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.

 

[Voodoovaj]

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.

I'm an A+ driver and I posted the video

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.

You're just shifting the difficulty from the player regulating themselves, to the game regulating it for you, and that will never work with hundreds of cars and MILLIONS of resulting variations. The best course of action is what they did in GT Sport and give the player a bonus for using a slower car.

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.

Watch my vid

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.

Yes, this is the downside of the custom races. It is an experience unto itself and requires effort to get it right. Still, my point is that all these features that people are asking for is there. In fact, it's the one feature that truly brings the rest of the features into focus. Why buy a 20mil credit GTO or 917? To make a custom race. Why work on all those liveries? For the custom races. Why tune a car? Custom race.

 

[Bojador]

I'm an A+ driver and I posted the video

But you nerfed your car right?

 

[Voodoovaj]

But you nerfed your car right?

Nope. 16 of 20 cars in my video are 650pp, including mine. 4 are 655pp. I find that adding a few cars with a slight edge makes everything more interesting. I set my races up with slight variations in the cars, but I don't nerf myself. I want to be able to use any car in the garage without having to adjust.

Not to mention, some cars are inherently imbalanced, like the Lambos and Panteras in the video. At 650pp, they are fast in a straight line and most people would nerf them.

 

[Bojador]

Nope. 16 of 20 cars in my video are 650pp, including mine. 4 are 655pp. I find that adding a few cars with a slight edge makes everything more interesting. I set my races up with slight variations in the cars, but I don't nerf myself. I want to be able to use any car in the garage without having to adjust.

Not to mention, some cars are inherently imbalanced, like the Lambos and Panteras in the video. At 650pp, they are fast in a straight line and most people would nerf them.

That's interesting. One thing I don't have an answer yet is if Sophy adjusts its pace according to yours. Example, when I run my WEC grid of Gr3 with BoP on and 2 Gr1 cars as rabbits, the AI pace is 2 seconds off when compared with A+ drivers on that track on RH tyres. I always thought an A+ driver would destroy Sophy in that race.

 

[Dena RACING]

I personally faced some very strange AI behavior during the 6 Hours of Suzuka. I was happy with my P3 on the grid (I chose the slowest car with two spices). At the start, even though I had a great launch, I lost five positions, with the cars behind me passing me easily, as if I were standing still (even though they were slower than me in qualifying).

Then, during the race, cars under blue flags, one or even two laps down, were suddenly able to catch me and pass me like rockets. Really. I was like, WTF?

Later, in the twisty sections, I was clearly faster and had several opportunities to pass them, but instead they started duelling me, gaining speed again so I couldn’t get by. Every time I finally managed to overtake them, one or two laps later (still under blue flags) they would challenge me again and blast past me on the straights. Sometimes they even pushed me off the track (did I mention they were under blue flags? 😉).

Because I didn’t want them to get back in front of me before the technical sections where they would slow me down again I eventually had no choice but to force them wide just to continue my race and try to catch P5.

Twenty laps later, the same cars were passing me again like rockets with impossible top speed on the straights, except now they were three laps down and still under blue flags.

I honestly can’t understand this. I’m really, really disappointed with this Power Pack. Where is the challenge if this sophisticated deep learned AI 3.0 is "cheating/scripted" to "fakery" (does it exists in English??) challenge me, while I am already challenged to gain P5 or P4 with the pace in front of me... It just make me think those endurance races got nothing to offer instead of giving satisfaction. So sadly I wont do the other endurance races. PD just lost me.

 

[hawkeyez]

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...

Sounds like they’re trying to adjust in real time. If you set a qualify time, then before the race starts it does a quick little test (I would even wait a minute or so if it meant a nice close battle) to be matching your time/speed around the track.

Rather than, oops I’m too far ahead I better slow down or I’m too far behind I better become a rocket.

If they take the time to analyze your qualifying time, no matter what car you bring, it’s always going to be a race. I know there’s a ton of iterations of cars with its tunes, hence the reason for them grabbing the car you used for qualifying and using your tune, slap on 15 premade liveries for that car to further enhance the feeling like your in a race. Boom done. If they can train it to do that that is.

Now you have races against Sophy in all P4’s or 917’s or that Camaro you turned into a rocket. They’ll just have to premake some livery’s for each car. If they don’t want to do it, hire me I’d gladly do it haha

 

[hawkeyez]

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).

Watched it. I think I’m missing your point and you’re missing mine. Haha.

First, that a custom race no? So it took a considerable amount of time for you to setup different cars, make liveries for and test your settings until you thought you got it right. Only to fall back 5 positions.

I’d argue that’s not in the game right now, it’s in the game because you took the time. I haven’t spent much time with custom race but enough to know it’s a bit of a process. My teams am race. I put myself in the back, takes me about 5 laps to work my way to the front if I race very clean. But once I get there, the boss Mustang is gone. So I swapped it for the Daytona, same thing gone, I keep swapping it out with another car and because it takes me so long to get there it’s just gone. I do enjoy the first 5 laps though. But I never win.

I can set it up so I win or so I lose but it’s usually not a battle for first. I used to get battles for first in project cars using the difficulty slider. But once you get faster you do a race and find shoot I have to increase that slider some and then it’s back to hmmm how fast am I now in relation to this slider.

My thought is you qualify and it essentially adjusts that slider for you. But you still have a difficulty choice of how much battle do you want for first so people can still complete the game. Easy being you’ll probably win. Medium, it’s a fight but if you’re good chances are you’ll win. Hard being it might take you a few tries but you will get it because they might mess up.

Which brings me to my next point, I think they need to build in some kind of feeling the pressure into the AI if they haven’t already. Racing some randoms online, I’ve resorted to that tactic before. Run close behind for a lap don’t take any opportunities to pass and next thing you know they flub up and I just drive on by. Just had to be patient.

 

[benjoi84]

Run close behind for a lap don’t take any opportunities to pass and next thing you know they flub up and I just drive on by. Just had to be patient.

This is the point i made earlier in the thread about AI.
I just don't see these random occurrence as being something that can be "programmed in" using the current technology.

But then again, i know nothing about the subject.

 

[hawkeyez]

This is the point i made earlier in the thread about AI.
I just don't see these random occurrence as being something that can be "programmed in" using the current technology.

But then again, i know nothing about the subject.

I don’t know if you can program in humanness into AI racing but I’m sure they could do a “IF opponent is X distance behind for longer than X amount of time, botch a corner but at random like 1 out of 5 times it might screw up” obviously that ain’t code but you get my drift. Haha.

I’m sure it’s all very complicated. I’m just putting it out there incase it never crossed their mind. Sometimes people approach a problem one way because they have their blinders on, some person that knows nothing about the topic or how to execute anything suggests something (obviously can’t do it themselves) and the person that can goes hey why didn’t I think of that.

That’s my suggestion. It can either be done or not but…. qualifying setups up the AI difficulty for you, you still have a small parameter of difficulty to choose from there. Such as the AI on easy will run your qualify time once or twice but generally be a little slower. Medium it runs pretty consistent to your lap times. Hard it runs your lap times but with some slightly faster times too.

Now throw into the mix the AI feeling some pressure and flubbing up.

I think it boils down to having them corner well, usually they are slow in the corners I find. Maybe the latest Sophy ones are not.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Watched it. I think I’m missing your point and you’re missing mine. Haha.

No, I think you're just missing the grand point.

As of December, there is 556 cars. There's 200 units of additional weight, 30 units of power adjustment through the ECU and another 30 through the power adjuster. That's 180,000 variations per car, and 556 cars, means over 100 million variations in all. Not to mention the power mods than can be added, the weight that can be lost, etc. etc. All that shoots the variations through the roof, then add to that the millions of variations in players. The variable are astronomical.

With qualifying, given the astronomical variations, if a player skips qualifying, how fast should the AI go? What information does the AI have access to to determine a proper pace? It makes FAR FAR FAR FAR more sense to let the AI just do it's thing, and then allow the player to buff or handicap themselves as they see fit, which is what the game does now.

Again, using Sunday Cup as the example, because it's supposed to be the easier event, if I enter with an F3500 (which is currently allowed) should the AI all switch to F3500's as well? Then what is the theme of this race? What is the theme of any race? If you then say that there should be limits, well, that brings us back to where we are now. There are limits in some races, and merely suggestions for others. If you're saying qualifying should make a comeback, like it has in the power pack, it will get skipped in no time. People are already complaining about it after (literally) decades of asking for it.

We can argue that PD should have more standing start events. Or they should have a randomizer for the starts so you aren't always working your way up from the back. Or, they should implement more of the boost effect to make the races more tense. At the end of the day, the variables are enormous.

That's why they give us the custom races.

Now throw into the mix the AI feeling some pressure and flubbing up.

I think it boils down to having them corner well, usually they are slow in the corners I find. Maybe the latest Sophy ones are not.

"Flubbing ip" was happening in the Power Pack when it released. I was racing the 2 pepper civics at Suzuka and watched the leader push too hard into T2. Then the world cried that it was too hard. Now the AI doesn't make those mistakes in the power pack. They still make mistakes in the custom races, but not the same as when 1.65 launched.