Let me just start by saying I am a MASSIVE forza fan. To me its the best driving game out there…but its not without its flaws…and after playing forza horizon 3 this year…I’m thinking the FM series is lacking a little focus at the moment. Let me elaborate…FH3 represents the best arcade racing experience money can buy… The feel of the cars is beyond anything in other arcade racers, thanks to it being underpinned by T10s physics model ( but that physics model is not without its flaws…Ill get to that soon enough). The cars, lighting and environments are spectacular. And it throws us into this vibrant open world where we can go where we want in whatever car we choose. I friggin love it…I want FM7 to be to sim racers what FH3 is to arcade racers and open road driving games in general.
We have been treated to project cars and asseto corsa since FM6. while both games bring more accurate simulation models to the table, they lack FMs polish…Even Codemaster are back on form with this years dirt rally going back to its sim roots. But one day they will catch up…so T10 need to step up on the sim side of things I think. I get that they want the game to be accessible, but leave that to FH3. that’s the arcade racer. this years sim games have proven gamers want and appreciate the challenge of driving simulated cars fast with no hand holding. So I would like T10 to fully revamp the handling model. They should be looking at asseto corsa as the benchmark, here and aiming to surpass that team. I like the way the cars handle in FM6 but they could certainly learn from what the AC team are doing.
And I would also like to see a better lighting model. I cant lie the pre baked lighting thing is starting to look its age. this is one of the few areas where gran turismo beats forza ( though FM beats GT across the board…GT has always had better lighting) I don’t think we need real time weather, but better lighting would REALLY show off the amzing work T10 has done with the car models and would give the game a more realistic look overall.
And last but not least…how about 60FPS replays…Pcars has them and that game is nowhere near as optimized for xbox hardware as forza. This must improve.
Maybe the two year dev cycle doesn’t give them enough time to work on these things but They are improvements that the series should be looking into going forward. Ill be playing the next forza on an xbox scorpio and would love to see these things come into play, for what would make the best forza yet.
I’m one that believes Drag and Drift are legitimate, full fledged motorsport deserving of being in the Motorsport side of things. But that’s just my opinion.
I don’t mind them being there as options but if there’s ever any career emphasis on them I won’t buy. I don’t even care much for driving around an oval and I fall asleep watching people race in a straight line. Spare my the arguments about how drag isn’t as simple as that because I’m aware but just don’t care. Knitting a sweater is more than just shoving yarn together but I sure as heck don’t want to watch that or do that, either. The same goes for drifting. You can argue that drifting is a form of motorsport and Forza Motorsport doesn’t have “racing” specifically in the title but the fact is that it is and always should remain a racing game, not a game about doing donuts around flagpoles and showing off for high school girls by skidding sideways around corners. Tractor pulls and monster trucks smashing cars could be considered motorsports, as well, but that doesn’t mean they belong in Forza Motorsport.
Personally, I want Forza Motorsport to aim at more serious motorsport with points championships, race weekends that include practice and qualifying, longer races, and flags and penalties.
Seems as though you took that a little too much to heart. Drag racing is IN Forza. Not well, there’s alot missing and needing fixed. It’s not a matter of adding much or taking away from your circuit racing. I’m fairly certain that at no time in the Motorsport game have you been forced to drag race. No one is asking YOU to.
My point in saying what I said is simply that drag racing should be something that actually works in the game, if it’s in the game. I don’t drift, brought it up as fair play because I know there are many that do.
Don’t really think bringing up monster trucks and talking about doing donuts around flags and falling asleep watching people race in a straight line was too constructive, more just a shot at those that like something other than you. No need to make things personal or take shots.
I’d love for much more realism, even in Horizon. I’d enjoy a race weekend with the full qualifying and all that. If that happens then cool. If not, then there’s alot of PC Sims that you can get your realism fix with while I’m here on Forza doing donuts and going in a straight line.
To the OP, you nailed it right there at the end saying the two year cycle is not enough. What that two year cycle does is create a development loop where many parts of forza games get recycled, sometimes unmodified, to meet a release time table that was short before the horizon games and is now even more ridiculous. I don’t care that playground games is the lead developer of the horizon series a quick look at where turn10’s attention is on these forums, on their homepage, through DLC will show you that they are not using all two years between the sim racers for development.
What would really help the forza series to shine is to do what Adobe has done with their design software. No longer do you buy full fledged $400.00 photoshop and illustrator suites on discs you buy a membership to the creative cloud and all updates and new content are automatically included when Adobe releases them. If the base game is good enough with the promise of constant updates, DLC, improvements, and support I would absolutely buy a membership today. I have grown weary of how Turn10 drops a game like a rock as soon as the next one comes out regardless of the new games quality. There is a reason why forza 4 is still active beyond that it is the last game on the 360. It is still considered the best entry into the franchise.
Turn10 know how to put polish on a game, but they have lost the other more important elements of customer support, rule enforcement, prolonged investment in the title with regular updates, etcetera.
So I agree with you that turn10 are losing ground to other sim racers and I’m 100% positive it is because of the two year release cycle that is focused on profits and turnaround instead of proper development and attention to detail.
I agree with most of what youve said, but they arent losing anything against sim racers. Im sure if you add up pcars, assetto corsa and dirt rallys sales on xbox theyd come up short compared to forza 6. Like it or not sales matter and forza isnt nor has it ever been a sim. It will most likely continue to be a simcade and i think thats the place that has allowed them to continue the revenue stream that enables them to have the content they have.
Im all for more realistic racing games, but game is the key word. Simulators are not games, they are more serious and are meant to bring people the most realistic interpretation of whatever it is theyre simulating. Games are meant to be played, everyones definition of play is different but for the most part its to have fun.
Forza is fine being a simcade, which i would define as a realistic racing game but not a simulator. I do think they should and probably will add more simulation type options like qualifying,racing rules and more realistic tire wear and fuel consumption like pcars does.
With recent news of fanatec asking customers what theyd like to see implemented in forza 7, also stating turn 10s new ffb guy has a great pc sim background when it comes to physics and ffb. I’m pretty sure they will be adding some more realism to the motorsport series. All we can do is wait and see, but with horizon becoming more arcade it certainly opens up a path for motorsport to go in a more sim like direction.
I for one would love for Forza Motorsport to get serious about racing and simulating it. The game needs to have some racing series covered in the car selection as well as the track selections. Right now it’s an unfocused game. And to me, that becomes repetitive. especially in the “Career”.
And if the game wants to cater to all forms of Motorsport, then it should do it properly. I want to see rules and penalties preventing people from being jerks, not tire barriers all over the courses and messing up the sight lines.
And about the courses… Laser scan the real courses, and include the imperfections.
To me this year’s sim games have proven that sim racing gamers want and appreciate realism etc
But how many sim racing gamers are there?
What people need to realise is that what Forza does well, it does well because it has a relatively large player base as far as racing games go and therefore can afford to have multiple hundred licensed cars.
To me the solution is options.
Allow the sim gamers to choose the sim options from the menus and be happy they have the realistic experience they crave.
Have casual options for the masses that effectively cross subsidise the sim gamers.
If you want a full on sim game it becomes a niche game and will have less money spent on making it.
I think this would be the best approach. For me, I want an experience that feels closer to how cars really handle. I want a more detailed tyre and suspension model that gives back tonnes of steering feed back/feel about what is going on with car. Driving is an art and I would love T10 to explore that further.
And by explore, I don’t mean "perfect turn"medals…im talking about mastering the nuances of each car and how they react over certain camber angles, dips and rises on tracks. Its half way there already…
All I want is for Turn 10 to make clean Public Lobby Multiplayer racing a priority, by implementing features that encourage good behaviour and discourage those that choose to bump and cut their way round a track.
The rest I can trust them to do a good job on; the handling model, car and track selection is second to none.
Wow… you hit several nails on the head with this one! I was actually thinking of creating a post titled “anybody else think FM7 needs an overhaul” but I guess I’ll just post my thoughts here. Hope to God the devs check these out regularly.
Now that they have an arcade racing game, I too feel they need to take FM to the next level in terms of real life physics, using AC as a benchmark and building it from there. I would very much welcome real/actual car sounds pre and post upgrades, rather than digitized and loopy sounds that often do not sound like real cars. And I would just love it if they loose the CGI’ish cartoony look of the game and go for 100% photorealistic visuals.
I’ve been longing for a Forza game to have good viewing angles in replays running at 60 fps. They can do it, though I think they just want the game to look really good in replays. Anyhow, 30 fps makes it look like a movie or a “game replay” rather than a real TV race replay.
Please T10, don’t let your franchise turn into a casual track racing game. You have worked hard to surpass the competition - how about we keep the tradition alive?
When I play a racing game like Forza or Gran Turismo, I want to feel like an amateur driver starting from the bottom then working my way up to the top through a race season. Not to be lectured on the fundamentals of car culture. If I want to know about car culture, I can just go to a museum or something. That is one of my main gripes with Forza 5 and 6. They placed too much of an emphasis on car culture and less on the race driver like experience.
