Career mode is garbage!

[Tumult]

Career mode is a joke, right? Just street cars and a bit of flat tuning ♥♥♥♥ that is also implemented in an incredibly boring way? (Click on automatic upgrade and you're done) Who actually came up with the idiotic idea of having to level up a car? In a racing game (RACING GAME! Not a free to play online grind game!) in which there are hundreds of cars, I should drive one until I'm level >20 so I can change the engine?
And what's the deal with the three rounds of mandatory training? For what!? To "get to know" the car again after installing a new oil filter? How about a qualifying session instead? No, that would be too much motorsport and that's probably why there isn't a single race that doesn't have road cars. That's right, there isn't a single GT, LMP or Formula race! I'm sorry, what? Multiclass racing? At Forza MOTORSPORT? Hell no!
But what do I expect from a game that has managed to have a worse career mode year after year.
And don't tell me anything about DLCs or content that will be added later. The game has been released NOW (yes, officially in a few days) and not in 6 months, a year or whenever.
Basically FM is just a bad Forza Horizen without the open world.
I don't even want to start talking about the performance here, enough others have already talked about it.

[Moga CMDR]

I don't like the career, so I'm not playing it. Free play is perfect for me, and how I play games like AC anyway.

This Builder's cup gives me flashbacks to Grid Legends. Gross.

I thought the career was going to work out differently, but it's the same system of Drive car you don't want to unlock the right to drive another car you dont want, until you get to a series you like. A time waster if you have been doing this for decades.

Free play lets you pick the cars, tracks, conditions and rules you like. So I'd give that a try. You can even do Expert rules, but enable the ability for replays. Which you can't do in their career (from what I saw).

They say Freeplay is the only place you can set all the rules. It happens to be the only mode that interest me. I'm glad it's a thing, or I would have regretted my purchase.

[Crimzin]

I don't mind how its laid out, you get really into the cars this way, you focus on one car I actually like it, you get to feel what the car needs and upgrade accordingly, like I picked a Sierra Cosworth RS500 for the second tier championship, the 80's and 90's road going race cars, that thing was fast enough but it was like driving a boat or more like a barge lol but by the end of championship I had it all setup nice, corning flat, minimum body roll etc.

just wish I could fix my Performance issues that just randomly happened today for no apparent reason...

[docup87]

I think the general idea behind the upgrade system is not so bad. I just find it extremely poorly implemented. And I also find the structure of the career mode very uncreative and boring.
I remember months ago, before they officially unveiled the career mode, I was really excited about it, only to sink into the ground with disillusionment. According to Turn10, the career mode should be completely new. In the reveal stream it turned out to be the same boring and unimaginative career as in the years before. Only with this strange upgrade system.

[Moga CMDR]

Originally posted by docup87:

Only with this strange upgrade system.

Once you unlock everything, I think the system is good. You can't waste points, so you never feel bad experimenting with setups.

But how they organized the upgrades by level is silly, and not logical in any way, shape, or form.

[TheHuskyGT]

The more I play, the more I realize career mode isn't that good. I'm in the second championship and I'm already bored. I'm never going to get tired of saying this: they should really consider going back to FM3 and FM4's career style. The old way works. More options, more cars to use, less tedium. RWD championship, A Class (etc). JDM Championship, B Class (etc), European Sports cars, Wagons, AMG vs M vs RS, etc. You get the idea. Once you complete everything, unlock the option to have no class restrictions (FM3 did this). Let you compete even if your car is below the recommended class (FM6 did this). More replay value. It's not that hard.

It is far better than FM7's though, I give it that.

I have not tried Free Play yet. I hear it's really good. However, they still don't let you select opponents individually, which I find a bit limiting. Horizon has been doing this for years. It isn't that hard to implement.

[Voodoochile]

The Career actually isn't that bad. The leveling is tedious not gonna lie. Some of the slow cars are incredibly annoying to level. The progress is kinda tied to how fast the car is because you get XP per distance. The slower the car the less distance you cover. So, not ideal

[Moga CMDR]

While Horizon did let you pick individual cars, it was far from perfect and had its own limitations too. I recall posting about the issues, but no one cared.

It would be nice to be able to pick individual cars in this so you can do your own mutli class races or the classic David vs Goliath scenarios. Or any other oddball rivalry for that matter. So there is certainly room for improvement.

But you can refine your opponents in freeplay by just about any data point you want; it is really powerful. Options include:

Division
Class
PI
Level
Family
Make
Model
Year Min/Max
Region
Country
Power Min/Max
Weight Min/Max
Drive Type
Engine Placement
Engine Configuration
Cylinder Count
Aspiration

So while you can't pick individual cars, you should be able to set up many different enjoyable racing experiences that fit your interest.

[Utplayer01]

In the carrer the the practice is so senseless.

[Moga CMDR]

Originally posted by Utplayer01:

In the carrer the the practice is so senseless.

Feel free to skip them. That's what I did for the intro. I love practice sessions in the F1 game and in AC. But here I'd only rush through the curated content as quick as possible...

[TheHuskyGT]

Originally posted by Utplayer01:

In the carrer the the practice is so senseless.

I can see having it as an option, but not mandatory. And they don't include qualifying, but instead let you choose your position in the grid. Makes no sense.

[Derivat949]

Uh you guys know you can skip practice right?

[Luna ~]

honestly career mode is rough, but way better than other games tbh, I just miss the old days of GT3 and 4 where i get all these cool cups, and car rankings, and like Licence trails. Man those games had content.
and had a mix of Rally and endurance. This games just feels like im honestly just doing like maybe a small set of GT cups. It's ok but needs all the substance.

[Voodoochile]

Originally posted by TheHuskyGT:

Originally posted by Utplayer01:

In the carrer the the practice is so senseless.

I can see having it as an option, but not mandatory. And they don't include qualifying, but instead let you choose your position in the grid. Makes no sense.

It can be skipped...
Practice is made so you can level your car in-between races.
I use it to pad my car with upgrades if it's not a competitive one like the Alpine against the 7-8 AI.

[Brad]

Originally posted by TheHuskyGT:

Originally posted by Utplayer01:

In the carrer the the practice is so senseless.

I can see having it as an option, but not mandatory. And they don't include qualifying, but instead let you choose your position in the grid. Makes no sense.

This is a great feature in my opinion. You set your lap times in the practice session and then you can dial in your starting position and AI difficultly to taste pre-race and it gives you an estimated finishing position based on your practice best lap.

This fixes a lot of issues with the fact that the car performance number is not consistent between tracks so don't end up with races where your car is unexpectedly massively underpowered/overpowered. You don't have to bash through the whole field if you don't want and you don't have to do a qualifying where you are just going to be at the very front and end up by yourself running hot laps the whole time.

You pick your position and Ai difficultly based on a 3-4 estimated finishing position and then you are fighting for a win every race and basically always have the difficulty tuned to exactly how high will be a challenge and offer the best reward.

[Voodoochile]

Originally posted by Brad:

Originally posted by TheHuskyGT:

I can see having it as an option, but not mandatory. And they don't include qualifying, but instead let you choose your position in the grid. Makes no sense.

This is a great feature in my opinion. You set your lap times in the practice session and then you can dial in your starting position and AI difficultly to taste pre-race and it gives you an estimated finishing position based on your practice best lap.

This fixes a lot of issues with the fact that the car performance number is not consistent between tracks so don't end up with races where your car is unexpectedly massively underpowered/overpowered. You don't have to bash through the whole field if you don't want and you don't have to do a qualifying where you are just going to be at the very front and end up by yourself running hot laps the whole time.

You pick your position and Ai difficultly based on a 3-4 estimated finishing position and then you are fighting for a win every race and basically always have the difficulty tuned to exactly how high will be a challenge and offer the best reward.

Indeed! It's actually a pretty good system. Solves much more problems than it creates. And you can even skip the practice completely.