[General Discussion] Cheap, cheating games. ARGALJKAGE RUBBERBANDING BULLSHIT

Originally Posted by SouthJag

Quoted for absolute truth. They nerfed many fan favorites, mine included (Talim), and everyone was, when controlled by the AI, a bunch of spam-blocking faggots. Now, I did manage to beat single-player, but only with the characters I was really good with. Spam-blocking begets spam-throwing. And even then that didn't always work.

So fighting games seem to be a popular genre in this thread, but both Virtua Fighter 4 and 5 are kinda the antithesis here. They've got great balance, and I've never felt like the computer just blatantly cheated. Maybe the endboss (that weird almagation of fighters all wrapped up in a single, shiny robot-thing) was overly difficult, but it wasn't a cheater.

Some of the conditions for unlocking the special characters were ridiculous also. Especially for Olcadan.

Follow a pre-determined path of buttrape, and then face Olcadan. You lose to him, start the whole shit process over again.

They changed Xianghua too much in that game also. I was pissed.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

God Rugal in Capcom Vs. SNK 2 is horrificly cheap. Always. And always saving his level 3 super when you have 0 health just so you know its coming. Arggg.

As for a newer game, Crysis is really cheap. Not that its particularly hard or anything, but the enemy AI (tanks, soldiers) will just shoot you as soon as you enter the draw distance of the map. There were a ton of occasions when i'd be getting shot and have to back up then slowly move forward and take some shots before i could even figure out where they were coming from.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It's bad enough in Unreal Tournament 3 in single player how on some maps you already have the odds greatly stacked against you and have idiot bots for your teammates. And then on top of that, I seriously feel like the bots on the other team single me out all the time. They could be busy in a vehicle trying to take out my retarded teammates, but as soon as I show up, they drop everything they're doing and focus fire me. Which..only takes a second, if that, with some of the vehicles in that game.

Frickin' hate Warfare.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Talking about maps being stacked against you has made me think of another one: Worms on XBLA. Fucking single player missions get ridiculous, where your one team goes up against three AI teams that all go after you, and all the AI characters have flawless pinpoint accuracy with the weapons (no matter what the wind conditions). That pissed me off to the point that I just gave up after a few attempts.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Mario Strikers Charged ~ Damn you Petey! Not just Petey though, the AI throughout entire Striker cup is pretty tough. A mistake such as falling prey to your won item, ill-advised going for steals/hits, or missing a defensive assignment will may cost you a goal. Manageable though, since that's the game, but the worst is when the AI's captain is charging up a Mega-Strike.. while s/he's doing this, the teammates proceed to big hit you to prevent you from getting to their captain, something you can't do yourself playing solo. You can with a P2, but playing the game is so much harder to coordinate. However, I reached a point in my Wii-mote dexterity where I can stop the orange-zone shots, but there's still no stopping the charged skillshots/powershots the players can pull off if the others are hitting you in the meantime. In fact, I'd rather allow the mega-strike instead of the skillshots.

Strikers also has that similar complaint like racing games. The match is 3 minutes, and in the first 1.5 minutes is where you wanna do most of your scoring damage. Now, the AI gets noticably tougher as time progresses and as your lead increases (though it also seems to reach a point where it seems to have given up if your lead is really large). It gets pretty damn hectic in the last 20 seconds where if the AI gets possession of the ball, you're pretty much not getting it back unless they score. Hundreds of times, I could be up by 2-3 goals with 10 seconds left and LOSE before it even goes to Sudden Death. x_x

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Strikers pisses me off because if you lose in the finals, it boots you all the way back to the beginning, no way around it. Maybe I'm spoiled by the "save anytime" functionality of today's games, but the least they could do is not make me play through the easy-ass round robin again.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

Strikers pisses me off because if you lose in the finals, it boots you all the way back to the beginning, no way around it. Maybe I'm spoiled by the "save anytime" functionality of today's games, but the least they could do is not make me play through the easy-ass round robin again.

There's always the SD-card "trick." I wish I had known about it before I spent 50+ tries getting through the Striker Cup. But if you really wanna just get by it, after you get to the playoffs, just quit out of Strikers and copy your data to an SD card. Get back in and play. If you lose, overwrite the system data with what you copied to the SD card, and try that match again. You'll lose your WFC information like records/ranks though. =/

I'll just also mention that I've never thrown my controller in frustration until I played Strikers.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Qwarky

It's not even a recent thing. Street Fighter 2 had complete bullshit AI later on, with characters like Guile pulling off charge moves without charging. For instance, he'd walk up to you and pull off an instant Sonic Kick as if it was a Dragon Punch, whereas you need to hold down for a moment before pressing up and kick to activate the move.

Zangief's hyper fast machinegun light punching and low kicking were other particular "Oh come ON" moments I remember.

They had that in SC II. Back when conquest mode was popular, I uh, abused the AI of Ivy a lot. If you go against the stupid set of AIs(Mostly those who you knew thier moveset/or they sucked) and as well played one of the nub comps/low win people as your last battle.). You could easily get the 8 way turn + approach enemy and hit A + B for that god like grab. Or even use foward + a + B to grab them and as the move is finishing you could do that 8 way rotate and do teh A + B grab like that as they come out of it.

Basically my Ivy was so cheap, she could guard impact then do that special grab. It was rather funny to me to see how cheap you could exploit the AI cause the Ivy with AI, they don't have to put the inputs for that grab, all they have to do is just grab.

Originally Posted by Josiah

It's bad enough in Unreal Tournament 3 in single player how on some maps you already have the odds greatly stacked against you and have idiot bots for your teammates. And then on top of that, I seriously feel like the bots on the other team single me out all the time. They could be busy in a vehicle trying to take out my retarded teammates, but as soon as I show up, they drop everything they're doing and focus fire me. Which..only takes a second, if that, with some of the vehicles in that game.

Frickin' hate Warfare.

I really never had a problem with UT3 but I do know what you mean about the bots stopping only to take you out. Then again, the reason UT3 was easy to me is cause I hated 2k3 and 2k4. The orignal UT was the best and I am glad they made UT3 a bit more like UT. Though some of the gamemodes I was unhappy with + the veicles. I rather miss the good ole days of assault of UT. Mostly of taking over a battleship, taking over a castle and etc. Assault in the first UT was the best just because the objectives were a bit easy unless the defenders REALLY knew what they were doing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by nazpyro

There's always the SD-card "trick." I wish I had known about it before I spent 50+ tries getting through the Striker Cup. But if you really wanna just get by it, after you get to the playoffs, just quit out of Strikers and copy your data to an SD card. Get back in and play. If you lose, overwrite the system data with what you copied to the SD card, and try that match again. You'll lose your WFC information like records/ranks though. =/

I might have to try that, since I've only played a few times on WFC, and I don't think I have any wins. Still, what happened to the Mario Tennis formula, where you can save after every set?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Cheating/speedy combo AI is pretty much what made me stop playing video games so much. And it doesn't help that I have horrid hand-eye coordination to begin with.
I actually threw a controller in rage playing MGS3 of all things. (Last boss fight)

I'd also like to mention, when the AI suddenly decides to go super saijan, it's usually when there's something time-sensitive going on in the game, in my case.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Zio

I really never had a problem with UT3 but I do know what you mean about the bots stopping only to take you out. Then again, the reason UT3 was easy to me is cause I hated 2k3 and 2k4. The orignal UT was the best and I am glad they made UT3 a bit more like UT. Though some of the gamemodes I was unhappy with + the veicles. I rather miss the good ole days of assault of UT. Mostly of taking over a battleship, taking over a castle and etc. Assault in the first UT was the best just because the objectives were a bit easy unless the defenders REALLY knew what they were doing.

I've played them all, and I agree I do miss Assault from the first one. It just didn't feel the same in 2k4. UT3 does seem more like the first UT for which I'm glad, but man, some of those single player maps are just plain ridiculous when you combine stupid bot teammates with the enemy team wanting to gangbang you on sight, mostly with the Warfare maps and some of the Vehicle CTF maps.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Here's a second for XBLA Worms.
I just gave up playing when I reached about mission 15 or something like that. No matter how many AI worms was standing on top of each other, they'd much more use the most devastating attack on me. Often so mines went right across the map and exploded, flinging my remaining worms into the sea.
Jesus...

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I remember the SNES Worms AI would always shoot pinpoint accurate volleys at you no matter the wind or your location. The only way you DIDN'T get hit was when you were underground, and even then the computer just kept shooting at the ground above you till it got through. The only way I could survive against it was to handicap with enough life bar difference and hope to get lucky water kills.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Unfortunately, unless I missed it, there's no option to turn down to alter handicaps in the XBLA Worms title. You're just stuck re-trying. I went with the tried and tested 'dig underground' strategy on the mission I got stuck on, but in a move of sheer brilliance the game crashes two seconds from when the time is about to run out meaning that I don't ever survive the mission (after that happening three times I gave up with the game).

Another entry in the cheating games list would have to be the recent Sega Superstar Tennis. The last couple of characters to unlock, notably Alex Kidd, are right fuckers to beat. I cruised through the rest of the game, but there were two games that proved quite tough purely because the final against the character you were trying to unlock was ridiculous. The AI had the amazing ability to turbo boost across the back line and get in seemingly impossible returns. It was quite blatant too, because in order to get the character in position the animation is visibily sped up.

FELIPE NO

Prime for sega superstar tennis, just pick eggman, honestly he can beat anyone, truly broken character(if you don't believe me, get friend that knows how to play even a little bit, play him using eggman and then using any other character... the difference is abysmal) there are few things that he can't return. That aside one of the cheap AIs I haven't seen mentioned is from Oblivion, you could sneak into the third floor, be alone in a room and steal a fork, some guard will hear you from a different city, run to where you are and bust you. I know a lot of mods fixed this, but I was impressed with the superhuman ability of these guards to detect felonies.

Edit:

Zip reminded me in chat about another thing, yes I am aware of the level up, system in oblivion, but I still hate how even the shittiest thug got the best gear in the game just because you levelled up, it was pretty lame that some random thug destroyed all your gear, that's worse than his even if you were a master repairing it, it was a pain.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by juanzen

Prime for sega superstar tennis, just pick eggman, honestly he can beat anyone, truly broken character(if you don't believe me, get friend that knows how to play even a little bit, play him using eggman and then using any other character... the difference is abysmal) there are few things that he can't return.

Erm, right, thanks, but I've managed to beat the game as any of the characters. The question here isn't about my personal ability, it's about the AI cheating like a little bitch to artificially make the game harder. The number of times that little shite Alex Kidd would near-teleport across the court to reach a ball. At least if it was Eggman I was playing I could understand it, because he's got quite a long reach, whereas Alex Kidd is possibly the smallest character in the game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Tekken. 5.

Jinpachi and his goddamn STUN.

Seriously. I swear to god that once the fight went like this:

Stun, FIREBALL~! Stun, FIREBALL~, KO!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Tekken. 5.

Jinpachi and his goddamn STUN.

Seriously. I swear to god that once the fight went like this:

Stun, FIREBALL~! Stun, FIREBALL~, KO!

The stun is a counter move. You can also just sidewalk his fireball and kill him. If anything is cheap, it's his i11 WGF and his unblockable hug that sucks your life.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Riding off of what some people said about Mortal Kombat, but did anyone else find the Endurance Matches kinda hard to beat?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Infernal Monkey

Doesn't matter if you take every possible shortcut and you've got the fastest shit. They'll always be there. Up your arse!

I remember Street Fighter II pissing me off, too. That's bullshit, CPU Guile! You're cheating, you need to hold down on the dpad for two seconds before you can do that! Why are you doing it over and over and over and over again, SEE PEE YOU GUUUIIILLEEEE!

Quoted for the truths in this post I had the same problem with SF (only replace Guile with Blanka) Zangiefs reach of his throws compared to other games was pretty cheap too. I'm also 100% certain in the later games they also increase the cpu's attack damage rather then actually improve the AI, (best example being Shin Akuma on cvs2... dead in two moves? That is one big pile of bullshit right there...)

It's either lazy programming like that or insain programming where it develops a counter for a move milliseconds after you performed it, and in the case of games like SoulCalibur beats you down making your time in that attempt at getting unlockables worthless, pisses on you and tells you back to the start with you.

Other great game ai bullshit examples include computer based board games rigging the dice in their favour... actually fuck that make that anything in a video game where luck plays a big part, case in point Mario Kart power ups... you know it's true on the hard difficulties guys don't even try to deny it!

I was speaking idiomatically.

I guess I'll jump on the whole fighting game cheapness bandwagon.

NeoGeo Battle Coliseum - King Leo: SNK is notorious for programming their bosses to take full advantage of the whole "computer knows what you're gonna do" thing. This fucker has King Upper. A insanely high priority super that does half life on counter hit (which he will probably get because he only does it when you try to jump at him). Jumping at him when he doesn't have a super doesn't help much either since he has a godlike counter move. Then he has Beast Blow "DYNAMITE!" to hit you when you try to stand still and block. Nice chunk of damage for a low hitting move that also has crazy priority. Think you can block low? He'll do that mid hitting kick move that he will just about always super cancel into King Straight. That's another half life right there. This is one of the only SNK bosses where I couldn't find a consistent winning strategy. Most of the time he might fall for a quick low into a combo on wake up, but not always. SNK bosses having three health bars in one didn't help much either.

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Originally Posted by Manny Biggz

I guess I'll jump on the whole fighting game cheapness bandwagon.

NeoGeo Battle Coliseum - King Leo: SNK is notorious for programming their bosses to take full advantage of the whole "computer knows what you're gonna do" thing. This fucker has King Upper. A insanely high priority super that does half life on counter hit (which he will probably get because he only does it when you try to jump at him). Jumping at him when he doesn't have a super doesn't help much either since he has a godlike counter move. Then he has Beast Blow "DYNAMITE!" to hit you when you try to stand still and block. Nice chunk of damage for a low hitting move that also has crazy priority. Think you can block low? He'll do that mid hitting kick move that he will just about always super cancel into King Straight. That's another half life right there. This is one of the only SNK bosses where I couldn't find a consistent winning strategy. Most of the time he might fall for a quick low into a combo on wake up, but not always. SNK bosses having three health bars in one didn't help much either.

Yeah, out of all the Battle Coliseum bosses, King Lion was the most annoying for me as well. There I was happily Haohmaru C+D spamming to easy victory until this fool ruined it. Mizuchi and NeoDio were nowhere near as scary even with their projectile spam and speed, respectively.


Before, I would be tempted to add Magaki from King of Fighters XI to the list, but apparently he is consistently beatable, despite SNK endboss syndrome. He can fill the screen with a slow moving blue sphere, a fast moving pink sphere that comes from awkward angles, and use his anti-air exploding sphere which does massive stun damage. If Magaki evens starts up one of these things, then he can fill the screen with the other two very quickly forcing you to just sit and block for entire rounds. You can't jump anywhere or one of these things hits you and pushes you all the way back. You can't block or you'll be guard crushed in less than 3 seconds. While you are in blockstun (which can be very long against Magaki), he can teleport behind you and make you drop your guard to take full damage. In addition to this, he has an instant LDM that hits you anywhere on the screen and can be chained from a sweep of all things -_-; Sometimes it was just not feasible to beat Magaki.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Summonmaster

Yeah, out of all the Battle Coliseum bosses, King Lion was the most annoying for me as well. There I was happily Haohmaru C+D spamming to easy victory until this fool ruined it. Mizuchi and NeoDio were nowhere near as scary even with their projectile spam and speed, respectively.


Before, I would be tempted to add Magaki from King of Fighters XI to the list, but apparently he is consistently beatable, despite SNK endboss syndrome. He can fill the screen with a slow moving blue sphere, a fast moving pink sphere that comes from awkward angles, and use his anti-air exploding sphere which does massive stun damage. If Magaki evens starts up one of these things, then he can fill the screen with the other two very quickly forcing you to just sit and block for entire rounds. You can't jump anywhere or one of these things hits you and pushes you all the way back. You can't block or you'll be guard crushed in less than 3 seconds. While you are in blockstun (which can be very long against Magaki), he can teleport behind you and make you drop your guard to take full damage. In addition to this, he has an instant LDM that hits you anywhere on the screen and can be chained from a sweep of all things -_-; Sometimes it was just not feasible to beat Magaki.

Magaki is definitely a prick. I find that well timed hop grabs (Tizoc's dp+A/C or Gato's grab out of one of his stomps) work really well on him. You can also bait the pink explosion and have a opening for a second.

Here's a example of my typical strategy vs King Leo working.

YouTube Video

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Originally Posted by S_K

Other great game ai bullshit examples include computer based board games rigging the dice in their favour... actually fuck that make that anything in a video game where luck plays a big part, case in point Mario Kart power ups... you know it's true on the hard difficulties guys don't even try to deny it!

I know exactly what you're talking about with luck. Monster Rancher is another perfect example. You can have 95% chance to hit yet keep missing repeatedly while the CPU character with only 45% chance to hit will never miss.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by S_K

Other great game ai bullshit examples include computer based board games rigging the dice in their favour... actually fuck that make that anything in a video game where luck plays a big part, case in point Mario Kart power ups... you know it's true on the hard difficulties guys don't even try to deny it!

Playing Double Dash, my brother and I observed that, without fail, the computer player in 7th or 8th place would get a free lightning bolt on the last lap almost without fail, to the point where we started anticipating the surprise lighting bolt.

Which is the other annoying part about cheating AIs. In many cases, they don't actually make the game harder. They just force you into illogical strategies so you can fool the AI in a completely different way. Essentially it just makes you play the game the wrong way, and I don't like that at all.

I have fond memories of beating Shin Akuma at the end of SFA3's world tour mode, using Dan. I just used jumping middle kicks over and over and over, disrupting everything Akuma tried to whip out. Took a hell of a lot of timing and focus, but that doesn't change the fact that no opponent, computer or otherwise, should be beatable by spamming jumping middle kicks. The computer banked so heavily on Shin Akuma's broken attack priorities that it couldn't deal with something so stupidly simple.

There's nowhere I can't reach.