With the Hype of AI Racing lines how is it an AI with no one around on a straightaway slams on the brakes ? seems like the AI aggressiveness is turned up but they are even more stupid then FM7/6/5 FM4 at less the AI new how to turn or drive in a line…
4 Likes
I’ve seen the AI get off their line/move out of my way quite a bit, which is an improvement I’d say. They have occasionally bumped me aggressively, but not nearly as often as earlier games with Drivatars (which is to say, not nearly every single time). And when I started at the back of the pack, the pack didn’t all crash into each other in the first turn, either.
1 Like
And if you come on the inner line in a corner it just gets spooked and drives off away far far into the grass.
3 Likes
The AI is no better than previous games, it looks like they just brazenly lied about it. Brakes on straights, brakes on corners when it shouldn’t. The lead car rockets off but if you catch them and pass, they back way off and never challenge you again. They are all blind, they just follow a preset path and will ram you if you’re in the way including forcing you off the track.
10 Likes
If you start at the back the first 20 are absolute n00bs. They’ll slam on the brakes mid-corner, on straights, they will slow you down so much, it’s unbelievable. Not to mention the crashes they get involved in.
The last 5 are better and will provide a better challenge. The guy in 1st place is classic Forza; fast until you overtake him
4 Likes
This AI has to be blind, I’ve been rammed off the track at VIR 3 consecutive times on the same turn but at either lap 3 or 4. I just turned the game off before I wasted anymore of my time trying to complete the career mode.
3 Likes
Ah, the consistency of experiences. I wonder if the AI is just more aggressive at higher settings.
This is the worst AI system in any contemporary racing game. Fair enough, it has been since FM5. This “Drivatar” system should’ve been thrown out long ago, and replaced with a normal AI system. There are many issues with the current setup regardless of set difficulty, and you can witness every issue in different scenarios.
First, the AI is somehow programmed to be afraid of other cars. I guess this is to make them avoid impacts, but what this basic function does is it makes them completely unable to drive in packs. The situations right after start are laughable. Cars don’t even try to steer clear of each other, they literally drive into each other’s backs in two lines. After the first corner, they keep braking and end up in a literal traffic jam, because they are also unable to get around and overtake each other. There must be some prevention algorithm in there that makes them scared of making a move. This is also apparent when you get next to an AI car, and it literally throws itself off the track, even drives into a wall just to avoid your car. Simply ridiculous.
Second, the AI can’t judge the necessary braking distance when a player car is in front of it. This is why they always ram you from behind. I guess they only sense each other but not the player car, and they are unable to adjust their braking distance. Everyone knows that when another car is closely in front, they have to brake earlier than on an empty track, because they have to take the other car’s length into account. The AI is not familiar with this method.
Third, when an inevitable contact happens (because you’re driving among lunatics), the AI cars go crazy and try to steer in desperate, illogical ways. This is why they constantly spin you off, because instead of braking and steering clear, they steer into you and keep accelerating. Like when someone’s so shocked that they can’t even find the proper pedals.
Fourth, in case of an emergency in front, like a car (most likely you) spun on the track, the AI is completely unable to react. They just do nothing and follow the racing line and crash into you at full speed. All of them. There seems to be absolutely no algorithm to react to situations on track, my guess is that this whole “Drivatar” system is trained only on empty tracks, just to be able to get around by themselves, but not trained to actually race.
There are other telltale signs that the AI is just not confident in driving. Drive next to one on a straight line, and look at how they constantly jerk the steering wheel left and right, like “reacting” to something all the time. They don’t drive straight, they keep making small movements to both sides, as if they didn’t know where to go. Or how they “brake check” you at the smallest kinks, the top of the smallest corners. A full field of AI can even fully stop at Eau Rogue, for example!
This is not simply a bad AI system. It is a completely incompetent system that has nothing to do with real driving, let alone racing. They cannot handle any situation and have some extremely basic programming. I honestly think that any other racing game has better AI. Even GT’s “moving obstacles” AI is better, at least it doesn’t mess up at every corner.
And another thing: making the AI cars wear the names of our Xbox friends’ gamertags is super silly and childish. They have nothing in common with our friends, and it just makes the single-player field look like a stupid multiplayer race. Why can’t Turn 10 come up with “real” opponents, with names, nationalities, like in Forza Motorsport 1-4? I wish they returned to that system.
4 Likes
Yep, couldn’t agree with this point more, it’s super frustrating when you’ve had a spin or whatever and then it gets compounded by several AI cars ramming through you and ending your race.
I have the AI set to 6.
Here’s level 8 AI.
https://www.reddit.com/r/forza/comments/175tygg/level_8_ai_doesnt_even_try_to_dodge_my_car_after/
Literally blind, no attempt to swerve or brake like a real life person would do.
1 Like
While I have seen some egregious stuff like corner bombing and side-swiping on the straights, the majority of the time they’re just blind or dumb.
They have zero racecraft, very little awareness, they can’t handle being challenged, and lose any will to race once passed. They cheat to make up for poor driving, they brake at times for no reason, they’ll sacrifice themselves just to try and prevent the player from winning… it’s like the worst of both worlds. They have all the bad behaviours from previous titles, plus an extra new layer of machine learning stupidity added on top that feels like it’s been trained on hotlaps with no other cars. And barely trained at that.
If it is true and there actually is machine learning at work, I get the idea that the intention was to get us, the consumers, to train it. Either way, pretty much every claim they made about the AI turned out to be a lie.
I honestly feel like the AI in FH5 is better… and that’s a very low bar. Project Cars 2 has better AI. In fact I’m struggling to think of anything this game does better than Project Cars 2, and the only things I can think of that are straight wins for FM are the car selection and the livery editor.
2 Likes
I noticed that too.
If you rewind right before or during a corner, sometimes they’ll fly off 
2 Likes
Mid pack is tough. they drive slow, random brake checks, crash into you, etc… up front (depending on the car you are racing and how much its upgraded) they can generally lap pretty quick. I do find I can jump a bunch at the start in this new Motorsports but that they will almost always dive bomb on me in the first corner to two to try to take their spots back. But I can usually go up and under them to repass.
I have had some good races with the AI as long as I don’t have to go through the middle of the pack. That’s where the worst AI drivers are. If my car is fast, I just walk away from everyone but if it’s slow I will often get some pressure from 2nd place. But they are definitely over aggressive at times which has annoyed me.
But, to be honest, the AI drivers are very much like MOST of the online drivers I’ve raced. - Especially after the general game launch. I usually qualify mid pack (i’m not as fast as I used to be or want to be lol) I’m able to drive pretty clean (usually outside of occasional mistakes) but many people at my speed are often not. So, getting through mid-pack is a crap shoot. Just like with the AI, someone is guaranteed to try to dive bomb down the inside. Or go into a narrow corner two wide but still trying to take the whole track. In the meantime, the leaders are driving away from the field (not that I would have a chance at catching them but the point is, online drivers are just as or often more frustrating than the AI.
That doesn’t make the AI performance okay. But it does seem to accurately represent real world video game drivers. …But Forza should aim to reproduce real world professional race car drivers.
2 Likes
I could imagine they used some modern AI to find paths for the actual in-race AI cars to follow. Actual self-learning AI (that operates in real time, mind you) would be far too compute-intense for your average console or even PC to provide a good experience.
That said, I agree with you, the race AI is just as bad as in previous Forza titles. Cars are lined up like pearls on a string, the leader leads by a mile in front of the rest of the pack until you overtake at which point it quickly falls behind. Some cars go off the track on the most unbelievable occasions and the ramming is exceptionally annoying when you start from the rear of the pack.
3 Likes