FH5, Series 29, Week 3

The treasure hunt clue has to be one of the least informative we’ve ever had. The picture pointed to the Lamborghini Huracán doing some sort of drifting, but the words suggested driving round Mexico. I did the Goliath, but nothing happened. I tried to drift in a circle, but nothing happened. I had to watch Stevio’s video to find out that you were supposed to get a burnout skill by (one means) doing a doughnut. I used the other means, my usual means of getting higher-level burnouts – driving into a wall. I normally start the Festival playlist at lunchtime and get two or three things done, but this was all I achieved, and the rest had to wait till I got home in the afternoon.

The weekly in the Porsche 906 followed the same pattern as previous weeks. The stock car was able to deal with all the tasks. The drive up to Gran Caldera was bugged because in spite of fast travelling up the volcano, driving up the tortuous course of the Volcán Sprint, and driving to eventual pain up the side of the volcano (I had to crab my way across the slope to get to the road because the car would otherwise have ground to a complete halt), nothing happened. Completion of the task was only registered after I’d been in and out of the menu several times. Other players have been reporting this issue.

Eventlab (1). Horizon Club Circuit (Hot Hatch). A middling offering. In some places it worked quite well as a circuit, but in others, the technical sections, the excessive use of twists and turns was annoying. The SWS was one-third excellent and two-thirds utter rubbish.

Eventlab (2). Estadio GP Circuit (Outside) was a much better circuit, but, I felt, lacked the props to give the race the right character. I didn’t really want a 2018 Dodge Challenger, but I did get a very good wheel spin.

The only two cars that were eligible for the PR stunts were the Aston Martin V12 Vantage and the Aston Martin DB11. As the former was already A800, I tried that.

I doubted that it’d be able to do the danger sign and was right. I rebuilt the car, RWD and no aero. The tricks were a.) to go left of the fragment of fence on the final approach to the jump and b.) to try and get the car to swing rightwards down the slope since the drop seems to be a bit further. Possible issue – the car bounces and flips. I got an SWS that was two-thirds very good.

For the speed trap, the solution is to go out into the desert to increase the run-up, and I think I surpassed the target by a large margin.

The speed zone had to be that painful, occasional one, and it had to be on dirt because that’s the natural habitat of super GT cars. It took me a few attempts to do it for a one-third very good SWS.

I chose the Renault 5 Turbo for the photo and got another stupid horn.

My Horizon Tour was S1 900 Ford. As it was dirt racing, I picked the 2017 No. 4 Ford Fiesta (Rahal Letterman) which is S1 874 (if I remember correctly). I came 3rd round Caldera and watched a player deliberately wall riding in a Supervan 3. I was 4th in Desierto, but the winner seems to have run away with the prize. I came 1st in the River Scramble by 13 seconds. How? No idea, but it might’ve been from knowing how to take the corners.

Again, it was into one of the Extreme E vehicles for Horse-Power to the People. It all went relatively well apart from this chubby barge tending to slide sideways. Got another Mitsubishi Galant VR-4. Watch me get given another one as a gift.

I did the Trial in the 2020 Land Rover Defender. This was another playlist event for which there were all of two cars unless you started slapping silly parts onto the Range Rover Velar. The other option was the Mini Countryman, which was lighter than the Defender, but I was sceptical about its viability.

I came 3rd in Tropico behind two runaway drivatars, and we got a team win. I was 2nd in Herencia behind the William drivatar, but we lost. I came 2nd in Restos, getting close to William, but not having enough race to catch the little bugger. But it looked like we’d lost the final race (1,850 to 1,800) until Forza maths kicked in and we got a team win (2,100). So, somehow in all of this, I was the first player in all three races. Maserati Levante. Er, no thanks. I’m thinking about trying this in the Countryman as an experiment.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt and got a rubbish SWS.

And then it was back to my Lancer Evo VIII for Wheelie Fun! Yes, B700, modern rally. How original Again, another seasonal which posed no real issues for once. Another 2011 Subaru WRX STi.

In Sierra Nueva the PR stunt was the nuisance speed zone. I did the usual thing by going up the hill for a speed boost, but it wasn’t helping, and by chance I got in on my second attempt, going uphill. One-third good SWS.

For the seasonal, Classic Dunes, I used the 1973 Alpine A110. Again, another seasonal that “posed no real issues” as I said a few lines above.

It’s good that the Pagani Huayra is finally in the game (it should’ve been in the game from the start), and the MB 280 SL (which should also have been in the game from the beginning). It was also good to get a third 2021 911 GT3, although I only have two because of the save disaster of 2022. Gee, thanks, game!

Pastime with bad company

I ended up spending a lot of the week doing online racing as I grind my way with painful slowness towards level 1,000. As an aside, I’ve regularly been online over the past week. I’m seeing HA’s, I’m seeing other players, I’m connecting to online events without the usual delays. Anyway, online racing has been highlighting the same old issues. The game needs private lobbies to get rid of the competitive racers (I see a lot of them) and matchmaking so that I’m not in races with players who are racing while I drive along some way behind them. I’ve only been in the top ten in races because there aren’t ten players.

I’ve been driving modern sports cars. I started with the 2008 BMW Z4 because it’s in the middle of the range (155-404hp). Competitive? No. I then tried the 2019 BMW Z4, which is at about the 75% point. Competitive? No; and these are cars that I’ve built to the top of A class.

No, FH5 is not “E is for Everyone”, and the cult of Anything Goes ruins online racing because there’s no balance of power. It’d be nice if, for example, there were limits on cars such as specific classes, specific maximum power ratings, specific manufacturers, GT3, GT4, etc. And there’d be a list so that we could all see what was coming up and prepare for it. However, I don’t expect there will be any of these things in FH6, and the game will force players to use meta cars because nothing else is good enough.

There were obvious cheaters such as the player in a Honda S800 that was suddenly capable of a surprising burst of speed. Or the player in a GMC Syclone with the most phenomenal acceleration. I’ve also run into a couple of “celebs”. I assume that Nalak was the tuner who runs with ISAD, and Vukkuu was the designer of some Eventlab events (and was sporting a PGG badge). Both of them massacred everyone else.

Series 30

Via WeChat, we know of two cars coming to the game. No, I don’t have Horizon on WeChat since it’d all be in Chinese, aimed at Chinese players. It also looks like there’s going to be a Chinese car pack (prediction: all soulless EVs), which is the 2nd prize in some contest to win a Spring Festival xbox and controller in a rather fetching red. Ultimately, I think, there will probably be no surprises and quite a few more cars that I won’t be driving except in, say, monthly Rivals.