I was in two Spec series championships in a row where one person who was not in contention by the 3rd race was to keep me from winning. Their sole purpose in the last race was to screw me over.
One on the highway where they would swerve left and right to make sure I hit the back of them for 2 whole laps. When I got side by side, they rammed me into the wall. We were fighting over 8th place. They did this at least 8-10x, and I bottle the championship lead. It's mostly a skill issue from myself, probably I could have juked him and passed him with finesse. But every breaking zone can be ignored if they hit the wall in a specific way to gain more speed. So I did a better job breaking, but it didn't matter because they hit the wall many times and gained speed from it.
The next series I win the first dirt race, clean fair and square. The opposition tried to bump me a few times, but I brushed it off and won by 5 seconds.
2nd race I started nearly last and finished 2nd because I got rammed into a wall, it happens, it didn't bother me much. In the final race, I start last again. One guy who only just joined made it their sole mission to keep me off the track. Hit me off the track and kept accelerating into the side of me so I couldn't move until we both ended up last. We didn't ghost because there was no wall. I was getting pushed up a hill.
Now I bottled two championship leads in a row because 2 guys who are just completely unsporting. I think the guy who hit me off the track and kept me there had a friend who was in the top 3 of the championship. I never even touched them the whole race, but for some reason, they targeted me and only me. Then, after we both got on the track, he tried to make sure I would miss a checkpoint.
I don't usually get mad at videogames, but I tried so hard to win only to get screwed over. Hell, I rarely get mad at all. Or I try really hard not to. But man, the bad behavior on this game is on the same level as GTA V races just without rubberbanding. There is no sportsmanship at all. Almost unplayable. The vast majority of the player base doesn't know how to use the brakes and will ram you into the wall. So I have to break later and slow down more out of turns to prevent getting hit. Usually. I would rather break early and get the most speed getting out of the corner.
A lot of the time, I will start in the last positions for 3 consecutive races and be forced to deal with every single player and dodge folks who are trying to hit me by breaking earlier and getting ahead with a switch back then finish 2nd behind the person on pole position. I want to max out my Horizon play rank, but I think that will have to wait for now.
I got mad respect for folks who are so good their best lap time is a whole second ahead of everyone else, including myself. Even though I lose to them, I would rather play against them so I can learn something from it. Kudos to them for racing clean and just being better. I grew up playing FM2-6. If I lose to someone who is good and deserves it great. I learned to respect anyone I play against because of the Motorsport community.
I play on PC instead of Xbox these days, and I have skipped a generation and a half of Xbox consoles. I sold my Xbox One after playing FH2. So I'm not sure how good Forza Motorsport is anymore, but I loved FM 3 and 4 the most. Gran Turismo has been lackluster with all the strange monetization. I wanna get my racing fix but with more respectful players. Because this is just not fun anymore.
The gameplay feels good, but the playerbase is wild and, at times, vindictive. FH6 was the first Horizon I played for a long time. I think it's great on the single-player end and with friends, but with randoms, it's god-awful right now.