but rather pay to progress. I feel like the race rewards are way too weak. They should add the option for longer races on lap tracks for example.
Is it even possible to pay for anything in this game besides the original 6 car packs? I’ve been playing since release day and I’ve never noticed any microtransactions. It’s more like “persist to progress” … I log in every Thursday and bang out a few challenges to get whatever the latest free cars are. That’s about it.
I started a thread a few weeks/months ago about ‘Car Packs’ asking the same thing but got a bunch of crap from the local trolls for verbalizing a desire to spend money for extra DLC. I’ve got discretionary income burning a hole in my wallet and would love to give it to Playground for some supplemental ammunition for Rivals. They needn’t even be all that desirable; the lower the class, the better. I’d be stoked to buy the Pinto Pack or Junky Jalopy Pack, if they offered them. Heck, I’d be happy with the passive traffic cars, what ever they are.
I wish the powers that be…would continue the car packs for the duration that the game is still relevant …being that Motorsport 8 or Horizon 5 is not out yet…release more DLC packs…there should have been something available for Toyota just like it was for Mitsubishi…at least 5 vehicles…they could have threw a Lexus or two in there…a couple of Celicas and even a Prius or GT86…but instead they string us along with a new car for every other Forzathon or in the Forza shop!
You should have stayed longer. There are ways to Blueprint an existing event to however many laps, weather and other conditions. And if that wasn’t enough you can now create your own race using using the route creator.