My experience this Trial is that the AI drive faster and more efficiently on tarmac. I’ve seen several go way off course on dirt, especially on the first race
–addition–
On a later attempt, Team Human was on the 3rd race (thanks to a teammate knocking me into a tree unnecessarily early the 2nd race). Shortly after the start approaching a very slight left bend while still on the tarmac, an AI suddenly turned hard RIGHT into me and continued pushing me way off course and then disappeared (I assume to respawn back into the race with no loss of position). I just quit after that. I figured the team was so weak that unless I miraculously got up to the lead, there was no way they could win and I was more than happy to just let them lose anyway.
Can I please get the tires that the AI uses? Where can I get these? I mean, they can drive on dirt without sliding. They can go into turns without slowing down. The AI makes no mistakes. I want these tires. I’m not the best driver, but I know I’m definitely not the worst. The AI drive like they’re on train tracks. I really got to get those tires. Rant done
Re Trial, couldn’t win with off road tires - great grip, but just too slow to keep up with the AI speed.
Built a car with stock tires using the 03 focus that was a C class, and with all the extra PI available, built a high HP motor, and was able to keep up and even pass to get a first place on the sprint race.
Just gotta really make sure to be wide on the turns and use the entire racing area to keep the back from losing grip. . .lost a bit in turns even so, but made it up on the straights.
After lesson learned and was contributing to be a winning factor in the Trial now, it still took 5 attempts to get a team that worked well together.
Just don’t get the win at all cost mentality when team racing . . . stupid . .
It’s more the poor execution of it rather than the mentality, you can be aggressive + intend to win without stuffing your teammates over.
If a teammate gets to 1st before me I will sit behind them unless they make a huge error but other than that I always go for 1st place, call me arrogant but unless I know them off here or from the leaderboards + know they’re a good driver I’m going to assume in your average trial team that I’m the most likely of the 6 humans that’s going to be able to get the 650.
Our team had 2 runaway drivatars on El Pipila and I was the only one able to get near them, passed them + won the race both overall and individually while everyone else took up the places behind those 2 drivatars, the whole field other than me + the 2 AI ended up DNF’s.
Had I sat behind a teammate for half a lap unnecessarily those 2 AI would have been uncatchable resulting in a 500pt swing in favour of the drivatars.
It’s people who think they can do it but actually can’t that are the problem in the Trial, a win at all costs mentality is fine if someone brings the standard of driving to match + attempts to pass other humans as cleanly as possible.
Even though it will never occur if you had 6 people like that in a team they would never lose a trial.
Not all cars are equal. I find that to beat unbeatable AI I sometimes have to change cars and often have to Taylor the car to the track. That’s not really a bad thing and I play with the wheel with no assists.
That’s par for the course with the Trial and the Championships. Even this week, I have found that the 2003 Focus performs better for me than the other two and I’ve tried two different tunes on each of the three cars. But as you adjust your tune, the AI do so too. I’m not a tuner myself and generally rely on tunes built by some tuners who I have come to respect over time. It’s that balance of finding a tune that works for you among the eligible cars for the course and conditions that is also capable of beating the AI.
For some reason, it seems the AI is almost exclusively using the 2009 Focus no matter what model year the humans are using.
It takes a lot of intuition and observation to know when to just try to win it and when a team can be helped by you not finishing first and holding back the AI or trusting a teammate to hold their spot in front of you. I am constantly looking at the score (to know what the point differential is) and the mini map to see who is close to AI and could possibly benefit from me slowing down the AI. In the 1st race, I am looking to see which teammates can drive as I am more inclined to trust them in races 2 and 3.
This weekend I’ve seen cases where:
I trusted someone to stay in 2nd place with me in 3rd and us winning only to have the person miss a checkpoint in the dirt on the last lap of Papila and then they dropped out altogether.
The rest of the team just had no hope based on positioning of the AI and them on the mini map and I decided to just go for 1st and collect a few more XP myself as the team was destined to lose.
The first 3 AI on the Trail/Sprint got such a lead that even though the team was doing well together and in spots 4-9, we couldn’t possibly catch up to get the win.
Teammates drive aggressively and knock me out or into a barrier and I just didn’t care if the team ended up winning. There was one race where in Papila someone unnecessarily hit me out of the 1st checkpoint in the dirt on the last lap in an attempt for them to be in 1st despite the fact that we were winning by 400 points. I was so upset that I slowed down and finished last causing the team to lose. I then quit the event and re-entered the Trial to get a better team.
Teams go from a strong lead with me 1st and AI 2nd and 3rd but the rest of the team bunched up 4-8 to us losing by the time the final standings were in.
But no matter what you do, if the lead 3 AI are driving at ridiculous speeds and you are in the back of the starting grid, it doesn’t matter if you drive to win as an individual or drive to win as a team, you’re going to lose.
I had perhaps my best team and worst AI team (from the AI’s perspective) this weekend. Race 1 we finished 1-5 and 7 (got all but 100 points) and in race 2 we finished 1-6. But it is rare that the entire team of AI will play that poorly without speed and handling cheats or just overly aggressive behaviour and that all of a random team human will perform so well together.
Yeah racing with others is a complete lottery as to who you get paired with. Unless the team can win I drive the whole race and don’t drop out even when I’m in last after making a mistake to try and learn the track and the best techniques for corners. Unfortunately other people do ruin online experiences but that’s the nature of online.
I wish there was less randomness to the starting grid. It seems I’m put in spots 11 and 12 a lot more frequently than in spots 7 and 8 or 9 and 10. If the better players were put near the front, team human would win a lot more. But the more human players that a better player has to drive through to catch up with the AI, the more advantage the AI has in that they have more time to establish a bigger lead. I’m sure the game could be programmed so that experienced Trial players with a history of strong finishes are ranked higher than newer or less skilled players. This would result in a better experience for everyone. The good players would be competing against the AI and helping their team rather than competing against their team in an attempt to catch up with the advantaged AI. And the newer and less skilled players would be more likely to be on a winning team.
I kept track of 10 Trial races yesterday. Here were my starting positions (in races where there were less than 6 humans, I am just saying last rather than giving the actual place).
7 - 1
8 - 2
9 - 0
10 - 1
11 -1
Last - 5 (one was a team of 5 and one was a team of 4)
The results do not look random. Rather, as a better driver (even with inferior starting position I am 1st or 2nd on team human by the end barring really bad circumstances like being hit out of bounds) being put in the back a higher percentage of the time, it would appear to be another advantage for the AI. The day before yesterday I had a Trial where I started all three races in 12th. We lost the first, won the second (I handily won that one by 7 seconds as I can fly on the sprint this week), and barely lost the last one.
This one could have been me, but I didn’t drop out. We were up by 50 points, but one of our teammates was swapping positions with a drivatar the entire race, so we were down by 50 a lot of the time. I was pushing hard to overtake 1st place to secure the victory and pushed too hard on one corner.
The Cobra Coupe in B class still absolutely destroys the drivatars. It’s the easiest way to get those classic racer triple passes in unbeatable. I had to check the settings.
Sometimes the ai drives like a train they follow the rails that is the driving, line staying in formation unless you bully them into making a mistake and push one out of place all that happens then the others close u to fill the space and the one who went off just catches up and tags on the rear of the train all that means in is the trail and tour they are a mobile road block, then you have to contend wit the max power boys on your team slipping and sliding everywhere, “they fink its kwl” because they think they are drifting when in reality they are just out of control. lol
Just saw some of the worst AI cheating ever. Was doing the Trial and on race 3. Before everyone was at 20% completion of the race, the first two AI were already past the final turn and almost finished. I’ve only seen cars make that fast a drive to the destination when people cheat in Eliminator.
I have a great appreciation for the amount of work put into the Horizon series and have been a long time player… actually all the way back to the original. I love the series dearly, but I must plead… what is the point of highly skilled if they STILL kick your ass and make 0 mistakes? I’ve found more frustration trying to complete seasonal series with highly skilled then The Trial with UNBEATABLE! I know a lot of time was put into this game and I love it, but I can’t stand the AI in this game.
I really enjoy changing things up and going to dirt/CC events but it’s really deflating when you’re toe to toe with the exact same car as you, following the same line, and then seeing them go into “on rails” mode around corners as you slide past. They didn’t brake (no lights), they didn’t slow down at all, but they take the corner like an FXXK on slicks. And that brings you out of the enjoyment because you realise the AI isn’t racing with the same rules as you, they are modified to have road level grip even on non-roads.
There’s no more road races to do and dirt/CC are the only events that are left. The game feels just kinda…dead now. I tried online but even with the collision protection people still find a way to screw with you, so racing against the AI was all that was left.
I wish we could at least build cups or something to give it some structure to make up for the lack of things to do once you’d done the tracks. The AI absolutely sucks on custom tracks for some reason so they’re a wash too. I’m all for “make your own fun” but cmon at least give us the tools to build some structure if you’re not going to build it in.
for me, this is one of the biggest problems
it just make no sense to create custom race tracks because they are way to slow even as unbeatable
it is not possible to change/edit the raceline without losing all checkpoints
but its not possible to setup a proper raceline while placing checkpoints at the same time…
I guess racing on custom racetracks it not a thing anymore for the devs, its now all about eventlab events with custom ramps and jumps and rules like gravity…
Yeah I found an AMAZING track called “Mexico Nerburgring” and it was great, was a really fun drive, but the AI on Unbeatable I beat by I think 10s or so lol.
It’s a shame because I love the AI on roads, I’m consistently playing on Pro and Unbeatable and winning, as long as the course doesn’t have sharp turns and long straights for them to always get away from you. But ya anything custom and they pile up on the first turn!
not at the tracks I made, but they are just very slow…
@T10ManteoMax I don’t think this got merged right…
Yes its about drivertar BUT its different
if we talk about AI behavior in gerneral or about the custom-track-slowAI-Bug