The A.I. in Shift seems to be what you make of it

[MannyMoenjack]

Although I’ve been whining a lot lately about the slowdown/framerate problems in Career Mode that the patch didn’t fix, I thought I’d give a thumbs-up to whoever wrote the programming for the AI. 👍

Although a lot of people (including me) hated the AI drivers at first, when my first Career got wiped-out by the “Career Eating Bug” and I had to start a new Career I was extremely careful from the beginning not to accumulate a lot of Aggression Points. I don't mean Drafting, Blocking, or Corner Slide (I don't see what's Aggressive about them anyway), but avoid as much as possible Trading Paint and particularly Dirty Overtake.

I started the 2nd Career with AI Difficulty set to Medium through Teir 1 so I could actually win those short two-lap races without having to knock the AI cars out of the way. I noticed by Teir 2 that the AI drivers didn’t go out of their way to spin me off the track the way they used to. At some point in Teir 2 I turned the AI setting to Hard and kept trying to avoid spinning AI cars. It's not always possible and one or two Dirty Overtakes in a race seems to be OK.

I’m at level 30-something now and on Quick Race or the Career Mode the races are great. Competitive but, not cut-throat. If I get spun now, the replay usually shows that it was either my fault or the AI couldn’t avoid it. If I win it’s usually from a pass made on the final lap or two and if I screw up I can usually catch up to the pack and salvage something, because the AI make plenty of mistakes as well. The quality of racing is a lot like the online races you would have from a lot of the excellent racers on this forum.

So, if you like Shift but not the aggressive AI you might want to re-start the Career and avoid racking up the Dirty Overtake points.

 

[jasonb1985]

I have over 4 times the amount of precision points as I do aggression points and I feel the AI is still way to aggressive and reckless. If i was to look at the game like an arcade racer which I am beginning to do, then it seems to make more sense. But if you look at the game as a sim, then the AI seems way to aggressive and reckless.

 

[MannyMoenjack]

I have over 4 times the amount of precision points as I do aggression points and I feel the AI is still way to aggressive and reckless. If i was to look at the game like an arcade racer which I am beginning to do, then it seems to make more sense. But if you look at the game as a sim, then the AI seems way to aggressive and reckless.

If I remember correctly, particularly in the first teir, I would most often have 100-200 aggression points and 800-1000 precision points. Now in teirs 3 & 4 it's often 100-300 aggression to 2000+ precision because of the longer races.

That's why it's important to be careful early in a career.

 

[ItsHim]

At least they make way if they are getting lapped - I never noticed any such behaviour in the games I know.

 

[EA11R]

Come to think of it, the AI is quite good. Credit where credit is due.

 

[WolfRacer543]

I have never had any issue with the AI being overly aggressive, might be because right from the beginning I'd be aiming for a 10 to 1 ratio of precise to aggressive points, so avoided dirty overtakes like the plague. Though I do notice when you're trying to overtake the AI will move to block the road off giving you less space.

 

[Biggles]

I'm a bit dubious about the relationship of the AI to your Aggression rating. I spent a lot of time running "races" with no opponent cars - ie. basically time trials - so I have a very low percentage of Aggression points.

The good about the AI is that it is very ... err ... active - constantly doing unpredictable things, which does make the racing seem more spontaneous. The bad is that this unpredictability is oriented too much towards unrealistically poor driving (like driving off the track, clipping other cars, crashing etc.). So instead of a having a happy balance between interactivity & competence, we're left with a choice between the drone-like driving of GT & the crazy antics of Shift.

 

[MannyMoenjack]

I'm a bit dubious about the relationship of the AI to your Aggression rating. I spent a lot of time running "races" with no opponent cars - ie. basically time trials - so I have a very low percentage of Aggression points.

The good about the AI is that it is very ... err ... active - constantly doing unpredictable things, which does make the racing seem more spontaneous. The bad is that this unpredictability is oriented too much towards unrealistically poor driving (like driving off the track, clipping other cars, crashing etc.). So instead of a having a happy balance between interactivity & competence, we're left with a choice between the drone-like driving of GT & the crazy antics of Shift.

Hi Biggles!

I agree that occasionally the AI pulls some really bonehead manuevers, some of which are rather entertaining sometimes. On the other hand I too am capable of some amazingly moronic stunts, so for me it balances out!

I expect that experienced Sim drivers like yourself would likely have little trouble handling the AI in Shift. As for me I figure that right now, I'm somewhat better in ability than the AI set on Hard, but I still make too many mistakes.

The GT5P AI like you mentioned, was absolutely Schumacher-like so if I made a mistake I might as well forget about winning and start over. I much prefer a reactive AI.

A good example in Shift was a 10 lap Quick race I had yesterday in the McLaren F1 at Donnington GP. I eventually moved up from last to 2nd position by the beginning of lap 8 and rode the race leaders' tail until he overcooked the S turn a bit and I got past him cleanly. It seemed perfectly realistic to me, because that would be something that I would be likely to do if pressured hard from behind for a lap and a half. Of course there are also many instances in the races I run, where the leader doesn't make a mistake in that situation and I have to settle for 2nd.

I suppose it's really a matter of a players' driving skill being matched well with the AI. Maybe if I improve in that department I'll come to feel the same way as you (and maybe I'll be able to see more of your car during online play than a receeding speck in the distance!).

 

[jasonb1985]

There have been numerous times when I was coming up along side an AI car on a long straight and had them slam me right off of the track. That to me is just not acceptable.

 

[rexc]

I've noticed that the AI can be quite dependant on what car you drive, with the AI difficulty seeming to be made up by combining Car Performance with 'Driver' Ability

For instance, take the Veyron (which is rated at about 16 I think), around the Nordschleife. The AI are terrible, making heaps of mistakes. Then take out the Zonda R (rated about 20) The AI are in exactly the same cars, Zondas, McLarens etc, but now drive heaps better with a lot fewer mistakes. The difference in matching to 20 vs 16 looks to be made up almost entirely of the Driver Ability factor.

This seems to be true in the lesser tiered cars too. Increasing your cars rating can see the AI get progessively better in the same cars, then suddenly the cars are better but the driver ability drops away again. Well, thats been my impression to date anyway.