Let’s discuss… performance index classes (PI)
What’s the problem and where is it found?
The problem i’d like to discuss pertains to performance classes “D, C, B, A, S1, S2, X” found in the same or similar form across all Forza titles.
Fundamentally the issue I find is that performance classes strip away the individuality and characteristics of the vehicles in the game.
To make cars competitive in almost any event, your options are to either:
- Lower the AI difficulty (if playing offline) whilst retaining a stock or nearly stock car.
- Customize and tune your vehicle to the top of the respective class you wish to compete in.
The latter of these options seems to be the favoured approach by players but by the time you’ve applied all of the customisation and tuning you’ve lost some of the unique characteristics that makes the vehicle special. Its also abundantly clear that certain cars seem to thrive from being boosted to the top of their class whilst others at the top of the same class simply arent competitive resulting in the inevitable “meta cars” that so many players opt to use in the hopes of winning.
How would I fix/improve it?
Remove performance index classes, or at least remove the reliability events have on them and the importance of them to the core game. At most they should be a generic guide of approximating where your vehicle performance is.
Events would benefit from being restricted based on the following parameters over PI classes:
- Maximum Power (BHP) ← Set a value
- Minimum Weight (KG) ← Set a value
- Drive Type (FWD, RWD, AWD) ← Select one or multiple
- Car Class (Hot Hatch, Modern Sports Car, etc)/Make-Model ← Select one or multiple
- Customised (Yes or No) ← essentially a “stock only” option
Immediately it no longer matters that people are running drag tyres/rally tyres and tuning out the handling to benefit from a lower PI so they can squeeze a few extra HP into their build, people can run the most applicable tyres for the event they’re competing in, in fact i’d go a step further and make tyres a tuning option rather than customisation option based on this along with a tuning option for handicap applying small scaling weight/power restrictions on vehicles that breach the limit. It would also go a long way to making some default events feel more personalised, especially mixing in a few that are stock only.
Thanks for bringing lights into this issue. Finally something that makes choosing the other 450 ish cars feasible other than just a select few deemed “the meta”. This game definitely has a ton of potential that hasn’t been exploited yet and could make it a much better driving experience for everyone that plays regularly
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Thanks for the comment, I totally agree it would be great to see the existing expansive car list become more relevant.
I think it would be fantastic for the devs to use their imagination to set up the default events in the games as a way of highlighting certain cars and their strengths/weaknesses, maybe even something a little educational could be added with the voiceover cast adding some history/facts about the cars you’re driving in the events (maybe with the option to mute them haha).
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I think you cant fix meta cars. If they were to do this you’d just be creating another meta.
I think these parameters arent very accurate.
There is so much more to cars than hey if u wanna be A class you need to weight this much and have X amount of hp. Theres a lot more depth than that. Removing the PI system is gonna turn into a mess.
Especially in a car list thats 650+ and growing. In a smaller game like nfs with 120ish cars and arcady driving physics… its possible. But not in horizon.
Every horizon game the pi system goes through small changes. And the cars meta change as well.
One thing I’ll say for sure having played MMOs is that you can never get rid of meta. Its the new rule. You make something less powerful, another thing rices up to the top.
Gaming compared to 15 years ago has gone waaay more competitive. Players will always find smart ways to get ahead and beat the system
I know in the case of horizon it can be frustrating in online racing. But i think there are other ways they can mitigate the meta problem. Like: separating AWD and Rwd in online drifting, more events that require you to use stock cars…
Ofc they can always tweak their PI system. And theyve been doing that in every horizon game.
Thanks for the comment and yes I agree with you, removal of the PI wouldn’t eliminate the meta entirely, but maybe it could close the gap that the PI system inherently creates. Also yes I would like to recognise that PGG has vastly improved the PI system over various iterations of the game.
However, here’s an example to illustrate my point. Right now if you go to “Horizon Open”, choose “Custom Racing”, set the series to “Road” and the Performance Class to “S1”. Choose the stock 2021 Porsche 911 GT3, it’s S1 858 so middle of its PI class and as a car enthusiast I know that in real world terms it’s a pretty capable car compared to its competition. Except in a lobby where everybody maxed out to S1 900 the best I could achieve was 6/8. Now that’s fine, I’m not complaining how the PI has been applied in this scenario, I brought a knife to a gun fight and if I wanted to be competitive I should have taken my stock 911 and thrown a load of customisation on it.
But…
What I’m suggesting is what if that lobby wasn’t restricted based on a PI of S1? What if instead the lobby was simply restricted to rear wheel drive cars with no more than 550hp whilst weighing no less than 3000lb? Suddenly my stock GT3 is looking a whole lot more competitive. The playing field is a whole lot more even.
Here’s something interesting, look at my stock GT3 at S1 858 and let’s compare it to a modified one at S1 900
Stock:
Power - 503hp
Torque - 356ft-lb
Weight - 3164lb
Drive - RWD
Tyres - Stock Semi Slicks
Modified to top of S1:
Power - 791hp
Torque - 545ft-lb
Weight - 3021lb
Drive - AWD
Tyres - Off-Road
To say there’s only 42 points between both those builds and they reside in the same class is madness, they’re entirely different beasts altogether and yes I did get the W on my second attempt in the modded one haha but that’s not the point.
My point is the games events are so reliant on the PI system that it actually makes driving less fun. And where PI classes can have such a massive difference from the bottom to the top, the only reasonable suggestion to fix the problem is to remove PI altogether and base events on maximum power, minimum weight and drivetrain.
Does that help my point at all?
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Oh and I’d also like to highlight in my point about the difference between my stock and modified 911 is that by the time I’d made it competitive at the top of S1, it no longer felt like a 911 GT3. The car had lost its characteristics
Essentially bring forza motorsports homologation into forza horizon. I do feel that this could be beneficial as bringing more flexibility to people’s play-styles. You wont be running the same dozen or so cars that everyone uses but rather a mix of the vehicles throughout the entirety of the game. Thus bringing more replayability its a, lets face it, dying game
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Ooooh homologation can be a bit of a sore subject depending on who you speak to haha…
The idea in principle was pretty close to being a good one but the execution… left a bit to be desired.
Mainly due to the fact in singleplayer it stifled creativity and even limited some options that were seemingly more cosmetic than performance related.
From my perspective, homologation wasn’t a bad feature it just needed a bit of tweaking. However it was still beholden to the dreaded PI rating.
Interestingly after reading your comment I’ve been thinking about how a PI rating and the homologation system could be revamped to bring better racing experiences to Forza games so here’s my shot at something… different…
What if the Performance Index wasn’t an average score based on certain factors but instead each rating related the regulations of a set homologation:
B - “Stock”
A - “Modified”
S1 - “Road Racing Events”
S2 - “Dirt Events”
S3 - “Drag Events”
S4 - “Drift Events”
All cars would start out with a PI of “B” and would be eligible to compete in “B” class events.
As soon as you start to apply modifications the car you apply them to moves into the “A” rating.
To compete in the various event types your vehicle must conform to the homologation regulations of that event. If you’re joining a Road Race event, you conform to the aforementioned S1 homologation type requiring a roll cage, semi slick tyres and various race spec upgrades you would expect on any professional race car.
Combine that with my previous suggestion about revamping the entry requirements to races and you have something like:
Maximum Power: example 300hp
Minimum Weight: example 1200lb
Drivetrain: example All Wheel Drive
PI: S2
That kind of minimum requirement isn’t too far off the real world Rally2 spec, albeit heavily dumbed down
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