Truly awful ai

[SIGMA GRINDSET]

What is the point of having ship stats if the AI doesn't follow them? If you are in a tournament, and the highest scoring AI ship after the first race is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Omnicron, why does it get god mode and speed away? If AI are going to pick favorites, why bother with stats? I pick a non-weapon fast ship for a Pure Speed event and still see these ships keep pace on straights.

If you choose a weapon heavy ship, you get screwed as AI speeds away. If you choose a fast ship, you get saddled with trying to shoot a heavy armored ship that is just as fast. If you are in second trailing a enemy, good luck ever expecting a further back AI from firing a blue shell. It won't happen.

Why are the pit lanes designed by an idiot? If the game is about skill and the pits should be hard to enter, then why have a random item generator? Don't tell me its because this is a 'perfect copy of Wipeout 64'. That was 20 years ago. Do we still need to live in a world where scraping the outer wall of a corner is perfectly fine with minimal consequence, while scraping the inside wall is alt-f4 worthy?

All of these elements, from bad AI to Mario Kart luck rolls to get items, really damper the campaign experience. A Tournament should let me have more strategy than just flying fast. I should have incentive to kill the nearest scoring opponent, or do enough damage to see them drop down.

Make the AI, even fast, good AI, make mistakes. Hit walls. Attack other ships more aggressively. No "Main Rival AI = God AI". Multiply the damage scale to 1.5. Don't have the minigun slow down and AI into your front bumper and make it a awful weapon. Its hard to aim, so make it do more damage. Missles are near useless have the time too, hitting a wall. You know, basic game design. If you want the tracks to be twitchy, then make the ships more like F-Zero. If not, widen them out. If you want the pit lane to be hard to enter, then don't let the AI cakewalk in an out of it for minimal consequence.

I remember XG3 had an ammo bank and refills - no Mario Kart.

[SIGMA GRINDSET]

Oh, and who designed Luna with those awful undulations? How is that level design supposed to be a good idea? Everyone bouncing around all over the place.

[Rehtayne]

There is something to be said about AI that is better in line with what a player would experience when flying the same ship, and it's an idea that I wouldn't mind seeing. However, it is also hard to tailor that to the custom content system for the game. When you take into account the custom track layouts, the user-made ships and their stats, and the support for legacy content, there's simply too many variables involved to guarantee a stable, enjoyable experience for everyone in the end. The simplest, most efficient type of AI to design at this budget point is what is presented here: logic that assigns certain ships to follow certain lap times around the track.

The result is as you say: the ships each AI pilot use amount to little more than cosmetic differences. The intent, then, is not for the player to think "Oh, I lost to X ship," but rather "Oh, I'm not hitting good lap times." This is because the ship statistics and characteristics aren't for the AI to play around, but for you the player to find what you are most comfortable with as you reach higher and higher speeds. It doesn't matter if you're flying a G-Tek or a Barracuda, you can win any single player race at any difficulty with fast and precise piloting.

Based on how you're describing your experiences, it seems like you're putting far more emphasis on the combat than what the game generally wants from us. BallisticNG, as with the Wipeout games that it models itself after, is a fusion of combat and speed. Passing the AI can be done equally with skilled piloting or good use of weaponry, and excelling at the game will require you to be able to do both as need be. In tournaments, destroying rival ships absolutely can affect the end results. Doing so not only ensures those ships receive no points after the race, but also ensures that all remaining ships get less points on top of that. There have been a number of times I've guaranteed a platinum medal by doing so. Yet, this will still require you to win races consistently, which comes back to your piloting skills.

If you find the pit lanes hard to enter, practice the entry and exits until it's second nature. If you don't like the fact that you come to a stop when hitting the inside wall, find better turning points to let you hug the apex. If you think scraping the outside wall is too forgiving, realize that doing so is still far slower than not touching the wall at all.

If you're bouncing around all the time on Luna, definitely spend some time practicing pitch controls. It's a vital mechanic that will positively affect your lap times on many of the tracks in the game. A good lap on Luna will see you bouncing off of the floor maybe once per lap at worst.

Don't wait for an AI to use a Hunter, it's not going to happen. It won't slow the lead AI down enough anyways, so even if they did you would still have to get there yourself. The Missiles intentionally don't have perfect tracking, you'll need to learn when to best use them. And Cannons are not meant to be high damaging weapons. They're for slowing down other ships and clearing the track of mines. If you're plowing into a ship after hitting them continuously with the cannon, keep these characteristics in mind and consciously steer to avoid them as you quickly approach.

Everything here isn't contrarian to basic game design, they are just parts of the overall intended game design that has been developed over years now. Whether you appreciate their intent or not is your call.

[OpenRoadRacer | Flame of Liberty]

(NOT THE ORIGINAL POSTER)

Honestly, I myself have kinda given up on actually trying to complete the campaign or even do basic custom races. I just derp around with Speed Lap mode to have fun with Workshop tracks and ships.

[SIGMA GRINDSET]

Originally posted by Rehtayne:

There is something to be said about AI that is better in line with what a player would experience when flying the same ship, and it's an idea that I wouldn't mind seeing. However, it is also hard to tailor that to the custom content system for the game. When you take into account the custom track layouts, the user-made ships and their stats, and the support for legacy content, there's simply too many variables involved to guarantee a stable, enjoyable experience for everyone in the end. The simplest, most efficient type of AI to design at this budget point is what is presented here: logic that assigns certain ships to follow certain lap times around the track.

The result is as you say: the ships each AI pilot use amount to little more than cosmetic differences. The intent, then, is not for the player to think "Oh, I lost to X ship," but rather "Oh, I'm not hitting good lap times." This is because the ship statistics and characteristics aren't for the AI to play around, but for you the player to find what you are most comfortable with as you reach higher and higher speeds. It doesn't matter if you're flying a G-Tek or a Barracuda, you can win any single player race at any difficulty with fast and precise piloting.

Based on how you're describing your experiences, it seems like you're putting far more emphasis on the combat than what the game generally wants from us. BallisticNG, as with the Wipeout games that it models itself after, is a fusion of combat and speed. Passing the AI can be done equally with skilled piloting or good use of weaponry, and excelling at the game will require you to be able to do both as need be. In tournaments, destroying rival ships absolutely can affect the end results. Doing so not only ensures those ships receive no points after the race, but also ensures that all remaining ships get less points on top of that. There have been a number of times I've guaranteed a platinum medal by doing so. Yet, this will still require you to win races consistently, which comes back to your piloting skills.

If you find the pit lanes hard to enter, practice the entry and exits until it's second nature. If you don't like the fact that you come to a stop when hitting the inside wall, find better turning points to let you hug the apex. If you think scraping the outside wall is too forgiving, realize that doing so is still far slower than not touching the wall at all.

If you're bouncing around all the time on Luna, definitely spend some time practicing pitch controls. It's a vital mechanic that will positively affect your lap times on many of the tracks in the game. A good lap on Luna will see you bouncing off of the floor maybe once per lap at worst.

Don't wait for an AI to use a Hunter, it's not going to happen. It won't slow the lead AI down enough anyways, so even if they did you would still have to get there yourself. The Missiles intentionally don't have perfect tracking, you'll need to learn when to best use them. And Cannons are not meant to be high damaging weapons. They're for slowing down other ships and clearing the track of mines. If you're plowing into a ship after hitting them continuously with the cannon, keep these characteristics in mind and consciously steer to avoid them as you quickly approach.

Everything here isn't contrarian to basic game design, they are just parts of the overall intended game design that has been developed over years now. Whether you appreciate their intent or not is your call.

Then this goes back to an original point - just get rid of the weapons and kill most ship variants. If the 'high level' and online play of this game is to not have weapons, then rewrite the entire campaign. But obviously this game also wants to be a faithful remake of earlier Wipeout titles - which is fine, but I don't see why some elements can't be improved rather than kept the same.

Most tracks are extremely short anyway, and my suggestions are to improve weapon use throughout the courses. Otherwise 'waiting for the right moment' is silly as in the meantime another weapon pad is approaching, might as well ditch the weapon.

Make the effects of the walls consistent. Not perfect on inside or outside, or on one turn but the next just so happens to be a weird angle.

I am no stranger to anti grav or odd/unusual control schemes. I have fully completed F-ZeroX/GX, Redout, XG3, GRIP, Inertial Drift, and am working on Redout II. These games are all consistent and focused. F-ZeroGX and XG3 are surprisingly honest.

[Rehtayne]

I was under the impression that your original point was the AI, hence the title.

Regardless, the idea of getting rid of weapons is just as nonsensical. There is no point to removing features that add variety to the title just because the "high level" players (who haven't even been brought up before up to this point, mind) may or may not prefer them. Hence why Smash Bros. still ships with items in the package.

Furthermore, regardless of said preferences, the developers have shown that they believe weapons to be a key part of the equation. While you go through the campaign, notice that it shifts between pure racecraft events (survival, time trial) and pure combat (elimination, team race) with regularity. Combat is especially the primary counter to afterburner, one of the most important features of BallisticNG.

As for "waiting for the right moment" to use weapons, this often just boils down to waiting until after a feature in the track, a matter of milliseconds. It does not make sense to fire a missile mid-chicane, but is fairly guaranteed after it. Furthermore, if you don't think a weapon will be useful within the next few seconds, then dump it. It's a feature for a reason.

The effects of the walls are, in fact, consistent. The only thing that actually determines whether you scrape a wall or collide with it is the angle of your impact to the surface. Either way, it results in a loss of speed, and a push in the direction away from the wall. It is possible to graze an inside wall without much slowdown. The only real difference between the two is the fact that you're steering towards an inside wall, and steering away from the outside wall. The natural result is that ships tend to hit the inside at more severe angles than the outside on most occasions, apart from completely missing turns.

[Paradoxagi]

You can fix AI not following the stats by disabling both options

- AI rubberbanding
- AI match player top speed

you can find in the assists section in the options menu. If you do so the stats will be followed by AI very closely but this also means that on a fast track without hard turns you will have a harder time using not so fast ships especially on hardcore difficulty.

[Phoenix]

Did we played the same game? im very confused, the AI DOES make mistakes, they dont hit walls but they take turns WAAAAAAAAY slower than they should, even on the highest difficulty. Also whats wrong with twitchy tracks? the handling is good enough to cleanly drive even the ships with less handling. Are you overusing airbrakes? it slows you down a lot, and if you're using assists, your ship has a speed penalty.