Ive grown cynical enough that all I hear in videos like this is "we want your money, we want your money, we want your money".

ZoneDymoIve grown cynical enough that all I hear in videos like this is "we want your money, we want your money, we want your money".

They used to be so good, but now everything is a season pass or whatever to drip feed you content they could of just put in from the start. When I've some money, I will be buying the most expensive one though, due to FOMO and I've been looking forward to FM since they said new suspension modelling and tuning which has finally changed from FM2. They've got me by the berries... :nutkick:

ZoneDymoIve grown cynical enough that all I hear in videos like this is "we want your money, we want your money, we want your money".

Same here, plus you don't really know what you get, I went through the car list seems you get junk Muscle cars but no LMP cars?

I'll just do the same thing I did with 7, base game only.
Skip the packs/passes until they're cheap or skip entirely if they are meh.

BlaezaThey used to be so good, but now everything is a season pass or whatever to drip feed you content they could of just put in from the start. When I've some money, I will be buying the most expensive one though, due to FOMO and I've been looking forward to FM since they said new suspension modelling and tuning which has finally changed from FM2. They've got me by the berries... :nutkick:

I wonder if FOMO can also work the other way, like you did not buy a game early or perhaps you had to take some time off gaming due to some personal situation so you missed some seasons of content that were only out during those months...so now you cant even get everything anymore...so would fomo then work the other way and have you not even bother with the game anymore because you cant get it all anyway?

Featured Tours are limited-time career events ...

That's almost as cancerous as pre-order "goodies". :kookoo: You either jump through the hoops when we want it or you gonna miss out on parts of the game you paid for.

Forza Motorsport launches on October 10 with over 500 cars, 20 completely rebuilt tracks ...

And how many of those 500 cars and 20 tracks are hidden behind a credit grind paywall or a car/track pass?

Don't get me wrong, I find playing for rewards pretty entertaining. But Forza & Gran Turismo has become a pure grind fest. Instead of enjoying the game (f.e. with racing, tuning or car styling) they want you to waste your lifetime with stupid grinding. And if you use methods provided by the game like "Goliath AFK Credit Farming" with a freakin' rubber band they gonna ban you.


And you also better not use the livery editor. If the livery is "too edgy" for the Microsoft fascists they're going to ban you for 8.000(!) years, without any warning!

Seems like so many games are going “seasonal” to keep you latched at the teat. If you don’t keep up, congratulations, you fall behind fast and you are now disadvantaged in entire parts of the game. You might max out a season, only to have all that gear you grind for get nerfed in the next season. I don’t know how this model succeeds, but that’s what many studios seem to be doing.

MarsM4NAnd how many of those 500 cars and 20 tracks are hidden behind a credit grind paywall or a car/track pass?

The developer has already stated all tracks are free.

www.gamereactor.eu/all-upcoming-forza-motorsport-tracks-will-be-available-for-free-1308303/

Darmok N JaladSeems like so many games are going “seasonal” to keep you latched at the teat. If you don’t keep up, congratulations, you fall behind fast and you are now disadvantaged in entire parts of the game. You might max out a season, only to have all that gear you grind for get nerfed in the next season. I don’t know how this model succeeds, but that’s what many studios seem to be doing.

Part of it is money for sure but a lot of it has to do with games costing substantially more to make and longer at that. Gamers should always be skeptical of this model though especially when the base game doesn't have as much content as it should I will say I am glad they are making all tracks free this was a huge issue in COD for a long time when certain maps where tied to DLC they ditched that model a long time ago thankfully.

Personally I would rather games just cost $100-120 and we get all content but most gamers would push back at that as well. Look at the uproar in 2020 when games went up 10 bucks..... Some people forget games that cost pennies to develop compared to todays games by teams of less than 20-30 developers costed 70+ in the early-mid 90s.

BlaezaThey used to be so good, but now everything is a season pass or whatever to drip feed you content they could have just put in from the start. When I've some money, I will be buying the most expensive one though, due to FOMO and I've been looking forward to FM since they said new suspension modelling and tuning which has finally changed from FM2. They've got me by the berries... :nutkick:

Did that with FH5 because they nickle and dimed me into everything in FH4….

BlaezaThey used to be so good, but now everything is a season pass or whatever to drip feed you content they could of just put in from the start. When I've some money, I will be buying the most expensive one though, due to FOMO and I've been looking forward to FM since they said new suspension modelling and tuning which has finally changed from FM2. They've got me by the berries... :nutkick:

This made me laugh. I truly appreciate your honesty!

Myself, OTOH, have long-accepted and grown to appreciate drip-fed content; a live service. It keeps the game relevant to a certain-size crowd of like-minded people, is more digestible, and doesn't (always) make one feel like time investment is for naught as there is usually persistence. Destiny has kind of effed that last part up (by deleting the initial campaign [and other stuff] in favor of bad on-boarding, sun-setting/reissuing weapons, and flattening power level) imo, but I digress. That game is also very old now; learning and teaching some of these lessons along the way to it's eventual grave along the corridors of time, smack dab in the middle of a community puzzle many people will never see. You know, or maybe not. Like people say, it's now held together with duct tape and our dreams, but I do in-fact have a lot of faith in that duct tape.

At some point a large amount of companies are going to realize Digital Extremes (Warframe) has had it mostly right all-along, mixed with some of the 'surprise' mission drops of Destiny/Destiny 2, or new events in Fortnite. Familiarity but diversification over time; ex: new game modes or way to play. Maybe you only play MK13 for a week or two, but then they release Kart Racing in season 2, and it drags you back in. Maybe they release Puzzle Kombat in Season 3. Maybe they add some weird little tower/story to unlock a character like you see (spoilers?) at the end of the MK12 campaign, and then they release an expansion that adds to it. To me, that makes sense. It may have not made sense with ONLY a single game release, but with something like a season pass/live service it justifies the game being wider than the initial budget/dev cycle would allow. For us Destiny 2 players, that was Gambit, the return of OG Trials of Osiris, non double-primary loadout and movement reworks, etc.

I think this will be proven with games like this and The First Descendant ("Eyes on, Descendant!" [cackle]). It's not just about a new battle/season pass with a new weapon/item/cosmetic, that needs to be mixed with actual new content/story development/character progression. It should also be noted once again I believe persistence of (most) content is key, which has been a major problem in some instances. While it may be the focus of your game, I've played Destiny (out of order) since the release of D2, and to me a racing league is but a myth some elder-Guardians speak about from time to time. Perhaps, it has Become Legend.

People have long-made the argument about timed roll-outs all the way back to DLCs being largely on the original game disk. I would argue it was different back then, when dev times were shorter/less expensive; when less things were at constant war for your attention and/or relevancy; now time is often more valuable than money because you can literally satiate any personality through free/cheap entertainment easily-available on the internet/streaming, or a cheap/'free' back-catalogue of games on one of the available services.

This is exactly the type of rollout I hope we see for more games of a certain ilk; for me it is The Division 3...whenever in the decade it is actually released. I truly think TD2's (relative) failure was not rolling out in a slower manner; say one development/couple districts (white house/theater/castle) per season, leading up to some story beat (invasions from Black Tusk), leading into it's expansion (WONY), mixed with a slower rollout of weapons/specializations (classes) and shifting the meta accordingly...and then doing it all over again or reworking it. The stuff is literally all there (down to different archetypes of a weapons; ex: RPM/mag size/dmg trade-offs, or later-added missions/raids/modes) but they kind of just let it ride or die without a consistent schedule or (re)balancing, which kind of made it do more of the latter than former. The Division 2 is a clear reason why Bungie tries to stay (at least?) 6 months ahead of the actual game (barring live-service bug patches), and I think more publishers should think about that. I'm not saying the avg dev cycle should be two years with one year of content initially, but I am saying something like 4-5 years with 3-4 years isn't a bad average; it gives them some runway.

One can argue which games it suits, and which it doesn't, but I've grown to gravitate toward some level of constant engagement (with community/devs), shifting metas, and new content; yet familiarity.

Like I said, this doesn't mean that I'm advocating a bare-bones initial game or necessarily time-gating of similar content, and I think there has been/will be cases that has/will happen (like Destiny 2), but ideally there would be a mix of vertical/horizontal systems that can together carry the weight of what they can provide on a long-term basis. Example, if there is not enough activity/weapon (or your case car/track/mode) diversity, make the end-game super hard [like a contest raid] UNTIL the player not only levels up their character [account/mastery], but weapons/specialization/[cars/car parts] in a timely manner (for which all these companies have proven metrics) that satiate people consistently until the next drop, then deprecate that to being easier (which more people will then participate). Yes, I am in-fact stating that grinding is an excuse for content (for some people). This was proven by things like the time people took to randomly-earn Gjally (or even progress class/weapon-leveling trees) in Destiny 1, and surely there are similar things in successful games like Diablo. It works, and it doesn't suck if it's implemented correctly; it just needs to MEAN something so you don't feel like you're on a needless treadmill.

The goal should be to get people to engage heavily in whatever is there; perhaps deeper not wider initially, but widen over time. This helps with things like power creep as well. This could manifest as something as simple as initial tracks in a racing game having largely straight-away courses (The Skillup-like Destiny 2 reference here is that early PVP movement/maps were made for slower play/laning/scout rifles) that a more-mainstream audience will interact with, but people that devote time earn points towards increasing acceleration (or getting a seasonal weapon like Redrick's 'Butter Knife', a better-than-avg scout, in D2). The next season could have new maps skewed toward a different aspect; a certain type of terrain (gravel/rain?) or play-style, and people then gather parts for stability...which initially most people may not have cared about. Maybe in a shooter you can diversify that in PVE/PVP (ex: CQ smg pvp maps but a PVE mission/boss you need a sniper rifle to complete). You didn't need to power-creep acceleration, for instance, but people will invest their time in the game differently, making it FEEL more robust, and perhaps awarding the atypical play-style later in it's lifecycle (says the former always-Solar now always-Arc Hunter that is occasionally very happy). In the end, you're not only prepared for a random race or your friends choice of track, but have a story to tell. You remember that back in Spring of 2024 what you had to do to obtain the perfect loadout for a certain map/boss/whatever, and you're (not) proud of it, but are now better-prepared for a similar instance or another new experience.

In the end you have a fuller game, maybe that you paid 3x-4x for 2x the content (one can argue Destiny 2 is at least two, if-not three, games; Vanilla and Beyond Light; people paid [~$200-]300 [base/CoO/Warmind/Foresaken/Shadowkeep] for the game up until Beyond Light), but sustained your attention and may have widened your play-style or out-of-game engagement more than a handful of unique games (that you never know if/when will receive a sequel) that lasted mere hours or days.

To me, this makes sense both financially for studios and for communities of these games...as long as devs are given enough time/resources both for the initial release as well as to sustain their live-service team. I don't know if any of them have stricken the correct balance yet, but Forza is a franchise that probably could imho.

alwaysstsThis made me laugh. I truly appreciate your honesty!

Myself, OTOH, have long-accepted and grown to appreciate drip-fed content; a live service. It keeps the game relevant to a certain-size crowd of like-minded people, is more digestible, and doesn't (always) make one feel like time investment is for naught as there is usually persistance. Destiny has kind of effed that last part up (by deleting the initial campaign in favor of bad on-boarding, sunsetting/reissuing weapons, and flattening power level) imo, but I digress. That game is also very old now; learning and teaching some of these lessons along the way to it's eventual grave. Like people say, it's now held together with duct tape and our dreams.

At some point a large amount of companies are going to realize Digital Extremes (Warframe) has had it mostly right all-along, mixed with some of the 'surprise' mission drops of Destiny/Destiny 2, or new events in Fortnite. Familiarity but diversification over time; ex: new game modes or way to play. Maybe you only play MK13 for a week or two, but then they release Kart Racing in season 2, and it drags you back in. Maybe they release Puzzle Kombat in Season 3. Maybe they add some weird little tower/story to unlock a character like you see (spoilers?) at the end of the MK12 campaign, and then they release an expansion that adds to it. To me, that makes sense. It may have not made sense with ONLY a single game release, but with something like a season pass/live service it justifies the game being wider than the initial budget/dev cycle would allow. For us Destiny 2 players, that was Gambit, the return of OG Trials of Osiris, non double-primary loadout and movement reworks, etc.

I think this will be proven with games like this and The First Descendant. It's not just about a new battle/season pass with a new weapon/item/cosmetic, that needs to be mixed with actual new content/story development/character progression. It should also be noted once again I believe persistence of (most) content is key, which has been a major problem in some instances.

People have long-made the argument about timed roll-outs all the way back to DLCs being largely on the original game disk. I would argue it was different back then, when dev times were shorter/less expensive; when less things were at constant war for your attention and/or relevancy; now time is often more valuable than money because you can literally satiate any personality through free/cheap entertainment easily-available on the internet/streaming, or a cheap/'free' back-catalogue of games on one of the available services.

This is exactly the type of rollout I hope we see for more games of a certain ilk; for me it is The Division 3...whenever in the decade it is actually released. I truly think TD2's (relative) failure was not rolling out in a slower manner; say one development/couple districts (white house/theater/castle) per season, leading up to some story beat (invasions from Black Tusk), leading into it's expansion (WONY), mixed with a slower rollout of weapons/specializations (classes) and shifting the meta accordingly...and then doing it all over again or reworking it. The stuff is literally all there (down to different archetypes of a weapons; ex: RPM/mag size/dmg trade-offs, or later-added missions/raids/modes) but they kind of just let it ride or die without a consistant schedule or (re)balancing, which kind of made it do more of the latter than former. The Division 2 is a clear reason why Bungie tries to stay (at least?) 6 months ahead of the actual game (barring live-service bug patches), and I think more studios should think about that. I'm not saying the avg dev cycle should be two years with one year of content initially, but I am saying something like 4-5 years with 3-4 years isn't a bad average; it gives them some runway.

One can argue which games it suits, and which it doesn't, but I've grown to gravitate toward some level of constant engagement (with community/devs), shifting metas, and new content; yet familiarity.

Like I said, this doesn't mean that I'm advocating a bare-bones initial game or necessarily time-gating of similar content, and I think there has been/will be cases that has/will happen (like Destiny 2), but ideally there would be a mix of vertical/horizontal systems that can together carry the weight of what they can provide on a long-term basis. Example, if there is not enough activity/weapon (or your case car/track/mode) diversity, make the end-game super hard [like a contest raid] UNTIL the player not only levels up their character [account/mastery], but weapons/specialization/[cars/car parts] in a timely manner (for which all these companies have proven metrics) that satiate people consistantly until the next drop, then deprecate that to being easier (which more people will then participate). Yes, I am in-fact stating that grinding is an excuse for content (for some people). This was proven by things like the time people took to randomly-earn Gjally (or even progress class/weapon-leveling trees) in Destiny 1, and surely there are similar things in successful games like Diablo. It works, and it doesn't suck if it's implemented correctly; it just needs to MEAN something.

The goal should be to get people to engage heavily in whatever is there; perhaps deeper not wider initially, but widen over time. This helps with things like power creep as well. This could manifest as something as simple as initial tracks in a racing game having largely straight-away courses (The Skillup-like Destiny 2 reference here is that early PVP movement/maps were made for slower play/laning/scout rifles) that a more-mainstream audience will interact with, but people that devote time earn points towards increasing acceleration (or getting a seasonal weapon like Redrick's 'Butter Knife', a better-than-avg scout, in D2). The next season could have new maps skewed toward a different aspect; a certain type of terrain (gravel/rain?) or playstyle, and people then gather parts for stability...which initially most people may not have cared about. Maybe in a shooter you can diversify that in PVE/PVP (ex: CQ smg pvp maps but a PVE mission/boss you need a sniper rifle to complete). You didn't need to power-creep acceleration, for instance, but people will invest their time in the game differently, making it FEEL more robust, and perhaps awarding the atypical playstyle later in it's lifecycle (says the former always-Solar now always-Arc Hunter that is occasionally very happy). In the end, you're not only prepared for a random race or your friends choice of track, but have a story to tell. You remember that back in Spring of 2024 what you had to do to obtain the perfect loadout for a certain map/boss/whatever, and you're (not) proud of it, but are now better-prepared for a similar instance or another new experiance.

In the end you have a fuller game, maybe that you paid 3x-4x for 2x the content (one can argue Destiny 2 is at least two, if-not three, games; Vanilla and Beyond Light; people paid [~$200-]300 [base/CoO/Warmind/Foresaken/Shadowkeep] for the game up until Beyond Light), but sustained your attention and may have widened your play-style or out-of-game engagement more than three unique games (that you never know if/will receive a sequel) that lasted mere hours or days.

To me, this makes sense both financially for studios and for communities of these games...as long as devs are given enough time/resources both for the initial release as well as to sustain their live-service team. I don't know if any of them have stricken the correct balance yet, but Forza is a franchise that probably could imho.

That's pretty spot on vs how I feel about this stuff as well.

I will say I'm not a fan of how Destiny has done it but other studios have for sure done worse.

A major irritant with buying the PC version on the Microsoft store is the apparently unthrottlable download - when a FH5 update drops it completely saturates my PC's connection, so much so that the PC is very sluggish accessing any online content. That alone will make me consider buying anything else from the MS store.

ChosenNameA major irritant with buying the PC version on the Microsoft store is the apparently unthrottlable download - when a FH5 update drops it completely saturates my PC's connection, so much so that the PC is very sluggish accessing any online content. That alone will make me consider buying anything else from the MS store.

I can add to that..I have to share my abysmal 5G 50Mbit connection with my landlord so I try to be courteous and throttle stuff to 30 after lots of testing or it interrupts me from watching streaming services(I have no “TV channels”) I caught and FH5s last update of 16GB and initially paused it then cancelled it thinking it would show up again later and do it overnight like I do with most bigger downloads
Well cancelling it “Uninstalled” the whole game….so yeah now I have 120GB I have to download…At least they stopped locking out the drive your games are on if you format so I didnt have to worry about downloads that size….I actually bought an SSD just for MS games because of that. Oh how I miss my 1Gbit fibre I had for years…

ChosenNameA major irritant with buying the PC version on the Microsoft store is the apparently unthrottlable download - when a FH5 update drops it completely saturates my PC's connection, so much so that the PC is very sluggish accessing any online content. That alone will make me consider buying anything else from the MS store.

You can disable "Automatic Updates" in the xBox app and just roll the download overnight. ;)



Also there is a settings option in Windows where you can "Limit Bandwidth of Windows Update and Store App Updates" in Settings & in Registry Editor:

Also disable "Delivery Optimization" to reduce network traffic. Especially when you got limited bandwith or a data cap.

Horizon's seasonal system is terrible. You can't miss a single week if you want the final rewards. At least I assume it's still this way, as that's what put me off playing the game after completing the "campaign".

This seems much better, as it looks like you have 6 weeks to complete the entire tour.

But is there an actual career mode that's persistent for everyone no matter when people play it?