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This reminds me of the AI rubber banding implemented in many racing games, including Need For Speed. Full disclosure: I work as a Software Engineer for Ghost G

This reminds me of the AI rubber banding implemented in many racing games, including Need For Speed. Full disclosure: I work as a Software Engineer for Ghost Games and was involved in the development of Need For Speed (2015). I am not an official spokesperson for Ghost or EA and I am not authorized to speak on their behalf. In Need For Speed, AI racers will slow down when you're behind and speed up when you're ahead. The idea was to always make the player feel like they were having a fun challenge, regardless of skill level. In the end, the AI rubber banding was such a strong effect that, when the game first came out, it was one of the main complaints. We ended up fixing it in the very first patch. IGN reporting on it: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/11/23/need-for-speeds-most-frustrating-issue-disappears-this-week http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/11/23/need-for-speeds-most-... Our announcement which first mentioned it: http://www.needforspeed.com/en_AU/news/future-plans http://www.needforspeed.com/en_AU/news/future-plans

hvm 10y ago
I've seen this in an older version of NFS on PC. I can't remember which one it was (I think Underground?). The way they always caught up with me when they were behind was insane. I actually tried a bit to look back and see it happen beacuse, I was wondering, do they just teleport or actually drive at like 800km/h.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  this feature is literary called "Catch Up" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics#Catch-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics#Catch-up and has been a thing in racing games since before 2000. Diddy Kong Racing (1997) had it, so did motorhead in 1998, then EA got familiar with it and we got Hot Pursuit 2/Most wanted and burnout 3.
  - softawre 10y ago
    The original Mario Kart did this with the strength of Powerups (and maybe speed as well?)
stepvhen 10y ago
This was the worst part of F-Zero GX, to the point where the best strategy for some of the story missions is to stay just behind the lead until the end and boost at the finish. I had a truly hellish time playing through that story mode because of rubber band AI. I'm surprised it was still a standard game mechanic in 2015.
btgeekboy 10y ago
This sounds very similar to what I've noticed from the Mario Kart series. It's a hard game to consistently win, as the AI is always compensating. It seems to do this with powerups for multi-player as well - it wants you to get ahead, but when you start to do well, it gets a lot harder to stay ahead.

hvm 10y ago

I've seen this in an older version of NFS on PC. I can't remember which one it was (I think Underground?). The way they always caught up with me when they were behind was insane. I actually tried a bit to look back and see it happen beacuse, I was wondering, do they just teleport or actually drive at like 800km/h.

rasz_pl 10y ago
this feature is literary called "Catch Up" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics#Catch-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics#Catch-up and has been a thing in racing games since before 2000. Diddy Kong Racing (1997) had it, so did motorhead in 1998, then EA got familiar with it and we got Hot Pursuit 2/Most wanted and burnout 3.
- softawre 10y ago
  The original Mario Kart did this with the strength of Powerups (and maybe speed as well?)

stepvhen 10y ago

This was the worst part of F-Zero GX, to the point where the best strategy for some of the story missions is to stay just behind the lead until the end and boost at the finish. I had a truly hellish time playing through that story mode because of rubber band AI. I'm surprised it was still a standard game mechanic in 2015.

btgeekboy 10y ago

This sounds very similar to what I've noticed from the Mario Kart series. It's a hard game to consistently win, as the AI is always compensating. It seems to do this with powerups for multi-player as well - it wants you to get ahead, but when you start to do well, it gets a lot harder to stay ahead.