Forza Motorsport Update 14 Release Notes

Visit the Showroom to acquire three all-new NASCAR racers – the 2024 Chevrolet NASCAR Next Gen Camaro ZL1, 2024 Ford NASCAR Next Gen Mustang Dark Horse and 2024 Toyota NASCAR Next Gen Camry XSE – available as Spotlight cars during Week 1 of American Thunder.

This update also tunes the competitiveness of Drivatar AI for more intense oval racing, and adds rolling starts to multiplayer races – an essential element of the new NASCAR Series in Featured Multiplayer, available to race over the next 5 weeks. While a limited-time event for American Thunder Month, it will also return in the future as part of our Featured Multiplayer Series rotations.

Gameplay Adjustments to Support NASCAR

November is NASCAR month! To celebrate, we’ve made global changes in both Updates 13 and 14 to improve the racing experience across the game, and to make oval racing especially shine: Tuned Drivatar AI on Ovals to have cleaner race starts, transition more smoothly after race start, and to trail more effectively.

• Tuned car-to-car collision response for more physically accurate energy dissipation. This reduces the impact of small collisions and allows for more stability and control.

• Downforce reduction for lead cars when drafting was reduced to make it easier to maintain position. (Update 13)

• Improved Drivatar AI trailing ability especially in braking zones, making Drivatars less prone to rear ending other cars. (Update 13)

• Updated the multi-car aero model to reduce downforce impact on leading cars, widen the aero wake near the car, smooth transitions near wake edges and reduce drafting induced aero balance changes. (Update 13)

• Additionally, we’ve added support for rolling starts in Featured Multiplayer. Rolling starts will be enabled for all events in the NASCAR Series in Featured Multiplayer in Update 14. Rolling starts will be added to additional events, where appropriate, starting in Update 15.

This update also refreshes Homestead-Miami Speedway track layouts with new NASCAR branding.

Forza Race Regulations

With Update 14, we’ve pushed a new Forza Race Regulations model with a slight reduction to false positive penalty assignments, and an improvement to severity assignment.

Advanced Ghosting in Multiplayer

Advanced Ghosting is a support mechanism for Multiplayer and Forza Race Regulations to help prevent some key collision or off-track situations from adversely affecting the online racing experience. Players will be ghosted in the following scenarios:

• Predicted high relative velocity collisions: when an imminent collision between two cars is detected while driving above the speed threshold, the car with the higher velocity will be ghosted. This does not include low-relative velocity collisions like small fender bumps.

• Returning to track: when a car goes off track, they will be ghosted to prevent collisions caused by unsafe re-entry until they have returned to track and reached a minimum speed threshold.

• **Stopped on track or driving below a speed threshold: **cars that are driving too slowly or are entirely stopped and blocking traffic will be ghosted to prevent risk to other cars.

• Driving the wrong way on track: cars driving the wrong direction on track will be ghosted until they are driving in the correct direction and meeting a minimum speed threshold. This is an existing behavior but has been expanded to include cars at extreme angles relative to track direction and speed.

Experientially, our goal was to use this system to safeguard against egregious collision and griefing behavior, while preserving the physical authenticity of racing where bumping and touching may occur when fighting for position.

Car Audio Updates

Forza Motorsport Update 14 also includes enhanced car audio for the following vehicles:

• 2010 Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SV
• 2019 Lamborghini Sian FKP 37
• 2013 McLaren P1

We recently shared details about how we updated our authoring techniques and pipelines so that we can fix as many car audio issues in the game as possible. Please read this blog for additional details regarding our approach to future car audio updates in Forza Motorsport.

Below is a snapshot of the other fixes and improvements included with Update 14. Head on over to Forza Support to view the full release notes:

• The global reflection probe for the track is now captured at the camera location and includes the track itself. This allows reflections to appear more accurate and prevents visual pops in the reflections by smoothly fading over time.

• Fixed an issue on Mugello and other tracks where hitting curbs could cause sporadic, uncontrollable spins. This would occasionally occur when one or more tires rapidly accelerated or decelerated while unloaded during cornering. While curbs can naturally affect car balance, this fix ensures more predictable handling in these scenarios. As in real life, drivers should still approach curbs with caution, as they can disrupt vehicle stability.

• Fixed an issue where the game will sometimes crash when attempting to reset Free Play Setup settings to default after changing the Game Type to Multi-Class.

• Improved performance when navigating between Vinyl Groups and Liveries menu.

• Fixed an issue where a car's upgrades would also be reset if the player reset its tuning.

• Fixed an issue where the mini leaderboard wasn't sorting players correctly in Drift events.

• Fixed an issue where existing UGC could not be overwritten in Save Livery, Tuning, or Photo menus.

• Added a ‘Sort by Overall’ / ‘Sort by Group’ button to Event Results for Multi-Class Races allowing players to compare how they did against the overall driver list.

• Fixed a bug where tire wear was not correctly affecting grip of Drivatar AI opponents in races.

• Improved Drivatar AI pitting logic, especially in Endurance Races.

• Adjusted track wall friction on Eaglerock Speedway, Daytona, Homestead, and Indianapolis to more accurately reflect physical material properties.

• Autosaved tunes no longer apply to a player's tune save limit.

Developers Note: Autosaved tunes still appear in the game menus, however they do not impact your tune save limit, which is currently 450 tunes. We are actively working on increasing save limits for a future release.