Suggestion of fixes for gamepad steering input options (either "normal" or "simulation" steering)

Forza Horizon Legacy Horizon FH3 Discussion
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NOTE: if the suggested fix would be chosen to apply onto normal steering, it should benefit keyboard users as well.

I understand FH3 isn’t Need For Speed but it isn’t iRacing or rFactor 2 either. Not all players can afford, or for some reason not able to use a steering wheel for maximum driving advantage.
I personally have some slight physical issues and steering wheel is definite no-go for me unless i limit playing time to less than 10-15min. Gamepad/keyboard are my only routes (yes I’m on PC).

And this brings me to the actual topic: the current status on both “normal” and “simulation” steering options on gamepad: it’s awful.
Not in a sense that it’s actually awful, but I would say both options are horribly calibrated, and to noticeable extent hurting KB/gamepad players’ enjoyments, especially when comparing to what a certain other company who have also made semi-sim racing games have managed to do, in a much more simple yet effective manner(i’ll cover that later).

But 1st of all, the issues:
Normal Steering
FH3 seems to feature one of the same biggest mistakes as in The Crew, a racing game from Ubisoft: Both steering response and maximum turning rate seems to be limited in normal steering in comparison to simulation steering, and currently no options(including linearity) can allow users to compensate such default limitations.
I assume such decision was made by Turn 10/PG for the sake of catering the needs of relaxing group of players. However such implementation has also made KB/pad users, who’re already disadvantageous to start with, to become even more disadvantageous.

That’s 1 of the worst things possible for a company to do, even more so than the current frequent game crashes on PC which still haven’t been fixed after the 2 patches. The game FH3 itself also feels relatively understeery to start with (i assume due to “sim” nature) which isn’t entirely pleasing to all players at the moment, and the current normal steering implementations certainly don’t help in such aspect either.

Simulation Steering
Some might have thought simulation steering should solve the issues I mentioned above … yes it does, but then it brings up other even more annoying issues to controller as well, something that also seem to exist for Forza 6 Apex Beta.
The steering behavior isn’t linear at all in relation to the analog stick.Only few steering rate “stages” is offered in sim steering for pads. It’s like “almost nothing”, “just a tiny bit”, “finally something” and all of sudden “all the way to max”. The last stage of transition is particularly worst in many ways. For instance there’re certain cars that require maintaining a slight drift(or micro-powerslide) to achieve best cornering speeds at slow turns, but now this is impossible for pads as the countersteering rate needed is somewhere between “finally something” and “all the way to max”. And obviously the other insane issue that comes along is drifting. Smooth drifting is impossible and car is always overcorrected and swing to other side.

Some famous Forza racers like Raceboy77 and Super GT claimed that’s just the nature of simulation steering, but it’s not. It isn’t even a “finished” sim steering calibration for controller to begin with like what Codemasters did to DIRT Rally.
And yes finally, the company I’ve been desperate to mention. Codemasters isn’t best at dealing with car physics(even DIRT Rally. People said it’s sim but it’s not. It’s got the same detached handling feel as all Codemasters latest racing titles have), but they managed to calibrate controls so brilliantly, even for keyboard, that it allows some keyboard master like MSWGR on YouTube (or Grandma Driving by gamertag) to be highly competitive.
And what they did to DIRT Rally is even more impressive. Guess what? Allow actual raw input for controller. Literal raw input, with even steering linearity set to zero+zero deadzone which even registers my 0.1 deg stick input after releasing the analog stick back to literally vertical position. And guess what? To my biggest surprise that was the best control I’ve ever had on gamepad rather than having a torture time living with that. This also makes controller to have almost no theoretical disadvantage at all in DIRT Rally, allowing me to set a few world records back then.

Annnd this finally brings me to conclusion phew … What I wanted to say after all is: There’re fixes for them and both should be really easy to implement even by devs’ points of view:

  1. Normal Steering: Allow steering linearity slider option to reach negative range. Also add a “steering rate” slider to allow users to set to extremes such as making cars steer too much and hurt speed and let the players decide what they want. A solution which caters more people (keyboard-inclusive), and more user friendly in general.
  2. Simulation Steering: simple, just do what Codemasters did. Change it to perfectly linear ACTUAL steering input. A solution which caters less players but should be easier to implement.

My Final Summary/Comments/Two Cents: With such simple fixes Turn10/PG can easily “overhaul” the driving experience for majority of players. After all it should be players who decide on the limitations to their own driving “device”, not the game developers.

P.S. sorry for bad English

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I used Sim Steering for FH2 and Forza 6 and it was perfectly fine. For some odd reason FH3 is impossible when it comes to simulation steering, it’s just too twitchy and adjusting the deadzones really didn’t help. I’m used to using sim steering and because of the problems it has on this game, I’m forced to use normal steering. I want as much realism as possible, and for the simple fact that sim steering is impossible to use on this game is a bummer.

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It is not correct to say gamepad users are disadvantaged.

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First of all, sorry to hear you have issues that would prevent you from using a steering wheel.

You’re obviously new here, so let me preface by saying that Eduardo is right, a steering wheel does not offer “maximum advantage”.

I have FH3 on PC and Xbox 1 and have been playing Forza since FM2 and played Gran Turismo 1 to 4 on PS1 and PS2 respectively.

I bought a steering wheel about a year ago and have been using control pad since GT2 (I played GT1 on keyboard, on an emulator on my PC).

I gotta tell you, that I get faster times and have more control with the controller than my wheel. After a year of practice, my driving with the wheel in Forza is getting pretty close to my controller ability, but it’s a heap more work on the wheel.

IRL, I have owned an R33 Skyline GTS25t, RenaultSport Megane RS250 and driven a lot of fast machinery around amazing driving roads and tracks like Bathurst. I am proficient in many advanced driving techniques.

And I’m still faster using a controller.

So while there may be improvements that could be made to the Forza steering input handling, you need to realise that everyone else out there is dealing with the controller just fine and are not disadvantaged compared to those who have steering wheels.

A steering wheel however, is a heap of fun and very immersive, so I do enjoy it immensely, but if I am trying to beat a tough Rivals time, I’ll switch to the controller and normal steering. I also prefer normal steering when I use the wheel too.

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Controllers are faster in forza unless you cant use one, some people just cant. Ive seen this topic come up a lot and i always just dont understand what people dont understand. You dont drive cars in real life with a controller or a keyboard.

The dampening effects added to normal steering is to try to give an accurate portrayal of someone turning a wheel. With a wheel you cant instantly go from zero to full lock in a half inch of travel like the controller has. So lets say it would take someone 3 seconds to go full lock on a wheel, its going to take 3 seconds on a controller.

Simulation steering is supposedly meant for wheels because it reduces some of the dampening effect, but it can be used with a controller, just like wheels can use normal. It often gives faster turn in on the controller with the side effect of feeling twitchy.

They also take friction into account. Obviously at a low speed you can turn full lock, but at high speed it’d be impossible. Im not saying its perfect, but ive yet to play another racing game with a controller that does a better job than forza. I think wheel controls still need work though.

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I manage just fine with the controller. I played simulation steering up until FM5, then I made the switch back to normal steering because of snap over steer issues with counter steering. In Horizon 2 I used simulation steering, FM6 I mostly went with normal steering, in Horizon 3 I have mostly used normal steering. I can play FM5, FM6 and Horizon 3 with simulation steering just fun unless I try to drift, then when I go to counter steer the car snaps back the other direction. But if I am just racing I have no problems using simulation steering, it is just a little more twitchy than normal. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with the Forza set up, my biggest complaint about it is if you lift one front tire while cornering it will sometimes lock out steering input, this is very hard to achieve but does happen.

I have no idea how you are supposed to steer with a key board? A key board is an on/off switch, a steering wheel has a range of input. It would be like going back to the PS1 days before the Dual Shock came out and trying to play Gran Turismo with the D-pad, which I used to do all the time but probably could not do today.

I have played DiRT Rally, and I set it up to feel kind of like the Forza steering, I don’t remember the configuration off the top of my head but it took me about 2 days to get it down to how I like it. My friend has a PC and wheel setup, I have played his DiRT Rally with the wheel and I am faster using a controller.

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Thanks for the replies guys :slight_smile:

Apologies if I’ve made a mistake regarding the potential of steering wheel, however what I wanted to stress mostly was just how poor the simulation steering currently, plus the easy potential for improving both simulation and normal steering as well. And I hope more people would support this idea so there might be a chance for Turn 10 to fix it (I personally classify it as an actual nonsense issue, even though it isn’t awful at current stage).

@baritone mike
Forza does offer steering dampening for keyboard so steering motion is linear rather than instant snap to max :slight_smile:

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I think you’ll generally get agreement on Simulation steering needing big improvements.

I want to use it but I get a more natural response from Normal with my wheel, so despite other shortcomings of Normal, it’s the most enjoyable for me and many others.

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I gave up on Sim Steering after Forza hit the Xbox One but Normal Steering has always been totally fine and competitive for me on a gamepad. If you’re using a keyboard you’re not going to be competitive regardless of settings though.

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Simulation steering doesn’t work on a wheel because the FFB is so inacurate, if the FFB was better it would make dramatic improvement to the way sim steering feels without actually changing sim steering at all.

You’d be surprised, The only thing you really lose on a keyboard is braking.