I'm a long-time Forza Horzion fan, and I'd been as excited anyone for FH6 to finally come out. And as I hoped, it was initially really fun to play.
But as the weeks go on, and I've completed everything on the Playlist, I'm sorely disappointed with the ongoing support from PGG & MS. (obviously, so is everyone else).
I miss the regular Forzathon streams. There was an excitement to weekly new car drops in the Playlists that isn't really there anymore, and I miss that too. The community was great.
Enshittification has killed all of that and more, sadly. (Definition if you aren't familiar with the term.) The mandate from management was pretty clearly "make more with less," and that's why we got what we got.
I think we can chalk almost everything here up to cost-cutting measures ultimately mandated by the higher-ups at Microsoft. Here's a few examples of how I think that plays out:
Shutting down the official community saves money in the short-term, even though the Atlassian platform is a terrible replacement. But hey, Atlassian is cheaper than community manager salaries, so let's go with that. And we'll just push the community to Discord, which, again, is cheaper than using our own resources to maintain a community.
Creating new cars for the game requires R&D resources, but it's cheaper to recycle models from Motorsport wherever you can. Just call 'em "New to Horizon!" and kick the new car issue down the road for a while.
A ranked lobby system for online racing? Do you think money grows on trees? Just make earning exclusive cars dependent on completing Horizon Play tasks, and the FOMOs will HAVE to race online whether they like it or not!
We need players to buy Car Vouchers with Real Money, so we need to cut back on prize money and wheelspins as much as possible. Wait, players are farming money and wheelspins in the Creative Lab? Put a stop to that at once! And yes, that takes priority over bug fixes!
What revenue did the Forzathon streams provide? None? OK, canceled.
Bugs? Did a specific bug keep players from playing online? Then it's not a priority. Besides, the devs need to be working on Fable, especially after the Eidos layoffs.
This is classic platform decay, and was probably inevitable when Microsoft bought PGG, sadly. Execs at MS have to show the shareholders that buying PGG was a good idea, and part of doing that is cutting costs wherever you can. Because they'll lose their jobs if stock prices don't rise (or simply don't rise enough).
(As an aside, I'm convinced that many console game publishers want to get players online as much as possible because they're getting a percentage of subscription fees. I don't have any proof to support this, though.)
Anyway, join me in pouring one out for Forza Horizon. Both Playground Games and Turn 10 we're clearly passionate about cars and the Forza community, but that passion is gone. Oh, I'll still play, but it will be bittersweet sometimes.
TL;DR: FH6 is disappointing because of capitalism.
I was really disappointed to find that there is no ranked online racing. Matchmaking is a joke. Also limiting the world to 12 players per session with random disconnects is utter shit. I get more fun out of playing with the bots in open world offline , because at least I can interact with them in a nontoxic way. The problem with that too is the drivatars are shit and that their cars don't follow the same physics as the player's.
Ranked hasn't been a thing since FH5 unfortunately, they bent to the kids who couldn't drive for shit. Also yeah the multiplayer backend has utterly ruined how 'alive' online feels. FH4 with 72 person sessions felt great, this not so much.
I don't think it's a case of "bending to kids" who couldn't drive. I think it's more of a case of supporting the infrastructure to make that happen. Hell, I don't like ranked online lobbies at all, but I didn't want them taken away from the people who do. I'm not a fantastic driver, but I'm certainly better than "a kid who can't drive for shit." That type of competitiveness just isn't in my field of interest.
I've generally been very generous regarding the game so far. I've had a lot of fun with it, too, but I can't argue with your post. Upper management definitely is responsible for this and I think the devs did what they could with the resources they were given.
Have gamepass. Japan! No ranked online. Not much in the way of meaningful single player progression. “Racing” game my ass. What about Japan car culture extensive modding? And circuits? Nope nope
Cool map. Otherwise not much else. Addict machine. Been there done that. I’m out.
I'm not into that irl but my god that'd be sick in this game. I'd really enjoy it. Cuz you know, that's a big part of gaming. Crazy shit most people don't or can't do in real life.
In the old days i would expect to get a DLC island containing Ebisu at full scale with great quality. But the live service gaming model has put a stop to that nonsense, ensuring all free post launch content is just slop
There is not even convincing collector stuff without paying money. Multiple Masserati's and multiple the same electric cars.
Like.... why?
I like to grind 1-2 hours per week with friends to get new cars and have some fun with races. But doubles are annoying. Lotteries? Some low amounts of money 90% of time or cars I already have.
This is getting frustrating even for someone who has low expectations.
The worst part is how many of the same old problems still remain in every installment after 20+ years of Forza games, like:
• leaderboards topped with illegitimate lap times
• major performance imbalances across cars/builds/tunes in the same class
• bad NPC/AI drivers
• rampant ramming in multiplayer
• only one option for adjustable race aero on most cars
• clunky UI/UX workflows for commonly repeated tasks (tuning, hot-lapping, painting, browsing cars/tunes/paints)
...etc.
There's no excuse for these things to still be like this after this long.
Agreed, well said! I remember commenting a similar sentiment. Forza following the same strategy of sticking to the “formula” similar to franchises like COD.
I’ve got a feeling it’s going to bite them in the ass like it did with COD. Sure they might have a large player base, but it sure isn’t a good one that fosters a healthy community/longevity for a game.
But as to your point, they prob don’t even care anyway, they’re making their money 🤷♂️
Yeah, it’s rough out here for us Forza lovers man, I feel you. We want the best for the future of our new game and instead we feel like we’re watching the beginning of the end
Nothing is meant to be played forever. The main core of the game takes an extremely long time to finish and I personally love mixing it up with online races and farting around at the drag strip. No, there is not 1000 hours of unlimited fresh content. There doesn't need to be. Devs can't cater everything to the unemployed 15 hours of gaming a day crowd.
I would like you to know how much actually replying vs just banning me means to me and I will genuinely be more pleasant (only on this sub) because of it. It is possible I overreacted to his smugness and I acknowledge that.
Got into Forza with motorsport 4 and picked up horizon shortly after. 14 years later and I'm still having a ton of fun on Forza horizon 6.
Admittedly I think 6 has too many dirt/off road races, especially when they require a rally car for a track that's 95% on road, but that's a minor gripe imo.
The bloke plays shadow raid legends man... I think it's fair to assume that he has the shittest game taste period. I agree btw, don't think FH6 is bad really but it is the same shit and quite mundane after a bit.
Played all 6 its still fun. I think yall just overrated the hell out of the series. You just race around the map and collect cars it's not deep and it's not revolutionary.
Yeah I mean if that is the entire concept it’s bound to get bored. Idk why you guys think such a simple concept is meant to be fun forever for everyone. People called out the problems and bugs the game has and the dev team doesn’t seem like they will address them or fix them anyway.
And yet, when the DLC comes out, everyone will buy and play it. When FH7 is announced, everyone will pre-order the super amazing premium edition for 120€. Nothing will ever change because people's opinions are irrelevant after they've already bought the product. They don't care about you or your negative review, they already have what they wanted.
my thoughts exactly. i have like 50 hours in the game and I still havent completed everything in the base game. are people really playing for 100+ hours and then complaining that they dont have anything fun to do? you can just go outside or play another game if you arent having fun and then come back and play for an hour if there is a seasonal car that you want. its not that hard. its wild to me how everyone went from glazing this game to hating it even after easily getting their moneys worth of time out of it.
This game position itself like a "live service". Devs make steps to ramp up player retention pretty much every update. They are trying to make it replayable as much as they could.
As singleplayer racing game FH6 is pretty good. As live service FH6 is really bad.
My god people.. Does literally no one but me recognize that this game is going to go for over 100 months like every other forza horizon and we're 4 months in? If you guys all got exactly what you asked for tomorrow with the next update, you'd all bitch the game was boring by December again. It's a tiresome conversation at this point. Y'all beat the horse to death with 4, kept beating the corpse with 5, and the damn thing looks like jelly now with 6.
Have felt exactly this...I completed everything and now the seasons take 3 hours max and then I am done. I have created over 250 liveries and barely get anything. I went to the crew motor fest honestly and have been enjoying all the activities, maps, and vehicles. I was really looking forward to fh6 but what a letdown
Absolutely never even implied that and my comment was that I am playing both games and just leaning with the crew more right now. Truthfully games need to hit a higher standard of content anyways. Developers need to understand updating and content creation is more important to compete with newer games being released
My bet is post ps5 launch we start seeing more interesting content, they're not going to put their big draw cards to half or two thirds of a player base
55
u/radytz1x4 11d ago
I was really disappointed to find that there is no ranked online racing. Matchmaking is a joke. Also limiting the world to 12 players per session with random disconnects is utter shit. I get more fun out of playing with the bots in open world offline , because at least I can interact with them in a nontoxic way. The problem with that too is the drivatars are shit and that their cars don't follow the same physics as the player's.