cheating in the game design

[Shard O'Glase]

I was playing civ 3 last week and KOTOR2 last night and I'm getting sick of the games cheating on the dice rolls all the time. If I see one more f-15 go down to some scmuck with a spear, or every sith assassin so far make every save against my currently DC 38 force effects;(when my best heavily modified save is +21 a the moment, and they are much bigger sukers than me) I'm going to scream and break things. Well maybe not but I am pissed about it. Hey I know instead of cheating why don't they actually just make a challenging oponent for once.

 

[Plane Sailing]

From time immemorial cheating at dice has been the poor mans AI when writing computer programs. I've been irritated by it in the past in much older programs.

Ah well.

 

[Cergorach]

The fun thing about dice is chance...
It could be that your very unlucky ;-)

 

[Fast Learner]

From time immemorial players have assumed that randomness that doesn't go their way is the program "cheating." I've seen players irritated by it in the past in much older programs. And be just as wrong.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

right, we're wrong when we say the game is cheating when the 1 in a few hundred chance happens oh 30-40% of the time. And yes its been happening in much older programs. I've had tanks lose to a guy with a spear its 16 defense to 1 attack, using the system civ claims to use its higly unlikely you'd get damaged much less actually lose the fight. At the higher difficulty levels losing the tank happens multiple times in a game.

And in KOTOR2 while I don't have the oppenents stats there either cheating on the rolls or giving them mystery bonuses. Like hey lets make them level 100 but only get 1 hp a level and then there save will be like 50's so force powers wont work on them. Or a nice unnamed bonus of +20. But even then a one would fail on a save and I've thrown easily 60 force powers at groups of 3 to 4 so about 180 save attempts without one failure.

Possible if they only need a 1 vs DC 38 effects, but if there more like me and would need a 15+ to save and 180 15+'s right no cheating. I beat the crap out of them after wasting rounds with powers and then finally pull out my blades. When I'm the non fighting class vs the mid range fighting class and we're outnumbered So, without some lame gimick they most likely have worse saves which makes it worse. I think there is some lame cheat where they just roll 20's on saves 99% of the time or something and actually get a random roll 1% of the time.

This has been going on for ever and it was lame back then its even lamer now since I'd suspect game design and ai design should of been improving alog the way with graphics.

 

[Fast Learner]

Game opponents always have hidden bonuses and abilities. That doesn't mean the ai is cheating at dice. It has no reason to. And it doesn't mean the game is cheating in any way. The only failure in understanding, as I see it, is some belief that the game should behave a certain way, something different from the way it's behaving. If there were clear rules laid down about what the game was allowed to do when battling you, and then it didn't follow those rules, then sure, that'd be cheating. But having rules you're unaware of isn't cheating at all.

 

[Chroma]

I believe KotOR2 is supposed to be based on the Star Wars d20 mechanics for combat resolution, so, I believe, Shard's complaint of "cheating" is quite valid if the designers just threw a bunch of "unnamed bonuses" on things.

 

[mmu1]

The game does "cheat". I don't know if it does it all the time, but it certainly cheats in certain places.

For example, there's a sequence where you fight a large number of Sith Assassins, which keep on spawning, and it's clearly meant to feel like a massive, prolonged attack - so the designers gave the Assassins several times more HP than what they should have. Kind of easy to tell, when you hit someone, see "35" "44" "31" "57" displayed as damage for your attacks that round, and the enemy only loses 1/4 of his health bar. Which means that these guys, who obviously aren't very high level since they can't really hurt me or my party all that badly, have around 2-3 times as much HP as my main character. (A Jedi Guardian / Weapon Master with 18 or 20 CON)

In other places, it's rather obvious that some enemies have quite a bit of damage resistance, when your weapon does around 20 points of damage less per hit than it should - but your NPCs are still doing damage, even the ones with low strength and bad damage bonuses, so instead of using a fixed DR, it seems to be reducing the damage inflicted by a percentage, which shouldn't be a part of the game mechanics at all.

 

[MacMathan]

The famous/infamous intersection of Pen & Paper and PC games. Having worked in the industry for awhile I will tell you that sometimes what is correct and fine at a table is not fun in a videogame.

Now if these changes end up being less fun then perhaps it is poor design but not so much cheating as the program is in effect the DM.

It is best thought of as a conversion of the game to another system, like taking d20 to Tri-Stat or some such thing.

I know the marketing drones like to splash "based on exact whatever rules" to draw in more purchases but honestly they usually make the ad copy before the game is even half way done and they usually have no idea what the heck the programmers are actually putting in the code.

In some games raising the difficulty setting does equal bonuses for the bad guys. Many times the rolls are only straight up at the default difficulty which is what the AI is 90% made for most of the time.

The main thing the game experience should still be fun, hang the rules. That is how most decent designers work on a PC conversion of a PnP game.

just my 2 cuprum

 

[Shard O'Glase]

The game does "cheat". I don't know if it does it all the time, but it certainly cheats in certain places.

For example, there's a sequence where you fight a large number of Sith Assassins, which keep on spawning, and it's clearly meant to feel like a massive, prolonged attack - so the designers gave the Assassins several times more HP than what they should have. Kind of easy to tell, when you hit someone, see "35" "44" "31" "57" displayed as damage for your attacks that round, and the enemy only loses 1/4 of his health bar. Which means that these guys, who obviously aren't very high level since they can't really hurt me or my party all that badly, have around 2-3 times as much HP as my main character. (A Jedi Guardian / Weapon Master with 18 or 20 CON)

In other places, it's rather obvious that some enemies have quite a bit of damage resistance, when your weapon does around 20 points of damage less per hit than it should - but your NPCs are still doing damage, even the ones with low strength and bad damage bonuses, so instead of using a fixed DR, it seems to be reducing the damage inflicted by a percentage, which shouldn't be a part of the game mechanics at all.

Interesting you are playing a jedi guardian and having problems with hp and DR, I play a counsiler and my problem is with saves but not with HP or DR. I wonder if the cheat is based on your class.