PC2 AI Level (in)Consistency

Ryan Soucy · Oct 27, 2017

Man, I love the driving in this game. Looks and runs great and low load times. I like the scripted weather (although too many special events are mixed weather).

But I am really getting down on the AI consistency. The first race in my FC championship was 100 and I won. I ended up bumping up to 110 at COTA and was the fastest but finished 3rd. On to LB with the AI at 114 and smoked em all. However, on the side events, I could only beat the Lambos at 50 and the UK Track Day Trophy at 25. What's the deal!? Its such an a kick in the crotch to have to dip down to 25 when I was 100-level in PC1 and somewhere abouts in regular career.

Is anybody else experiencing this kind of volatility? I don't mind having to tweak it, I did that in PC1, and I don't think the AI is super crazy, not worse than AMS, but having to waste so much time restarting events at a different AI level is getting old!

Kurupt CDN · Oct 27, 2017

Ai topic has been brought up a million times here and on there forums.
Its a bit of a let down after we were told the ai had been reworked and improved prior to launch.
Ian Bell said theres a dedicated team devoted to enhancing the ai and every update/patch/dlc will have ai improvements.

Ryan Soucy · Nov 8, 2017

They had their heads up their butts with the development again. They had all these beta testers (myself included) and they didn't funnel those users into testing things like this. The game is plagued by crappy default setups and horrible AI consistency. All they had to do was tell people to test X car on Y track. Have a weekly contest, and there you go, you'll have 500 data points and 2500 laps to work from. Oh well. I'm almost at the end of my rope, which is so frustrating in and of itself since I think the driving is really really good (once you download another racer's setup).

Andy_J · Nov 8, 2017

Yes the AI is diabolical for a modern race sim/game. Probably the worst I have ever encountered in any race sim. The external replay sounds are really bad too. Yes I know they keep saying these things will be fixed in later patches and for the sound I think they might get it better, but the AI is un-fixable in my opinion. I only play Pcars2 offline with the AI and because of that the game is not worth messing with at the moment. GTR2 is far better as is all the Race 07 series and even AC has better AI now.

JoelGL · Nov 8, 2017

Andy Jackson said:
Yes the AI is diabolical for a modern race sim/game. Probably the worst I have ever encountered in any race sim. The external replay sounds are really bad too. Yes I know they keep saying these things will be fixed in later patches and for the sound I think they might get it better, but the AI is un-fixable in my opinion. I only play Pcars2 offline with the AI and because of that the game is not worth messing with at the moment. GTR2 is far better as is all the Race 07 series and even AC has better AI now.

OT: Does GTR2 and Race 07 support triples?

Msportdan · Nov 8, 2017

i have taken to writing down tracks with their ai level i require. But I've done several tracks and to be honest I'm getting bored with the dull career (fake scripted emails and forced progression feel) and the dull AI.

When you run back to back with AMS, yes it doesnt look half as nice, but dam sure beats this twice down as a authentic simulator.!

Suppose I'm a bit frustrated as i regret buying it especially at 30£ odd! oh well never mind.

jimortality · Nov 8, 2017

Oh look, another let's all piss on pcars 2 thread.

ionONE1 · Nov 8, 2017

jimortality said:
Oh look, another let's all piss on pcars 2 thread.

Can you explain how this post is "lets all piss on pcar2"?
He clearly bought the game, he likes the driving, goes on how the ai is inconsistent and how he deals with the problem. Now he is unhappy and decides to share it, what should he do instead @jimortality ?

jimortality · Nov 8, 2017

ionONE1 said:
Can you explain how this post is "lets all piss on pcar2"?
He clearly bought the game, he likes the driving, goes on how the ai is inconsistent and how he deals with the problem. Now he is unhappy and decides to share it, what should he do instead @jimortality ?

Maybe check all the other threads about the same issues.

William Wester · Nov 8, 2017

Andy Jackson said:
Yes the AI is diabolical for a modern race sim/game. Probably the worst I have ever encountered in any race sim. The external replay sounds are really bad too. Yes I know they keep saying these things will be fixed in later patches and for the sound I think they might get it better, but the AI is un-fixable in my opinion. I only play Pcars2 offline with the AI and because of that the game is not worth messing with at the moment. GTR2 is far better as is all the Race 07 series and even AC has better AI now.

I can't necessarily disagree as I haven't raced a lot of the track/car combos - only so much time to split between all of my sims. But, lately in PC2 I have been racing GTE, Indy, Group 5, and Mégane Trophy cars to name a few at Long Beach (also a couple of other tracks). I assumed Long Beach should be a tough track to race AI, no room for error. I've tried various AI strengths from 80-100, aggression 25-50, starting from the back, middle, and pole. I can have very good races and can't say the AI has ever taken me out, a few bumps and bruises usually from doofus moves on my part.
Can you list a combo or two that illustrates your diabolical AI? Again, I'm not questioning the bad PC2 AI that some have mentioned, I would like to test myself with known problem combos.

Emery · Nov 8, 2017

The AI is bland, at best:

hogfish · Nov 8, 2017

I find the AI in PCARS2 and Assetto Corsa both suffer the same issue. For whatever reason most tracks have one corner or series of corners the AI really struggles at. They are competent everywhere else, but can be exploited on certain corners for whatever reason. Here are some examples.

Cota - Last lefthander onto the long front straight.

Lemans Short Circuit - 1st chicane, they get thru the lefthander fine but switching back to the right is the problem.

Andy_J · Nov 9, 2017

JoelGL said:
OT: Does GTR2 and Race 07 support triples?

I don't know. I don't use triples. I don't us VR either. I just AR and a ultrawide 34" screen.

Rupe Wilson · Nov 9, 2017

JoelGL said:
OT: Does GTR2 and Race 07 support triples?

Yes you can stretch it to 5760x1080 it works and its more than ok, but not to the quality of say AC

Ryan Soucy · Nov 14, 2017

I'm definitely not trying to piss on PC2, to me it's very satisfying in most areas that the one that is most crucial to my gameplay is so frustrating. I don't think the AI on a whole is garbage, its just that the difficulty level is inconsistent and its hard to get a good feeling of accomplishment. Like I said, I'm beating AI at some tracks at 110 and losing at 80%. What do I set for the next race? I can (and have) been #1 on time trials for a car/track combo and can get pole when the AI is at 60-70. That shouldn't be the case. Or, at Algarve (which I've been on WAY too much), I can tune the AI so we're in the same ballpark overall, but they FLY BY on the straights. I don't mind if the AI is slow in one particular corner, you can plan for that. Same with 1st corner AI, you can plan for that. But its hard to feel satisfied with career wins if you have to jimmy the difficulty level so much.

OT: the career looked like it was going to be better with the freedom to jump around. But I think I like the dedicated calendar of PC1 better. What could be more realistic than having to follow an actual racing calendar? Also, I VERY VERY VERY much dislike that there are no practice or qualy sessions for the Brand challenges or invitational events I've seen so far. Then I definitely have to crank down the difficulty for the first few races.

I haven't driven PC2 in about a week. I probably won't go back until I see another patch come through. At least they fixed the AI speeds in skipped qualifying sessions. I've only played Dirt4 since my racing hiatus with its very good career system. AC, RF2, even AMS are lacking in those areas and I can't bring myself to jump in without something to pull me in. (Which PC2's admittedly imperfect career system does)

Ryan Soucy · Nov 14, 2017

And boy, GTR2 was so good!

Msportdan · Nov 14, 2017

went back to rf2, ams and ac. That's the fix.

if I've learnt anything from pc2, its that I no longer wish for a career in a sim title again. Yes f1 does it best but Ai balance is killing both these titles.

Kyle Pearson · Nov 15, 2017

Ryan Soucy said:
And boy, GTR2 was so good!

To be far, GTR2 was good with GTR2 stock tracks (which compared to PC2, there were not nearly as many). Once you added non-stock tracks, you had the same issues with AI speeds as they were only as good as whoever released the track made them.

Changes are coming in this space for PC2 and if you are an offline player, you will like the changes.