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Comment by yarcob | Hacker News Reader

Reading the Twitter thread I wonder if people just have unrealistic expectations.

Self driving cars are a billion dollar industry, and yet you expect a game dev studio to come up with a realistic AI for drivers?

It's a game. People know that it's not real. Sure, it's fun to discover the tricks that the devs had to pull off to make it work. But man, don't blame a game dev studio that they haven't come up with an algorithm for self driving cars.

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I don't mean to be a jerk, but I don't think you know what you are talking about here. Driver AI in a video game isn't nearly as complex as self driving cars in the real world. Plenty of games have been able to create a more realistic driver AI.

For example take a look at this video[1], specifically the part in which the user shoots at AI driven cars. The AI in GTA 5 responds in a much more realistic fashion. This has a huge impact on immersion and creating a lifelike world. GTA 5 came out 7 years ago. There is no technical reason for Cyberpunk's AI being this bad. CDPR simply didn't want to invest the time in making it better.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9VMTk13wfo&t=390

You're right, I had no idea how realistic drivers behave in newer games. Would be interesting to see what tricks GTA pulls off to hide the limits of their AI. Obviously they do a better job.

(Sidenote: When the guy started beating up pedestrians I just couldn't continue watching that video. Maybe I'm getting old.)

This video really hurts to watch. It looks so dead even compared to The Witcher 3

Self diving cars are not comparable to a driver AI. The AI exists within a world where it can have full knowledge of everything, and will have significantly less edge cases to worry about. Many racing and open world games do a great job at this, so it's not that it can't be done.

edit: Also hitting a pedestrian isn't a huge deal in a videogame.

FWIW, I got hit by cars a lot in my cyberpunk playthrough. Fits the dystopian narrative I guess, but even in a dystopia people worry about scratching their car or an insurance nightmare so not too realistic experience.

Other than the game is very enjoyable on a PC, with some really enjoyable NPC action, interesting side quests and a great main story line. Also a great value compared to buying a movie or going to the cinema for a similar price - so far sunk 50h into the game.

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