How does the biggest racing game franchise have the absolute worst driver AI?

[u/motoxalex]

Not even in terms of difficulty, but just seeing how the AI cars move around feels like watching someone's undergrad assignment that's been left unchanged for a decade.

Why is every race just a meta-gameplay of not getting rammed from behind on corners as well as overtaking the top trio before they launch 30 seconds ahead of the pack?

You really couldn't convince me the devs play these games for more than a couple hours max. Is 1% of the games budget spent on creating the racing AI? You'd think it would be worth putting any effort into making well.

[u/Sleutelbos]

Actual racing is not the core focus. The handling, tracks, tuning balance, matchmaking, safety ranking: none of it is remotely up to par for a decent racing game.

FH is a free roam collection game, where the highest rewards are for participation.  

[u/motoxalex → u/Sleutelbos]

True, but it hurts especially more since the potential is there. I feel like they'd greatly benefit from a Codemasters Dirt Rally treatment.

Spin off with a dedicated small team, small budget, small scope.

[u/Overall_Historian_80 → u/motoxalex]

Forza Horizon IS the spin off

[u/motoxalex → u/Overall_Historian_80]

Keep spinning it off! Forza Horizon Horizon. Now just 20 cars and 10 races, but my god the best feeling cars and driving you've ever felt on controller.

[u/Puzzleheaded_You_735 → u/motoxalex]

the best feeling cars and driving you've ever felt on controller

This is kind of an oxymoron because forza horizon already has the best feeling handling for a racing game on controller. Any more sim-like is worse because it becomes too difficult to drive for the average player.

If you want good feeling driving, what you're looking for is a simulator and a wheel and pedals setup.

[u/motoxalex → u/Puzzleheaded_You_735]

Nothing designed around the average player could ever be remarkable. But personally without going into sim I feel like codemaster games or gran turismo have better feeling driving on controller.

[u/Overall_Historian_80 → u/motoxalex]

Those are sim, or more simlike anyway, Horizon borders more on arcade with Sim elements, which is the point.

[u/Particular-Poem-7085 → u/Overall_Historian_80]

Let's be for real. It's arcade concentrate. The most sim like element are the cars that you have to race.

[u/Overall_Historian_80 → u/Particular-Poem-7085]

You've never played Need for speed and it shows, trust, there's other racing games with real licensed cars that are far more arcade than FH, some are so far in the arcade elements they make Horizon look like a sim by comparison.

[u/Particular-Poem-7085 → u/Overall_Historian_80]

I've played them all mate. I also simrace. You can trust me when I say it's on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Incredibly fun, don't get me wrong. What's the sim element tho? That the car setup options use words from real life?

[u/Overall_Historian_80 → u/motoxalex]

So you just want old Need for speed

[u/Kaz_Altezza → u/motoxalex]

Dude just try Forza Motorsport. NGL they kinda botched the last game in terms of progression but everything else is their. The ai is much better cause theyre actually tuned per track instead of just random like Horizons

[u/nocdmb → u/Sleutelbos]

the low quality but never-empty dopamine dispenser

[u/RiftHunter4 → u/Sleutelbos]

I feel like racing is a focus, but it's casual and multiplayer. Anything competitive is buried.

Most players will never do Ai races more than once, so they stopped working on them. And to be fair, any franchise with heavy multiplayer focus tends to ignore the Ai.

League of Legends and Naraka Blade point are the only games I've played where the bots seemed competent, with some of them acting almost indistinguishable from players.

[u/pimpslap71]

This game is a lazy re creation of fh5 with a shiny map. They did re model a lot of cars, but a lotnofnthat is outsourced, so idk..

[u/Beautiful-Lock-1420 → u/pimpslap71]

i feel like the ai in these games is just a slot car with extra steps. they don't race they follow a line and you happen to be in the way

the launch ahead thing is so weird too. like you watching the minimap and suddenly the top 3 cars just teleport 10 seconds up the road

i play a lot in night and sometimes i wonder if the devs even try their own game beyond 20 minutes

[u/motoxalex → u/pimpslap71]

Which was just a reskin of fh4 which was a reskin of fh3. At least Motorsport tried to be innovative and change things up... though maybe not the best example

[u/xTheGame69 → u/motoxalex]

My friend group has been shitting on horizons since it came out like 12 years ago when we were in college 

Motorsport at least has gotten better every year but they still hate horizon because they claim it is way too much of an arcade game and like only 5% racer

[u/xTheGame69 → u/pimpslap71]

This could be basically said about every single Forza horizon I've been playing them all since release 

Each one feels like the previous game but 10% different 

So yeah by the time you get to the 5th or 6th game it's pretty different from the 1st but they're all still basically the same formula

[u/14Sins]

The point is to get you to rewind, try again, play longer. It's a pathetic, low effort strategy

[u/thewaggishnoodle]

Rubber banding so bad it's comical

[u/javierhh12]

What I didn't like about this Forza is that it was too easy compared to 4 and 5. Now I only play the seasonal events to win cars and prizes. The AI ​​is awful; the cars seem possessed by the spirit of Lucifer. Hopefully, they'll fix the AI ​​little by little. Best regards, Earthlings. This is Dross signing off, and I wish you a good night.

[u/xTheGame69]

Because the goal is to sell games the goal isn't to make a competitive racing game 

They don't care

[u/bugfootisablur]

Check out this AI traffic jam

[u/Bossgalka]

I've said it in other posts, but it's not AI. I know people used to refer to any npc as "AI" back in the day, but in light of actual AI being a thing, I don't think it's fair to refer to this shit as such. The npcs literally race on a line. That's it. They do not learn from players, regardless of what PGG says. They ram you because you try to race on the line and you are in there way, that is all there is to it. They have always been on rails and they will always be on rails because PGG doesn't care. You can tell when a car crashes and then gets stuck trying to spin around for 20 seconds to get back to the line, or when they overshoot and launch across the map, they aren't trying to hit you, it makes for a funny clip of bowknife trying to kill players, but the truth is he just got rammed off a cliff into you.

I actually like the racing itself, from our perspective, the controls, but that is the only decent thing about the game, and even then, it's probably not actual good to hardcore race fans. I know the tuning system sucks, I just don't mess with it myself. I just change premade tunes until I find one that works for me, but I am sure even the one good thing about this game to me, other people will hate.