Handling in Forza Motorsport is terrible to me, anything I can do?

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport 2023 FM 2023 Discussion
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I have installed several car racing games in the past two weeks. The two Forza ones I actually bought in their most deluxe versions. FH5 is my favorite because of its incredible detailed graphics and world. Motorsport I like but the driving is by far the worst of all the games I installed, which include Grid Legends (best handling of any car racing game), some of the Need for Speeds, the EA Formula One 2023 and a few others.

Now, FH5 to my taste doesn’t have the best handling (I should clarify I’m playing on an Xbox game controller), but it’s good enough for me. I would prefer that the cars stick more to the ground, but depending on the car, I can still enjoy it.

But all the cars I tested so far in Motorsport are terrible for handling. They just don’t feel realistic in any way, whether I use all the assists or non at all. It feels like driving a racing boat than a racing car. If I get close to a sharp turn and brake, start turning and let go off the brake, the car starts skidding in a way that no car in real life would do, unless perhaps the tires were totally flat and it was the worst rain ever.

This is even at rather slow speeds. After playing for a while, you learn to brake earlier, and take turns at a speed that is way too slow for even real life. There are a lot of customizations for the car mechanics, but I haven’t seen anything that tells me it’s going to help with this.

Did I miss any settings anywhere, or is this just the way the game is and I need to get used to it?

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If you feel as though grid legends has the best racing game handling, id say forza motorsport may not be your type of racing game.

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Calling Grid Legends the “best handling of any car racing game” is a bold move.

On a more serious note : Forza has a lot more understeer than games like Grid / NFS, which are more aimed toward arcade. Proper tune help a lot with that, and if you don’t want to go through the headache a making your own, you can download tunes from other players. Some are really good and make a massive difference on the car’s handling.

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Forza Motorsport is what most call a “sim-cade” title, it is not a hardcore simulation because it doesn’t simulate a lot of things like eg. brake temperature, the tire pressure and temperature is also very simplified and really beginner friendly, you really just need to drive half a lap to get the tires to temperature.
With that said, FM is still very realistic when it comes to car handling, the way the suspension behaves and the tires loose grip is very close to other simulation racing games and are easy to understand as the behavior of the cars are what you can expect from cars in real life.
And that is basically what makes the Forza franchise so genius, it gives you enough realism to have a realistic experience, but at the same time it’s simplified in a way that you don’t have to worry too much about tire temperatures and brakes and other details that would otherwise make or break the race in other sim games.

If you don’t like how Forza feels, that is of course subjective and you can totally be entitled to that opinion. There are a lot of other people that also struggle with the controller steering and you can definitely find help. Forza is it’s own cup of tea, but that is mostly because it’s quite a bit more complex in it’s simulation than grid legends, nfs and etc. that’s why the devs had to fine tune the controller input in a very specific way. If you drive any other simulation with controller, eg. ACC or iRacing, you will quickly realize that Forza is doing a pretty great job, you just have to get the right feel for it.
Hope that helps.

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If u feel like grid legends/ NFS games have better handling, then all u can do is to uninstall this game.

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Idk if u played modern NFS games, but I can assure u that except for the crew 2/motorfest I didn’t see game with worse understeer feeling than modern NFS…

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You seem like more of a mariokart guy to me, not to be rude.

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He can be a grid legends guy, its not a bad game and the handling suits its style. But yes it has more of the arcade hero handling style than a game like this.

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Welcome to Forza Motorsports.

We have no grip here.

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Drive any car above R class and you’ll see the physics are bad.

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I don’t really care the handling on the grass being so terrible if it was realistic on the track. But it’s funny that so many people here feel so strong about this game being realistic when it’s so obvious that it’s not. Sure, perhaps Grid Legends is more on the side of arcade, but it’s still my favorite because it allows me to race at high speeds and taking turns without drifting too much.

And to me that’s the point of playing car racing video games. There’s absolutely no way I could simulate driving any of these cars because while the graphics in the Forza games are second to none, the view that is the closest to the one you see with your own eyes driving a car, it’s far below what I would consider realistic. Perhaps the technology is not there yet, and it will be in ten years or more.

As for the view that I usually use, the closest that shows the car from behind, well, to me it would be absolutely pointless to try to recreate a car’s real behavior, because that would mean that in real life I would be flying right behind the car, slightly higher than it, with an Xbox controller to drive it. There’s nothing real about that, as much fun as it would be if it were.

But even the best car I drive in it, the handling is worse than it is with FH5 in a storm. I wish I could adjust the handling in FH5 to be harder, but it’s not so bad that it doesn’t allow me to enjoy the game, and it even makes it more fun sometimes given the open world nature of it.

But with Motorsport, when you’re going at low speeds like 60 Mph, and you let go of the gas and start turning, and the car starts sliding, that’s absurd. There’s nothing realistic about that. If I do that in my car, a Jeep SUV that is far below those supercars, it doesn’t start sliding like a boat.

As for uninstalling the game, I don’t plan on it, since it’s still a good game, and I bought it, so it wouldn’t make sense to do so.

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I had in past pug 206, and now drive citroen C4 as my daily drivers, and both would get massive oversteer if u slow down mid corner (lift/trailbraking), in case of lifting it also depends on engine and transmission combo, if u drive automatic car irl, it would probably coast at low rpm so there would be no significant effect on handling mid corner, but if u down shift to higher rpms and then lift mid heavy corner, rear end would definitely step out a bit (if u go fast enough).

In this aspect Forza Motorsport is rly realistic.

Anyway in my opinion motorsport have the best sim-cad handling for gamepad users in my opinion, there are some issues with wheel handling but with bit of tweaking to cars suspension, it’s manageable.

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@SebeeAlvee have you checked out the Forza YouTube channel or any other sim racing channels that cover Forza MS ?
You can find some good videos on YT that explain car handling , cornering etc as well as tips on all aspects of the game. If your really struggling you should check a few channels out.
Im in no way saying you need tutorial video’s or anything like that , just trying to help you out by recommending a way to find information thats very informative, as you get to see the car on track while the subject is being explained by pro players & people involved with the game.

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I noticed your playing a few racing games with very different handling styles. I do as well & I find if im playing alot of Forza MS its easy enough to go play on to GT7 with no problems , but when I go to play ACC after a few days or more on Forza I sometimes need to take a few practice laps in ACC on an empty track to get back to the style & characteristics of that game.
Maybe its something similar for you coming from Grid over to Forza MS with its different handling mechanic’s that are causing the problems , & I dont mean that in an offensive way , after a week solid on Forza & then going to ACC I definitely need to re adjust my race style & thinking .
Forza MS has by far the best pad control though out of all the racing games I play. I play FM on simulation steering with Elite Series 2 pad or occasionally Nacon Rev X Pro pad & it handles brilliantly.

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Well ac games don’t have any filtering on max steering inputs with gamepads, so this is definitely different experience compared to Forza or any arcade game.

But on other side when I was switching between Forza and ac Evo while using wheel, I didn’t see much difference, between default ac Evo settings, and Forza default settings (with adjusted tunes for more mid corner understeer)

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The most effective thing you can do in Motorsport to improve car handling is upgrade the tires. Even the lower level upgrades, you can feel the difference. I don’t recommend “Drag” tires be used at all.

Second most effective upgrade for improved grip would be aerodynamics. Add front bumper (most have adjustable aero), and large rear wing. Then to get max performance from this upgrade, head into the “Tuning” section, under “Aerodynamics” and set both front and rear downforce to max level.

This is very simplified (compared to more detailed upgrade/tuning), but gives immediate results.

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I just wish they would make the high speed/high downforce cars less twitchy at high speeds on the straight. GT7, ACC, & F1 don’t have this problem. I should add I drive by pushing thumbstick all the way forward & rotating left to right. Still love Forza though…despite many things needing to be addressed.

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Theres over 500 cars in forza motorsport, you have to be a little more specific as to what car/s youre using if youd like help tuning them more to your preference.

Also when you say “sliding”, is it understeer or oversteer. If its understeer youre going too fast, if its lift off oversteer than throttle is required for the turn.

Im not up for a debate as to how realistic forza motorsport is in general, but theres no debate that its more realistic than the other titles youve mentioned. Your preferences are also your own and thats fine, thats why theres different types of racing games.

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I’m not offended if you say I need to watch some YouTube videos. It’s not bad advice. The thing is, that means spending a lot of time watching them, taking notes maybe. I’m a bit too old to spend too much time on this. My goal for posting this was that perhaps there is a setting or two that I missed to make the handling better. But honestly I bought the two Forza games (the only two you can buy these days unfortunately, since I would happily add FH4 to the collection but I’m not allowed to), mostly because I was blown away by the graphics quality and how much they had advanced in the last few years.

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If the Vehicle Assist Settings arent helping then the only other assists that I can think of are the assist’s that give control to the cpu at certain points in a race, ie entering & exiting corners etc. I think you can find them in the Accessibility Settings menu.

I would recommend Vehicle Tunes. Tunes really make a huge difference to the car as some cars aren’t set up the best in there basic stock settings when you get them & a good tune will make a big difference.
You can download specific tunes for Speed, Balance or Grip or a basic all round tune from the Forza comunity.

If you read the post by @im2fast4u711 im certain he could give you better advice than me.

I hope you find something that makes the game more enjoyable for you.

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