AI Traffic is Terrible

[Shart]

I even tested it on a non-modded profile and there's a plethora of issues with traffic to the point it's impossible to have a smooth run. I even have traffic turned down lower than the default number and even on almost empty roads these problems persist.

1. Traffic no longer yields at on-ramps.

2. Traffic will slam the brakes at a green to let right turning traffic go ahead.

3. Traffic on highways will somehow end up sideways or backwards in the median causing all lanes to come to a stop.

4. Even with no stop, yield or traffic lights a vehicle will slow down almost to a stop passing an intersection on a highway.

5. Traffic will cross the road or turn right when you have the right of way causing a collision.

I don't know what happened since version 1.40 but it's impossible to have a good run without AI traffic completely ruining it. I see on the forums a lot of other people are having issues with AI traffic and I hope it's fixed by the time Wyoming releases.

[Catratio]

I came upon two trucks that collided with each other in a 30 zone. I don't even know how it happens but I had to save and load to clear the traffic because neither one could move. The cars also seem to be more bold now, making left turns right in front of me as I enter the intersection on green. I've T-boned more than one car lately doing this.

[Zuz]

Number 4 is very annoying, I agree. Especially when driving on the highway doing 60 mph and the traffic suddenly stops in front of you to let traffic onto the highway, Grrrrr's. But this also happens on ETS 2 as well.

[Alumno Superstes]

I'm sure these all things have always been there (ETS2 Iberia showed it most clear) ppl jsut makes excuses if someone pinpoints AI failures and then isuuese gets forgotten. SCS has a JOB to tweak traffic to good quality. BOTH dev teams (ETS2 and ATS) should start testing AI asap. No matter if AI is best in sims atm, that's just another excuse. Always should aim higher and higher, that is the way how quality is kept good.

[Chadwbacca]

Originally posted by Alumno Superstes:

I'm sure these all things have always been there (ETS2 Iberia showed it most clear) ppl jsut makes excuses if someone pinpoints AI failures and then isuuese gets forgotten. SCS has a JOB to tweak traffic to good quality. BOTH dev teams (ETS2 and ATS) should start testing AI asap. No matter if AI is best in sims atm, that's just another excuse. Always should aim higher and higher, that is the way how quality is kept good.

Yeah, this problems have been in ETS2 since ages, and the funny things is you can read comments saying "wow, it is so realistic, they are as dumb as in real life". No, it is not, cars in this game are suicide, blind and really polite, at the same time. It feels like their AI is not in real time:

-Car 1 decides to leave the gas station, at that moment there was no truck in the exit.
*8 seconds later your truck is in front of the exit*
-Car 1 should stop before going out of the station, because now there is a truck passing by. But no, he continues and rams on the side of your trailer.

[Wensleydale154]

You forgot my favorite: a bumper-to-bumper line of slowly moving cars, trucks, and buses that makes it impossible to safely turn onto the street in a small town... at 3 in the morning!

On the other hand, it's pretty easy to drive near and through big cities during weekday rush hours. Even near LA!

[Chadwbacca]

Or when the AI don't know what to do during Special Transports, so they end up just blocking the road, and you are forced to save and load.

[Sandhill]

The brilliantly executed AI is just there to do the near impossible, put some difficulty or challenge into a game which by its nature has none. If you need an easier game you are free to ignore the AI, turn fines off etc

[Shart]

Originally posted by Sandhill:

The brilliantly executed AI is just there to do the near impossible, put some difficulty or challenge into a game which by its nature has none. If you need an easier game you are free to ignore the AI, turn fines off etc

None of that is intended to be a challenge or difficulty. That's what the road events, detours and rain sliders are for. This is broken AI. I drove truck for years and not once in my career has any of that happened on the road. Anyone claiming the dumb AI makes it realistic either doesn't have their license or rides a bike. If I got into 6 accident on one trip I would have been fired immediately, nothing realistic about that. So your petty "I'm bad at the game and need an easy mode" is not applicable here. Lol

[shadyltd1989]

I've never had the luxury of experiencing #1 as long as I've been playing. It's pretty annoying to sit at the on ramp for who knows how long just trying to get on the highway. I know in real life some people are rude and don't get over but most people seem to give you room to merge.

[Shart]

Originally posted by shadyltd1989:

I've never had the luxury of experiencing #1 as long as I've been playing. It's pretty annoying to sit at the on ramp for who knows how long just trying to get on the highway. I know in real life some people are rude and don't get over but most people seem to give you room to merge.

Yeah, typically the right lane will merge to allow on-ramp traffic to enter the highway, but the problem is that the on-ramps in game are not American style on ramps. There's no room for them to speed up or anything so they either come to a complete stop then merge at a slow crawl.

[Ryu]

Originally posted by Madman:

Originally posted by shadyltd1989:

I've never had the luxury of experiencing #1 as long as I've been playing. It's pretty annoying to sit at the on ramp for who knows how long just trying to get on the highway. I know in real life some people are rude and don't get over but most people seem to give you room to merge.

Yeah, typically the right lane will merge to allow on-ramp traffic to enter the highway, but the problem is that the on-ramps in game are not American style on ramps. There's no room for them to speed up or anything so they either come to a complete stop then merge at a slow crawl.

I just did a 2500 mile trip through 10 states. Those short ramps are, in fact, a real thing in the US. Just because newer roadwork is making them longer doesn't mean those shorties stopped existing.

And for your comment about roadside events, detours being the difficulty and not the AI traffic? Then why were roadside events and detours only a recent addition while the AI traffic has been here the whole time? Do you mean that the only driving difficulty up till events and detours was the rain?? Sounds fishy. Like you just trying to rationalize your hatred of the AI. ;)

[Chadwbacca]

Originally posted by ~{DCMT}~ Ryu:

Originally posted by Madman:

Yeah, typically the right lane will merge to allow on-ramp traffic to enter the highway, but the problem is that the on-ramps in game are not American style on ramps. There's no room for them to speed up or anything so they either come to a complete stop then merge at a slow crawl.

I just did a 2500 mile trip through 10 states. Those short ramps are, in fact, a real thing in the US. Just because newer roadwork is making them longer doesn't mean those shorties stopped existing.

And for your comment about roadside events, detours being the difficulty and not the AI traffic? Then why were roadside events and detours only a recent addition while the AI traffic has been here the whole time? Do you mean that the only driving difficulty up till events and detours was the rain?? Sounds fishy. Like you just trying to rationalize your hatred of the AI. ;)

He is not trying to rationalize any hate about the AI. The AI is bad, period. And that is an objective fact, there are many examples. If the reason to have this disaster of an AI is having "difficulty", then there is something wrong with SCS philosophy. But I don't think that is true.

Just to name a few:
1-They give you preference when they shouldn't.

2-Sometimes they drop the speed to stupid low levels in highway because they drive close to the ramp, no matter if there are cars or not. Real people just change the line instead of going from 65mph to almost stopping the car in the highway.

3-Other times you can see a long line of cars waiting to incorporate to the highway because no car give them preference changing lines, and when they decide to give preference, they just... stop... in a damn highway.

4-When a car is trying to incorporate, sometimes when they reach the end of the incorporating line or the exit of a gas station, they will just incorporate, no matter if there are other cars or your own truck. The event of "road under construction" is specially dangerous because of this reason.

4-In Special Transport, sometimes cars block the road when they should keep driving, or your security guard, the one who must be your guide, completely stops without warning for some reason, so you have to also stop completely. Do that in real life, and your trailer and your cargo are doomed.

5-In ETS2, where there are many roundabouts, the AI is a complete mess, they don't know when they should enter, when they should go out, etc... they just ignore your truck, you are basically forced to completely stop sometimes inside the roundabout because the AI will still go inside even if they see the truck almost in front of them. In real life people go out of the roundabout the wrong way, but they know that if a car is in front or almost in front of them, they can't go inside.

6-When there are speed changes because signals or towns, instead of dropping the speed gradually, they go from 60mph to 20mph in a second.

The only thing the AI is good at, is at accelerating when the traffic lights goes green. Drivers usually react a lot slower, or they get distracted because they were reading the phone while waiting, lol.

But like I said, those problems are nothing new, they have been in the game since a long, long time, at least in ETS2, I just recently started playing ATS, but the AI is the same from what I experienced in just 15 hours so... those hours were enough to see recurrent problems from ETS2. The fact that this subject is one of the biggest complains about the game, and still didn't get a big update focused on AI is crazy. The AI is the most present element in the game, it deserves some love.

[Wolfgang]

Originally posted by Pepsiman:

Originally posted by ~{DCMT}~ Ryu:

I just did a 2500 mile trip through 10 states. Those short ramps are, in fact, a real thing in the US. Just because newer roadwork is making them longer doesn't mean those shorties stopped existing.

And for your comment about roadside events, detours being the difficulty and not the AI traffic? Then why were roadside events and detours only a recent addition while the AI traffic has been here the whole time? Do you mean that the only driving difficulty up till events and detours was the rain?? Sounds fishy. Like you just trying to rationalize your hatred of the AI. ;)

He is not trying to rationalize any hate about the AI. The AI is bad, period. And that is an objective fact, there are many examples. If the reason to have this disaster of an AI is having "difficulty", then there is something wrong with SCS philosophy. But I don't think that is true.

Just to name a few:
1-They give you preference when they shouldn't.

2-Sometimes they drop the speed to stupid low levels in highway because they drive close to the ramp, no matter if there are cars or not. Real people just change the line instead of going from 65mph to almost stopping the car in the highway.

3-Other times you can see a long line of cars waiting to incorporate to the highway because no car give them preference changing lines, and when they decide to give preference, they just... stop... in a damn highway.

4-When a car is trying to incorporate, sometimes when they reach the end of the incorporating line or the exit of a gas station, they will just incorporate, no matter if there are other cars or your own truck. The event of "road under construction" is specially dangerous because of this reason.

4-In Special Transport, sometimes cars block the road when they should keep driving, or your security guard, the one who must be your guide, completely stops without warning for some reason, so you have to also stop completely. Do that in real life, and your trailer and your cargo are doomed.

5-In ETS2, where there are many roundabouts, the AI is a complete mess, they don't know when they should enter, when they should go out, etc... they just ignore your truck, you are basically forced to completely stop sometimes inside the roundabout because the AI will still go inside even if they see the truck almost in front of them. In real life people go out of the roundabout the wrong way, but they know that if a car is in front or almost in front of them, they can't go inside.

6-When there are speed changes because signals or towns, instead of dropping the speed gradually, they go from 60mph to 20mph in a second.

The only thing the AI is good at, is at accelerating when the traffic lights goes green. Drivers usually react a lot slower, or they get distracted because they were reading the phone while waiting, lol.

But like I said, those problems are nothing new, they have been in the game since a long, long time, at least in ETS2, I just recently started playing ATS, but the AI is the same from what I experienced in just 15 hours so... those hours were enough to see recurrent problems from ETS2. The fact that this subject is one of the biggest complains about the game, and still didn't get a big update focused on AI is crazy. The AI is the most present element in the game, it deserves some love.

Your "objective facts" are very subjective tbh. I don't have a single problem with them in about 1000 hours of ETS2 and ATS combined. They are actually way too nice compared to IRL drivers. And in ETS2 when you are in France you really should signal that you stay in the roundabout.
The majority of problems here seems to come down to speeding, not using your indicators, tailgating (aka not having any distance for reaction and braking), not trying to predict the reactions of the AI ahead of time (though they are scripted so it is easily possible) and reckless driving of the player. With that mixture it is no surprise that someone will have problems with the AI.

[Chadwbacca]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Originally posted by Pepsiman:

He is not trying to rationalize any hate about the AI. The AI is bad, period. And that is an objective fact, there are many examples. If the reason to have this disaster of an AI is having "difficulty", then there is something wrong with SCS philosophy. But I don't think that is true.

Just to name a few:
1-They give you preference when they shouldn't.

2-Sometimes they drop the speed to stupid low levels in highway because they drive close to the ramp, no matter if there are cars or not. Real people just change the line instead of going from 65mph to almost stopping the car in the highway.

3-Other times you can see a long line of cars waiting to incorporate to the highway because no car give them preference changing lines, and when they decide to give preference, they just... stop... in a damn highway.

4-When a car is trying to incorporate, sometimes when they reach the end of the incorporating line or the exit of a gas station, they will just incorporate, no matter if there are other cars or your own truck. The event of "road under construction" is specially dangerous because of this reason.

4-In Special Transport, sometimes cars block the road when they should keep driving, or your security guard, the one who must be your guide, completely stops without warning for some reason, so you have to also stop completely. Do that in real life, and your trailer and your cargo are doomed.

5-In ETS2, where there are many roundabouts, the AI is a complete mess, they don't know when they should enter, when they should go out, etc... they just ignore your truck, you are basically forced to completely stop sometimes inside the roundabout because the AI will still go inside even if they see the truck almost in front of them. In real life people go out of the roundabout the wrong way, but they know that if a car is in front or almost in front of them, they can't go inside.

6-When there are speed changes because signals or towns, instead of dropping the speed gradually, they go from 60mph to 20mph in a second.

The only thing the AI is good at, is at accelerating when the traffic lights goes green. Drivers usually react a lot slower, or they get distracted because they were reading the phone while waiting, lol.

But like I said, those problems are nothing new, they have been in the game since a long, long time, at least in ETS2, I just recently started playing ATS, but the AI is the same from what I experienced in just 15 hours so... those hours were enough to see recurrent problems from ETS2. The fact that this subject is one of the biggest complains about the game, and still didn't get a big update focused on AI is crazy. The AI is the most present element in the game, it deserves some love.

Your "objective facts" are very subjective tbh. I don't have a single problem with them in about 1000 hours of ETS2 and ATS combined. They are actually way too nice compared to IRL drivers. And in ETS2 when you are in France you really should signal that you stay in the roundabout.
The majority of problems here seems to come down to speeding, not using your indicators, tailgating (aka not having any distance for reaction and braking), not trying to predict the reactions of the AI ahead of time (though they are scripted so it is easily possible) and reckless driving of the player. With that mixture it is no surprise that someone will have problems with the AI.

And there we go, the classical defense of the AI, "you are driving reckessly". No, no I'm not (And like me, others that have been complaining years), always a bit under the max speed, always using blinkers. The fact that you can learn where the AI fails doesn't make it right. I think we are all, at least, car drivers in real life, and none of this ♥♥♥♥ happens to us here, we would not have a driver license otherwise.

And problems like cars stopping in the highway instead of changing lines, or giving you preference when they should not in a crossroad or whatever place, have nothing to do with the player driving reckessly, so... yeah, I'll never understand that argument. This, and other points, are objective facts, not subjective, it happens, it can be seen with the eyes without any doubt, it is not an interpretation, "the car stopped in the middle of the highway to let others pass".

Look, my most recent accident in ETS2. There was this road event where one line is closed because construction. I was on the left side, and cars were slowly moving on the right side. So I activated the right blinker until one truck stopped to let me go through, nice, thanks. The five cars in front of me decided not to incorporate, because they are like that, why wouldn't they. So I started driving, and 8 seconds later, boom, one AI from the left side rammed against the side end of my trailer because he decided that now was the time to incorporate. This also happens when you are on the right side from the start, at anytime one car can decide to incorporate to the right line even if you are in front of them. It is like they don't recognize your presence. Such reckless on my part.

Edit: Just to show everyone, visually, a recent example of some of the problems I talked about, it is not my post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/trucksim/comments/n47x4p/this_ai_totally_ruins_the_experience/

[Etny2k]

The problem with the on ramp merging is the ramps are not long enough and the traffic has no intelligence on speeding up if there is an opening. The vehicles will just go to the end of ramp and stop and then proceed when no traffic is near but they are so slow it causes an accident.

I think they should stop traffic from using the ramps and just make them use exit ramps or spawn on the freeways.