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Rubber Band AI: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
A hypothetical: You're playing ''[[
Wrong, because suddenly the AI is twice as fast as you, knows what play you're going to run, and shuts down your offense, forcing you to punt - or, worse, your running back with a high "Hands" rating fumbles the ball, or an AI defensive back makes a miracle interception. On their drive, the AI marches downfield with no difficulty by completing several consecutive bombs, scoring an easy touchdown. Rinse and repeat, and before you know it you've lost what you thought was a safe lead. The video game has just experienced a [[Miracle Rally]].
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Why does this happen? The further you stretch a rubber band, the harder it pulls. It's the same idea here. Basically, the better you are doing at a game, the harder the game gets in order to continue to present a challenge. This isn't just the idea of making the game harder and harder as you progress farther and farther, this means that the level you're on ''right now'' will, for seemingly no reason, ramp up its difficulty if it thinks you're doing too well. This may, in some cases, be coupled with the computer [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|actually cheating]], rather than just getting better.
Of course, to be fair, this sometimes happens ''in reverse'', with the AI easing up when winning to give you a chance to come back, stealing any satisfaction the player might gain from "victory." The classic example is a [[Mario Kart
Also seen in a few [[RPG|RPGs]], where enemies are adjusted according to your character's levels, which can make any non-levelable stuff (like items) useless pretty quick. This is sometimes referred to as "punishing you for your experience." See [[Empty Levels]] and [[Level Scaling]]
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== [[Driving Game]] ==
* The ''[[
** And if you're good at hitting shortcuts, expect the computer to be able to suddenly hit a top speed well beyond what any human could do. The most blatant instance is Rainbow Road in ''[[
*** By turning on the map-view in Mario Kart 64 it's possible to watch opponents suddenly accelerate to unrealistic speed when they are far behind.
*** Similar to the example above for Rainbow Road, Maka Wuhu in ''Mario Kart 7'' has an exploitable glitch that lets you skip at least half the track. If you do this while racing against the AI, they will magically catch up to you without fail. [[No Fair Cheating|Then again]] you ''were'' cheating...
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*** There are two separate effects at work here. There the "super turbo yellow car", which nearly always kicks in only if you use your weapons enough times (roll cages don't trigger it, because they can use them too). This super turbo is faster than your maximum possible top speed. Then there are the late game tracks where any car that gets ahead of you after you get out of the starting block will instantly super turbo. Either way, a missile or bomb will stop the madness, and bring the car back down to earth, for now.
** Also, whenever you drove over the turbo arrow for a temporary speed boost, all of the computer cars immediately got the exact same speed boost. Naturally, you did not get a speed boost when a computer car drove over an arrow, meaning you had to hit them anyway.
* In the ''[[
** The CPU also has its own boost when it falls behind by a certain margin (which is smaller for harder opponents), though it immediately slows back down to normal speed when it's back within the threshold. This is probably meant to be a [[Cap]] on the Advantage Bonus, since it's multiplied by the distance the opponent has left to go when the winner crosses the finish line. This can also cause the player's lead to sine-wave back and forth around the threshold value, even on a straightaway. Also, the CPU will go pathetically slow when it has a huge lead.
** ''Initial D Arcade Stage 4'' caps the opponent's disadvantage to about 190 meters.
** ''Initial D Arcade Stage 6'' has a strange way of applying this in Legend of the Streets mode: while the difficulty of your next opponent depended on what chapter you were, it was also controlled by how far ahead or behind you ended up at the end of the race. It is quite possible to beat Takumi with an aura with a one kilometer (!) advantage, only to get smoked by [[You Suck|Itsuki]] of all people in the next race on the same course.
* The first ''[[Wangan Midnight]]'' arcade game (and its revision ''Wangan Midnight R'', which was eventually ported to [[
** All the ''Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune'' games have rubberbanding which gets more severe the farther behind or ahead the computer gets. This is often counteracted by the individual stage quirks (slippery course, opponent will try to block you, opponent can't catch you on straightaway, etc.), but not always. It was by far the most blatant in the third cycle of the first game, to the point where ''everything'' before about the last 3km was completely irrelevant.
* ''[[Burnout]]''. At least in ''Burnout 3'' you can ram the caught-up cars, steal their boost, and regain your lead....
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** A patch was released for this game that makes the difficulty the opposite of [[Nintendo Hard]] for the first third of the game. The difficulty is supposed to ramp up after that, but if you get the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14 and max the performance stats out, not even rubber band AI will make it challenging...
*** How much did Kawasaki pay to make the game do that?
* ''[[
* ''[[Ridge Racer]] 1'' and ''2'' for the PSP. On the [[Nintendo Hard|already difficult MAX Tours]], Namco lets the 3 AI cars spam [[Nitro Boost|Nitro Boosts]] when you pass them up. But on the final [[Gratuitous Latin|Ne Plus Ultra]] Tour (meaning: [[Harder Than Hard|nothing more beyond]]), the AI can pull away from you faster than hell. And when you use nitrous at the last leg of the race, they can go even faster - without nitrous.
* In ''[[Carmageddon]]'', opponents will constantly respawn somewhere nearby, never actually going around the course. This means that it is impossible to lose the race to an enemy - you can only lose if your car is destroyed or you run out of time on the clock. However, it should be noted that this is probably intentional, as the point of the game is clearly to destroy your opponents rather than race them to the finish line. Destruction of opponents gives massive rewards, including sometimes the ability to steal an opponent's car and add it to your collection, so that it can be driven in future races. Also, destroying opponents, or seeking and running down pedestrians, adds time to your clock, allowing you to either finish the race more comfortably or (you guessed it) to destroy your opponents thoroughly.
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** Actually all of AKI's wrestling-games had this. In the N64-games opponents started countering anything reliably once close to losing. While it might seem that was meant to reflect the comeback-effect from wrestling, it doesn't work the same way for the player.
* Some WWE wrestling games have this. Play without a loss for too long and the player will eventually be presented with a match where victory is impossible. The Rubber Band AI has snapped so far that enemy players will be completely immune to attacks and able to win via submission or escaping the cage without any problems. In some games the computer will cheat, by making the player so weak that a single hit will make the player unable to get up for long enough that the computer escapes.
* In ''[[
** In ''[[
* Many of the ''[[Soul Series]]'' games did this... Arcade mode of ''Soul Calibur II'' would CRUSH you if you got 2-0 victories 3 or more times in a row. I remember being hit by [[Stripperific|Ivy's]] various [[Useless Useful Spell|uber moves]] 4 times in a direct row, when most players have to practice for 3 hours to work out one of those moves. Cervantes's various teleport-jump moves would work constantly, and he'd use them constantly, when they only worked about 1/3 of the time for me, with minimum effectiveness. Case of [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], too.
** In 3, this is really noticeable in the battle theater (a mode where 2 AI opponents fight each other), if you watch it a lot (it is [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|quite addictive with custom characters]]), you will get used to seeing 1 narrow match, followed by the loser being a [[Perfect Play AI]] to the previous winner and a narrow 3rd match
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== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==
* ''[[Sin|Sin Episodes]]'' was released with a much-touted dynamic difficulty system -- kill the enemies too quickly and they'd send more next time, get too many headshots and the next group will wear helmets, etc. Unfortunately, encounters that were ''supposed'' to be easier or harder were counted in this, resulting in situations that a hard encounter would be made virtually impossible due to how quickly you dispatched an easy one.
* The original ''[[
* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' has this, thanks to the AI Director. If the group is doing very well, there will be less pills and med kits to find (not counting the ones in the safe room and the finales) and special infected will spawn at a more frequent rate. Also, a Tank is likely to appear if the group is playing too well and there's usually a high chance that after you killed a Tank, the director will spawn a Boomer, Smoker, and Hunter right after that to make sure you don't have it easy. Naturally, if the team is doing poorly, there will be more health items to find and enemy count is lessened somewhat. On Expert, the director will punish you every step of the way if you even spend as much as 10 seconds in one area.
** It should be noted that in the case of [[Left 4 Dead]], this is seen as a good thing and generally works very well.
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== [[Platform Game]] ==
* Canary Mary from ''[[Banjo
** Actually, it ''is'' possible to beat her by button mashing, if you mash, pause, mash, etc. until you win.
*** Practically the only way that has been 100% proven to beat her is to have a N64 controller that is equipped with a '''Turbo''' button.
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== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==
* ''[[
** What is truly bad however, is how far this overadjusts the enemy, especially towards the last missions. If the player has a cap-sized fleet, in one mission, the enemy might as well destroy what the player is to protect before his heavy ships are even in firing range, and even then, are badly outnumbered, without the targets hp getting adjusted at all; a later mission lets the enemy start with as much as ''seven'' battlecruisers, while the player is capped at ''two'' ...
*** This would be more threatening if they didn't attack one at a time with minimal support.
* [[Sierra]]'s outer space RTS ''[[Outpost 2]]'' features this not only with enemy AI, but also with your population. You can opt to research items that improve the quality of life in the colony, however by doing so, the colony knows it exists and demands that you meet their needs. If you research any weapons systems, unless [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|the enemy already has them]], the computer will start attacking your base. You could say researching anything that remotely deals with these two aspects aren't worth researching.
* In the unconventional strategy game ''[[Darwinia|Multiwinia]]'', being behind other players gives you a better chance to receive powerups and faster unit spawning. The maximum spawn bonus can be set anywhere between 0 and 90%.
* In ''[[
== [[Role Playing Game]] ==
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*** Of course, the first-time players and people who didn't know how to exploit the system were horrendously screwed. Normal enemies became insanely powerful, and [[Bonus Boss]] Omega Weapon was nigh-unstoppable at level 100 (and the game would cheat and punch Omega up ten or so levels if the character average was 90 or so).
**** Depending on the version, Omega Weapon might be at Level 100 regardless of what your actual average level is. It can be at any level in the PC version.
* The Wanted Battles in ''[[
* The fishing [[Mini Game]] in the ''[[Fate]]'' series adjusts its required reaction time based on how fast the player is. It is believed to shoot for a 50% success rate.
* ''[[
* Many games in ''[[SaGa]]'' series, especially ''[[Romancing
== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ==
* In [[Shoot Em Ups]], which don't feature a player going up against apparently identical computer opponents, the feature where the machine becomes more efficient if the player does better is known as "rank" and is often an expected part of the game.
** The Shoot Em Up ''[[
*** Rank was designed originally to avoid [[Unstable Equilibrium]]. When they started putting powerups into shooters, you'd get to the point where it was easy with the powerups, but impossible without them. So someone came up with the bright idea of making the enemies more aggressive if you powered up, so they would still be a threat to your powered ship, and then when you died, they would go back down to normal so you had a chance at recovery. Before, they instead had to balance the enemy power to what you'd have if you didn't die, meaning that if you die once you might as well restart. Hence, rank. This is not usually considered a bad thing, as making recovery from death impossible is considered worse. The real hate is only when it ratchets up too much when you powerup, meaning that not powering up in the first place was preferable. Fortunately this is rare, but see Battle Garegga below.
** ''[[Battle Garegga]]'' is a particularly guilty offender. You have to keep your shot power and number of [[Attack Drone|Attack Drones]] low for the first five stages, as well as limit your shooting and avoid collecting excess powerups. Failure to do so would make enemies more durable and shoot more bullets, items fall off the screen faster, and overall make the game nearly impossible to survive.
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== [[Simulation Game]] ==
* There is a minor version of this in the ''Crimson Skies'' PC game. Even if you are flying a much faster plane than your computer opponent, you can't fly 'away' from them. You will get a certain distance ahead, but even if you are pulling 400 mph and they are doing 150, as soon as you turn around, they are right there in your face.
* ''[[Wing Commander (
== [[Sports Game]] ==
* Perhaps the most noticeable example is the ''[[
** In most cases, the AI level of rubberbanding is directly related to the difficulty level, particularly in EA Sports games. On the easiest difficulty level, the AI doesn't rubberband at all: the same tactics, the same plays, over and over. As difficulty level goes up, so does the degree of rubberbanding: on the highest difficulty level, as soon as the player reaches anything approaching a lead, the AI responds aggressively to shut down any hope of winning...much like what sports teams do in real life. The rubberbanding does ''not'' work in the opposite direction, however. The AI just goes back to the normal difficulty.
*** ''NBA 2k'' and ''NBA Live'' actually have this as a feature, Clutch Factor and CPU Assistance respectively. It does work both ways, though. Doesn't make it any less irritating to see Kobe Bryant missing clutch layup after clutch layup.
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== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==
* The first ''[[Max Payne (
{{quote| ''"Why did they even bother giving you difficulty options? As far as I could tell your options were "insane / insane / impossible / impossible with a time limit."'' -- curst, Quarter to Three forums}}
** Of course, name any first or third person shooter where you ''didn't'' die once per level. All in the name of fun, of course.
== [[Turn
* The multiplayer game ''[[MULE]]'' will inflict whichever player currently has the highest score with with bad "random" events, while whoever is bringing up the rear will only have good things happen to them.
** At least, that's the way it's supposed to work. Leading players can still receive good random events, but it's true that when there is a bad event during production, it ALWAYS hits the lead player. Also, whoever is in the lead loses the tie, barring racial exceptions, like the long-necked one always winning ties in land auctions.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* For various reasons, the producers of ''[[The Amazing Race]]'' create what are known as "bunching points" or "equalizers," usually involving operating hours of businesses or transport schedules, so that no team gets too far ahead or behind: Logistically, it's easier to keep the crew in a single country at a time and you don't want to tie up locals in assisting/judging tasks for days on end. Dramatically, having wins or losses be a [[Foregone Conclusion]] every week [[Boring Invincible Hero|is]] [[Boring Failure Hero|boring]]. The one season they didn't set up these equalizers, two teams got so far ahead on leg 9, that it was impossible for the other teams to catch up, and the next three legs before the finale were pretty much pointless.
* Teal'c faces a Rubberband AI in an episode of ''[[Stargate SG
== Literature ==
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The ''[[
** And the ''[[
* ''[[
== [[Web Original]] ==
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