I’ve been watching YT reviews of Forza games posted when FMS7 and FH3 and FH4 were released.
Seems all these YT game review people don’t like highly realistic technical racing on real life racing circuits. Seems they’re all complaining about it being boring. And somehow, despite FMS7 featuring 200 different circuit configurations , closed circuit racing “puts them to sleep”. Weird, I don’t have the falling asleep problem even though I spend 95% of my time in FMS7 racing rivals class based time attack mode on the same 3 circuits. Maybe I haven’t gotten bored with it because there’s ~100 different cars in the divisions I normally drive so I get feeling familiar with one car with nannies on, turn off TCS and STM, learn it with those off, shut off the ABS, learn what that’s like on one track, then if I feel I’ve hit my best time I can based on leaderboard ranking, I switch to another car on the same track and go through that process again, and it’s new again because of performance and handling differences between the same car with nannies on/off and differences in cars within the same division.
I absolutely abhor the open world arcade lunacy of the Horizon series. IMHO the whole “driving” experience in FH4 is detestable nonsense for people that think racing on a tablet in 3rd person view is a rockin’ good time.
I love Rivals Mode in FMS7. I love the real life circuits featured FMS7. I love the 700+ cars available in Forza MS7. IMHO, keep those previously mentioned features while increasing the realism of the title(car handling/physics/tires/track surfaces/car damage models/fuel consumption/weather/engines sounds) much closer to the technical racing sim side of the spectrum.
Also another gripe, if a car has clearly visible flappy paddle shifters on the steering wheel, don’t have the driver’s hand move to the manual stick shift position on gear changes.
Anyway, I like both the circuit racing and the arcade-ish nonsense. It’s why I play both series. But I have to admit I’ve also fallen asleep playing both. Partially because I’m old and tired, but also because the drone of an engine can be a soothing lullaby and a tired brain on familiar roads tells convincing lies about autopilot. I’ve probably had it happen more often in the Motorsport series just because the roads tend to be more familiar.
I remember our league/group discussing Horizon (1, in Colorado) when it came out and being extremely excited at the prospect of “splitting the herd” and providing venues/games for the arcade racers and the sim racers via the Horizon and Motorsport series. We’re still waiting on them to do that.
Horizon is fun for a while, but it’s like all other “open world” games, you’re just doing the same things over and over again in a slightly different spot and with different scenery. )Horizon is really dropping the ball on it potential to be an off-roading simulator.) Motorsport is spending too many resources adding silly elements from Horizon and neglecting its core audience. Pit stops still stink - your crew can swap in a whole new engine or transmission, but they can’t fix your aero or body work. Public lobbies are terrible (you can’t tell me T10 gives a damn about racing when they put a figure-8 track in the circuit racing lobby’s track rotation), and private lobbies are too restricted still. Car choices and upgrades to not favor/are not tailored toward recreation of actual real-world racing outside of a few high-end series/cars. Each release gets further and further away from the built-not-bought weekend-warrior aspects of the earlier titles and main types of racing found all over the world.
You’re not an outlier, IMO, but T10 thinks you are; that’s abundantly clear.
Here’s to hoping they finally remove their heads from their posteriors for FM8.
Ok I admit it, i’m primarily a sim racer, RRE,AC, ACC,etc etc, BUT, I like Forza as a single player game, it looks lovely, yes, the physics are rubbish, the AI is just there to block you getting to the front, and the multiplayer options are abysmal, the only thing worse is the conduct of other players. Why can’t I set up my own race unless I have ‘friends’ to invite? I’m almost 60 fgs, why do I want 12yr old friends? in most countries, that alone would get me arrested.
No-one is punished for acting like a dolt either, and ruining several other players race, this game needs a safety ranking league, where safer. more considerate player can race without the idiots, as for the homologation, i’m all for it, i love racing stock cars, only ‘those’ people want to race 300mph, non turning rocket mini’s and for only one reason, to ram other people off the track and ruin their race.