How do you play Forza Motorsport? (Poll)

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport 2023 FM 2023 Discussion
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How do you play Forza Motorsport? (not Horizon)

  • as a Simulation
  • as a game (Min-maxxing stats, setups that are not based in reality that excel in the game)
  • Somewhere in-between
0 voters

Purpose: After playing regularly for years now over the various games in the franchise, and being exposed to various different types of play and what people expect out of the game, I wanted to try and see how those of us on the forums stack up in what you expect from FM23.
I’m thinking that you really can’t have it all, in the sense that no matter what the developer provides to us, there are going to be different ways people treat the product and that affects everyone involved, either increasing or reducing their enjoyment of multiplayer.

A. There are those that want to play in a simulation fashion, expecting the game to mirror their idea of real-world racing. That usually entails accurate handling, adherance to a set of rules, and treating the cars and tracks themselves as if they have “value”. That is, you wouldn’t want to smash it up because it costs a ton of money. You might also die. So you know, consequences. The risk involved is where the thrill is, in my opinion with this type of player.

B. There are those that want to play it as a video game. That means doing whatever is necessary to exploit the game’s mechanics to their advantage. This player has no concern over whether their actions are realistic or even possible in real life. They just want to go fast and have fun to the full extent that the game allows them to.

C. For all those that find themselves somewhere in-between. For instance, you want to race realistically but find yourself unable to compete with those who don’t. So you start edging your setups further away from what you would consider “realistic”. I’m sure there are other examples that are eluding me at the moment, feel free to chime in if you have a good one and I’ll edit this.

Thanks everyone for your input. I’m really interested to see where everyone falls. My hypothesis is that the disparity between the way people play while interacting in the same lobbies directly influences the enjoyment of those involved on both sides.

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I try to keep the game as real as possible, but I do know that Forza isn’t this sort of game. For me, I make sure I am not doing anything that would be out of line in a more hardcore simulation. I try not to exploit track boundaries; I don’t build and stick to Leaderboard cars. I’ll take a good mid pack race over a boring blowout and, I try to be respectful on track, even when dealing with the AI.

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That’s a great description of what I’m putting in the “simulation” category of the poll. What about your tunes? Would you say your setups and tunes follow that same line of thinking? Or is it setup/tuned to best exploit the characteristics of the games physics model?

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I lean heavy to Simulation, but I take liberties.

On the “sim” side, I do avoid crashes, ramming, and unrealistic driving. I treat the AI respectfully. I do want to have my cars be decently realistic in their upgrades and performance choices. I do want my handling and physics to be on the realistic side. I keep inside the track boundaries, and don’t exploit anything, really.

And I play 100% offline, against AI only. I often lose races. If my race goes that way, I accept it. Finishing down at 6th or 10th or even 18th sometimes. Often my car is just too slow to win, and that’s OK too. I’m here to race the cars, and experience them.

The only time I quit or restart a race, is when there are game bugs that are breaking the session. AI ramming me into damage or off-track is the prime example. But even then, I may just take a pit stop and accept the result.

But on the “game” side… I am not interested in rigorous “difficulty”. I’m not interesting in driving cars that are so knife-edge that I’m fatigued after a couple of races. (I did that many years ago in sims, and eventually grew tired of it.)

I enjoy racing classic cars, road cars. I realize that many of these cars might never see any type of organized racing situations. But I’m satisfied to “game” this to enjoy the experience of racing some of these classic cars. Even if they are not upgraded beyond “Street” or “Sport” spec, they are still great fun for me, even if that car “racing” in that spec is unrealistic.

I tune my cars so I enjoy the handling. Never anything about exploiting the physics or something.

I’m satisfied with the old “simcade” style of passing many AI cars on my way the field during a shorter 3 to 6 lap race. Getting as far as I can toward the podium.

During the past few months I’ve done 15 to 20 races in ACC, full sim settings, 1 hour races with practice and qualifying session. That experience is fine, but it’s really not what I enjoy most.

At heart, I’m “simcade” and the above outlines my imaginary “rules” on how I play.

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That’s a great explanation. Thanks for that!

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I mean I pretty much reflect this sentiment.

I don’t go online so I don’t see a need to tune against the AI. I never have in racing games, I’ve always thought it a bit superficial.

I’ll upgrade of course. But Forza isn’t a sim it’s a simcade at best. Or let’s just say a racing game.

The fact this game needs and has a rewind because of the aggressive ai says it all!

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Quoted and paraphrased…

“I’ll upgrade of course. But Forza isn’t a sim its… a racing game.”

Edited for effect, but this is probably the best solution for what Forza is. Worrying about how it is or isn’t a sim, how it’s better than game X, or how it’s worse than Game Y, just overcomplicates what it actually is. It’s a racing game. One that grants the player enough freedom to play it how they want. For me, I don’t mind pushing it more towards realism, for others it’s exploit and win at all costs. Just as long as it’s a fun experience is what matters.

In writing this, I am not trying to poo-poo on your thread Faded Plaid. Forza Motorsport has always been in this quasi hardcore/gamey state, and we (the community) often ignore the forest by over analyzing the trees. It’s a Racing game. Delving deeper into what type of a racing game, is only dividing the already small community that likes these titles.

This is still an interesting look at how the Forza-dot-net community views the motorsport franchise. I hope you get 100% participation. I didn’t think the “as a Simulation” portion of the pie chart would be so big after the first day.

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Pretty much said all I can say there. I try to keep it as real as reasonably possible without getting on my nerve (I only have one left :rofl::rofl: ). But that’s the way I played all the Forza and any other racing game. You can make them as real as you want or go full on arcade if you like.

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I voted sim.

Forzas platform has always interested me because it sits in the middle though.

In “sim” titles upgrading generally isn’t a thing and tuning is pretty meaningless to an extent. I typically build my cars close to a real life spec, but I get to choose how to do it. If I want to pick valves and increase redline vs upgrade internals and get more low end.

Then comes car selection, other titles just don’t have the volume and they’re locked into only competing in one category. Forzas categories leave a lot to be desired but you can abandon them entirely and race Open Class.

Personally I would like something in between what we have for Spec Events and Open Class. Something where the grids are somewhat more realistic but having the option to build the car my way.

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Nah of course bro, we’re just talking. I’m doing communication research at Uni, so I thought it would be interesting to find out how people view the game that they play, and how it affects others.

This was never about anyone being right or wrong. Just more of a look into the perspectives of other players. I too am surprised by the amount of players who play “as a sim”.

Honestly? I think it might come down to branding and stronger messaging from the developers. If they came out and said
“Ok, this is the type of game we are going for, and we expect people to behave accordingly. That’s what our systems and rules and penalties are all set up for, so playing it a different way will result in behaviors you don’t like”.

Edit: I’m curious, as I’ve never played iRacing… I wonder how big of a problem interlopers are there? As in, people who play the game in a way it obviously wasn’t intended. Wrecking and ramming others, exploiting mechanics, stuff like that. That’s the only example that comes to mind when thinking of a game that the devs knew who they were making their game for.

That’ll never happen, obviously, because they are trying to make Forza all things to all people. We all know you can’t please everyone though, so this poll is also about who is being disappointed?

This is completely anecdotal and something I just thought of, but I do wonder if the change in the gaming landscape from “Here’s our game, hope you like it!” to “Here’s our game, its made to please everyone and allow everyone to play kinda the way they want, forever and ever” like Games as a Service has changed the gaming audience in some way.

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bestOfBothWorlds

I play to get the best of both worlds:
a bit more approachability & variety than “hardcore” sims,
with a bit more authenticity than over-the-top arcade racers.

I enjoy the simcade middle-ground a lot more than I enjoy the opposing extremes of “hardcore” sim racers & zany arcade racers.

…

I think some of the main factors that set simcades (like Forza Motorsport & Gran Turismo) apart from most “hardcore” simulators are:

• controller/gamepad driveability : simcades are made primarily for game consoles & mass-market appeal, so they must be manageable for those using common gaming input devices (hand-held controllers/gamepads).
“Hardcore” sims typically call for specialized hardware like wheels & pedals, which automatically limits their reach to a very niche audience.

• huge car rosters : lots of variety that reaches lots of players who want to race across classes (street/tuner, muscle, touring, GT, hypercars, prototypes, etc.) & eras (classic & modern).

• lots of shareable customization : in-game livery editors & in-game building+tuning with in-game distribution of paints & tunes all help foster creativity & communities

…

I think some of the main factors that set simcades apart from most arcade-style racers are:

• real-world cars & tracks

• more authentic physics & handling (not perfect realism, but more true-to-life than arcade)

• pure driving with no gimmicks like turbo-boosters & weaponry

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I prefer more realistic builds, even if that means not getting wins online.

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Motorsport and Horizon… If i was calling the shots at Microsoft, I’d take Motorsport down the Flight simulator path, since Horizon already covers arcade racer, but that’s just me :rofl:

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I voted for “in-between”, and part of it is what you’ve mentioned in your post

I’ve been tuning for a solid couple years now, and looking back I sometimes think about how my philosophy surrounding tuning has changed since I’ve started.

If tuning/upgrading cars in general was a spectrum between “Purist, realistic builds and realistic tuning values” and “Meta, use any values to achieve the best driving characteristics/lap time”, I’ve been shifting more towards the Meta side of things. If a RWD car needs to have the rear anti-roll bar cranked to the max, and the front anti-roll bar reduced to the size of a drinking straw, I will set it up like that in the name of handling well. If I want to extract some more horsepower out of a car, sometimes I’ll swap in a more “PI-efficient engine” only if it’s similar to the factory engine. If I feel like doing a silly build for the sake of a silly build (for example, a RWD Ariel Atom V8 swapped VW Golf :boom:), then I’ll do a silly build. But I’ll still stay far away from maxing out the rim size for the sake of PI, or throwing Forza aero on every car (mostly because I don’t like how it looks though, the performance benefit is definitely there).

In the end I don’t treat Forza like a super serious game. If I wanted to do serious racing with serious (realistic) builds, I’d do it in a game that takes that kind of stuff seriously.

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Great reply. Thanks for the input.

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None of the above. I mean, maybe C, but certainly not A or B.

And you didn’t ask specifically for my opinion, much less this much of my opinion, but you’re getting it. Although my philosophy is pretty simple really: this is a racing game.

To me racing is about three things: man vs machine, man vs track, and man vs man. To be perfectly inclusive, this also works with women and other folks.

On that last point, the only person I’m really interested in challenging is me. I’m not interested in public multiplayer. I’m not interested in leaderboards. There can only be one person on top, and I’m lucid enough to know it’s not me, so if I’m not going to be first why even try. Plus I don’t have to deal with other people. We all know how other people are like. They’re the worst. Dealing with them on the road IRL every day is more than enough that I don’t need to inflict that to myself in my leisure time.

The rest boils down to driving feel.

Driving first. And this is way I turn off driving assists. I don’t want ABS to brake, I don’t want ESP to manage throttle. If I’m not in control of braking, accelerating, turning, shifting gear, is it even driving? There’s only one answer, and it’s “no”.

A good lap for me is less about absolute time and more about using the car and the track to their limits. It’s being on the verge of spinning out, barely two wheels on the tarmac, it’s feeling I barely got away with a maneuver but the split is green. It doesn’t really matter if it’s the best time I could get, it matters it’s a time I had fun getting. Or, in other words, it’s about driving.

I’m not all that preoccupied by “realism”. Physic needs to be realistic enough, but past a certain point realism is secondary to feeling good to play. And it does. It’s not like I have any basis for comparison anyways. I’ve never driven any of these cars, and I’m driving them with a gamepad sitting in a static chair. It feels good, as a videogame, and that’s really what I’m interested in.

Now we’re entering more the game part of “racing game”.

This isn’t the kind of game I’m interested in min-maxing. I’ve made the point already, this isn’t about being the best, it’s about having a good driving feel, about having fun. I wouldn’t know how to min-max anyways. I don’t understand how half the tuning sliders relate to anything concrete. I understand real-life physics, kinetic energy, center of mass, wheel geometry, even springs, which make about as much sense as magnets. I still don’t know what to do with all these sliders, and I’m not interested to spend time learning, much less testing and fine tuning. I mean what would be the point? A few tenths? We already established I don’t care about such abstract number.

The other prime aspect of Forza that I like as a videogame is the collecting part. I want all the cars. I like cars as a concept. As a real thing, they probably need to die, but this is the nice thing about games: they’re not real life. More specifically though, I don’t just want to have all the cars, I want to drive all the car. Putting wheels on the ground for a few laps at least is a necessary part of the deal.

There’s an implicit aspect to driving a car that it needs to be race-ready. This is why this game’s version of a catch-22 (you have to drive a car before you can upgrade it but I really want to upgrade a car before I drive it) is utterly maddening. This is a consequence of modern game design mistaking gamification for gameplay. But filling bars, watching a number go up, that’s not gameplay.

As for “consequences” and various other “realism” elements, this is still a videogame. This isn’t real life, there doesn’t need to be consequences for everything. And I’m here for racing, not managing bills, logistics and payroll.

In conclusion: this is a racing game. I told you, it’s a pretty simple philosophy.

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AMEN

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Flight Simulator can be both. It has a ton of assists that can be turned on if someone wants.

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That’s cool, but, Motorsport can’t be both as it stands, and that’s the point i was making. Just me dreaming and scheming about what could be :rofl:

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I got played by the game so not currently playing the game!

Now show me the Results :crazy_face:

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