is a percentage adjustable AI a must in today's racing games

[gamer19]

As in title.
Recently playing some racing game, can't remember which, and was left pretty disappointed cause it only had that, you know...
amateur - rookie - very easy - easy - normal - hard - very hard - realistic - alien type to set the difficulty.
From today's standards this looks like a pure crap.
Maybe we become spoiled with time or something don't know but I feel like I can't race anymore without these lovely percentages.
Truth be told some game even percentages can't help cause they have bad AI but that's perhaps another topic...

Any opinions ?

And... it's probably hard to say who started first with this whole percentage idea cause I'm sure it's pretty old but if you can remember in which game you met for the first time with it ?

 

[gamer19]

I see a topic is skyrocketing in popularity.
Ok, I think I remember that EA sports F1 series - F1 2000, 2001, 2002 and
F1 Challenge '99-02 has % as AI adjusting. And that could be my first.
Unless I'm very much mistaken, yes.