Could Forza Motorsport 8 Give Players Every Car from the Start?

[Dave A]

The problem I have with it is that, for me, it's the "wrong" kind of effort. The effort you have to put in to unlock things via Forzathon is to keep running the game up to see what is available, then spend x minutes doing an activity that has close to zero skill barrier. The reward is provided almost entirely in return for just sacrificing a certain amount of your life on a regular basis, not for developing a skill.

I totally agree with this, the Forzathon rewards being time limited are only there to encourage players to keep playing the game, nothing more. Having a prize locked behind winning a certain event/challenge that you can approach in your own time is completely different and something I don't personally mind. I don't bother looking at what the Forzathon prizes are because I have little desire to do them most of the time, infact I've had little desire to boot up FM7 in over a year... which is a shame because it has a great car list and a decent enough track list, but I just never feel like playing it.

 

[Morbid65]

I don't believe that's the only way a person can enjoy a racing game but it certainly is a reason people enjoy them and you shouldn't be critical of that view. Why do people enjoy adventure games and RPG's? Part of it is the gameplay mechanics sure, but another part is the journey.

Racing games where you start with a cheap car and work your way through a career provide players with a journey and quite often a player will experience more in a game that they have to work through than in a game where they just pick what they are most interested in all the time. How many people played a Gran Turismo game and found a car they really like because they used it for a certain event, but otherwise would probably have never tried? I know I have.

Having a progression system that rewards work isn't a problem, or a bad thing. It's a different experience to an open sandbox and one that is just as rewarding for those who enjoy it as it is for those who instead prefer to hop into whatever car they want right away and have that total freedom.

Not everyone is interested in racing online, not everyone can compete with the best, not everyone is interested in competing with the best. Ultimately games are meant to be fun, and if your idea of fun isn't doing 100 time trial laps on the same track to get the perfect lap then that isn't a problem. Look at Wreakfest, that's an immense game and people are loving it, is that because it's an open sandbox? No. Is it because it's all about being the best driver and getting perfect laps? No. It's just about having fun.

My opinion is that because we already have a number of games that cater for the open sandbox approach, it would be a massive shame (and mistake IMO) for FM8 to go that same route when it's traditionally been a game about the journey and rewards. The obvious solution to me is to have a rental system like in previous games or a free play mode that has all of the cars unlocked within it, then a seperate career mode for those who enjoy progression.

I didn't really say much in my post about progressing from slower cars to faster cars in career, my point was just about locked vehicles that you can only access from doing time-limited Forzathons or arbitrary grindy things in-game.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my post, but I'm not saying that having to "work" is necessarily a bad thing, but rather that suggesting that a game is bad or boring or that players are lazy and "entitled" and so on for not wanting to grind or jump through hoops is silly.

The difference between RPGs and racing games is that RPGs often have simple gameplay and instead focus on the story, where as in a racing game they focus on the gameplay over the story, as most of the time there is no story. In a game like this, you can sort of create your own story... if you want to pretend to be a grassroots racer working your way up through the ranks, that is just as acceptable as someone who wants to pretend they are a rich tech mogul who wants to get their start in racing by jumping straight into a GT4 car. Just as in real life, money should be the deciding factor there, no "you can only buy this GT4 car if you complete this monthly Forzathon" nonsense.

As usual, I feel an answer somewhere in the middle is the best. Keeping career progression from slow cars to fast cars by saving up money to buy the "better" cars is a good middle-ground, where as giving everything away for free would compromise progression too much, and locking vehicles behind arbitrary tasks, time-limited community events, and prize spins just creates too many unnecessary hurdles for people to jump through to get cars they want or need for other events.

 

[RogsR34UK]

I must admit I hated cars that could not be bought in the Autoshow as I like to eventually get all the cars (through racing).

 

[VXR]

I'd happily see race level upgrades locked behind career progression, forcing you to race your car to make it into a serious race car. Then you could have your stock cars unlocked from the start, along with street and sport level mods.

 

[Morbid65]

I'd happily see race level upgrades locked behind career progression, forcing you to race your car to make it into a serious race car. Then you could have your stock cars unlocked from the start, along with street and sport level mods.

This would cause serious problems for people who organize events and series.

An issue that the Forza Motorsport series faces is that it isn't focused really because it tries to be an "everything for everyone" kind of car experience... Therefore the community is all over the place too, and it's becoming more difficult to appease both sides as they wear out their goodwill from players. Some just play single player and want to feel like they have progression from unlocking things and don't care about what is available to other people or how it impacts the multiplayer side of things, and then on the other side there are some people who only play multiplayer and would rather not have to ever touch the career to unlock anything. Even within those two broad groups you have some sub-groups.

 

[nhraracer]

I just want to know where the fun went after Forza 4?

 

[beyond72]

This would cause serious problems for people who organize events and series.

An issue that the Forza Motorsport series faces is that it isn't focused really because it tries to be an "everything for everyone" kind of car experience... Therefore the community is all over the place too, and it's becoming more difficult to appease both sides as they wear out their goodwill from players. Some just play single player and want to feel like they have progression from unlocking things and don't care about what is available to other people or how it impacts the multiplayer side of things, and then on the other side there are some people who only play multiplayer and would rather not have to ever touch the career to unlock anything. Even within those two broad groups you have some sub-groups.

They should drop multi-player altogether and focus on the single player side. ; )
Nah, I get why people enjoy racing other players but as a casual gamer I just prefer being able to quickly set up my own type of race, with a certain group of cars on a certain track. I know that can be possible in your own lobbies, but this is why I soon get bored of the public lobbies/online. Maybe they could add some more interesting themed lobbies that reflect the single player career in the future. But yeah they're never gonna please everyone clearly.

 

[MalibuClub]

I think best would be:

Career:

- Not too much money or prize cars etc.

Multiplayer and free race

- Customize/upgrade and save upgraded cars as many as you like for free and race them in multiplayer or against AI

This way you can have very different career experience and still race online how you like. Having two garages; career and multiplayer/free race

 

[Northstar]

After some thought I think I'm actually on board with this. For awhile now I've been wanting to build my own career mode using features from various games, and having all the cars would be a helpful thing in regards to accomplishing that since a part of my plan is having quite a few prize cars.

The biggest hurdle currently is the lack of Blueprint and custom championships. Give me those two things along with a good car and track roster and I'll be in heaven!

 

[beyond72]

I think best would be:

Career:

- Not too much money or prize cars etc.

To be fair in FM7 you do have the option to take 50'000 (or a race suit) instead of prize cars. And it's actually got a nice balance if you play it like that.
I think they under sold just how player friendly the game actually is in many ways, like not being forced into a single career race and it being possible to build your own career / car collection in just free play.

 

[Bogie 19th]

I just want to know where the fun went after Forza 4?

I have found FM7 just as fun if not more. I hope they are more focused on "motorsport" for FM8.

 

[beyond72]

I have found FM7 just as fun if not more. I hope they are more focused on "motorsport" for FM8.

In single player terms I think it blows 4 out the water, more cars, more tracks and like for example you had a single, one make race with the Shelby Daytona, now you can create as many as you like. 4 was more polished, but that's about it for me.

 

[TokoTurismo]

FM4 doesn't even touch FM7 in terms of modes and features. It doesn't have Open Track Day or even FRR to improve the online experience. It's no where near close to having the best free play mode either.

The only thing I want from it and FM3 is bringing back the missing fantasy tracks, like Camino Viejo de Monsteratt, Fujimi Kaido, Rally di Positano, New York, etc. The more cars, tracks (especially tracks), modes, and features like Blueprints and Custom Championships there is in FM8, the better it will be at launch. I really want Rallycross to be included in the next game as well. That will make the game for me imo.

Also can Turn 10 just call the next game "Forza Motorsport"? They should at least reboot the series and turn it into GaaS for next gen without any sequels. Make it the biggest Forza to ever be created! 👍

 

[HyperSpeeder]

I understand people might enjoy to take their little Civic down the journey to become Forza champion, but it absolutely sucks for the online community to be forced to play the career just to unlock the cars. In FM7, contradicting those who say you don't unlock anything of importance in the career, you had to complete the Forza Driver's Cup and a 3-hour endurance showcase to own the Ford GTLM. It's simply not reasonable, even though you can buy it from the AH, as there's still a limited supply of these cars.

Personally I prefer a hybrid solution. What if the Forza Motorsport career was built in the same way as that of GRID? Forza already copied flashbacks, copying the career doesn't make any difference. This way you manage a team and buy cars to use in the tournaments, and you can take the cars you build in career mode to other modes such as Free Play or even online. In the old NFS games you used to play the career to unlock cars in Quick Race and online modes, but you'd still have your own garage in career. However, in these games it was possible to follow this idea through because career offered unique paint options. In Forza, everything is open-ended, so the impact of such a feature is much less.

I think a career-specific garage could still work, though. The career is supposed to be a story and the ability to use any car you come across kinda breaks the immersion. Take Project CARS for example: you must stick to one car for the main events of the full season. That's an interesting twist since you push yourself to learn the car and its quirks.

Gran Turismo and similar games offer merely a collection of events for you to complete, there's no real purpose in doing that other than completion. That's boring. Modern industry demands more than that. Even the 16-bit era had racing games that gave you a definite goal, a purpose. The historic Super Monaco GP laid the ground down for all current Codemasters' F1 games when it came to the career mode. G.Ceara, the guy who was totally not Ayrton Senna and took your Madonna (totally not McLaren) seat, has existed since 1989, and Devon Butler/Lukas Weber would only appear twenty years later!

Biggest complaint of GTPlanet towards FM7 was that it's aimless. And giving the player too much freedom is what's causing it. It has resulted in a generic career mode with no actual purpose behind it. FM7 added restrictions, but they didn't add purpose to the game, it was just the same collection of random events in a very Gran Turismo-way. T10 didn't even use in the game the characters they created for the demo, one of them being the G.Ceara of FM (M.Rossi).

FM7 has showed the exhaustion of the grind formula. The career in recent FM games has existed merely to introduce the player to different classes of cars, and these days with games such as F1 series being a huge success, this generic approach is simply no longer enough to catch the player's attention. YouTube has made these showcases obsolete. People already know all about the cars they wish to see in the game. So you need something else to draw them in. Something more immersive.

Which is why the solution isn't to go back to what the game used to be, that is, a more open-ended grind, but a grind nonetheless. It's time the Forza Motorsport community realizes the automotive world is diverse and that sticking to one or two cars for your whole career while grinding money to push it further makes for poor, unrealistic gameplay. Feels like work. Even Forza Horizon is moving away from that model in favor of small stories, which used to be the Bucket Lists in previous games.

If having to change cars from time to time triggers you so much, are you really into cars in general? Do people even have the attention span these days to repeat the same event for hours and hours just to buy expensive cars? Sure, you might have your favorites, but a game is supposed to pull you out of your comfort zone at times. Sticking to your C500 Civic is the opposite of that. There's Free Play and Online for that. Even IRL, there's only so much a platform is capable of, even if it has great potential. And we don't need yet another grind in our lives after returning home from work.

Hence, why having all cars available, but a separate career garage, could be a viable path for this game. You don't get in the way of online racing freedom, but you give offline players the immersion they require, even if many don't realize it.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Personally I do not care for games that make the cars available from the start. It is much better when you need to race, earn credits and purchase the cars as you go. I find that I get bored very quickly on those games where I can just get in anything and go.

 

[mastergracie]

That would be great. I'm sick and tired of having to buy the same cars all over again in every new forza (not to mention the other games)

 

[VXR]

Street cars should be unlocked from the beginning, with new tiers of race cars being prizes for winning championships, which then remain free to use thereafter.

 

[Jezza819]

Personally I do not care for games that make the cars available from the start. It is much better when you need to race, earn credits and purchase the cars as you go. I find that I get bored very quickly on those games where I can just get in anything and go.

I'm fine with having to earn enough credits to buy cars. I can come up with enough races across different divisions to build credits.

Street cars should be unlocked from the beginning, with new tiers of race cars being prizes for winning championships, which then remain free to use thereafter.

But I don't want to be forced to run championship series in order to get certain cars.

 

[Nigrick]

For me Driveclub still has the best progression system: unlocking cars by leveling up or meeting certain requirements.

I agree. I like how Driveclub has this gradual step by step progression to the fastest and rarest cars. The game should award players for their skill level and not force money grind, doing the same races again and again. You can spend money from winning races on upgrading your cool car, that was awarded to you by beating a difficult challenge. Or ditch money altogether, and award players with parts, outfits, cosmetics... etc.

 

[Dave A]

I agree. I like how Driveclub has this gradual step by step progression to the fastest and rarest cars. The game should award players for their skill level and not force money grind, doing the same races again and again. You can spend money from winning races on upgrading your cool car, that was awarded to you by beating a difficult challenge. Or ditch money altogether, and award players with parts, outfits, cosmetics... etc.

I find that restricts you in different ways, at least with a monetary system you choose what to buy rather than grinding for things you might not want.

I think what they need to do is seperate the free race, online and career modes more. They've spent a lot of time bridging them together more and more, but in the process they dilute the USP of each mode more and more. By having a defined free race mode where you can pick any car and track combo and go, a defined online mode where you can pick any car and track combo and go, and a defined career mode where you have to meet objectives and earn cash to buy and upgrade cars would suit me and I think it would suit a lot of players.

Get rid of the Forzathon timed exclusive content, that's crap, having forzathons and prizes fine, but not timed exclusive stuff.

By seperating the modes and not making progression in one mode mandatory for geting the most from another, those looking for a journey can enjoy the career mode, those looking to just pick a car and race can enjoy free race and those who like online competition can enjoy online races and competitions. You could allow some cross over int he the sense that yhou could carry your career mode cars into online but then you get the gus racing thier custom tuned cars aginst guys who don't want to venture into the career mode because that's not for them.

Ultimately you cannot please everyone and a racing game should have an identity. I feel Forza Motorsport has lost it's identity in an effort to try to please too many people and in the process it's not offering as good an experience as it otherwise could to any one individual group.

I like the journey, starting with a less capable cheaper car and working up, but the journey needs to hook you. the events have to be interesting, FM7 had an ace free race mode, but that's it as far as I was concerned. So it had good content but the journey, the career mode, was lacking IMO. Most cars were useful for a single event tailored to that type of car maybe two. I prefer to be able to take one car and enter it is different races as I tune it. There should be races only certain cars can enter, but race different types of cars against each other in FM7 you had to do it in free race.

Granted, free race was very well done, but it pulls you out of the journey if you then have to leave the career, go into a different mode, then go to the effort of setting up the race how you want it before you can go. Some people will read that and laugh, but that's simply because they don't experience the same thing as me or want the same as me, and to be fair, I don't them. But haivng a bigger, more journey focused career mode doesn't have to impact a fantastic free race mode or prevent people from being able to use any car online.

 

[YoungRhombus]

I think many of Forza's issues lately are attributed to, as Dave A said above, a lack of identity, as well as a lack of balance. It seems like some of the recent changes to Forza have been to correct a problem that the community wanted them to fix, but T10/PG then over-corrected the issue. What particularly comes to mind here is Horizon 4's Forzathon and Festival Playlist-exclusive cars.

I've been so happy with the support they're giving the game every month, and many of the cars they are adding are filling in a lot of the holes that have been in the car list. However, them being obtained through timed events make it annoying to get them. I'm not against exclusive cars, but I don't like how they are limited-time, as many have said.

Here's my ideas on how they could go about exclusive cars and progression in FM8. They could do any or all of these:
*Have invitational or exhibition-type events that have you race in the exclusive car and win it if you meet the goal. This was somewhat in FM7 but most of them were endurance events.
*Give the player a set exclusive car every time they increase a driver level (and only an exclusive one).
*If they're going to do Forzathon or limited time events, make the cars "early access" instead of timed exclusives, and add them in the autoshow to buy with credits in the next update.
*Some newly added cars should follow the invitational/exhibition system, where T10 adds new events that stay in the game permanently so that players can access them whenever they want as long as they have sufficiently progressed in their career.

As for progression:
*Bring back the Career events selection from FM3/4, and expand upon it with different event varieties and invitational events for exclusive cars. If a certain "manufacturer" or "team" sees how well you are doing in the championships, then they can invite you to an exclusive event.
*If not rewarding the player with an exclusive car each level, let them choose one from a specific set like in FM4.
*I'd rather not buy-able cars be locked. Instead, the career events should be locked behind driver level progression like they were in FM3 and FM4.
*However, cars should not be so easily obtained either. The player should use their cars more often instead of driving their first hatchback 3 times and then never driving it again after they buy a Porsche 911. The player's cars should all be special to them. Give them the options, but don't let them have all 20 of the modern sports cars within 2 hours of playing.

They don't have to do this, but these are just some ideas that I thought I'd put out there.

 

[MarleyMoo]

Put simply, I would like to see showroom stock versions of cars in only manufacturer colors available any time for any event from the beginning. They're like borrowing cars from the dealer. Then you would have to buy/win each car if you want to modify it in any way, or to homologate it.

Then I guess most events will have a homologated group and an open group (that restricts by car type/class/performance).

 

[shawtyoner]

I’ve always felt that every car should be unlocked for free play mode. Career mode should be more difficult to acquire cars, in which case a good progression system is needed. I wish GT would adopt this concept as well. There are certain cars I would just like to drive without spending hard earned credits on. That’s where I feel ownership of a car and the ability to modify it should be a career mode experience.

I’m of the age now where I just cannot put in the time like I used to to “unlock” a car to just lap a track with. Forza does need a revamp though, they practically give everything away.

 

[GBalao888]

I’ve always felt that every car should be unlocked for free play mode. Career mode should be more difficult to acquire cars, in which case a good progression system is needed. I wish GT would adopt this concept as well. There are certain cars I would just like to drive without spending hard earned credits on. That’s where I feel ownership of a car and the ability to modify it should be a career mode experience.

I’m of the age now where I just cannot put in the time like I used to to “unlock” a car to just lap a track with. Forza does need a revamp though, they practically give everything away.

That's why the car collecting aspect of Motorsport needs to be focused more on hard work rather than just give it away so easily. This is called "giving of 2+2, and not 4". In the career mode, they should eventually allow players to gain access to being able to buy and acquire all cars in the career mode, but make it where you have to work hard for it (like certain cars need you to complete certain races, reach a specific level or complete other such conditions to unlock and purchase them, like in Motorsport 2), but they should get rid of making cars timed exclusives (e.g. #Forzathon, Bounty Hunters and unicorn cars).

Even if we have to really put in some hard work into playing the career mode, Turn Ten should still allow players to access all of the game eventually.

If you want to have access to all of the cars in the game right away, then just play in Free Play mode, despite their limitations. But I do feel they should bring back the ability to choose car-specific factory colors and perform basic, car-specific tuning like in the older games' Free Play modes.

 

[ctdc67]

You should put some hard work into paying for the game and not let your parents pay for it. LOL. You will most likely find a time when you don't have much free time... The best way to do this is to not lock anything up and reward people with trophies for completing tasks.

 

[VXR]

I've had an idea for an optional setting, that would suit some people more than others. Rather than lock cars away, set a limit of 25-50 miles driven in a new car before you can buy another one, so you would be guided into getting to know it better. Maybe have it linked to a progression narrative, where special cut scenes play after so many miles that give you facts about the car or statistics on how you've driven it.

Wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but it would be something fresh for those who don't mind waiting and experiencing a car properly.

 

[Northstar]

I've had an idea for an optional setting, that would suit some people more than others. Rather than lock cars away, set a limit of 25-50 miles driven in a new car before you can buy another one, so you would be guided into getting to know it better. Maybe have it linked to a progression narrative, where special cut scenes play after so many miles that give you facts about the car or statistics on how you've driven it.

Wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but it would be something fresh for those who don't mind waiting and experiencing a car properly.

I actually did something similar to this in the past, only I had to drive the last car I purchased until I earned twice it's value while driving it (or matching the value if it was a gift). It added quite a bit of enjoyment for me in FM7 but it didn't work as well in FH4 since that game throws cars at you ridiculously fast.

 

[warp9engage]

Genuine question to some of the people, in this thread, that say they would stop playing without progression: what is it that you really like about your racing games, the racing or unlocking rewards?

It may be just me but it doesn't click with me that someone who stops playing a good racing game, just because nothing is being dangled in front of them as an enticement, is not really a racing game fan. Or at least racing is not what they like the most about the games.

For me, the reward is the racing. It's jumping in to my favorite car, on my favorite track and laying down rubber, door-to-door with the competition. Anything necessary to reach my favorite car and track is just work.

 

[breeminator]

Genuine question to some of the people, in this thread, that say they would stop playing without progression: what is it that you really like about your racing games, the racing or unlocking rewards?

It may be just me but it doesn't click with me that someone who stops playing a good racing game, just because nothing is being dangled in front of them as an enticement, is not really a racing game fan. Or at least racing is not what they like the most about the games.

For me, the reward is the racing. It's jumping in to my favorite car, on my favorite track and laying down rubber, door-to-door with the competition. Anything necessary to reach my favorite car and track is just work.

I'm more of a tuner and time triallist than door to door racer, but yes, I'm not particularly interested in having to do things to obtain new cars, I just want to get on with tuning them and testing them out. I don't mind if they want to sustain interest by drip feeding cars in, so a new car is added every week, for example, but when it's added I want to just get it straight away because testing builds and tunes is very time consuming and the last thing I want to do is eat into that time doing some pointless boring chore to acquire the car in the first place.

 

[Imari]

Genuine question to some of the people, in this thread, that say they would stop playing without progression: what is it that you really like about your racing games, the racing or unlocking rewards?

It may be just me but it doesn't click with me that someone who stops playing a good racing game, just because nothing is being dangled in front of them as an enticement, is not really a racing game fan. Or at least racing is not what they like the most about the games.

For me, the reward is the racing. It's jumping in to my favorite car, on my favorite track and laying down rubber, door-to-door with the competition. Anything necessary to reach my favorite car and track is just work.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying the feeling of working your way through a series of challenges. RPGs as a genre are basically built around the premise that it's engaging gameplay, and their success would seem to show that to be correct.

One can be enthusiastic about racing in general, but also enjoy the type of gameplay that provides a feeling of reward and accomplishment through progression. These are not things that are mutually exclusive. And in a game as broad as Forza Motorsport, one would think that it wouldn't be that hard to cater to players who enjoy both styles of gameplay.