2 years ago

Oh, that's more like it

After restarting my MyTeam over and over again, I just had my most entertaining race in this year's game. They actually managed to fix the AI!

I had an epic battle for a point in a race that had me destined for a 15th at my best circuit, but the Hards started to really come to me midway through the 2nd stint. Picked off Zhou and Tsunoda over three laps going down the front straight (DRS/ERS works as well for me as it does for them now) and was resigned to 13th when Albon made a mistake(!) in Minerali and held up the two behind him. Piastri suffered damage apparently and I was able to catch him and use DRS, slingshotting me within striking distance of Albon and Bottas. Sold out my ERS to get within DRS range and held onto Bottas for dear life. Few laps later he finally went after Albon and I went after them both, 3-wide into Tamburello! Got the move done and the next four laps was musical chairs between the three of us down the front straight. Bottas got around Albon but had nothing for me in the final two laps as I pulled out of DRS range (their tires seem to wear at or even higher than my rate and there's a definite, almost too obvious crossover point). Finally, a points finish I could be proud of!

The racing on this iteration of my career has been nothing short of outstanding. With the exception of one strange occurrence of final lap rubberbanding in Baku, the AI feels neither stupid nor unfair so far. The best part isn't the enhanced speed (going from a 107-110 down to 102-104) but just how ferocious the AI finally is. I actually had to drive with my mirrors and had to make wise business decisions to let someone past, knowing that they weren't going to back off. And they now respect that I'm in position but aren't going to surrender the position before we even reach the apex. The days of self-imposing "house rules" in regards to racecraft are finally over. I'm still yet to see whether my biggest gripe with the AI has been fixed--not reacting to late-race changing track conditions, but Monaco's forecast looks like it'll be offering the chance to find out.

So far though, there is an extraordinary improvement to the AI and I'm grateful for that. Well done Codies. Be like this for all aspects of your game and we'd have an all-timer on our hands.

discussion

15 Replies

ScarDuck14
Legend
2 years ago
@AquaOrenji I have had some really good tussles with the Ai this year which has be a plus for the game. Havnt played since patch so hoping for what you’ve just experienced.

Someone after my own heart.. I do love restarting my team careers. I do like trying every starting variation of engine and interview answers. I used to select the best answers that gave me bang for buck but now I answer so I nerf myself as much as possible.

Last lap isn’t so much rubberbandiing. The Ai deploy all their ERS on last lap. So they manage to get over a second faster on some tracks. It’s irritating as it doesn’t take into account their worn tyres
Johnboy1983
2 years ago
I always do the same with regards to interview questions. I want to start at the bottom of the pile and that’s it. Only thing I’ve found this year though it that it is super tough to actually catch up with the development of the other cars. I’m 6-7 races in now and I’m still the slowest team. This is going to be a hard slog.
ScarDuck14
Legend
2 years ago
@Johnboy1983Yeah think it’s about the only change to my team they have made is Ai teams R&D development. But I get the impression the game just mirrors our updates and gives the Ai teams similar updates. So more scripted than organic
Accidentally accepted your post as a solution. Unmarked it but you get a few bonus xp woohooo. Quick reply and accept a solution button are right next to each other on phone and I have big old man fingers
Johnboy1983
2 years ago
I did see that, thought it was strange 😂
Monzstar83
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@Johnboy1983 wrote:
I always do the same with regards to interview questions. I want to start at the bottom of the pile and that’s it. Only thing I’ve found this year though it that it is super tough to actually catch up with the development of the other cars. I’m 6-7 races in now and I’m still the slowest team. This is going to be a hard slog.
@Johnboy1983 similar to you and @ScarDuck14, I like to start at the bottom and actively nerf myself to keep it challenging.
I’m yet to start a proper MyTeam season, but in previous games I found that somewhere between the middle to the end of the 2nd season, the MyTeam car really becomes easy to top out in performance and it’s very easy to smash the opposition.
I would be interested to hear your experiences as you progress through the rest of your season and into the next.
ScarDuck14
Legend
2 years ago
@Monzstar83 Yup I’ve yet to finish season. Yet done over a hundred hours in my team. Think I few more patches before I start a serious career
Monzstar83
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@AquaOrenji glad you had a good experience with the AI. If you can, I’d be interested to know what level you set your AI level for the race compared to the suggested AI on F1 laps: https://www.f1laps.com/ai-difficulty-calculator/.
I’m currently working my way through all the tracks on TT, to figure out what AI level I should use for each track, and will start a MyTeam season once done with this - would be keen to know what level you used compared to this to see if I should make any adjustments.
Johnboy1983
2 years ago
Tbh I hardly EVER finish a full season of anything. Il play religiously when it comes out, then other things appear in my want list, recently Final Fantasy 16, which has got me back into FF14, F1 manager has obviously just come out too which I’m heavily invested in (already at Singapore in my first season), so it’s kinda on the back burner now. Then by the time I get back to it; more patches and fixes are your, better performance index for the teams, so I start again, and so it continues. I feel I’m always missing out on the best of my team, because I never play it for more than 15-16 races.

perhaps I need to stop playing 100% races….
Monzstar83
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@ScarDuck14 wrote:
@Monzstar83Yup I’ve yet to finish season. Yet done over a hundred hours in my team. Think I few more patches before I start a serious career
Yeah me too. As you know, there’s just too much “work” involved to keep it interesting/challenging. I find once you start doing MT seasons (and with nothing new to keep it fresh in this release), I will lose interest in the game really quickly.
The new handling model has helped because I’m keeping myself entertained with defining base setups in TT. I’m just apprehensive to pull the trigger and do MT because of the above… I really want to have a good experience right off the bat (set a good AI level, figure out the financing etc) and avoid the “work”, because it’s get boring really fast.
AquaOrenji
2 years ago
@Monzstar83 wrote:
@AquaOrenji glad you had a good experience with the AI. If you can, I’d be interested to know what level you set your AI level for the race compared to the suggested AI on F1 laps: https://www.f1laps.com/ai-difficulty-calculator/.
I’m currently working my way through all the tracks on TT, to figure out what AI level I should use for each track, and will start a MyTeam season once done with this - would be keen to know what level you used compared to this to see if I should make any adjustments.
I can maybe give it a go for a few laps later after I get thru with my BG3 fix. Though I'm kinda skeptical about f1laps' ability to translate time trial performance to career difficulty. I remember going on there early in the game's release--Imola, in fact--and it spitting out that I should be low 80's when I was already clubbing the AI at 95. With the new update and better AI, I'm pretty comfortable in the low 100's. I suppose I'm curious if the algorithm has improved in the six weeks since.