I thought I would elaborate a little on the Gt3 class. Right now it’s basically broken down into 3 groups:
Speed: Lexus/Ferrari 488C/Caddilac/Porsche 935
Tweener: Audi R8 LMS/18 Lamborghini/15 Lamborghini/Acura NSX GT3/Porsche GT3
Handling: Aston Martin GT3/Mercedes GT3/Bentley GT3/McClaren
Outside the Acura (OP), 15 Lambo (Meta), McClaren GT3 (slightly weak), and Porsche GT3 (a bit underpowered), the cars are balanced within their groups and have tracks to shine at. With that in mind, here are minor changes as oposed to major ones to bring them closer.
The Porsche GT3 might need another 5 HP for 528 to truly fit in class, but this closes gap. McClaren change seems minor, but shoudl bring it up to the Mercedes GT3 level. Acura would still be a bit too strong, but firmly in the tween category instead of being a tweener and handling expert that could pace with speed cars at speed tracks. Minor tire reduction on 15 Lambo doesn’t address chassis issues with drag, but makes it firmly and acceleration tweener car that isn’t too strong at handling tracks. these adjustment would leave the class more like this:
Update:
After spending more time wiht the class and getting a better feel for the balance, I will say given what you had to work with, it’s pretty good. Just a few outliers. I will say it’s still broken down into Speed/Mixed/Handling cars which creates larger meta gaps depending on track. But overall it’s at least pretty consistent. This is my new Tierlist.
Acura: OP. Near top in handling and near the top in accleration. It’s combination is so good, that even at Daytona I’m getting the same times as the Lexus/Caddilac/Ferrari despite giving up 5 mph on top end. So it’s as good as speed cars on speed tracks, the best car for handling tracks as it almost has the Aston’s handling and way better accleration, and totally dominant over every car on Accleration/Handling mixed tracks. So is a Tweener car like the 18 Lambo/Audi or is it a handling car? If the former, nerf the tires down to minimum, though it’s likely still a bit too strong overall still in need of a small grip nerf down to 300/310 equivalent tires, or remove race brakes down to a PI of 823 or reduce it’s power with the restrictor down to 522 and a PI of 821 and that puts it firmly in the handling category with Merc/Bentley/Aston in terms of combination of acceleration/handling.
15 Lambo: Horrible top end, but its combination of acceleration and handling makes it pretty dominant on all but the purest of handling tracks and speed tracks. The only real nerf option is reducing front tires a bit, leaving it as the best acceleration car, but taking handling from good to above average.
Strong: Not going over every individual car. You have speed cars: Lexus/Caddilac/Ferrari which are closely balanced against each other. 935 is an outlier with better top end and less handling.
Handling cars: Aston/Merc/Bentley/McClaren are all pretty close, but McClaren lags behind. The McClaren has enough engine options to give it slightly more HP, like 3-5, to be closer to those cars overall. Tweeners: Audi/18 Lambo are in a pretty good place. do not dominate any track, but are a good pick wherever you are.
Porsche GT3: Handling of the speed cars but less speed, speed of tweener cars, but less handling. It either needs 10 HP to be firmly a speed car, or the equivlent of 10mm on front and back tires in extra grip to be more of a tweener car.
I still think the cars should be adjsuted as I recommended earlier to be a more even class overall, but this small changes would get the current design of the class into balanced speed cars, balanced tweener cars, and balanced handling cars.
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My lastest comprehensive recommendations for both classes are in this other suggestion topic here GT2/GT3 Class Car Breakdown and further BoP feedback.
I am going to give some credit here. I havea lot to say on this class, but will admit the balance is much better than it was between these cars in the old Forza GT class. That being said, the speed, acceleration and handling of the cars is all over the map. I’ve heard a rumor that these are necessarily the final classes, but I will address that ina different post. This class seems to break down into mostly 3 divisions of the cars; speed cars, handling cars, and tweener cars. I was able to get a top speed break down in featured at Daytona, so lets take a quick look at that.
while this does nbot really denote pace and acceleration differences, it gives you a decent indication of the massive gap between the behavior of the cars. A 15 mph difference is very wide and makes my cirticism of GT2 class differences look quaint. Because of the natire of these cars and build limitations, getting them as close as GT2 is not really possible, but it is closer to close the gap on not only top speeds, but acceleration and handling. The problem with these wide gaps is how far it spreads the meta for different types of tracks. There will always be a meta, but ideally you’d like to see it not really come into play until the very top level. ACC is like this where you can basically pick any car and be fine until you are at the top e-sports level.
I was able to create new versions of the builds that look like this;
Because I was able to play with the builds in freeplay, I could get more sdata on top speed and acceleration. Turn 4-6 at Daytona is a decent look at a cars low to mid speed acceleration capability. You can see how difficult it is to get these cars closer because the inherent charatistcs are just so spread out. Cars like the 15 Lamborghhini, Aston Martin, and Bentley also suffer from severe drag issues making them diifuclt to bring up in speed without making them handling slugs.
I gave it my best shot though. So let me list the current builds and my recommended changes to show how i brought the cars closer together in speed/acceleration, but by looking at the lateral Gs, you can see it’s closer on handling as well. I will also mention one thing I noticed in featured was a preference for the handling cars on most tracks outside of Daytona/Lemans even if the speed cars were competitve. The better handling cars are simply more fun to drive, and it can take special tuning and skill to really squeeze the performance out of the speed cars.
I am not going to claim my recmmonded builds would make these cars fully balanced. But it should close the gap to where changes would need to be much more minor and less drastic. Let me include my own non definitetive tierlist. It’s actually diificult to tierlist these cars because of the wide gap in the performances by track. I think people would perfer the cars handle more like the handling cars than the speed cars, but my recommendations are more directe at making the cars more like the speed cars since that is what the builds allow for.
Outside the “Meta” people opinions are varying and I have not done enough testing on the cars to really get a the best feel for it. I haven’t seen a list from the likes of Harmonic or ESV Green or any of the other guys I am aware that have done BoP testing, so I’ll just roll with this for now. The one common thread I’ve seen is the the Acrua is overtuned.
Meta -
Acura NSX - This was already considered a top car in the old Forza GT class due to it’s combination of handling and acceleration, a mid level top speed. It only got a buff when it was already stronger than cars like the Merc, McClaren, Bentley, and Aston Martin. From what I can tell, it’s the 2nd best handling car in this list, despite having acceleration that puts it near the top and top speed that falls directly in the midline. I removed it’s tires, to return it to where it was, but it’s likely still too strong overall the best car.
Strong - Weaker: there is enough arguments for these car and way more testing needing to be done to really get an idea of exactly where they stack up.
Ferrari - This car is a speed car, but has a nice balance of driveability adn handling with your changes I left it alone and kind of left it as the benchmark for the class.
18 Lamborghini - I had one heck of a race against one at Suzuka with the Ferrari. They were both pretty evenly matched on acceleration and it appeared handling. Ferrari has slightly better top speed and high end accleration, but the Lambo seems to have better low end accleration and slighlty better handling. Lambo is a much harder car to drive and tuen though, so it may actually be overall better than the Ferrari. I left it’s build alone.
Audi R8 LMS - This car is very similar to the 18 Lambo. Slightly less top speed/acceleration and about the same handling. I left it alone, but it may need a slight power boost to be on par with Ferrari/18 Lambo, which it has options for.
Aston Martin - Even though it has the same PI as before, the lower weight makes a difference and it’s 826 is better than the old 826. This car could have been in strong or decent category, but i put it here as it is the likely Meta for pure handling tracks. It has the best overall handling in the class combined with quick handling and good enough acceleration. However, it’s a sitting duck at high speeds. My changes focsued on getting it’s top end up without making it monstrously OP, so power gain combined with some ballast and tire reductions to make it more similar to speed cars. New build might need some rear tire width to truly be competitive.
Mercedes GT3 - This car has the best top end of the handling cars. But it definitely falls into handling car range with the worst low-mid end acceleration. It was still a solid choice though. My adjustments focused on getting its acceleration up since there aren’t much in the minor power options in build. These adjustments put it in a solid acceleration place compared to the speed cars and it’s top end is not too far off. It leans towards the more handling cars.
Bentley GT3 - Similarly to the Aston, I tried to address the drag issues on this car. The problem is that it’s HP jump is much larger. Hard car to make deicsions on. I settle for simialr top end to aston with the Bentley leanign towards acceleration. But to keep it’s acceleration for being too godd, it needed weight, and well it’s a hefty car like this, the heaviest. I still recommend a 10 HP nerf for it to not be too OP on the straights.
15 Lamborghini - Again, like the Bentley this car already fovaroed acceleration. To get it’s top end into a decent place (it was a sitting duck to me in the straights in the Ferrari at Kyalami) again required weight being added. The problem is it’s handlijng which was already kind of mediocre takes a big hit. I gave it tires to try and balance that out. The Heavier cars with wider tires should help some on tire wear as well.
McClaren 720S GT3 - this car was already on the weak sied. I leaned into adding power to make it more like the speed cars and try and line it up with the Audi R8 LMS and 18 Lambo for overall performance.
Porsche 911 GT3 - This car is kind of hard to tell. It has good top end, but is kind of weak on mid range acceleration. I recommended a 10 HP buff to bring it’s top speed and accleration more inline with the Ferarri, Cadillac, and Lexus. It might still need the slightest downforce buff. Not sure though.
Lexus, Cadillac - I probably need mroe time testing these, but handling seemed it bit down to Ferrari, they’re closest characteristic competitor. I gave them increased tires to be on par with the Ferrari’s handling/tire wear.
Porsche 935 - This car simply does not fit with it’s build options. It is quite apparent given you nerfed it’s HP by 10% and gave it more handling. It’s top end beats everything else by a mile, but it’s still the weakest handling car. It’s acceleration is decidedly mid. In order to address these, I gave it another 10% HP nerf for a total of a 20% nerf to bring it’s top speed in line with Lexus, Ferrari, and Caddilac. I droped it’s weight to improve its accleration and handling together. With your added downforce/grip, the tires were too good, so I lowered them. It might need a slightly higher rear tire, but hard to tell where this build would be with the artificial grip buff it has.
