Defensive Roll and the cheating AI

Lorkar1 · Post by **Lorkar1** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:26 pm

This is about the most blatant cheating I have seen on the part of the AI.
Hit it with a killing blow and it used two defensive rolls.
Or is it only PC's that can only use it once per day?

Alkapwn · Post by **Alkapwn** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:12 pm

Perhaps it was 2 different rounds? Defensive roll is 1/rd.

Lorkar1 · Post by **Lorkar1** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:14 pm

Defensive roll is limited to one use per day. BTW it was during one round of attacks.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:34 pm

No actually it works as much as you like for PCs and NPCs alike: http://www.nwnwiki.org/Defensive_roll

kingfatzo · Post by **kingfatzo** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:46 pm

yes the AI does cheat....

and the randomness of bioware's Rolls for ANY spell cast / save are totally out of whack...

Post by **LinuxPup** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:18 pm

Fatzo, yeah no kidding... I remember having a 5% arcane failure and failing a spell 3 times in a row during an important fight... talk about feeling unlucky. I that's a 1 in 8000 chance I think.

Lorkar1 · Post by **Lorkar1** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:18 pm

From what I have read the rolls are not truly random. They are generated in advance and used server wide to simulate a random roll. It is supposed to cut down on the server load. Wow a two-fold effect...cuts down on the server load and simultaneously screws PC's, Yeah...not.

Post by **Binkyuk** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:59 am

If by that you mean it doesn't use a true random number generator and instead uses a piece of modulo arithmetic to generate pseudo-random ones, then you'll be disappointed by a lot of games.

MLoki · Post by **MLoki** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:17 am

Binkyuk wrote:If by that you mean it doesn't use a true random number generator and instead uses a piece of modulo arithmetic to generate pseudo-random ones, then you'll be disappointed by a lot of games.

It's true. Computers don't do "Random" very well. They can be told what random should be but it's still following preset variables that are never truly random.

MLoki

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:10 pm

well i've had days where my "5%" spell failure chance was coming out to about 20% or more. i was starting to think my imbued mith small shield was bugged somehow, I was quite literally failing 2 out of 4-5 spell attempts the whole night. i also got multiple streaks of 3 failures in a row.

and yes i did check my equipment AND character sheet, definitely a 5% chance, and i was not taunted.

yet on another toon with level 30 gear and a 5% chance i hardly EVER fail.

Findor · Post by **Findor** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:18 pm

The degree of approximate randomness depends upon the algorithm used. It is painfully obvious that NWN's RNG is less than adequate. I've heard and read different explanations for it's poor quality, but nothing official from Bioware itself. This is, however, a problem that certainly should have been caught in QA testing. The RNG is very streaky; you can get a string of low probablity results that either benefit or hurt you. We just tend to observe the negative results (like when spending 5 minutes to level up with the maximum allowable HPs).

disastro · Post by **disastro** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:48 pm

actually ive noticed you can "uncurse" yourself with respect to hit point rolls by logging out and logging back in.

on multiple occasions i've seen folks fail to get their max hit points for many many trials (and rolling a d4 no less... what are the chances you will NOT roll a 4 in 20-30 trials?). i had them log out and log back in and in just about every case they hit max within 1 or 2 trials.

i used to think those were subrace related bugs but i've seen it happen on straight humans/elves too.

Lorkar1 · Post by **Lorkar1** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:34 pm

Binkyuk wrote:If by that you mean it doesn't use a true random number generator and instead uses a piece of modulo arithmetic to generate pseudo-random ones, then you'll be disappointed by a lot of games.

That maybe true but no where has it been more apparent than a fantasy RPG type game. Especially this one since the majority of actions rely on rolls for whatever reason.
But that doesn't mean I will abandoning this game anytime soon. I play this game almost as much for the interaction of other players as I do for the game itself.
I mean come on now, its not like I can PK someone on the street now is it. My apologies to those people I have PK'd and will continue to PK due to the real world and the ignorance it brings.

Post by **cely** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:36 pm

Findor wrote:The RNG is very streaky; you can get a string of low probablity results that either benefit or hurt you.

I heard a story on NPR recently that described this exact phenomenon. The story was prompted by the Superbowl coin toss, which the NFC has won for the last 10 years in a row.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=7320273

Everyone seems to agree that the Aurora Engine RNG is inadequate. Is that actually true or is our perception of randomness inadequate?

Findor · Post by **Findor** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:10 pm

Everyone seems to agree that the Aurora Engine RNG is inadequate. Is that actually true or is our perception of randomness inadequate?

I have, since my last post, verified that this is in fact a known NWN bug.