The Shift AI thread.

[Biggles]

We all wanted more interactive AI, well now we've got it!

Here's the place to share your stories about Shift's AI: explain, excuse, elaborate, commiserate, expostulate, execrate, or just plain have a good old cry ...

 

[klondike]

Its a lot more worse than the AI in FC wich I also found very anoying at times

 

[F1KimiFreak]

I have an hate love relation with this AI, its so much more fun then normal racing game AI (like GT ) since they are trying to overtake, defend and make mistakes. But they do tend to be a little bit to not willing to give up a corner, which cause crashes and tend to make to much mistakes at the end of the race.

Also its frustating when cars in front make mistakes and it all piles up with you in it. But thats the price of the most of the time more fun AI.

I think overall its one of the things Shift does good.

 

[Blitz187]

I first thought the AI was very immersive and reacted to your position, etc.... Unfortunately I have to take that arguement back... I've had many races now where the AI is just WAY to rough.... and just mashes me off the road... So I have mixed feelings now about this AI... I do admit they are a bit smarter then usual, but get rid of the unneeded aggression...

 

[alonsof1fan91]

The AI is really pissing me off! If u take Shift as a sim racer, u can say that this is its biggest weakness.

I`m not talking about the "strange" racing line, the AI is using. I mean: U can say everything you want about the AI in GT5P, but u have to admit that ur oppenents were in race.

In NFS:S they arent racing. Its strange, im driving against the hardest AI setting, but in the Nordschleife Enduro im alway about ~20 Seconds off in the beginning of the second lap.
But suddenly, even though im not making any mistakes, the AI starts cutting about 2 Seconds of that time with every corner. Strange, right?
A bit too much hollywood, just to create a more exciting race.

 

[GTP_Pie]

The AI is really pissing me off! If u take Shift as a sim racer, u can say that this is its biggest weakness.

I`m not talking about the "strange" racing line, the AI is using. I mean: U can say everything you want about the AI in GT5P, but u have to admit that ur oppenents were in race.

In NFS:S they arent racing. Its strange, im driving against the hardest AI setting, but in the Nordschleife Enduro im alway about ~20 Seconds off in the beginning of the second lap.
But suddenly, even though im not making any mistakes, the AI starts cutting about 2 Seconds of that time with every corner. Strange, right?
A bit too much hollywood, just to create a more exciting race.

Probably "catch up". I actually haven't noticed there being any catch up, but I've only been about 10 seconds ahead.

I think the AI needs to be aware that the player/another car is next to them. They drive like they have the whole track to themselves.

 

[Biggles]

The AI in Shift seems to be wildly unpredictable - sometimes drives faster than you, sometimes slower, sometimes crashes into other AI, sometimes goes careening off the track - it's the other end of the spectrum from GT. The AI in FC was aggressive, but it was predictably aggressive. Once you understood its tendencies it was quite easy to avoid it. I'm finding it VERY hard to anticipate what the AI in Shift is going to do.

I did a number of restarts at the Nordschleife - every race ended with a different pile-up or spin in the first three of four corners, leaving me too far behind to catch up. Once I got past those few corners I was able to slip past the leading two or three cars & stay comfortably in the lead. However, I noticed a couple of occasions where the following car (identical models) suddenly seemed to be able to go much faster than me on the straights, even though it was not within drafting distance.

It ought to be possible to set the AI on "Precision", so that it tries to avoid contact, otherwise the races have a tendency to resemble a melee.

 

[klondike]

Yeah I gues i know what you mean by the AI in FC was more predictable. But never the less it was very very frustrating, at least for me, but im am not on as higly skilled as some people are here on GTP. So maybe others dident find it as troublesome as I did.

Anyway if you or anyone else never did it before you should try take ago with FC. The two F512 S & 512 M trophie races are quite a challenge. Got my self pretty frustrated with those two.

Also I think there is a diference to the american release versus the EU relase of FC AI. Since EU never got the last patch.

 

[Stotty]

The AI is ok on tier 1 and 2, but at tier 4+ it's utter garbage.

Wall riding, ramming, punting, grass cutting (with no loss of speed)... I've given up on career mode,

 

[Worst_Driver]

The AI after Tier 4 is too fast but in an impossible way. I drive to my car's limit and they are still passing me. I brake at the same time but the difference is that I'm too fast for the corner and the AI is taking is perfectly.

 

[devildog666]

Sometimes, racing the AI is like racing a punter online (who wants to do that) and other times the AI is aggressive but fair (good thing).

 

[.D3]

Sometimes, the AI doesn't seem to realise that two cars cannot occupy the same space on a tack at once.
Also, is it just me or do all M3 drivers seem to be blind in Shift?

I've been punted right off the track many times, the worst one was just after a little lag (I play on PC), I was braking hard to avoid going off the track in the lag, it seemed I had braked perfectly, good entry speed for the corner etc, then I got punted off at what seemed to be twice the speed I entered with by a 'vette...

I also hate having to go into the first corner in the middle of a pack of cars. Especially in the tier 4 Works exclusive races I've been doing lately, with 16 cars, the first corner is a nightmare.

 

[NISM0_SKYLINE]

I just put the difficulty on Easy . Sometimes though they pass me in a turn and they are going way to fast to make it but they do. The 1-on-1 races seem to be even harder even on easy.

 

[Biggles]

Anyway if you or anyone else never did it before you should try take ago with FC. The two F512 S & 512 M trophie races are quite a challenge. Got my self pretty frustrated with those two.

I've given up on career mode,

I realise that one of the reasons I never had a problem with the AI in FC is that I didn't bother much about "completing" the game (all the trophies). When I raced against the AI it was usually in Quick Race, where I could set up the race the way I chose: ie. either lots of laps, or fewer opponents. This meant I didn't have to complete some specific task, in an impossible amount of time, but could just concentrate on the racing.

This has been pretty much my strategy so far in Shift, so I'm at Level 28, but still haven't entered Tier 3 in Career, because many of the races don't seem very "appealing"! Really most of the fun in racing GT5P, FC & (probably) Shift is online. The only PS3 racing game that has a great offline career mode IMO is F1CE.

 

[Bertley]

The AI is ok on tier 1 and 2, but at tier 4+ it's utter garbage.

Wall riding, ramming, punting, grass cutting (with no loss of speed)... I've given up on career mode,

Yeah at first i thought the AI was pretty good, then i got to tier 4... complete imbeciles!

 

[AERO_HDT]

I like the AI - the fact that it makes a mistake is very refreshing, unlike GT where all the AI are robots who replicate their lap times to perfection 99% of the time.

I'd like someone to explain to me their definition of what AI really is and what it should do.

I guarantee you cannot define it and by that virtue alone, anything unpredictable is deemed to be pretty good in my opinion.

 

[Nicko]

Has anyone else noticed the extreme level of difference between the AI difficulties of Medium and Hard? I've found that Medium is a little too easy and does not give you much hassle, but when the AI is set to Hard, they drive abnormally fast and are nearly impossible to catch! What's even worse is when they drive off the track they seem to suffer no loss of speed.

 

[NLxAROSA]

I've given up on career mode

I used career (up till Tier 4) mainly as a way of getting to know the game. And you can earn profile points quite easily (even more so) in quick race or online, so you don't have to play career to unlock stuff. Which means I usually spend my time in quick race or online, and forgot about career mode.

 

[klondike]

I like the AI - the fact that it makes a mistake is very refreshing, unlike GT where all the AI are robots who replicate their lap times to perfection 99% of the time.

I'd like someone to explain to me their definition of what AI really is and what it should do.

I guarantee you cannot define it and by that virtue alone, anything unpredictable is deemed to be pretty good in my opinion.

AI = Artificial intelligence

The goal is to make it as capable as the human brain, wich is pretty much imposibel. At least by today's and very very many years to come technology.

I gues what we want in racing games is some AI wich is a good challenge. And AI that drives fast, without some sort of cheating mechanics build into the engine. And AI that is aware of its surondings, that it wont just drive into what ever is on its path.

However its not a very easy task to make such AI, if it was it would already been done, since its the main problem with all games. They are to easy in single player, once the player find out how to beat it, he can do it over and over by using the same method. Uasely programmers make up for it, by giving the AI some advantage that is esentialy cheating ( f.x a strategy game the AI gets more Armies pr time unit, or they are stronger than the humans counterpart)

Basicly the AI can not think, make its own desicions or learn from its mistakes. All it can do is chose between conditions ( wich has been given to it from its programmer), if condition A = true then do B. If not then do C

That is of course the simplest form, but basicly that is all there is to it, but with some more complicated formulas.

 

[Biggles]

F1CE has good AI because it:

1) drives fast
2) sticks to the racing line for the most part, but does vary in its speed around the track
3) is aware of your presence & moves out of your way when you are faster
4) has terminal damage, which works together with point 3) to make for a challenging but reasonable degree of race difficulty.

I would like to see the AI in F1CE occasionally make a more serious error though...

I have to say, that other than F1CE, the best AI I have encountered so far in a console racing game, was in Forza 1 (I never played Forza 2), because it was fast, aware of your presence & seemed quite varied in its responses (it did seem to be overly fast sometimes however - but perhaps I just wasn't a competitive enough driver, as I was using a pad. )

 

[Tetradic]

I used career (up till Tier 4) mainly as a way of getting to know the game. And you can earn profile points quite easily (even more so) in quick race or online, so you don't have to play career to unlock stuff. Which means I usually spend my time in quick race or online, and forgot about career mode.

I'm with you. I've all but given up on Career mode after unlocking Tier 4 and seeing more of the same (I was hoping maybe the racing got cleaner or the circuit selection in the races got more realistic, I was wrong). At least in quickrace I can pick my circuit, basic opponents (to a degree) and not end up driving against the overly aggressive AI on NFS:S's goofy fictional tracks. Quickrace and online offer more than enough interest for me.

 

[Biggles]

But you DO have to play Career mode to unlock cars, don't you? I'm at level 30 & still don't have access to Tier 3 cars, because I've mostly been playing in Quick Race.

 

[klondike]

But you DO have to play Career mode to unlock cars, don't you? I'm at level 30 & still don't have access to Tier 3 cars, because I've mostly been playing in Quick Race.

I think you do, because im only like level 13 and already unlocked tier 3.

From what i understand you advance to the next tier after you reach a certain amount of stars, but each race only has a limited amount of stars. So even you can conteniue leveling up, and earn money by repeting the same races over, and over you wont advance towards the next tier, as you already unlocked the maximum stars for that race.

 

[Tetradic]

But you DO have to play Career mode to unlock cars, don't you? I'm at level 30 & still don't have access to Tier 3 cars, because I've mostly been playing in Quick Race.

I played career mode enough to open the Tier 4 events but have since only been playing quickrace and have unlocked a handful of cars. I've went up 5 levels alone last night after 6 - 5 lap races (4 alone just enjoying different cars and hotlapping and 2 with a small field for fun) on the Nordschliefe.

From what I can tell if you only play quickrace and never venture into career you will be stuck with only tier 1 cars. So you do need to do some racing in career mode to get stars to open up the tiers. But after you open up Tier 3 as far as I can tell you can avoid the rest of career mode. Your points open up the driver levels.

Example: I'm at level 25 and have Tier 4 open with 200 something stars and 190,000 points (or thereabouts)

Maybe I'm wrong? I do want the 911 GT3 RSR? When/how do I unlock that? If it's not from driver's points that would get me to venture back into career mode to get it. SO far all the cars I've unlocked have come from driver's points...

Anyone?

 

[DGiant2000]

In comparison to GT5p, racing the AI on this game is like going online at Fuji and finding yourself in a race with 15 untagged Clio's

 

[mr_VOLCANO]

The A.I is so unconsistent! I play on hard and even there they brake on strange places, make several mistakes per lap Its not like race drivers in RL do big mistakes every lap.. feel like they trying to brake check me, Going to try EPIC difficulty tonight to see if thats better. Good there is online 👍

 

[niky]

But you DO have to play Career mode to unlock cars, don't you? I'm at level 30 & still don't have access to Tier 3 cars, because I've mostly been playing in Quick Race.

Lazy! ...getting close to level 20 (haven't had time to play for the past week... now catching up) and am close to unlocking Tier 4. I'm trying to unlock it without having to drive Tier 3 at all... ...which is probably impossible. Speaking about lazy... turns out a 20 lap race of Hazyview is an easy 2000+++ points... if you're careful, you can get more precision points than aggression points.

Getting bored with career mode. Big problem... any suspension modifications leads to terminal bounce on many cars. It's a niggling defect in such a well-modelled game (simcade, yes, but a gloriously fast and difficult simcade!)

No matter which way you turn the sliders or how you try to balance it, the harder spring rates of an aftermarket suspension lead to a whole lot of bounce on some tracks. I've had to resort to buying the faster cars in each Tier instead of upgrading slower cars just to stay on track. I know, from experience, that many coilovers are ungodly stiff... and yes... sometimes bouncy... but this is more like having coilovers with blown shocks... it's simply unacceptable.

One other issue... some of the stars... well... if I actually need to punt other cars off to win a star... no thanks... especially considering that with Pro on and ABS off, any attempted punt usually ends with me facing sideways.

-

I absolutely love the AI. It is like playing with 15 punters on GT5P online. Especially at Hazyview. They're interesting to watch there... some AI do perfect lines, some overcook corners... some stop at the intersection and wait for a clearing in traffic before crossing... others just barrel through.

If there's any better simulation of human boneheadedness in a racing game, I haven't seen it yet. It's also lovely how they brake-check you, duck out of your way... block you, smash into you under brakes, and perform clean passes under brakes... very unpredictable... forcing you to work out a strategy for every corner... giving leeway just in case someone comes barrelling through on the inside... or taking an unusual line just to avoid trouble.

 

[Biggles]

Well I opened Tier 3 by playing a few more rounds in Career, & I'm now on Level 40 (which won me the Porsche RSR ).

I stand by my point that the way to experience decent races is to race in QR on Hard (is there an Epic? - I didn't try that yet), DON'T try & bang your way to the front as quickly as you can - set the race for a reasonable number of laps, & race as you would IRL. I'm finding the AI to be quite "polite" for the main part. They do occasionally make serious errors, but they don't generally punt you.

I have no interest in completing the Career mode for its own sake, especially if it involves participating in demolition-derby style races.

 

[GTP_Pie]

Well I opened Tier 3 by playing a few more rounds in Career, & I'm now on Level 40 (which won me the Porsche RSR ).

I stand by my point that the way to experience decent races is to race in QR on Hard (is there an Epic? - I didn't try that yet), DON'T try & bang your way to the front as quickly as you can - set the race for a reasonable number of laps, & race as you would IRL. I'm finding the AI to be quite "polite" for the main part. They do occasionally make serious errors, but they don't generally punt you.

I have no interest in completing the Career mode for its own sake, especially if it involves participating in demolition-derby style races.

I'm giving up on career too. I can't even get out of the first turn on Spa without getting hit. I get mad and try to hit them first, but the AI car weights like 2 tons o.O

 

[mr_VOLCANO]

Well I opened Tier 3 by playing a few more rounds in Career, & I'm now on Level 40 (which won me the Porsche RSR ).

I stand by my point that the way to experience decent races is to race in QR on Hard (is there an Epic? - I didn't try that yet), DON'T try & bang your way to the front as quickly as you can - set the race for a reasonable number of laps, & race as you would IRL. I'm finding the AI to be quite "polite" for the main part. They do occasionally make serious errors, but they don't generally punt you.

I have no interest in completing the Career mode for its own sake, especially if it involves participating in demolition-derby style races.

I have doing hotlaps at ring , so have not tested it yet, but yes there is a epic difficulty. But you have to earn it