Forza Motorsport -OR- Microsoft is bad at naming things.

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I'm learning more about these stupid upgrades and how this ai functions. 

Contrary to popular belief, I almost always dump all my pi into tires and handling. I prefer to beat guys in the corners. Weird, right?

This game is not like that. Due to whatever model they have, the arbitrary pi scaling makes it so that when you stat dump, they scale across the board. I can still kind of beat them in the corners, but they will just out run me in the straights full stop. That makes the ones that start at the front have an extreme advantage - and highlights the imbalance even further. I probably should have noticed after I did my first upgrades to any car, made them all hp mods and absolutely walked away from the pack, but I'm not always smart. 

Question for those who use wheels and already have experience with the game:  

I had a bad relationship with FM7 because RWD cars seemed to spin out like tops, particularly ones with more HP.  I could get them somewhat under control with race suspensions and super sticky tires, but a Porsche GT2 was practically undriveable.  I know they revised the physics, particularly the tire model.  It seemed like the weight transfer was exaggerated.

So... how does driving feel with RWD cars on a wheel?

In reply to scardeal :

I have no wheel and I like low power trash, so I cannot comment. 

I did read something last night that made sense to me, however. 

This is an RPG with a car themed wrapper. Leveling your character, checking your gear after each battle, fighting higher level monsters, it's all the same. It also explains why when I try to wade into a super high level dungeon (say a pi 600 cap ) with a low level (pi sub 400 ) and then handicap myself for additional credits, I get E36 M3housed. 

I still don't LIKE it because that's now how real car racing works- like my speed 3 is not a level 17 speed 3 in real life, it's level 1 broken as berkeley- but I understand. 

I have found the stench of a pay to win model and I don't like it. 

I'm in the premium sedan series or whatever (the one where you need a high zoot German something something, cars I generally don't care about) and I chose the cheapest one, therefore the lowest pi- the c63 amg. The c63 fe was an option in this class, but of course it's locked behind....a paywall. Us game pass poors can't have it. We gotta fork out real life dollarydoos for that one, and the cheapest way was $36 for the premium bundle or whatever. 

This wouldn't generally be an issue. Don't care, don't need an FE. except this is the first race series I've picked up where I will not be able to win without that car, as all of the ones in my group have consistently finished at the top of the pack. Premium car, premium finishes. This seems unreasonable turn10. I get that there's a ringer every round- there is in real racing too. But locking that ringer behind a paywall? That's some mobile game E36 M3 right there. 

So, just to add some context to my commentary about driveability of RWD cars:

In Gran Turismo 3/4, Forza 2-4, and Assetto Corsa, I feel perfectly comfortable driving things like Porsche GT3s, Corvettes, etc. but found that I was spinning out those same cars on Forza Motorsport 7, time and time again.  Most of my driving with FM7 had me quitting from frustration after a half-hour or so, unlike the hours I would spend on other racing titles.

Red cars with a wheel are fine. At least after you get all the wheel settings setup to make it work at all. It seems that more of the issues with the game are on PC, so Xbox with a wheel seems pretty ok.

In reply to scardeal :

If anything, they seem to plow a ton. 

I just did my first run with a tvr something with all the nannies off, and the damn thing wanted to understeer into the cabbage at every opportunity it could. It was pretty frustrating actually. For the most part though, full send. 

Looks like the first patch dropped.

Looks like they're already rolling back the mod leveling.

I haven't played it yet, I'll let you know how it turns out.

In reply to AClockworkGarage :

I didn't really notice a TON of difference? IDK wasn't really paying attention. I still don't have enough XP or CP or whatever the hell theyre calling it to get a full-boogie custom build going.  I have also yet to run into a situation where I've been able to use a car more than once, though that is actually at an end- I JUST unlocked the PI open cups. 

That's the funny thing about their whole "unlock system makes you commit to your car" theory - it doesn't make any sense because you need a new particular car for every tournament. As far as the single player career is concerned the useful life of a car is about 6 races.

That being said, I picked the game up last week on Gamepass and have been enjoying it quite a bit, despite the bugs and several boneheaded design decisions that have been discussed in here. The weather and time of day effects are pretty cool, and I think the physics/handling feel decent for a simcade title. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to set up my whole iRacing rig and it's nice to just pick up a remote & hustle a 944 Turbo around Lime Rock. Rivals mode is a treat if you have a few friends with the game who can taunt you with text messages that they just beat your laptime.

All I have left are the open PI events.

I wanted to use my real life Camaro in the C class but had to grind in freemode to level it up enough to get to C-class.

For B I want to run my "V70R" analog. The Volvo 860 with a 4wd conversion. But that is a berkton of grinding just to make a B class car.

I tried online for the first time the other day, that's irritating. They wanted me to do 3 qualifier races to get a safety rating. I guess it's like leagues where you get matched with people like you. I dunno.

Anywho the stuck me in this POS honda and made me run practice laps for 17 minutes before I could race. I qualified 3rd, and finished about the same. No penalties. clean race, for me anyway. Some people I raced with finished with over 10 srconds of penalties. One guy was just running the track anticlockwise. At least the game ghosted him.

After 3 events in the qualifier I was awarded a safety rating of... I was not awarded a safety rating.

I turned off the game and played Pressure-washer Simulator. It was also meaningless grinding, but at least there is a sense of satisfaction at the end.

There is a good game in there. Why are you hiding it behind all this BS? I think the only way we're going to get any fun out of this is private online multiplayer.

The new car leveling adjustment is pointless. Sure now the player has all the parts "unlocked" earlier, but it doesn't matter since you don't have enough"cp" to put those parts on a car. There are so many unnecessary restrictions, and forced grinding. Its like public school simulator.

I have noticed something I DO like. I forget what track it was. VIR?maybe? Something with some sketchier asphalt. I REALLY liked the way the actual pavement changes and undulations unsettle the car. Now I've ever driven a car in a competition setting on anything stronger than a parking lot, but this gave me a pretty neat sense of how some of these tracks work, especially some of the older ones that aren't SUPER sanitized. 

Shame it has to be hidden behind all this stupid CP bullE36 M3. I've got .75 million credits already and no place I plan on spending them because they mean berkeley all to me when I can't use them to upgrade the damn car after I buy it. I'm not grinding my face off in the same stupid races over and over again to level them up, and it's a well known fact I'd rather get cancer than race in open lobbies with randos, so this game is going to have an extremely short shelf life it seems. 

I just downloaded this a few days ago. Maybe have 3-4 hours into it and it's by far one of the worst FMs I've played. From the unskippable tutorials to the car modding to car options to track options it's a huge letdown. No Sebring, No Daytona, No Road Atlanta, and No Big Nurburgring are huge letdowns.

Why can't I tailor the racing experience to how I want it to be in Single Player mode? Why does it have to conform to 1 of 3 options? 

It feels like they are going to slowly drip content into this game to make it survive for the better part of a decade. 

I will say the racing and physics are fine. Everything else about the game sucks which is half the experience right? The menu system from the Horizon series is spectacular, especially with how to upgrade and mod the car. Why couldn't they pull that over from playground? 

It just feels like they tried way too hard to make this game something its not and went way far away from the previous games that were so so good. It just feels sterile. 

In reply to DirtyBird222 :

Yeah, I quit playing not too long after my last post. I tried to care. But between the practice and the stupid car points upgrade system and the mastery and E36 M3.... I'll go back to Horizon. I'm mad at that game too, but it's a known quantity. 

I went back and played last night. It's hard because the physics do feel great. It's just that user experience......it seems very throttled and micro managed. I get plenty of that at work from a boss that provides zero value to the team. Don't wanna deal with it in a video game when I'm trying to wind down. 

The track list is frustrating too. Like there are some good tracks on there but how are you going to showcase IMSA cars as your headline for the game and not have two of their premier event tracks in the game? Nope, we get Yas Marina instead as a drop. 

And the practice thing. I ain't got time for that. I think that's one of the biggest annoyances. You're correct Horizon is better even with its shortcomings. 

So the physics feels good, but between the pointless single-player campaign and terrible public multiplayer lobbies I see limited reason to enjoy them.

I think there is something to be salvaged here, though. I do casual laps with one or two local friends every so often, and was just musing out loud - I wish I could have a game that does "wind-down" lapping in road cars as well as Forza, but with the driving standards/etiquette I've come to expect from iRacing. Maybe the solution is to organize some GRM track nights as private multiplayer sessions? Stick to modest Grassroots cars in the B/C class range to minimize exposure to the frustrating car leveling system.

I don't have the mental bandwidth to organize something like that at the moment, and maybe it's better to wait until they're resolved more of the game's bugs anyway. Would there be any interest in that, though?

I had high hopes for FM(8) but after seeing a lot of feedback and also feeling a bit burned by fh5, the non cross-compatibility of steam and prior ms store purchases (couldnt port over ANY of my tunes/livery work. its literally a cloud saved game, linked to my gamertag come on!), and the old T10/playground games tactics of, we're going to remove content so we can resell you the same old cars you've had for years in our previous games again as DLC, I also decided the forza series wasnt getting any more of my money. 

FM4 was the last motorsport game I played thoroughly, basically skipped 5 and 6, and got FM7 on PC. It wasnt bad tbh, graphically looked great. Good fun for racing. But they defintely messed something up with the physics or steering geometry or something. I am very much into drifting  on sim games, and i had to do some really weird unnatural E36 M3 with the alignment settings to even make the cars controllable while drifting.  

In reply to failboat (Forum Supporter) :

Weird you couldn't port. Everything I have all the way back is on there. No matter, I'm in the same....er...boat as you. Fh5 is my last $$$$

Looks like they're starting to cave under the pressure.

With the next update All mods will be unlocked at level 1. no more grinding for mods.

Mods will still cost car points, and leveling cars will still earn car points, but you can also convert in game currency to car points.

It's just buying mods with extra steps, but I guess it's progress.

I might go back long enough to try Nordschliefe and do horrible things to a couple cars. 

Too little too late. They bungled this game so badly that people have moved on. It's really unfortunate.

In reply to Racebrick :

It really is. The shame of it is mechanically, it wasn't BAD. it just wasn't... GOOD. The racing itself felt fine. Sure the AI was wonky and unbalanced, but the cars themselves felt ok. the gfx were pretty. It felt like it could have been a good game. But they just berkeleyed the football so hard they owe it child support now. 

The racing and the graphics are great. Everything else is just a giant turd. And slowly dropping extra content that was a foundation in previous iterations is a garbage move. I also hate that it takes over 30+ minutes to do one online race that's 3-8 laps. I just want to hop into a CBAS lobby and churn through races. If I wanted to take an hour to do one race, I'd hop onto iRacing. 

It's just like EA sliding in the opposite direction with every instance of Battlefield since 3 and 4. 

I've found myself on GT7 more often than not when w