cheating in the game design

[Shard O'Glase]

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.

Um civ games give you the combat resolution mechainics in the game manuel, so that is why we know how prepsterous the odds are when guys with spears semi-routinely defeat tanks.(oh and when there attacking me behind walls gah its worse) And KOTOR2 is supposed to be based off d20 as stated earlier so we do know its rule set.

For civ games IIRC its a simple odds mechainc. Base unit is a guy with a spear he's 1/1(1 offense/1 defense) blanking on the numbers but a tank is I beleive 16/18. So for a spear guy to hurt a tank it needs to beat 1 in 18 odds if it is attacking. But that just hurts the tank to kill the tank it needs to do that multiple times in the round. Now lots of times your tank is behind some kind of defense that either doubles or tripples his defense value and the spear guy still not only hurts your tank but kills it. I have no idea what the odds of "rolling" 4 1 in 36 shots in a row is but I supect its high. And this can happen multiple times in a couple hours maybe 30% of the fights. But they almost always at least hurt the tank.

Now whether or not the odds just cheat or at higher difficulty levels all AI oppoenents get +16 to attack and defense its still cheating. Instead of cheating like this just make a frickin better AI so it improves its tech as fast as I do.

 

[mmu1]

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.

Maybe. Although I wouldn't say I'm having a problem the way you are, I kill everything just fine (although at times it becomes obvious the game is messing around with the rules behing the GM screen).

 

[Mercule]

Hey, sometimes it really is just bizarre luck. In Civ I or II (I forget), I defended a city from several (5-6) bombers with a long-since-forgotten phalanx.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hey, sometimes it really is just bizarre luck. In Civ I or II (I forget), I defended a city from several (5-6) bombers with a long-since-forgotten phalanx.

That would most likely be Civ 1, in Civ 2 they added unit hitpoints, so you could take damage over time instead of a fall or stand approach. Which meant that units with more hits (like bombers) could still take out the phalanx even if they lost the first die roll.

Civ 2 was in my opinion the best, while 3... isn't all that good. I still play Civ 2, while Civ 3 lives in its jewel case, never to be played. It had some good concepts, but it just wasn't as much fun as the older versions.

And then there's the difference between MoO 2 and MoO 3... Again MoO 3 never gets to come out and play.

The Auld Grump

 

[John Crichton]

Civ 2 was in my opinion the best, while 3... isn't all that good. I still play Civ 2, while Civ 3 lives in its jewel case, never to be played. It had some good concepts, but it just wasn't as much fun as the older versions.

I loved Civ 2. It has taken me a while but now I can't go back after playing so much of 3. The new mechanics are too much a part of my strategy now. 2 will always have a special place in my heart.

 

[Vocenoctum]

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.

FWIW, in KotOR1, you could go to a screen and look at the dice rolls for a lot of things.

KotOR2, a lot of skill uses are preordained it seems, if you need to get something to work on a computer, it will work whether Computer skill is 1 or 20.

And yeah, in combat there's a lot of effects like stun & such that just don't work when they should. No sense in trying a single target spell like Death, since it rarely works from my experience. Force Wall and the lightning one work well since they strike an area, you can keep off some of the little guys while fighting the big one.

My main complaint about new games is they're all so freaking DARK. In KotOR2 and Halo2, many levels nearly required me to turn the lights out to see details.

 

[DMFTodd]

Civ2

My gripe was with Civ2. If you accidentally left a city unprotected, the AI would always magically paradrop someone right to that city. And I never, ever caught the AI spying on a city.

 

[John Crichton]

My gripe was with Civ2. If you accidentally left a city unprotected, the AI would always magically paradrop someone right to that city. And I never, ever caught the AI spying on a city.

Yeah, the AI was uber-cheap. The new rules in Civ3 have eliminated much (but not all) of that type of stuff.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

While cheating instead by nudging the odds in the computer's favor. Not in a small way either - somewhere there is a discussion with one of the programmers about this - yes, they did indeed cheat in favor of the computer, the game had gotten complicated enough that increasing the AI would have been too hard. I don't know whether the recent expansion changed that, but I seem to recall that the 'nudge' was something like 25% at Beginner, and went up from there.

Sorry, I want fair rules, make a smarter AI or don't make the game. And yes, changing the probability to favor the AI is cheating.

I never had a problem in Civ 2 with paratroopers into my cities, but I almost never left the cities unguarded, so it may have been there and never noticed. The AI flying my planes into the middle of the ocean on a 'go to' command on the other hand... It reminded me of the Five Avengers of Bermuda Triangle fame, distrusting ground control because the wing commander thought that he knew where he was... (Ground control was right... the only mystery about the Bermuda Triangle is why people believe that there is a mystery...)

The Auld Grump

 

[TimSmith]

A while ago, I am sure I read a designer interview for a D&D computer game (either Baldur's Gate or Temple of Elemental Evil) where they admitted that they had the game fudge rolls to keep the game "balanced."

As others have said, I would far rather they adjusted the difficulty in other ways. (For example, a tougher kind of monster or higher level NPC). The problem with fudging dice rolls is that you cannot make sensible decisions on what things to try.

One thing that annoys me a bit about TofEE (now the unofficial patches have made it playable) is the AC of the monsters. They give bugbears 22 AC etc!!! However, at least you can see the calculations and the dice rolls so you know what is going on. It appears that the designers of TofEE erroneously take the AC as listed in Monster Manual as the "natural" AC (when in reality it includes some armour in the case of humanoids) and then add whatever armour and shield they give them. Nice.... However, as I say, at least one knows what they are doing and the rolls and calculations are there for you to see. Not sure if the dice are being fudged, of course!