Consolemasters ruin another title (F1 2010)?

[dayglow 2]

I think people like to rip on CM for any reason. I don't think F1 2010 is bad. It sits very nicely between arcade racer and a heavy sim. Right where they said it would be. I have no interest in playing a hyper realistic F1 sim as I would like to be able to complete a lap.

They have nailed the experience of driving. Is it fl fidelity? No, but it doesn't have to be. Is it fun? Hell yes.

As for the AI issue, if you read their explanation it does make sense. I can warp to any sector on the track during practice and qualifying. How would you work the AI around that? And how soon people forget the AI in other games. Simbin games, GTR, GTR2, Race 07, etc all have their problems. Their qualifying AI is faked as soon as you accerate time or skip a session. Also there is thir famous inbalance between qual and race times. I could qual in the top 1/3 of an NGT car, but in the race I could lap the GT's because they were so much slower. Then there is the race slowdown issue itself. The longer the race the slower the AI gets because the constant bang into each other damaging their cars to the point the ate significantly slower.

Simbin games are still very good, but the point is that the people that are ragging on F1 aren't comparing it to what is realistically possible. I like the feature to jump to a section so I can practice that area that I am the slowest. I don't care if qualifying AI isn't simulated in real time because no game can do it properly anyways.

[Zipper5 74]

I don't care if qualifying AI isn't simulated in real time because no game can do it properly anyways.

That's like saying "I don't care if bullet physics aren't simulated properly because no game can make it just like in real life," or "I don't care if dedicated servers aren't included because no game has managed to eliminate lag entirely." I'd rather have something done close to how it is in real life, or to how it should be, rather than not have it at all.

People like to rip on Codemasters because they are liars and cheats who do not appear to care about their customers. It cannot be denied that they have lied to quite a high degree with both Dragon Rising and F1 2010. Sure, many companies lie about their products, but it's rare to see one that does it to the degree CM have done in the span of two game releases.

[Rista 0]

Didn't GP2 back then in 1996. have properly simulated qualifying? I remember you could speed up the time while you were in the pits and you could see the other cars getting out of pits in fast forward and having their laps timed. You could also go to game menu and accelerate time but it would still take quite some time to finish the session and the better your processor, the faster it was, which tells me it was still properly simulated instead of lap times being made out of thin air.

I could somehow get over faked AI in qualifying if it wasn't for the cheap AI catch up during the race as well which one of the devs promised would NOT be in the game because they "dislike it". If you are ahead of the AI a certain distance, they get engine power multiplier and drive faster, if you are behind them then they are slower. CM explain this as "realism" as when the lead car has a big lead, he is likely to slow down to conserve his car. Which would be fine by itself if it couldn't be explained in this way ONLY when human player is around. So they only push or conserve their car relative to the human player car, wherever it is on the track, and nothing else. The race is completely centered around the player and doesn't even bother simulating the rest of the race properly. A bit like "you can't see it on the screen so it doesn't matter" in Dragon Rising. Combined with the pit stop bug, it completely messes up any kind of pitting strategy in this game.

[[frl]myke 14]

I think people like to rip on CM for any reason. I don't think F1 2010 is bad. It sits very nicely between arcade racer and a heavy sim. Right where they said it would be. I have no interest in playing a hyper realistic F1 sim as I would like to be able to complete a lap.

They have nailed the experience of driving. Is it fl fidelity? No, but it doesn't have to be. Is it fun? Hell yes.

As for the AI issue, if you read their explanation it does make sense. I can warp to any sector on the track during practice and qualifying. How would you work the AI around that? And how soon people forget the AI in other games. Simbin games, GTR, GTR2, Race 07, etc all have their problems. Their qualifying AI is faked as soon as you accerate time or skip a session. Also there is thir famous inbalance between qual and race times. I could qual in the top 1/3 of an NGT car, but in the race I could lap the GT's because they were so much slower. Then there is the race slowdown issue itself. The longer the race the slower the AI gets because the constant bang into each other damaging their cars to the point the ate significantly slower.

Simbin games are still very good, but the point is that the people that are ragging on F1 aren't comparing it to what is realistically possible. I like the feature to jump to a section so I can practice that area that I am the slowest. I don't care if qualifying AI isn't simulated in real time because no game can do it properly anyways.

Also you are one of those who forget that it already has be done properly on consoles 14 years back. So it is possible to do and it is possible to do it on consoles.

I wouldn't care if only in free practice the AI times were faked but Qualifying is a elementary part of the race. They could have made a option to enable real AI times and no "warp to any sector" or enabling warp and then AI times are estimated. This way, everyone could chose what he wants to have.

[dmarkwick 261]

The Ego game engine is entirely player-centric. That's why it's called Ego :) Nothing outside the immediate player area is regarded as important in any way, apart from a vary basic statistical level, hence the race AI timing guessing problem.

Geoff Crammond has made several hi-fidelity Grand Prix simulations, all with the features missing from this title, and he did it in the 90s, and consoles are better machines than PCs of the 90s. Saying the engine cannot support it because of texture limitations is like saying textures cannot be swapped in & out as needed, which is obvious bollocks. Unless it's not, in which case Ego is worse than I imagine :)

CM = arcade, simple.

[dayglow 2]

That's like saying "I don't care if bullet physics aren't simulated properly because no game can make it just like in real life," or "I don't care if dedicated servers aren't included because no game has managed to eliminate lag entirely." I'd rather have something done close to how it is in real life, or to how it should be, rather than not have it at all.

People like to rip on Codemasters because they are liars and cheats who do not appear to care about their customers. It cannot be denied that they have lied to quite a high degree with both Dragon Rising and F1 2010. Sure, many companies lie about their products, but it's rare to see one that does it to the degree CM have done in the span of two game releases.

I've yet to see any outragious results from the AI quilifying. People are bitching about their method of determining times vs the actual times posted. How the AI arrives at it's times will always be part of a computer process that is faking real life. Be it behind the scenes or in real time. My point is that any racing game the program determines the AI speeds. You can ramp up the AI level in a Simbin game so they post times well beyond what is possible in real life and even the physics of driving. Do people complain that the AI is cheating then? Has Simbin lied to people because the AI can outperform even what a race car is physically possible to do?

For me I have found that the AI posted times in qualifying is an accurate representation of the skill level of the AI in the actual race. In other race games there is a real problem with qualifying times being way faster than race times making it very hard to have a good game experience. Either you crank up the AI so the race is competitive, but you will start at the back of the field as they will qualify much faster than you can drive, or have realistic qualifying session, but in the race able to fly pass cars that should be vastly faster (GT vs NGT cars)

[[frl]myke 14]

I've yet to see any outragious results from the AI quilifying. People are bitching about their method of determining times vs the actual times posted. How the AI arrives at it's times will always be part of a computer process that is faking real life. Be it behind the scenes or in real time. My point is that any racing game the program determines the AI speeds. You can ramp up the AI level in a Simbin game so they post times well beyond what is possible in real life and even the physics of driving. Do people complain that the AI is cheating then? Has Simbin lied to people because the AI can outperform even what a race car is physically possible to do?

For me I have found that the AI posted times in qualifying is an accurate representation of the skill level of the AI in the actual race. In other race games there is a real problem with qualifying times being way faster than race times making it very hard to have a good game experience. Either you crank up the AI so the race is competitive, but you will start at the back of the field as they will qualify much faster than you can drive, or have realistic qualifying session, but in the race able to fly pass cars that should be vastly faster (GT vs NGT cars)

I agree that at the very end it is computer calculated times. But it is one thing if times are more or less randomly generated based on a database or if AI driver actually go out of pit, follow the track (including making mistakes which is part of the AI routines), influenced by other AI or player drivers ontrack.

Again, this has be done 14 years ago on consoles of that time so there is absolutely no logical reason why it couldn't be done on todays consoles, not even speaking of PC here.

And about the thing of AI qualifying much faster than you....well, the cars are different, perform differently on each race track, handle differently with differing tires and so on. afaik F1 2010 has a career mode, so well, thats how a career usually starts, starting in back of the grid. Your skill should determine if you get a better contract offered or not.

At the very end, everything comes down to program a proper AI. F1 2010 has none.

[dayglow 2]

Myke;1760692']I agree that at the very end it is computer calculated times. But it is one thing if times are more or less randomly generated based on a database or if AI driver actually go out of pit' date=' follow the track (including making mistakes which is part of the AI routines), influenced by other AI or player drivers ontrack.

Again, this has be done 14 years ago on consoles of that time so there is absolutely no logical reason why it couldn't be done on todays consoles, not even speaking of PC here.

And about the thing of AI qualifying much faster than you....well, the cars are different, perform differently on each race track, handle differently with differing tires and so on. afaik F1 2010 has a career mode, so well, thats how a career usually starts, starting in back of the grid. Your skill should determine if you get a better contract offered or not.

At the very end, everything comes down to program a proper AI. F1 2010 has none.[/quote']

In the end I accept their explanation that they choose the feature of being able to warp to different parts of the track over having the AI running at realtime around the track. In the end it's a design compramise to the features they want. Some agree with it and others don't. Every game has them. In the end my approach at looking at is, 'does it adversly affect my gameplay experience?'. No it doesn't. I find qualifying a challange and as you mention depending on my constructor team and AI skill level setting I realistically qualify in the field. From there the AI is consistent from the qualifying to the race. As an added bonus you can skip or fastforward the qualifying session without adverse effects. To play a Simbin game if you do, it will really throw out any logical qualifying time of the AI.

I would love to hear someone logically explain how this compramises the gameplay of the game other than that they don't like it.

[Zipper5 74]

A couple months from now everyone will know the pre-scripted patterns of the other faked cars, making the singleplayer an utterly dull and predictable experience.

There's one way. There will be zero longevity to the game.

[Flash Thunder 10]

A couple months from now everyone will know the pre-scripted patterns of the other faked cars, making the singleplayer an utterly dull and predictable experience.

There's one way. There will be zero longevity to the game.

LMAO.

CM would pull something like that, EGO=Tricks and thats it. :D

[Pulverizer 1]

They're saying the AI isn't faked in the race, though.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/f1-2010-game-1316/433396-ai-issues-response.html

Race AI

As none of the above feature restrictions are relevant in the race itself, we DO NOT use any other systems in the race other than the AI cars all physically driving the race just as the player does. Other factors also contribute to the AI lap times and the variation in their race pace. These include race start behaviours, their ultimate race pace which takes into account elements such as fuel and tyre degradation, weather, conserving / cooling engines etc, their in and out laps in the pit stop phase and their finishing pace.

[Zipper5 74]

They also said they'd give continuous free DLC and support for DR. Hell, they claim that RR is an OFP game. I don't really value CM's word any more. :rolleyes:

[Hans Ludwig 0]

A couple months from now everyone will know the pre-scripted patterns of the other faked cars, making the singleplayer an utterly dull and predictable experience.

There's one way. There will be zero longevity to the game.

They aren't in the business of building games with "longevity." They are interested in feeding console kiddies with pure crap.

The best way to sum this all up is to say that console/Codemasters fan boys must be the same people that argue Abstract art is, um, an art. We all know Abstract artist take all of 10 minutes to throw paint onto a canvas and put a hefty price tag on it.

[dayglow 2]

So why don't you jump on that gravy train then?

[Zipper5 74]

Some of us want games with a bit more substance. BIS' games and Valve's are the only ones that have kept me coming back time and time again. The others I finish, play the MP for a few weeks if it has it and it's good enough, and then I never touch it again. Others I don't even finish and feel I wasted money on them, as is how I would feel if I had bought F1 2010 or DR uninformed as to all of this, I believe.

[[frl]myke 14]

They're saying the AI isn't faked in the race, though.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/f1-2010-game-1316/433396-ai-issues-response.html

It isn't?

lEZ6InjuYGk&feature=player_embedded

[Pulverizer 1]

Obviously Mr Webber did not overtake him magically but stayed behind him, like he should've, so the video only proves a glitch in the timings, not faked AI cars.

[Zipper5 74]

Well, that's pretty pathetic...

[[frl]myke 14]

Obviously Mr Webber did not overtake him magically but stayed behind him, like he should've, so the video only proves a glitch in the timings, not faked AI cars.

Oh, i'm sorry. Somehow i thought that timings were one of the most important points in a racing situation. Dumb me, my apologies.

So then the bug is that times are displayed at all. Finally it is enough info if i have any cars in front of me which i obviously can see by looking out of the cockpit.

[Rista 0]

Myke;1760844']It isn't?

lEZ6InjuYGk&feature=player_embedded

They're saying it's an error with the timer that resets when AI cars cross the finish line. Really want to believe them but wouldn't be surprised by anything really.

I like how they are talking about "the AI variation of pace" and trying to explain it in a realistic and complex way when you can see from the config files the rubber band/catch up AI is clearly there and doesn't seem that complex at all.

[Zipper5 74]

I look forward to seeing someone delve into the actual configs of the game itself and finding a fool-proof answer as to the AI being faked or not. I'll hedge my bets at the moment on it being faked.

Edit: Lol, just saw your post Rista. You got any links?

Edited October 1, 2010 by Zipper5
Posted too soon

[Pulverizer 1]

Yes, everyone gets you hate CM and will always believe they're guilty of anything until proven innocent. No need to reiterate it every 30 seconds.

[Zipper5 74]

Their recent reputation doesn't support anything other than that does it, Pulverizer?

Besides, if you read what I said, you'll see I'm looking for an answer as to whether it is actually faked or not by looking at the actual coding of the game. I am simply betting it is faked, as far too many factors point to that.

Edit: Lol, watch the end of Part 2 of that video and you'll see an example of the supposed fake AI.

JsMlhvQT8gQ

Edited October 1, 2010 by Zipper5

[Pulverizer 1]

I really don't see why they would bother to make a statement to specifically say that the AI cars aren't faked, if they were. They'd simply refrain from saying one way or the other. Lying so blatantly would only make things worse, inevitably.

[Rista 0]

I look forward to seeing someone delve into the actual configs of the game itself and finding a fool-proof answer as to the AI being faked or not. I'll hedge my bets at the moment on it being faked.

Edit: Lol, just saw your post Rista. You got any links?

I'll try to find it. There is a catch up config file where you can see the AI cars receive engine power boosts/penalties depending on how far ahead/behind the player they are. That itself doesn't mean the AI is faked like in those videos though. It just means the AI is very cheap and not something you would want or expect in an F1 game even if it's not a hardcore sim.

Their explanation of weird AI lap times during the race is somewhat reasonable. But why are the AI cars timed differently? Why are there no gap times during the race? If the AI lap times are already completely fabricated during the qualifying how can we be sure there is nothing fishy whatsoever about their race lap times?