Chasing the Top 1%...empty leaderboards.

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM7 Discussion
1

Since I play Forza, the chronological order for every game is the same for me.

Play single player, try out new shiny cars, and hot lap on the same 4-5 tracks until my nose starts to bleed…getting bored after 8-10 months and wait for the
next Forza to come. (Hate multiplayer, don’t have time for tuning and leagues don’t make any sense to me)

There is nothing wrong with this, we are all different. This is why Forza is great, it means different things to all of us.
Drifter, tuner, painter, racer all catered within the same game.

However…I have decided to be a more rounded driver and broaden my horizon this year. (No, still not playing multiplayer…period.)
Usually I am using A and S class cars on the same 4-5 tracks (boring I know), but I will step out of my comfort zone and will hot lap different classes on ALL of the tracks.

(This was the plan until I realised with all the different variations, there are 120 tracks in the game. So I have settled with the main tracks (first in the track list) for the 32 locations.)

To make things a little bit more challenging I have decided to chase the top 1% position on every leaderboard.
There are tracks in the game which I hate, so trying to master them will be fun.

My first chosen division was P2 and already started to hot lap on all the tracks.

I do 12 laps on every track and jump on the next one if I had a couple of decent laps.
If I am not happy, do another 12, but no more at this stage.

I am comfortable to turn off all assists, but I start with ABS and traction control on, manual with no clutch.
If I am struggling to get near the top 1% I will still have the option to turn off all assists and improve my time.

This is where I stand so far.:

1 Alps 01:29.504 - 54 - 2%
2 Bathurst 01:55.143 - 74 - 1%
3 Brands Hatch 01:18.833 - 22 - 1%
4 Catalunya 01:39.229 -123 - 1%
5 Circuit of the Americas 01:59.652 -183 - 2%
6 Daytona 01:35.646 - 36 - 2%
7 Dubai 02:10.829 - 14 - 1%
8 Hockenheim 01:33.199 - 20 - 3%
9 Homestead 00:27.298 - 21 - 1%
10 Indianapolis 01:16.533 - 7 - 1%
11 Laguna Seca 01:19.096 - 54 - 1%
12 Le Mans 03:39.313 - 20 - 1%
13 Lime Rock 00:43.645 - 10 - 1%
14 Long Beach 01:15.139 -224 - 1%
15 Maple Valley 01:17.593 - 21 - 1%
16 Monza 01:36.898 - 21 - 1%
17 Mugello 01:41.891 - 36 - 2%
18 Nurburgring 07:59.970 - 42 - 2%
19 Prague 01:38.518 - 8 - 1%
20 Rio 01:59.224 - 6 - 1%
21 Road America 01:54.888 - 24 - 3%
22 Road Atlanta 01:12.403 - 78 - 1%
23 Sebring 01:53.570 - 37 - 2%
24 Silverstone 01:53.195 - 41 - 8%
25 Sonoma Raceway 01:24.006 - 25 - 2%
26 Spa-Francorchamps 02:08.170 - 81 - 4%
27 Suzuka 01:53.942 - 34 - 5%
28 Test Track 00:50.832 - 9 - 1%
29 Top Gear 01:03.174 - 6 - 1%
30 V.I.R 01:40.320 - 21 - 5%
31 Watkins Glen 01:37.748 - 56 - 3%
32 Yas Marina 02:03.530 -238 - 1%

All positions are from the date when I set the time.

What I have noticed is how empty some of the leaderboards. Some of the tracks only have 6-700 entries which
is weird considering how long ago the game has been released.

I guess the new homologation system is to blame for this one.

One thing is for sure, for me its really demoralising to see a leaderboard with only 600 entries. Not to mention the fact, it means
I have to be in the first 6 to make the top 1%. (Git gud I know.)

I will spend some time now to improve all the crappy times, but I am getting a bit concerned at this point.

Is it the same on all the leaderboards? Most of them empty and the homologation system just killed hot lapping?

2

There are multiple reasons why the leaderboards are empty.

1.The biggest reason is because I bet most have no idea that homologation leaderboards exist outside of career mode or if they do, they have no idea how to access them.

  1. Another hug negative is that even if they know how to access them, there are no ghosts available to chase since this feature is only available in rivals whereas to run all of these boards you have to use free play. The current system makes it harder to learn.

  2. All of these homologation boards aren’t located in rivals where the logical location should be.

  3. No class based leaderboards (outside the one non-homologated board) exist. Many like the challenge in lower classes of making their favorites compete against the best cars or the classic road car vs race car. Balance is always an issue but many still like the challenge.

  4. Homologation by nature will make some leaderboards less occupied even if all the above points noted above weren’t an issue. Most will just focus on the types of divisions they like only.

  5. No overall leaderboards removes the incentive to run fast laps on tracks folks don’t like. Many folks in FM4 for example never completed the overall leaderboard for all classess, but many did for their favorite classes. Bragging rights basically. People love this stuff.

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  1. There are exponentially more Leaderboards in Forza Motorsport 7 than in previous titles. This splits the attention of those who do want to “run the boards”, resulting in fewer average entries per Leaderboard overall.

Using some rounded maths:

  • Forza Motorsport 6: 9 Classes x 120 Ribbons (including night/rain): 1,080 Leaderboards
  • Forza Motorsport 7: 65 Divisions x 200 Ribbons (including night/rain): 13,000 Leaderboards
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And that is basically why I dont play FM7 much anymore, thats what i liked to do and only a small amount of MP. My play style isnt in game anymore so not much reason to play, and I will not be pre-ordering the next FM game most likely unless the rivals are back.

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5

This, 100%. The way I play is all about running rivals. Building cars, testing and running rivals. In EVERY other Forza game I had ghosts to chase and learn from. This gave me people to learn from and also chase down. It was fun for me. Again, every other Forza game had them.

These were especially helpful while running in the HLR hot lap challenges as most of those folks are crazy fast. Following them made me faster. Now, other than the actual people that are competing, the best part of those is gone for me. Just not the same.

By changing rivals the way they did, the may have jumped the shark. For me this is a huge problem. The game just isn’t the same.

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6

Any track and division combination that’s in Career should have more people on the leaderboards.

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These tend to make it really easy to get a top 1% placing, though, as so many people only have a dirty lap or a poor clean lap from the low number of laps in a standard length race.

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Yeah that’s definitely the case, I did the career formula 70s race on Spa today and the leaderboard had over 45000 entries

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It’s not homologation only. It’s a combination of restrictive tuning options because of the homologation, more leaderboards (more tracks and more divisions), no leaderboards as they were in previous games (only accessible after a race in free play), most online hoppers that are class based instead of division based, too many bugs… and the list goes on and on. And the P2 division that has 1 OP car makes this division less challenging then others.

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I really like the leaderboards and have spent well over a month or so in free play with less racing and more hammering the boards, It gets quite addictive after the first few disappointments. I add 1 AI on unbeatable and let it leave off the standing start for about 1000 - 1500 ft so it doesn’t dirty my laps yet still get a better CR payout to help pay for tuning and buying duplicates for different tunes to test.

My one main gripe is the classes are not broken up and it gets a little difficult trying to climb the board in an R Class car against P and X on the Non-Homologated and a minor niggle would be when you are setting up the race it wouldn’t kill them or break the bank to put a leaderboard button so I could quickly check my last time for a guide because I have a 10 second memory on a good day.

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One thing that amused me was noticing that in FM6 you can only check the leaderboard before a race in career mode, not after, but in FM7 you can only check it after not before. Maybe FM8 will give us the stunning innovation of being able to check it both before and after?!

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If they are short of cash I would even accept a pre-race button as a DLC. I have been recycling envelopes here and write my times down which works fine for few days then I get sloppy 10 envelopes scattered and leave vital things like track name, car etc off. I also go from writing the whole time to crossing out and adding the difference some sideways or almost upside down which is not easy to try and read a progress report at 160 MPH. A few days back I was hammering this track trying to improve my time and it was nearly impossible and I was 3-4 seconds out and after 20 or so laps I had gained some like 300th/ sec, admitted defeat and figured I must have been lucky with the time or because I will run up to 5 duplicate cars while tuning I must be in the wrong car and was never going to match it. Turns out it was the wrong track and I think the wrong car but because it wipes your previous time and bundles all the classes together I will never know re the car.

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13

One word of advice Notebook :grinning::ok_hand:

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14

They still haven’t added back class based leaderboards like all of the other forza’s?! SMH… idk who made that decision, but I’d like to be in the meeting to see what exactly lead to that stupid decision. I guess I’ll wait for Horizon 4.

1 Like
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Uhhhh, hate to break it you, but if they did it on the motorsport side, they’re probably gonna do it on the Horizon side as well…

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Some of the tracks you can get a top 100 time just putting in a clean lap.

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Yes, that’s my problem.
You are in the top 100 with a reasonable time and still only within 20%.

Back in Forza 4 a top 100 time had a better “value”.

I only had a handful of them in F4, in F7 I already have around 30 top 100 times, but it feels the 30 worth less than one in F4. :frowning:

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Are you racing in free play or career?

In free play you can look at the leaderboards before the race starts. ( I dont remember about career at the moment )

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Not actually, it is rounded and rounded down so you could get 11th and it will still say 1%.

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In case anyone posting here didn’t know, you can look at the leaderboards by going to race setup, press X on the track to see the ribbons, and press Y on the ribbon you want to lap. If you want to see a leaderboard for a specific division you have to have the race settings set for that division.