Is Sophy 2.0 no longer competitive?

[benjoi84]

@wdreamsmaycome I would reserve your judgment until you've actually played the new Quick Races Vs Sophy.

They are actually incredibly fun, and although they are in no way comparable to racing actual humans, they do present a challenge and a good use of your console time.

 

[br1x]

@wdreamsmaycome I would reserve your judgment until you've actually played the new Quick Races Vs Sophy.

They are actually incredibly fun, and although they are in no way comparable to racing actual humans, they do present a challenge and a good use of your console time.

The way they present a challenge is the same way the normal AI does unfortunately: Place you several places back and have you chase the rabbit.

The fantastic racing you could have in the earlier events with Sophy are nowhere to be seen because they are handicapped so hard for some reason, I really hope they add a higher difficulty with some sort of qualifying or have you choose your starting position, otherwise it is a waste of this amazing AI.

 

[newmedia_dev]

Had a couple more races with Sophy this morning and it's obvious that they want to highlight the close quarters racing over difficulty (which we know it can do)

That's why it races the way it does so that the player can feel part of the action with clean racing and then towards the end bring a bit of tension.

Genuinely I think it will help up the quality of racing in more casual players but for anyone with decent driving levels it's just a more fair version of the existing AI that ups the pace and awareness to 11.

Edit:

In reality they could make it fun or impossible to beat and I think they chose fun.

Edit 2:

I think that is why the emotions are shown to the player. Yes it looks a bit naff compared to all the other visuals in race and in game but I think it's purpose is to humanise the AI.

We are all guilty of just abusing the AI to win, and some (a lot) people carry that in to online racing. Not realising we all have feelings and egos etc and we aren't AI cars or bashing your mate for fun.

Off topic but broadly speaking AI trains driving behaviour and Sophy is actually very good at avoiding a lot of player stuff. But it's not programmed to win at all costs.

 

[BigSarj]

We can close this thread now. PD can’t help themselves or they think this is what we want. And maybe this is what the majority of players want.

Thanks for all the tests.

As someone said earlier, this could be something they use for their campaign and quick race mode. I should hope that custom races or missions would provide a more challenging experience.

 

[MarwaanZA0]

From a pure enjoyment point of view, the Sophy races are so much better than the default AI. The bunching of cars, the head-to-heads, the overtaking, and the challenge is definitely there.

Focusing so much on how the AI is working or what "tricks" PD has employed to make the race easier or more engaging just ruins the joy of the race. As long as the car you enter with is well-balanced to the rest of the grid (it sounds like using a factory or close to factory tune is best), you're in for a good race.

 

[RacinLei]

Try Spa in a Gr.3 no tune on hard tires. It is so much better then the precalculatet lineholder tank Ai. Sophy switches lanes, search for slipstream and gives you good battles. Yes sophy could be a bit stronger but right now it is for the wider mass of gamers and not for the smaller groupe of machines and Aliens and thats ok so. Overall is Sophy a lot better then the normal Ai.

Edit: and btw i had no slowdown from Sophy. Battles til the end.

 

[fardoche]

I am going through all the road car I bought that I never tried. Honda s800, Subaru BRZ, Nsx 02 to name a few, stock tires against Sophy hard and it is a blast. It is fun to have close races against different type of road cars.

If AI Performance was affected by console performance/ framerate, I think maybe driving In slower car would give cpu some slack?
Or maybe not if the calculation is performed at 10hz no matter what.

After many races against Sophy, It clearly has a distinct behavior that we will get use to. My impression is that Each car exhibit that similar behavior. Still very fun thought. But it does not deprecate online racing yet.

 

[suomi1]

Tested Sophy 2.0 again on hardest difficulty at Le Mans, this time in an engine-swapped Golf GTI.

In the first race, I took P1 immediately, in the second race, I stayed in P20. In the replays, I looked at a Mazda Demio that was present in both races. Listed are top speeds at four points:
before the first chicane / before the second chicane / before Mulsanne Corner / before Indianapolis Corner

Quick Race, me in P1
Lap 1: 183 / 175 / 170 / 178
Lap 2: 181 / 176 / 170 / 178
Lap 3: 181 / 172 / 169 / 177

Quick Race, me in P20
Lap 1: 159 / 154 / 151 / 157
Lap 2: 163 / 154 / 151 / 157
Lap 3: 160 / 155 / 151 / 158

Then, in the pre-race screen (where you see shots of the cars racing on the track), I recorded telemetry data of the vanilla AI driving the same Mazda Demio (stock, Comfort Mediums, PP 322.99) for 3 laps. Finally, I did 3 laps on my own.

AI, pre-race screen
Lap 1: 172 / 168 / 164 / 175
Lap 2: 171 / 168 / 164 / 176
Lap 3: 173 / 168 / 164 / 176

Me
Lap 1: 180 / 173 / 168 / 173
Lap 2: 179 / 174 / 168 / 173
Lap 3: 180 / 174 / 168 / 174

If we take the pre-race screen AI as a baseline, the issue with Sophy is obvious (and it's not a bug where performance would drop over time): it drives reasonably well, and maybe even a little faster than humanly possible, when you're ahead (you won't notice this though, other than in the rear view mirror), and performs astonishingly bad when you're behind.

So the best racing AI ever developed has been neutered to match the behavior that has plagued the vanilla GT7 AI ever since ;-(

This extinguishes any hope of seeing the rubber banding being removed from Custom Race mode.

I did the same kind of testing with my 1988 LM field and regular AI. PD's "vision" of rubber banding is so intrusive that some cars with a gearbox locked to 400km/h were reaching 450km/h in the straights to close the gap on me. Even if in regular conditions those cars would have a top speed of 375km/h or so.
Apply that logic into an endurance race where you try the overcut strategy against AI.... This is why I did a multiclass championship where I was racing in a field of GT3 with LMP1 cars in front, to never be first and see the cars around me affected.

I fear these people are irredeemable and prisoners of their vision.

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Gave it a try just 2 laps.

 

[newmedia_dev]

Controversial opinion here but a lot of the racing you want has to happen with other humans and there is a whole online mode much more challenging than AI, sport races, lobbies, weekly mix of time trials.

I mean it puts you against people of your ability, doesn't rubber band and is a challenge as you improve?

I don't really understand what the issue is? Beat the computer; feel underwhelmed but the won't race people of the same ability or better?

 

[TumeK5]

Noticed a quirk with how the game forms the grid when you choose the Porsche 550.

Literally half the grid was nothing but Crown Athlete safety cars, two 300SLs and one other 550.

Tried again on another track, same thing but this time the majority of the grid was 550 instead.

 

[turismoslayer]

Controversial opinion here but a lot of the racing you want has to happen with other humans and there is a whole online mode much more challenging than AI, sport races, lobbies, weekly mix of time trials.

I mean it puts you against people of your ability, doesn't rubber band and is a challenge as you improve?

I don't really understand what the issue is? Beat the computer; feel underwhelmed but the won't race people of the same ability or better?

This is very true. However, I may be wrong on this, I believe the majority of people that have an issue with the AI don’t have a PS membership to play online multiplayer. Myself included.

 

[suomi1]

Controversial opinion here but a lot of the racing you want has to happen with other humans and there is a whole online mode much more challenging than AI, sport races, lobbies, weekly mix of time trials.

I mean it puts you against people of your ability, doesn't rubber band and is a challenge as you improve?

I don't really understand what the issue is? Beat the computer; feel underwhelmed but the won't race people of the same ability or better?

That kind of issue? I already bought a PS5 exclusively for an unfinished game with fake rubber banded AI.

This + the fact that I can setup my own dream grids offline (I don't think players can give me that). Also, I'm playing the old way (Square / Cross <= / =>) because I physically have no better choice, making me a glitching turtle for everyone else in a lobby.

Have you also heard about cyberbullying? Bad memories from GT5 and GT6.. Bad memories...

 

[newmedia_dev]

View attachment 1301089

That kind of issue? I already bought a PS5 exclusively for an unfinished game with fake rubber banded AI.

This + the fact that I can setup my own dream grids offline (I don't think players can give me that). Also, I'm playing the old way (Square / Cross <= / =>) because I physically have no better choice, making me a glitching turtle for everyone else in a lobby.

Have you also heard about cyberbullying? Bad memories from GT5 and GT6.. Bad memories...

They made a game for millions of people. Not you?

I mean you bought a £500 console for a game you had no idea would be like and it isn't what you want?

The mind boggles. Use whatever control scheme you want and assists for whatever reason.

But the game you have to play in front of you is the one they gave all of us. That is gaming. We play their vision, sure a little community plays in to it but ultimately it's the game they decided to make the way they have. You can like it or love it or just be meh about it. What you can't do is assert it should have been designed for you and you only.

 

[wdreamsmaycome]

Controversial opinion here but a lot of the racing you want has to happen with other humans and there is a whole online mode much more challenging than AI, sport races, lobbies, weekly mix of time trials.

I mean it puts you against people of your ability, doesn't rubber band and is a challenge as you improve?

I don't really understand what the issue is? Beat the computer; feel underwhelmed but the won't race people of the same ability or better?

I would 1000000% race against AI my level compared to other people my level for many reasons

• I don't want a mistake I make to ruin somebody else's race
• I don't want to be exposed to people that go online just to ruin other people's races
• I don't want the stress of my ranking adjusting
• I want to race different levels of competition on my "best" circuit and my "worst" circuit
• I don't want to wait 20 minutes for the next scheduled race to start, I don't have a lot of time to play and don't want to waste it
• I might want to drive a different circuit than what is on offer for the weekly races

just because I don't want to race against people, it doesn't mean I don't want actual competitive races and instead prefer this chase the rabbit on AIs unrealistically restricted to make me win.

I do not think what I want should go for everybody, I just want to be given the OPTION to configure the evidently well capable AI to give me the competitive racing I want, and not be forced to adapt to PD's "vision" of what AI racing should be.

 

[newmedia_dev]

I would 1000000% race against AI my level compared to other people my level for many reasons

• I don't want a mistake I make to ruin somebody else's race
• I don't want to be exposed to people that go online just to ruin other people's races
• I don't want the stress of my ranking adjusting
• I want to race different levels of competition on my "best" circuit and my "worst" circuit
• I don't want to wait 20 minutes for the next scheduled race to start, I don't have a lot of time to play and don't want to waste it
• I might want to drive a different circuit than what is on offer for the weekly races

just because I don't want to race against people, it doesn't mean I don't want actual competitive races and instead prefer this chase the rabbit on AIs unrealistically restricted to make me win.

I do not think what I want should go for everybody, I just want to be given the OPTION to configure the evidently well capable AI to give me the competitive racing I want, and not be forced to adapt to PD's "vision" of what AI racing should be.

At the end of the day they make the game they want and we get to choose wether or not to play it.

I understand massively what you are saying but I don't have the answers for that. It ultimately comes down to what they want to give us as players.

 

[wdreamsmaycome]

At the end of the day they make the game they want and we get to choose wether or not to play it.

I understand massively what you are saying but I don't have the answers for that. It ultimately comes down to what they want to give us as players.

I know, they make the game they want to make and we take it or leave it, it is what it is, it is just frustrating to have the AI that I want exclusive to a game that does not let me play it the way I'd like.

 

[newmedia_dev]

I know, they make the game they want to make and we take it or leave it, it is what it is, it is just frustrating to have the AI that I want exclusive to a game that does not let me play it the way I'd like.

And that's frustrating.

But that's how games work. Literally that's how they work.

We could have the bad AI or the better-ish AI. That is it. Being frustrated about it, while carthaic is understandable it hasn't changed in 25 years and what they have given us is a damn sight better than what we had.

Could they do more? Yes? Will they do more? Yes.

The game is designed around general consensus not individual needs. And that is how it is.

 

[suomi1]

They made a game for millions of people. Not you?

I mean you bought a £500 console for a game you had no idea would be like and it isn't what you want?

The mind boggles. Use whatever control scheme you want and assists for whatever reason.

But the game you have to play in front of you is the one they gave all of us. That is gaming. We play their vision, sure a little community plays in to it but ultimately it's the game they decided to make the way they have. You can like it or love it or just be meh about it. What you can't do is assert it should have been designed for you and you only.

What kind of argument is that? Put the bow down, archer, you've just killed my neighbour..

I don't want them to deliver a game exclusively made for me, but at least they could make the Custom Race options to do what they say => "Boost : Off" = Boost off period.

 

[RacinLei]

What kind of argument is that? Put the bow down, archer, you've just killed my neighbour..

I don't want them to deliver a game exclusively made for me, but at least they could make the Custom Race options to do what they say => "Boost : Off" = Boost off period.

Maybe you should also turn off slipstream. It is a strong weapon and works strong from 1.5 second behind. I never had the feeling of rubberbanding in the game 🤔

 

[suomi1]

Maybe you should also turn off slipstream. It is a strong weapon and works strong from 1.5 second behind. I never had the feeling of rubberbanding in the game 🤔

It's not a feeling, open your replays and take notes.
Slipstream isn't involved here, mine is always set on realistic and cars may go over they theorical speed limit without slipstream.

 

[RacinLei]

It's not a feeling, open your replays and take notes.
Slipstream isn't involved here, mine is always set on realistic and cars may go over they theorical speed limit without slipstream.

Maybe it is down to car choice. For example, the supra gr.3 hase greate straight line speed but slow in corners. Porsche is viceversa. Like i said i never had the feel of rubberbanding so i never looked for it.

In witch class or groupe of cars you have the problems?

 

[suomi1]

Maybe it is down to car choice. For example, the supra gr.3 hase greate straight line speed but slow in corners. Porsche is viceversa. Like i said i never had the feel of rubberbanding so i never looked for it.

In witch class or groupe of cars you have the problems?

All of them, but may be this isn't the place to talk about it, more in custom race thread where this issue is well known.

 

[Bojador]

Controversial opinion here but a lot of the racing you want has to happen with other humans and there is a whole online mode much more challenging than AI, sport races, lobbies, weekly mix of time trials.

I mean it puts you against people of your ability, doesn't rubber band and is a challenge as you improve?

I don't really understand what the issue is? Beat the computer; feel underwhelmed but the won't race people of the same ability or better?

I play the sport mode. In fact I like the sport mode better than the single player stuff. That doesn’t stop me from liking single player and expecting to be better based on what we have already seen this new AI can do.

There’s other reasons for playing single player. Making your own races is one of them and my main reason for doing custom races. I can do 1h/2h/3h races, choose all the cars in the grid and race 19 other cars. I can even mix classes. I know, what a concept. With the added benefit that although the AI makes mistakes it is not purposely trying to ram me off track.

Sure we play what they give us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion and share it. We are giving fair criticism I believe. If we just took what they gave us at launch then we would all be playing a very different and worse, imo, game.

 

[newmedia_dev]

What kind of argument is that? Put the bow down, archer, you've just killed my neighbour..

I don't want them to deliver a game exclusively made for me, but at least they could make the Custom Race options to do what they say => "Boost : Off" = Boost off period.

What kind of arguement is that the game doesn't work the way you want.

I have no skin in this other than a very experienced racer. That plays against more competitive people than the AI.

You are conflating two very very different things.

Competitively the AI is very good to a point. The extension of that is racing real intelligence. Soooo they give us both things. And both are what they are.

Wishing things were different by changing race parameter is delusional to be honest.

It's ok to make a wish list of improvements but demanding things or not accepting what is I front of us is a bit weird.

 

[rlx]

Maybe it is down to car choice. For example, the supra gr.3 hase greate straight line speed but slow in corners. Porsche is viceversa. Like i said i never had the feel of rubberbanding so i never looked for it.

In witch class or groupe of cars you have the problems?

It happens with every single car in the game. Of course, if you are racing a slightly underpowered car (stock, power restricted to 70%) against Sophy and spend the race in the middle of the pack, you won't notice much.

If you want to see it, race Sophy at Le Mans, pick a sub PP 500 Compact, and stay just behind P19. On the straights, that car will be unbelievably slow.

To see the reverse, make a custom race as Special Stage Route X, pick a Chiron and race against a field of reasonably fast supercars. Once you take the lead on a straight, you will notice that, even outside the slipstream range, P2 will match your speed even though it's far beyond that car's top speed.

 

[Dena RACING]

You seem to be mixing "people are using souped up cars" with "people are not actively handicapping themselves" here.

Ultimately, player and AI cars being equal, Sophy is genuinely not very challenging by a lot of people's standards.

You can take any group 3 car, put matching tyres (racing hards) on, drop to last, then re-pass the entire field and win the race. The AI is handicapped on power while it is ahead of you.




The 911 RSR has 500 horsepower which is not a lot compared to the rest of the Group 3 cars, and it still closes on every single opponent on the straights, and not just because of the corner exits.

On the run down to Eau Rouge I gain two tenths on the McLaren F1 GTR, which has 100HP more and 200kg less than the car I am using.

As soon as I pass the leading Jaguar, all of a sudden it is faster than me on the straights. The Jaguar's lap time on the final lap is five seconds faster than their time on lap 2.


Every car is overpowered against Sophy - while you are behind them. Thats how they've dumbed it down for this iteration.

So far in understood, Quick Race has the Boost activated so last cars get extra HP to stay competitive and challenging the IA what ever it is Standard or Sophy. Or am it wrong. I can just wait to get Sophy integrated to Custom Race and Lobby (with different skill level) to evaluate better this new IA.

 

[Bojador]

So far in understood, Quick Race has the Boost activated so last cars get extra HP to stay competitive and challenging the IA what ever it is Standard or Sophy. Or am it wrong. I can just wait to get Sophy integrated to Custom Race and Lobby (with different skill level) to evaluate better this new IA.

Me too. And I hope they address the 95% throttle and boost off/on bugs in the process.

To be clear, I believe Sophy is future of GT AI, it’s just that when they announced Sophy 2.0 that can drive 90% of the cars I thought the future was already here. I’m just disappointed. Not mad, not delusional. Just disappointed and sad. I’m sad. I think that’s mainly it.

 

[newmedia_dev]

So far in understood, Quick Race has the Boost activated so last cars get extra HP to stay competitive and challenging the IA what ever it is Standard or Sophy. Or am it wrong. I can just wait to get Sophy integrated to Custom Race and Lobby (with different skill level) to evaluate better this new IA.

It's more nuanced than that.

The AI realistically can out drive us all.

What I think they did was dial back the competitive part a bit.

Sophy always races in stock cars and mostly on the worse tyre compound because it's just better than us.

So in mid pack racing it feels like it's aware and trying. Once you break that mid pack it's just normal racing turned up.

It is what it is, which is a very fun competitor but it is not the AI that is going to overtake mankind.

It doesn't use tuned cars merely slows its pace as needed to make the game fun.

Edit:

It also races standard cars as that's what the model was learning from.

This is a genuine question, if you could race Sophy in the same car with no tuning do you think that would be more fun?

 

[RacinLei]

It happens with every single car in the game. Of course, if you are racing a slightly underpowered car (stock, power restricted to 70%) against Sophy and spend the race in the middle of the pack, you won't notice much.

If you want to see it, race Sophy at Le Mans, pick a sub PP 500 Compact, and stay just behind P19. On the straights, that car will be unbelievably slow.

To see the reverse, make a custom race as Special Stage Route X, pick a Chiron and race against a field of reasonably fast supercars. Once you take the lead on a straight, you will notice that, even outside the slipstream range, P2 will match your speed even though it's far beyond that car's top speed.

I raced sophy in a gr.3 bop hard tires and all was good. Maybe it isnt dialed in correct to tuning changes and maybe and thats just a guess it reacts to youre gearbox tuning if set the final gear to high.
Im not really into custom races or sophy races. I tested le mans on purpose with an overpowerd porsche gt3 rs and won by a mile. Even with a chiron in the grid.