While it’s never the wisest idea to cheat one’s way to victory in an online-dependent game of any nature for fear of gross imbalances, Turn 10 have announced in the latest Week in Review that action is being taken against PC players, permanently banning them from what is arguably the backbone of Horizon 3 itself: online play.
Committed to “protecting in-game economies and maintaining fair play,” the team are actively on the lookout for those using cheats or cheating programs with the end result being a “non-reversible” ban from the game’s online multiplayer.
“Trainer” programs function much like the Gamesharks and Pro Action Replays of the past. Running in tandem with the game, these allow players to manipulate the game and bypass the typical progression routes. Abilities can include things like unlimited wheelspins, adding as many credits and XP as desired, or freezing the current time of day. Some even include Super Brakes and Super Acceleration, giving a clear advantage in online play — all on a whim.
Community Manager Brian Ekberg explains the move in more detail:
“A note for our Forza Horizon 3 players on Windows 10: In the interest of protecting our in-game economies and maintaining fair play, we have begun enforcing cheating bans in Forza Horizon 3. Our monitoring systems are built to detect cheating and are actively targeting programs such as the “Forza Horizon 3 trainer.”
Players who are caught using these programs while playing Forza Horizon 3 will be subject to a non-reversible permanent ban from online play in the game. We do this to help advance our goal of providing the best possible game experience for the vast majority of players who want to enjoy Forza Horizon 3 the way it was meant to be played.”
The announcement goes hand in hand with last week’s update, furthering the team’s desire to maintain a balanced ecosystem for the game. The update brought an end to one particular in-game exploit by adding a 30-second cooldown timer to the Drift Tap Skill, negating the ability to easily farm XP.
While the Drift Tap Skill had no negative impact on the game’s economy, no official announcement has been made on whether or not players would be punished in any way. Though it appears Turn 10’s sights are clearly set on those using the PC trainer program to modify the game, not those taking advantage of quirks within the game’s design itself.
See more articles on PC, Playground Games, Turn 10, and Windows 10.
“We do this to help advance our goal of providing the best possible game experience for the vast majority of players who want to enjoy Forza Horizon 3 *the way it was meant to be played.*”
Insinuating I should get an Nvidia card, T10? ;)
Don Joewon Song and his worldwide #1 club is the reason for the drift tap cooldown. I’ve seen his video where he drift tapped for about 13 minutes on the same spot of a certain sprint event at Byron Bay and even though he finished 12th (last) he still won 1,000,000 XP because of the perk that triples skill XP after an event for three offline events.
I’m glad balance came in, but the nerf to skill chains by 25% or approximately from what I’ve seen really hurts extreme endurance racers like me. I often do 50-laps races and it slows the XP quite a bit.
Agreed. I really couldn’t care less about the 30 second cooldown for Drift Taps but nerfing the skill chain does make quite a difference, most notably during longer races as you mentioned.
I’ll be going for the Credits Boost from now on and getting XP the normal way instead, especially now that I’m level 508 anyway. (:
“The update brought an end to one particular in-game exploit by adding a 30-second cooldown timer to the Drift Tap Skill, negating the ability to easily farm XP.”
I never used it myself but it’s that perk that makes it 500% more efficient. You can’t really blame people as exploiters for finding the most efficient way to grind XP. Instead blame the developers for having a poor QA department.
It’s the same thing with HE cars having a sell value of 5 million credits at the wheelspin on PC. It’s fixed now but I don’t consider that an exploit either, it’s again the developers’ fault and lack of quality QA.
Now installing external trainers and cheat / exploit programs on PC that is indeed cheating and I have no sympathy for people being banned for that.
They are still exploits, even if they would be a result of poor QA. An exploit is when you find a loophole in the game mechanics and use it to get some kind of advantage. To think that they’re not exploits just because the players didn’t create the loopholes is strange, because players typically don’t create the game mechanics and if exploits are defined as the use of loopholes that were CREATED by players, then you’ll have a hard time finding any exploits in any game, and if that is the case, why do we even use the word?
And what word should we then use for the use of loopholes created by the developers, if we can’t use the word “exploits”?
Bugs?