Why is "Free Play" not actually free?

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM5 Discussion
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Hi,
I don’t mean to whine, as I love this game in every other aspect but this, and it’s the most gorgeous looking racing game I’ve ever played in 20 years of experience, but I am really not understanding why there is so little customization available for offline racing. I want to run races in Free Play that give me the option to limit the grid to a single car. Like most real racing series do. I want to have race with all Toyota Celicas or all Dallara DW-12s, etc. But Free Play does not let me select any finer detail than Class, which is extremely frustrating, because while it can be fun to see ridiculous combinations of cars on the track that would never ever share the road in real life, I’m a race fan and I want to participate in races that seem believable. So, just wondering, is there some feature I am missing that would allow me to do this? I tried to create a private online lobby and got excited for a few minutes by the increased car restriction options, only to find out that drivatars would not load a car when I limited it to 1 specific make and model. Presumably, I guess, because the drivatars only use cars that their human accounts actually own. Which is a cool idea in theory, but not for those of us who want to customize the experience and play with these absolutely gorgeous virtual cars like Hot Wheels toys. Yes, I know, I could create or join an online league, but a lot of times I just want to chill and enjoy this amazing game without the pressure of competing at a high level.

If anyone could point me to a way of doing an AI race with only 1 make and model of car I will be eternally grateful, though I am not optimistic that this exists as the game in general seems to be very restrictive and uncustomizable, tragically. I dearly hope that Forza 6 will add not only more options for custom offline races but the ability to create custom AI drivers with their own stats and styles, so I don’t have to go back to freaking rFactor just to have my fantasy global race of champions league where Sebastian Vettel, Jeff Gordon and Will Power square off with Lewis Hamilton, Jimmie Johnson and Scott Dixon, just for one example. That’s how I like to play with my racing sims/games and I will be a Forza evangelist for life if such customization options are added to 6.

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I’ve yet to play FM5, but on FM4 you can manually change an AI’s car by hovering over their playercard in the lobby menu, pressing A, and selecting Change Car. Is that an option in FM5, or was it removed?

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Set up a lobby, make all your opponents computer controlled, then set what cars you want them to drive.

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Hmm. I had already tried that with the Mitsubishi Eclipse 95 and it didn’t work, just loaded drivatars without cars and I was given an empty grid when the race started. There was a “Select Car” text in each drivatar’s banner in the lobby but there was no control to actually select a car, even when pressing A. However, after reading your suggestions and craving success, I tried again with the Infinity/Dallara Indy Lights and it worked this time. Unfortunately, it does not load custom paints for most of the grid…presumably because most people don’t own or use the car and the drivatars load whichever skin their account last used? Having a grid of identically painted cars is a bit too far in the other direction in terms of realism…I have no idea who the heck these people are whose drivatars I’m racing against, so their custom paints are their only source of identity and personality. Oh, to be able to rename the drivatars locally so I can race against drivers of my choice.

In any event, discovering this gives me a lot more options to play around with, so thanks for the suggestions, I really appreciate it! :slight_smile:

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Any luck getting this to work? Just been trying it and the screen won’t populate with ai players after I set the race up. Changed the player count to 1 and the ai to 15… Nothing.

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You can set the make and model, as well as PI in an online private lobby. It takes a while to set the PI limits, though.

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wow… thank you for letting me know this… I had absolutely no idea, and I’ve been playing pretty much since day one… this was one of my biggest pet peeves… not being able to have races with all the same cars on any track I want on single player…

thanks again, just wish I woulda found out sooner lol…