Is there a way to configure arcade mode to get fair races...

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...when using cars from your garage that you've set to favorite?

I've noticed that when you choose one of the preselected arcade mode cars you always seem to get a fair lineup. But when I choose a car from my garage I tend to get set up to race cars between 50 and 100 PPs higher than the car I'm in.

It's not *always* like that, but more often than not it seems to be.

Has there been any talk of an increased number of configuration options allowing you to set parameters like year range, specific makes, a PP range?
 
I remember on the PSP GT this was sadly the standard way things worked. You pick a car that is nice/old/interesting to drive - you hit the track and BAM!!! Every AI is laughing at you as they disappear into the horizon...

GT (Had all except no4) Which I love and find the most interesting game ever... Gives you every car under the sun, But for the life of me they never allow you to get a fair race against the AI.

Back in the old days one of the PS1 versions had something called "Track Synthesizor?" that you could unlock. Maybe one day they bring this back?
 
Take your desired car, buy all upgrades for it (except engine tuning). Go into car settings and remove them.
Now go to arcade and start a race, open settings on the race menu and apply the parts you bought untill things are even.
Also mess about with the power limiter.
 
A recent update gives the option to set AI strength in settings menu from the home page. I set mine to level 10 and pick A-professional race. I think the number of laps affect how the AI run. The Mazda Roadster at Autumn Mini is a good race, but same car at LaSarthe, and the AI leaves you sitting still. But, I find most of my "favorites" tend to be overpowered, though. Like maSonn09 says, you have to run a few laps to see whats going on. The AI still tend to take corners way to slow but arcade is alot more fun since the update.
 
If it's like in GT PSP, it has to do with tire selection. If your favorite car is equipped with racing softs expect the AI cars to be way superior. Try choosing sport tires and you should have more matched competition.
 
This will get long, I can't help myself. Anyway, maSonn09's post got me to finally figure this out. While adding a bunch of power components to keep up will get a more competitive race, it is still a less than perfect solution. But messing with the power limiter can actually get at least close to the races I want.

My example: I'm sure I'm the only person in the world to want this(just ask PD), but I would really like to be able to race the car in my driveway(ok 1 year different) in a competitive race of my choosing. I also don't want to race a car that looks like mine but has an extra 100 horsepower, I want to race mine. I'd also like to be able to just race whatever car I want. But I can't, since PD gave us a great engine with lots of great cars and very little to do with any of them offline. They also gave us AI in A-Spec that in only a tiny few events - if any - ever drives at the best level they are capable of and that slam on the brakes constantly any time you get near them. This means racing what few events your car might fit into in A-Spec will still be largely unenjoyable.

Unfortunately if I pick my stock '97 Camaro Z28 with CS tires and go to Arcade mode on professional, the opponent list is littered with NSXs and Elises that I can't hope to keep up with even on my best track. After 30 minutes or so at the Nordschleife I'll be a couple of minutes behind even driving fairly well. If I set it to intermediate, it's the same cars but the AI drives like complete idiots and I can take the lead in 5 minutes or less driving poorly and then drag them via a rubber band for the rest of the race.

So after reading maSonn09's post I tried setting my power limiter to 75%, taking 70hp away from the car. When I started the race, I only had 1 NSX and it was a '91 which I thought was slower than the later models. I put the power back to 100% and wound up having a good fun race. There were still only a couple cars that were truly fast enough to fight for the win, but I was able to gain on the leader which is what matters. It took about a lap and a quarter of the 24 hour course to catch the NSX, then another 1 1/4 laps to get around cleanly(without slipstreaming past on the big straights). I was much faster but didn't drive my best race and raced him fair as well. I didn't want perfect I just wanted to see if it would work. The fact that I had a fun race that accidentally happened to be basically a 3-lap 24-hour race was a nice bonus.

Then I quit and reloaded at 100% limiter. The Elises and late 90s NSXs were back and in my best splits I was only able to not lose time. I lost 10-13 seconds in the remainder of the first lap after I had cleared traffic. This on a lap that was 20 seconds faster overall than the first one in the previous race.

So I reloaded at 75% again and it was the same as before, one '91 NSX that I could gain on easily.

Finding the exact right balance will of course be difficult, but this method allows you to actually use whatever car you want and get a race that is at a good level for you while the AI drives as good as it can. You also still will be stuck with a stupid field of unmatched cars with a couple of rabbits who are your only real competition. But, until PD decides to act like a professional game developer instead of a group of friends who are really good at making pretty car models and a mostly enjoyable, reasonably accurate physics engine but not the slightest clue of how to actually make a racing game, it will have to do. And it will do nicely. Now if only we could get the option to use weak slipstream and turn off AI catch-up.


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OK, rant/novel over. TL;DR: Arcade mode has a very pathetic excuse for a difficulty system and yes, that(among many other things) is entirely the fault of PD who have been doing this long enough to be expected to make a game that works properly. But if you power limit your cars before loading a race in Arcade mode and then go back to 100% once it loads you can fine-tune the cars you will be racing so that you can, in fact, configure Arcade mode to get fair races. :)
 
I posted a thread about this.., but I wasn't so nice about it either and it got locked. I (like you and many others) am extremely frustrated with the Arcade Mode because it's so poorly done.

Tire selection is a big one. If you go in there with stock tires.., well be prepared to watch the AI blast right by you. Plus the system certainly does unfairly stack the race against you. That's why you end up with some cars racing against each other that in real life have no business sharing a track.

There is a also a very obvious rubber-banding effect going on too. As stated.., once you pass them and take first you can watch the AI go BOING BOING BOING behind you.

I'm hoping PD listens and does an overhaul to the Arcade Mode. It really can be something good if they just make some tweaks to it.
 
In every race I've run so far, the AI used the same tires I used. I've often thought however that the AI tends to be "better" at driving on comfort tires than racing tires.
 
Had the same gripe a while back. Found that adding weight / ballast by about 100kg makes the higher end races closer.
 
I think it depends on the track too... Trial Mountain, Deep Forest seem to be pretty easy to beat the AI, whereas on tracks like Tokyo or Suzuka the AI does a pretty good job driving.

Other things like transmission (which doesn't affect your PP or the selected opponents) can have a big effect - a stock car with a poorly set-up transmission for a particular track would be a pretty big handicap.
 
Thanks for the comments guys, I didn't realize that there was actually an AI strength setting to fiddle with. I'll also play with the ballast and power limiter to see what I can do.

I'm the type who prefers to set up my arcade races with stock-ish cars. When I use a favorite car usually the only modification I allow myself is the fixed sport suspension upgrade.

For me the replay value of this game would increase dramatically if I were able to get down to the specifics of the cars I race against. It's frustrating when I break out my '90 RX-7 and it gets matched up with NSXs and FD RX-7s.

It doesn't even seem like this type of upgrade would be too terribly difficult to implement.
 
Being able to pick the opponents would be nice, yeah. Entering with a crippled car will get better front running competition but you still get wierd things like the Range Stormer in my test race.

Of course, you can't ever really have a race with the same cars as you because they are so slow, though they are faster than A-spec. You have to have at least run ballast to be fair.

Would be great to have something more than now since there is a HUGE gap between Intermediate and Pro. If not picking each opponent, something like choosing the top PP and then picking "close match"/"wide PP range"/"same class" or something to set the field type would work for me. Maybe add options for year range or fully random(below set PP?).

I don't expect Arcade to be a priority since not as many people play it. More might if buying cars wasn't such a grind or if they knew it's better than A-spec. But they did add the aggressivity slider so maybe there's some slight hope.
 
I guess my dream is to be able to create my own "Japanese '90's Challenge" races, or my own historic racing including only the Ferrari, Ford, and Jag and none of the other cars the game throws in. Maybe I could create my own "Boost Buggy Cup" and only allow STis and EVOs.

So the frustration and not being able to get a fair race in the cars I want to drive is only the start of it, but the solution can offer a lot more.
 

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