Undoubtely, racing against real people generates the most heat, and unforgettable emotions, and sometimes I do enjoy that, especially in Raceroom due to real life based skins (mostly). That said, there are some things that keep bringing me offline.
Most of all, I enjoy immersion. Which means I enjoy events with full rules, damage, weather, safety car (yes, broken, but still), series accurate start procedure, series size grid, on tracks that actual series take place and real world event skins. I can also use realistic method of shifting, without worrying that it makes me much slower. Sometime I want to race certain unpopular content, or have bigger grid, or certan progression settings.
Offline racing is more relaxed, less time commitment and less drama. AI is predictable, it won't do anything completely irrational, won't "escape to pits" in front of you, won't disconnect when things don't go its way - all killing immersion.
Well as I stated earlier in this thread my reason for driving offline (besides I'm now a family man and the online time slots for ACC CP racing don't suits me most of the time) is that I have still plenty of fun for the next couple of decades offline racing in rF1 and especially GTR2 with mods of very high standard and editing AI performance files (quite easy with the easy file structure), both games have parameter 'aggression' and in files you are able to set 'strength' above the standard 120% limit for track AIW's which otherwise not seems perfect.
On that account I've had 12 years of fun with offline racing, setting up my own series with own blend of car mods and tracks. E.g. more 24 hours events, where I can just press 'save' to take care of my children, wife, house, cycling team, guitar play, etc, and continue later. And then some free times with 3 hours close racing. And even in my 24 hours events the dying last hour I've discovered racing to the bone with AI's.
OK, modified in performance by myself, since I admit that most standard AI/AIW's are not perfect and especially not when just tacking the stock package of GTR2 and rF1. But the stock package I never driver (Except for the GTR2 HQ Anniversary mod once in a while).
That said - tuesday late evening this week, I actually participated in an ACC CP online event at Le Castellet/Paul Richard. It was one hour of close wheel-to-wheel battling with fine competitors - except one who bumped me intentional at the Mistral Straight, and in same instance following at Curbe de Signes I left a lot of room for the driver by turning out of the ideal line and lowered the speed almost to 50% of ideal speed, but the driver lowered the speed just as much and then bumped me hard from the side , so I spun hard. Very intentional crash that came out of nowhere from the opponent - haven't teased him earlier in the race so didn't knew why he let his frustrations go beyond me, but well...a mental thing, I think.
This kind of strange agressive behaviour is actually (almost) possible to immitate with very aggressive AI's. And indeed in 24 hours events of 3-4 classes with great differences in speed.
You
can make AI's look very much alive and impredictable in GTR2 and rF1 indeed, just mingling a bit with the files.
The online event reminded me of another reason why I don't do online races that often. The ACC CP event was just 1 hour. I could not control whether to do it as a 3 hour online event. And couldn't pick different cars for different classes. Due to the competition format it is quite fixed.
I have so much more fun in offline racing since it leaves with tons of degrees of freedom - and the fact that I decide myself when to race and when to take care of my family.
