FM6 Career - Assists, Drivatars, and Mods, Oh my!

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport
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So, tomorrow many of you start your FM6 careers and many more will follow in the weeks ahead. Mine started over a week ago and I’m currently, as of this writing, level 70 after having gone through the basic outline of the Stories of Motorsport career track and all but the endurance showcases. I have some thoughts to share with all of you, if you’re interested that is.

Career progression is somewhat regimented and follows the natural track of slowest to fastest. The career is called Stories of Motorsport and there are five volumes, each volume containing three series to be raced with a particular class/type of car and each series containing 4 - 6 race events. Yes, the races do start out with low, 3 - 4, lap counts at smaller club circuits and yes, you do need to finish third or better to advance but as you advance, the circuits get longer and the lap counts get higher. You race, advance through the three series in a volume and then you can advance to the next volume or repeat your current or a previous volume in a different car/class/type as you wish.

As you race through career, you will be presented with the opportunity to participate in a showcase event, just as most of you have seen in the demo. In fact, the demo is essentially the first 90 or so minutes of the full game so it should all be quite familiar to those of you who have played that demo. Showcase invitations come quite regularly, every third or fourth race typically, and are a great way to perhaps take a break from what you have been racing and try something new and different. The showcases themselves are often unique events such as autocross, passing challenges, sprints, spec races and yes, even a couple bowling events in the rain. Each one has a celebrity voiceover intro, some of which are quite amusing. You can of course elect to skip the showcase and continue your career racing and come back to the showcases later.

Is all that a pointless grind? That’s your decision to make for yourself, I’m a painter mostly and don’t do much multiplayer so I often hammer away at singleplayer career to get my racing fix. (Though, to be fair, the new Leagues feature has had me racing a lot in multiplayer, more on that some other time). It’s a racing game and in racing games we do a lot of racing so ‘grinding’ is part and parcel of the genre. While there have been some interesting ideas floated about lately on how career could be something more than what we’ve seen before, the FM6 career has been quite enjoyable for me up to this point and that is because I have taken the responsibility of helping the game make it that way for me.

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All that said, there are three variables you can adjust to make your career come alive and give you a real challenge.

  1. Assists
    These remain the same from previous titles and you have full control over what settings you wish to use for yourself.

  2. Drivatars
    Again, you’ve seen these before in previous titles.

But these are not the same drivatars, these new ones are better. Much better. They are not simply computer opponents dropped on the circuit ahead of you to act as traffic you have to get around. No, these new drivatars come to race and they come to win. They will fight you and each other for position, they will hold their line, they will be aggressive, even relentless at times, and they will not quit. Set them to unbeatable and they’ll do their best to live up to that name. If you feel they’re being too aggressive at blocking and dive-bombing the inside to overtake, there is a new selector in the drivatar settings to turn off that more aggressive behavior. Changing that setting won’t make them any easier, it just encourages them to yield the position when challenged, they still fully intend to take it back when an opportunity arrises.

  1. Mods
    This is where things get interesting. At first, I thought I’d like to just race without using any mods. Not because I have any problem with them existing or being used for single-player, I just thought I’d like to get into the racing quickly without having to spend the time to figure out all the mods and what they do. I’m glad I changed my mind and decided to learn more about them and make use of them because now I absolutely love what they bring to single-player.

You have three slots for mods and three types of mods that can be used:

Crew mods are permanent buffs with unlimited use and you can only use one at a time. These crew mods give you things like increased power, braking, grip, etc. or decreased weight, and often two of them combined. Some are track specific or rather give an additional buff for a particular track, such as say +4% Braking/+8% Braking at Yas Marina. As you win or purchase higher end mod packs, you will acquire ever better Crew mods [Pro tip: You want the Engineers as they provide the best benefit] and eventually, once you’ve maxed out affinity on a particular manufacturer (level 25) you will unlock the Crew Chief mod (+12% Grip and +50% Credits) for use on any of that manufacturer’s cars.

Boost mods are temporary buffs that can only be used once though you can use one in each of your three mod slots if you wish. These are going to be the lion’s share of the mods you win or purchase and are great to help rack up xp and credits. In fact, most of the Boost mods are precisely that, XP (Driver level, Manufacturer Affinity or Both, in percent or amount) and Credits (+10%, +20%, +100%, etc.). There are also Boost mods for many of the same categories as the more permanent Crew mods, temporary boosts such as power, grip, braking, reduced weight. And then there are challenge related boosts, paying you extra for execution of Perfect skills such as drafting, passing, turns, etc. up to a set amount. And there’s even a couple unique boost such as the Ghost mod that allows you to run the first lap ghosted so you can pass through the drivatars at turn one and the Spectre mod that will let you run the entire race ghosted.

Dare mods are permanent debuffs with unlimited use and you can only use one at a time. These Dare mods give you typically +% credit bonuses when you agree to having certain assists or features turned off for their duration. These typically require you to race with braking line only instead of the full line, chase cam only, cockpit cam only, reduced power, reduced grip, reduced braking, no STS or TCS, etc. If a Dare mod requires you to do what you already do, such as without using particular assists, that’s an easy credit bonus you can add to your race.

So, again, you’ve got three slots to fill if you want. You can only use one Crew and/or one Dare mod at a time or you can fill up all three slots or whatever number remain with Boost mods, it’s entirely up to you. Where it gets a little interesting is in playing mods off against one another and reaping the benefits, such as running a Crew or Boost mod that gives you say a +5% buff in order to cancel out the -5% debuff from a Dare mod while still collecting on its +20% credit bonus.

These three variables, Assists, Drivatars, and Mods, are all part of helping the game build you the career that you find challenging and rewarding. Take a little time and play with the variables to find what works best for you. Lower the number of assists you’re using, increase the Drivatar difficulty and use Mods to fine-tune the balance and you’ll have more fun and more challenge while becoming, hopefully, a much better driver.

[Pro tip: Dan Greenawalt’s drivatar is not the best in the game but it’s very, very quick and will happily spend the entire race on your rear bumper waiting for you to make a mistake.]
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Great info, thank you Hieronymus!

How would we be able to find out what Dan’s GT is so we can also race against his drivatar? In the meantime I’ve added you to my list of potential drivatar opponents.

How many friends’ drivatars show up in a race? IIRC it was only four or five in FM5 and they were always in the back of the field with you.

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Read Daniel 4:28 drop the king off… ThAts your answer😉

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A few quick final thoughts on this overly-long thread already.

  1. Make new friends and have them learn to to develop a visceral hatred of you via your drivatar. Seriously, add people to your friends list, have their drivatars challenge you as you race, the more you add the better the racing. Add me if you like and if you find yourself needing a slow but steady and consistent drivatar.

  2. While this is overly-long, please do not quote an entire post in order to respond to a single item if possible.

  3. I’ve been around a while, a long while actually, having started with the first Forza on the original Xbox, and joining Live and these forum for FM2 so I’ve been around and I’ve put in a few hours at Forza. In the past week, I have had the best racing I have ever experienced in single-player, some real edge-of-the-seat racing and even getting up and standing right in front of the television on more ocassions than I’d like to admit, and there’s even been a few races that made me anxious enough to sweat. There’s some great racing to be found in single-player career, go find it for yourselves.

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Another final thought before my next final thought:

At no time during career have I ever had to bash my way to the front, the races might be short early on in career but with patience and the right settings, you can race clean.

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Thanks for the in depth look at the single player.

I completed all of the career events in Forza Motorsport 2 and 3 but didn’t bother with 4 and 5. I think though, especially after reading this, that I will try complete the career as fully as I can.

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Was looking for a write up as in depth as that one.
Thank you.

Now I’m excited!

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great write up. I was loving the career in the demo. I like how it’s separated with mini intro clips, the indy showcase was a lot of fun. Looking forward to it. I shall add you later!

Also cool to hear you can unlock mods, I didn’t know that

How many hours would you say you put into the game so far?

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Thanks for the tips , Hiero!! I was kinda curious about the mods myself, as I’m sure I’ll get to like them more as I race with them.

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Thanks for the review. Just two quick questions:
Can you set the drivatars to race only with stock cars, like in the first 4 Forzas, or are they always upgraded, like in Forza 5?
Can you start a new series without finishing all the races from the one you are playing or do you have to give up the races you already finished in order to start a new series (kinda like in Horizon 2, where you have to give up the first races from a championship if you want to start a different one)?

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Great posts guys. Truly looking forward to tomorrow.

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Thanks for the comments and questions, I had hoped all that typing would pay off.

CVG -

I’ll check my stats when I get home and see how many hours I’ve put in.

Ducnado -

I honestly haven’t taken a closer look at that but if I’m not mistaken, I assume they are as the game always wants to upgrade your own car to the maximum allowed. Which brings up a new wrinkle that people, especially tuners, might want to make a note of, not every series allows tuning to the top of the class, some require a different maximum. For instance, I recall one series that would not allow me to upgrade past a PI of 675 despite 700 being obviously top of the class.

Also, for what I think is the first time ever, at least the first time I’ve ever noticed it, in the same Drivatar settings where you can find the aggressiveness toggle, there is also the ability to toggle off UGC liveries so you get either stock colors or paints instead.

As for the ability to cancel and back out of a series once started, I’ll see if I can check that tonight.

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Thanks for the write up! Tomorrow evening (after work/class for me) couldn’t come fast enough.

I actually really like this detail- I was tired of seeing the same liveries being used in every single player race and would much rather mix it up with solid colors.

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Very good read Hiero. It’s nice to hear how career plays out from someone who actually has sunk several hours into it over “well I saw this on YouTube and this guy’s cousin’s aunt’s nephew’s grandma’s dog said-”.

I’m highly (like 99%) sure that was in FM5. Don’t quote me about it being in FH2 though.

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Fantastic thread :slight_smile:

If you redo an event using different set of cars will you always get same races or do the tracks change for each set of vehicles. I note that when you choose your vehicle group that there are choices for each event… It would be good if the race tracks varied each time. Even better would be if the tracks are randomized out of a pool.

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I noticed in fh2 the drivatars didn’t experence full sim damage, this was also true for the fm6 demo. How about the full game?

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Drat and darn it, I knew I should not have read this post…
So much for trying to keep myself surprised! Hahaha

Now that I peeked, have a question for you Hiero, on the Crew Mod Packs you said are permanent, can you deselect and store them and put them back on later, or is it used, until you cancel it and then you loose it for good?

Spectacular post! Great info, wish I had enough will power to wait until Friday to read it!

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Is there an Event List like in FM4?
I always preferred that freedom to do any race at any time. You can even turn restrictions off in FM4. It was fun going into an E Class race with a 787B and dodging all the slower cars.

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More great questions.

Amused -

That’s something I plan on checking if I can cancel and back out of a new series tonight.

Fairlady Zeal -

I’ll test that out as well tonight. It won’t be easy, but for you guys I’m willing to run Dan’s drivatar into a wall. For purely testing purposes obviously.

Jon Mon -

That’s why I wanted to write up this little article, because so much of what we’ve seen from reviewers is naturally cursory due to time and space constraints and I know there are a lot of questions about the single-player career that the vast majority of players will engage in.

TuffPoppers -

My apologies, I should have been clearer on the permanence of Crew and Dare mods, yes you remove them from your active slots and save them for use later. I’ve maxxed out affinity in three manufactuers thus far doing career so I use those Crew Chief mods when I can, otherwise I tend to use a Powertain Engineer or Braking Engineer in my Crew slot.

Crew Chief mod, I pick you!

CrazySweed -

There isn’t a straight event list such as FM4, at least not that I’ve found. There is of course Free Play, where you can set up most any sort of race and it will reward you with credits and xp. There are I think 9 different passing challenges in the Showcase where you can go and show either classic Minis, Beetles or Abarths what’s what by zooming past them in a hypercar. For the record, all three will fly when struck just right from behind.