I am gonna be honest and first state that I have personally staunchly defended the AI before in pervious posts. That being said, I have arrived at a state where I can no longer do this. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, maybe my skill level has improved and I expect more, perhaps something changed between FM6’s AI and FM7’s AI. I just don’t remember the AI being this bad in FM6. Granted FM6 was my first Forza game and everything was new, fresh and exciting to me then, plus I wasn’t really any good and needed to improve before making judgements about the AI. The constant Brake Checking has always bothered me. It seems depending on the settings it can vary from track to track and amongst different car combinations.
Here recently I am even noticing it with the Unbeatable Drivatars, especially at a Track like Maple Valley Short right before the last turn entering the grandstand finish line area. I have been very close to rage quitting there many times over recently.
I am just finding it extremely hard to have an enjoyable race with the AI as of recent. Like others said with the crashing all the time when racing in certain divisions. Random acceptance of their oftentimes lack of spatial awareness. They do often times seem to sway over in your space when there is absolutely no reason to do so. I cannot stand Contact racing. I’ll accept it in NASCAR and watch it for what it is and enjoy it on TV. But when it comes to racing in FM7 I want my positons gained with Zero contact, but the current AI in this game make that exceptionally difficult.
I’ve ran roughly 1800 races, granted roughly half of those would be rivals where AI aren’t present and have only 40 collisions under my Drivatar Stats. You guessed right if you thought that all 40 of those collisions occurred during Mutliplayer. 900 races and only 40 collisions means I am doing my part, but the AI fundamentally aren’t living up to their end of the bargain. They mostly just play road blocking games with ya if you are at the rear and if you make it up to the podium positions, 1st 2nd 3rd even down thru 6th all have massively different Paces leaving huge gaps in the field. The AI Pace should be must closer together across the field and most of this stems from the Coded in Brake Checking mechanic which is there to increase difficulty. No, an AI chain of cars isn’t idea, but what we have now is just way to inconsistent.
Add to the fact that faster AI or AI driving more competent cars, rarely if ever can seem to pass slower AI. I’ve done some testing and basically 99 times out of 100, the AI with the best starting position and or raceline for a track (P1 isn’t always the best attack position on certain tracks during a rolling start) wins the race. The only way to really get movement of grid positions is with Quickstops and having a Multiclass field of cars to create traffic. The fact we have no actual Pit Strategy Interface makes Quickstops extremely boring and basically useless, except to see AI cars gain or lose positions during a race.
The entire Drivatar system needs thrown out the window. It doesn’t work as intended. On paper it sounds great, but sadly that is not reality. If Turn 10 intends to keep it moving forward, it needs some serious work put in. Possibly suggestions, if we could Hire our own AI based on real life pace, and let the Hard Coded AI determine the majority of their movements / race craft. Maybe even let our AI Drivatars earn credits based on how clean we race during our single player races, encouraging a more civil Mutliplayer experience.
I thought I heard during a stream that Turn 10 intended on tweaking the AI. I just hope it isn’t a case where any improvements only make their debut in a possible FM8 down the line. Heck let us try out the improvements or tweaks during a future update. Kind of like the experimental Drag Update. I don’t even care if it releases bugs into the game. At least you tried that way making an improvement to an area that affects a large portion of the player base.