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[nailbombxx]

Lol it sounds like this game was made for suckers in mind.

 

[Bedlam]

My jaw dropped. This is fucking insane.

I hereby vow to never touch a Forza game again. Forza Horizon 2, which I originally intended to buy (and buy an Xbone for) can go fuck itself too.

 

[Steroyd]

You could also just not spend any money on the microtransactions. If they were to not earn any money from them they will stop implementing them.

I think less sales of the franchise over it's predecessors would be a better wake up call, that goes for GT6 as well if they tailor the game to "encourage" microtransactions over game progress.

 

[T.O.P]

you can gain tokens in game right?

I have the game and do not even know! lol

u use credits in game to buy those, is a lot of grinding but there's no point in using real money when it's just a matter of time

 

[Sho Nuff]

I used to play the Forza games because they let me enjoy driving cars that I could never hope to afford in real life. It's fantasy fulfillment. Hooking up my Xbox wheel and hopping into some ridiculous supercar that only a rich douchebag could drive is great because I could finally be that guy.

Now I have to be a rich douchebag to afford the in-game cars, too.

 

[LuchaShaq]

I don't want to pile on Sessler, but Mr. "We need all the facts first" completely ignored this aspect in his 5/5 review.

Seems like the only one talking about the terrible Forza 5 micro transactions are European journalists.

Sessler is a clown don't even give him the attention.



This is all too bad forza used to be a favorite series of mine, now I won't touch it with a 50 foot pole.

 

[Zeroth]

You could also just not spend any money on the microtransactions. If they were to not earn any money from them they will stop implementing them.

To be honest, not giving a sale sends a stronger message than buying the game and then not buying microtransactions, because the developer may simply assume "Well, people are okay with microtransactions in the game, but why they didn't invest in our microtransactions? Maybe we should make them more attractive".

 

[TonkuySlon]

Yes, you can get Lotus and other cars with credits you earn for winning races.

Then let the idiots buy...I'll race!

 

[shuraiya]

Oh well, just one less game to buy. I have no intention of buying any game that does this, just like I almost never buy DLC.

 

[BruiserBear]

This is pure Microsoft behind the scenes making this happen, and everyone knows it. Internal initiatives has been pushing this further and further, to new lows each time.

 

[Steroyd]

I'm actually very worried about GT7 right now. If this model proves to be successful we're all fucked. Look at online gaming paywalls as an example.

Competition ftw. :/

 

[ironcreed]

I just ignored the token shit before, as I got rewarded cars and the grind was more balanced. This game sounds like it is just blatantly cranked up to full blast with this sort of stuff, with any real sense of reward and content compared to previous entries stripped out in favor of greed.

 

[CaptainTiptop]

Microsoft's revenge for consumers not wanting their DRM bullshit. They had to fuck consumers one way or another!

 

[Sho Nuff]

Have any of our Twitter friends confirmed that the next Gran Turismo will have this kind of nonsense?

 

[pixlexic]

u use credits in game to buy those, is a lot of grinding but there's no point in using real money when it's just a matter of time

soo then why is the OP mad then?

Microsoft's revenge for consumers not wanting their DRM bullshit. They had to fuck consumers one way or another!

this kind of comment I do not understand... You can get them in game.. or you can pay to get them quicker. One doesn't affect the other beside envy maybe.

 

[Prince Vultan]

God damn... a set up like that in a full retail priced game is beyond gross.

 

[Eegah]

Maybe I'm miss reading this, but aren't they just raising the price for people who buy the cars but keeping the "earned" price the same? Seems like a good way to deincentivise the pay to win model.

 

[NullPointer]

This is pure Microsoft behind the scenes making this happen, and everyone knows it. Internal initiatives has been pushing this further and further, to new lows each time.

Sure seems that way. This is after all the same company that forbade free DLC on the 360.

Maybe I'm miss reading this, but aren't they just raising the price for people who buy the cars but keeping the "earned" price the same? Seems like a good way to deincentivise the pay to win model.

I'd imagine the best way to disincentivizing pay-to-win would be to remove it as an option.

But seeing as they've purposefully included the token system in the game, and made it just as prominent as in-game currency, this really amounts to a misdirected justification for a significant price hike.

 

[cilonen]

I just ignored the token shit before, as I got rewarded cars and the grind was more balanced. This game sounds like it is just blatantly cranked up to full blast with this sort of stuff, with any real sense of reward and content compared to previous entries stripped out in favor of greed.

Yeah, the 'no reward cars' thing sucks. GT better not follow that, that's the #1 way of building your garage in GT. IIRC Forza 3 (last one I played) was great at this too.

 

[Darklord]

Can tokens be earned by playing the game? Or is that the only way to get in-game currency?

There's a car that costs $32? A single car? WTF? Why? How?

Nope, not $32. 32 pounds. $52US.

 

[E92 M3]

I'm a little unclear on this issue, Forza Horizon had car tokens, a few could be earned, but you were expected to buy them. That said, there was never an instance were I couldn't purchase a car down the road with winnings from races (online and off). Is that still the case? Or are some cars listed as "shipping with the game" but locked out because of these credits?

You can still purchase a car with credits but Turn10 made that process a lot more arduous by removing prize cars and reducing payouts. Among that, a ton of features were removed to make to decrease people's patience with having to drive low tier cars and spend that that real world cash.

In past Forza games, tokens where just the lazy man's way out -- the games rewarded you plenty and cars where just thrown at the player. It never felt like they were pushing tokens and real world spending. Now, they offer level boosting, credit boosting, and token purchase. This game is designed to funnel people towards spending that cash. It's all very saddening for the Forza faithful -- especially after the stellar Forza 4.

 

[Stet]

Maybe I'm miss reading this, but aren't they just raising the price for people who buy the cars but keeping the "earned" price the same? Seems like a good way to deincentivise the pay to win model.

A better way to deincentivize the pay to win model is not to have a pay to win model.

 

[Bedlam]

This is pure Microsoft behind the scenes making this happen, and everyone knows it. Internal initiatives has been pushing this further and further, to new lows each time.

It's certainly no coincidence that pretty much all Xbone exclusive games have this shit in some form.

Microsoft's revenge for consumers not wanting their DRM bullshit. They had to fuck consumers one way or another!

Do you really believe MS wouldn't have done this before the 180 on their shitty DRM policies?

 

[GhaleonEB]

Pretty awful, especially since things are likely to progress even further from here. I'd read that most of MS's launch games are like this, are they all this bad?

 

[MormaPope]

So, people seem to be happy/thrilled with the audio-visual and physics in the game. And I've got to say I'm still tempted by the increase in layers in the livery editor.

BUT
Decimated car and track count, and the whole 'built from the ground up' talk is nothing but PR hot air.
No Public lobbies
No Clubs
No gifting of cars or paints (say goodbye to collabs)
Free Play has been stripped.
No Auction House or Storefront.
Tuning has been dumbed down to an extent ( engine and drive swaps )
No community leaderboards. ( offset somewhat by rivals leaderboards )
No affinity for car parts. ( WTF )
Intrusive monetizing offers which are eight times more expensive than FM4.

Whoever made these decisions about gameplay mechanics, let alone content, has a lot to answer for IMO. They have cut the community off at the knees.

This shit is damning. Forza 4 would probably be my GOTY for 2011, because of the auction house and clubs/community, because of the endless tuning options and tons of upgrades possible, because of the hundreds of cars available.

What the fuck Turn 10, you're ruining a series that had the perfect formula. Do Forza 4 but make it look better and add even more content. Fuck Forza 5.

 

[GolazoDan]

This is absurd. I thought it was bad when Gears of War: Judgement had the majority of the aesthetic stuff behind a paywall but this is something else. It's like people are paying £50 for the Xbox One store launcher. It doesn't even really matter if you technically can grind it out for some of this stuff, free to play games do that all the time. They just make it unenjoyable to keep playing without spending.

 

[Rains]

Bought the game to play for the cars not cheat and get them with tokens lol at some of the prices are their people out there that will pay this you would have to be crazy or have alot of money just sitting there not being able to gift cars is a joke and sould be patched in

 

[PG2G]

Yeah, the 'no reward cars' thing sucks. GT better not follow that, that's the #1 way of building your garage in GT. IIRC Forza 3 (last one I played) was great at this too.

They claimed to have bumped the amount of cash you get in races instead of giving out free cars so people could buy the car of their choice.

 

[Beant]

M$ indeed

but really why did so many reviews not even mention this?

They were too busy saying they like the fact that there are very many less tracks, so you can get to know them better. AdamSessler literally said that.

 

[Facism]

another case of GAF being a greater source of investigation and journalism than actual enthusiasm websites.

Pretty shitty f2p mechanics infesting great games, hate it.

 

[Honey Bunny]

This post is a nice summation

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90993383&postcount=597

I posted this is in the other thread, but it seemed to have been forgotten pretty quickly. In regards to my defending this in the case of Forza:

After learning a bit more about how Forza 5 works, I must say, they definitely have made some changes that are, without a doubt, designed to encourage people to buy cars with real money to the detriment of the game experience.

Seems like earning potential and car prices haven't changed. That's the good news.

But these few things all combine to make a pretty big and noticeable difference:

- No cars unlocked as you level. There is no logical, game-enhancing reason this was taken out. Its something that most everyone enjoyed. Some tweaks could have been to the 'progression' of cars you unlocked, but certainly no one wanted the whole system taken out.

- Manufacturer affinity is gone. This was something that also could have used some tweaking, but was otherwise a very good idea. Before, you could basically get free upgrades quite quickly. That could have used changing. It was definitely too quick. But again, people liked the system and it didn't warrant taking out. The fact that you can use tokens to buy upgrades now makes it blatantly obvious what the intentions were here.

- Free Play no longer allows you to drive any car in the game. Before, while some cars were quite expensive, it didn't stop people from the enjoyment of driving them if they wanted to. You just wouldn't own the car, couldn't customize it or race it in career. This was a fantastic compromise, as you could test drive anything you wanted and even if you couldn't afford an expensive car you really liked, you could still get to experience it out on-track. With that gone, it really pushes at the car collector types to pay real money.

- No buying/selling paints/setups/vinyls. You can still make some money off of this, but there will clearly not be any sort of ecosystem built around this like before. No reason for this to have happened. People *loved* the way it was.

- Buying cars and upgrades, the game definitely treats 'car tokens' as an equally viable way of bartering. Every step of the way, prices are given in credits and tokens, with equal font size and all, even going as far as having a little pop-up menu to 'confirm' whether you're going to buy with credits or tokens.

It all amounts to a blatant attempt at encouraging people to spend more money. All at the detriment of the game from several important angles.

So I was wrong here guys for defending this. I didn't realize it was going to be that bad. Its definitely not like previous Forza's at all and is totally shameful.

All that said, I still don't feel microtransactions are inherently evil. Previous Forza's were fine. Other games do ok with it, too.

 

[Ding-Ding]

Guys guys, "Sony will do the same thing!"

Don't shout too loud as GT6 has microtransactions. We just dont know how they will be implemented.

I dont like microtransactions but if they get the balance right, I dont really care (I wont buy them regardless). If it feels like the developer has slowed down progression in game to try to force microtransactions, then we have a big fucking problem .

 

[Zinthar]

Can tokens be earned by playing the game? Or is that the only way to get in-game currency?

There's a car that costs $32? A single car? WTF? Why? How?

These are like iRacing prices... except even less justifiable.

 

[LOLCats]

Feel kinda bait and switched to be honest. Forza 4 was so awesome and cars totally attainable. But this is really quite frustrating.

 

[Kintaro]

People -- stop supporting games that use microtransactions. It's that fucking simple. Don't buy them.

You will pry Bravely Default from my cold, dead hands.

 

[Klocker]

Or just play the game and earn the credits in game to buy them


This is strictly for those that do not want to sit through the game to get to that point and is totally optional

For them, the money is probably worth it. If you don't agree don't buy tokens and earn them in game. I don't see the issue with options for people with more money than time

 

[Derrick01]

Pretty awful, especially since things are likely to progress even further from here. I'd read that most of MS's launch games are like this, are they all this bad?

I don't think they're as bad as this but from what I saw in a different thread it seems like Dead Rising 3 and one other game, can't remember if it was crimson dragon or lococycle, are the only major exclusive on XB1 that don't have microtransactions.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Gross. I really hope the recent noises out of Squenix don't mean they're going the same way.

Can't wait to see how capcom does a even worse version of this shit.

I'm betting on a whole separate $60 single player campaign DLC from them this gen. the base game will just be a full priced unplayable engine.

 

[AlexMogil]

or you can earn it with credits

carry on

 

[QuicheFontaine]

M$ indeed

but really why did so many reviews not even mention this?

Because games journalism fucking failed us yet again.

I can't wait to be told how this is actually our fault though.

 

[MormaPope]

another case of GAF being a greater source of investigation and journalism than actual enthusiasm websites.

Pretty shitty f2p mechanics infesting great games, hate it.

What's actually worse are the features from Forza 4 that made that game excellent are straight up missing in Forza 5. Being a huge Forza 4 fan and hearing about all the shit missing or being altered is heartbreaking.

 

[Orca]

On the upper end, our goal is to make the truly elite cars feel really exclusive. As a result, the top-end cars in Forza Motorsport 5 will cost significantly more in tokens than they would if you earned them with in-game credits.

Anyone want to take a stab at how that is that encouraging people to use tokens?

 

[OminoMichelin]

I watched the friendzone stream yesterday, one guy had a shitty basic car he bought for in game currency while the other one one of the high tier cars in free drive. The second ones 'average mph was double the first one.
This sure looks like pay to win to me.

 

[Bedlam]

They were too busy saying they like the fact that there are very many less tracks, so you can get to know them better. AdamSessler literally said that.

You mean he came up with that excuse? If so, great Arthur Gies cosplay!

 

[Foxix Von]

On the upper end, our goal is to make the truly elite cars feel really exclusive. As a result, the top-end cars in Forza Motorsport 5 will cost significantly more in tokens than they would if you earned them with in-game credits. In the past, expensive cars could be purchased with very few tokens (not in proportion with the amount of effort required to earn the cars through racing), thus allowing players willing to spend tokens to jump straight into the most exclusive cars in the game. Now, we’ve made token prices equal to in-game credit prices. For those who want to spend some extra real money and get those exclusive cars, they’ll have that option, but they will no longer devalue the hard work of those who earned the cars through racing and building up in-game credits. Either way, expensive cars will have real rarity.

This whole fucking mindset runs so goddamn contrary to the whole reason I would ever purchase a racing sim. The whole point of replicating the look and feel of these cars is to let the average schmuck experience a simulation of something thing that's virtually impossible to own. Something that's locked behind ludicrous amounts of money in real life, shouldn't also be locked behind ludicrous amounts of spending in a fucking game that you buy to appreciate the first thing that's locked behind a ludicrous amount of cash.

*screams internally*

 

[erawsd]

I agree that it is worrying that the gaming press hid all of this -- OR (trying to give them the benefit of doubt) maybe this stuff was incomplete/ommited from their review copies?

 

[Alcoholikaust]

This is the main reason I did not buy the game.

holding cars hostage behind a pay wall is terrible.

 

[RaikuHebi]

Holy shit nearly a full page of replies in one minute.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Wow this is fucked up.

 

[Derrick01]

Or just play the game and earn the credits in game to buy them


This is strictly for those that do not want to sit through the game to get to that point and is totally optional

For them, the money is probably worth it. If you don't agree don't buy tokens and earn them in game. I don't see the issue with options for people with more money than time

or you can earn it with credits

carry on

Tertullian addressed this incorrect mindset in another thread.

I'm always amazed when someone claims that these kinds of microtransactions don't affect design or gameplay at all, and you can ignore them and have no less lovely an experience than you would have had if this predatory business model had never reared its ugly head.

Sure, right: the designers don't design for microtransactions at all. They don't build in any incentives to spend more money. They tweak progression just perfectly so that the rate at which you acquire new stuff is just perfect, and it wouldn't be any more fun to get stuff faster. They're totally optional, guys! BTW, would any of you gentleman like to buy one of the many fine bridges I have for sale?

There is no such thing as a game with microtransactions whose design is not tainted by them. There is no such thing. Every game with microtransactions builds in incentives to spend more money; every game with microtransactions is designed to ensure that the optimal experience is one in which the publisher gets more of your money. It's just that it's acceptable in games which are free up front because hey, they're free up front. But in a $60 retail game? Come on.

"Pay so that you don't have to play" microtransactions are particularly odious, because they reveal the underlying bad design of any game they're in. If I'm paying so that I don't have to play the game, what does that say about the minute to minute gameplay? It says it's not fun. It says it's a slog, something negative, something I endure rather than enjoy so that I can get the arbitrary rewards I have been conditioned to want. It says that the game has little to offer besides a skinner box, at least past a certain number of hours.

Can you imagine if Super Mario 3D World had microtransactions that allowed you to buy green stars for $1, so that you can get out of the chore of actually playing the levels? Would anyone buy that? Of course not, because playing the level to get the stars is the game, and it's extremely fun. If I'm paying for cars in a racing game because, man, I don't want to race for one more hour, what does that say? It says that the moment-to-moment gameplay is not fun, at least after a certain number of hours, and it says that the game was designed so that I would not acquire cars as fast as I want to, so that I would rather spend real money to get something than actually play the game I already paid $60 for.

Plus with as many features as Forza 5 is missing this bullshit makes it even worse. Maybe if they spent less time figuring out how to screw the customer they'd have more time to implement fun features.