Has Anyone else noticed the madly annoying understeer in Forza 7?

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM7 Discussion
21

Even though I see more than a few people that are either not acknowledging or disagreeing with my dislike for the driving physics, I’m glad there are at least a few people who have noticed some of the problems I’ve been seeing. I guess when all is said and done my main complaint with Forza 7’s driving physics are that it feels like you are being cheated by the AI since it appears they do not have to adhere to the same problems the player is facing, which to me feels like a lazy substitute for actual difficulty. I would’ve been completely okay with how understeer works in this game had they done at least one of the following:

A) Made all players in a race abide by the same physics. As of now, computer-controlled drivers are simply too perfect in their behavior, they always take the perfect angle going into a corner and accelerate through them with near-perfect efficiency to the point where it’s basically cheating. This wouldn’t solve the understeer problem but it would at least put everyone on an equal playing field.

OR

B) As was mentioned previously, give players the option to turn down/up speed sensitivity. That way the “average” player could play the game normally if they don’t see a problem with it, while also giving the option to turn it off for players like myself who wish to be in full control.

Personally I don’t think either of these would be that difficult to implement and I really hope Turn10 learns their lesson and listens to the community in time for the next Forza game.

22

I disagree. Ever watched an F1 race? Lap after lap of perfect cornering with the odd crash or run off the track, and these are real racing drivers. In FM7 ive witnessed AI cars battle eachother, take corners too hot and run off the track, crash into barriers etc, they are far less on rails than you make them out to be. But on the whole during a race whether in game or real life, for the most part you will be watching cars that look like they’re on rails.
Its also impossible in modern gaming for 23 AI cars to all run the exact same physics as the player, even sim racers like PC or AC have dumbed down physics for the AI. Despite the AI’s dumbed down physics, even they understeer if you force them to push it (pro or unbeatable in high class cars) they will smash into corners from understeer/oversteer or randomly come off the track.
As for sensitivity i dont see what difference it would make. All it would do is show you a graphic in cockpit view of the driver turning the wheel more, and exterior of the cars wheels turning more, but the result of the corner is the same, understeer. Once you’re understeering you can put the wheel on full lock, makes zero difference to the tightness of the corner, all that will tighten the corner is slowing down. So slow down and the game will allow you to steer when it would make a difference.
Its basically the same as if the game prevented you from steering at all if your tyres locked up from braking, it would make no difference either way until the front tyres stop sliding.

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Yes I have watched F1 racing, I’ve also participated in track days myself. I understand the physics behind how a car should feel and behave, I’ve played racing games my entire life and I can agree with you (at least to an extent) that most computer-controlled drivers do tend to behave more like computers rather than humans, although I would argue that is more of an unintentional design rather than something the developers deliberately aimed for. My problem with FM7 is they’ve taken this way too far, add in the fact that the AI doesn’t have to make up for the severe handicap that is placed on the player and you have something that is completely unfair. On lower difficulties I’d imagine most players either don’t care or don’t notice this handicap because the AI can be beaten so easily in a straight line, but on higher difficulties the cracks really begin to show. At the end of the day I understand this is a video game and it’s almost impossible to make it 100% simulation, but it honestly feels the understeer is being used as a crutch to make up for a lack of actual difficulty. I think you appear to be missing the point regarding speed sensitivity because it’s clearly more than just a visual thing. This isn’t just a problem associated with going into turns at high speeds either, even at low speeds the turning radius of most cars is unrealistically bad.

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As I said try any RWD car and it doesnt understeer so not sure how it can be a handicap. Pretty much all the higher spec cars are AWD or RWD too

25

You can see and hear it, the tyres squeal and you stop turning, that is understeer. No point comparing yourself to the AI, the way the AI takes corners is weird, they do loads of mini brakes and because they dont have the same physics as the player, they unrealistically turn. The way they game is built is to be controller friendly with minimal set up. So it will never be the frustrating mess of PC2 when using a controller, it isnt a fully blown sim, im not sure why you were expecting it to be?

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I am sorry i fail to communicate properly where my problem is and explain why i would find a speed sensitivity setting to adjust the better solution than keeping it the way it is. I can’t explain better than that. I see that i fail because you keep trying to tell me that i actually dont feel what i feel. So if you would understand my problem, you would see that there is no way i will get to like the current mechanic.
Having said that: PCars2 and GT Sport may claim to be sims but are no sims, and still get that mechanic more right than Forza. So its not like i expect from Forza something that is unheard of in other games in the same ballpark.

Cheers mate

27

The problem is that they may have made it like that because in such a situation steering the car is futile, as you’re understeering anyway, if you turn the wheel some more the car will keep going straight. Since this game is not a simulator despite simulating tire heat and wear, they may have set the speed sensitivity at the limit of adhesion.

However, it’s worth mentioning yet again that there are cars with poor lateral grip and there’s little you can do to fix that. Adding aero is one of those things. Some cars are homologated with bad tires and don’t have the handling ability you’d expect from them. Vintage supercars were difficult to drive and handled poorly compared to modern cars. Some cars are also way too fast with not enough downforce to give them enough grip.

Aventador in Horizon 3 is Push City, if you add the bodykit it does not have enough downforce to turn well at high speeds. As compensation it’s one of the fastest accelerating cars.

There are many ways to remedy this i.e. wider front tires, more front downforce, softer front dampers, etc., tricks that work in Forza as well as any other game featuring adjustable setups. If all fails, trail braking is your friend as well, RWD conversion to relieve the front of some weight… There are many tools to make the car better and the Forzatech engine in particular is very sensitive to the values you input via the game’s tuning menu.

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So the active steering as preciously pointed out is of course a problem as it makes you feel disconnected from the front wheels, just like you do in a real car with a similar system, where with oversteering/understeering, you feel the actual physical feedback from the car, hence making it feel more agile and conncected. Sometimes you want to provoke over -or understeer for a variety of reasons - particularly on tracks that you know really well and know their curvature, and particularly on FWD and AWD cars.

I find it a bigger problem however, that going form max to max steering takes so god damn long time, meaning that the car feels incredibly sluggish, which FEELS like understeer. So for example if you navigate through the sequence of turns on Suzuka, the biggest challenge is timing the steering exactly right, as correcting is almost futile as the avatar has the weakest arms in the world. A speed damper sensitivity setting here would be great.

I would prefer it if they removed or provided an option to disable the active steering as well, as it just feels better without - or at least with less. All serious sims have that (which I know Forza isn’t - but lack of those features are partly why).

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Because that’s what it is. You can make a car very understeery in this game indeed, and the opposite is also true. If the car goes straight when you turn, it’s understeer.

There’s no shortage of cars with terrible lateral grip at higher speeds in this game, and this is consistent with other games where these cars are featured, because they simply lack downforce. McLaren F1 is a fine example. Other cars like the Ford GTLM oversteer like crazy on the default setup.

Default setups are tame to prevent people from coming here complaining that the game is too hard. In other games this is not always the case.

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There’s a certain amount of truth to “git gud”. This looks like it’s your first FM game and you’ve only been playing it for a month. FWIW, I had the same problems when I first started playing, it seemed as though the game simply would not turn the wheels enough to make the corner… Nope, I was going to fast. Slow down and turn no more than you need to and you’ll be amazed at well the cars can go.

Also tuning, you can put a lot of oversteer into the car with tuning if that’s what you need until you are more experienced.

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I’ve been playing this game for a month but I played Horizon 3 for quite a while (along with a few other racing games) and as I’ve specified before I do track my actual car quite a bit. Again, I understand this is still a video game and we shouldn’t expect it to 100% mimic real-life conditions, but it is quite obvious the understeer is unrealistically high.

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I only drive 100% stock cars from the rental menu in freeplay, if any thing those cars would understeer the most and i can’t say i have a problem at all. Be conscious of how fast you are entering corners, because it sounds to me like you are just going too fast and not following a good line.

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The only way to correct this is to have front camber as high as -2.9 to -2.7 with the rear around -2.6 to -2.4.

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This is definitely worth a try for a specific car and can be easily reversed to the previous settings if you don’t like the results.

I was having a problem with a Veyron in a previous FM game. Loved the car, great acceleration and maximum speed but it insisted on going straight ahead in corners even with no red in the braking line. I saw the above post altered front camber to -2.0 and rear camber to -1.0 and it was like a different car. Still has great acceleration and max speed but it now goes round corners like it was on rails. Makes winning a bit too easy.

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I’ve used this strategy over the past few days and ran some testing on it. There is a definite improvement but still not at an ideal level. It also appears the AI scales based on the player’s tunes, as I’ve been noticing the AI get away with some seriously unrealistic maneuvers. I loaded up a race on Sonoma Raceway using a 2012 Aston Martin Vanquish with front and rear camber set to -2.7 and -2.4 respectively to test if my theory was true. What I found was the computer drivers were able to make perfect turns at speeds where I would simply understeer into the grass despite the fact that we entered the corner at the same trajectory and applied the brakes at the same time. On top of that they were also able to accelerate through and out of turns earlier than I was, and I know for a fact if I tried doing this a the same time as them I would simply spin out at the slightest tap of the gas pedal. I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter how much the the user tweaks the cars to correct the broken speed sensitivity mechanic it is simply impossible to put yourself on an equal playing field with the AI.

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Nah I wouldn’t call it understeer, it’s just that the steering imput feels a lot more dampened than it did in FM6,. Quite a few top players are no longer using 0-100 steering dead zones because of it. However, despite this its easier to be fast in this game than it was in FM6 so if you’re not beating AI’s that’s still all on you.

37

I had understeer issues with the Demo. I had no issues with it in the final game.

Not sure why.

But any car that I jump into now, I always at least move the REAR toe to -0.8 and it is a non-issue in cars that had been troublesome.

38

Tuning the shocks makes a massive difference. Soften the front bump and stiffen the rear rebound to reduce corner entry understeer, Soften the front rebound and stiffen the front bump to reduce corner exit understeer.

Basically of you what to stop understeer you want to keep the weight on the front wheels as long as possible during a turn. The shocks will help you do this

39

Understeering with controller came often from the limitation of steering/speed sensivity. With a wheel the cars turn much better into the corners.
That’s the prize that you must pay for smooth controllersteering.
It’s not a physic issue. You see that when you driving through corners and with controller you never steer full only when you slow down.

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40

Sim steering seems to massively reduce this effect. The issue is that you have to carefully tune your cars to minimize the onset and severity of tank-slappers.

While it might be technically inaccurate to call it under steer, the effect is the same. I think the issue is that the XBox gamepad doesn’t have stick specific vibration feedback. So you can only detect under steer while braking, with no help while accelerating.