Appreciation post

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport (2023) Discussion
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I realize that the developers actually building the game didn’t necessarily choose to launch the game in this state nor were they responsible for the marketing, so rather than berating them for all the things that went wrong I figured I’d make a post appreciating some of the things they were able to pull off.

  1. The trees. I imagine they were probably procedurally generated with some middleware tool rather than being lovingly and individually crafted, but I really appreciate that you worked them into the render budget. They look terrific.

  2. Fog. I love how, rather than being a continuous volume it seems to vary in density and visibility as you drive through it.

  3. Rain. Most particularly the sound design. Once the track is saturated with water, that sloshing sound really sells the feel.

  4. Time of day. Dynamic sun position with proper moving shadows looks great and feels natural and there’s a certain synesthetic warmth when the sun suddenly peeks out from behind the clouds.

  5. Sense of speed. The sense of speed felt really exaggerated in FM7 and maybe I’m imagining things but it feels toned down here.

  6. Image stability. Minimal aliasing and LoDs are beautifully handled. I’ve been paying particular attention to trees and trackside details off in the distance and I see zero pop-in/LoD switching as they approach.

  7. Driver customization. Sure it’s been in previous Forza titles with many more options (though I’ve never been a fan of the more eccentric options), the ability to choose your body type means a lot to many people.

  8. Loading screens. The abstract track art is gorgeous!

Feel free to chime in with anything you appreciate. I know it’s not reasonable to expect people to pretend they’re perfectly happy with something that disappointed them, but if there wasn’t at least one thing to appreciate about the game you probably wouldn’t be playing it.

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True, that’s one thing they managed to laser scan well.

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  1. Regarding the render distance… I’ve been paying attention to this too.

I was at Le Mans last night and could see the tail lights of a car that was at least a mile ahead of me. The ability to keep things rendered regardless of distance if it’s line of sight it loads is really impressive.

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I just watched this video…

It makes me even more sad, I own PS5 and GT7, but I wanted so much for FM to be what they promised us…

It’s so hard for me to appreciate anybody at T10 at this point of time, because it’s all been lies, before and after game launch…

As a Forza lover I feel personally ashamed when I see ratings on Steam or on MS Store, I feel sad when I play Wreckfest and literally everything is better in that indie game…

We will probably never know what exactly happened so that we got such a mess of the “game”… But T10 failed us, they have failed Forza community, made us look like fools waiting 6 long years for this…

I’m playing the game from 5th October, and only thing I can say that I like is driving feel on controller…
That’s also probably only thing where Forza Motorsport 2023 is objectively best in Genre… Everything else is meh, or straight up not working…

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The weight of the cars is good, the curbs are good too on controller.

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Feel on the controller was a great refinement here! The series has always irked me a little from the beginning with its gamepad feel but FM8 is definitely a lot smoother.

Though, comparing Forza and GT, it’s interesting contemplating how they each turned out. Forza has its own hyper-real style that I feel peaked with 4 and 6 where GT errs closer to photorealism. Though I think what really made the difference was how Turn10 handled FM5.

They made heavy usage of pre-baked lighting/shadows during the Xbox One generation to keep image quality stable which lead to some awkwardness when they tried to implement dynamic time of day in 7. I don’t think they used PBR either. Polyphony on the other hand went straight for PBR and static but not pre-baked GI with GT Sport at the cost of more artifacts. Being able to use last generation assets likely left Polyphony with more time and a more headroom for layering on complex rendering techniques. Turn 10 on the other hand had to at least do all of the textures and materials from scratch and with all the enhancements made to their engine it looks like they shot for the moon on visuals and ended up frantically clawing back performance in the run up to launch at the expense of all of their new visual features. If the rumors were true that they tried and failed to get the game running on Xbox One, that could’ve cost them a good deal of dev time as well.

All in all FM feels like 5 years of experimentation and 1 year scrambling to make it work. They’ve said they’ll support FM for 10 years (which I don’t think has ever gone well), so I’m curious as to how it’ll shape up in time.

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If there are massive under the hood updates and not just adding content, then FM could easily become (together with FH) most played racing game on PC.
I personally like over the top visual style that FM went for since FM5. Polyphony went more of simulator route with GT Sport and GT7.

I like FMs over the top weather, sunlight etc. more, because in the end it is a game. But FM2023 in comparison with FM5/6 looks bad, rearly good, completely non-consistent.

You have some beautiful moments, in rain, sunset, but mostly, game looks bad. Colors are washed up, flat, and not accurate at all.

Forza Horizon shares same over the top approach in visual style, but it, even as an older game than FM, destroyes both FM and GT7.

I’ll write what needs to be done to make FM (and in some things FH) great again… at least my opinion:

-completly halt introduction of new cars and tracks for few months, and work on fixing the game, stability and functionality wise. There is no need for new content if the game doesn’t work

-after 3-4 months bring something alá “spec B” update with 4-5 new tracks, 10-15 cars, and new cups

-for the featured events make prize cars worthwhile, not some recycled ones that should have been in game anyway

-create a team of developers solely assigned with updating car models, all of the pre FM5 for beginning, and replace them with the updates, also on FH… There’s no excuse for FM1/2 models in 2023.

-work on creating more universal customisation options, new wings, aero, widebodies…

-listen to the feedback of painters, and update paint booth into new generation

-better interaction and moderation of community, try to include and listen to the veteran tuners, painters, simply people that are making Forza universe more enjoyable
I think there’s a lot to learn from them

-build leaderboard moderation AI system, that flags and immediately erases cheated, moded, or glitched times and results (also useful in FH)
There’s no way that game’s physics engine cannot determine what’s possible in the game

-be transparent with community, acknowledging mistakes issues, and commiting to fix them goes a long way

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It is a racing game, did you know this?

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Maybe the OP should be on the marketing team for Turn 10. Or maybe he is and stealth posting on here to try make us feel better for this garbage game.

There are 10 things wrong for each thing you think they got right. Sadly none of those eight you listed, have anything to do with racing.

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It’s a racing game and homeboy talks about trees, body types and loading screens. I don’t even know what to say anymore…

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Don’t you dare say something positive here. The mob is at it again, if you aren’t with them you are against them!! :rofl: :upside_down_face:

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I did not come here to put down anything or anybody, but I have to say I really appreciate the comparison video. Here are my takes.

  1. I knew the colors were washed out and in some cases appear completely mis-mapped to their color profile or lighting map in FM. This video makes it seem that the clear coat layer is exaggerated in FM and basically creates a cloudy mask on the specular highlights/rays on a clean car and paint job. This is great for showing dirt/mud/paint wear after race but for showing clean paint job it compares poorly with GT.

  2. From this video the models look 100% better in GT but I am not gonna knock FM because this model may be a reused asset from years ago that they simply imported (which may be true of the paint-job and materials in point #1) but this clearly shows how bad it can be in FM. Regardless, the colors in FM are still massively washed out on all models. I have not viewed this McLaren closely in FM yet and while I have not noticed most models being this bad but I will look closer when I play this evening.

  3. I too think everything looks better in FH5 than FM but this may be an artifact of the much better driving simulation in FM. The weight and control of the car is paramount in Racing sims.

  4. All this makes me quite happy if not slightly envious of you PS5 owners playing GT. Enjoy your beautifully ray-traced game. I wish I was playing it directly to be able to compare. All in all visuals are not everything for racing sims and I cannot speak to how great the new GT on PS5 is on simulation. I know I am not being micro transaction-ed to death in FM (yet as a premium owner).

All that said I will say I really enjoy the controller feel in FM. The weight of the car and the controller feedback is 100% more detailed then FH. I am talking the actual default xbox series x controller. Makes me wish I had wheel even more which I do hope to purchase.

Basically the feedback provided to the player going into and accelerating out of turns while controlling the tires using the analog triggers for throttle/breaking is very satisfying in FM compared to FH5 and you get enough feedback to figure out how to correct as you learn the car and track. This makes for better average track times as you practice and makes taking full practice time worth it (even if just for xp in solo play). This type of reward is highly pronounced in FM. More so than most racers I have played, although I am not pro and have not played too many actual sims. With the sims that I have tried, I do not feel like they provided me enough feedback to feel wheel spin before I was completely out of control and into the wall or gravel.

So thanks for the visual comparison @battery992, which I truly want to convey to you, I still want to honor the intentions of the original poster and will applaud the work of Turn10 on the feel of driving despite all my other gripes I may have (and I am about to post a bug as I have not received any feedback on my original post).

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I didn’t want to list every possible positive and leave nothing for anyone else to mention. Figured I’d focus on smaller, peripheral details that people may have paid less attention to. I also like the controller feel, the more prominent emphasis on building and despite its quirks, I appreciate the presence of a penalty system.

But really, 2D trees should have been left behind on the 360 and I’m genuinely ecstatic they’ve been updated. They’re subtle enough in 720p but at native 4K they stood out like a sore thumb.

Regarding the loading screens, someone put in the time and effort to render them and they did a great job. I don’t know if anyone’s given them kudos so I will.

Programmers and artists don’t decide the direction of games or when they’re released, they just put in all the hard work to realize the concept. Whatever unfortunate state the game launched in, it took a lot of work to get there and they have a long road ahead of them. I can appreciate the successes of the development team and condemn leadership at the same time.

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Don’t worry mate, you covered it all.

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Hakone in particular I’ve noticed when the sun is low shining through the mountains with all those trees it really is something to look at. I appreciate the amount of effort they put into the details that most people won’t even notice. Stop in the middle of a track at night and just pan around in 3rd person, the amount of detail is crazy for a racing title.

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When I stop at the middle of a race and pan around I see stuff like this.
I think these are the best grass textures I have ever seen. Clearly built from the ground up top tier next gen ultra 4k HD textures.

grass
grass2560×1440 8.69 MB

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I will agree that the trees are the #1 best thing about this Forza. Followed closely by the attention to detail of adding sand onto the curbs at Laguna Seca. These 2 things have really blown me away.

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Gentlemen, you don’t know how to read, this is a post of appreciation, not criticism, there are already many on the forum I know you are free to speak but from time to time leave aside your bitterness or idolatry for GT7

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lol it’s not, it’s a satire.

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grass comes from the ground up so maybe we just need to wait out untill spring

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