Forza Horizon 5

[Plage]

On 6/1/2022 at 2:35 PM, Dock said:

The Espada is decently competitive for B class Open racing, but there are better choices sadly. Still, it is a beautful car

 

B is to slow for my liking. I prefere A and S1. My Espada is tuned to S1 900 with the 6.5L V12 engine and it actually is somehow competitive even if it obviously doesn't has the aero of modern hyper or sports cars but it's extremly fast in a straight line and still can corner ok.

 

/edit: Made a livery for the new RS 3. It's inspired by one of the original RS 3 LMS liveries.

 

Edited June 3 by Plage

[Jason]

That Macan PR stunt was... annoying. I think I made it hard for my self going for the jump through the trees rather than going around and just gunning it. Not my favourite trailblazer in the game by any means though, cause of FH's sh*te camera you can't tilt the camera downwards to see over hills and there's a few rocks right in front of the start over the hill that are so easy to hit, plus all the small rocks on the way down that f*ck with your speed.

 

Going for both rewards this week though as I don't have that old Merc so I figured I'll get the 40 points as i'm p sure that Merc is bonkers expensive.

[Commander S]

Trial this week was  - stock M2s? That's really all you need, isn't it? Next week is the Desert Flyer, followed by the Quattro, so those should be good, too.

[Plage]

13 hours ago, Jason said:

That Macan PR stunt was... annoying. I think I made it hard for my self going for the jump through the trees rather than going around and just gunning it. Not my favourite trailblazer in the game by any means though, cause of FH's sh*te camera you can't tilt the camera downwards to see over hills and there's a few rocks right in front of the start over the hill that are so easy to hit, plus all the small rocks on the way down that f*ck with your speed.

 

Going for both rewards this week though as I don't have that old Merc so I figured I'll get the 40 points as i'm p sure that Merc is bonkers expensive.

 

Yes, the trailblazer was hard this time. Never noticed the small rocks in before. At least I can't remember a car that had issues with them like the Macan has.

 

The SSK is 7.5 mil at the dealer but you can get it way cheaper at the auction.

 

-----

 

Got the new 911. What a great car. Eats corners for breakfast and then demands more and tighter ones for lunch.

 

[Jason]

I had a little cruise in the GT3, felt good to drive stock. Shame you can't get it in the Touring spec though. The GT3 Touring right now is probably my "if I could choose any car to own" car.

[Jason]

Double post but I bring news:

 

 

The first expansion details have leaked on steam and it's another Hot Wheels expansion.

 

They did it with FH3 so I have seen a fair few people a bit disappointed by it but as someone who never played FH3 and thought the expansion in that game looked cool I'm pretty excited for it tbh. Bit surprising that that the first expansion is a wacky one though as usually they do a more grounded 1st expansion, do wonder what the second one is going to be now?

 

Given it leaked today I wonder if we'll see it announced during the Summer Games Fest.

[Ivan1997GTA]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

Double post but I bring news:

 

 

The first expansion details have leaked on steam and it's another Hot Wheels expansion.

 

They did it with FH3 so I have seen a fair few people a bit disappointed by it but as someone who never played FH3 and thought the expansion in that game looked cool I'm pretty excited for it tbh. Bit surprising that that the first expansion is a wacky one though as usually they do a more grounded 1st expansion, do wonder what the second one is going to be now?

 

Given it leaked today I wonder if we'll see it announced during the Summer Games Fest.

Yeah. I kind of expected a different "wacky" expansion, to be honest, with it being themed on something like Disney & Pixar's Cars instead of Hot Wheels.

[Jason]

You'd think the game would be better suited to a really wacky stunt map now, what with a newer and more modern engine and things like EventLab. Could see some cool stuff with it?

 

I can get why people are meh on it though as it's a repeat but yea as I never played FH3 I'm looking forward to it my self.

[Commander S]

Honestly, while I can see the logic in doing a different theme for the licensed expansion each time from a novelty angle, there's also something needlessly limiting about that. "We could do Hot Wheels again, but with all the new features added with Horizon 4 and 5 - but we've already used it up, so I guess we've just got to do something where you drive around regular tracks in movie cars or whatever". There's nothing saying they can't go back to a previous theme, and the one thing with FH3 Hot Wheels was that it really made for a different driving experience (and there's never been anything quite like it since - Lego Speed Champions being more a prototype for FH5's map layout and accolade progression than anything new in terms of how it felt to play).

 

I bought all the DLC for FH3 back in 2020, just before it got delisted, and as much as FH4 is still my favourite base game (and overall), having played FH3 Hot Wheels afterwards, ...yeah, all the people who said "it's still the best of any of the expansions" were absolutely right, IMO. And I'm really looking forward to things like the opening drive for this one, or the possibilities opened up in EventLab (Don Joewon Song is going to have a field day with this - after all, the dude inadvertently called it... ), or just being able to let things like the Jesko, EP9, Evijia, AMG-ONE, etc. lose on the HW tracks.

 

Also, lol on two counts:

 

1. I've said before how for me, FH5 feels almost like 'FH3 II', in terms of map, single-player progression, etc., but I didn't mean it quite so literally!

 

2. Remember how folks in the FH community were convinced the game would be in Japan, or include all the maps from previous games (or both)? Meanwhile, Playground hid the actual theme/location for FH5 in plain sight, with Día de los Muertos t-shirts added shortly after launch. Looks like the same happened here: it's curious that of all the non-car licenses (Final Fantasy XV, Lego Speed Champions, etc.), Hot Wheels is the only one that's been renewed as far as FH5, to the point where one of the Showcase events in the game as standard features a new-to-Forza Hot Wheels car. Plus, things like the green T-Rex models in Super7/EventLab? People were assuming those were hinting at a possible Jurassic Park expansion for some reason - forgetting, of course, that they're originally from the FH3 Hot Wheels map!

[Commander S]

Double-post, but here's the trailer, and the Forza.net news post (Forzamotorsport.net just got revamped):

 

 

 

Forza.net: Blast off to Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels on July 19!

 

 

The entire car list for the expansion (10, similar to the likes of Blizzard Mountain and the original Horizon Hot Wheels) is in there, and ...it doesn't include the returning Hot Wheels cars from FH3/FH4 (Ford F-5 Dually Custom, 2 Jet Z, The Nash, 2005 50th Anniversary Mustang, and Rip Rod). According to the article, some of the cars in the trailer are Series 9 playlist rewards - and the returning cars are the only new cars shown that aren't part of the DLC, so I'm assuming that all five will be the 50% rewards (one for each season, the fifth for the entire series). Makes sense, because I imagine some people might have been a bit irked to have free/returning cars in previous games get locked behind a paywall this time!

 

...also, good grief, that car list...   Brabham BT62, Hennessey Venom F5 - and not shown in-game so far, but it looks sharp, the Italdesign DaVinci concept:

 

[Jason]

That map looks like an absolute f*cking blast. Thought it might've been a fall release so next month sounds very good to me. Really looking forward to it.

[Commander S]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

That map looks like an absolute f*cking blast. Thought it might've been a fall release so next month sounds very good to me. Really looking forward to it.

 

 

I love how it's not just Hot Wheels stuff: there's effectively a mini version of Blizzard Mountain shoved in there, as well as what's basically a more condensed, fantastical take on the main map - because it doesn't have to look like a scaled-down version of a real place, the environmental design can be ...whatever the map designers want.

 

That answers a question I had: how do you handle all the off-road activities introduced in FH4 (trailblazers, for exampl), within the restrictive Hot Wheels track layouts? After all, FH3's HW map was largely glued to the track pieces, other than hunting for bonus boards. As it is, there looks to be a decent amount of off-track driving in there - and I bet there'll be some cross-country events where the route cuts across a boost strip or something to spice things up (RIP anyone doing that in a PvP race! ).

 

Also, the "nexus" Festival hub area, suspended above the clouds? Awesome - granted, I'll probably end up falling off the platform a lot, but it looks so darn cool.

 

Btw, I think July was probably as late as it was ever going to be, because I imagine the folks at PG want to have an even-ish spread between expansions, and the next one is most likely in December (announced at the Game Awards, even?). They've essentially doubled the length of the expansion rollout for FH5, because of the longer gap between game releases - so instead of expansion 1 in December and expansion 2 in summer (with 3-5 months between releases), expansion 1 is the summer one and 2 the December one, with longer gaps of 6-8 months between them.

[Plage]

So, it's Hot Wheels trash. I'm disappointed. Very disappointed.

[Mexicola9302]

9 hours ago, Plage said:

So, it's Hot Wheels trash. I'm disappointed. Very disappointed.

Yeah total BS, why the same sh*t again, they completly lost creativity it seems. It wasn't even fun in FH3, it felt more like a chore playing it through. I only played it through because i bought the FH3 Ultimate Edition, that was 100€, i somehow wanted my money to be worth something.

 

FH3's Blizzard Mountain was the best DLC so far that i played in any FH, well i only played FH3, FH4 and FH5. That was really fun to play, not so boring like the new land DLC in FH4.

 

I wonder what the non wacky DLC will be, or if there even is one.

[Plage]

Now that was easy this time.

 

 

The downside is that the original engine sounds like crap.

 

/edit: Seems there's something wrong with the weekly EventLab race. I tried to start it multiple times by now and always get a server connection failure or something the like.

Edited June 16 by Plage

[Commander S]

Good stuff in the playlist (and last Car Pass cars) for next month - lots of Hot Wheels stuff, naturally, but a nice mix of stuff on top:

 

Series Playlist:

- Hot Wheels Legends "2 Jet Z"

- 1968 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S (back from Forza Motorsport 4)

- 1970 Dodge Coronet Super Bee (regular in Motorsport titles, but first time in Horizon)

- Hot Wheels Legends "The Nash"

 

Meanwhile, the remaining returning Hot Wheels cars shown in the trailer are added to the "hard to find" pool, and will be available either through wheelspins, or as future Forzathon Shop/playlist rewards - although if you have the Hot Wheels expansion, you're apparently able to unlock them as part of that, instead. Those would be:

- Hot Wheels Legends Ford F-5 Dually Custom

- Hot Wheels Rip Rod

- 2005 Hot Wheels Ford Mustang

 

Also, the last three car pass cars (in no particular order):

- 2019 Nissan 370Z Nismo (that'd be our fourth 370, then! )

- 2020 Lexus RC F Track Edition

- 2021 Aston Martin DBX

 

Really cool new thing coming to the Hot Wheels expansion: in addition to the return of the Hot Wheels tyre compound from FH3 (with red trim), it'll also add the option for Spectraflame-style metallic paint (basically a type of candy paint: clear lacquer over zinc plating), for all cars. Sounds like that'll work similar to matte/semigloss/metal flake/etc., where it's a finish that'll work for any custom colour, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

 

...oh, and new filter for sorting cars - so where the 'most recent' was already hugely helpful for finding newly-added cars, we finally get a 'find duplicates' filter!   In other words, select the "duplicate" filter, and it'll just show cars you own more than once (like wheelspin cars you got during matchmaking, and couldn't sell...  ).

 

[second edit] More snap news: turns out the Italdesign DaVinci concept was a misprint (possible future reward car?), and the 10th car in the Hot Wheels expansion is actually another car that showed up in the texture files some months back: the 1993 Schuppan 962CR - almost certainly this specific car, since it's probably the one that Turn 10 could get access to for scanning:

 

 

 

As much as I liked the idea of an electric grand tourer, another track toy would be a better fit for Hot Wheels (like how the Ferrari F50 GT was godly in FH3 Hot Wheels). Plus, the fact it's the oldest car, and hasn't been shown in any pics, makes me suspect that it'll be the Hot Wheels Park barn find...

Edited June 16 by Commander S

[Jason]

30 minutes ago, Commander S said:

we finally get a 'find duplicates' filter!   In other words, select the "duplicate" filter, and it'll just show cars you own more than once (like wheelspin cars you got during matchmaking, and couldn't sell...  ).

 

Oh thank the lord, that'll make gifting out my dupes much easier than sifting through my 600+ cars.

[Plage]

The game is confused. I just finished that "Destroy 100 solarpanels with the Mitsubishi Eclipse" accolade thing with a Porsche 911 Turbo S during a drive between two Horizon Tour races.

 

The EventLab seasonal worked now but what the hell were they thinking when selecting this one? The AI isn't even remotely able to drive this mess of a track but they still think it's a good idea to use it as a weekly? WTF!?! Did they select this as teaser for that upcoming Trackmania DLC? I hope not.

 

-----

 

Ported a livery from the MkI Golf GTI to the new "Caddy".

 

[Jason]

Yea I've had some rando accolades pop for seemingly no reason my self. There's some lingering bugs with that system for sure.

 

As for the EventLab... no one has any idea lol. The guy who made it came out and said it was his first custom track and that he wasn't contacted about it at all. It's as if they just pick them at random based on a few likes or something. They've picked some genuinely good ones here and there but some they've picked have just been... awful.

[Plage]

Ok, never noticed this before but I'm not paying much attention about them anyway. This one was just so wrong I was flabbergasted.

 

Nice to know how that works...or not. Would explain why some of the rather strange ones could make it into the playlist. But some selections were quite nice or at least well thought out and properly put together indeed.

 

/edit: Zis is gut, ja!?!

 

 

 

Edited June 18 by Plage

[Commander S]

I get the feeling with EventLab that they're picking them from a mix of well-known community members, creations that have trended either in-game or on socials, and anything where the description sounds like it might be fun - so for the creative-themed season, one of them was the popular "Photo Studio" map, and we've had Don Joewon Song's neon-heavy thing recently, too.

 

So, on paper, you can see why they'd go for this week's track: a nod to Rainbow Road, made by Nick from AR12 - and if the person at PG assembling the playlist watched Nick's video on it, then yeah, it does look like a fun Trackmania-ish setup (come to think of it, it might also have been a tease for the Hot Wheels expansion!). Except, of course, it was designed as a fun thing with friends, ideally with upgraded UTVs - so going in against AI with a stock RX3, everyone's just going to slow down at the top of the loop and drop off the track.  PG definitely need to playtest them - and if they are testing them, it ought to be with stock vehicles, solo, because that's the default way 99% of players are going to go into them.

 

 

In other news, here's the new map layout (sans orange track pieces - just the actual landmasses) for Hot Wheels Park:

 

Spoiler

 

 

I like how they've set it up so that the main Mexico map is actually visible through the clouds below, with the Hot Wheels map suspended above, Helicarrier-style. Probably not great for anyone with vertigo, but still...

 

Also, Series 10 is currently designated "Horizon X" (which could just be a placeholder, for the sake of keeping the full name/theme a surprise), with the icon for new cars being the same one for the new EV-themed monthly rivals events - makes me think we're getting some electric cars (and events showcasing them) for July-August. That'd probably explain the typo with the Italdesign DaVinci on the website: it's an electric GT coming out at the same time as the Hot Wheels expansion, just not in the Hot Wheels expansion. I'd also put decent money on the VW ID.R to come back from FH4 (it's arguably a better fit for FH5, and Hot Wheels - would go well against the other Pikes Peak car, the Sierra Alpha), and since the Audi e-tron GT is apparently confirmed for Forza Motorsport (and with Audi finally pulling their finger out and putting some new cars in the games! ), I'd expect that in Series 10 as well (aw, yiss).

[Plage]

I don't know. On FH5 reddit somebody said it's the first track that comes up if you search for "Rainbow". If that really was why they picked it...you know. The creator even said there is a version that AI can actually drive but they don't seem to have bothered to check on all fronts.

 

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The new seasons/series stuff looks good on the first look. Not too Hot Wheels focussed with at least two new oldskool muscle cars as season rewards. The weekly trials are back to what they were in before. The actual one is "A800 modern muscle" you decide and actually easy to win as they AI doesn't seems to match the levels of the player tunes. The rival challenges are just "take part" and not "beat rival" now if I got it right.

 

I've got that Hot Wheels thing by taking the photo, doing the trial, the "track toy" challenge (with the car below), the two rival challenges and the speed trap already. The speed trap can be easily done with driving up the hill in the North (maybe even with an untuned car).

 

The new "matt level" feature for the design editor is quite nice even if it has the limitation that it can only be applied to all vinyls together and not single ones. Still nice to be able to do stuff like this now.

 

Edited June 23 by Plage

[Jason]

The trial was so easy that I I comfortably was finishing above the AI (except 1 race where I missed a checkpoint lol) in a car tuned for track cause I didn't realise it was a cross country event. The balancing in them is all over the place these days lol.

 

This weeks EventLab is equally... poo, honestly. I'm tired of them just grabbing these halfpipe tracks cause "omg wacky", or however they're picking them. They've picked some genuinely great tracks recently that involve no wackyness, just creative use of the terrain in the game, that the creators have put thought and effort into through track design and also the scenery. Now I realise quality tracks aren't a dime a dozen, but there's four billion floating halfpipe tracks, they really need to stop picking them.

[Commander S]

Another possible candidate for Series 10, if the all-electric theme is true - this time from the updated licences.

 

Granted, most of them are holdovers from previous games (Spania GTA, W Motors), while a couple are already in FH5, just not as manufacturers (the LP Racing Macan is under Porsche, and SAIC is the parent company of both MG and Wuling). The notable inclusions that don't currently have cars in ...well, any Forza game, are Felino, makers of the cB7 track car (I'd expect that for Motorsport first, but it could come to Horizon), The Grabowski Brothers, who are behind the Subaru Crosstrek Desert Racer (already found in past leaks), and ...Rivian. Now, I was expecting Ford would use an all-electric series to show off the F-150 Lightning, and that may well still be on the cards (I reckon it'll come to the game eventually), but the Rivian R1T is arguably the better fit for Forza Horizon (being an off-road, 'lifestyle' pickup), and it's been on the market longer, so there's been more time to scan and record it.

 

That'd put the most likely Series 10 line-up as the Italdesign DaVinci Concept, the Audi e-tron GT, the Rivian R1T, and maybe the return of the VW ID.R (and they'll probably put the Nio EP9 back in as a 40 point reward somewhere). If they're adding a full 5 new-to-FH5 cars next month, then I'd say either the F-150 Lightning or perhaps the Pininfarina Battista (I'd expect that for Motorsport, too) as the fifth.

[Jason]

One thing they snuck into the update that I was happy to see - TAA support. It's got it's pros and cons as an aliasing solution but it does do a good job in eliminating jaggies and based on my brief impressions of it in FH5, it's improved the jaggy situation I had massively.

 

I do wonder if it's a precursor to DLSS/FSR support too. With Motorsport having raytracing in-game (and not just Forzavista) DLSS/FSR support is a must, so I assume it's coming there and seeing as the in-game option literally classifies TAA as an experimental option I can only assume it's them working towards DLSS/FSR support.

[Plage]

On 6/23/2022 at 8:57 PM, Jason said:

The trial was so easy that I I comfortably was finishing above the AI (except 1 race where I missed a checkpoint lol) in a car tuned for track cause I didn't realise it was a cross country event. The balancing in them is all over the place these days lol.

 

This weeks EventLab is equally... poo, honestly. I'm tired of them just grabbing these halfpipe tracks cause "omg wacky", or however they're picking them. They've picked some genuinely great tracks recently that involve no wackyness, just creative use of the terrain in the game, that the creators have put thought and effort into through track design and also the scenery. Now I realise quality tracks aren't a dime a dozen, but there's four billion floating halfpipe tracks, they really need to stop picking them.

 

Same here! I showed up with semis but luckily with an AWD setup. Also missed a checkpoint in the second race but still finished 6th.

 

Tried that EventLab creation today. I don't know what to say anymore. It's like they absolutely don't care at all.

 

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The Treasure Hunt is broken for me but I'm not the only one.

 

[Jason]

Yea the treasure chest is broken. For PC users if you have access to the Xbox Cloud you can load that up and get the chest that way, which is what I did for it.

[Plage]

15 hours ago, Jason said:

Yea the treasure chest is broken. For PC users if you have access to the Xbox Cloud you can load that up and get the chest that way, which is what I did for it.

 

From what I got this only works for game pass owners?

 

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Playing around with the new vinyl feature.

 

[Plage]

I've made five of these. Dubbed them the "HORNET", advertized them as numbered limited special edition in the Forza forum and threw four of them on the market for 10M instant buy and a minimum 5M reserve.

 

 

 

All of them sold in about 26 hours for 35M total.

[Jason]

Yeaaaa I don't like what they did to the trials at all. I've not lost one in ages, nto seen the 3rd stage in ages, and have routinely went in with poor tunes or cars and still beaten the AI. Seriously my car today had no top end at all, still beat every single AI.

 

They were meant to be hard, PG, that's the whole point of them.

 

Also this weeks EventLab is hilarious. I mean, it's yet another wacky track that's complete and utter garbage but the description even says it's designed for A class and PG locked it to S1 class. 

 

I see some really cool tracks pop up on reddit all the time, well thought out tracks, good use of scenery... and yet we still get these garbage floating half pipe tracks most weeks.