Official General AI Comments & Discussion Topic

I've found AI to be VERY unique to car and track. A little above 100 and the AI are matching the fastest human time trial times in v10 F1 historic Montreal and gen1 Indy at Long Beach (granted I can barely drive those early indy cars at LB and much is my fault). You could argue that makes sense for 100, but we all know 100 isn't 100 since the slider goes much further. Meanwhile in slower cars at other tracks I can crush the AI at that level. If you're doing 3 hour races where you're dealing with tire degradation and a much higher possibility of some mental errors, yeah, not the same as where you'd have AI for a 15 minute race. The issue when AI gets too low is they start to do some really stupid moves that makes them hard not to crash into.

 

The AI are still broken in this game. In some parts of the track, the AI are too fast and in some parts too slow. Reiza really needs to balance the AI so I'm not having to constantly change their strength to get them going the same pace as I do through the corners and on the straights. Also, I don't get why they magically speed up when they're in a certain range of your car?

 

There are always a bunch of silly questions that are hard to resolve. For example, "I can beat the AI at 105% on this track, but I can't at 95% on that one," or "the AI is faster in this corner, but I'm faster in that one." These people always demand a 100% uniform AI difficulty across all tracks and cars.

Frankly, such demands are pointless. Every driver has varying levels of familiarity with different cars and tracks—there is no one-size-fits-all AI difficulty setting at 100%. What you need to do is find a difficulty between 80% and 120% that matches your pace. That's it. Every track and every car should have its own setting, and it should be a dynamic result that adjusts based on your skill level and race performance—not some rigid 100% standard.

Alright, let's get back to the point. The truly urgent AI issue that needs fixing in the current version is still the bug in mixed-class races, where lower-class cars indiscriminately lift off the throttle to yield. This makes it practically impossible to enjoy a fair and competitive race when driving lower-class cars.

Sorry, I can't provide specific images, times, or locations for this issue—it's a universal problem that occurs with all cars and tracks.

 

Every 2005 GT1 race I have ran has that same Aston Martin as the number 1 car, blue & white livery, Karl something is the AI name and it is mega fast. That car and a MC12 will just separate themselves from the rest of the field. It's very similar to Formula 1 Hi-Tech Gen 2 where there are always 2 cars that are the rabbits and you can't catch them without killing the AI difficulty.

It makes the races a little bit boring to me in that you're always chasing the same car. Mix it up a bit.

 

On Watkins Glen in the Bus Stop (I think the variant is called Inner Loop then) the AI does a very strange line that is way too slow.

The AI tries to avoid any curb contact there, which leads to a very sharp and slow turn in into the bus stop and very sharp and slow way out. The ideal way to drive that is usally going over all 4 curbs with half the car so you can draw a very smooth curve through the bus stop without slowing down too much.

They hold their pace really good at the rest of the track

Tested with:
Version: 1.6.8.6
Classes: GT3G2, LMP2 G2 & LMDh

 

In earlier builds of the game, the AI once drove through this sector like madmen, often ramming player out of their way. This ruthless behaviour was reduced by one of the updates, maybe too much.

 

If you come to play LMU, you'll also find that the one consistently dominating is the No. 46 BMW~ In reality, this AI is an unknown driver, but in my world, it's a world champion that conquers every track.

 

For me, the one thing I would like them to fix is the clustering of cars into a group (of usually three) where they just hold each other up, and never drop back to try and make a pass later when it's a more realistic opportunity.

The track and car specific tuning comes in second to that, I'd just like them to concentrate on the clustering behaviour first.

It's better than it was, but most races still look like the opening laps of a BTCC race with no separation. I've sat in fourth place on numerous tracks and classes with the AI between 104 and 108, max aggression and watched the front three AI constantly battle on pretty much every turn for lap after lap. The behaviour only really changes when you go into their "cone of awareness" which seems to trigger "player car in the vicinity behaviours".

Due to this if it didn't happen so often you'd get more of a thrill out of a double overtake, but because of the way the AI cars behave double overtakes are pretty much par for the course.

I'd like to see a couple of car/track combos, where they concentrate on it and put it up as an example of the best that they can achieve within the limitations of the game engine. Then at least we would all know what is achievable even if it's not quite as good as we might like.

 

Qualifying (and practice) has been a mess since the "AI actively look for space on track during practice and qualifying" feature was added. Particularly evident in multi class sessions. They do not "actively look for space on track", the behavior is as follows, encounter a car ahead (2 tenths or so), then go slow on straights, normal speed in corners, for the rest of the lap. No bule flag behavior. Repeats lap, after lap, after lap, until either they pit and repeat the behaviour or the session ends. This behaviour makes large grids and multi class practice and qualifying sessions pretty pointless. Unless the session is very long (>1hr) not all AI cars will make a representative laptime. Try a 10 minute session with 47 AI on a short or medium length track (<5km) and it is immediately obvious what a problem the "actively seeking clear track" behaviour becomes.

 

I did not race multiclass for a long time, so I have no idea how this works.
But in my single class races (with custom AI, some drivers are much quicker than others), there are some tracks where cars on fast lap meanwhile manage to overtake the ones on their outlap.
But on tracks with only short straights, they all still just stick to the line.
Weird thing in Imola 2001:
On the longest straight between last corner and "Tamburello", fast cars rarely manage to overtake.
The only spot I saw where an overtaking can sometimes happen, is the sector between "Tosa" and "Piratella".

In my AI-files, I set the value for "blue flag conceding" to 1.0, which is the highest possible value.
Apparently, this does not help much.

In general, the AI comes too close to car in front instead of going out of slipstream and goes for rear of car in front instead of using a gap in all classes. So, you often see ramming instead of overtaking..

 

The behaviour I describe is only observed in practice and qualifying. The ability of AI to overtake AI has always been terrible in any session. Blue flag overtaking has however improved recently.

I always use custom AI. Too many bad experiences with default Reiza AI. Would be interesting to see what values they use, sadly not possible! I would strongly advise trying blue flag conceding at 0, at least to compare behaviours. Certainly works better in my experience racing multi class but I favour racing in the middle speed class of 3. In multi class racing your own class slows far too much under blue flag conditions, even braking hard on straights!

 

If you set blue flag conceding to 0, they do not care at all about blue flags, which is a terrible experience in qualifying in single class races, because then, they block you on their outlap and destroy your lap by any means.

 

I tried blue flag conceding at 0, and it makes little to no difference in a multiclass scenario, sure they don't lift as much, but still way too easy to catch up. The worst would be also conceding the racing line instead of being predictable.

 

Blue flag conceding at 0 is still, for me, the best of a bad experience. Needless to say there really needs to be a concerted effort to improve the AI behaviours in many areas. To date most effort has been put into physics and content. The physics have improved considerably (except the crash/damage model of player and AI) over the past 5 years or so, the content providing an income stream to keep the development going which all but the adrenaline pack and trophy trucks I have bought. I believe in Reiza's ability to develop the game, however it's really high time the AI got a big effort put on it. I really hope the teams perfectionism gets aimed at the best AI experience possible across the many classes of motorsport represented in the game.

 

A common occurrence for the AI, particularly the speed boosted behind the player AI. Their entry speed is too (impossibly) high as they approach apex, often tuning in early, running over the inside curb (or clouting a barrier of which they are seemingly unaware), and "pit manouvreing" the player. No prospect of a clean overtake at all, it is very egregious behaviour! A guaranteed penalty in modern F1. Sadly again no penalties are ever given, for any infraction, to the AI drivers and makes wonder if the "yellow flag waving marshals feature" allegedly coming soon would have any meaning to the AI at all. There are many examples of this highly aggressive and poorly judged overtaking attempts in all classes, at many tracks and, has never been addressed. Griffens bend, approach to The Cutting and, Skyline through the esses to The Dipper at Bathurst, the penultimate turn at Spielberg, turn 1 and 3 at Road America, to name a few. With acute awareness such incidents can be avoided but the cost to the player in laptime is significant.

The other behaviour that really needs to be addressed is the propensity to turn full lock into the players car on contact. Either leads to a spin for the player, or an inability to turn the car, that is the push the players car straight with superior grip. Responsible, I believe, for the reports of cars being "glued" together. The AI have for some reason, I suspect incident/off track recovery, considerably more steering lock available than the player and this only makes matters worse. Watch them do a U-turn, or when they start to underseer, the front wheels can get to a nearly 90 degree angle.

Just to be clear, I'm not complaining, though you may choose to perceive as such. This is intended as constructive feedback in the optimistic hope that these issues can, one day, be resolved.

 

Version: 1.6.8.6.3085
Track & Layout Used: le mans24h
Vehicle: gt3 gte
Frequent spins at Le Mans repeatedly trigger full-course yellow flags.The accident does not have a very representative location, so it cannot be captured in a screenshot. In short, it occurs from time to time in several high-speed corners .Triggered a chain reaction of accidents. the end, virtually all competitors retired from the race.

 

Road America
This is what it looks like on the Road America Straight. The AIs just pulling to the inside for no reason. I am the light blue Aston Martin.
Another issue with this track is, AIs are also somewhat more grippy through turn 11(Kink)

 

It looks like the ai is defending the corner though, pretty standard for that corner also online

 

Even when no one is around, they still do this!

And also when you are a bit behind as well!