AI difficulty versus online difficulty

[Tim Meuris]

Hey guys,

After reading lots of interesting threads on the forum (thnx for that by the way)
I noticed that some peolpe ask if you can increase the ai difficulty above 105%.
I race @ 95%, (maybe 96% is possible for me but I haven't tried it yet)
and most of the time I'm not even on pole at these races.

Online racing isn't yet an option for now (crappy internet)
but I love to race online later
What is the difficulty in online races compared with the ai difficulty?
(IF it's even comparable at all...)

Will I be desperately slow or is midfield possible?
(It may be a vague question but I got really curious)

For example; I drive 2:03 at monza (dry weather in the honda)
On the forum I often read times that are below 2:00
Are you guys all this darn fast?

grtz and lots of respect to you all simracers!!

 

[SimbinRacer]

and below that the driver MUST go online to learn a little with the good guys!!!

I remember when I started back in october/2008. I couldn't even win a race with the AIs in 85%. :smile-big: Afetr a few months learning with the good guys, I can go aroung 105%-110% if I have an extensive practice.

I still fail to see why going online is a claimed to be a necessity to improve laptimes. It's not. What is required is practise of course.

 

[Ivo Simons]

No cold feet, promised.
Trying to get online will be the first thing I do when I'm back home.

:bye:

Don't worry to much about the large text in the rules. Just read them and when you drive a race just act like you will act on a real race track with your own race car.

 

[Aritan Maia]

I still fail to see why going online is a claimed to be a necessity to improve laptimes. It's not. What is required is practise of course.

Ok, change my MUST to a SHOULD or maybe a COULD!!! :smile-big:

Everyone has its own ways...

 

[SimbinRacer]

Ok, change my MUST to a SHOULD or maybe a COULD!!! :smile-big:

Everyone has its own ways...

I'll handshake on "could"

 

[James Yates]

The best thing to be learning is how to run close to other cars rather than hotlapping until you can run good laps. If you run in a few races and run close to other cars you will improve much more than if you hotlapped for the same amount of time. The last thing you need to do is be a quick driver who cannot drive with other cars on the track - you wouldn't last long in the S2000 races we run here. Practice isn't just it though as you will need to learn how to set a car up for yourself, this way you will get the best out of it and drive quicker than before. Online racing again is the best way as many RD members will be happy to help you with setups, offline you would have to do it for yourself.

 

[Jens Piskorsch]

The best thing to be learning is how to run close to other cars rather than hotlapping until you can run good laps. If you run in a few races and run close to other cars you will improve much more than if you hotlapped for the same amount of time.

I Agree with James. It is one thing to do fast hotlaps, but in online racing against other real racers its totally different. You have to concentrate not only on the track but on the other real players around you too - and that gives you a real kick of adrenaline that you can never feel in just hotlapping or racing against AI offline. You have to deal with that and of course it will affect your driving style. At least that's what happened to me in my 1st races - and still is :sweat:.

 

[Martin Vrba]

+1... there's no better way to learn driving in the pack than racing online with real people...
as for the ai and hotlapping: usually in online events i do times 1-1,5sec faster than offline... i think part of that is down to motivation to beat other drivers... i mean what's the point of beating ai?
one tip for you Tim: always try to finish the race! no matter what position are you in! finishing a race will give you valuable experience

 

[SimbinRacer]

The best thing to be learning is how to run close to other cars rather than hotlapping until you can run good laps. If you run in a few races and run close to other cars you will improve much more than if you hotlapped for the same amount of time. The last thing you need to do is be a quick driver who cannot drive with other cars on the track - you wouldn't last long in the S2000 races we run here. Practice isn't just it though as you will need to learn how to set a car up for yourself, this way you will get the best out of it and drive quicker than before. Online racing again is the best way as many RD members will be happy to help you with setups, offline you would have to do it for yourself.

Look, I understand people are really exited about participating in online community races and I have no argument with that that stuff is great fun. I'm absolutely sure it is and I enyoj online lots too. However, this exitement is spilling over into false claims of online bringing skills that could not be aquired offline. Wanna be able to drive close? Fine, practice that on or offline. It will require somewhat different learning since humans and AI brake and take corners somewhat differently now and then. So if you wanna follow AI close, practice that. Wanna follow humans close? Practice that. In terms of learning settings and implying that online would be the answer I'm almost lost for words. I would think that settings are major part of simracing and not bothering to learn setups but rather trusting others online to tell you how to set up you car is some seriously weird stuff. Nevertheless, it seems you are right about the RD community sentiment on this matter seeing several people were fast to agree with your post and very few have even read the setup guide thread after I posted info about setups there since the pinned RD referred to setup guide is really quite basic and partly quite a confusing read. Practice makes perfect and one should practice with humans if one intends to race humans. But that, my friends, is not to be automatically assumed. The comment Martin made about "what's the point of beating AI" is like saying "what's the point of playing any singleplayer game". Not a very balanced opinion if you ask me. Most people play Race 07 offline for one thing.

 

[Martin Vrba]

SimbinRacer, you've got some good points there, i agree with you regarding the setup thing... and yes... just driving online isn't everything...
as for offline racing... i never said that racing with ai is pointless, because ( as you said ) practice makes perfect... what i meant was, that i just can't be bothered to spend hours setting up a car just to beat ai at 120%... on the other hand, if that will make me more competitive in an online event, i probably will do that... you took the line a bit out of context, so i hope i made myself clear now

 

[Tim Meuris]

I see what martin means
I always considered driving offline as a base
for once you started to race online

And that's indeed another difficult item
driving close behind someone or in a pact
(forgot about it as soon as I heard about some of the laptimes here at RD:embarrassed: got a bit carried away about those)
but that must be something completely different online than offline i guess

so my starting goals are;
-trying to get online
-finishing my first race (hopefully not last)