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Samus made a rather lengthy post analyzing a couple of my replays, racing against the bots in some of the I-A series. In some of them, I used lesser powered race cars or gimped them to the point that they were roughly "homologated" or performance matched to the lead car. Most of them were "race modified" sports cars brought to some sort of performance parity. Fortunately it didn't take much time to find the sweet spots for those cars, or it could have taken ages.
Here are my replays in case anyone wants to watch them. I think there are 24 of them - yes, a lot, but there are a number of unique situation in many of them in which the bots surprised me by trying to beat me. If this is too big or you don't want to fuss with such a big download, I'll see if Dropbox will let me post the individual folders.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cdq3tc87ejpv5xe/Replay-1.zip
Here are Samus' instructions on how to get them into your PS3 to watch and analyze. Note that this is a Zip file, so your PC has to un-zip them first, which will produce about 24 folders, I think.
On a USB stick you need to make a PS3 folder, a SAVEDATA folder inside that and then all the BCJSXXXXX folders in the ZIP file go inside that. That's all I've done so far, from there I THINK you can just use the in game importing thing, otherwise you just copy them from the stick into the PS3 Save Data folder on the XMB.
Here is is critique of a few replays:
I'm sure there is a double entendre in there somewhere. Anyway, the laps:
TenD :
1. 1.53.8
2. 1.51
3. 1.53.7
4. 1.52.9
5. 1.51.8
Jag:
1. Impossible to say exactly because it starts past turn two, but approximately 1.56/7 based on simple maths
2. 1.57.7
3. 1.56.0
4. 1.54.4
5. 1.53.3
So the Jag did get progressively faster as the race went on however it was still well under it's potential and still slower than TenD for every lap.
Here are the numbers for my effort:
Me:
1. 1.55.1
2. 1.50.9
3. 1.51.9
4. 1.51.5
5. 1.50.1
Jag/Merc
1. Again an estimated 1.56/7
2. 1.57.4
3. 1.57.0
4. 1.54.8
4. 1.50.4
So again it got faster towards the end of the race when I got closer but started out very slowly, and perhaps compensated for my slow first lap by having a slower third lap but since I got past it the final lap was considerably faster.
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Tenacious D , do you have any thoughts on the analysis? I also watched another replay, I chose this time one with equal cars to see how that went and to be honest without giving a full breakdown it does seem the simple reason you have more fun with the AI is that the locked in default difficulty is closer to your skill than it perhaps is for other people, in both directions. I watched the race with the Phoenix Audi GT3 at Nurburgring, again you seemed quite cautious and I did the race afterwards, and lapped 2.5 seconds quicker than you, even though the stock handling of that car I find awful.
So yes, to me there are four clear points to improving the AI and single player experience for everyone.
1. Removing all forms of rubberbanding/AI slowing/speeding up on purpose
2. Removing the staggered start, either add standing starts or realistic double file rolling starts
3. Adding some difficulty levels, perhaps two more above the current one and two below. Certainly at least one either way.
4. Make sure all AI cars are equal and as close to the race PP limits as possible
If you imagine the first race I analysed with 1 and 2 in place you'd have started mid way down the grid perhaps but only a few seconds behind the Jagaur. However rather than catching it the Jaguar would've performed to it's ultimate ability and flown away, neither of us would have got close to it. Therefore we could've entered the race with a car similar to the Jaguar and had a true close race, with similar performance in both the straights and corners. With 3 in place I could have increased the difficulty to have a harder race and with 4 in place passing the rest of the cars wouldn't have been such a breeze for either of us. Like I said in the analysis, flying around the outside of other cars with no effort is not fun.
Now, a few points about his write-up. While it's true that I'm a "cautious" racer, this is more or less my style. I just can't keep up with the likes of Mike Rotch who tends to lead online packs by 30 seconds in a 10 lapper around Spa, for instance. I'm roughly upper crust in C class in the WRS, and manage to be quicker than some of the slower B class guys.
Another factor is that I've been in a couple of fairly serious car wrecks in the past few years, and the result of this is that I tend to take collisions more seriously, rather like Tiff Needell who bunched up in one virtual wreck. My first wreck in particular happened in the rain, and I ate a first gen airbag which is too much like taking a punch to the face. Ever since then, racing in rainy weather in games makes me quite nervous.
Another is that racing in the very fastest cars or racing on "The Edge Of Doom" is nerve wracking. Because of this, I can't play Formula 1 games because they give me the shakes and literal headaches from the stress. Needless to say, I haven't done any of the Red Bull prototype events in GT6 yet. Even doing the Mercedes-Benz Vision GT Event gave me the shivers.
Yet another factor is that my "race modded" cars are often rather slippery on Racing Hards, which makes things fun. A few cars are also quite a handful, like the Team Phoenix Audi R8, which I would otherwise love dearly, but you either need to run it with the assists on or do some serious tuning to it to keep the nose aimed forward. If that wasn't enough, I also tend to race around the bots in a gentlemanly way, and don't scrape my way past them, though I will on occasion take some crazy chances.
So with all that in mind, his analysis is pretty good. I agree completely that the bots need a tune up, as does the racing structure in general. GT5 had standing start races in Arcade Mode, and these should return. Because of the various levels of skill among racing gamers, I agree that levels of difficulty should be a part of Gran Turismo beginning with GT7. With properly built bots, rubber banding shouldn't be involved, though I think the only real RB-ing going on in GT6 are from the lead bots slowing down for you. Get a dozen car-lengths lead on them, and they tend to give up and snooze through the rest of the race. Because of this on a typical five lap race, the difference between first and last can be as much as a minute and a half! The field of bot cars should be much closer, giving you a race where you have to fight through packs of cars that chase after you to some extent.
He also mentioned the silly disparity between cars between first and last. Races really shouldn't be a hodge podge of random vehicles. They should be "league specific" like all DTM or ALMS, and "homologated" so their performance is very close. PD needs to add in enough race cars that a field has cars from a single league, or in some cases, two classes but not all that different, such as GT500 and 300 in a race.
Now, he also mentioned that he didn't care for the methods used in this thread, but until PD takes these ideas and implements them in some form or fashion, this is pretty much what we're stuck with. I've had a blast myself, but I'm also much happier overall with GT6 as a racer. It doesn't mean that I don't want a LOT of improvements, and those promised features added in, but for what it is now, GT6 is still the best racer for me in my library.
Hopefully PD will take these suggestions to heart for the next Gran Turismo on PS4.
