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Mindblown: Samurai Shodown's mashing minigame determines winner randomly.

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
While I agree that dice roll would be easier (because I too learned how to do that in my single C++ class) all you'd need is a win/fail state based on input and time, like "player must hit button 10 times in 3 seconds" or whatever parameters desired. You don't need to the AI to do anything at all.
You can't say "all you need" when it's more complex than the alternative. It's not a big deal but it's still more complex.

Random dice roll at the end of the clash is a single line of code within a single frame of the execution.

Even just counting up a variable is something that needs to be done at a different place of the execution, because you still need to render every frame. Then it depends on how you handle inputs. Is it per frame, as the rest of the game only needed that? Do you have a more kernel like structure like modern games where inputs are running with interruptss or are they using two different variabled global ticks?

Simplicity wise, and you don't know how late in development that happened just doing it random works well enough.

Now you just add some Zynga monetization on it that improves that random chance by 20% and you have a F2P game.
 

Kammie

Member
The ultimate social experiment. We're all a bunch of monkeys mashing on buttons just because the game prompts us to. :(
 

RoyalFool

Banned
Wait, is this when playing against the CPU? In which case fair enough, or is it when playing against a human player too?

The logic for it being against CPU is sound, it stops players with super mashing abilities always disarming the CPU and it allows bad players to have a chance.

If it's the latter I feel rather cheated.
 

LakeEarth

Member
I think it was Blanka's brazilian carnival alternate costume in SF4 that makes some combos not work. The costume makes his hitbox slightly smaller for some reason.
 
I would say that your button mashing actually had an effect. But it is kinda logical that it was random from a programming viewpoint:

How else would you determine if the computer AI wins or not? I mean there must always be some kind of randomization within that kind of AI, right?
 

Quackula

Member
Kinda related, but in Super Mario Bros 3, the choice of 3 boxes in the Toad Houses is nothing but a pure farce. The game just gives you a random item no matter which box you open. In fact, it doesn't even bother calculating which item you get until AFTER you've already opened the box!

http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/127-Toad-Houses-Disassembled.html

So yeah, basically what happens is this. Depending on what Toad House you are in you receive different items. If the identifier of the Toad House you are in is between 1 and 5 you will always receive the same item (like the Frog Suit, no matter what box you pick, in the first Toad House of World 3). Toad Houses with higher IDs offer three random items. What item you receive is determined only after you open a box. So, in fact only the box you open is filled. The other two boxes are never touched. They are total smoke screens whose only purpose is to fool the player into believing he actually takes part in the decision what item to receive.
 

Eusis

Member
I wonder if the button mashing at least affects RNG or something, so in reality it's more like constantly rolling a die as fast as you can until it's arbitrarily stopped and whoever has the bigger (or smaller, whatever) number wins.

Otherwise, WTF?
 

Burai

shitonmychest57
How about fruit machines - their entire design strategy is to give the player the illusion of influence were none exists. For example hi/lo style games are rigged to determine success in advance of the player choice, and the result is chosen to match. i.e. if it decides you are going to lose then if you pick low, it goes high - you pick high, it goes low.

http://www.fruit-emu.com/forums/topic/241-uk-independent-article-14-july-fruit-machines-cheat/

I helped a friend through a fruit machine addiction by installing an emulator on his PC and showing him how to use savestates. Once he realised the machine was cheating he dropped the machines completely.

He's now merely addicted to scratchcards and crack.
 

DeadTrees

Member
Are we supposed to assume the game is lying to us at all times until proven? It seems dumber to be cynical about something like this when it's hard to prove
This wasn't hard to prove. It's just that nobody wanted to prove it.

This sort of reminds me of the half-assed "theme" of Bioshock. Yeah, I did what I was told. Because if I didn't, I was going to stand around doing nothing because the game is based on me triggering flags. I'm not a tool, I'm simply following the only rules that give a result because there is literally no reason not to in a linear game like that. It's like making fun of people for everybody driving in the right lane, when the left lane is blocked off by a huge wall.
Well, as long as you're not bitter or anything.
 

GhostSeed

Member
I played the ton of the 3DO version of this game and in that one I almost always won the dual if I didn't push any buttons or directions.
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
angrycat.jpg


No seriously....

ICBTS.jpg
 

JJD

Member
People really didn't know this?

I used to play SS a lot when I was younger vacationing on the family beach house, we had a pretty awesome arcade near the beach.

As soon as the swords clashed I just waited until the animation finished while my opponent frantically mashed his buttons. Sure I lost some clashes, but it was really fun when I won and the guy was like "WTF dude???"

Ahhh good times...

By the way, Gen-an rocks!
 
Kinda related, but in Super Mario Bros 3, the choice of 3 boxes in the Toad Houses is nothing but a pure farce. The game just gives you a random item no matter which box you open. In fact, it doesn't even bother calculating which item you get until AFTER you've already opened the box!

http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/127-Toad-Houses-Disassembled.html

That is devious. I'll admit, they had me fooled into thinking which box I picked mattered.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
Isn't there something similar with those stacker games? Programmed yo lose a certain amount no matter the skill and have a small window for winning?
 

SmZA

Member
Recently on Idle Thumbs they discussed how Skill Tester machines are set up so the vendor can adjust claw tension to relax as it rises up from the pile. Devious.

Saved-by-the-Claw-300x168.jpg
 
I think that rationally we must know that any game that gives a monetary payment or prize must be fixed somehow.. but it's the sheer cynicism of how it is done that grates. The claw machines are the perfect example - before I had imagined that the claw strength was so weak that on the balance of probabilities there would be few wins. I had not even considered the prospect that they would be so nefarious as to dynamically alter the strength to make a win impossible! A valuable life lesson...
 
This is actually psychologically fascinating. All it would have taken was for one player to not press the button and win to bust the myth.. but it seems no one ever did! Sign on the screen says mash button, we mash button, and all observed results are predicated on that.
Won? We mashed good! Didn't win? Must mash harder!

We're not far above the level of the pigeons at the food pellet dispenser...
 

Dr Dogg

Member
Stories like this that come out now and again. Like how in the original NBA Jam there was a rumor going around that sometimes the Chicago Bulls, who were rated pretty good, would go to pot against certain teams. In an interview with ESPN about 15 years after the game came out one of the lead programmers fessed up that when ever the Bulls played the Pistons they would be gimped due to him being a Pistons fan
 

Watch Da Birdie

I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Reminds me of the old Hold-Up and A rumor and variants of it for Pokemon.

Everyone still does this though, although they actually introduced a random chance "critical capture" in recent games that only furthers the old myth. :0
 

jaypah

Member
Awwwwww fuck that! That is BULLSHIT! Also, that SMB3 fact is bullshit. Why they gotta lie mane? Why they gotta lie?
 
I think that rationally we must know that any game that gives a monetary payment or prize must be fixed somehow.. but it's the sheer cynicism of how it is done that grates. The claw machines are the perfect example - before I had imagined that the claw strength was so weak that on the balance of probabilities there would be few wins. I had not even considered the prospect that they would be so nefarious as to dynamically alter the strength to make a win impossible! A valuable life lesson...
Ah claw games being rigged. This has got to be my favorite internet video of one.
It doesn't get more blatant
 
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