New efforts!

[rookery.]

Go team Schrodinger!

Maybe I'm supporting Team Schrodinger.

[Twisted Toon]

Maybe I'm supporting Team Schrodinger.

totally off the subject and entirely out of the ballpark beyond left field, I just wanted it known that I would rather be called a cheerleader than an athletic supporter.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

[LadyVamp]

Maybe powers similar to Ant Man?

I was thinking Raiders of the Lost Ark for Indy A.

[LadyVamp]

totally off the subject and entirely out of the ballpark beyond left field, I just wanted it known that I would rather be called a cheerleader than an athletic supporter.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

I'm afraid that wasn't unscheduled either but thanks for letting us return to whimperings, random maniacal laughter, wild speculations, beggings, tortures, and pedantic psycho-babbles.  Hmmm.  We seem to be overdue for a poetry reading...I mean technical discussion from Arcana.  ;)

Anybody else feel like this guy waiting on some (good) news about Coh?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcNt59nPxrs

[Sinistar]

I was thinking Raiders of the Lost Ark for Indy A.

Speaking of indy, before the shutdown I was designing a Demon MM  named Demondy or Demon Indy.

His attire was similar to Indiana Jones, and the whip was part of the power set.  I think the back story was that he was an explorer that finally fell victim to dark magics or some such.

[Brigadine]

I'm afraid that wasn't unscheduled either but thanks for letting us return to whimperings, random maniacal laughter, wild speculations, beggings, tortures, and pedantic psycho-babbles.  Hmmm.  We seem to be overdue for a poetry reading...I mean technical discussion from Arcana.  ;)

Anybody else feel like this guy waiting on some (good) news about Coh?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcNt59nPxrs

YES

[Arcana]

So today I was discussing the subject of "cheating" in video games, specifically when the game cheats on the player (not when players cheat on the game or against other players).  I suggested that there were five levels of distinct kinds of cheating a game can be programmed with:

1.  The computer does only what a player can do, but does it with absolute precision without error.
2.  The computer does only what a player can do, but can do it in a way impossible for players to do.
3.  The computer does only what a player can do, but gets results impossible to achieve (and better) than the player when it does it.
4.  The computer gets better results than players can achieve by doing things players are explicitly not allowed to do.
5.  The computer is allowed to generate results completely outside the realm of players to achieve.

In City of Heroes terms (which is not the best game to illustrate this), this might be something like:

1.  The computer always executes the optimum attack chain without error under all circumstances.
2.  The computer is capable of executing attacks without any lag or combat clock delay between activations.
3.  When the computer attacks with powers that can crit, attacks always crit.
4.  The computer is allowed to move while attacking.
5.  Every five seconds computer attacks are autohit and unresistable.

Question: if it appears, at least under significant scrutiny, to be impossible to balance a game's design without "cheating" which of these, if any, should be considered acceptable?

I can tell you what Paragon Studio's position was, as was self-evident from the game itself: if game balance is at stake, all of them are acceptable.  And they are not remotely alone in that belief; that game balance is a sufficient requirement that essentially any and all actions are acceptable to address balance issues, if they are significant enough, seems to be the rule at virtually every game design company.

However, I'm not sure I would agree.  As an engineer, I operate under a set of ethical standards, and "do whatever it takes, regardless of cost or consequence, to complete the project" is most definitely not an ethical standard.  Even if it hurts my client, even if it jeopardizes the project, even if it will get me fired, there are some things I will not instantiate in a project of mine.  I think that's an entirely reasonable, and in fact proper stance to take for anyone that builds anything for anyone.  It should apply to video games no different than anything else.  So the question is, if your playerbase will perceive it negatively as "cheating" what's the line, if there is one?  I'm not sure, but I tend to come down on the side of not wanting to exceed (1) except under exceptional circumstances.  "I can't stop the players from killing the boss too easily in this mission" doesn't qualify as exceptional in this context in my opinion.  But is that too harsh a limitation on a game designer?  Not sure.  In City of Heroes, I believe there was never a time where the devs were *forced* to exceed (1), even though they did so repeatedly (against my preferences).  But maybe I'm wrong.

When people are playing video games, do you care that the computer opponents "cheat" (for some definition of that word) or do you simply accept that the computer needs an advantage, and it doesn't really matter if it gets that advantage through means unavailable to the player or through entirely other means that ultimately grant the same advantage nonetheless?

[Paragon Avenger]

So today I was discussing the subject of "cheating" in video games, specifically when the game cheats on the player (not when players cheat on the game or against other players). 

What?  Computer games cheat?  Stop the presses!

[Ulysses Dare]

When people are playing video games, do you care that the computer opponents "cheat" (for some definition of that word) or do you simply accept that the computer needs an advantage, and it doesn't really matter if it gets that advantage through means unavailable to the player or through entirely other means that ultimately grant the same advantage nonetheless?

Personally it always bugs the crap out of me when the game cheats. I know that game developers need to keep things challenging. And yes, human players have advantages—like pattern recognition and strategic thinking—that the game AI can't match. But the computer has advantages too. For example, it has perfect knowledge of the rules, never gets distracted, and has insane reflexes. So it seems to me that cheating shouldn't be necessary to create a good game.

[Arcana]

Personally it always bugs the crap out of me when the game cheats. I know that game developers need to keep things challenging. And yes, human players have advantages—like pattern recognition and strategic thinking—that the game AI can't match. But the computer has advantages too. For example, it has perfect knowledge of the rules, never gets distracted, and has insane reflexes. So it seems to me that cheating shouldn't be necessary to create a good game.

Let's consider a more concrete example.  Suppose you're trying to design a boss encounter in City of Heroes.  You want it to be balanced against the fact that the encounter is designed for a full team of six to eight players.  So there's a couple of things that are true right off the bat.  The boss can't literally be identical to what players have access to, because if the boss was literally only as good as a player character then even when played by an extremely smart computer AI it would be six against one and the computer would be at a severe disadvantage.  There are obvious remedies that I don't consider "cheating" - boss archetypes have higher base statistics, particularly when it comes to total health and base attack strength.  I think that's reasonable in City of Heroes.  Players themselves can choose to make characters different archetype classes that have varying base statistics, and it is not too unusual to believe that the hardest NPCs in the game might simply come from classes with higher numbers than the normal player class.

So we have to consider that the computer gets stuff the players don't get, particularly when it is attempting to balance two dissimilar sides in a fight.  But there seems to be a fuzzy line between "Archvillain has a lot of health" and "Archvillain has ludicrous amounts of regeneration."  The question is where the line is drawn.  I still feel strongly that the game shouldn't "cheat" but I don't want to give the impression I can easily articulate in all cases what the line is between "cheating" and "reasonable advantage" is.  I'd say, in the context of City of Heroes, that unrooted combat is very obviously over the line.  Perma Elude is over the line - because it is impossible at the recharge cap.  But what about a power that is not actually Elude but just grants very high defense permanently that players don't get?  That seems to be an exploit around the cheating rule, but is that fundamentally different from having vastly higher health.

Thinking out loud, I think it is, but I don't know how solid my thought process is.  I think it is cheating because there is an explicit reason why players are not allowed to make Elude perma.  It gives the player a trivial one-dimensional extremely high level of protection.  But if that's the fundamental reason, then it is illogical to allow the computer NPCs to get the equivalent of the same thing for the same reason: it would make the encounter one-dimensionally trivially difficult without interesting gameplay options.  Not even the purple triangles are perma. 

It seems to me that to really make a game that doesn't cheat, the game designer(s) must actually have a very clear cut idea of what the "rules" are and communicate them to the playerbase in some way.  They have to say, our intention is for the game world to work in this way, and you can trust that if you're allowed to do this it is likely the result of an accidental exploitive opportunity, and conversely we will never deliberately inflict it upon you either and if it happens you have the right to complain.

Does any MMO development company anywhere actually do that?

[darkgob]

So today I was discussing the subject of "cheating" in video games, specifically when the game cheats on the player (not when players cheat on the game or against other players).  I suggested that there were five levels of distinct kinds of cheating a game can be programmed with:

1.  The computer does only what a player can do, but does it with absolute precision without error.
2.  The computer does only what a player can do, but can do it in a way impossible for players to do.
3.  The computer does only what a player can do, but gets results impossible to achieve (and better) than the player when it does it.
4.  The computer gets better results than players can achieve by doing things players are explicitly not allowed to do.
5.  The computer is allowed to generate results completely outside the realm of players to achieve.

6. FTL: Faster Than Light

So we have to consider that the computer gets stuff the players don't get, particularly when it is attempting to balance two dissimilar sides in a fight.

How does this apply to, say, Incarnate raid bosses?  They were capable of all sorts of nonsense that players couldn't get even through the Incarnate System.

[HorseManDemon]

Outside of MMO's I think that RTS and TBS games make for interesting cases when it comes to AI cheating. In a lot of these games,  the primary way they make the AI more difficult is to give them a hidden increase in resource generation. I remember when I first noticed this design decision in Age of empires 2 (one of my absolute favorite RTS games). A friend of mine and I were practicing against the hardest level AI, and couldn't figure out how it could possibly be fielding the armies it was so quickly. Going back and watching the match replay afterwards, I noticed the AI started with massively more resources and got more resource more quickly than we could. I feel like this is a very lazy way of making the AI more difficult, and is especially unnecessary in a strategy game, where there are much less transparently obvious methods of giving the AI an advantage.

[Arcana]

How does this apply to, say, Incarnate raid bosses?  They were capable of all sorts of nonsense that players couldn't get even through the Incarnate System.

The short answer is that I did not agree with the design of the Incarnate bosses.

[Sinistar]

read up on other MMO's doing Halloween events,  anyone else feeling nostalgic?

[LadyVamp]

Excellent Arcana.  Now that's an interesting subject.  The game itself cheating.  A tricky subject.  But one cannot consider the computer cheats against you without considering the other possibility.  The computer cheats in your favor.

• A crit that succeeded but the computer undid it to keep you in the fight.
• Missing more often as the battle continues after a certain amount of time.
• Allowing a win over an enemy that had defeated the player many times.

These I've seen before just as I've seen cheating against the player.  I would call this adaptive difficultly where the computer considers the skill of the player and tunes the battle to make it more fair.  Ultimately allowing a win if it's not too far out of balance in order to keep the progression moving.

While we might consider both types of cheating to be unfair actions on the part of the developers, I would consider it the balancing act to allow both the player with tons of experience and the player who can devote only an hour a day to the game to enjoy the game.  Both types of players need suitable challenges.  Do you make it tough so the experienced player has a good time only to alienate the player who cannot play often?  Do you dumb it down so the player who cannot spend a lot of time playing/learning/doesn't grasp what has to be done so that most everyone can beat it?  And do you allow the game to learn and apply to future enemies advantages/disadvantages learned by the game on earlier fights?

As a former DM/GM for AD&D, and other games, I can tell you it's a tough decision.  We DMs have to weigh those costs personally too.  As DM, I have cheated both for and against the players.  Only one of my players ever knew for certain and that's because I told him afterwards.  Never were the cheats grand.  Most players would never know that I rolled a crit that killed the warrior and reported to them it wasn't a crit.  And while minor cheating may seem dishonest, it's about keeping the game interesting and keeping things moving.  And if a minor cheat will do so, then it is a decision I can live with.  I may not like it when I'm the player and I've had my butt kicked 20 times in a row, but I'd rather have the game give me the 21st fight (with a fight still happening with apparent possible death) than being stuck forever and losing interest.

[Arcana]

While we might consider both types of cheating to be unfair actions on the part of the developers, I would consider it the balancing act to allow both the player with tons of experience and the player who can devote only an hour a day to the game to enjoy the game.  Both types of players need suitable challenges.  Do you make it tough so the experienced player has a good time only to alienate the player who cannot play often?  Do you dumb it down so the player who cannot spend a lot of time playing/learning/doesn't grasp what has to be done so that most everyone can beat it?  And do you allow the game to learn and apply to future enemies advantages/disadvantages learned by the game on earlier fights?

Interesting point.  I made the case on the old CoH forums that, in this context, it is impossible for the game to cheat "for" the player, because it is impossible for the game to cheat against the NPCs.  And the reason is because cheating contains a perception component.  Cheating is something that both conforms to reasonable interpretations of cheating *and* that actual players perceive as the game creating an unfair circumstance that nullifies their expectations in a negative way.  It gets to the question of why cheating is bad.  It isn't bad because the game treats players and NPCs differently - I've conceded above that this quantitative inequity is inevitable and should be expected by reasonable players.  But if the player perceives that an inequity is out of bounds, it can harm their gaming experience.  And that's where the ultimate harm comes from.

Now, some players are unreasonable.  So just because they perceive something to be inequitable doesn't mean we can solve that problem or should solve that problem.  But there is a reasonable threshold where we should avoid creating inequities that the playerbase will perceive in a sufficiently negative light that it will harm their perception of the game being enjoyable.  That is something a good game designer should try to avoid, in my opinion.

It is literally impossible for the NPCs in the game to have their perceptions harmed in the same way, so they can't be cheated.  Conversely, provided that the act doesn't create some other tangential perception of inequity between different players, having the game "cheat" in a specific player's favor doesn't usually harm their gameplay experience.  It isn't a cheat, it is a bonus.

Put it another way.  CoH "balanced" the game so that a single player playing through a mission would trigger spawns that were quantitatively equivalent to about three even con minions (one minion and one LT was a different spawn of a comparable "value").  But players were not designed so that they were exactly equal in strength to three minions.  If that were the case we'd expect players to lose fifty percent of their fights against even con spawns.  In fact, we were designed to be significantly stronger than those three even minions.  The three minions were strong enough, in theory, to pose a noticeable threat but were not usually strong enough to kill us outright.  To put it another way, we were designed to win most of the time against the typical threat sent our way in a standard difficulty mission.

Isn't that "cheating?"  Isn't the game already leaning heavily in our favor, not spawning enough stuff to actually be able to kill us, but only to slow us down?  Isn't that "unfair" to the computer?  Well, in a sense, yes.  But that's because the game *intends* for us to win most of the time.  It isn't fair in that sense, on a fundamental and foundational level.  If we were playing the computer chess or RISK or poker, we could argue that the game should be fair in the sense that the computer should play as strong as a typical human being we as the player might face.  That might be our actual expectation as a human player - that's what we want: to have the experience of playing something that is like another human being, win or lose.

But in an MMO, that usually isn't the goal or the expectation.  We the players expect to win most of the time, and the game designers design a game where we are generally always strong enough to win most of the time.  That's deliberate "unfairness" if you judge fairness based on the literal context of each side being treated identically with equitable chance to succeed.  But that violates the spirit of the intent of the game, and not how fairness within the context of the game should be defined in my opinion.  In my opinion fairness should be judged within the context of the shared expectations and intents of the players and game implementers.

City of Heroes actually had an operating fairness doctrine that was implicit, and I think I was the first person to actually articulate in a way the devs agreed represented the development philosophy of the game.  The fairness doctrine was this: the typical player playing a reasonable but not necessarily optimal character build from any archetype should be able to solo any standard content mission at standard difficulty with only a minimal chance of being defeated when played within reasonable limits.  There's a lot of reasonableness ambiguity in there, but what it basically meant was this: if you pick any archetype, and you make a character that you actually intend to run missions with, and don't do crazy things like take no attacks or take every possible toggle and no endurance benefit powers, and then try to run a mission that was intended for your specific level that is within the normal story arcs for the game, and you tried to solo it by playing reasonably well, you should complete it without dying almost all of the time.  Notice the fairness doctrine is focused on what the player sees, and makes no mention of how the game might need to alter the NPC side of the equation to ensure the player wins.  Because it isn't an important facet of the doctrine.  Because NPCs can't get unhappy about getting shafted.

Now, of course it is possible that if the game is *too* unfair to the computer, it can set a false impression with the player, which then improperly sets an unreasonable expectation of what is "fair" to the player.  If the computer keeps nullifying bad things by harming the computer NPCs, the player can think it is "unfair" on the day it stops doing that.  So we do need to be cognizant of how "unfair" we are to the computer.  But I think it is always within the context of ensuring that the player(s) have a good gaming experience.  I don't care about the NPCs in the abstract when it comes to fairness.  I only care about how the players perceive what I'm doing to the computer.

[Vee]

I think they must've forgotten that rule for that pancaking lowbie Sea Witch mish. Making us fight an EB stormy with DOs was just mean. Still remember barely getting the last hit with my archery/lolTA corr just as my meager lowbie tray full of large insps were blinking out.

[kaaduu1280]

read up on other MMO's doing Halloween events,  anyone else feeling nostalgic?

So very much. I tried out CO a bit and immediately began missing the old event.

[Arcana]

I think they must've forgotten that rule for that pancaking lowbie Sea Witch mish. Making us fight an EB stormy with DOs was just mean. Still remember barely getting the last hit with my archery/lolTA corr just as my meager lowbie tray full of large insps were blinking out.

I said they believed in the rule.  I did not say they always obeyed it correctly.

[HorseManDemon]

I still remember a mission I had in Talos. I was never a scrapper player (preferred tanks or stalkers If I was going to go melee) but I had decided to roll a spines/regen. I think he was in the mid 20's at that point. So I got this mission that was pretty much completely filled with nothing but the CoT spirits. Pretty damn resistant to lethal and toxic and I just constantly face planted over and over. That was the first and last scrapper I rolled. Could've used a little AI cheating in my favor, there.  :) No big loss, though. Because then I rolled my Elec/Cold troller that ended up being my favorite character ever.