Gran Turismo Sophy: Sony AI x Polyphony Digital

[Mathaios_C]

Honestly the main problem right now is that they are just not aware of you. I get smashed like i was playing gt4. Not comparable at all with the first version. They just do jot use the breaks when are behind you. Like they do not see you on the track. Just played at Nurburgring and first corner is just a nightmare.

 

[Larzi-]

I posted a video in the video thread about this exact thing. Extremely frustrating.

I believe that the speedometer thing is just a bug in the replay, because the revbar does not change and the sound of the engine does not change, and there is no sudden jump to a slower speed in the environment. BUT Sophy clearly lifts a bit before the human car sweeps past.

 

[JTB10000]

I believe that the speedometer thing is just a bug in the replay, because the revbar does not change and the sound of the engine does not change, and there is no sudden jump to a slower speed in the environment. BUT Sophy clearly lifts a bit before the human car sweeps past.

View attachment 1397283

Nah, what the speedometer shows is what I saw happen in front of me. The AI literally jolted to that lower speed way faster than going 80% on the throttle would have. There was clearly something that was triggered there due to me not being past it by that point in the race. This did not happen the previous nor following lap.

 

[Alfa Romeo GT]

Nah, what the speedometer shows is what I saw happen in front of me. The AI literally jolted to that lower speed way faster than going 80% on the throttle would have. There was clearly something that was triggered there due to me not being past it by that point in the race. This did not happen the previous nor following lap.

It happens on this straight line regardless of the vehicle?
(I can't test right now, my new ps5 arrives on Wednesday)

 

[JTB10000]

It happens on this straight line regardless of the vehicle?
(I can't test right now, my new ps5 arrives on Wednesday)

I only paid attention to this car since it happened directly in front of me so idk. This is the most extreme and obvious case I've seen but it does mirror what usually happens in these races, where the cars up ahead about 50% - 60% through the race will dramatically slow down so I can catch up.

 

[05XR8]

That’s nearly like the Nurburgring programming. When the AI are signalling, if you don’t pass it in a certain time, the AI will speed up again. Sometimes, the AI will be signalling and just as you get to the A-pillar, it’ll accelerate.

 

[Johnny Caisse]

Tried racing Sophy with the HiAce on Suzuka and, yikes, what can I say, next time I won't go on Professional!

Maybe Intermediate or even Beginner, 'cause I dunno if She changes her setup when you do to try to trick her and own her with a stronger car but at the start of the race She was slow on the straight then She just bursted with speed when I passed by on Professional mode.

No idea if that's a rubberbanding nightmare mode She gets or if her setup got changed to match mine... or if it's just me who sucks... I'll go with the third! 🤣

 

[tothesz]

Here is my example, now on YouTube. In this case Sophy doesn't lift off, its speed just changes unnaturally.

 

[juanffy18]

I believe that the speedometer thing is just a bug in the replay, because the revbar does not change and the sound of the engine does not change, and there is no sudden jump to a slower speed in the environment. BUT Sophy clearly lifts a bit before the human car sweeps past.

View attachment 1397283

The same thing happen with the standard IA, PD need to work in this and is really notorious in La Sarthe and Route X

 

[Voodoovaj]

Here is my example, now on YouTube. In this case Sophy doesn't lift off, its speed just changes unnaturally.

I could be TOTALLY wrong, but this all looks like two systems competing. I see two systems at work in the video above. I see AI and I see GAME rules.

Just by the video evidence, and what we see in game. it appears that there is AI to control the car (as in pilot it around the track), while at the same time, there are game rules governing the pace of the car (the infamous rubber band effect). We can see from the in car view that the AI is not lifting, but the car slows none the less. The AI didn't make a mistake; a game rule was triggered.

Back in GT5, when the AI difficulty was unlocked, increasing the difficulty didn't make the AI better, it changed the field of cars so the AI had faster cars. Even still, in the custom races, the AI never changes, or changes very little. Switching the AI from Beginner to Professional does very little, but changing the cars DOES increase the overall difficulty. Presumably because the difficulty of the event is determined by the game rules, which dictate the gap between you and the other cars.


Could it be that for nearly 30 years, we've been complaining about "The AI" to the point that Sony invested in Sophy AI, but the real problem has been core game rules, controlling the pace of cars, and it has nothing to do with AI behavior at all? Because we have all noticed that the "AI" is so much better in the hot pepper races where the pace is allowed to be more competitive.

I'd bet you a dozen doughnut that this is where the "AI" problem resides

 

[Magog]

Having seen the wild speed of AI advances as much as I enjoy Sophy I think they should probably start over for GT8 with a brand new model which can learn in real time rather than having to be trained on every track.

 

[hawkeyez]

Having seen the wild speed of AI advances as much as I enjoy Sophy I think they should probably start over for GT8 with a brand new model which can learn in real time rather than having to be trained on every track.

Sophy isn’t anything to write home about. Lots of sim racing games have had much more believable AI.

PD does this though they brag up some feature, like if they were to brag up “new audio engine, best sounding cars to date” I’d laugh because they only just caught up with GT Legends in terms of sound and that game was something like 2003 or 2006. They’re very behind the times.

The only thing they’ve ever been ahead of everyone else is graphics, their games have always looked good.

So yeah I agree, for GT8, they need to go back to the drawing board with a lot of things, AI especially.

 

[Yard_Sale]

Did two custom 3 lap Gr.3 BOP races with 3x-3x multipliers to get the feel of the new BOP and Sophy. Pretty darn impressed. There was only a few awkward spots where Sophy over-slowed, but it was only by online race pace standards, and considering how long a Nurburgring lap is - I consider it only the very slightest of hinders.

Sophy did however have a tendency to come in a bit hot on inside dive bombs where she was trying to defend a position. And to the same note, she’d defend a little too hard and would seemingly show no awareness when I would go for a divey inside move.

Put my self at 20th place in each race, and got second in both races. With boost set to weak, I experienced little (if any) noticeable rubber-banding, although the leader in both races seemed a tad boosted. Both races were very fun and challenging. As far as her overall speed; using myself as a yard stick (mid - A+) I’d put her pace as a high A-level driver that’s not quite A+ fast. I’d put it at least on-par with ACC’s AI. I still want to do different tracks, and try the Sophy races with Road Cars to see how she can handle those vehicles with tire wear multipliers




Other tidbits and opinions:

- really feels like PD is using Sophy to do the BOP down. I couldn’t imagine their in-house ex world tour drivers wanting to slow down GR.3 that significantly, as well as the overall performance of the cars seem to be pretty equal.

- to contradict ^ point, the Gr.3 cars respective speed, feels very similar to ACC to me - like that’s what they were aiming for

- I think in the coming months PD will release the ability to run Sophy races with dynamic weather.

- wouldn’t surprise me one bit if PD revamps the entire career mode within the next 6 months, by simply adding a “Sophy” difficulty level for each race (or perhaps, Sophy is the missing 🌶️ from launch).

 

[hawkeyez]

Did two custom 3 lap Gr.3 BOP races with 3x-3x multipliers to get the feel of the new BOP and Sophy. Pretty darn impressed. There was only a few awkward spots where Sophy over-slowed, but it was only by online race pace standards, and considering how long a Nurburgring lap is - I consider it only the very slightest of hinders.

Sophy did however have a tendency to come in a bit hot on inside dive bombs where she was trying to defend a position. And to the same note, she’d defend a little too hard and would seemingly show no awareness when I would go for a divey inside move.

Put my self at 20th place in each race, and got second in both races. With boost set to weak, I experienced little (if any) noticeable rubber-banding, although the leader in both races seemed a tad boosted. Both races were very fun and challenging. As far as her overall speed; using myself as a yard stick (mid - A+) I’d put her pace as a high A-level driver that’s not quite A+ fast. I’d put it at least on-par with ACC’s AI. I still want to do different tracks, and try the Sophy races with Road Cars to see how she can handle those vehicles with tire wear multipliers




Other tidbits and opinions:

- really feels like PD is using Sophy to do the BOP down. I couldn’t imagine their in-house ex world tour drivers wanting to slow down GR.3 that significantly, as well as the overall performance of the cars seem to be pretty equal.

- to contradict ^ point, the Gr.3 cars respective speed, feels very similar to ACC to me - like that’s what they were aiming for

- I think in the coming months PD will release the ability to run Sophy races with dynamic weather.

- wouldn’t surprise me one bit if PD revamps the entire career mode within the next 6 months, by simply adding a “Sophy” difficulty level for each race (or perhaps, Sophy is the missing 🌶️ from launch).

I remade a road Atlanta race I had previously saved to try and replicate it. Trans am tuned cars. I honestly didn’t notice much difference. It’s a little harder to get past them as their pace seems a hair quicker overall and they’re not as stupid slow in the corners, it’s still just a meh from me.

Tracks and the ability for people to share their custom races is all that’s going to save this game for me. Perhaps somebody has really spent the time finding he perfect custom race setup. I’d rather not dedicate days of continual tweaking to make the perfect challenging race.

On my race, just like before, if that boss 429 gets out ahead it’s gone! Only to slow way down at the end of the race where I go from gaining a half second to suddenly I made up four seconds or more a lap.

 

[Galvston]

I remade a road Atlanta race I had previously saved to try and replicate it. Trans am tuned cars. I honestly didn’t notice much difference. It’s a little harder to get past them as their pace seems a hair quicker overall and they’re not as stupid slow in the corners, it’s still just a meh from me.

Tracks and the ability for people to share their custom races is all that’s going to save this game for me. Perhaps somebody has really spent the time finding he perfect custom race setup. I’d rather not dedicate days of continual tweaking to make the perfect challenging race.

On my race, just like before, if that boss 429 gets out ahead it’s gone! Only to slow way down at the end of the race where I go from gaining a half second to suddenly I made up four seconds or more a lap.

Boost weak is your answer, they wont slow down

 

[Yard_Sale]

Sorry the pics are out of order.




Just ran this race. Gr.3 on RH tires. Got 7th. Very good pace and driving by Sophy

 

[o000o]

Sophy isn’t anything to write home about. Lots of sim racing games have had much more believable AI.

PD does this though they brag up some feature, like if they were to brag up “new audio engine, best sounding cars to date” I’d laugh because they only just caught up with GT Legends in terms of sound and that game was something like 2003 or 2006. They’re very behind the times.

The only thing they’ve ever been ahead of everyone else is graphics, their games have always looked good.

So yeah I agree, for GT8, they need to go back to the drawing board with a lot of things, AI especially.

If not fixing things is wrong, and fixing things is still wrong because of how long they did it, then what are they supposed to do? Even if they do go back to the drawing board as you said, it'd be still "why now?"

 

[bduddy]

Did two custom 3 lap Gr.3 BOP races with 3x-3x multipliers to get the feel of the new BOP and Sophy. Pretty darn impressed. There was only a few awkward spots where Sophy over-slowed, but it was only by online race pace standards, and considering how long a Nurburgring lap is - I consider it only the very slightest of hinders.

Sophy did however have a tendency to come in a bit hot on inside dive bombs where she was trying to defend a position. And to the same note, she’d defend a little too hard and would seemingly show no awareness when I would go for a divey inside move.

Put my self at 20th place in each race, and got second in both races. With boost set to weak, I experienced little (if any) noticeable rubber-banding, although the leader in both races seemed a tad boosted. Both races were very fun and challenging. As far as her overall speed; using myself as a yard stick (mid - A+) I’d put her pace as a high A-level driver that’s not quite A+ fast. I’d put it at least on-par with ACC’s AI. I still want to do different tracks, and try the Sophy races with Road Cars to see how she can handle those vehicles with tire wear multipliers




Other tidbits and opinions:

- really feels like PD is using Sophy to do the BOP down. I couldn’t imagine their in-house ex world tour drivers wanting to slow down GR.3 that significantly, as well as the overall performance of the cars seem to be pretty equal.

- to contradict ^ point, the Gr.3 cars respective speed, feels very similar to ACC to me - like that’s what they were aiming for

- I think in the coming months PD will release the ability to run Sophy races with dynamic weather.

- wouldn’t surprise me one bit if PD revamps the entire career mode within the next 6 months, by simply adding a “Sophy” difficulty level for each race (or perhaps, Sophy is the missing 🌶️ from launch).

I had a crackpot theory that they already used Sophy to do the last Gr.3 BoP. The problem was that AI can handle the bad FR traction out of slow corners better than any human can (just look at race starts), and the best way they could think of to "fix" the issue was to nerf everyone's power so traction wasn't as much of an issue anymore.

 

[hawkeyez]

If not fixing things is wrong, and fixing things is still wrong because of how long they did it, then what are they supposed to do? Even if they do go back to the drawing board as you said, it'd be still "why now?"

All I can say is I’ve had a heck of a lot easier time setting up AI races in other games. AI has NEVER been Gran Turismo’s strength. It’s usually been in the graphics department and LOTS of cars. And now the livery editor imo.

As for fixing things, I don’t care how they do it, I’m suggesting maybe they take a look at other games and see what’s missing. On Project Cars, I’d do a race, oh that was easy, bump up difficult percentage a few percent. Maybe one or two races more and it’d be dialled in to my skill level.

On gran Turismo, your left populating the field, then racing a full 10 lap race or however many laps, juggling the field as some cars are just faster so you gotta move them to the back, race it again, retune your car, detune and tune up. Race again, see how it goes, make some more tweaks and possibly swap out some AI cars as they’re too easy or too fast. I usually just give up.

The other way, is about the same but then it’s set. There isn’t tuning a bunch of cars and trying to match things up perfectly. Such as learning to take a car with 50-80pp less to have a good close race, and even then in single player, it’s chase the rabbit for some reason.

There’s issues, I think PD needs to toss their approach to AI and come up with something new. Just my opinion though. I hardly race single player anyway because of it. So I’ll stick racing friends and strangers in lobbies.

 

[FluxWildly]

View attachment 1439769

View attachment 1439768

View attachment 1439770


Sorry the pics are out of order.




Just ran this race. Gr.3 on RH tires. Got 7th. Very good pace and driving by Sophy

One thing that stood out to me is that even with Sophy integrated into custom race, there is still 2 levels of difficulty above it that have not been incorporated yet...

 

[bduddy]

One thing that stood out to me is that even with Sophy integrated into custom race, there is still 2 levels of difficulty above it that have not been incorporated yet...

Set the AI cars to be in a faster class than you and you'll get a higher difficulty. It's always been like that

 

[Sir Crashalot]

Put my self at 20th place in each race, and got second in both races. With boost set to weak, I experienced little (if any) noticeable rubber-banding, although the leader in both races seemed a tad boosted. Both races were very fun and challenging. As far as her overall speed; using myself as a yard stick (mid - A+) I’d put her pace as a high A-level driver that’s not quite A+ fast. I’d put it at least on-par with ACC’s AI. I still want to do different tracks, and try the Sophy races with Road Cars to see how she can handle those vehicles with tire wear multipliers

Seems like you're one of the fast guys. If you're up to it, I have a challenge for you: 5 laps at Spa, Alpine A110 one make, boost weak, slipstream real, starting last. (I also used 1x tires and 1x fuel but I don't think this has any significance).

I tried this on all three difficulty settings (Beginner, Intermediate, Professional) yesterday and couldn't even get close to P19.
Now I'm a rather average driver but I feel like this could be a real challenge for everyone. Sophy's pace is insane and the difference in here pace between "Beginner" and "Professional" was less than 4 hundreds (fastest laps 2.48.883 / 2.48.542).

We are discussing this over at the custom race thread and others have similar experiences with Sophy one make races.

 

[Met Entso]

Seems like you're one of the fast guys. If you're up to it, I have a challenge for you: 5 laps at Spa, Alpine A110 one make, boost weak, starting last. (I also used 1x tires and 1x fuel but I don't think this has any significance).

I tried this on all three difficulty settings (Beginner, Intermediate, Professional) yesterday and couldn't even get close to P19.
Now I'm a rather average driver but I feel like this could be a real challenge for everyone. Sophy's pace is insane and the difference in here pace between "Beginner" and "Professional" was less than 4 hundreds (fastest laps 2.48.883 / 2.48.542).

We are discussing this over at the custom race thread and others have similar experiences with Sophy one make races.

Rolling start - 15m?

The gauntlet has been thrown!

 

[alectron010]

others have similar experiences with Sophy one make races.

I didnt have chance to try the latest update yet - but this sounds promising to me...
As this was the case when Sophy was first introduced. And the way PD dealt with this were lowered PPs (via tuning).
I think even on highest difficulty the opponents one make cars didn't have equal PPs, but 10-20pp less for Sophy in single make race on highest difficulty (around 40-50pp less on medium, and 80-100 pp less on lowest difficulty iirc).

 

[Sir Crashalot]

Rolling start - 15m?

The gauntlet has been thrown!

20 IIRC - the default setting And I forgot to mention that slipstream was set to real.

I didnt have chance to try the latest update yet - but this sounds promising to me...

It may sound promising but there's a lot of problems.
First, there's almost no difference in Sophy's pace between difficulty settings.
Second, there's no race going on in front of you. All Sophies just drive the same line, same pace.

 

[Artremis]

It may sound promising but there's a lot of problems.
First, there's almost no difference in Sophy's pace between difficulty settings.
Second, there's no race going on in front of you. All Sophies just drive the same line, same pace.

Second point has a pseudo-solution in just using a diverse grid of cars, even just 2 or 3 different models / tunes makes it a lot better. For me though it's 100% the main thing they need to improve, Sophy is basically useless for one make races. Even the base AI manages to make the field spread feel more natural on them.

 

[Yard_Sale]

20 IIRC - the default setting And I forgot to mention that slipstream was set to real.


It may sound promising but there's a lot of problems.
First, there's almost no difference in Sophy's pace between difficulty settings.
Second, there's no race going on in front of you. All Sophies just drive the same line, same pace.

Speaking from the Gr.3 races I’ve done, I’ve watched them go for moves on each other, albeit they’re all in different cars. What I haven’t seen is a lot of mistakes - only a couple as tire wear kicks in, or when I’m putting a lot of pressure on them. TBH it’s very similar to my experiences in faster A+ splits in sport mode. I’ve had to do undercuts or fuel-only pit stops to get up a few positions. Not a lot of mistakes being made, not a lot of ground being made up. .

I think she could stand to make a few more mistakes, but I’d EASILY take this over any of the other Sophy iterations or normal GT AI that we’ve had in the past. I’ll definitely be using Sophy to train for GTWS races when strategy and tire testing. It’s that good IMHO

 

[05XR8]

I see SOPHY making mistakes in terms of cars being turned around. Not so much SOPHY out braking itself.
I've nearly been turned around, but SOPHY backs off where Regular AI(I'll call it "Reggie™") continues the pit maneuver.

 

[Met Entso]

What i noticed is new Sophy conceding the position when reaching a corner with Sophy at your side.

 

[Yard_Sale]

12 lap BOP Group 3 Sophy race. RH tires, 1x fuel, 2x tires. Put myself in 16th. She’s a little awkward through the turn 1-3 sequence, but not horrible. I even got push-to-passed a few times just like in a real online race 😂