Can we ever expect them to balance this game?

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM7 Discussion
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I don’t understand how this game is called a “motorsport” when there is no balancing done at all and it’s a complete turn off. No one even tries anything different because X car(s) are the “best.”

I said the same thing when GT Sport came out, sure they don’t have as many cars, but every car is usable to some extent depending on your skill level. Forza, on the other hand, is a facade that lets you think you have a choice when you really don’t because the devs don’t balance this game at all.

That, to me, is an insult. It shows me that you don’t care. This isn’t forza horizon, wasn’t this supposed to be a game for more serious racers? If so, then get your act together and act like it. Actually put forth some effort and balance this game. It doesn’t take more than a couple people to be put on a balancing team to do this or hell play their own game to see what’s broken and what isn’t.

It’s glaringly obvious to me that lightweight cars need a higher score than they do now. Why this hasn’t been done yet is beyond me. Just try tuning a bigger car as well and see how much you’re punished for choosing a bigger car in terms of stats. This game rates top speed the most, yet, top speed is almost always the most useless stat unless specifically on top speed courses. The most useful stats are handling, braking, accel, and car size, yet, this game does not reflect this at all.

All I can see is nothing but laziness. “Just use your own car and ignore them” is pretty hard to do unless you want to be hotlapping by yourself while everyone else has picked the fastest cars. Buffing and nerfing is part of gaming for a damn good reason. If you don’t want to do it with FM7 because the game is dead now fine, but I’m not dropping a penny on FM8 unless I see some effort in this area.

Edit: I’d like to mention the difference between the fastest cars and other cars just for future reference as well. I know there are many cars in this game and that balancing isn’t the easiest thing to do (but they haven’t even tried which is my gripe in the first place) but I just made a class B mercedes. The car handles well and does what it’s supposed to even though it’s strictly limited to 5.0 handling (punishment for both being a large car, with high top end, even though the acceleration is garbage). Even in a lap where I make next to no errors, it’s still more than a second off the best cars. I know this personally because when I drive my faster cars, I’m more than a second faster in them WITH ERRORS! I’m literally sitting behind people, watching them make errors 24/7 while I’m joy riding (this is an exaggeration, I’m actually trying and not making much if any errors at all since I somehow managed to actually tune a car well for once lol) and I get to watch just how many times they make a mistake, just how many times they over throttle, drift, brake late and miss the corner, etc. and they still get to act like I’m standing still. This is the type of discrepancy that I’m talking about. I’m not just screaming to nerf cars, but to buff cars to their level. I can tell that there is a clear difference between using a large and a smaller car as well. So the coding needs tweaking which is obvious to me as a tuner. The most frustrating thing is when I do decide to use a none LB car that’s just a class below them (this is due to stats being a lie sometimes or LB cars having an edge in speed but the exact same rating which makes no f’ing sense whatsoever) I can beat these people. Imagine what I’d do if I took the hours to tune up a LB car? What would the purpose in hot lapping be? There are hundreds of cars for us to use in class B, I’d like to use them.

That being said my new mercedes is a joy to drive, and even if I can’t compete, I’m still going to drive it because a well tuned car > a fast car and it’s a hell of a lot of fun to actually have to drive a car rather than have the car drive itself.

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Your first glaring misconception about this game is, no, it was never meant to be for the “serious racer”. It was billed right from day one as a game that anyone could pick up and play. The “target” customer was the casual crowd, as they actually make up the the biggest market share. Despite what many here think, “serious” racers are actually a pretty small percentage of the total Forza community. Dan also said right out in interviews before the game was released, the game was actually focused on car collecting. That’s why your collector score is prominently displayed, not your driver level. There are however, all the tools needed for the more serious players to make it a “racing” game.

This may come as a surprise to you, but in the real world, even the racing world, not all cars are equal. The Corvette has better speed and braking, but the Viper had better handling due to better downforce. The advantage lies in part on driver skill, and mostly on the particular track being raced. Do you even watch real world road racing? Even in series such as IMSA and Blancpain with strict build rules and guidelines, not all the cars are the same. Some are faster, others handle better. Again, it all depends on the venue being raced at.

Unfortunately, with the physics system in the game, there is always a few cars that with the right build and tune can outperform most other cars in their class.There’s no possible way the developers could foresee every possible build combination on every car. That said, you do not need an LB car to be competitive. I’ve been racing since FM2, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen players pull out unexpected cars and leave the LB cars in the dust. It comes down to the right build and tune. I hate to tell you this, but a big heavy Merc will probably never be competitive in B class. Not when there are so many cars that are lighter, more nimble, and with better power to weight ratios. More HP does not always mean faster. Top speed is irrelevant unless your at a long speed track like LeMans. Cornering and acceleration will trump top speed every time in the hands of a skilled driver. The stats have never been truly indicative of a cars performance. They’re merely just a quick reference. Just about any car can be tuned to perform far above what the stats might suggest.

Lastly, the “serious” racers do not focus on public lobbies. They race in organized leagues or with their teams in events that have complex rules and penalty systems in place, and a car list that has been balanced specifically for the race or series.

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  1. Then I’m done with the forza series, it’s not what I’m interested in. Plug and play yes, but for the average everyday driver is a flat out no. Practically everyone has been asking for this game to be taken more seriously and for a good reason. It’s also the same reason why most serious racers have stopped playing this game. How can that possibly be a good thing? It does not have to be so serious that it becomes a SIM, but right now it’s a joke, and I don’t want this game to be a joke. Pretty much every other racing game on the market offers this without needing to join any sort of ranked mode. Why can’t Forza?

  2. I literally stated I do not expect balance to be perfect, that is impossible, but in this game you’re telling me these features are accurately replicated? If you were to say yes to this I’d say that you’re full of it TBH. You even admit the merc cannot be tuned to be competitive in any way, shape, or form. Why are you okay with that? Does that car not obviously deserve a slight buff so it can at least compete and not be a slow PoS? I’m just saying that by them not buffing and nerfing cars like they should, it just shows how little they care. And yes, I’ve watched real world racing when I was a kid and I know that cars have advantages and disadvantages. To turn this argument right back against you, do they not have rules like you just admitted? Do they not put on restrictions aka buff and nerf cars to limit their advantages and disadvantages? Of course they do. There will still be a difference but they will try to get the cars as close as possible. That being said, real life has absolutely nothing to do with this game. The races should be as close as possible so everyone does not have to use the same 2-3 cars for a track or end up hot lapping from the severe differences in the performance of the cars.

  3. That’s exactly why they should nerf and buff cars accordingly, are there are lot of cars? Yes. But this doesn’t mean you need to touch every single car. There are obvious outliers and there are obvious issues. This game is literally dead because of these problems. The fact they haven’t even attempted to fix this is a slap in the face. If you think this isn’t a slap in the face I have to ask, how many other online games have you played and where would those games be without them balancing, buffing, and nerfing as need be? This is the only game where I’ve seen the devs put in minimal effort and absolutely no effort at all when it comes to the games balance.

  4. I already know the stats are a lie. Why do you think I clearly mentioned this already with things such as the size of the cars not being taken into account? Some cars are just faster because their stats are better than what is implicated or their stats ARE implicated and they are just that high to begin with cough looking at you honda S2000 and Honda Civic cough

  5. LB cars are LB cars for a reason. If LB cars are getting smoked it’s because they are a good player while the person in the LB car was trash. There is an upper limit of what each car can do. If they’re getting beat by the tried and tested cars that were proven to be the best after years of playing, they suck. You shouldn’t be losing to anything if you are using the LB car for that track because once again, it’s already been tested until people’s arms fell off. Can you make a car and compete with other LB cars from their lack of skill? Yes, yes you can. Can you compete with LB cars if the skill level is the same? No, no you will not be able to.

  6. Touching up on this again, I said this, you know this too, more speed and HP does not equate to being faster so I will ask this question again. Why is it then that the score in this game is more heavily focused towards top end speed when that’s the least relevant stat? How do you not see the problem with this balancing?

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I’m so sick and tired of this argument. T10 themselves claim the game is a propper race game. It’s nothing more than excusing meritocracy. Motorsports. It’s in the name. They claim " the most comprehensive, beautiful, and authentic racing game ever made". I’d agree with beautiful but nothing more Authentic. Most comprehensive… not at all. Let’s stop making excuses. Let’s face it, FM7 is not what it claims to be…

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In my opinion Forza Motorsports is a proper “racing game”, just like Forza Horizon, Need For Speed, Project Cars, Mario Kart, etc. where the goal of the game is to race others to the finish line and win the race. It is not a realistic racing simulation. The developers sacrifice realism for a more casual and low entry level. Forza Motorsports is compared to racing sims like Project CARS, Assetto Corsa and iRacing more successful an profitable with the current approach.

I also agree that the name “Motorsport” is a bit misused since many aspects of motor sport like qualifying, tyre & fuel strategy, proper pit stops are missing or not implemented well. In this regard I hope the developers take a closer look at what Gran Turismo Sport and Project CARS 2 do better.

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This conversations seems a bit emotion filled…

Without trying to attack anyone I also agree with EZT MAKO 6669. Unfortunately the game is not very good at being a serious and fair racing simulation. It is aimed at a broad audience which include both players of a low and high skill levels. Many players buy the game based on the easy to access approach and high number of cars and track combinations. This ensures relatively good sale numbers for the game series (compared to racing simulations like Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Automobilista, etc.) and helps the Turn10 and Microsoft to fund further installments in the series.

I agree that car balancing for a fair online competitions is not good and could be improved. If you see F4H SuperGT in a tuned up 1990 Subaru Legacy RS in an S-class race outperform other cars then you can tell that something is not quite right. Just like in a fighting game like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat is the balancing in a racing game important. In this regard Forza Motorsport is maybe struggling between providing a wide selection of cars which all feel different and having fair online races. I believe the online lobbies without class & division restrictions and the car upgrading/tuning are somewhat to blame for the imbalance and it’s not an easy task to find a fair balance for all 800+ cars.

Gran Turismo Sport seems to have a better competitive car balance and also a somewhat better implementation of race regulations and drive sportsmanship rating. Forza Motorsport 7 is on a good good way towards making online races more fair thanks to the race regulations updates from this year but it’s still not quite there yet.

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I wouldn’t say it’s emotional, just a discussion. We all have our own take on things. I don’t personally agree with buffs and nerfs, but I get where he’s coming from. He just wants to take cars he likes and have them be competitive. Not every car can be in all or some classes, just like irl. One of the things that is fun about this game though is building a car that you never thought would be good and it turns out to be very competitive. That’s always a pleasant surprise and somewhat satifying.

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I agree

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I haven’t touched the multiplayer mode since I’m going through the single player championships (the AI is bad in this game). But is there no multiplayer lobby or hopper where you can only race in a certain car class like A or B or in a certain division like “Forza GT”? I believe restrictions can help to balance out the cars for a fair race. Also the racing regulations should also help to even out the odds. I hope the developers are still working on that and can provide further updates since from what I saw the race regulations are not optimal yet.

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All of the class lobbies, E-X are pretty much open. You can build the cars any way you want within the class. Many players just focus on power with little to no handling. They’re off on almost every corner but then blow by you on the straights. It does get frustrating at times. There is a Forza GT lobby, but it’s an “endurance” lobby. There are some restrictions though I don’t remember specifically what they are. Pretty sure it’s in R class though. When the game first launched they had lobbies that used homologation. The Hot Hatch lobby in C class had some great racing. You can still work the system a little bit under the homologation rules, but it wasn’t enough to really throws things off to badly. There are a couple lobbies using FRR, but I don’t think it has been applied across all of them. Support for FM7 has ended, so there will be no further updates. FRR does work fairly well most of the time. There’s still a few issues, but they know that. What’s key is they now have a solid base for it to bring to the next installment of the game.

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Read the rest of what I wrote after that. The game is exactly what they said it would be.

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At the end of the day, Forza is a game with a lot of loose ends and rough edges - but as an overall package, it’s fun to play. Am I defending them? Certainly not - but I think there’s a whole priority model that they have for the game where they only address the most pressing issues, Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them - and I’m okay with this, because Forza isn’t a race weekend or motorsport event simulator.

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About that Motorsport word.

If I remember correctly, Chris Esaki once said on a stream something along the lines Forza Motorsport having the word motorsport in the title, but there are games out there without that word and they are doing better job (compared to T10) at bringing that aspect of racing to gamers. Why it is so? Well, they (T10) should really look into the mirror and start finding ways to bring that back to Forza Motorsport.

Chris has good ideas to do that. I hope he and others are allowed to implement those ideas in the developing process of the next Forza Motorsport. Hopefully that extra year they have this time is used well.

FM7 is done and nothing will change in that game any more.

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In my opinion it’s called “Forza Motorsport” because it’s an established franchise. Similar to how “Assassin’s Creed” is not anymore about playing as a member of the medieval Syrian–Persian Ismaili order, “Halo” is not anymore about weaponized planets in a ring-shape or “Call of Duty” is not anymore about a soldier’s duty to protect his homeland during a war. On the one hand developers need to keep the name so people will recognize the franchise (and in some cases buy it just for the sake of the name) and on the other they need to constantly evolve the game’s formula and try to appeal to a broader audience and implement current gaming standards (for example XP-based progress, monetization, social components, games as a service) to make the game’s development profitable.

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I think maybe its MS that keeps getting in the way. The way I see it, T10 probably wants to make the game more realistic, more motorsport-oriented, more authenticity in terms of all the cars on offer - but then there’s MS: more revenue, we must make more revenue robotic voice

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While I’ll always care more about the single player rather than the multi-player. (Unless they give us more varied or themed lobbies in the next game.)
The multi-player side of the game has given the series a bad rep and it’s a running joke on certain YouTube channels. (To be fair T10 have began to address this.)

But I think it’s telling that most Forza players turn off ABS but most GT players have it on.

I always look at trying to improve handling first when tuning or upgrading cars. To me it seems a lot of cars in Forza are badly set up, with too much acceleration, which seems to be reflected in the lobbies, with people sliding all over the place.

While I know this would annoy the hardcore players, but I wonder if they bought in a ranking system, the lower ranked lobby should have ABS and TCS locked on.
The better players would quickly get promoted and those who drive recklessly would get punished. And they could always add a ‘free for all’ lobby for those who love creating overpowered cars that handle badly. (To put it politely.)

And this is just personal preference, but I strongly disagree with most players who recommend making the control settings even more sensitive, I actually prefer the handling after making the controls less responsive.

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I’m not entirely sure you’re portraying your definition of “serious racers” in FM correctly. My outlook on the term would be those who want to win, and will do anything to do so. In any case, it means being faster than everyone else. And as time has passed the best cars in the game have come to be widely known as just that. That’s why everyone uses them, lol.

Now, I personally view it from your side. I appreciate diversity. For example, it’s nice to see someone fly ahead of the pack in a relatively unknown car instead of everyone neck-in-neck in the Lotus E23. (I play a lot of FM6 and haven’t bought FM7 for reasons I’ll leave you to decipher.) That being said, I shall let the narrator of the manufacturer showcase group rephrase: “everyone is in the same car, so it’s all up to driver skill… and determination.”

So everyone in the E23 in an X-class hopper is, in essence, the pinnacle of competition… but it’s boring. Having almost everyone in different cars is inherently refreshing, and I see a lot of this in A and B class lobbies. Almost every race everyone is using their own unique car. Both scenarios have their peaks and valleys. Just take them for what they are. And on the note of balancing: to the extreme extent it would make every car handle, brake, and accelerate the same. How much more boring would that be as opposed to the existing “issue”? The only valid issue with balancing in general is that there is a grey area. That grey area is what makes racing what it is, both on the track and in the game. Not all cars are exactly alike. Those differences are what make racing exciting. It’s meant to be a driving factor in tuning whichever car you choose to be the fastest, regardless of whether or not it’s popular. In the case that it is and does win you a lot of races, so be it. It’s your car, you tuned it, and you won. Knowing that, to me, is a priceless feeling. Only issue is how a lot of players like to use the most popular cars because they don’t want to tune their own. Just a bunch of sheep flinging around the track being passed by the wolves, with the occasional Bo’ Peep in the middle.

Yes, that was a terrible analogy, I know. Nevertheless, use a car you like to race. You’ll get much more enjoyment out of it. Personally, I enjoy passing E23s in the rather underused 641. :slight_smile:

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You can make Forza as series or laughable as you want if you make your own rules, change handicaps, buckets, rules and so on so forth in private multiplayer.

There’s the potential to create some amazing stuff. I really want to start up some realistic leagues but it’s finding people on a dead game that’s the problem.

As for balancing by Turn 10 themselves? No. They’ll never do that for this game.