My Honest View on FM7 (Not Another Negative Posting)

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM7 Discussion
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I have never posted here before, but I have lurked and read the forum for quite some time. What I have seen since FM7 was released is an overwhelmingly negative reaction towards the game. Having now played the game a bit, I felt like expressing my feelings about it. So, here is my take.

First off, a little about me and my background. I have been playing Forza Motorsports since the first installment came out in 2005. I have logged significant playing time all the FM games with the exception of FM5 (didn’t buy an xbox one until FM6 came out) and I had the “premium” versions of FM4, and FM6 (including the FM6 edition xbox one) with VIP. I pre-ordered Ultimate Edition FM7. I have minimal experience with the Horizon games…I only have played FH1 because it was a free “games with gold” recently.

Let me first say that overall…I like this game. Yes, it has some bugs and issues and it’s not perfect. But, it’s a lot of fun to play. I game is very “pretty.” The vehicles themselves don’t seem to have major visual upgrades verses FM6 but the environment certainly does. I felt like FM6 was a little too prone to over steering and I feel like that has been improved in this game. Overall, the physics feel pretty good to me for what this is…a video game. It doesn’t feel like a high end racing sim…but that’s not what it is intended to be.

With each of the 6 FM installments that I bought as a new release, there have been features that I liked and didn’t like. With subsequent installments, there were new features that I liked and didn’t like as well as removed features that I was glad to see gone…and some that I missed. The same is true of this game.

Early FM games (if memory serves me it was FM1 and FM2 only) had a credit bonus for “rarity” of the car. You would pick your region and cars from outside of that region would be more expensive and rarer. The more exotic and rare the care you drove…the more bonus you got in the race. I missed that when they removed it. I think at one time you lost money after a race for any damage that your car received during the race (have to pay to get it fixed)…but that was removed too. I loved my DeLorean in FM4…but it’s gone.

And then we have FM7. The first major change that really jumped out to me was the homologated car divisions. One of the hallmarks of Forza for me was taking a car of my liking and “building” it to fit a certain race. The homologation system sorta takes that out of the game…at first this was a bit disappointing. I do see how it makes the races more evenly matched and does provide for better racing, but part of the fun was modifying the cars myself. I think in the effort to make more realistic racing classes, T10 has taken a little of the fun out of it…but for me this isn’t a major issue. It’s an example of something that I will “miss” but in reality probably makes the game more competitive. So, I can’t complain too much.

The idea of “car collecting” has taken a new extreme in this game and it’s another thing that I don’t love. I think having some of the cars locked behind tiers that can only be unlocked if you have “enough” cars is a little silly. But, I think that it forces the player to use a wide array of cars. Why have a huge car library if you aren’t going to use them. I think the game developers had to justify having so many cars by making you get as many of them as you can. I know this has been an achievement in the past, but I think it is a little overdone in this game. Now, you can unlock all the tiered cars pretty easy as tier 5 is easy to reach…but it just seems a little overdone to me.

One of the things I loved about previous FM titles was being rewarded for brand loyalty. I have a special love for certain types of cars so I tend to drive them as much as I can in FM games. It probably sounds like a crazy combination…but I love my Camaros and Ferraris. Not surprisingly, I would achieve very high affinity levels for Chevrolet and Ferrari in previous titles. I liked that they gave bonuses for that. It fit the way I played. Having lost that doesn’t change how I play, but I’m sad to see the reward go. However, this change does make sense to me. One of the big selling points of FM7 is the huge car library. Why reward players for driving fewer cars? I doesn’t make sense. Even still, it’s another feature I liked that is gone.

But, all these things that I have mentioned are small detail items that don’t make or break the game. I have really enjoyed playing it and frankly the bulk of the things I have mentioned wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t been playing since FM1.

I think the biggest issue I have seen is that those of us who have been playing this series for a long time have unrealistic expectations. We want all the good things from the previous titles, but all the less than good things removed. We want new good features…but we don’t want any bad ones (of course, the “bad ones” aren’t apparent until the game gets played). We want it released yesterday…but we don’t want any glitches. What we want isn’t realistic. Also, “we” don’t even have a consensus of what we want. Plus, Microsoft and T10 have to also worry about appealing to young players and attracting new customers in an ever changing market…not just keeping the “old” players like me (I’m 32) happy. It’s simply not possible to do it all perfectly. Considering the challenge, I think they done OK.

I do have a couple legitimate complaints about the game…but they are much of the same that others have said. Loading times are too long and the game is a bit glitchy at times. But you know what…so was FM6 when it first came out. I know people are complaining that the game “wasn’t ready” when it was released…but I can’t remember a game that hit the market in recent years that issues didn’t crop up with early on. I think the number of hours needed to find all issues with modern games simply isn’t possible prior to release. I have no doubt that these issues will be fixed.
The VIP thing upsets me like everyone else…but again, the issue is supposed to be fixed soon. Although I am bothered by what happened, I’m glad they are fixing it. This won’t affect me from buying FM8 when it comes out, but I might be a bit more leery of preordering the deluxe edition and might make me read the fine print more carefully.

My only other big dislike with this game comes with the crates…and I think my dislike here is more a fear of the unknown. I don’t really care for the whole crates/mods system. I didn’t love the mods in FM6 and I don’t particularly enjoy how it is expanded in FM7. Thus far, I have avoided them for the most part and am having a good experience in the game without them. I’m hoping it doesn’t turn out that some of the cars are only crate available…but time will tell. Of course, the microtransaction issue is also a concern. I think it is safe to say that the one thing that would drive me from buying future FM games would be if microtransactions become needed to really play the game. I hope it doesn’t get there…but you never know. If it does, well then there are a bunch of older FM games that I still enjoy and will keep playing.

Yes, there are a handful of little features and changes that I don’t love…but there are some that I do. The game looks and feels great…and that’s what’s important. There are a ton of cars and the career mode is the best they have ever done in my opinion. At least for me, the game has all the things it needs to be an excellent game…and I am enjoying it. It’s not perfect, and some of those things should get fixed…and some of the new features don’t perfectly appeal to me. But, overall…I like this game.

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Well written and thought out but you make a lot of assumptions about the motivations of other people, what they want and how they play the game.

While I do not speak for anyone else, you are 100% wrong about me, a fellow 'old timer.

I stay loyal to a brand because I, well, like it. Also it’s because I know that the next time I buy it, I am going to get the same or at the very least similar experience. I was a Coke drinker for many years because I knew that every time I bought a Coke, it would still taste like a Coke. If I bought a Pepsi, it wouldn’t be fair of me to be angry that my new Pepsi doesn’t taste like my Coke.

Now when I go buy a Coke, and some soulless husk of a human being replaces my beloved sugary soft drink with “New Coke” that tastes like it was filtered through a jock strap I feel like I have every right to be a little upset about it. I didn’t ask for some new Coke bull@$%. For those out there old enough to remember, “Coke Classic” was introduced and due to poor sales, “New Coke” was dropped entirely.

The moral of this story is that change for the sake of change is seldom good. Also, just because you want to add some new features, doesn’t mean you need to hack out the familiar core of the game that many have come to love.

Secondly, you are also 100% wrong about how I played the game. You make the assumption that the old way of being able to upgrade and tune a car for any situation resulted in people owning less cars. Again, I can’t speak for everyone but I personally owned over 60 A-Class tuned cars in FM3, FM4 and FM6. FM5 wasn’t out as long and if I remember correctly B Class was more like A Class in that game. I also had near 50 cars tuned for S Class but hopefully you see the point I’m making. Those classes had variety. Not everyone likes the same cars but the Class and PI system was invented to create a level playing field for all car types.

The Honda fan could race with the Chevy fan. The (cheaper) Ferraris could run in the same class as the Dodge fans. This was racing at it’s very best for me. Sure there were dominant cars for each class and track but that’s true in real life too. For what it’s worth, there are still dominant cars in Homologation groups too.

I’m happy for you that you love the game. Hard to believe but I love it too. I have more hours than I care to admit spent racing in Forza Motorsports over the last decade and I don’t walk away from that. Ultimately I’m still going to keep playing FM7 because it’s what I have and I’m not ready to trade in my Forza Motorsports 5 Jacket for a Gran Turismo one just yet.

It’s because I am such a fan of Turn10 and everything that they have created over the years that I am so disappointed.

Scott

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Thank you for taking the time to read what I had to say and commenting on it.

It was not my intention to assume what other players (old timers like us or otherwise) think or how they like to play. In fact, I was trying to say that we all have unique ways of playing and unique ideas as to how the game should be. The perfect game for me (based in large part by my experiences with previous titles in the series) would likely different greatly to yours or anyone elses. Combine that with the fact that T10/MS are trying to appeal to a newer generation of gamers and trying to keep the game from becoming stagnant and being the same year after year (I’m looking at you Madden). I just don’t know if they can please everybody 100%. I’m really curious to see how the game is in a few months once its had a few patches and the initial “rage” has worn off.

As far as the Homologation issue, don’t get me wrong…I don’t like it. I may have sugar coated it too much in my original post. One of my favorite features of FM1-6 was taking a car and applying it to a given race. As an example, my daily driver is a 2002 Camaro SS 35th anniversary edition…so I would use that car a lot in the game for a variety of races. I can’t do that now…at least not in career mode. What I was trying to say is I understand what they were trying to do and it made sense to me…and now that I have had to experience it a little bit I am “less disappointed” than before. It is forcing me to drive a wider variety of cars than I would have before…so that’s kinda cool too.