In summary: getting a good race in single player is almost impossible and it comes down to difficulty balancing and player expectations.
Back in the day of the true "arcade racer" racing games were extremely challenging (or even unfair) as one of those "quarter-muncher" strategies to get players to keep spending money (under the belief that by playing often enough they'd be able to eventually beat the AI racers - or the time limit, if your cup of tea is OutRun or its ilk). So as these games moved out of arcades and focused more on the console gaming experience the actual act of racing would take the forefront over simply being difficult as a means to generate revenue. When other genres that were more known at one point for being arcade staples began adjusting themselves for consumption on consoles there were obvious tweaks they could make that would make them more palatable for the audience at home who only had to buy a game once and play it as long and as many times as it satisfied them (fighting games could focus more on balancing moves and toning down AI cheating, beat 'em ups could institute adjustable continues and giving players more options to stay alive, etc.). In general there were inherent ways to make games easier to be more approachable when the focus went from being something that would incentivize spending more money to beat the game to the total experience of playing the game would give the player.
However, whereas fixing those genres for play on game consoles was relatively straightforward and mostly involved creating a balanced difficulty that made them more beatable, racing games are faced with an issue with this same scenario that makes it much harder to address. In a real race you'll have several positions you can finish in and, generally, someone is always going to finish in those positions (assuming they make it to the end of the race). As far as I can tell there is no way to properly impart this structure in a single player environment. Video games condition the player to play to win and when it comes to racing games the only real way to "win" is to get first place. If you finish second, third, or even lower then that means the game was lost and the player will felt like they need to retry the race in order to get first because that's the only way they can say it was a successful session.
Due to this there comes an issue with designing opponent AI to be beatable instead of giving the player a genuine race. Simply put the experience of playing a racing game by yourself is contingent on beating the other opponent cars and the AI has to cater to that. I have never seen a way a game can properly sell to the player "if you finish fifth that's fine, don't worry about it, someone had to finish there". If a player thinks they're going to end the race in something other than first then they're probably going to restart unless they're playing REALLY casually. The existence of rubberbanding in racing games comes as a result of the need to have AI that LOOKS competitive but in reality is ultimately beatable (they'll stick to your tail if you're in front and slow down to let you pass them if you're behind but if you drive well enough they ultimately won't let you lose). AI opponents can be designed to really race the player, sure, but I bet you dollars to dimes that if that were the way the AI were designed in a racing game pretty much every player would say the AI is "impossible" because they give no quarter and ACTUALLY drive well. Maybe the player can keep up with them if they do that but invariably it'll feel hopeless because they can't seem to break out of third no matter how well they drive, which isn't conducive to the way players are conditioned to approach a video game (even I experienced this, despite my desire for opponents who fight you to the line, in Hot Wheels Unleashed because I had to cut the difficulty simply because I felt like my need to progress through the game still mandated I win at the end). Even the hardest video games (such as Ninja Gaiden) can still be BEATEN if you do play well enough - it's always possible to surpass the game's AI because the AI is ultimately designed to be beatable, you might simply not be at that level as a player. This approach doesn't work when it comes to racing because no one will ever think finishing in the middle of the pack is anything but failure (to make a functional single player racing game the AI pretty much has to hit a threshold where they aren't doing as well as they could be, usually by making them relatively slower than the player car - rubberbanding notwithstanding).
Some games do AI better than others (incidentally it feels like Gran Turismo 7 is on both sides of this coin thanks to its absolutely atrocious base-game AI that presents no fight whatsoever and its experimental GT Sophy AI system that actually creates tailored opponents who can race the player if that's what they're looking for) but ultimately I think this whole "needs to be beatable" aspect is the looming shadow that will always make creating AI opponents for racing games that feel "right" pretty much unattainable (I've still been able to beat GT Sophy on its highest difficulty, even if I like the racing experience up to that point).
But that's my take, what do you think? Bear in mind I think to look at this matter fully you have to consider both hardline sim games that strive to emulate real racing and also fantastical racing games where realism doesn't matter, just the experience of the race in and of itself (so things like Burnout 3's "scripted" AI that basically shows up on idling at specific points in the track where you can zoom by them no matter how far "ahead" they appeared to be or Split/Second's opponents that go to pieces like wet paper when you trigger a Power Play near them while their attempts to use Power Plays against you doesn't present nearly as much grief also need to be examined as much as Gran Turismo's lazy "chase the rabbit" approach to "racing").
Back in the day of the true "arcade racer" racing games were extremely challenging (or even unfair) as one of those "quarter-muncher" strategies to get players to keep spending money (under the belief that by playing often enough they'd be able to eventually beat the AI racers - or the time limit, if your cup of tea is OutRun or its ilk). So as these games moved out of arcades and focused more on the console gaming experience the actual act of racing would take the forefront over simply being difficult as a means to generate revenue. When other genres that were more known at one point for being arcade staples began adjusting themselves for consumption on consoles there were obvious tweaks they could make that would make them more palatable for the audience at home who only had to buy a game once and play it as long and as many times as it satisfied them (fighting games could focus more on balancing moves and toning down AI cheating, beat 'em ups could institute adjustable continues and giving players more options to stay alive, etc.). In general there were inherent ways to make games easier to be more approachable when the focus went from being something that would incentivize spending more money to beat the game to the total experience of playing the game would give the player.
However, whereas fixing those genres for play on game consoles was relatively straightforward and mostly involved creating a balanced difficulty that made them more beatable, racing games are faced with an issue with this same scenario that makes it much harder to address. In a real race you'll have several positions you can finish in and, generally, someone is always going to finish in those positions (assuming they make it to the end of the race). As far as I can tell there is no way to properly impart this structure in a single player environment. Video games condition the player to play to win and when it comes to racing games the only real way to "win" is to get first place. If you finish second, third, or even lower then that means the game was lost and the player will felt like they need to retry the race in order to get first because that's the only way they can say it was a successful session.
Due to this there comes an issue with designing opponent AI to be beatable instead of giving the player a genuine race. Simply put the experience of playing a racing game by yourself is contingent on beating the other opponent cars and the AI has to cater to that. I have never seen a way a game can properly sell to the player "if you finish fifth that's fine, don't worry about it, someone had to finish there". If a player thinks they're going to end the race in something other than first then they're probably going to restart unless they're playing REALLY casually. The existence of rubberbanding in racing games comes as a result of the need to have AI that LOOKS competitive but in reality is ultimately beatable (they'll stick to your tail if you're in front and slow down to let you pass them if you're behind but if you drive well enough they ultimately won't let you lose). AI opponents can be designed to really race the player, sure, but I bet you dollars to dimes that if that were the way the AI were designed in a racing game pretty much every player would say the AI is "impossible" because they give no quarter and ACTUALLY drive well. Maybe the player can keep up with them if they do that but invariably it'll feel hopeless because they can't seem to break out of third no matter how well they drive, which isn't conducive to the way players are conditioned to approach a video game (even I experienced this, despite my desire for opponents who fight you to the line, in Hot Wheels Unleashed because I had to cut the difficulty simply because I felt like my need to progress through the game still mandated I win at the end). Even the hardest video games (such as Ninja Gaiden) can still be BEATEN if you do play well enough - it's always possible to surpass the game's AI because the AI is ultimately designed to be beatable, you might simply not be at that level as a player. This approach doesn't work when it comes to racing because no one will ever think finishing in the middle of the pack is anything but failure (to make a functional single player racing game the AI pretty much has to hit a threshold where they aren't doing as well as they could be, usually by making them relatively slower than the player car - rubberbanding notwithstanding).
Some games do AI better than others (incidentally it feels like Gran Turismo 7 is on both sides of this coin thanks to its absolutely atrocious base-game AI that presents no fight whatsoever and its experimental GT Sophy AI system that actually creates tailored opponents who can race the player if that's what they're looking for) but ultimately I think this whole "needs to be beatable" aspect is the looming shadow that will always make creating AI opponents for racing games that feel "right" pretty much unattainable (I've still been able to beat GT Sophy on its highest difficulty, even if I like the racing experience up to that point).
But that's my take, what do you think? Bear in mind I think to look at this matter fully you have to consider both hardline sim games that strive to emulate real racing and also fantastical racing games where realism doesn't matter, just the experience of the race in and of itself (so things like Burnout 3's "scripted" AI that basically shows up on idling at specific points in the track where you can zoom by them no matter how far "ahead" they appeared to be or Split/Second's opponents that go to pieces like wet paper when you trigger a Power Play near them while their attempts to use Power Plays against you doesn't present nearly as much grief also need to be examined as much as Gran Turismo's lazy "chase the rabbit" approach to "racing").
Last edited by SolidSonicTH,
