Codemasters responds to F1 2010 AI complaints
Many reports are inaccurate, says the UK publisher.
Codemasters has responded to some rather heated complaints about apparent "phoney" race AI in the publisher's recently released F1 2010.
Some of the game's more hardcore players have been posting their problems with the game on the Codemasters forums, notably in a 23 page thread titled, "Confirmed Race AI Phoney".
While Codemasters is working to resolve known bugs, it insists AI issues are not being reported accurately.
"As you are aware work is on-going towards a patch for the game, and we will release details on this as we move through the patch creation process," explain a forum post by Codemasters. "Your constructive feedback has been invaluable in helping us both identify and work to resolve issues with the game, and we appreciate your detailed posts.
"Some of the identified issues have led (understandably) to people making assumptions about the game that are not accurate, so we felt that in order to reassure you and explain better the process which we are going through at the moment, we'd address a few common queries, in particular relating to AI. In putting this post together, we spoke to various people from across the development team, including the leads and specialists who are working directly on addressing the issues that have been raised.
"The AI system implemented in F1 2010 is very complex, and is certainly not scripted in any way. Every AI driver is trained with a series of race behaviours such as overtaking, defending a position and slipstreaming etc. On top of these behaviours we have a unique set of characteristics. These characteristics are defined per driver so you’ll notice some subtle differences. Some drivers are better at race starts or are better at overtaking (they look for narrower gaps), or are better in the rain, or are more aggressive, or are better around certain race tracks. We also have a system which can make certain drivers have a particularly good or bad race depending on a number of factors. All of this driver variance is of course combined with the cars themselves also having varying levels of performance."
The post goes into much more detail about many of the issues players have raised, so is worth checking out.
As for when the bugs will be fixed, Codemasters says it's working on a patch.
User Comments
clangod@ reynoldio
I have no doubt that some of the commentary issues are related to exactly that. No commentary in a game I've ever played has been perfect but at the same time, there seems like a lot of repetition/ errors considering how little the engineer actually says.
To the next part, yes. A huge oversight. Almost all competitive motorsports are measured on seconds and fractions of a second. I think any fan of F1 would have expected split comparisons, sector logs and performance summaries.
reynoldio@ clangod
Do think not putting in proper sector times and gaps between car in front/behind is a major oversight though and leaves them open to this kind of criticism.
clangod
This is definitely an issue if you were in second place, however unless the engineer specified it was in fact the guy in front of you or named him, Codemasters have also stated that all time comparisons are made to the race leader at any given time. There have been numerous other complaints about the engineer voice over being completely out of context to what's happening in the race but hopefully this is just a conextual bug which can be rectified...
Still a great game. I do hope the patch can correct many of the issues we're seeing however I fear many of these bugs are so far encoded into the game it may well take some time to do so.
My biggest gripe would be penalties handed out for other driver's errors and AI do not appear to be penalised at all.
draytone@ El-Dev
El-Dev@ draytone
I really hope it's just a few bugs more than them being devious.
draytone
Quote: Could Codemasters really get away with something like that?! Lol.
mikejosh1978
The online is the main worry for me as i have spent 3 days solid getting to LvL32 and the points system needs some clarification on how we get them as codies are being coy.
They should do a ghost server option like GRID where all opposition are ghost cars and collisions are then not a factor & as the spirit of F1 is then kept , the speed of the driver not the luck of avoiding idiot crash and bashers or preying that a rear shunt won't cost you 10secs.
El-Dev