F1 2015 Is it that hard to create a proper racing game?

dineontitan · Feb 13, 2016

Hi all,

First of all, I do understand developing games isn't the easiest of jobs.
Now to the point. I just did a race in my f1 2012 career mode because I like the idea of tier progression, starting from caterham and trying to win the title with them.
Everything goes well until I need to do a pitstop, I pit, exit the pitlane and suddenly get a penalty for crossing the white line. Even though it is an almost completely ai controlled exit, how on earth does this happen.

This is just an example for the point I'm trying to make.
Looking at Project Cars, a game I was looking forward to a lot. Only to get disappointed.
It truly has potential to be a fantastic game, but the ai is just not good enough. Okay fine, maybe the devs can change a thing or two, can't they? nope, complain about anything on their forums and you will get banned.

F1 2015, the formula 1 game with no safety car. Fair enough, PCars also doesn't have a safety car but this is the official Formula 1 game, why doesn't it have a safety car?
Nah, I don't think I need to mention F1 2014.

Alright, I think my point is clear. But is it just me or are there no proper good racing games available with a good career mode?
Let me know what you think about this, I'm really curious about your opinions.

Greetings Dineontitan

Minardi10 · Feb 17, 2016

You speak out of my soul.

Alex McRacing · Mar 26, 2016

All racing games have their advantages and disadvantages but every racing game has s**t AI.

(IMO)

Matt O'Brien · Apr 7, 2016

dineontitan said:
Looking at Project Cars, a game I was looking forward to a lot. Only to get disappointed.
It truly has potential to be a fantastic game, but the ai is just not good enough. Okay fine, maybe the devs can change a thing or two, can't they? nope, complain about anything on their forums and you will get banned.

Maybe it's the way you phrase your complaints?

Also, define 'not good enough'. What's wrong with the ai in Project Cars?

dineontitan · Apr 7, 2016

I'm writing this as I memorize the ai when I wrote it, because I have not played it after that anymore.
One thing I found highly annoying was that the ai was prone to going on the grass, or spinning out in general. I have never seen an ai car make a mistake and be punished for it. The player on the other hand gets punished severely.
Then, should contact happen between the players car and an ai car, the players car will probably spin, and the ai's car won't. The ai will even finish a race on three wheels.

Again, I don't know about it's current state but these are some things I remember from playing it.

BoogerMac · Apr 25, 2016

As someone with a software background, I feel inclined to defend the companies (a little bit). AI is one of the hardest things to develop and program into anything, not just games. Games have the specific problem of finding a balance between fun and challenging without being boring or frustrating. Since every gamer is at a different level, making the perfect AI becomes even harder.

With that said, I agree with you that AI needs the most work in sim racing games; however, a truly great AI won't sell more copies...sweet graphics and licensed stuff will though. So from a business standpoint, the pCars model (focus on aesthetics) works much better than the ISI model (focus on the actual racing).

Just my two cents...

Associat0r · Apr 25, 2016

Creating a proper racing game, and especially a proper racing simulation (not the same thing) is not easy, especially if you also want convincing AI behavior that is both aggressive enough to challenge you (not talking about speed here), yet disciplined and aware enough to not do stupid moves and bump into you and is able to work with many types of vehicles.

But remember that a career mode doesn't equate to being a good racing simulation.
When a title needs a career mode to be interesting, it's because it's lacking depth in the physics and racing department.

Dropping the career mode for F1-2015 was a good move in the right direction, which forced Codemasters to up their simulation quality (for what little there was). Sadly the career mode will be reinstated for F1-2016, meaning they will sell loads of copies and gets stellar reviews regardless of simulation quality.

Career modes don't make sense in simracing, since a proper career takes many seasons over many years in multiple feeder series and teams. The focus on career modes is a primary cause for the decline in quality of the genre. Career modes should be left to arcade games.