Forza Horizon 4 tried way too hard to be Cool and ended up having horrible in-game prizes

[Era of not Yakuza]

Forza Horizon 4 is my first Forza game. I'm in love with this game, it is very fun, a joy to play but MY GOODNESS, it has some very annoying problems

So, lets start with the menus. There are too many menus in this games, lots of redundant ones, some that are important to customize your car but you can only have access in certain areas and things hidden inside 2 or more layers of menus.
All menus trying way too had to look cool for kids today.

Not just that but every race starts with some dumb cut scene showing the racers trying to be... cool again. Dancing, making taunts, it takes away too much of our time just looking this every time you race.

The game is always giving to you some sorte of random prize. You will, probably, never need to race to get money because it can give you a lot by chance. So there is no sense of progress when you can finally afford to buy the best car parts.

And lets talk about the wheelspin.

So you got 2 or more trys ?
Guess what, your prize is shit:

Because the first thing that comes to mind when I want to race is "I hope I can get that new pair of shoes"

 

[plagiarize]

Counterpoint: I have more cars and money than I know what to do with in the game.

 

[Lant_War]

Most warcade racing games try too hard to be cool nowadays. Playing the The Crew 2 beta I cringed through the whole tutorial.

 

[RedSparrows]

I found it barely noticeable. I got showered with stuff playing the game.

 

[Cocolina]

I agree the menu access is a mess but wheelspins are just lootboxes, completely forgettable

 

[FelipeMGM]

yeah, the one thing I don't like about this game is this. I hate these godamn wheelspins with a vengeance. The economy in general in this game is weird, selling a car is kind of a hassle too

 

[NewtypeSp]

Hum...it's very easy to make money in this game.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

I remember having an awkward feeling when playing the demo now. The Crew 2 has a Playstation Home vibe. I should take a screen shot. Do you walk around with your characters and stuff? Also Test Drive Unlimited had these avatars as well. The only thing you do with them in The Crew 2 is just walk around the hubs and your home, no dancing.

 

[Cocolina]

Do you walk around with your characters and stuff?

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No you only see them in cutscenes and at the end of races. And their heads in the cars.

 

[danowat]

I really hope they drop the clothing from the next game, pointless waste of a reward.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

But I like the dumb dances and silly outfits 😿

 

[Uncle Sensei]

Yeah, after playing long enough, money is no object.
Alhough the wheelspins are filled with garbage, I'll give you that

 

[Izzard]

Yeah I'd agree. Great game but has done issues. Loading times, stupid prizes, and a few other niggles.

 

[DOT_mjo]

I actually think the Wheelspins and Super Wheelspins were fucking awesome. Getting free cars was sick.

 

[Treestump]

I don't think the problem you're having is the game trying too hard to be cool but having to follow industry trends. People like "loot" and rarities in loot. I do agree having clothing and emotes is a bit silly but it is in demand and having Rare and Legendary is the same. Do you need it? No. But it doesn't take away from the gameplay which remains excellent and Playground'd strength. You earn so many wheelspins as you play that you'll have more than enough cars and credits than you know what to do with so why not have some other little things in there to win just because? It doesn't hurt the game in any way.

I can kind of agree with the menus but I don't see this as a problem. The focus of the game is racing and the racing is great.

 

[Skel]

I remember menus were worse in Horizon 3. It's still a pain to navigate in 4.

Wheelspins often give you trash, but the chances to win Forza Edition cars are high. In the end, you have enough money to buy anything you want.

 

[Deleted member 34132]

Yeah, the wheelspins and the outfits are really unnecessary and annoying.
But what bugs me most is that it simply doesn't matter what place you finish a race. You can't even look up your stats to see your placement.

 

[Chip Chanceworth]

I actually think the Wheelspins and Super Wheelspins were fucking awesome. Getting free cars was sick.

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The wheel spins are major endorphin hits for me. Landing on a 16' Aventador will never not get me pumped. Also i have most of the clothes and dances at this point. I never read it as being cool, but just a way lengthen a racing games progression in a easy way, which progression has always beens something racing games have struggled with. Horizon 4's Ubisoft approach to world exploration and collectables was perfect and they should go even further with it in the next game. The wheel spins were just a way to pad it out even more with out having really meaningful drops in it. And theres no way to pay real money for them, so i saw no harm in it.

 

[disgraciau]

Yes yes, but I HAVE THE WINDOWS XP HORN!

 

[Duxxy3]

Yeah I didn't care about my character or horns or any cosmetics. Give me cars, points or money.

 

[Maturin]

Nah. Game showers you with stuff. People like different things.

We're at this point where if someone doesn't like something they assume it's bad and everyone doesn't like that thing. There's so little empathy and understanding of others in gaming right now.

I'm not that into dressing up my avatar. But my kids love it. It's a total none issue.

And please please please stop acting like your game makes you a (a) real big boy racing driver (b) real samurai warrior (c) special forces expert. They are just games. Horizon is not sensible, it never has been, it's fantastic silly fun with cars. So acting insulted that they put more fun and amusing things in is just pointless. You are not a racing driver.

 

[Gundam]

Dancing and taunting is just fun. I don't know that it's tryhard cool, honestly the opposite?

The presentation is of the menus is honestly super cool though.

 

[Hucast]

I was enjoying the racing too much to care about this stuff.

 

[UraMallas]

I have like 120 wheelspins and 50 mega ones. I don't even use them, tbh.

 

[pahlke1]

The main thing I find off putting is the cluttered map. It has AC Unity levels of bloat

 

[SMD]

.

 

[Raider34]

My only gripe with the game period is that I'm stuck being a female which really isn't bad my daughter made herself now it's stuck as her

 

[Deleted member 14192]

My only gripe with the game period is that I'm stuck being a female which really isn't bad my daughter made herself now it's stuck as her

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You can change your character at your home.

 

[Velocity:Design:Comfort]

I can't cringe harder than a racing game wanting me to earn "followers" as the primary carrot. I'm not a 15 year old on Snapchat.

 

[Fishook]

My biggest problem with FH4 was the lack of progression. After you unlock seasons, you just race for the heck of it. Which isn't a problem in and of itself, until you realise that there are only a handful of seasonal races and without championships or leagues you're kinda left to figure out your own fun in the map.

I know they don't want to stop people from driving the best cars straight away but some kind of championship ladder or something would've gone a long way to keep things interesting. As it is, I really enjoy the mechanics but I haven't touched the game in ages cos I don't really have anything to do.

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That's my biggest gripe, I dip in maybe once a week to do the occasional weekly championship for any car I don't own, but i am I think I am done with game as it getting stale .Just give racing that's all I am bothered about. Thinking of getting GT Sport

 

[Polaris]

My issue with the game is that the cars I do want are locked behind Wheelspins. My only option of getting something like the Crown Vic is to get lucky with a Wheelspin or catch one just as it is going up on auction.

And the menus are rubbish.

 

[Antrax]

But I like the dumb dances and silly outfits 😿

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Same

Nah. Game showers you with stuff. People like different things.

We're at this point where if someone doesn't like something they assume it's bad and everyone doesn't like that thing. There's so little empathy and understanding of others in gaming right now.

I'm not that into dressing up my avatar. But my kids love it. It's a total none issue.

And please please please stop acting like your game makes you a (a) real big boy racing driver (b) real samurai warrior (c) special forces expert. They are just games. Horizon is not sensible, it never has been, it's fantastic silly fun with cars. So acting insulted that they put more fun and amusing things in is just pointless. You are not a racing driver.

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Also this. I love the extra stuff. When people say they want all that stripped out and to just get races, what they want is Motorsport (something I also like!)

But Horizon is for silly fun.

without championships

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There are championships, by event type (EG the Goliath, the Titan, etc...)

 

[headspawn]

This is what boredom looks like when trying to find something to complain about, lol. It's not that bad.

There is filter, but also cars.

 

[Woffls]

i would really like to see wheelspins split up with cars on rarer spins and useless crap on the normal ones.

I always feel like I've been shortchanged if I get a super wheel spin full of gloves and tees.

Also ditch the chipmunk music and annoyingly enthusiastic characters.

e: and more upgrades would be nice but I know it's not in the dna of Horizon to go overboard.

 

[Remark]

I mean it's just the game giving a sense of customization which a lot of people like tbh.

I do agree with the sense of progression though, the last Horizon game to do it right imo was 2. 1 was still the best at it tho.

 

[i'm not a rob0t]

the emotes and wardrobe stuff in the spin-the-wheels was definitely annoying. i just wanted cool old cars.

the game itself tho is fucking stellar.

This is what boredom looks like when trying to find something to complain about, lol. It's not that bad.

There is filter, but also cars.

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also big this.

 

[kubev]

I don't think the prizes are the biggest problem with the game, though I do wish they'd count the five or so different color variations of any given accessory or clothing article as one item that you could customize. I don't necessarily hate it when I get a shirt I don't have any interest in wearing, but it's kind of lame that I potentially get five different colors of the same shirt I don't want to wear.

My problem with the "cool" aspect of the Forza Horizon series is the whole car culture thing in general. I hate how no one in the game seems to care about anything other than cars, and I'm tired of hearing the "Oh, you be sure and bring that car back now." jokes during the story missions. I'm not sure if it'd be better as another spin-off or if it'd work in a Forza Horizon game, but I'd almost prefer to have the open-world structure of a Forza Horizon game with a storyline that happened to revolve around cars but was actually more about the individual characters. Maybe go the cliché route and have the main character's brother die during a race, and you have to compete in events to get a shot at finding out more about the person responsible. I'm just really tired of the perpetual party aspect of the series, and it doesn't help matters that your character just stands there like an idiot without saying anything when a response is clearly the sensible thing to expect at some points.

 

[SMD]

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[UnluckyKate]

I loved it in FH3 but this seems to go overboard hard : shoes, emotes ? who cares...

It feels like they dilute content and make very artificial psychological traps

 

[Xumbrega]

Yeah, no. I like my customizations, it was also one of the criticisms FH3 had before FH4 was released, I guess they can't win with this lmao.

 

[Antrax]

Not really. Older games had different circuits grouped together to form a 4 race championship, which was better than a poke in the eye. With all the different permutations of car class, championship type and circuits/sprints, that gave you a lot to do. Once you've done all the races, there's nothing left to do. The seasonal championships can be done in a day.

I think Playground just expected people to stick to the online and make their own championships, but the online was desperately shit for anything other than co-op and no one wanted to race with restrictions either.

Click to shrink...

I'm aware of the other games.

I thought you meant like title championships. If you mean the 4 race ones like in Horizon 2, those were awful. There were like 160 of them, and the shine on "I won a championship" wears off really fast when you can do ten of them at a time.

 

[SMD]

.

 

[Deleted member 13101]

I won an AM Vanquish in a spin, among other cars won in spins.

 

[johancruijff]

Not just that but every race starts with some dumb cut scene showing the racers trying to be... cool again. Dancing, making taunts, it takes away too much of our time just looking this every time you race.

Click to shrink...

those are just "fake" loading screens imho

 

[Remo Williams]

No, more dumb useless stuff in wheelspins, please. I don't know what to do with all the cars anyway.

 

[Certinfy]

They just dumbed it down hard, which I assume was because of this being on Game Pass. There's literally no progression system based on winning (like the previous games) and the cosmetic avatar items are just a joke. Absolutely no clue what they did with the UI and menus either, 2 and 3 nailed them and then they went for this all white crap in this. Great game but quite a few steps backwards from the amazing 3.

 

[dom]

Yeah, no. I like my customizations, it was also one of the criticisms FH3 had before FH4 was released, I guess they can't win with this lmao.

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Here's a thought, how about the customization options for the player be already unlocked? Instead of using it as padding for a wheel spin.

 

[Bede-x]

I feel the same as OP in regards to the menus and the game's forced attempt to find a reason to show of the cosmetic features. It isn't my biggest issue with the game - that would still be the almost progression-less structure and a lack of closure - but it's noisy and takes up time.

And I think it's only the first step. I fully expect them to find further reasons to show of the characters in the coming games, so they can implement cosmetic microtransactions. It's just the way of the industry.

 

[Era of not Yakuza]

Well, I finally gave a try to the online and it is trash tier. I don't play racing games online so I don't know how good they are but fh4 is just frustrating

 

[Kapryov]

I've won more cars than I know what to do with in wheelspins... They're just lost in my garage now, I really have no idea how many cars I have anymore. There are too many chances to win cars already.

I like to customise my character so the clothing is great, but it kinda sucks when you get a super wheelspin and you get 3 horns or dances. I don't use those.
I assume somebody does though.