Ok I agree, I had to re-read your post. In this case I say I would be okay with a lower car count.
As someone who is predominately interested in setting the fastest possible laptime rather than racing per se… the one features I want above all else is better / proper telemetry.
The first and probably the simplest part to implement would be a live lap delta (as can be seen in the F1 games series), to give better, quicker feedback as to where you’#re gaining or losing time as you lap. It’d make tuning easier, as you’d know if you’re losing time on a straight after changing your gears for example.
To be honest, if that alone was implemented, I’d be happy but what I really want to be able to do is to study the telemetry data in non-realtime [EDIT] in the form of graphs as they do in the real world, rather than as an overlay on a replay is Forza does it. My vision would be that you put in a lap, and then either from the pause menu or once you’re back in the pitlane, you can access your data on everything from speed, chosen gear, brake pressure, GPS location (where and how far along you are on the track), various temperatures (especially tyre temps assuming the tyre model is good enough for it to actually matter). Crucially, I want the ability to overlay multiple laps and sectors so that you can do things such as compare your best lap with higher downforce vs. the one you set with a low downforce tune, or you could compare the corner where you stayed in 3 gear against the lap where you did what you normally do by dropping down to second, for example.
I see it as being like the days of Forza 2 in that when you set a leaderboard time, if you’re brave enough, you can throw down the gauntlet and share your telemetry, in the same way you used to be able to chose whether to share an open version of your tuning setup.
Finally, I also hope that this would have one other added benefit… last night, I set what I think is a very good time around Le Mans, on Forza Motorsport 6. But I messed up and didn’t get the Xbox to capture the lap in time. The replay is on the leaderboards but it’s nowhere near the quality of the live lap. My guess would be that it’s because replays use fewer data points to recreate the lap, which makes the care look laggy/jerky. If each lap recorded that much more data for telemetry, perhaps it could also server to make the leaderboard replays that much better that they’d be as good as a live recording.
Oh, and local leaderboards / being able to see the times set in various different cars by single gamertag would be great too (as I wish I could know how my XJR-9 time around Le Mans would have stacked up before the 962c was released).
[EDIT] One other thing… Please make sure that cars are modeled so that when you paint them, there are no unpaintable areas, or areas where the vinyls get distorted. I was looking forward to finally getting around to painting a Porsche GT3 car the other night, only to find that it had unpaintable areas of body work and areas where vinyls were distorted so that I couldn’t even create a straight line. Stuff like that really saps enthusiasm and makes me thing why bother. One of Forza great strengths should be it’s creative community but when obstacles in the game make turn people away from wanting to be creative, it’s not a good thing IMHO.
I’ve just thought of another couple of things I’d absolutley love to see implemented for us hotlappers, would I’d imagine would be too hard.
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having some behind you in your draft should not make your lap dirty. It’s so frustrating being on a good lap in a race only the exclamation mark to flash because there’s a car two hundred feet behind you.
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Better dirty lap detection in the final sector. Again, it’s frustrating that you can make a mistake at the end of a lap yet still go through two or three braking zones and turns, and have it mark your next lap as dirty even though there’s no way you could have maintained an advantage from the mistake / going off.
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A Skate style checkpoint system. Case in point, I was racing around Le Mans last night and trying to set a fast laptime. Setting a good laptime depends a great deal on being quick through the final chicane but it’s tricky to consistentl;y get right. So I resorted to using the rewind feature. Once I’d nailed the corner, I’d start a new lap, make a mistake and then rewind. If I was lucky, the rewind would take me to just before the start finish line, and all I’d have to do is jam the throttle, hit A and be on my way. But if the rewind took me that little bit too far back, at best I’d have an awkaward gear changes or I’d have to drive the last few corner again. I’ve you could rewind meter by meter, and then hit a button combo (like you do in the Skate games) to set a checkpoint, it’d make hotlapping a lot less frustrating and time consuming.
It’d also have another major added benefit that I’ve always wanted… if you could use the feature whilst your tuning, you could take a corner or a straight once, pause and tweak your tune, hit the button combo to go back to your checkpoint, and then try the same section of track again, with different tuning settings, to see what is better.
I agree, data is such a big part of modern motorsport and should also be a big part of Forza Motorsport. An update to telemetry is long over due and will fit nicely into Practice and Qualifying which is also desperately needed., Could include things like;
On Track;
- Sector times!
- Lap delta (selectable against last lap, best lap, rival lap)
- Sector delta (selectable against last sector, PB, rivals)
- Speed Traps
- Radio / Engineer for important info such as weather, lap summary.
- Set up changes (Unlocked in race upgrades - Sway bars, ABS, TC, Brake Bias, Engine/fuel map).
Garage / Pits;
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Timing data available for review (not just live telemetry)
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Data overlay (season, lap by lap, sectors, best, rivals).
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Throttle, Braking, gear, Steering Trace.
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Engineer suggestions (12th in the speed trap, review downforce level and exit speed).
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Your racing line and car data recorded each lap at selectable points on a track map.
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Speed at data points (braking, apex, exit, trap).
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Tire temps, wear, lock ups, wheel spin, slip angle at data point.
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Suspension movement, dynamic camber (relative to surface) and toe, compression/extension (% of travel).
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Fuel consumption. engine output, Gear, Engine map & wheel torque output,
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Electronics intervention and settings (TC, ABS, SC) at data point.
GT3 and 4 (not sure about any others) had this option, and it’s one of the things I miss the most in Forza. Being able to see the difference between a good lap and a great one (or between a good car and a great one) made it much easier to “target” your efforts to improve.
While we’re at it, give us a “Save Best Lap” option. Sorting through 37 laps at Spa to watch the telemetry for the one lap you didn’t bugger up Raidillon gets old fast.
Yes, please. I run a lot of cars in a variety of build states, and being able to compare lap times between Car F and Car G when I’ve already set a faster time in Car A would be a welcome addition.
Having done a bit of 3D modeling, I doubt there’s any easy way for them to fix the vinyl distortion. You’re superimposing a 2D plane over a 3D model, and weird things are going to happen as a result. I’d be happy if they can make it so vinyls apply the same on the left and right sides of the car.
Wheel feedback is great but cars feel like they are driving on ice!
Not realistic for modern day sticky cars that hold to the road!!!
Built in regularly scheduled weekly tournaments like on Forza 2. The Sunday Challenge was one of them. Turn 10 you had the technology to do this in 2007. It can definately be done now.
Things I would like in Forza Motorsport:
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No more duplicate race cars - I hate the fact that there are multiple of the same car, only with different liveries. It would be better if only one of each race car was sold and you had the choice to choose a real-life livery out of a list, or just choose a blank slate for your own livery.
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Improve split-screen - Split-screen is a lovely feature. I play with my family members often, but it sucks that it’s so limited. I would like to race against drivatars and race at night/in rain.
EDIT (14th April 2021):
3. Trim options - It would be an interesting feature in my opinion. You could choose between trim levels on certain cars and choose from the base trim all the way up to the high performance trim. On cars which have convertible variants, you could choose between normal roof and convertible. It could really spice up the car roster.
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Fix graphical inconcistencies - Forza games are graphically awesome games. But just like a lot of other racers, there are some areas which have been really cheaped out on (trees and spectators are just some examples). Trees already look fixed from what I’ve seen in the first trailer, so I hope the 2D spectators get fixed as well.
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Improve driving animations - Stuff like: Full steering animation, handbrake and clutch animation for cars with manuals, etc.
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Add fully animated pit stops - No need to explain.
I have several ideas. Remove those night races, they spoiled a lot of fun from Forza 7. Make usable interface, scrolling the single line consisting of 100 tracks or manufactures is a lot of pain. Why don’t make just square grid?
Stop chasing mindless gimmics like 4K or HDR. Xbox One with its very weak hardware barely could handle 1080p with decent graphics. To make the game run in 4K developers cut graphics to the ground. There is no dynamic lighting, shadows just painted on tarmac and so on, which creates a lot of problems for racing game. There is no time flow, sun is fixed. Every time you want another lighting condition for the track, you have to make another one with new shadows painted on the floor, that is why the game have enormous size. A lot of effects gone, compare how the light scattered on dirty windshield in Assetto Corsa when the sun is low - very similar to real life. Everything is bright but you have poor visibility due to haze. In Forza 7 the brightness just cut to zero, driving against low sun is like driving in night.
Which brings another gimmic - HDR. On non HDR screens (the wast majority) there is no brightness control. And the game is not particularly bright to start with, but switching to cockpit view cut your brightness another 30-40% for some unknown reason, which makes cockpit view unplayable even in bright midday.
Also there is some strange AI dependance on track (should I mention Sebring?). With same settings it can be incredibly fast on one track, and slow on another.
I think all of those must be fixed in Forza 8, because the game is really great and one of a kind, I really got tired of all those GT3 cars on Spa in Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, iRacing and every single PC sim for the last 20 years. I want to get into production car and stretch it on long twisty road like Fujimi Kaido
Negative, Ghostrider. I love the night tracks, and think T10 did a phenomenal job of replicating the look and feel of night driving. Rain is handled relatively well, too.
Other than that, mostly agreed. The focus should be on visual presentation rather than on graphical widgetry (I’m talking about the whole “ZOMG, RAY TRACING!!!” obsession, T10…), and streamlining the menus and making the AI not atrocious are high up on my list of things I want to see, as well.
I have no idea why somebody love driving when you can’t see literaly anything uncluding where you are going.Tracks with artificial lighting like Daytona is OK, but the rest is not.
And there is no such thing as night races. All real races are set around midday, except endurance 24 hours events where you don’t have choice.
Please, add mechanics on pits and improve the engine sounds, like you did in Forza Motorsport 6. Try to hire the sound designers who worked in Driveclub and GRID 
The only feature I personally would like to see is the ability to use cars in my garage for ais. Say I’m racing by myself and want to make a custom race. I can build a whole fleet of cars to be run by the ai and select which ai runs what car. Would make solo play more interesting imo. Outside of that the game is golden.
I’m playing Project Cars 2 now along with Forza 7, and you can create you own championship in PCars 2: cars you want, tracks, weather, time of day - the complete set.
This is very cool feature and cost almost nothing in term of development, I would like to see this in Forza 8
1 Like
This is a feature I would absolutely adore.
I am an avid Forza drag racer and have noticed that aside from slicks there is no drag racing upgrades, where is the NHRA spec V8. As for factory drag cars from the 60s I’d like to see the lightweight Impala the Copo Camaro, the ZL1 Camaro, lightweight Galaxie, lightweight Pontiac GTO the list goes on and on
More classic station wagon (Estates) like the Chevelle, the Ford Country Squire, Plymouth Savoy…
And please stop putting the stupid V12 as a engine swap option in every car it’s not even good.
Edit: Cause I posted in the wrong place.
Just give me the option to play my own music in-game and I’ll be happy.
Ideas for immersion in Forza:
Bring back the audio changes to engine sounds with cam and exhaust upgrades
Make the weight reduction upgrades reflect on the visuals of the car (remove seats, carpet, door panels, replace radio with switches, add racing seat, window net, padded roll bar frame, racing dash and steering wheel, etc)
Make engine swaps show up in Forzavista (probably not possible)
Give cars “profiles” (stock, drag, SCCA, Lemons, etc) to save builds quickly by the vehicle for easy access later.
Bring back garage spaces for photo taking and allow up to 10 cars to be grouped in the garage at once with free camera control throughout the space
Add a “reliability” stat to the cars in game, it goes down proportionately to the performance upgrades that increase horsepower. (For instance a stock mustang would have close to a full reliability rating, while adding parts like turbos and big bores and dual carbs would decrease the reliability stat and increase the chance of damage during a race from over revving or aggressive driving)
Allow more in depth engine tuning outside of upgrades (boost psi pressure, ignition advance, fuel pressure and volume, redline limit, camshaft profiles, VVT adjustments, compression ratio, restrict or plate) that also affect fuel economy and reliability
Tire compound hardness - harder tire lasts longer, has less grip
Upgradable fuel cells to alter capacity of fuel tank - add or reduce weight as needed for race length or length between pit stops
Animate pit stops and allow for control over what happens during the stop (two tires, four tires, aero repair, half tank, full tank, etc.)
Toggleable random failures tied to mileage on the race car with the option to “refurbish” periodically. Higher mileage cars will develop faults more frequently that require repairs ( I’m not talking about random engine explosions but random misfires or clutch failures or worn steering components breaking requiring a pit stop to return to full power).
Blowouts on bald tires!
The option to tow a car to the pits after a sim damage crash.
Career mode similar to the original grid where you build a team and gradually increase your access to faster and more expensive cars.
Auto drive option to generate income while playing less lucrative areas of the game.
The return of store fronts.
More required “quick stops” in career mode. (Start with less fuel than required to finish or just require one pit stop per race)
Qualifying
Clean driving rewards that are meaningful and reinforce good behavior.
Here’s my features list that I’d like to see, drawing from some of others’ ideas and my own as well. I won’t mention much about online because it’s not really my expertise.
1. Cars in General: Let’s get this out of the way first. I’m not going to wish for less cars, but if several need to be dropped to make way for other features (and more tracks), then so be it. Maybe add new ones as DLCs later to progressively add them back. I’d like to see the type of support Forza Horizon 4 has gotten over its lifespan, but new/returning features should be first priority. I’d say something about Forza Motorsport 4 level would be appropriate (maybe 500-550 cars at launch while progressively adding more). Just a note that I think SUVs and Trucks ARE practical if they are not offroad-oriented (like the GMC Syclone, Bentayga Speed, Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, Cayenne). Streamline car selection so that they seem more purposeful, while not dropping the car list too low. As well, the racing car roster needs an update as many of the models are from around 2014-2016. More historic F1 and other racing vehicles would round out the list as well. Some car models need overhauled models as well.
2. Divisions: I believe one of the most flawed parts of the Motorsport games (and to an extent, the Horizon games) is how divisions are sorted. Relegating cars to one “hard” division and the PI system makes for limited options when orchestrating custom races. Looking back to Forza Motorsport 4, there were several championships that had specific “soft” entry requirements (like engine type, body type, etc.). This should be brought back along with the visible “hard” divisions to give more options for creating fun races (as well as career options). This leads me into my next point.
3. Forza Motorsport 4 Style Event List: One of my favorite parts of Forza Motorsport 4 career was the event list. I think this list was an effective way to give some career freedom to the players while also encouraging them to use different cars. T10 game designers can make all kinds of creative events that use both the “hard” and “soft” divisions I mentioned earlier to create interesting championships, as well as what I’m about to mention in my next point.
4. Event Types outside of racing events: Like FM4 had bowling and multiclass events, PLEASE bring these back to career mode and the events list. Types could include Endurance races (time or lap number), Arcade Elimination, Autocross, Time Trails, Multiclass, Track Day, Car Bowling, Drift Events, Drag Races, and short Challenge Events. This, along with a creative event list, would ASTRONOMICALLY expand the content level of the game in a relatively simple way.
5. Fleshed-Out Main Career Campaign: As Schumacher 9l mentioned in his initial post, I think a “Hero to Zero” main Career Campaign would be a great campaign (if a little cliche). Instead of having an economy system though, I think that you should select a certain manufacturer depending on each racing division and you could be able to earn affinity with them to use elsewhere. As well, you could be a team owner (with your own livery) similar to “My Team” in F1 2020. To reward your success in the campaign (since you can’t buy cars to use within it), the game would give you extra money to spend as well as opportunities to earn rare parts or cars. Think of the campaign being a “professional” career, while the Event List would be a “pick-and-choose” “semi-professional” events options. They would be mostly separate, but the money you earn through the campaign as well as the rare parts and manufacturer affinity could transfer over. As well as manufacturer affinity, also include team sponsorships that can be incorporated into car liveries.
6. Leveling and Progression: Similar to FM4’s system, doing career events (both within and outside of Campaign mode) will earn you experience in 3 different areas. The first would be your main driver level, which you would accumulate as you do either mode. Also, like FM4, you would be granted a new car of your choice from a specific set every level to use in free play and event list. The second would be Manufacturer Affinity, which would give you rewards based on which manufacturer you chose for the event. However, in Campaign mode, you would earn significantly more XP for this section. Finally, the 3rd level would be Team Level, which is entirely dependent on your performance in Campaign mode. Each level up would earn you rewards both inside and outside the Campaign mode.
7. More Sim-Like experiences as an option: Give players the option of more simulation-like experiences within their races. Including but not limited to: Practice and Qualifying sessions, tire compound and other race strategy options, flags, team radio with a race engineer, and component failures based on projected reliability. Leave these as difficulty options as not to overwhelm players looking for a more arcade-like experience.
8. Removing or Overhauling Ineffective “Features:” Racing Suits, Special Dealer, Car Rarities, Loot Crates, and similar features should be removed as I feel like they’re not worth the development time. Streamline new features and make them worthwhile. Each feature in the game should feel like it has a concrete purpose. Meanwhile, the Mods needs to be tweaked to be more worthwhile and less clunky. As for Forzavista, I like it but it should be dropped if it significantly hinders development time. Homologation can stay in some capacity but in its current state it’s not very effective.
9. Immersion: Some areas of the game can do with more immersion. Animated pitstops, radio messages, sound design improvement (especially with the engines), as well as any updates to tire modeling and physics that are needed. Menus also need to be much easier to navigate while looking fresh and clean.
10. Free Play Options: Any new/returning features I’ve mentioned that can apply to Free Play should apply to Free Play (Qualifying, special modes, etc). As well, custom championships would be an exceptional feature (select track, weather, restrictions, etc). Players should also be able to select individual opponents’ cars in this mode. Taking inspiration from FH3’s championship blueprint system would help this immensely.
11. AI Overhaul: Drivatars are fine, but they really need to be tweaked behavior-wise. I won’t go in-depth because several people have already gone into detail. On the same note, I think the names from FM4 and earlier need to be used in both Career modes (Such as M. Rossi, etc.) to up the immersion.
12. Tracks in General: I think track selection is generally good in Motorsport, however, more tracks is always good if they have the resources available for it. This includes fan-favorite fantasy tracks like Sidewinder Proving Grounds, New York, and Sedona Raceway. Famous global tracks such as Imola, Interlagos, etc. would make wonderful additions to the game.
Other Notes: I don’t think that offroad racing should be in this game. That may be an unpopular opinion, but I think adding it could dilute the focus of the game a bit. Overall, I think the main emphasis should be finding balance. Keep as many cars as possible, but make an effort to add worthwhile features and game modes. I know not everyone’s vision is the same, but this is where I see the series needing to go to.
2 Likes
I’d like the ability to put number and logos on windows, at least part of the windscreen and rear window. Also to have front wings in the same section as rear wings and all wings to be paintable on every car.
I’d also like to be able to select favourite cars and sort my garage by when I got the car.
Being able to take photos of a few different cars in the garage would be nice too.
For the sound I’d like to be able to select a default location for the car sounds, as being in cockpit view, bonnet view, chase view, changes the sound. So I’d like to, for example use chase sound for bonnet view.
Finally, I am really hoping for an end to the generic engine sounds. So many of the cars sound nothing like the real cars, especially at full throttle. If you have the cars for scanning them, please record them individually.