Leader car AI is a cheater!

[JPMATRIX]

Sorry to open a new thread but since I am new to AC and still learning, I was a Gran turismo fan but wanted something more realistic and AC is just perfect. And the MOD community is just awesome.

Looked online for this issue seams to be known, so let me just vent some steam with you guys.

The AI is this game is BAD, I know this is mostly an online game but for those of us that just want to enjoy a career mode is just a letdown.

My main issue is with the leader car, if you dont overtake it in the first corners and let it out of your sight you will never catch him.

this isn't to simulate anything this is just an old trick in the book for AI programming used in a lot of games, if you cant see the AI car the system just gives him a boost or aid, cheating in fact.
I remember gran turismo doing the same thing.

just notice if you cant see him in the distance or the dot on the map the leader car just vanishes, I had as much as 30 sec gap.

If you do overtake him in the first corners you can just cruise and they will never overtake you.

This is just a huge letdown.

I can forgive the ram the AI gives you some times but this just forces you to be super aggressive in the first corners gambling to overtake as soon as possible to then just cruise around a race track with no real challenge.

 

[AlleyViper]

It's the opposite, the AI is too slow on the first lap with many cars around it, and will only reach appropriate pace to the set difficulty after cars spread out a bit, and this is more obvious if the leading car doesn't have to waste time defending or taking bad lines like the others behind it in the confusion. The way to enjoy it on custom races, is to set AI in a way that does lap times close to yours after a few laps (so you can be fighting the whole race mid-field), but to hold yourself on the first lap, specially from race start to ~T3 when they are way too vulnerable and requires no effort to overtake them.

Now, for those terribly short 5L pre-set race challenges, unfortunately most of them are set in a way that you'll need to be extra aggressive on first lap to have any chance of winning if your pace is close to the leader's, because it'll be hard to close the difference after overcoming traffic without a serious pace advantage. But if the leader AI keeps gaining distance from you after a couple of laps and you're unobstructed (and sometimes it gains some clear distance over its peers because has a better car too on mixed grids), it just means that you still don't have the required pace for the selected difficulty, not that it blatantly cheats. Maybe try just 90% for a start, or even lower. Just don't judge the AI pace vs difficulty by their first two laps. Btw, to keep track of distances/AI lap times during a race enable the Realtime app.
If you're new to a simulator like this, there's a good chance that sometimes you're >4-5s slower than what would be your regular pace after gaining some experience with the car+track+setup combo, and then some seconds more after you're used to it. Just try most lap time challenges, and see if gold or at least silver looks way too far. (beware that some of these have botched targets, because many changes occurred in between ac versions, and not all were revised) Better than that, is to look for times set by real players on the RSR site , but not necessarily the top 10.

And btw, unlike it's usual on most "games", afaik in AC when AI is set in regular >90% range, their cars won't have less power than yours, it'll adjust how well they drive, on other words, how much speed they can carry in and out of a corner, which in turn can give you opportunities to pass them on brake zone and when drafting out of a corner. IIRC, difficulties under 90%, which also handicap other cars making them slower on a straight were only introduced after AC hit consoles, because that's the norm outside "simulators" and new players were finding the game frustrating. Some road car challenges set you in a considerably slower car than your main AI rival, and it'll be very hard to beat if the AI is set with nearly the same capability (for a similar car). Also remember that AI adjusts fuel amount, gearing and aero when available, so your car with an untouched setup can feel slower.

If you really want to talk about AI "cheating" look instead at their control when accelerating out of tight corners on difficult/snappy cars like LM spec Group Cs, while oth they'll struggle with vintage racers requiring some sustained slip out of a corner to be driven fast (the 718 RS is an example).

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

Sorry to open a new thread but since I am new to AC and still learning, I was a Gran turismo fan but wanted something more realistic and AC is just perfect. And the MOD community is just awesome.

Looked online for this issue seams to be known, so let me just vent some steam with you guys.

The AI is this game is BAD, I know this is mostly an online game but for those of us that just want to enjoy a career mode is just a letdown.

My main issue is with the leader car, if you dont overtake it in the first corners and let it out of your sight you will never catch him.

this isn't to simulate anything this is just an old trick in the book for AI programming used in a lot of games, if you cant see the AI car the system just gives him a boost or aid, cheating in fact.
I remember gran turismo doing the same thing.

just notice if you cant see him in the distance or the dot on the map the leader car just vanishes, I had as much as 30 sec gap.

If you do overtake him in the first corners you can just cruise and they will never overtake you.

This is just a huge letdown.

I can forgive the ram the AI gives you some times but this just forces you to be super aggressive in the first corners gambling to overtake as soon as possible to then just cruise around a race track with no real challenge.

I race against AI a lot. I have to be careful to choose the AI difficulty as that varies quite a bit depending on the type of car, mostly, and the track.
If I have the AI difficulty about right, I do not find that the leader car goes way off ahead; sometimes the leader car is ahead but sometimes that car is close to 2nd and 3rd etc. (it seems about right to me, relatively realistic even, given the context)
I usually do approx. 20-minute races, in championship mode, so after a qualifying session - that is the best way to get a good race against AI. But Quick Race can be good too.

 

[Miggsie]

I hate the AI in career mode. I'm at Imola in the tatuus and it's ridiculous what is happening, one took off after hitting the kerb, but still managed to get perfect traction as soon as it landed. They all go off track through Piratella every lap, nothing happens, if they make the same mistake through Acqua Minerali, they never get a slow down penalty. At the start the driver behind me either pits me or pushes me into the guy the other side, and then only me, in the middle, spins, whilst they get perfect traction and no problems at all. They brake ridiculously late but never lock-up and carry impossible speeds through corners whilst having a higher top speed than I can acheive at Monza with 0 wing in slipstream. They seem to have ABS, TC, stability control and DRS.
And then there is their entitlement to the racing line, regardless of my relative position, I've been Senna'd so many times where they had 0 chance of making a move.