Forza Horizon 5: General Discussion

[Eraldodisha]

Tomorrow we may see the expansion 2.. because Forza lets i go stream didnt mention the new expansion this month and we may be getting this tomorrow ate the game awards!!

 

[breyzipp]

The sian in the real life dosnt support roof!!

 

[nukleabomb]

View attachment 1214062

the Sian Roadster doesn't have a roof is what they meant

 

[TheAdmiester]

Any leaks in the files??

Nope.

 

[FoxMulder]

You ain't the only one who's burned out by the weekly events. I found my share of fun-filled game-time with ATS and ETS2, hence why my recent avatars have been the two games' licensed cornucopia of trucks.

FH5 lost its fun-factor too quickly, while the former's titles kept me occupied with exploration.

They are just coasting with this game. Trickling out cars and barely adding any new content to the game.

Even something like them bringing back the ice rink from last year just reminds you how there’s this giant football stadium that’s unused all year. They’ve only done the ice rink and stunt park once since the game came out.

 

[ykiki]

I used to go all out trying for the 40- point car each week, but now that I have most "rare" cars, I only try for any exclusives that pop up - which is usually the 20-point variety. Lately, I spent about an hour a week going for the various "Woody" cars, then spent the rest of my time playing Lost Judgement (where it can easily take me 4 hours to complete a chapter), or (gasp) away from gaming

 

[RazorSharkz]

I think it's funny how AMC has 5 cars modelled but they have never all been in the same game together. It is always either the Pacer or Gremlin missing.

 

[willbsn13]

They are just coasting with this game. Trickling out cars and barely adding any new content to the game.

Even something like them bringing back the ice rink from last year just reminds you how there’s this giant football stadium that’s unused all year. They’ve only done the ice rink and stunt park once since the game came out.

One of my biggest gripes has the been the lack of "Evolving World" implementation.

Before launch, Mike Brown touted their enhanced world building tools, and the fact that the world will change.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/forza-horizon-5-will-feature-an-evolving-world-4172141

And aside from the Ice Rink/Stunt Park - the changes have been incredibly minimal. They also only lasted 1 month.

We've gotten a couple of PR stunts, a few smashables and that's about it.

The big one for me is no new races/routes. Like all of the seasonal championships get so repetitive as you drive the same routes as you did at launch - same with Multiplayer. I thought that would change in FH5 - especially with Mike Brown literally stating that there would be new races post launch. But 1 year in, we've seen absolutely nothing in that regard.

I was also thinking the evolving world stuff could lead to small map expansions. Like even for example adding a small docks area on the coast for example, or a couple of new roads. Nada so far. So yeah after what was talked about pre-release - it's been incredibly disappointing seeing the lack of evolving world.

 

[skazz]

Anyone know if the annoying bug is fixed where car cards would get black headlights and windows if the icon was updated due to tuning/painting? It was really bad last patch...

 

[GTvsForza]

Still there last I checked.

 

[The_Greaser]

One of my biggest gripes has the been the lack of "Evolving World" implementation.

Before launch, Mike Brown touted their enhanced world building tools, and the fact that the world will change.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/forza-horizon-5-will-feature-an-evolving-world-4172141

And aside from the Ice Rink/Stunt Park - the changes have been incredibly minimal. They also only lasted 1 month.

We've gotten a couple of PR stunts, a few smashables and that's about it.

The big one for me is no new races/routes. Like all of the seasonal championships get so repetitive as you drive the same routes as you did at launch - same with Multiplayer. I thought that would change in FH5 - especially with Mike Brown literally stating that there would be new races post launch. But 1 year in, we've seen absolutely nothing in that regard.

I was also thinking the evolving world stuff could lead to small map expansions. Like even for example adding a small docks area on the coast for example, or a couple of new roads. Nada so far. So yeah after what was talked about pre-release - it's been incredibly disappointing seeing the lack of evolving world.

Yeah, I can agree with all of this, especially with the general repetition of racing. The biggest issue alongside this is complacency and in regards of this "Evolving World", they've made little changes, 99% of which are only temporary. Whether it's the Extreme E ads or the Ice Rink, they're not lasting for long and I'd appreciate it if the PR stunt locations were permanent, like those scant few speedzones dotting the map.

I know I am going off-topic, but by comparison, other developers have embraced the changes with successful results. In regards to evolving worlds, I'd even go further detail on why permanent changes to an evolving world is a good thing. Take for example the Prague, Czechia game developer SCS Software, s.r.o. They are the developers and publishers of Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator truck sims, and they made some great strides on world expansion and rebuilding in recent years. If you haven't known them they got a site there and I follow them on Steam. Allow me to compare what SCS did in 2022 compared to what PGG did in the same year:

What SCS has done in 2022:
-Rebuilt the entire country of Austria, a process that took nine months minimum for ETS2, as well as the California Rework, Phase 2 on ATS.
-Reworked the German city of Hannover, which also got its own Messe recreated in a 1:1 scale.
-Brought the International 9900i and the Western Star 57X for ATS and a new MAN TGX is set to release after this year for ETS2.
-Released a trailer pack for both games (Lode King for ATS, FFB Feldbinder for ETS2).
-Released two state DLCs for ATS, Montana and Texas. No map expansion for ETS2 this year, sadly.
-Added various improvements to both of their games, such as a mileage marker for ETS2, starting in 1.44 onward.
and more!
Overall SCS's efforts are pretty good. The cons are the loss of Heart of Russia DLC (delayed indefinitely due to ongoing Russian invasion) and well, an inability to get with the times for their AI car roster for ETS2 (that is just my opinion). They are currently in the process of rebuilding Switzerland and also reworking the city where Porsche was born - Stuttgart - in the ETS2 side of things. For ATS they are going to build the Oklahoma DLC which hopefully will land by summer 2023 as well as research on other states in either the Plains or Louisiana.

What has PGG done in 2022:
-Barely added any new content aside from Car Pass cars. And when I mean 'new' I am talking about "New-to-Forza" cars.
-Severely underutilized its evolving world (as the poster would attest).
-The 10-year-anniversary was underwhelming apart from the authentic EventLab props and Horizon Mixtape and a good Horizon Origins story.
-Donut Media partnership was awful and rewards are not worth it.
-EventLabs for seasonal events being offered were just bad. I mean the one on Series 8 (the one with the UK-spec 2018 RS4 Avant for spring season) was incredibly painful since the AI could not win at all.
-Voiceovers who are all awful. Even your character sounds so bad that I'd rather have Kimi (aka The Iceman) voice the character from FH6 onwards. Or Max Verstappen.
That was painful, PG. You're better than this! Come on....

Anything else? I mean with Expansion 2 coming out around Feb. or March 2023 and hopefully after that PG can at least turn it around for FH5. This latter half of 2022 has been rough for PG. I hope they get better soon.

Off-topic question: Does the GTPlanet forums have a dedicated ATS/ETS2 discussion thread? Just asking because I am also an avid ETS2/ATS player in addition to Forza Horizon and Motorsport.

 

[WanganDream]

One of my biggest gripes has the been the lack of "Evolving World" implementation.

Before launch, Mike Brown touted their enhanced world building tools, and the fact that the world will change.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/forza-horizon-5-will-feature-an-evolving-world-4172141

And aside from the Ice Rink/Stunt Park - the changes have been incredibly minimal. They also only lasted 1 month.

I have long believed that this "one month only" content is what makes FH5 feel more boring and less evolved than FH4.

While it did not include permanent changes to the map, in FH4 basically all updated content was permanent.
New business, new Horizon Story, new body kits, new game modes... these made the game more advanced and gave us new ways to have fun.

Of course, FH5 also has such content, but the updates are not as large or as frequent as in FH4.
And the "one month only" content disappears the following month.
This is essentially like pretending that a month's worth of updates never happened.

And they will probably recycle it a year later. But it will look fresh to new players, but recycled and boring to those who have already been through it.
Of course, they are not recycling it 100% but adding some new improvements, but it is like adding one new engine swap to a car that existed until past series, to use an analogy, and putting it back in the game.
The core content is recycled, so it is hard to change the impression.

Of course, they can't make updates based on seasonal festivities permanent, like the Christmas update, and I'm not denying all this content...

 

[GTvsForza]

Off-topic question: Does the GTPlanet forums have a dedicated ATS/ETS2 discussion thread? Just asking because I am also an avid ETS2/ATS player in addition to Forza Horizon and Motorsport.

There is, under PC/Console Gaming.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Cool talk from GDC earlier this year on how they remade the particle system using PopcornFX for FH5 by showing examples of tire smoke, dirt kick up, and water effects

 

[UKMikey]

Cool talk from GDC earlier this year on how they remade the particle system using PopcornFX for FH5 by showing examples of tire smoke, dirt kick up, and water effects

I had a weird thing the other week where I couldn't do an Ultimate Burnout for the #Forzathon despite doing several donuts/J-turns etc. Apparently it's also one of the requirements for Hot Wheels which I previously got 100% on so I must have done it without thinking earlier.

I checked YouTube and the guy did exactly the same thing I was doing, except on tarmac. Turned out I was trying to burnout on grass so maybe the above video explains why the change in surface had more of an effect. Guess the tyres weren't heating up enough before.

 

[Morbid65]

I feel like this push for weekly challenges in games and exploiting FOMO actually pushes me away rather than bring me into it more.

Obviously we are talking about Horizon 5 here, so in its case I didn't buy the car pass because like 2 months into the game I was already totally burned out on the weekly nonsense and barely wanted to play the game unless I could get a friend to play with (most of the time I couldn't because they all skipped it after the same grind got them in FH4). It made me feel like I wouldn't get my money's worth if all I do is use the cars to grind out boring weekly stuff... when it's possible anyways and I'm not forced into some specific car.

I didn't buy the Hot Wheels DLC either, but even if I wasn't burned out on the game I probably wouldn't have bought it anyways being honest... and that's coming from someone with a mountain of Hot Wheels.

Other games have done it to me too, where I enjoy the game fully for a short period, then kinda fall into this "I dunno it's kinda fun... sometimes I guess... but not this weekly thing, it's boring but I guess I have to do it" where I'm only half engaged (at best) and more turning the game on out of habit. Not to say that I don't enjoy them sometimes or have ways to have fun in them, but being forced into certain game modes is a drag. I still do them though, thinking that someday I might get re-energized and want to play it more often again and when that happens I would be annoyed if I missed these cars/items/whatever... That re-energizing doesn't really happen though as either I drag myself through all the boring stuff every week so I stay perpetually burned out, or I quit altogether but then never actually start playing again when I get annoyed seeing all the stuff I missed out on.

I've not bought DLC for basically any of the games that use the weekly FOMO stuff that I own, instead just relying on the free content, so for me personally I've spent much less money on the games than I might have otherwise. I think I bought 1 Battle Pass in For Honor but that was when I first got back into it and I had Microsoft Reward credit that was expiring and there was one of those "Just for you!" Xbox Deals on it.

The older model with DLC every month or two was nice as it allowed you to just take a break without missing anything, then when you see some new content that interests you then you can turn the game on again, get the new stuff and be excited to play again and check it out. If you want to skip a month, you just buy the DLC pack next month and get all the cool stuff then when you are more excited about playing again.

I don't really understand this weekly grind stuff in games that aren't free-to-play microtransaction-heavy things. They got my $60, what difference does it make to them if I slog through some RNG "challenges" every week? How would it hurt their model if I just bought the new cars with credits instead of having to do the same stunt jump I've done 1000 times but in a BMW this time and drive some stupid EventLab of loops above the volcano and so on?

 

[nukleabomb]

My guess is that they want to show an active player base and game pass subscriptions to Microsoft or whoever.

Ideally they can keep FOMO and make it less boring for the players by introducing the "backstage pass" as called in fh4. But make it such that you can jump in any week and grind points in the festival playlist (say 40pts per backstage pass or equivalent of 1 car from an older update, instead of actually repeating a car) that you can spend to buy a car from an older series playlist.

The best way obviously would to add them to the autoshow, but that means people would log on, on the day of the update, rush through everything new, try the new cars and disappear till the next month.

The backstage pass revamp would make it easier for the players While keeping something for the dwvs or whoever.

Then again this community is too big and hard to satisfy everyone.

 

[SU_Tempest]

I don't think it'd be impossible for the Atlantique to be added. If PG is willing to put up the money to get one of their cars in a game I don't see any reason why they'd turn it down.

You can have all the money and goodwill in the world (and PG's parent company definitely does), if the people who actually own the cars and the IP aren't interested for one reason or another (or findable at all, licensing is a complex issue sometimes), it's not going to happen. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if they did. It's just like the Stellantis situation, there must be some reason why it's not happening.

It could also be that while they bought the company's IP and assets, they don't actually have the rights to those older cars. From what I understand* "trade dress" can apply on a car-by-car basis as it covers the car's basic shape and design, and it's possible some other company owns that or the current holder of Venturi's IP just didn't want to pay the cost for it, since they have no interest in continuing production with that particular body style.

*a very rudimentary understanding mind you, licensing and copyright law is confusing even when it's boiled down to the basics.

Based on this, is there a possibility the previous owner of Venturi (the company) has retained the IP to the pre-2000 cars? I'm not asking if that's the case, just if it's a possibility. Copyright law is indeed confusing, especially internationally.

 

[space_wadet]

I feel like the game is kinda stuck in between wanting to keep the gamepass subscription model going, while at the same time not quite putting in enough resources to truly make it worth it. Whether it's because they want to keep more resources for the next game or it's restrictions from Microsoft, obviously we have no idea from the outside.

The playlist has been all over the place and sometimes feels hacked together from leftover bits. I think if they had more resources and planning for the playlists to have stronger themes it'd go a long way to make them more enjoyable. A change I'd like especially is for playlists to have focused car themes. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'd really rather have a car theme than a Holidays theme. I love the holiday season but I don't see the point in a car game.

I think the game's biggest asset is the size and diversity of the car list and at times it seems like PG isn't really aware of it. There's a lot to be leveraged with a 500+ car list. The game could benefit massively just by highlighting the cars more, make them the focus of the game. And I think the playlist isn't doing a good enough job of that. If it did it'll probably alleviate a lot of the complaints people have about the game, by shifting the focus on the cars already in the game instead of making people only think about the next car drops.

At the moment you earn cars by doing a collection of nearly random events, and then cars just magically appear in your garage. You don't feel like you've "earned" the car since everything you did to get it was so random, and nothing "special" happens when you do unlock it. There's a pretty big disconnect between the grind and the reward, which in turn makes the cars feel less special and more like a random collectible. If the playlist did more to connect the grind and the reward with a strong theme it'd be a big improvement.

A "relatively" easy way to do it would be to turn playlists into mini campaigns IMO. Pick a theme; eg. hot hatches. First week in D class, then C, then B. Make people pick sides like they did with countries last year. All rewards cars are hot hatches, all events done with hot hatches. Make the rewards cars available at the festival site in Forzavista, even before the cars are unlocked. Maybe even throw in some voiceovers from guest stars like Jason Cammisa, Chris Harris, TGT trio, or even some smallers personalities so players learn about the cars. Make the cars feel special, instead of just another collectible to tick off a list.

Having a theme would also benefit creators in the game, since everyone's driving the same cars it'll be easier to highlight tunes, liveries and eventlabs.

This model would take a fair bit more planning to implement so I doubt we'd see anything like it in this game, but I hope the next game has a better thought out playlist model.

 

[INEEDNAWZZZ]

I think the game's biggest asset is the size and diversity of the car list and at times it seems like PG isn't really aware of it. There's a lot to be leveraged with a 500+ car list. The game could benefit massively just by highlighting the cars more, make them the focus of the game. And I think the playlist isn't doing a good enough job of that. If it did it'll probably alleviate a lot of the complaints people have about the game, by shifting the focus on the cars already in the game instead of making people only think about the next car drops.

Something like the 1000 Club from the original would be a welcome return. 5 to 6 specially selected challenges for each car in the game, with a progression system and an incentive to try out literally everything. The only thing that'd go against it is that with the number of cars in the game now, there'd be far more in the way of repeated challenges, a criticism the game already gets enough with the playlists.

 

[TheOE]

I think many people overerstimate the content FH1 had. The game could be played through in ~15 hours, completed (all collection items, all cars) in about 30-40h. Afterwards there was nothing to do. The races were all tied to specific classes or cars and the paid car pass cars were mostly taken from FM4. Still, the 1000 Club could be an interesting return, but highly unlikely due to 600 cars and the backslash it would receive if multiple cars had the same challenges.

 

[SU_Tempest]

We all want every car to feel special, and I think more properly themed events would help. They'd have to not be tied to the playlist and not solely themed around Forza's car category system. Whenever I think "Great collection of events to incentivize trying as many cars as possible" I think back to the selection of special events in GT2 or GT4, the manufacturer-only events that focused around specific makes or even specific nameplates.

Yeah, sure, you could use eventlab and event creator to do these yourself. I have no problem with making things myself, but I can definitely see why having to, well, literally make your own fun, can be a bit of a chore.

What's honestly surprising is we still don't have a way to build custom championships. It's always single events, 3-race or the elusive 5-race championships (like some of the ones we had during Horizon Anniversary) are festival-only. What gives? It shouldn't be that difficult to pick any 3-5-7-etc. race events or routes and put all of them into a point-system championship. That'd go a fair distance in motivating me to make more custom events, personally at least.

 

[Stupornaut]

You can have all the money and goodwill in the world (and PG's parent company definitely does), if the people who actually own the cars and the IP aren't interested for one reason or another (or findable at all, licensing is a complex issue sometimes), it's not going to happen. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if they did. It's just like the Stellantis situation, there must be some reason why it's not happening.

The Venturi, the De Tomaso Pantera, and the Jensen Interceptor are the three obscure(ish)-brand cars that've been brought up the most in the leaked-files/possible future content discussion, and your comment basically drove home why it's likely we won't ever really see them. Who even owns the rights to the names and likenesses? Along with the Venturi situation, De Tomaso's changed hands at least twice since the turn of the century, and Jensen (which was practically defunct by 2003) was supposed to be revived about seven years ago with an announced new model that's never materialized.

 

[The_Greaser]

Seems like they reused a lot of old challenges and names like that Isetta weekly challenge.

 

[nukleabomb]

The Venturi, the De Tomaso Pantera, and the Jensen Interceptor are the three obscure(ish)-brand cars that've been brought up the most in the leaked-files/possible future content discussion, and your comment basically drove home why it's likely we won't ever really see them. Who even owns the rights to the names and likenesses? Along with the Venturi situation, De Tomaso's changed hands at least twice since the turn of the century, and Jensen (which was practically defunct by 2003) was supposed to be revived about seven years ago with an announced new model that's never materialized.

i have a sneaking suspicion that they will be in FM

 

[TokoTurismo]

Seems like they reused a lot of old challenges and names like that Isetta weekly challenge.

I guess Series 17 really is big if that is the case, especially with Fordzathon being a generic theme with non Ford rewards (which are cool btw!). PG really wanted to get these themes out of the way it seems.

 

[Eraldodisha]

I thinkk tonight we will see the new expasion 80%
At game awards!!

 

[Populuxe]

Welcome.

Welcome back.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Guess who is the dunce that forgot to check its mailbox for the free Cupra and disbursed 2,000,000! Dunce of the Year!!!

 

[Populuxe]

Guess who is the dunce that forgot to check its mailbox for the free Cupra and disbursed 2,000,000! Dunce of the Year!!!

You can be someone's Secret Santa and give away the one you bought. I bought two. I already gave one away. I'll probably give the other one away, too.