Difficulty of RaceNet Challenges -- is the AI more stupid than in regular races?

[Synergist 0]

Some of the goals for bronze/silver/gold/platinum targets are WILDLY unachievable. For example, the Demolition Derby has me in 21st place on the world leaderboards and there's only a few tenths between me and #1 ... And we're ALL about fifteen seconds away from the suggested 2:02 time! Are Codies playing with grippier cars or something?

The AI is also monumentally stupid in these RaceNet challenges. After spending FAR too long attempting the single seater challenge yesterday, I got so frustrated I ended up making a video to demonstrate...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ni1KOGqjKU

My fastest successful run at the end. I could easily get times around the two minute mark if I wasn't blocked/rammed by the AI.

The AI is kamikaze! Completely ignored me, almost like my car was invisible or they were following hard-coded, preset lines. Where I've raced online with AI, I'm sure they're better than this... I noticed the AI was like this on the Spa RaceNet Challenge too.

[MightyQuin 0]

If you do some of the other disciplines, you'll notice you are in 21st position every time!    Something definitely wrong with the leaderboards!

[andmcq 79]

It's the way the Leaderboards display the data, it's a weird way to do it. If you filter it to display others' times, it displays the closest 20 times slower than yours and the closest 20 times faster than yours (with you in 21st). That's why you're in 21st. It's strange and would be good to see a comparison between my times and the actual fastest.

[Avenga76 0]

I had no problems with that challenge, I got platinum on my first try. First corners are always tricky you do need to brake early with that many cars coming in to the first corner. After you get through the first corner I found they will block on the inside so you are best to overtake on the outside of the corner then drop in behind the next car and over take them on the inside down the straight.

The first crash you just cut inside when there was another car right beside you without even checking if anyone was there. He had the inside line, you cut in to him. The 2nd crash you had plenty of room outside but you came in way to hot and pulled inside straight in to the back of him, then put yourself on the outside of the next car on exit, right in his racing line, he had no chance of missing you because you cut him off. third crash you didn't brake for turn 1.

Look at any F1 race and you will see how slow turn 1 is. You can't just take it at full speed and expect everyone to jump out of your way. Also look at how many turn 1 crashes there are in F1 or any race, it is the most dangerous time in the race and you need to be aware of everyone around you.

In a lot of this crashes you were charging up the outside then getting in their way on exit. They had already committed to a racing line that was going to take them right up against the wall so if you put yourself between them and the wall then of cause you are going to get squeezed. The better thing to do is to drop in behind them and get them on the straight, you can't just barge in and expect to go two wide on the exit of the corner when they have already committed to their line.

In racing the defending driver is perfectly allowed to hold his racing line and it is the overtaking drivers responsibility to overtake cleanly. In that video I see them blocking inside and forcing you to go outside which is the right move to do and you are cutting in to their line on exit.

I'm sorry but in that video I see more bad driving than bad AI. No offence. Just learn not to dive bomb and you will be right, racing is about patience and overtaking cleanly, not trying to overtake 3 or 4 cars in a single turn. This is why you don't see that many overtakes in real world racing, you will see them chase down the car in front for ages, slowly getting closer then picking your moment to make a safe overtake. If everyone drive bombed in to every corner then nobody would finish the race.

[Synergist 0]

Avenga76 said:

I had no problems with that challenge, I got platinum on my first try. First corners are always tricky you do need to brake early with that many cars coming in to the first corner. After you get through the first corner I found they will block on the inside so you are best to overtake on the outside of the corner then drop in behind the next car and over take them on the inside down the straight.

The first crash you just cut inside when there was another car right beside you without even checking if anyone was there. He had the inside line, you cut in to him. The 2nd crash you had plenty of room outside but you came in way to hot and pulled inside straight in to the back of him, then put yourself on the outside of the next car on exit, right in his racing line, he had no chance of missing you because you cut him off. third crash you didn't brake for turn 1.

Look at any F1 race and you will see how slow turn 1 is. You can't just take it at full speed and expect everyone to jump out of your way. Also look at how many turn 1 crashes there are in F1 or any race, it is the most dangerous time in the race and you need to be aware of everyone around you.

In a lot of this crashes you were charging up the outside then getting in their way on exit. They had already committed to a racing line that was going to take them right up against the wall so if you put yourself between them and the wall then of cause you are going to get squeezed. The better thing to do is to drop in behind them and get them on the straight, you can't just barge in and expect to go two wide on the exit of the corner when they have already committed to their line.

In racing the defending driver is perfectly allowed to hold his racing line and it is the overtaking drivers responsibility to overtake cleanly. In that video I see them blocking inside and forcing you to go outside which is the right move to do and you are cutting in to their line on exit.

I'm sorry but in that video I see more bad driving than bad AI. No offence. Just learn not to dive bomb and you will be right, racing is about patience and overtaking cleanly, not trying to overtake 3 or 4 cars in a single turn. This is why you don't see that many overtakes in real world racing, you will see them chase down the car in front for ages, slowly getting closer then picking your moment to make a safe overtake. If everyone drive bombed in to every corner then nobody would finish the race.

I agree with your sentiments and that's how I race online (and on real tracks). Oval racing tends to not have the pack braking into T1 though from a rolling start ;-)

Likewise, I got a platinum time on first go -- but decided to push for a faster time after checking the leaderboards. My driving got a bit ragged by the end of it because I was so frustrated. (I didn't include a lot of clips of the AI simply being stupid and ramming me or barging me into the wall because I just restarted the challenge immediately).

The second crash in the vid is due to the car in front braking unnecessarily and me clipping the rear wheel... In fact, most of the crashes were due to the cars braking unnecessarily or failing to give me room as I passed. There's several examples of where I was alongside a car and they simply continued on their line into my side, pushing me into the wall etc. This wouldn't happen in real life!

The problem is exacerbated in this challenge because the AI is driving so slowly! To get anything like a competitive time (around the two minute mark) you have to find the magic gap and seesaw around the brainless AI cars to get clear air -- from there you can put your foot to the floor (as I did) as you don't need to brake in these cars, even into T1 on Lap 1.

If they were racing at a competitive pace, I agree that braking then overtaking as appropriate would have been the correct technique, but sitting inline for two laps would have been futile as they were doing 60% speed around bends.

I race hard but cleanly online, and expect AI to do the same. It felt like the AI was simply ignoring my car. Most of the spins were caused by them failing to yield when I had track position - they would clip the rear or side and pitch it into a skid. It's more difficult to tell with the cockpit view, but I hate the "sky cam" views. (I only use them for online demolition derby...)

Every open wheel formula I watch has the simple rule that if you are the car in front, be that half a car or front axle, you have track position. Two human drivers would give each other space if one was overtaking out of a corner, which this AI doesn't. It's railroaded and seems completely oblivious to what the player is doing, which is the most frustrating thing. Ironic, given the intro video places emphasis on clean, no contact racing...

Something else to note - if you do hit an AI car, usually they'll seem to be 'stuck to the ground' - like they have F1 levels of downforce. it's very, very hard to hit them sufficiently to get them out of control... But it's incredibly easy for them to push you out of control.

On Very Hard (Pro) difficulty, the AI is just plain obnoxious -- they will literally plough your car into the grass if you're on their racing line and they won't adjust their braking! It even fights with itself unnecessarily - in Touring career races earlier, they were ramming each other constantly around some tracks. I think the AI needs a lot of work and a future patch.

[Avenga76 0]

Yeah the AI does brake unnecessarily and are pretty slow around corners. I just factor that in to my driving style and either late brake and take them around the outside or hang back and get them on the inside on the way out of the corner.

I used to do real world racing in a classic race series. I used to race a Hillman Avenger so I know all the passing rules but that is on corner entry more than corner exit. If someone was beside me at corner entry and they were pushing me through the corner then that is fine to go two wide but I would not like it if someone tried to sneak up on the outside on corner exit when they were that far back. At that stage I would have already lined my car up with the corner exit and there is nothing I can do to change my line if you decide to get in my way. Barging up the outside on a corner is probably the most dangerous place to be while overtaking, that is why most drivers block to the inside forcing the other driver to take the outside. IRL most of my passes were inside passes because it is a lot safer than outside passes. Draft down the straight, slingshot past them on the inside and late brake and if you get track position before the corner then you force them to take an outside line, if you can't get track position then you drop in behind them and try to get the jump in them on the way out.

I use a TrackIR head tracking camera so I can turn my head and see if I have track position. games like iracing have a spotter which would be really handy for stuff like this because they will tell you that their is a car left and to hold your line.

I do agree that they are too planted when they hit you but they are not impossible to avoid if you keep an eye on them. It would help if they added working mirrors, even just a virtual mirror like in iracing. It is hard to see if they are challenging for a corner so it is too easy to turn in on them, but at the same time they should yield to you because you have track position and you are holding your racing line.

I agree that they are aggressive and it would be nice if they did change their driving lines if you had clear track position.

[V8R3L3NTL3SS1 0]

Dude you initiated contact evrytime or dove down not knowing that someone was below and slitghty back behind you. It took me about 3 x before I got platinum and I use a ds3 how about turning tc back on you still will beat with it on. I have a 2.08.xxx not super fast but worked for me.

BTW comment was for op ....

[SVENOS 0]

I still dont get platinum on Demolition Derby. The other challenges were easy for me. 

Platinum is 1.45 and Gold 1.51. Only one other guy and me did Gold with 1.49 :( PS3

[luckyluke726 0]

I didn't find others that impossible, got plat or gold in a few tries, but the demo derby is something else, not even bronze.

[Synergist 0]

V8R3L3NTL3SS1 said:

Dude you initiated contact evrytime or dove down not knowing that someone was below and slitghty back behind you. It took me about 3 x before I got platinum and I use a ds3 how about turning tc back on you still will beat with it on. I have a 2.08.xxx not super fast but worked for me.

BTW comment was for op ....

It's difficult to see, but the majority of those spins in the video were due to the car I'd passed clipping me because they were rigidly following the racing line and not adjusting at all to give me a car's width. That's a standard racing technique, watch any iRacing (or IRL) oval video on YouTube for examples.

In cases where I'd overtake around the last part of a turn, the AI should be clever enough to have realised I had the position and yielded it to me. In real life the passed individual would ease off the gas and allow the car through if they had no chance of defending, overtaking in F1 is a great example.

Even the lightest of touches will spin you out (the most realistic part), give it a go.

he video was more to make the point that they're so SLOW, unnecessarily so, which makes their lack of intelligence (heh) worse. Note the Benny Hill comedy music. ;)

FWIW I already noted that a couple of the 'incidents' were due to me divebombing up the inside -- out of frustration! And it shows how weird the AI cars behave (and handle) if you do hit them.

If you want a very competitive time, you must clear the pack by T2, and it's almost impossible... They drive around like a pack of Google self-driving cars - always the same gaps between them, and very, very slowly.

[Synergist 0]

luckyluke726 said:

I didn't find others that impossible, got plat or gold in a few tries, but the demo derby is something else, not even bronze.

Glad it's not just me! I swore when I saw the target times! (I used to DD a *lot* in GRID2 and had a near-perfect technique... Slow in slow out ;))