An open letter to Turn 10

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport
1

Hi,

I just restarted the Rio race of “Rolling Roads” for the ninth time. I can’t make it past lap 3 without an AI car wrecking me.

Actually, one time—the sixth restart, I think—was my fault: I was in 5th when I should have been in 4th and slid into the wall. But the other eight restarts were due to your AI doing something phenomenally stupid. Something that defied all common racing practice and etiquette. Something that defied common sense.

Bit of history. I’ve been watching motorsports since the early 1980s. I’ve been playing racing games since Activision’s “Enduro,” for the Atari 2600 (beat it, sent in a picture, got a patch). Played racing games for Commdore 64, NES, Sega, PC, XBox, 360, and now XB1. I rarely miss an F1, NASCAR, or IndyCar race, I watch (some of) the major endurance races, and I stay current with WRC, BTCC, DTM, MotoGP and what-all-else seems interesting.

In addition, I’ve read all four of Carroll Smith’s “To Win” books—“Tune to Win” four times, in fact—and Ross Bentley’s “Speed Secrets” through the first three or four volumes, when they start to get really repetitive.

I mention all this not to toot my own horn, but merely to say that I feel like at this point in my life, I know a little something about motorsports and the video games that depict them. And I know that after six versions of the FM series, your AI is still awful.

You do a lot of things well. The games are visually stunning, the physics feel great, and I’ve always felt that I’ve gotten my money’s worth from you. But you still haven’t figured that one part out, and it’s a shame.

Maybe the problem is that you don’t actually watch much racing, because you don’t have seem to understand what races actually look like, or the principles behind driving a car fast with other cars on the track. I’m sure plenty of other posts cover the individual frustrations in detail, so I won’t rehash them here, but anyway I’m more concerned about your understanding of first principles.

I know you’re in love with your “Drivatar” technology, and you surely have a lot of time and money invested in it. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t really work. It’s never really worked. People here will shout, “but at least it’s unpredictable!” But it IS predictable. It’s predictably bad. I just restarted a career race nine times. I know darn well what’s going to happen. It’s the very definition of predictable.

Now, of course crashes happen in real life. But they don’t happen in every corner of every lap of every race, right? They happen once in a while, when something’s gone wrong. And in general, drivers really try hard to AVOID crashing. That’s the principle you should understand first. Crashing is, in fact, a bad thing.

I’ve played FM1, 2, 3, and 4, and since I only just got the XB1 I skipped 5 and bought 6 with the console. One of the first things I noticed is that you still haven’t implemented black flags (or any at all, at least in single-player). That’s fine, but let me ask you something: how do you think your AI would fare using even cursory black flag rules? Probably not so good, huh? Do you think that’s a problem? You should.

Since I know you want to get better, read the books I mentioned above and check out this video. It’s quick and very helpful.

iRacing Driving School 7C: Race Craft & Passing Etiquette

And above all, watch A LOT of racing. See what it looks like. Get a feel for it. Please.

Thanks.

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Hi

Check that the drivatar agression is turned off n they won’t sideswipe or break check u.

Also turn damage off on street circuits like Rio when racing offline.

The drivatars will always hold n defend their line n do stuff that their creator would…as it says the drivatars driving style is the same as their real life version.
It’s not a unified AI system like all other games. It takes our driving styles into account.

My drivatar drives like I do n so does yours.

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Also may I suggest that if you think the AI is bad you don’t even think about going online n race with the real versions…they are a damn sight worse.

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Well it’s better than racing online

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It seems to me the drivatars have gotten more aggressive since the last update. I hope they calm it down a little in the next update.

I have noticed that the drivatars of my friends do race like they do. Some follow racing etiquette and others are a bit more aggressive. For the friends I have raced enough online with, I would say the drivatars do a decent job of simulating their driving styles. I would fear my drivatar. I think I race too much against the drivatars. When they get aggressive, I return the favor. That is not how I race online. When I go online, if I get in with a good group of people I stay. If they don’t follow reasonable racing etiquette, I leave. I leave a lot more than I stay.

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I’d have to agree with a previous poster - the AI are nothing compared to the regular glut of morons infesting the multiplayer lobbies. The AI doesn’t slam into the back of your car without even touching the brakes, or get butt-hurt when you cleanly and legally pass them only to smash you off the road, kr aggressively swing from kne skde kf the road to the ither in a ham-fisted attempt to block you,

The game isn’t broken - it’s the brainless monkeys controlling the cars in multiplayer that are broken, and beyond repair.

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I haven’t raced online since FM2, for that reason.

Something that I’ve always wondered, in response to you and previous posters, is why the developers don’t take their nifty driver-modeling technology and model professional drivers? Take the money they spent hiring Richard Hammond to prattle on and instead pay, say, a couple dozen IMSA drivers to model for the AI. A lot of those guys would be happy for the extra cash, and then we’d get to play the career against, you know, skilled pros. Be a lot cooler to race Le Mans against a Drivatar of someone who has actually raced Le Mans, than some random kid somewhere.

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Why you don’t search for other players or a league. It’s much more fun and racing against ai is always a compromise.

But in general i can say that the drivatars in career not that bad. The reason why there in free play not that good is simple. Much less players play the combination that a player select. For example, maybe not much player will drive a indycar at hockenheim. So there is not enough data to make the drivatars better in this car/track combo.

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You raise an interesting point and the solution may be easier than what you think.

Turn 10 have changed AI from what I think was purely artificial to something that 1. was learned from real people and 2, learned from all people who played.

They could just change 2 to be the better players, cleaner players or just some subgroup of those players to achieve a better outcome.

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That is an interesting idea. I’m not sure how you would decide on who the better players are.

An option would be to have users like drivatars. When a person chose to race against drivatars, the drivatars could come from a combination of his friends, his liked drivatars, drivatars liked by everyone, and a few chosen at random. I might even add ban drivatar. This would only apply for the user that chose to ban the drivatar. The user would be given the option of liking/banning a drivatar after the race. For online races the drivatars would be similar to the single driver but the first group selected would come from the combination of friends of all the real drivers and the second group would come from the combination of liked drivatars of the combined group.

This is just an idea. It would need some work.

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If u look closely you will find the drivatars are made up of your xbox friends

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Not all of them. It appears a percentage of them are and which ones are used changes. If I do a group of career races at one time, the drivatars appear to remain the same ones. Come back another day and the group changes. Since Turn 10 already has this in place, I was thinking they could extend this to drivatars you like or are liked by the community.

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Because they want to promote online gaming and as such use drivatars plus it’s probably a damn sight cheaper to use us as a template.

It’s the way all games are going.

In 10 years there will be no career or single player modes in 90% of games.

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Interesting post. I feel that the drivitar system is one of the best driver AI systems available on consoles. Perfect? No. Better than GT follow the leader then catch the rabit

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I’d describe forza AI as “avoid the melee then catch the rabbit,” so that might just be a matter of personal preference.

I definitely understand what OP is getting at. The AI is definitely frustrating, to the point of being borderline gamebreaking at the highest difficulty. I like the suggestions about picking favorite opponents; one of the major issues is the wild blocking and aggressive turn-in exhibited by many drivatars, and such a system could help weed out drivers who drive like that. I think it could make a big difference in longer races, too, as it could make for more intelligent strategies employed by the drivatars.

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I think the AI system is great as it’s a perfect way of preparing you on what’s to come in public MP lobbies.

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I’ve found that most of it comes (especially when I race online) from people not knowing how to pass properly. I see it when I race Chumpcar as well. Mostly in the form of people with faster cars in a straight line try jamming their car into the corner to make a pass, thereby making both cars lose two to five seconds in the corner, instead of staying behind a car. Most cars on the same type of tire will have similar cornering speeds, regardless of horsepower. Getting a good run off the corner and using their advantage down the straights results in the least amount of time lost for both cars.

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I really like the idea of liking Drivatars and having said Drivatars race with you. You can chose how aggressive they are then and if they are too bad it’s on you for liking too aggressive of Drivatars.

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