Cheapest thing a Game has done to Cheat you out of a Win

[SpaceBat]

The Mudo or Instant Death Spells in the Persona games. To be precise, in P3... fuck that spell.

While Mahamaon and Mamudoon could really screw you over, they weren't too much of a problem with the right personae and you had quite a few items that would negate these one-hit K.O's. Charm status however...that fucking status ailment screwed me over too many times.

 

[370999]

A few of these aren't really cheating out of a win so much as cheating in general. I think to cheat out of a win means to do something that will guarantee your defeat every time no matter how good you're doing, and they suffer no penalty for using it. For example, Seth's overpowered combo isn't a guaranteed finishing move, and I believe it costs him some of his super meter to use. Never mind. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

No I get you, that to cheat someone out of a win, the player needs to be fulfilling all the criteria needed to win when the computer ignores some in game rule and thus makes the player's work unimportant.

An example being a game which lets you choose to be stealthy or combat oriented suddenly introducing in the last level an ability that means your stealth doesn't work at all and no matter how skilled you are it, the game becomes impossible to win using that path.

 

[Quakester]

For me it was an years ago in one of the earlier digital versions of Risk. I was playing with 2 friends and 1 AI opponent. While my friends threw everything they had at each other, I kept to myself and defended my land while slowly expanding. One friend cashed in all his cards, wiped out the other friend and pushed the AI into Australia. The AI cashed in and pushed back out almost clearing out my remaining buddy. At this point, both had virtually no troops remaining to defend and I controlled the western hemisphere. I cashed in all my cards and pushed the AI down to 1 territory. I should have won the next round. Then the AI somehow got over 240 armies the next round and obliterated any hope of defense I had.

 

[hermes]

The worst offender I can think of are fighting games. Many times, AI characters will pull moves that they couldn't do ordinarily, like charge moves without any charge; doing extraordinary amounts of damage; or having priority over regular attacks. In harder difficulties, it even looks like the AI is watching your inputs to react to them at CPU speed.

Some of those examples are so awful, it even got a name: SNK Boss Syndrome: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SNKBoss

 

[wooty]

Was playing FIFA12 last night and got into a pentaly shootout for the FA Cup. Only problem was that the accuracy bar at the bottom of the screen didnt appear for any of my takers and all my shots were flying well wide/over the target, so naturally I was fuming at the fact I got fucked by the game.

I also do wonder about the Total War series' AI when set on very hard difficulty, particularly Shogun 2 and Napoleon. Some of the shit that their units can/withstand is mindboggling sometimes. Yeah sure, one base unit of Yari samurai can beat off a solid attack by 4 veteran units of katana samurai. I call cheating and I swear at you.

 

[Cranky]

The goddamned Mako combat scenarios in ME1. Shit, if you just spent a chunk of time clearing and outpost and did not save, a random Armature can kill you and you have to start again.

 

[Rylot]

Soul Calibur 3 cheated pretty consistently with characters doing moves from completely different skill sets. You'd lose a match and win one and then get completely raped in the third match. Turned me off of fighting games pretty much forever.

Actually, Soul Calibur 3 litterally cheated. They had difficulty boosting the difficulty settings of the game. So they took a shortcut and over-compensated. The game reads the input from your controller and the game reacts to it, so..essentially...it's cheating. It knows what you do immediately and won't fall for fake-outs, false attacks, and many other normal moves that a person would fall for, because it knows they're not real attacks, or where you're attacks are aimed for.

...Wow... It was pulling a Psycho Mantis the whole time? Jesus... No wonder I'd rage quit so often.

 

[Timberwolf0924]

I play the hell outta League of Legends, and the bots can calculate if they'll make it past one of your turrets to kill you and make it back out before you can kill them. (If you're low on mana, the cool down on your summoner spells such as health and flash, and the damage the tower will do to them) I've had half life at one turret and the bot tower rushed me, killed me, then popped it's own health and flash to escape dying the turret.

 

[thelonewolf266]

Fucking star child in the mass effect 3 ending.Chose three ways to destroy the Galaxy sure you little shit I'll just do that they literally didn't give you any option to win.I'm not actually that bitter but it was annoying.

 

[Aircross]

Auto-balance in Team Fortress 2.

Think you just won the game because you managed to ubercharge your team through to victory?

lol nope.

The split second you die right before the game ends you die to a facestab and get autobalanced to the other team.

 

[Fractral]

It hurt itself in confusion.
It hurt itself in confusion.
It- *Throws DS*.

I was already in a bad mood and then the last guy on my team had to get killed by a wild zubat. Grrr.

Actually that's not all that rare. There is a 1/2 chance of hurting yourself due to confusion, so in 3 turns thats a 1/8 chance, not something smaller. Its a pain that the game has these RNG events, such as critical hits, (always screw me over on Pokemon Online- about to KO their last pokemon when they get a random critcal hit, Bam, back down the ladder you go) but if you know the chances you can make educated decisions. Might not work, but still better than nothing.
Its even more annoying when you're trying to do the Super Singles train where if you lose at any point you have to start from train 1.

 

[Lunatic High]

Mortal Kombat (the new one)

I swear to fucking god that Khan was easier to beat in the older version, none of that glowing invinciblity bullshit

 

[Kizi]

Certain attacks in boss battles drive me fucking nuts. I was re-playing the original God of War the other day and the final battle with Ares was nothing short of making me smash the controller through the screen. He kept spamming this attack where he does critical damage with his sword, then proceeds to whisk his weird back weapons at me. It was completely undodgeable and he did this on and on.

Also, the dragons in Skyrim; I have to mention them. They sometimes grab you with their mouth, swing you around and throw you like litter, causing you to die. Always. The worst part? Sometimes I'm behind them and they still manage to glitch me to death with that attack.

 

[karloss01]

Playing Devil May Crt 3 Special Edition: HD Edtion for the collection and had Cerebrus go god mode on my ass when he had a sliver and i had like a full bar. good thing i'm not playing the non special edition of DMC3 or it would have murdered me even more.

 

[Siege_TF]

FFXI: Gaze attacks (attacks that only work when you are facing the mob's front) tend to be rather devistating, but if you pay attention you can turn away to avoid them. Unless there's four or more people around then the lag means you've been screwed.

Borderlands: You go down, the enemy runs, and doesn't come back. Fucking squirrly bastards, using effective tactics.

Drake's Deception: As Yahtzee pointed out it seems like bad guys can apear from anywhere at any time and murder you, the only thing you can do is momorize where and when they pop up. I seem to recall a lot of other games where bad guys would also be trying to escape the sinking ship, crumbling ruin, or burning house and only stop to take a few pot shots or lock doors after them, forcing you to take an alternate route.

Rainbow 6 Vegas 2: As above, except you die easier.

 

[boag]

Super Robot wars OG 1 and 2 on the GB Advance.

what? the enemies hit rate is 12%? LOL more like 100%

oh you got a 98% hit rate? LOL MORE LIKE 5%

had to spam skills every freaking time late in the game, and god damn if you didnt level up Cybuster you are asking for it to get raped.

 

[solaris32]

Not sticking to cover properly is pretty high on my list lately (Mass Effect 3). "What's that? You want to get into cover? Well fuck you!"

The absolute worst thing any game can do is turn off or crash on you in the middle of saving for absolutely no reason.

Or:

The game checkpoint saves 2 seconds away from being WTFpwned by some big baddie. Too fast for you to do anything about it once it reloads. Reload, die, reload, die...

And it's extra-extra bad if the game doesn't have a "Load the last earlier checkpoint" option, so you're stuck in the death loop and can't get out without restarting the whole mission over. *curseyouhalogames(except reach)*

I just had to post to let you and everyone else know that ALL Halo games have it setup so that if you die within 5 seconds (or something like that) after spawning from a checkpoint about 4 or 5 times in a row, the game will automatically revert you to the previous checkpoint. You can test this by committing suicide.

 

[RedLister]

Saints row 1 for me.

I can be in the exact same style of car as the gang members chasing me yet magically they are able to go faster and with perfect driving skill. (also the case if i then stole there magical car it would never go that fast for me only for the A.I)

 

[Snotnarok]

This has happened a few times in different games but the one I remember most was Gears of War 1 because it was co-op and it was late and it was silly. The last boss I thought was impossible, we couldn't beat it and it was just crazy, we tried everything, to the point we had no ammo left from dumping it into RAAM and them some from the mounted gun.

Turns out the game bugged and he had infinite health and we literally had to reset the system for the game to correct this. Again I've had this sort of bug several times in different games, I'm known by my friends as a glitch magnet.

Alternatively, there's Saints Row 2 where my console red ringed before the end cutscene .

 

[RJ 17]

What I hate the most is when projectile-based enemies attack in directions they're not facing. For instance, last night I was playing Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (I'm 2 years late to the party, I know ) and was playing as Charlotte trying to farm Dracula's Hellfire spell. I found the best way to avoid is Dark Inferno and Flame Pillar attacks are to simply jump over him and stand behind him. Well that's all fine and good until you notice him lifting the arm that signals Pillar or Inferno, jump behind him, and have the inferno balls fire out backwards through his cape to nail you in the face and kill you. >.>

And lets talk about the AI-thrown grenades in Mass Effect 3. I can't tell you how many times I'd be in a flanking position on some Cerberus soldier, attacking him from the side, for instance, only to have him stand and chuck a grenade - while facing my squadmates - perpendicularly at a 90 degree angle from the direction he's facing to have it land right at my feet. The worst I've seen of this, the guy straight up threw it behind him while facing and "throwing" forward.

Then there's the grenade indicator on your Hud...apparently the up and down arrows don't mean "in front of you" or "behind you" as you'd expect them to. No, apparently the up arrow means the grenade is still in the air, and the down arrow means it's officially on the ground. So you see a grenade get thrown and all of a sudden there's a red flashing arrow pointing down. CoD instincts would have you say "OH SHIT!" and try to roll or dodge forward, away from the grenade. Well in ME 3, 9 times out of 10, you just rolled right on top of the grenade and are now officially kerploded.

And of course, there's the times when they pull off psychic trick-shots with their grenades. Apparently knowing that your instinct will be to rush their position and do a heavy melee when they throw the grenade at you, they'll intentionally throw it too high so that it bounces off something on the ceiling and falls right by their feet. You arrive to deliver the melee and BOOM! Shepard gets his legs blown off. >.>

Edit: Oh, and apparently some Cerberus soldiers have the Martyrdom perk, as they'll drop/throw grenades despite being caught in a Pull or Singularity.