Before I start I don’t want this turning into a flamewar topic thank you.
I have noticed as of late that a lot of people have turned round and said that the expert challenges are way too easy and these people play on Xbox (nothing wrong with that)
I on the other hand play on pc and have only found occasionly that I can stroll into 1st place; most of the time it is a challenge for me to get 1st due to constant blocking and bullying by the AI. In fact If I can’t get into the first four within minutes of starting the game the top 3 Ai just dissappear of into the distance with not a hope of catching them.
So what I am asking is, can the people wit both xbox and pc run a few tests between the two for me to see if there is any difference on the behavior of the AI
I dont belive that AI would any harder on PC than xbox. In harder difficulty AI in xbox drive really dirty in harder difficulties and gets ridiculous speed boost on straights. There is times when AI can be really hard on xbox also, maybe overall skill level xbox players have higher? As i think beating expert drivatars is just depending driver skill level and ability to pick right car/tune
I’ve played on both and haven’t noticed a difference in AI behavior. On both platforms it’s consistently inconsistent with the AI being laughably easy to beat in some races, but nearly impossible in others without changing the difficulty.
Like V12 said, difficulty is going to be dependent on player driving skill and choosing/tuning an appropriate vehicle for the event. Some of the stock tunes are awful and uncompetitive, even against easy AI (the Chevy Colorado ZR2 is one example and had difficulty getting first in one of the cross country events even against new racer AI due to all the obstacles on the track), but others (usually the AWD rockets) can fly past unbeatable drivatars at the beginning of the race on some tracks for an easy lead.
What track that is? I run ambleside rush two times with stock ZR2 (damn that car is under powered and slow) against exprert AI i was able to get win but against unbeatable AI i lose 1,2s, i then try same race with C600 hummer and i won with 0,8s difference even tho my overall time was 8 second faster than time with ZR2. It show really well how this game game AI is made match up your speed when using higher difficulties.
This was the ambleside cross country in winter on the track with the uphill corner at the end. Due to the snow bogging down the vehicle on the hill at the end, even the new racer AI was able to catch up and I had to block aggressively. Could have been bad luck with the game picking an out-of-depth drivatar which was racing at a higher effective difficulty as happens sometimes.
I test that in new racer difficulty by using stock ZR2 i end up winning that race by 4 seconds, so in that track even new racer seems to be pretty fast as for example in 5 lap at bamburgh against new racer i end up catching AI drivers just before race ends.
I think there’s an element of perception involved too. I play on console only. Sometimes I’m able to easily beat the AI, and sometimes I struggle to stay caught up at the same difficulty. Whether it’s that I’m just doing better on that particular day, or just haven’t warmed up yet. Or if the track has a particular quirk that the AI gets fetched up on. I know I’ve watched Youtubers and live streamers who have unbeatable AI eat a wall or miss a checkpoint. Meanwhile, my Expert or Pro AI in the exact same track in the exact same conditions does perfect lines, or conspires to ram me out of checkpoints. Something random might fetch them up too, like if it’s a street race, the placement of traffic cars.
Another thing to consider is are you racing the AI cleanly(Yes I know this is a silly question) or are you being super aggressive? I know it’s just AI and I’ve been a bit pushy on them in races knowing AI doesn’t care but I do try to keep some semblance of a clean racing principle but if you’ve been in MP and seen how some people drive against other player you can just imagine how they race against AI. I’m sure they just bash thru them and then wall stomp them when they try to pass. Or I could just be blowing smoke. I can’t say if there is any difference but I highly doubt it other than control set up.
I’ve found the AI is easy to beat if you use the lowest PI cars for the event and then ensure you trim the corners tighter than the recommended line. I posted on another thread a series of blueprints for a variety of tracks and weather using the Morris Minor. From my experiments, the cars don’t get the big boost they did in older versions, instead, they are better at staying on the racing line and don’t seem to bounce offline as much on rough roads or offroad.
When you do upgrades to cars and don’t tune effectively, I’ve found the AI seems to benefit from better choices in the upgrades than previous versions, however if you pick the right car and tune, then once again you can dominate if you drive better even on Unbeatable.
That’s why it’s easy to destroy them now in Drag races even on Unbeatable.
The real key is a better line than them because they use the recommended racing line. If you can widen the arc and trim the apex inside the recommended line by either running over the checkpoint banners or even going inside and just nicking them with your outside tire or even flick of the tail of the car.
You’ve simply described why the AI are slow (and why they have an unfair speed advantage on the straights–to compensate in overall time performance).
As a bonus, if they AI could drive properly it would teach new players how to be fast, better.
I have had the idea floating around for a while: the best base to program the AI’s approach from, could be a perfect intelligent steering algorithm also applied to gamepad steering.
I like the new update to sim pad steering. It’s very smooth in opposite lock. It’s also touchy. Part of it is the small range of input on a thumbstick the inherent twitchiness that brings. For that I would recommend adding a predictive element.
The analog stick can be more efficiently utilized as an interface as a 1-dimensional trajectory planner. If all usable, useful effects to the car’s trajectory were made available through the thumbstick, instead of the current system which often provides MORE options, limiting the input resolution for those options that are useful… It’s getting better don’t get me wrong. I hope they continue to improve it. When they do they might find the AI are easier to develop pathfinding for.
I still suspect the tires aren’t summing forces properly. There’s this feeling I get during opposite lock, when drifting, that the rear tires are generating too much forward grip. Something about them is too aggressive. That’s the best I can put it into words for you. It destabilizes the car somehow. <<What I’m saying is, I felt this almost off the bat when I first tried drifting with a wheel and I think it has nothing to do with controller steering or FFB. I don’t think FM7 has the same problem.