Forza Horizon 5

[Alex79]

I thought maybe this game deserved its own thread. As I mentioned in another thread, I'm really enjoying this. I wish it had a bit more structure and sense of direction, but the game is really addictive with that 'one more race/event' feeling after everything you do. It's fun just driving around too, finding boards or speed cameras etc, and the game looks pretty decent.

Main reason I made this thread through was in case anyone wants to convoy up any time, and also share events/skins people have made. It's really easy to create events, and I made my first attempt this evening. It's a fairly lengthy single lap race (around 5/6 minutes) that traverses tarmac and dirt tracks with some fun winding sections. The share code, if anyone is interested is: 999 982 585. Not sure where you go to input that code, but if anyone tries it let me know what you think!

[Cornelius_Smiff]

I love this game... but can we please skip the cringy dialogue and cut scenes (is this possible?). I love the notion of trying to dirt race with my Lambo

[Alex79]

I love this game... but can we please skip the cringy dialogue and cut scenes (is this possible?). I love the notion of trying to dirt race with my Lambo

I don't mind the cut scenes too much (I mean they are terrible but doesn't bother me too badly) but not letting us skip them is a pain, especially if you restart an event and have to sit through it again. They're mostly really short, but it's just an annoyance that doesn't need to be there.

[ReprobateGamer]

It's the sheer number of things to do.

I was in the bit where you are setting up an outpost

Spoiler: show

in the volcano

and have to remain in a limited area, and one of the NPC's piped up to say there had been a barn find and to look in the area.

I carefully searched all around that area with no success - it was after I had left and was next in the map that the barn find area appeared a reasonable distance from the location I had been in. It's great to have so much to do but it really needs to work out how to present it in more bitesize pieces.

[Alex79]

I've encountered a fair few bugs so far. Constant connection issues mean online play is patchy, and last night I was playing the battle royale type game (no idea what you even have to do in this still) when someone seemed to challenge me to reach a spot on the map - we both raced there, he crashed so I got there first, but nothing happened. He caught up and we just sat there, then suddenly other cars started showing up, but the point which we were supposed to be reaching just didn't activate anything, so about 6 of us sat there till the timer ran out.

[Scrustle]

I'm getting quite a lot of bugs and crashes to. I think the online play is a problem for everyone. The devs have mentioned there is a patch on the way for it. I assumed my other problems are just coming from my PC being too old and inadequate.

Although one issue I've had is something I've seen other people have problems with too. When you're driving really fast and suddenly your car just instantly stops dead in place. I assumed it was because my game was struggling to stream in the environment, but usually there are signs that it's running low on bandwidth before anything disastrous happens, and I've seen videos of it happening to people who have much more powerful computers than I do. It's also an issue I have come across a couple times in the older games too, but I never had it anywhere near as much as this.

[Alex79]

Although one issue I've had is something I've seen other people have problems with too. When you're driving really fast and suddenly your car just instantly stops dead in place. I assumed it was because my game was struggling to stream in the environment, but usually there are signs that it's running low on bandwidth before anything disastrous happens, and I've seen videos of it happening to people who have much more powerful computers than I do. It's also an issue I have come across a couple times in the older games too, but I never had it anywhere near as much as this.

Yeah this happens on Xbox too. My eldest also mentioned it happens to him, and he's literally just built a monster gaming PC last month, so I think it's a game bug rather than hardware related, as you say.

[stvnorman]

I thought maybe this game deserved its own thread. As I mentioned in another thread, I'm really enjoying this. I wish it had a bit more structure and sense of direction, but the game is really addictive with that 'one more race/event' feeling after everything you do. It's fun just driving around too, finding boards or speed cameras etc, and the game looks pretty decent.

Main reason I made this thread through was in case anyone wants to convoy up any time, and also share events/skins people have made. It's really easy to create events, and I made my first attempt this evening. It's a fairly lengthy single lap race (around 5/6 minutes) that traverses tarmac and dirt tracks with some fun winding sections. The share code, if anyone is interested is: 999 982 585. Not sure where you go to input that code, but if anyone tries it let me know what you think!

Nice work Alex! Never did work out how to enter the code, but it was easy enough to find. And I really enjoyed my first run. Need a serious second one now.

I’ve had the stopping dead problem a few times. I’m not fussed about online, but the continuous disconnection messages are annoying too. I’ve found some of the solo races a bit unbalanced at the front of the pack too. Otherwise, it’s a blooming wonder!

[Alex79]

Thanks!

By the way, I knocked the difficulty up to 'above average' (just one level above default) and enjoying the races more. They're actually races now and not just a time trial with 11 other cars miles behind you.

Played a ton of the online stuff, they're really quite fun. Moreso the team based stuff like team races or capture the flag etc.

[Rhaegyr]

I'm really enjoying this too and I barely play any 'realistic' racing games.

Managed to get a few mates to pick it up (well, on Gamepass anyway) and we're having a blast doing random events in a convoy; just need to get some more cars so we're not all driving the same one!

[Alex79]

Had a sneaky afternoon off after my training session was cancelled after lunch today, so played an hour or so just doing online races. As fun as the offline game is, racing against real people just adds excitement!

One niggle I've got though - the leaderboards are full of blatent cheaters. One event I did last night I absolutely floored it and did it in just over 2 minutes. The person at the top of the leaderboard clocked it in 4 seconds. The entire top 10 was the same. Come on now... Seems a shame that global leaderboards are basically pointless with this sort of thing happening. At least 'friend' leaderboards are still fun. And it's a nice idea you can directly take on a friends time via the 'rivals' feature, too.

[Cornelius_Smiff]

Have a morbid addiction to racing 999 rated cars in dirt races. it's bonkers as all anything, but it's so much fun!

[Alex79]

Hey if anyone wants some more appropriate music to put on Spotify whilst playing this game, I can definitely recommend the Mexican Spaghetti Western album by Chingon (a band featuring movie director Robert Rodriguez). They're brilliant, they were on the Kill Bill soundtrack, amongst other things.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6Cml5uWy ... =copy-link

Man, I haven't enjoyed a game this much in ages. Everything else has gone on the back burner, done over 24 hours in a week! All day I'm looking forward to playing it later. It's the first one I've played for more than an hour, so may well go back to FH4 after I've totally rinsed this one.

[Scrustle]

After playing some more I've got over the hump of feeling overwhelmed by the game. I still don't think the structure is great, but now I'm at a point where I feel like I have a better grasp on things and like I'm actually making progress. Having a good time with it.

I've been getting in to tuning cars for drifting again. At first I had some trouble getting used to that with the changes to how the cars handle now, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. As I've been building cars something I've noticed is that they have taken out loads of the widebody kits. Kind of ambivalent about it. For so long that was a point where it felt like this series was lagging behind other games with similar features, so it was cool to see them finally get added in 3 and 4. But the style of kits they chose were ones I wasn't too crazy about. I got used to them and ended up using them a lot though. But now almost all those kits are gone, and the few new ones they did add look terrible, so I'm not inclined to use them either. So I've been going back to the old style of normal bumpers and skirts. In some cases I've actually rather liked going back to that, with the cleaner lines of the simpler kits. Other times the options that are left are not as good. It also doesn't help that these are the same kits that the series has been using since 2005 in some cases. The 350Z even lost a bunch since FM4 that were really good.

But anyway, I uploaded some of the drift tunes I've been working on, so if people want to try them out here are the share codes:

Nissan Silvia S15:
168 898 215 (stock engine)
138 739 563 (I6TT engine)

Mazda RX-7 FD:
118 731 333

Toyota Supra RZ:
529 002 952

[Alex79]

I made another course this evening, featuring my favorite part of the world to drive on - up and down the volcano. I'd recommend a rally type car, but it's open so anything can enter. I just test drove it and had fun, hope anyone who plays it enjoys it!

Code is 170 563 051

[Scrustle]

Anyone else tried out Horizon Arcade? I think they messed things up here. For some reason they made it extremely hard in this game, and you only get 10 minutes instead of the 15 that Forzathon Live got in FH4. Hardly anyone seems to play it too, so getting a group together to do it almost never happens. I've never been able to win all three rounds, and I usually don't even reach the third.

[Alex79]

Yeah, looking at my stats I've tried it 10 times and successfully completed it twice (and I'm not sure that is counting the few times I've started and just abandoned it when it became obvious hardly anyone else was joining in). Only do it when it's a seasonal objective, though. I've seen a lot on Reddit with exactly the same complaints - time limit too strict, and normally only about 2 or 3 players doing it. I don't know if they've changed it so it's less frequent now though, as there nearly always used to be one on the map, and now quite often there aren't any, so I'm wondering if they reduced the amount to encourage more people to do them when they are available. They're not even that interesting to do, really. They could be a bit more varied, I think.

[Scrustle]

I don't think they changed anything since launch. I've been attempting them the past few days and trying to work out how it works in case I'm missing something. They run constantly, so as soon as one finishes a new one starts. But they disappear from the map while one is in progress so new people can't join too late. I think the idea is that you're supposed to string multiple runs at it together with the same group, since it prompts you to join a convoy with the other players once a round is over. Maybe the idea is that you build up a larger group over time, but that doesn't work because no one joins the convoy, probably because they get discouraged from losing the first time.

[Alex79]

FYI, they seem to have fixed the Horizon Arcade issue in the patch over the weekend, in that they now scale to how many players are taking part. I managed to clear one totally on my own last night fairly easily. The requirements for passing were waaaaay lower than previously. I've not read any patch notes, but think they must have changed it.

[Alex79]

Looks like some 10th anniversary content coming in October: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/09/f ... is-october

Nice excuse to download it again.