Forza Motorsport should be considered amateur racing

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport (2023) Discussion
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I think a lot of issues drivers have in this game is at least in part due to a mismatch in how drivers approach the racing etiquette in Forza Motorsport. People come to this game with a lot of varying experience in sim racing and that can show up in game as various negative experiences. The relatively small player base means that a variety of skill and experience levels are present in almost every race.

I don’t think FM needs to be strictly considered amateur racing, but I think if more players approach races with some broader agreement about etiquette, the quality of racing could greatly improve. I think treating it as amateur racing would make it better for everyone, but I welcome your comments on this matter.

In part, this is a failure on the developers to provide some instruction and education to new players. The game presents itself as refined and professional, but welcomes players of all skill levels to compete. It makes very little effort to filter players into categories or divisions and the result is frustration from drivers of all levels.

The penalty and rating system is reasonable, but it isn’t enough. Often penalties can be a poor deterrent due to the poor quality of feedback. I recognise that efforts have been made to improve the feedback, but I don’t think the main problem is feedback. It comes down to driver education first.

As a community, we should come to some agreement about how we all should approach racing.

I propose 2 things:

  1. Turn10 should publish a guide to the racing regulations used in Forza Motorsport. I would like to see some in-game features so players have immediate access in game that can help them develop as a Forza driver. I understand that this can be difficult, but I think it is necessary to really engage players properly.
  2. We, as a community, should develop our own etiquette system. I favour something very simple: drive it like you have to pay for repairs. While I welcome disagreement on this, I think a very simple statement like this is easy to communicate and apply. Remember that Forza welcomes drivers of all levels that want to be Max Verstappen. None of us are.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this and I welcome comments and criticism. I want to provide a space for us to discuss this constructively and hopefully come to something as close to agreement as a group of internet bumper car drivers can get. I may be dreaming, but let’s see what we can do, eh?

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In recent months, Turn 10 has admitted they do have a racing etiquette guide but decided not to publish it yet. Why, I’m not sure.

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Source: In the Garage: Discord AMA on Forza Race Regulations (FRR) with the Simulation Team

This was back in october. I agree with a lot of the points you brought up. I hope Turn 10 adresses this soon as I believe the Featured MP has proven to be (in my opinion) a good retainer of players. (maybe because single player is subpar but that’s another matter)

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In Forzas on Xbox360, you had to pay for damages at the end of the race.
This could be a good start to force players being precautious.

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I dont think just a written guide will do the trick, racing etiquettes can be learned by practicing or experiencing it first hand. Almost every multiplayer games nowadays have a tutorial at the start , Forza MP got the Honda Civic Academy series which just throws you into a session and that’s about it. Maybe they can revise the Honda Civic Series, do a complete session with guidelines (for etiquette) and Most importantly a REWARD for it.
The reward can be anything, but for now let’s say a complete new driver suit, which can also take existing drivers to go back and do the etiquette tutorial.

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:no_entry_sign:
I vote hard no against this.
I remember when GRID AutoSport charged players for repairs, and it only empowered trolls even more because they could not only ruin your race, but also bleed your credits dry on repairs too.

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Good luck with that.
Much of the community adamantly believes “rUbBiN’ iS rAcIn’” is a perfectly valid excuse for reckless & unsportsmanlike driving.

Some simple & nearly universal rules/etiquette commonly used in real-world racing:
• avoid contact
• leave racing room - no forcing other cars off-track
• must keep at least 2 tires within track boundaries
• it is the passing driver’s responsibility to overtake without incident
• car in front has the right to their line
• only 1 change of direction per straight to defend - no swerving to block

…But heated arguments often erupt when people post video clips of incidents inquiring about where to assign fault.

Players have been asking this company for some kind of interactive in-game “racing academy/school” mode for years across multiple installments, but this series has rarely offered more single-player substance than just a list of races with themed restrictions on class/PI, manufacturer, drivetrain, region, era, etc.

Clearly, the company does have some kind of racing standards, otherwise the automated penalty system would have nothing to base its decisions on, and there would be no option to report players for ramming, shoving, pitting, blocking, etc.
…but don’t expect AI/NPC drivers to stick to those standards. :melting_face:

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The only realistic solution is a licensing test that would lock certain sections of multiplayer out until they’re completed.

But that’s a logistical nightmare for a dev team that’s slow to trickle in basic content and improvements—an impossibility, more aptly put. I’m assuming the game’s already working with a skeleton crew.

This is a game for casual players; you can’t expect more than a fractional percentage of the users to willingly sit through a written guide. You’re racing against younger crowds, crowds from more casual racing game backgrounds, crowds that have zero prior racing experience, crowds that don’t have any fundamental understanding of racing etiquette.

GT7 requires players to complete ‘menu books’ 1-9 before they can participate in the ‘sport mode’ multiplayer, which is their version of competitive matchmaking with driver and sportsmanship ratings. Ratings that actually affect your lobbies, too.

And because sport mode features fixed daily races, you can quali on your own time as much as you want, not just in the small per-lobby window. Your quali doesn’t impact your matchmaking, but it gives you a better idea of the true pace you’re up against.

Unfortunately, there’s no structure to FM’s campaign, so hard-locking newcomers out of MP and forcing them to do a bunch of arbitrary races would be a net negative against the already small player counts.

Sadly, that’s the only way to realistically force higher quality etiquette.

If you have a PC, I’d suggest AMS2 now that LFM is partnered.

Or if you’re like me, you have a sadistic addiction to featured multiplayer and shrug off the bad moments to focus on the fun ones. I don’t think it’s that bad given that the game is literally the McDonald’s-Tier casual simcade with a focus on accessibility, not depth of features nor etiquette.

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This channel. If you love racing, you already know, but it’s not as popular as I believe it should be. Just top notch content from drivers who’ve been there and done that IRL.
Lots can be applied to gaming, even by beginners.

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I posted a video of some LFM racing in AMS2. My favorite comment was the one where someone was so perturbed by the poor racecard, they were like I’ll stick with Forza. The racecraft on all racing games is overall pretty bad. Forza now does a pretty good job with netcode, light contact not ruining races, and ghosting as necessary for out of control cars.

The thing about those other games is the matching for safety/driver skill mostly works, so you can work your way out of the lower skill levels where the most crazy carnage usually happens. But even then you can’t fully escape it. I was watching a top split IRacing video by Dave Cam in the Porsche GT3 Cup at Sebring, and the carnage there was as bad or worse than many Forza races on lap 1.

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Very true and I agree.

I do think that there are going to be fundamental differences to each title that affects the overall experience. To arbitrarily summarize some strengths and weaknesses from my perspective:

Forza:
Pros

  • netcode is surprisingly robust
  • FRR is good despite what people think
  • ghosting effort is better than others (considering most in the general space don’t implement it at all, or are very conservative in application)
  • the driving assist line is more dynamic and handholding than most, evening out the bottom end of skill threshold

Cons

  • controller and keyboard users are mixed into wheel users at a heavy blend rate
  • skill and experience deltas are massive
  • no perceived short/long-term repercussions to affect driving etiquette due to superficial SBMM ratings
  • nonexistent matchmaking
  • open lobby builds create extreme contrasts in vehicle dynamics leading to sloppy scenarios

Versus its direct competitor, GT7:
Pros

  • more lenient tire and aero model lends to cleaner overall field dynamics
  • matchmaking is much tighter
  • daily race structure lends to tighter field specs with generally-acceptable BoP, but specifically fosters closer, more predictable racing
  • game heavily nudges player base towards wheel use
  • game heavily nudges player base towards its licensing tests and puts players through fundamentals
  • the combo of semi-fixed hoppers, a more lenient driving model, default proxy radars, and taking players through licensing fundamentals fosters an environment that’s less reliant on driving line assists and opens up player awareness

Cons

  • penalty system is abysmal, far worse than FRR
  • ghosting system far too conservative
  • shunting/ramming creates heavier force impacts
  • BoP tends to create favorite cars per daily races minimizing car variety

Versus tertiary, full fledged sim titles, Forza has more weaknesses than strengths when viewed on a checklist, primarily centered around skill, etiquette, and matchmaking algorithms/repercussions, but it’s still the one I plug into far and away the most.

Not because it’s the most satisfying to drive (on a wheel, it’s probably the least, but not by as much as people say), nor because it has good matchmaking (it doesn’t), but because it’s extremely accessible/quick to boot up, has good hopper selections, and creates interesting races.

Admittedly, a big part of the enjoyment is that the skill threshold is low, so higher skilled players (likely like the ones in this forum, on discord—anyone who cares to talk about this game on a forum space) get that “hero run” dopamine hit by going first to last and frequently battling for pole, if not podium.

Whereas when I play iRacing, I have a blast, but the reward is realistic close racing, if not a consistent battle for podium. TLDR - Forza’s an ego inflator, heh (I kid, but really)

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It should be considered as gta on track!! It’ll suit better.

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I would disagree that the mix of wheel, controller, keyboard (is this viable for anyone outside of ISAD?) Is bad. Forza is shockingly very well balanced in this regard and i don’t feel people should be pushed towards expensive wheel set-ups to be competitive. And I say that as a wheel player with an expensive set-up. I’ve races with high level controller and wheel players, and at that level you can’t even tell the difference really.

The problem for wheel is the default settings being atrociously bad. It feels and works great when properly dialed in. Wheel is just as competitive as controller and may still be slightly better on tire wear. To me, three ffb feels similar to AMS2 or RaceRoom with my settings. The physics are way more forgiving than those games at the limit, with you able to control pretty large slip angles pretty easily, but it should be as an entry level sim.

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Agreed, this is the first Forza where wheel and pad have equal potential and it simply doesn’t matter which control method you use.

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When I did the Honda series back at the game’s launch, in the third race one wiseguy held back to ram people. I tried to avoid him but that made him more determined to ruin my race. Fortunately I passed the test (don’t know if he did) but it soured me for the online part of the new game. I’m used to bad driving and bad behaviour in Horizon but I expected more from this, especially in a test race.

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The penalty system is somewhat broken. Nothing worse than braking into a sharp corner and the guy behind me comes in hot, slams into the back of me and it gives me the penalty…….or knocks me off the track and it gives me an off track penalty….

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I’d agree on most tracks but with the notable exceptions of the Nordschleife and Bathurst. On those, you can make a big difference with a wheel and there’s nothing wrong with that.

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FM2023 has a driver level, but what is really needed is the online driver level. The offline driver level has no effect on the gameplay and is not necessary.

I would like to propose a game design where beginner players can only play ghost races, meaning no contact at all, until they become proficient in racing. Alternatively, it could be made so that only non-collision races can be selected while the online level is low.

It is something that I cannot understand with my common sense, but there seem to be players who target beginners with the aim of malicious blocking and collisions. They even create new accounts to bully beginners. I think that if we implement an online driver level and make it non-collision while the level is low, we can wipe out these fools.

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I wouldnt say that, the only tracks in my experience that truly favor a wheel are ovals. Even in past forza games where the wheel implementation was horrible, wheels were always better on ovals.

But it also comes down to preference. Some people just cant use controllers and are great on a wheel and vice versa. While ive raced with people in past forzas that were really fast on a wheel, it wasnt common because it really wasnt easy to do. I think theyve taken a huge step foward with leveling the playing field with this game.

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I tested Forza 7 again right before motorsport came out. Wheel on that’s was awful no matter what I did. They actually did a decent job on FH5 with wheel, but the older Forza physics still left it uncompetitive with the fastest drivers.

I am actually really interested to see if the new physics/tire updates and FFB (with likely better defaults and simpler settings) get introduced in that FH6. Even with Horizon’s more arcade adjustments, tatt would tranform it for wheel players. Also kill the ridiculous RWD power cars like it did in Motorsport.

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Best way to educate players to drive more cleaner. Also to the repair costs after each race there should be an flexible entry fee for each race from your hard earned credits. Participating in races in real life costs an insane amount of money too. Once dirty forza drivers lose their credits the faster they’re out from participating online (learning it the hard way) - until they earned enough credits in solo play again for the possibility to re-enter online races.

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