Am I Crazy? Has the A.I. been adjusted?

Forza Motorsport Forza Motorsport 2023 FM 2023 Discussion
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I don’t know exactly when it changed, but I have noticed that in recent career races, the A.I. just absolutely refuses to acknowledge your existence once you are on the inside of them in a corner. They just turn in like you aren’t there. The kicker is, 9 times out of 10, I get the penalty for them turning in on me and initiating contact.

It’s not like I’m divebombing. I am clearly alongside, if not ahead in the braking zone, yet they still just plow right into you. I don’t recall it ever being this bad, the lack of awareness for the A.I. In past, I recall them being overly cautious and trying to avoid contact at all costs, usually resulting in them driving off the track when you go down the inside. Have they adjusted the aggression too far in the other direction?

So, yeah, am I crazy? Maybe it’s always been this way, but I don’t think so. I’ve played since day 1 and have 29 days of play-time logged. Is anyone else noticing this?

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image

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See gif above.

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Has always been like that.

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The AI needs the racing line like a person in the desert needs water. So if you’re there, guess what, they’re taking that space.

If you wanna see that in full effect, park your car anywhere near the racing line in a open visual area and get ready to be sent to the moon

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I guess I believe ya’ll that nothing has changed, but I swear it seems like it wasn’t this bad before. Like I said, I have a ton of play time in. I’ve noticed all kinds of quirks and bad AI, but it was never this specific problem in my experience.

Honestly it’s just bad all the way around. 21/24 might as well be moving traffic cones, and the other two are a toss up. I just felt like the aggression has gotten turned up recently. It’s probably just specific cars/tracks/situations or something. Who knows.

I wish they were more transparent about their AI. Wish they would use some of daddy MS’s money to do something like GT7’s Sophie. That would be pretty cool.

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Its not a money thing so much as processing bandwidth. Even sophie got downgraded when they started to implement it into the game fully compared to when it was first shown.

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Of course my comment was tongue in cheek, but MS does have Azure, they definitely have the compute accessible if it was an option. To be real though, there’s zero chance we see anything like that, especially in this game. Maybe in the sequel they’ll start playing with it. If there is a sequel.

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I think at launch and for a few months after, the AI was a bit less aggressive and more likely to back away (you could even force the AI off the track without contact in some instances).

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I’m glad someone else remembers/experienced it. They were ultra timid, to the point of guaranteeing they go flying into the grass if you stay alongside them through a sharp corner.

So yeah, maybe it’s been longer than I realized that this has been this way. I only really started noticing the differences in these last few updates, after I spend 10 minutes rewinding in a race trying to come through the field.

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The chances of FM2023 getting a sequel are slightly behind John Carter of Mars 2 but a tad ahead of Heaven’s Gate 2.

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To get us closer to the outcomes listed above, we’ve developed and will be releasing a multi-line AI system that is trained on multiple lines of traffic

I’m sorry, what? Like all this time they had an AI trained on just one line? That certainly explains a lot.

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Seems like I remember Chris Esaki saying in pre-release run-ups that the AI had multiple lines to choose from on every track. This was back in 2023, mind you. Today is April 30, 2025.

In fact…look at that. July 2023:

Our new AI controller has mastered every possible car and track combination with car upgrades and weather conditions factored in. New optimal driving lines define the desired path an AI car takes through the corner, ideal braking points, and target entry and exit speeds. The computer drives each track 26,000 times to achieve the fastest line through every layout! Just like actual players, the AI also uses a lot more of the track – pushing out to the track limits and even onto the curbs.

I know that this might be an unpopular thing to say, and I know for certain that I can’t say it the way that it needs to be said, but I don’t think anyone involved in the production of this game has told the truth about it at any point, ever.

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To be fair this excerpt just says they had the AI run every track 26k times to “learn” the optimal line. Doesn’t see they learned multiple lines, or are capable of deviating from this optimal line.

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The implication was made, rather strongly, particularly in the next paragraph where he says the AI can make mistakes. Several news outlets that were given previews of the game certainly ran with that; Top Gear, in particular, said this in an August 2023 article about AI in racing games:

The upcoming game’s AI drivers do things differently. Like GT and MotoGP’s AI, they’ve been trained with information and objectives rather than routines. They’ve driven the tracks 26,000 times, and developed about 85 different racing lines across each circuit as a result. So we should see them pushing track limits in perfect conditions, and then driving more conservative lines when their tyres are cold, or when the rain sets in.

PC Gamer also had this to say in a September 2023 preview:

Drivers—sorry, Drivatars—don’t follow a path created by a designer anymore. Instead they’re given a ton of information about the track, the conditions, and the car, and then they’re given about 26,000 hours to figure out how to drive around it really fast. That’s about a month solid.

So as I launch my Civic Type-R from the grid, through the kink at down to turn two at Kyalami, I’m not seeing AI drivers that have been designed to act more realistically. I’m watching 20 intelligent entities actually reacting to me and to each other in real-time, calculating how to make it through the pack and put in the fastest laps.

It’s not just a technological flex. I found my time with Forza’s preview build totally engrossing because of what that does to races. Drivatars have a choice of dozens of lines through each circuit now, lines they’re sussed out for themselves, and because they can now use those lines to battle each other more closely, I can pull off some even more audacious overtakes. I went in between two cars at Mugello, flat out, with all three sets of rear tires screaming for grip, and both cars left me enough space. It felt like one of the better passes in my virtual racing career.

I’m confident they weren’t just pulling things like that out of their tailpipes. Someone was telling them that information in order to sell the game better. And while I’ve seen the exact number of how many lines vary from reporter to reporter to content creator to content creator, the consensus seems to be that this AI was sold to be on a level that Forza had never seen before.

Obviously, as with everything else regarding this game, that was not the case.

Why should we believe them now?

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Will be interesting to see if the AI update fixes problems that have been around since the game came out. I often see AI go off the track on Lime Rock for example.

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Not only that, but the last time I played in February, the AI still can’t merge onto certain tracks without taking a trip through the grass/gravel (Homestead is particularly bad with this).

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I doubt that just made that up to be intentionally misleading for the heck of it. It’s probably describing the intent, which obviously turned out differently.

It would have been nice to set the record straight at some point, but it wouldn’t be the gaming industry without a little bit of intellectual dishonnesty.

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Therein lies the rub - this whole sordid mess blew past “a little bit of intellectual dishonesty” a long time ago. At this point, I think a case could be made for The Day Before levels of shenanigans.

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