AI pace on custom routes

[fl1tz1]

Hi,

the AI is very slow on the custom routes I create. I talk about road racing events here.
Is it all down to the line that I drive while placing the check points? Or is there more to it? Any tips appreciated!
Do AI improve if they race the same custom route several times, do they learn? I guess not, but you never know
I do try to drive the ideal line while placing the check points, but of course I do not drive at race speed, because I have to think about where to put things, look on the map etc. Thus it could very well be, that the line I drive is not good. Is that all there is to it?

Ideas for future installments:
Maybe it would be better to separate placing check points and creating the AI line in different runs, i.e. first run to set the check points, and then let us drive the finished track in race speed, which defines the AI line (better allow multiple tries ;-))
And please let us edit custom routes, it **** to have to start all over again just because you forgot one sign or misplaced a check point!!!
Oh, and btw: widen and narrow check points seems broken. If I press W or S nothing happens.

What tools do the devs use to create routes? Maybe something somewhat user friendly can be derived from that, to let us create custom routes with similar quality as the original routes.

I’d really love to be able to create and race custom routes with the AI, there is so much potential in the map, but as of now, the AI is so slow that it’s not enjoyable

Cheers,
Tom

[Zementente]

Hey, some food for thought from me as another avid route creator:

1. AI behaviour can be good on routes, I made some tracks where the AI is decent enough for what it’s worth. (e.g. 145 585 215 - Follow the WillOWisp) They are not as good as in regular tracks, but close enough.

2. AI is very terrible if you do things it was probably not created for. These include (but are not limited to):

• crossing your own route, for example with an X-shape, or in any other way or form
• making corners into very small areas with bumpables on the side (e.g. narrow side roads in Guanjato or such), especially if you drive on places that are not road (e.g. in this track: 995 548 606 - Mexican Job - the AI will always crash into the very first wall in front of the treasure chest)

3. Your racing line is very important. You can even make the cars go completely different directions than the actual route. But, same as you, I do drive my lines with a very slow pace. Things to do here are:

• still drive turns and corners in the acutal apex (also helps with better placement of Checkpoints)
• So, for my routes, I usually go into the “fly-mode” (Select on the controller), lay out a certain path I want to take, then drive said path, until I reach the point where I don’t know how to continue, and then do the same thing again. Before I continue on the track, I use the rewind feature to have a smoother line. In general, if you drive left/right/back/forth a lot because you’re unsure how or where to put your track, make sure you rewind to the beginning once you know where and how to drive.
  (to be fair, most of the times, I even have a screenshot of the map on the second screen and fiddled in a small route with paint or such to give me orientation)

4. editing: In one of the last patch notes, they promised to make an edit-feature for track creating. Let’s hope it comes soon… fingers crossed

[Brandana]

Yeah, the pacing with Ai can be pretty jarring. As Zementente stated earlier, “AI behaviour can be good on routes.” and, “Your racing line is very important.” is very true, along with their other points.

What I’ve found for good pathing is to drive in the dead middle of the track, or the suggested line you would see if you had the driving line on. The reason for this is that if two or more AI come up on a turn and one of them tries to cut on the inside, the line I drove would have put the lead car a little farther out rather than blocking the path. This is because in most cases the AI don’t properly detect the props you place down nor react to them properly, as well as with the natural landscape such as trees, logs, buildings and etc. too. It’s also important that you drive a clean line throughout the track, otherwise you’ll find some unexpected outcomes like AI running into the outside wall, doing a U-turn in the middle of a straight, wiggling too much.

I have a good example of a track with both good and bad AI behavior here (151-668-447, please note that if you do try this that I haven’t tested whether or not the props will spawn for other players. It’s an annoying bug for sure. I’ll be sure to update this later.). I made the track wide enough the best I could for at least two cars to fit next to each other comfortably, and drove a clean line, nothing fancy. It works well. However, because I tested out some new things with the props throughout the track, I couldn’t rewind far enough to the beginning line. Knowing I could just drive backwards, that’s what I did, but when I got to the beginning, I made a U-turn and just drove from there. Well now at the start of each lap the AI slow down and try to follow that line causing mass confusion and a pile up. To make matters worse is that the finish line, which mind you is placed down by Forza, not me, to create the circuit, isn’t wide enough so if the AI, or the player goes too far to the right then they’ll miss that said checkpoint.

Well before I rant about this or that and what to do to fix this, here’s some quick tips to avoid that from the get-go.
1st: Plan a route out in free roam by scouting it out with the map and drone, then drive said route. If I’m not doing anything really specific, or don’t plan on having AI, then I like to think of the route as if the Forza team was going to create it. By doing that you can give the route a good flow for both the AI and players.
2nd: If you have the fore sight to do so. Place all your props down before even moving or placing checkpoints. This way you can drive a good line and place checkpoints in a good flow where there easy to see.
3rd: If you’re concerned about a portion of the track being too narrow then use the wide metal platform to determine your width or turn any straight wooden platform sideways.
4th: This is more personal, but when making a route I like to use the controller for placing my props and checkpoints. I do use the mouse to scroll faster though the props though, but as for driving I like to not use a sim wheel. If you didn’t know btw with the controller, there is a precision mode you can toggle to slow down any inputs made while placing props.

Last thing I’d like to note here is that I do drive with Highly Skilled Drivatars. Don’t know how other difficulties affect them, but they do tend to drive a bit slower in most cases than regular races. Also that I want to second the fact that we should be getting an update to edit our custom routes.