Welp. Someone has to say it.... (AI thread)

[Devedander]

BTW - I think that some people here confusing the term "GOOD AI" with "HARD AI".
A GOOD AI means that it drives similar to human. It doesn't mean (at least not necessarily) that it's hard to be pass - this depends on the level (as mentioned above).

A HARD AI means that it's hard to be pass, but not not necessarily drive like human. In GT5P the AI is hard (especially the Sx events), but not Good...

Yes and if you cranked up the difficulty in TOCA it got pretty hard to pass the front of the pack. The back of the pack tended to be gimmes across the board, but the front of the pack put up a good fight.

Seriously if you pick up a copy of TOCA 3 (which should be dirt cheap by now) and give it a spin I bet you see what I am talking about. It's not perfect by anymeans but it gives you a real taste of what can and should be out there.

 

[IsmokeGT]

That was the most unrealistic piece of racing I have ever seen. Three cars going very slow on the outside of a turn, while leaving the racing line open for a car going 30mph faster than they are, isn't good, or easy AI. In my opinion, racing the clock is more fun than stuff like that.

Good AI will know the racing line, at least. Good AI will also go around the track at race speeds, even on an easy level. That video showed neither of those attributes, but it was a very brief video.

 

[Devedander]

That was the most unrealistic piece of racing I have ever seen. Three cars going very slow on the outside of a turn, while leaving the racing line open for a car going 30mph faster than they are, isn't good, or easy AI. In my opinion, racing the clock is more fun than stuff like that.

Good AI will know the racing line, at least. Good AI will also go around the track at race speeds, even on an easy level. That video showed neither of those attributes, but it was a very brief video.

I don't necessarily agree... when racing against less skilled drivers, ones that break too conservatively and don't hold the line perfectly are not at all out of the question. I think you are confusing a good simulation with a simulation of a good driver.


Remember Good AI doesn't not necessarily mean talented AI, it means realistic and believable in terms of behavior. Often on lower difficulties underbraking and forcing your way inside a turn were easy ways to overtake your less skilled opponents. In other words lower skill didnt' just mean the AI got slower cars but were still awesome drivers, it often meant the AI's abilities were noteably poor. Which when you think about it is actually a better represntation of poor drivers than talented drivers in handicapped cars.

The chances you see a DTM race at SPA with less than pro drivers might not be so great, but that's what the game may be set to represent.

And there were noteable times when you simply overpowered the competition as well, especially on the lower ranked challenges. I believe it had 32 tiers of races or something and the first few rounds were gimmes in a lot of ways.

Sadly most of the videos out there of TOCA 3 are crash compilations and drift videos, but really you need to try the game to get the feel of how the AI was. And it certainly wasn't perfect, but it felt loads better than the blind, glued to the line, moving barriers we see in some games today. Remember I am not saying TOCA 3 was perfect, the AI could have been made better I am sure, but the overall feeling was good and TOCA 3 was almost 5 years ago, even the AI in TOCA 2 felt pretty good.

Here are a few vids but again, you really need to try it to see what I am talking about. It's not something that's easy to show because... well the whole point is it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, it just generally feels right and goes.

 

[IsmokeGT]

I think the 2nd video, and its skid marks, speaks for itself.

At 1'50 or so in the 1st video, the AI spinning is real cool.

 

[Tenacious D]

Really everyone who enjoys racing games and especially those who take their racing games seriously should give toca a try. Its gotta be cheap for consoles and probably there are free demos for PC? Its honestly about the most exciting, natural feeling racing AI I have ever been up against.

I wonder where some of this comes from. The Toca A.I. is boring. The bots are mostly polite and don't do much. When I raced Toca on hard, the bots were just faster, and the rubberbanding was much worse.

As I've said many, many times now, any discussion of A.I. between different racing games boils down to personal preference and opinion, which usually have nothing to do with facts. Such as the fact that GTR bots grinding against each other through turns is irrelevant if you're a fan of GTR games.

By the way, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing in those two videos above. The first one looks like GTR, but both of them have bland bots which sort of go by one by one, rather like every racing game but Forza 1, in which they might decide to just ram you for no good reason.

Oh, and I have to say that Toca 3 has the worst steering with a wheel controller I've ever experienced. Eventually, when the Supercars around Bathurst turned into nothing but a coffee grinder, I'd had enough.

 

[Devedander]

The bots are mostly polite and don't do much.

Yeah... thats kind of what I liked... as in the bots seemed aware of you and werent just blind line driving moving barriers. I seem to recall a little battling at times but for the most part I felt like they were driving like respectable racing drivers... something I consider good in AI like this.

As I've said many, many times now, any discussion of A.I. between different racing games boils down to personal preference and opinion, which usually have nothing to do with facts.

Actually in this case I think the comparing does have a virtue because there is the argument going on that realistic AI that seems aware of other drivers just is too hard to pull off to be expected.

Now maybe TOCAS drivers were too polite, but to do so they needed to be aware of you so as not to blindly ram you. That is the comparison and it certainly seems to be accurate.

By the way, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing in those two videos above.

You are supposed to be seeing racing that doesn't scream of racing against stupidly blind AI. The fact that you dont see anything kind of speaks to that.

Also at least I saw AI cars acting much more human and animated than boring glued to the line drivers... Some cars felt boring and to the point, some felt like they were pushing the limits (and sometimes paying for it).

You are also supposed to be seeing one of the few videos I can find thats not a crash compilation or drift tourney... like I said there arent a lot of great examples out there of TOCA 3 and even if there were, they would just be more of the same... races in which there isnt anything craily outstanding because the AI is aware of you and does a reasonable job of racing clean.

One thing I wish I could find more of is replays of close races... thats one thing I feel can be a good indicator of good AI. If you watch the replay and get a feeling that it looks like a real race and all the cars look reasonably controlled (ie not one car driving like a human amongst a bunch of perfectly lined up drone cars).

I did enjoy watching the replays a lot in TOCA and recall enjoying it quite a bit.

Oh, and I have to say that Toca 3 has the worst steering with a wheel controller I've ever experienced.

Again I guess our experiences differed. I was playing on xbox with a madcatz (obviously) no FF wheel so maybe that was a difference? I never had it on PS2 so never got to try it with the Logitech wheels... although I think I did play it on the PC for a while with the DFP and remember it being decent somehow...

Either way the AI in TOCA 3 shows that if you want to, you can build a decent level of awareness into AI. Combine that with some of the strong points of GT AI and you would probably have a very formidable package.

 

[Tenacious D]

By the way, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing in those two videos above. The first one looks like GTR, but both of them have bland bots which sort of go by one by one, rather like every racing game...

You are supposed to be seeing racing that doesn't scream of racing against stupidly blind AI. The fact that you dont see anything kind of speaks to that.

Well... if you're saying that pretty much every racing game has bots that are different but the same, I agree. I mean, no one ever says, "In (GTR/Enthusia/LFS etc) the bots do this, but in this game, the bots (do something different)."

 

[IsmokeGT]

If you look I didnt say AI is an integral part of racing, I said they are not simulating an integral part of racing . The integral part is competent opponent drivers and the simulating part is using AI instead of actual people.

They already have simulated racing real people, because you race real people, years ago.

Congratulations that you don't play against AI and it doesn't effect you.

Me=average to advid fan. Me saying my opinion is giving insight into an entire fan base you are out of touch with. How many of the people in the top 50 in the US TT rankings are you friends with? If it isn't at least a couple, then you are not seeing the big picture. Unless you know how most of the people that actually play plan on playing GT5 then you are the one adding something useless to the conversation.

 

[Devedander]

Well... if you're saying that pretty much every racing game has bots that are different but the same, I agree. I mean, no one ever says, "In (GTR/Enthusia/LFS etc) the bots do this, but in this game, the bots (do something different)."

I am saying that a certain aspect of racing AI, that is claimed unreasonably difficult as an excuse for its absence is proved entirely doable by the fact it has been done...

I dont know how much more clear I can make it than that.

They already have simulated racing real people, because you race real people, years ago.

Thats not simulating racing other people, thats racing other people. And thats only one option, an option thats not available to everyone and not even desireable to everyone.

Me=average to advid fan.

While you can state what you feel your averagesness of dedication or interest based on your opinion of the fan base, that does not mean that youa re representative of most or all of the fanbase.

I am an average height and weight male, that does not make my preferences indicative of most or all males.

Me saying my opinion is giving insight into an entire fan base you are out of touch with.

I would say I am not at all out of touch with the online gaming community however you certainly seem out of touch with the offline gaming community... to the point you apparently feel they either dont exist or exist in such small numbers as to be negligeable. An assumption I hold to be patently untrue.

How many of the people in the top 50 in the US TT rankings are you friends with? If it isn't at least a couple, then you are not seeing the big picture.

Please clarify what big picture you are speaking of. The picture of people who avidly play a download only demo with no multiplayer ability at all? The elite who are by definition also the minority? I dont get where you are going with that statement.

BTW the very fact that you are (I believe this is what you are eluding to) friends with many of the top 50 TT rankings makes you actually less indicative of the average populace. Most people dont have a large stable of solid competitive friends online to race against and thus often the choice is random online encounters (which can be more painful than bad AI) or offline.

I know when my friends lists is not showing many people online, I will often resort to offline play rather than risk a horrible online experience. Especially in a racing game where one idiot can really ruin a whole race. I know for a fact that I am not the only one who shares that sentiment as quite often messaging the few friends I did have online resulted in no one wanting to do a 3 or 4 person race and no one wanting to bother stocking the rest of the race with pubs thus all of us heading off to the myriad of available races in single player mode.

Unless you know how most of the people that actually play plan on playing GT5 then you are the one adding something useless to the conversation.

Lets see... one of us is assuming that the way he plays and the way his friends play is how pretty much everyone will play and thus is the only way of concern. Also it seems assumed that good online play means there will never be a desire to play offline.

The other is positing that many people still enjoy the modes where you play against AI opponents and or dont have the option of playing online. In fact being specifically a person who still enjoys playing offline as well as online kind of backs that theory up. Even going so far as to note that the single player career mode is still a huge part of the genre, the closest competition features notable work in that area and even GT5 is purported to have put a lot of effort into a career mode.

Sorry... the assumption that because a lot of people do play online at some point, everyone or most play online only thus rendering offline play quality a non issue doesn't make any sense. Especially if you look at the real bigger picture which is to say, not just you and people like you.

So I have to ask, how is it that you know how most people will play? Are you just guessing based on how you are and assuming others must be like you or are you basing your opinion on history of the genre, the current state of the genre and the fact that allt he major players are investing significant time and resources in the single player portinos of their racing games?

I suppose that since you know how most people will play (in a way that makes singplayer of ngligent importance) T10, EA and PD are all making huge misjudgements by investing in creating a solid single player element to the game?

 

[IsmokeGT]

You're right.
My bad for assuming you had read my previous post.

 

[Devedander]

You're right.
My bad for assuming you had read my previous post.

I did... still please clarify...

 

[Spagetti69]

This is getting a bit silly, smoke has said he never plays offline I don't know why your bothering to explain the AI issue with him.
I play both online and off. One is user controlled ie offline where I can set my personal preferences. The other is totally out of my control regarding my oponents ettiquette and track behaviour.
I hope PD can provide me with suitable opponants offline for days when online is a bit shakey.

I don't think that is much to ask.

 

[IsmokeGT]

I did... still please clarify...

I think I have given the AI improvement advocates a lot of consideration. In fact, I agreed with most of the people that say the AI should be improved.

No need being redundant.

What I said on page 2-

Whining was a strong word, but this has been brought up several times, and in numerous threads.

Concerning the other features people were vocal about:
Sound- can only be improved, it can not be replaced.
Cockpits- "
Damage- "

AI can be replaced with humans. And I am not saying it shouldn't be improved, but starting threads on a demo's lackluster AI is a little over the top in my eyes.

 

[Devedander]

I think I have given the AI improvement advocates a lot of consideration. In fact, I agreed with most of the people that say the AI should be improved.

No need being redundant.

What I said on page 2-

Ok, when you said your previous post I did read your previous post... didnt realize you actually meant all of your previous posts.

However that doesnt really clarify any of this:

Me=average to advid fan. Me saying my opinion is giving insight into an entire fan base you are out of touch with. How many of the people in the top 50 in the US TT rankings are you friends with? If it isn't at least a couple, then you are not seeing the big picture. Unless you know how most of the people that actually play plan on playing GT5 then you are the one adding something useless to the conversation.

This is getting a bit silly, smoke has said he never plays offline I don't know why your bothering to explain the AI issue with him.

That's why.

 

[Tenacious D]

I am saying that a certain aspect of racing AI, that is claimed unreasonably difficult as an excuse for its absence is proved entirely doable by the fact it has been done...

I dont know how much more clear I can make it than that.

First of all, who says any A.I. is absent from anything?

Second... well, I guess I'll say this.

I have raced in many racing games. No bot A.I. has particularly impressed me, whether it's from a console game like any of the Tocas or PC sims like GTR. They all do some things decently, and in other ways are dirt stupid. Well, two games did impress me: Forza with how vicious the bots could be, and GT5 Prologue, with how much like modern bots they are.

In fact, I raced some people online a few times, and they were polite and speedy and fairly skillful. But at the most, I ended up mostly racing just three to five opponents. That just wasn't enough. So I went back to offline racing after spending maybe two months online and not having much luck even finding a race with seven opponents. Wow, was that a breath of fresh air! A track full of cars. And amazingly, they drove very much like the people I'd been racing online. Or the bots in GTR Evo and Live For Speed. Bot issues? What bot issues? I'm not seeing any. And I don't know how much more clear I can make it than that.

 

[Devedander]

First of all, who says any A.I. is absent from anything?

See thats the thing... I am responding to a lot of posts made and my reply encompasses more than just what you have said.

A lot of reasons (which I consider excuses) have been brought up for why the AI in GT hasn't gotten better, one of which is that its not possible or reasonable especially with 16 cars on track.
I was pointing out that TOCA had 20 cars on track with AI that had a good sense of awareness of whats around it years ago so that argument is out the window.

Now it gets all convoluted and twisted as people pop in to try and argue the point, usually with no other logic than "The AI doesnt matter for this reason or that" and we get all off on tangents which makes it hard to put context to what I am saying unless you actually where there at the start.

And a lot of people are saying something is missing from the AI... thats why this thread is here, this many pages long and is an issue that has been brought up before. In fact if some of the forum members werent so adament about shutting people up who talk about this and I guess feel somehow personally attacked by it, I think there would be more threads.

I think you are taking my posts as solely a conversatino between us while there is a fair amount of background in them.

I may be refering to someone a few posts back, you pop in and missunderstand or misoncstrue what I am talking about because you dont realize what I am actually responding to, or because you think I am claiming you are saying things when in reality they simply have been said somewhere and I am responding to them.

Somehwere back in the thread someone said that, I replied to it, a few posts later you pop in and see my reply, and pick it up and go from there with no idea what I originally replied to a while back. Then later when I reference that, you are confused and read something into my post that I didnt mean because you dont have the context. I have a hard time clearing it up with you because I dont really know what you read and what you missed. Classic joining the conversation in the middle problem.

Its the way of forums unfortunately but I think you see where I am coming
from.

And if you dont see bot issues, thats great! Your taste or needs must be such they are being met. If you want to discuss what we are seeing and how we are seeing it differently, that sounds like a good debate or discussion or we can just be happy you are satisifed. But if you are going to tell me I am just wong, or it doesnt matter or give reasons that are sound, well then I am probably going to come back with arguments against them.

I personally feel not only can they be better, I feel I have experienced better in exactly the places they could use a boost before and so I bring it up. I am perfectly happy to agree no AI will ever be perfect, but what I percieve as lacking (and some others seem to be noting the same) is being defended as unfeasible, unecessasry or simply something you have to adjust yourself to compensate for... basically excuses to dodge an unpleasant reality in my eyes.

 

[CoolColJ]

These videos are back from Sept last year, from the Paris Game Show. And I noticed puffs of smoke under braking, and maybe brake glow as well, which I havent seen in any of the other demos shown so far... could be a newer build

player replay - note the AI behaviour. Maybe when someone can drive properly the AI behaves accordingly...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27ItuAiv4U

AI replay - so much for AI following in a single file line and not trying to overtake each other
1:40 onwards to 2:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMf7VSCjn34

 

[IROC89CAMARO]

Reverse lights take nothing from the game but 5 and a half years WTH went wrong? 👎

 

[cletus 669]

These videos are back from Sept last year, from the Paris Game Show. And I noticed puffs of smoke under braking, and maybe brake glow as well, which I havent seen in any of the other demos shown so far... could be a newer build

player replay - note the AI behaviour. Maybe when someone can drive properly the AI behaves accordingly...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27ItuAiv4U

In the first vid I did see the puff of smoke from the tires under braking, however I also noticed that the Scoobie was running dirt tires.

R1600Turbo said pages ago the same thing about the AI, if you race them proper then they work just fine and I totally agree with him. It is only when you try silly tricks like stopping in the middle of the track for no reason that the AI is limited.

 

[IsmokeGT]

In the first vid I did see the puff of smoke from the tires under braking, however I also noticed that the Scoobie was running dirt tires.

Great eye man! No wonder the tires were smoking like that.

 

[Dravonic]

In the first vid I did see the puff of smoke from the tires under braking, however I also noticed that the Scoobie was running dirt tires.

I believe that's just how the tires look like in this car. At least up until now, I never noticed any visual change when changing the tires. Apparently PD model only one tire for each car and since the subaru is a rally car they modeled a dirt tire for it.

 

[Devedander]

R1600Turbo said pages ago the same thing about the AI, if you race them proper then they work just fine and I totally agree with him. It is only when you try silly tricks like stopping in the middle of the track for no reason that the AI is limited.

I feel it's somewhere in the middle... and far enough on the bad side of the middle it still warrants addressing. If you try to drive a certain way and limit what you do to scope of things the AI can handle, then you can have a clear race. However that can be sad of anything including blocks of concrete that move on rails throughout the track.

While it's true that you can cause the AI to have problems by forcing it, that's not the limit of it. Things that happen during the normal course of a race (popping off road and losing control while still in someones way or just getting in a crash that puts you in harms way) are not accounted for by the AI very well. Basically anything short of taking it upon yourself to stay out of everyone elses way and generally race perfect risks finding problems with the AI.

The specific reason I showed the AI from TOCA was that it didn't suffer from this problem. Much more like a real race driver, the range of elements it was able to handle and compensate for was much more varied. Sure a stand still on a curve of an Indy race was gonig to result in some spectacular carnage, but for the most part, you didn't have to be a perfect and pristine driver to race without fear of having a run in with the AI.

TOCA's AI had problems of it's own and wasn't pefect either, but that aspect was pretty good, better than what we have seen in GT and was done half a decade ago.

 

[cletus 669]

Devedander, I believe it was you who earlier had posted that while other game's AI was not perfect there were things about them that were better than GT's AI, I do agree with that as well as what R1600Turbo said. At the end of the day I feel that the AI could be improved but the way it is now it really doesn't bother me all that much because I do not try to test it, I just race. It is frustrating when I have an off and try to get back on and get rammed again sending me sailing back off, but that probably has alot to do with the angle that I try to get back on, so I still blame myself for that not the AI.

 

[Devedander]

Devedander, I believe it was you who earlier had posted that while other game's AI was not perfect there were things about them that were better than GT's AI, I do agree with that as well as what R1600Turbo said. At the end of the day I feel that the AI could be improved but the way it is now it really doesn't bother me all that much because I do not try to test it, I just race. It is frustrating when I have an off and try to get back on and get rammed again sending me sailing back off, but that probably has alot to do with the angle that I try to get back on, so I still blame myself for that not the AI.

I agree that failing certain very outlandish tests isn't a problem so much, but the tests aren't done to show that it fails tests, they are there to show the exagerated results of the underlying problem which occurs under much more normal conditions but is hard to illustrate as such. It's like on TV when they do a flashy experiment to illustrate a simple point.

While I am glad some people don't seem to find a problem with the AI, I and many others definitely do. I would say it's more often than not that a stupid AI move during a race causes me some kind of grief. Sometimes it's only mediocre, but often times it means that a race I might have to try 2 or 3 times to get gold in, I end up trying half a dozen or more times since many of my runs are hindered by bad AI.

Whats more those extra runs are more unenjoyable than simply not placing by my own skill. It's one thing to not make it on your own merrits, it's another to be defeated by a flawed system.

And outside that I still say the feeling of the racing is impared since you have to race a certain way to avoid running into the limitations of the AI when in real life you have a lot more lattitude, and, to beat a dead horse, it has been shown it's doable.

GT isn't completely broken because of bad AI, but it has a potential to be so much better with some improved AI and the major improvement I see has been done before so realistically, for GT, there is no legitimate reason it can't be done.

 

[seinfeld]

there is 1 major problem with all these questions. They never get asked because all the magazine reporters every time they interview Kaz, Instead of asking hard questions what always seems to happen is:-

Said reporter gets on knees and opens mouth, Kaz is standing in front of that mouth, Said interviewer then smokes a cigarette (metaphorically get my drift here?)
if I had the oppertunity to ask questions it would be uncomfortable but it would be worth it, and I could answer everything in 5 questions.

Q1
a:With the bombshell back at E3 in 09 that the game would be available next year sometime, and now even yet another delay, could you explain why it has been pushed back twice now?
b:you developed a game for the PSP called GT PSP, I was wondering were you put under pressure by sony to release the PSP version first due to the release of the new handheld?

Q2:Because of the pressure and releasing the handheld version first
a:how many resources did you pull off the full GT5 for the PS3 in a % to get GT PSP rolled out?
b:if you didnt create the PSP game and focused on GT5 for PS3 I have a suspicion that we would have GT5 many many months ago and it would of been a christmas treat and sellout for you, so my question is how much earlier would we have seen GT5?

Q3:Something Positive Kaz its not all bad questions I am just asking the hard ones because we at GT planet want the nitty gritty.
I must say that in prolouge spec III I found that the cars were amazing detail, and performed really well, I must compliment you on the roll, pitch, damper simulation the quick tune was frustrating but the physics were great, and most importantly the diff simulation especially in the factory cars! My question is
a:who is doing the testing and comparisons, I have seen videos of Keiichi Tsuchiya and his Best motoring entourage in your studio. Are they active in the development process? and will the Touge King's famous Gunsai Touge be available ?
b:a lot of people including me were upset that flat shifting was removed for spec III will that still be turned off in full game? as you can and I do do that in real life, it also makes the shifting with the H pattern shifter a little tricky if u shift to fast, or keep a little throttle it wont change gears and is very frustrating it ruins laps

Q4
a:what is the REAL status of the game and a real release date please Kaz
and how many discs ect excluding any special behind scenes, how big is the install etc
b:will there be a real Demo like what is on display at CES, TGS etc?

Q5.
a:why is the AI still really really bad Kaz, all they do is follow the suggest line of the track, which is 7/10 times the slowest way, they don't attack will this be fixed in the final game?
b:we still don't see basic things like tire marks, and the trees look very 2D ish, although these are not important for driving, you said you wanted the best GFX, I feel this is like a cop out, will these be fixed also ?

Thanks for your time Kaz, I know the questions were tough but these were needed to be answered Thanks alot



So what do you all think of those Questions, that is what needs to be asked IMHO people need to stop sucking his pee pee and grow a pair
great thread to the OP

 

[cletus 669]

That would be a great interview if the interviewer could count, that is clearly 10 questions not 5 like you implied.

 

[Tenacious D]

GT isn't completely broken because of bad AI, but it has a potential to be so much better with some improved AI and the major improvement I see has been done before so realistically, for GT, there is no legitimate reason it can't be done.

You know, you keep saying things like this, but those are very bland generic... well, meaningless remarks, because there are no specific points.

"The bots in (some game) are aware of you."

Well gee, when I see your replays and the driver is banging past the bot cars, I'm not seeing anything any different from any other game. I know the second replay you posted is from Toca 3 because of that Scottish mechanic's voice over. BUT, turn off the sound and all HUD graphics, how could you tell which game you were watching on a low res YouTube video?

You sure couldn't tell it from the bot behavior.

Yeah, if you were watching any replay from Prologue, it would be hard to mistake because no other game is like it. But the bot behavior, looked at without a grudge against Polyphony, seems a lot like bot behavior from any of my other games. Including Toca. I saved replays in Toca 3 in which the bots rammed me after a wreck, and bots following rammed them.

Not very aware of my position, or any positions, if you ask me.

And this is about where I say goodbye because I'm sure any further discussion will just be restating positions already said way too many times. The bots in GT5 will be what they are, and will probably be just fine. If you still harbor a particular dislike towards them, there will be this clearly marked exit sign reading "Online."

 

[Devedander]

So what do you all think of those Questions, that is what needs to be asked IMHO people need to stop sucking his pee pee and grow a pair
great thread to the OP

I think you would have a lot of appreciative fans in the GT universe and sadly your career as an interviewer could be cut very short by the fact no one wants to be ambush interviewed by you...

 

[Devedander]

Well gee, when I see your replays and the driver is banging past the bot cars, I'm not seeing anything any different from any other game. I know the second replay you posted is from Toca 3 because of that Scottish mechanic's voice over. BUT, turn off the sound and all HUD graphics, how could you tell which game you were watching on a low res YouTube video?

I am well aware this sounds like a total cop out, but you honestly can't see what I thought was so enjoyable about TOCA 3 in videos since you are not getting the feeling of something responding to your decisions (ie the AI of the cars). I suppose I could go do the same lap over and over slightly differently and show that almost every time the AI reacted in a believeable, aware and respectful way vs GT which only feels right if you drive a certain way... but my setup isn't even unpacked if I wanted to.

As best I can describe it, watching a pack of race cars has a very "flock of birds" feel to me. TOCA 3 really made me feel like I was in that. The response of the cars as packs was really exactly what I thought it should be. It feels fluid, natural and like those around me are aware.

Like I said, not perfect and you get into some bad spots sometimes but the majority of the time it felt like really good solid racing.

Is that too general? Sure I can see how you would say that... but it's like describing a good smell or taste... not so easy to nail down specifics when it's all just how natural and right it feels.

All I can tell you is that I can describe what GT AI has felt like for me for quite some time... rolling barriers on the track.

If you still harbor a particular dislike towards them, there will be this clearly marked exit sign reading "Online."

And as we have all gone over, while it's the exit sign from the AI bot world, what world it leads to is questionable. And not even everyone has access to that world... lots of people have no or poor internet connections, so you can't even really say their is an exit sign there because for some the door it points to is locked. Saying the online is the exit sign that solves the problem is like saying "Well if you don't want a beef hamburger, there is a chicken sandwich right there". Doensn't help if you are a vegitarian. The point being that instead of a real solution you suggest an alternative, but the alternative doesn't really fix the problem, it just offers a workaround for some people.

Again, it's a copout to say online is there becuase online is just as likely to give a bad experience as good unless you are one of the few to really dedicate a lot of time to building a solid roster of racing buddies.

After all, AI CAN be fixed, you can actually work on it (by you I mean PD) however other real people? You can hope and search, but unlike programming good AI it's not a solution, it's just a hopeful workaround.

 

[Tenacious D]

Well, see, I think the bots in Prologue are just fine. You don't. I trust people who say the bot behavior is improving in the later GT5 demos. You evidently don't. I guess in the meantime, you can race against those idiotic bot - I mean, those superior bots in another game that's more "definitive."