The REWIND feature. Yes. The rewind feature is the number one culprit.
I don’t use rewind. In Forza 4 I automatically shut it off in the difficulty settings, and just learned to ignore it in 5. So it didn’t really occur to me why it was the problem.
Then I watched my brother play. My brother is a Forza virgin. Forza 5 is the first in the series that he’s played, and even before that he rarely played racing games.
Anyway, I watched him repeatedly use the rewind button every time he screwed up a corner. Sometimes he would rewind multiple times on the same corner just to make sure that he successfully overtook another car. I told him to stop rewinding because he’s sabatoging his ability to learn how to properly race.
Why is this such a big problem?
Because the Drivatar AI only considers your first attempt! Right now there are probably hundreds of thousands of players doing the same thing that my brother was doing. Go insane into a crowded corner hoping to get lucky, and just try it a few times to get the results you want.
SOURCE:
DAN GREENAWALT: “When using rewind while driving, the first action is what is noted… So, in your example, if you hit a car ahead of you, then Rewind and successfully make it past the car, the Drivatar will note the fact that you hit your opponent on your first try. This is in order to prevent the player from gaming the Drivatar system and only using “perfect” laps in order to build their profile.” Forza Motorsport 5 revisited: Ars talks to Turn 10 | Ars Technica
I get where your coming from and I guess that could be part of the problem, but I’ve had many races where I’ve had no problems with them at all and yet other times they can be a nightmare just smashing and driving all over the place and higher or lower difficulty settings makes no odds to there behaviour.
I do think the system needs work but that said I still prefer them to the A1 of old.
Interesting, I wondered if this was the case. I’m not really sure “gaming the system” is a problem that needs to be avoided with the drivatars in this case. If it made for cleaner/saner drivatars it might be worth keeping some of the rewind data.
IMO, I don’t think the AI (drivatar isn’t anything different from a beefed-up AI) is the problem. It’s more of the way career races are set. The game is expecting you to overtake a whole grid in such short races. The game knows that you’ll encounter issues with that, so it gives you a gold medal for finishing in third place, even though that makes no sense.
IMO it’s not the rewind feature. Its the short races and the starting position in career mode. Why?
You start on P14 and you have just 2-3 laps to overtake 11 cars for earning Gold. So you have no other chance than driving like a maniac or you never will earn gold.
An my experience with public mp races is, that you also have no chance to drive clean, because you will be rammed if you drive in front of somone.
The drivatars are broken because the players don’t drive clean. Not in singleplayer, nor in multiplayer.
Those who race, use the rewind feature, are recording crashes on their Drivatars, correctly are diminishing their skills. And that also means they are not among the upper “class” of Drivatars, so people who don’t want to race with the higher ranking drivers and selecting a lower level of competition hopeful of facing less “faster” drivers for easier wins, end up racing against those types - the crashers, bashers and those who ruin races for others.
Selecting the upper levels of Drivatars, you’ll be racing against better skills - people who don’t use rewind, don’t crash and bash, and are predictable in their driving.
I didn’t find this to be the case, no matter what level I tried when the drivatars were bad they were bad regardless, but I’ve not played for a while so maybe things have changed.
I do agree with Alcadrios though the races are to short so the majourity of players do what ever is needed inorder to get to the front of the pack maybe if the races were longer more racecraft would be use and therefore absorbed by the drivatars.
I’ve raced in X and P classes for 40 laps at Unbeatable, and I am regularly having drivatars make drastic cuts across the track to block or ram me (Indy oval - an EASY race). I can deal with brake checks once in a while, but on every stinckin’ corner of every lap? This model forces you to pick up bad habits just to pass a car. This feels more arcade than sim.
Is it possible the drivatars only learn bad habbits? For instance it was perfect before it started recording your data and just monitors how you vary from the “perfect” line. It’s just a thought.
I’ve had it with the drivatars. It’s like playing multiplayer all the time. I understand some people don’t mean to bash into other drivers, but then there are other drivers that, that’s how they race. It’s frustrating as anything in free play when you’re trying to beat your next rival and a drivatar either brake checks you (i.e. almost stops) at 190+MPH, or they dive from one side of the track all the way to the other to ram into you. Then to pour salt on the wound, when the drivatar rams into you, your lap time is invalidated. They need to get rid of the drivatars and bring back the previous AI model. Interesting concept, but in my opinion, this is the worst executed AI model I have seen. There’s a reason why there is career mode and multiplayer mode.
There is also a reason why there is a Rivals mode. If your focus is beating your next rival - do it in rivals mode where you don’t have to worry about the drivatars.
I race unbeatable with simulation damage always on and I can manage to win every career race in any car from any series and I never use rewind. My car is generally not wrecked up because I have brakes and a steering wheel (in controller form) and eyes to see where I’m going. The Drivatars can be a pain but if you’re patient they make mistakes all the time, leaving plenty of space to pass even on unbeatable . Don’t try to snake them in a corner, don’t make risky moves, stay on the track, don’t spin your wheels or lose grip in the turns and you will beat them.
Turn rewind off or ignore it. You’ll get better. There is also a “restart race” option if you have an epic fail.
While I appreciate your greatness there are some people who will never be able to do this, because of the practice and patience required. I don’t think this was taken into consideration.
You could use the rewind feature just to correct a corner where you may have gone in a little hot and save yourself time and frustration. It’s a feature of the game and not exploitative. If it keeps things fun for the gamer then more power to the devs for leaving it in.
Personally I drive the lower class (D C and B) on unbeatable but turn that right down to new driver when racing say f1 or IndyCar just because overtaking the entire field in 3 or 4 laps at that level is a joke and not entertaining for me. When it’s like that I just want to bust through the event and move on. Which is a pity to be fair.