Octopus Overlords

(I'm posting this in the console forum because technically it is an Xbox One game, but I am playing it on PC thanks to Xbox Play Anywhere)


The horizon festival has returned and this time it is the festival that never ends. For those of us with more money than sense who bought the Ultimate edition, it unlocked today. I played for about an hour before work this morning which was enough time to get through the stuff that was offered in the demo and one race and a bit of exploration beyond that. My PC is starting to fall behind the curve and my graphics settings were automatically set to Medium, but it's still a very pretty game.

The new thing this time around is seasons, not like sports seasons, but summer, fall, winter and spring. As time passes you move through the seasons and the racing environment is impacted by these changes, along with some new events appearing and maybe other events disappearing. In the early game the seasons progress as you progress, but beyond that it is supposed to rotate seasons on a weekly basis which each week bringing new content along with the new season. The changes are interesting, the same race plays out different with dirt turning to mud turning to ice and puddles growing and disappearing along with leaves.

Like I said I have only played for about an hour and most of that was demo material, but I got to go from summer to autumn racing the same course on both and it definitely felt different. Other than the seasons thing it is very much the same thing as FH3 and I am OK with that.

Any significant upgrades from the last one, or does it feel like FH3 set in a new country?

So far it feel very much like FH3 moved to England and I am perfectly OK with that.

Also, there is a demo that has a few different events and car types for you to check out.

Ooh I just read up on the '60fps performance mode' on the Xbox One X. Someone tell me how that is!

No idea how it compares to any other Horizon game bc this is the first one I've played, although I have thousands of hours (combined) across Forza 1-6. But so far I'm really enjoying it. It feels a little overwhelmingly atm but that happens a lot, I think, in open world games especially at first until you get the lay of the land. Really interested to see how the MP aspect of it all works especially the group challenges but I just got to the autumn season this am.

Sorry to be that guy double posting by have now about 40 hours in game and I'm loving it. Yeah it still is a bit overwhelming especially as you progress...Shit just keeps on popping up everywhere and as a 'completeist' all of the new events that continually pop-up all over the map gives me heartburn...

But it is great in that the challenges and vehicles are so varied that it will keep you coming back for more. Probably my favorite Forza game ever. And that's saying something, for me at least. Well worth the price of entry

Penny Arcade loves it.

wonderpug wrote: ↑Fri Sep 28, 2018 4:18 pm Ooh I just read up on the '60fps performance mode' on the Xbox One X. Someone tell me how that is!

It's very nice. For quality mode, I think your monitor size and sitting distance are key. if you sit in this range:

Screen size Viewing distance range for 4K Ultra HD TVs
40" 3.3-5.0 feet
43" 3.6-5.4 feet
50" 4.2-6.3 feet
55" 4.6-6.9 feet
60" 5.0-7.5 feet
65" 5.4-8.1 feet
70" 5.8-8.75 feet
75" 6.3-9.4 feet
80" 6.7-10.0 feet
85" 7.1-10.6 feet

then you probably will enjoy high quality mode and prefer the eye candy. But if you sit outside of that range, I would encourage 60 fps performance mode. I would also encourage to try the quality mode first just to see it and if you don't notice many notable differences at your seating range for 60 fps, you have your mode. Responsiveness is definitely noticeably better in 60fps, but it's not like it's bad at 30 fps. The big bummer is you have to restart the game to change modes.

Overall, I am freaking loving this game soooo much.

Is anyone else having regular difficulty connecting to Horizon Life? I'm literally at about a 10% success rate and apparently it's related to something called Teredo. My Xbox app is usually disconnected (for apparently the same reason) and if I follow the troubleshooting steps for opening a command line, stopping the process, rebooting, then restarting it I can get a few hours of connection. Obviously that's not ideal.

Just wondering if anyone has a solution. Thx.


Still loving this game, despite my connection issues. Am excited to see how the upcoming winter season changes things. One thing I don't particularly care for is the barn hunting that nets you rare/unusual cars. I do plenty of driving already in the game where I'm just exploring; having to keep an eye out for some random barn doesn't add to that. It takes away from the simple joy that 'Sunday driving' brings. Fortunately there are multiple guides already that have every location plotted.

GungHo wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:39 am Is anyone else having regular difficulty connecting to Horizon Life? I'm literally at about a 10% success rate and apparently it's related to something called Teredo. My Xbox app is usually disconnected (for apparently the same reason) and if I follow the troubleshooting steps for opening a command line, stopping the process, rebooting, then restarting it I can get a few hours of connection. Obviously that's not ideal.

Just wondering if anyone has a solution. Thx.


Still loving this game, despite my connection issues. Am excited to see how the upcoming winter season changes things. One thing I don't particularly care for is the barn hunting that nets you rare/unusual cars. I do plenty of driving already in the game where I'm just exploring; having to keep an eye out for some random barn doesn't add to that. It takes away from the simple joy that 'Sunday driving' brings. Fortunately there are multiple guides already that have every location plotted.

I used this to fix my problem, no issues since.

Ill give it a try. Thank you

Can’t wait to get my copy!

Anyone still playing this? I've got over 500 hours and I haven't even bought any of the DLC. The monthly (roughly) updates they put out are plenty to keep this interesting for me and the latest, with the Top Gear story arc might be the best yet. It's a fun story and the cars are fantastic; whether it was drifting corners in the Lotus at 120mph, driving the 18 wheeler as The Big Rig Stig, literally climbing mountains in the Mercedes 'E-AT' or driving the ridiculous 57" wheeled TracTor down the freeway as you try to set speed records, there's something in this one for everyone. And IMHO the 2 most fun cars I didn't even mention ; the 1965 Mini Cooper in the Had one of those 'video game moments' when I was bombing down the M68 in the Mini, weaving in and out of traffic at 170 mph while blasting 'Rappers Delight'. It was just straight up fun.

Article describing the latest update

I can't even imagine putting in 500 hours.I bought the Ultimate Edition and I am pretty sure I haven't touched it since the month it came out. I guess sand box racing just can't hold my attention.

Picked it up on Xbox with game pass, and it's fun, even if I suck racing games and haven't played one in years.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 9:08 am I can't even imagine putting in 500 hours.I bought the Ultimate Edition and I am pretty sure I haven't touched it since the month it came out. I guess sand box racing just can't hold my attention.

Yeah 500 hours is pretty bad...don't tell my wife. The actual game moves along pretty quickly if you're following the story arcs and such. Or just doing races vs AI, but after I completed everything(everything I was capable of anyway..still tons of achievements I'm not good enough to do) I race multi-player. And there is A LOT of waiting involved with that; it's vastly improved over previous Forza Motorsport editions of the game where you might literally wait an hour to race against 2 people, but it's not like DOTA or Overwatch where you just drop into a game the second you've loaded.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 10:08 am Picked it up on Xbox with game pass, and it's fun, even if I suck racing games and haven't played one in years.

It's funny, I've got a car and setup I love and do pretty well with, but then I'll get into a race with someone is actually good, and I get completely destroyed.

It could also be that I'm playing with a controller on the console, but I suspect my friends list drivatars were also on the xBox - so yeah, it's probably me... the game has already suggested I lower the drivatar difficulty level once in my first couple of hours.

I don't own any of the Horizons, but I have 2 of the regular Forzas. I have the XBox versions, but I've never been able to master driving with my thumbs. Oversteering is a huge problem.

When I do play though, I really have fun anyway. I just get frustrated quickly and play something else.

Fardaza wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2019 11:33 am I don't own any of the Horizons, but I have 2 of the regular Forzas. I have the XBox versions, but I've never been able to master driving with my thumbs. Oversteering is a huge problem.

When I do play though, I really have fun anyway. I just get frustrated quickly and play something else.

Your vehicle setup has a huge influence on control...of course that's a whole other aspect of the game to learn (though you can always just look for popular tunings and dl those instead of tuning yourself). Just look for something with a lateral G force of 1.8 or higher; and don't worry too much about top end speed. Acceleration and cornering are the keys to winning races. choosing an AWD car will help too, FWD cars are especially notorious for that (one of my favorite cars is the 1965 Mini Cooper S which is FWD and the oversteer on that car is insane...I'm driving sideways in that car probably 75% of the time).

But I agree that the learning curve can be frustrating; I've been playing forza since the original Xbox 20 years ago and there's still so much I'm just not capable of doing. I keep telling myself I'm going to get a steering wheel setup for FH4 just bc I play it so dang much but I've never pulled the trigger. I've read that it's a great experience though; I just can't quite figure out how I'd set it up at my desk. More laziness on my part than anything I think.

I remember buying a steering wheel and peddles setup many years ago. I think it was an official XBox product. The wheel fit between my thighs with some sort of blade-like things that went under my legs to anchor it. The peddles were supposed to grip the carpeted floor but fell over almost every time I got excited going into a turn. It was clumsy and didn't work very well. I ended up taking it back to the store for a refund.

I've thought about buying FH4 for my PC but have the same concern you do. Where do I put the wheel? Also, spending over $100 for a game and controllers seems a bit extreme for me.

I have fun with the Horizon games (have all of them) but not so much the core Forza franchise. I have a hard time getting into the tuning so just... haven't done much more than play around with tweaking things, which means my driving mostly sucks. Oversteer is my nemesis. I'll take the tips here and incorporate them when next I crank it up.

Way back in the day, I had a wheel with pedals and shifter for my PC clamped to my desk and it was great. I thought spending umpty on a wheel and pedals for my XB1 would help and while it mostly did, it wasn't worth the hassle since I didn't have a good place for them and wasn't playing enough to justify the cost so I returned it.

Sticking with thumb driving and dead zone tweaks for now.

I had a Logitech G25 for a few years, but I ended up giving it to my brother. Technically it was a very nice setup, but it was a pain to set up every time I wanted to use it. Eventually just fell back to using a gamepad.

My friend built a stand for a wheel and it works great.

[timg]https://i.postimg.cc/75pcvJB4/IMG-20190707-101716.jpg[/timg]

Lorini wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 1:13 pm My friend built a stand for a wheel and it works great.

[timg]https://i.postimg.cc/75pcvJB4/IMG-20190707-101716.jpg[/timg]

That's pretty impressive.

Lorini wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 1:13 pm My friend built a stand for a wheel and it works great.

[timg]https://i.postimg.cc/75pcvJB4/IMG-20190707-101716.jpg[/timg]

Very nice!

But, I don't think my wife would let me leave that in the living room.

MonkeyFinger wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 12:57 pm I have a hard time getting into the tuning so just... haven't done much more than play around with tweaking things, which means my driving mostly sucks.

Have you ever tried using the ForzaTune app? It's pretty damn good at getting the settings in the right ballpark, if not plenty good enough for most people.

wonderpug wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:17 am

MonkeyFinger wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 12:57 pm I have a hard time getting into the tuning so just... haven't done much more than play around with tweaking things, which means my driving mostly sucks.

Have you ever tried using the ForzaTune app? It's pretty damn good at getting the settings in the right ballpark, if not plenty good enough for most people.

Never knew of it! Thanks, will definitely give that a shot.

For the record I never tune anything and playing on, I think, highly skilled, they are always asking me to bump up the difficulty, so I'd say unless you are playing on Expert or higher you shouldn't really need to mess with tunings.

Fardaza wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2019 10:42 am

Lorini wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 1:13 pm My friend built a stand for a wheel and it works great.

[timg]https://i.postimg.cc/75pcvJB4/IMG-20190707-101716.jpg[/timg]

Very nice!

But, I don't think my wife would let me leave that in the living room.

To me, rooms are for living in. I paid too damn much for this house not to appreciate how all of the space is used. Back in the day, sure you could have a living room that was only used for certain things but when houses cost $500K and more, you need to get all of the house working like you want. That doesn't mean junking up the place, but making sure that you are doing what you want to do in the house.

Of course if you live in a place where houses only cost $200K or close then sure, but here in LA county, houses cost much more than that.

I have a bedroom full of blankets and towels on the "guest" bed, a dining room that's blocked off from the dogs and is full of crap, and a garage with a broken opener that I couldn't get a car in if I wanted to.

For anyone still playing this (and I had been doing so the past couple of evenings) here is news about the last planned new content update: Forza Horizon 4's next update will be the last to add new cars and features

Forza Horizon 4's next update will be the last to bring brand new content to the game, though developer Playground Games isn't quite ready to leave its Great British racer behind entirely.

Since launching in 2018, FH4 has been steadily padded out with new content—not just with major expansions like Fortune Island or Lego Speed Champions, but also regular new cars, new modes like the Super7 stunt tracks, photo challenges and more. But in this week's Forza Monthly stream (via VGC), the developer confirmed that Update 37, arriving today, will be the last to add brand new stuff to the game.

"With Forza Horizon 5’s release being our priority over the next few months, we’ve made some changes to Forza Horizon 4’s monthly series updates," said senior producer Tom Butcher.

just got the game few weeks ago, even update 37 is the last update. since they will still continue the season and playlist rotation. so nothing missing for new comer. so far FH4 really more focus on season n weekly events. it is great for long time play IMO.