Should this game be easier for first timers and kids?

dad have you played online? 9 years old? at 9 hes the child, your vote over rules his. he might think it would be more fun to play in the street, you have to over rule him. makae him play career first and learn the game. if you’ve been online you know what the language is like, you know how immature alot of the people are, the verbal abuse he’ll take, the insults he’s gonna get, etc… it might not be right but we both know whats going to happen. you have fore knowledge. you are going to blame the people online, but you are the one putting the 9 year old in that enviroment. you are responaible too. they dont know your grand son, they are not responsible for you. you are. parental controls are bult into xboxes for a reason, use them.

there are options. you take control. there are enough assists you can keep the gas floored and push the stick in the direction of the track/turn. the throttleing and braking will be on auto pilot. to get any easier there would have to be a “press a to automatically win.” if there will be thousands just like him start a private lobby for him and other children who wont be trading graphic stories about each others mothers sex lives, where the words please and thank you dont exist but you can learn to cuss in 20 different languages in a week. do you really want to give him verbal abuse for christmas? if not then dont. there is a point where you will have to choose between being the custodian and the best friend. you better error on the side of being custodian, failing that, failing to provide a safe and healthy enviroment is abuse. in a utopia if he woke up hungry in the middle of the night he could grab a dollar and walk to the store to grab a snack taking short cuts thru the alleys and be perfectly safe. we dont live in a utopia, we teach our kids stranger danger for good reason. there are strangers on xbox live…thousands of them.

he’s a child. you are the adult. you are responsible. you can expect your self to act like the adult or you can expect every player on live to act like an adult. you can control yourself, the xbox and your child. you cant control the other people on live. and you might as well expect santa to get stuck in your chimney tonight as to expect everybody on live to act adult, they have about the same chance of happening. you better jump on the option you have control over, the stuff between your xbox and sofa. its the only option you can get a decent result with. if you refuse the only control you have and let live take control…like you said…thousands and thousands of children. you have to be the chaperone. and yes you at times are going to have to be the bad guy in your childs openion, you are going to have to use the word no. but trust me the kid is gonna be much better off with you being the good bad guy as opposed to all the bad bad guys online.

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Being supercilious blinds you to the fact that I answered your question. My opinion, is that what you are asking about can’t be done. Maybe it wasn’t the answer you wanted.

My advice is to stop policing people’s replies to your threads. This is a discussion forum. Not everyone is going to type precisely the response you want. You derail discussion that way. You can clarify as need to and ask more questions as a part of the discussion, but to tell people they don’t know how to read (as well as you) is insulting.

I hope you find the answers you want.

Forza wants to cater to everyone and exclude no one… They will not do anything about noobs or crashers besides saying " report and block " this issue is not new… Since the addition of the hoppers back in fm3 the ability to police a lobby or even effectively remove crashers has all but disappeared to cater to the casuals. Unfortunately its still the best we’ve got on console so we have no choice but to deal with it or play other games. The latter of which seems most common. My friends list is full or racers and the only ones that still race either jump on to hot lap for a bit or almost exclusively race in organized racing series

Get out of my head you! That was in essence what I was going to say.

However, I do agree that there should be something done about informing newer players the way multiplayer should be played and that there are wrecking game types elsewhere. It won’t fix anything for those who feel like being jerks, but it may help a few who have no idea what proper etiquette is.

I mean this issue was only caused by the forcing matchmaking on to a game where matchmaking is too generic for this style of game.

Lol, yeah I mean I would be all for finding a way to make online racing more competitive buy like I said earlier given forzas history I don’t see them doing a 180 on their current trends.

And bingo on that last sentence. Hoppers are fine for the playground type games but online play was definitely in its glory in fm2 and hasn’t been close since unless you get really lucky and find a bunch of good drivers in the same room and they all stay for a while

This is a little off topic, but I have a different view on this matter, hoppers work wonderfully for people like me, who’re not very engaging, prefer playing with complete strangers instead, and like to just jumps in and go.

I spent really long times racing in hoppers during Forza 4. In my experience, most of the time you just need to stay for a few races and the room is already filled with clean and competitive racers, the dirty ones got washed off really quickly, and had good racing after good racing in an easy short period of time. While in user create lobby, most of the time I spent in there were waiting, and the race qualities in there were mostly about the same as what you could also get in a hopper. Also, the regulations changes lobby by lobby, it’s really hard to adapt to each of them. All I need to do in hopper is build a few cars for each class and done.

What I mean is not that I don’t like user create lobby, is that it needs to gets an overhaul. I really enjoy the lounge system in GT5/6 despite being a loner myself, it’s similar to Forza’s user create lobby, but with a lot more features. In the lounge, you can jump to the track and “Free run” anytime before the host start a race (It can be set as a timer and let it automatically do so). During this free run you can qualify for better position, test your car and back off the track and change your set up immediately in this lobby. Also any cars can set up restrictors and ballast to match different performance point very easily. Everything is really engaging and gives you lots of freedom.

If future Forza doesn’t have something similar, I don’t see myself using player create lobbies anytime soon, instead, I look at it as just separating an already small enough community into even smaller, different groups.

Back to topic, the game shouldn’t be easier to first timer and kids, instead, they should make a good tutorial. A good tutorial that doesn’t feel like a tutorial and interrupt the flow of the game. Both GT6 and Forza 5 did a terrible job with “The first Race” imo. GT6 did it in a annoying way as it force to “pause” you everytime they had something to tell you during the run, very uninviting and honestly isn’t that useful. While in Forza, it didn’t teach you anything, and instead forces you to use all the assists possible in the race…even auto-braking? That only provide a message “So I don’t need to use any brake” to new players, no wonder so many new players play the game the way they did in arcade racers, because nobody tries the lead them to the right way from the very beginning.

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Nicely said. A better first couple races or tutorial would be nice. The issue with the current one isn’t that it uses all assists, but that it doesn’t tell you it does. People simply expect that that is how the game will always be, they change the assists and don’t understand what they’re doing.

I wouldn’t even mind a sort of skills challenge tutorial that can then be incorporated as a challenge (with leaderboard) into the game. It doesn’t have to be super fancy, but the first set of challenges should be easy, demonstrate what various things do, and not allow a player to pass until they finish. This would of course mean making them ridiculously easy to start, but hopefully it would help.

For example. One challenge could be as follows: In drag race style, race to the end of the stretch then stop in the lit box. You do it once to demo with assisted braking on, then the game hands over all control to you and you can either use ABS or no ABS. Once you stop the car in the highlighted area you move on. The highlighted area for this challenge is 3 or 4 car lengths long and about 150 feet past the finish line of the drag race. This makes a good tutorial about proper braking, brake distances, and the various brake assists.

  • Once you finish, you move on in the challenge tutorial. Later, you can return and do various other challenges of more difficulty that may involve higher trap speed, shorter braking distance, turning, or what have you that are more challenging. An example could be, go through this speed trap at at least 150 MPH then come to a complete stop in the highlighted area. I understand some of this may be more difficult on a track rather than Horizon setting, but there are several large open benchmark tracks and airport configurations that could be used or adapted for such purposes.

Imagine also a slalom challenge, various traction control challenges, a cornering exercise, who knows…

I think something like this could be made so it isn’t boring, teaches beginners basic concepts while allowing returning players to play through rather quickly, it would add an extra layer or activity to the game, and it would increase the replay factor and longevity of the game.

Yes, i did read your post correctly but as this is a racing game Better=Faster for me. And there are enough driver aides already in the game as rdo3 mentioned like racing line, ABS, auto shift, etc. for those that are new at racing. Also if you go into a lobby and pick a car with a low PI there is a pop-up already where you get the option to upgrade and the most popular tunes are in the first screen. The problem is that every single lobby is available for those noobs and being able to rent a car doesnt help either.
Maybe it is better to have at least some lobby’s locked until you pass some test, altough I really did hate those licences in Gran Turismo.

Exactly. IMO this game caters to noobs and casuals enough already. But even with the best cars and the best tunes you still need car control and proper lines to be fast. Most casuals don’t bother learning either which is their prerogative but if they don’t like it they would probably like horizon better anyway. even in horizon the ones with the best lines and car control are still heads and shoulders above the rest. And forza is already arcade enough, lets not make it horizon with real tracks

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Believe it or not, as IR STiGGLES said, Forza is already quite friendly to amateur players despite being a Sim racing game (or simcade, if you really wanna call it). The tune and PI have really nothing to do with their uncompetitive performances, it’s all down to experiences and understanding different aspects of racing (game) itself. The game even have player’s create and preset tunes for anyone to grab. To be rude and straightforward, the slow will always be slow, no matter what car you gave them, unless they’re willing to learn.

If there’s something like a handicap system you mentioned, then that will be the true definition of “unfair”. Who wants to become a faster and more competitive driver if all the system do is making you slower and slower as you progress? It’s like mocking all your efforts! You fought for nothing but the “Fairness” for new players.

You might find what i said is unfair, but it really is not. We all started as a newbie, I’m sure most of the fast players today out there had sometimes in their early life, riding walls and use AI as pillow in racing game to gain easy wins. Those who truly love racing games, will remain here and go one step further, eventually to become the faster racers, and those who are easily giving up, only means they didn’t have enough passion and will to improve in this area in the first place.

It may not be as serious, but this is just like life, you can’t expect yourself to be the master of anything on your first day of trying, and the “system” won’t assist you, you need to fight everything by yourself.

A lengthy reply but alas, he doesn’t live with me, he lives with his parents :slight_smile:

im obviously in the minority (possibly of one) who thinks it would improve MP if there were some simple but brief system to ensure new players or players needing a lot more practice werent thrown into a lobby with much quicker guys who were trying to race. The matchmaking doesn’t work but if it did perhaps things would be fine. Anyway, enough of this, I was only suggesting that things will get worse and something (whatever it is) should be introduced for the benefit of all players, including the new ones.

Perhaps the last post sums up what’s wrong better than I ever could.

Good grief!

Merry Christmas one and all

Simple and brief along with needing a lot of practice is a bit of an oxymoron no? Forza has been around for going on 10 years, online racing even longer. Your ideas and concerns are nothing new, infact they have been discussed to death which is why noone seems to care. but rest assured forza has made sure to remove all online competition and make it as easy as possible to " pick up and play " since the release of forza 3 by removing user controlled lobbies and making it harder and harder to kick troublemakers. Along with assists that all but steer for you and making TCS nearly allow you to mash the throttle with abandon. Given t10s history I don’t see any changes coming for the better.

Ahhh I miss those from forza 1 and 2

Perhaps the issue is that too many people get the game, don’t understand much about driving in the real world, and then proceed to cram tons of power into a car because they all want to race the super high classes, they turn off all the assists that are there to help them out, and the end result is exactly what you are describing.

What most players don’t realize or want to come to terms with is that things take time. You will not pick up racing title for the first time and be an expert. The Forza series is really quite unlike most racing games the average kid or gamer has played. It is far more into the sim area and less tame, arcade-y, NFS style most are familiar with. Henry Ford didn’t get to where he his legacy is today without practice, knowledge, and several failures along the way and most people don’t want to take that approach to the game.

Could the game force you through a certain progression, sure; but then you’re hindering all the players who do have experience with Forza games. There are assists and tools in place to make the game playable for all skill levels. Only when individuals refuse to use these game mechanisms does the game seem “too hard”. To gain the experience necessary to make the game easier, and to become a better racer, people must come to terms with the fact that they are not Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher, or Ayrton Senna and that they need to use some of the assists, drive slow for a bit, and learn how to brake and corner before they get good. Simply put though, those who do play as you describe aren’t willing to put in that time - not that it even takes too long.

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No. Its simcade enough; if people need easier then buy Horizon.

forza motorsprt is already arcadey enough no poimt in makin the game easier

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User created public lobbies are all fine and dandy but I don’t want them to replace public hoppers. I believe there is room for both. I happily spend nearly all my time in public lobbies racing with complete strangers and I thoroughly enjoy it. Most times the lobbies I race in are fairly clean and the people are there to race. Trolls are not that abundant in my own experiences and when they do show up they usually aren’t around for more than a few races.

With all of the assists available in Forza Motorsport, the game has already been designed for players of any skill level to enjoy the game. With that in mind not every player has the same intentions with the game. The diehards like myself that play everyday are a small community of players overall so when you jump online there are always going to be players of varying skill levels playing.

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isn’t there even a hire driver option? you can literally put the controller down and let the game race for you. it cant get any easier short of making a “press button a to win”. maybe i should make a racing game that shows cars at a starting line. a press any key to win function and cut to a “you win” screen. wonder how rich i could get? wouldn’t even have to make a game, just a start and end screen, no physics, modeling, etc…might get the game down to a couple of megabytes. what i would consider a boring waste might be the ultimate racing game of all time to many. and i could make it an rmg, shooter, puzzle, etc game just by changing the start and end screens. i could be the new ea or even better. pop out a new “game” every day. just draw two new screens.

U guys with good Hopper experiances must be lucky… All the hoppers I find usually end up with me avoiding trolls and then hot lapping… Every now and then I’ll find someone to run with but not often enough to bother with them anymore. And I’m not even that fast, shikeri used to beat me easily in fm4. Havnt raced with him yet in 5

Yup. And now worse than ever, people clear the lobby when they get beat or see someone with a clubbed up name. Staying in a lobby and waiting for it to fill doesn’t work like it used to.

Life without the hoppers would be fine for loners and casuals because that is how I started and how I played all throughout FM2. If you haven’t played FM2, then you wouldn’t get it. It was super easy to find lobbies that would interest you because the game showed exactly how many lobbies were available, the host, and how many people were in the lobby. You actually had more freedom in online play than you do now. Of course there were dead nights, but it was a lot easier to figure that out than now. Right now, you have no idea if the game is skipping over lobbies that would actually be good for you or if the lobbies are dead for that time period (don’t get me started on joining lobbies with friends/parties). Searching lobbies didn’t take long at all either. If you had a few minutes you could literally check all the classes you like to see if any were available that suited your interests. Its not like matchmaking drastically sped up much the process of searching and finding a lobby.

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