Not going to get into the Drivatars driving abilities debate, but I do feel that having a car that is 50 PI points higher than yours pulled into the race can be frustrating.
The problem is it was never fixed in FM6. Nor was the same problem fixed in Horizon 3. Nor was the same problem fixed in FM5.
FM5 had 2 versions of drivatars - aggressive and they were patched to dull. Never was unbeatable insanely difficult in FM5 though..
FM6 had glitched drivatars on launch and they attempted to patch them. I did not continue playing enough to know if it worked. I think from what I heard it worked most of the time but occasionally a glitch drivatar still got in.
We need to separate out the issues and I believe there are 4 often mentioned.
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Glitched drivatars who end up in a higher class than the field and are simply too quick for the class of the actual race. Technically they can be beaten in leaderboard cars but this is a glitch and is very similar to the launch set of FM6. Should definitely be fixed.
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Difficulty of unbeatable is too hard. It all depends how hard they should be. It is not a glitch but simply a decision. Solution should be a slider in my opinion. They are slower than the top drivers so I would argue the difficulty is not too hard.
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PI is impossible for said car or there is no build that can get car A into class B and it sill be able to handle etc. Well the AI cars DO NOT use the same PI system as the players. It uses a scalable performance system. They appear to have a PI but they don’t have a build in the same sense our cars do. They just have a level of performance that is meant to match a difficulty level at the quoted PI number. As long as their lap times are appropriate for the difficulty chosen I do not see this as a problem.
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Perceived inconsistent performance in different classes or on different surfaces / track types. I say perceived because maybe our performance is inconsistent. Some say they find it harder on Cross Country. I actually find it easier but the leaderboards tell a story here. The gap between top times and say #100 is larger on cross country than on tarmac. It seems more players know how to be reasonably quick on tarmac but not on dirt/grass. Most if not all players who have commented have said that higher classes seem harder.
I find that most of the “off the line” problems come with the car rather than the AI having proverbial NOS. This happens to me in the Ute and Muscle class. I always balance my tune so power isn’t exceptional but handling is - generally meaning my cars have less horsepower than the AI in the same class but can take more G’s on the turns. This evens out when the car restrictions are far more broad - I’ll use this as an example - my A class 95 Mustang Cobra R. Next to no engine upgrades but more for chassis and wheels. In a race where all cars involved are a healthy mix, it holds it’s own more than great - but in Retro Muscle, cars go flying past it off the line, eventually I can catch up and outmaneuver but I found that I was being beaten on the straights. Totally acceptable as the assumption is that the AI would have done power upgrades in some general spread so they would be faster.
So I decided I would build it for being competitive in the retro muscle class, gave it the appropriate engine upgrades in exchange for chassis stuff, and all of a sudden the magic “faster start” suddenly seemed to end (and as a funny aside, I spun out on my first corner because I severely underestimated the difference between stock tires and upgraded tires. Driver’s error. Circumvented by giving tires less PSI).
The car passing the OP on the second video is also a power/gears problem, the car the OP was driving seems heavily underpowered in the line-up. If you are going to give your muscle car significant handling upgrades that skyrocket the PI, be sure to do something for the power, because the AI will not, I repeat, will not have the same idea as you.
There’s also the stock differences in the vehicles, if that’s the case - and if it is, it’s definitely a power problem with the car. Also, do remember that cars of the same PI can have massively different top speeds, so don’t be surprised that you can get passed at the end of a long straight as it definitely goes both ways.
I have found that in both ‘above average’ drivatar difficulty and ‘highly skilled’ there are some honest AI spinouts, but the AI has the advantage of not being prone to human error when it comes to gauging turns, which is where “they have something I don’t” would tend to come from. I don’t doubt that in some cases it’s an advantage but it doesn’t mean the drivatars won’t make mistakes - they just won’t push their cars on turns most of the time.
I am playing on PRO difficulty, and I always end up in TOP 3, however you need to keep in mind that you MUST upgrade your car to max of its class. All the cars I have are max in their class, therefore I have no issues while playing against the AI.
I’m playing stock vehicles in Unbeatable and winning. Maybe not all the time, but I mostly know when I will win and when I will struggle based on my choices.
You don’t need to upgrade to top of class. Your vehicle just needs to be appropriate to:
- The track
- Your opponents
- Your driving skill
Take a handling car on a top speed track (most of the tracks in FH3) and set it to Anything Goes and you’ll likely get mopped up by the Drivatars.
Find that car that is statistically superior because of PI weightings even when stock (eg: 575, Cobra 427, 250 Berlinetta, Giulia GTA etc) on the right course and set the championship so no C or D class monster (a one make race is the easiest way to achieve this) gets pulled in and you finish 10 seconds ahead in 10 laps.
I also run stock vehicles its a much better balance it seems and i rarely see the runaway drivatar. Thats not to say this ai problem is not an issue. It was an issue in forza 6 and it seems to be worse in this game because of the rubberbanding they added. I think thats the bigger issue here, after all this time without ever seeing rubberband ai why would they put it in now. If this drivatar system is so great why are the races scripted.
I think changing difficulties before a race is keeping the PI and driving of the Drivatars in my race appropriate.
I need to do some more thorough testing, and it is not fun to do every race (load in on Unbeatable, change to Pro or any other, change back to Unbeatable before the start of the race).
I was playing with difficulties to measure the change in credit rewards and realised that PI was always consistent and I didn’t get any rogue Drivatars.
Next test will be exclusively on Drivatars.
Yea, i dont switch difficulties but im sure that can work. I just pick a car midway through its class or maybe a little lower. Sometimes ill modify a car to the middle of the class and it seems fine also. There have been times where the car i chose was just totally too random and i struggled to win. So you still need to pick a decent car to be successful as it should.
If rubber banding is done correctly, it’s actually rather realistic. Racers IRL try harder when they’re behind, go into fuel conservation when they’re well ahead. The question is whether it’s implemented correctly here or not. They should get a mild boost in performance when behind, and a mild loss in performance when ahead. As I get better at this, I find that I can leave the AI in the dust completely. Their best lap is always the last one, but if I beat the runner up by 10 -20 seconds, who cares? It’s not a Mario-Kart-like thing, where you simply cannot get away from them.
This doesn’t address the so-called rogue drivatars. I have a friend who plays FH3 on PC, and his drivatar often becomes my nemesis. He’s very hard to shake off when he gets that boost in performance. But then again, what’s wrong with that? It makes sense that he would want to beat me most of all. As long as his car PI is appropriate, I don’t mind the extra thrill.
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Maybe they should just admit Drivatars are a failure and just go back to “A.I.” like other racing games.
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The entire drivatar concept is just a marketing stunt, that’s it. The absolutely ONLY thing a drivatar has in common with the original owner is the livery of the car. A friend of me saw my drivatar in a blue Bentley Continental GT, I think I might have it in blue in FM6 or FH2 but I’m not even sure (I’ll check tonight if I don’t forget it). My Bentley Continental GT in FH3 is white for the record. Everything else the drivatar supposedly takes over from the original owner is just thrown aside thanks to rubberbanding / difficulty settings / PI matching.
Clearly, I had more fun in Forza 4 than Forza 6 Apex and FH3, AI speaking not overall experience.
Drivatars are useless, somehow in this game a bmw m4 can go 270mph, turn corners like a red bull x1, this seems to be a problem with game engine.
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You do realise that we can build and tune the car to do the same?
With the original engine?
We don’t have transparency of what is in a Drivatar build. How could you know it is the original engine in there for sure?
Forget about ai cars having builds.
With the original engine? Not the case half of the time. My LB Aventador LP 700-4 tuned to X 999 can reach at least 250/402, and the Aventador has NO engine swap options whatsoever.
the key (imo) is to build/tune cars that take advantage of your driving style whilst being class dominant. I personally enjoy the A and S1 class most for racing, and for the most part my go to car is an S1 Subaru Brz HE which is tuned to my liking and pretty much is dominant in S1. I believe it has 8-900Hp with good handling (for me), and I use rally tires as I hate when they send me off-road and the AI is glued to the track mean while my car on racing slicks is sliding all over the place. I think that’s my biggest gripe about the drivatars (during races), yes they make mistakes here and there but they drive pretty much on rails. Another thing that bothers me is that the drivatars at times seem to work like ONE unit against me rather than as an “individual” out for his/herself.