How Forza's Drivatar Actually Works | AI and Games #60

[@MrNegativecreep07]

If they really wanted to replicate the online Froza experience, they should just have the AI ram you on the first corner then send you a private message questioning your sexuality and/or parentage.

[@xBINARYGODx]

One did just that to me last week! THEY HAVE ACHIEVED SENTIENCE (and the internet ruined them before they were born)

[@knowtheplan472]

They legitimately were doing that until they did coding magic to tone that part of their AI down

[@TorQueMoD]

lol don't forget your "making comments about your ethnic background".

[@m1sz3lpl24]

They still ram without hesitation, they will always try to ram you off the road if you are on the driving line taking a corner and they happen to be on the inside. For some reason they usually give way, but in that situation they ram straight into your side

[@hatirasgeorge4479]

Fuck skynet, forza drivatars will take over self-driving cars for world domination!

[@Jason_Quinn]

Do you really need 15 years of AI development to know that I'm going to treat the throttle like a switch and brake late for every turn?

[@ernestochang1744]

Or you know in this case not even hit the brakes you know bro? just make it seem like youre hitting the brakes turn the brake lights on but actually accelerate by 2 more km/h or mph and turn the corner like gravity changed or something and still come out the other side perfectly glued to the road perfectly... glued to that stupid ass blue line like it was some sort of train track, cuz im in unbetable difficulty and on longer races theres at least 4 or 5 people like 1 kilometre ahead of everyone else, the gap from me to the next player was like a kilometre thus proves the AI is actually not smart, as a matter of fact the AI is cheating, its using the developer tools given to them to break free from the boundaries set by the physics engine to "simulate" their own kind of driving, what that *driving* is? i dont know yet. but that driving is completely different to the actual "moron" that would have been driving it had it been an actual account, with an actual person behind the controller and let me tell you im a great driver it dont take long to piece together a track in your head and know every single breaking point how much give the car can take and how to improve lap times and all, as a matter of fact every1 is capable of doing this, humans are capable of being amazing driver ins forza they just choose not to, but this drivatar bull sheet is getting on my nerves

[@paulcarmi8130]

@@ernestochang1744 dude it's called unbeatable.... It's in the name. What did you expect?

[@ernestochang1744]

@@paulcarmi8130 oh that seems weird cuz every time i reset suddendly theyre not in the lead anymore i been able to win on every single track in forza motorsport 7 in unbeatable drivatars, so theyre not that unbeatable is just that everytime you reset or restart they behave differently, something tells me that the marketing for a "drivatar" is the same thing as a normal racing AI is just "drivatar" is a marketing scheme to make people believe that theyre racing their actual friends, man i got a friend that hasnt even touched forza in his life yet somehow his account is in the races and on highly skill FOR SOME REASON ok hes like always in 2nd or first and when hes in his first hes a good couple hundred yards away like it was rubber banding or something, the AI is bull sheet man

[@paulcarmi8130]

@@ernestochang1744 dude, I appreciate your take but it's really difficult to read without punctuation :( But I'm not sure what to tell you, the single player in forza 7 is disappointing compared to 4, 5 and 6

[@HartyBiker]

@@ernestochang1744 there is one race you won't win on unbeatable, and that is the endurance race at Sebring. The AI is so bugged on that track due to the hp boost they get on unbeatable difficulty that the average lap time is faster than the world record lap times in class if I recall correctly. Not only that but they have decreased tyre wear and fuel consumption so even if you could somehow pull the lap times off to stay competitive you'd still lose by way of having to do an extra pit stop.

[@m00t]

I was briefly on the test team for the original Forza when it was pre-alpha and generated the base lines for a few of the tracks long before they were complete. Racing a near frictionless Stingray around Nurburgring that only had collision geometry for the track itself (no walls or ground) was... interesting. Ultimately I ended up modifying the position log to remove the instances where I went off the track and merged the section just before that with the section after the car was placed back on the track. Another amusing anecdote arose from a significant performance problem with one of the cars. Any time the car was on the track the framerate dropped into single digits. Eventually it was discovered that the steering wheel on the car did not have a normal map. But it looked correct. It had the full high resolution mesh that you would generate a normal map from. It was in the hundreds of thousands to millions of polys which was quite a lot back in original Xbox times.

[@AIandGames]

Oh my god, I just relayed the normal map story to an artist friend and they nearly died of a heart attack. 😂 Thanks for sharing!

[@fortherepublic6796]

among us in real life sus sus

[@comdrive3865]

oof the no walls or ground is similar to when I made a track for assetto corsa and struggled to drive single lap, it was too long! Your story is way cool

[@salvi016]

im always so surprised by how good the original forza still looks

[@unchpunchem8947]

No kidding. If it ran at a higher resolution, I could easily be convinced that it was a 360 game

[@isaacsrandomvideos667]

What about GT3??? Playstations have always been lower quality than xboxes, and that game was released in 2001, and STILL looks better :)

[@salvi016]

@@isaacsrandomvideos667 you really think gt3 looks better than this? what?? its a good looking game sure but its not on this level its missing eh real time sharers this game has with shadows and lighting

[@isaacsrandomvideos667]

@@salvi016 wait you were talking about fh1 or fm1?

[@k.r.99]

@@isaacsrandomvideos667 FM1, because FH1 was a Xbox360 game anyway.

[@Lewid93]

One of the things the AI in Forza games is missing, is player awareness - It's so frustrating to out-brake the AI up the inside, and they just turn into you and keep driving as if you weren't there. You simply can't race them as if they are actual racers, because they will just try to drive through you given the slightest opportunity. I'm an avid sim racer, and play Forza 7 on controller when I just want to chill out and cba to set up the wheel, and it is fun... But the AI, whilst very impressive from a technological standpoint, simply don't act like racers, they act like someone who really really wants to win and will drive right through you to do that. I guess that's partially down to the game having 3-5 lap races where you start usually in the lower half of the grid, so you almost HAVE to drive dirty to get to the front before the end, so the drivatars learn that that's what they should do, but still... It doesn't end up being the most fulfilling experience. Especially coming from Assetto Corsa or AMS2 where you can literally race side by side with AI's for entire laps and only suffer a bit of door rubbing.

[@x-coin0420]

Yeah I hate that I'll be passing a drivatar clean then all of a sudden he swings out and then back into me to purposely ram me off the road like some crazy 12 year old. smh

[@minoassal]

what are you talking abut, that's the AI perfectly replicating real players XD

[@hegyak]

Gran Turismo says "Yea. Like my AI Does. Racing Line and NOTHING Else."

[@tyranus1111]

You mean in every modern racing game right literaly no game has an ai that gives a danm if your there or not

[@lukereyes6266]

@sca i play unbeatable with no traction control or abs on controller and i get 1st place 85% - 90% of the time😅😅😅😅

[@CaroFDoom]

I'm a little disappointed that it didn't go over the real flaws of the drivatar system, because as fascinating as the concept of an AI that can drive like you is, it doesn't go over the fact that the AI aren't given the capabilities to actually drive the car, so they have to cheat *a lot.* The ARS Technica War Stories video on the drivatar system mentions a lot of it but it all stems down to the fact that the AI can only use digital throttle and brake, which forces them to use the game's traction control and abs assists, which are significantly slower than what real players or current state of the art real world systems can do. The AI in Forza games have a gravity multiplier to give them more grip so they aren't constantly falling off the road and then are slowed down based on the difficulty level to be at a human beatable pace. It's especially obvious when the AI have unsuited cars in adverse conditions, like low two wheel drive sports cars in snow or dirt. It makes them especially frustrating to race against because they can bash you off for whatever reason but you can't do anything about it since their cars are being really forced into the ground by the game and you have normal gravity so they completely screw you even if you're in a big heavy car.

[@pep5158]

So true, they don’t race you they just try to stop you winning even if they have to sacrifice themselves to do it. Its so flawed I’ve had better race experiences (from an ai point of view) on the amiga

[@leo__mac]

Spot on, mate! The whole concept of Drivatars is pretty cool. Shame that he talks about it for 20 minutes and then explains the "hacks and tweaks" for only 2 minutes. There should be another video entitled "How Forza's Drivatar REALLY ACTUALLY works" to show the additional horsepower, grip etc. that is given to the AI which you can notice by playing any game from the franchise for some weeks. For casual racers the Drivatar thing can be an amazing feature that motivates you playing the game, but if you spend some more time and pay attention to the AI you'll realize that it just blatantly cheats and doesn't race like humans at all.

[@nik021298]

Other big problems that I've noticed is that they have noticeable rubber banding and that invincible difficulty is very beatable especially on longer racers.

[@CaroFDoom]

@@nik021298 yeah if you remotely try unbeatable isn't that bad

[@wolfboy20]

This!! All of This!!! The Driveatar system is damn near useless if the ai opponents are just gonna cheat to win.

[@AIandGames]

That was a lot of big words... maybe in another episode, I'll just explain how the sheep work in Forza Horizon 4.

[@TickTock725]

Sheep episode when?

[@Baldur452]

Meh 😉 Meant to be read as yes

[@darylallen2485]

I don't know if androids dream of electric sheep, but us subscribers do!

[@e1itegaming]

Bahhhhhhh

[@Cyrribrae]

I've honestly wondered this. They are very adept at avoiding your car.

[@ZenjihraShark]

I have several thousands of hours over Forza games, i know one of my friends tends to drift corners and never use the apex line, another one always drives aggresive and rams others to get to first. meanwhile their drivatars drive like everyone else, using the apex line and being grippy, i think they just made the name drivatars up to sound unique. the only thing it logs is how often they finish 1st and make thier ai drive faster or slower depending on the finishing number rate

[@paulcarmi8130]

I miss when they just made up names for the drivers like M. Rossi etc.

[@lazysn1per]

Exactly. I had tried to get some friends into the game that had 0 concept of braking before turns and always flew off the track. Their drivatars still drove like all the rest. It's complete bs. The AI always drive the same; just follow the racing line and ignore everything and everyone else. Turning up the difficulty just cranks up the cheats the AI are given.

[@SebiStr99]

I feel like the AI-system can't deal with non grip scenarios, since (I think) it uses all assist for the drivatars, which in turn makes all non grip scenarios impossible. Therefore they probably discard all data in which the player is sliding, hitting other players/AI, leaving the track etc... Not sure, just a theory I have

[@justanotheryoutubeuploader]

exactly, that's why i feel this theory presented in the vid is completely made up

[@chengong388]

You mentioned a tone of features I've never ever encountered in my hundreds of hours of Forza Horizon 4. The AI drivers just line up and drive on the racing line all the time, yes they do very rarely run into traffic or spin out but you can never rely on that, and some times there's one Drivatar that's just way faster than all the rest. Better than Need For Speed rubber banding but they don't drive like people at all. There are some obvious situations where the AI always drive extremely well, or extremely poorly, like for example they're always super slow in s-bends because they slow down and follow that race line where you can really just go straight through without slowing down at all.

[@seb9995]

Drivatars are either zooming at twice the max speed of your car while in front of you, but right after you pass them they just give up and youll never see them again

[@זהסודי-ה7מ]

"How Forza's drivatars work?" Answer: they don't

[@toopink4death492]

They work and they reflect how you or anyone in your friends list drive. You should start setting some driving straight if you're constantly fucked by ramming AI cause it might just be the drivatar of your friend.

[@זהסודי-ה7מ]

@@toopink4death492 the problem is that most of my friends never played forza. Even the AI that represents the friends that play FH4 drive the exact same way as all the other AI

[@stevenwalker8951]

@@זהסודי-ה7מ! Dude I swear though

[@rodsk8dude731]

They don't? I was pretty sure they worked perfectly: Ramming my car all the time, exactly like another player would.

[@FredbrStudios]

@@rodsk8dude731 LMAO

[@JSRJohn]

As some who is "pretty good" at Forza Motorsport and an arduous supporter, I can't lie that Drivatars deliver an underwhelming, infuriating experience for players and I don't think they're fit for purpose. Here's why: They are a poor role model for single player users - you can't progressively learn to drive faster by following their braking points and cornering lines with each difficulty, because the Drivatars have never, ever been instructed to manage coasting effectively. Instead, it's either hard acceleration or hard braking (even on sweeper bends or slight links where you would naturally want to maintain speed). They teach players really bad habits: ramming or pushing to pass, highly anxious cornering, and an unreasonable power boost on straights the higher a difficulty setting you set them too, which I have witnessed players learn from and carry over to multiplayer racing 1000's of times. This is tragic and unacceptable for a AAA racing franchise in the 21st century in my eyes, despite how much I play it. Older racing titles from Gran Turismo and Project Gotham Racing achieved a far more nuanced AI driving experience to race against and learn from, without blatant rubber-band effects as seen in Need For Speed titles. They felt optimal yet grounded and could actually race side-by-side. Drivatars can not. Scrap the Drivatars altogether, it aims to offer too much realism but fundamentally delivers a messy racing experience that players cannot rely on or learn from. Very interesting video, appreciate all the effort put into this. As others have said, I wish more was highlighted on regarding its flaws - especially where it states rubber-banding technically doesn't exist, but there's no mention of the broken speed boosts Drivatars have to compensate for their rough and nervous cornering. If they make AI cornering smoother and more nuanced to how the cars bounce/transition, single player can return to the addictive spectacle it once was on older games. Thanks for posting.

[@Noreceipts400]

Yeah it makes for weird racing. I have them on unbeatable but they still corner like a noob most of the time, to the point where my strategy to pass is just to dive up the inside because they always slow down far to much for fast corners. Also they dont make use of the edge of the track, slightly cutting the corner can make a big difference

[@TheTravelerHD4K]

Drivatars may have been mapped to real players earlier HOWEVER in FH4 today this is no longer the case. Drivatars are completely local with online/friends' Gamertags applied and that is it. This is very evident when you have friends who are high in ranked but their Drivatars are always losing. Further irrespective of difficulty Drivatars hard rubberband close to you. Higher difficulties reduce the number and duration of braking the AI makes and that is it. EDIT: Game's database files since FH2/FM4 have had parameters for Drivatars like handling, cornering radius, friction, grip etc etc across all difficulties and race grid positions.

[@wintersworldgaming]

do you happen to know what file that database exists in and where i could find it and open it

[@TheTravelerHD4K]

@@wintersworldgaming if you search hard enough you'll find the reddit sub for it. Encryption hasn't been broken on the files since FH3 so you can't change anything in the actual game itself

[@haydenvaughn00]

How Forza's Drivatar Work: *Shows image of a pile of rubber bands*

[@GGsYoyo]

I liked the idea of this at the start of the X1 generation. It felt at its best in Forza... 6, I want to say, and has steadily gone downhill since, which is unfortunate. The AI definitely felt the most like my friends then, I could recognize their driving styles, mistakes, and race pace and that felt great. Horizon 4 in particular feels like the weakest implementation yet, because the AI are more glued to the racing line than ever before and the rubberbanding tricks take away any simulation of an actual player you could have. There's aaalways one or two of them with extra horsepower that are tuned so you catch them in the last 10-20% of the race, etc. It doesn't feel like I'm racing my friends at all, it's so much more scripted. I wonder why it's been either scaled back or revamped to feel less accurate in FH4.

[@peterpike]

"Horizon 4 in particular feels like the weakest implementation yet"

[@GGsYoyo]

@@peterpike Oh believe me, I know. I posted that well before FH5 came out and was hopeful they would have improved it. They in fact did the opposite. Well, guess I'm just gonna see what the next Motorsport has in store and hope they fix the system.

[@critiqalerror]

I still think fm7 had the worst but fh5 is a close dirty second

[@timmyrandomvideos4375]

🧢

[@firedell1031]

The correct answer is "It works terribly, and basically nobody with any sort of real time in Forza games likes it. It lacks real progression and adjustability that would allow for a comprehensive AI system that gives players a real challenge in a meaningful way. Because of this, the developers literally have to add grip and power to the cars that are driven by drivatars in order for them to be competitive, rather than being able to simply make them good drivers. This means that on some tracks, the AI are driving so unbelievably overpowered cars that they cannot be beaten, and on other tracks (since they aren't actually good drivers) it doesn't matter how much grip or power their cars have because they will never be able to properly drive the track."

[@michelangelofilippi1717]

Exactly. They are impossible to beat, infinite grip, light speed acceleration and a lot more shit that no one wanna fix

[@pirat87pl]

I'm convinced this is all bullshit and there's no machine learning behind the drivatars. They all drive the same. You can follow people on Xbox and their drivatars will always appear in your races. I followed a few pro players. Their drivatars drive EXACLTY the same as some random player's drivatar. Their laptimes are the same. They only win cause they start at the front of the grid - I'm guessing it orders the grid based on their respective players laptimes. It's either complete bullshit or all these 'layers' have been so heavily tweaked, they stripped any individuality from the drivatars - which defeats their entire point.

[@Dovoline3]

It's especially obvious in FM7 with the dedicated racing cars. Despite all the cars supposedly being the exact same, even with a maximum grip tuning setup they'll take corners perfectly following the racing line at speeds that would send a human player ploughing into the gravel trap. In the inverse, you can see just how dumb they are by getting into first place, then putting yourself in them middle and slowing down to a crawl. Despite there being ample room to pass, they just... won't. They'll trail behind you at a snail's pace. To be honest, though, the worst part isn't even any of that. Homologation means that in most car classes if all the drivers are of the same theoretical skill, there shouldn't be any position changes in a given race anyway. So I don't necessarily mind not being able to climb the positions. And the AI not passing is probably just a matter of going to the middle of the track and running at a dead crawl being a loophole that some sort of predictive instruction to counter defensive driving never expected. The worst part is that since all the cars are using the exact same AI, none of them will ever really race each other. Any time you're in the top positions, you can look back at the field and see every other car bumper-to-bumper, all following the exact same line, never even bothering to try to pass. Non-random starting grids only makes this worse. Speaking of back-position trains, I think that's a sign the grip and power bonuses are only applied to cars in front of you. Ever notice how if you're in the middle, the cars in front will all have big gaps between them, and only the ones behind you will bunch up?

[@elbastron]

@@pirat87pl Yes, the video basically talks about "what would be awesome to have in a Forza racing game" when everyone who's played this game for a time knows just how far from it it actually is. If drivatars were modeled learning from real drivers you'd just add slow people to your friends list to have easy wins or fast people to the friends list to make it more challenging. Of course there will be no difference in real life though and all drivatars will behave the same.

[@medalgearsalad1419]

I've played Forza 1 for 500 hours before I decided to try out Driveatar and had so much fun training it, f me right?

[@darkchild130]

The ai literally does not know the player exists, it’s the dumbest thing ever, very frustrating.

[@thefooonthecouch]

Idk man I thinks its your driving but I'm just a random person saying something

[@darkchild130]

@@thefooonthecouch I'm in the top 2% of times for Goliath and Colossus, (haven't attempted it in a while) so no it's not my driving. The AI is shit.

[@RisingSwell]

The AI is definitely not great, but it also definitely knows you exist. Make a slow pass down a straight, and when you are about 1/3 of a car length ahead, pull into line directly in front of the AI. The AI will then proceed to hit the brakes 95% of the time despite no collision risk, because it does recognize that the player exists, and then takes the absolute wrong option.

[@fulldiesel1234]

but what actually happens: bots get gravy pulled towards the racingline and sped up or slown down depending on where you are, this effect can be exploited sometimes while driving close to an bot. forza cant programm for shit, "ai" is a massive overstatement.

[@GraveUypo]

it's hilarious playing forza horizon in coop with a friend that is much slower than you. it's like half of the field is literally tied to your car, they will follow you from 6 seconds behind NO MATTER HOW FAST YOU GO. and your friend who can normally beat the AI too, gets left in the dust by half of the field because they're tied to you and ignore his existence. so he can only hope to beat the other half of the field, unless you slow down to match his pace. it's hilariously bad.

[@knowtheplan472]

This part of forza was always really interesting I always wanted to know how it works

[@LazyPillows90]

I was just searching for this because I was baffled when some of the drivatars were trying to ram me off the road in my recent playthroughs of FH4. One of them successfully rammed me out of a checkpoint.

[@FuchsiaShocked]

Have always wanted to know more about this ever since those bits where I was training my drivatar in Forza 1, thanks!

[@reganbrannigan3006]

Honestly such an underrated channel, quality is always so high

[@leo__mac]

I made a comment back when the video was released (maybe it got deleted?) saying basically the same as other people: Forza's Drivatars are just BROKEN. Just take a look at the Drivatars threads on the official FH5 forums or Reddit and you will see pages and pages of people complaining how absurd the AI is.

[@Lit_Hot_takes]

Agreed 100%

[@fuzzyquils]

6:52 Regarding the physics update rate on Forza Horizon 5, this may no longer be the case; the benchmark often shows CPU simulation operating at much lower tickrates than 360Hz and some other videos on KZbin demonstrating that FH5 physics change with framerate have shown up as well. (One particular pain point is that race times are also affected by framerate when they shouldn't be, which means Xbox users have a significant disadvantage when racing a PC player using a high-end system) Granted too though, this video is a year old; it's likely that it came out before or shortly after FH5 was released.

[@HartyBiker]

I've definitely noticed that certain drivertars tend to race more cleanly and faster than others, particularly in motorsport games, but the higher you go in difficulty settings, the more the ai restrictions, particularly on braking become apparent and the more like generic ai they seem. Not only that, but for the last few difficulty settings the drivertards drive exactly the same, only they are just given more horsepower to boost the lap times. They don't brake or turn more aggressively at all, meaning if you can get within 0.5 seconds on a long straight into an overtaking lane, all you have to do is brake a little later than them and you'll pull a second gap by the next corner. Like I said, I've definitely noticed some driving styles of people I know in the drivertars, but it definitely doesn't work as advertised. That might be a good thing though, because I'd be kicking a lot of my friend's drivertars by even more than I do in most races, and always be left in the dust by others if they did drive exactly like the players they represent.

[@sniperpenguin1225]

OMG! I got Forza horizon 4 on xbox game pass and i was wondering how they make the cars race against me competitively. Thank You so much!!!

[@DanoLefourbe]

Same here. As a recent Horizon fan, this was really awesome to watch!

[@ernestochang1744]

Plot twist they dont... Forza horizon 4 is where you will see that the "drivatar" feature has been turned down, by a LOT instead opting out for an AI to use developer tools to rubberband their cars gravity speed, braking lines and even somehow at some rare times completely defy the laws of physics, such as in the middle of a jump make the car weight 6,000 lbs more!! or or how about this turn a corner... but the front of the car will not face the corner, the front of the car will stay perfectly in a straight line while the center of the car turns with the corner and then magically make the front end face the corner dont you love when that happens? It can be seen mostly when doing the event where every1 has to participate in an online mode VS UNBEATABLE DRIVATARS Team drivatar sure drives a little weird dont they? They even behave weirdly as well... very very weird, the logo for the race against the unbetable drivatars has a lion face as a logo you'll know which event it is it gets "updated" every week but ohhhh no not the drivatars the drivatars stopped being updated since 2018 just like the Forza hub "forza rewards" tracking page that stopped working in 2018 as well have fun playing

[@pirat87pl]

@@ernestochang1744 I'm convinced this whole drivatar thing is just marketing bullshit at this point. They all drive the same anyway.

[@ernestochang1744]

@@pirat87pl yeah its all just marketing

[@lazysn1per]

Gotta love how the Hoonicorn Drivatars will demolish everyone, while it's raining and never lose traction :^)

[@harmannfs8297]

That might be the AI of Ken BLock or Don Joewon Song, so pretty much these guys are unbeatable. 😂

[@squ1dd13]

Great job! Commenting for the algorithm. Never thought I’d find a channel this fantastic.

[@lova4886]

I'm always blown away at quality of these videos, and the amount of time and research put into them. Good shit as always!

[@poly_g6068]

The drivatar system only seemed to get dumber and dumber after the first game in the series. The last time I recall being impressed at its ability to replicate human behavior was in FM4 when I successfully pressured an AI racer in front of me to choke a lead without bumping him and he went wide off the track after a couple laps of close battling.

[@yuju1004]

the "rubberband" effect feels more like the opposite to me, if drivatars are far ahead, they gap you more and more, and when you pass them, you start gapping them more and more like they have slowed down

[@snakeeyes_friex]

Never knew they were implemented since part 1….. 😮😮 thanks for using one of my designs 🙃👍🏻

[@IDKWtsIt2U]

As someone with an "average collisions per race" stat of 1 in Forza... I can definitively say that my drivatar is in no way anywhere close to how I drive. I can also verify the same for other people: I race with the people online with zero issues, but both of our drivatar copies seem to be "machine learned" from a demolition derby game.

[@IDKWtsIt2U]

To be fair: The machine has definitely learned and mastered the "turn 1 wipeout" most public lobbies have.

[@IDKWtsIt2U]

I miss M. Rossi.

[@The_Knowledgeseekers]

We all miss M. Rossi.

[@unwanted_zombie]

I just like the drivatars, because I get to still play with my buddy who passed away couple years back.

[@ernestochang1744]

Fun fact the forza horizon 5 trailer uses the Drivatar, specifically scripted to perform all the actions you see on screen, its one of the reasons why the car that they're driving such as the yellow land rover through the water, behaves a bit "odd" if you slow the footage down

[@AmodeusR]

I've never seen a Drivatar driving like a given player in this game. For me, it's one of the biggest farse, and if it's not a farse, it's really sh** when it comes to its purpose, considering its definition.

[@lukabarra1714]

"Is one of the most complete and accurate race car simulator" haha so funny to hear that. Nice video though.

[@spiffytuber7515]

Lol iRacing and Assetto Corsa would like to have a say in that!

[@polakjan]

@@spiffytuber7515 Or rFactor 2, which is literally a public variant of a sim used by most motorsport teams.

[@pancake5830]

@@spiffytuber7515 *acc and rf2

[@orangesnipzy]

@@pancake5830 i think you meant to put an & but accidentally hit *

[@pancake5830]

@@orangesnipzy no, i was correcting him.

[@WJdriver000]

You deserve many more views, this is a great video.

[@joes6649]

Thanks for the video! I always wondered why my friends’ drivatars didn’t keep cutting corners and ramming me :-)

[@YOYO-ew8mp]

Are there any real players?

[@roguedogx]

21:12 I've also noticed that Forza does this online too. in Forza Horizon 4, when in a series race when I perform really badly on the first one (i.e. I've spun out a bunch or gotten a really bad launch) Forza will quietly turn the traction control on to help me out a little bit. I notice it because cars that have 1000 hp, no tires, and only one set of drive wheels suddenly don't handle so badly. That and the traction control light will flicker in the gage cluster. I'm pretty sure this is strictly for "verse AI" events, as I haven't noticed it in team matches against other players.

[@prolosertheatomistic8101]

As much as I love Forza it's no where near the most accurate and realistically simulated driving game out there. It's realistic in the sense that the cars drive like cars do, and you can do things with the cars in game that you can in real life... but if you care about actual 1:1 simulation it falls short by a long shot.

[@Sergio-lh5xv]

I love this channel. Combines two of my favourite things :) always excellent to watch these videos, keep it up!

[@Sir.Craze-]

That intro was as clapped out as my Honda... ...I respect the hell out of that. 🎩👌

[@PippetWhippet]

There is quite a major discrepancy - I can get any drivatar to reliably sideswipe me as I overtake, and I do mean any. Including my son's and I've watched him play nearly every moment he's had on the game and he's never sideswiped, or been at all aggressive in any way what-so-ever. He's just too young to drive dirty. Stick the AI in unbeatable, outbrake it into a corner with a car tuned for handling, and every time, the car will violently swing across to side swipe you. It seems to aim to make full body contact, slowing you both down, but often, especially when you know what it's about to do, you can make it miss and watch behind you as it slams into a wall, or is just so slow it gets swallowed up by the pack. This, by the way, is an excellent way to game the unbeatable drivatars in the 4 horizon weekly team challenges, you can give your slower team mates a really good chance to get by one or two more than they should by gaming this. I'll also add, that if you do an endurance game, you can really see the rubber banding in full effect. Do an hour long race and you will notice that after pulling out a long lead, the other cars will start to go faster. Fair enough, that's what you spoke about, but eventually, one car will become a superhero driver, it will go way faster than physically possible and catch up to you. If it doesn't manage to get past you, or you up your game and go faster than it can, a different drivatar will get the superhero speed, and it instead will cruise up to you. Great video, really interesting! Thanks

[@darkchild130]

Yep, FH4 ai is bullshit. I did 25 laps of goliath in my Aston Martin Vulcan FE, pulled to a half lap lead very quickly then spent the next 24 or so laps with exactly the same gap. Soon as the ai is out of sight they rubberband all over the place. Or the other extreme, occasionally you get an S2 focus or Audi TT that can manage 250mph and never miss a corner and accelerates harder than a hypercar. Stupid, stupid system and it pisses me off.

[@rainzeros8393]

Genuinely interesting! Glad KZbin reccomended this to me

[@nicolascessot3719]

Honestly, Forza’s physics are’nt that great, mostly if you compare it to other games physics like Assetto Corsa, Project Cars 2, Iracing or Rfactor 2 wich has a super realistic tire model

[@Wolfox360]

The problem of forza was that the XBOX periferals didn't have powerful FFB. But the feedback was perfect. Take off Assetto Corsa because that game has a shit FFB "STOCK". Always if I'm talking to someone that drives with a wheel or tried to drive sideways with a real car. FORZA from when I managed to attach a FFB wheel to it is the one that gives you the correct feedback.

[@austinbaccus]

Forza's physics aren't realistic because they aren't supposed to be realistic. Forza strikes a balance between realistic physics and arcade physics, so that you can feel like you're playing a sim without having the difficulty of driving in one.

[@Wolfox360]

​@@austinbaccus Ok say that to poeple that never drove a car. What do you mean, for me simulation means, "FEEL OF THE CAR" not like most "Because there are PITS, qualify or Rain", Have you tested it, but most of all, do you drive a car? In anycase when a game gives you certain feedbacks in certain conditions that you had in real life, or do shit with the suspensions and feel the changes on the wheel, call it what ever you want, but that how a driving game should behave. Simple test: First put the setting of the fron wheel TOEIN of some degrees, now in a straight line and wheel turned 90° if you slightly accelerate the wheel sould center(also the car will turn a bit) and the car will go on a straight line.If the wheel doens't do nothing, there is your Arcade game.

[@TheVolginator]

I think I've played every Forza, and not once have I noticed a difference between individual drivatars

[@rickcolan2116]

Wow,nice video and was very unexpected that came from a research division of Microsoft

[@AIandGames]

It's one of the benefits of developing the game inside such a huge corporation. Microsoft does a lot of very interesting R&D to support development of Xbox games that we never get to see.

[@Smiledyy]

if you are in front of the Forza's drivatar it doesn't know go around LOL

[@TivonSanders]

So this is why I've had so many good races in Forza. I remember racing a Saleen S7 in my Ferrari F50 in Forza 2. Amazing race. It was like I was racing myself.

[@SianaGearz]

Anything you can deliver on the driving and racing AIs will be super welcome.

[@FraserSouris]

I kinda feel some of this is needlessly overkill. Why spend so much time and resources designing AI to sometimes mimic human behaviour especially if it's often ignored? I don't think most players would even notice if some AI drivers don't take a corner 100% perfectly or slightly slow down in some areas just because some players do that. And since the actually personal stuff like aggressiveness and stunts are toned down, it often means the system hardly appears different to other racing games that don't use drivatars. In addition, Forza games often "cheat" so their AI Drivers remain competitive even in situations like if their cars are unsuited for the race ahead. Thereby kinda defeating the point of using real data if it's going to be overridden so much It's like designing a super smart bot in an online shooter that's been trained on data from 1000s of players, but then going in and manually tweaking him so the bot can't actually trick-shot the player, or camp, or quick scope or anything players actually do and instead just run around and miss 70% of their shots on other players. Like, at that point, why even spend the resources to do the training? Why not just use the basic bot AI since this bot is hardly going to be different from basic bots in other games.

[@redthewannabe423]

i've been playing horizon since FH2's release, for the longest time i thought the drivatares were hard coded, but this makes a whole lot more sense

[@therizinosaurus214]

One thing I have liked with the AI is that it through out the series is that it can "panic" or fell stress. They make great turns when given a lot of space, but ride their tail they may over or under steer... maybe apply to much gas. And this has been in since FMS 3. I have played other driving games and the AI drivers stick to the driving line like flies to honey.

[@Al.j.Vasquez]

Imagine racing against Don Joewon Song's drivatar 😂😂

[@stupidstormy36]

It's no different from any other Drivatar honestly.

[@Sworn973]

That explain why the boots are so jerks when entering corners

[@kartaltoth684]

Me : ** sees video title ** Also Me with my 2K plus hours on FM7 : going "so you're telling me Drivatars actually have something to them and arent just generic AIs with the ability to have your friends an randoms name"

[@CanisAstra]

that speed gauge intro is clever af

[@este_marco]

thanks, i didn't know anything about drivatar so this helps a lot

[@avgmoose2568]

"the physics simulation" you mean the cheating grip and horsepower

[@Zellie1994]

I'd love to see how Drivatar handles this scenario: New driver profile that only drives in reverse. What would the AI do if it is trained on a human driver driving in reverse? Maybe it will default to the dev's drivatar profiles shipped with the game.

[@ShawnESharp1]

I was wondering that same thing. Or, if I could mess with my friends by driving crazy or in the opposite direction and see what it does with my drivatar on their system.

[@krishacz]

honestly i don't think all this effort is worth it. i don't think i've ever met a drivatar in forza where i think "oh this one drives different to the others" they are all just the same basic AI, at least to me. It's not worth it having the player names over then, I much prefer seeing normal names attached to my opponents. That's part of the reason why I love Horizon 1 so much, it had opponents with personalities (not in races but in dialogue at least) like Darius Flynt or Ali Howard, and not just soulless bodies with your friends' faces stapled onto them.

[@poll1051]

Ikr it feels VERY weird seeing your friends nametags on your ai opponents cars. It is like you're playing with your friends but they're not real and they're actually offline or playing another game. It just doesn't feel like you genuinely are racing with your friends, like they're just fake. It also just is annoying to see the same nametags over and over again

[@Adam-cq2yo]

Oh dude, this is awesome! Gets me wondering how it could apply to other genres of games, like fighting games. What about PvE games, like Monster Hunter or Splatoon 2's Salmon Run? That could be a sick way to implement these things.

[@AIandGames]

So they have done this already with Killer Instinct (I made an episode on this a while back kzbin.info/www/bejne/e6XNZqyhf9qarbc ). I think adapting strategies of enemy AI in PvE games based on modelling what the community is doing would be fascinating.

[@risingphoenixgames6359]

Ive often considered making a learning zombie ai for an arcade "how long can you last" type deal. I feel like the problem with this technique can be reigning it in. In some situations, machines can outright become unstoppable

[@gabrielandy9272]

@adam its good in a way but if they do rubberbanding or cheating it would be terrilble....

[@zayyadk85]

Fantastic video. This was really enlightening.

[@TorQueMoD]

I've barely played a Forza game, so I always assumed that a Drivatar was just a shadow of other players and not really AI. It's cool to hear that it's actually more advanced than that, but I'm curious if the Drivatar is actually as good as you think it is. For example, do we know if it's actually driving like your friends, or are we just told it is? It reminds me of the Amnesia series where the developers told people that the AI was reacting to your sanity meter, but in fact, they revealed years later that it wasn't at all, they just wanted you to think it was, and players psyched themselves out for years.

[@wedusk]

Stunning video as always. Thank you.

[@asv520]

tbh that's an awesome way of implementing m/c learning

[@Nexxus088]

Having played every single entry in Forza multiple times so much of this video is bunk. I have forced friends to play Forza at my place just so they have a drivatar in my game. Even those not good at racers. Like I am talking so bad I need to educate them on the fundamentals of how to take a racing line,. And yet I see them frequently at the front of the pack when racing, and depending on my difficulty setting can even find myself struggling to keep up with them even though I have been playing racing sims since GT1 and do this so often have a 4 figure racing wheel.

[@lilHamster9t7]

“In essence, the forza physics simulation is one of the most complete and accurate race car physics simulators in the entire world” Oh honey no, no it’s not. It’s perfectly passable for a chill racing game and it’s not quite arcade but it’s definitely not a simulator

[@Not_Polish_Maks]

Forza horizon 2: There are no ai drivers Me: stop the cap

[@deathnights-bane3301]

Honestly I want a HD upgrade of each of the old Forza game that updates the graphics for the series X but features all current cars, just the idea of a Hennessy Velociraptor exploring horizon 3 is awsome too me

[@SebiStr99]

I'd love to observe my own drivatar and manipulate values to see how it's behaviour changes. Especially since I feel like the calculated "optimal" cornering parameters are not taking slip into consideration. I feel like these parameters only account for grip situations, which are what the games assist system would allow you, as soon as you leave the restrictions of the games assists, you can go much faster than the game had calculated, since it's stuck within the range of the assist systems...

[@sharkkord]

on the unbeatable difficulty, they are actually pretty damn difficult, its amazing

[@DWreck-gt7yj]

I would've liked to see you touch a little bit on how different difficulty levels are affected by the Drivatar system. But maybe that's difficult being that hardly any of it is public information anyway. Great video regardless.

[@paulshort1027]

That answers a lot of questions. Thanks.

[@deadlad_]

I was doing the goliath in fh5 hotwheels and a pagani zonda cinque gapped me when i was doing 270mph in a venom F5 and i wasnt even in first place lol

[@wdlwilliams]

Please do an episode on the Pawns from Dragon's Dogma.

[@yrrr4871]

It's a lie. If drivatars controlled like real people, there should be drivers ramming each other and chaos

[@evahxh]

how it works is it puts them in a ford focus and puts a 280mph top speed on it and calls it a day

[@slowbend4390]

The problems with drivatars (in Forza Horizon 4): - Cars will be boosted above what they are able to (Classic: Ford Focus RS overtakes a Koenigsegg at top speed) - Drivatars get no damage, making them harder to beat in some race categories if you play with damage - Drivatars give a shit about race type (i can live with crashing in illegal street races, but in the pro races this should be banned) - Drivatars learn from people who AWD-swap everything, making it sometimes hard to compete if you drive RWD/FWD cars - Drivatars have a problem with packed street and start swiping left and right like crazy - Drivatars head-start (yes they do, but the devs set the one head-start car you have to chase to be first mostly out of your sight) I think I could extend this list even more. Please note that i completed every race on unbeatable without assists, so I do not whine just because I didn't want to git gud. But for real: The Drivatars might be an interessting idea, but they suck at being good rivals. I had more fun with some old Need For Speed AI than with the drivatars. Forza Horizon for me is a car collector game where I can test my tunes in rivals races. (Special greetings to the cheaters in the leaderboards the devs won't remove. Ghosts that stop and then overtake you with 800 mph are perfectly normal. Or drag races completed in 1 second.) So much is broken in Forza, but the think i hate most are the Drivatars. If I play a racing game, I want to race againts race-drivers and not the neighbours kid. If a Forza Dev ever reads this: Let us decide if we want the Drivatar of SwaggerYourMom or just normal drivers.

[@M_Gargantua]

Can confirm Race Car Vehicle Dynamics is the bible.

[@robertmahiques6218]

You should take a look at the Killer Instinct Shadow Lab, it works similarly but each players learns from playing against them one on one. So it's not a copy of the player but rather a copy that knows how to beat its player within the context of a fighting game.

[@mjshorty101]

Oh hey a new video, I love this channel

[@jasondelong83]

I have a request for you AI and Games. Can you look into the old Soulcalibur II arcade machines? There was a version of those machines that had a global conquest mode that let you play against other players "clones". I think it used machine learning to mimic your style. I know this because I mained the character Nightmare and made multiple accounts on the arcade machine, using different styles of Nightmares moves. Specifically I used all his spinning moves only in the second account, and sure enough the clone mostly used spinning moves (and was quite formidable), and he fought way differently than my main account which used my normal move set and combo patterns. And this was all back in 2004 and 2005. I'd love to hear about how they managed to pull that off.

[@sinaolaei]

Very informative. Thanks for the great video.

[@fsmfiat]

Why are all my drivestars in raced so good I usually play against highly skilled driveatars but still the 1&2 position driveatars. They are like 4 check points ahead of everyone and it impossible to catch up. How to fix this issue?

[@Lit_Hot_takes]

It would be you might... have the Ai set on a high difficulty.

[@pixelslappa7948]

Excellent channel glad I found it 👍

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Ah Bayesian Theory. Being useful in so many places.

[@jacobpugpoirier3350]

15:20 I still play the OG Forza on the OXbox, and I never really got what that Sweeper -30, or Chicane +40 really ment...

[@YeeSoest]

The one thing I don't see and still miss is my Drivatar using mostly or exclusively my Favorite Cars. Why not? I do and they're quite easy to spot...!!?

[@corootai]

Loved the video~! I Recently just got into the Horizon series, it was a fun experiance ^_^ thanks for this video showing how the drivatars work lord knows i was like "Waaaaaaaaat" XD when my friends bump into me. XDDD

[@d3tach3d]

I wish racing sims would implement machine learning into their AI or any game for that matter. Not just racing. In no way shape or does Forza 7 have the most advanced simulations like you said. Sure, they may have physical modelers applying physics at 300+hz they must be doing it wrong because its still just as much an arcade racer as horizon and feels nothing like a sim. But as advanced Forza's driving model may claim it is by physically and accurately modelling a cars behavior, the cars behave and feel nothing like real cars would. I have hope for Forza 8 or whatever they're going to call it because one of the lead devs said the racing experience is going to be nothing like any of previous titles and almost everything will be physically modelled down to the air temp/density, suspension, tire model, weight distribution, power delivery, road rubbering, dynamic weather, etc.) So lets hope they apply "their most advanced modeler" the correct way in order to have a realistic driving experience. So here's to hoping the new Forza Motorsport will behave more like a sim instead of a boring arcade racer no matter how advanced their physics is under the hood.

[@Kerosyn]

whoa, this all sounds pretty cool, really interesting video. too bad the games don't know any of this

[@thevalorousdong7675]

I know how driveatars work. If you're solo play, they rubberband. Boom.

[@SlightCrescent4]

Drivertars are busted in horizon 4 in some cases. Like 2 cars will get so far ahead that it’s impossible to catch up

[@TheOldest]

Forza drivatar system is scary faithful to real player actions. Bought Horizon 2 on launch for XB1, and had played tens of hours of the demo with some friends. Was chatting with them while in free roam and mentioned that one of their drivatars showed so I challenged them to a race. Friends drivatar rather than follow the racing line to the finished immediately did a hard right turn into a dry river bed and took the most direct route cross country instead. It totally took me by surprise but was entirely faithful to how my friend would've driven had he been there in person.

[@flat6gamingyt643]

The first thing I thought of when I first saw this video in my recommended: the way they work is to screw up ur driving experience

[@Marc28031984]

Finally someone who appreciates Forza physics 🙌🏼👍🏼 Interesting that Forza 1 already had AI learning...never thought of that.

[@danielsgrunge]

Not a Forza fan, dont really like arcade racing games but similarly to NFS Heat, the customization and how good the game looks is just amazing Countless hours taking screenshots of cars

[@broodstar1337]

So theoretically, one could obtain their own drivatar data and have a nearly neck-and-neck race. I wonder if that'll ever be a feature in upcoming racing titles.