Forza Horizon 5 - Open world Mexico

Has anyone here tried the multiplayer races? @tomchick maybe? How do you fare? Middle of the pack?

Naw, I’ve played almost no multiplayer. Not even much rivals mode.

I have to admit that I’m confused as to whether I should even bother. As I’ve said, I play exclusively from the cockpit view, without the minimap or digital tach/speedometer, with all the assists turned off, without the colored traction line, with manual transmission and clutching. It’s not a very well supported way to play the game (for instance, there’s no way for me to tell what gear I’m in unless it’s part of the car’s dashboard), but it’s especially problematic in multiplayer. I would be driving against people whose cars have traction control and brake assists and automatic transmissions, who get a color-coded indicator of the race line that all but drives the car for them, with a full overhead view of the track on their HUDs and 100% visibility around their positions. Why would I do that? :)

I don’t mind missing out, as it’s not at all a progression track that interests me. But more to the point, it’s a progression track that I feel like I’ve been shut out of because of how I enjoy playing. But I would be curious to hear how it’s working out for other folks.

-Tom

I’ve played quite a lot of multiplayer, and it works well. There is just the right amount of fishing to prevent griefing, while still allowing and rubbing and needing to orchestrate passes.

Everyone is ghosting at the start, to prevent the inevitable clusterfuck at the first turn as in prior games. Then it’ll ghost of someone is about to slam into you at high speed, so people can’t just use you as a turning assist and throw you into the wall.

Also, if you slam into walls at high speed, it penalizes you by slowing you down for a bit.

Known as “crashing” IRL. Not currently implemented in Forza in any meaningful way. :)

-Tom

Yeah, I remember before they implemented these changes in FH4 the first 20-30 seconds of any race were a total clusterfuck. The way it dynamically recognizes when someone is about to ram you is generally pretty impressive too, though not perfect.

You used to grit your teeth going into every corner, waiting for the inevitable loser who would smash into you at full speed and use that to get through the turn.

Yeah I really like how much of an improvement this is over previous iterations. Forza is really smart about when it makes cars appear as a ghost and giving out penalties. Makes racing against rando’s fun!

Apparently “Monthly” rivals didn’t roll over yet?

Anyway, the guy I beat by 0.004 seconds with a 54.400 came back and beat that time and threw it back at me and then this happened:

I don’t know if it ranks by assists, a hidden fourth digit, or alphabetically by club name but it says I’m beating him (by 00:00.000) so it counts!

The game came out on November 5th, and the previous “monthly” rivals event in the Ford Bronco lasted less than a week, which I was grousing about upthread. So I’d estimate maybe around November 10th or so? So I figure this one will last until about December 10th.

EDIT: And I think it’s Alphabetical. Hypnotoad was beating me in a similar way on the monthly event by 00:00.000.

I’d be in favour of it being a neat calendar month. Get on it, Microsoft. (As soon as you finish fixing the Gamepass client. (hahahahaha))

I tried the Juggernaut last night. That is an insane trailblazer event. I missed 3 stars by quite a few seconds in my RS200.

Edit: Oh yes, and I finished the last of the story missions (V10) and got my Koenniseg Jasko (sp?). Now I can drive it in free roam! I wonder if I can fit it with off-road tires. Or if that’s even a good idea.

Having a blast in a BMW M3 from '03. I had to use a retro Saloon for the Seasonal championship, and it was too slow as the Stock config, so I downloaded this person’s tune up that really increases its launch and acceleration rating but makes it hilariously hard to turn. Winning in this giant tank of a car is surprisingly fun.

Yeah I did the same thing with that BMW and loved it too.

I’m stuck on the Truck seasonal/timed whatever, I can’t seem to get it tweaked right for the race that’s a go up the mountain. Just need some more practice ;-)

One thing I was wondering about. It seems like when you start one of those multi race competitions that you can’t start any other events. Is that how it works?

Yeah you can only have one open at any time.

In past Forza Horizon games the cross country races tend to be my least favorite activities just because I had a tough time understanding how much I’m supposed to brake and turn when I’m hurtling across grass fields and flowers and rocky hills and such. But man, some of the ones in this game are just sooooo much fun. Like I just finished one that starts off near the top of the volcano, and goes down the side of the mountain, and through the Baja Horizon festival track, and then across the white sands to the finish line near the West coast beach. That was such a blast in a Subaru WRX.

On the other hand, I used the rewind ability a LOT to not mess up the jumps along the side of the mountain and on the sand dunes. I can imagine this race being incredible frustrating if I had the time rewind ability turned off. It took me a few iterations of Horizon to really embrace the rewind superpower.

Prince of Persia: Wait wait wait, that’s not what really happened. I didn’t flip my Subaru over 3 times as I came over that hill.

Have any of you guys had the bug since the last patch where after exiting your house or the horizon festival, you go into the open world, and the game doesn’t respond to your controller at all? None of the buttons do anything?

I’ve had it happen to me twice now, once at my new west coast house yesterday, and today at the Baja Horizon festival where I unlocked a Barn Find (my last one).

Yeah, they just patched it a couple hours ago:

The Colusses was a lot of fun. At first I was questioning my choice of taking it in my Lotus Exige, but it turned out to be the perfect car for this race. The Lotus, of course, is all about hugging the light turns without having to brake, and there’s soooooo many of those turns in this race that it didn’t matter that I always lost ground on the straights to the other cars. The whole course takes no highways, it’s all back streets (even though it’s all paved roads) from east coast to west coast.

Great race design.

I also finished the Juggernaut with 3 stars, by getting there with literally less than a second to spare for the 3 star cutoff. Phew!

It’s incredible how much bad luck I’m having with the rolls. I think I only got 3 valuable, rare cars after 145 rolls, not even counting the triple ones.

I bought the Premium Add-Ons Bundle, which included both the coming expansions, the Car Pass, and the VIP membership. So I fired up the game again to see the new cars I got. Obviously the Hot Wheels expansion is what I really want to play, but that will have to wait for release this fall, I think.

Ok, so first, there was disappointment. Apparently the Car Pass in this game is not like regular Forza games. Instead of getting a metric ton of extra cars like in the regular Forza games, I think I got 3 for the Welcome pack, and 6 more maybe. So apparently the Car Pass and VIP and all that aren’t all that much in this Horizon game, apparently.

But anyway, forget all that. Because then I started playing, and oh my god, it feels soooooo good to drive around Mexico at a smooth 60fps and see such gorgeous vistas.