Cheating AI is Bad Game Design

Did a Mazda MX-5 just overtake your lightning-fast Polyphony F1 car? Does the enemy have a literal army before you even get a Tesla coil up? Is the AI looking through walls at you? Is a chess game making OUTRIGHT ILLEGAL MOVES? Congratulations you are up against a cheating AI.

[PopRocks359]

I've seen this in a lot of games. Whether it be CoD AI able to snipe you with sub machine guns from a quite a distance away, or Mario Kart's rubber-band AI always catching up and never leaving you alone (not to mention the constant spiny blue shells).

But I'm not as miffed about them. They create challenge. Sure, it's unfair, but so were a lot of older games back in the day. The first Super Mario is downright brutal once you get to the later worlds. And that game was marketed toward children!

Let's stop being so negative. Again, you're right. It's not fair. But it's not really anything to get angry about.

[Tastynoodle]

Sometimes AI has to cheat to be able to offer a decent challege capable of improving the player without playing against a real opponent. Mario Kart on the other hand works in favour of the player too should they fall behind. You'll get your own constant array of stars, bullet bills and blue shells if you're falling behind.

[THESONYPS3]

Maybe its just really good AI? lol

[ronin4life]

I personally be live the three shot instant death of harder difficulty early CoD games was just a statistic die roll of "dead" or "not dead."
And then there was grenade spawning anywhere the devs didn't want you to be (or sometimes just for staying i cover more than three seconds.) And I mean literal grenade spawning, not ai characters simply using a lot of grenades... O.o;

[ATi_Elite]

Cheating A.I. is just a by product of Devs not having programmed a good A.I. tree!

They try to compensate for the lack of a good A.I. tree or resources to implements a proper A.I. tree by just having the A.I. "Go all Neo" and just do things outside the realm of the "The Matrix"

Sure nothing is worst than getting 1 shot killed by a Shotgun from 2 miles away but hey that's why that F5 key is there.

To this day I'm still impressed with the A.I. in STALKER Call of Pripyat! sitting back and watching NPC's use tactics and strategy to attack one another then watch the survivors loot the bodies of guns and supplies is just so amazing! Then only to have a pack of Dogs drag the dead bodies off before you can get your loot on is even more shocking!

Best A.I. ever!

[SilentNegotiator]

"Is the AI looking through walls at you?"

This always ticks me off. Like when you're completely in cover, and move to a spot that the AI shouldn't be able to predict and the millisecond you expose yourself, you take a bullet.

That's just bad AI design. I should be able to move unexposed and then get a shot in before the AI spots me from my new perch.

[JoySticksFTW]

I played Monopoly on iphone and that junk was cheating like crazy on level 3 difficulty

the AI players were giving each other full communities like Boardwalk and Parkplace and making ridiculous trades just to knock me out, while I couldn't even pass Go. LOL

Higher difficulty should mean smarter trades and strategy; not tractor beam dice rolls to "Go to Jail" or Boardwalk with hotels

I don't mind higher health and accuracy in shooters, but breaking the rules or spirit of the game just leads to gamer frustration.

Demon's Souls does it right. high difficultly that is fair and can be overcome with player patience and strategy.

[pixelsword]

Devs can't win this; if they do all that people ask, they say the AI isn't responsive, if they did it really, really, well so that no one could tell if that's a person or not on the other side, the gamer turns down the difficulty.

[Dark_Overlord]

Cheating AI p***es me off, its a cheap way of extending a games life.

Don't get me wrong, I love a challenge but not when its cheap in how its executed (COD on veteran) I prefer something like Demon Souls, where you die through lack of skill rather than being cheated :)

[ronin4life]

Yes.
I would add Monster Hunter offers a similar challenge set up. ^_^;

[FatGayandbald]

Over the years you realise that 99% of games cheat especially if you play a game on hardest difficulty ,no matter how powerful computers get they still can't come close to beating Gods computers fairly.

[Fez]

God's a PC elitist.

[ZodTheRipper]

There are games/genres where cheating AI is neccesary to keep it's challenge for the player ...but there are also games/genres where it's just bad game design. Especially in genres that are built on real life activities it should be a matter of realism who wins ...

[CC-Tron]

Fighting games tend to have cheating AI also. Every fighter including the slow ones move faster than the player. Precognitive throw escapes and counters which if done to the extreme can break a game (Dead or Alive 4).

[EverydayGuy]

Why can't they make a online game where instead of having A.I you have real players playing against you, like an online campaign.

[madjedi]

Because no one is paying $59.99 to be a random generic character in another persons game only to be killed and get a game over and restart a mission. Because some other player, headshoted you at distance with sniper rifle or spammed nades or rockets in your area ect.

Leave versus to online matches, ctf, dm, tdm ect, not in the campaign mode, your asking for trouble if you try mixing versus and a regular story mode.

[Somebody]

I've thought of that logic and then I had my first taste of online multiplayer. Might a bit tough to do.

In a singleplayer mode the AI is predictable. For example in Splinter Cell you are asked to retrieve a stolen file on a mansion. There are numerous entry points and the mansion is full of patrolling guards. Of course through stealth and use of gadgets you can easily bypass them. It's all about reading the AI's pattern.

Change the singleplayer AI with real human players and you won't even get to see the front gate. All of them will definitely NOT follow the patrol route. Instead they will be sitting at every known entry points just waiting for you to waltz in. That's also immersion breaking because story-wise, the guards are not supposed to know of your coming.

[blackhammer]

Rainbow Six Vegas/2. Suppressors don't make a difference. When you hit certain points in a map during terrorist hunt, enemies will spawn/come up behind you from a different area.

Biggest case: The "catch-up" method of The Godfather. You blow up one car behind you, see them blow up, check behind you three seconds later, BAM! Another enemy car on your tail.

[LOL_WUT]

CoD black ops on bot mode difficulty thats a good example of a cheating AI.

[Grove_Street_CJ]

You all talking about COD and stuff, but cheating AI is the worst in sports games! my goodness it can be bad, especially the higher the difficulties.

[Kahvipannu]

Sometimes necessary. For example in many strategy games no AI can do same thinking as you can, for example Medieval 2, it's nice to have option to rank up enemy unit's stats and income up for better challenge, and for more rewarding gameplay. Good way of implementing "AI cheating".

But yeah, it's base by bade thing, sometimes the AI in many games just suddenly turns I win button on.. It's frustrating, and wrong way to do it..

[catfrog]

bad game design? for who? maybe for you, but for developers its cheap and easy to do. it means you dont have to optimize a processor so that good decisions are made, it means that you dont have to hire ai specialists, it means that your game can be sold at a lower cost to the producers.

bad design? from a certain perspective, but then again, if you're not supporting sony then youre not really supporting this. sony spent millions developing the cell, which btw is capable of much more realistic and complex ai's than most of the best pc hardware out today, not because the technology isnt there, but sony developed a cheap processor that can do what the best, most expensive processors can do.

sure, developers have to work more to get the best quality, but then again, you never get anything without giving something else up

[GamingPerson]

Fear 1 Ai > all

[Drainage]

its horrible in mario kart

[mechlord]

FIFA has this problem all over it

[Razgriz383]

Madden
(Shudders)

Mario Kart
(Hides in closet)

ArmA II
(Nightmares for a month)