Forza Motorsports 3

[Benmastaw00t 0]

The more I research Forza 3's physics engine, the more I despise it.

Check out these two videos.

What is observed is a "Permanent Steering Aid". I couldn't explain it better than having you folks watch it.

Don't get me wrong, FM3 is a fun game, but from the perspective of a sim racer, its a level up from GRID.

[FCONE 0]

This is a cut and paste explanation of the phenomenon courtesy of GTPlanet:

I think there is some real confusion going on here, which is really indicative of the problems we face between us (the customer) and giving good feedback to T10 to improve things..

I've watched a couple of the vids, then got my MS Wheel out and done a quick investigation myself.

Mine behaves (obviously) inline with the above vids, however, their is no 'active steering' in the sense the console somehow takes over and does anything.

The only thing going on when using a wheel is that it's steering range is reduced (in some simple linear equation) the faster you go.

Any slight shaking of the wheel is just that, it's either the noisy signal from the wheel (mine does it too, mainly just off centre driving normally), and when the FFB kicks in near full lock it can do it a little as the FFB is jostling the potentiometer.. It may be road texture related, it's hard to tell, but it certainly isn't not 'assistance'..

That is it really, yes, it could do with being removed, call it 'speed sensitive steering' of sorts, NFS Shift has lots of speed related adjustment to stop the car feeling too twitchy at speed etc..

The insinuation that the game is nerfed and it's some kind of namby pamby automatic steering is not what I'm seeing at all..

The tests, and proof:

1. Evidence of steering range being reduced as a factor of speed only

- Find a space big enough to play around in..

- Put it on full lock, and slowly set off, keeping it on full lock for the entire duration of the test.

- Notice that as speed increases, the steering angle slowly reduces totally analogous to speed, and not any other factor.

- To back it up, at speed, turn on full lock until you hit something, ideally so you pretty much stop dead, notice that when you suddenly decelerate your steering lock suddenly increase back to maximum. However as long as your forward velocity stays reasonable constant until the sudden deceleration, the car can be quite sideways and no change to steering is observed.

2. Evidence of no automated countersteering.

- You will need something stupidly powerful and RWD, the recent VIP gifted race cars will do..

- Do some donuts (not at speed, just on the spot (as such)) on full lock, once donutting nicely, change lock quickly to the opposite extreme, your car's rotational velocity will slow down and you'll start rotating in the opposite direction (eventually), now all this time your steering has been hard against the end stop, not once has the game applied opposite counter-steering, even with you holding lock whilst the car steers into and out of the direction of rotation.

I may be missing something here, but really it's a little saddening (not aimed at you) that people come up with these 'observations' with weird conclusions about these things, with what appear to me to be half-assed wild theories that can be easily quantifiable with some common sense..

Now, take a controller, and you can see that heavy filtering is applied (it's non-linear and has special conditions), but it's effectively heavily damped, this certainly dumbs things down a bit and could do with being an option to switch off, as it very much makes it a different driving experience to using a wheel, which in contrast is very direct.

I'm getting quite disillusioned with forums lately.. sure the game could do with one or two improvements to the handling model, but the amount of very poorly thought out observations isn't helping at all, clearly you are now reporting it on this forum, and it wouldn't take long before people will take this as a valid issue, despite being fairly normal and quite a minor feature.

[BBernes 0]

There is a maximum turning angle before your front tires looses traction at a given speed it is just the laws of physics.

To turn more you will have to reduce your speed, it is just the way it is.

[Benmastaw00t 0]

That is a no-brainer for a sim racer, but in the video of the Shelby GT500, the driver is going at the same speed (rather slow actually), but cornering left and right, and noticing in the telemetry that the wheel is showing resistance and reduced angle, while the user is holding that angle.

It could be due to X360 wheel's lack of strong FF, but he also demonstrates to a much better wheel, Fanatec 911 Turbo S wheel.

[darkangelism 0]

I havnt actually tried this yet, and im gonna do it with FFB off and see if it happens, but the complaint that drifting is too difficult because of it isnt true. Right now there is no other console racer that can offer a better drifting experience, maybe once GT5 comes out that will change, but they will probably have some assists too for controller users at least.

[Benmastaw00t 0]

Drifting in Forza 3 feels much better than FM2. I tried playing F2 again, and drifting felt like I was on ice, haha.

As always, there is room for improvement. If all the bugs had been fixed, Race Pro would still be popular on the Xbox.

[pyquila 0]

@genady

Starting out with Forza can be abit of a pain indeed. The first couple of hours you spend more time watching loading screens than actual racing. After a couple of seasons it gets much better tho. So stick with it. The game hasn't left my xbox since it came out =)

One thing that made my forza life much better was when i found out how to influence the three choices you get after each season/race. One is always new tracks, the other new cars. But the middle one is for the car you are currently in. Never realised that untill season 5/6. So get in your favorite car before getting the three choices and at least you will be driving something you like. Maybe i'm extremely dense, but it really took me days before i noticed it =)

After i hit lvl50 i stopped with the seaons. You will have to race the R1 championship over and over again. Now spend my time mostly online and tuning/building new cars. With varying succes, so my trueskill goes up and down like a yoyo =)

[darkangelism 0]

After season 6 you just race the R1 championship over and over

[Benmastaw00t 0]

Anyone aware of the Transmission glitch in FM3?

[PBearHBK 4]

Anyone aware of the Transmission glitch in FM3?

Do tell.

[Eyerex 0]

If your talking about the money glitch it was fixed in the last update plus bans were handed out to people who used it or are you talking about the glitch when changing gear and getting a boost in forza 2

[PBearHBK 4]

If your talking about the money glitch it was fixed in the last update plus bans were handed out to people who used it or are you talking about the glitch when changing gear and getting a boost in forza 2

I looked it up. There is a glitch with certain cars that you can upgrade to a sport or racing transmission with no Pi change. You basically get a "free" upgrade without affecting the performance index of the car. They have found out that this is why there are so man of the 2003 Celica's leading time charts all over the place, because it is a light car and is one that can be modified well already, and you can somehow get the transmission upgrades in it without bumping up the Pi. Normally a racing transmission would add around +25 to your index by itself, so it is a pretty big glitch at the moment.

[Eyerex 0]

Always a shame when people do this to win as i would sooner race fare at the back of the pack than win knowing i had cheated

fingers crossed it gets fixed soon and there times will be removed from the leaderboard

[Benmastaw00t 0]

Not getting fixed ladies and gentlemen

http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forum ... 72133.aspx

Che (community manager at T10) Acknowledged the glitch and said they will not fix it because it isn't a "Showstopper"

Arguing that the PI system is completely faultless and any glitch that is discovered is ok. Yet when people money glitch, they get banned.

I hope Forza 4 is NOT in the works.

[PBearHBK 4]

hmmm.

I wish i could find a full list of the cars this works on so i can refuse to race against anyone using said cars. All I know is the 2003 Celica is one of them.

[Benmastaw00t 0]

Apparently, someone got an Saleen S5S that is mid S class down to A class.

Glitching.

[Jojo Gigio 1]

Nope, Che said they wont.

And apparently, if you reveal the truth about F3 and T10 you get permabanned, such as myself.

Cool stuff! Can't wait for GT5 to come out and/or getting a wheel and windows XP for my mac so I can play PC sims with the lot of you.

Apparently, someone got an Saleen S5S that is mid S class down to A class.

Glitching.

I haven't been to their forum for almost 2 months so I am a bit out of date with FM3. It did seem like T10 was not interested in allowing for much criticism, no matter how well thought out and written. My biggest complaint was the manner in which adjustments were made to their hopper system. I read a lot about how they wanted to make it bigger and were diligently collecting data in order to do so more effectively. But I got sick of waiting and moved on before they actually added anything new. From what I have heard, the system now includes a RWD hopper, though numbers are low. Perhaps there were a lot of others like me who just left.

The BS with the AWDs was also a game killer for me. Well that and the way PI is calculated. They pretty much made FM3 a gamer's game, rather than one for racers.

[PBearHBK 4]

What is a "hopper".

The only term I know for it come from playing paintball lol

[Benmastaw00t 0]

"hoppers" are multiplayer playlists, in the case of Forza, R3 Circuit, Drag, RWD Drift, etc.

[Benmastaw00t 0]

Also, I couldn't agree more Jojo.

Che acknowledged the glitch is present, and said T10 refuses to patch it up, saying they are going to wipe leaderboard times for cars that are below stock PI.

It won't happen.

[darkangelism 0]

yeah it is a gamebreaking glitch for hotlappers, the best fix is just compete with people on your friends list and keep cheaters off.

[R1R Shancus 0]

Apparently, someone got an Saleen S5S that is mid S class down to A class.

Glitching.

yeah it can also be done with a few other cars like the corvette zr1 but T10 says their game is perfect so nothing is going to be done

[pyquila 0]

Although i enjoy forza very much still. But it's budget driven, not a real work of love, or at most a work of love with a clear deadline and budget. Maybe that's not T10's fault, since they are owned by a much bigger company. But you can clearly see the words 'deadline' and 'release date' in some parts of the game. And since they have not started on their next big project (i think a new gotham game):

http://www.vg247.com/2010/02/03/forza-d ... big-thing/

I doubt the problems in forza 3 will be fixed by the skeleton crew lef that will be focused on getting out as much carpacks as possible in order to get as much cash out of your pocket as possible.

Forza 3 is over for them. Game was good, good reviews, great sales. Everyone was pretty happy in the beginning. Every casual gamer moved on to Modern Warfare 2. What's left are a few hundred diehards complaining on the forums about glitches, unpainttable cars, etc. Maybe those few hundred get read by a few thousand. And of course as a company those 'loyal' followers are important. Alienate those and your next project will get alot of bad press even before hitting the streets ('Forza 3 sucked, who should this be different!!111' type of comments.) But for the someone looking for a nice time the game was great. So it was for all of us until we got deeper into the game and found out about the AWD swaps, the audi's, the glitches, the failing hoppersystem.

But in the end Forza 3 is just one game for T10. Get it out of the door, pray for good sales, fix some really nasty bugs, make some DLC and move on to hopefully repeat it again. It's a numbers game and not something you do out of total compassion for what you are making. Or maybe that's the only way these days to survive as a developer. Listen to the beancounters who run the accounting department. You can't allocate a team for a few thousand carnuts who are now finding bugs and ways to play the game you as a developer never thought off. If those few thousand are paying a monthly fee, sure. Then the numbers add up again (maybe). Happy beancounters (something i would happily do for Forza since i think the game is pretty sound.). If GT5 doesn't sell many millions of copies and ps3's i doubt polyphony will get an (almost) unlimited budget/time to produce GT6.

I think if you are looking at any racing game for the long run you have to go PC. Either the company itself (like iRacing) or the modding community will fix many of the bugs and introduce new ways to enjoy the game. Console games are RInse and Repeat. (Burnout Paradise was an exception, they released tons of new stuff and fixes. But that's hardly a racing sim =))

[starfox550 0]

Does anybody else's xbox freeze when they try the FOV trick? The first time I tried it I managed to get to the track loading screen, the second I managed to get 500 yards, went to look to the rear then was stuck in that view. Forceed to re-start my console! After that just reset it back to standard settings coz I really don't want to temp fate with RROD. I think it was trying to contact the other consoles that don't exist is what's causing the problems. Might also be worth noting that I currently do not have a hard drive fitted (currently waiting on a (kinda) third party one to be delivered )

[PBearHBK 4]

Does anybody else's xbox freeze when they try the FOV trick? The first time I tried it I managed to get to the track loading screen, the second I managed to get 500 yards, went to look to the rear then was stuck in that view. Forceed to re-start my console! After that just reset it back to standard settings coz I really don't want to temp fate with RROD. I think it was trying to contact the other consoles that don't exist is what's causing the problems. Might also be worth noting that I currently do not have a hard drive fitted (currently waiting on a (kinda) third party one to be delivered )

I have never run into that.