I completed this endurance race from the NASCAR showcases last night and it was really fun. Completion time took me somewhere near 1h45m for those interested.
Now I’m posting this because with the proper settings this is a really fun race! I turned off all assists except normal steering and braking line only but I might do the showcase again with really everything turned off. Tyre wear plays a big part of it, now I don’t even remember if I did all the previous endurance showcases with sim damage on or off but this sure is the first time for me in FM6 that pitting strategy in endurance depends on the tyres and not on the fuel.
At the start of the race I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I was just doing laps on lazy autopilot mode without really using my brain. Skidding in about every corner and not being too careful about avoiding collisions. Well tyres went down the drain really fast and these NASCAR cars aren’t that sturdy, even mediocre bumps against the outer wall or other cars results in severe damage. Near lap 20 or so I was already lapped by the entire field (and 2 laps by the leading car) due to 2 pit stops on 2 laps (a big crash on my outlap after pitting, go figure…). But I believed my pace was good when things went good. In the end I started driving more carefully, taking it easy in the corners as well to avoid skidding and last longer on my tyres. It took well over 100 laps before I actually ended back in the top 10. At some point I took the lead and was almost 1 lap ahead of the second car, being in a position that I could pit and rejoin the race from the first place. Of course fatigue started to wear me down and I crashed again. I dropped back to 8th place somewhere near 170/200 laps and knew this was my last pit or else it sure would be a lost cause since the AI wouldn’t pit any more either. I did get the first spot back but the last 5 laps or so were real nailbiters, all 4 tyres in the orange and carefully coasting through the corners while trying to maintain my +/- 500m lead over the second car. Eventually finished 1st place as well, phew!
A note :
The pit exit feels really bizar, it feels like either a zigzag exit towards the tarmack or else a more straight approach through the grass. I assume Turn 10 modelled this correct and it’s like that in reality as well but… the exit feels really weird. The warning indications of merging traffic and passing traffic when you exit the pits or pass the pits are really helpful here as well, especially near the end of the race when fatigue starts to play a role.
To the devs :
The AI braking feels a bit weird, they seem to brake much stronger on turn 1 than on turn 2. If you are drafting on the straight over the start/finish line you really need to get out of the draft before turn one or you will result crashing into the AI car because of the big speed difference. In turn 2 the AI doesn’t seem to do this as much which is weird since I thought it’s a symmetrical oval. This was on highly skilled difficulty and with drivatar aggression limit on in case it matters.
I mostly race against highly skilled Drivatars and it is quite common for them to break very early, very hard on a lot of corners. I think this is the main difference between the difficulties. On the tracks, that I know very well I am miles ahead, on those I don’t really know…I struggle. It feels a bit unbalanced at times, depending on the track and corners on quite a few tracks.
I was running the first NASCAR series yesterday, on all but Homestead, I was lightyears ahead of the other drivatars, even with the difficulty set to unbeatable. I bumped it down a level, and still was barely keeping up on Homestead (I think this is mostly my unfamiliarity with the track). Running Daytona is also a blast, but also no competition unless I increase my aero to around 75% front/rear, as the AI doesn’t properly take advantage of the draft. That said, all considered I’m loving this update.
It would be great if whe can such races on free play too. 50 laps in daytona is not enough. Why whe can’t set a time counter or even increase laps 250 or more. That should be easy to made for the devs.
Yeah I agree with that. With NASCAR now added to the game I would think people would LOVE to do the Daytona 500 on the oval at night but you cannot set a 200 lap in free play.
That is one of the things that is so damn frustrating with Turn 10 and this game. So many times I feel like they did a great job to do 98% of the work on something. But then they fail to finish it off to 100% to give us the full experience. Some examples :
NASCAR added to the game but apart from the Homestead 300 showcase (200 laps) not possible to set up a real NASCAR race.
Chevrolet and Ford Daytona Prototypes added to the game but no possible way to race them against each other.
MCLaren and Ferrari F1 cars of the 90s added but no possible way to race them against each other.
4 1930s Grand Prix cars in the game but no possible way to set up a specific race for them.
Over 600 unique cars (605 as of now) in the game but the garage can only hold a maximum of 600.
SUV division added to the game (with many new SUVs added with DLC packs) but SUVs are entirely banned from online play.
High end hypercars / prototypes added to the game (One:1, FFXK) but no division or even a proper PI class to race them in.
Lots of modern LMP1 and LMP2 endurance prototypes in the game but no possible way to race them without having the older LMP900 and C1 prototypes in the race as well.
Multiclass now added to a hopper but not available in free play. This game just screams for LMP1/LMP2/GTLM or LMP2/DP/GTLM multiclass races.
That is the most frustrating part of Forza 6, this game has a TON of potential to be awesome but Turn 10 just fails to nail down those last 2% to make it so. And it would be so darn easy, all they need to do is revamp the car divisions. Cars without a division like the 1930s Grand Prix can easily be given a division. It doesn’t have to appear in the career mode, it could be used for free play and multiplayer. And cars that already have a division (like the Daytona Prototype cars being under Endurance Prototypes) that need a more specific division could be given the family tag “DP” in this example. The family tag is already being used in multiplayer, simply adding it to free play as well would allow us to set up all the aforementioned races and would open the route to proper multiclass racing too.
100% agree with you
I can’t understand why they didn’t fixing the car groups. It’s an issue that must be fixed. That can’t be that hard to group the cars. Like you wrote. They done a great job in many ways but then they destroy they own work with ridiculous decisions.
That game have they best car list ever. I can’t imagine that they didn’t realize that issue with car groups and race length in free play.
The AI are impossibly fast on “Unbeatable” at Homestead. They"ll run 28 sec laps and never lift. Even with max width tires and downforce I can’t figure out how to get around Homestead without lifting a little.
And their car use less fuel then yours. Each time I go to the pit when running out fuel, but their car can go 2-3 more laps without any problem. And my car run out of gas at lap 197…
My problem with this event is about the AI merging onto the track in a suicidal manner.
This doesn’t affect my car, but the other AI slams into the newly pitted kamikaze hard, which takes away all traces of opposition. For every AI-AI crash at the pit exit, there’s even more AI cars that will exit the pits, and it’s all downhill from there. Imho, I find this a silly issue.
I agree about the 98% speech above, and I find this to be another example. Did they even race against AI before releasing this?
Yeah, I noticed this suicidal behavior too. This behavior goes along with my pit-road rant in my previous post above; FM6’s track design places cones right at the pit exit to direct you back onto the track instead of taking the speed-up lane that drivers in real life have to use and come out on the back straightaway. So this group of cones just sends the AI careening back onto the track right where most AI and even human players start turning in for Turns 1/2. I suppose the reason for blocking the exit lanes was to prevent crashers and corner-cutters another opportunity to display their driving skills (or lack thereof). There needs to be a flag system that black-flags players for corner cutting or avoidable contact and if a player gets too many black flags, they get disqualified and ejected from the race. I mean if the Formula One video games can do this flag stuff, there’s no reason that Turn 10 can’t do it either.
Unbeatable on Daytona is fine to race against as no one needs to lift off the gas there, however at Homestead, we the drivers have to lift, the AI can go flat out and often don’t even drive around you they just barge through you. Needs fixing.
One of the things I noticed is that some tracks have improper pit entrances or exits, which is really frustrating. Wanna do Daytona 24-Hours road course with AI? Pit exit IRL is just past turn 3 (past the chicane section); in Forza 6, Daytona’s Road course pit exit throws you RIGHT into the middle of Turn 1, As if they want you to do the oval instead.
Same thing with Homestead-Miami’s road course, Pit Entrance IRL is located at Turn 12 of the normal Road Circuit; in FM6, they’ve got that blocked, so you’ve got to DIVE in so quickly to be able to make the pit entrance at the inside of Turn 13.
The ovals are somewhat hazy with pit exits, as most of the time, the pit exits (Daytona, Indy, Homestead) are supposed to let you out on the back straightaway, but in FM6, all the ovals have some… THING… wrong with the exits and exit lanes that are supposed to lead you out to the back straight. Indianapolis has got a MILLION traffic cones so if you need to pit in or out using the provided lanes, you’re no doubt gonna send a crapload of debris onto the track. Homestead’s got the entire speed-up lanes BLOCKED by indestructible tire barriers.
Adding my +1 vote to this, I was surprised to see the AI run 28-second laps on Pro. What also surprised me was that running it on Expert, the AI was incredibly varied in performance. At the end of the race only one car was on the lead lap (I was 2nd due to a late smash into the wall coming out of turn 2). While their fastest lap times were comparable (mid-to-high 30s), their driving through traffic was not. Looks like there’s still some development to do if drivatar performance is supposed to be consistent.
Same here. I lapped everyone twice, wrecked on purpose, fell back to 6th, and finished race with almost everybody lapped.
On new tires the AI is pretty competitive. I remember stalling out in 4th and using the draft to get by the rest. After about 10 laps the AI drops off majorly in speed. I remember once Rossi passed me after the first wave of stops and pulled away. Once the 10 lap mark hit, he dropped back 1,000 ft in a handful of laps.
Meanwhile while my tires are 75% warm, I was running at or sometimes faster than my fastest lap. It’s only past 75% wear that I noticed grip going away.
It seems tire wear is a lot faster for AI and for the player tire wear is virtually a non issue.
Tried to do this twice with simulation damage but the AI merging and braking in Turn1 invariably had me crashed into the wall with the rest of the field just piling into you without any attempt to avoid the car. By the time I limped pack into the pits I was already 2 laps down after completing 120 of 200 laps. What a disappointment to put that much time into it just to have it go up in flames courtesy of the AI drivers. Turn 1 at Homestead really need to be adjusted for these longer races where pitting for fuel and tires are a necessity.
In general the AI Nascar drivers seems oblivious to other cars and will just ram into any stationary car and attempt to drive through them. This is a big headache in most first corners on any road course. Now I’m usually trying to take avoidance by driving off track or starting at the back just to avoid the turn 1 mayhem. I know drivatars are based on actual drivers but some tweaking to make this enjoyable has to be possible.
Yeah … the pit entry and exit are my biggest gripes here. However, I do find it interesting that Turn 10 is putting a bit more thought into pit strategy and hope this translates into a more realistic pitting system in forthcoming motorsport titles.