Offroad races problems

Hello everybody,

I’m pretty new to the Forza community, so please excuse me if there’s something I don’t understand. Forza Horizon 2 is the first Forza game I ever played.

I’m playing it for three weeks now and usually, I have no problems beating the drivatars. That is until it gets to the offroad races.
I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but in the off-road races, I have huge problems to catch up with the other drivatars. It seems like they
are all faster than me and know exactly how to drive through curves perfectly. My cars are always slingering from left to right and if I have the luck to
get to the top, I’m easily passed by the next second.

Storm Island is practically hell for me. I had to repeat races over and over again to get good rankings.

Are there any tricks to the off-road races I could try? Does anyone of you have this problem, too?

Thank you for your help!

Try reading this thread http://forums.forza.net/turn10_postst30979_Offroad-Starting-Template.aspx

I personally tune quite differently from this but this will definitely stabilise the cars.

If you try it and are still struggling post how you found it and we can try and help you some more.

Thank you for your comments! I’m sorry but I guess I can’t use this tuning options because I use the German version and there the values
are displayed completely different. I will try to figure to figure them out, anyways.

Try this:

Switch your settings to the standard values. Put them the way Kitty recommends, and then switch back to the metric values. The sliders should remain in place, and you can write down what the metric equivalents are.

Stay smooth, reduce throttle in the corners and don’t over-correct when you start sliding.

Learn the offroad tracks, find the smoothest lines, know where the most upsetting bumps are and avoid them. Spend as little time airborne as possible.

Try using an AWD car like a Subaru or Ford Escort Cosworth, they’re easier to handle offroad. Upgrade it to emphasize handling, and use the Storm Island heavy-duty suspension (if you have that DLC).

Good luck brah

Dont worry, you’re not the only one, for me its as if the drivertars are from another planet, even with a sweet car and brilliant tune with storm island parts, I usually never place first, always struggling on the ragged edge for a second or third spot, and this is with the drivertars turned down to their most basic “new driver” difficulty, where as anything tarmac I can jostle with the medium to hard drivertar difficulty’s and even dicking about and not totally focusing on a good race, still come out on top

I guess im just that bad at offroad racing, as even getting serious and trying the best I can, its still not enough to beat these damned robots haha

Use some throttle control. Going full power all the time is not beneficial all the time.
Use input control, be careful with your turning and steering inputs, and be careful not to over correct.
Don’t drift - it’s fun to drift, and it’s fun to slide around but it’s not the fastest way through the course. If you do slide for some corners, don’t over emphasize the corrections. You’d be surprised how helpful it can be to sometimes just put the thumbstick in the middle.
Wait for your front wheels to be straight before mashing the throttle.

It’s also fun going airborne, but it’s quicker to stay on the ground.

Okay, I tried the tuning now and it really is a bit better, although I have the feeling that I’m driving a wobbly jelly instead of a car.

But still, the other drivers are very fast. I always set the Drivatars to New Driver. Could there be a bug which causes the game not to regonise that
it should use easy Drivatars in Offroad races?

There are other people who feel the same way as you but it is my opinion that the drivatars are no faster offroad than on.

What I believe is happening is people are sued to driving on tarmac and they have preconceptions about how to be quick offroad but in reality get it wrong.

My advice for people struggling offroad is:

  1. Do not upgrade your cars too far eg stick to B and A class if possible.
  2. Use AWD cars or AWD swaps.
  3. Go grip not power (just to build up your confidence to start).
  4. Whilst I suggested using Kitty’s template that is for stability. I tune differently from that. For example I tune my cars to turn, that does not mean they drift though. I believe in tuning cars for oversteer offroad and then managing your steering inputs. If people tune for understeer they are limiting their speed and they have to slow down to much to make turns.
  5. Aim to maintain traction at all times via your driving - do not plan on doing e brake turns and the like. Learn an outside to in approach to simple turns ie before entry be wide, clip the apex and exit narrowish.
  6. Think ahead so know what is coming up after the next turn so you exit turn 1 in a way that sets up turn 2 etc.
  7. Don’t be scared to try differnent things - this is a game. Hit a few trees so you know how fast is too fast and dial it down from there. People are being too cautious offroad in my opinion. You need to be quick, smooth, have cars that turn and maintain traction.

A lot of good info from Eduardo, there. I just want to remind you: don’t be afraid of the brakes. Taking a curve without wild drifting will give you a better result than flinging your car into evey bend at full throttle. (Just reiterating throttle control, too!)

There are other more thoughtful responses in this thread. My less thoughtful response is to use REWIND. I pretty much hate Storm Island because constantly having to rewind for the sudden appearance of trees or ditches or bumps or jumps that flip my car gets tiresome fast. Sometimes the placement of these things just seem like a lazy way for the designers to make the track more difficult and I just don’t understand how rewinding 20 times on a single track is supposed to be fun.