Little things that might make a player think that the game is "cheating".

[RikOz]

Sometimes, there are repeating patterns of behavior amongst the Paragon City criminal element that make me go, "Hmmm..."

 

There are a couple of level 40+ Hero alignment missions that send the player up against the Devouring Earth. Perhaps coincidentally, when I run these missions on a character that does primarily Lethal damage (say, my DB scrapper), these maps spawn with 90%-100% rock monsters (aside from the Devoured monsters), who are particularly resistant to lethal damage. Meanwhile, when I run these missions on a character that deals primarily smashing damage (like my SS brute), these same maps spawn 90%-100% smashing-resistant plant monsters.

 

It's as if the DE knows in advance exactly which hero, with which powerset, is going to respond to their attack, and sends the appropriate "soldiers" on the mission.

 

 

Several months ago, I found myself quite surprised when an Arachnos Bane Spider Scout pacified one of my characters. I'd been back in the game for more than two years at that point, and this had literally never happened before. I figured out that it was because that particular character did not have Leadership: Assault, which provides resistance to Pacify. Having not previously even been aware that Scouts could do that, I started carefully watching these Scouts while fighting them, watching for that distinctive Pacify animation. And guess what? If my character has Assault, the Scouts don't even bother!

 

I find this odd, because I've always kinda assumed that "status" resistances, after their primary function of actively resisting something or other, would have a sort of passive, secondary benefit of effectively making the opponent waste an attack. That is, opponents will attempt one of their normal attacks, and if I can resist it, they've wasted that attack. But when it appears that they know in advance that I have the mental fortitude to resist pacification, they simply don't try and just shoot me instead.

 

 

Most recently, while doing a long Nemesis arc, on one mission I became annoyed with all the Toxic damage I was taking from snipers. So after finishing the mission, I went to my SG base and obtained a Resist Toxic buff from handy-dandy buff machine. Thereupon followed a half dozen missions in which not a single sniper appeared (granted, some, but not all of these six missions were entirely populated by automatons). And then, once the buff expired, the very next mission was again full of snipers.

 

As if they knew in advance.

 

Now, I've been playing MMOs long enough to understand RNG. But RNG that consistently rolls in exactly the same disadvantageous way over a span of years just starts feeling weird.

 

Anyway, just ranting a bit :D

[Major_Decoy]

Pacify resistance doesn't protect you from Pacify, it reduces the duration. Assault is between 42% and 75% (at peak on defenders). So pacify wouldn't be pointless at all. If it has a 8 second duration that'd still be two seconds of "You can't attack me" on a defender.

[Snarky]

Seeing patterns in things is what defines intelligence.

 

It's also a symptom of being bat shit crazy.

 

Keep going!!!!

[KC4800]

Anytime I get my costume back from the cleaners, I get sent into a sewer, without fail. It's a freaking conspiracy I tell you.

[fancy ketchup]

10 minutes ago, KC4800 said:

Anytime I get my costume back from the cleaners, I get sent into a sewer, without fail. It's a freaking conspiracy I tell you.

If you wait long enough you will notice at the end of the day, most of the contacts  will sneak into the dry cleaners when no one else is around to collect their pay.

[Shred Monkey]

53 minutes ago, fancy ketchup said:

If you wait long enough you will notice at the end of the day, most of the contacts  will sneak into the dry cleaners when no one else is around to collect their pay.

 

Wait... we're supposed to tip those guys?  I thought they gave us tips.  

[The_Warpact]

Farm mishes, I actually included Briggs into this. My farmer kept dying I'm over capped on fire def/res and even though dmg does get through my hp/regen is high enough to counter it.

Yet, I occasionally die...so why. The game is malicious lol.

[JasperStone]

Taking a / Elec because of the Endu Drain ....enemies unaffected by it...

 

Sapper appears ....drains all endu .... toggles drop .... add to Debt Badge...

[Mike Morbid]

I have noticed that my most powerful attacks are the ones that miss the most, even when they're enhanced with accuracy and the other ones aren't.

[RikOz]

38 minutes ago, Mike Morbid said:

I have noticed that my most powerful attacks are the ones that miss the most, even when they're enhanced with accuracy and the other ones aren't.

LOL - I'll be fighting in a crowd of enemies, and have my current target down to the point where a single hit from my T1 attack will finish them off. I use that T1 on them, and in the flow of my button-mashing, I've already tabbed to the next target (I have TAB set to "target nearest") and queued up my most powerful attack...

 

...and the T1 actually misses and I end up wasting my more powerful attack on the first target with 1 hit point.

 

That is also somewhat related to why I prefer brutes over scrappers: the random nature of scrapper critical hits means that I'm constantly seeing big crits on targets that only have a couple hit points left. And I'll think, "Man, that crit would have been a lot more useful earlier in the fight!"

 

Similarly, my aggravation when fighting Freakshow. My attacks that would do enough damage to defeat a Freak just before he activates his self-heal seem to miss 90% of the time.

 

I'm also convinced that there is hidden ACC/ToHit debuff on ranged attacks when the target is in melee range. Blasting enemies on the other side of the room? I'm like a sharpshooter. Enemy get all up in my face? Suddenly, I'm shooting holes in the ceiling!

 

Oh yeah, and my targeted AOE attacks that consistently hit every mob except the one I actually have targeted.

 

It's a conspiracy! C-O-N... spiracy!

[KC4800]

I'll be hitting targets with laser precision without needing to eat a yellow, decide to eat one anyway to clear space in the inspiration tray for perhaps a red to drop, and the next attack misses, without fail.

[Red Thorn]

6 minutes ago, KC4800 said:

I'll be hitting targets with laser precision without needing to eat a yellow, decide to eat one anyway to clear space in the inspiration tray for perhaps a red to drop, and the next attack misses, without fail.

This! Only not just yellows but also any power that has an ACC/To Hit buff in it (like Aim, Ionize, Targeting Drone, et al). I miss at least 90% of the next attacks after using anything that boosts ACC/To Hit.

[RikOz]

1 hour ago, Red Thorn said:

This! Only not just yellows but also any power that has an ACC/To Hit buff in it (like Aim, Ionize, Targeting Drone, et al). I miss at least 90% of the next attacks after using anything that boosts ACC/To Hit.

I was doing a Malta mission on my fire/fire blaster, and I encountered three Titans in a row as I proceeded through the hallways of an office map. Each time, I spotted them before they saw me, so I clicked Aim, activated my snipe ... and the snipe missed every single time. Three consecutive attempts.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Early on, before you have an attack chain set up, streak breaker always activate on brawl.  100% of the time.  Maybe 120% of the time.

[RikOz]

BTW, I mostly have my tongue firmly planted in my cheek while pointing these things out. I find it amusing to analyze these types of patterns.

 

Many years ago, I had the most annoying roommate ever. He acted like literally everything that didn't go exactly his way was some sort of conspiracy against him. For example:

 

Playing video games on my Super Nintendo (it was the 1990s). Every single thing that went against him was because the game was "cheating". Like, he'd be playing a baseball video game, and if he was pitching and the computer's batter hit a home run, the game was cheating. If he was batting and struck out, the game was cheating. If he successfully hit the ball, but it was caught by a fielder, the game was cheating.

 

Watching live sports on TV? His favorite teams never lost because the other team played better. No, his favorite teams lost because the corrupt officials were cheating for the other team.

 

If he was walking down the street and saw a police officer, he would immediately put his head down and change direction. Because the police were "always harassing [him]". Mind you, he had no criminal record to lead to cops "harassing" him.

 

He was in his mid-twenties, but looked like he was 14. Every time he needed cigarettes, he would walk down to the corner convenience store without his ID, then come back a few minutes later, cussing a blue streak because, apparently, the a-holes at the store were "against" him because they wouldn't sell him cigarettes without ID.

Edited April 15, 2022 by RikOz

[RikOz]

5 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Early on, before you have an attack chain set up, streak breaker always activate on brawl.  100% of the time.  Maybe 120% of the time.

I can't remember - how many consecutive misses does it take for Streak Breaker to kick in? I was playing my ice melee toon the other day and her T1 attack, Frozen Fists, seemed to be missing a lot. So just for fun, as she was fighting a lone, yellow-con minion, I decided to attack with *only* Frozen Fists (it has a quick recharge). Six consecutive misses.

[Cutter]

Obligatory "it's a Nemesis plot".

[Luminara]

8 minutes ago, RikOz said:

how many consecutive misses does it take for Streak Breaker to kick in?

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Attack_Mechanics#The_Streak_Breaker

[gamingglen]

2 hours ago, RikOz said:

Watching live sports on TV? His favorite teams never lost because the other team played better. No, his favorite teams lost because the corrupt officials were cheating for the other team.

 

 

This is pretty much every sports fan out there, or at least in live game chats.  There's never acknowledging that the other team or opponent just played better in that play or moment. A few try to point out what really happened but most fans have their virtual fingers in their ears ignoring any reasonable explanation. 

 

As far as this game goes...

Yeah, eating a yellow, a small one anyway, means you will miss.  That's why I have a macro that turns 3 small yellows (and greens, blues, oranges) into a red. 

[Black Zot]

41 minutes ago, gamingglen said:

 

 

As far as this game goes...

Yeah, eating a yellow, a small one anyway, means you will miss.  That's why I have a macro that turns 3 small yellows (and greens, blues, oranges) into a red. 

 

Yeah, I just go to the P2W and set it to reject yellows.  No point in wasting limited consumable space on stuff that does jack shit.

 

As for SNES games cheating, there's actually some nuggets of truth there; AI opponents cheating left and right is well documented in many older gen games.  Many games don't even try to hide that the AI is using a different rulebook from the player.

[Riverdusk]

I know it is perception bias, but the one I get annoyed by is missing that killing blow when an enemy has only a tiny sliver of hp's left, and it seems to happen so often.  Especially when that enemy with 1 hp left then whacks you hard.

 

Yellow inspirations I still find useful though...for the +perception when you get blinded (and don't have tactics, etc. running).

[RikOz]

6 hours ago, gamingglen said:

This is pretty much every sports fan out there, or at least in live game chats.  There's never acknowledging that the other team or opponent just played better in that play or moment. A few try to point out what really happened but most fans have their virtual fingers in their ears ignoring any reasonable explanation.

Oh, this guy was well beyond that. For football season, he rented a big screen TV (remember, 1990s) and put it in his bedroom. One Sunday, a former roommate who had moved away was in town and stopped by to visit and watch the game. When he saw that my current roommate had that big TV, he said, "I'm gonna watch the game in there!" I let him go, and stayed in the living room to watch on my 19" CRT TV.

 

He lasted about 20 minutes in there. He came back out with a dumbfounded look on his face, shaking his head and saying, "That guy is unbelievable!" Sat down and watched the rest of the game with me.

[RikOz]

5 hours ago, Black Zot said:

As for SNES games cheating, there's actually some nuggets of truth there; AI opponents cheating left and right is well documented in many older gen games.  Many games don't even try to hide that the AI is using a different rulebook from the player.

Perhaps, but he was playing the same games I was playing (it was my system, and my games), and I wasn't seeing anything suspect in the particular games I had. If it had just been the SNES games that prompted his reactions, it wouldn't have been a big deal. It was the overall pattern from him with everything. Nothing was ever just "bad luck" or "oops, I goofed" or "I'm just not good at this". It was always somebody, or some thing actively and maliciously working against him or his interests.

[Mike Morbid]

4 hours ago, RikOz said:

Perhaps, but he was playing the same games I was playing (it was my system, and my games), and I wasn't seeing anything suspect in the particular games I had. If it had just been the SNES games that prompted his reactions, it wouldn't have been a big deal. It was the overall pattern from him with everything. Nothing was ever just "bad luck" or "oops, I goofed" or "I'm just not good at this". It was always somebody, or some thing actively and maliciously working against him or his interests.

I'm sorry, I confess. Thanks to a machine named Ziggy, I am jumping from time to time in his life, to make sure everything goes against him.

[Marbing]

On 4/15/2022 at 12:11 AM, RikOz said:

Sometimes, there are repeating patterns of behavior amongst the Paragon City criminal element that make me go, "Hmmm..."

 

There are a couple of level 40+ Hero alignment missions that send the player up against the Devouring Earth. Perhaps coincidentally, when I run these missions on a character that does primarily Lethal damage (say, my DB scrapper), these maps spawn with 90%-100% rock monsters (aside from the Devoured monsters), who are particularly resistant to lethal damage. Meanwhile, when I run these missions on a character that deals primarily smashing damage (like my SS brute), these same maps spawn 90%-100% smashing-resistant plant monsters.

 

It's as if the DE knows in advance exactly which hero, with which powerset, is going to respond to their attack, and sends the appropriate "soldiers" on the mission.

 

 

Several months ago, I found myself quite surprised when an Arachnos Bane Spider Scout pacified one of my characters. I'd been back in the game for more than two years at that point, and this had literally never happened before. I figured out that it was because that particular character did not have Leadership: Assault, which provides resistance to Pacify. Having not previously even been aware that Scouts could do that, I started carefully watching these Scouts while fighting them, watching for that distinctive Pacify animation. And guess what? If my character has Assault, the Scouts don't even bother!

 

I find this odd, because I've always kinda assumed that "status" resistances, after their primary function of actively resisting something or other, would have a sort of passive, secondary benefit of effectively making the opponent waste an attack. That is, opponents will attempt one of their normal attacks, and if I can resist it, they've wasted that attack. But when it appears that they know in advance that I have the mental fortitude to resist pacification, they simply don't try and just shoot me instead.

 

 

Most recently, while doing a long Nemesis arc, on one mission I became annoyed with all the Toxic damage I was taking from snipers. So after finishing the mission, I went to my SG base and obtained a Resist Toxic buff from handy-dandy buff machine. Thereupon followed a half dozen missions in which not a single sniper appeared (granted, some, but not all of these six missions were entirely populated by automatons). And then, once the buff expired, the very next mission was again full of snipers.

 

As if they knew in advance.

 

Now, I've been playing MMOs long enough to understand RNG. But RNG that consistently rolls in exactly the same disadvantageous way over a span of years just starts feeling weird.

 

Anyway, just ranting a bit 😄

It’s a Nemesis plot.