Your Experiences With GT Sophy

Here are my 4 races in 1 vs. 1 mode against Sophy.
The only chance is to get her in or before the first corner and defend your position with all you've got.
If she overtakes you on the inside once you´re lost because she´s just to fast to catch her again. :crazy:

 
Fezzik
Everyone resorting to divebombing and ramming. Maybe they should have added a clean race requirement to pass the challenge.
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It's much slower that way anyway. I have found that passing cleanly is the best way to win (and far more satisfying). Let the hacks be hacks
 
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I did all 4 of the 1v1's last night to see how hard it would be.

-The first race on Tsukuba wasn't that bad and I won with some stout defense. I wasn't able to get too far away though.

-The second race on Alsace was a lost cause. I could not keep up at all and was left for dead. I don't like the track and my lack of experience was made blatantly obvious.

-The third race on Trial Mountain was a total joke. The C7 Corvette handles quite poorly and I had absolutely no way of winning. Sophy Violette drives the car soo much better than I can and she just buggered off.

-The fourth race on Suzuka was the best one because I was being pushed the whole way. I had to defend every single corner to make sure that Sophy Violette didn't get by. It felt like a proper battle, unlike anything I've had against an AI. I won by quite a narrow margin.
 
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Tried and golded all races on beginner and intermediate, I couldn’t beat the last race cleanly on intermediate, but punted and smashed my way to gold. Got clean race bonus on all other races. 1v1 also is a dirty nasty affair on my part, but still haven’t won as I don’t have the heart (consistency) to keep it up the whole race. I can’t get close to Sophy in expert, so far can only finish 2nd beating Sophy scrubs, but that purple terminator dusts me every time.

Really enjoying it.

It highlights how bad the normal AI is though, not to mention the penalties. Only difference between how I drove in comparison was I was not being penalized for the AI punting me as I normally do in single player. Sophy doesn’t have this issue and it’s clean race city minus a few bumps here and there.

Is it too much to ask to add to all single player races?
 
I'm sure there's more comprehensive input from people (like SuperGT and GOTMAXPOWER) but I figured I'd see a few things wrong by just driving slower or blocking more than usual to see how Sophy reacts.

-Sophy lacks awareness. It's like occasionally acknowledges a player, but then completely focuses on the racing line and instead of the player closing in on them. Enough to block if they feel like it, and then cut you off, bump into you, or stay true to the racing line when there is another car in their path.
-As seen from GOTMAXPOWER video, the AI has done thousands of laps of the circuit, but doesn't understand taking the outside line, or anticipating a few turns ahead to make a more informed decision of it's actions. I.E. it has more pace, switcheroo on the opposing player, or late braking the opponent to gain more momentum on a straight or future turns.
-The raw speed of Sophy would not suit tire wear very well at all. The extreme angle to throw a car into a turn, or floor it out and spin tires would completely negate the usefulness of the AI. If Sony were able to ease the inputs, and prevent tire wear from the reinforcement learning (heating up tires bad, fuel conserve in relation to lap times good) it could be an incredibly useful tool to suggest tire strategies or fuel pits for longer races, or even B Spec.
-Sophy Isn't as very defensive, and when she is, it's indecisive about the actions it should be making. Subtle block or slipstreaming they would then a dart back to the racing line to make the corner. Sophy should be covering the inside line.
-Sophy's never seemed to put up a fight against each other. No significant changes in their driving towards others passing them. Much like current AI. Seems like they should be fighting each other as equally as they're competing with us.
-Rolling start wasn't a good indicator of their abilities either. It's just the two in the back chase the rabbit towards the front.


I'll try to play around with it some more and force Sophy into some common or likely senarios to see what happens or how they behave. It's genuinely interesting to me, I just wish that it was able to be more dynamic or scale-able otherwise it's a very small part of the game to enjoy.
 
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Okay, ran against Sophy tonight. Only did the main races. Tried 1 on 1 for Tsukuba but couldn't get my launch correct so she always beat me to turn 1. I am a B/C class driver with a S safety rating, so I try to keep it pretty clean.

Anyway, my thoughts are that this "AI" is a nice move towards a more competitive AI driver. The Tsukuba races were all pretty easy. Even on expert I won on my first try. That Type R stays pretty easily in control even on the worst tire compound.

The Alsace village races were easy on beginner and intermediate. On expert Sophy Violette and I had a pretty good back and forth towards the last couple sectors of the race. I did end up losing the race on my first couple tries, but eventually I did end up winning on my 3rd try and it was an overall fun experience.

Trial Mountain was easy on Beginner. On intermediate the car got really squirrely on the weaker tire compound. I don't think Sophy got any better, but they definetly began nerfing the car to make your race harder. That took a couple tries because the car would spin out if I short shifted coming out if the turns. I eventually learned that the car has more traction at high revs than in the middle of its torque band. Expert was more of the same but Sophy seemed to up her game a bit. Car wollowed through turns. It was a bit like driving a boat, but so long as I protected the apexes Sophy didn't stand a chance. The car I was in must have had more power than Sophy as even when she was in the slipstream I would slow pull away from her on the straights.

Suzuka was interesting. The beginner race took me 4 or 5 tries to win because that AMG sucked at taking the tight left hander. I would either run wide or have to take the turn so slow that I would open the door for the AI to go past. I did end up winning though. Intermediate was super simple. That Supra drove like a dream. Sophy didnt seem to drive any better than in the beginner race, but I got along much better with the car I was in and ended up winning by 7 seconds on the first try. Expert was another story. That Lambo ,when compared to the Supra, is terrible. Even with RM tires that thing lacks grip. And it handled the tight left hander and chicane worse than the AMG. It took me about 5 or 6 tries to finally make it to the end of the race. All the Sophy drivers were fast in this race. Blue Sophy was leading the last lap with me right behind her and in to the chicane right before the finish was my last chance to try to stuff my nose where the sun don't shine and take the lead. Well Sophy ended up trying to protect the apex and I ended up rear ending her hard enough to put her out of the race. I ended up winning on a fairly crappy punt, which was never my intention. I just wanted to cut her off but she cut right in front of me.

Anyway, if there is one thing this new AI is teaching me, it's that hitting all your apexes is critical. If you miss an apex with the standard AI it's not too big of a deal. With Sophy she will see the gap and go for it. Sometimes she takes a bad line to fill the gap and you can perform a switcheroo on her, but more times than not she is on a good line and out races you.

Overall, I think it's pretty good. Would I want every race to be as competitive as expert is with the new Sophy AI? Probably not. At least not for weak payouts. If PD would adjust the payouts for the skill level you choose (make the current payouts as the intermediate level) then I may find myself typically playing in intermediate but switching to Expert if I am in the mood to have a tough fight and make some big credits.
 
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I thought I was playing FH5 for a bit, competitive AI drivers with similar cars and only 3 laps lol. Honestly I’m pretty sure I can’t win on hard difficulty anyway, I did normal difficulty for the Books and went back down to Easy for grinding purposes. I won all but one intermediate and didn’t win any Expert. Seemed like a definite improvement though.
 
For those saying sophy lacks awareness, I disagree. It doesn’t expect you to go for certain moves because that’s how it was trained. Frankly, a lot of the videos I’ve seen where they comment on that, the moves were like mega lunges or just flat out bad racing moves. Even when it doors you it reacts and gets out of your way after that. This is miles better than the current AI.

Perhaps they can train it to race with and like less professional drivers so it will be more aware of your terrible racing moves lol.

Maybe someone can provide an example of a clean racing move where sophy doors you so I can understand this specific complaint?
 
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GaugeForever
For those saying sophy lacks awareness, I disagree. It doesn’t expect you to go for certain moves because that’s how it was trained. Frankly, a lot of the videos I’ve seen where they comment on that, the moves were like mega lunges or just flat out bad racing moves. Even when it doors you it reacts and gets out of your way after that. This is miles better than the current AI.

Perhaps they can train it to race with and like less professional drivers so it will be more aware of your terrible racing moves lol.

Maybe someone can provide an example of a clean racing move where sophy doors you so I can understand this specific complaint?
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well I did the first 3 race on tsusuka and did gold but sophy plays dirty as hell she rammed me several times and you could see her hatred toward me in those smileys but overall great experience alot bettter then the regular gt7 "AI" I think the reason she rammed me was that she was unprepared for my kinda of driving going on her inside in turns and generally pushing agressively to get ahead.... but love it and those smileys really says it all xD
 
GaugeForever
Maybe someone can provide an example of a clean racing move where sophy doors you so I can understand this specific complaint?
Click to expand...

Maybe 2:25ish in the video I posted above. I've left them room and I don't think I move into them but there is contact.
 
GaugeForever
For those saying sophy lacks awareness, I disagree. It doesn’t expect you to go for certain moves because that’s how it was trained. Frankly, a lot of the videos I’ve seen where they comment on that, the moves were like mega lunges or just flat out bad racing moves. Even when it doors you it reacts and gets out of your way after that. This is miles better than the current AI.

Perhaps they can train it to race with and like less professional drivers so it will be more aware of your terrible racing moves lol.

Maybe someone can provide an example of a clean racing move where sophy doors you so I can understand this specific complaint?
Click to expand...
This is a thought I've had from watching others race them. I notice a pattern between the people who claim it drives poorly or is rough and how they either describe their driving or have it on video.

Like SuperGT can be a great driver, but it wasn't nearly as rough with me as it was with him. And I think thats because he was making overly aggressive moves. Much of that was him testing it to see how it would react. But I find that if you race it like you should race.. i.e. etiquette and what not, then it does pretty well.

Oddly enough, this is how I've felt about the already existing AI. If you make an effort to drive cleanly, it isnt the worst. Granted, there are so many other issues: The random braking at like midcorner or on straights etc. It has no understanding of blue flags. It doesn't know how to pass lap traffic/slower cars. A whole bunch of broken crap.

I would've liked to see SuperGT to some more interesting testing rather than just like.. lets ram into it and see what it does. Or lets make huge brake dives and throw the car to the inside and see what happens. Might be interesting to do the Expert race, drop yourself all the way to the back at the start and watch how Violet works. She definitely seemed to move at a good pace once she made it through the traffic.

I also don't expect this to be some ground breaking AI thing. Thats all just marketing bs whatever. I think the people who are expecting it to exhibit like super complex race strategy and fore thought are expecting too much from this. Right now, lets just get an AI that is faster than whats in the game and doesn't exhibit all the broken behavior like I mentioned above.
 
Seikenfreak
The random braking at like midcorner or on straights etc. It has no understanding of blue flags. It doesn't know how to pass lap traffic/slower cars. A whole bunch of broken crap.

Right now, lets just get an AI that is faster than whats in the game and doesn't exhibit all the broken behavior like I mentioned above.
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Yeah, the early braking into certain corners, like on Sardegna, or the lack of awareness of blue flags, like on Tokyo (and Sardegna for that matter) can be rather annoying. The only time I've run in to the original AI not understanding how to pass lapped traffic was on the Human Comedy Lake Maggiore mission. That AI drives at one heck of a fast pace in that mission. I'm not that fast of a driver, but I'm also no slouch. That said, I was a full minute behind the AI with 20 minutes of the race to go. If the AI didnt get blocked by lapped traffic I would have stood no chance of winning that race. I would have easily been over a minute behind requiring lap times averaging ~1:56 in order to win. Most people are not fast enough to hit those types of lap times. Maybe 1 or 2% of players could get an average lap time like that. For the record I ran a few 1:57's but mostly 1:58's and 1:59's.

If the AI was that fast for all races and didnt make any of the dumb mistakes to slow it down (kind of like how the 1-on-1 Sophy is), I don't think many people would find the game to be enjoyable. Would it be a difficult game? Yes, very difficult, but I don't think it would be a game that people would want to continually play and get better at in order to beat it. I think most people would get discouraged by constantly having to play defense (that would suck for a 1-hour endurance race) or being beaten by several seconds per lap and having no understanding of how they can get better.

I like the idea of this Sophy AI as the back and forth racing mechanics of it are better than what you get with the current AI. If it were to be fully implemented into the game, I would hope that the 4 levels of difficulty would get fully implemented so all players from beginners all the way up to the aliens can find a challenging and satisfying racing experience.
 
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shadow0460
To me she seemed no different than standard AI. I try to race clean with them also. Sophy is faster, but I didn't see much else different.
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Standard AI doesn't sit on your rear bumper waiting for a chance to attack, Sophy is usually 0.150 to 0.200 seconds behind you. Sophy can try dodge you if you try to ram it mid corner. Its much faster at cornering than regular AI.

Its a big improvement over standard AI in my opinion. I actually felt a bit of rush when doing the 1vs1 battles, compared to doing the standard chase the rabbit ai races.

Unfortunately when it passes you, its way too fast for normal players, I'd like to see it make mistakes randomly, or at least be slightly slower out of the corners, or try to match the players laptimes a bit more.
 
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If the whole career mode was based off this AI, even if it's just 1 car, I wouldn't stop playing GT. This was FUN. I haven't felt pressure like this in a sim race since the last time I led one in GT sport.
 
My biggest issue when racing the AI is the P.I.T. maneuver crap where they dive into your rear quarter panel if you are leading into a corner. The move to the line and spin you. Sophy doesn't do that.
 
Tommy_D
Yeah, the early braking into certain corners, like on Sardegna, or the lack of awareness of blue flags, like on Tokyo (and Sardegna for that matter) can be rather annoying. The only time I've run in to the original AI not understanding how to pass lapped traffic was on the Human Comedy Lake Maggiore mission. That AI drives at one heck of a fast pace in that mission. I'm not that fast of a driver, but I'm also no slouch. That said, I was a full minute behind the AI with 20 minutes of the race to go. If the AI didnt get blocked by lapped traffic I would have stood no chance of winning that race. I would have easily been over a minute behind requiring lap times averaging ~1:56 in order to win. Most people are not fast enough to hit those types of lap times. Maybe 1 or 2% of players could get an average lap time like that. For the record I ran a few 1:57's but mostly 1:58's and 1:59's.

If the AI was that fast for all races and didnt make any of the dumb mistakes to slow it down (kind of like how the 1-on-1 Sophy is), I don't think many people would find the game to be enjoyable. Would it be a difficult game? Yes, very difficult, but I don't think it would be a game that people would want to continually play and get better at in order to beat it. I think most people would get discouraged by constantly having to play defense (that would suck for a 1-hour endurance race) or being beaten by several seconds per lap and having no understanding of how they can get better.

I like the idea of this Sophy AI as the back and forth racing mechanics of it are better than what you get with the current AI. If it were to be fully implemented into the game, I would hope that the 4 levels of difficulty would get fully implemented so all players from beginners all the way up to the aliens can find a challenging and satisfying racing experience.
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I have the lapped traffic or blue flag stuff when I'm doing my Custom Races usually. The blue flags, the cars will just race against you as if they weren't a lap down. Bumping into you and not moving. Dive bombing you etc. The lap traffic issue is like.. If there is a much slower AI car, the faster AI will just park behind it. Often multiple cars. So I sometimes put like 480pp maxed out Minis at the back of my Vintage GT grid, but then when a lead 625pp car gets behind it, it doesn't know what to do but drive into its bumper and sit there.

But yea, I definitely don't want some Alien AI. I want something that has some scaling range so I can do casual, fun racing and earn credits but when I want to, I want it to be somewhere up to 1v1 Sophy. Races that I don't care about winning. Maybe I'm running a multi-class grid and I'm in the slower stuff etc.

For normal races though, I think the ideal scenario that everyone wants is where you can run a race thats like 5-10 laps, you start in the back of a standing grid, and you can catch up to first on the last lap and win the race with clean driving. The problem to solve here is that every player's ability is different so how do we scale it to match that player.
 
Seikenfreak
This is a thought I've had from watching others race them. I notice a pattern between the people who claim it drives poorly or is rough and how they either describe their driving or have it on video.

Like SuperGT can be a great driver, but it wasn't nearly as rough with me as it was with him. And I think thats because he was making overly aggressive moves. Much of that was him testing it to see how it would react. But I find that if you race it like you should race.. i.e. etiquette and what not, then it does pretty well.

Oddly enough, this is how I've felt about the already existing AI. If you make an effort to drive cleanly, it isnt the worst. Granted, there are so many other issues: The random braking at like midcorner or on straights etc. It has no understanding of blue flags. It doesn't know how to pass lap traffic/slower cars. A whole bunch of broken crap.

I would've liked to see SuperGT to some more interesting testing rather than just like.. lets ram into it and see what it does. Or lets make huge brake dives and throw the car to the inside and see what happens. Might be interesting to do the Expert race, drop yourself all the way to the back at the start and watch how Violet works. She definitely seemed to move at a good pace once she made it through the traffic.

I also don't expect this to be some ground breaking AI thing. Thats all just marketing bs whatever. I think the people who are expecting it to exhibit like super complex race strategy and fore thought are expecting too much from this. Right now, lets just get an AI that is faster than whats in the game and doesn't exhibit all the broken behavior like I mentioned above.
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I'll just leave this here.

 
I'm not good at Alsace, but I will say Sophy found out what happens when she punts human players.
I also discovered some of her behavior is scripted, leading me to think she's about as smart as my keytar. That's not a joke, I own a Vocaloid/Sonogenic 500 and use it weekly on stage. It's had some ideas of its own and they fit really well with the music, much like Sophy trying to outrun Anakin Skywalker.
 
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From what we've seen so far, it looks like Sophy in this iteration is only available at one particular (i.e. full) strength. The only way to make it slower and give players a chance, is to give it a slower car.

And I do think that's one of the most difficult objectives ... how do you make an AI that through many iterations has learned how to do it best, to make it worse? Sure, you can maybe order it to brake earlier or accelerate later, but that's not ideal either.

I do suspect though that Sophy was trained on each particular car with one specific setup in one particular track condition, with no tyre degradation or other varying factors. It would be interesting to see, what it does, if it doesn't have what amounts to infinite human time to zero in on perfection, because we as human players don't have the luxury of running a car a couple of thousand times on a track and replay what works best without a flaw when we need it. Those couple of percent imperfection or uncertainty that is inherently human need to be built into Sophy for human players to effectively have a chance. If Sophy can rely on the conditions being the same every time, it will perform perfectly every time.

But what, if it has only limited time to learn? Does it have a baseline that is good enough to race in any conditions with minimal training or does it need the preparation so it doesn't make any erratic moves?

In any case, it's a fantastic development and it will be interesting to see where they can take this.
 
I finished P1 in the Expert Tsukuba race, by .5 seconds. No defending by me. I just drove like they do in Best Motoring. Stick to the racing line.

The 1-V-1, I finished 3.7s behind. All good. That’s what I want.
 
05XR8
The 1-V-1, I finished 3.7s behind. All good. That’s what I want.
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Anything within 4 seconds is quick in my view...but I will be working hard in the coming days to shrink that to 3, then 2, then 1.

I've already found one of Sophy's secrets.
 
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Personally, I am not impressed. Sophy may be fast but all I really care about is fun racing and I don't think 'Sophy' delivers. It is a step up from standard GT7 AI (which is unbelievably terrible) but the standard AI tricks are still there, pit maneuver, late swerves in the braking zone, unnecessary contact when side by side, swerving/blocking at high speed/closing speeds. I remember playing F1 2022 for the first time and thinking it would be a cluster**** with the fragile F1 cars but it was amazing how you could race closely with the AI and not make contact.

One thing Sophy doesn't do is the ridiculous turn in then brake mid corner, every corner that the standard AI does. I like that.
 

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