Drivatar difficulty and behavior discussion

The problem I have with statements like this is - later last night, I ran the race a few more times and did win. Funnily enough, the fastest AI never went quicker than the 1:29 range I was seeing before.

If the times don’t matter and what you say is true - it should be literally impossible to beat them.

It isn’t.

I think both of you are right in your own sense. Why?

Let’s say I do the Goliath in S2 average time for me is 10 minutes 58 seconds. Now I take my best tuned car that I know I can beat the unbeatable on every time (LaFarrari), I race 90% off the Goliath and stop until all AI cross the finish line, then I cross the line afterwards. 99% guaranteed the AI will finish between 10:55 - 11:05.

That means I have to drive perfectly each time, every time to win or else the AI will win even if I’m 1% off my best time.

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Here’s the other issue, up until the point I stop at 90% completed the AI will rubberband me, waiting on that 1% mistake to pounce me on, if they get past after this mistake, then no matter how fast I go they go faster, as it seems I’m just pushing them onwards. If I stop at that point they pass, they will finish in between the times mentioned above, however if I push them, (only when they overtake me), I could drive a 10:48 but the AI will beat me even by a spilt second if required.

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Then add to the fact if I don’t catch the 1st place AI within the first 33.3% of the Goliath, I know for a fact I might as well restart the race as no matter how fast I go they will go faster.

That is 3 examples of 3 different scenarios (but same car/same track, same assists, same AI), but the end result is that I need to be within my top 1% best time to win based on my S2 class. I can replicate this across each class, but obviously the lower the class the more “minor” mistakes I can get away with, up to a certain percentage before the AI become unbeatable.

The only way to get a complete overview though is for us all to drive the same car, same tune, same assists, on the same track, and do it repeatedly for say 10 times (5 times going for the win and 5 times stopping at 90% let AI win deliberately and then finish race). Gather all that data and we can then see where the time between a lose and win is, and if the range for this time fluctuates based on players or is indeed set around a fixed time by the game.

IE… my average time is 10 mins 58 for a win - S2 LaFarrari - Auto - No Assists

Other than that the AI could be completely different for each player, hence why some find it easy, others find it next to impossible, without solid data to compare with we will never know.

It is impossible to beat them, that’s why we complain. Sometimes it lets you win, or you can break the Ai with a strange tune, or slow the cars down with D100. Also about 3 cars win due to the Ai not being able to match them very well with their choice of cars.

Most of this whole thread is about us not being able to win.

It’s amazing watching the ai to be fair. Once you’ve overtaken it you can toy with it like a puppy too.

The problem now is that no one from within PG is acknowledging this as an issue or bug.

Given the hundreds if not thousands of posts across all the different social media platforms about the AI, yet given the chance yesterday within the monthly stream to say something about it and nothing was said, nor nothing mentioned in patch notes regarding AI.

Either they don’t know the solution or the AI are intentionally designed to behave in this manner?

Even in the QA when asked by players they dodged it (okay I know they get thousands of questions) but AI is above all else the most asked question at present, I can’t go onto any Forza Social site without seeing this being discussed, it not just us on the forums.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact the AI isn’t top priority and a fix isn’t coming anytime soon, if at all.

Meta car with proper tune, and pinpoint accurate driving is the way to beat the unbeatable like some of us have already done or are doing. Just a shame so many cars are going to waste (in a game which promotes over 500+ to choose from) because of this.

The AI has not change that much since Forza Motorsport 3, the AI still behaves the same way, okay sometimes they “see” you, but they still drives on rails and make the same mistakes as they did in FM3. So as i see it, Turn10 or Play ground games has done nothing to the AI, they still drive like you were never there. That is why i race with the lowest diff. and make my money with wheelspins :smiley: As long the AI har unrealistic grib in corners, there are no chance for a fair race anyway.

If you race on the lowest difficulty you will not see the problems. The problems happen in Pro, and Unbeatable levels… they are new changes.

Why do you think i race on the lowest difficulty? :smiley: I don’t want to fight with the AI. Average is the highest i go, but normally i play on the lowest. The funny part of it, is that the AI is not that far behind anyway :smiley: Even on average i feel the problem with the AI sometimes.

The point being that you can’t say it is the same as FH3 if you don’t actually race the difficult Ai in the first place.

I have, that is why i can say it :smiley:

But they are completely different, the Ai in FH3 were easy even on Unbeatable. The Ai in FH5 go faster than any car in the game.

The seasonal championships provide enough of a look without needing to go to the higher difficulties, if something happens in a circuit race that causes a drivatar to end up well behind the pack in last you can bet your bottom dollar it will have ‘done’ the fastest lap of all the drivatars when you get to the results screen.

It’s not just the Ai though, it’s also the effect they have on the game physics such as drafting. Because the Ai rubberband ahead of you it cancels out drafting.

1/ You draft you gain speed.
2/ The Ai rubberband off your drafting and also gain the same amount of speed.
3/ 200mph + 10mph drafting speed for you.
4/ 200mph + 10mph rubberbanding speed for Ai
5/ means zero drafting advantage.

But Ai behind you can also draft off you!

6/ You reach 210mph
7/ Cars behind you draft off your new speed hitting 220mph.
8/ Cars catching up behind you from a distance hit 300mph

And it seems that a crashed Ai is still allowed to finish the course at a set finish time. So if that finish time is 15 minutes, and the Ai crashes, they are still allowed to finish the course in 15 minutes which means 300mph top end.

9/ You crash 6 times so your finish time goes up to 17 minutes
10/ Ai crash 6 times but they have a set finish time of 15 minutes anyway so they hit impossible speeds.

FreshGALNET - I find stopping at 90% of race distance makes winning the race immeasurably more difficult - so I tend not to do it.

I only passed the lead AI in that race in the dirt section of lap 3 - so was well past the 90% and was not anywhere near at the end of lap 1 (33%) race distance - was probably in 6th at that point.

As you are a decent bit quicker than me on the rivals challenge - I would be more interested in you running the race and seeing how you fair. Same goes for GillesMuller who is much further up the LB than either of us. I couldn’t care less if the last placed AI runs the fastest lap - this does not affect whether I am able to win or not (which is a something Gilles raises a few posts up).

& Aqua as usual I’m at a loss - if it’s impossible to win. . . .you can’t then say that ‘unless they let you’ - this is why I find a lot of the posts in this thread frustrating. You have your own definition for the terms impossible and follow this up with suggestions that people who can do are cheating or the AI took a race off??

Ah sorry I think you picked me up slightly wrong about the 90% part, I actually meant : deliberately lose the race… so race up to that point roughly then stop and take note the AIs finish time.

I’m not sure that being quicker actually counts, I think the AI adjust their skillsets based on the players averages, hence my suggestion about a set test with players across all driving abilities.

So even say a normal tourist player tests it on unbeatable using the same car, tune etc… and we see what time their AI finishes. If they are considerably different than say your AI times or mine, then we know the AI are set on player, if the times are all the same or roughly the same, we will know it’s set on the overall game. The objective being not to win as such but to let the AI get on with their own thing, and record the times of AI only at the end.

And that’s fine - I’m sure there is some element of rubberbanding happening - If however they have an upper limit that it is pre-defined by the difficulty level - this should allow the quickest drivers to win. So a slower driver doesn’t feel massively downheartened - or alternatively feels they can never win because whatever they do - the AI just seem to go faster. If they have a higher lap time limit per difficulty - the quick guys should be able to exceed that and win.

That is more the sort of experience I have had - there always seems to be a point where I can use a car or tune that can go faster than the AI is willing to go - I win. If I’m a second or so off that time they win and I place 2nd/ 3rd there or there abouts on unbeatable. If I turn the difficulty down a notch to Pro - they AI are generally at least a second slower than the unbeatables on the same course.

Snap, exactly as I described it as such, if I’m out with my 1% best time I come 2nd/3rd. Exactly the same in Pro when testing at least a second slower.

So it seems we’re are at least experiencing the exact same thing.

In the last rivals challenge - my initial run I posted to the forums was in the 2:16 range - that was top 1% - I think that there is a perception that because you can run a top 1% time you should be able to beat the AI on unbeatable. I ended up on a 2:04 so 12 seconds quicker per lap and the quickest guys were running 1:57 so 18/19 seconds per lap quicker.

If the AI has an upper limit somewhere in that range - that’s a lot of people in the top 1% who are going to feel they are genuinely unbeatable. But that as always is just my view and I could be wrong - I’m not claiming to be a programmer - I’m not telling people to get gud. I’m just being realistic based on my own personal experience of playing this game and all the other Forza games in the past.

Well I can’t win with 0% mistakes, they go much faster than I do. most of the course I have my acceleration on full, and they are still going faster than I am.

You don’t come across that way to me, I know exactly what you mean and what you are saying.

Maybe as I previously suggested in FH5 that AI has been intentionally designed in this manner, maybe not, the only people who can clarify that for fact is Playground Games.

Either way, peoples expectations for beating the unbeatable in FH5 without the proper:

  1. Car
  2. Tune
  3. Skills

Should be lowered, FH5 has dramatically changed the handling and tuning physics, if you want to “at present” beat the unbeatable you need to bring your A game to the table.

I don’t think its fair for anyone to suggest or assume that you need to break the AI in order to win as that’s not what any tuner (I know) intentionally sets out to achieve, they simply want a car they can handle and drive competitively against the AI and others. If I tune a car that can achieve these 2 factors then I’m happy.

At the moment it’s finding the right difficulty for “ones own” abilities.