I’m no leaderboard warrior by any means but I was in a lobby yesterday that averaged perhaps 8 or 9 players. Some of these had quite low XP and were obviously new to the game (early Christmas present perhaps) and others were in the 2 and 300s. There was the usual banger racing going on but once clear I was lapping sometimes as much as 10 seconds quicker. This is way too much. Some of this was perhaps a lack of practice but the main problem was with the setup of the other players cars. All power but an inability to slow or corner. We’ve all seen this time and again. Would it improve MP if there were either some properly pretuned cars for the novice or maybe even a handicap system where the higher your XP the lower the PI you’re allowed. I think that many of the wreckers out there are doing it out of frustration/boredom because they can’t get to grips with the cars. This isn’t a “wish list” thing - just interested in other people’s thoughts. I’d rather see close clean racing even if some of the grid was made up of cars with a performance advantage.
MP is a wreckfest already sometimes and you think giving the wreckers faster cars is a good idea? If you have absolutely no clue what you are doing you should play singleplayer first. And if you have more XP it doesnt mean you’re a better driver, I have a 3200+ level and there are many guys that are so much faster than me with a lower driver level. So the handicap system wouldnt work.
I don’t think you read my post correctly. Better tunes, not faster. Sure, there are wreckers out there who do it deliberately and who are capable of running decent laps but in my experience it’s usually slow guys in powerful but wayward cars that they’re unable to tame. If MP is going to work well something should be introduced to “teach” players. I’m not a great fan of career, I find them a bit boring and like many I prefer to jump in online.
There should be a tutorial for the game showing newbies where the tunes are. One of the mods, can’t for the life of me remember who, tuned all the release cars so that they were all reasonably drivable. Problem with this game and always has been is the gamers coming to this game and thinking it will drive like need for speed and they don’t have to worry about corners; rather than it being all about the corners.
you never played fm1. the first half of the game was a driving tutorial basically. you had to beat another car to advance/level up. cars were level restricted, if you weren’t that level you could not use or even buy that level car. you wanted to race f1? you had to earn it, you had to be level 50 meaning you had to beat every other test/race before 50. i dont care if you had 100 million credits, if you hadn’t won the race/test you couldn’t buy or use that ferrari #12. when you got in a level 50 race you know everybody else was gonna be good or playing under someone elses account. yes there were still turn 1 problems, blue mountains 1st turn was the bathurst 1st turn, but you didn’t have pros and noobs all on the same track at the same time.
it has not always been like this. in fm1 the assist was they gave you a tutorial to teach you how to do it for yourself. there was no autobrake, damage was always on, you could damage you car so much you had to sit track side and wait for the race to end. you could trash a tranny or blow an engine. you could run out of gas. you could choose how much gas to put in, how much damage to repair for a lower pit time/vs a better car. you could blow your tires out. you did have to do endurance races of atleast 25 laps, you had to be good consistantly, not just get lucky for a bit.
if you ever get a chance play fm1. you’ll come away thinking “now this is what i wanted”.
and the mod was wormburner. i prefer takamis tunes but to each their own.
turn every assist on if you are new and need them. regulating pi by xp wont work, xp is a matter of how much you play not how good one is, xp is unrelated to skill. and the real problem is ego. there are lobbies for now people, but some experienced but not as good as they think they are people invade them looking for easy win. one day i got fed up with the wreck fest early morning gaming was. it was around launch for eastern europe i think. the average level was well under 100. i thought as long as i have to bee with new people i might as well pop in the new rooms and try to help those willing to admit being new get better, that its how fast you come out of a corner not how fast you can go in, basics like that. when i got in the beginner lobby there were alot of some levels over 500 accusing others of cheating and being wreckers. the “i have to be the winner every time” type. they weren’t trying to help anyone and were ramming everyone if they tried to pass.
if you want competative races you have to do it by average lap time. if you want to solve wrecking you have to sort people by how many wrecks they have vs average player. you are limited in what you can fix online, you cant reprogram people. and the biggest problem is egos, people thinking they dont need help because they are too good already. you wouldn’t believe how many time i got driving advice from a car/player i had just lapped cleanly. for me the solution was easy. i went back to playing off line. offline you can control the behavior of the other cars on the track to some extent. offline i have never had a car sitting at the side of the track waiting to take people out. turn ten can not even control behavior online. players with no server control forget it. perhaps your solution is if online sucks…dont do it. that was my solution and the only one that worked. this is not destiny or titan fall. it does have single player.
I am not seeing the correlation between better tuned vehicles, a tutorial and clean racing. Racing games have a different meaning and purpose for everyone - no amount of starter vehicles or forced training wheel exercises will change this. For one person, Forza is an opportunity play bumper cars while, for another person, its a game about sportsmanship and clean racing. In between lies such a great variance of gaming styles that trying to get everyone on the same page is absolutely pointless.
All these suggestions, I understand, are well meaning; but, folks, this is a videogame with a broad audience of racing interest and skill level. Quit thinking you can mold everyone into the perfectly behaving virtual driver and, instead, make yourself friends with those whom share the same concepts of racing etiquette. Then, take it to the private lobby. It is the best solution and Turn 10 adequately provides it to you with a wide range of event customization options.
Happy racing!
Lobby trolls are lobby trolls and nothing will change that. However, for the many thousands of youngsters or first timers who struggle with the game it seems reasonable to consider some tweaks to help them get up to speed. Let’s be honest, if, in order to play online it becomes necessary to put together a private lobby then there is clearly an issue and it would be extremely disappointing if the developers felt the need to move towards arcade in order to appeal to this broad audience. Given that you can elect to make the game more difficult if you wish I don’t see a problem if it were possible to make it a little easier, particularly until a player has reached a certain point, be it hours played, lap time or whatever. The problem with assists is that the tend to reduce outright pace and they’re very invasive.
Anyway, just kicking an observation around. I’m sure most here are familiar with the current private lobby options but thanks.
The entire career mode is, for all intents and purposes, a training ground. Maybe it’s not the best; but, I’ve never known Gran Turismo’s license system to have any positive effect on training gamers on how to drive courteously.
Oh, it’s just another one of those who predict Project C.A.R.S. to change the racing game world. That is, until the release date gets moved to the right, once again.
Easier? No its plenty easy and I don’t think tunes have all that much to do with it. Most cars built to top of their class can run top 1000 with a decent driver and if people are running that slow no ammount if tuning is going to have a drastic effect on lap times. A tutorial, license system, or anything that could punish blatant wreckers woukd be welcome in my eyes but given how forza tries to cater to everyone I don’t think it will ever happen… Oh well hope is coming in march
what happens in march? i missed something?
Project Cars
I’ve no idea how they’ve managed to deal with the MP issues though. I can’t really imagine it’ll be any different and if (as some suspect) it’s a little more challenging than FM then the MP will likely be even worse.
The answer is user created lobbies (F1 game style) where you set everything up and you control it. So MP will be amazing on Project CARS.
Competition… Never said anything of the sort there shadow, but the bar is certainly set low
That’s okay, IR STiGGLES. I can read between the lines. Heh.
I said hope… Forza taught me never to buy into the hype 
I doubt that giving a new racer a car with a better tune will make him competitive. People who are really quick are still quick even in an untuned car. It takes countless hours of playing/practice. You have to learn vehicle dynamics, game physics, technique, and a lot of self control. Takes time. A good car won’t help a newbie.
You know, there is a trend on this forum not to read the thread properly and post a oblique reply. The other trend is to only state what won’t work, can’t be done, isn’t liked etc etc.
I only conjectured as to the merits of assisting (should they wish it or need it) new or inexperienced players so that MP is better for all and racing a little closer. This isn’t really a discussion about what it takes to head up a leaderboard. As things stand, FM5 is being bundled with the XB1 this Christmas so for those who think MP is struggling now it’s about to get a great deal worse. Unless the MP experience is improved the future for games like FM may be at risk. I don’t buy many games for the single player aspect and like many I judge a game by the online experience. IMHO Forza, Project Cars and others have to do something to improve the situation.
“You know”… reading comprehension is kinda my thing. You wrote:
I gave a directly corresponding point of disagreement. I didn’t reply to the second part of your post, the wreckers and boredom, etc. I responded to the suggestion that the setup of a car, or the tune, will improve a novice’s ability to compete with someone 10 seconds faster. You wrote about the inability to corner, which is also what I spoke to. You stated that some of the problem may be due to a lack of practice but the main problem is vehicle setup. I disagreed. Do you not like being disagreed with?
Then it wouldn’t have escaped your attention that I was asking a question, not arguing a point.
Here’s the thing. Today (as it’s just past midnight) my 9 year old grandson gets an XB1 which comes with a few bundled games. One of these is FM5. This is a normal games bundle targeted at adults and kids alike. He will have zero interest in career mode and sometime later today will be in a lobby near you. He’s only a 9 year old kid so quite clearly he’ll crash a lot, an awful lot. Some would say he shouldn’t be allowed the game as its too hard. Well, tell that to the developers, Microsoft, retailers and marketing companies and all the parents who’ve sunk their hard earned into buying it. So here we have my Grand kid plus several hundred thousand just like him let loose on the servers. So, I’ll stand by my opinion that just perhaps there ought to be some sort of provision made to enable him, me and you to share a lobby without too much resulting havock. If not, then there is a possibility that slightly more “grown up” racing games (and I include Project Cars should it arrive) may have a limited life span on consoles.