Please Turn off/ghost AI in Time Trial Racenet Challenges! and retry RN-Chlg. after xp/money gain

[Photonik 0]

I'm getting so sick of this.

The AI is set to medium in every challenge and therefore they are dead slow! You can't drive a proper clean lap, if you don't decide to stop right at the start and wait 20-30 seconds.

And please nobody say 'this is realistic', NO it is not. In real life, I go out on the track when there's a gap and I have drivers that actually drive similar times and not 10 second slower. It's just annoying. And no, it's not even same chances for everyone. It's purely random what I get in front of me, how fast that AI is and when I can overtake it.

Taking Brands Hatch CatC challenge for example. The first AI is always in my way, when im on the GP-Part. And through the whole lot there is only ONE line to get through fast. If you have to overtake, strike that lap, no chance. Next one? forget it, very likely there are already two cars in my way. Great!

I like that challenges, but if I'm supposed to do a quick lap, I want a clear track. And I don't want to waste 30 seconds + that 1st lap, just to have that. Loading times are already long enough.

Which reminds me of the 2nd thing...

When I do a challenge, I get to choose to restart the race. But money and xp I only get afterwards, only when I say 'continue' and am forced back in the menu. Why in that order? If I'm not satisfied with my lap, I want to try again. What I dont't want, is waiting 10 seconds to get back in the menu, and another minute, to restart the event. But if I don't do that, I don't get any money or xp for that. So please please please change that. Give us money & xp immediately after the race and ask if we want to retry AFTERWARDS.

[rjeady 0]

Totally agreed on both points. Judging by how many drivers are able to reach platinum, can we up the AI setting to hard in races, and get rid of them altogether in time trial? After all, what kind of time trial is it where you have to dodge crawling AI obstacles?

[Photonik 0]

Yeah, just had this idea aswell, @rjeady. Not simply increasing the AI setting, but leave the option to increase the AI as much as we want. Therefore not so good players still have medium AI to race with and the better ones don't have the problem to run into the next car after 10 seconds.

Either this or ghosted AI seem to be good choices for me.

[mikevoltz1 0]

I agree, about the AI difficulty. It does need to be up. It would be nice that in the races you can battle for the lead all the way to the end, and if you win you get Platinum, instead of having to clear the pack within the first 2/3 of the first lap and make 2 more perfect laps. At the difficulty in its current configuration they AI is just a Rolling Roadblock. 

However, I don't agree with getting paid every time you run if you restart. Its a restart (Do-Over Mulligan), and your time and progress don't count until you accept the lap you ran by continuing. 

[Hirschie 0]

i agree too.

remove AI completely from racenet challenge like in grid 2.

With AI there is no serious challenging against friends....

[gaski 2]

mikevoltz1 said:

However, I don't agree with getting paid every time you run if you restart. Its a restart (Do-Over Mulligan), and your time and progress don't count until you accept the lap you ran by continuing. 

What he's getting at is that when you've done the challenge, you want the money/xp for it but 'retry' comes up before collecting the points.  It's just bad functionality of the menus as most people will collect points and retry anyway.  No point going through the menus to do this when they can re-arrange the menu functionality to make it sensible.

It's the little things that detract from the great physics/handling etc. 

A number of things that bother me:

• You have to create a livery for every vehicle, you can't create global liveries such as one for time attack/race/endurance etc that can be applied to whatever event you are doing.  Creating a racenet livery is fine but you should be able to make multiple liveries with relevant sponsors appropriate to race type
  
• Repair all function
• Can't re-enter vehicle setup once you've started a racenet challenge.  Have to quit out and go through menus again..
• VoIP during loading screen breaks up.  Either put a 'no comms' icon on the loading screen or separate VoIP traffic from game loading traffic.
• AI in racenet challenges - mentioned this in another thread and said that the AI level should mirror what level you have in single player game.  So infuriating when you're on a good time and they get in the way, especially in time attack!  
• Ability to save last know commands in online/custom cup.  Annoying that I have to reselect the same options to create the same game type I play or search for.  Being able to name and save these session profiles would be better.
• Naming your custom game type session instead of having the hosts name.  
• Being able to see which playsists are available in each class.  Having to go into the same one you've just left because of idiots is very bloody annoying.  Give us visibility of how many sessions are up!
• Spectator mode when you join session.  Why is this missed off, it can be accessed once your on track so seems daft not to be able to have it when you join lobby...

Edit...

• Having to re-rank the cars you've already tuned and sold on to manage garage space.  Thought this wasn't the plan based on @loore comments pre-release?
  
• Garage spaces.  I usually play Street but also love touring cars but because I can't keep up with the fastest in touring with my loaners, I tend not to bother with it that often.  All my garage space is taken up with ranked Street / racenet challenge cars and as I quite like to win, my ventures into other disciplines are decided by my garage space.  Sadly, garage space will remain as CM are DLC'ing 5 extra slots in the proposed packs
  
• Tuning/upgrading is another thing which I didn't like the sound of when I heard it was in and I still stand by it.  Similarly to what I said above, people are making their descipline choice based on the cars they've ranked the most and have a higher chance of winning.  This limits activity in places like open wheel/endurance and tuner which are probably not as popular as touring/street.  Seems a bad way to promote the full disciplines on offer by having to tune/upgrade cars to be quick.
  

[Photonik 0]

mikevoltz1 said:

However, I don't agree with getting paid every time you run if you restart. Its a restart (Do-Over Mulligan), and your time and progress don't count until you accept the lap you ran by continuing. 

It's like gaski said, it's just too complicated. You can retry as much as you want and you can get money/xp for every time, but only if you take the long way through the whole menus and that's just bogus logic. And, just to complete that, the time I've done is shown in that window where I can restart or continue, so that IS actually saved.

@gaski

Great list and pretty much that stuff, that bothers me, too.

The basic game is awesome, as it is. It's the little things - reaching information, navigating through menus, comfort options, that without only cost time but gain nothing - that make the 'big' problems, as it ruins an otherwise awesome game.

[Loore 0]

Regarding the AI in the RaceNet Challenge we are looking at a change which will see Time Attack appear more often than Race, we're hoping this will help balance out the issues you're talking about but still letting those who do enjoy racing against the AI experience that.

As always, we'll keep monitoring it.

[Hyphy 0]

Loore said:

Regarding the AI in the RaceNet Challenge we are looking at a change which will see Time Attack appear more often than Race, we're hoping this will help balance out the issues you're talking about but still letting those who do enjoy racing against the AI experience that.

As always, we'll keep monitoring it.

How is making Time Attack appear more often than Race, making a change regarding the slowness of the AI?

[gaski 2]

Its the AI in time attack that are annoying and I certainly don't want to see more of it unless their difficulty is upped or removed from time attack completely.  If they're kept in, having the AI matched to your single player difficulty will pretty much do away with most people's frustrations.  Afterall, whether your fast or slow, you still have to hit the same thresholds for the medals so it shouldn't matter if the AI are too fast for some.

[Photonik 0]

@Loore

as the other ones before me said, AI in Time Trial is the problem. If I want to run for the fastest laps (not just platinum) I have a pace that is usually 10 seconds faster than the AIs. And then they block me. They take the racing line through a corner, dead slow, the slow down out of a corner 'to let me pass', while staying right in my way, so that I end up in their rear. The need to be faster.

Set 'medium' as the minimum strength and leave it up to us to increase the strength up to very hard. That way, we'd probably hardly catch them so fast.

For the races, same thing. I did the current party challenge with the Alfa. Sometimes it is horrible. The slow down right on the track (probably because their time ran out) and suddenly there's a bunch of cars behind them, overtaking them and they drive in three lanes onto the GP-track. How should I pass them? Run over the grass? In that case, an AI that ran out of time/is disqualified, should be ghostet immediately or at least let them still drive at normal speed. Current situation is soo frustrating, when you can't continue, because the AI is too stupid. That hasn't anything to do with 'challenge' anymore, 'cause it's not up to my skills, but to pure luck regarding the AIs behaviour.

[Kaerar 0]

Loore said:

Regarding the AI in the RaceNet Challenge we are looking at a change which will see Time Attack appear more often than Race, we're hoping this will help balance out the issues you're talking about but still letting those who do enjoy racing against the AI experience that.

As always, we'll keep monitoring it.

How about having the AI set to what you have in career for the Time Attacks or just remove them for Racenet entirely. It's frustrating having just two hot laps instead of 3 having to wait for the cars to clear the track ahead (on some tracks that still only gives one hot lap too...).

Don't mind the races but setting them at Medium does make those who are aiming for top step on Racenet, not just a Plat run, have a major issue. The issue is the bloody AI being so random that restarting the event 500 times for that perfect start is very boring.

In my mind there needs to be a bit of a workflow adjustment for the menus and the gametypes for Racenet events. Most of it is fixable without 5000 man hours of work too.

[TaKeNuk 0]

It seems that when you restart a challenge you lose the money and xp.. but the car seems to retain its damage. Most annoying!

[TheRolf 0]

I'd would like to see everyone ghosted in Time Attack events overall, so the results are based on what you accomplish instead of who is blocking you on your better laps. In Time attack it should be all about the time, so just have everyone ghosted. 

I don't see why we should be able to crash each other in time attack, it's not like in real racing where everyone gives some matter of respect for those on hot laps and moves over, everyone is working on their time, inadvertently blocking someone else often. 

TL;DR Make it so everyone is ghosted in time attack events. 

[skakkelakk 0]

Agree with this.

If the AI have to stay then at least let human driver start in position 1.

[MrDeap 12]

I find the slow AI a bit annoying. If you pace them up a bit it would be better. I get ridiculous damage on turn one in many retry, because the platinum requirement is very strict.

[jerrymackturner 0]

I love the challenges and race them more than racing multiplayer I do not however like that my touring car class c chevy is damaged 26% each time trial at brands hatch that costs nearly 23,000 to repair each time and then I only ever win 9,xxx cant remember exactly how much, but still.  I have collectively lost over 150,000 to be only in the top 10%.

[jerrymackturner 0]

Oh ya, and thats with the xp booster thing.

[Hirschie 0]

kick that fuuu**ing ai out of racenet challenge !!! they are always blocking and breaking me out and damage my car.

Global challenge in Grid 2 was great but that racenet challenge is no fun for me

[RTAnoskills 0]

Loore said:

Regarding the AI in the RaceNet Challenge we are looking at a change which will see Time Attack appear more often than Race, we're hoping this will help balance out the issues you're talking about but still letting those who do enjoy racing against the AI experience that.

As always, we'll keep monitoring it.

@Loore‌ this is a perfect example of change what your being asked to change.   Where has anyone said, time attack doesn't pop up often enough??? 

Don't increase the number of time attacks,  JUST LEAVR IT AS IT IS, BUT REMOVE THR AI CARS!

The people who want to race AI...............LOL. Go play career mode then.  

Loore do you read what is written or what you want to read. 

[Zodh 0]

And yet another get-rid-of-bots-on-racenet thread. I will...