Basic Trope: In a video game where you can face the computer in a match, the computer seems to have advantages that you don't.
- Straight: In the hit Fighting Game Troper Wars, the CPU always manages to kick your ass because its character has projectiles. When that character is human controlled, it doesn't have a projectile attack.
- Exaggerated:
- The CPU can dodge attacks. You can't. And it uses its unblockable, unavoidable, One-Hit Kill move in the first seconds. And if you do try to cheat, the game responds with No Fair Cheating (nevemind the fact that they are the ones cheating), punishing you by nerfing your XP and powers, making your character and teammates artificially stupid, turning your own teammates against you and even deleting your save-states for cheating, despite the CPU did that.
- In the First-Person Shooter Troperian Warfare, the Wave-Motion Gun is normally Awesome, but Impractical because it is extremely slow and only has enough ammo for one shot. When an AI player gets it, the gun is much faster and has infinite ammo.
- Dialed Up To Eleven: Take the first example of Exaggerated, and mix this with the player being a One-Hit-Point Wonder (as opposed to the CPU having Multiple Lifebars), and not only that, when you do cheat, not only the game is going to delete itself after , but also get doxxed just for trying to get progress into the game, the last blow will be the game releasing a bunch of malware into your computer, not only you get your computer destroyed, but 'YOU WILL ALSO GET YOUR ADRESS LEAKED (both IP adress and where you actually are), and an entity is released, looking for you, and it's going to kill you no matter what and it knows your location, can pass through walls, and, when it finds you, it's InstantDeath, the entity can also potentially go after your family members, your spouse and children, or anyone who even '''one sight/thought of you ever in their lives''', also, remember that when that entity kills youthere's no afterlife, everything just goes all black
- Downplayed:
- A CPU player's numerical stats are slightly higher than for a human player, but the A.I.'s simplistic behavior is easy enough to exploit for experienced players.
- The CPU always has better equipment and the like, which the human only could get at a later point in the game.
- The CPU uses the same moves but they don't have the delay for a move slightly faster than the minimum charge time.
- Justified:
- The computer prioritizes wrong things. In Troper Kingdom, your goal is to defeat the army of the enemy. Bob, the A.I. commander, is seen to always prepare attacks against your camps, even if there is no reason to, and never sends any units on resource gathering trips. Because of this, the A.I. automatically gains material even when they logically shouldn't. Due to the A.I., this makes the game "fair" rather than unbalancing it.
- The PC-controlled hero knight puts importance in his honor and chivalry. The NPC villain does not hesitate to fight dirty.
- the game is either unfinished, or is an Obvious Beta that had a rushed development, causing some bugs, and that includes moves that you can't pull that CPU-character does.
- Inverted:
- The computer cheats to give the player an advantage.
- The computer starts using abilities or mechanics that were previously restricted to the player. By definition, this isn't cheating, but it does ramp up the difficulty significantly because the player no longer has that advantage over the AI.
- The player starts off with vast advantages to compensate for the computer's sheer speed and coordination. In-character, it is a Robot War where humanity must use their superior resources against small but very dangerous upstarts.
- Subverted:
- The CPU-controlled characters are kicking your ass... but it turns out you have the difficulty on Hard. You turn the difficulty down a notch and you start to stand more of a chance.
- Exploited #2 is the intended solution.
- Double Subverted: ... here comes the Easy-Mode Mockery!
- Parodied:
- The game flat-out tells you that it will cheat to win.
- When you start a match, the CPU opens up a cheat menu during gameplay and types in "GOD" or "WIN"
- The CPU is constantly cheating, but the moment you try cheating yourself, every character dishes out the mother of all What the Hell, Player? speeches to you. And if you try defending yourself by citing Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!, everyone's shocked that you'd accuse them of such a crime, and still pile onto you. If you do so, you're then given the chance to start using cheats, because they're going to consider you a cheater, why not go all the way?
- Zig-zagged: The CPU cheats to varying degrees (including none) within the same game to adjust for the player's skills in order to keep him engaged. If the player is breezing through, it'll turn up the difficulty; if the player can barely get out of the starting spot, it'll ease up.
- Averted: The CPU plays fair and is on an equal footing with the human characters.
- Enforced:
- (During development) "Hey, this section is a little too easy. I think I'll turn up the accuracy of the enemy snipers juuuuuust a tad..."
- Due to a non-breaking typo the AI has no bounds check on the movements it can make.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules
- The programmers weren’t able to make a smart A.I. so they needed to give it a way to catch up.
- Lampshaded: During the characters' single-player loss dialogue, they point out that they shouldn't have lost; not because of pride, but because the enemy was breaking the rules of the fight!
- The Harder Than Hard Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels is named Let the AI cheat as much as possible.
- Invoked: The player hacks the game to give the CPU advantages as a Self-Imposed Challenge.
- Exploited:
- Whenever you notice the CPU cheating, you can press a button to have him arrested.
- The computer blocks every one of your strikes. There is nothing, however, keeping you from using a slow moving projectile and then turning it around by attacking it from the back, leaving it open. It ALWAYS falls for this.
- Defied: The player character forces the CPU character to fight fair, either that, or the developers patched the cheating.
- Discussed: In a movie about video game characters as Animated Actors, the player character's avatar asks how the Big Bad learned to pull off some super-powerful techniques.
- Conversed: "Did you ever play Troper Wars? Is there a glitch or something that lets only the CPU throw projectiles?"
- Implied: In the game, your goal is not to beat the equal, CPU characters but different enemies who don't play by the same rules. During one level, your "enemy" challenges you but is interrupted by said force. Even once all his gathering methods are cut off, he manages to supply you with items despite having no "fair" way to get them.
- Deconstructed:
- The game becomes nortorious for it's unfair AI, that resulted in many players rage quitting after running out of continues over and over again
- [[Artificial
- Reconstructed:
- The sequel removes all of this "Computer-controlled character exclusive moves" and cheap shot bullshittery", or at least lets the player access these previously CPU-Exclusive moves
- The player also decides to cheat back. BY SETTING THE OPPONENT'S HEALTH BAR TO BEING EMPTY, AS WELL AS SETTING THE TIMER TO "ZERO" BEFORE THE OPPONENT CAN EVEN ATTACK
- Played For Laughs: The AI isn't just cheating, it's rubbing it in your face. In fact, when you lose it still counts it as a victory, as your enemy cheated and thus that battle didn't count, but if you win the character will accuse you of cheating, while your character will point out even if that were true, they were cheating as well. Said character will desperately try to justify their cheating it while "victory" flashes across your screen.
- Played For Drama: There is in story justification for the cheating. Every time your character battles it gets harder and harder due to all the "bonuses" the enemies are getting that you can't even hope for. If the player only manages to win barely then the character will get even more stressed over how hard it's getting to get past that barrier.
- Played for Horror:
- The game emphasizes that the player characters are in serious danger because the NPCs are willing to fight dirty to kill them.
- The enemies are Eldritch Abominations who slowly rewrite the fabric of reality, transforming the rules of the game with them as they become stronger and stronger until there is no longer any hope of survival.
Now, return to The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard before it destroys you!
