The Forza Horizon 5 hotfix has tackled more than just the online connectivity issues. Horizon players have noticed that two methods for quick earning have been effectively ended by the update.
The Forza Horizon 5 update
Release notes for yesterday's update show that around thirty seperate issues have been identified and fixed in this first patch since release day. The key improvement for most will be the "improved stability of Horizon Life connections" which should be further upgraded with planned server maintenance to 10 am GMT today.
We should also see improvements to online traffic and many causes of crashes have also been identified and fixed.
Exploits removed
If you've been buying the Willys Jeep for its cheap Super Wheelspin, you'll be disappointed to hear that the car mastery tree for that vehicle has been updated. The same is true of the Toyota GR Supra. It looks like the developers want to discourage skill point farming for wheelspins and so the car masteries for several cars have been updated.
They've also implemented additional checks in the accessibility features. We think this means that your inputs will need to change within a certain period of time to stay in a race. This means the end of what has been called the "AFK Goliath" and similar exploits.
Players still experiencing issues
PC players in particular are still seeing significant problems with the game. Sometimes textures don't load correctly and some say this is more frequent after the update. Many also say their framerates have gotten worse following this patch.
PC players are also concerned about the size of the download. On the Xbox Series X the update weighs in at under a gigabyte. But some PC players are finding that the entire game needs to be downloaded again. At over 100GB, this can take some time!