Race game noob here, sort of. I played Horizon 1 for a bit but got rid of my X360 soon after, but I did play Midnight Club LA a lot years ago - especially on the motorcycle, tho I forgot which one.
Anyway, I bought FH4 on PC (I play with x360 wired controller) and I so far love the game (couple hours in. I just started the winter season). I was saving up money to buy a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but a wheelspin actually beat me to it and gave me a Ferrari. The 2009 Ferrari 458 Italia. Now… I only use stock cars and I have turned off most assists. I only use automatic shifting now, I believe. But… I think I’m just plain bad at driving. My beautiful red bullet often gets a bit out of control.
I’ve read a few tips and I think I know a bit about how to improve, but not really sure about the most basic thing - when to brake and how to take corners properly. I’m improving by trial and error, but really, I feel like I am lacking some basic racing knowledge there.
On the other hand we have Tuning. I love customization and the fact we can not only give a paintjob, but increase our performance as well is amazing to me, but it looks rather intimidating.
Would it be best to start by learning tuning a bit more to increase my grip and such, or should I just focus on the driving alone at first? And do you have any tips on where to start with either/both of these?
Thanks in advance! And Playground, I LOVE the game so far, even if I’m a terrible driver! ^.^
Unfortunately the 458 has always been a horrible car to drive in stock form in any iteration of Forza I can remember lol. If you have a bit of skill it’s manageable, but for a new player learning the ropes it’s one of the least likely cars I’d recommend to learn on…though if you can actually get comfortable with it it’ll definitely make driving other cars easier.
As for the tuning aspect, I’d suggest you start with a tuning calculator if you’re new to tuning. It can be a bit daunting for someone who’s unfamiliar with the process, and the calculator gives you a good baseline that will be an improvement over the default tune on the car.
DLTuning’s calculator is simple and easy to use, just plug in your cars stats that it asks for and gives you a decent base to work from. You can then experiment by adjusting values here and there to see what changes it makes to your car in game.
Tuning is a never ending process almost, I’ve spent at least twice as much time in test drive tuning as I have actually racing in the Motorsport series over the years…as have many other players I’m sure lol. It’ll take a while to get the hang of it, but once you can tune a car yourself and make it drive the way you want it to it’s definitely a nice feeling.
If you want a short term solution until you get comfortable with tuning, look for other people’s tunes to download in the game. You won’t learn too awful much about how they tuned it if you can’t make sense of the telemetry readouts in game, but the car will drive much better with a tune on it over stock.
There’s a thread on here with a title saying something negative about a Lancia … I gave basic build and tune instructions in it that are plug and play for any S1 car of this type except that you may not have enough PI space to add everything. The following upgrades should be added in order until you get to S1 900:
AWD swap
front and rear aero (splitter and wing)
widest rear tires
race diff
race springs
race front and rear anti-roll bars
race weight reduction
tire compound upgrades
engine parts to add power
The tuning settings from the other thread can be used without changing anything. And when learning to drive in Forza, enable the colored driving line and start braking slightly early. If you wait for the red before you start braking in S1 class, that’s too late. Slow in, fast out.
This is pretty good build advice for somebody that’s just starting and doesn’t know how to tell what their car is doing when they’re driving it, but there are lots of things to consider.
AWD swap – Yes, generally awd is faster, especially for dirt and cross country events. For road races in single player though, try rwd. I have lots of rwd builds that can beat unbeatable drivatars in single player, and it’s fun to stay true to the original drivetrain of the car. In multiplayer, rwd probably wouldn’t be much fun.
Aero – I hate aero. I only use it as a last resort, if all other tuning magic fails. The downforce just kills straight-line speed, and there are a lot of straight lines in FH4.
Tire width – Always widest on rwd, not always on awd. The narrower your rear tire on awd, the better your car will turn. You should use the narrowest rear width possible that still grips. Alternatively, you can increase front width to generate oversteer, but this is tricky and often results in uncontrollable, snap oversteer, not to mention eats your PI when it can be better spent on other things.
Race diff, race or rally springs, race roll bars – yes, always, on every single build, no matter what
Weight reduction – You don’t always want the most weight reduction. Heavier cars handle better on dirt and especially cross country. Lighter cars handle better on the road. If you need more speed, go for horsepower though, not weight reduction.
Tire compound – Probably the most welcome change from FH3 because better tires no longer jump you 3 car classes. Definitely makes driving easier, but if you overdo it your car will be underpowered. Love the new vintage racing tires!
Engine upgrades – Yes to more horsepower, although this seems less true in FH4 than it was in FH3.
You forgot:
Roll cage – I love the roll cage. Many times just adding a roll cage will increase 0-100 acceleration and top speed a surprising amount, without increasing PI, which seems like a no-brainer install because it helps stability so much.
Race brakes – Some people will argue they’d rather have horsepower than brakes, but I drive with ABS off, so race brakes are essential. With ABS on, they’re less essential.
Sport transmission – Being able to adjust the final drive ratio can sometimes make a huge difference.
Tuning is a completely different animal, but most of the time stock tunes aren’t horrible, and if you get the build right you’ll be fine. If the stock tune is horrible though, it can be fixed pretty easily.
I did not know this car was so horrible. While Googling I ended up on a GT forum and people said it was an amazing stock car there. At any rate, I do wish to learn how to tune… and how to drive better, but for now I have indeed downloaded a tune to install. It greatly increases braking, handling and acceleration, but keeps speed roughly the same. I’ve only driven it in the winter season so far, but I just transitioned to spring, so I can better test it in the time to come.
And yeah, I read the overall bars that really don’t say much, because I don’t really understand all the other data (yet!).
I’ll look up the post you mentioned Abell and add that tune. Then I can also compare them. Thanks a lot
The key with racing is carrying as much speed through the corner as possible without missing the corner. Racer’s use the term “Apex” to describe a point in the corner where you have the least speed and are transitioning from deceleration (braking) to acceleration (on the gas) There is no single correct apex on every corner. It varies based on the geometry of the curve, such as the angle, slope of the track as well as the condition of the track.
However, wherever the apex is during the corner it’s where your car will be at it’s slowest and assuming you aren’t drifting, the front wheels will be at the maximum turn in angle for the curve.
All tires have a maximum friction coefficient (grip) that varies based on the heat of the tire and condition of the road, however, physics aside, that maximum is affected by the direction of the travel of the car. That has a huge effect on how you use the brake and accelerator.
So, on a straight line, the maximum grip of the car is aligned with the car. If you hit the gas too hard, the wheels spin if they exceed the maximum grip. If you hit the brakes too hard, they slide. However, when you are turning the car, there is an important effect. When you turn the car, some of the maximum grip is used to turn the car. Friction is what is making the car turn. You turn the front wheels, the change in angle changes the grip and the car turns based on the friction. On a friction less surface, a car cannot turn.
That grip is subtracted from the maximum grip. So the tighter the turn and the higher the speed, more grip is lost to getting the car to turn, which means the less grip is left for the brake or the gas. If you hit the apex properly, all of the grip should be used to keep the car turning and there is nothing left for braking and acceleration.
When you are driving the car, it’s never a perfect arc. As the wheel changes angle, the arc gets smaller as a partial spiral. So when you start the curve, less grip is used until the arc get’s small in the tightest part of the curve, the apex.
So the most important skill you can learn is do the bulk of the braking while the car is still in a straight line, then as you turn the wheel, release the brake and let the friction of the curve and the motor to slow the car enough (which works best using manual shifting) so that you can make it past the apex without losing grip. Then as you pass the apex, slowing increase the throttle until you are in a straight line again. If you hit the brake too hard to late, you’ll slide through the curve. If you have too much speed you’ll spin or slide based on the balance of the car. If you hit the gas too hard on a rear wheel drive, you’ll spin the tires and/or the car.
There are other issues like the balance of the car which determines the maximum grip for all four tires. A poorly balanced car will put most of the grip on the outside front tire and will therefore have less maximum grip for the other tires. Tuning and driving can correct that balance. For example, completely releasing the gas shifts all the weight of the car to the front so there is less maximum grip overall. If you use manual and downshift strategically, you can keep grip on the rear tires and have more maximum grip for the car on the corner.
However, there is a difference between knowing and doing. I’ve raced cars as an amateur and was quite good. In fact, had I been born in California rather than a wintry location in Canada where we could only race two months a year I might have had a career as a racing driver. That skill has not transferred into the game! My left thumb is not as good with a wheel as a real one, although I’m trying and improving.
My recommendation is using stock tunes and less powerful cars first to get used to the mechanics, and get rid of most of the assists. Use manual without clutch and use braking line only. With those two assists you can still be very fast and properly learn how to drive in game quickly. My biggest mistake was a few years of playing Forza with assists. There are some very fast drivers that can still beat me when they use assists, however for me, I’m getting far better in the year or so once I stopped using the assists. Oh and I switched to chase view instead of cockpit. Cockpit feels more real but you can see the whole curve and the apex better in chase view.
Thanks for the extensive explanation. You put a lot of effort into that wall of text, I really appreciate it! ^.^
I have been playing around with turning assists on and off, I currently use Automatic shifting as manual w/clutch gave me a headache (I have a sort of disorder that makes me too slow with processing the information when I have to do too many things at once: watch the road, shift gears, handle gas and braking, etc. in a real car it’s fine since I’ve had many lessons, but when racing… it is too fast and while I could get used to it, it would take hours upon hours. I’ll try manual without clutch, not sure what the difference is in learning curve for me tho). Other than that I have all assists except the replay button turned off. I turned it off at first vor the CR boost, but I like it too much. If I make a big screw-up I can rewind and see how better to go about it. That actually teaches me a lot, too. There was one corner yesterday that I rewinded 6 times before I got it right (right as in, I did not fly off the track the last time), but I think it did teach me a few things. Basically, if I make a mistake, rewind allows me to learn from that mistake. Might turn the braking line back on. I only turned that off because of the CR boost.
In rivals I turn rewind off. I just do another lap because rewind makes it a dirty lap. However, yes in any Drivatar events, I sometimes use Rewind. Just because the drivatars have been unpredictable (or crazy) in some of the other titles.
It’s not a bad idea to leave automatic on while you learn to drive without the other assists, however, the thing I realized is that by forcing yourself to shift manually (and automatic clutch) is that it gives me a sense of timing for many tracks. For example, I might hit a high gear seconds from hitting my next braking point. It really is a personal choice.
One more thing to add, learn to be smooth. There are still some drivers faster than me that are all over the track. They are younger with quicker reflexes (I’m a middle aged father) however, I know eventually I’ll be faster because the fastest drivers I’ve seen are very smooth and they are more consistent. When I race them in rivals sometimes I pass them on some curves however, I’m just not as consistent.
My single biggest flaw is my left thumb. I’m not precise moving the joystick left to right and sometimes move it more downward where it is less effective. Especially turning left. Some guys keep the left joystick leaned a little forward to avoid this. I’m really good on high speed turns where it’s all about throttle control. Where I suck is tight left turns where I turn too tight or too wide then when I try to adjust I knock the car out of balance.
As mentioned by a few people above, try out some less powerful cars to get used to the driving mechanics.
I would suggest just using regular manual, no clutch, it can help slow down without having to hit the brakes much.
Don’t full-throttle everywhere either, I keep my finger on the edge of the trigger for the most sensitive control on the gas.
If you don’t upgrade suspension / brakes / transmission to race, you won’t have to do any tuning (besides tires, you can always adjust the pressure).
Maybe start with something like a Mustang or the like, do 1 race a few times to get used to it, then try upgrading it and do the same race again.
I personally don’t start upgrading tire compound until I’m about 100hp or so higher than stock, usually start with wider tires first.
Dude, I was in the exact same boat until I read this thread.
My video game racing career started, or at least really started, with Gran Turismo 5 on PS3. God I loved playing that game online. From playing that game online an endless amount of hours I came to the conclusion that the video gamer racing people were probably the most dedicated and smartest out of all the genres. Everyone had the expensive headset, which was very unintuitive on PS3 and a pain in the ass to setup at the time, like you really had to go out of your way, and most of the players were using a steering wheel, easily putting in sessions going on for hours.
But I never really took the time to learn racing with that game. I mostly played online on the exact same Daytona track, picking the exact same Jamie Johnson M&M car “Dirty Daytona” with that assist on where if you are lagging behind it automatically gives you a speed boost as to always keep the game competitive. [Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D] was basically bumper cars. They even had this cheesey ass Redbull car. Was fun though. But I didn’t learn nothing really, it was essentially an advanced Sega Daytona USA, or at least the way I was playing it.
Took a break from games, and then played the original Forza Horizon on Xbox 360.
[Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D]
Wow.
I thought to myself, this is the best racing game I’ve ever played, and I really liked Gran Turismo. The Xbox 360 was already a bit dated by the time it came out, but man, the soundtrack (which is probably the best soundtrack I have ever heard for any video game), the gorgeous graphics, and the whole experience of an open world racing video game (which I didn’t know how was going to even work until I played FH) I sunk so many hours into that game. But I never really put in the time to learn either, it was just a fun time killer for me, I never turned any of the default assists off, always kept the driving line on, automatic, exact same cockpit view with the steering wheel. Coasted through it really.
Forza Motorsport 5 on Xbox One, same thing. Always left the default assists on, never really took the time to learn.
Now unto Forza Horizon 4, a game that I had been meaning to get into for a long time. I started doing the same thing at first, leaving the default assists on and driving lane on, just soaking up the music and beautiful graphics (best to date for any video game) and good soundtrack and experience and then… I do not know if this was by design but I smashed into a wall, maybe about 2 hours into the game. Why is my car constantly spinning out of control. I was beating the races fairly easily 2 hours in, why am I all of a sudden [Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D]?
I read this reply:
Ok, so I don’t know what most of that is talking about, but here were the following tips that I followed:
went to manual
turned off all the assists
turned off driving lane with exception of breaking line
lowered the drivatar difficulty, at least for now
stopped competing in races with the orange '13 ktm x-bow r I bought WAY too prematurely gleefully slamming on the gas on automatic with assists not even asking myself what type of tires are on, not tinkering around with tire pressure, ending up crashing and spinning out constantly and consistently coming in last by far
agreed with the conclusion that if you are new to racing, it’s a mistake to jump into the super fast cars. am learning some of the lower tier ones such as the 57’ Maserati 300s
putting in “effort” when it comes to tire type, tire pressure, making vehicle upgrades, etc
really concentrating on the game. little things such as not taking my eye off the road, leaving it on the default camera angle to get a better view, upshifting not by staring at the gauge but by sound so i can remain focused on the road, shamelessly spamming the rewind button when i have to, and just playing a lot and being patient
it’s paid off! I can now begin increasing the difficulty. I’m slowly getting better. I love this game man. There is always something new to learn. I am probably never gonna compete online or anything like that, I love the single player experience. I love the endless customization options to your cars, the different rims you can select, how you can tint the windows, all the different paint colors available, the music, the graphics, the whole experience. I think this is the best racing game and best forza game ever released, and its brought back my passion in video games with a vengeance.
now on to adjusting the gearing, which seems pretty daunting, but I’m going into it with an eagerness to learn!
I am not sure if it was by design that Forza Horizon 4 takes you out of your comfort zone fairly early, but I’m glad it did. It gives you so much more to do and to learn and to tinker around with.
