So, I love this game a lot but the rubber banding of the AI is truly outrageous. It's the one thing that's keeping me from being fully engaged and excited during a race. No matter what difficulty I set it on, there's one car in the pack that seems to be operating under a different, 'magical' rule set that differs from mine and everyone else's.

I want races to feel fair, even if it turns out I'm much, much better than the AI at the difficulty I set it at. Assisting the AI (as it were) to catch up and keep up, to be some artificial threat during the last few corners, completely spoils the fun.

I've had moments where I went "Wowwww" out loud because of the visuals (like racing through the night, against a sky that slowly turned purple!), but they were so quickly spoiled because I had to pause and rewind to block the single AI car that would magically appear and zoom past me as if it was using nitro.

For shame.

I honestly don't have this issue with the game. If I play on the default, I blow everyone out, no one is ever behind me. Ever. If I play on a couple of them up (can't remember setting names) I am always in a pack. Whether that is in the front with two or three others. Or in the middle of the pack with a couple others. I don't ever feel like there is rubber-banding going on. Or maybe I just don't fully understand what rubber-banding is?

I have a similar -- but inverse -- experience with the AI. The game generally feels too rubberbanded in my favor. This is most noticeable to me in the Showcase events but frequently occurs in exhibition races too.

Basically, if I'm ever in a situation where there are one or two cars positioned ahead of me on the final bend or straightaway, they slow to a crawl without fail, often even sliding to one side of the road or the other to give me clear passage. It never feels particularly good to win in these instances. I'm not earning the victory so much as I am handed it by being in the right place at the opportune time.

EDIT: Despite this, I'm not really totally looking for a more difficult racing experience, so I'm not likely to up the difficulty settings or the general aptitude of the AI. Forza Horizon 3 has become my de facto stress decompression game as a result. And I consider that to be a good thing.

I would have more issue with rubberbanding if this were Motorsport. I almost expect it in Horizon.

Yup, this is the most disappointing aspect of the game for me and it's why I've kept the difficulty at average. The weird thing is that it's not consistent across races. It becomes more consistent, the higher the difficulty, but even on average there will be that one (or more) magical car(s). It also isn't consistent in the same race because I'll restart the race and then not have the problem anymore. I really wish the AI was more human-like and followed the same rules of the game that I have to follow. I don't think that's too much to ask in a racing game like this.

I have not noticed any rubberbanding outside of showcase matches. I am playing with the AI difficulty a couple notches above default and there are still races where I am multiple seconds ahead of everyone else. In the cases where an AI does zoom pass me on the straightaway I can always trace it back to a recent corner that I took poorly.

@satiros: I haven't noticed any rubberbanding at all - outside of Showcase events, obviously - and I'm playing with the AI on Unbeatable. If I can get ahead of the pack early in the race, I'll just keep getting further and further away from them since I don't have to worry about other cars spoiling my lines through the corners/having to defend against overtakes, which is pretty much how it works in actual racing.

...yeah, I'm not convinced that the rubber banding described is actually a thing.

I tend to race on Expert (I'd do Pro if they added qualifiers, but climbing from 8th on the grid to 1st through all the chaos of the other cars proves a bit too much for me on Pro) with most of the assists off, and honestly it just seems like the drivatars are better at certain terrain types and corners than I'm reasonably likely to be. It seems to find lines that are less likely to throw it off the track in some of the offroad courses, and it takes a lot of the tight corners near perfectly where I'd lose all my speed skidding or drifting out or something. Then there are corners where there's a bit of offroad that I can use to straighten the bend out that the AI doesn't want to use, and I leave them for dead there. I've also switched to a better tuning on the McLaren that I'm driving around at the moment that accelerates and handles waaaay better than I'm used to, but sacrifices top speed on the straights, so now the AI is catching me on the final straights on some races where it didn't used to.

I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised if the "rubber banding" is just the AI being better than you at whatever precedes the finish line. Whenever someone catches me at the end I can sorta tell that they just found a better line, which seems like how actual racing should work to me.

There is definitely some rubberbanding. An AI that is someone on my friend's list is extremely fast, no matter the difficulty. I could be lapping other racers and they will consistently be near me. It's not even that they are taking corners better than me or anything, but they are going impossible speeds. I was doing a race that went on the North West section of roads. I was going over 250 mph and the rubberbanding AI of that one driver passed me going ridiculously fast. He had to be going almost 300 mph, and he wasn't just drafting.

I've gone two ranks up from the default difficulty over the course of the game and have found the rubberbanding fine. I feel as though I am stressed out enough, but still bust pass most of the AI.

I only see rubberbanding in the feature events (against the helicopter, etc.). The rest of the events seem to be just the game scaling competitive cars to mine. If you form a convoy then the convoy cars exhibit all kinds of rubberbanding, but that doesn't extend to the races.

I don't think any of the AIs operate any differently in a race whether they have my friend's name on them, the name of a person in my club or just a stranger's name.

But the scaling of competitive cars has some significant effects. If you run a race (especially head to head) and the race ends with a long straight and the computer car has more top speed than you than the only way you'll win is by bumping them. Otherwise they just plain will pass you. The AI scaling in the game has the same problem it's had since Forza 4 which is it cannot adjust for varying top speeds and end straights.

You can also turn this to your advantage. If you get in the Jaguar XJ220 (stock) then the computer cars will have better acceleration than you but you have far better top speed. So on any straights including the final one you can blow by them at 50km/h speed differential.

I think there is rubberbanding, mostly in the form of cars that maintain an advantage over you over a long period of time but then open up passing opportunities on certain corners or straightaways for no discernable reason.

That being said, it doesn't really bother me. I think it's kind of necessary given the drivatar system, which allows for more variety of opponent drivers but also means that some drivers can be legitimately better than you even on certain difficulties.

That being said, as others have said the rubberbanding isn't too bad. I've definitely been in situations where I got out way ahead of everyone else and won a race by 10 seconds or so, and other scenarios where even driving near perfectly I couldn't catch a car (or group) who had built up a large lead over me.

Forza Horizon prizes giving the players a good time above everything else, and if that requires a little bit of rubberbanding it doesn't really bother me. I mean, it's a game where you can go offroad racing in a Ferrari (including through rivers!) or jump a 1950s car 400 feet without completely exploding the suspension. It may say Forza on the box but it's not a sim.

This is one of the primary reasons that I don't play a lot of racing games, especially more recent ones. The developers are either too lazy to put real work into the AI on the different difficulties or they may think that rubberbanding is better, though I'm betting it's the former. The only racing game I've played seriously within 5-10 years is actually an older game for the Xbox 360 called Burnout: Revenge. The rubberbanding in that game is actually advantageous in some ways. Since one of the primary points of the game is to cause other cars to crash, it keeps them somewhat close to you, otherwise, they would be too far away for you to do anything. This is more of an arcade racer though, with a unique mechanic when compared to the other more "realistic" racing games out there. Still, it may be the only racing game I've ever played where the rubberbanding doesn't piss me off.

@inevpatoria: Same. Halfway through most races I feel like the game has decided it's my turn to be in first place, and all the other cars drop back. I am not particularly good at this game and am one notch above normal difficulty, so I don't think this is consistent skill.

I've not seen any rubber banding at all. It's a huge pain to overtake the person who is in first because you are at such a disadvantage because of your grid position, but once I'm ahead of them I leave them for dust by the end of the next lap and it's too easy...

FWIW I'm playing on Expert, I imagine your difficulty setting affects this.

I've not noticed any rubberbanding at all (though I'm sure it's there). Once I get out ahead, I generally increase my lead over time. Turning the drivatar difficulty up has resulted in closer racers, but it's never felt like another car is unfairly gaining on me. There can be a huge difference in vehicle performance even in the same class. If a car catches up to me on a straight, I chalk that up to them having better top-end speed. It's usually balanced by the fact that I can turn better and I end up catching them if I was unable to defend on the straight.

I've actually praised this game for the opposite of what you're experiencing This is one of the least rubberbandy racing games I've played. I've had zero instances of a car just "magically" appearing to pass me. Is this happening on long straights? Maybe tune your car for better top speed.

I feel the exact same way. I'm playing higher than average difficultly I believe and I feel that there is always two people leading the race. If you mess up at all (excluding big crashes) maybe go a bit slow around a corner, you might as well start again as you have no chance at getting back into the race.

I don't want it to be easy but I don't wanna feel like I'm just waiting to get first in a certain turn, I wanna feel like I'm actually having a race with people. The game top to bottom is great, but the race AI is the only thing dragging down the experience.

Would the race replay feature let you check what all the other cars are doing during the whole race? Assuming the replay isn't cheating, of course.

Are you guys serious right now? This is crazy. Now I really feel like a straight forza horizon geek. On previous forza games I've had the difficulty set on highly skilled and that was more than enough of a challenge. I got fh3 and thought nothing of it to keep the same settings as before. But in this game they kept asking me to move up because I'm winning too easily, which I do because I'm all about a nice challenge. And I really was beating them easily. Well 5 moves later now I'm on the unbeatable setting. And yet I'm still winning fairly easy, which is surprising because I've never played on unbeatable, yet I'm beating them like they were on pro. It's crazy to see everyone having problems with them being too hard, I'm having the exact opposite problem. They're just too easy, even on unbeatable.

Maybe I'm getting too old and my reflexes are not what they used to be but I find the Horizon series to feel like you are driving on glass. It's a great looking game but I don't find a lot of fun in it.

Hm... I've always felt that Forza has the least amount of rubber-banding of any racing game series I've played. Maybe they just hide it unusually well, or maybe I'm making the mistake of juxtaposing it with especially egregious examples like the hoverboard races in Ratchet and Clank (bleh), the carriage races in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (BLEH!) or the enemy NPC racers in The Crew (BLEH!!!).

That's not to say that I haven't also noticed a few straightaways where enemies seemed to slow down for me. It's only happened a handful of times about mid-way through a long race though (never seen it happen on a circuit track), and other than those very few instances things have been peachy keen.

If anything, Forza is one of the few racing series where the rubber-banding is toned down enough that I can actually get a sizeable lead if I take turns well and get out of the pack early. I enjoy the chance to leap ahead of others, and oddly enough I enjoy the chance to be left far behind if I screw up. It's better than The Crew, where the races are always insanely close no matter how well or poorly you perform. I know that The Crew's developers thought that such a system added tension and excitement, but I eventually just found it obnoxious. *shrug*

The AI in Forza games has always been objectively terrible. Period.

I've spotted some interesting takes on AI rubber-banding in many races - especially when in first place and in the home stretch. Not much of a surprise to see the 2nd place car suddenly have a massive surge of acceleration. I guess it makes the last part of the race exciting but slightly unrealistic.