Next GT hopefully has a shift in AI narrative.

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deviln3

deviln3

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deviln3
There's always been a complain about the AI in the game being stupid, or not challenging enough. Wouldn't it be great if the AI drivers had personalities or racing moves that they liked doing during the race? Things that made them predictable?

Maybe if we had like 15-20 different AI names, rather than a 1000 random names, all of which had a different racing style, and strategy? For example:
Bob - tails his opponents closely and waits for them to make a mistake before passing
Victor - Is known for racing close minor bumps, but still keeping the race fair
Robert - Keen on dive bombs to make a pass
Michael - Conserves his tires, and races smoothly
Denis - Goes hard on the tires, drives recklessly
Vincent - Races well against an opponent, but in a close group of cars makes mistakes
Simon - Usually drives a light weight car, does well on tracks with lots of turns
Edie - Drives beautifully with rain tires, has trouble with intermediate tires
Lawrence - Master of intermediate tires, and suited for damp conditions

Basically by making the AI drivers having some personality, making them memorable and predictable, it will make the story mode of the game more exciting, where its not just the different cars that your opponents are using against you, but also the drivers in the race that matter.

Imagine seeing an AI driver coming up behind you in your mirrors, and remembering their driving style, would it generate more excitement, similar to how you may feel against players you race over and over online?
 
I see the good but also the bad.

Bad thing is, seeing the same drivers 24/7 will get hugely repetitive not to mention kinda predictable, also super unrealistic on how they'll follow you in every event you participate in which really shouldn't be possible (and yes, it annoyed me in GRID: Autosport as well).

If you have like 200 names and restrict them into certain series than it'll be fine. Instead of seeing; Bob, Victor and Robert in your next race in China despite racing with them already in different series in America and Australia.
 
Thats true.. but as it stands now, I don't really care about the AI driver names or remember who I raced against. All I remember is the other fast cars on the grid.
 
We've been promised better AI for years now and what we ended up with in GT6 could in many ways be considered the worst in the series, not best. Let's hope finally they do get it right, perhaps the FIA input will pretty much force them to do things properly.
 
It would be kind of weird racing against the same 15-20 AI drivers throughout dozens of vastly different championships
 
Forza walked for a long while along that route, and it produced AI that was so boring and predictable they eventually jumped on the cloud gimmick to introduce Drivatars (which are great now - glitches notwhitstanding - but were horribly flawed in the beginning).
 
Earth
It would be kind of weird racing against the same 15-20 AI drivers throughout dozens of vastly different championships
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Easy to just create 15-20 sets of characteristics and then assign them different names in each series. For added realism they could have the top few in each championship advance with you as they might in real life. Done right it could add some drama and character to the career.
 
Earth
It would be kind of weird racing against the same 15-20 AI drivers throughout dozens of vastly different championships
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It's kind of weird, but it does give some personality to the AI.

It can be explained away as well, if the game wishes. Generally, the player is on some kind of zero to hero progression. The few drivers that are common to all series could be on the same sort of career path. The ones that you see most often are therefore your direct competitors, others are simply single series specialists.
 
Good AI has 2 components: speed & awareness.

Until PD can get those 2 things right, I'd rather not get sidetracked by artificial "personalities".
 
Imari
It's kind of weird, but it does give some personality to the AI.

It can be explained away as well, if the game wishes. Generally, the player is on some kind of zero to hero progression. The few drivers that are common to all series could be on the same sort of career path. The ones that you see most often are therefore your direct competitors, others are simply single series specialists.
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So kinda like TOCA/DTM/V8s 2 story mode? but there needs to be more of a story behind why they are racing in nearly every series you are doing in the game I already mentioned, there was the Shark Team Challenge so you actually had to beat them in every series you competed in. Here it is just they are following the same career paths but there would be heaps of ways to get to the top. Also it would be weird to see them again when you decide to backtrack to an lesser event.
 
RESHIRAM5
So kinda like TOCA/DTM/V8s 2 story mode? but there needs to be more of a story behind why they are racing in nearly every series you are doing in the game I already mentioned, there was the Shark Team Challenge so you actually had to beat them in every series you competed in. Here it is just they are following the same career paths but there would be heaps of ways to get to the top. Also it would be weird to see them again when you decide to backtrack to an lesser event.
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The game can explain it, but it's never going to be perfect. At some point you're just going to have to treat it like the game that it is and suspend your disbelief.

I mean, if you look at it from the other perspective, the career path that the player follows is absolutely insane. Jumping back and forth through multiple series at a time? Please. Yet you're expecting the AI personalities to adhere to rules of reasonable career trajectory that don't apply at all to the player.

It's a game, and you make the balance between what is more fun. Realism, where the AI drivers in each series are completely different in almost all cases, and yet the player is somehow outside of this? Or that the AI are at least somewhat similar to the player in their ability to cross series, even though that's not how it works in real life.

Real life only makes a good game up to a point. It's no fun if you only get one or two races on a weekend every couple of weeks. At some point, you have to make the call as to what bits are necessary for the fun of the experience and which are not.

Myself, I think it adds to the competitive aspect of racing to be against some of the same "people" regularly. However it's also important for the player to have freedom to race what they like. Which means that it's necessary to deviate from what is strictly "real" to have both those things. But that's fine, the whole career mode is unlikely to strictly match up with what happens in real life. It's a fantasy, and it only needs to be real enough for people to suspend their disbelief and have fun.
 
Imari
The game can explain it, but it's never going to be perfect. At some point you're just going to have to treat it like the game that it is and suspend your disbelief.

I mean, if you look at it from the other perspective, the career path that the player follows is absolutely insane. Jumping back and forth through multiple series at a time? Please. Yet you're expecting the AI personalities to adhere to rules of reasonable career trajectory that don't apply at all to the player.

It's a game, and you make the balance between what is more fun. Realism, where the AI drivers in each series are completely different in almost all cases, and yet the player is somehow outside of this? Or that the AI are at least somewhat similar to the player in their ability to cross series, even though that's not how it works in real life.

Real life only makes a good game up to a point. It's no fun if you only get one or two races on a weekend every couple of weeks. At some point, you have to make the call as to what bits are necessary for the fun of the experience and which are not.

Myself, I think it adds to the competitive aspect of racing to be against some of the same "people" regularly. However it's also important for the player to have freedom to race what they like. Which means that it's necessary to deviate from what is strictly "real" to have both those things. But that's fine, the whole career mode is unlikely to strictly match up with what happens in real life. It's a fantasy, and it only needs to be real enough for people to suspend their disbelief and have fun.
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While that is true. It pretty much gets annoying in GRID: Autosport which does the A.I system. Indycar, Adam Westley and/or Mckayne are there. BTCC AW and McKayne, and since the set A.I will leave some better than others it just adds to the repetition of some of the racing because not only are you racing the same racing events but also in the same situation with the exact same drivers that will finish in nearly the exact same positions (different cars can play a bit of a role), it doesn't really feel like a true competitive experience
 
RESHIRAM5
...it doesn't really feel like a true competitive experience
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No, but I feel that it's a step up from simply random driver names. I definitely agree that the G:AS system could use improvement, but I think it's a decent start unless a developer wants to go the Drivatar route. Which T10/MS probably has tied up in patents.
 
It doesn't matter what their names are, in my opinion. They just need to make them distinct and interesting enough on race day, and that'll do. If you want a sense of continuity, then long championships already keep the same drivers race to race.

But if there's going to be any kind of game-wide continuity, it should be more personal; rather than saying this one guy is this, this other is this, covering a few expected "personality types", just make so many of them (and make them all different in small ways) and the vast plethora of player-AI interactions will breed its own emergent set of unique player stories. Additionally, (randomly) selecting from a massive (constant) pool, graded by something like the player's selected AI "skill bias" option, will make it all the more impactful when you're faced with that nemesis from an earlier series again; and that makes it all the more personally meaningful as a result. That pool could still perhaps be accessible (say, in an event generator), if you remember some of your favourite opponents and want to exact revenge in some way...


When the Race Driver games came out, the cinematic approach, cheap and meaningless "rivalries" and overall bombast and pretence really got on my nerves. The racing was fun enough, of course, which only meant the dramatics took even more away from the experience than it ought to have (for me). Then they made the DiRT games and turned the pretence (not to mention product placement) up to 11.


I like GT's more understated approach, at least it's different (and, if I'm honest, more reminiscent of games made for the love of games as games; my favourites). Of course, I want more challenge and variety from the AI as well. And I disagree that GT's is a "zero to hero" story, as such; maybe if that's how you paint yourself (and it is a common trope in general, so it's easy to apply it here).

To me it's less heroism and more simple self-indulgence, which is fine; I just don't see any need for the pretence that it is anything different.
 
Griffith500
It doesn't matter what their names are, in my opinion. They just need to make them distinct and interesting enough on race day, and that'll do. If you want a sense of continuity, then long championships already keep the same drivers race to race.

But if there's going to be any kind of game-wide continuity, it should be more personal; rather than saying this one guy is this, this other is this, covering a few expected "personality types", just make so many of them (and make them all different in small ways) and the vast plethora of player-AI interactions will breed its own emergent set of unique player stories. Additionally, (randomly) selecting from a massive (constant) pool, graded by something like the player's selected AI "skill bias" option, will make it all the more impactful when you're faced with that nemesis from an earlier series again; and that makes it all the more personally meaningful as a result. That pool could still perhaps be accessible (say, in an event generator), if you remember some of your favourite opponents and want to exact revenge in some way...


When the Race Driver games came out, the cinematic approach, cheap and meaningless "rivalries" and overall bombast and pretence really got on my nerves. The racing was fun enough, of course, which only meant the dramatics took even more away from the experience than it ought to have (for me). Then they made the DiRT games and turned the pretence (not to mention product placement) up to 11.


I like GT's more understated approach, at least it's different (and, if I'm honest, more reminiscent of games made for the love of games as games; my favourites). Of course, I want more challenge and variety from the AI as well. And I disagree that GT's is a "zero to hero" story, as such; maybe if that's how you paint yourself (and it is a common trope in general, so it's easy to apply it here).

To me it's less heroism and more simple self-indulgence, which is fine; I just don't see any need for the pretence that it is anything different.
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I agree with GT no being a "Zero to Hero" it is more of a choose your own path and race wherever sort of thing. Especially when the final event (before credits) is so inconsistent (GT3 was the FGT, GT4/GT6 was the GTWC and GT5 was the DCC), you choose your own path and get to the race you want.
 
I think will see better AI implementation when there's an attempt to change the "if you ain't first, you're last" design philosophy.

Have the game know your current limits in a car/track and by comparative curves and set appropriate goals.
So if you put slow laps in say 'Like the Wind' Daytona in a 787B with an used up engine, and you qualify in 10th-13th (which matches your overall performance through the game), adapt the goal to getting 5th or 6th in a 10 lap race.

This frees the concern of having a "falsely" competitive AI (which sadly ends up satisfying only the mean) and allows then to just program random performance AI through out (which you could have quartile variances as well, that is races with just top 25% AI performances for exemple).

Which in turn would help push an understanding that there is glory in meeting or surpassing expectations outside of podium photos.
 
I like the idea that the AI has personalities, but I don't like the idea of them being predictable. I want competitive and unpredictable AI. Races that force you to think out a different strategy for each race. Not knowing what happens, but obviously have a certain string to follow. I like intense and unpredictable races.
 
I like the idea but note that GT always had the catch the rabbit style due to it being easy, way too easy but sometimes it can be difficult due to the lead car being way to far ahead in laps and such, If they inplentent this, we have to be aware of how it might strain the console, PD always sacrifices one thing for another most of the time and they need to learn what's important that they on the table before they do anything, the career mode is horrible honestly but in order for it to be good, there needs to be a sense of progress while you race, the beginning events are easy while the final events are very extreme but not too much, Drivatars are an example of that but it's still an idea that needs to worked on.
 
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Samus
We've been promised better AI for years now and what we ended up with in GT6 could in many ways be considered the worst in the series, not best. Let's hope finally they do get it right, perhaps the FIA input will pretty much force them to do things properly.
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If i'm not mistaken, personally i was hoping for better AI since GT3, and it never came.
Don't know how relative it will be to GTS as it looks mainly based on online events, so will they feel the need to work much on the offline part?
 
Could SPORT be what PD use as data, to mesh with improving GT7 AI?

6 months of collecting data off us all playing online and fusing it to their 'improved' AI.

Sort of a DRIVATAR.
 
scholesy1899
Could SPORT be what PD use as data, to mesh with improving GT7 AI?

6 months of collecting data off us all playing online and fusing it to their 'improved' AI.

Sort of a DRIVATAR.
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I'm not sure I'd be using online data to create AI. AI should be based on real racing first and foremost in a proper simulator. If you're attempting to create a racing environment, you want the behaviour of real race drivers incorporated into the game, with the usual sliders for overall pace, aggression etc.
 
What you're saying is sort of what I'm getting at I suppose, I didn't phrase it well.

I'm assuming these FIA events will attract GT academy alumni and/or the fastest GT drivers (not just hot lap aliens).

If there are official 'lobbies' where we race to get through, say the Manufacturers Cup rounds, then I hope poor race craft is punished correctly.
I'd hate to see GT SPORT be GT6 QuickMatch with an FIA sticker on it.

Anyway, maybe the top (and consistent and clean) 20,30 or 50 drivers driving data, from each cup could be used to help improve GT7's AI.

At least something they could look at to take cues.
 
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deviln3
There's always been a complain about the AI in the game being stupid, or not challenging enough. Wouldn't it be great if the AI drivers had personalities or racing moves that they liked doing during the race? Things that made them predictable?
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Making things too predictable is probably a bad thing. If you have a dozen or so racers through the entire game, things might get strange. Every race has the same participants? You'd also probably be able to guess the outcomes of racing before they even start, which might get boring (admittedly not a new problem given that GT likes to have racing with one god car that hopelessly outclasses everything else).

Maybe if we had like 15-20 different AI names, rather than a 1000 random names, all of which had a different racing style, and strategy? For example:
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Why not keep the 1000 randoms and occasionally throw in the predefined drivers to make things less repetitive? It might also make it feel more "special" when some of them show up.

Imagine seeing an AI driver coming up behind you in your mirrors, and remembering their driving style, would it generate more excitement, similar to how you may feel against players you race over and over online?
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The named drivers never did anything for me in Forza personally. In fact the main reason I even remember names (barely) from that game is because people tend to mention the names occasionally on forums. I feel that just having a close race is more memorable than anything else, even if it was against a nameless pack of nobodies. Trying to add personalities to drivers might still be interesting. Putting names and faces to Kerbals in KSP worked pretty well, but things are a bit different in a racing game. I think personalities need to take a back seat to making the AI competitive.
 

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