The AI is cheating

[Hapistorique]

It's really annoying to see games with an AI like this in 2013

The difficulty level does not make the AI play better, it define how much they cheat
You can play with the fastest character (Sonic with speed mod or another one with max boost), take all the boosts and drift all the time the AI will always be as fast as you in Expert mode (or faster than you), even the caracters that have 1 in speed.
Most of the time they will even go faster than the max speed you can get yourself, it's crazy.

It's just luck, sometimes the AI will let you win, sometimes they will completly destroy you with items and go way faster than you

I have completed more than 50% of the game, I won a lot of races in expert difficulty but it's really annoying to play with an AI like this

I wouldn't mind if the multiplayer was great, but ATM I can't even play because it takes 5 minutes to find a game with matchmaking and most of the time there are only 1 or 2 players

[Lizard]

Do time attacks. There you can learn how the expert AI moves, learn shortcuts and such. Should help against the 'cheating' AI.

[Lijpert]

nuked bye ai , LOL

[Mivo]

Not commenting on the AI (I'm not yet at where I can judge that), but as Lizard said, do some time trials and check your leaderboard position (RB) to see how you do in relation to playees. From what I can see the leaderboard seems legit so far. There are hidden shortcuts which may account for what you see.

[Chilly]

I know what you mean, on a long straight a high speed character struggles to keep up with a low speed character. Annoying as I've been beat on the home straight due to this. grr

[Tamath]

The AI really do cheat like crazy, but that's apparently par for the course in kart racer type games. Pretty much every Grand Prix I've done on Expert has had my biggest rival (ie whoever is in 2nd place on the leaderboard) mysteriously get an All-Star powerup in the last stretch of the last lap of the last Grand Prix race. Every time. Plus they will tend to outspeed you on straights, regardless of how high your Speed stat is. Of course, given the races are very RNG dependant (no amount of good driving or Time Attack practice will save you from being hit by 5 powerups in a row) it tends not to matter. All you can really do is get to being really consistent at the tracks, getting the drift boosts and memorizing the boost and shortcut locations and hope the powerup ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ goes your way (or at least doesn't screw you over).

[LastSide]

The AI on higher difficulty tend to have higher speed than the player and like Fzero, it wins on speed.

To top it off, theres no item that directly affects anyone on first, second and third place. So if the second place player/AI is not harassing the first place player/AI theres no way to reach first place unless you get a superstar and even with that you might not reach first place thanks to the AI high speed stat.

[{FITH}™ Earthworm Jim]

It really is nuts. I had one race where I went superstar and the AI was still moving faster than me at superstar speed. Or how about another race where 1st place, yes, 1st got a super star, lol. Still, I'm getting it done. Just a matter of trying over and over until they let you win. Some practice and skill does make a difference also though.

[Hapistorique]

Originally posted by Lizard:

Do time attacks. There you can learn how the expert AI moves, learn shortcuts and such. Should help against the 'cheating' AI.

I agree that practice makes you better at the game, but it still doesn't change the fact that the AI is cheating :/

Instead of making the AI "smarter" and more skilled, they just increase their speed and the amount of items they launch on you

[Komppu]

The S rank AI may be fast but they are still quite dumb, most of the time you can see them running at walls or driving into pits with high speed.

[RabidBurp]

AI rubber-banding is a cruel mistress, although not an invincible one...

[Chizu]

at least the rubberbanding in this game is less severe that some certain other kart racers.
I'm looking at you Mario.

[{FITH}™ Earthworm Jim]

Originally posted by Chizu:

at least the rubberbanding in this game is less severe that some certain other kart racers.
I'm looking at you Mario.

That's true, in the few races that they let me take the lead, they rarely catch up unless they pull out an all star.

[Coffee]

I was hoping the AI rubberbanding was absent in this game, unlike F1 Race Stars. But it's almost seems worse.

It's really annoying! I hope they'll update that!

[JCX]

Im on an expert versus event and I've used the twister on Shadow twice and he didn't get affected by it(Didn't have a glove). They can shoot fireworks at angles. Once you get the lead it isn't hard to maintain until out of nowhere they land a perfect ice ball hit.

I enjoy the difficulty but Expert is a bit over bored if we had equal speed then I wouldn't mind the perfect item aiming but it seems they always have top speed even after being hit by an item they recover in about 0.5 seconds.

Gave up and did it on hard and it was easy as hell. Expert isn't hard just unfair.

[GATOR.EXE]

I think its just to test the player really. Ever since I unlocked Vyse and even playing with the hardest AI, I manage to pull through most stages.