Official General AI Comments & Discussion Topic

Are you using your correct difficulty? I have no issues with the AI aggression, it might be a case of the AI being too fast and you get swarmed by them.

The way to calibrate the difficulty is to choose either the SC2024 or the F-UltimateG2 and run a qualifying session on Barcelona GP (no chicane). If you are within 1 second, that's your "baseline" difficulty. There are still some classes off, so it's not 100% accurate but it helps.

 

That's interesting to know.

I certainly think that we may be attributing to malice in the AI what might be better described as incompetence. i.e I don't think all the punts off the track or rams up the rear are really intentional or by design. They seem more like flaws in the way the AI deals with obstacles. Sometimes you can get over to the side of the track, lift your foot and let it pass, others they still hit you - and, as some have said, in things like practise session where there's no real racing happening and you've got blue tyres and brakes.

And yes, I think you're correct to suggest the player is more often going to be an obstacle if the difficulty slider is higher, but that doesn't actually fix the small flaws which I think are there regardless. It'll probably reduce the number of incidents but you still get near to the AI on a lower difficulty and get punted occasionally.

For me though if I went online to race against people I would do that because I want them to be better than I am. If I'm getting a ghost from the TT then I expect 2 things (a) It's set a time that I can in principle set too with the same car and track and (b) I want it to be someone who is faster so I can chase it down.

And I kind of ideally would like the same thing from the AI. If I put the AI on 120% and it does sector times that are impossible then that's a flaw imo more so if it gets offended by my lack of speed and rams me off the road

I mean, fair enough if I thought I could put it on 115% or whatever but the premise will still be that I'm slower than the AI, otherwise what's the point? I don't run around the room cheering after playing if I win against the AI on a particular difficulty - I'm not hoping to win, I'm hoping to get better.

I know it's difficult to do but ideally I'd want the AI to lap more or less as fast as ts possible to drive on the highest difficulty and no faster. Just really so I have some sense of what the best is across different settings. e.g of course I can go to the TT but there you don't have a green track etc and there are not a lot of people posting times.

So far as I can see though when I've tested the AI only seem to lose about a half a tenth on a green track vs heavily rubbered. So if I did that test you're suggesting on heavily rubbered track, but set up a practise session on green I suspect I'd have the same issue on that practise session.

That's pretty much how I get better at the game - by chasing around behind people (or their ghosts), AI or whatever there is that are faster than me until they aren't - and then I go looking for something that's faster again. You don't learn anything from racing against the same or worse than you - the only reason to do that is if Red Bull or Ferrari are paying you $1M a race or something.

At the moment if I slow down and pull over to the left or right to let an AI in front at the first bend so I can chase it, it often punts me off the track. That was frustrating - but I don't believe this is by design - I just think it's a bug. The AI seems really fast - and I'm thinking "Is it drafting that explains the extra speed maybe? Is it really possible to get another second on the 2nd sector of Donington national?" It could be the AI is simply optimal but the way it behaves in 1.6 makes it really difficult to chase to find out.

e.g You get AI that faster than a fast thing he kills you if you try to let him past. You get behind an AI in the last sector and it seems more often than chance he slows and drives in the pits with me saying "Noo! Do another lap!" - it's as though the game was designed for the AI to get out of the way of the player sometimes.

You follow behind an AI through the first sector, you both come up behind an AI that's on blue tyres or planning on retiring or something. Instead of just driving past he does that silly thing of riding 2 inches off the bumper of this really slow AI.

And often if you get close they do that silly dancing around weaving instead of just driving. If you think "Well I'll chase during the race instead - just start at the back of the pack", well firstly the back of the pack aren't fast, secondly often the back car weaves around and slows you and the others all drive off - and if you catch up the one at the back does the same thing - or maybe you overtake one and then he punts you in the back so you spin.

Maybe if you could just add AI to a test day or in practise whose premise is to just lap fast? Perhaps I can do what I want with custom AI files. I'll look at that. But in 1.5 I managed reasonably well with just having 120% AI most of the time from what I remember and, from what I recall the TT were generally faster so if you could beat the AI then go to the TT.

And you can't even just say "well how fast were your fastest sectors? Maybe you already chased enough AI to see if you can equal their time" because the game doesn't show you your sector times except in TT or only for the fastest lap.

But I get your thing here : if you want to create the illusion of racing against AI from the back or middle of the pack, set the difficulty down - but can't we have fast AI sharing the track that aren't programmed to kill us too?

 

The AI percentage should just adjusting the spread of the AI. A 100% AI driver should probably represent a good mid pack driver for that class. The higher you move the AI percentage the more faster drivers you have in the field but you should still have a spread and some drivers below 100%.

I think with aggression it’s difficult to understand what actually ‘agression’ is in the context of the game. Is it getting ‘moves done’ or is it potentially running you off the track to get past. I think it should be the first one, an ability to get the move done against you or other AI.

Some things I think are just limitations of the AI model. For example when you go in car on a replay and the driver you have overtaken on the inside just seems to be determined to steer into you regardless of whether any normal person would have backed out I think thats just a limitation of the AI Reiza are working with rather than an aggression setting.

We probably need an explainer from Reiza as to exactly what each AI setting is meant to do.

 

Just to add i find the ai not changing from its racing line. They will leave a gap inside and even if I am far enough past the ai rear quarter it carries on its line to apex like my car is not there.
Tried to make a quick video, yes it's a dive bomb but under normal race rules this should be fair game.

 

Would be better to see it in full speed to better judge if there was actually time to make that move. Not a fan of slow-mo videos like this since it is difficult to judge.

 

That would actually be nice to have a AI spread slider, like what World of Outlaws has.

 

AI still loves to destroy player's lap on their in- and outlap in qualifying by blocking the line in corners and going extremely slow, like a rolling wall.
Against each others, they still build those crazy trains, with faster cars going for rear of car in front for no reason, ramming instead of overtaking.
And of course, still no penalties for the AI. Corner cutting, leaving track or ramming still has no consequences.

 

One day the AI will be so good they create threads on how bad the human overlords are at driving.

 

I wasn't a fan of the AI until I started treating them like a person in a multiplayer race. You know the kind, they don't give an inch and race like their career depends on it. It was then that I started having good AI races. But when I treated them like the AI of the past, always expecting them to back off, it was frustrating, because they don't. Now I treat them all as if their name is Senna. If I have one complaint about the AI, it's that they brake too early a lot of the time. That can be frustrating.

 

I’m curious if the AI updates apply to Championship races since the Rain Skill and Mistake Multiplier aren’t present on the Championship Race launch screen? I’ve also not seen any mistakes (I’ve set it to x5) in that mode whereas a regular single race produces plenty of car slip-ups and the rain setting seems correct there too.
Does the championship indeed take those settings from single race mode?

 

Yes, in championships, the game takes all the settings you have chosen for single race, except the ones you can choose in the cs-menu.

 

Is this confirmed or just your assumption?

 

I really hope Reiza is monitoring this thread and hopefully they can address some of the major issues. I can see there may be kinks (oh my) in the engine that may be tough to fix, hopefully what we are seeing with these past weeks' post are not among those

 

I hope the AI passing slow cars is being looked at.
When a slow car is on the side of the road rejoining, the other AI behind seems to just slam the brakes instead of taking the clear path around the slow car. See here:

 

Yeah, this insta disagree is just pathetic around here. Disagree without comment should be banned. Feel free to disagree! but at least make some minimal effort by adding some comment for context.

 

I think i figured out what it means when people say that AI is "too aggressive" - the problem is the AI is actually DUMB and they do completely impossible and nonsense attempts at overtaking, where they take a shortcut and in the process take out either you the player or another AI. Saw that happen several times in my AI tests where instead of backing off they go through the grass or in any way possible over the white/yellow line and then crash on rejoin into the car next to them.

 

There is a bug present in my experience, when I drive a race at Truxton with the Ginetta G40, if I am 5th then time after time I have the same white Ginetta in front of me with the rest close behind each other and every time the white one runs me off the track. As soon as I drive next to the white G40 comes next to me and runs me off the track, straight or curve doesn't matter, always the same white G40 race after race.

 

Agreed, I think some of this is very reminiscent of the old problem they had which was very obvious going into the Bus Stop at Daytona.

If you had car anywhere near you as you turned in you had a 90% chance that it was going to cut the track on either the inside or the outside and nail you. You were better off letting them go past and then trying to overtake them again after you came out on the other side.

 

I have done several championships and my settings from the game options (damage, tyre wear and so on) and single race (rules, penalties) were in use.
But I do not have experience with that mistake multiplier which is new since version 1.6

 

If I may ask, are some AI combinations still being calibrated? I find some to be improved in 1.6, then suddenly I'll get an AI train race where they're bumper to bumper. Aggression is for AI vs Player, I think?