Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
Really?
Mario Kart games made this incredibly obvious.
Mario Kart 64 was the moment I knew.
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Video game developers confess their hidden tricks at last
- Thread starter LordOfLore
- Start date
Really?
Mario Kart games made this incredibly obvious.
Mario Kart 64 was the moment I knew.
Stormblessed
Member
DMC4 does that as well, as I recall. It's smart design. More action games should have taken the hint.
Bayonetta on lower difficulties as well
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I'm really staggered people are shocked at the "turbo doesn't actually give a real speed boost" thing.
This is why my friends and I used to spam the fuck out of the golden mushroom in Mario Kart 64. We figured out the speed boost was effectively negligible so the only way actually make any progress was to spam the ever loving fuck out of it.
This is why my friends and I used to spam the fuck out of the golden mushroom in Mario Kart 64. We figured out the speed boost was effectively negligible so the only way actually make any progress was to spam the ever loving fuck out of it.
The Alien Isolation one was obvious af, to the point where it just annoyed me so much I quit and didn't bother going back. Did anyone who played this genuinely think the AI was in any way intelligent? Cautious play style in that game, which surely is the point, completely exposed the inner workings.
On the "random numbers that lie" front, modern Fire Emblem games flat out lie about their chances to hit.
A 90% chance is not 90% chance to hit. It's about 98%. It's called True Hit and essentially the game rolls for accuracy twice and takes the average of the two rolls. Meaning numbers higher than 50% get inflated and numbers lower than that get deflated. (Exactly 50% is not a lie, though.) So do take those 80% (~92%) rolls, but avoid taking 20% (~8%) rolls.
Note that this affects both player characters and enemies, and Critical Hit chances are exactly what they say. It's only actually hitting the enemy that's lied about.
A 90% chance is not 90% chance to hit. It's about 98%. It's called True Hit and essentially the game rolls for accuracy twice and takes the average of the two rolls. Meaning numbers higher than 50% get inflated and numbers lower than that get deflated. (Exactly 50% is not a lie, though.) So do take those 80% (~92%) rolls, but avoid taking 20% (~8%) rolls.
Note that this affects both player characters and enemies, and Critical Hit chances are exactly what they say. It's only actually hitting the enemy that's lied about.
Interesting. I wonder how many tactics games do this. It definitely makes the outcomes match people's intuitive understanding of probability better than relying on the outcome of a single roll. The gods of chance are harsher than we typically believe them to be
I agree, especially in Pefect Dark. It was fun AI, not good AI. But they'd do dumb things and were exploitable and just fun to shoot. I think the slower pace of those games also helped.
My first real experience with racing games that used a boost mechanic was NFS Underground 2 back in 2004, where motion blur was used liberally.
I wish Monster Hunter did that
Monster hunter does the opposite lol
Jangowuzhere
Banned
A lot of the hidden math is exposed because of the PC version, but bonding with your buddies in MGSV sticks out to me as a neat hidden detail.
I assumed that your bond level for your buddies increased after a successful mission or side op, but it's actually much deeper than that. Every little action and interaction with them on the field increases or decreases the bond meter a bit. Your buddies will grow to like you much faster if you're giving them constant orders or...staring at them on the helicopter. It's weird, but I assumed the system was a lot more simple.
http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Quiet
I assumed that your bond level for your buddies increased after a successful mission or side op, but it's actually much deeper than that. Every little action and interaction with them on the field increases or decreases the bond meter a bit. Your buddies will grow to like you much faster if you're giving them constant orders or...staring at them on the helicopter. It's weird, but I assumed the system was a lot more simple.
http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Quiet
Yup. Hated the gold mushroom, couldn't even dump it.
That was the whole reason for that though, it was obvious.
I wish Monster Hunter did that
You have 20 Rathalos Scale. Here's 5 Rathalos Scale
I thought the Y-axis thing was in Halo 1 as well.
Almost every action game does implement something like this. Offscreen AIs are usually less aggressive and prevented from using some abilities like offscreen projectiles to avoid what feels like a cheap shot to the player. Exploiting this is pretty important for fighting multiple Berserkers at once in Ninja Gaiden, for example.
AzureFlame
Member
The halo 3 dance thing is amazing.
Sort of similar, a designer friend of mine tells a story (that is true) that goes like this:
A dev team making a racing game had an executive/publisher type come in to try the game. After playing, he told them the game felt too slow.
Instead of changing the cars speed, they changed the car's color to a bright red. They then told the executive they tweaked things, but didn't tell the executive what changes they made.
The guy came back the next day and said it felt much faster, and felt like a great racing game.
Yup, especially when you got the glowing mushroom. Repeatedly hammering it at any rate of speed gave you the same rate of nominal speed increase.
Edit: see others have made this observation already, haha...
Man this is a cool read, I love this kinda stuff. Goes to show little things you think about when designing a game that most people wouldn't even consider.
Also entertaining is reading the posts I was 100% sure would be in this thread, of all the NeoGAF posters who absolutely knew many of these things before, and are shocked that other people didn't know them and can't understand how it is possible hah.
Also entertaining is reading the posts I was 100% sure would be in this thread, of all the NeoGAF posters who absolutely knew many of these things before, and are shocked that other people didn't know them and can't understand how it is possible hah.
Jack The Nipper
Banned
Believe me, the alien one was obvious, and the game is quite overrated for subpar AI, forced areas all through out, linear areas and forced combat to an extent.
Not only are the alien areas annoying, but its completely forced, you would hope that they can eventually create a game where the alien is actually roaming the whole ship and going after real AI in real time so you can just play the game in a more realistic fashion. That would be pretty sweet.
Yes, but its the games objectives and structures that also force all of this. Games like this need to advance to more physical, weight properties so that random things break by how you play. So that the AI goes after other AI and the ship is made as a whole hub world where the alien goes after food and things in an order for what it hears and where it can or cant go. Based on clever sound design and level creation. Not just forced to look for you in this level and this specific room blah blah blah
uncharted the lost legacy sure as fuck did this and then also took multiple minutes to get around to ever throwing a grenade
for a thread of praise i have to drop a line as an indie dev and a >>>compentent<<< video game player i notice all of these and they patronize me really hard and its a good way to buy your game a steam refund because i'm not a moron
e: the fat majority of these are designed to solve problems with shooting games and fps which are boring to the core because they can't actually offer the player a real challenge and have to resort to this AAA level fake gameplay garbage
e: the fat majority of these are designed to solve problems with shooting games and fps which are boring to the core because they can't actually offer the player a real challenge and have to resort to this AAA level fake gameplay garbage
Didn't the speed boost help a lot when you were off-road? I remember using them to cut corners and I was pretty sure it was way faster than cutting them without the boost...
As for the topic, IIRC in the original inFamous rocket launcher enemies would always miss you if they weren't on screen, since they were basically one-hit KO's and it'd feel cheap if you got surprised by one. But I believe if there was just one guy with an RPG, and you turned your camera way from him, you'd just see rocket after rocket go past...
BakedTanooki
Member
I'm pretty sure a few RPGs with random encounters did this. Remember how I walked a straight line because it felt like it triggers less fights.
achromicia
Member
I haven't played it, but I think what they mean is that it asks you to look up then based on if you pull the joystick back or push it, that determines if your invert setting is enabled or disabled. Not the silly cod "Hey look up for me", "did you like that setting?"
wild wild rice
Member
Very interesting and cool stuff.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I always wondered if enemy AI were just recordings done by the developers playing as the enemy? Is that true at all?
malboroking
Banned
I bet you're fun at parties.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Batman henchman not turning around got dumb as fuck by the end of Arkham Knight, so fake feeling.
Valkyri von Thanatos
Member
Some pathing can be done in a pre-defined manner, but for all enemy behavior to be pre-recorded makes no sense. The game needs to react to the player in a meaningful way, and that can't be achieved if everything is predefined.
Yeah I figured that out somewhere in my multiple playthroughs of Suikoden. It is like staying on the road in Final Fantasy VIII.
AtomicShroom
Member
I can't look it up at the moment but the guy who did the Battletoads arcade game admitted that the last boss didn't actually take any damage (no matter how much you shot at him) for the first few minutes or so of the fight, just so it would suck more quarters out of you.
Eh, depends on what the game is going for and what a specific player wants.
i.e. Uncharted is about spectacle and adventure - as long as that is communicated/accomplished through these tricks, I don't really care about having some super-challenging "realistic" battles.
McStickenstein
Member
My life has been a lie.
BakedTanooki
Member
That's fucking evil, lol.
This was quite a surprising and interesting read. Had no idea about most of these little fudges behind the scenes.
I particularly like all the games that keep track of player performance in the background and scale the difficulty to match. It's cute and highly considerate of player enjoyment; everyone wins, yay!
I particularly like all the games that keep track of player performance in the background and scale the difficulty to match. It's cute and highly considerate of player enjoyment; everyone wins, yay!
Working on mobile games we had to cheat a whole lot to get the desired final result. I was quite proud of some of the solutions we came up with, like one isometric game had 3 different cameras rendering the environment, the characters and the buildings so that we could have flat planes and shadows that worked on a very low budget resources wise. If you saw what the world looked like from the side it was a hellscape hahahaha.
Whoa, awesome.
It doesnt unless you play poorly.
It knows where you are based on sound and activity in the environment. When it's in the vent its listenting for any activity then it will head that direction if it hears something. It will also start randomly choosing rooms to travel if nothing has perked its interest in a while.
Once it enters a space it switches to a metal gear noise/visual cone.
The ai is really well done and once you realize how it works you can begin to trick it to your advantage. I would love a sequel to see how they can developed it further.
kingofthedead45
Member
OverdriveOtaku
Member
Wow, so many of these are really fascinating. It's almost like believing in Santa for decades, then finding out he's not real, but SOMEHOW I manage to get a present from Santa? It's not at all disappointing to learn some of these things, they're pretty clever!
I think I like this blurb about Silent Hill Shattered Memories the most. Not only because of all the under-the-hood programing they did for various AI actions, but how it could affect how a Game Reviewer could perceive a game in a different way than normal players would. Definitely reinforces the idea of not holding onto Reviewer's experiences as pure fact of what a typical player will experience.
EDIT: oooh found another gold nugget, multiplayer even!
I think I like this blurb about Silent Hill Shattered Memories the most. Not only because of all the under-the-hood programing they did for various AI actions, but how it could affect how a Game Reviewer could perceive a game in a different way than normal players would. Definitely reinforces the idea of not holding onto Reviewer's experiences as pure fact of what a typical player will experience.
EDIT: oooh found another gold nugget, multiplayer even!
Why would you do that?
Member
In GTA games, when you're driving in a situation where you can't see the road in front of you (like when you start driving down a hill, or when you reach the top of a hill), the game doesn't (or is less likely to) spawn cars in front of you. That way, you don't run into any cars you can't see while driving.
This is probably my favorite development secret. I'll have to give that video a watch.
it's crazy that Capcom never went public about it. Sounds like something they could advertise pre-release as having "The perfect difficulty for all gamers"
This is really obvious in arcade racers with a speedometer; you hit the boost and get the nice motion blur and fisheye effect but only go like 10MPH faster than top speed. Boost tends to be most effective at low speeds, since it increases acceleration and lets you reach top speed much earlier.
Related note: in Burnout Paradise, cars have an infinite transmission. Even at top speed, cars keep making acceleration and gear upshift noises to give the impression of "always going faster."
RumbleHumble
Banned
That shit surrounding online multiplayer mechanics is astounding. I wonder how much of this crazy "under-the-hood" trickery is present in games like Destiny and Overwatch...
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