I was a bit scared about how the AI looked in the Gamescom Mugello videos but now with all that new reviews out it looks that the new machine-learning powered drivatars are even worse.
I mean, for what we can see they are not even able to accelerate at full speed at the start of the race on straight line. In high difficulties (6/8) every reviewer agrees that is pretty easy to overtake from 10 to 15 cars in the first lap as they get stuck on piles or cannot find a line.
And then the fast guys in front open like 10 seconds gap in lap 2, and if you compare laptimes at the end of the race there are differences in laptimes like 15 or 20 seconds between first driver and 6th or 10th positions.
This is nothing like a competitive and clean AI, and obviously nothing to do with real motorsport in any category of it.
Is really that hard to make an AI that has not only the pace, but the racecraft and the possibility to make great competitive real racing?
To me it seems the AI has serious issues with overtaking, thatâs why itâs so easy to go past the âcrowdâ and then chase two or three guys who can drive fast because no one is hampering them. Also opponents seem to have varied skill level across the field (which is not a bad thing, adds authenticity).
Other than that, I like the fact that AI has multiple driving lines and makes mistakes every now and then. It makes racing less predictable and more interesting. I think it all goes down to tinkering with available options and finding perfect combination of difficulty and starting position (and I appreciate the fact there are so many factors to customize).
This is why Forza always ends up being bumper car racing. Youâre either forced to drive in an unrealistic manner, trying to overtake at every corner, pushing the AI aside if you want to win, or the AI does it to you, turning into your car or deliberately spinning you out even on straights. Thereâs nothing realistic in this, itâs bumper cars. Watching all the previewers struggle just confirmed this. âFrom the ground upâ this is not.
Yeah, if this is how far they got after this many years, then it seems unlikely that itâll be improved much (if at all) within the less-than-a-month that remains before retail launch.
These hands-on videos seem to make the whole âbUiLt FrOm ThE gRoUnD uPâ mantra sound quite misleading.
I wonder how car upgrades will affect the AI as well. Like in most racing games once your car gets better parts it should and it will perform better. But then you end up destroying the AI completely.
So how will the spikes in performance and handling translate over time as the player is progressing through and unlocking more parts? How will the AI react to this? Balance itself out on the same PI as the player? Or go above? So far i donât see any signs that suggest some significant difference compared to how most racers deal with this.
Even in gt7 as a comparison from what i see once you upgrade your car properly you tend to be able to overtake with ease corner after corner. By the time you finish lap 1 youâve overtaken most of the AI so then youâre left fighing for the last 3 poisitions. Thereâs no drama. And it starts to become a bit static.
How is that massively different from the previous gen motorsport titles? I do see some genuine changes in the AI but they seem so little judging by the latest preview (even if the current issue is acknowledged and possibly fixed ). It just doesnât sell to me the idea so far that it was " built from the ground up".
I feel free to be proven wrong once the full game comes out.
From my observations: in that initial cup opponents have PI 550-570, while player is limited to PI 600 when upgrading car, and AI donât change PI to match yours. So itâd mean that car tuning is another way to customize difficulty. I like it
If the playerâs car is really limited to be upgraded to the top of the class whitin the bulders cup then i dont know how well does that speak about the upgrade system.
I suppose what would happen is there will be parts which youâll just be unable to put on because they simply take you out of the class? Which could limit greatly the building potential. Especially if the car is already close to the top of PI class.
Limits will most probably depend on specific cup and cars used. As for parts taking your car out of class, you can balance them with newly added ballast and power restrictor.
If I had a dollar for every time a clearly broken thing was defended/explained away as âOh, weâve fixed that alreadyâ before a game released, I could afford to spend half of a year eating at five-star Michelin restaurants.
The âbestâ part is when the game does release and the fix was subpar at best or completely ineffective at worst, and then the developers spend the next three months showing how truly innovative they are in trying to clean the egg and rotten tomatoes off of their faces.
I think this AI is what itâs going to launch with. You canât fix those kinds of systems in months, let alone weeks, and if they had a fix like they claimed they do, the demos would have been delayed until the new AI was coded in. At minimum, I donât expect this or any of the other situations facing the game to even see attempts at fixing until well after the holiday season passes. At that point, though, the damage is going to be done.
They claim to fix AI every new game but never do. This time they went really in depth of what they fixed but not so much how they fixed it. They always said Drivatars were based on AI adaptive learning. Effectively what theyâre doing here. But it was never good, And seems to have gotten worse over time, not better. This time, theyâre going in harder on the generative AI schtick, But from the sounds of the hands on, Its the same as its always been. Youâre still going to have to lunge up 10 places in the first corner to actually compete with pole. And then pole AI are going to run away with world record pace or faster and gap the entire field by quarter miles like theyâve always done. Iâve seen 1st and 2nd ai in Horizon 5 lap the pack before. And the rest of the pack get the same laptimes and brake way too early.
It vaguely sounds the same here. But time will tell, the real issues with the AI tend to bare out when taking them out of the games tailored scenarios, and thats the only thing reviewers are getting to look at right now. So endurance racing, multiclass, mixed weather. If theyâre having similar issues theyâve always had under ideal conditions set by the demo, Imagine what theyâre going to look like when you actually put them under extended observation.
The worst part about the Forza AI is that they never compete against themselves.
All the AI cars are going to basically finish in the grid order they start in. No matter how long the race lasts. Barring player intervention its almost a guarantee. 1st and 2nd are the only AI that are actually running competitive times that will actually give you trouble, The rest of the grid are little more than rolling obstacles. If this game hasnât solved this, Theyâve completely lied about the new game. Not even misrepresented, just an outright lie.
Itâs all so familiar as well. They promised the AI in Forza Motorsport 5 would be âpowered by the cloudâ and would be innovative and realistic and so on. They always make bold claims and use buzz words but it never amounts to anything. It looks like they tried to do it again for this game but people can see through it this time. If it releases with AI anything like as bad as we see in these recent videos, the game is going to be DOA.
Well, opponents at front potentially drive just as quick and clean as GT Sophy
As for other factors, we still donât know how Sophy handles driving in the crowd and with speed lower than maximum (i.e. at lower difficulty levels). And after my experiments with it Iâm not convinced that Sophy is more aware of playerâs car in their path than the new AI in Forza. In FM I saw opponents leaving place for player and trying to avoid contact so it still could turn out better than what Polyphony Digital is cooking
I had a very good experience with Sophy, but it does need more time in the oven with regards to tuning for different speeds. In their monthly event, PD faked difficulty by using cars with different PPs, not adjusting the AIâs level. When it comes to driving in crowds, the quickest one (Sophy Violette) was able to move up from last to first at a decent pace.
The issue I see with T10âs AI is the implementation of it (same old rabbit chase) and also the praise it gets for things like the AI making random mistakes, which they used to do in FM5 and 6. Mixing dumb and smart AI to simulate different skill levels may not be a good way to showcase the feature either, as dumb AI may be âsmartlyâ playing dumb!
The only problem with that is your âpayoutâ is affected by where you start on the grid. If youâre trying to level up a car to unlock your upgrades, starting that far forward is not beneficial.
Your payout is also leveling your car up (within the race). If you choose to start at the front, you are limiting your ability to level your car up as quickly as possible (youâre not passing cars, just driving around the track). Itâs more beneficial to start from further back, even if you donât win. Early on, the only way to level your car up and unlock upgrades is to race, and you have to do that for EVERY car, you arenât leveling up, your car is.
