AI: Which game had it right?

[ShiftingGears]

Has any racing game got it right? They all seem to be lacking a bit. GT5 the AI is not that fast but it is an improvement over GT4 and is better than many other games I have played.

There are several games that blow GT's AI out of the water. GPL and Codemasters games, to name some off the top of my head.

 

[Dmarc_Atl]

There is no need for rubber banding in modern racing games. That was about 20 years ago, we've moved on a little bit since then.

You havent played many recent racing games have you?Every current NFS had rubber banding, Dirt 1-3 has rubber banding,Forza Horizon ( racing that airplane I crashed so much and still won lol ) has rubber banding... every recent racing game ive played besides GT5 has rubber banding.If you go slow, let the the whole pack get far in front of you and you push and catch up and they stick with you even when you get in front, thats rubber banding, they go slow when your far behind and they go faster when you get ahead. Thats one thing I always do with every racing game or any game with racing in it, and every one I can remember had this.
Its not a bad thing either, I actually wish it was in GT5, and I hope they implement it in GT6.If they include rubber banding and make the cars a bit more aggressive, I think it would be great AI.

 

[Tornado]

ISI games generally have good AI in the official tracks. Add on tracks are of course hit or miss.

 

[niky]

Everyone seems to be confusing "AI" and "difficulty". They are not the same thing and they don't really even go hand in hand. You can have rubbish AI and still be very difficult - a prime example being the Pro Vitz / Yaris race in GT3: the CPU cars blindly follow the racing line, nose to tail and never deviate from this, but they're still nearly impossible to beat because they do it at very high speed.

Decent AI should make you think you are racing against humans, not CPU controlled cars. They should react to what is going on around them, try different things at different points of the race, occasionally make mistakes... all the things you would expect a human to do. As it is, the CPU drivers follow the racing line and perform seemingly pre-set actions at pre-set points - the only differences being how quickly they do it depending on how difficult PD want the race to be. I would like to see the CPU cars early on driving badly, not just slowly and later on they should drive well, not just quickly, and preferably actually battle for position...

This is the whole crux of the problem. How good or bad the AI is is not seen in the difficulty. GT5's AI is the best of the series by far because they react to you, interact with you and drive differently based on their situations.

The emotion engine is a clever idea. Drivers driving out in front in clean air should SOMETIMES slow down. Drivers driving bunched together should SOMETIMES start to drive more erratically and aggressively.

The problem is the programming allowed drivers that fall behind in clean air to "fall asleep"... and collision detection algorithms made them downright timid when you got up close to them. An adaptation of this engine would make for very good racing.

The "pace" problem is all down to difficulty settings. All Racing game AI hold an artificial pace. If the AI were allowed to drive at maximum pace, if the waypoint system provided the AI is adequate, they'd blow every single human driver out of the water. Problems of pace and difficulty will be down to how the game adapts to your level of driving, or if the AI has multi-level waypoint and aggressiveness programming based on the supposed difficulty of the event... (GT's AI always drive at a set percentage of maximum pace, no matter what event you're in)

 

[McLaren]

GT40 (and Mercedes SL, and Saleen S7, and Cizeta) at Le Sarthe would shoot off Hunaudières into the sand every time. FF cars would understeer into the walls surrounding chicanes (like on George V) every time. Cars with loose tails would spin out on certain corners every time. None of that happened in GT5 outside of specific instances, and they actually drove somewhat inconsistently lap to lap as if they were actual beings.

Just to add, the Shelby Cobra lost it at the Corkscrew as well almost every time. I think it did that in GT3 though, as well.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

The AI in Porsche Unleashed was not bad so long as they were near the front of the pack but the ones in the back were bad. One day I was looking through the data files [pc version] and located the AI files. Just for kicks I decided to take a look and I could see that the AI was programed based on race position. The closer to the front the more aggressive they would be fighting for the line more accurately hold the line, drive faster and corner better. So of course I edited the file for one of the cars to see what would happen and set all the AI cars to drive like they were in the lead then I drove the race to see how that worked out.

The result was very interesting. On a 5 lap race normally I could take first place on the second lap on the hardest settings. With the new changes it was very difficult to get through the other cars they were much faster and trading paint all the way around the track. I actually had to drive to get the lead on the last lap.

Sadly the changes only worked on a couple of cars and on a couple of tracks on others the AI would just pile up in the corners and take each other out of the race, sometimes you along with them. Still on that one track and especially in the GT1 it was quite a race.

Just to add, the Shelby Cobra lost it at the Corkscrew as well almost every time. I think it did that in GT3 though, as well.

I remember on Forza 4 the FGT race on Lugna Seca seemed like every other lap there was at least one FGT off in the sand in the turn after the corkscrew.

 

[Tornado]

I'm curious about that. Any idea which files they were? I might poke around in there myself.





And a lot of older games did it that way, for some reason. NFS III and High Stakes did it that way as well. Viper Racing was really interesting about it. Field of 7 AI drivers, and with hacks you could double it to 14 AI drivers. The ones towards the back in the regular game without mods were dog slow (and the first three were roughly as fast as each other), but when you double the AI the dog slow ones would would start in 7th and 14th, and the best AI driver would start 1st and 8th; so you could see just how different the two were when they raced each other, and would usually even get into accidents as the slower drivers fell behind the "duplicate" faster drivers. Other than that Viper Racing had fun AI, though.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I like NASCAR 2003 AI, I did some races last night at Bristol and Daytona, set the strength to 100%, great fun and they were quite aggressive too.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I'm curious about that. Any idea which files they were? I might poke around in there myself.

There is an AI sub folder if memory serves and in that folder are some csv files.
Been a long time now so I can't remember exactly what I modified, I'm sure that the Spread.CSV was one of them. There is also a Glue.CSV and a Tuning.CSV maybe a few others. SOme are actually commented so they are not that hard to figure out.

I also wrote and editor program for that game that allows you to modify almost everything about the cars, power, grip, downforce, gears, drive type, sound, price, even what parts you can buy for it. We used to run over the LAN with cars built using this program some of them hitting 400+ MPH like they were on rails good times

 

[TheeFrogmanlego]

Codemasters AI crashes way to much.if they did not we would have the best AI ever ,but there not, they blatantly crash into each other and drive like noobs, really fast noobs.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

 

[jabofu]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

Because many people are not that competitive and find it frustrating to play online. I understand it, because many human drivers are way better than the AI and there are also some crashers out there. If you can beat the AI even on hard doesnt mean you can beat every online player. And some people dont have a internet connection that will provide a lag free race.

But I prefer racing against real players too. It is way more fun and challenging. It is very fun to hunt the driver in front of you, put some pressure on him and wait till he makes a mistake. Or the feeling of beeing chased. To have someone on your tail and trying to hold your concentration. AI cant deliver this experience, yet.

 

[eran0004]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

Because real people might not always be interested in doing the same kind of races that you want to do at the same time as you want to do it. And even if they are, it's not always easy to find them.

What would be great is to have a slider for the AI difficulty, like 1 to 10. You could pick a level that would suit you. The problem with that would be that if you're only in it to complete the game, you could just set it to 1 and win with no effort at all. On the other hand, if people play a game only to complete it, then that's their problem. The benefits from being able to set the AI skill to match your own skill would make races a lot better.

Perhaps you could also set other variables, like how likely they are to make mistakes, etc. To add a bit of noise to the AI behaviour...

 

[niky]

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

It is 2013 why not just race in real life?

You can push the reality slider any way you want, in the end, improving some aspect of the gameplay (like AI, B-Spec, photomode), whether you personally use it or not, makes GT6 a richer experience and a better game.

 

[CoolColJ]

Because real people might not always be interested in doing the same kind of races that you want to do at the same time as you want to do it. And even if they are, it's not always easy to find them.

What would be great is to have a slider for the AI difficulty, like 1 to 10. You could pick a level that would suit you. The problem with that would be that if you're only in it to complete the game, you could just set it to 1 and win with no effort at all. On the other hand, if people play a game only to complete it, then that's their problem. The benefits from being able to set the AI skill to match your own skill would make races a lot better.

Perhaps you could also set other variables, like how likely they are to make mistakes, etc. To add a bit of noise to the AI behaviour...

better yet, have a cast of 16 AI drivers with their own persistent driving style and character, and names.
A logical extension of B-Spec!

As far as free races go, we need to be able to set the spec, tyres and cars the AI drives!

 

[Imari]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

Because the chances of me getting a clean race out of a random pickup room are much lower than me getting a clean race against AI.

Real people are great if you're in a league with the same people over and over, and they're OK if you're on something like iRacing that at least attempts to enforce rules.

But random room in GT? Your only hope is to get away from the start quick and stay far away from other people. It's not even just the people, those of us on the arse end of the world have to deal with netcode glitches AND rammers.

 

[Dodzzz]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

Because I always get disconnected in the middle of the race.. I wonder why.. my internet connection is fine.

 

[HKS racer]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

trollollolol !!!

Fixed. You forget to add "trollollolol !!!" to your post.

Because many people are not that competitive and find it frustrating to play online.

Nope.

Because real people might not always be interested in doing the same kind of races that you want to do at the same time as you want to do it. And even if they are, it's not always easy to find them.

This. And lag, bug, disconnections, time wasted waiting for people to jump on track, crap talking on microfones etc etc..

 

[ShiftingGears]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

Because your racing experience online depends on the number of people available for the specific event you want to race in, the internet connection, and the quality of the players available.

The online experience is inconsistent, in other words.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

When racing online in Forza I typically turn off the collisions. This takes a bit away from the racing in that there are no issues finding a place to pass, no blocking and no drafting. It also means no body coming in an crashing you or lags causing you to wreck and the laps are not flagged for drafting.

In this mode it really all comes down to the car and the driver and can be a lot of fun without the hassles of a public lobby with collisions.

 

[Spagetti69]

When racing online in Forza I typically turn off the collisions. This takes a bit away from the racing in that there are no issues finding a place to pass, no blocking and no drafting. It also means no body coming in an crashing you or lags causing you to wreck and the laps are not flagged for drafting.

In this mode it really all comes down to the car and the driver and can be a lot of fun without the hassles of a public lobby with collisions.

Takes any race craft away though. As an option it's ok but not for me. Handy for qualifying.

 

[C_Raccoon23]

Racing game AI -WHY!!!

It is 2013 why not just race with real people?

Seriously, this argument? Maybe if the way GT5's online worked didn't make it so hard to find a race I want, I'd race with real people more often. Matchmaking needs to be added in GT6. Please make it happen PD.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

One thing they really need to add to GT online is a way to see if your friends are in a race and join the race as well as a way to invite your friends to a race easily.

 

[Kitten]

One of the main problems is that people overlook how they're using overpowered cars on superior tyres. The question is if the AI should adapt to your car and tyres choice or if the events should get more restricted.

I Agree, For Example the AI Using a Stock Car on Sports Tire, as People use Racing Soft, and Fully Tuned Cars, Of Course it would make the AI Look stupid slow. Because they cant catch up :|.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I Agree, For Example the AI Using a Stock Car on Sports Tire, as People use Racing Soft, and Fully Tuned Cars, Of Course it would make the AI Look stupid slow. Because they cant catch up :|.

Yep... I was really disappointed when I saw that A-Spec races in GT-Mode were basically unrestricted and then on top of that the tire wear was not right or off completely and many of the races were very short.

I was expecting something more like GT4 where at least most of the races had a tire restriction and that tire wear combined with race length required you to use a bit of strategy on tire selection.

 

[Samus]

I Agree, For Example the AI Using a Stock Car on Sports Tire, as People use Racing Soft, and Fully Tuned Cars, Of Course it would make the AI Look stupid slow. Because they cant catch up :|.

Use the same car on the same tyres, they're still easy. The above may be a valid point that some people do exploit but it doesn't in any way change the fact they're too slow.

 

[BlazeTheCat05]

Heck, even with the "Performance Difference Bonus" in GT5, I still found the A.I. to be a bit dumb and easy to take advantage of. Big example is Supercars Festival, where on the Eifel circuit, the Cizeta V16 (or RUF Yellowbird) may spin out on certain corners. Quite humerous as first, but after a while it gets annoying. I was able to finish 2nd in an underpowered 500PP track-day Scion FR-S, beating out big guns like the 458 Italia and Veyron. The only reason I didn't win was because the stupid R390 was in the race, it started 1st, and was able to blast away thanks to it's immense acceleration.
The only instant I found the A.I. to be quite competitive was in one-make events involving Karts, although they sometimes overshoot the Corkscrew on Laguna Seca or spin on the Karusell on Nordschleife.

 

[NCRthree]

Use the same car on the same tyres, they're still easy. The above may be a valid point that some people do exploit but it doesn't in any way change the fact they're too slow.

I usually drop at least one grade for Arcades. For low powered street cars I use Comfort Hards. GT500, GT5 Touring Cars, DTM's-Sport Soft or Mediums. Always using a stock vehicle with no aids. Some one makes can be pretty challenging just dropping a grade. RUF BTR, Lancia Stratos on comfort tires. Others can be just waaaay too easy with Sunday driver speeds.

Seasonals and ASpecs with the running start just encourages aggressive driving and over tuning to get a win. It's a tired concept. A standing start with faster AI would be more like the 5 lap Best Motoring style street car racing that GT5's race format seems inspired from.

 

[avens]

GTR2's AI isn't that much intelligent. It's just fast, so it isn't that great of an example on this day and age.

Forza4 is as much of an offender as GT5 is. Of course they aren't the same, as both dealt with some problems the other has.

 

[HKS racer]

GTR2's AI isn't that much intelligent. It's just fast, so it isn't that great of an example on this day and age.

Forza4 is as much of an offender as GT5 is. Of course they aren't the same, as both dealt with some problems the other has.

The best AI that try to simulate human behaviour is in Grand Prix 4. This is out of question. GTR2 AI is moddable, like rFactor. With time to spare and understanding you can achieve great results. There's GTR2 reborn mod at nogrip you can try youreself.

Anyway default GTR2 AI has proper pace, and it's easily editable with a slider. A convenient gameplay feature I guarantee.