FH5, Series 42, Week 3

Treasure hunt. Go to the top of the volcano in an Exocet, they said. Treasure not far away from the nearby telescope. Money in the bank that’ll almost never get spent.

I’d already done some practice in the Hoonigan Escort RS 1800 for the weekly challenge. I went with AWD because I felt the car was a bit floaty RWD. I did the drift skills without even trying. I managed to do the speed traps in two somehow.

I one-shotted East Resort in the Ferrari F40 Competizione and got an SWS that was one-third good and one-third very good. Green Hills took a few attempts to complete, but I managed it with the tight turn at the end. Rubbish SWS. Trailblazer. One-shotted. Rubbish SWS.

Eventlab (1), Ranchero Norte, employed that terrible fake tarmac that cannot be smoothly pieced together. Not a bad basic circuit, but the whole setting felt like it needed more work. I really shouldn’t have bothered because I already have two Hoonigan Escorts.

Eventlab (2), The Gulch of Monument Valley. It sounds like some B-movie Western, starring Grind Gentley and Legza Pard. Scene 1. The sun beats down on a lone BMW X6M driving along the arid gulch of  Monument Valley as it races – is, perhaps, pursued – by a posse of other SUVs. It could turn this way or that. It doesn’t matter. It can turn whatever way it likes. O 21st-century motorsport, how diverse thou art! In spite of the vagaries of the route, this wasn’t too bad beyond being slightly puzzling with regard to the optimal route. The SWS was rubbish.

Photo. Dress. Now I can show off my hairy legs… Sorry, sexy legs and feel the fabric slide erotically across my scaly arse. Steady, ladies!

For the HW PR stunt, the F40 Competizione did it again for another rubbish SWS. However, this was after trying the FE Sesto (too slow) and the Jesko, which PB’ed the stunt, but was the wrong sort of car. I’ve done this before because I merely pick something very fast without being bothered about the details.

The RA PR stunt showed up my lack of practice at drifting once again. I eventually got it, but the Hoonigan Mustang was a little too much, I think. The SWS was one-third good and one-third very good, which was some compensation for the generally dreadful SWS’s this week.

The Trial. Oddly the Ford version of the Maloo. I don’t see the appeal, but as I’m not Australian, I’m not surprised. This is one of those cars which offers very little scope to get it to the top of the class. I switched it to AWD, off-road race tyres, and the anti-kangaroo bars (them Mexican kangaroos is vicious little buggers). Started the Mulegé Scramble on the 2nd row of humanity and won the race. Cornering was my friend once again. Fortunately, the two players at the back quit to give us a decent win, but the clown in the stock Ute refused to quit while he was behind. Cordillera saw me start on the 2nd row and finish 2nd. Cornering. You know the drill. Even Mr Stock-Car managed to complete the race. The Trial was noteworthy for the complete absence of any real drama this week.

Suggestions for FH6

It started with HokiHoshi going through the top suggestions from the members of his Discord. What struck me was that there was nothing much about racing among the suggestions. Black Panthaa went on a bit of a rant, but only has himself to blame for not playing the game to get the cars he wants. Nonetheless, he also had some good ideas about dealing with the annoying matter of time-limited cars.

Aero – yes, yes, licensing, but surely it’s possible to at least scale the wing and struts to make them better suit the car (e.g. Porsches on which the wing sits too low).

PI – probably all right to the top of A class and then gets annoying. I tend to prefer PWR builds these days. Take tyres out of the equation. If some clown wants to use the wrong sort of tyres in a race, that’s their problem. Perhaps include some measure of how tuning affects the PI.

Tuning – there were some calls for more parts, but I’d hate to see tuning get to the same level I’ve seen in GT7. If players are going to be autistic about tuning, they should play a different game.

Livery editor – it’s old, clunky and inflexible. Doesn’t have to be Photoshop, but could be a good deal better. In addition, changing the base colour of a base doesn’t count as a new save file.

Eventlab editor – can something be done with the Eventlab editor? As I said above, Ranchero Norte uses those awful tarmac pieces that are nigh on impossible to tile smoothly. Deformable meshes with scalable textures (we had this sort of thing in Quake III over quarter of a century ago)?

Car sounds – could still be better. I’ve just watched everyone’s favourite screechy Canadian… No, not Linus Tech Tips. The other one playing the early version of ACE. The cars sounded brilliant.

Cars – unless the licence has expired, cars from previous Forza games should be back from the off and not drip fed back in as if they’re some sort of reward.

New cars – have one-off, always-available tournaments so that players who arrive late to the game or who missed that week can get the cars that might otherwise vanish till the Backstage Pass returns (I’m looking at the 2017 Alpine A110 in FH4). This was inspired by a Black Panthaa suggestion which I can well endorse.

Car showrooms – perhaps have actual locations where you can go and buy cars, build and tune them (shades of TDU). I could see the case for separate auto shops, but this might annoy people by separating buying, building and tuning. And as a side note, if FH6 still has player houses, give all of them well-lit garages because painting cars in the dark is a blasted nuisance.

Petrol stations – perhaps just props, but perhaps handy places to build and tune cars outside of Festival sites. Something that could sit in the vicinity of races like a pit garage.

Races – longer circuits (nothing under a minute), motor-racing style circuits (especially for the fastest cars, which barely suit most road races), five-lap races minimum (three is too few), split times.

Online racing – rigid restrictions on power, weight, and car classes. If it doesn’t belong off-road (e.g. the MB CLK GTR), then it shouldn’t be there.

Licence tests – sort of like PR stunts, but also training in some probably vain attempt to teach players how to turn corners. Could be done as part of the progression system.

Progression – start in D class, do some racing, take a licence test to progress to B class and so on. But I note that you can’t progress forever.

Expansions – attach them to the map like the airport in Most Wanted (2012). You could have a bridge to Fortune Island, but as this is an MS game, you’d have to pay a £15 toll every time you want to cross it even though you’d paid for the expansion.

Kiddie games – get rid of the Eliminator, Playground Games, Super 7, HA’s, and Hide-and-Seek. Repackage them as Forza Infantile.