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

[Balimaar]

Ive been getting my Rome TW mojo back ^_^ ive been playing the campaign for a couple days and finally reached the point where I was popular enough with the people to attack Rome.

I attacked and took Rome within a couple turns. I still had 4 provinces left to conquer for the win.

I was besieging an Egyptian city containing 800~ soldiers against my 1600. A 2000 strong Egyptian army attacked my besieging army and I only just lost the battle.

then the brutii besieged Rome (now under my control).

At the start of my next turn a message appears saying my popularity with the people has fallen.

I figure, "oh well doesnt matter ill just wipe out this army and carry on."

I go to sally forth with my army in Rome to wipe out the Brutii army that was well under half my army's strength.

A new message pops up saying im not yet popular enough to attack Rome... I had to sit there for half a dozen turns frantically trying to win enough battles to get my popularity back up but i run out of time, my army in Rome surrenders and the Brutii win the game...

CAPTCHA: bitter end

fine choice of words solvemedia


So my fellow escapists have you had similar experiences in other games?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I think the absolute cheapest thing is the arcade versions of the various Gauntlet games. You know how in the home games you pick up food to gain health, which stays the same unless you pick up a health pack or get hit? Well in the arcade version, it constantly drops no matter what, and you have to either find a (rare) health pickup, or pop in more quarters, which instantly raises your health. Talk about a quarter devouring monster...

 

[him over there]

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

 

[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.

 

[The Wykydtron]

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."


Fucking stealth champions man... A good Jungle Shaco is the most evil thing on Earth.

Fun times abound when this one guy on the enemy team challenged our Shaco to a 1v1 match midgame then got all dickish when he got lol no'd. The amount of people who don't understand the basic principles of LoL and indeed stealth champions in general never ceases to amaze me XP

Oh and in Bayonetta when Witch Time suddenly decides to make you work for your slow mo awesomeness. Especially during some boss fights where you have to dodge the one specific attack that they may or may not use to get it

"Dodge one attack did you? Lol dodge this entire combo then maybe i'll give you your slow mo back..."

Love that game nonetheless.

Oh and some sections of Dark Souls. Every death is fair you say? Mimic. Sen's Fortress. Fuck.

No way you could have seen that coming without a guide.

Don't even get me started on Anor Londo's bullshit archers. The pro tip from this one walkthrough amounted to "just tuck yourself into this corner, pray to deity X that you don't run out of stamina and hope you can glitch him off the edge"

Dark Souls has so much pathfinding abuse it's not even funny.

Y'know I don't even have a typical JRPG "boss pulls Nuke Everyone Spell out as soon as he hits half health" example. Weird.

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.

 

[Saladfork]

I think the absolute cheapest thing is the arcade versions of the various Gauntlet games. You know how in the home games you pick up food to gain health, which stays the same unless you pick up a health pack or get hit? Well in the arcade version, it constantly drops no matter what, and you have to either find a (rare) health pickup, or pop in more quarters, which instantly raises your health. Talk about a quarter devouring monster...

I hear that. The death of the arcades came for some very good reasons, I think.

Lessee... One time I was playing the PC version of the spiderman 3 tie-in game (No, I didn't pay for it myself, and yes, I was very bored). There are quick-time events in that game wherein you web swing along an area. One time, I jumped off a building and fell flat on my face before the E key came up. The only way to pass that is to already know that was coming because the prompt comes far too late.

 

[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.

 

[Limecake]

Rubber band AI, specifically Mario Kart (N64 version is the one I'm thinking) it's not that they make it more difficult it's the fact that no matter how well I do, no matter how perfect my lap is they will always always catch up.

It's cheap and a lame way to keep the races competitive, I may as well reverse through the tracks.

 

[skywolfblue]

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)*

 

[Catfood220]

Rubber band AI, specifically Mario Kart (N64 version is the one I'm thinking) it's not that they make it more difficult it's the fact that no matter how well I do, no matter how perfect my lap is they will always always catch up.

It's cheap and a lame way to keep the races competitive, I may as well reverse through the tracks.

Or Mario Kart Wii where if you are winning the game will throw every blue/red shell, POW block, bullet and Blooper it can at you.

And Seth from Street Fighter 4, multiple hit dragon punch followed by spinning piledrive. Fuck you Seth.

 

[Sovereignty]

Eh have none of you played the computer version of Chess that is included with windows?

Seriously that is CHEATING in every sense of the word.

Once you beef up the difficulty you'll see the computer move pawns like they're queens to stop your strategy. I've also seen the computer move a pawn diagonally behind a pawn I had right beside it... And somehow capture it.



All other cheating is just lol-worthy when next to the madness that is Windows Chess.

 

[Kyrian007]

Borderlands is king of this. Clear out a horde or mob of guys... high percentage chance the last guy you kill... his body will explode before your shields regen. Leaving you to look around for someone to kill for the second wind... nope nobody home. It's even worse than when they knock you down... then run away. Which they always do. Not that it matters, all it costs you is money; which is totally worthless in Borderlands.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

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!"

In my case it is sticking to cover too well that really fucks me over sometimes. As an infiltrator, I hide behind a wall, activate my cloak, pop out to take my shot and roll back behind the wall before enemies can properly respond. And then I get stuck to some cover and my squishy Geth gets peppered with bullets. Or ... "no, i don't want to get into cover, I want to rez this guy"

 

[Corinthius]

Eh have none of you played the computer version of Chess that is included with windows?

Seriously that is CHEATING in every sense of the word.

Once you beef up the difficulty you'll see the computer move pawns like they're queens to stop your strategy. I've also seen the computer move a pawn diagonally behind a pawn I had right beside it... And somehow capture it.



All other cheating is just lol-worthy when next to the madness that is Windows Chess.

The thing with the pawns moving diagonally behind another pawn is actually a rule called "En Passant" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant), and is completely legit. No idea about the whole moving like queens thing, however...

 

[INF1NIT3 D00M]

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.

My girlfriend does this when we play Pokemon Stadium together. She goes first, so she sends out her oddish or some ground type she has, and she'll use either sleep powder or sand attack to put me to sleep or lower my accuracy. Any pokemon I switch to, she hits with sand attack or any other accuracy lowering attack. By the second or third time, my chance to hit is like 25%. I then spend the rest of the round tanking hits, just trying to hit her pokemon. She also loves to switch to the type I'm weak against once I'm unable to hit. I either switch at the same time as her, or I try to get the hit in but can't because I have such low accuracy.

 

[Hemlet]

Fucking Need For Speed: Carbon.

I'm on the last stretch of the race, I can SEE the finish line. The road is clear, I hit the boost.

My opponents are over a second behind me, I have the race in the bag, and then...BAM! The game spawns a cop car in the middle of the fucking road inches in front of me.

Naturally I hit it, come to an immediate dead stop, go from first place to last, and get arrested all in the time it takes for me to realize what just happened.

Cheating game gets put in its case and never gets played again.

 

[Sovereignty]

The thing with the pawns moving diagonally behind another pawn is actually a rule called "En Passant" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant), and is completely legit. No idea about the whole moving like queens thing, however...

Thanks for informing me! Still plenty of other debauchery that goes on however. I'm also a bit miffed that I couldn't replicate the same action the times I tried.

I tend to not dwell on it either way. The computer is a damn dirty cheat!

 

[boyvirgo666]

Shogun total war 2 realm divide. The first time you play this game you might think "oh cool iv gotten powerful and now i can take on the big clans" but instead you get a cool little cutscene that tells you all your allies and vassals who you left alive in your path suddenly hate you for doing exactly what they loved you for doing. So they start attacking you in areas you probably didnt leave very well defended because well they were your allies 5 minutes ago. So after you turn your vanguards around and cripple your misbegoten allies you find out that every other AI has sided with each other against you even though there were other clans who were just as powerful if not more powerful than you in the first place. Why does this happen? because fuck you thats why.