Rubberband AI?

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torontoml
Stupid question and I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but what is rubberband AI?
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Rubberband AI is when the opponents you're racing against catch up to you when they should be way behind. Lets say I'm racing someone 1 on 1 and we are neck and neck, I spin my opponent into a wall and he is way behind me. On the next lap I would find my opponent right behind me even though I am driving the car to it's absolute limits. I think the Burnout games had A.I. similar to this, I haven't noticed it to much while playing GT.
 
noob616
GT has had rubberband AI since it's started, unfortunately. I hope GT5 won't...
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GT4 didn't have rubberband AI. As far as I know, GT1-3 and GTPSP did. GT5P has it on the beginner and intermediate online races, but not the expert/professional races. Not sure about offline.

torontoml
Stupid question and I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but what is rubberband AI?
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theM3rcenary
Rubberband AI is when the opponents you're racing against catch up to you when they should be way behind. Lets say I'm racing someone 1 on 1 and we are neck and neck, I spin my opponent into a wall and he is way behind me. On the next lap I would find my opponent right behind me even though I am driving the car to it's absolute limits. I think the Burnout games had A.I. similar to this, I haven't noticed it to much while playing GT.
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It's where your opponents adjust their speed depending on where they are in relation to you, to keep races close. If you are beginning to get ahead, they will speed up. If they are beginning to get ahead, they will slow down to let you catch up.

Its stupid in my opinion, why this feature should be in any game, it makes them harder i've noticed. Need for Speed is a killer when it comes to Rubberbanding, but it only seems to affect them if they are behind you, which is very odd. :grumpy:
 
Here's a good summary of what's Rubberband AI. It's taken from an article written by Eduardo Jimenez, "The Pure Advantage: Advanced Racing Game AI". Jimenez was one of the programmer for Black Rock Studio's Pure:

Rubber Band

When developing the AI in Pure, we wanted to create a system which always provided convincing, fair and interesting races for the player. We wanted to challenge the player by spreading out the field, while keeping rivals close but not punishing them too much for making mistakes. Races in video games need to be managed well to make them exciting; otherwise the player will almost always stay ahead or fall behind the pack and stay there.

Rubber banding is a system that tries to maintain the tension and thrill of the race by keeping the AI characters around the player. It does so by reducing (drastically) the velocity, cornering skills, obstacle avoidance, etc., of the AI characters in front of player, and increasing (just as drastically) the skills of the ones behind.

Usually rubber band methods rely predominately on speed changes, and so are often criticized because it's obvious when AI riders are going superhumanly fast or brain dead slow.

This method is very effective, as it keeps players surrounded for the whole race. It has an important downside: it's not fair, and that unfairness is easy to spot. It can easily break the illusion of fairness in the race. No matter how well a player does during the first 75% of the race, everything is decided by how they perform at the end. A single mistake in the last section can cost the player the whole race.

On the other hand, no matter how many mistakes the player makes at the beginning, there is still a chance of winning the race. The result: players can get frustrated and feel the competition is not fair. Given all this we rejected using rubber band.
 
To be honest, some games need Rubberband AI, like Burnout, to keep the races exciting....but GT doesn't need it.

I think, instead of using rubberband, the Ai of a game should be good enough to compete with the player. Basically, the AI is just as good as the player themselves, therefore presenting a more realistic challenge.
 
Chagen46
To be honest, some games need Rubberband AI, like Burnout, to keep the races exciting....but GT doesn't need it.

I think, instead of using rubberband, the Ai of a game should be good enough to compete with the player. Basically, the AI is just as good as the player themselves, therefore presenting a more realistic challenge.
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Have you played Prologue? (race S10 in particular?)

I would say that is mission accomplished. Lets just hope the AI is like that in GT5. Though, without the rabbits that blast off at un-natural speeds, just have all the AI go that fast, or none at all, don't make there be one single car that I have to catch, it's tedious.
 
Seismica
Mariokart Wii has no rubberbanding. Fact!

(Though it doesn't need it, the ones losing the race repeatedly get blue mushrooms etc. :p)
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The rubberbanding is in the items, the further down you go the more likely you are to get better items, thats to keep it fair, and fun too :)

Then you pull off a faultless lap and you're way ahead of the rest, once managed to get over 8 seconds ahead of 2nd place on Rainbow road, as there were no blue shells

sorry for off topic, but if Nintendo can pull it off, then surely Sony/PD can... right?
 
Raagentreg
The rubberbanding is in the items, the further down you go the more likely you are to get better items, thats to keep it fair, and fun too :)

Then you pull off a faultless lap and you're way ahead of the rest, once managed to get over 8 seconds ahead of 2nd place on Rainbow road, as there were no blue shells

sorry for off topic, but if Nintendo can pull it off, then surely Sony/PD can... right?
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Mariokart Wii, I used to play this game at my mate's house. He's not really into driving games like I am, and this is the only one he really liked. But, Bowser + Bowser Bike = I win. Every race. It was no contest, and made a nice change to fighting/shooting games which we normally play, and which I normally suck at.

My friend later sold this game :grumpy: Now he has a PS3, I keep bringing prologue with me everytime I visit, but he hasn't agreed to play yet, not once. He knows he will lose :p
 
There should be an option in the OPTIONS menu where you choose it as ON and OFF.

Its great for 2-3 lap racing, if you want more challange. OFF is good for endurance racing if you want challenge.
 
Seismica
Have you played Prologue? (race S10 in particular?)

I would say that is mission accomplished. Lets just hope the AI is like that in GT5. Though, without the rabbits that blast off at un-natural speeds, just have all the AI go that fast, or none at all, don't make there be one single car that I have to catch, it's tedious.
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I agree that race (S10) is closest to perfect in terms of difficulty. I have been playing some arcade races lately where you can adjust how difficult the opponents are, and I found that to work out pretty well. I raced recently at Eiger in a Mitsubishi Evo IX and had a heck-of-a-time closing-in on a runaway Honda NSX. But what was more interesting was the computer-driven tuned-Lotus Elise that followed me from 8th place all the way to third (behind me in second). Then when I overtook the NSX that car overtook the same NSX (for second) a few corners later. Although, the opponents other than the NSX and the Lotus were quite-a-ways back behind us. Anyhow, I think that shows how PD's AI has definitely progressed since GT4, and I'm sure we'll see it evolve for the better with the release of GT5.
 
lol at the mariokart thing!
How i hate mariokart, easily the hardest racing game EVER! my best finish was 11th... lol
 
Yes they do, they never try to avoid you when you try to pass them or once you have the lead they never seem to make any attempt to retake the lead
 

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