Initial experience gameplay video & Preview blog

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport (2023) Discussion
1

Today during the September Forza Monthly livestream we revealed the initial racing experience players will have when starting Forza Motorsport for the first time:

The first time you start up Forza Motorsport, you will have the chance to adjust several game settings like your preferred driving assists, accessibility options and PC graphics settings.

The opening races of the game include an Open Practice lap at Maple Valley behind the wheel of the all-new 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray and the last 2 laps of an endurance race at Hakone, where you will experience the stunning 2023 No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R.

Players can start their Forza Motorsport journey anywhere in the game. After the opening races, you can immediately jump into the modes you want to play, whether it’s the Builders Cup Career Mode, Featured Multiplayer, Free Play or Rivals.

We’ve curated the Builders Cup Intro Series to ease you into the game and get you ready to compete. This can be seen in the starter car and track combos, as well as the pace we introduce new mechanics like Open Practice. Starter cars include the 2019 Subaru STI S209, the 2018 Honda Civic Type R, and the 2018 Ford Mustang GT. Pick carefully, because you will level, build and race your chosen car across the Grand Oak Club Circuit, Mugello Club Circuit and Kyalami GP Circuit.

The Builders Cup Intro Series introduces you to our new car levelling and building systems. In-between each race, upgrade your car with new unlocked performance parts and tuning. You will see a new spider graph that helps you understand the balance in your car build. Before returning to the track, you can adjust the race options, including Drivatar difficulty and race rules which influence damage settings, rewind availability and the penalties enforced.

Before the Kyalami GP Featured Race, you will select your starting placement for the race. This is Challenge the Grid, our new risk-reward system. Your payout adjusts based on the grid position and you’ll earn a bonus if you achieve a podium finish. You will also see our fully dynamic 24-hour time-of-day in action, as the sunset in Open Practice transitions to a dark starry sky for the Featured Race.

Completing the Builders Cup Intro Series will unlock Practical Performance, the first stage of the Modern Tour. Each series you finish in the Builders Cup will earn you a trophy with bonus credits rewarded based on your series placement.

The Builders Cup Career Mode is comprised of Tours of Motorsport. Modern Tour introduces you to cars Built for Sport and Super Sedans; in the Enthusiast Tour experience Track Specials and JDM Legends; in the Power Tour drive Iconic Muscle cars and take on the C8 Challenge; and in the Legacy Tour rewind to a bygone era with Retro Tuners and Exotic Speed machines. This is only a snapshot of the themes that await in the Builders Cup.

Across all of these series you will take a single car and level, build and dominate your way to victory. Each Tour you fully complete will also unlock a special reward car at the end. For players who want full creative freedom in their build, check out the Open Class Tour featuring C to S Class Series.

The Career Mode also includes a Featured Tour. This is where we will spotlight new cars and tracks added to Forza Motorsport, and it’s a great way to continue your single-player racing journey.

image
image1600Ă—900 221 KB

image
image1600Ă—900 245 KB

6 Likes
2

I wached the live stream, it didn’t do any justice in 720p on YouTube. Wached again later with full resolution and it is stunning as it meant to be.

Liked the appetizer intro and can’t wait to experience the eRay and the Caddy V racer on October 5th. I believe that the real game will look even better than what YouTube can show.

Now to the main course, the BuildersCup. I’m probably going to spend most of my time in FM23 in the career mode. I liked the progression system idea since June announcement. However, I’m not as comfortable as I was before September 11th reviews of trusted YouTubers/Players.

First, CarXP capped at 50, and each level requires specific sum of XP regardless of if the player nailed every corner. This means if I spend 3 hours leveling up 1969 442 I’m not going to be able to level up the 1970 GSX in way less time due to experience, and the fact that the two cars are A-Body siblings with other GM mid-size from 1968 to 1972. The same goes to other cars that share alot from other manufacturers.

Scond, AR12 faced CarPoints shortage when he unlocked some levels. This issue is very concerning as player might need to do more repetitive tasks with no gains of level-ups just to purchase the upgrades. Now think about doing that 4 times for GM A-Body, and then repeat that for Mopar 3 times and ford. This all without going to F-Body and equivalent from the big three. Not to mention the EU and Australian divisions of the same corporations. The same issue will be faced with Audi, BMW, VW, MB, and the Japanese brands.

Third, the order in which upgrades are unlocked, both AR12 and HokiYoshi had the same issue. I think I fall in the category of preferring earlier weight reduction.

Fourth, the Ai, they look fine in difficulty 4, too aggressive in 6. Regardless, one cannot judge Ai behavior without racing against them. In addition, there will never be any agreement between majority of players on this very subjective issue. One can see this in any FH4 vs FH5 drivatar discussion. But there is one thing that can be confirmed, they do block and slowdown players during corners which negatively effect CarXP gain.

Some mentioned that Ai we’ve seen are older version as the latest were not ready at the time of loading the demo. I’m sure that I can adapt to the one we saw or the more polished latest updated ones.

On the other hand I doubt that weight reduction, especially when it comes to older heavy cars, is an issue one can overlook.

I find myself now supporting what AR12 said last month about the upgrading system, its an awful system that needs to be changed. Or as Hoki said yesterday, just get rid of it all.

I want to play the BuildersCup. I will put the time and effort to reach level 50 in many or most cars “for bragging rights” even if its not related to unlocking upgrades. But I don’t see myself forced to drive heavy hard to control car 80% of its levels.

T10 general manager said its not about collecting 500 cars. I say no, it is to me. Maybe racing 2 or so regularly in each class. but I want all collectable vehicles IRL in my garage from the pre-war oldies to the latest one-off show stunners.

5 Likes
3

I think Hoki put it best when he expressed his frustration with not being able to take a modification direction he wanted to based on his experience with the car, because the necessary parts were arbitrarily locked to a higher level. The way he expressed that concern was very balanced and I think, correct.

What AR12 experienced with XP shortage I think is a feature. They want you to have to make trade-off choices along the way, choosing parts as you go rather than just adding new parts.

The AI, I’m not sure what to think exactly yet. I don’t know what difficulty settings they were using specifically and most of the time the YouTubers drove like atypical Forza players: dive bombing the AI all the time, getting into the vortex of death, using the AI as buffers and not really showing the AI any respect. As well as blasting up from behind expecting the guy in front to be doing nothing but looking at their mirrors and make way for them, when the driver in front has the right to the line.

If I drove like them in my ACC league I’d get banned. It’s funny how people wail about the AI but if you were those AI cars you’d be seriously angry about the way the players were driving. So I’m kind of parking that whole issue until I get to play myself because when I do, I try to drive like they’re human opponents.

As for not collecting 500 cars, we’ll see how that turns out. For one, all your credits now go to car purchases and aren’t split to upgrading cars anymore. 2nd, did you get Premium? 2x VIP bonus should mean you’ll have plenty of credits.

Will have to see what the car prices are to determine how limited we may be.

6 Likes
4

forza.net/news/forza-motorsport-preview

Chris Esaki (Turn 10 Creative Director) : “…This game isn’t about collecting all 500 cars. It’s about finding the ones that speak the most to you…”

The concept of remaining attached to only a few cars (out of hundreds) seems to strongly conflict with the rest of the game/series/genre when there are so many different event types & restrictions.

When these games are full of events like JDM championships, vintage racer cups, super sedan challenges, hot hatch showdowns, European opens, GT enduro series, etc., along with ongoing/cycling new playlists, then players need lots of different cars to meet all of those different restrictions.

When these games are full of events across PI classes (B-class, A-class, S-class, etc.), then players need a garage full of different cars for each class.

Chris Esaki (Turn 10 Creative Director) : “…We don’t need to teach you what a specific upgrade is because you’ll just feel it. You’ll understand it naturally and apply that to the next car you build. You don’t need to know how to be faster - you will figure that out as you play…”

The first Forza game was released 18 years ago, and to this day, most (new & returning) players are still not well-versed in tuning, high-performance driving, & racecraft, so I don’t see how anyone could believe “you’ll just feel it & you will figure that out.”

4 Likes
5

As I promised in the “Hype Train” I’ll see you on the 5th.

On the CarPoints shortage, I’m leaning more toward miss calculation.

Ai behavior difference relative to difficulty level, I got that from watching many videos in which the difficulty level was mentioned.
I’m not going for high difficulty in BuildersCup. I see myself picking level 3 and move up to 4 or maybe 5 to avoid aggressive Ai behavior. The target in BuilderCup is leveling up cars, hopefully with focus on challenging corners without much Ai distraction.

Later, when I prepare for Multiplayer I’ll crank up difficulty as training. In this context, aggressive Ai will help me learn how to mitigate and avoid accidents.

2 Likes
6

This. A CarPG, for the lack of a better term, only really works when the car list is pretty minute. For instance, it is perfectly possible to pick one vehicle out of a relatively small selection of cars (at least compared to juggernaut lists like Gran Turismo and Forza) and stick with it for the majority of the game. However, when you have hundreds of cars available to you, and the career is based around trying different vehicles every twenty minutes, a CarPG style of upgrading and progressing falls completely flat on its face.

3 Likes
7

Not only the car type and class far exceeds 10, there are brand specific and even model specific racing series in both SP and MP.

In addition, automotive freaks like myself get into car games specifically to collect cars we love, had before, have now, or dream of. Forza strongest selling point to me is model accuracy, physics, and the long list of cars.

Probably Mr. Greenawalt was trying to downplay the lengthy process to level up cars, making it a 30 hours only task if player is content with 10 cars.
What 10 cars, I decided to get the Game in June after quick math:
500 cars X 3 hours = 1500 hour playtime
Throw in 500 more in rivals, time attacks, and multiplayer racing, that’s good two years.

2 Likes
8

Well, I guess I’ll be seeing a lot of you come Oct 5th then!

I’m still really curious how/if the upgrade mechanic applies to the homologated race cars.

How many cars did you own in FM7?

2 Likes
9

My question is have you had a chance to play it yet Max and what are your impressions?

1 Like
10

I don’t know, but if upgrades can be applied thats will prevent the upgraded car from SpecRacing. That means you’ll have a rental car forfeiting CarXP gained during the race.

Didn’t play FM7, thats why I mentioned the need for training by increasing difficulty to prepare for multi-player.

11

Oh! You’re in for a good time mate, don’t worry!

1 Like
13

The career mode is called Builders Cup but then the game restricts building and tuning the most. This system is completely against everything the Forza Motorsport experience has stood for. Restricting every single car, even two of the same type, from being upgraded and tuned is an unfortunate decision, not to mention the overly strict “car points” system, which is yet another pointless layer.

In my opinion, it would’ve been much better if different kinds of upgrades were tied to licenses or overall player level, and if they were applied globally, not on a car by car basis. For example, novice players could upgrade mostly cosmetic and drivability aspects (body kits, wings, tyres for example) but not much else, while higher level players would gradually got permission to upgrade drivetrain and finally power-related components.

Weight reduction at level 45 and wide body kits at level 50 are just plain illogical elements, and are going to turn a lot of players off who would like to customize their cars to feel them as their own.

Also, how does one reach level 50 in a car when there are not even enough races to take it to? Will we end up repeating the same few races, grinding with a car to finally unlock some upgrade we wanted from the beginning? How long is the career mode? How many events and races? And whenever there’s a new track or cars added, it will be just one “Featured Tour” with it, and that’s it? I thought the Builders Cup would be organically expanded with new content, and new content is not just shoved into one time-limited “tour”. With so little content at launch, this doesn’t bode well for the future of the game.

With this miscalculated “career mode” (seriously, “Builders Cup” sounds like as if it was only ONE cup out of many in a fully fledged career), clearly last-generation technologies brought over from older Forza titles, reused car models, the same underlying tech for Photo Mode, Rewind (why can’t we finally gradually rewind the race instead of random intervals?), AI, 2D textures for spinning wheels, 30 fps replays, this “new” Motorsport is shaping up to be very strange at best, and completely underhelming at worst.

5 Likes
14

Not sure what you expect me to say?

I think the game is easily worth $70. It’s got heaps of tracks I want to race (Spa, Suzuka, Kyalami, Ohio, Virgina, Maple Valley, Hakone in particular). I think it will be fun and I’ll find heaps to do and enjoy. I can’t wait to play in 22 days time.

You’re now convinced it’s going to be terrible? Not gonna buy it? Gonna wait? Going to stop wasting your time bleating about it here and find other things to do with your time?

Really puzzles me how people can put so much time and effort dooming on things that they’re unhappy about. Life’s too short to get upset over $70 video games.

Convinced it’s going to be bad? Cool. Delete it from your mind and go spend your time doing something that makes you happy!

3 Likes
17

Love the binaries. “It’s either this OR this!”. Maybe this is a global forum and in such an enviroment $ being commonly perceived as USD means I’m speaking in terms of a currency everyone will understand?

I’m not offended. My happiness and enthusiasm of the game isn’t dependent on what anyone says here. I just find it kinda funny and perplexing how so many people can spend so much of their time here getting so worked up about a $70 video game they haven’t even played or spent money on. It’s not like you’ve been ripped off or anything.

You can literally not spend your money on it, and go spend your energy on stuff that makes you happy than bleat about your disappointment here endlessly.

Whether you’ve got lots of money or not, we’re all privileged to be here talking about video games. Perspective matters.

1 Like
21

I watched SuperGT’s video of initial gameplay from the Builders Cup. AI on 6 out of 8 and the majority of his passes were before or within the first couple of turns. You get to 4th, and chase the “runners” in 3rd - 1st. Sound familiar? I seen a number of punts from the rear by AI (nothing new). About the only thing I seen which is “new” is the fact that the AI do make some drastic mistakes. Once the field spread out, it was back to the single file, no passing racing that we have all come to expect in single player. AI don’t really race the other AI much, they race you…

The other thing he said that stuck in my mind…“It’s all very familiar…”.

5 Likes
22

As I said on Monday, if I were on this project and I put in the work and I truly believed that I was helping to make something that was actually going to change the game, hearing the reactions that have come out would not have felt good to me at all. Hearing SuperGT say that it felt like “quintessential Forza” would have been a gutpunch. And if I were a Microsoft exec and heard this after listening to Turn 10 bigwigs talk this up for years…calls are being made.

3 Likes
23

That devil will come down to what the sales figures and ACTIVE players are in 6 months. Not vereyone looks at YouTube “influenzas”, plenty will see the name and that’s enough, plenty will ignore reviews altogether.

So while initial sales may be high, the question becomes one of “does it sink as fast as it seems NFS Unbound did” becaause I don’t think they can even give that away free on EA Play or Game Pass, there was a burst on release and then a sharp tailing downwards. If that trend is seen in 6 months, bearing in mind we’re talking ACTIVE players including those on Game Pass, then words may be said. If it doesn’t, then that may be different.

One bunch of reviews does not mean life or death, not when so many won’t be interested in these YouTubers, only actual sales and active player numbers count.

1 Like
24

To be honest, the individuals who received copies of the demo are a pretty broad sample of the YT creators out there. While I do not listen to many of them, there are a few that have earned at least my respect for being honest and forthright in their reviews. SuperGT is one of those, not sure if JSR Devon had even received a copy, but he is another that has been unbiased in his opinion of the Forza franchise as a whole.

2 Likes
25

I own every car is FM7 and have driven almost all of them at least once

3 Likes
26

Wow. Hats off.

In the lead up to this new release I’ve been playing FM7 again and buying up cars but I’m still only at about 350, after starting at maybe just over 200.

2 Likes