Custom Online Lobby Ideas

I’m looking for some ideas for custom online lobbies. I’ve enjoyed lots of different ideas already but I know there must be a load more out there, would be great to get a collection of them together? Not sure if this already exists somewhere?

Just to give you some simple ideas we’ve enjoyed;

Ice Hill Climb:- Turn down the grip settings, one lap of Fujimi Kaido, no 4x4 or TC and throw some AI into the mix. Can take a while to get uphill, but it’s good fun and don’t expect your brakes to work coming back down!

Hummers vs Kas:- Again, head to Fujimi Kaido but this time have 2 buckets. Bucket one is AI in production Hummers, bucket two is the players in (you guessed it) production Kas. And, of course, bucket two starts at the back :slight_smile:

Also, as my friends and I are such fans of Cycled Production but bored of the same car and track combinations, we’ll often do random ones. Also, multiple bucket production so you will have a choice of similarly rated cars - usual evo vs suburu, Escort cosworth vs Mercedes cosworth, DTM cars, that kind of thing.

I know there used to be a post on the forums of several of these pairings, with course and number of lap suggestions to give a good, balanced and very close race, but unfortunately I am no longer able to find it. If anyone wants to add more, please do so, always looking for ways to have fun! Thanks!

My friend and I have always done a “rental points climb” where we essentially turn upgrades/tuning off, pick a random PI to start at (has been anywhere from 175 to 500+ depending how we’re feeling), pick a PI window to play in, and pick the amount of points to increase the PI after every race (or a few races if there are several rentals we feel like racing with.
Our most common settings are a 20 point window with a 20 point increase. So we would start at say 350-370 performance points, pick random rentals, race them, rematch if there are more good races to be had in that group, after 1-3 races the points will go up to 370-390, and we keep racing then raising the points for a fresh set of cars. It almost always yields some good races; a lot of times we end up either duking it out in seemingly mismatched cars (I usually lean towards balanced European cars and he tends to prefer more overly powerful ones so it’s not uncommon for us to race a Ferrari Dino against a '69 Nova 396 or something). Within 15-20 PI the rentals are so closely matched that 90% will come down to the driver regardless of performance ratings, and sometimes there can be some interesting upsets in there.
This is really fun to do using lower class cars (below 450-500 points) on some of the more extreme tracks like Fuji Kaido uphill or Old Le Mans. The PI ratings go out the window and it becomes more about finding the car correctly balanced for the track, which can also lead to some crazy races that look insane on paper but end up being really good (driving the Austin-Healey 3000 and Jag XK120 uphill on Fujimi is always a good time). Sometimes we will introduce other restrictions like only cars made before 1980, only RWD cars, etc. It’s always something new and typically turns into exciting door-to-door battles with a little demolition derby occasionally like when I end up in a Ferrari Dino and he grabs an F150 Raptor haha!

Another one I’ve fooled with recently is setting up custom multi-class lobbies with AI opponents on Le Mans with chicanes. I’ll have one group of three GT2 cars, another three GT1/GTS cars, and five LMP1 cars. I’ll jump between the different groups depending on what I feel like driving.
The fun part is in the settings, though. GT2 rolls out first, GT1/GTS on a 10 second delay, LMP1 on a 20 second delay; this causes them to stack up in a traffic jam that will put your skills to the test to try and come out in the lead. AI is set to professional, ABS/STM/TCS are all turned off, collisions are set to always on (in the real race you can’t ghost through wrecked cars so it presents yet another very challenging obstacle when an LMP car causes a pileup that you have to maneuver through), and damage is set to simulation. Generally I prohibit upgrades but will allow tuning of stock cars; in the real world the teams are generally allowed to make individual adjustments so this presents yet another fun challenge as racers are going to be trying to strike a balance of downforce and other settings only to watch it all go down the drain when they get in an accident lol.
Cars break down frequently and it can cost them the race at Sarthe, so the chaos variable of having a large number of aggressive AI prototypes with simulation damage sort of emulates mechanical issues with the cars. Busted up aero as early as the first lap is a fact of life in this lobby, just like in the 24 hour race you simply run it as hard as you can and keep your fingers crossed that you don’t get crippled early.
I usually opt for about 10-20 laps or so, then the chances of being in a collision are quite high as you’re either dodging psychotic AI prototypes or trying to zip through two separate fields of slower cars often with the same psychotic AI prototype drivers that will smash into you if you can’t navigate through the GT cars fast enough. If you have some friends that like this sort of thing then pit stops to repair damage can become more strategic (or if you’re the less serious types you try to ever so slightly nudge each other to cause small bits of aero damage to slow each other down haha).
I’ll admit it may not sound all that appealing at first when you think you’ll likely just end up with in last place with smashed up bodywork or worse (that does happen), but it’s actually quite challenging and I personally feel rather triumphant just from finishing the race regardless of position. Remember, simulation damage also means when you flip you aren’t rolling back over if you don’t land rubber side down. A bad enough accident can quite literally put you out of the race; I had it happen while I was in my Toyota GT-One, I got clipped in the rear by an Audi LMP, I spun around to face oncoming traffic, and got pelted by a whole sea of prototypes to the point my car was damaged so badly it would no longer move at all. If you have a good group of guys to race with then this little “Le Mans multi-class meets Twisted Metal” lobby can be hilarious and lead to some of the best racing I’ve ever had on Forza. A little piece of advice: if you have a friend that tends to complain a lot, I wouldn’t suggest inviting him because your car is like 95% guaranteed to take some kind of damage along the way so you probably won’t want to hear him whining about it for 10-20 laps lol.

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Plow the Rabbit is a personal favorite of mine. Each person drives an LMP1 car, and you set up 1 AI in a stock VW Rabbit with 75% power and grip handicaps for each person playing. The first LMP1 to push their Rabbit around 5 laps of the Sedona oval wins.

Oh, I forgot to mention that if you want to avoid the first lap rush hour mess what you can do is set the starting grid to mix all cars regardless of group, set the grid order to random, and give an individual 2-4 second start delay to every car. That sort of pre-mixes the field and puts a little gap between the cars (every LMP driver will be praying they get first starting position lol).