Your Experiences With GT Sophy

[FluxWildly]

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.

This is also my biggest criticism regarding sophy but in the end I guess it comes down to what the actual purpose of sophy is. Is it meant to be an AI that replicates human behavior or is it meant to be an AI so advanced that it drives at 100% efficiency and races better than real race drivers without making mistakes or taking into account human error.

As an AI it is unbelievably good and I'm surely impressed with how well it races against human opponents and how clean it can drive But for me, what I would like to see from sophy is the feeling that you are racing a real human opponent.
Yes it is extremely fast and competitive but at the same time it will make a mistake or two, miss an apex or braking marker. If it goes for an overtake on you and fails it would be good to see it back off a bit, sitting in the 0.3-0.5 range behind you, settle down and then regathers it composure and access it next move against you.

What I would like to see is them incorporate a 'human reaction time' into the decisions and moves that sophy makes.

But ultimately it is 10000% than the AI we have now.

 

[RacinLei]

In my opinion the only feasible way to implement Sophy in a full game is with an Ai difficulty slider like in the F1 games. All of us can choose and progress in there own speed and give the pros something to chew if they want.

 

[notarjy]

I finally decided to give these a go today, I found myself getting punted and divebombed a lot on the higher difficulties... Not super fun. The idea is interesting I can see that these are not normal AI but the way the drive is not that fun to race with imo, they drive with a lot of skill but no etiquette in my experience

 

[CoffeeCupAF]

Gimmick.

 

[daan]

Average driver beats Sophy Violette at Suzuka.



My time here was 4'22. I had previously done a 4'19 but was beaten by over 7 seconds. This time, I held my line in the first corner, and just drove as best I could, holding my line but with no overt blocking, amd I managed to hold it off.

 

[Magog]

In my experience Violette is the fastest but also the most courteous.

 

[Techlet]

Sophy is definitely more aware of the player than the normal AI (right up until the "if you no longer go for a gap that exists..." moment) but the structure of these races is still fundamentally the same chase the rabbit experience that we've always had. Except, I suppose, in this case we're the rabbit some of the time.

What's the point of a "smart" AI if the race itself is still a 1v1 with a procession of moving roadblocks in between? Why have such a single file spread of unequal cars on track?

These races are presented as a demonstration of Sophy. What exactly is being demonstrated when you fly pass Green, Red, and Blue in the first lap (or the first corner in the case of Green) and never see them again?

 

[BangsMcCoy]

These races are presented as a demonstration of Sophy. What exactly is being demonstrated when you fly pass Green, Red, and Blue in the first lap (or the first corner in the case of Green) and never see them again?

Their ability to fire off 70 emojis per minute yet still manage to stay on the track?

 

[Magog]

Sophy is definitely more aware of the player than the normal AI (right up until the "if you no longer go for a gap that exists..." moment) but the structure of these races is still fundamentally the same chase the rabbit experience that we've always had. Except, I suppose, in this case we're the rabbit some of the time.

What's the point of a "smart" AI if the race itself is still a 1v1 with a procession of moving roadblocks in between? Why have such a single file spread of unequal cars on track?

These races are presented as a demonstration of Sophy. What exactly is being demonstrated when you fly pass Green, Red, and Blue in the first lap (or the first corner in the case of Green) and never see them again?

Not everyone does. It's meant to give players of all skill levels the chance to interact with Sophy. One on one vs Violette is meant to be the challenge for top tier drivers. Even that is scaled back from what the pros raced against.

 

[Techlet]

Not everyone does. It's meant to give players of all skill levels the chance to interact with Sophy. One on one vs Violette is meant to be the challenge for top tier drivers. Even that is scaled back from what the pros raced against.

I'm not talking about the 1v1. I have zero interest in that. I'm talking about the actual "races".

I'd hoped that a better, potentially cleaner, AI can facilitate race designs that aren't "catch the rabbit in X laps". I'd imagined a closer field of AI cars that would all jostle for position and not just line up in a single file like it's a casual track day. No matter what difficulty you select, it still ends up being you vs Violet with the rest of the cars as set dressing.

 

[OldandSlow]

Violette won’t return my calls. I guess it’s over between us.🙂

 

[Magog]

I'm not talking about the 1v1. I have zero interest in that. I'm talking about the actual "races".

I'd hoped that a better, potentially cleaner, AI can facilitate race designs that aren't "catch the rabbit in X laps". I'd imagined a closer field of AI cars that would all jostle for position and not just line up in a single file like it's a casual track day. No matter what difficulty you select, it still ends up being you vs Violet with the rest of the cars as set dressing.

Yeah as I said not everyone is as good as you. This is just a test of the system to give players of all skill levels a chance to dice with Sophy. I'm sure the final implementation will look very different.

 

[happycorey]

These races are presented as a demonstration of Sophy. What exactly is being demonstrated when you fly pass Green, Red, and Blue in the first lap (or the first corner in the case of Green) and never see them again?

I think the idea is that lower skilled drivers can match up against whichever level of driver they compete with. There's probably a large chunk of players (especially that are playing because of PSVR2) that aren't able to pass the Blue driver. So they might match up with Red instead. Only for Violet to make a run on them and give them additional competition.

But for the majority of us on this forum, we pass blue in the first lap and violet never challenges us. And that's ultimately the shortcoming of this test. But luckily they can do this for the rest of the year and softly implement the Sophy we have helped engineer.

 

[Techlet]

I think the idea is that lower skilled drivers can match up against whichever level of driver they compete with. There's probably a large chunk of players (especially that are playing because of PSVR2) that aren't able to pass the Blue driver. So they might match up with Red instead. Only for Violet to make a run on them and give them additional competition.

I thought that's what the overall difficulty selection was for?

That aside, my biggest peeve is that the Sophy cars are so spread apart in performance that they're never able to threaten each other, nevermind the player. Violet is the only one able to overtake because it starts at the back with a faster car. It just doesn't feel like you're taking part in a race.

 

[Famine]

Having noticed that the races are repeatable for money - you can earn around 1m/hr from Trial Mountain or Suzuka (even though it's three laps) on Expert and the races are more enjoyable - I've been repeating them a fair bit.

As far as never being able to threaten each other goes...

 

[Nathan88]

Only had time to try Tsukuba and won all the events first time. But I know that track like the back of my hand and enjoy the Integra. Not looking forward as much to the Corvette event!

From the first few corners it was immediately obvious how Sophy AI cars acted differently. Even the slower cars defended and placed themselves on the track in a more intelligent way to regular AI.

The 1vs1 was challenging but I always felt I had it in the bag. What impressed me most is there were 3 or 4 lead changes. Wasn’t just a case of divebombing the first corner and blocking for your life.

 

[redhed17]

Having noticed that the races are repeatable for money - you can earn around 1m/hr from Trial Mountain or Suzuka (even though it's three laps) on Expert and the races are more enjoyable - I've been repeating them a fair bit.

As far as never being able to threaten each other goes...

Oooh, great, more grinding. 🙄

 

[happycorey]

I thought that's what the overall difficulty selection was for?

That aside, my biggest peeve is that the Sophy cars are so spread apart in performance that they're never able to threaten each other, nevermind the player. Violet is the only one able to overtake because it starts at the back with a faster car. It just doesn't feel like you're taking part in a race.

The overall difficulty will help with that, but while they might pass them all in the first teir, they might settle in to their respective position as the cars become closer matched.

As Famine showed, they will overtake each other if given the opportunity. I like to go slow enough for them all to bunch up and let them compete a bit more. Or push one of the others from behind to give violet a run for her money

 

[Techlet]

The overall difficulty will help with that, but while they might pass them all in the first teir, they might settle in to their respective position as the cars become closer matched.

As Famine showed, they will overtake each other if given the opportunity. I like to go slow enough for them all to bunch up and let them compete a bit more. Or push one of the others from behind to give violet a run for her money

Yes. We have to go out of our way to bunch them up to see the AI interact with each other outside of emojis. Wonder why PD didn't bunch the grid up more to begin with. Or put the Sophies in more equal cars.

 

[fastone371]

Do the Sophy races change in difficulty depending on what you set your in game difficulty on? Is having your game set on normal a slower Sophy than having your game set on hard?? We noticed in the Tokyo 600pp race, a lot of people were talking about how easy it was to beat until we found out they were playing on easy or normal.

 

[Magog]

Do the Sophy races change in difficulty depending on what you set your in game difficulty on? Is having your game set on normal a slower Sophy than having your game set on hard?? We noticed in the Tokyo 600pp race, a lot of people were talking about how easy it was to beat until we found out they were playing on easy or normal.

No. Difficulty changes only apply to "career" races.

 

[BWX]

I tried to beat her without touching cars but she mostly just bumped into me. She's tough, but needs more race-craft type knowledge and then she'd be unbeatable (for me).

 

[TumeK5]

It is time to revive this thread tomorrow. I figured we should try races we have often done and see how much the experience has changed.

 

[Fezzik]

It is time to revive this thread tomorrow. I figured we should try races we have often done and see how much the experience has changed.

From the way it's worded on the blog, Sophy is only in the arcade races rather than existing WTC events, so it would be hard to make comparisons

Arcade Race has now become Quick Race. Players can now choose to race against regular AI or the prototype AI racing agent ‘Gran Turismo Sophy’ for even more exciting races than ever before.

I guess they can't fully implement it until it can drive all the cars and not just 70%.

 

[TumeK5]

It's hard to know anything beforehand. It's also stated Sophy is available on 9 tracks, and we don't know which tracks those are, apart from the few in the trailer.

Regardless, good to see Sophy being available on Grand Valley and Le Mans, will definitely try those out.

 

[TumeK5]

Alright, so. ahem

Sophy is quite well optimized for difficulty on Expert. No matter what car you choose, as long as it's bone stock, it will always be a similar level of challenge for the win.

I did notice some quirks in Sophy's behaviour though, but this mostly concerns the cars lower in the field, which are supposed to be slower anyway.

Gonna have a great time testing all sorts of cars.

 

[Deni323]

Yeah, indeed, I just figure that it’ll take quite a while to have it ready for all cars and tracks, or at least a large selection, so I imagine it might be there by GT8. Or maybe they’ll continue updating Sophy to where GT7 gets the same implementation as what would be in 8.

But maybe they’ll keep that as a selling point for 8. I suppose they could still have it be a selling point even if 7 had Sophy for many cars and tracks. Would be great if it does become available in 7 for a wide selection of cars and tracks.

Even if is fully implemented in GT7 with all tracks, all layouts, all wather and all cars they could easily make it a selling point for GT8 with calling it ''next level Sophy'' ''Sophy 3.0'' ''Enhanced'' ''Advanced'' etc

I mean I'd buy it, GT7 has come a long way since its release and no doubt it will keep getting updates and improvements. GT8 should be GTS and GT7 combined + full Sophy + new things and that should really be THE driving simulator then. If don't mess up at launch again

 

[Nathaniel_Wu]

I tried it a bit in Gr.3 cars at Spa, on expert difficulty. I gotta say I’m both a tiny bit disappointed and satisfied.
Disappointed as in GT Sophy does not drive as fast as it does in the test. Upon checking the replay, it lifted off a bit through Eau Rouge and Raidillon, and also turn 18, which should all be flat-out in Gr.3 cars. It’s very easy to overtake them past these corners. So even at expert difficulty, we are still not getting opponents that are as fast as you get in online races, you don’t need extra practice to match and surpass their pace. In the Feb 2023 Race Together event, Sophy was way faster, I hope that we’ll get that level of raw pace from Sophy as an option in the future.
Satisfied as in Sophy is still very capable at racing wheel to wheel, it’s always clean yet aggressive, better than most driver you’ll see in A/S to B/S lobbies, if we ever collide, it’s all my fault. Also I’m impressed that the guys at Sony AI was able to scale down the proficiency level of Sophy. Because in the Feb preview, Sophy always drives perfectly, player are given far more powerful cars in order to beat them, but now they can drive less perfectly in roughly equal cars.
It’s a good starting point, but it still needs some tweaking. It would also be nice to have the 1 vs 1 option back with the superhuman level Sophy.