If someone is on your outside you CANNOT step on the gas to exit the corner normally this shoves people off the track. STOP DOING IT!
If someone is directly behind you and you move in front of them right before a corner YOU ARE BLOCKING
If you pass someone you do not immediately get in front of them before a corner
If you crash off the track you wait to get back on the track
You brake early when directly behind someone or better yet don’t tailgate in the first place
And don’t even get me started about dive bombs, people trying to squeeze through tight spaces on the inside forcing you off the track, people not paying attention to whether or not another car is around them, etc.
This is basic stuff that I can see happening in private lobbies 24/7, but apparently a lot of people only know how to go fast and not how to actually race. It’s not that damn hard people. I want these people to race in real cars and try those stupid stunts.
It’s not that they don’t know or don’t understand, they just don’t care. Granted, some of them may not know any better, but most of them are just out to ruin people’s races.
This issue has been there from Forza 1 on the original “XBOX”.
Most people are copying what the “AI” is doing especially from Forza 5 to 7.
The AI is programed to follow the Suggested Racing line no matter what.
In Multiplayer, most racers are copying what they see in Career Mode’s AI.
The game doesn’t teach people how to drive and race in a safe and sportsmanlike manner.
Instead, players have to come up with their own internal code of ethics and unwritten rules in order to achieve success. This will naturally lead to differing opinions on what is “clean”, fun and fair as we are all unique individuals with our own mindsets and gameplay preferences.
When these differing mindsets come together online, there are going to be scenarios where one person’s way of having fun clashes with another’s.
This is not an easy problem to solve, especially when a title is in its post-release stage of life.
Games that have been built from the ground up to guide players towards a preferred style of play (Gran Turismo Sport) end up providing more enjoyable online experiences as the majority of players know what is expected of them and how they are rewarded/penalised for playing accordingly.
We can’t expect players to behave or conform to a preferred style of play when the game hasn’t told them what’s “right” and “wrong” in the first place.
This thread’s comments (and most “how to race clean online” posts) are well-intentioned but without effective in-game communication and reinforcement they won’t reach the people that need the most help and ultimately are an exercise in futility.
Not on your list but something I feel is worth noting, in general the less time you spend next to someone the cleaner your racing experience will be. I will not sit side by side someone going down a straight away, if I am a little faster than them I will just bump draft down the straight and then give us a gap for the braking zone usually moving to one side by a car width. If you are much faster go for the pass, but do not just sit next to someone.
Funnily enough people will do this in real life too. Everyday I drive to work on a 4 lane highway at 70mph in very light traffic. Yet someone will come up from behind me and sit right next to me for miles. I eventually either speed up or slow down just so I am not sitting next to them.
Not wanting to sound like “that guy” but what is wrong with blocking? Obviously you don’t want to zig zag down the straights to block someone but blocking before a corner seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do?
On a side note most people who block are easy to set up, move to the far inside of the straight and they will follow you down. Then just before the braking zone move to the outside to go for the regular hi-low-hi line. The blocker will usually either completely miss their braking point trying to move back to the outside, or exit the corner very wide at a much lower speed then you will.
Holding your line or moving on a straight once to defend is ok. Squeezing a driver near the grass or near a wall is fine too just as long as you leave enough space where you don’t put them in the wall or on the grass. In a lot of motorsports, you’re only allowed to move once on a straight. This is to avoid confusion and high speed crashes. Moving too late on a straight is dangerous too as people are then focused on a breaking zone, therefore when someone moves just before or during the breaking zone, it causes panic, mistakes like locking up and crashes. Look at the recent Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen crash in F1 on YouTube, perfect example.
Essentially, only move once on a straight. Squeeze the opponent but leave adequate space to where they aren’t run off track or into a wall. Don’t make your defensive move too late. Try to make your moves as clear as possible to avoid confusion. Don’t move in a breaking zone as it may be too late for the driver behind to react. Obviously don’t continuously zig zag on a straight.
It is possible to defend hard and fair without causing a crash.
Because blocking is an illegal move and if you do that in a private lobby with people who are serious about racing you can expect to get red flagged and eventually kicked.
Blocking means to change your line in a reaction to your opponents line, ESPECIALLY when they are attempting to pass you. Blocking is not follow your line through the corner when the opponent is not even at your rear (which is still illegal because you are supposed to be at their door) and if that causes a wreck it is the dive bombers fault for not following racing etiquette and they did not have the right of way to take that pass but people in Forza do that 24/7.
As someone else mentioned above as well, if someone built a car for turning and you built a car for speed and you would end up side by side with them on the straight. it is your duty as a driver to understand that you cannot out brake them or reliably stay on your line like they can and it would most likely end in a wreck, so you should back down and attempt to pass at a later time. Do you know how many times I see someone back out of a pass online? ZERO. NOT EVEN ONCE. They attempt to make every pass whether it’s good or bad. Narrow stretch of road with only one good line, decides to illegally dive bomb and wonder why he got rammed into when said person was already making their turn and they just so happened to show up in the way. Things like that happen 24/7 and it’s infuriating.
The Drivatars are sometimes better teachers than the humans!
(there, I said that)
The AI can’t handle fast cars but, up to S class and maybe some of the lower R-class divisions, some of them can be relatively well-mannered.
If the player is bad, though, their AI version will also be bad, and I see most of these examples in Free Play, where my friends don’t race me and I get a bunch of Tier 1 randy Drivatars without a clue as to how to race.
I’ll add to this that in the complete absence of any sort of in-game racing school (it’s about time racing games started putting these back in again) newer players inevitably end up learning from observing other drivers.
Given the terrible driving demonstrated by AI drivers and many people in multiplayer, this is the sort of driving that most players will learn.
I’m very hopeful that the new penalty system helps address this, but at the same time the game also needs some kind of racing school/driving tutorial instead of just assuming that everyone already knows these things. I know that for me personally, I have tons of bad racing habits that I would like to break, but this game doesn’t provide any guidance or incentive to learn proper driving etiquette or techniques.
Agree almost entirely with the original post and gamer1000k has said my thoughts exactly.
EDIT: Unfortunately, there will always be a few people who intentionally grieve in absense of needing to fund (or labor!) to fix the car or physical life-injuring danger. Or their simple minded amusement.
So it’s alright for you to block someone’s corner exit, but it’s not alright for them to block you at the entry. Never mind that if someone is directly behind you, you’re already in front of them without moving.
If there are no rules, people will just do as they please. Some of them are just incompetent, though.
You’re not punished if you cut, if you ram, if you’re generally an idiot. People want to win, at all costs. If they can’t win, they want to be second. And third. And fourth… I got T-boned in a League race when fighting for a measly sixth. Sixth!
Look at ForzaRC today. There are rules there. So you get good racing.
Not the case with current online, which is why Turn 10 called it quits on the hands-off approach and decided to come up with something to keep people in line.
The school should be real motorsports, but kids find it “teh coolz” when Schumacher serves a drivethrough at the very last lap of a race, or when Max Verstappen behaves in a generally unpleasant way on the track, including but not limited to: moving while braking, erroneously optimistic overtaking, poor spatial awareness, excess aggression, etc.
The model of the perfect driver is Ayrton Senna, damn it. Some research on Senna beyond the glossy look at his legacy reveals a dangerous driver who was obsessed with winning and who broke down when people were getting hurt all around him. That is what all kids today aspire to be, not Stirling Moss or Damon Hill.
Lewis Hamilton is the closest to Senna today and, well, he isn’t nice on the track, is he? But he’s got a following because he’s aggressive.
A lot of drivers in F1 had their crazy moments, Senna, Schumacher, Verstappen, Vettel, Hamilton, the lot. However, the things they did for safety in F1 is unparalleled. F1 wouldn’t be like it is today without your Schumachers or Sennas.
Getting back on track, I think Forza needs to be strict on a lot of things. One really frustrating habit a lot have is crossing the white lines entering an exciting the pit lane. The amount of crashes I’ve seen being caused by people defending out of the pit lanes by crossing the white lines is pretty horrendous.
The structure of the rewards systems has a huge impact on player motivation, and right now that motivation is to win at any cost. Unfortunately, every single racing game I know of (the kart racers so many people grow up playing are the worst, they give you weapons to take out other players) provide the same reward incentives to win at any cost.
To avoid glorifying dangerous and aggressive driving, maybe the rewards system could be changed to reward clean racing much more than finish position. Maybe also have a significant bonus for fastest lap time in lieu of winning (because you didn’t get a good starting position in the pack for example) so even if you’re not first, you still get rewarded for being fast.
Putting up a good, clean race gives you nearly all of the overall race credits, and finish position gives you a small bonus on top of that, but not enough to encourage players to take big risks to gain a position. Career mode would also need to be reworked to not only give full credit for first place. This just reinforces the obsession with winning at any cost rather than the ultimate goal being to put up a good race.
Penalties accumulated during a race dock credits from the reward, so it’s not just a matter of who can accumulate the least time penalties and still win, but players are incentivized to avoid incurring penalties altogether.