-One or two of the lead cars pull easily pull away from everyone else, and seem impossible to catch up.
-Around the halfway mark, I start to catch up with the lead car(s) despite driving no differently.
-I overtake them and start to build a good lead at the front.
-Around the 80-90% mark, a few cars appear out of nowhere, gaining ground on me in an impossibly quick manner. The final corner usually has an AI attempting to pass me, who has suddently developed freakishy good grip and the inability to be slowed down by terrain or objects.
Seriously, so many races are like this, especially the offroad races. It’s getting very tedious and it seems like the entire first 2/3rds of the race mean virtually nothing because of the rubberbanding/scripting/whatever…
yet it takes what could be a boring finish and adds some excitement. if you prefer less of the challenge just lower the difficulty. or raise the difficulty and finish 2nd or 3rd which will also help when you go online and match up with some faster drivers.
There is. I’ve crashed. And still caught up within seconds. It rubberbanded me in my favor. Rubberbanding is pretty bad, I haven’t tested it the other way but I’d guess it’s there. And they all race the exact same in every race. They don’t race each other. No one ever passes anyone else. It’s as if there on a roller coaster track.
I prefer the excitement of a tough but fair race, something the AI cannot deliver. When it comes to Forza AI, I don’t know it any other way. I joined 2016 with FM6 and FH2 and played any Forza title available for Xbox One in depth by now. The AI experience hasn’t changed much there.
Rubberbanding is part of it (both ways), most noticeable in Dirt Racing and Goliath races (unbeatable). In current snow Dirt Races, the AI has problems to move through snowed roads (no offroad tires?) unless… you’re way ahead. Then all of a sudden the chasing car gets wings and just roars past you with at least 20mph more than you (must have been an incredible draft chain of that driver)…
Similar things happen in Goliath with long straights. Once you know the road by heart and do long races, you can play against unbeatable, usually in X class cars with extreme speeds. Here the rubberbanding often results in funny freak accidents (Whoops, 375 mph at the end of the straight, AI? Good luck, breaking!)
@nemesis464:
If you want decent AI with no rubberbanding, give Gran Turismo Sport a try. You got qualifying and the AI drives very consistent and more life-like. If you lead, you will keep leading till you make a mistake. Same goes for harder difficulties. The AI drives really good but it’s always fair - if you’re driving badly however, you won’t magically catch up - you probably will be rounded instead if the race is long enough
While clearing the map I suggest to use lower AI settings, it’s less frustrating and better for your wallet. Strangely enough, it makes you a better & cleaner driver too as you don’t have to resort to bump tactics to beat the AI on the low lap courses.
Once familiar with routes and races, increase both AI and lap number to get more challenge out of solo races.
Anyway, what I’ve noticed is the cars have different properties on different difficulties. The cars all drive on rails but in earlier corners they can have a pile up and sometimes if their cars can be unpredictable, probably because of the road surface which can cause them to crash into other cars. On Pro, the front 2 cars are always fastest, positions 4-8 are just blockers to prevent you passing. On unbeatable, I think it’s something more like 1-4 are fastest and 5-10 are blockers. You can also see the funkiness in leaderboards. In some races you only have 4 cars being raced by 12 people.
The leaderboard ends up looking something like this.
Your car (Brand A)
Brand B
Brand C
Brand D
then a 10 second gap
Brand A
Brand B
Brand C
Brand D
then a 10 second gap
Brand A
Brand B
Brand C
Brand D
there is no consistency between the performance of the cars and the drivers are no different in skill. It’s a very artificial result and each car is assigned artificial modifiers to make them challenging. I think in higher difficulties, the cars just get a base stat boost like “Cars are 25% better”. I’m not sure what is going on, I just know it feels very artificial, a lot more than in FH3 which also felt artificial but it seems a lot worse now.
On Expert (and possibly Highly Skilled as well), it’s one car. Unbeatable is overall more difficult, but the same principles apply. You start lower and you must make your way through blocking in order to reach the leaders.
What you’re also right about is the fact it feels artificial. Forza AI is atrocious in sharp corners and seems to benefit more from drafting than you do. Doesn’t change the fact the cars in Forza Horizon are all matched to yours so the game never pits you against “realistic” builds. They’re all simplified estimates of what an A797 or something car would be compared to yours. Being an estimate allows the devs to manipulate the AI’s performance as they see fit, boosting and nerfing these cars however they want.
Such is true that you can exploit the AI by running dominant builds. In FH3 it was all too easy to destroy the Drivatars with the standard high-powered AWD car. Meanwhile, grip cars struggled, even on tight tracks. On dirt the rally tires allowed you to corner much faster than the AI, but the broken PI system along with the low penalty to road tires on dirt meant that they could catch up to you on the straights.
Delusional people like SuperHornet who should already have been banned for constant harassment of others might think it’s a good system because, in their heads, “I can beat it, so it’s fair!”. Seriously, why are you gloating? What are you, 13 years old? lol This is Forza Horizon. It’s not iRacing. You’re not a pro. Who cares that you can run circles about Unbeatable AI? Congratulations, you earned yourself a cookie. I thought the fun in gaming was in the thrill of a fair challenge, not to show off.
Not harrassing anyone, I’m just trying to get people to show me evidence to support themselves. Yet not a single person has been able to show me. If it’s so common, how is it so hard? I was easily able to show that rubber-banding wasn’t a thing, and everyone tries to tell me “No you’re wrong” even though I DO have evidence.
Can you provide evidence of the lack of rubber banding? I reread this thread. You’ve asserted there is no rubber banding, yet I’ve seen no proof of this from you. Is it on another thread?
I will try to bring some sanity to this disagreement regarding rubberbanding.
Firstly I suspect some people have a looser definition of rubberbanding than others. Real rubberbanding is that the AI will match your performance ie they will slow down to let you catchup or speed up to catch you.
Apart from the showcases I do not think we get both aspects of rubberbanding.
Now do the AI speed up to catch us?
I think the reason why we are getting different answers from different people is based on two things.
The AI is inconsistent in this game. I am ignoring street scene races. On the rest of the tracks they seem consistent on say 80% of tracks but on the other 20% they either seem way faster than their average speed on the 80% or lower.
If rubberbanding exists it is possible to break the rubberband. It is possible to get so far ahead of the AI that they seem to give up trying to catch up (if they ever did). I know SuperHornet has an opinion about why this is but no one on these forums will know the right answer here.
What we know is there are enough people complaining that there is something that the devs should look into.
What I will say is if the AI can be made consistent to match their performance across all tracks that unbeatable should NOT be made any easier. What should be the case is that unbeatable should provide a challenge for the quickest players and every player should be able to find a difficulty that provides them the challenge they need.
I have said this before on these forums - why not have a difficulty sliders like Project Cars and make the end points wide enough to cater for everyone?
I’ve seen the same behavior and in fact on circuits my last lap is usually my fastest yet I still see this behavior. In general they don’t catch me but they get close if I make a mistake. There is definitely some funky AI.
In FH3 and in FM7 on standard races I can win every race against Highly Skilled or most races against Expert drivatars using cars with no tuning. With proper tuning of the best car for the track I can win every race against Expert level and most against Pro. Yet in FH4 I’m struggling to beat Highly Skilled consistently on Road racing, rarely on Dirt and never in Cross Country.
It’s not like my skills have disappeared on FH4 so it’s not a “Drive better” scenario. Something in the AI on this game is different and it sucks including the behavior described on this thread title.
Do a race in an upgraded D100 Peel P50 on Unbeatable. Even if the starting lineup glitches in some PI 200+ cars you’ll win by a margin that you wouldn’t be able to if it was actually rubberband AI.
(Whoops, 375 mph at the end of the straight, AI? Good luck, breaking!)