Your Experiences With GT Sophy

Tried the races a bunch of times this morning. Sophy is definitely a lot better than me, you give her an inch she takes a mile etc, but it's quite refreshing to race against AI without having to worry about it just ignoring your existence. Would be interesting to see if they are able to make her slower without compromising cleanness.
 
I've only completed the Tsukuba set so far but it does seem promising. I will say that I'm somewhat disappointed that the cars/tires are different where as I'd hoped they had found a way to scale the AI itself. Gives the sense that you go from a decent driving car to gradually something that feels like it won't stop or turn.

Was able to win Beginner - Expert pretty easily but Expert was fun to see that once Violet got ahead of the other AI, she was maybe a tiny bit faster or same pace as well so she started closing the gap. From what I could tell, this was a difference in our braking zones.

The 1v1 I barely lost on first try as once Violet was able to get up under me and get in front, it was hard for me to close the gap. Having learned this (and that my tires were even ******** so I didn't screw up braking at the start), on second try I won by simply being very smooth and defensive. She was right on my bumper the entire time and there were a couple times when she tried to stick her nose in the inside.

I haven't played Sport mode really since GT Sport but I think I'm an S/A or A/A. Above average driver. Using my controller as my wheel rig isn't set up. I would really like to see a test race with 5 other Violets, standing grid start, everyone on equal cars and tires. If I'm going to use this AI for Custom Races or whatever in the future, then it needs to be scalable and not based on vehicle handicaps. As is, it's definitely a better opponent than the standard AI though.
 
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Eggstor
What surprised me (and will anger the PS4 crowd) is that the payouts are halfway decent, can come with a clean-race bonus, and are repeatable. I don't know if Sophy learns from our individual drives, which may affect the repeatability.
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That's a pleasant surprise! When I saw Nenkaai tweet about the same old gold/silver/bronze system, that dented my hopes.

Now I just need to justify a PS5 to myself. :/
 
All 4 1vs1 and the rest done.
Im impressed how far Ai racing hase gotten so far. Especialy trial mountain 1vs1 is sophy so fast and precise all the time.
Good job Sony and PD 👍🏻
 
I’m just curious about how Sophy will eventually get implemented into the game, if it will replace the current programmed “AI” opponents in the future.

Sure, Sophy is better than what we currently have, but that’s not saying much at all.

How much of an impact will Sophy really have for most events/races in this game? Unless they change how the events/races are structured and PP factored, probably not much, likely just eliminate the comical/annoying behaviors such as running multiple laps while out of fuel or incredibly stupid pit strategies which all but hand you the win. Replays might look more realistic driving on their part, but it doesn’t seem the challenge will be a significant upgrade, at least based on what I can see.

The main reason for this is a lot of events/races in GT7 merely suggest a PP, in which more often than not most of the current “AI” don’t appear to ever actually meet based on their lap times they put up. There’s usually just 1, sometimes 2 or 3 that are faster than the rest, but still easy to beat even on the highest difficulty.

Meanwhile, most players are playing to win credits so they enter with a much better car than the AI opponents to guarantee the win. Rarely do people seem to adhere to this PP suggestion from what I see online, except on rare occasions where people are specifically looking to make it a more fair challenge instead of basically running hot laps with obstacles on the track to get the credits. Most people, not all, but most are still grinding and trying to get the easy win as fast as possible.


Even when the PP is restricted and enforced for a race, there is always at least 1, usually a few cars, for those events that are far better than their PP valuation would suggest, leaving the AI opponents little to no chance of winning. Think taking Gr.1 and Gr.2 cars to Sardegna or Gr.B cars to LeMans.

What good will even a well polished AI do if they’re up against a car with double or triple the PP, or a car that performs way above its assigned PP rating?
Unless part of Sophy is to learn these behaviors of humans playing and also change their vehicle selections to match those?
For example, if you’re taking an Escudo into Tokyo 600, will Sophy learn to also do the same, or will they keep taking the same cars that should be run there, which are no match for the Escudo?
If you’re taking the 787B into Sardegna to grind, will Sophy also, or will they keep taking the inferior Gr.3 cars that are absolutely no match for the Mazda?

It seems like the focus should be just as much on correcting those situations as it is implementing an AI which will still fail to provide tough competition for most players who exploit every poor game design and flaw in PD logic to just grind and grind. It seems Sophy will land positively for a niche subset of GT7 players, but for the majority it will just be a change for the sake of change and an opportunity for Sony and PD to say “look what we did”.
 
All races are easy, but it seems there's always that one car better than the others from the Sophies.

The 1on1 are pretty much impossible if you let Sophie past you... You're done... No catching up at all. But then again, making an AI fast isn't the problem... It's making it more human and act like it.
At the very least, it does know how to do wheel to wheel, but it still has the problem of hitting you in the back and not caring about you in certain situations, like you aren't there.

I had something happened to me in Alsace, exactly like what happened to @zocker_16 in his video, and the AI reacted the same way, with the xD expression.
 
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I went from Tsukuba straight to the Suzuka races. Beginner, Intermediate were easy enough. My mind is kind of blurring my memory of Expert and the 1v1 so I can't recall exactly what Expert was like. It was either Intermediate or Expert that felt like a good "comfortable" difficulty to me. As in, the pace was good, the AI were smooth, I figured I was going to win but it wasn't the typical, fly out in front at turn 1 and then just lead the entire race. I could see myself enjoying regular play at this sort've challenge. I'm there for credits, so I want to win, but I don't want it to be entirely boring. Vs other times when I'm not doing a race for credits and looking for something more even and balanced.

The 1v1 Suzuka was definitely brutal. I did win it eventually but it did not feel earned. Basically, I had to get in front at turn 1 or I just couldn't keep up. So that meant restarting the race over and over to get the perfect launch, something that people who play other older racing games may be familiar with. It wasn't fun for me. Once I did get in front, it was all about being defensive again. I was impressed by Violets ability to be right on my butt the entire race and make multiple attempts to squeeze in under me whenever I made the slightest mistake or go off-line. The whole thing felt sloppy on my part.

But clearly it works. After completing them, I've gone to watch a Top 10 replay, people who are finishing it like 10 seconds faster than me, and see them really run wheel-to-wheel with Violet. They're able to keep up, make clean passes, and Violet in turn is also always right behind them and able to brake and fly into high speed corners right on their bumper and keep it clean.

Adding onto my previous post, I think the next sort've test that would be very interesting to see would be a race with the same AI but give them cars with two very different characteristics. One car thats heavy/high hp and another thats lightweight/low hp and watch how they manage to work around each other and their behavior change throughout twisty vs straight sections.
 
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Grimm6Jack
All races are easy, but it seems there's always that one car better than the others from the Sophies.

The 1on1 are pretty much impossible if you let Sophie past you... You're done... No catching up at all. But then again, making an AI fast isn't the problem... It's making it more human and act like it.
At the very least, it does know how to do wheel to wheel, but it still has the problem of hitting you in the back and not caring about you in certain situations, like you aren't there.

I had something happened to me in Alsace, exactly like what happened to @zocker_16 in his video, and the AI reacted the same way, with the xD expression.
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I'm not a great driver, in fact I'm pretty mediocre but I was able to catch back up in the 1 on 1 race. If it's hitting you in the back it's because you're braking way too early and she was right on your bumper.
 
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It was a humbling and learning experience for me to race against Sophy, who is a brilliant and clean racer. Here's what I learned so far:
  1. I realized that I am not as clean a driver as I thought. I accidentally shut doors on other drivers, as demonstrated by Sophy crashing into me, especially on corner entries since I love to take a wide entry.
  2. I also came to understand that every contact was my fault. In many cases, I initially thought that Sophy was at fault, but upon reflection, I always found myself to be the one at fault.
  3. I received a punishment for losing time while trying to overtake a car, which was being overtaken by Sophy Violet. I appreciated being taught not to waste time trying too hard to overtake a car.

More learnings to come. :)

Edit: I pasted my reply into ChatGPT and asked it to correct grammar, and pasted back here. Taking help of an AI to talk about another AI.
 
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Grimm6Jack
making an AI fast isn't the problem... It's making it more human and act like it.
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You have a point there.
Grimm6Jack
At the very least, it does know how to do wheel to wheel, but it still has the problem of hitting you in the back and not caring about you in certain situations, like you aren't there.

I had something happened to me in Alsace, exactly like what happened to @zocker_16 in his video, and the AI reacted the same way, with the xD expression.
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Sounds pretty human to me. :lol:
 
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I tried the Tsukuba races on all 3 difficulties as well as the 1v1. Below is my experience trying each race / difficulty only once while at the same time trying to get used to the track again as well as the car. I only play with the DS controller and only dabbled in online a few times. No idea how I match up with other real drivers. I play almost daily in single player on expert.

Beginner:
Way too easy for me with the advantage being quite noticeable. I could tell the AI were trying but they didn't stand a chance. IIRC, I finished 8+ seconds ahead with errors.

Intermediate:
A better challenge but still, relatively easy. I finished with a 3+ second lead even with (again) some relatively small mistakes.

Expert:
This was a lot of fun for me. As someone else mentioned, once the purple car got passed traffic, they were on me. They even got their nose ahead for a few moments but I was able to overtake again. I won by just barely a car length.

1v1:
I lost by a whole 3 seconds. Small mistakes including errors in judgment regarding braking and acceleration cost me dearly. Definitely got my rear handed to me.

Again, I only raced 4 times, once in each setting and only on Tsukuba. I imagine I could easily lose against the Expert AI on another track with another car. I also know that the more I try the better I may get against them.

I am very impressed with Sophy personally. I'm not an online player simply because of the bad experience I had the few times I tried. I have little tolerance for random strangers who refuse to show basic levels of racing etiquette and it only takes one of them to ruin a race. It just wasn't any fun for me. .....so any improvement on the SP AI is welcome IMO.

I'll be spending some quality time tonight with the other races to get more familiar with the behavior of the AI, etc. ....but if this brief time I spent so far is any indication of what we can expect in the future, I'm really impressed. ....especially considering that this is a "beta" of sorts for the Sophy AI that is still in development. IMO / IME, it's a big step forward.
 
wowbaggerBR
Massive improvement over the standard AI, which just goes to show you how goddamn awful the standard AI is.
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When they'll implement it on the full game or most of the game, that will be GOAT game of all time. We have to wait for late 2023 or 2024 though :gtpflag:
 
Tsukuba gives you a good sense for her but she is really shining at Alsace. She drives like a rally driver tearing around every corner kicking up tire smoke.
 
I wonder if it would be possible, in a future more evolved version of Sophy that works across all tracks and cars, to have her as essentially a training tool. Like, you do a bunch of laps in Dragon Trail for example, and then it analyzes the data and tells you where you're breaking too early / late, where your lines aren't optimal, etc.
 
Artremis
I wonder if it would be possible, in a future more evolved version of Sophy that works across all tracks and cars, to have her as essentially a training tool. Like, you do a bunch of laps in Dragon Trail for example, and then it analyzes the data and tells you where you're breaking too early / late, where your lines aren't optimal, etc.
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Maybe with B-spec, for example
 
I just tried Sophy with Suzuka. Started with Intermediate. I got a little aggressive and side bumped one of them on one turn and got an angry face back at me. :D Overall that was an easy win.

Then tried Expert. I wasn't making any progress first lap and then I put myself in the gravel so as I was short on time I quit that one. I then tried beginner and that was easy with a commanding lead and a clean driving bonus. One of the Sophies though was a little dirty though and tried to knock me off on one turn. They also tried active blocking that I had to avoid. It seams the Sophys on the second race were more eager to bump than the first. Might that have been because I bumped on on the first race and they learned from that and was paying it back? In the end though on beginner it was easy to pass them and hold their antics off.

I tried the 1 on 1 but first lap I was being left in the dust and I put myself in the gravel, so I quit.

In my limited time, the emoticons are really annoying and I don't understand them. If I am gaining on them they give me the wow look or concerned look. Whoopi-do. Then when I pass them they give me miffed faces or whatever. What do I care about their emotions? If this is a training aid and I pass them cleanly then I would want a happy face rather than po'd face. I would like to switch the emoticons off.

Is Sophy supposed to dynamically adjust to my driving skill to give me a competitive race each time? Like if I keep on racing intermediate will they get faster to give me a more competitive race, and if I race expert and constantly get beat will they become worse to provide a competitive race?

I'm a low DR B racking (probably going to drop back into C given the current daily race performance, argh) but to me Sophy would be great if it could race like similar DR B drivers at my ranking level (low DR B) but race cleaner than the current state of daily races.
 
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😐
 

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Think I'm giving up on Trial Mountain Corvette 1v1 lol IF I could even win it, it would be some really dirty way so its not worth it. Unlike Tsukuba and Suzuka, I'm finding it a lot harder to drive this hunkajunk defensively, IF I can even get in front (only happened once), but then Violet is immediately right there ready to capitalize on any tiny mistake I make and then just drive off.. Perfectly neutral steering power sliding through the turns lol
 
Artremis
I wonder if it would be possible, in a future more evolved version of Sophy that works across all tracks and cars, to have her as essentially a training tool. Like, you do a bunch of laps in Dragon Trail for example, and then it analyzes the data and tells you where you're breaking too early / late, where your lines aren't optimal, etc.
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That would be a good addition for the future. For each track have "Sophy School" that teaches you how to drive the track and fast. Perhaps combine that with the license tests some how as the current "license demonstration" doesn't exactly teach you how to drive well and quick.
 
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I'm glad it's more realistic and more of a challenge, but for me it's fake in the other direction from the current AI. This AI in the 1 v 1 can brake, hit the apex, and come out behind you all while holding a .1s gap. No human has that reaction time. If you contest this, please provide proof of a human doing this without practice or knowledge of the person in front of them. Literally from the time braking starts to corner exit holding a .1s gap. It's not like racing a human at all because if a human was that close in the braking zone it would punt you off nearly 100% of the time. It can react to your inputs the millisecond you start to input them, so it can maintain completely unrealistic gaps while braking and cornering. It can also do this while throttling out of a corner because it also knows the moment you're on the throttle and how much, so it can always maintain a perfect gap for the tow and pass out of a corner, which is why most of these people "beating" sophy are doing two laps of hardcore blocking.

Don't get me wrong, it's better than what we have by miles, but it's not like racing a human, it's just... more like racing a human. The best players in the game are only beating this thing by blocking. It is better than a human, and whether you think that's a good thing or not is probably down to preference. For my personal preference, I would like the 1 v 1 AI with slightly tuned reflexes. Instant isn't very believable to me.

If the people beating sophy didn't abuse TCS off the line and sophy led, I doubt most of them would actually beat sophy from behind (cleanly). I agree with others, something like Expert or slightly better than Expert would be where I would want the AI to be. I honestly don't mind the hardest one's skill, I just don't like how fake its reaction time feels.
 
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I've only done the Tsukuba races so far, and as per my earlier post the Expert level did see me have to fight against Sophy for the win, and I'm seconds off on 1v1 because I just can't get round the final corner as well as Sophy.

If the Expert level was the state of the AI in the game I'd be more than happy.
 
Lap for lap pace I am 1sec a lap behind the best I have seen Sophy do, she always seems to get a mid corner twist from the rear I cannot get , a rotation I have tried to do with brake balance and/or weight transfer, can't match it, last corner is always where I lose a ton of time as well.

Expert was pretty easy to beat, more than 2secs behind, will keep grinding the 1-1 and see, but all the wins I have seen the player make against the AI have been off the start line wins where Sophy wasn't able to lead from the start and away into the distance.
 
I found Tsukuba to be relatively easy - 1v1 was a bit tricky as she got me in turn 1, but managed to stay alongside and get her in turn 2.
Currently doing the 2nd set. The first three were ok (you really feel the advantage you have on power and grip), but 1v1 will be extremely difficult.
 

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