What you ran into is the typical leaderboard car mentality. Basically, people who drive leaderboard or dummy cars (cars that even your grandma could set a top 1% lap in on any track) do not slow down, ever. They follow their braking line and they do not deviate from it. If youâre in the way when they come around, tough cookies, pal. They donât understand the concept of a clean pass. This mentality flourishes in the community and itâs honestly ruining the online experience.
That actually brings me to a little rant of my own. People in hoppers literally have no clue how to race. They donât know how to yield, they donât know how to brake, they donât understand a racing line, and they donât understand how to compensate for cars with different strengths.
Take your Tesla for instance. Yeah, sure, that has some serious strengths with its out of corner acceleration, but I without even seeing it can tell that it suffers in braking and corner entry. Any idiot with an IQ higher than 7 could tell that. Now, if Iâm coming up on a Tesla, am I going to sit right behind it? No, thatâs moronic. I would dive to one side or the other in an attempt to outbrake you, which again, anybody in a car that weighs less than two tons could perform such a task. The problem is that most people donât seem to be able to wrap their head around the concept. Itâs always âI hit you, so itâs your fault.â
Another example I see constantly (which this actually ended up getting me banned because of how childish the other person was) is the cases where you outbrake someone, get your nose under them, and they still decide to come down on you and attempt to take the inside line. They clip your front fender, and they spin. Whose fault is that? Yours, apparently. Corners have several different lines, usually an inside and outside, and sometimes a middle depending on how wide the track is. In most cases when youâre racing solo, itâs outside on the approach, then you drift inside, apex, and accelerate outside. The problem is that. These people have their braking line on, and as I said, never deviate from them, regardless of if thereâs a car in the way. I donât even know where youâre supposed to pass these people.
Then you have the aftermath. Oh boy, this partâs fun because youâve done everything you can to be clean, but now youâre the center of attention. If theyâve brought a race team, you better bet theyâre all gonna go aggro against you, regardless of the fact that you havenât done anything wrong. Their teammate is a golden boy angel who is perfect in every single way. If youâve done that, more than likely you can kiss clean racing goodbye for the rest of the time youâre in the lobby, and a new trend Iâve seen is race teams mass reporting people to get their reputation ruined, therefore disabling their ability to matchmake in ANY game, basically banning them from Xbox Live. Yeah, players en masse now control who gets banned. Past that, you have a choice. You can either keep your cool and let them wreck you for 92 races in a row, or you can leave the race and block them so you wonât match up with them. Sounds simple right? No, and hereâs why.
Blocking people on Xbox Live as we know makes it to where they canât message you, canât send invites, canât matchmake to you, and you the same. Thereâs a huge problem with that, because of how toxic the Forza community is. You block, block, block, and block some more, and then all of the sudden when you go to find a game, nothing. Iâd say that in any class you have roughly 3 or 4 active lobbies going at any one time, and once you block enough people, those people will be in at least one of those lobbies a piece. Now you canât play. They drove badly and wrecked you, more than likely over something that was their fault to begin with, so youâre the one who gets punished essentially.
âSave the replay and email Turn 10 about it.â If I had a dollar for every time Iâve heard this, Iâd be a very rich man. There are problems with this as well, seeing as you only get 10 slots to save replays. Most of us want to save spots for real races that were actually interesting, not just someone named xX SwagBOIIIZ Xx wrecking us in an Alfa 33. Even if you do get someone banned, which Iâm pretty sure I have in the past, they just make another Gamertag and keep racing, doing the same garbage as before. You can ban accounts, but you canât ban the entitlement mentality.
So yeah, Iâm banned. Again. I know a lot of you are furiously typing away âAHAHAHAHAHAH U DESERVD IT REPORT AN BLOCCâ but if youâll just give me a moment, Iâll explain how getting banned works. Basically, you have step one, the initial conflict. In most cases, people just brush it off, because honesty not everybody is completely insane, but then you do have the types of racers who get angry at the least little bump, even if they cause it. Then they start hitting you at every corner, smashing you off at every single chance. They arenât going to pass you cleanly ever. You could leave and block them, but thatâs the last lobby youâre able to matchmake into. You either turn off Forza, go back in and face it, finishing near the end of the field every race, or you stand your ground. I chose to stand my ground in my case, because blocking people only ends up ruining your experience. Well you fight back, so next race, they wreck you again. You stand your ground. Next race, you get the opportunity to take them out first, so you do, and your race goes perfectly, no problems at all. Next race you know theyâre fuming mad, possibly foaming at the mouth drooling on their controller and shaking in sheer rage, so you take them out in turn one to keep from having your race ruined again, but guess what? They anticipated this, and they save the replay and email Turn 10. Now who looks like the bad guy? You do.
Turn 10 has a report system that allows for serious one sided arguments. One can be the aggressor time and time again, then just take one race, act nice and donât start anything, framing the other driver and getting them banned. There is no appeal process. There is no way to actually talk to anyone. There is no way to go back and prove you werenât doing anything wrong. Holier than thou types on the forums will treat you like dirt because all banned people are lesser beings to them, and you wonât get anywhere, and they always tell you to send an email to Turn 10. What does that return? Automated replies, every time.
So then you have an ultimatum. When you get unbanned, what do you do? If youâre like me, youâre on strike 2, and next time Iâm banned for good. I have until the end of the year for Forza 7, and now I actually have to be completely passive. What does being passive entail? Well, as I said before, blocking people does absolutely nothing except for punish you and make it to where you canât find any lobbies, so thatâs out of the question. You could message people as I usually do and either let them know you didnât like how they took you out, or ask them to please watch their blind spots, but most of the time you just get a reply full of profanity blaming you for their mistake. You could stand your ground, but then youâre just gonna get banned forever, so whatâs the good in that? You could report people via the wonky process of saving over your good replays and then emailing Turn 10, but even if they do get banned, they just hop on one of several accounts they have to bypass it.
So Iâve offered a lot of complaints and problems, but no real solutions. Truth is, I donât have many. Turn 10 has made an effort to stop bad behavior in lobbies by adding tire walls to trouble sections of tracks where slow people cut corners, cutting back on the amount of accidents they cause, and theyâve implemented the race marshal program, but truth be told, Iâve only seen 2 race marshals, and theyâve both been Raceboy77. Did they not appoint any more than that? Plus, why stick a big Turn 10 badge next to their name? Itâs like in real life when everybody is speeding on the highway and they see a cop. They slow down. Nobodyâs going to act up while authority is in plain sight. Race marshals shouldnât have a big arrow pointing at them like âHI DONâT DO ANYTHING BAD AROUND ME OR IâLL BAN YOU.â
Maybe Iâll just abandon hopper lobbies. Maybe Iâll stick to rivals and join leagues and such so I can actually race with clean drivers who understand racing lines, clean passing, yielding, etc. I know a lot of people here arenât the ones to blame, as it seems like the people who get the short end of the stick are the ones who complain, after all, what do the bad drivers have to complain about? They race dirty, wreck people, and report people for retaliating. If they get banned, they just make new accounts. Everything is handed to them on a silver platter, and weâre made to suffer. What can we do as a community? Well, we could just not buy Forza 7, but then what do we have? Thereâs not a lot out there for Xbox gamers to even play. You can always switch to Gran Turismo but that involves buying an entirely separate console, and honestly, GT just doesnât even hold a candle to Forza, then you get to deal with the wreckers on there, which Iâve heard is just as big of a problem on there, if not worse, than it is on here.
Either way, Iâm taking a break, albeit not by my own choice, and now I just have to do some thinking. Do I let bad drivers ruin my races and finish like garbage in hoppers? Do I give up on hoppers and try to find more dedicated racing for people who appreciate good racing etiquette? Do I risk fighting back as Iâve done before, only to have race teams mass report me or have people with an entitlement mentality frame me and get me banned permanently? Do I block everybody on Forza and never even get to find a lobby to begin with? Weâll see in a month.
