That game is cheating!

[Benpasko]

People so often say the Souls series is "hard but fair", but one aspect makes this statement completely false. It's very simple: enemies can hit you across corners, while your weapon will bounce off the walls. This made fighting the Titanite Demons in the lowest level of Sen's Fortress and absolute pain in the ass, since there was no effective way of retreating, and their sweep attacks have insane reach. It's weird that even in Bloodborne this issue remains the unresolved. It can't be that hard to have the enemies' weapons obey the same collision detection rules as your character's, can it?

I also hate how hard they cheat with NPC black phantoms. Infinite stamina, infinite resources, ridiculous impossible poise values, impossible health...

NPC fights have always been my least favorite part of the souls series. It was the worst ever in Bloodborne, where npcs would spam parries with their infinite bullets (While still having the ridiculous npc stats, of course).

 

[Fox12]

People so often say the Souls series is "hard but fair", but one aspect makes this statement completely false. It's very simple: enemies can hit you across corners, while your weapon will bounce off the walls. This made fighting the Titanite Demons in the lowest level of Sen's Fortress and absolute pain in the ass, since there was no effective way of retreating, and their sweep attacks have insane reach. It's weird that even in Bloodborne this issue remains the unresolved. It can't be that hard to have the enemies' weapons obey the same collision detection rules as your character's, can it?

I also hate how hard they cheat with NPC black phantoms. Infinite stamina, infinite resources, ridiculous impossible poise values, impossible health...

NPC fights have always been my least favorite part of the souls series. It was the worst ever in Bloodborne, where npcs would spam parries with their infinite bullets (While still having the ridiculous npc stats, of course).

Oh, don't even get me started on Demons Souls. There's a black phantom NPC in a swamp with rediculous stats. The swamp poisons you, but not her. She can dodge roll, but you can't. She has a spell that nullifies all of your magic for the duration of the fight. She can heal herself infinitely. And to top it all off? She has a sword that can't be blocked with a shield or sword. I'll defend Dark Souls and Bloodborne to an extent, but Demon's Souls is bullshit.

 

[happyninja42]

Playing the first Force Unleashed game, you run into rocket troopers. Who basically shoot RPG's at you. If you get hit with one, it knocks you down, and it takes a few seconds to get back on your feet. The thing is, the AI is able to calculate distance to target so well, they fire the next round at exactly the right time to not let you get back up. So you get bounced around by rocket after rocket, until you throw your controller at the wall....or maybe that was just me. Fucking rocket trooper cheating bastards.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I also hate how hard they cheat with NPC black phantoms. Infinite stamina, infinite resources, ridiculous impossible poise values, impossible health...

NPC fights have always been my least favorite part of the souls series. It was the worst ever in Bloodborne, where npcs would spam parries with their infinite bullets (While still having the ridiculous npc stats, of course).

True in Dark Souls, but I think in Bloodborne it's fairly well balanced out by their inability to heal. The only time I've seen a hunter NPC do that was the final hunter of Eileen's questline in the Grand Cathedral, and even then it was only once. Fighting that hunter was actually one of the best balanced fights I've had in the game thus far.

The phantoms of Dark Souls can mostly be avoided, and often outright missed, by just not turning human. But in Dark Souls II the NPC phantoms are horseshit. I haven't played Scholar of the First Sin, but from what I've seen of it, the phantoms in that version are plain ludicrous. Maldron in the Ivory King DLC was perhaps the worst offender.

 

[Poetic Nova]

The AI in Total Annihilation has infinite resources, and can build faster than the player if I remember correctly. The kicker is: Skirmish allows you to change resource value for you and the AI.
Seems to be a common-ish thing among RTS games when played against the AI however.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

People so often say the Souls series is "hard but fair", but one aspect makes this statement completely false. It's very simple: enemies can hit you across corners, while your weapon will bounce off the walls. This made fighting the Titanite Demons in the lowest level of Sen's Fortress and absolute pain in the ass, since there was no effective way of retreating, and their sweep attacks have insane reach. It's weird that even in Bloodborne this issue remains the unresolved. It can't be that hard to have the enemies' weapons obey the same collision detection rules as your character's, can it?

As much as I love the Souls games, that shit's more than a little ridiculous at times. The only explanations past 'couldn't implement because time/engine constraints' that I can think of is to stop players taking too much advantage of the stun effect and to not have to program new behaviours and movesets in tight spaces (which in fairness seems like it would be more complicated than it's ultimately worth).

 

[Cycloptomese]

Playing the first Force Unleashed game, you run into rocket troopers. Who basically shoot RPG's at you. If you get hit with one, it knocks you down, and it takes a few seconds to get back on your feet. The thing is, the AI is able to calculate distance to target so well, they fire the next round at exactly the right time to not let you get back up. So you get bounced around by rocket after rocket, until you throw your controller at the wall....or maybe that was just me. Fucking rocket trooper cheating bastards.

Yeah, there were a lot of fights in that game that you pretty much had to constantly be on the move at all times and get in a hit when you can. Rocket troopers were involved in several. Also, that game had some pretty great boss fights.

 

[Thyunda]

I love RNG, so I don't think I've ever really accused a game of cheating where RNG was concerned. I love setting my situation up to maximise my own chances and minimise that of the enemy. The only time I don't like it is in FIFA games where simulating a match instead of playing it is a huge guarantee that you're going to lose. There's only so much influence you can have over your squad, so there's basically nothing I can do to give them the best shot.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Match 3 games, like Gems of War or any of thr Puzzle Quest games. When the computer sets off a cascade of perfect matches and everything falling in magically matches and they build all the mana they need to spam spells.

I second this. I can't count the number of times I've just stared at my screen with my mouth hanging open in disbelief as I watch my enemy just get turn after turn after turn. Match four! Another turn! Critical hit! Heroic effort, extra turn! It's ridiculous.

Silent Hill games aren't good for combat in any case but it gets REALLY bad in Silent Hill 4 when you're juggling between not dying, keeping Eileen alive and following you without her getting distracted, meandering through segmented areas of a level, mortal enemies that are crawling around, one to three GHOSTS which are UNKILLABLE and cause damage following you around (especially later when they're revived enemies from murders 16121, 17121, 18121 and 19121) AND the fact that Walter can come from fuckin' NOWHERE and either chainsaw, axe or shoot the player.

It turns into a clusterfuck and I shout that the AI cheats every time I'm in an area with low health because the game isn't even enough with health dispensed around the area and they bombard me with EVERYTHING at once. And it's not any better when enemies respawn every time you go back to the apartment.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Playing the first Force Unleashed game, you run into rocket troopers. Who basically shoot RPG's at you. If you get hit with one, it knocks you down, and it takes a few seconds to get back on your feet. The thing is, the AI is able to calculate distance to target so well, they fire the next round at exactly the right time to not let you get back up. So you get bounced around by rocket after rocket, until you throw your controller at the wall....or maybe that was just me. Fucking rocket trooper cheating bastards.

You just reminded me of Ninja Gaiden which has a similar part and imo probably the hardest part of the entire game (except perhaps the first Alma fight) where you have to face two bosses and some troops in between before you can save. The troops have rocket launchers and are at the end of a long hallway there are three of them if you get hit once you get juggled infinitely by RPGs until you die. After that stage however the difficulty nosedives.

The other one I can think of is Magic the Gathering by microprose which while an excellent game (and by far the best game version of magic ever created imo) is complete BS in harder difficulties. The comp is still completely stupid but by god do they top deck cards its kinda ridiculous really. Also the Ape man can go to hell an entire deck filled with mostly lightning bolts and mountains and you only have 10 starting life er yeah thats fair 2nd turn I am on 1 life and cant do jack about it and even if I could I am eating another few lightning bolts this turn.

The only way you could beat him was hope he gets a bum draw or you finally get the cards to make an equally BS deck and hope you go first. Oh and hes a common enemy (who is more annoying than the final boss imo).

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic. Primarily because the AI does cheat, in both games, and rather blatantly at that. AI Trireme's happily sailing through ocean tiles. Barbarians bee-lining across the length of a continent just to sack your tiles. A cash and land-strapped AI magicking a dozen units into its city overnight. Heroes is even more blatant, with numerically impossible forces appearing out of thin air to thwart your efforts. The AI is positively naff at the strategic layer, so runaway cheating is how it balances the ledgers. Still makes it a bit hard to swallow in games that present themselves as a contest between equal sides.

XCOM doesn't cheat, it's a risk management game that exposes players to both the vagaries of fate and rather unpalatable consequences for failure. Blood Bowl is very similar. Both are rage inducing games of the first order, but the overwhelming majority of said rage is self-inflicted by players and their bad decisions, myself included. Watch Beaglerush play Ironman Impossible on Long War some time and you'll get an appreciation for what properly risk managed game play looks like. Sure, things can still go wrong, but what kind of stupid ass "Impossible" setting wouldn't allow for that?

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

As for fighters er yeah those just hit the big red fuck you button on occasion and read your inputs react with impossible reflexes and combo you into oblivion unless you can find an exploit yourself, oh yeah and do charge moves only without charging first gotta love that. I am also generally not a fan when they purposefully break the rules of their own game usually with bosses such as removing hitstun from your attacks or some other nonsense.

These are my exact feelings with the fight against Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat (2011). Just about every time I came close to whittling down his health bar into nothing he suddenly felt it was a good time to charge me over and over again 'til I died or was arrested for unethical treatment of the cement from landing on it too hard.

 

[happyninja42]

Playing the first Force Unleashed game, you run into rocket troopers. Who basically shoot RPG's at you. If you get hit with one, it knocks you down, and it takes a few seconds to get back on your feet. The thing is, the AI is able to calculate distance to target so well, they fire the next round at exactly the right time to not let you get back up. So you get bounced around by rocket after rocket, until you throw your controller at the wall....or maybe that was just me. Fucking rocket trooper cheating bastards.

Yeah, there were a lot of fights in that game that you pretty much had to constantly be on the move at all times and get in a hit when you can. Rocket troopers were involved in several. Also, that game had some pretty great boss fights.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I fucking love that game. But those fucking rocket troopers. I'm a pretty easy going guy, and I don't like conflict or aggression as a general rule, but there was one map, that had a cluster of those fucking rocket troopers. And the chain stunlock rocket pummeling they gave me seriously made me so angry I threw my controller. It is the one and only time (so far) that a game has frustrated me that much. Other than that shit, I loved the hell out of the game.

Playing the first Force Unleashed game, you run into rocket troopers. Who basically shoot RPG's at you. If you get hit with one, it knocks you down, and it takes a few seconds to get back on your feet. The thing is, the AI is able to calculate distance to target so well, they fire the next round at exactly the right time to not let you get back up. So you get bounced around by rocket after rocket, until you throw your controller at the wall....or maybe that was just me. Fucking rocket trooper cheating bastards.

You just reminded me of Ninja Gaiden which has a similar part and imo probably the hardest part of the entire game (except perhaps the first Alma fight) where you have to face two bosses and some troops in between before you can save. The troops have rocket launchers and are at the end of a long hallway there are three of them if you get hit once you get juggled infinitely by RPGs until you die. After that stage however the difficulty nosedives.

Never played the game you mean, but if it's even half as frustrating as the rocket troopers in Force Unleashed, you have my sympathies.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. Now don't get me wrong, I loved that game. One of the best coop experiences I've ever had. But... I couldn't beat it. Or rather, we - myself and my brother - could not beat it. The final part of the game consists of a boss rush against Kintaro, Shang Tsung, and Shao Kahn, all one after the other. No saving, no healing (well, a tiny bit). We probably just sucked at the game, but Shao Kahn always destroyed us. We managed to get past the first boss without taking any damage, got by the second fight with only a bit of health missing, but then we'd curbstomped. Having to go through the whole thing over again was just rage-inducing. Never mind that in coop, Liu Kang and Kung Lao share a life bar.

And since they cheat and invade Earthrealm anyway, we already know that Shao Kahn is a cheatyfaced cheater.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

People so often say the Souls series is "hard but fair", but one aspect makes this statement completely false. It's very simple: enemies can hit you across corners, while your weapon will bounce off the walls. This made fighting the Titanite Demons in the lowest level of Sen's Fortress and absolute pain in the ass, since there was no effective way of retreating, and their sweep attacks have insane reach. It's weird that even in Bloodborne this issue remains the unresolved. It can't be that hard to have the enemies' weapons obey the same collision detection rules as your character's, can it?

Three things:

First, the assumption that rule sets must be symmetrical to be fair is false and closes the door on a lot of interesting design ideas.

Second, yes it is actually basically impossible to make enemies weapons effectively obey the same collision rules. The reason why is simple - a human is smart enough to plan their attacks so that their weapons avoid walls, an AI is not. Ultimately if you made enemy weapons collide then basically any enemy in the game could be extremely easily cheesed - all you need to do is stand right next to a wall and the enemy is going to have an extremely tough time lining up for an attack.

Third, Dark Souls is not even close to fair. I absolutely love the game, but I still do not know why people describe it that way. The game will and does sucker punch you at every opportunity.

OT:

I cannot remember the game, it was like state of war or something like that, but it was an RTS that was basically impossible. I played it with my friend when I was like 16, and like most old rts games it had cheat codes you could type in. We plugged in a second keyboard so my friend could type the cheat codes as fast as he could while I played and we still could not beat the last level. We were literally cheating as fast and hard as was possible and it still wasn't beatable. Any game that is stacked that hard against you is inherently cheating.

 

[sanquin]

Third, Dark Souls is not even close to fair. I absolutely love the game, but I still do not know why people describe it that way. The game will and does sucker punch you at every opportunity.

Depends on your definition of fair I think. In DS1 at least, there is no trap that you can't see coming, and no enemy that hits you for unavoidable damage. You can dodge or block it all if you're careful. But if you're not, you can easily get stomped into the ground. Which, to me, is fair.

 

[UfokinDingus]

say what you will about fallout 4, but that first deathclaw encounter on survival mode.... yeah fuck me right in the ass haha

 

[LetalisK]

Unless long war changed it someone did run the numbers for X-Com and found that yes the percentage it gives you is accurate but it sue doesn't feel like that at times. I did have a sectopod spawn in the middle of the room a couple of times though (glitch?)

Anyway, the bloody demiliches in BG that spam imprisonment which is instant death if it hits your character if even someone in your party has freedom (the counter spell for it).

Like I said, it was probably just statistics biting me in the ass. Makes it no less frustrating when it feels like you are losing not through any fault in strategy (granted, that may well not have been the case), but because the game just plain doesn't like you.

And yeah, Baldur's Gate is definitely one of those "Aw, come on!" type of games.

I like to think that Keldorn's nickname is "Player's Revenge" since he basically wipes the floor with demiliches with his stupidly OP dispel.

 

[DoPo]

Heroes is even more blatant

Oh yeah, came into this thread to mention HoMM. It's not that I think the game is cheating, I KNOW for a fact that it is. The most hours I've sunk into any game from the franchise have been into number 3. And even more precisely, the Shadow of Death. Well, also Wake of Gods but whatever.

In HoMM 3, the AI does have advantages built into it. To the point where the difficulty setting is actually giving the AI mechanical handicaps to make them not stomp over the player. On lower difficulties, the - the most blatant restriction is that computer players can only build a structure in town every few days even if they have the resources for more buildings[footnote]I think it's around 3 on easier difficulties, and 2 on harder ones. At some point, possibly Impossible, the restriction is removed[/footnote].

But what can the computer players do that you cannot? Aside from just spawning fucking armies, that is - they know where general stuff is on the map, they know what stacks would join them (without needing any skills or abilities), they even know what they'd get from Pandora's Boxes. For the unfamiliar, a Pandora's Box is an adventure map item that when opened can have a variety of effects - it can give you resources, XP, troops, spells, items, or it may give you something negative - force you to battle, penalty to luck or morale, etc. It can also be a mix of these effects. Or it can do nothing at all. On randomly generated map, in the vast majority of cases, Pandora's Boxes either do nothing or give you XP, resources, or troops. But whatever they contain, they are always protected by a beefy stack of monsters, so you usually need to have build up an army in order to attempt to open one of the boxes. The AI would know which ones are empty and would just avoid opening them to conserve movement points. They'd still beat the monster stack in front of the box for XP, of course. Aside from that, if an enemy manages to get Fly (either through the spell or the artefact) or Dimension Door (teleport on the adventure map), then I usually just end my playthrough right there. These enemies are a complete nightmare to beat - yes, it's possible, but the AI with unlimited movement is nigh unstoppable - if you try to catch up, they would escape, if you leave any town unguarded (or not guarded enough), they would swoop down and take it.

Try the Command and Conquer series. The AI starts with double the money that the player does, Their harvesters have double the capacity and get double the amount per harvest.

Oh yeah - in Red Alert 2 I did make an experiment that proved that the computer playes actually had infinite money. It's actually an easy experiment. There are several ways to go about it, but this is the one that proves is the simples:

1. Have access to spies.
2. Destroy most of the computer's base - remove any unit producing buildings as well as the command centre, as well as any units. The idea is to leave the enemy in a passive state. Make sure you leave an ore refinery intact.
3. Make sure there are no ore miners, though. Very important.

So, the enemy now can do absolutely nothing, cannot spend money (aside on repairs) and cannot get any money. Their cash reserves should never move.

4. Infiltrate the ore refinery with a spy. You now have all of their money.
5. Infiltrate the ore refinery with a spy. Yes, again. You would still get money.

Alternative (or addition) to the final step is to damage one of their building - they'll still have cash to repair it.

 

[flying_whimsy]

As someone else mentioned, I'm going with fighting games, the soul caliber series in particular. That game reads inputs like no one's business, even on lower difficulties. I've spent years developing an extremely random style of play, so it's really obvious to me when the game starts reading controller inputs.

I've noticed it in more and more modern fighters, and all I can think is that they are having trouble making adaptable ai that can compete with seasoned players. Even the doa series started doing it at higher difficulty levels (although it's still possible to psych out the ai), and that game is little more than extremely high speed rock paper scissors (fun as that is).

I really hated the input reading in skullgirls; there's nothing like pulling off some magic 20-hit combo that works in attacks from every range and direction only to have it all perfectly blocked.