I love the Forza games, and I haven't really played other racing games since I first played Forza Motorsport 3. In FM3 and FM4 I play with simulation damage, but in this game, since the damage is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect gameplay, I turn it off. To me, this seems counter-intuitive to the way someone would normally play these games, in which you wouldn't mind damage that was cosmetic but would mind damage that affects your driving. My thought process is that if it doesn't matter, I'd rather my car look good, anybody else think like this?

Yeah I agree, I only used simulation damage in the other Forza games, mainly for the boost in money. Since if I ever crashed I was probably going to restart anyway cause I'd have lost that race.

I turned cosmetic off because yeah it looks dirty as hell and I want clean cars. It's affected my driving though, I definitely play it more like bumper cars than normal Forza titles.

I've left the damage on while playing Horizon, but I agree that there's not much of an incentive to drive cleanly. The thing I'm more bummed about is how much worse the net code and collision detection are compared to Forza 4.

Although it is pretty great the way your rear bumper just hits some explosive eject button every time you tap a guardrail with the back of your car.

I'm in the cockpit so I don't even notice the damage.