Forza Horizon 5

I feel like 'highly skilled' in FH5 is about the level of 'unbeatable' in FH4. They really pulled out all the stops when it comes to letting the AI cheat with impossibly tuned cars at the higher difficulties this time around.

That said, when I watch a DJS video and he beats 'unbeatable' almost effortlessly I'm reminded that I still suck.

Gravel said:

Every single time on that first race, the AI would take off like they had a 1 second 0-60 and I'd never catch up (the top 3-4 cars would end up with a 10-20 second lead). What ended up working for me was driving like a reckless asshole. In the first turn, I'd just gun it and e brake, using the other cars as a backstop so I wouldn't crash into a wall. Same with the second turn (cut to the inside, hard brake into the 2nd or 1st place car).

If the AI got out to a lead, I'd never catch up. Probably tried it a dozen times. But once I got the lead by crashing into everyone, they could never overtake me. It's kind of bullshit.

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Edit: Quoted wrong text.


This is what I had been doing as well. I just assumed it was because I was bad / didn't have the right car. Seeing that this is kind of just how it always goes takes the wind out of my sails a bit to play this more. Its fun, but the baked in gimmicky challenge to start each race is a bit of a turn off for me.

KDow said:

This is what I had been doing as well. I just assumed it was because I was bad / didn't have the right car. Seeing that this is kind of just how it always goes takes the wind out of my sails a bit to play this more. Its fun, but the baked in gimmicky challenge to start each race is a bit of a turn off for me.

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It's mostly true--the AI absolutely does rocket ahead to an early lead which will be impossible to close without a car tuned specifically to overcome it--but all my wins on the seasonal circuit were through slowly gaining ground over the course of the 3 laps. The best tune I used (SLK55) let me get into the lead about a third of the way through lap 3, while others ranged from taking the lead in the final corner to only coming in second. A lot of it comes from using a better driving line than what the game shows you with it set to full, so I'd recommend leaving that on braking only or entirely off. On dirt tracks especially there are better ways to cut corners and it will tell you to brake in places where you don't actually need to.

KDow said:

Its fun, but the baked in gimmicky challenge to start each race is a bit of a turn off for me.

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Definitely annoying AI behavior, but I just consider the AI obstacles like other cars during street races. Can't think of the AI as an important element of the game, sadly.

My frustration is focusing on beating the AI teaches bad habits that are Forza Horizon exclusive lessons like to brake check AI in coop to help in team wins. They just need to admit this is actually often a derby style game and incorporate damage into skill points, exp and win conditions.

There are so many other fun things to do in Forza Horizon games that basic races are just introductions to tracks. Rivals and online are where actual racing happens (rivals mostly still hah).

Vorph said:

It's mostly true--the AI absolutely does rocket ahead to an early lead which will be impossible to close without a car tuned specifically to overcome it--but all my wins on the seasonal circuit were through slowly gaining ground over the course of the 3 laps. The best tune I used (SLK55) let me get into the lead about a third of the way through lap 3, while others ranged from taking the lead in the final corner to only coming in second. A lot of it comes from using a better driving line than what the game shows you with it set to full, so I'd recommend leaving that on braking only or entirely off. On dirt tracks especially there are better ways to cut corners and it will tell you to brake in places where you don't actually need to.

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Yeah, good racing still overcomes. I wish more games would do like Gran Turismo 3 and teach people to race/drive better. That game was awesome.

I use brake line on only to better see turns are upcoming. It's sad to go from a fun game to good racing get people have to learn to ignore the game, but these were always half arcade game,behalf sim racer I suppose.

Another funny FH AI habit I can't confirm but sure seems to happen is the lead car setting a blistering pace and then like magic approaching the finish I blow past them suddenly. Showcases prove they have the technology to tailor make pace so you always just barely win if you're within the winning time range approaching the finish, and I think something weird like that can be programmed in for regular races sometimes, especially street races for some reason.

But, again, AI in races are just obstacles to me and I try not to pay much attention to them.

Yeah, while waiting to see what they do with the big patch(es) that are hopefully coming soon all I care about is collecting all the cars. I'm at something like 510/534 or whatever the total is. There's a few like the 2 Hondas which are impossible to get right now, but I think you can get to like 530 currently.

I was doing the roads and boards accolades too, but roads appears to be bugged and the very last one I need is completely invisible on the map and I'm missing one XP board that's in the middle of the reservoir which is now filled during summer season making it impossible to drive out there.

Vorph said:

Yeah, while waiting to see what they do with the big patch(es) that are hopefully coming soon all I care about is collecting all the cars. I'm at something like 510/534 or whatever the total is. There's a few like the 2 Hondas which are impossible to get right now, but I think you can get to like 530 currently.

I was doing the roads and boards accolades too, but roads appears to be bugged and the very last one I need is completely invisible on the map and I'm missing one XP board that's in the middle of the reservoir which is now filled during summer season making it impossible to drive out there.

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This might not help, but there's one "road" that's basically a tiny parking lot just south of the Baja Expedition marker. There are a few others that are pretty much driveways leading to experience boards. I was able to get all of the roads, but those are really easy to miss.

Obsidian said:

It seems like they fixed the CTD bugs so now I'm playing pretty steadily. I agree with the above stuff in terms of BS AI. There are races where the lead car just takes an insurmountable lead early on and there's nothing you can do. If you somehow find the perfect tune and drive like an asshole (crashing into cars to slow down, etc) and manage to take the lead, then they become totally uncompetitive. You basically have to drive absolutely perfectly to have any chance to catch them, but if you miraculously manage to pass them you are suddenly putting 3-5 seconds a lap on them. It really makes the AI races tedious, and I thought they were reasonably fun in FH4 so that's pretty unfortunate.

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Not for me they haven't, I still crash as soon as I load in

Janx said:

Check your swap file settings. I know I had a ton of crashes in MSFS 2020 due to that shit and it requiring a certain amount of guaranteed swap file even though I have 32gigs of ram.

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That made it worse, now I crash as soon as I select a car. Before I could get to the track before it crashed.

Janx said:

Event logs give any indicator of whats causing the crash?

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Faulting application name: ForzaHorizon5.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x6178b442
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000002268db560
Faulting process id: 0x262c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d7da98929c800b
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.624F8B84B80_3.405.2.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\ForzaHorizon5.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: 3e9ba5a0-4bce-482f-b802-014d704b5360
Faulting package full name: Microsoft.624F8B84B80_3.405.2.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Faulting package-relative application ID: Forzahorizon5

After googling that event id it mentioned registry stuff, did a registry clean and it resolved the issue.

Fuuuck The Trial and off-road racing online. Have tried to win 5 times. Once made it through the third race without most of the team quitting, only to lose by 50 points.

2 other attempts missed a gate because a team mate slamming into me. Or in one case some dude was just stopped in the middle of a turn and to be fair I slammed into him because WTF why you stopped.

Once my transmission got stuck and wouldn't shift. Half the team bailed midway through the first race anyhow, though.

Another time couldn't turn, just forced me to drive straight until I missed a gate, then froze during rewind.

This is perhaps why I rarely did online events in FH4. Though it never seemed this buggy, just still had asshats.