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

[dimensional]

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

Yes SNK bosses are a pain in the arse seriously sometimes you are lucky to get a hit on them what your blocking my full screen covering unblockable undodgeable move haha let me laugh in your face with my 47 hit combo again (thinking of KoF XIII here) luckily they have an option to restart the fight and put the comp on 25% health as without this I would have only finished the game on the easiest setting.

Theres also that saying about going M.Bison on your ass when the boss goes down easy at first but then in the next few rounds goes oh no you aint gonna get past me and destroys you with seemingly little you can do.

Im not sure about pulling moves that they couldnt do ordinarily I used to think this too but now im not so certain (although I wouldnt discount it the filthy cheaters) they just become masters of links ,combos, buffering etc but I do agree with increasing their move priority and damage man that really pisses me off when they do that.

EDIT: No, no, no just remembered the final boss of Dead or Alive 4. Fuck that kinda sexy jelly ***** to hell! Randomly counters anything you do, has a throw that takes off three quarters of your life and is just generally a complete whore.

I feel for you I remember her ruining my excellent time trial run I was absolutely destroying them and then last battle she pooned me over and over and over again it took me 8 minutes to beat her almost 4 times longer than everyone else combined I was not happy this boss and Seth from SF4 are responsible for my 2 game tantrums this gen I had to shut the console down seriously I dont mind a challenge but tone it down a bit guys.

Worst one I had was on Burnout 3 during an endurance race I had been sent crashing in the first lap but was hanging on by a thread until the last stretch of the last lap I had the culprit in my site boosted up behind him and smashed him into a wall and kept the boost held down as I had enough to finish the race with easily (the line was a few seconds away) only to then see this car I had just smashed drive up by me somehow keep speed with me then boost smash me into the wall and finish. Seriously the rubber banding was atrocious it takes me a whole race of skillfull driving (I did a lot of boost laps and still wouldnt gain sometimes seriously took the piss when after a near perfect boost lap you have somehow fallen another second behind the leader) to catch up but it takes them 2 seconds (maybe 3). Anyway long story short never played that game again.

Persona 4 screwed me over by constantly critically hitting my two members early in the game (it was the mini boss in Yukikos castle) so that wasted a few hours of my life it was non stop criticals until I died so never even got an attack off. Next time he went down easy.

One thing that also annoys me is when people pull the plug on their internet if they are losing I know this is not the game but its still annoying as hell and extremely cheap and pathetic, dont play if you cant risk losing.

 

[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

Yes SNK bosses are a pain in the arse seriously sometimes you are lucky to get a hit on them what your blocking my full screen covering unblockable undodgeable move haha let me laugh in your face with my 47 hit combo again (thinking of KoF XIII here) luckily they have an option to restart the fight and put the comp on 25% health as without this I would have only finished the game on the easiest setting.

Theres also that saying about going M.Bison on your ass when the boss goes down easy at first but then in the next few rounds goes oh no you aint gonna get past me and destroys you with seemingly little you can do.

Im not sure about pulling moves that they couldnt do ordinarily I used to think this too but now im not so certain (although I wouldnt discount it the filthy cheaters) they just become masters of links ,combos, buffering etc but I do agree with increasing their move priority and damage man that really pisses me off when they do that.

When I talk about moves they couldn't do I mean it quite literally. The most common example are characters that usually need a certain input, except when they are bosses (like Bison being able to pull his psycho crusher from every position, without requiring to charge it up), or playable characters that get unique attacks (which are often unblockable, fast, cover half the screen and do obscene amounts of damage) when they are bosses (I am looking at you, I-No)...

 

[dimensional]

]When I talk about moves they couldn't do I mean it quite literally. The most common example are characters that usually need a certain input, except when they are bosses (like Bison being able to pull his psycho crusher from every position, without requiring to charge it up), or playable characters that get unique attacks (which are often unblockable, fast, cover half the screen and do obscene amounts of damage) when they are bosses (I am looking at you, I-No)...

Oh yes I know exactly what you mean about the charge attacks especially in SF2 with Balrogs constant charge punches and Blanka going mad on his ball rolls while Guile somehow always has enough time to charge for his flash kick when you jump at him. Ive also seen constant dragon punches from ken and Ryu which dont have enough time to sweep them between each (and it has ridiculous priority) oh and Chunli doing a spinning bird kick at the top of the screen.

The thing is though I used to think all this crap was impossible too until I played some guy online who was actually pulling this shit off on me I still dont know how exactly but I know if you are good at charging you can pull off near constant charge moves its all about hiding the charge in other moves which is not as easy as it sounds as its damn tight in a lot of cases especially to do more than two or 3 in a row basically I think its theoretically possible to do what the computer is doing you just have to be a robot god (convenient for the comp really).

I completely agree with the other points though I just dont get why they think hmmm this is the last boss that people will be facing everytime they complete the game which lets say takes 8 minutes (arcade) for arguments sake and they make him/it/her incredibly broken and annoying as hell and its not like thats it game over when you win because in another 8 minutes you face them again and again and again (if you havent smashed all your pads yet) I just dont understand why they have to hurt their game like that.

Its one of my major annoyances with fighting games they dont think its a challenge if the last boss dosent have you tearing your hair out in frustration, ok I get why the arcade versions may have stupidly powerful bosses they want my money and if they have to cheat to get it so be it but for home console versions their is no excuse to kill single player with these annoying adversaries the game would often have been better if they were cut. Yes Ill take less if that last drop is poison.

Sorry for the wall of text anyway fighting game bosses = cheap as hell what seems to be 90% of the time I think the last fighting game boss I enjoyed playing against was Tengu in Dead or Alive 2 every other one has just been FFS not this toon again looks like its time for me to get spanked until I get lucky (or theres a way I can exploit their retardedness like in the lastest Mortal Kombat against Shao Kahn) its a shame really as it usually makes me tone down the difficulty just for the last boss.

Oh and have you ever had it glitch a hit from you which would have won you the match only to counter it and destroy you? and then they blatantly show the glitched move in the replay to show how you were robbed that is really annoying thankfully it hasnt happened often but sorta takes the mick a bit when it does Ive had it a few times in SC (throughout the series) ha your sword through my body mean nothing eat my meaty counter attack puny mortal I dont have to embrace game rules I make my own. Yes I know its clipping issues but I am still blaming the comp especially as it likes to read my buttons except throws for some reason they always seem to work quite well in SC against the comp try it with the same regularity against a decent player though and you will be destroyed.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

Blue Shells on Mario Kart Wii, I would have won double the amount of races online if it weren't those goddamn bastard Blue Shells that hit me when 50 yards from the finish line and allows 5 people to overtake me!

Nintendo you can be right pricks sometimes.

 

[Winthrop]

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)*

Freaking Halo 2, I got a checkpoint right after a sniper fired his weapon so I would literally get hit the second I started the game. Nothing I could do at all. It was horrible.

OT: Used to fall through the ground all the time in battlefront 2. Never had that issue on anyone elses game though. It was weird. Or if we are counting those sort of freeware games, anything in Cat Mario although that was the entire point of the game.

 

[nuba km]

I've got my own twist on this; the game fucking me over in cutscenes. I can absolutely wipe the floor with an enemy, only for that same enemy to oneshot me in a cutscene only moments later. I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed II! I beat a guy something like three times, and every single time I get slapped down in a cutscene once I've beaten the arsehole.

Here's the deal; if the story fucks me over when I dominate the gameplay, that's bad fucking design! Having a game essentially saying "Shit, you don't suck enough, go fuck yourself!" is not good fucking storytelling. If I'm supposed to lose, make it a fight that I can't win! Don't give me a fight that I can win with ease and then make me lose in a fucking cutscene over which I have no control! Slapping my hands away from the controller and screaming "FUCK OFF, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DIE!" is bullshit, and any developer even thinking of pulling that shit deserves to be buried head-first in marmite!

in zeno clash their is a fight you are supposed to loose, in fact you get an achievement for beating the enemy down to one live. When I got into that fight I won without getting injured and only was actually beaten (and hit for the first time) once I decided to stop curve stopping the guys face, in the following cut scene I loose the fight because he is too strong.

 

[JohnDoey]

Max Payne 3 airport on hard stick quarter of my arms out to blind fire instantly dies.

 

[sunsetspawn]

A wild Starchild appears.

It uses lol spacemagic.

It's super effective.

 

[OniaPL]

League of Legends.

"Phew, glad I got out of that epic team fight with only a tiny amount of HP left! Ha ha- oh fuck you Twitch."

That's not how you spell Karthus!

Yes, even Gangplank is more similar (It has a K in it, too!)[/quote]

Karthus, shaco nor twitch are that problematic. I'm more used to
"My mom told me dinner is ready, i have to go." *AD carry disappears*
"Omfg you a bunch of faggots noob team omg omg omg killsteal i afk" *teammember starts trolling*
And who could forget the favorites such as
"Omfg noob AP yi is totally OP I always win"

Solo queue is so much fun.

 

[samaugsch]

Sins of a Solar Empire. I was laying tied up attacking the AIs last 2 planets when they manage to bypass my fleet and enter a wormhole leading TO my home planets doorstep. I'd rather delete the save and start again than retreat across 15 fucking planets to defend my home world.

Sorry, couldn't resist . You could try building those buildings that attack enemies directly that cost 1 tactic slot apiece next time (every faction has access to one after all ). You're still better off than I am. I can't even take control of an entire solar system before getting my ass kicked. >_>

 

[samaugsch]

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.

Armature, nothing. Try the fucking Thresher Maw. As if their acid spittle didn't do enough damage, if they pop out of the ground close enough to the Mako, you die. Instantly. From full health to zero in zero seconds flat.

Ironically, I chose the background for Shepard that had him survive a Thresher Maw attack in Ikuze...

Maybe you had the difficulty on too high? Just try to find cover after unleashing a barrage of firepower at the beast and you should be fine (you're talking about Grunt's loyalty mission, right?). Now PRAETORIANS on the other hand...

 

[Voulan]

I swear the AI in Pokemon likes to cheat a lot to amp up the difficulty, Take the Elite Four, for example: if both you and your opponent's Pokemon get paralyzed or confused, they'll almost never have any issues, while you'll be too paralyzed to attack or will end up hurting yourself 90% of the time. Likewise, if they use any move that makes them better at avoiding your attacks or makes your accuracy worse, you'll almost never be able to score a hit.

Damn you're getting quoted like no tomorrow...and still no one mentions poison! It seems like every poison attack your enemy uses has an 80% chance to poison you at all times, especially in the beginning of the game with god damned poison sting

I'd say - it really shows how cheap their programming is if so many people have problems with them. Their difficulty should be based on their level and tactics, not unfair advantages.

I was worried I'd got heaps of replies just telling me I suck at Pokemon.

 

[Furioso]

I swear the AI in Pokemon likes to cheat a lot to amp up the difficulty, Take the Elite Four, for example: if both you and your opponent's Pokemon get paralyzed or confused, they'll almost never have any issues, while you'll be too paralyzed to attack or will end up hurting yourself 90% of the time. Likewise, if they use any move that makes them better at avoiding your attacks or makes your accuracy worse, you'll almost never be able to score a hit.

Damn you're getting quoted like no tomorrow...and still no one mentions poison! It seems like every poison attack your enemy uses has an 80% chance to poison you at all times, especially in the beginning of the game with god damned poison sting

I'd say - it really shows how cheap their programming is if so many people have problems with them. Their difficulty should be based on their level and tactics, not unfair advantages.

I was worried I'd got heaps of replies just telling me I suck at Pokemon.

I was actually playing pokemon earlier today and I realized something, the enemy pokemon do get an unfair advantage in stuff like this, but I think it makes up for the awful teams most of the NPCs have. I mean, sure that bug catchers weedle will poison you, but you also have pokemon on the 2nd evolution that eat those things for brunch. I still think it's cheap, but I can forgive it when all those poor fishermen are stuck with teams of 6 magikarp

 

[Voulan]

I swear the AI in Pokemon likes to cheat a lot to amp up the difficulty, Take the Elite Four, for example: if both you and your opponent's Pokemon get paralyzed or confused, they'll almost never have any issues, while you'll be too paralyzed to attack or will end up hurting yourself 90% of the time. Likewise, if they use any move that makes them better at avoiding your attacks or makes your accuracy worse, you'll almost never be able to score a hit.

Damn you're getting quoted like no tomorrow...and still no one mentions poison! It seems like every poison attack your enemy uses has an 80% chance to poison you at all times, especially in the beginning of the game with god damned poison sting

I'd say - it really shows how cheap their programming is if so many people have problems with them. Their difficulty should be based on their level and tactics, not unfair advantages.

I was worried I'd got heaps of replies just telling me I suck at Pokemon.

I was actually playing pokemon earlier today and I realized something, the enemy pokemon do get an unfair advantage in stuff like this, but I think it makes up for the awful teams most of the NPCs have. I mean, sure that bug catchers weedle will poison you, but you also have pokemon on the 2nd evolution that eat those things for brunch. I still think it's cheap, but I can forgive it when all those poor fishermen are stuck with teams of 6 magikarp

Well, against ordinary NPC teams you really should be winning - I guess that's the whole point of proving you're the best when you can easily put other trainers in their place. It's against renown trainers that the difficulty should come, but often their difficulty comes from shortcuts rather than actual skill.

Just the other day I had another go at the Elite Four to prove my point - Lance's dragonite had to recharge after a hyper beam, bu the next round he got to go first, so he didn't fully miss a turn at all, but got to hyper beam me twice in a row. That's just stupid programming.

 

[Fijiman]

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

The game Chromehounds had a very bad habit of doing this to me. The time that pissed me off the most was when I beat the last mission for the first time using the default Hound on the second try. Many many days of rage-inducing trial and error followed that.

Gears 3 had a bad habit of occasionally freezing everything around me for a minute and then throwing me back into the game as if nothing happened. Most of the time I'm either dead or close to it when I can actually participate in the game again. The worst case of this was when they were doing the Gearsmas event, specifically the day where the default weapons in Hoard mode were a sniper rifle and the Boltoc pistol and when all boss waves were Lambent Zerkers. We had managed to get to the last round on Thrashball and I was in the silverback. The round had just started and I was just beginning to shot the enemies when it froze and the next thing I know my silver back is almost dead and the Zerker is in the room we were defending. After about a dozen failed attempts at recovering we just gave up.

Oh yeah, ME3. "A banshee's after me, better get this dead guy next to the wall up quick. No don't take cover, help that guy! Stop taking cover and help him!" Banshee catches up and insta-kills me. "Goddamit! Why does one button do five different things?!"

Gears 3 also has a problem like this. Game:" Oh, you want to pick up your friend before the giant monster thing comes over? Okay, just HEY LOOK! A weapon! I think you need this more right now. Your friend will just have to... oops, too late."

 

[Dreadjaws]

Duelling Pegasus in Yu-Gi-Oh: Duelists of the Roses.

I'd have to say every Yu-Gi-Oh game, since all players actually know the cards you have. I guess it's easier to make them know your cards than actually program good AI, but it's still cheating. Try any of those games with an emulator that allows saves anywhere (I guess I should clarify, if you actually own the original game) and save before choosing a specific monster card, which the opponent can't see. He'll choose a monster with a higher defense than your attack. Reload your save and choose a monster with a higher attack. Your opponent will choose one with an even higher defense, even though he's not supposed to be seeing what card you chose.

Heck. Try it with any card game, or a Pokemon game and see how the computer bases its choices in things you do that it shouldn't know. And yeah, the rubber-banding AI in racing games or fighting games opponents that can make moves no human could make in their situation are awful too. I'll add that in some games (like the original Deus Ex), the enemies can somehow distinguish your steps or gun drawing noises from the everyone else's and always know those noises belong to an intruder and not a fellow soldier, even when there's nothing remotely suspicious about them.

Or how about when an enemy next room hears your steps and instantly every enemy knows your exact position? Can't remember in which game that happened, though.

I've got my own twist on this; the game fucking me over in cutscenes. I can absolutely wipe the floor with an enemy, only for that same enemy to oneshot me in a cutscene only moments later. I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed II! I beat a guy something like three times, and every single time I get slapped down in a cutscene once I've beaten the arsehole.

Here's the deal; if the story fucks me over when I dominate the gameplay, that's bad fucking design! Having a game essentially saying "Shit, you don't suck enough, go fuck yourself!" is not good fucking storytelling. If I'm supposed to lose, make it a fight that I can't win! Don't give me a fight that I can win with ease and then make me lose in a fucking cutscene over which I have no control! Slapping my hands away from the controller and screaming "FUCK OFF, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DIE!" is bullshit, and any developer even thinking of pulling that shit deserves to be buried head-first in marmite!

This is called Cutscene Incompetence. It's a known and very rightfully despised gaming trope. Very common in Red Dead Redemption. It's also referred to as "Failure is forbidden until it's mandatory", it means you get penalized for being defeated in a fight/race which has to end up with you being defeated anyway. I don't get why the hell do they give you a game over if you lose a fight if when the fight ends you lose anyway and the game goes on. And yeah, it's worse if you can easily wipe the floor with the enemy (*cough* Kai Leng *cough*).

 

[Lewieroo0]

Final Fantasy War of the Lions pulled a dirty move on me on the mission after defeating Weigraf in his demonic form. Up until now, if a guest character your suppose to protect dies, they have the usual 3 or so turns to be resurrected before they disappear. But not here, ooooh no.

If the girl you have to protect dies just ONCE, It's an instant game over for you, and it's cause of this i have never been able to continue the game. It doesn't help that the target you have to protect is right next to the enemy consisting of 2 ninjas with ridiculous speed and instant stopping powers that NEVER miss and a jerk off that can deal ludicrous amounts of damage with an area of effect skill (like those damn dirty Dakar knights ). And worst of all, your guys start far away from said target and always get their turn last, not to mention the fact that the target goes straight for the enemies and gets her arse killed instantly. Theres Nothing you can do!

 

[BoogieManFL]

Final Fantasy War of the Lions pulled a dirty move on me on the mission after defeating Weigraf in his demonic form. Up until now, if a guest character your suppose to protect dies, they have the usual 3 or so turns to be resurrected before they disappear. But not here, ooooh no.

If the girl you have to protect dies just ONCE, It's an instant game over for you, and it's cause of this i have never been able to continue the game. It doesn't help that the target you have to protect is right next to the enemy consisting of 2 ninjas with ridiculous speed and instant stopping powers that NEVER miss and a jerk off that can deal ludicrous amounts of damage with an area of effect skill (like those damn dirty Dakar knights ). And worst of all, your guys start far away from said target and always get their turn last, not to mention the fact that the target goes straight for the enemies and gets her arse killed instantly. Theres Nothing you can do!

I was about to post about that very same mission. That mission on the top of the church where you have to save Rafa or whatever she calls her dumbass self. That was just poor design and whoever designed it needs to be slapped repeatedly. It sucks when you might have to reload 3-10 times and do that section all over again because the person you're supposed to protect gets killed BEFORE YOU CAN EVEN MAKE YOUR FIRST MOVE.

It helps to plan ahead for that mission and get Ninjas (high base speed) unlocked and any +speed gear you can find so you get to move earlier, then you just have to hope she doesn't stroll over there and get murdered.

I'm also playing through Final Fantasy IV DS (people from the US first saw it as FF2 on the SNES) and in one fight I once burned through 8 Phoenix Downs on the same person because every time I revived them, the freaking monster got it's turn and one shotted them repeatedly. I wanted them alive for the big EXP we were going to get from winning. In the end, Cecil counter attacked it and killed it while Edge was still on the ground dead for the 8th time, making it all a futile effort. Also in the same place, the Tower of Babil, there are these Flame Beasts that can wipe out your whole party before you get to do much of anything, when they all decide to use their AOE Flame attack and destroy everyone. YAY back for the save point for the 3rd time.

 

[joe-h2o]

The only thing I can think of is parry-haste in old school WoW raids. Your tank could gear up to drop his parry chance to *almost* zero, but never zero, so occasionally a very hard hitting dual wielding boss would parry right after a big main hand hit and reset his swing timer and hit the tank again.

There would be times when tanks would take more than twice their health in incoming melee damage in less than half a second - it would just be unhealable, even with spam healing from holy pallies and priests.

I think the idea was to discourage melee DPS characters from standing in front of bosses, but all it did was ensure you'd have a wipe every now and again due to a dice roll you could not avoid.

This was also true of bosses that had an AoE fear and the ability to cleave. So many dead rogues

 

[Lewieroo0]

Final Fantasy War of the Lions pulled a dirty move on me on the mission after defeating Weigraf in his demonic form. Up until now, if a guest character your suppose to protect dies, they have the usual 3 or so turns to be resurrected before they disappear. But not here, ooooh no.

If the girl you have to protect dies just ONCE, It's an instant game over for you, and it's cause of this i have never been able to continue the game. It doesn't help that the target you have to protect is right next to the enemy consisting of 2 ninjas with ridiculous speed and instant stopping powers that NEVER miss and a jerk off that can deal ludicrous amounts of damage with an area of effect skill (like those damn dirty Dakar knights ). And worst of all, your guys start far away from said target and always get their turn last, not to mention the fact that the target goes straight for the enemies and gets her arse killed instantly. Theres Nothing you can do!

I was about to post about that very same mission. That mission on the top of the church where you have to save Rafa or whatever she calls her dumbass self. That was just poor design and whoever designed it needs to be slapped repeatedly. It sucks when you might have to reload 3-10 times and do that section all over again because the person you're supposed to protect gets killed BEFORE YOU CAN EVEN MAKE YOUR FIRST MOVE.

It helps to plan ahead for that mission and get Ninjas (high base speed) unlocked and any +speed gear you can find so you get to move earlier, then you just have to hope she doesn't stroll over there and get murdered.

Looks like i'm not alone on this problem

The real kicka to this problem was the fact that it came Right after the boss mission and i wasn't expecting it (plus i had no ninja classes at the time ) so i can't continue unless i beat it, to which i had to start a new file (and this was on the Ipod touch port. Ninja AI are a bunch of cheaters.

captcha: less is more (I'm translating that to less difficulty is more relieving)