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812 as Ferrari 812 Superfast?

Just for curiosity, for upper S1 try stock '10 Ferrari 599 GTO or stock Pagani Huayra. So what does chancing player car have to do with Drivatars ramming you? Maybe nothing but still try them.

It's gimping players pretty badly in some Dirt RWD situations, like uphill left at Ambleside Scramble.

I just tried very bad RWD S1 car on unknown tracks against ubeatable and it was pretty bad. Now I understand that. I usually race Colossus, Goliath and Marathon and it's pretty good. Rubberbanding for shorter tracks is not that good.

812 Superfast yeah. That was just the RWD S1 I was using at the time. I've already tried many including the 599 GTO. Same deal happens. Can't get through the race without being violated by some drivatar who can't seem to take their loss with grace. Just lemme pass FFS. I'm clearly faster, you're not going to stop me. Stay off my paint! :/

Edited by user Wednesday, March 11, 2020 2:24:20 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yeah, I saw it today. I had the worst car but they don't care about me at all like always but it was more brutal then usual :D Some races are unwinnable on unbeatable for sure. The difficulty varies a lot which is not bad but you can't play on unbeatable and be the first all the time.

For the best S1 RWD experience I use Colossus in night with a heavy rain on unbeatable. It's usually very clean and you can win because of rubberbanding.

I am not sure, it's possible. Dirt will be my next target. On tarmac it works fine. It's based on grip so it could work worse on less grippy bumpy tarmac :D

I can win against unbeatables on Colossus, and Goliath all day long. It's the short sprints that irk me. There's always some clown ( and I absolutely mean clown cos when I let them win they're always dressed like a complete clown ) like a mile ahead of everyone, and the rest of the field is bent on keeping you behind them by any means available.

Edited by user Wednesday, March 11, 2020 5:23:29 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Used two A800 cars with different performance levels (the Mustang being one of the better RWD cars and the 911 being one of the worst) to visualize my points on my test track:




As can be seen despite the lap times difference being 14 seconds the AI was at the "drawing distance" for the whole second lap and thus nearly mirrored my lap time. Even with my A800 record holder (6:21 Buick GSX) it's the same. The AI then does the second lap in 6:19-6:23. Meaning it's impossible to lap AI on tracks with a lot of distance/area.
Another thing these two screens prove (and a reason I choose them):
Despite there being S1 and S2 cars (for whatever reason) once AI cars are at the "drawing distance" they completely lose theirs characteristics. That Ford Raptor was bouncing all over the place when I was near it due to its wonky suspension and it couldn't make the turns. The F40C shined in the turns while the Zonda C floored it on the straights. Once they are at "drawing distance" all of this doesn't matter anymore and neither does PI level. They all rubberband with the same speed through turns and on straights.

This guy...

18/ Richard Pagani Zonda S2 908

He used the same car both races... maybe related to the cars that he owns in the game?

Yet his lap times completely different, meaning that Ai matches your car no matter what car they drive?

Yes, it's not possible to win everything. I thought it's OK because I do trial every week but I use tuned cars and it's usually easy then. So for many situations you need to set different difficulty and still in some will have troubles :D Or use longer races where AI works pretty good.

And I mean without any assists. Yesterday I tried something in rain and the car slides even without rain too much.

Edited by user Thursday, March 12, 2020 2:47:45 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Street Scene is sometimes about luck due to it's nature. Still, when I did my test runs, for upper half of S1 Ferrari 599 GTO was definitely among the best cars. I needed only 23 - 24 races total (stock Ferrari 599 GTO, no ABS, TSC, etc, manual, sim steering) to complete all 21 Street Scene events (2-3 retries).


I took screencaps which are at page 50 - 46 here. I though you could use these as reference, never mind the Drivatars, but these times are from Winter. Anyway the first capture is Ambleside Ascent and the last one is the Marathon. stock Ferrari 599 GTO, no ABS, TSC, etc, manual, sim steering. Note that there are also captures from runs I lost and needed to retry.

One great Street Scene safe car on Unbeatable is Lexus we got recently. Screencaps from winning times for reference are in gallery linked above.

Same goes for Pagani I recommended and that was a Summer run, so times can be used for reference now, as it's Summer in Horizon. Needed 34 runs to win every Street Scene events with it, but I recall there was just something with that car that really made me test it's limits even when unnecessary and risks involved that sort of thing realised quite a few times. Chaotic nature of Street Scene get more and more like that as PI and speeds goes up.

I really recommend using Rewind.

That's what I was thinking. Oddity in Playlist event I mentioned occurred because devs set that event like that somehow.

I was earlier writing about preset time target for Drivatar cars, that they will try to achieve no matter what. I have though drawing distance as bubble and once Drivatars are outside of that rubber band / Drivatar force filed activates in full boost mode to make sure they achieve whatever finishing time bracket was set for them. That can happen on Sprint races too but usually Player is too far ahead to really notice.


I recalled other incident where I was actually able to lap a Drivatar, Ford Capri FE, due it flipping over, resetting, and flipping over again, then it just lied there on its roof. It was almost year ago I think when I was still playing on Pro. It was Dirt Scramble, Tarns Hows Scramble I did with stock Prodrive Porsche 959.

Edit: Still had a photo of it here. Porsche coming downhill on two wheels was mine. Trying bit hard LOL. But I recall that was one of the few times I saw DNF for Drivatar car in initial results screen after a long wait.

It's trivial in the big picture how Drivatars work though.

Edited by user Tuesday, March 24, 2020 12:20:10 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Added link to photo

I have been thinking about game difficulty and for tarmac races at least I think basic principle how dynamic AI works is the best approach for Horizon. It allows lot of things in single player. I attribute lot of questions and frustration coming from few oddities inconsistent with most tarmac races and that support here is more about tunes than racing lines, time targets and importance of clean racing. What comes to oddities, Peel vehicles in D-class might have been fixed, though don't quote me on that yet.

Drivatars in Dirt Racing and Cross Country are something I'm not going to invest time investigating. CC is obviously something else but I'm just one person.

It's been pondered in this topic what would make a better Drivatar and while I take anything that improves single player experience with stock/tuned whatever, some oddities aside, I think there's only so much that can be done in FH4 single player.

So I came to think of new game feature, basically mix of existing features with addition of racing against some of the best in Leagues, in sort of rivals mode.

Note that this is not a feature request, but I wish discussion about if what players think about an idea.

---

Feature draft for Playlist event:

- - - - - - - - - - - Tuning Challenge - - - - - - - - - - -

Synopsis:

Player(s) would be able to take their tuned cars against some of best times (average?) set by players in leagues 5 to Grand Master. Beating challenge could reward players with credits, wheelspins, vanity items, cars, etc. Reward system would be tiered in similar manner as in normal (not Trial) Championships on weekly Playlist.



Design

Single race or three race championship (no Freeroam Rush) on race events available in multiplayer from any event type (Road, Street, Dirt, CC) against about average times set by players in leagues 5 - 1 (Grand Master). Players wouldn't necessarily play against any single player in Leagues, but rather randomly named Drivatar opponents mirroring "about there" performance in leagues. Multiplayer car restriction rules would and wallriding penalties etc. from multiplayer would apply.

Player goal would be beating winning race / championship with whatever applicable car, with tune created their own or by someone else. (there's no possibility to reward players for using their own tune and/or restrict players using only tune created by their own?)

Drivatars in races wouldn't necessarily need to mirror racing lines used by players in leagues (as flag clipping, clutch kicking, etc might be impossible to implement) but would be set by other, whatever means, to reflect average finishing times in leagues. Feature would be more about opportunity to test tunes and performance against abstraction of League level speeds and give a hint of what leagues are, instead of being competitive feature.


Secondary goals

- Single player difficulty is fine like it is. Some oddities aside, no need to fix what isn't broken
- Players looking for challenge past Unbeatable/Trial would have more content to explore
- Multiplayer is convoluted, as that is likely by design, "Tuning Challenge" feature would bridge a gap between single- and multiplayer content and perhaps get more players interested about multiplayer. For more casual players, there would be something more to explore on Playlist, clear incentive to tune and get opportunity to test their skill level against somewhat league level performance.


Synergy

Single player (tuners)
Playlist - The Trial (faster Drivatars tend to be very good promoting clean racing).
Multiplayer

---

I'm going to let this here for comments and discussion for a few days before submitting feature request. Please comment and make suggestions!

Apparently the 2015 Ford Focus RS is also good as a cheat vehicle for the drivatar. I've seem them push 250 mph and above. No way that's possible

Are you doing Road or Street racing? What difficulty?

It's an issue with all track toys and extreme track toys. I've sent idk how many tickets in regarding this. Every drivatar in track toy races seems dialed to 11. Drives me nuts.

For Track Toys '16 BMW M4 GTS and '18 Lamborghini Huracán Performante are Street Scene safe vs Unbeatable bone stock. Stock BMW has issues with sidewalks in Edinburgh Street so it's good to adjust racing line accordingly. Lambo is all-arounder, also only AWD TrackToy IIRC. Anyway, that AWD explains a lot.

Stock ‘12 Porsche 911 GR2 RS is also very good for most situations.

There are some that turned out to be quite situational, like '16 Dodge Viper ACR. In stock configuration it has very poor acceleration after about 145 – 150 mph which renders it uncompetitive on high speed races. It was very good on more technical courses in Edinburgh, where top speed and acceleration past 120+ mph doesn't matter that much.

As rule of thumb, cars that are safe in Street Scene / Unbeatable tend to be that also in Road Racing.

Edited by user Wednesday, April 15, 2020 6:38:51 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Well known Problem with Unbeatable A.I. especially in Streetscene. One of the Reasons i reduced the Experience Level of the A.I. to "Very experienced". Less Rubberbanding, ramming , Break Checks and "Super Mario like Nitro Speed ups". They definitely beatable at some Point and in some Tracks but they should rename the A.I. at this Level to "Cheating A.I.".

Well known according to who?

Not every car is equal but it's not outright cheating. I did test run with selected bone stock cars from D-class to S1 vs Unbeatable. Results are here.

Some screenshots here: Pages 7 to 60.

For more recent cars, Lexus LFA is Street Scene safe and new Gunter Works Porsche Carrera 2. Ferrari Portofino can't make it in the Monument Wynds if there are AWD's ahead of it in starting grid, or at least I couldn't. Highland Charge was a real challenge with it too.

I asked for event type and routes to see if I could repeat the results and see if it's a glitch. It can happen in Street Scene that Drivatars can get ~6 seconds boost to their normal performance. Glitch can be identified by missing traffic and it can keep happening from race to race. So far it has been fixed by re-establishing connection to Horizon life. What connection has to do with single player, don't ask me.

How outright has it to be to be outright?..



Follow-Up

Edited by user Saturday, April 18, 2020 4:27:29 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Glitch is very rare to occur, say at least that only very few players here have brought it up to begin with. Definition of glitch in this context is "game not working like it should" but I'm sure you know that already and are posing intellectually dishonest one liner that contributes nothing to solving OP's problem just to flap your gums.

AI is outright cheating though, even on Unbeatable. That is very evident from the fact that you can take something like Dodge Hellcat, lot's of horse power but weights as much as a tank and handles like one too. It has the looks and power and... is garbage as sports car but players can win with it. You can actually take almost every car there is and win with it against Unbeatable, despite PI difference, despite driving RWD vs AWD.

So yes, that's Drivatar AI outright cheating, for players benefit. There.

For opposite, I just did playlist events vs. Unbeatable with stock cars. Pagani Zinque Roadster, Porsche 911 Carrera 2 Gunther Werks. For Street event I used '92 Honda NSX with body kit and it was boring. Did Street Scene run through with 992 Toyota Supra 2.0 GT Twin Turbo, won every event.

Didn't see cheating AI anywhere.

There's this thing with this whole Cult of Cheating Drivatars. Just like some UFO cult, I have never seen single screenshot, single video, no proof for it at all. I have found some genuine things but then nobody ever cares to replicate them so we could submit a ticket and get those inconsistencies fixed. Oh wait, cults don't really care about serves themselves. Then there is this whole social aspect, members buying whatever garbage story from other members and those evil facts would ruin that all. How awful of me!

Previous




This alone doesn't guarantee that the glitch is unlikely to occur in certain cases.



Do you expect the players themselves to fix the glitch?.. Regardless, one probable workaround has been provided:






I don't see how your reasoning is related.



Probably related with the car selection.


The AI's performance seems to be directly related with the Suggested Driving Line, despite which seldom really reflects the car's real performance.

When it's underrated, alright, easy game; but when overrated...


High power RWD cars with tricky handling (not bad handling potential (or good even...) but hard to handle), mostly heavily tuned ones, tend to suffer the "overrated" problem.



2 most observable:

• Leader Speed Boost (to the 1st place when you reach the 2nd, ignoring the car's real performance)
  
• Collision Immunity (just ram the Drivatars and see how invincible they are)

Follow-Up

Edited by user Saturday, April 18, 2020 4:23:40 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

One thing I keep seeing mentioned from ClawedScroll is using "stock" vehicles in all of his tests. Why "stock" instead of being built properly to each PI (D, C, B, etc.)? If you are choosing "stock", the A.I. will adjust accordingly.

Not many players run around in "stock" cars all the time, especially if they do any ranked races. I would like to see you pick a car or class (extreme track toys maybe) that has been mentioned to be an problem and build a car properly to fit, then do your tests and see what the results are. I bet there are a few differences.

Well, for Cross-Country races there is more than enough evidence about "cheating AI". In the sense of unreachable race times which would decimate the #1 Rivals time.



Try to achieve this lap time in D500 winter...you won't.

In Dirt, Road or Street I've never encountered it this extremely. There are some cars which are brutally fast off the line (Maverick for example) and I think it is safe to say the AI pace in Street is higher than in Road for whatever reason.

But so far I have to encounter a race in those 3 categories which isn't winnable. In most cases you can win against "unbeatable" AI with every car (obviously broken ones like the Reliant Robin or Rimac not considered).
Cross-Country on the other hand can be outright unwinnable as my posted picture shows. The reasons for this are widely known (draw distance of obstacles, snowy/watery surface and so on).

Like I wrote, it's very easy to identify glitch in single player by traffic cars disappearing. Very few reports of that.

Another method is taking screencaps from end race results. Exiting, letting game connect, racing the same race again with same car and setup, screen capping results and comparing to previous screencap. Assuming player finished second or third in first race and top three in second attempt, if there's a ~6 seconds boost for Drivatar time, there is a chance there is a glitch. So there would be evidence and case for ticket.

So far your method has been "umm... people feel like it so it must be true". What the heck are devs supposed to do with that? I sure as heck wish Playground Games doesn't "fix" anything based on feedback like that.


Oh, but it is, very. Like understanding the whole principle FH4 Drivatar AI is built around.




LOL no and it has nothing to do with racing line. See below.



Yeah, that happens. Usually doesn't mean anything what comes to winning the race though.


There are tables there. I also provided link to screenshots. I have done my best to provide data and I'm not responsible for action or inaction of others.

EDIT: Quotes you pasted from users Jerakeen and grolchie aren't data thread but entirely different topic related to Horizon season. You could have just write that not everybody reads long texts or if you have such an issue with yourself, instead of inserting quotes from unrelated thread from users whom probably even know their responses has been taken out of topic / context. So garbage in, but at least you practice what you preach.



My storage space at TrueAchievements is full but screencaps are published in my Xbox activity feed.

'15 Chevrolet Camaro (S1 818 stock and S1 900 upgraded).

Street Scene, Ambleside Ascent, Autumn (rain), Unbeatable, no aids, manual.

Stock: - 1st. 2:26.864
Drivatar 2nd: 2:27.249

S1 900: 1st. 2:09.897
Drivatar 2nd: 2:13.602

Win margin:
Stock: 0:1.615
S1 900: 0:4.295


Road Racing, Lake District Sprint, Spring, default blueprint (Autumn, Track toys), Unbeatable, no aids, manual.

Stock: -1st: 2:21.475
Drivatar 2nd: 2:23.644

S1 900: 1st 2:06.210
Drivatar 2nd: 2:08.880

Win margin:
Stock: 0:2.169
S1 900: 0:2.670

For Ambleside Ascent Unbeatable difficulty poses a challenge, strategical one. Drivatars can finish it couple secs faster but I leave winning strategy with car like that '15 RWD Camaro to be discovered for those who... like to play the game.



S1 900 is just a bunch of upgrades without any tuning and has limited stop speed at Lake District. With S1 900 Drivatar finishing in second position wasn't even visible in minimap at some point. Huge boost happened just to keep it somehow in the race.

'15 Camaro setup share code: 936 177 983


I answered your question because benefit of a doubt, though I wonder why you didn't tested it yourself if you are so curious.

Challenge by human players in ranked is something else compared to Unbeatable. Only worth scenario in single player compared to ranked is Unbeatable stock for two reason.

1. Learn to work on routes, work arounds, best racing lines, which depends of car and isn't always suggested one, with something that isn't what you necessarily want but what you have
2. Drivatar AI in FH4 compensates for bad tunes even on Unbeatable and thus may give misleading understanding of real competitive potential of car/tune for ranked.

So just FYI: Watering down Unbeatable difficulty would negatively impact / eliminate potential competition in ranked from players that are new to game.

Edited by user Friday, April 17, 2020 6:20:46 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified