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Spiteful AI: Difference between revisions
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Often, AI characters don't seem to care if they win so long as you lose. AI racers will ruin their standing just to screw with you, [[Mascot Fighter]] combatants will [[Gang Up on the Human|ignore weakened enemies and zero in on you]] and RTS opponents will hit you with everything they have even with your AI ally running rampant [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us|in their base.]]
While Spiteful
In short, this trope applies whenever it looks like the AI puts thwarting (or [[Nintendo Hard|challenging]]) the player ahead of its own "well-being," whether in terms of the NPCs' survival or the objectives of the game. [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You|This is often the case.]]
Note that whatever it may [[Paranoia Fuel|feel]] like, the AI doesn't [[Robot War|actually]] have it in for you. [[
Also, note that in some cases screwing over an enemy as much as possible while at best slightly staving off your inevitable defeat ''is'' a good strategy for bad times and can make said defeat much less inevitable. E.g. when the unstoppable main force rolls over your assets, exploiting a weakness somewhere else may make the enemy lose even faster than you do and/or switch to defence and back off for a while; if there's [[Enemy of My Enemy|a third party]] that could decide to attack said enemy now, inflicting damage that in itself would not save you may be enough to change the whole situation.
'''Tropes that can make you feel like a victim of Spiteful AI:'''
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* [[Collapsing Lair]] – Specifically, the idiots who often stay behind to impede you as you flee.
* [[Gang Up on the Human]] – Apparently, second place and below doesn't care about winning so long as they can stop you.
* [[Shoot the Medic First]] - They may not care so much about dying...as long as they can take the medic down.
* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]] – Even when they're doing [[Scratch Damage]] and you're killing a dozen with each shot, the enemies still charge at you in a suicidal effort to chip off a few [[Hit Points]].
* [[Super-Persistent Predator]] – Especially annoying in games that claim to represent [[Wide Open Sandbox|whole worlds or ecosystems.]]
* [[Too Dumb to Live]] – On the part of allies, obviously, but also includes enemies that you're trying to capture or that you need to beat up to fill your [[Mana Meter]]. Apparently, they're willing to die to stop you from pulling off your infinity plus-one [[Combos|combo]].
Not to be confused with [[
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* Darth Bob, from ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Rogue Squadron]] 2'', a Tie Fighter that kills you by crashing his ship into you. It is generally accepted that this wasn't what the programmers intended, and that it's a <s>flaw in the programming</s> the AI taking things into its own hands to kill you.
** Similarly, in the sequel of ''[[Battalion Wars]]'', just to make enemy Fighters' [[Demonic Spider]] status even worse, they will ''crash into your AI Fighters to make them die instantly sometimes''. As if your AI Fighters not picking up Jerry Cans and being [[Too Dumb to Live]] as a result wasn't enough.
* Enemies in ''[[Disgaea]]'' will sometimes [[We Have Reserves|kill their allies]] with area attacks, depriving you of experience and items. They also prioritize destroying any treasure chests, level spheres, or innocents/specialists present on the map over attacking you, just so you can't claim them (No longer the case for the former two in ''[[Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice]]'' and ''[[Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten]]'', thankfully).
** The Druid class introduced in ''[[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]]'' has an ability called Bonus Blast, which removes one of the bonuses you can potentially receive at the end of the fight from the list. It serves absolutely no purpose for the player, but the AI will use it very frequently, often enough that killing off any Druids on the map should be a top priority if there's a good reward.
* Enemies in ''[[Phantom Brave]]'' will sometimes waste attacks on the corpses of your party members, even before you get the ability to revive. This does absolutely nothing to help them win the match, but makes it ''much'' more expensive to revive your guys afterwards.
** ''[[Phantom Brave]]'' players who spend long enough in the random dungeons might eventually come across a map filled with awesomely powerful items and objects strewn about all over the place, and a bunch of enemy Prinnies. The Prinnies ''will'' focus exclusively on systematically wandering from item to item, picking them all up and throwing them all out of bounds, one by one. They pretty much won't stop until all the stuff you might have wanted has been destroyed.
*** Not to mention the enemies who constantly try to steal your weapons. ''[[Phantom Brave]]'' has some of the most
*** Also, the chances of stealing an item only depend on the unit's level and species (Merchants are better than average, Bottlemails have an almost 100% chance even if they're half the enemy's level.) Enjoying beating up on weakened level 150 enemies with your level 60 Marona armed with a super-duper weapon?Just wait until one of them finally gets one single turn, and uses that turn to nab your weapon and use it to [[Hoist by His Own Petard|kill you in one hit]].
* This rarely happens in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', but given that you don't get EXP for killing blows, it's less of an inconvenience. Now, when your ''allies'' do it...
** In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'', there are quite a few escort missions, and while in some the allies will actively flee your foes, some insist on diving right into the action, exposing themselves to certain doom as the enemies will usually target them when able. The Paladin's Cover ability can solve this problem, though.
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* The same behaviour is the source of much frustration among ''[[Total War]]'' players. An enemy nation might be down to one city, every port blockaded, its treasury so far in the negative that it's threatening to plunge the world into a new Ice Age, but will it sue for peace or stop sending rag tag bands of peasants to get slaughtered by your invincible armies ? Fuck no, motherfucker, THIS IS TOTALLY SUICIDAL WAR !
** Don't forget [[Incredibly Lame Pun|the goddamn Pope]]. You might have been fighting a defensive war against a nation 3 times larger than you for 5-6 game years. You finally launch a counter attack on your former city AND THE POPE THREATENS TO EXCOMMUNICATE YOU. Muslims have it easy...
** AI countries can be excommunicated too -- [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|in theory]]
* In ''Smuggler's Run'', the police cars don't really do much except try to crash into you as hard as possible. They don't mind flipping over in crazy ways that no normal human could survive, or brutally totaling their car every now and then. They just want to TAKE YOU DOWN.
** Same thing happens in the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series. Even if you're driving a tank and their cars instantly explode when they hit, the [[Lemming Cops]] will still constantly ram you just to slowly drain your [[Hit Points]].
** Another way the police AI in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'', and it's clones, hates you is seen when other criminals go after you. In one of the early missions in ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'', you can be riding a bicycle while three men in a car are gunning you down. Even if a policeman is standing in the line of fire, he won't respond. But god help you if your bicycle hits the policeman. Some older games take this [[Up to Eleven]]: The police may be in a neutral or hostile (to you) state, and any criminal action against the police by AI enemies will cause the police to act as if YOU attacked them.
** Somewhat averted in another sandbox game where the player deals with police frequently (''[[Postal]] 2''). If the police see or hear another NPC fire a weapon, whether it's at you, them, or anybody else, they ''will'' attack back - in fact, the NPCs have it worse than you in this case, as the cops will continue sending more men until that NPC is dead, whereas the player has the option of throwing down his weapon and surrendering. However, if the above NPC was shooting at you and you try to fight back, or even if you just have a weapon in hand when in a cop's line of sight ''at all'', they'll drop everything and focus on you instead.
* The pirates will fight you to the bitter end in ''[[Metroid]]'', even by attacking you as you flee after killing the [[Load-Bearing Boss]]. They might have an excuse, though, since it's often a whole freaking [[Earthshattering Kaboom|planet]] that's exploding. Where would they escape to?
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* In ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]] 2'', the AI, no matter how far away they are, will often ignore every other threat just to target you, even when they are physically incapable of hitting you. Try shooting a walker on Hoth with a sniper rifle and you'll see. Even the giant AT-AT pauses in its march, to turn and start blasting at a sniper for a stray shot that did nothing.
** The allied AI is just as bad. They literally ''give away'' control posts to the enemy, moreso if you originally spawned from that post or had a hand in capturing it at all (which means [[This Is Gonna Suck|pretty much all of them]]).
* Just one of the many factors that confirm that [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|the computer is indeed a cheating bastard]] in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]''. When playing through any of the protagonists' campaign mode, encounters against certain [[
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' and similar games, when enemies manage to paralyse or stun one of your party members, they'll invariably gang up on and murder them, taking advantage of the fact that an immobile party member can't avoid hits. Tactically, it would make more sense for them to focus on the characters that can still move and attack; killing the one that can't take any action anyway doesn't help them win. What it does do, however, is inconvenience you and soften you up for the next group of enemies.
** If an enemy targets one of your characters, they will almost never change target unless you put a lot of distance between the character and enemy, go invisible, or get away in some other way. Maybe you get hurt and want to back off and let healthier characters take over the fight? Too bad, that monster will push its way past your fighters and archers even as they fill it with arrows and swords, just to finish what it started. This ''can'' be used to kite the enemy while the rest of the party wails on them with impunity, or to lead them into a series of traps, but it's still annoying.
* The ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' example actually happens in ''[[Tactics Ogre]]''. Often they might petrify a party member...and then proceed to find the immobile party member and ''beat the shit out of them''. Additionally, if you bewitch an enemy, they know you won't damage them because that'll end the bewitching...if they can't cure the bewitchment, they may instead ''heal'' the bewitched enemy so when it ''does'' wear off, you have to beat them back down again.
* In ''[[SSX]]'', if you keep knocking down your opponents, they get a red exclamation point over their head. In Tricky, these racers will slow down if they're ahead of you to wait for you and try to knock you down.
** For once, the trope is justified. If you were repeatedly knocked over by someone while trying to race you'd be pretty spiteful too, and want to return the favor.
* ''[[Warcraft]] 3'' has the multiplayer mode. The enemy generals are worth enough experience to advance to level two, so it's usually a good idea to try and kill them before they can make any additional troops. If you get the generals down to low health, however, they will run off in search of the nearest monster do they can die and deny you the experience. It doesn't help that by that time you're usually too low on health yourself to fight the monsters.
** In multiplayer LAN games with one or more human players, AI will always attack the host, even above the other humans. The AI could be in the middle of attacking you, but turn around and attack a gold mine your buddy just built on the other side of the map ''without any way of knowing this had even happened''
* On [[Toontown Online]], of all places, in the Cog Thief minigame, the cogs try to steal money, and you try to throw pies at them to make them explode. If they hit you, they explode and you fly into the air. When this happens, the cogs currently on screen will turn away from the money and try to run into you, even though they will instantly explode upon running into you.
* ''[[Mario Kart]]''. Specifically, ''[[Super Mario Kart]]'', where all non-player characters have unique attacks in Grand Prix mode, like Mario and Luigi's invincibility, Bowser's fireballs, or Yoshi's eggs, but they will never use them against each other and will be perfectly happy to remain in whatever spot they started the race in. But if ''you'' come up behind them, or you had the insolence to take ''their'' spot...
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** ''Mario Kart 7'' takes the spiting AI to a whole new level. The AI will aggressively swerve into your path just so you don't get the item boxes or coins you were trying to get. It's possible to go an entire lap without getting a single item because the AI wants to make sure you don't get any.
* ''[[Destruction Derby]] 2'' has the Death Bowl, an enclosed arena with a cliff. Even if you drive straight off all the other drivers will go after you to make certain you're wrecked.
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' is guilty of this to a degree. In multiplayer free-for-all, computer controlled opponents will still fight each other, as it is free for all. However, stray far enough from the fray, and notice how enemies tend to drift towards you, all while fighting each other. This is even more prevalent in Brawl, where certain 'finishing' moves (such as the Dragoon) will always be aimed solely at you, even if you aren't in the lead. Likewise, [[Limit Break|Final Smashes]] won't get activated unless you are the target.
** Doubly so with Final Smashes, triply so when it's a Final Smash that targets one person (Link, Ike, Marth) or moves about the screen (Pikachu, Sonic). You can spend an entire four-minute 4-player match (you plus 3 computers) just running away from someone with a Final Smash because the computer ''refuses'' to use it on anyone except you, they will hunt you down everywhere you go (and if you're on a huge stage like New Pork City and Hyrule Temple, and the computer grabs the Smash Ball when you and he are on opposite sides of the stage, you get to watch as the computer runs across the stage after you, completely ignoring the other computer opponents).
** Computers have been known to waste certain Final Smashes, like Snake's which has an ammo limit or a time limit, just waiting for a human to respawn, completely ignoring any other computers that are present.
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* In some of the [[Yu-Gi-Oh!]] video games, the AI will occasionally do bizarre things like activate Magic Jammer (which disappears upon use and requires one additional card as a sacrifice) to block out a spell card of yours that was only targetting Magic Jammer. Or waste 1000 lifepoints and their Seven Tools of the Bandit card just to deny you using a perfectly harmless card like "Jar of Greed". They'll also often end up destroying their own high-level monsters and nets of traps with cards that hit both sides, like Torrential Tribute and Heavy Storm just to harm you, even though they are the ones that suffer far more damage in the process.
** It's even funnier in some cases with Seven Tools Of The Bandit, as the AI will use it to negate a trap like Just Deserts (your opponent takes 500 damage for each monster they have), when they only have one or two monsters out. They'll give 1000 life points to stop themselves from taking 1000 or even 500 life points, and also end up losing a way to block one of your later, and presumably more important traps.
* The [[City Guards]] in ''[[The Elder Scrolls|Morrowind]]'' have it in for you. They will always tell you to move along and ask you what you need, even when there's an annoyed Dark Elf trying to punch your lights out. You punch back, they'll immediately shout "YOU N'WAH!" and arrest you.
* The first [[F-Zero]] featured (non-competitor) vehicles so low on health that one touch would make them explode. Of course, rather than pull over to the side of the road and try to live, they prefer to try to ram you.
* [[Elite]], at least the [[Commodore 64]] version, featured shuttles that would launch from a space station directly into the lane of oncoming traffic (i.e., you)--even when you were literally less than a second from successfully docking. If the collision didn't kill you outright, the instant plunge into wanted criminal status (for destroying an unarmed passenger shuttle) would mean getting ganked by the space police the moment you launched. Not so much the AI being spiteful as [[Artificial Stupidity|just dumb]], but it wasn't hard to feel like the game was out to get you all the same.
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* In ''Zippy Race'', it's painfully obvious that the other cars will actively try to swerve right in front of you.
* Lampshaded in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. Throughout the game, enemies continue to shoot at you, even when trapped in a burning building, a sinking ship, or a collapsing ancient city. Drake figures the enemies just don't care.
* In the first [[Command
* In ''[[FHBG]]'', Sneakers dash at the player after absorbing a hit. If on level ground, this catches players off guard.
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