Lobby system

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM7 Discussion
21

Agreed, 100%.

Custom public lobbies are a necessity, basically.

Second to that, as you point out, is AI support—and, I would say, that AI support should not be limited to the number of players in the lobby. Fully agree that you should be able to pick the AI cars, too—I would say, in the same exact way as you would pick your own car. I’d go ahead and say that you should even be able to put the AI in cars from your garage. Then comes the auto-upgrade feature… This was implemented to offer players a quick way to make a car competitive in a class to some extent, and in a larger part to make races against the AI closer/more compelling in career, but has not yet been carried over into free-play/single-race or the bots available in split-screen or online multiplayer… If the auto-upgrade feature is to remain, it should be taken greater advantage of; it should be applied to the AI in any and all modes in which the AI may be activated or put on track.

Furthermore, I would argue that the different customization/limitation/restriction/“field specification” options need to be looked at from the previous games. Engine displacement, engine configuration, drive configuration, so many different things you might use to try and encourage close, tight, fair and balanced competition. FM6 did have some of these options for you to select from/adjust when setting up an event, but looking back at previous titles in the franchise, one might see a number of settings that are missing from FM6.

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22

Doesn’t sound like it. They ask at 6:44 in the video. I agree this would be great and solve so many issues so easily. He seemed to be wrong on the penalty issue based on another developers interview so take what he says with a grain of salt I guess.

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23

Edit: Edit Ninja’d

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24

Unfortunately, it’s not happening.

25

I’d be inclined to hear T10’s reasoning behind the absence to this feature. Seems kind of inexcusable that they really haven’t handled CPLs this late into the current gen and to be honest I can’t think of a single good reason why they wouldn’t.

Otherwise I’m kind of glad I didn’t pre-order FM7 because one of my biggest compaints about FM6 was the lack of post-game freedom/replay value, especially compared to FM4. Personally it’s what kept me going back to FM4 and it’s absence yet again will likely keep me from buying FM7.

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26

If you watch the interview video then the emphasis of F7 seems to be on encouraging gamers to join clubs or leagues to ensure a controlled racing environment - with those who just want a random racing session every now and again without the commitment of social aspects of FMS having to resort to the hopper system for their online experience. Or words to that effect anyway.
Old features have no place in new Forza so we’ll assume custom private lobbies are one of these old features that DG was referring to and at the same time pretend the Forza marketplace is a new feature that’s never been included in the FMs series…

I’m with you on the purchasing side of things because newer and (potentially) better games are on the horizon and I feel that these two games are going to offer a great deal more than F7 in terms of pure racing so i’m thinking it’s highly likely that F6 was my final investment in the series. I’m sure that many, many others will be more than happy with the new features and the FH3-esque social side of F7 though, but for me personally close on four years of driving the same old cars on the same old circuits in 1,2 or 3 lap online hopper lobbies has just become so pointless.

Last night I raced in a 20 lap race in variable weather (that required several pit stops) in a 16 player custom lobby (with live disqualifications + player kicking) and you know, it just brought a sense of perspective as to what online racing should be all about. Turn 10 should perhaps realise that It’s ‘old features’ like that which ensure lobbies don’t degenerate into Forza style multiplayer hoppers and because of which also ensure that those who are there to race properly and respectfully can do so in an enjoyable environment irrespective of how good or bad they are. I will take that any day of the week and if that means moving away from FMS then so be it. I have zero preference as to where I spend my money.

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27

Hopefully, they’ll bring back that feature. It was so nice being able to join random lobbies and meet new people.

Most of the people I met back in Fm4 were through random lobbies

28

Ouch.

Yeeaah, if there aren’t going to be custom public lobbies—… Could be a deal breaker, right there.

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29

If they don’t figure it out soon that CPLs are the key to a large portion of the community, they’ll have messed up…

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part…

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30

My guess at why they decided to leave it out is basically, anything online requires a server for it, and Turn 10 does not want to allocate servers away from the main hoppers and leagues, which is an utter joke because some of the online hoppers in 6 you can hardly even find one lobby in since there’s so few players in it. It completely baffles me how they don’t see any reason to redesign the online experience in their games, as the majority of Forza players play exclusively online, like myself.

Like seriously, am I the only one who doesn’t give a flying flip about “4K compatibility”? Turn 10 keeps promoting the graphics performance like it’s gonna redefine the racing game genre, whereas the Project Cars team will most likely release the greatest racing game to be made in the last decade, and the reason why is because they actually focus on the things that players want. Heck, even Gran Turismo Sport will be a better racing game if Turn 10 keeps this nonsense up.

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31

Custom Public Lobbies aren’t happening, and given the way Turn 10 has communicated about them (or not, depending on your worldview), it’s a feature that will never return.

There’s a thread about the (lack of such a) feature here: https://forums.forza.net/turn10_postst99662_Custom-Public-Lobbies-and-You--A-Primer.aspx

Instead, let’s focus on how to “clean up” the Hoppers, and suggest some things that don’t have a 0% chance of implementation. I made some suggestions in another thread; they’re not perfect but less of a pipedream than the inclusion of Custom Public Lobbies:

Add an overhead radar to the HUD, and have it enabled by default in Multiplayer (players can turn it off in Options).

Here is what Gran Turismo Sport is using, and various NASCAR games on PC have had this feature for over a decade:

It works in a very simple way: The box in the middle is you. The boxes around you are nearby cars. If the boxes are about to touch each other, get ready to take evasive action.

This works much better than the current feature (proximity arrows) as you know exactly where nearby cars are at all times, no matter what camera view you use.

Automatically and immediately ghost any driver that enters within a 1m/3ft radius of another car while driving at a speed that is 50mph greater than said driver.

Again, Gran Turismo Sport does this (in the lower-ranked lobbies).

The basic idea is that if somebody is about to ram you at high speed, their car will ghost just before they make contact. You’re unaffected, and they say hello to the nearest wall.

It won’t stop small taps and PIT manoeuvres, but those can be dealt with through some good defensive driving.

In Public Hopper races, ghost all drivers that fall more than 2km behind the race leader.

If you’re getting lapped in a 3 lap race, you’re either doing something wrong or deliberately waiting for the leaders to become your next crash target.

Add an icon in lobbies to show if a user has received a “Vote to Kick”. Kick a user if they have received at least 5 “Kick Votes” in a room with 16 or fewer players, or 8 votes if in a room with 17-24 players.

One of the main reasons people wanted Custom Public Lobbies is so that they have total “kick control”.

By doing the above everybody has a say, and potential problem players can be removed if a significant number of players think they’ll keep on crashing.

Increase minimum race length in Hoppers to roughly 10 minutes of driving time, or 5 laps on an average length circuit.

Have less of a “rush to the front” and open people to the possibility of waiting a lap or 2 to start making places.

If the Hoppers are clean, I see no need for Custom Public Lobbies to exist. Right now they are not, which goes some way towards explaining the demand for such a feature.

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32

The problem with the old vote to kick system was that only one vote could be held at a time, so trolls could abuse it by triggering a vote first. This could and should have been easy to fix, but instead it was made even worse by hiding it completely.

All it needs is for, firstly, the option to be available at any time in the lobby instead of only after everyone has returned from the race, and secondly for votes against someone to show up next to their gamertag so everyone can see it.

Of course, half the problem is that game chat is so borked (still, 4 years and 2 releases into the XBone cycle) that it’s impossible for players to communicate when there’s a rammer in the lobby.

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33

I agree that it was a problem at time but for the most part it did help clean up lobbies. The in-game chat NEEDS to be fixed for sure, that would boost the Forza Community immensely.

34

PJTierney, people want CPLs for more than just to be totalitarian dictators over their own lobby to kick people. Not everybody only cares about boring racing, many people enjoyed custom games. FM4 allowed for people to join lobbies and crash into other people, playing soccer, tag, cnm and others which actually took a lot of griefers out of regular lobbies, because they could get their bump and grind elsewhere

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35

So is there a system yet to report wreckers via saved replays?

36

We don’t know, nothing has been mentioned.

37

The suggestions that PJTierney had brought up 2 months ago might not totally sooth the burn of no CPLs, but it is, to me, enough compromise and consideration to the player base to be fair.

I think it would take some of the ‘fun’ out of the dirty driving that some folks desire.

However there was a consistency and order to the CPLs back then that can’t be replaced. After awhile people had lobbies that you knew would be there are certain times - like after work or on Friday nights (man I miss those Friday nights). I could trust to jump right in with certain familiar names, quickly get some good racing/chat in, and also in a very good lobby, take turns on choosing tracks of vehicle class. Keeping the lobby clean was someone what of a nice side effect of having the CPLs, but you still had some of that stuff happening back then.