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.

 

[John Peat]

@LacSlyer

You're building some weird strawman there - allow me to rerail you sharpish.

This thread started with a childish/outlandish statement (not a good start - the sort of thread which should be killed-at-birth as they don't generally promote civil discussion)

Some people - myself included - challenged that statement by saying we actually don't think the AI is half-as-bad as people were making-out. We noted the sorts of cars/races we thought it was doing AOK with and I specifically asked where people had their issues.

People's responses were non-specific for the most part - people continued to talk about "AI onslaughts" and other crazytalk without specifying the ACTUAL problem they had. Are they novices playing on '20' or experts on '100' - what cars and tracks are causing this horrendousness that I don't seem to be able to find???

People also talked about other games they prefer - without saying why particularly - and thus I brought up the issue of personal preference vs actual measurable issues. People are entitled to like/dislike things - but unless they can explain how and why, it's no use to anyone else!!

PCars has many bugs for sure, the UI isn't brilliant either and there's whole areas of it half-done-or-worse - but none of that has anything to do with the statement "AI still horrendous"

Assetto Corsa (a game I love) has crappy AI (not horrendous - just rubbish) - GT6 has crappy AI (I'd actually challenge the 'I' part for either of those games)

 

[John Peat]

Something PCars AI does which I really appreciate is use the full width of the track in corners.

Too many racing games - and I include almost everything else out there in this - have the AI take an 'ideal' line through corners, this generally means that you can simply dive up the inside and overtake handfuls of cars at-a-time.

Example: Brands Hatch 'Druids' - in many games you simply move to the right side under the bridge (to the inside of the corner) - and use the kerb to shuffle past the AI as it queues to go around it (swapping sides to repeat the trick at Graham Hill and so on?)

Example: Older gMotor titles like GTL will actually 'queue up' to take a tight corner - you can just drive up and slot into the queue like sensible people do at roadworks - that Scandi Airfield track has a sharp-right which is particularly bad for this.

Example: In Assetto Corsa (or GT6) you can slow down in-front of the pack and they'll often just queue-up behind you. I spun in AC once and ended-up mid track facing the right way - as I pulled-off I noticed the ENTIRE field behind me parked in single-file waiting for me to continue!!!!

Few games offer 'side by side' in corners for AI as well as non-AI drivers - few cars will block overtaking moves and drive more defensively either. PCars seem to do this - maybe it's just doing it a BIT too well - who knows, I'm OK with it at my driving level tho (which is - for the record, AI set to around 70ish - damage on)

 

[John Peat]

I made AIW's (ai fast paths,pitlanes,pitstalls,starting grids,etc.) plus Ai car, tire, engine settings for Nascar Heat, Race07, rFactor and discovered it's impossible to achieve a universal ai that is capable of great performance on every track with every car model so this is why you experience good and terrible ai on different combinations of tracks and cars!

Just to say - I'm actually fascinated how thus stuff works - if you ever fancied writing-up something I'd be your first reader!!

I know some games have 'learning AI' which can - theoretically - drive any track but that most use paths or rules to determine how they take corners???

It's difficult because to be a proper racer you have to take risks - you have to lean on other drivers (not really practical for AI to do without cheating because it knows what's going on?) - and most of all, you make mistakes of course - proper AI should make those.

 

[Andy_J]

Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4 nailed AI routines. Never seen or experienced better since. It was the best without doubt.
The clip below is all AI racing. But when you do race against them you would swear they are real people.

 

[Ace King]

Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 4 was great and this goes to prove from what i stated earlier using one car make with a set of tracks (track pack) fine-tuned for this car will make the very best AI possible. The game physics for the Ai are simpler thus less calculations needed which can only help! Great watch!

 

[LacSlyer]

@LacSlyer

You're building some weird strawman there - allow me to rerail you sharpish.

This thread started with a childish/outlandish statement (not a good start - the sort of thread which should be killed-at-birth as they don't generally promote civil discussion)

Some people - myself included - challenged that statement by saying we actually don't think the AI is half-as-bad as people were making-out. We noted the sorts of cars/races we thought it was doing AOK with and I specifically asked where people had their issues.

People's responses were non-specific for the most part - people continued to talk about "AI onslaughts" and other crazytalk without specifying the ACTUAL problem they had. Are they novices playing on '20' or experts on '100' - what cars and tracks are causing this horrendousness that I don't seem to be able to find???

People also talked about other games they prefer - without saying why particularly - and thus I brought up the issue of personal preference vs actual measurable issues. People are entitled to like/dislike things - but unless they can explain how and why, it's no use to anyone else!!

PCars has many bugs for sure, the UI isn't brilliant either and there's whole areas of it half-done-or-worse - but none of that has anything to do with the statement "AI still horrendous"

Assetto Corsa (a game I love) has crappy AI (not horrendous - just rubbish) - GT6 has crappy AI (I'd actually challenge the 'I' part for either of those games)

My problem with this is the fact that you simply won't take peoples' word for it, yet you expect people to accept your opinion with your only evidence being that you and some others don't have problems. My evidence against that was the myriad of problems presented in pictures and videos on their official forums of a thread that's nearly 100 pages long.

Honestly, I'll apologize because part of my issue isn't with you, but with people like yourself. People on this forum and on the official forums who are so adamant in not accepting the fact that this AI isn't good, and that it needs some serious work in specific areas.

The "rhetorical" response of "I don't have that problem", which is constantly used in this subject is not a defense for the argument that the AI isn't bad. Furthermore, I've repeatedly stated, in this very thread, a simple example to see how terrible the AI can be with the player removed from the equation and will gladly do so again if I need to.

 

[LacSlyer]

PCars seem to do this - maybe it's just doing it a BIT too well - who knows, I'm OK with it at my driving level tho (which is - for the record, AI set to around 70ish - damage on)

And herein lies the problem, imo. Set the AI to 100% on a race weekend and see how they treat you. From my understanding, the AI difficulty significantly increases their aggression and their over-aggression at times is the primary creation of incidents.

 

[John Peat]

My problem with this is the fact that you simply won't take peoples' word for it, yet you expect people to accept your opinion with your only evidence being that you and some others don't have problems.

My issue is that I disagree with the intent of a thread entitled "AI still horrendous" - I don't expect people to change their minds because I disagree with it, but I'd like them to at least be a bit more specific and engage in discussion rather than just yelling "IT'S ****" a lot.

If I've learned anything about the sim racing community, it's that no-one agrees about anything - but we should be discussing issues and being constructive about them instead of combative.

p.s. Saying "roll it upto 100% and it'll go wrong" is fine - maybe it will - a lot of players won't be able to keep-up with it tho, so it won't matter!! If 100% is the issue, the thread title should be "100% AI is horrendous" at least - for all I know from this thread, the problem is at 20% as well tho...

 

[Ace King]

Just to say - I'm actually fascinated how thus stuff works - if you ever fancied writing-up something I'd be your first reader!!

I know some games have 'learning AI' which can - theoretically - drive any track but that most use paths or rules to determine how they take corners???

It's difficult because to be a proper racer you have to take risks - you have to lean on other drivers (not really practical for AI to do without cheating because it knows what's going on?) - and most of all, you make mistakes of course - proper AI should make those.

In rFactor one of my greater challenges was producing a very competitive Ai for the FIA-GT3 mod at the Phoenix-1991 street course and also the Adelaide-1991 track. There was no working start lights or pit lights since the guy who converted it didn't have the working knowledge and so i fixed all this too.

Another really tuff challenge was using the Indycar at the Longbeach track to properly make the Ai run through the hairpin with enough speed without any wall scraping!

A great Ai is determined by how fast and smooth you make fast lines (AIW) and braking points for that car make plus there are Ai adjustments in the car files which also help determine your best Ai possible.

I also made talent files so you would have different speeds, and talents ( more crashes or mistakes) for each Ai driver.

Many people say the Ai are crap in rFactor but i believe it's one of the best. It got alot of it's bad wrap from all the converted tracks where the AIW paths got corrupted in the conversion process which called for a complete overhaul of the track's AIW (Ai paths) and was never done or properly done! Also, many of the car mods made in rfactor never had a proper Ai tuning or anything done at all.

 

[Ace King]

rFactor 2 Ai: 102 cars at the Nordschleife

 

[LacSlyer]

My issue is that I disagree with the intent of a thread entitled "AI still horrendous" - I don't expect people to change their minds because I disagree with it, but I'd like them to at least be a bit more specific and engage in discussion rather than just yelling "IT'S ****" a lot.

If I've learned anything about the sim racing community, it's that no-one agrees about anything - but we should be discussing issues and being constructive about them instead of combative.

p.s. Saying "roll it upto 100% and it'll go wrong" is fine - maybe it will - a lot of players won't be able to keep-up with it tho, so it won't matter!! If 100% is the issue, the thread title should be "100% AI is horrendous" at least - for all I know from this thread, the problem is at 20% as well tho...

And I don't disagree that people should be able to provide information on their opinions. My point was simply that providing your argument with nothing but the fact that you don't have that issue isn't a valid argument against their opinion. So while you intended to provide a serious discussion, please realize that your comment was a-typical for people in your position in defense of the game and not all that productive either. I mean no offense, just requesting that you look at it from the opposite perspective of people who have been hearing your defense since day one as though there are no issues.

Regarding the AI difficulty level, as I said it does matter. If their aggressiveness is tied to this setting, as the developers have stated it is, then it obviously effects the cause of incidents that are due to them being over-aggressive. Which, from my perspective, is all of the incidents I've had. As well, while you may not be able to keep up with them, do a practice session with them at 100% and see what happens. One of the many issues with the AI is their ridiculous programming that has them racing you during practice.

 

[John Peat]

No argument on the 'racing in practice' thing (they also seem not to be troubled by cold tyres either) - and I still can't work out why they do an outlap and then pit again either...

 

[LacSlyer]

As I said, I meant no offense, I do appreciate a civil discussion but a lot of the hostility from people who have issues with the game comes from people in your position proposing ridiculous defenses for the game that have no substance. Not that your questioning warranted the hostility, just that some of the defenses of the issues of this game are really starting to get old. Especially when you consider it coming from people with heavily biased opinions (read: invested financially and emotionally in the game for years).

 

[Ace King]

This game needs two slider adjustments for Ai strength and aggression which will cater to both slower/inexperienced drivers and the faster/alien drivers. It befuddles me why they eliminated the aggression slider which i was told was available in earlier builds. This was a big mistake in my opinion but perhaps they plan to include it in a later patch, i sincerely hope so!

Aggression is related to some degree to their braking points. The higher the aggression will correlate to early or late braking and this is why slower drivers tend to get rear ended more and usually never with faster drivers who tend to late brake. I can honestly state that i have never got rear ended by Pcars Ai nor shunted in a turn do to my driving style.(late braker) My experiences with the Ai is mainly using GT3's, Formula 1000 and Formula B. Many of my races with the Ai are at tracks like Watkins Glen, Sonoma, Brno, Road America, Spa, Monza and Imola.

Like i stated earlier that there can be vast differences with car/track combinations when using a universally designed Ai.

 

[Hash_V8]

"It befuddles me why they eliminated the aggression slider which i was told was available in earlier builds."
Yep goes back to a ISI engine so they have taken it out at some point during shift dev, funny thing is RRE took it out too but no where near the issues Pcars AI has.

 

[LacSlyer]

I agree with that completely. The biggest problem they face is that the AI has completely different physics compared to the player, and they didn't account for that when designing the game, because they initially had the AI with similar physics but realized that it was far to processor intensive. So they were forced to change the AI's physics while not changing their behavior, which is why there's such issues I think.

 

[Hor-hay]

I created this vid for my post about the same thing on the steam forums. Forum Mod was like "expectations don't always match reality". He totally ignored my comments on how other racing sims AI don't act like P Cars.

 

[Dave R]

I created this vid for my post about the same thing on the steam forums. Forum Mod was like "expectations don't always match reality". He totally ignored my comments on how other racing sims AI don't act like P Cars.

Thats some quality AI right there. I feel like I'm watching a video from one of my own races there since I have the exact same experience.

 

[Brandon Wright]

I created this vid for my post about the same thing on the steam forums. Forum Mod was like "expectations don't always match reality". He totally ignored my comments on how other racing sims AI don't act like P Cars.

I've seen a few F3 races from this season, looks pretty much spot on to the real thing.

http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.co...onza-cancelled-due-to-poor-driving-standards/

 

[John Peat]

I created this vid for my post about the same thing on the steam forums. Forum Mod was like "expectations don't always match reality". He totally ignored my comments on how other racing sims AI don't act like P Cars.

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.