Turn 10 has provided fans a look at what they can expect from Forza Motorsport’s updates over the next few months in a new community message, and there’s plenty to look forward to.
Update 8 is just around the corner, likely landing some time around Monday May 13, and the message — signed by game producer Andy Beaudoin, executive producer Trevor Laupmanis, and creative director Chris Esaki — gives some specifics about the goals for it.
First and foremost, don’t expect a track in the update. This is actually the exception rather than the rule, with five of the previous seven major updates bringing new track content, but the focus this time round is on improving the racing experience across the game.
That begins with another round of tweaks to the AI in order to improve its manners — the third such update in a row — aimed at reducing “unnecessary braking”. T10 cites AI behavior when it’s attempting to pass, when the player is alongside, and (one we’ve all seen) when the AI slows down after being passed.
Forza Race Regulations are also set for an update, both to correct players penalized unfairly and those who game the system to get away without punishment.
For this update, T10 is looking at the issues of players being found at-fault for being rear-ended and those who cause repeat side impact events without being penalized. Future updates will look at increasing tolerance for minor track cuts and bumps, imbalance in the penalty system for incidents that are effectively the same but punished differently, and reducing the penalties for unavoidable collisions.
That should also feed into the changes to player Safety Rating (SR) and how the game matches drivers in multiplayer.
The game will now determine a player’s SR from a longer-term average, with your 20 previous races involved in the calculation rather than just 10. This should lessen the impact of one bad race (or one good one for persistently poor players), although naturally this does lead to concerns that it reduces the consequences of one deliberately bad race.
Nonetheless, SR will now be more difficult to build, and with collision penalties now having an increased outcome on SR reduction T10 hopes it will results in cleaner racing.
That’s going to be mirrored with a change in matchmaking in order to reduce the likelihood of players with anomalous SR being included in lobbies; the message specifically cites the fact that players rated S should no longer be in races with D/E-rated players.
Other than as-yet unannounced car content for Update 8, that’s what T10 has in store for players from next week. However the message also teases some changes coming in the next few months.
Headlining that is a promise of bringing multi-class and endurance races to the game “soon” (our favorite word!), as well as changes to the slightly mismatched Forza GT car divisions, a “Spectate Mode”, support for Logitech “TrueForce” and a tweak to car proximity radar.
We’ll bring you all the news on these features as we get it!
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