Frustration is the result of failing a challenge. Challenge is what keeps you coming back to a game. Boredom is the absence of challenge. Frustration is damn near the opposite of tedium.
There’s nothing you can do to make a dull track more entertaining. There is something you can do to make a difficult track less frustrating - practice. There is huge satisfaction in mastering a challenging track.
Most of these circuits are good fun. T10 really has a tough job satisfying people with some hating too easy circuits and others hating too technical circuits. I remember when Maple Valley, Long Beach, Mt Panorama, VIR , Sonoma were immensely popular additions to the game.
The hatred against Dubai and Alps I get because they are rather bland fantasy creations with flaws. Maple Valley was always popular and they have kept a lot of the old layout around. It’s a nostalgia piece. The hatred against the rest, I don’t get. They are unique circuits with unique corners and challenging sections. I thought people hated bland Tilkedromes like Yas Marina and Circuit of the Americas?
Most tracks in the game I like, this is my personal list of tracks I either hate (VIR), have an aspect I hate that can be fixed (Long Beach), or I’m just not a fan of.
VIR. As was stated earlier in the thread it’s not a track it’s an obstacle course.
Road Atlanta, Road America, Sebring, and Laguna Seca. These 4 in particular are meh.
The oval config of Homestead Miami. While Indy and Daytona are the best ovals in the world, Homestead oval is just bad (and the infield section ain’t great either).
Long Beach. Not because of the track, but rather chaos that the AI and real players create at the 2nd turn.
Top Gear has to be the most useless track in the game! Test Track is a close second. I don’t mind Dubai and Rio so bad as those tracks are both challenging and scenic.
I know, I know, an Englishman saying something bad about Silverstone, I should be hanged for treason or something. But seriously, Silverstone has always been a track I hate and not just in video games, I hate the real thing too I just find it to be a dull, uninteresting track in general. I do feel that the new layout is better than the old, but it’s still a track I don’t really care for.
Game specific tracks would be VIR, as said in a few replies I just find that the track has no flow what so ever. I’ve only had Forza for a week or so, and I was doing a race in the championships (either breakout or the one after) for hot hatches. The only thing I could think while driving it was that the track was not intended for cars of this nature, it felt like I was trying to race cars around a track designed for go-carts or something. Bleh.
Special mentions:
Monza is another one of those tracks I just find to be rather boring. I’d much rather have Imola.
Suzuka. Suzuka is one of those tracks where it’s not the track that’s the problem, but the person driving on it. It’s one of those “I want to like you, I just can’t get to grips with you” deals. I normally enjoy racing on it, but I get frustrated with it because I struggle to be consistent on it.
Both recent creations which are both comprised of a dozen or so sharp corners and one long straight. How can you enjoy driving a fast car when you are braking all the time?
Any Tilke circuit I don’t like. And silverstone which is now like a Tilke circuit. I learned virtual racing on the old old silverstone circuit. They ruined it twice over now.
Bernese Alps. It is just boring. The elevation change is nice, but I wish it was more technical. If they bring back Bernese Alps in the future, then they should add layouts that are more difficult.
I profoundly hate VIR, Maple Valley and Suzuka, just because it seems that every championship must include at least one race (but often also two) in one of those circuits. To me, it looks like the developers were trying to say “HEY! HEY! HEY! LOOK! MAPLE VALLEY AND SUZUKA ARE BACK! THE TRACKS FROM FM4, THEY’RE BACK! LOOK! THEY ARE IN FM7! YOU LOVED THEM AND YOU WANTED THEM BACK, DIDN’T YOU?”. I still don’t know though why they also make VIR to show up so often.
As an environment in total, for me it’s Maple Valley or the Alps.
The Alps layouts are only fun occasionally in high downforce cars for hotlapping, or sometimes for a random race so everyone hasn’t had time to adjust to it and everyone makes a bunch of mistakes so it’s full of messy action. For serious racing, it’s basically a terrible follow-the-leader affair as there really aren’t any traditional passing zones where you can build up a run and out-brake someone. It’s mostly just waiting for the guy in front of you to understeer wide, and then forcing your way up so they can’t return to the line.
For Maple Valley it’s a little bit more of a personal thing as it’s track that will exaggerate understeer, and if your car is understeering it’s just an excruciating experience to lap. Speaking a bit more objectively, it’s also a mess when you put people on it as there are so many corners where it’s easy to understeer wide and then they just drive right back onto the track in front of other people and it creates wrecks, which is either frustrating if you get gathered up in it, or makes it boring if you are the only survivor. The final corner is also terrible, people who run wide get directed straight back onto the track by the wall there, and the pitlane entrance ends up with people braking at the apex of what is a flat corner in many vehicles.
For some of the others mentioned…
VIR - I wonder if it would show up in here if we only had the standard “Full” version and not the horrible Patriot/Grand versions. The full circuit is amazing with an excellent flow, and most real-world racing drivers will tell you it’s one of the best in North America. The versions with the infield are pretty much all awful though, as they break up the flow and are usually a disaster thanks to the tire walls. It’s easy to learn how to run the infield section, it just still isn’t much fun. Probably 90% of the people I hear complaining about the “Full” variant in-game are just terrible at it and crash/go off what seems like every fourth corner. If they aren’t smart enough to learn from their mistakes on the previous lap then they really shouldn’t be paid any attention.
Rio - I get the hate for it, as I too thought it was terrible in FM6. It has grown on me a bit though, and I like to think of it as our own Macau; a terrible idea to race on, but can be pretty thrilling once you figure it out. It’s terrible in the hoppers though.