My Ideas On How To Fix Forza 5; An Open Letter To Turn 10 From A Fan

"ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)" (adabofoppo) 11/30/2013 at 14:15 • Filed to: Forza5

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After my review of the game received very little attention, and quite a bit of apologizing on behalf of Turn 10 I am beginning to wonder if people really do think that game developers really can't do anything wrong.

Ars technica has done a re-review and despite some mild criticism it's still the same story. Everything is wonderful. Nothing to see here. Move along. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

When the reality is that every forum I've seen so far is filled with fans who are rabidly, torches-and-pitchforks angry about the way things have been done with this game. And yet, the gaming and automotive press covering Forza 5 is not being as blunt about the obvious and inexcusable faults with this iteration of the series.

That Turn10 has had to admit their initial strategy regarding micro-transactions and in-game credits is flawed and have apologized and attempted to make it right. What they should have done from the outset was not design the game around pocket-rape to begin with.

Change the way affinity are credit bonuses are doled out. People really liked the part discounts as you gained manufacturer affinity in Forza 4. It was a little too easy though. The solution is a more balanced approach, where perhaps after affinity level 10 or so you get free upgrade parts. Since Forza 5 doesn't have the credit payouts, perhaps increase your credit bonus percentages over time. If affinity level 50 is still the maximum achievable, then have it reward a crazy bonus multiplier like 200% as an example.

Turn 10 claims that no one really buys track DLC. However, their most famous track DLC was the Nurburgring GP circuit from Forza 3, a track few Americans have ever heard of unless they follow F1, and most Europeans probably didn't buy because it was very expensive. (Prices for things outside of the US need adjustments across the board) My solution was to only ship the new title with real-world tracks and save the popular fake ones as DLC. That way the people who want to race at specific real-world locations are able to do so immediately, and the more loyal fans get access to a larger catalog of tracks as they plan the game.

Since Forza 5 is out, this idea won't work. However, I still have a away to solve the issue. For each car-pack DLC, include a new track as well. I would not be opposed to paying a couple more dollars for 10 cars and a track. If a new track is not possible to have rendered for each car pack, then the basic idea of coupling tracks with cars will help recover the costs associated with making them and prevent fragmentation among players as most car packs are downloaded in full.

While I'm at it, it would be really cool if the rewards from our Drivatars, the Forza Rewards site, and gifts from Turn 10 could be kept online longer. There are many people who have played at a friend's on the XBox One, but who will not personally own the console any time soon. I am personally in this situation, and don't see it changing for at least another 6 months to a year. It can't really be that much an issue to keep all those credits online indefinitely. Our profiles are already saved in the cloud. I would like to have more than 30 days to get online to collect my winnings.

I also see a big failure to actively engage with loyal fans, especially on the Forza forums. Apart from the occasional chime-in about someone's ban, there really isn't much interaction between the developers and the fan community. There are many very loyal people who are likely to stop playing altogether because Turn 10 and Microsoft are not paying any attention to what the most active player want to see. Pit stops cannot be that difficult to implement. Nor should it be that hard to make a reason to need them; actual fuel and tire wear.

I just wanted to throw some ideas out there and express how I felt seeing the new game. Right or wrong, these are just my opinions, and my solutions are by no means perfect. I'm probably just being cranky and old.

Get off my lawn!

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 11/30/2013 at 14:22

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You forgot one thing, 1976 Pinto Wagon.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 11/30/2013 at 14:25

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I make no attempt to request specific cars.

More wagons would be nice. I don't think they would be that popular.

TheBaron2112 > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 11/30/2013 at 14:33

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To me, I see no easy way to fix FM5. It's a sham. It's half a game. The in-game economy is more upside down than Zimbabwe's. You can't sell back parts or cars for credits, yet you can buy them with tokens (real $). The lack of tracks and cars is inexcusable, but they have been overshadowed by the horrendous money grab of an economy.

The best way to fix this mistake is stop work on FM5 altogether, put all efforts to producing a game on the scale of FM4 with all of its features intact, the things that work from FM5 included, and an expanded list of cars, tracks, and things that are available on-disc.

But that won't happen because MS is in charge and microtransactions are here to stay.

wbizarre - OEM fetishist > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 11/30/2013 at 14:38

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Also, don't sell us back cars that were stock in Forza 4. Looking at the LaFerrari pack, 6 or 7 of the cars came on the Forza 4 game disc. I doubt it takes them 6 months to import an existing car into Forza 5. I realize many of these are desirable cars that people want in the game anyway, but I can't help feeling duped. I would hope for at least 50% new material in a car pack.

Joe_Limon > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 12/01/2013 at 12:33

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I dunno, I feel all the complaints are being held by people who aren't actually playing the game. It's easy/quick to grind credits to buy whatever you like. It's not like free to play games where you are stuck racing the same car for weeks at a time before you get the chance to unlock the next vehicle. I feel as if Turn 10 released exactly the same game minus the cash grab, then there would be next to no one complaining about things being too expensive.

Plus, people are all too quick to forget that you could purchase individual cars in FM4 using credits as well... ffs.

The ring is in my opinion the most famous track in the world. The reason why turn10 doesn't sell downloadable tracks is because the monetary return compared to the amount of effort required to produce the content is terrible. Plus if they do this, then they lose out on sales of the next game as FM6 will come out with the same tracks as FM5+dlc. Then everyone will be bitching that there is no new tracks.

Affinity bonuses are fine, if they offered any greater of a bonus, then there would be little incentive to start driving vehicles outside of your favorite brand.

I will however concede the fact that they held off on vehicles to cash in after the game was sold. This is a shitty practice and it needs to stop. Not just by Forza, by every major game it seems. BF3...COD...EA... These companies should be rewarding players for playing the game. Offering dlc patches for free builds tremendous brand affinity and will greatly boost the sales of their next release.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Joe_Limon 12/01/2013 at 20:44

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You're probably right about couch racers.

Though to be blunt, the game economy sucks. Sure you can get credits, but it takes tons of work. Most people already fo that for 40+ hours each week, and view games as a hobby and an escape. Having to work to play your hobby sucks. I'm not advocating that every car be given away. But the prices and ability to earn credits right now are terrible and are specifically designed to make people want to pay more money to proceed faster. That bullshit, and pocket-rape. Forza 4 was too easy to earn credits, yes. Forza 3 was a huge grind-fest, but at least it didn't have the plague that is micro-transactions yet. Forza 5 feels like 3's reanimated corpse, all oozing and rotten, and missing various parts (fewer tracks and cars at launch, no auction house or marketplace)

By not having a marketplace for people to buy and sell designs and tunes, as well as not allowing people to sell their cars in an auction house there is not way to earn money other than grinding away at races. One of the easiest ways to get some credits has always been to sell cars you didn't want or make some designs or tunes. Without this it's just racing.

Not everyone can/wants to turn the difficulty all the way up; I'm one of them. Racing games are fun for me. Sometimes I don't want a huge challange just to finish a race, I just want to have fun driving my car. I feel like I'm being penalized for not playing with the game set to impossible. If other people want to race that way, that's fine, and they should get a bonus for it. But, the rest of us talentless hacks shouildn't have to play for nothing just because we have to devote out time to our real lives.

I can see we aren't going to agree about much here.

Joe_Limon > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 12/01/2013 at 20:51

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If you can't afford a new car after doing a handful of races you're doing something wrong.

Yes, there are cars that cost millions of credits. But they are pretty awesome vehicles. For once in a Forza game they feel valuable. This is pretty awesome, imagine if you were playing a rpg, and just by leveling you're given the best items in the game, would this give you any incentive at all to actually try to get any other equivalent items? No, you would quit as soon as you hit level cap (assuming you even play that long).

Lets say you're playing Forza 4, and someone starts racing with a Veyron. For the most part, nobody cares at all. Now, in Forza 5, if you pull out a Veyron, people will go oooh/ahhh, as if it's a valuable commodity (which it really should be).

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Joe_Limon 12/02/2013 at 09:32

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Then apparently I am playing the game wrong. Because if they had not have adjusted the prices or made the first Forza Rewards payout so large, I would have been stuck grinding away until I could buy the cars I wanted and still be able to upgrade them.

I only get a measly 35% bonus because I choose to race for fun and enjoyment. Coupled with the pathetic payouts and you have to wait and save forever to buy anything cool. Their pricing models suck. I do not care if in the real world some cars are rare or valuable. THIS IS A FUCKING VIDEO GAME NOT REAL LIFE LET US HAVE FUN THE WAY WE CHOOSE WITH THE CARS WE WANT GOD DAMNIT!

Just because you're Mr. Uber-Racer who gets a huge payout after your races, not everyone else does.

Forza has always been about their realistic simulation of driving characteristics. There is nothing wrong with allowing people to get into any car they want, whenever they want to to have fun driving it. Forza 5 takes all that away. Instead they make everyone pay far too much for too little content and way too much effort just to enjoy driving cars that most people won't even ever see with their own eyes.

Joe_Limon > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 12/02/2013 at 10:29

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Huge payouts? No, if I am playing Career mode I get about 6,000-7,000 a race, and 15k+ a level which happens every couple races. If I do freeplay, I set up 10 lap races and typically get paid out 20,000+ a race and can go up 1-2 levels per race. Besides, if all you want to do is experience a car, why don't you just rent them?