JSR Devon and I started a debate on our podcast last Sunday and I thought it’s worth hearing from all the active community members here before we continue it on our next episode.
My main idea was that the game could make an automatic deduction to the Grip statistic whilst racing. For example: Your Car starts with a Grip rating of 7.0 - after every 10% of tire wear, your car loses 0.1 of Grip. This will eventually show a noticeable difference to the car’s cornering ability and as such, gives many people who keep asking for a more immersive experience the challenge of preserving tires with smooth concerning, careful acceleration, etc.
I put a poll up on Twitter and I’m not sure if the mods are okay with me linking it here, so let’s keep this conversational. How much do you think cars should be effected the longer you drive in a single race?
I don’t like the math on that. I think it should be far more punishing. Especially with race tires fitted. You run out of fuel in this game before you run out of tire. That’s opposite of realistic. In my mind the stickier the compound the faster it should deteriorate. And the rate of deterioration is far too forgiving. On your example though at 100% wear you would only be down 1.0 on your handling rating. I think the way they model 100% tire wear is pretty good. It’s sloppy as heck but the rate it’s gets there is unrealistic.
Edit- Realizing I might have written that confusing.
I mean when the tire is at 0% grip(full wear) it’s sloppy as heck.
I think Forza does ok with tire wear. I don’t think it is linear enough nor aggressive enough in some instances. I also do not think it handles heat in the tires as well as it could, Forza feels a bit - all grip/no grip which is perfect for many situations and is accurate. However for some situations it seems a bit off.
I’m not sure what rate of wear vs grip vs temp algorithm that would be perfect for circuit racing, however I do feel Forza could use some tweaking in this area. Possibly a slider that is adjustable for the single player user/multiplayer host would help out some - where you could set rate of wear etc…Which i think it has…or seems like it does…i just never use it…maybe it doesnt lol.
I would like to chime in - that I’ve had some experience running out of gas in real life on a track without having to change tires. Albeit I wasn’t racing competitively. Which means I don’t have to keep up with those who are swapping out to new slicks every 6 laps
Also - I run against some people who do have to pit in Forza before running out of gas - because they are driving pretty aggressive or the tune or just the type of car.
Some thoughts based on Real Life vs Forza experiences.
A) Firstly, I think the easiest fix would be to increase grip levels across the board atleast one Tier. Currently street tyres grip like $60 economy tyres, race tyres grip like sport tyres (Hankook RS4, Yokohama AD08R, etc). Compared to real life, it’s just way too easy to spin 245 section slicks with just 300hp.
B) Introducing more complex tyre model whilst welcome, In my opinion would be only be worthwhile after an overhaul of way Forza does championships and strategy. I,e. Custom championships, Pit stops, Soft & wet race tyres, fuel consumption, fuel load, mechanical failures, race engineer, etc.
C) There does seem to be a simple tyre degradation system roughly following yellow, orange, red. I do notice drop in braking distance, traction and lap time. I also notice that being smoother (wheel) improves front tyre life vs being aggressive (controller). I would prefer a more gradual system like 10, 15, 20% etc to the dramatic drops between stages currently, but overall the system works ok, and would rather they addressed points A) and B) first.
D) Tyre wear, like most aspects in game (weather, fuel, etc) are speed up because majority of players don’t want to do 50 laps every race. I would personally like an optional simulation setting in custom race/championship to be as close to real life as possible (Medium compound Slick lasting ~ 25 laps of 3.5lkm circuit on 1100kg car). Degradation scaled to vehicle weight would be great too, but again I think point A and B are more important
