Forza Motorsport 6 - Game/Features FAQ

[ManteoMax]

FM6 FAQ: Leagues

News: Leagues overview announcement from gamescom - August 4
Forums: League Info? discussion thread
Forums: Thoughts on Leagues? discussion thread
Forums: Events List thread - with updated league details

Leagues are a separate group of multiplayer hoppers designed for competitive ranking and payouts. Each league typically runs for seven days and is open during specific windows each day. Players are assigned to one of five divisions for each league, earn points for each race, and receive credit payouts for their rank on the division leaderboard when the league ends.

Divisions
1 - Pinnacle
2 - Elite
3 - Professional
4 - Enthusiast
5 - Grassroots

If you have never played Leagues before, FM6 uses your regular multiplayer Hopper TrueSkill to place you in a starting division. Once your TrueSkill in Leagues is verifed, it switches to using the TrueSkill for Leagues exclusively from there on out (unaffected by Career and regular Hopper performance). The more you win, the more your TrueSkill increases, the more you are at the back of the pack the more it decreases. Leaderboard finish position has no impact to the Division you are assigned. TrueSkill score is not visible to players.

Scoring and Leaderboards
Points for each race = (your finish position, inverted) + (bonus points for any players you finish in front of that have a higher skill rating for you). At a minimum you will receive 100 points for finishing each race if you come in last. Players who start a race but quit or disconnect mid-race do not earn points and are not counted as beaten opponents. League leaderboards are ordered by point totals which accumulate from all your played sessions during the week. Players will receive a gift message for credits awarded based on their final leaderboard ranking when the league ends.

Event Restrictions
In the main Leagues menu, press X on a league’s summary to see the restrictions (car class, car division, drivetrain, power, etc). Once in a league lobby you can also see Game Options. Unless otherwise specified, Leagues use Damage=Cosmetic, Collisions=On, Tuning=Allowed, Upgrades=Allowed to the maximum of the specific class restriction. A league named Ghosts indicates that Collisions are Off and player cars pass through each other. Players can set their own assists (TCS etc) by selecting their own gamertag in the lobby list and opening the Assists menu. Tuning files can be loaded from the lobby but settings can’t be changed in the league lobby.

Car availability / How do I know which cars are eligible for a League restricted by Division?
See car spreadsheets at www.ManteoMax.com and www.KudosPrime.com or this thread for lists of cars by Division. Prior to entering a League menu you can also set a division in Free Play with no other restrictions and see the cars that match. Note that Career mode allows some cars of one division to also race in events of another division but they will not be available for more than one division in multiplayer. If a league is open you can enter it and select Rent or Buy Car to see eligible cars. However, cars must be currently configured to meet the lobby restriction for them to appear as available choices. The Rental and Buy Cars menus may show no available choices if the event restrictions eliminate otherwise eligible cars (such as “Car Class must be ” which is higher than the stock class of cars in a specified Division). Rental cars do not earn XP or credits from racing.

The official announcement gave this overview prior to game launch:

Leagues are a brand new multiplayer feature for Forza 6, one that lets players compete in thrilling multiplayer races that are scheduled and based around each player’s skill level and temperament. The cornerstones of Leagues are its scheduled race lobbies. All League lobbies run on a schedule and will be open in the game during specific times each day. For example, there might be a B-Class League lobby that will be open for four hours per day for a full week; after which, it will be replaced with a new League lobby featuring different cars and/or tracks. While a League’s daily open window may vary from League to League, we are designing these windows to be open to allow the most players within different time zones.

During an open window, players can join a League Lobby and compete against one another in that lobby’s playlist. After each race, players will earn points based on their performance (what position they placed in, as well as the number of higher-skilled players they beat). As long as a League window is open, players can continue to play in that lobby and earn points; these points will accumulate on that League’s leaderboard for the duration of the League. Once a scheduled League has closed down, players will earn credits based on their final position on the League’s overall leaderboard.

Our goal with League racing is to have players always have multiplayer matches that are geared to their skill. To do that, we are organizing players into different skill-based Driver Divisions. All players will begin at the lowest division when they first start playing in Leagues and more skilled players will quickly move up into their appropriate divisions. Each time a player races, we recalculate his or her skill level by comparing how that player finishes among the other players in a race. The more races you win or place highly in, the better the chance you’ll move up to a new League division. Once a League begins, players will remain in that league until the League has completed. When the new set of Leagues is set, each player’s Driver Division will be reviewed and players will potentially be reclassified based on their current skill level. In addition to skill level, League players will be organized by their temperament levels, which will ensure that clean drivers will be paired with other clean drivers, while players who tend to enjoy more contact will be racing with similar style opponents.

Driver Division will also control which League events players have access to. A newer, less skilled driver won’t be able to see or have access to the same League events available to elite-skill players. This allows us to create race events that fit for different players, tailoring the cars and tracks to the most appropriate skill levels.

In addition to a regular cadence of updated Race Leagues, we’ll also be creating special events that will give players of all skill levels the chance to compete. Whether it’s with one-off series tied to real-world race weekends or invite-only events featuring the best racers in the world, Online Leagues promises to be an incredibly exciting, and always changing, new feature in the game."

Players will be able to spectate any multiplayer race, including League lobbies and traditional multiplayer races. When spectating a multiplayer race, players will be able to switch in real-time between any of the cars in the race, and choose from a selection of cameras, including game cameras and on-board car cameras, as well as telemetry data. In addition, players will be able to chat with other spectators or with players in the lobby. For League lobbies, we will be giving access to select broadcasters so that they can broadcast (i.e. via Twitch) spectated Leagues races on their own channels.