I just want to see if I’m imagining it or if others agree… I think there’s a huge difference between street races, which I find easy, and rally events, which I find maddeningly tough. I would almost say three settings difference in difficulty. I don’t understand how the drivatars can be such pushovers in the one and so fierce in the other. To make it a question: do you too find there to be a big difference, or am I just that great at street racing? 
On the one hand you are not alone as others have raised it before.
However I find them about the same or cross country events slightly easier.
I think the issue is people do not know how to be quick in the cross country events or they are too cautious or they are using tunes that simply do not cut it off road. On road is what they are used to so they seem to do better there.
I do not view the difficulty as being any different between the race types.
My suggestions:
- Do not be scared to make mistakes in single player. Restart if you have to. Rewind if you have to. But in general lift your pace.
- Tune your cars to turn and grip. I mean tune here NOT build. I have race tyre builds and stock tyre builds. Both can be useful or useless depending on whether they are tuned properly. Most people would judge my cars as being very oversteery.
- Don’t try and be perfect offroad. Try different things but in general lift your pace.
- The age old offroad Horizon debate - GRIP DONT DRIFT. That is my opinion and I am sticking to it - do not think you are on dirt, grass whatever so drifting must be the quickest way. Sometimes I will drift deliberately but it is a reaction to an incorrect corner entry or speed. My aim will always be to maintain traction.
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Others have brought up this point a lot. Above, SatNite gave some sound pointers.
Personally, I find the Cross Country races much easier. Though it is fun to drift, it is not the fastest way through the event. Look for shortcuts, cut right in the flare though the checkpoint, try different routes, and find the best racing line - it is not always what the game says if you use the assist.
I find the opposite, actually. I destroy by 10 seconds or more offroad with difficulty maxed, on tarmac my margin of victory is much slimmer.
The drivatars don’t seem to take the corners as aggressively as they could: they don’t use the course, or their cars, to their fullest the way they do in street and circuit. They still barell down the straights, but one can easily outdrive them in the corners. Use ballsyness and daring-do to press home the pass.
Heed SatNiteEduardo and PPiDrive’s advice, these men know what they’re doing (though tuning is optional IMO). I’ll add this, too: Turn off TCS and STM if you haven’t already. Offroad, you often have minor wheelspin, and your car will slide about some, even when in control. The assists will try to correct these using the brakes, slowing you down. Keep the car stable using good throttle control and smooth steering, not assists.
You been reading your rival’s notifications lol. I give you a tougher challenge than Rosco Coltrane ever did 
To the OP if muscle is your thing listen to B Wald.
Ya keep stompin’ my best runs like that and I’m’a hafta unfriend ya, LOL
Or learn to tune after all XD
Tuning does make a difference, particularly on the leaderboards. I only meant to say a good build + some know-wots at the wheel are all one really needs to beat drivatars (and indeed, the average human opponent).
Yep and I just thought of a big omission from my list of advice.
THINK AHEAD. You must aim to exit the current checkpoint pretty much aiming for where you want to be before turn in at the next checkpoint. Line is critical.
Online I see so many people running wide all the time and therefore needing to come to almost a dead stop so they can make the next one. They try to take the current checkpoint narrow which is often the quick line but the angle is all wrong.
Tuning helps tighten the possible angle at any given speed.
If you have damage turned on, some cross-country events can cause mechanical damage without you making mistakes because you can be damaged by ramping and, I believe, smashing through obstacles. People expect to take damage if they slam into a tree or T-bone a car, but if you’re doing some major jumping you can sustain damage without making mistakes, and you can’t slow to avoid the major jumping because the Drivatars won’t do the same. Drivatars don’t take damage no matter what, even if they plow into a stone wall at 150 MPH and you have simulated damage, so you might lose a bunch of performance while they don’t. I’ve checked my damage near the end of cross-country races and had 20+% engine damage, 15+% transmission damage, brake damage, steering damage, and suspension damage, all of which hinder my performance, but without me having done anything wrong. Some of that is surely Drivatars hitting me, which isn’t my fault, but I take the damage while they don’t.
I feel they are a lot harder
There is also an issue with AI drivatars missing checkpoints and not being penalised. I had one where I was forced wide by an opponent (because of this ridiculous “turning in” that drivatars do) and both of us missed the checkpoint by some margin…
I got called back but he didn’t…
Personally, whilst I am loving FH2 I also find the cross country events frustrating at times…
looks like it’s more important for the developer to offer bonus stuff for extra money, than fixing bugs for thoose player how just have paid for it.
As people have said, if you have the right car and tune you’ll be able to sail through these races, the drivatars dont have a different build for offroad than street; although those jumps that end up flipping you can be a menace >.<
Try tuning your springs ,ride hieght,rebound ,bump stiffness, and differential. When offroad these settings ‘in my opinion’ are crutial in how your ride handles the terrain.
use the telemetry by holding the d pad down and watch your springs to make sure your not bottoming out
Add my voice to the “grip is king” chorus. I’ve posted elsewhere that initially I hated them (cross country events), even if I didn’t have a terribly hard time with them and really tried to avoid them.
Once I started doing Rivals Cross Country, I re-examined my approach to these races, here are my thoughts:
On car choice:
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FWD and AWD would probably be an easier time than RWD. RWD is super fun for me, but can be harder to be fast on dirt.
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prioritise grip when selecting a car. For Sprints / Street races on the highway you will have a rough time if you have a car with low top speed, likewise, for cross country low grip will be a big disadvantage.
On driving:
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slides / drifts are probably only faster if you really, really know what you are doing (eg: the slide slows you down, points you in the right direction and has the engine at the right rev range when you regain 100% grip to slingshot away without wasting time spinning the wheels going nowhere - quite difficult to get right consistently).
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go WIDE and make the turns more gradually - this will minimise unintentional slide potential.
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learn the course. There are many many more variables than a circuit, so it could take many re-runs to find optimal lines, particularly over jumps. Indeed some jumps you should hit full throttle, others you coast over and others still you should slow down for - then there are lines that go through clumps of trees etc.
Overall - it’s not more difficult but it is different and there are more variables. If you’re used to tarmac racing, it requires a bit of adjustment - but not much really.
After I adjusted to cross country in the main Horizon 2 game, loading into Storm Island didn’t require much adjustment at all - even the extremely annoying first Gauntlet race in the Stadium truck only required me to adjust to the truck more than the track.
p.s. I race in cockpit view with no driving assists except full driving line which I use just because I get distracted so often by other cars and the environment that I forget which way I am driving sometimes hehe I just get caught up in the immersion, I’ll start to stare at the detailing in the tail lights or exhausts or even the badges of another car mid race …
Whilst I agree with most of what RaindancerAU says I just want to suggest one thing.
GRIP is king for cross country but if you get the hang of doing that in your driving then adjusting your builds to have less grip and more power will result in better leaderboard times.
You just need to learn the grip driving technique first.
But don’t go overboard.
In A class if you are in a natural rally car I would suggest that you test with sport tyres. Even on Storm Island I am using sport tyres not rally or race. But to do so you must have your driving spot on.
If people are struggling I would suggest starting with race or rally tyres until you feel quite confident and then move on to the more powerful builds with sport tyre.
EDIT: I also see people tuning their cross country vehicles for understeer. What this does is makes the cars harder to turn which means the user will push harder to turn and induce an oversteer. Then people think they must tune in more understeer.
I suggest people tune the cars to turn and get used to managing your inputs. That way you will always have turning ability if you need to and you will not induce oversteer as much.
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im not as knowledgable as the likes of eduardo or the other guys here, but one thing ive learned about forza tuning over the years (ive played them all, FORZA 1 red line engine damage FTW, lol) is always go for grip builds first, power is literally the last thing i change, and only then if i HAVE to to max out pp in a class.
this is particually true (for me anyway, this is all just my opinion), with storm island, because taking massive cuts off the track to get good leaderboard times in rivals is one thing, but the AI can defo give you a run for your money in the career mode.
there’s no point in having buckets of power if the car is ‘digging in’ with assists and swinging sideways while wheel spinning, it just ruins your speed/time. its best to have a car that handles the BHP its already got, then and only then do you add power/ remove grip.
take no notice of the top speed on a car anyway, a car with 7.0 speed can beat a car with 8.0 speed if its lighter and doesnt take an eon to get up to max, take no notice of these stats, go for grip first, then you can cut corners, while keeping the car straight, speed up and power on the ground without spinning, then you’ll destroy the A.I
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The guys have said it all above, traction is your friend here, it’s all about how you cope with the course your on. Whether it’s your grip levels to cope with cornering, acceleration, braking which is aided by the car your in or your thinking ahead because you have course knowledge or know the limits of the vehicle you re in, combining these gives you confidence to actually drive your car and will more often than not get you from start to finish quicker than a power build. People still turn up with S1/S2/X class road built cars thinking this will aid them-it will never help you if you ignore all the above points posted by those above, I’ve seen people in silly cars for the course they are about to run and being so confident at the start, then they wonder why they manage to complete just over 50% of the race before the timer runs out.
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As a drifter in Forza 4 (both points and tandem) and this game (free-world mad-skidding), I will say that grip is and will probably always be king in Forza racing. This franchise is not like ridge racer, even in low class touge racing or higher class offroad racing. Drifting gets you nowhere, even if you use shallow angles on the tightest of sections. Every once in a while a drift is faster, but over the course of a full race you may only need to drift once, if ever. Cross country and other offroadish events demand a driving style I like to call vectoring. You turn at whatever speed you need to, haul straight towards the next point, slow down as much as you need to, turn fully towards the next point, WOT, and repeat. Drifting is not good at all in Forza races, because it scrubs way too much speed and makes you lose traction to the point where you are shooting off the course. Most of the time when I drift in these races it is because I made a big mistake. That, or I didn’t see a tree thanks to a fat drivatar, and bounced off it like Takumi bounced off that guardrail, just with a bit less grace and more damage.
Just tune your car to a point where you like how it feels and drive it as straight as possible. It may not be as fun, but really nothing is more fun than winning. Except winning by crossing the line on your roof. That is too much fun.
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my impression is that FH2 is supposed to be a ‘noob’ friendly casual game
it is supposed to be a game for all skill levels… even Forza 5 has massive concessions to the ‘new’ driver
it then puzzles me then that the jump in difficulty on the offroad sections is so pronounced… and often unfair
i too have seen the AI not being penalised for missing the checkpoints and i mean only 2 or 3 cars made the checkpoint, the rest skipped it with no penalty
and i witnesses absolutely impossible turns of speed eg. being overtaken by the Fiat 500 on the straights
i’ve taken to ‘cheating’ to a degree… at my level 80+, i have plenty of cash so i have specially tuned cheater cars, if i need to go offroad I use the Audi 4wd cars or I use the Mercedes E class or the Nissan R34
even with the Offroad class I use the Hummer since I found it to be the most stable due to the long wheelbase
i know people here are highly skill Forza drivers and this place is full of apologists (which is fair enough, I like Forza over the others) but for people to say “I dont have a problem so there is no problem” is giving Turn 10 a free pass… they didnt fully playtest the difficulty level for it to be this pronounced
obviously a bit of rubber banding is expected but it seems to be poorly implemented in the offroad races
btw. shouldnt you be able to win EVERY race with an untuned stock car? you shouldnt need to jump over hoops to win a race - this isnt Forza 5 is it?
In my opinion it`s more like you like to do by yourself Offroad or street racing?
In my eyes the Storm Island offroad is not really my thing. I am a good driver but if you hit a jump a little bit wrong you can land on your roof or you take a jump wrong and you are in a tree with your head. Ofcourse it`s about skills in my opinion 30% skills 70% luck i was on first place so many times and i finish 4th or 5th place because of 1 tree or jump…