Power Pack = sripted AI again

[equalitus]

For context, I was fortunate enough to be with DICE during the development of Rally Sport Challenge. I wasn't on the team, but I did get information on development, so I can shed light on the questions in this thread (Just opinions because, obviously, PD is a different team, but racing game AI is generally the same).

Super easy. In fact that's what they do right now (until they are told to change, see below). If you want full race consistency, set up a custom Sophy race correctly and this is what they do for the most part. It's important to point out that this isn't a "script" but an emergent behavior.

What's the difference? A script is exactly that. It will be the same exact behavior every time. Emergent behaviour (as the name implies) emerges from the systems of the AI and it's directives. Coincidentally, I have started to push the emergent behviour in the custom races to see what I can get Sophy to do.

Here's the issue. This is as far from reality that one could get and much more difficulty (to hide) that you think. If you show up at a race IRL, the other competitors don't slow down. YOU have to go faster. Take this year's F1 season. Max didn't get slower, Lando and the McLaren got faster. People want an extremely realistic experience, while also making it as far from realistic as possible, and well, you can see the conflict.

The way Gran Turismo has always operated is that the AI stays (relatively) the same and the player tunes the car to be faster or slower. They set up the "race" to be reflective of how multiplayer (or real life) races play out. The starting position of each driver is a reflection of their skill level. Can you get them to change this behaviour? Yes. Give the back markers faster cars (in custom races) and watch them rip through the field. Their skills "improve" as they gain position.

Why not slow down the AI? You can see this most dramatically with the base AI. It will PARK in the corners. It doesn't flow naturally. Sophy is much better in all regards in terms of behaviour. Making Sophy less difficult means choosing places to obviously slow it down, like the straight, like the braking zones, etc.

This is what the OP is complaining about. Sophy had a lead, and then slowed down to allow the player to catch up. The slowing (the rubber band) is always going to be noticeable.

That's only with the base AI. Sophy doesn't do it.


Throw into all of this the general rules from Sony regarding game shipped for PS5. For instance, players needs to be able to complete the game. I can say that when the PP shipped, some of the 1 and 2 pepper races were impossible for me. It wasn't a show stopper, because you could still complete the game on 0 peppers, but that's why the patch came out so fast. It was likely in process before the PP launched.


So, in short, we need more people in the custom races (and I will bet MY LIFE that PD sees the usage numbers and the race data). IMHO, if we could get a hybrid of Custom Race Sophy and the PP Sophy, I think many of us would be happy. Make Sophy custom race (with boost) fast lap after lap, but maintain those consistent lap times regardless of how far it is from the player. It can be done.

While we players should be getting this option also, the main problem is that we cannot choose starting position, PP limit, tire, HP, weight. etc. If we could choose all that, we could choose exactly which faster car & the tune to make it just about fast enough when driving against Sophy 2.1 or Sophy 3.0.

 

[hawkeyez]

Gran Turismo's accessibility comes from the freedom of allowing a player to make the game easier on themselves. Some events have limitations, others don't. If you choose to make yourself faster because you find it too challenging, it makes no sense for the game to then speed up even more.

That’s the point of matching qualifying times and then having a degree of difficulty within that. You could mess with it a little bit like run very conservative laps but put it on the harder difficult of it matching your lap times then to win you’d need to possibly really push it. Or put it on easy and have a bit of a battle but basically knowing if you don’t mess up you’re probably going to win.

Seriously, try a Sunday cup race with an unmodified car that is under the suggested limit of 400pp. It might surprise you. Every event has a suggested PP and at those levels, it's usually a good race.

I’ve done that. It’s still a chase the rabbit experience.

But that's what all racing is. All racing is "chase the rabbit" in some form, racing is even where the term comes from (greyhound racing). If you go online, you are either chasing the rabbit, or you are the rabbit. No one will ever accept an AI that behaves like a person.

Nah, I’ve had some good races with friends where we are literally trading spots every few corners were so equally matched. Being on lap 3 and 15 seconds back and suddenly last lap comes around and your only 1-3 seconds back isn’t my idea of real or fun.

Here's what's in the game right now. I started 5th finished 10th. PD will never make events like this, because some will not be able to complete the game. They will leave it to the player to make it for themselves. FYI, these cars are all 650pp. 4 in the field are 655pp for an extra kick (and only 2 are at the front of the field at the start).

I’ll have to watch this later. I only managed to setup one good custom race which was Mustang versus mini at Goodwood. I’d take the Mustang in the corners but not on the straights. Took awhile to make it work though.

 

[snowgt]

for player skill level, have a sliding scale that would adjust ai lap times but retain this consistency. 10 being alien, 1 being 10 to 20 secs. slower.
this should appeal to those who'd still tune their max Godzilla to win big, yet still
allow those who prefer to tune a more balanced race.

That's exactly one of the biggest challenges with something like the Sophy AI. It's much easier to train Sophy to be at a certain level than it is to make it slower on demand. Sophy 1.0 was Sophy at full speed which they had to handicap with slower cars and tyres. Sophy 2.0 in Quick Races will race full speed for a lap and will then get a power cut in order to adapt to how far back you are. Once you pass the leader it gets full power back. (I don't even know how exactly it works in Custom Races with boost-levels)

For the PP-Sophy they tried to balance it (at least mostly) via different car tunes to adapt to different player levels. In the races I have been in, all cars seem to have kept the same pace in all sessions, but some posts on here seem to suggest that there is still some element of slowing down involved. I haven't been able to confirm that yet though. When I was close to the leader in 2nd, it certainly didn't slow down to give me a chance...

 

[Bojador]

Already in the game.

Not really. In custom races, to which I was referring to, you have 3 levels of difficulty. For me, Professional with BoP on is a good challenge since my pace is about the same as the AI. But I'm a B driver and I'm 1 to 2 seconds slower than an A+ driver. I doubt an A+ driver can have a decent challenge against Sophy in custom races if he doesn't use a nerfed car.

Edit: I know the option to nerf a car is there, but for some (myself included) is just anothet hassle that could be addressed with additional incremental levels of difficulty.