I came across a silly little bug while playing Forza 6 this week. The ‘Stories of Motorsport’ mode in the game takes you through several volumes of racing (sport icons, professional racing, etc.), divided up into series. The Championship Legend achievement is earned by completing all the series. The base game contains 15 series. So, the achievement could have been coded in one of two ways:
- IF [player completes series X], THEN [# of series completed] +1
- IF [# of series completed] = 15, THEN [trigger achievement]
or
- IF [player completes series X], THEN [mark series X complete]
- IF [series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 marked complete], THEN [trigger achievement]
In an environment where there are only the 15 series, both methods produce the same result. Unfortunately, Forza 6’s DLC packs added extra series. By partially completing the first few series in the base game, and then completing more series in the Porsche expansion, I got the achievement to trigger erroneously. It is clear that the achievement was coded using the first method, because my series counter reached 15 without completing all of the base game’s series.
How did this make it into the final product? Well, I suspect that the rarity of the scenario plays a role. Most Forza 6 players who purchase and play DLC are going to be power users who played the base game extensively. Based on Xbox Live, only 0.81% of Forza 6 players complete the Porsche anthology, a very small minority. I’m guessing nearly all those players (and test scenarios) also completed the ‘Stories of Motorsport’.