PC1 Ai still horrendous!

[Msportdan]

After reinstalling and completing my First karting career, with 100% ai and winning it. I came to a McLaren f1event at zolder. This race is a 3 hour slog, so I put the race to 1% which makes it half an hour.

Not only is the car quite a handful anyway, trying to avoid not getting hit smashed off rearended or taken off into the sand with about what seems 50% of the field on the 1st lap, is a exercise in utter frustration. I just couldn't finish a race. Because even if you do survive the first lap mayhem, anytime you came up to a AI, you SHI& scared to go near them!!

Firstly ive stopped my career as im wondering how many races are like this. 1)racing road sport cars for a boring amount of time, and 2)then the AIs that cant seem to keep on the track. Shame because they can put up good battles. Too often that not though it means you getting hit.

Also anyone notice the AI never spin round, they do this sorta snap back to centre thingy.

Anyway as you can tell im still a little wound up by my recent pcars visit, and have simply come on here to ask........

is this a regular occurance in the career?
One being the poor AI, and two the long boring races with roadcars.

Suppose im asking this as I don't want to waste my time pursuing this if theres more frustration to come, and I can spend my time playing other sims.

 

[Ace King]

Since there is no separate Ai slider adjustment for "aggression" they tied it in with the "strength". So those having Ai troubles with certain car/track combinations need to lower the "Ai strength" to get acceptable Ai behavior. Yes, by lowering the strength it will decrease the Ai's speed so you will need to find a compromise until they include a separate slider for "aggression" though i wouldn't hold your breath for this aggression slider being included in a future update patch.

 

[John Peat]

I can't imagine they removed the separate sliders without good reason and a fair solution to that (ridiculous - I'll admit) over-aggressive driving in that video is to wind the AI down a handful of notches.

At 94 they are, at worst, around 1 second a lap slower and if you outqualify them and are bored of starting in pole you can challenge yourself by starting mid-pack or even at the back (those are options!!)

The AI isn't dumb at 90 - or even 80 or 70 either. I tended to swap between 60 and 70 until I found that using the MOUSE allows values inbetween those 2 (no really - it does!!) but I tested this earlier between 90 and 100 and whilst I was clearly struggling to get higher than midfield, the cars weren't THAT much quicker (laptimes mean nothing in racing - it's all about consistency and not falling-off really and at 100% it does seem they fall-off a lot more which isn't great anyway?)

I can't help thinking back to Forza 3 - that was the first game I played where the AI felt it was really racing me (rather than just offering mobile chicanes) but it's top setting was just an over-aggressive cheat (drove faster off the track than ON it) and the 2nd-highest was probably a BIT too easy - this is a LOT better than that.

If you're consistently quicker than PCars AI in the 90s - you probably need to seek humans to race against - other games won't be challenging you any harder I suspect (I've played rF2 against it's fastest AI and I thought I did BETTER than I do here anyway)

 

[Ace King]

rF2 most definitly has a superior AI at many tracks but again not all combinations of cars/tracks are at it's best with their universal Ai. So, what i plan to do in the future for rF2 is fine-tune the Ai fast lanes (AIW) for the car mods i like to race with and if fine-tuning doesn't help then i will make brand new AIW's for all the tracks where the Ai are not up to speed. Also, the driver talent files might need fine-tuning to improve the experience!

I'am waiting for the additional tracks for their Indycar and their soon to be released 2015 Nascar Season plus the DRM and Endurance mods.

New rF2 review article here if you're interested:
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/rfactor-2-review-keeping-up-with-the-times.108202/

 

[John Peat]

I have a chequered history with rF2 - I posted some of my (mostly negative) findings (I refunded my purchase last year) once and got taken-to-task over it quite a bit! - yet I still play the demo from time and time because it has a certain something about it (it's a box of bits, some of which work, some of which don't)

I read that piece and whilst it's nice to hear it's being updated, the piece it smacks a bit of someone preaching as/to the converted.

rFactor2 has been around a long time for all the excuses to still be needed - it isn't a game and it's not remotely 'finished' - it is, at best, a platform on which you can put together some stuff which may or may not work well. Hell, they should get Reiza to sort it out as they did with rF1 ;0

 

[Hash_V8]

In fairness, if you prefer other games you can always play those instead - it's not a useful comparison - it's not like they're going to say "Hey yeah, let's redo it another way entirely"

That video is a mess tho - I tried it myself and in Formula cars (the C particularly as it's not the nimblest car) do like to bang wheels once you push the AI slider into the high 90s. Interestingly tho, by the lower 90s you can actually see the cars flinching/moving away from trouble instead of driving straight into it.

I repeated a load of qualy sessions to see what sort of times the AI sets and it was interesting. 100% AI can set some fast qualy times - but they vary a lot (by as much as 2 seconds session-to-session). As you dial the AI down, the times slow down overall but they also become a LOT less variable.

At 95ish, the AI can match the lower-end of the 100 cars on a good day - so clearly the top 5%-or-so of the AI slider is 'recklessness' more than outright speed perhaps?

So what we have isn't "AI is horrendous" - it's "AI is horrendous over 95%ish". I guess if you're easily beating the AI in the lower 90s then that's a problem (I'm nowhere near that) but that's a fairly specific issues relating to a relatively small part of the playerbase (a fraction of a percentage point at best) so - erm - I'd prefer the fix the more obvious bugs first if I'm honest.

That video was taken at 80 per cent AFAIK, my reply in steam thread to ppl claiming was "humans fault" lol..
0:13: Human enters corner with unchanged line, holds his line and is ahead of the AI, who then rams him for no apparant reason.

0:18 AI clearly steers straight into him on a straight no less, and then AI driver, drives over grass not only perfectly but appears to speed up and gains sevral postions.

0:29 terrible cornering from AI and several major contacts between ai made in process, completely devoid of any human interaction.

0:33 AI again drives straight into him with plenty of time to react to human who is simply driving a straight on the standard race line.

0:40 terrible cornering from AI resulting in pile up, again human has nothign to do with it.

0:58 AI attempts overtake on human holding his line, AI messes it up and concludes grass would in fact be faster, and proceded to wipe out taking human with him.

1:07 Ai maintains line despite overtake attempt AI has plenty of time not to hit him, but drives like the human overtaker was never there.

1:30 ????

1:43 AI again turns into human on a straight while human maintains line.

And at 100per cent for A LOT of ppl is to easy so playing with any but is a none option.

As far as RF2 not being "finished" I think its probably the best feature complete game around, could argue GSCE and RRE are better end products but considering how much new and great features it adds its not a fair comparison RF2 is next step in racing "simulation" without a doubt simply because nobody's even claiming to push boundaries, except of course for Pcars OUTRAGEOUS claims

 

[John Peat]

When you said 80, a lightbulb went on in my head. If you had 2 sliders and wanted to make 1 slider - how would you do it?

I wonder if there aren't levels of AI skill and then sublevels of aggression within that - whether the multiples of 10 are the most aggressive AIs and then they start-off a bit less aggressive but a bit quicker and so on (I based this on 91 being obviously less bumpy than 100)

Impossible to know for sure, but I tinkered a bit and - well - I did seem to have a better time on scores between x1 and x5 than x6 to x0. I ran 2 races back-to-back on 80 and then 82 - the 80 one ended in carnage but in the 82 one the cars seemed to flinch-away from accidents instead of causing them - and I ran to the end and had a decent race in that one!

Another way to reduce the carnage is to drop the car-count of course - that also helps game performance!

Lastly, I was also wondering why the open wheelers seemed so prone to this so I swapped to the Audi LMP1 (a car probably quicker at Zolder than the Formula C??) and the AI races rather differently. I realise those cars will take more knocks, but weirdly, the AI seems less bumpy and much more prone to getting bunched-up in the chicanes - so much that lap2 had 3 carparks on it (and I'm not keen on that car at all anyway - I can't see the thing from the cockpit!!)

 

[Hor-hay]

Lastly, I was also wondering why the open wheelers seemed so prone to this so I swapped to the Audi LMP1 (a car probably quicker at Zolder than the Formula C??) and the AI races rather differently. I realise those cars will take more knocks, but weirdly, the AI seems less bumpy and much more prone to getting bunched-up in the chicanes - so much that lap2 had 3 carparks on it (and I'm not keen on that car at all anyway - I can't see the thing from the cockpit!!)

Sounds pretty horrendous to me...

 

[John Peat]

Sounds pretty horrendous to me...

I should have added that reducing the field removed that problem - 21 cars is a lot of cars to get through any corner and PCars doesn't really 'string out' the field that quickly - often you'll still have a 'single mass' of cars even on laps 2 and 3 - where most games have broken-up the pack by that time.

Cutting the field to 15ish reduces a lot of the jostle and seems to get rid of most of the big hiccups in fps I was seeing - the only ones I get now are when BIG accidents occur (3 wide onto the Brands straight I nudged someone into the end of the pitwall - they hit it at full tilt and the game just stopped-dead for about 2 seconds as the physics had a heart-attack!!)

Audi remains a nasty thing to drive tho

 

[ouvert]

The main problem of ai in pcars is inconsistency even during one session.. So during qualy I set AI lets say to 90.. It goes reasonably fast..for a relaxing pace racing.. than i start race with same AI and after first corner I'm half second ahead, after second corner 0.7 sec, after first lap it is 1-2 sec and in last lap you can spin few times and still win with advance... Fast guys must be lapping AI on short tracks

 

[bmanic]

Agreed.. this is indeed the main problem I have with AI too. What makes it so frustrating is that it is so incredibly track + car dependent!! Some track + car combinations are brutal, the AI completely dominates the race, even at 85 or so.. while on other tracks I usually finish a 10 lap race, at 100% AI, by more than a minute!! Extremely frustrating.

Apparently it comes down to a few things: The AI tire model is not as complex as the player tire model, which means they need to constantly tweak the AI tires in a different way compared to the player model.. yet the model is complex enough that it's not a "simple" pacejka tire model ala rFactor 1.0 / GSC / R3E or similar. The heating and such is much more complex which makes it hard for the programmers to "get it right".
This is actually a real concern. I think the AI should have a tire model that just makes them as believable as possible.. if this means further simplifying the model then so be it.. I don't care at all what model the AI uses. I just want it to be believable on all tracks and all car combinations. I gather this is a similar problem for the Kunos team.. probably even more problematic there because the AI uses their main tire model which is highly complex! (also the reason why AI use up so much CPU in AC ). So yeah, I think AI needs to be designed in a different way to be competitive and consistent. It needs to be able to cheat in certain situations for the greater good of immersion and believability.

I see the same issues with many flight simulators.. as soon as you give AI the same physics model as the player has, they get all funky and weird in various situations. I guess the whole area of AI is a tough nut to crack.

Having said that, when the AI is good, it is REALLY GOOD, in pCars. I've had by far my best races against AI in Project CARS.. or at the very least it's been as good as Game Stock Car (which is still a lot more consistent in AI races) which is about the highest praise I can give it.

How's the AI in rFactor 2? I keep seeing very divided opinions on this. Some think it is brilliant and others say it completely fails at various tracks. As far as I know they use the complex model for the AI in rFactor 2, right?

 

[William Wester]

I agree, the AI in pCARS can be very good or so-so. I would rate rFactor 2 as having the best AI (most consistent), then SCE for the sims I race. AC has improved a lot but most modded tracks are terrible and even with the Kunos tracks if you pass them many times never seem to put up a fight to get the spot back.

rFactor 2 (most consistent)
SCE (great to easy)
R3E (too agressive at times)
pCARS (starts are the worst)
AC (mod tracks can be terrible, AI will even stop instead of going around)

Just an opinion...

 

[Emerson Meyer]

Having said that, when the AI is good, it is REALLY GOOD, in pCars. I've had by far my best races against AI in Project CARS.. or at the very least it's been as good as Game Stock Car (which is still a lot more consistent in AI races) which is about the highest praise I can give it.

Exactly my experience!

 

[ouvert]

AC (mod tracks can be terrible, AI will even stop instead of going around)

if you mean AI rather slowing than overtake in corners in AC AI is currently designed to overtake only on long straights .. so it is not necesarry mod related

 

[William Wester]

Yes, I meant it as two separate comments. AI is terrible on some mod tracks. AI in general - slowing/stopping and overtaking.

 

[Jake Fangio]

Pcars really needs an aggression slider,open wheel racing is currently a no no.It's a shame because I really enjoy the game,but have not played it recently due to the AI aggression.

 

[Jake Miller]

Far be it for me to crash anyone's hating session, but I've found the AI to be amongst the best out there. Engaging and fun.
But then I'm a BTCC fan, I'm used to elbows-out driving.
Had many knocks and shoves from the AI (as they have from me) but always manage to get round without major incident.
Maybe this whole simracing MP "ettiquette" has taught simracers to be too timid and precious?
I can't stand timid AI or AI that backs off far too soon, it's dull.
Anyway, carry on.

Completely agree with this. It's why I hate Iracing so much, penalised for even the most minor of taps. For me, that is not real racing.

 

[Ace King]

Yes, I meant it as two separate comments. AI is terrible on some mod tracks. AI in general - slowing/stopping and overtaking.

Some or all of the problem is because the ai fast-line (AIW) wasn't properly implimented on those 3rd party tracks!

 

[William Wester]

Yes, I understand. I don't what it takes to create a good track mod for any of the sims. It seems that AC must be more difficult as the AI in the most every track mod in SCE and rFactor 2 are very good.

 

[HypoToad]

I think Codemasters games have the worst AI, they will ram you out of existence, I can stop on the track in Project Cars and the AI will drive around me, if I did that in F1 2014 they would just run into me and keep pushing me along the track. I have found the AI in Project Cars on the whole to be very good, you can race along side them and they don't try and push you off the track.

Also if anyone has ever played PGR the AI will deliberately cut across you trying to force you into a wall.