Forza Motorsport Developers ‘Exploring Changes’ to Car Upgrades, AI, Penalties

Forza Motorsport Developers ‘Exploring Changes’ to Car Upgrades, AI, Penalties.jpg
It’s been a somewhat tumultuous start to Turn 10’s latest circuit racing game, Forza Motorsport. The development team has now highlighted its three main areas for improvement.

Images: Taken by RaceDepartment in-game

While not without its merits, Forza Motorsport is also, at times, more than a little bit frustrating. Its Featured Multiplayer online mode may be refreshing and the driving experience more rewarding than its predecessors, but then there are these little ‘icks’ that threaten to impact your enjoyment.

Creator Turn 10 Studios has issued a statement outlining the following three main elements it will be addressing as priorities. Smaller items, such as players requesting a radar system, are omitted and hopefully touched upon later.
  • AI performance
  • Car upgrade system
  • Forza Race Regulations penalty system
Forza Motorsport 2024 AI changes.jpg

‘Early 2024’ AI Updates​

When not playing in the competitive multiplayer mode, the AI-controller rivals since launch can provide close racing and plentiful grid sizes. But they can also be as erratic as a teenager on Monster Energy. A particular bugbear is their penchant for standing on the brakes mid-corner or parking on an apex, much to our chagrin.

“We understand how important it is to have fair and competitive AI in Motorsport and are our top priorities in early 2024 are addressing overly aggressive AI [sic], while also getting a cleaner race start into turn 1 where many of the issues above most severely manifest and impact players,” reads Forza’s statement.

Car Progression System Could See Further Changes​

One of Forza Motorsport’s pillars is the car progression system, whereby points are used to purchase parts and XP unlocks parts. This is like some form of fantasy role-playing game. Cash is only used to purchase new vehicles, not buy fresh upgrades.

A tenet of the project, it seems the development team is continuing to receive feedback on the upgrade process, admitting that it’s a “divisive topic” among players.

Forza Motorsport Upgrade Shop


“It is clear from looking at feedback that while many of our players are enjoying the system as is, for many others it isn’t delivering the upgrade experience that they expect from Forza Motorsport,” continues the communication.

“To address this, we are exploring changes to the system. Our goal with these changes is to retain what is working for those that enjoy it, while resolving the issues many of our most dedicated players have with the system.”

Ditching the whole system would be, to us, an extraordinary U-turn and is seemingly off the cards. However, refining the system further would be welcome. The XP levels required to unlock certain parts were already lowered once post-launch.

Mind you, due to a lack of specifics and a vague “it will take some time to properly evaluate options” warning, this statement could be filibustering, pushing the topic further down the road. Let’s hope not.

Penalty System Learning Curve​

Finally, the team is said to be continually working on the penalty system – entitled Forza Race Regulations. If you smash into someone, you should receive a penalty, but the automated system can be inconsistent.

Forza Race Regulations Motorsport penalty system


“…Over the next few months, we will be working with some long-time competitive Motorsport players to gather direct telemetry from them while they’re playing,” explains the statement, attributed jointly to Andy Beaudoin (Forza Motorsport Game Director), Chris Esaki (Forza Motorsport Creative Director) and Trevor Laupmanis (Forza Motorsport Executive Producer).

“They will be capturing these instances and feeding data to our team so that we can issue tweaks to make FRR more accurate and reliable.”

The proof, as ever, will be in the puddling. We’ll continue to track Forza Motorsport’s progress and your opinions on the title throughout 2024. In December, the Hockenheimring was added. Meanwhile, the paid-for Car Pass DLC continues and the Nürburgring Nordschleife is expected in ‘spring’ 2024.

Let us know what you’d like to see changed within Forza Motorsport by commenting below.
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About author
Thomas Harrison-Lord
A freelance sim racing, motorsport and automotive journalist. Credits include Autosport Magazine, Motorsport.com, RaceDepartment, OverTake, Traxion and TheSixthAxis.

Comments

The car leveling system, as well as the lackluster builder's cup are the two issues they need to address ASAP (alongside wheel support). Not sure why both Gran Turismo and Forza hate what was historically one of their main selling points - their single player, something so many sims have just abandoned. Forza's only appeal now is its online racing, and it has way too many competitors that do it better than it.
 
The car leveling system is a right pain in the ass. I'd sometimes spend mornings on the weekends doing the online Open class races. It'd take me the better part of the day grinding for parts just so I'd have a competitive car. And that's even in the lower-tiered classes. Couldn't imagine how long the grind would be to build and A or S class.

Not too worried about it anymore. I stopped playing because the online community aren't exactly gentlemen racers. I know that shouldn't be expected with a mostly console racer community, but they're worse than I could've imagined.
They obviously need to work on the ranking and safety rating systems as well. I have an S safety rating and there's no way I should've been in lobbies with rammers
 
my main issue with the game is that i dislike the art direction in terms of colors and contrast, its actually often unpleasant to look at the game. I hope they will change this over time. I remember how iRacing had this yellow-brownish look to it, now this is completely gone. So its possible.
 
As far as the SP leveling system goes for me, if they just allowed you to access the Performance Upgrades from the Practice Times, you could upgrade the car faster and easier and still have the "reward system" to a degree?
 
The physics and graphics are the biggest disappointments for me. I generally avoid online lobbies so I don't much care about that aspect of the game. The fact that it is aesthetically underwhelming after six years of development is a huge disappointment. How does it not look at least as good as FH5!?!? And for physics, it doesn't feel anywhere near as good as, literally, any of the major sims on the market. It's truly inexcusable. Oh, and finally, the performance of the game on PC is a joke for a game that looks as mediocre as it does.
 
It amazes me that a company with resources as unlimited as Microsoft made this product when much smaller studios created games like ACC, AMS2 and of course the driving masterpiece AC!

It screams cash in on reputation with zeros cares and a massive F You to its customers and fan base that made forza what it was.

That Chris guy that was the face of the promotions for this title knew exactly what he was doing and was lying to his market to literally steal peoples money who thought they were buying a product that just didn’t exist. The whole team involved knew what they were releasing and let people pay a lot of money for this product, £100!

The only reason that Chris, T10 and the guys at Microsoft are piping up is because the sponsors and brands have expressed their disappointment.

Chris and his cronies couldn’t give a hoot about their product or customers, they are worse than double glazing salesmen and a stain on their trade.
 
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It amazes me that a company with resources as unlimited as Microsoft made this product when much smaller studios created games like ACC, AMS2 and of course the driving masterpiece AC!

It screams cash in on reputation with zeros cares and a massive F You to its customers and fan base that made forza what it was.

That Chris guy that was the face of the promotions for this title knew exactly what he was doing and was lying to his market to literally steal peoples money who thought they were buying a product that just didn’t exist. The whole team involved knew what they were releasing and let people pay a lot of money for this product, £100!

The only reason that Chris, T10 and the guys at Microsoft are piping up is because the sponsors and brands have expressed their disappointment.

Chris and his cronies couldn’t give a hoot about their product or customers, they are worse than double glazing salesmen and a stain on their trade.
Forza may still have a long way to go in order to even sniff the simulation aspects of other sims, but this one is a game changer for the sim racing genre...

No longer is it the easiest option to drive...

And they're certainly not alone in not caring about their customers needs, large companies are just as bad as the small companies like Kunos and Reiza... Kunos just know how to make a game work...
 
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It amazes me that a company with resources as unlimited as Microsoft made this product when much smaller studios created games like ACC, AMS2 and of course the driving masterpiece AC!

It screams cash in on reputation with zeros cares and a massive F You to its customers and fan base that made forza what it was.


It does not amaze me one bit that a large well funded Microsoft studio is not at good at releasing games as a small studio like Reiza who make AMS2.Massive companies are good at churning out vanilla content designed by a commitee.They dont do responsive,quick changes or anything vaguely new in the game(see FIFA football or any sports games by EA).Forza Horizon is probably better because it is in the UK and subject to less interferance from Microsoft.Gran Turismo is also better than Forza because it is led by one man Kaz who has a passion for cars & racing.
 
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The physics and graphics are the biggest disappointments for me. I generally avoid online lobbies so I don't much care about that aspect of the game. The fact that it is aesthetically underwhelming after six years of development is a huge disappointment. How does it not look at least as good as FH5!?!? And for physics, it doesn't feel anywhere near as good as, literally, any of the major sims on the market. It's truly inexcusable. Oh, and finally, the performance of the game on PC is a joke for a game that looks as mediocre as it does.
This is one of the biggest issues.
Personally Ithink they are trying to sum up things that are not really that big to cover up the fact that the game looks awful.
Unless you have a monster pc with a 3080 upwards or so it looks awful compared to the competition and not only does it look awful for the average user it runs like a 2 legged dog.
I have a ryzen 5 5600 and a rx 7600 and all other sims look great but FM is so unpleasant I uninstalled in december.
worst thing is it's a 100 euro game and I am not missing it at all
 
I played it a little because I have the Gamepass and I'm on the road for work so I don't have my steering wheel.
I'm a former big player on Forza, from 1st to 5th, I was part of a great team that still exists.
Turn10 praised the new physics of the new Forza a lot, so either I don't know how to play with a controller at all, or the new physics sucks, or both ;).
I am terribly disappointed for the console players, it is a very big disappointment and it is very incomprehensible.
Graphically it's ugly and yet I loaded my PC which has a 3080ti, I can't exceed 60 images sec.
 
If you play the game in potato graphics mode, it looks terrible. Another issue is that some of the starter cars, like the Mustang, are difficult to drive. It feels like driving a greased brick. In my opinion, prioritizing the demands of the online racing community may leave beginner single players disappointed and result in a short lifespan for the game. Games like this get people interested in Sim Racing and we should care.
 
Premium
The physics and graphics are the biggest disappointments for me. I generally avoid online lobbies so I don't much care about that aspect of the game. The fact that it is aesthetically underwhelming after six years of development is a huge disappointment. How does it not look at least as good as FH5!?!? And for physics, it doesn't feel anywhere near as good as, literally, any of the major sims on the market. It's truly inexcusable. Oh, and finally, the performance of the game on PC is a joke for a game that looks as mediocre as it does.
Yes, I agree on this totally. I was expecting FH level graphics, and it's not even close, which is baffling. Physics I find a struggle, the cars just don't drive naturally to me . And the AI is a disaster.
 
Premium
This is one of the biggest issues.
Personally Ithink they are trying to sum up things that are not really that big to cover up the fact that the game looks awful.
Unless you have a monster pc with a 3080 upwards or so it looks awful compared to the competition and not only does it look awful for the average user it runs like a 2 legged dog.
I have a ryzen 5 5600 and a rx 7600 and all other sims look great but FM is so unpleasant I uninstalled in december.
worst thing is it's a 100 euro game and I am not missing it at all
It looks awful on a 4090 as well tbh. Really dull.
 
Premium
It amazes me that a company with resources as unlimited as Microsoft made this product when much smaller studios created games like ACC, AMS2 and of course the driving masterpiece AC!

It screams cash in on reputation with zeros cares and a massive F You to its customers and fan base that made forza what it was.

That Chris guy that was the face of the promotions for this title knew exactly what he was doing and was lying to his market to literally steal peoples money who thought they were buying a product that just didn’t exist. The whole team involved knew what they were releasing and let people pay a lot of money for this product, £100!

The only reason that Chris, T10 and the guys at Microsoft are piping up is because the sponsors and brands have expressed their disappointment.

Chris and his cronies couldn’t give a hoot about their product or customers, they are worse than double glazing salesmen and a stain on their trade.
I think the problem is that they are not simracers. Teams like Kudos and Reiza are full of passionate simracers. That is clearly not the case with Turn10. At best they are console racers. The video of Chris trying to drive with a wheel showcased that.
 
I think the problem is that they are not simracers. Teams like Kudos and Reiza are full of passionate simracers. That is clearly not the case with Turn10. At best they are console racers. The video of Chris trying to drive with a wheel showcased that.


So I was part of a team on Forza 2, 3, 4....
The guys I played with online from my team and the French-speaking community (especially France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, Luxembourg: more or less 80 million people) were all passionate about driving, cars, real car racing .
We simply couldn't afford a big PC with the steering wheels of the time and force feedback didn't exist at the start of Forza 2 I think?
We organized races among ourselves, but there were a few thousand of us, the French champions in which I participated included more than 5,000 people only for the French-speaking world, so on a global level it must have represented, I don't know, but undoubtedly at the least 100,000 passionate people out of the 8 million Forza players at the time.
Our goal was to reproduce realistic car races as best as possible while respecting all the rules of car racing, including fair play.
There were judges for major events, possibility of protesting, there were exchanges of settings, skins, team training sessions, misinformation from the opponent, attempts to bring in a big player in our team, controversies of all kinds within the team and outside the team and above all a real sporting spirit, as well as real mutual aid, organization of meetings in real life, etc.
Unfortunately also a huge waste of time in real life and therefore a worry for me to continue to invest myself to the detriment of my family life, so after Forza I bought a gaming PC, a good steering wheel of the time and now a VR headset, but no more team and not much live, just lap times and the pleasure of driving, without the risks it is true.
Coming back to Forza, obviously the feeling with a controller has nothing to do with a good force feedback steering wheel with a good pedal board (and a VR headset in my case ;-)), but in fact it feels like a "feeling", we "are in it", I don't know if that's said in English, in short, we have the impression of driving for real, but you really have to invest yourself.
So all this to say that we shouldn't disrespect the "joystick" community, it's another world, but if they don't have a steering wheel that doesn't mean that a game doesn't can't be a simulation, just a little less, or a lot less if we're talking about the new Forza in my opinion, but I know guys who have luxury steering wheels and pedals and who drive outside the car, as if they were driving from a drone, and for me it's the worst one can do, never seeing Verstappen, Schumacher or Senna driving a car from the top of a drone. ;-)
 

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