NPC Traffic Behavior - ENOUGH ALREADY

[ten-a-penny]

NPC cars try to crash into a wanted car when you try to deliver them to Simeon. One scratch deminishes the repo value a lot. I had one NPC car waiting at an intersection and it was speeding up just when I past it. It rammed my side. I sticky bombed the basterd and had to go back to LSC.

 

Back in the RR grinding days NPC cars were scripted to ram into you, to slow you down as you were going to Madrazzo.

And let's not forget the road in Strawberry or whatever its called (where the Families are at). Its a death sentence passing through there.

 

What pisses me off even more is, when I'm practicing stunts, RIGHT before hitting the stunting obstacle, be it a barrier or a wall, there's always that f*cktard who stops right in front of me, causing me to crash.

 

 

Can't we have the GTA IV multiplayer options in Inv. Only sessions?

[Relative007]

They are atrocious at that. Now I have started playing on Public Sessions more since my Online Connectivity has improved markedly with the last few patches, I am also really noticing the "Fake Physics" kicking in for NPV Vehicles all of the time on PS4. This is when they go past the expected turning point for turning a corner, then slide to the side before straighten themselves up again...I have also noticed they can do this when changing lanes now and naturally the NPCs are more than willing to cut you off by turning from the outside lane.

[Nipper]

 

 

Yeah the cops' magic abilities are f*cked...

 

I don't understand why they cannot just PIT for real instead of doing that bs like you say, locking the front wheels by just slightly tapping you.

 

Thanks for those tactics, I'll certainly employ them whenever possible. Suck my dick f*cking cops!!

 

AI takes resources, it's easier this way. Basically that is what it all comes down to.

 

 

Well there must be enough resources by now on current gen (X1/PS4) to support non-retarded AI...

 

 

Not really, they used the extra resources for some higher definition textures and first person view, along with ramping up the draw distance and such.

 

So yeah, gameplay takes a back seat in GTAV.

[Mr Fyn666]

Traffic in missions is getting worse as the connectivity gets better....

 

Cars doing a full 360 turn on the highway like they are dancing together to f*ck you up is just, plain stupid......

[ZeroSafe]

It's poor AI programming. Watch this. This video describes the 360/PS3 version, but it's relevant.

 

To be honest, that video is making me want to reinstall GTA IV and the Episodes on my PC.

 

OT: I honestly have lost my patience with the traffic and barely acknowledge they're a part of the game anymore (until they're sending my car hurtling through the sky). They're either immovable granite blocks or lousy, paranoid, and overly cautious drivers that make lobotomized chimps look smart in comparison. I like GTA V and all the content it has, but the AI (police and civilian) is a key factor in any open world sandbox game (well, any game with non player characters really), and I think R* cocked up pretty bad by taking as many shortcuts as they did. The worst part of it is they didn't take any steps to rectify one of the major problems for the "next gen" version of the game. It's left a sour taste in me gob.

[Hoosierdaddy76]

Traffic in missions is getting worse as the connectivity gets better....

 

Cars doing a full 360 turn on the highway like they are dancing together to f*ck you up is just, plain stupid......

 

This is the issue. I can suspend disbelief and pretend that the majority of a.i. drivers are bad, but some of this stuff should never, ever occur. When an entire freeway of vehicles is on a mission to f*ck you up, it becomes pretty obvious.

[CarnageRacing00]

Regarding the video on a bit-by-bit basis:

 

1. Personal vehicles vanishing

Yes, frustrating, and I completely agree. Single player NEEDS the GTA:O car tracking and insurance system. Hell, it needs 10 car garages, too. It just does, no question, it absolutely does.

 

2. Trucks spawning out of nowhere

Nothing new to the GTA series, sometimes the traffic spawning system lags behind the player location. Frustrating, but there is so much the game has to spawn and despawn constantly that it's bound to slow down sometimes.

 

3. Unnatural turning

Yeah, this happens with NPC cars before their physics have loaded. See, when you see cars off in the distance, their physics aren't enabled. This allows more cars to be on screen at once, and to be seen at greater distances. You can see evidence of this when sometimes cars will be "hovering" and suddenly snap to the ground when you get near them. This is also why NPC cars are sometimes unaffected by you in any way, as in you crash into them and they just plow you right out of the way like you don't even exist. The physics haven't enabled on that vehicle yet. An annoying issue, but again, there's only so much the game can load at a given time.

 

4. Cars turning in front of you

If you watch closely, you can see exactly why the cars do what they do. The first car was already planning on making that turn, and stopped when it "detected" the player vehicle incoming. Player's fault. The second car was planning on parking and had to follow the strict grid of the painted road lines. Watch, it follows those lines exactly, then turns into the parking space. The player was not driving in a lane, had he went around the other side there wouldn't have been an issue. The AI follows set paths on the roads, it doesn't just sense where the road is or is not. The Granger was already planning on turning. Does this guy expect every car to just stop and let him pass? I mean, seriously, he's speeding down the road and just expects AI to stop what they're doing and let him go by? Then the semi truck - you can see that it "tried" to get out of his way, but the player swerved WITH the truck, so the truck again tried to get out of his way, and the player swerved back with the truck AGAIN. Once again, this exhibits the player's terrible driving, not a problem with the AI. Finally he shows AI acting strangely during a police chase - once again, this is NPC AI reacting to police sirens. Yeah, this can definitely be annoying, but still in several cases it was recklessness on the player's behalf. A little forward thinking would have prevented these crashes... but the guy drives a yellow buffalo with green wheels, so I don't really think he has much sense when it comes to cars and driving.

 

EDIT: Yep, he even agrees with me at the end of his video about why NPC's often turn into you.

 

5. NPC character models changing

Yeah, so? You expect the game to really hold an irrelevant stock NPC character model in place for every vehicle just IN CASE you plan on chasing them down after losing sight of them? Give me a break. That's really nit-picky.

 

6. Car won't start

Never had this happen unless I had just finished abusing the sh*t out of the car. It NEVER happens online, only in Single Player, and I'd imagine that Rockstar did this to make it seem as if your car is hurting from the abuse you just put it through. Yes, even driving hard and fast for a long time can cause this to happen.

 

7. Can't leave engine running

The player has two states - normal and combat. When in normal mode, you walk as default, your entire animation set is relaxed, and you shut the car off and take the time to shut the car door when getting out. In combat mode, your character jogs by default, the animations are all aggressive, and you can leave the car without shutting it off or closing the doors. I agree with reverting it to how it was in GTA IV.

 

8. Top speed

There are multiple reasons why cars can't really go as fast as you'd think they should. 1, like the video says, is that the game would have to load cars and the environment at ridiculous speeds which might not be possible to do. 2 is that those speeds may very well be unwieldy. If you consider the many things that can go wrong when traveling at the current top speed, try increasing that even more an imagine how frustrating it could be to make a minor mistake. Realistic? Yeah, but again, the game needs to be PLAYABLE first and foremost before realism is even considered. There is room for improvement here. We will see if Rockstar makes adjustments over time. If there IS an upper limit due to the limit at which the game can load, then in order to make it feel right, ALL cars would have to be scaled back and they would have to employ the tricks used by other games to give the illusion of speed, such as smearing the textures to make it appear as if they're moving by faster than they are (like Need For Speed has done in the past).

 

9. Police

Here's where his argument really falls on its face.

 

A) Bad shoot outs

Sometimes they're good, sometimes they aren't. I've watched some really awesome police vs. npc gun fights, and I've watched some really goofy ones. You just can't expect the AI to hold up to scrutiny 100% of the time, ESPECIALLY in an open world game where certain things are dynamic. I mean, yeah NPC police chases are scripted to occur, but once they've spawned into the game world, from there on it's all dynamic. I can't think of a single game whose AI doesn't do weird things sometimes when unleashed from a specific script. GTA IV's police AI would do stupid stuff a lot, too. As with all GTA games, and all OTHER games. It just happens.

 

B) No patrolling police

What? This isn't true at all. I've crashed into police cars waiting at traffic lights before. They monitor traffic speeds on the side of the freeways. They walk the sidewalks in some areas. He's just flat out wrong on this one.

 

C) Police always know where you are

Yeah, unless they lose sight of you. This is because the police communicate your location. Let's say you're running from the police in real life down Wilshire Blvd. The cop behind you may radio to the police 2 miles up the road that you're coming, and those police may start heading toward your location. That's how it works.

 

But in GTA V, if you ditch the police, you CAN HIDE from them quite easily. People say it doesn't work, but it absolutely does. Go try it. Get a wanted level, get off the police radar, ditch your car and either hide in another car or hide behind a wall. They will search your last known location, and yeah sometimes they might spot you, but if you're concealed enough, they won't.

 

I've robbed stores and escaped before the police arrived. The cars and helicopter will search around the store and never track me down as long as nobody saw me leave.

 

He claims that helicopters will "coincidentally" happen to go in the direction you had gone in even after the police lost sight of you. Uh, yeah? Don't you think that if the police saw you heading north and then lost visual contact, they might continue heading north to find you again? Or are they supposed to go "HMM, he WAS heading North at a high rate of speed but we broke visual contact... let's stay here and do circles, maybe he teleported back to us."

 

Now, that said, there IS a problem with police helicopters spawning in thin air. This seems to be mostly fixed for PS4, but yeah, that WAS a problem and I did hate it.

 

D) Pit maneuver

Yes, cop cars are too fast. That needs to be fixed. Agreed there. But the other stuff...

 

First of all, when a car rams your car from behind, it CAN cause you to lose control in real life. Sure, in the game this is handled by the game forcing your car to steer to the left or to the right, but regardless it IS possible in real life.

 

Second, the pit maneuver. This guy is clearly very MAD about this, but I wonder just how much more angry he would be if the police COULD pit you? I mean, driving along and suddenly you're being spun out with no chance for recovering? No thanks, that would make this game unbearably frustrating.

 

Third, burst tires. Yeah, I can agree here. The initial bursting of a tire has a very unlikely affect on the car. This needs to be changed.

 

Fourth... Wait, they DO pit maneuver? That's right, they do, but only in certain circumstances, just like REAL LIFE. Because at high speeds, REAL POLICE will NOT pit a car due to the danger it presents to A) themselves, and B) other traffic. Real police WILL BUMP THE BACK OF A CAR at high speed as an intimidation exercise, which is why they have the push bar in the first place. No, it is NOT represented in GTA V correctly.

 

E) Police don't arrest NPC's

So? So f*cking what? The AI on display in that GTA IV clip he shared was terrible as well. Just because they shoot instead of arrest now, so? Does that REALLY bother anybody? You could even consider it satire of the trigger happy LAPD.

 

G) NPC's get scared when you rev your engine

Yeah, I suppose I'd probably run too if someone parked a supercar on a sidewalk and started spinning the tires after almost running over the guy standing next to me.

 

 

This guy is looking for things to hate about GTA V, so he singles out the times things go wrong. He could easily make another video depicting the times NPC cars DIDN'T cut him off, trucks DIDN'T spawn out of thin air, police AI acted properly, etc... but he doesn't, because he's a cynical prick who only focuses on the bad.

[SmokesWithCigs]

Man they drive like grand mothers they are so slow i constantly have to honk my horn to get them to speed up. And oh god that one idiot that sits at the green light ,man that has to be a bug.

[GN 92]

When some npc do that kind of sh*t to me, I gently pull over, grab my automatic shotgun, and spray it all over the son of a bitch. It relieves the stress, try it.

[RedlineDrifts]

 

Regarding the video on a bit-by-bit basis:

 

1. Personal vehicles vanishing

Yes, frustrating, and I completely agree. Single player NEEDS the GTA:O car tracking and insurance system. Hell, it needs 10 car garages, too. It just does, no question, it absolutely does.

 

2. Trucks spawning out of nowhere

Nothing new to the GTA series, sometimes the traffic spawning system lags behind the player location. Frustrating, but there is so much the game has to spawn and despawn constantly that it's bound to slow down sometimes.

 

3. Unnatural turning

Yeah, this happens with NPC cars before their physics have loaded. See, when you see cars off in the distance, their physics aren't enabled. This allows more cars to be on screen at once, and to be seen at greater distances. You can see evidence of this when sometimes cars will be "hovering" and suddenly snap to the ground when you get near them. This is also why NPC cars are sometimes unaffected by you in any way, as in you crash into them and they just plow you right out of the way like you don't even exist. The physics haven't enabled on that vehicle yet. An annoying issue, but again, there's only so much the game can load at a given time.

 

4. Cars turning in front of you

If you watch closely, you can see exactly why the cars do what they do. The first car was already planning on making that turn, and stopped when it "detected" the player vehicle incoming. Player's fault. The second car was planning on parking and had to follow the strict grid of the painted road lines. Watch, it follows those lines exactly, then turns into the parking space. The player was not driving in a lane, had he went around the other side there wouldn't have been an issue. The AI follows set paths on the roads, it doesn't just sense where the road is or is not. The Granger was already planning on turning. Does this guy expect every car to just stop and let him pass? I mean, seriously, he's speeding down the road and just expects AI to stop what they're doing and let him go by? Then the semi truck - you can see that it "tried" to get out of his way, but the player swerved WITH the truck, so the truck again tried to get out of his way, and the player swerved back with the truck AGAIN. Once again, this exhibits the player's terrible driving, not a problem with the AI. Finally he shows AI acting strangely during a police chase - once again, this is NPC AI reacting to police sirens. Yeah, this can definitely be annoying, but still in several cases it was recklessness on the player's behalf. A little forward thinking would have prevented these crashes... but the guy drives a yellow buffalo with green wheels, so I don't really think he has much sense when it comes to cars and driving.

 

EDIT: Yep, he even agrees with me at the end of his video about why NPC's often turn into you.

 

5. NPC character models changing

Yeah, so? You expect the game to really hold an irrelevant stock NPC character model in place for every vehicle just IN CASE you plan on chasing them down after losing sight of them? Give me a break. That's really nit-picky.

 

6. Car won't start

Never had this happen unless I had just finished abusing the sh*t out of the car. It NEVER happens online, only in Single Player, and I'd imagine that Rockstar did this to make it seem as if your car is hurting from the abuse you just put it through. Yes, even driving hard and fast for a long time can cause this to happen.

 

7. Can't leave engine running

The player has two states - normal and combat. When in normal mode, you walk as default, your entire animation set is relaxed, and you shut the car off and take the time to shut the car door when getting out. In combat mode, your character jogs by default, the animations are all aggressive, and you can leave the car without shutting it off or closing the doors. I agree with reverting it to how it was in GTA IV.

 

8. Top speed

There are multiple reasons why cars can't really go as fast as you'd think they should. 1, like the video says, is that the game would have to load cars and the environment at ridiculous speeds which might not be possible to do. 2 is that those speeds may very well be unwieldy. If you consider the many things that can go wrong when traveling at the current top speed, try increasing that even more an imagine how frustrating it could be to make a minor mistake. Realistic? Yeah, but again, the game needs to be PLAYABLE first and foremost before realism is even considered. There is room for improvement here. We will see if Rockstar makes adjustments over time. If there IS an upper limit due to the limit at which the game can load, then in order to make it feel right, ALL cars would have to be scaled back and they would have to employ the tricks used by other games to give the illusion of speed, such as smearing the textures to make it appear as if they're moving by faster than they are (like Need For Speed has done in the past).

 

9. Police

Here's where his argument really falls on its face.

 

A) Bad shoot outs

Sometimes they're good, sometimes they aren't. I've watched some really awesome police vs. npc gun fights, and I've watched some really goofy ones. You just can't expect the AI to hold up to scrutiny 100% of the time, ESPECIALLY in an open world game where certain things are dynamic. I mean, yeah NPC police chases are scripted to occur, but once they've spawned into the game world, from there on it's all dynamic. I can't think of a single game whose AI doesn't do weird things sometimes when unleashed from a specific script. GTA IV's police AI would do stupid stuff a lot, too. As with all GTA games, and all OTHER games. It just happens.

 

B) No patrolling police

What? This isn't true at all. I've crashed into police cars waiting at traffic lights before. They monitor traffic speeds on the side of the freeways. They walk the sidewalks in some areas. He's just flat out wrong on this one.

 

C) Police always know where you are

Yeah, unless they lose sight of you. This is because the police communicate your location. Let's say you're running from the police in real life down Wilshire Blvd. The cop behind you may radio to the police 2 miles up the road that you're coming, and those police may start heading toward your location. That's how it works.

 

But in GTA V, if you ditch the police, you CAN HIDE from them quite easily. People say it doesn't work, but it absolutely does. Go try it. Get a wanted level, get off the police radar, ditch your car and either hide in another car or hide behind a wall. They will search your last known location, and yeah sometimes they might spot you, but if you're concealed enough, they won't.

 

I've robbed stores and escaped before the police arrived. The cars and helicopter will search around the store and never track me down as long as nobody saw me leave.

 

He claims that helicopters will "coincidentally" happen to go in the direction you had gone in even after the police lost sight of you. Uh, yeah? Don't you think that if the police saw you heading north and then lost visual contact, they might continue heading north to find you again? Or are they supposed to go "HMM, he WAS heading North at a high rate of speed but we broke visual contact... let's stay here and do circles, maybe he teleported back to us."

 

Now, that said, there IS a problem with police helicopters spawning in thin air. This seems to be mostly fixed for PS4, but yeah, that WAS a problem and I did hate it.

 

D) Pit maneuver

Yes, cop cars are too fast. That needs to be fixed. Agreed there. But the other stuff...

 

First of all, when a car rams your car from behind, it CAN cause you to lose control in real life. Sure, in the game this is handled by the game forcing your car to steer to the left or to the right, but regardless it IS possible in real life.

 

Second, the pit maneuver. This guy is clearly very MAD about this, but I wonder just how much more angry he would be if the police COULD pit you? I mean, driving along and suddenly you're being spun out with no chance for recovering? No thanks, that would make this game unbearably frustrating.

 

Third, burst tires. Yeah, I can agree here. The initial bursting of a tire has a very unlikely affect on the car. This needs to be changed.

 

Fourth... Wait, they DO pit maneuver? That's right, they do, but only in certain circumstances, just like REAL LIFE. Because at high speeds, REAL POLICE will NOT pit a car due to the danger it presents to A) themselves, and B) other traffic. Real police WILL BUMP THE BACK OF A CAR at high speed as an intimidation exercise, which is why they have the push bar in the first place. No, it is NOT represented in GTA V correctly.

 

E) Police don't arrest NPC's

So? So f*cking what? The AI on display in that GTA IV clip he shared was terrible as well. Just because they shoot instead of arrest now, so? Does that REALLY bother anybody? You could even consider it satire of the trigger happy LAPD.

 

G) NPC's get scared when you rev your engine

Yeah, I suppose I'd probably run too if someone parked a supercar on a sidewalk and started spinning the tires after almost running over the guy standing next to me.

 

 

This guy is looking for things to hate about GTA V, so he singles out the times things go wrong. He could easily make another video depicting the times NPC cars DIDN'T cut him off, trucks DIDN'T spawn out of thin air, police AI acted properly, etc... but he doesn't, because he's a cynical prick who only focuses on the bad.

 

 

Thank-you for your elaborate post and analysis of everything.

 

I agree with a lot of what you discussed, although I'm just curious (and slightly confused) as to your overall stance on the AI, as a whole.

[CarcerCityMadMan]

You think the traffic is bad in LS lol.Every single car drives erratic in Carcer City

[scrublord]

C) Police always know where you are

Yeah, unless they lose sight of you. This is because the police communicate your location. Let's say you're running from the police in real life down Wilshire Blvd. The cop behind you may radio to the police 2 miles up the road that you're coming, and those police may start heading toward your location. That's how it works.

 

But in GTA V, if you ditch the police, you CAN HIDE from them quite easily. People say it doesn't work, but it absolutely does. Go try it. Get a wanted level, get off the police radar, ditch your car and either hide in another car or hide behind a wall. They will search your last known location, and yeah sometimes they might spot you, but if you're concealed enough, they won't.

 

I've robbed stores and escaped before the police arrived. The cars and helicopter will search around the store and never track me down as long as nobody saw me leave.

 

He claims that helicopters will "coincidentally" happen to go in the direction you had gone in even after the police lost sight of you. Uh, yeah? Don't you think that if the police saw you heading north and then lost visual contact, they might continue heading north to find you again? Or are they supposed to go "HMM, he WAS heading North at a high rate of speed but we broke visual contact... let's stay here and do circles, maybe he teleported back to us."

 

Sorry, but you're just wrong. You can lose line of sight, take a few turns, and drive down into the subway and the police will STILL manage to find you. Cops shouldn't be able to "communicate" the directions you take after you lose their line of sight. No matter how evasive you try to be, the cops will ALWAYS show up near you, no matter where you hide. The only way to really avoid them is to keep moving and taking turns to avoid the cops who constantly spawn 20 meters in-front of you.

[Accendo]

When you're making a lane change IRL, do you expect the guy you saw in that lane at the end of the block when you checked your side mirror to be going as fast as you would be in the game?

It's pretty realistic if you consider that we're driving 100 mph through bustling city streets.

 

On the topic of cops, I regularly hide in alleys and in the subway system and they very rarely pursue me past the most logical escape routes. They do a sweep and search of the whole area. You can't expect to make quick hiding spots work unless you keep moving or luck out, which is how it should be.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Accendo

[Geisterfaust]

 

 

Regarding the video on a bit-by-bit basis:

 

1. Personal vehicles vanishing

Yes, frustrating, and I completely agree. Single player NEEDS the GTA:O car tracking and insurance system. Hell, it needs 10 car garages, too. It just does, no question, it absolutely does.

 

2. Trucks spawning out of nowhere

Nothing new to the GTA series, sometimes the traffic spawning system lags behind the player location. Frustrating, but there is so much the game has to spawn and despawn constantly that it's bound to slow down sometimes.

 

3. Unnatural turning

Yeah, this happens with NPC cars before their physics have loaded. See, when you see cars off in the distance, their physics aren't enabled. This allows more cars to be on screen at once, and to be seen at greater distances. You can see evidence of this when sometimes cars will be "hovering" and suddenly snap to the ground when you get near them. This is also why NPC cars are sometimes unaffected by you in any way, as in you crash into them and they just plow you right out of the way like you don't even exist. The physics haven't enabled on that vehicle yet. An annoying issue, but again, there's only so much the game can load at a given time.

 

4. Cars turning in front of you

If you watch closely, you can see exactly why the cars do what they do. The first car was already planning on making that turn, and stopped when it "detected" the player vehicle incoming. Player's fault. The second car was planning on parking and had to follow the strict grid of the painted road lines. Watch, it follows those lines exactly, then turns into the parking space. The player was not driving in a lane, had he went around the other side there wouldn't have been an issue. The AI follows set paths on the roads, it doesn't just sense where the road is or is not. The Granger was already planning on turning. Does this guy expect every car to just stop and let him pass? I mean, seriously, he's speeding down the road and just expects AI to stop what they're doing and let him go by? Then the semi truck - you can see that it "tried" to get out of his way, but the player swerved WITH the truck, so the truck again tried to get out of his way, and the player swerved back with the truck AGAIN. Once again, this exhibits the player's terrible driving, not a problem with the AI. Finally he shows AI acting strangely during a police chase - once again, this is NPC AI reacting to police sirens. Yeah, this can definitely be annoying, but still in several cases it was recklessness on the player's behalf. A little forward thinking would have prevented these crashes... but the guy drives a yellow buffalo with green wheels, so I don't really think he has much sense when it comes to cars and driving.

 

EDIT: Yep, he even agrees with me at the end of his video about why NPC's often turn into you.

 

5. NPC character models changing

Yeah, so? You expect the game to really hold an irrelevant stock NPC character model in place for every vehicle just IN CASE you plan on chasing them down after losing sight of them? Give me a break. That's really nit-picky.

 

6. Car won't start

Never had this happen unless I had just finished abusing the sh*t out of the car. It NEVER happens online, only in Single Player, and I'd imagine that Rockstar did this to make it seem as if your car is hurting from the abuse you just put it through. Yes, even driving hard and fast for a long time can cause this to happen.

 

7. Can't leave engine running

The player has two states - normal and combat. When in normal mode, you walk as default, your entire animation set is relaxed, and you shut the car off and take the time to shut the car door when getting out. In combat mode, your character jogs by default, the animations are all aggressive, and you can leave the car without shutting it off or closing the doors. I agree with reverting it to how it was in GTA IV.

 

8. Top speed

There are multiple reasons why cars can't really go as fast as you'd think they should. 1, like the video says, is that the game would have to load cars and the environment at ridiculous speeds which might not be possible to do. 2 is that those speeds may very well be unwieldy. If you consider the many things that can go wrong when traveling at the current top speed, try increasing that even more an imagine how frustrating it could be to make a minor mistake. Realistic? Yeah, but again, the game needs to be PLAYABLE first and foremost before realism is even considered. There is room for improvement here. We will see if Rockstar makes adjustments over time. If there IS an upper limit due to the limit at which the game can load, then in order to make it feel right, ALL cars would have to be scaled back and they would have to employ the tricks used by other games to give the illusion of speed, such as smearing the textures to make it appear as if they're moving by faster than they are (like Need For Speed has done in the past).

 

9. Police

Here's where his argument really falls on its face.

 

A) Bad shoot outs

Sometimes they're good, sometimes they aren't. I've watched some really awesome police vs. npc gun fights, and I've watched some really goofy ones. You just can't expect the AI to hold up to scrutiny 100% of the time, ESPECIALLY in an open world game where certain things are dynamic. I mean, yeah NPC police chases are scripted to occur, but once they've spawned into the game world, from there on it's all dynamic. I can't think of a single game whose AI doesn't do weird things sometimes when unleashed from a specific script. GTA IV's police AI would do stupid stuff a lot, too. As with all GTA games, and all OTHER games. It just happens.

 

B) No patrolling police

What? This isn't true at all. I've crashed into police cars waiting at traffic lights before. They monitor traffic speeds on the side of the freeways. They walk the sidewalks in some areas. He's just flat out wrong on this one.

 

C) Police always know where you are

Yeah, unless they lose sight of you. This is because the police communicate your location. Let's say you're running from the police in real life down Wilshire Blvd. The cop behind you may radio to the police 2 miles up the road that you're coming, and those police may start heading toward your location. That's how it works.

 

But in GTA V, if you ditch the police, you CAN HIDE from them quite easily. People say it doesn't work, but it absolutely does. Go try it. Get a wanted level, get off the police radar, ditch your car and either hide in another car or hide behind a wall. They will search your last known location, and yeah sometimes they might spot you, but if you're concealed enough, they won't.

 

I've robbed stores and escaped before the police arrived. The cars and helicopter will search around the store and never track me down as long as nobody saw me leave.

 

He claims that helicopters will "coincidentally" happen to go in the direction you had gone in even after the police lost sight of you. Uh, yeah? Don't you think that if the police saw you heading north and then lost visual contact, they might continue heading north to find you again? Or are they supposed to go "HMM, he WAS heading North at a high rate of speed but we broke visual contact... let's stay here and do circles, maybe he teleported back to us."

 

Now, that said, there IS a problem with police helicopters spawning in thin air. This seems to be mostly fixed for PS4, but yeah, that WAS a problem and I did hate it.

 

D) Pit maneuver

Yes, cop cars are too fast. That needs to be fixed. Agreed there. But the other stuff...

 

First of all, when a car rams your car from behind, it CAN cause you to lose control in real life. Sure, in the game this is handled by the game forcing your car to steer to the left or to the right, but regardless it IS possible in real life.

 

Second, the pit maneuver. This guy is clearly very MAD about this, but I wonder just how much more angry he would be if the police COULD pit you? I mean, driving along and suddenly you're being spun out with no chance for recovering? No thanks, that would make this game unbearably frustrating.

 

Third, burst tires. Yeah, I can agree here. The initial bursting of a tire has a very unlikely affect on the car. This needs to be changed.

 

Fourth... Wait, they DO pit maneuver? That's right, they do, but only in certain circumstances, just like REAL LIFE. Because at high speeds, REAL POLICE will NOT pit a car due to the danger it presents to A) themselves, and B) other traffic. Real police WILL BUMP THE BACK OF A CAR at high speed as an intimidation exercise, which is why they have the push bar in the first place. No, it is NOT represented in GTA V correctly.

 

E) Police don't arrest NPC's

So? So f*cking what? The AI on display in that GTA IV clip he shared was terrible as well. Just because they shoot instead of arrest now, so? Does that REALLY bother anybody? You could even consider it satire of the trigger happy LAPD.

 

G) NPC's get scared when you rev your engine

Yeah, I suppose I'd probably run too if someone parked a supercar on a sidewalk and started spinning the tires after almost running over the guy standing next to me.

 

 

This guy is looking for things to hate about GTA V, so he singles out the times things go wrong. He could easily make another video depicting the times NPC cars DIDN'T cut him off, trucks DIDN'T spawn out of thin air, police AI acted properly, etc... but he doesn't, because he's a cynical prick who only focuses on the bad.

 

 

Please, don't get us started with the police. Just kill couple of hikers on the top of mount Gordo and enjoy your wanted level. Enjoy <20 seconds response time really often and enjoy police being dispatched to your goddamn waypoint on your map. Enjoy mount Chiliad secret PD, when they're going for you with 4 cars from the TOP of the mountain. Enjoy unlimited helicopters spawning right in front of you, enjoy their post-mortem telepathic communication rewarding you with 3 stars after killing one of them from the back. Enjoy their TELEPATHIC connections with shop owners all around the County. Mafia 2 style of changing clothes in shop? Forget about it. Clothes shop clerks in Paleto Bay is in the contact with PD. He knows exactly how you look and will not stand you. Want some soda or snacks? Forget about it. Your photo is right there.

Enjoy their cars, rubber banding you on your Enity/Adder. Enjoy being unable to use vehicle change tactics and bushes to hide from them in Online.

 

And no, they DO NOT PATROL streets. There are places, when they are located on regular basis like Airport or PD or subway entrance or that traffic monitoring points in SP, but they are not patrolling streets. Cars, that you've seen are the cars, spawned for some other player or NPC.Try playing invite only and you will encounter 0 cruisers. Park rangers? Yes. Police? No.

 

Enjoy your police, mate. Call them if you're not doing something illegal just to hang with them.

Edited December 21, 2014 by hei3enberg

[HUYI]

My favorite is when you hit an NPC vehicle head-on and he keeps ramming you like "bang bang bang bang bang". Holy f*ck that's the most rage inducing thing ever.

 

Damn Los Santos drivers!

 

 

yep, when they do this, i shoot them in the face, repeatedly, it's rage inducing when they keep driving into your car and you can't break free, the only way to make them stop is to kill them.

 

also +1000 to tc first post, it gets even more frustrating when the cars act like moon buggies on the moon and the wheels have traction like a ice rink, add to that the automatic 180 turn when you touch a tiny stone on the floor and when your car goes out of control and you can't stop it even with the breaks, it's a nightmare.

Edited December 21, 2014 by HUYI

[RedlineDrifts]

 

 

 

Regarding the video on a bit-by-bit basis:

 

1. Personal vehicles vanishing

Yes, frustrating, and I completely agree. Single player NEEDS the GTA:O car tracking and insurance system. Hell, it needs 10 car garages, too. It just does, no question, it absolutely does.

 

2. Trucks spawning out of nowhere

Nothing new to the GTA series, sometimes the traffic spawning system lags behind the player location. Frustrating, but there is so much the game has to spawn and despawn constantly that it's bound to slow down sometimes.

 

3. Unnatural turning

Yeah, this happens with NPC cars before their physics have loaded. See, when you see cars off in the distance, their physics aren't enabled. This allows more cars to be on screen at once, and to be seen at greater distances. You can see evidence of this when sometimes cars will be "hovering" and suddenly snap to the ground when you get near them. This is also why NPC cars are sometimes unaffected by you in any way, as in you crash into them and they just plow you right out of the way like you don't even exist. The physics haven't enabled on that vehicle yet. An annoying issue, but again, there's only so much the game can load at a given time.

 

4. Cars turning in front of you

If you watch closely, you can see exactly why the cars do what they do. The first car was already planning on making that turn, and stopped when it "detected" the player vehicle incoming. Player's fault. The second car was planning on parking and had to follow the strict grid of the painted road lines. Watch, it follows those lines exactly, then turns into the parking space. The player was not driving in a lane, had he went around the other side there wouldn't have been an issue. The AI follows set paths on the roads, it doesn't just sense where the road is or is not. The Granger was already planning on turning. Does this guy expect every car to just stop and let him pass? I mean, seriously, he's speeding down the road and just expects AI to stop what they're doing and let him go by? Then the semi truck - you can see that it "tried" to get out of his way, but the player swerved WITH the truck, so the truck again tried to get out of his way, and the player swerved back with the truck AGAIN. Once again, this exhibits the player's terrible driving, not a problem with the AI. Finally he shows AI acting strangely during a police chase - once again, this is NPC AI reacting to police sirens. Yeah, this can definitely be annoying, but still in several cases it was recklessness on the player's behalf. A little forward thinking would have prevented these crashes... but the guy drives a yellow buffalo with green wheels, so I don't really think he has much sense when it comes to cars and driving.

 

EDIT: Yep, he even agrees with me at the end of his video about why NPC's often turn into you.

 

5. NPC character models changing

Yeah, so? You expect the game to really hold an irrelevant stock NPC character model in place for every vehicle just IN CASE you plan on chasing them down after losing sight of them? Give me a break. That's really nit-picky.

 

6. Car won't start

Never had this happen unless I had just finished abusing the sh*t out of the car. It NEVER happens online, only in Single Player, and I'd imagine that Rockstar did this to make it seem as if your car is hurting from the abuse you just put it through. Yes, even driving hard and fast for a long time can cause this to happen.

 

7. Can't leave engine running

The player has two states - normal and combat. When in normal mode, you walk as default, your entire animation set is relaxed, and you shut the car off and take the time to shut the car door when getting out. In combat mode, your character jogs by default, the animations are all aggressive, and you can leave the car without shutting it off or closing the doors. I agree with reverting it to how it was in GTA IV.

 

8. Top speed

There are multiple reasons why cars can't really go as fast as you'd think they should. 1, like the video says, is that the game would have to load cars and the environment at ridiculous speeds which might not be possible to do. 2 is that those speeds may very well be unwieldy. If you consider the many things that can go wrong when traveling at the current top speed, try increasing that even more an imagine how frustrating it could be to make a minor mistake. Realistic? Yeah, but again, the game needs to be PLAYABLE first and foremost before realism is even considered. There is room for improvement here. We will see if Rockstar makes adjustments over time. If there IS an upper limit due to the limit at which the game can load, then in order to make it feel right, ALL cars would have to be scaled back and they would have to employ the tricks used by other games to give the illusion of speed, such as smearing the textures to make it appear as if they're moving by faster than they are (like Need For Speed has done in the past).

 

9. Police

Here's where his argument really falls on its face.

 

A) Bad shoot outs

Sometimes they're good, sometimes they aren't. I've watched some really awesome police vs. npc gun fights, and I've watched some really goofy ones. You just can't expect the AI to hold up to scrutiny 100% of the time, ESPECIALLY in an open world game where certain things are dynamic. I mean, yeah NPC police chases are scripted to occur, but once they've spawned into the game world, from there on it's all dynamic. I can't think of a single game whose AI doesn't do weird things sometimes when unleashed from a specific script. GTA IV's police AI would do stupid stuff a lot, too. As with all GTA games, and all OTHER games. It just happens.

 

B) No patrolling police

What? This isn't true at all. I've crashed into police cars waiting at traffic lights before. They monitor traffic speeds on the side of the freeways. They walk the sidewalks in some areas. He's just flat out wrong on this one.

 

C) Police always know where you are

Yeah, unless they lose sight of you. This is because the police communicate your location. Let's say you're running from the police in real life down Wilshire Blvd. The cop behind you may radio to the police 2 miles up the road that you're coming, and those police may start heading toward your location. That's how it works.

 

But in GTA V, if you ditch the police, you CAN HIDE from them quite easily. People say it doesn't work, but it absolutely does. Go try it. Get a wanted level, get off the police radar, ditch your car and either hide in another car or hide behind a wall. They will search your last known location, and yeah sometimes they might spot you, but if you're concealed enough, they won't.

 

I've robbed stores and escaped before the police arrived. The cars and helicopter will search around the store and never track me down as long as nobody saw me leave.

 

He claims that helicopters will "coincidentally" happen to go in the direction you had gone in even after the police lost sight of you. Uh, yeah? Don't you think that if the police saw you heading north and then lost visual contact, they might continue heading north to find you again? Or are they supposed to go "HMM, he WAS heading North at a high rate of speed but we broke visual contact... let's stay here and do circles, maybe he teleported back to us."

 

Now, that said, there IS a problem with police helicopters spawning in thin air. This seems to be mostly fixed for PS4, but yeah, that WAS a problem and I did hate it.

 

D) Pit maneuver

Yes, cop cars are too fast. That needs to be fixed. Agreed there. But the other stuff...

 

First of all, when a car rams your car from behind, it CAN cause you to lose control in real life. Sure, in the game this is handled by the game forcing your car to steer to the left or to the right, but regardless it IS possible in real life.

 

Second, the pit maneuver. This guy is clearly very MAD about this, but I wonder just how much more angry he would be if the police COULD pit you? I mean, driving along and suddenly you're being spun out with no chance for recovering? No thanks, that would make this game unbearably frustrating.

 

Third, burst tires. Yeah, I can agree here. The initial bursting of a tire has a very unlikely affect on the car. This needs to be changed.

 

Fourth... Wait, they DO pit maneuver? That's right, they do, but only in certain circumstances, just like REAL LIFE. Because at high speeds, REAL POLICE will NOT pit a car due to the danger it presents to A) themselves, and B) other traffic. Real police WILL BUMP THE BACK OF A CAR at high speed as an intimidation exercise, which is why they have the push bar in the first place. No, it is NOT represented in GTA V correctly.

 

E) Police don't arrest NPC's

So? So f*cking what? The AI on display in that GTA IV clip he shared was terrible as well. Just because they shoot instead of arrest now, so? Does that REALLY bother anybody? You could even consider it satire of the trigger happy LAPD.

 

G) NPC's get scared when you rev your engine

Yeah, I suppose I'd probably run too if someone parked a supercar on a sidewalk and started spinning the tires after almost running over the guy standing next to me.

 

 

This guy is looking for things to hate about GTA V, so he singles out the times things go wrong. He could easily make another video depicting the times NPC cars DIDN'T cut him off, trucks DIDN'T spawn out of thin air, police AI acted properly, etc... but he doesn't, because he's a cynical prick who only focuses on the bad.

 

 

Please, don't get us started with the police. Just kill couple of hikers on the top of mount Gordo and enjoy your wanted level. Enjoy <20 seconds response time really often and enjoy police being dispatched to your goddamn waypoint on your map. Enjoy mount Chiliad secret PD, when they're going for you with 4 cars from the TOP of the mountain. Enjoy unlimited helicopters spawning right in front of you, enjoy their post-mortem telepathic communication rewarding you with 3 stars after killing one of them from the back. Enjoy their TELEPATHIC connections with shop owners all around the County. Mafia 2 style of changing clothes in shop? Forget about it. Clothes shop clerks in Paleto Bay is in the contact with PD. He knows exactly how you look and will not stand you. Want some soda or snacks? Forget about it. Your photo is right there.

Enjoy their cars, rubber banding you on your Enity/Adder. Enjoy being unable to use vehicle change tactics and bushes to hide from them in Online.

 

And no, they DO NOT PATROL streets. There are places, when they are located on regular basis like Airport or PD or subway entrance or that traffic monitoring points in SP, but they are not patrolling streets. Cars, that you've seen are the cars, spawned for some other player or NPC.Try playing invite only and you will encounter 0 cruisers. Park rangers? Yes. Police? No.

 

Enjoy your police, mate. Call them if you're not doing something illegal just to hang with them.

 

 

Lol I feel you on this bullsh*t, but I can't help but laugh at your awesomely sarcastic post.

 

I do agree with you though. How the f*ck is it even remotely realistic that you kill someone on Mt. Chilliad and in under a minute, they somehow climb the mountain in their sh*tty cruisers, like it were nothing and come f*ck you in the ass.

 

Also like wtf do cops have heartbeat sensors with built in GPS that sends a distress signal when a pulse is no longer detected? Cause that's the only logical "realistic" (more like f*cking ridiculous) explanation for how when you kill a cop, completely unwitnessed, they still know AND know exactly where to find you.

 

I can understand if you just stab a cop on a busy sidewalk with countless pedestrians to see and call 911, but man when there's f*cking no witnesses whatsoever, it's sooo dumb that they still know...

Edited December 21, 2014 by RedlineDrifts

[ten-a-penny]

Was doing Out of Court Settlement today with another player, the second I got onto my bike and drive off a f*cking WOMAN driver ram me off the road, wasting my damn armor.

 

Seriously????!!?!

[RedlineDrifts]

Was doing Out of Court Settlement today with another player, the second I got onto my bike and drive off a f*cking WOMAN driver ram me off the road, wasting my damn armor.

 

Seriously????!!?!

 

Yeah man pedestrians are complete psychos, you never know what to expect.

 

Been run over more times than I can count, for no reason whatsoever. Just trying to get to my car and......SPLAT.

[ten-a-penny]

To make it sound even worse, she came our of nowhere.

 

I've never seen such bullsh*t AI before. Sure yeah in SA its a death sentence driving around on a bike in the highway because the second you f*ck up and fall off somebody ram you so hard (normal though, just imagine yourself driving above 100 m/h and saw somebody in a bike crashes in front of you. No way you can stop in time), same goes with IV drivers, hell all the 3D Era drivers werwbt as bad as *this* game. Not even IV, where peda would literally scratch your car and ram you, just because you stopped at a red light, are as bad as this game.

 

The AI in general is a bigass fail in this game IMO.

[RedlineDrifts]

So yesterday, this lovely game decided to spawn me and the 3 other people I had started a mission with, right on the highway.

 

Result: I IMMEDIATELY get run over by one of those small trucks, lose all my armor, some of my health and then get run over, AGAIN, by some bitch in her car. Down to half health, I curse repeatedly as I am finally able to get up and make it to my vehicle.

Edited December 23, 2014 by RedlineDrifts

[Geisterfaust]

So yesterday, this lovely game decided to spawn me and the 3 other people I had started a mission with, right on the highway.

 

Result: I IMMEDIATELY get run over by one of those small trucks, lose all my armor, some of my health and then get run over, AGAIN, by some bitch in her car. Down to half health, I curse repeatedly as I am finally able to do get up and make it to my vehicle.

Hah! There is at least one worse possible outcome in this situation. I kid you not, couple of days ago (and yes, I still can remember that and it's something already) I was spawned ON THE HIGHWAY JUNCTION! So, my car was on the different part of intersection, which was impossible to reach without a serious detour on for spamming run button.

 

My favourite places to start a LS-based mission: mt. Chilled (Gordo), Ranton Canyon, Zancudo River (under the bridge, of course), Paleto Bay.

Sure thing the best place is some mountain. But not the top, no. Some track, where there is no option to parachute down and killing yourself will just move you couple of meters away. Renton Canyon is nice, because talented Zentorno drivers will destroy their cars trying to prove they're better than Sebastien Loeb, Zancudo river is amazing in another different way: DIRT. Jump like amphetamine-overdosed bunch of retards after the bass drops at some old-schooled rave.

 

EDIT: Right after this bright feature (mission starting point = host location) was introduced, it was even possible to start a mission in the freefall. It was ultimate ground for trolling: just jump out of helicopter (right above mt. Chilled, of corse!) and why falling down, select some popular mission like RR and hit start RIGHT BEFORE you will hit the ground. That thing was patched quickly, but it was awesome.

Your point about GPS and heart sensors is absolutely fantastic, by the way. But let's add some details: GPS, heart sensor and portable 360 degree mounted surveillance camera with live feed to the LSPD dispatch. Like H.S.T. said "You can hide, but you can't run".

Edited December 22, 2014 by hei3enberg

[RyanTRule]

How about the police cruisers that force stars on you? How is this even physically possible?

[hotrats773]

So yesterday, this lovely game decided to spawn me and the 3 other people I had started a mission with, right on the highway.

 

Result: I IMMEDIATELY get run over by one of those small trucks, lose all my armor, some of my health and then get run over, AGAIN, by some bitch in her car. Down to half health, I curse repeatedly as I am finally able to do get up and make it to my vehicle.

 

 

At that point, I say f*ck the mission. I will try to chase the offender down, pull them out of the car, douse them in gasoline and light them on fire. Then shoot them with my mini-gun at point-blank range. In the face. Hard. Because f*ck NPC drivers in the eye.

 

Yeah, rage inducing to say the least.

Edited December 22, 2014 by hotrats773

[RedlineDrifts]

 

So yesterday, this lovely game decided to spawn me and the 3 other people I had started a mission with, right on the highway.

 

Result: I IMMEDIATELY get run over by one of those small trucks, lose all my armor, some of my health and then get run over, AGAIN, by some bitch in her car. Down to half health, I curse repeatedly as I am finally able to get up and make it to my vehicle.

 

 

At that point, I say f*ck the mission. I will try to chase the offender down, pull them out of the car, douse them in gasoline and light them on fire. Then shoot them with my mini-gun at point-blank range. In the face. Hard. Because f*ck NPC drivers in the eye.

 

Yeah, rage inducing to say the least.

 

 

I actually neglected to mention that after the bitch ran me over, I whipped out my grenade launcher and tried to blow up the small truck who initially ran me over (and was still somewhat close by because all this happened very quick), but I missed and said f*ck it, not wasting anymore ammo ($$) on this sh*t and carried on.

[Sir Michael]

Been this way for a long, long time.

You'd think people would get wise and know the traffic will do the dumbest thing as you over take.

It's not as easy as it seems with the AI being so unpredictable. One second, they look like they'll be driving straight through an intersection, next thing you know they're switching lanes with an insanely abrupt turn or making a right turn in a LEFT ONLY LANE... I caught that on video one time. It was pretty stupid. Edited December 23, 2014 by Sir Michael

[tenpennyisplainevil]

So that NPC on the wrong side of the road thing happened to me yet again. Stayed to see what NPC would do and yes, they make random u-turns with total disregard of whoever might be driving besides/behind them. I just loooooove to stumble upon some retard NPC who decides to do a random u-turn JUST as I pass him. WTF.

And another thing, the way the NPC's switch lanes is ridiculously abrupt and unannounced, which is maybe the worst thing of the AI. This caused so many accidents...

[CaliMeatWagon]

I honestly believe it is in their coding to purposefully crash into you, or try to at least.

 

When driving around in free-mode without cops or anybody chasing you, everything seems normal. But once you have something chasing you ("an intense moment"), the AI traffic will cross over into your lane, switch lanes, or make sudden turns. I believe this has been done on purpose to increase the "intensity" of the moment.

 

I believe this to be true for several reasons. I'm a people watcher in real life, and in this game (I think people are strange and interesting, but I'm more interested in patterns in a group). And in this game I've spent countless hours observing the pedestrians and watching traffic. And during normal traffic conditions the AI will drive normally, use their brakes and turn signals, and drive well. Now sometimes they do have issues with taking corners wrong (either late or early). But as soon as a gun shot is fired, an accident happens, they "hear" sirens, the go crazy.

 

But you can have fun with this. Go to a police stations with cops out front and stand in the road. Position yourself where you can get hit by a car and wait. If the road is slow you may have to jump in front of traffic.

[ten-a-penny]

Its impossible trying to practice stunts in the highway, which IMO have the best ramps.

"Oh so your ass is trying to hit this barrier and have fun? Better do my best to ram yo ass out of you bike."

[DevilDaRebel]

It's f*cking confirmed for sure. When the new Festive DLC dropped, I was in single player testing out the new cars so I come out of the LSC in the city near the Tinsel tower, and I use the front exit to leave, not where the ramp is. So I'm going to Michael garage on the Slamvan. and at the intersection near the LSC where you can go straight into the tunnel or make a right or left, I make a left into the last lane. LAST LANE TO MY RIGHT THERE IS ONLY THE SIDEWALK AND LAMP POST. Now, I'm at the right on the last lane and a bigass truck in front of me and I'm blocked so I try to squeeze by the right into the sidewalk all was going fine until the Truck decides to accelerate turning right into the sidewalk and hitting the lamp and then the building in front of me. JUST TO f*ckING CRASH into me and to block me. This is bullsh*t and confirmed.

[RedlineDrifts]

It's f*cking confirmed for sure. When the new Festive DLC dropped, I was in single player testing out the new cars so I come out of the LSC in the city near the Tinsel tower, and I use the front exit to leave, not where the ramp is. So I'm going to Michael garage on the Slamvan. and at the intersection near the LSC where you can go straight into the tunnel or make a right or left, I make a left into the last lane. LAST LANE TO MY RIGHT THERE IS ONLY THE SIDEWALK AND LAMP POST. Now, I'm at the right on the last lane and a bigass truck in front of me and I'm blocked so I try to squeeze by the right into the sidewalk all was going fine until the Truck decides to accelerate turning right into the sidewalk and hitting the lamp and then the building in front of me. JUST TO f*ckING CRASH into me and to block me. This is bullsh*t and confirmed.

 

Oh yeah it's confirmed alright..