Forza Motorsport

[Kchrpm]

There's not a ton of information out there for this, but it is well summarized here: https://support.forzamotorsport.net/hc/en-us/articles/360052205493-Forza-Motorsport-Announcement


https://youtu.be/JvNrcg1gWb0


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcIemcWdIgQ


Q: When will Forza Motorsport be released?
A: Currently in early development, Forza Motorsport will run at 4K, 60fps with scenes connected and dynamic. We can’t wait to share more details.

Q: What platforms will I be able to play Forza Motorsport on?
A: Forza Motorsport will be available on Xbox Series X, Windows 10 PC and on Xbox Game Pass.

Q: Why is there no number in the name?
A: The new Forza Motorsport is a re-imagination of the Motorsport franchise. We are taking what has made Motorsport great over the last 15 years and pairing that with new game concepts.

Q: Why is there a new logo?
A: The new Forza Motorsport is a re-imagination of the Motorsport franchise. We are taking what has made Motorsport great over the last 15 years and pairing that with new game concepts.

Q: Will there be a cover car?
A: We don’t have anything to announce at this time.

What I find most intriguing is the currently listed compatible systems, which leaves out the XBox Series S. More likely an oversight than admitting that their new non-4K system won't play the game at all, I think.

Hopefully we'll be able to add some more useful information to this soon.

[Tom Servo]

That is a bizarre Q&A. I like that the first answer literally had nothing to do with the question.

[Rare White Ape]

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but this has got to be the racing game that I’m least interested in. I’ll follow along to see if it turns out to be good, but I found Forza 7 to be so bad that I have low hopes for this one.

[Kchrpm]

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but this has got to be the racing game that I’m least interested in. I’ll follow along to see if it turns out to be good, but I found Forza 7 to be so bad that I have low hopes for this one.

If you're comfortably playing on PC, then I can completely understand your standpoint.

[GreatScawt]

Fascinating. I'm guessing they are doing a live service potentially. Something I'd wish they'd just do with Horizon.

[dodint]

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but this has got to be the racing game that I’m least interested in. I’ll follow along to see if it turns out to be good, but I found Forza 7 to be so bad that I have low hopes for this one.

I assume this is a refusal to acknowledge Project Cars 3 as a racing game which I am completely on board with.

[Rare White Ape]

Ha! I forgot that game existed!


If you're comfortably playing on PC, then I can completely understand your standpoint.

Well one thing I would note is that this board started as a GT forum back in the day, then it leaned heavily towards Forza when FM2 came out, and since then it really hasn't leaned back to GT, despite (in my opinion) GT Sport being a far superior game. Nowadays GTXF is all about politics I suppose :p

I guess the main factor there is the ownership of Xbox Ones far outstrips PS4 ownership among you lot, or did when these games were fresh on the market.

But I do genuinely hope that this new Forza Motorsport manages to greatly improve its driving dynamics, because I'm totally up for rekindling the days of us being able to get together and cut some laps.

[Tom Servo]

For me, the hard part is just finding the time to do it. Even when I can set aside some time, being able to have it be uninterrupted is a real challenge.

[Kchrpm]

As I remember it, Forza and the XBox had solid online play and communication figured out first, so a lot of us ended up there, but many have migrated back or gotten both. As far as actually having groups get on and play, that doesn't really happen in any racing games anymore. Schedules, kids, time zones, people only wanting to participate if they are competitive, etc. It's much easier to dive into something where pausing, AFK moments, and varied skill levels don't cause major issues.

[drew]

I can't remember the last Forza I played. 2, maybe??

[Fogelhund]

I can't remember the last Forza I played. 2, maybe??

I loved Forza 2, and spent a great deal of time on it... online racing, it was a decent community, and I played enough to be quite competitive. Since then, I've just never made the time, and declining interest. I enjoy being competitive, and if you don't put the time into it, that just isn't going to happen. That's both with tuning, and racing. The only thing I've really played the last few years, is Project Cars, against my boys. It will be interesting to see what these latest changes are.

[Phil_SS]

I played Forza 1 thru 4 religiously. As other have said, not only did they have a much better way of providing online play via Xbox Live, but they actually had a game that had online play. :lol: GT5 wasn't released til 2010 and was the first GT game with universal online play. And if I remember the online play when it first released was a shit show as well.

Anyways....I skipped Forza 5 because it was a gimped game only released to coincide with the release of the Xbox One. But Forza 6 I thought was really well done and I had a great time with it. I haven't played Forza 7. I've come to the conclusion that for me to truly enjoy a car racing game like Forza, GT or ACC I need a wheel and seat, and until I get one I will only dabble in them. Forza Horizon or a new Tokyo Extreme Racer would be an exception as they are more arcade racers.

[Kchrpm]

Forza 5 made me not want to get an XBox One at all. I just got a Wii U and was happy with it.

Then Forza 6 had so much content that I wanted, I made the leap, and had a lot of great times. I've had a lot fewer great times in Forza 7, but it's so similar to Forza 6 that I get them confused at times.

[Cam]

As you guys know, I played the heck out of the Forza series, but stopped just after 4 was released. I started racing on PC, and that is where I got my racing fix from then on.

Much later, I bought 6 on sale and played quite a bit of single-player career, just to collect cars, basically. Racing was just was not the same without a wheel. Plus, not many racers were playing it anymore, making it not possible to get an online game. Everyone else had moved on to 7 and Horizon 4 by that point.

I am pretty much full into iRacing now, so this new Forza would have to be a pretty damn good sim to get me to even try it.

[Kchrpm]

I am pretty much full into iRacing now, so this new Forza would have to be a pretty damn good sim to get me to even try it.

I keep wavering back and forth on diving into the PC space. I'm just so used to the console experience of buying one static piece of hardware for 5+ years and not having to get any upgrades, and I don't know that I want to invest so much in virtual cars when I'm planning a big real car purchase.

I'm really hoping that Microsoft has seen the huge excitement and investment in PC sims, and the relative failure of and lack of interest in things like GRID and Project CARS 3, and go hard towards an accurate sim with lots of QoL things for hosting and participating in races. There is minor evidence for the QoL things (they have hinted at strong club/team support, to give expert/experienced players an easy way to share things with new players), but there's no way to know how serious they are about having PC-sim level physics.

[Kchrpm]

https://www.gtplanet.net/forza-motorsport-new-tire-model-20210528/

This article summarizes the discussion that starts at 29:00


https://youtu.be/oxJaXe18WaY?t=1743

- Tire contact patch is going from 1 point to 8, with no additional details on what those points are
- In addition to tire types, there will be tire compounds
- Players will be able to set fuel levels and choose tire compounds in pit stops (!!!)
- Smoother driving surfaces, especially curbs
- Track temp will affect tires
- Another playtest will happen this summer

[Kchrpm]

Watching the video now and taking any other minor notes:
- The physics changes between 7 and 8 are bigger than the changes between 4 and 7.
- The 8 points of tire contacts will refresh at 360 hz, instead of 60 hz for the one point previously
- No mention of deformation to go with all this tire contact patch talk
- Curbs can be approached with confidence because of the improvement in tire model and better road/curb fidelity
- Really wants to keep hitting on it being Forza Motorsport, not Forza Motorsport 8, but the interviewer wants to keep saying "it's an evolution"
- Hard, medium, and soft compounds currently, and want to add more in the future
- Goal with tire compounds is deepening strategy, brings up F1
- "A bunch of environmental factors that will change gameplay and really make each lap feel different": track temperature affects tire pressure, grip, and wear; time of day and weather changes
- Playtests are very focused so they can get specific details, I think the one they've done so far has been multiplayer only
- There will be another update after the summer playtest, they will get larger as they continue

[Rare White Ape]

Was there footage of the actual game to go along with it?

[Tom Servo]

This feels like one of those things they'll pay no attention to, but now that I'm actually working through the single player races on GT:Sport, I'm reminded of it: The Forza economy is crap. You just don't earn nearly enough in credits from races, especially as you go up through the ranks. It was bad enough with F7 that that's what got me to quit playing, it was just an obnoxious grind. "Oh, here's a race series that requires a car that costs 1+ million credits, it's five races long, and you'll earn 10K per race." Meh.

Spend all the time you want chasing the sim-racing giants, but if you make it a huge pain in the ass for me to drive the cars I want to drive, I'll go elsewhere.

[Kchrpm]

Was there footage of the actual game to go along with it?
Nope.


Spend all the time you want chasing the sim-racing giants, but if you make it a huge pain in the ass for me to drive the cars I want to drive, I'll go elsewhere.

I'm hoping they get rid of the economy completely, it's dumb earning money in single player to participate in online events.

[Jason]

This feels like one of those things they'll pay no attention to, but now that I'm actually working through the single player races on GT:Sport, I'm reminded of it: The Forza economy is crap. You just don't earn nearly enough in credits from races, especially as you go up through the ranks. It was bad enough with F7 that that's what got me to quit playing, it was just an obnoxious grind. "Oh, here's a race series that requires a car that costs 1+ million credits, it's five races long, and you'll earn 10K per race." Meh.

Spend all the time you want chasing the sim-racing giants, but if you make it a huge pain in the ass for me to drive the cars I want to drive, I'll go elsewhere.

I’ve had the opposite problem with Forza in recent iterations. They give me so much money and so many cars that it feels like there’s no real progression, since you start out with so much.

[Tom Servo]

Even with F7? I felt like I'd drop a few hundred thousand credits on a car to do a race series and then make almost nothing on the actual races, unless I set them to the longest length, at which point the slog was just going through hour-plus long races against an AI that's slow even on the highest difficult, it ultimately just became hotlapping for a really long time.

[Jason]

Ah, yeah the races themselves didn’t pay out much, but the driver levels or whatever, and the Forza Hub bonuses I think are what gave me too much stuff/money maybe. Last time I loaded it up, I had like 6.5mil just sitting there, and no clue what to do with it

[Kchrpm]

So you guys agree, the economy is dumb and should just be removed since you can't make people happy with it ;)

[Jason]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I like having to progress, vs it just being a complete free for all. If there’s some other progression system, I’m fine with it. My biggest issue with it is how complex it seems at times and how much crap is thrown at me. I’d much prefer races pay out more and award interesting rare cars, remove the Hub bonuses, remove the driver level bonuses, etc.

[Tom Servo]

I feel like I should clarify that GT:Sport reminded me of how I think it *should* be. You start out pretty poor, but as you go up through the ranks you earn more to pay for your better cars. I've got enough money that I can get a decent car for the next series after finishing the previous one, but not so much that I can buy everything right off the bat. I feel like GT does it well, Forza doesn't, and then Forza went all loot box gimmick (I know they're not technically loot boxes, but I don't feel like figuring out what the correct term is) rather than just fix it.

[21Kid]

I'm more excited about the audible upgrade than anything else.
I hope they increase the volume of it. Some cars should be deafening a WOT.

https://youtu.be/pOb2VAO-58A

[GreatScawt]

They are also introducing Ray-traced audio in FH5... which if done right is going to be realllly cool.

[Tom Servo]

I wonder if, like FS2020, it won't support DLSS. Not that it particularly needs it, FH4 ran at 4K/60FPS/Ultra on my 1080.

[Tom Servo]

Little surprised to see this, FM7 is being end-of-life'd on September 15th, and will no longer be available to purchase. I get that this happens to games, but it seems surprising that it's happening before FM8 is anywhere near being a thing.

[Rare White Ape]

…wow.

Game preservation by the community is a thing. This is why I hate digital-only games.

I mean, I’ll be the last guy to sing FM7s praises but this is a bit nuts.

[Tom Servo]

Yeah, I don't get the "no longer selling it" thing. It's gotta be some shitty licensing deal they made or something.

[Kchrpm]

Yes, they have confirmed that their licenses for cars and tracks are expiring, and this has happened with previous Forza games as well.

https://twitter.com/ForzaMotorsport/status/1420799588424769539


There can be more than 500 license partners on any Forza game, for cars, tracks, music, etc., and licenses can all have different terms and expirations date.

[Rare White Ape]

Ah. I thought those sort of deals typically lasted 10 years. I know that music in GTA is licensed for 10 years, which is why GTA IV was temporarily unavailable for sale recently. The music in it had to be changed or have its licenses renewed.

FM7 is 4 years old... Perhaps at the time it was published Microsoft had planned for its replacement to be out by now-ish.

[Blerpa]

4 years passed. It is the protocol for Forza games: retirement from sales.

[Phil_SS]

Yeah, I saw the article on Kotaku the other day. Kinda crazy but I guess it makes sense. I'm sure they just thought they would have FM8 out by now. Usually it is a two year gap between releases and they are at four years now, seems like it will be 5 or more.

I honestly thought these issues would start creeping up as games have started looking so good there really isn't any advancement to be made in graphics, that they would be better off making them a service til their is a real big jump in technology. Kinda like iRacing.

I know I would prefer that and I am surprised the sports game market hasn't moved in that direction. Though PES is doing that but they have been getting trounced for years by FIFA. So I think they have nothing to lose.

[Kchrpm]

I think for most of the sports games that the current model of quickly discounted annual release + resetting custom characters/card-game teams leads to lots of microtransactions is just working too well. They would need to come up with a really compelling argument to leave that business model.

[Blerpa]

I dunno, the vast majority of games in the market, *TO ME*, is way distant from looking really good.
F1 2021 still looks like a cartoon compared to what I expect in this modern age. Cyberpunk 2077? Nothing special.
iRacing is prehistorical graphic-wise.
FM7 looked decent but it was boring as hell. And the cars handled rubbery, all of them.
Speculation is they are going forward with FH5, interrupting their consolidated habit to go from one Horizon to one Motorsport, back and forth, because they are preparing something really huge and special with FM8 (or just FM without any number, as someone has implied).

[Kchrpm]

https://www.gtplanet.net/forza-motorsport-to-feature-deeper-more-authentic-multiplayer-experience/


The team wants the core experience of the revamped multiplayer to encourage players to improve their skills alongside one another. The focus of the last playtest brought this to light through the live event structure with open practice, qualifying, and the feature race. As the game is now, there’s a calendar of open and upcoming events that players can join, each of which features the previously mentioned open practice and qualifying sessions before moving players to the main event — a typical race weekend in the world of motorsports.

Where open practice comes into play is helping players to better understand the track, where they’re fast, and where they can improve. As such, a new corner mastery system will aide players in better understanding where they’re faster or slower on a per corner basis. Esaki gives the example that he does well on decreasing radius corners, but not as well on those with double apexes. The new system will identify the corner(s) players need to improve on to make the most out of their lap times.

Continuing, Chris acknowledges the feature will continue to grow with the amount of community feedback given and that the testing is in no way final. Finally, he touches on endurance racing. With all the changes made to tire compounds and tire wear, the focus on fuel consumption, now would be the time to “double down” on endurance racing.

The latest test featured an endurance series alongside the other rotating events with an open practice and qualifying session that was available for hours, allowing players to jump in when able, leave, and come back for the main race anytime it was available. That flexibility, as Chris mentions, can allow the team to create qualifiers during the week and feature the main race during the weekend. Alternatively, there’s the option for qualifying during the day with the main race taking place at night.