I always end up in last, and no matter what class car I’m in, it’s the slowest of the bunch. I try to upgrade my cars to be top of class, but I don’t tune or drive manual, is that why? I also use brakes because I suck at drifting, but my car accelerates way slower than any car online. Any advice please?
download tunes.
check out the tuners lounge, some of the tuners there are really good. Try different downloaded tunes and cars until you find a great one that fits your style. also keep trying. Drifting is good if you’re fast already because of the points, but it’s faster to just grip.
I agree with ThaJay, go download some tune packages, but make sure you’re not grabbing a drift tune (all horsepower and no handling or braking). The right cars and tune job can beat those drift kiddies. I drive automatic and I win so it’s not the manual vs auto issue. I don’t drive drift machines as I prefer handling and quality driving over horsepower bouncing off others.
Just look for cars with good acceleration and launch, then grab a tune for it. PDG Jamie has a PILE of quality tunes (has a post in the Tuners section forum), for all kinds of cars. But mainly just stick with it, you’ll get better.
It’s a matter of tuning and trial and error. If your car is slower, you need to upgrade parts so the car has more power. If your car has too much power for that PI but is hard to handle (ie too much understeer or oversteer), try to sacrifice some power with better tires and tune alignment and so on. You will start to get better as you practice tuning cars. It’s not difficult but it’s necessary if you want to win races online. Go look for some tuning guides on youtube.
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learn how to properly apply and let off the brake. any time the rear end kicks out, you’re losing time. also manual w/ clutch is faster for some reason. manual w/ clutch is faster than the sport transmission. you can enable the stock transmission and have more room for power. braking is the first aspect of becoming fast. in terms of online racing, AWD is always superior. dont know why, dont ask how, thats just how horizon’s game engine has been. it’s been this way since horizon 2. find AWD builds, if tuned properly, they can turn faster than any RWD car.
That’s because FH3 doesn’t punish you in terms of PI like FH1 did. AWD cars don’t take enough of a PI hit to make them balanced with RWD.
-k
Just take your time and learn. Just know no matter how good you are there will always be someone better. Depending on your skill level that may be a whole lot of people or it could be a few people. Personally, I’m surprised if I win because I’m horrible at racing. But sometimes I find people that are worse than I am.
Thanks for the replies. I posted this a while ago and got no responses shortly after so I forgot to check back.
since posting I’ve improved somewhat. My average finishing xp challenge is 5th according to my stats. Offroad seems to be my strength, and night racing is the worst. I haven’t been able to ween myself from automatic or ABS yet. I have’t tried any tunes either. I don’t like that I can’t see how a shared tune is made. I understand it stops copying, but it makes learning harder too.
I’m pretty addicted to online, I’ve made no progress in the game since :). I’ve learned to hate idiots who forget we’re on the same team in team race and bump me anyways, and also idiots who bash just to kill your chain.
My advice to you is to run rivals. This will allow you to learn the fastest lines of the course/tracks and see where you can brake or lift off the gas. Follow a guy that is faster than you and try to follow their line and it will help you tremendously. I still do that to this day. Of course, a good tune for the condition definitely helps as well. All in all, just keep trying, you’ll get there.
I’m beginning a similar journey to improve my skills. The approach I’m using is find a class of cars with one option at the lowest class. This forces all drivatars to drive the same car in exhibitions. Then I part shop to give myself an advantage in performance that matches my style of racing (which I determine by figuring out which is my sweet spot to staying on the race line the most comfortably). Once I find that, then I plan on turning off assisted brakes then when I get use to that, I’ll go to manual shifting. After that I’ll consider turning off other assists.
Last will be fine tuning. I’ve watched different YouTube vids on tuning and most of them warn that a tune for a top end player will be awful for an undeveloped player. Due to this advice, I’ve never bothered with going to the tuning center.
I’ve also considered solo rival racing. The main advantage is having lap times. The main disadvantage that I see is that you are racing against any car that can make the class. some of those have natural advantages in one aspect of racing that whatever car you have will not be able to match. I don’t know where in my training process I’ll start incorporating rival racing.
Usually in online championships, i find it better to be in last place away from everyone because it is all about the XP you earn, not just who places first. Getting massive drift/sideswipe points is just as good as some one who gets nothing but first place.
Also, yes manual with clutch is faster but only if your buttons work properly and you learn where/when to shift the gear. I tend to shift early when driving a vehicle equipped with turbos that way I can use the torque they provide to pull my car ahead faster. With Superchargers I stay in the Powerband longer to get the most out of the horsepower.
AWD is king in online, but I find that the tighter smaller circuits (Surfers and the street races in Byron) are usually better for RWD as the all-wheel can accelerate faster, but has trouble slowing down and getting through the corners as fast. At least with the way I play. One thing I have also found is that if you use RWD, and you want to build your own tune, I tend to use the rally tires as the give better grip in the rain than race tires. Or, if you want to really push the boundaries on a car, sport tires is another good choice.
One major thing I notice a lot is the use of the Lamborghini V-12. Now, while this is usually a viable option, it only really works with traction control and AWD. Building realiatically like I do has its downsides.
In my trials of testing and tuning I find that there are some cars the have enough downforce themselves that they do not need a wing kit. This allows the vehicles to be faster overall, at the cost of slightly more traction loss. One such vehicle is the 2002 Enzo (Expensive, but well worth the money).
Just keep working on slowly taking off those assists. I drive with no assists other than the Braking Line, and just tend to slide my way through races. Driving without assists is in no way the fastest, but it is way more fun once you get the hang of it. Keep practicing and you’ll get better! It only takes time. Good luck with your races!
I have only just got Horizon 3 in the last few days and it is my first Horizon game and have only played 2 hours so please take my comments as someone who is still a Noob I guess, but I am a Forza Motorsport series veteran since FM2 to 6, did not bother with 5 lol and my favorite is still 4.
So I learned to race non assisted in FM4 where I also learned some tuning skills both have pretty much transferred over to this game, but during the intro stuff I found it really hard to keep control because the assists were on, I feel more in control of the car when I have manual control and no ABS or traction/stability.
Back in FM 3 and 4 It did not take much time to stop using assists but I did it in 3 stages first I took Traction control off. got used to that quickly.
Next I tried using Manual with clutch (button configuration helps a lot I use A as clutch X as gear down and B as gear up it is just a case of pressing to adjacent buttons at the same time then)
Finally I got used to using non ABS. I know it is not directly comparable but not using the assists saved me a huge amount of time per lap on FM 4 and 6 .
I tried online for the first time last night after getting a few loyalty cars, I used the Koenesegg (sorry if spelt wrong ) which I upgraded to top S1 and gave a real base tune with no testing basically just stiffening it a bit adding more camber to the front and a little to the rear and adjusted the final drive on the gear box so it met the top speed.
My driving was dreadful and I am very unpracticed with the game and its tracks but I was still placing mid tier.
If you can not get into the tuning then buy a good tune and it will make you a lot faster and try to stop using the assists in stages using a slower C or B class RWD car to ease you in to not using them.
One thing I will add to this conversation is that in my experience FH3 gives way too much attention to the racers level in the settings. If you have the settings down to new racer or just above it, it seems no matter how good your car tune is you will never be able to compete with the top guys. I use a controller when I race and have found that my steering was set to simulation, when my club members told me to change it to normal it really made a world of difference.
Keep playing around with tunes, usually quicker is better. I have a Subaru that top speed of 135 but always in the top 2 on online races because of accel of 9.5 and launch of 9.7, and great handling.
What worked for me, was using the game’s emphasis on engine-upgrades and installing all handling-upgrades, except for the tires, should they increase the class. The result is a probably overpowered machine that has just enough grip to not slide helplessly around, but you can at least control it and even beat AWD-cars due to the acceleration-advantage. At least that were my experiences from your usual public matches.
You still will likely lose against those “rocket ships”, but let’s be honest: just bouncing from wall to wall has nothing to do with proper racing. 