Update: 10/27/17
I think it’s only fair to provide an update to this post. As of this writing, I’ve progressed steadily through the single player campaign, and have reached the second-to-last championship tier. The prize money awarded for winning these races should be increasing, but so far, have not. I’m still receiving the standard $9k-$12k per race that I was receiving back at the beginning. This is unacceptable. Even though my mind has been somewhat changed regarding this matter, I’ll leave the original story posted for posterity’s sake, but at the moment I definitely believe there are shady dealings at work, especially since reaching the collector level 5 and having access to $1m cars that I will need to literally race for weeks to afford. The only way to work around this system is to go into Free Play, set up a race on Nurburgring or some other lengthy track, crank up the number of laps, and stack up on the mod cards. I still have a few races to go before I get the final Forza cup, but this is starting to look like it will be my go to racing strategy for grinding out the bucks. We’ll see.
Lootboxes! Lootboxes are the newest plague invading the gaming world, and the hate against it is coming to a head. For good reason too, it was only a manner of time before the Corporate Publishers reared their heads back like an evil Disney villain and crossed that imaginary “no-no” line. The free-to-play model on micro-transactions finally found their way into full priced $60 games, and the more popular Youtube personalities are not happy about it.
There are already multiple articles and Youtube videos and such about the whole lootbox outrage, so I’m not going to go into all that. What I am going to talk about is the perception that Forza Motorsport 7’s progression system is held back by the lootbox system.
It’s true. Turn 10 and Microsoft laid Forza 7 out with the suspected intent of monetizing the loot boxes. They originally intended their VIP members to be compensated via consumable mod cards as opposed to their persisitent “double cash” perk as in past Forzas, and people were quick to point out this blatant faux pas. After fan backlash, this was corrected, complete with a letter of apology. How Turn 10 and Microsoft ever thought this decision was going to fly is beyond me. But it happened, and it will be fixed. Hurray, we win!
But even with that bit of unpleasantness aside, the focus now leans toward said Mod Cards, or rather, the container they come in: the infamous Loot Box. The perception now is that these mod cards are the reason the progression in Forza Motorsport 7 is locked behind “Collector Tiers.” The theory is this:
- There are several collector tiers, with each higher tier containing more badass cars.
- You buy cars to level up your collector level, eventually unlocking new tiers.
- You gain the chance to win more money (and cars) by purchasing loot boxes containing mod cards, using in-game currency (and potentially real money, though that hasn’t happened yet).
- The money prizes you receive (and aforementioned VIP status) were gimped to force the purchase of said loot boxes.
In other words “the more loot boxes you purchase, the faster you can make money.”
But here’s the thing; I’ve been playing the game for a week now, doing only the Forza cup races, and I’m at Collector Level 4 (CL4) with a decent stable of cars in my garage. I’ve been purchasing the cheapest loot box every few races in order to refresh my mods and make extra cash. I’ve been given plenty of opportunities to obtain cars at a heavy discount (and even free) whenever my driver levels up, and there is a Specialty Dealer that rotates cars for sale, regardless of their Collector Tier. In other words, if I have the cash, I can buy a CL5 car even though I’m not yet in the CL5 tier. The Showcase events in each Cup series gifts you the car after you win it. There are multiple possibilities to gain cars outside your level just by playing the game.
The problem is, nobody wants to play the game anymore. They want the best car in the game right out of the box. They look at content behind a locked tier and immediately whine that it’s pay to win, or groan that they have to “grind” in order to unlock it. To be fair, in some cases they’re right. The whole Mordor: Shadow of War and Star Wars Battlefront II loot box situation is perfect proof of that. But this is not one of those cases. The car tiers are not something locked behind a paywall, nor are they being withheld for egregious amounts of time in order to convince you to pay for them. A little bit of old fashioned gameplay will get you right where you want to be with relatively little effort. Maybe if it weren’t for the need for instant gratification, loot boxes would’ve never become a thing to begin with.
Mod Cards as they stand right now aren’t an intrusive feature. One could argue that if they increased the payouts of the events you wouldn’t even need them. While this is true, they are just here to provide some extra incentive to race clean and reward proper technique. It isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before. Forza 6 had mod cards. Codemasters’ GRID series had “sponsorships” which had varying criteria to meet in order to earn extra cash after a race. These things have existed in racing games for a while. But now they have been tarnished by the greedy practices of others.
That’s what I have to say about that. If you’re a Forza Motorsport fan, as I am, then you’ll enjoy the racing as much as you ever have, and the progression system won’t be a problem at all. If you’re one of those people who buys games, but doesn’t like to actually play them, you’ll be better off with Project CARS 2 or an older version of Forza.
In closing: Yes, I’m a Forza Motorsport fan. And I realize I come off as a fanboy defending a game I love. That’s partially true. But at the same time, I’ve enjoyed this series since I bought the first one on the original Xbox. I’ve owned every single one, and you can bet for damn sure that I’d call out Turn 10 and Microsoft if they ever did anything to fuck up one of my favorite series.
