Forza Motorsport General Discussion Thread

[ShavedBadger]

This has probably been noted somewhere before, but I had a drive of my shiny new HDT VK Commodore at dawn on Mount Panorama, and though the headlights appeared to be on, there was no beam projected onto the road surface. Is this bug limited to this car or is it a more widespread issue?

 

[Jezza819]

For a series to be called "Aussie Sports Sedans" it sure would've been nice to have a fight between Holdens and Fords. But instead of that, me in my '91 Holden had to worry about a bunch of Pontiac Trans Ams. Never ever saw a Ford in any race.

Turn 10 love coming up with these supposed rivalry series but then one of the rivals is never seen in the series. Unless I have a horrible track record of picking the wrong one.

 

[ShavedBadger]

For a series to be called "Aussie Sports Sedans" it sure would've been nice to have a fight between Holdens and Fords. But instead of that, me in my '91 Holden had to worry about a bunch of Pontiac Trans Ams. Never ever saw a Ford in any race.

Turn 10 love coming up with these supposed rivalry series but then one of the rivals is never seen in the series. Unless I have a horrible track record of picking the wrong one.

The main competition probably should have been the '92 EB Falcon GT.

What I'd like to see is a Group A Touring Cars Revival series. Make it 600pp or more, limit it to the cars that actually raced in Group A at the time and pick a few proper touring car circuits. That would make for some interesting tuning/racing.

 

[sirjim73]

For a series to be called "Aussie Sports Sedans" it sure would've been nice to have a fight between Holdens and Fords. But instead of that, me in my '91 Holden had to worry about a bunch of Pontiac Trans Ams. Never ever saw a Ford in any race.

Turn 10 love coming up with these supposed rivalry series but then one of the rivals is never seen in the series. Unless I have a horrible track record of picking the wrong one.

You're not the only person to notice that these "specialised" series are often not much more than a normal car spec race where your choice is limited but the AI just drives anything they want in the car spec as usual.

Considering the Advanced Free Play options available for us to design races with, they don't even utilise most of those for any of the Featured Tours. This is one of the (many) reasons why the tours are so bloody tedious. Along with the fact that apart from one month only, they ALWAYS amount to 16 races of 8-10 minutes each.

 

[meganinja]

I'd much prefer circuits stick as closely to their real world looks as possible, the design team who worked on the fantasy brands did a fantastic job.

Same, i wish more real brands were intrested in do parternships, specially for the fantasy tracks. but that is a better alternative than whatever happened in FM<7 with only xbox, forza and microsoft logos

You're not the only person to notice that these "specialised" series are often not much more than a normal car spec race where your choice is limited but the AI just drives anything they want in the car spec as usual.

they said that will remake or rework the career mode in 2025, i hope they will adjust that as well

Along with the fact that apart from one month only, they ALWAYS amount to 16 races of 8-10 minutes each.

i am ok with those, i am more on the team that wants to pickup events and race them a for a bit or two, dont want to race more than that unless is speciliazed endurance events like in GT4 and in FM3/FM4/FM7

 

[WHO1]

I do find it surprising that real sponsors on race tracks aren't clamouring to have their brand on any of the Sim Racing games. Surely it would be cheap add on for companies to advertise to a captive audience. Especially given T10 would have data on how many people worldwide are playing the game any given day/week/month.
Also surprising the non-real tracks don't have real advertising - seems like an untapped resource to me.

 

[meganinja]

Also surprising the non-real tracks don't have real advertising - seems like an untapped resource to me.

Maple Valley has some Mobil 1 signage and recently Hakone had a colab with Jordan, but both seemed that fill the entire track with just a single sponsor and i dont know if Jordan signage is still in Hakone

 

[nukleabomb]

2024 Forza Year in Review

We’re looking back at another content-packed year for Forza.

forza.net

Forza Motorsport​

2024 was a steady year of progress for Forza Motorsport. Between 12 content updates, the game bolstered its lineup of cars and tracks, while also introducing several new features and quality of life improvements, many of which were inspired by the community voting on Suggestions Hub.
Some of the notable track highlights over the past year include Nürburgring Nordschleife, Sebring International Raceway, Road Atlanta, Sunset Peninsula – last featured in Forza Motorsport 4 – and most recently, Mount Panorama Circuit, Bathurst – home of the V8 Supercars Championship.
Many new and returning cars were also added to the game, such as the 2024 Next-Gen NASCAR, 2024 Ford Mustang RTR, 2019 Ginetta G40 Junior, 2018 Aston Martin #97 AMR Vantage GTE, 2018 Saleen S302 Black Label, 1988 Chevrolet #77 Beretta Trans Am, and even more.
There have been improvements to overall stability and performance, new game modes like Drift, Endurance and Multi-Class, and a host of new feature additions, including Car Proximity Radar, Spectate, Practice & Qualifying in Private Multiplayer, Advanced Car Ghosting, and more. With Challenge Hub, it became possible to earn reward cars by playing either the Career or Featured Multiplayer, and we’ve continued making updates to other aspects of the game, including visual fidelity and audio quality, Drivatar AI, Forza Race Regulations, and Driver & Safety Ratings.

Photo by FRT Davi
As we work towards the future of Forza Motorsport, we started some new community initiatives this year to help ensure we’re going in the right direction. Our team has been sharing progress updates in our letters to the community, and we kicked off a new “In the Garage” Discord AMA series to allow our developers to go deeper into the areas of the game that you care the most about.
We also opened the Forza Insiders Program where you can sign up for the opportunity to participate in playtests of future Forza Motorsport updates on PC or console as well as share your opinions on game content in feedback surveys and our exclusive forums.
We’ve celebrated numerous partnerships throughout 2024, including Mobil 1 – with new Rivals challenges and a rebranding of Maple Valley – as well as Logitech, Bridgestone, McLaren, and NASCAR. An undoubtable highlight was teaming up with the iconic Jordan brand and NBA All-Star Luka Dončić to create bespoke in-game content inspired by the Jordan Luka 3 sneaker collection and its “Motorsport” colorway. We designed a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro inspired by the sneaker, featuring the iconic elephant print, the Jordan Jumpman emblem, and Luka’s logo. Additionally, Forza Motorsport players can compete in the Jordan Luka 3 Motorsport Series using this car – on the Hakone track branded with Jordan Luka 3 signage for a full immersive experience– to unlock a custom racing suit. And we also made the vehicle available to everyone playing Forza Horizon 5.

What's Next?​

In the grand scheme of time, 2024’s coming and going marks 19 years since the release of the very first Forza game. That’s right—2025 is Forza’s 20th anniversary, and we’re planning some fun activities and surprises for the whole Forza community next year.

Thanks for racing with us this year, and we’ll see you on the road in 2025!

 

[RolexGTP]

I guess that's their "roadmap" to end the year then, not quite the bang at all this month but oh well. So we just repeat where we were this time last year and just wait and see...and hope for things, changes, content going forward.

 

[PJTierney]

I guess that's their "roadmap" to end the year then, not quite the bang at all this month but oh well. So we just repeat where we were this time last year and just wait and see...and hope for things, changes, content going forward.

They haven’t gone through their 2024 roadmap yet.

Creative Hub, Share Codes and the return of last Career mode Tours are still pending.

 

[meganinja]

return of last Career mode Tours are still pending

They also promised a reformulated career mode if I am not.mistaken

 

[Morbid65]

I guess that's their "roadmap" to end the year then, not quite the bang at all this month but oh well. So we just repeat where we were this time last year and just wait and see...and hope for things, changes, content going forward.

That is Forza, we have been doing this for nearly 20 years now. "Oh well I guess, maybe in the next game" became "oh well I guess, maybe in the next patch." That's not to say I haven't enjoyed my time with the games or anything, it just kinda is what it is at this point.

They seemed to have kinda got the message with the thin months during the summer when it felt like we barely got anything, and even for the Bathurst update where we didn't get much new stuff, they did still bring us quite a few returning cars.

Personally I think the last few months are going to be a good sign of what to expect going forward. Between the Mustangs/Sunset, NASCAR, and Bathurst updates we have seen a bit of everything. Some nice surprises, some disappointments, some good bugfixes, some obvious features/flaws going ignored. Some of the stuff has been pretty specific too, like if you aren't a NASCAR/paved oval racing fan then that update wouldn't have been that exciting, likewise with the Mustangs or Bathurst.

My guess is that after this month being kind of a flop other than Bathurst and the VN Commodore, something is gonna come along in the BMW update that is going to make people go "Hype! We are so back! Turn 10 really delivering!" Then the February update will come along, and will be back to the status quo mixed bag with maybe a cool new track but another dumb Lambo prize car or something, and one cool car that has no in-game competitor and is locked behind FOMO again and we will be back to being kinda lukewarm again.

I think the two turning points will be when they start doing paid DLC, or stop doing the bi-monthly tracks. Those should be pretty significant changes that impact the interest and tone within the community.

They also promised a reformulated career mode if I am not.mistaken

I would lower expectations for that, the way I interpretted was that it was going to see the return of some of the previous FOMO championships, possibly rotated through, and that was about it.

I hope I'm wrong of course, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to expect much ambition or creativity from them at this point. There haven't really been any steps made towards livening things up for the new FOMO career stuff, so I just don't think they have the vision do anything that will really turn the career mode around.

 

[sirjim73]

I will post positive news when I have it, so as to be fair.

I've now run about 15 races in this month and not had any occasion where the horrendously glitchy stuttering grid view has occurred at the start of a race. I don't recall seeing this referred to in the update notes, but it's been one of the biggest immersion killer issues for me since launch, so it's a big improvement if it has been fully resolved (it never happened on every race but was probably occurring 50% of the time). 👍

At the moment, my biggest remaining immersion killer is the goddamn awful divebombing by the AI and shoving me off track on the first corner. If they fix that, and the 2 minute loading at the start of every series, the actual racing part of the game will definitely be good enough for me.

 

[RolexGTP]

I don't know if it's just me but if not then I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned but there's a sound delay at the start of every race. Within about 3 seconds after accelerating every car seems to have this quick 1 second hiccup on acceleration then is clears up and it's been here since around update 12.

 

[sirjim73]

I don't know if it's just me but if not then I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned but there's a sound delay at the start of every race. Within about 3 seconds after accelerating every car seems to have this quick 1 second hiccup on acceleration then is clears up and it's been here since around update 12.

No, it's not just you.

Forgot to mention in my previous post that they fixed the "[Group Text]" advanced free play bug which was irritating me, though I think that one was in the patch notes.

 

[Nielsen]

I don't know if it's just me but if not then I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned but there's a sound delay at the start of every race. Within about 3 seconds after accelerating every car seems to have this quick 1 second hiccup on acceleration then is clears up and it's been here since around update 12.

Wasn’t this also a problem in FM7?

 

[RolexGTP]

Wasn’t this also a problem in FM7?

I don't think so

 

[Apple Slipper]

The funny this that recently photos of the entire car collection of the Sultan of Brunei's brother Prince Jeffri Bolkiah was leaked, and he has a Holden Commodore VN HSV SS Group A SV within the collection. That car has been added to Forza Motorsport recently!

Would be cool if some of Jeffri's commissioned exclusive cars would be added into the Forza games though, but that probably won't ever happen.

 

[McLaren]

Would be cool if some of Jeffri's commissioned exclusive cars would be added into the Forza games though, but that probably won't ever happen.

Sadly, it seems like the rest of the automotive world as a whole won't even be seeing much of the collection for a while.

Since this recent batch of photos got leaked (even though they're relatively old), the people in charge of the collection are reportedly not happy they got leaked or that they originated from a Google Drive link, and security around the cars will be tightened even more.

 

[LumpiestFish]

I do find it surprising that real sponsors on race tracks aren't clamouring to have their brand on any of the Sim Racing games. Surely it would be cheap add on for companies to advertise to a captive audience. Especially given T10 would have data on how many people worldwide are playing the game any given day/week/month.
Also surprising the non-real tracks don't have real advertising - seems like an untapped resource to me.

Yeah I completely agree, it seems like such a no brainer for a quick buck that you sell space in game. Codemasters games like Grid and Dirt always had a huge range of partners, and early Forza's did too, in FH1 all the events had a brand name attached. I'm not advocating for it necessarily, but it does seem like a missed opportunity for a small stream.

@PJTierney would you have any idea how it works?

 

[Ryan81]

Guys, just wondering what's up with the American Thunder championship? The AI, once you get to about mid-field, is pretty much glued to the circuit at all times. I'm quite regularly hitting 7s and 8s in the individual sections but can't manage better than 11th or 12th when starting at the back of the grid.
I don't remember the AI being seemingly so unbeatable previously. Is this just because it's LMPs and so the AI is programmed to be much more difficult?

 

[sirjim73]

Guys, just wondering what's up with the American Thunder championship? The AI, once you get to about mid-field, is pretty much glued to the circuit at all times. I'm quite regularly hitting 7s and 8s in the individual sections but can't manage better than 11th or 12th when starting at the back of the grid.
I don't remember the AI being seemingly so unbeatable previously. Is this just because it's LMPs and so the AI is programmed to be much more difficult?

The AI were already fast on this tour when I completed it. But the last update adjustment to reduce the unnecessary braking has made the AI super fast. I've had to move 6 places up the grid from my previous start positions (14th to 8th) on the same difficulty level to get even close to the front in the Australian races. Plus the rabbit chasing has returned big time.

 

[Morbid65]

The new sound bug is very similar to the problem in FM7 but, for me at least, the FM7 bug would happen at totally random times and in any mode, where as the FM8 bug is only happening 1.5 seconds (or whatever) after the race start, but only in single player.

It's kind of annoying if it coincides with a shift point, but otherwise doesn't make much of a difference for me.

There is some suspicion about a fuel bug where your fuel suddenly drops significantly and you go from overfueled by a few laps to suddenly short by a few laps. There is some conjecture about whether it's an issue with the fuel prediction calculator or an issue with fuel levels, as most of the time it happens people don't notice until it has already changed so it's hard to confirm it, and it's not very common.

The biggest issue though is the collision problem, but unfortunately it's not getting identified/reported much. It's most common in private lobbies, but can happen in public lobbies as well and has spawned some pretty interesting clips and accusations of it being a deliberate exploit in public lobbies.

There are 3 versions of it:

1. Some cars have no collisions at all. Cars will drive right through each other with no impact for either car, and cars with the issue will provide/receive no draft.
2. Some cars will only have collisions on one side. Player A will see themselves drive through Player B with no impact, Player B will see themselves get rammed by Player A.
3. One car will be essentially invincible/unstoppable, it can push cars out of the way with no controller vibration for impacts and no loss of speed.

Obviously it's kinda hard to detect sometimes, as some cars don't draft too much anyways and if you can't identify it by lacking draft the only other way is to bump someone and see what happens... but even then, some people you will be able to hit and some you won't. It seems the 3rd type is the most common in the public lobbies, and has spawned some interesting/funny videos of cars snowplowing their way through the field.

It is a MASSIVE headache for community events as it has resulted in many races/lobbies being restarted (which pushes things behind schedule) as well as people rage quitting when it's too late to restart again and they realize they get no draft so slowly get dropped from the pack.

Our league has been racing two nights a week, and since the November update we have experienced this bug for at least one of the two nights every week, and a few times on both nights. It happened in one of FailRace's videos too, but sadly that didn't seem to gain it much traction which surprises me a bit given FailRace is one of the only big (relatively speaking in terms of car game content) YouTubers actually playing Forza and therefore one of the only sources of community promotion for it.

There are 2 separate threads for it on the official forums but sadly they have a combined 14 or so votes. I think the suggestion hub is a good way to handle minor bugs/graphical bugs and etc, but things that are clearly game breaking but tougher to identify tend to get buried by people whining about some grass looking funny or a reflection being wrong on one car.

Here are the links to the 2 threads, if anyone would be so kind as to give them a vote up it would be appreciated:

Collisions stops working in privat lobbies

Bug Info: Collisions stops working in private lobbies. Platform: Any platform Content Update: The one that introduced Sunset Peninsula. Basically, As of right now there seems to be an rather large bug in privat lobbies that causes all collisions to desync between players, Similar to how the...

forums.forza.net

Private multiplayer Random ghosting through other drivers

When changing lobby settings to a race setting (8 lap practice or 4 lap Qualifying to a 50-100 lap race Ex.) you will have a contact issue. ghosting through cars or partial contact 1/2 in 1/2 out with a considerable amount of the players. this will also cause it to act like the whole field is...

forums.forza.net

 

[PJTierney]

Yeah I completely agree, it seems like such a no brainer for a quick buck that you sell space in game. Codemasters games like Grid and Dirt always had a huge range of partners, and early Forza's did too, in FH1 all the events had a brand name attached. I'm advocating for it necessarily, but it does seem like a missed opportunity for a small stream.

@PJTierney would you have any idea how it works?

Fictional sponsors are always easier to get over the line in terms of approvals and track readiness timelines, plus I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s now an intentional way to generate B2B sales.

We’ve had multiple tracks in this game get updated with “real sponsors”, who may or may not have paid a premium for the advertising space.

Back in the day, Codemasters experimented with dynamic sponsorship banners, where each banner was sold in real time to various partners. You could have different banners in different countries, and during lockdown the NHS used them for Stay at Home messaging. The tech was interesting but was dropped after DiRT Rally 2.0.

In other words, I don’t think this is a failure or compromise from Turn 10 and Microsoft, I think it’s an intentional bizdev strategy to generate a little more revenue and open a few more opportunities for potential partners.

 

[GTvsForza]

I'm not bothered by the fictional branding around the tracks, but I do wish we could use them in liveries like in GT7.