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Some advice to play racing games?

nikolino840

Member
Next gen racing games could be stratospheric.....i want to join too!
jskjG0T.jpg

I am the red car....i have forza horizon 4 and project cars 2...
 
Well with forza Horizon 4, you gotta start slow and work your way up. Start with an awd car that has a low performance rating and use the drivng assists as needed. This'll help get up to speed.
 

Sorc3r3r

Member
Use brakes before turning.
Get the front of your car pointing out of the turn as quickly as you can.
Accelerate.
Rinse and repeat.
 
I'm going to skip more obvious suggestions like racing lines and assists and instead recommend you treat your controller like a nice pair of tits.

Caress the analogue sticks and triggers slowly and gently, the key thing to fast and consistent racing is being smooth. Beginners usually just mash the controls which upsets the car, which is both slower and leads to crashing.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
You just have to put in time and get better, especially for games that are more on the sim side. Few racing games actually try to teach you the basics which leaves you to just get a feel for cars and your choice to turn off assists.
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
You need to find a copy of the original Gran Turismo instruction booklet, which had a very useful discussion of apexes and whatnot. I'd send you mine, but I'm a collector.
 
Want to learn car control with a controller the hard way?

Play Project Cars 2 with a controller and no guide on how to set it up properly to work with a controller. I've been playing the game for years and have it down with a controller, then it rains or snows and I snap oversteer right into every barricade.
Project Cars 2 does have several assists like the driving line, traction control and stability management, but they are more "you won't spin out every time you push the go pedal" than "We'll do it for you". Project Cars is better played with a wheel.

If you want to ease yourself into a sim style game, Forza Motorsport 7 can hand-hold you a lot better than Project Cars 2, and can be effective at making the red car behave more like the green car so you can concentrate on braking and cornering lines instead of keeping traction in and out of the corners. Then when you're comfortable, you can start shutting off assists like traction control/stability management and turn on things like sim steering/tire wear and simulated damage. There are even assists to equalize the off track traction so that when you drop a tire into the gravel the car doesn't get yanked off the track by the difference in surface friction.

The most important thing for people starting out with sims to do is use the brakes. It may seem like you're going slower but a stable car is a fast car. Every time you upset the car's balance of break traction you are losing time. Entering a corner with too much speed will put a lot of heat into the tires and reduce both speed traction on exit. That in turn causes the first part of the next straight to be a battle to reign in the rear end which slows you down even more and wears out the tires even more. Corners have an apex, you shouldn't be accelerating before this point and you shouldn't really be just flooring it at this point either. As the car straightens you increase throttle. With enough practice you'll be on the edge of traction without stepping out the rear end.

Think of it this way for starters, as you turn the wheel, the amount of throttle should be reduced equally. As the wheel straightens throttle can increase. The characteristics of each car dictate how much, but it's a good place to start from.
 
Easy, be patient, when you see yourself getting close to the car in front of you (don't get exited) it just means a hard left / right turn incoming, use the breaks and repeat step 1.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Don't flick the sticks, keep your thumbs on them almost all the time and smoothly move the sticks, thats probably your problem. You can still make small corrections but just don't let the stick return to its neutral position. Thats why you are over/under compensating and wobbling around/crashing off the track.

I would practice in a first person shooter since you won't be crashing all the time, practice circle strafing, eg try to strafe around a pillar while keeping it in your sights at, once you master that driving will be a lot easier. I reckon its more a general control problem than anything to do with racing games, I see the same for people playing fpses, platformers.

TL;DR - keep your thumbs on the sticks and only make flick the stick very quickly to make snap adjustments.

edit - Breaking while approaching turns but everyone already said that, I figured your main issue was controlling the car rather than general driving advice.
 
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Naru

Member
Whatever you do, don't buy a wheel. Don't be that guy. Pedals are ok though, just don't buy a wheel!
 

Kuranghi

Member
If we saw a video of your hands on the controller while you play Forza Horizon 4 we could tell you what we think is wrong, maybe your mum/boo/flatmate/postman could film your hands?
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Wheel & pedals, if not shifter too, or they aren't worth it or fun imo, not even arcade stuff like Daytona USA, unless they're total sci-fi stuff like BallisticNG or kart racers (not sims like KartKraft, Mario Kart style) or stuff like Excite Truck and OutRun that don't control anything like cars or something.
 
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haxan7

Volunteered as Tribute
Assuming you could use some very basic advice:
  • learn to use your brakes before corners to get at the speed you want to take the corner at. A lower entry speed almost always leads to a higher exit speed and higher total speed except for some complicated situations where braking into the turn is more efficient
  • Look up what an apex is and how to aim for it
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
Sims?
Use brakes
Stop accelerating when turning
 

GAMETA

Banned
That's strange. Are you holding the analog stick up? Because it should stay in neutral if you intend to go in a straight line.
 

TheMan

Member
Next gen racing games could be stratospheric.....i want to join too!
jskjG0T.jpg

I am the red car....i have forza horizon 4 and project cars 2...

I'm not sure why this would happen with forza horizon 4- it's an arcade game with very forgiving handling. Does your controller work well in other games? Are you constantly making sudden, sharp turns? Honestly it doesn't make sense.

PC2- This is much closer to a sim (although purists still label it "simcade"). If you don't have a wheel I wouldn't waste too much time with this one. It, and most sims, are designed to be played with wheels and dont' work well with controllers. You can do it and become decent if you keep at it, but it will be a loooot of hassle. Maybe give gran turismo sport a go since it's desinged to work very well with a controller.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Next gen racing games could be stratospheric.....i want to join too!
jskjG0T.jpg

I am the red car....i have forza horizon 4 and project cars 2...
Racing games are actually what first caught my eye for next gens and past gens graphically. Advice I give on driving is treat it like a real race car and never accelerate on sharp turns (lower the banks). With drift race...have fun like a drunken red neck pretty much 😎
 
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