CharpyImpact
Member
Clearly the main offender is Mario Kart Wii. I just stopped playing the game due to the stupidness of it. Even the online, though fun, is still broken due to the way items are given.
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Rubberband AI sucks
- Thread starter Y2Kev
- Start date
Rubberbanding is annoying, but on the other hand, a game with fair yet too easy AI will eventually become boring when you get better than the AI. I remember this being the case in e.g. Waverace. Of course, the route of, say, F-Zero is the best in the sense that you need a lot of practice before consistently beating the AI on the higher difficulties while the easier settings provide a suitable challenge while you train. (Anyone claiming that the cups on Master in GX are too difficult is weaksauce - any difficulty level below that is not challenging at all. The story mode is another thing altogether, though.)
Rubberbanding sucks when it is obvious. But if its not there, it makes races less exciting. I'm replaying SSX3 (fuckin awesome game, where is my next gen sequel), and once you know all the routes the races simply become time trial mode. No competition in sight.
The trick is to put some less obvious rubberbanding in. Maybe when they are behind, racers are less prone to make mistakes and always take the fastest routes to catch up. So if you are getting top times in every lap, then the AI cant win. But getting top times consistently for that long is very hard to do.
The trick is to put some less obvious rubberbanding in. Maybe when they are behind, racers are less prone to make mistakes and always take the fastest routes to catch up. So if you are getting top times in every lap, then the AI cant win. But getting top times consistently for that long is very hard to do.
Freekstyle on the PS2 had the worst rubberbanding I've ever experienced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freekstyle
The first PSP Burnout suffered from it horribly too. I don't find Midnight Club LA too bad as I'm finding I can still get ahead of the pack and build a decent lead if I know the route well. Motorstorm 1 was pretty sucky though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freekstyle
The first PSP Burnout suffered from it horribly too. I don't find Midnight Club LA too bad as I'm finding I can still get ahead of the pack and build a decent lead if I know the route well. Motorstorm 1 was pretty sucky though.
Alx
Member
Minsc said:
Well, I could agree for regular racers, but in Full Auto crashing your car (and more importantly, your opponents) is part of the fun. Missing a sharp turn is like getting hit by an item in Mario Kart, it has to happen and it would be boring if it didn't.
Of course there is the "sands of time" trick in Full Auto to get back to the race without much penalty, but a little help from the AI doesn't hurt either.
lastendconductor
Put your snobby liquids into my mouth!
Is this a joke post? :lol :lol :lolCaptain Chaos said:
ShadyMilkman
Banned
Burnout is unplayable for me because of this; Mario Kart as well, for that matter.
How did I not mind this when I played MK on SNES/N64 when I was like 10?
Just do what Forza 2 does and be done with it.
How did I not mind this when I played MK on SNES/N64 when I was like 10?
Just do what Forza 2 does and be done with it.
Unknown One
Member
Mario Kart wii is horrible at that.
What's the point of getting first when you're going to get bombarded with blue shells and special items?
What's the point of getting first when you're going to get bombarded with blue shells and special items?
Sho_Nuff82 said:
As much as I loved F-Zero GX, you're absolutely right. The only way I could beat chapter 7 on higher difficulties was by killing Black Shadow as soon as the race started, and even then, it was hard as hell to beat that race, just one mistake and you better restart because you're not going to finish first. That was, by far, the hardest part in the game
I hate rubberbanding with a passion
The items in Mario Kart are not unfair rubberbanding in the sense that it's not a cheat favoring just the AI drivers - the player can also get good items when not in the lead. You don't have to like it, but the items are a central part of the way MK plays, definitely not cheating.
MK Wii has some real rubberbanding AI as well, but nothing as bad as MK 64.
MK Wii has some real rubberbanding AI as well, but nothing as bad as MK 64.
Hcoregamer00
The 'H' stands for hentai.
Android18a said:
That's why I HATE Final Fantasy 8's level up system, it was the only final fantasy with level scaling.
You rock. I agree sooooo much.
My personal gripe goes to BURNOUT. Why BURNOUT why do you punish me for being awesome? Why do I race awesome only to lose because I crash on the final lap? You can do multiple awesome boosts and gain virtually no distance between you and second place.
HOW TO WIN AT BURNOUT.
1. Race poorly for 2/3 of race.
2. Save full boost for last half of final lap.
3. Use well timed boost.
4. Win.
The rest of the game is awesome. The graphics, the sound, the sense of speed, the crashes, the reward system for agressive driving. But the A.I. rubber-banding sucks balls.
Also, Mario Kart may be a bit different. It is more of a party game... there needs to some balance.
My personal gripe goes to BURNOUT. Why BURNOUT why do you punish me for being awesome? Why do I race awesome only to lose because I crash on the final lap? You can do multiple awesome boosts and gain virtually no distance between you and second place.
HOW TO WIN AT BURNOUT.
1. Race poorly for 2/3 of race.
2. Save full boost for last half of final lap.
3. Use well timed boost.
4. Win.
The rest of the game is awesome. The graphics, the sound, the sense of speed, the crashes, the reward system for agressive driving. But the A.I. rubber-banding sucks balls.
Also, Mario Kart may be a bit different. It is more of a party game... there needs to some balance.
the_zombie_luke
Member
Diddy Kong Racing didn't have anything like the shells in Mario Kart so if you built up a huge lead you didn't have to worry. I like getting huge leads in racing games without rubber band AI. It's unfair and unreasonable when you make one mistake in a game that costs you two seconds and the guys that were 10-20 seconds behind you appear magically. If I remember right, Road Rash on the 3DO was pretty fair. You could get a huge lead, and if you made a mistake, you could get back on your bike and still get to first. You only had to worry about cops pulling you over, and not cheating AI.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
You're wrong. F-Zero GX's Grand Prix mode has definitively proved that you can have exciting races without any rubberbanding or AI cheating whatsoever. Your proposals would decrease the excitement because it would mean the AI isn't playing at their full potential until they feel like punishing you for doing well.Future said:
Minsc
Gold Member
DrLazy said:
Wow, and to think Burnout has so many GOTY nominations, and it is fucking backwards, dumb ai that you have to purposively lose to win? Glad I read that here before I ended up buying the PC version.
Rallisport has no rubberbanding right?
I loved that game (will there ever be a third?), and remember being able to build up a large lead, and make a mistake and still be ahead by a fair amount sometimes.
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
Burnout isn't all about winning, it's about the insane adrenaline rushes and excitement from driving ridiculously fast and slamming into opponents.
Mario Kart is and always will be the biggest offender when it comes to rubber banding.... if a developer ever were to actually create a racer that did it worse, then everyone on that team should be dragged out back, beaten to death, and then buried under a mountain of old Mario Kart cartridges.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Hcoregamer00 said:
At least with FF8 there are several ways to get around it and/or work it to your advantage(No random encounters ability, using GF attacks to avoid getting exp, etc).
Something like Lunar 1 & 2 Complete on the other hand...ugh.
Oh and Final Fantasy Tactics. Thanks to level-scaling on random encounters my game was completely ruined about 3/4ths of the way through. There was one fixed battle(Some team of Chocobos at a river or something) but they scaled to your level. Every time I attempted it I'd just get dominated by constant choco-meteors and whatnot. I had to use a gameshark just to get past that section.
All Hail C-Webb
Hailing from the Chill-Web
I'm astounded by all the people listing Mario Kart Wii. Rubberbanding has always been a huge problem in Mario Kart, but this iteration does so much to fix that. Just switching the weapons to balanced makes a huge difference. There will very rarely be more than 1 blue shell per map, and sometimes there won't be any. You can also turn weapons off entirely, turn off CPU's, or play Online.
I don't think it's fair to blame the game when plenty of people have no trouble winning consistently, even when the weapons are going nuts.
I don't think it's fair to blame the game when plenty of people have no trouble winning consistently, even when the weapons are going nuts.
I don't mind rubberbanding so much if that is kind of the "point" of the game; for instance, in Mario Kart Wii, the game is built around letting anybody pick up and play and compete fairly well, so I don't mind so much. You just have to know going what kind of game it is and accept that. I can't play F-Zero with the family at Christmastime because I would blow them all out of the water with ease, but we all have a great time playing Mario Kart together. The better players still win more often, but everybody has a chance, and that makes it fun.
What annoys me, though, is when a game built around rubberbanding and giving everyone a chance also implements some type of reward based skill system; for instance, in Mario Kart Wii, you have to get great rankings and/or stars on all the different cups to unlock characters and vehicles. That DOESN'T FUCKING WORK when the whole premise of the game is that first place is the worst place to be. The unlocks in MK Wii are one of the worst design decisions in recent memory. I got first in all the cups on basically my first try on all of them (I think I only had to redo one or two and got it on the second try) but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste the time to get stars on all of them.
What annoys me, though, is when a game built around rubberbanding and giving everyone a chance also implements some type of reward based skill system; for instance, in Mario Kart Wii, you have to get great rankings and/or stars on all the different cups to unlock characters and vehicles. That DOESN'T FUCKING WORK when the whole premise of the game is that first place is the worst place to be. The unlocks in MK Wii are one of the worst design decisions in recent memory. I got first in all the cups on basically my first try on all of them (I think I only had to redo one or two and got it on the second try) but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste the time to get stars on all of them.
Count Jobula
Neo Member
Y2Kev is my new hero. Rubberband AI is evil, dirty and hateful.
If you want a competitive race, up the difficulty.
If you and your buddies on Mario Kart want to keep it competitive even though some or one of the players suck, have it as an option to speed up flaggers. You know, like a handicap?
Having rubberbanding in a game and NOT being able to disable it is just wrong on so many levels.
If you want a competitive race, up the difficulty.
If you and your buddies on Mario Kart want to keep it competitive even though some or one of the players suck, have it as an option to speed up flaggers. You know, like a handicap?
Having rubberbanding in a game and NOT being able to disable it is just wrong on so many levels.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
This is the biggest issue I have with Rubberband AI.
I'm all for the design idea that the better you perform at a game the harder it should get and the rewards should be even greater.
Most of the time though all that happens is that the game becomes harder. It's not like 1st place turns into 1st place + $1 million if you play exceptionally well. You could either do your best and go through hell or learn the idiotic system and achieve the same results. Aside from that it's just straight-up lazy game design. Especially when the developers expect you to spend a substantial amount of time in the singleplayer modes to unlock everything.
I'm all for the design idea that the better you perform at a game the harder it should get and the rewards should be even greater.
Most of the time though all that happens is that the game becomes harder. It's not like 1st place turns into 1st place + $1 million if you play exceptionally well. You could either do your best and go through hell or learn the idiotic system and achieve the same results. Aside from that it's just straight-up lazy game design. Especially when the developers expect you to spend a substantial amount of time in the singleplayer modes to unlock everything.
All Hail C-Webb said:
Mario Kart is the worst because it punishes you for doing well. it's become incredibly predictable and takes away the fun of the core gameplay. if they took away the blue shell, i can live with the bad AI cuz many of the other weapons can be avoided with some skill.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
By the way, Minsc: if you want to play another racing game that has F-Zero GX-ish A.I., try Flatout: Ultimate Carnage (Xbox 360 / PC). It's a ton of fun and the races never turn out to be the same, though I have noticed some rubberbanding in the final three - four cups of the game. It doesn't become frustratingly hard at that point though and you still have a reasonable chance of beating the A.I. if you're good by then, compared to other games listed in this thread.
Definitely agree with the poster, though Mario Kart as the worst offender? I think Midway and other arcade sports games were the worst, because it not only boosted the AI to Godlike levels, your character and teammates also suddenly became scrubs.
Take NBA Jam, for instance. I get ahead by 10, next quarter starts. Suddenly, not only is the computer able to hit anything it throws up, but my teammate misses my passes completely and I can't even hit fucking lay-ups/dunks/wide-open 3s/any-goddamn-thing.
At least with MK, it's not like your kart becomes hard to control or your top speed gets handicapped.
Take NBA Jam, for instance. I get ahead by 10, next quarter starts. Suddenly, not only is the computer able to hit anything it throws up, but my teammate misses my passes completely and I can't even hit fucking lay-ups/dunks/wide-open 3s/any-goddamn-thing.
At least with MK, it's not like your kart becomes hard to control or your top speed gets handicapped.
Crab Milk Mickey
Member
I haven't played DiRT yet, though I'd be surprised if it had excessive rubberbanding since people seem to be happy with GRID's artificial intelligence.Minsc said:
Lionheart1827
Member
I've been replaying the original Mario Kart on SNES, and it reminded me of how annoying the computer AI was in that game.
Not only was there amazing rubberband AI, they also had special abilities that the human player couldn't have like jumping REALLY high like with the feather but whenever they want, using their special pickup whenever they want like mario's star, and also unnattainable items like peach and toad's mushroom, bowsers spinning fireball, and yoshi's egg. Whenever you get close to say mario, hell unleash his star every time.
All this on 150cc mode in Special cup makes for a nightmare.
Edit-I also just remembered that a bunch of times they pass through a wall of thwomps somehow on the bowser stages.
Not only was there amazing rubberband AI, they also had special abilities that the human player couldn't have like jumping REALLY high like with the feather but whenever they want, using their special pickup whenever they want like mario's star, and also unnattainable items like peach and toad's mushroom, bowsers spinning fireball, and yoshi's egg. Whenever you get close to say mario, hell unleash his star every time.
All this on 150cc mode in Special cup makes for a nightmare.
Edit-I also just remembered that a bunch of times they pass through a wall of thwomps somehow on the bowser stages.
Guybrush Threepwood
Banned
ROAD RASH
that is all
that is all