I finally have something to report. It does seem that something has changed the bot "attitude" in the update.
Taking the BRZ GT300 base model racecar into the I-A GT300 race at Deep Forest, I found that I was racing more aggressively than I usually do because the sense of pace of the cars were more intense, and they weren't just obstacle passing fodder to making first. I restarted, did my usual gentlemanly race against the bots, and won. But the cars all kept up a good pace throughout the race, even though they struggled a bit around the curves more or less as usual. I was pleased though to see that the bots didn't slam on the brakes around turns very much, and I could follow them much more closely without getting brake checked too much. The race results bore this out, as the difference between second and 14th was only eight seconds. There were clumps of grouped cars with short gaps between them, but there was quite a train behind me of cars, making it look and feel more like a sim race than usual.
I entered the series of races, and things changed a lot, though I figured out that it was due to the C-West RAZO Silvia being smack in the middle of the pack. It caused quite a jumble in the lap times of the bot cars because they were caught trying to get around this slow car, and the rest raced off. Restarted, making sure that it was paced back in the field, and things went much better. And the races I won handily before in the BRZ were more of a challenge. The cars were all more aggressive, attempting to pass me to get their places back, and often did for a time. In particular, the Gariyas, BRZs and RX7s were quite, dare I say it, tenacious, and fought me much of the way until I could use a curve to get some distance on them.
I won the Deep Forest race again by a fair margin, but the Fuji event, I finished 3rd behind the ARTA Gariya and the liveried BRZ. The BRZ went flat out down the straight and I was positioned too close to get a draft boost to get around it so I followed it to the finish line.
For some reason, the bots race differently on Motegi than on other tracks, which is curious because the turns are mostly routine, even for the bots, and there are lots of straights to give them a chance to fly. However, they did better than they did prior to the update, and didn't veer out of the racing line as they did previously, but stayed in the racing line and used drafting to their advantage. The second place bot surprised me with a pass right at the finish line to steal my win.
Suzuka was another somewhat close race, with a satisfying train of cars chasing after me much of the race. Managed to win, but was still third in the points total, tied with a bot. The Nurburgring GP course was a surprisingly feisty race, with a number of little battles for position, one of which took me out briefly. Got back on the track and managed to nab second place, for a second place in points when it was all over.
I repeated those races a lot with similar results, because when I kept the RAZO Silvia back in the pack, a car that's always in the list, the competition is always much better and the field closer. Typically, the first 12 cars finish on Deep Forest within nine seconds or less of each other. On Fuji, the first eight to ten cars are within nine seconds of each other. On Motegi, they tend to be slower and group in clumps, so the first five or so are within nine seconds. On Suzuka, results are similar to Fuji. The twisty Nurb GP course is less of a challenge to the bots than Motegi, and typically I find six or seven cars within nine seconds of first.
I didn't get as much time as I wanted to spend on the 550-ish PP range for the Dream Car Championship, I believe the first I-A series, but again, Motegi seems to have something hard coded into it to spread the bots out more than usual, not sure why. But the bots do a better job than before of following the racing line, not veering out of it for no reason, and taking turns a little more sensibly.
It does seem that some ranges of cars and certain tracks have something to do with bot behavior, something I hadn't expected, so I'll be returning to this subject again soon. In any case, this feels like a fresher racing experience to me, and a welcome update.
