Are you willing to put up with behaviors by NPCs that you're not willing to put up with from another player? Thievery, ambushes, lies and cons... If an NPC does it, in my mind it seems to be more acceptable than if a player does it. This assumption is based on the notion that NPCs are part of the underlying fabric of the game world. Maybe you can say they derive legitimacy in the player's mind because they were created by the designer or are part of the almighty story. That, of course, doesn't mean that we automatically accept what they do. We know they're less than us at some level-- but maybe that's part of the reason why we can accept abusive behavior from them. Agree? Disagree? Why is it acceptable to get cheated or get our butts kicked by NPC monsters or villains but not by other players?

I never accept getting cheated by the game. it infuiriates me.
it makes me swear at teh developers. I feel it is shoddy game design.
the thing about being cheated is that you are powerless against it. it is unfair.
a good game mechanic is something you can learn from and that you have a fair chance of preventing.
so a fair match wether it be against npc or pc is fun, whereas an unfair match is frustrating. an ambush by NPC's that you have no chance of winning is very annoying. griefing by NPC's is incredibly annoying, like a constant recurring mesage " your armour is broken, please repair it".
I don't believe any of these are acceptible wether from pre-programmed character or realtime character. at teh end of the day all characters are being controlled/instructed by a humen.

Firstly, I go the other way more often than not. There is a lot to be said for "he is only human" as far as satisfaction in winning. Things I wouldn't put up with an NPC doing, I understand that people do. An NPC gets a headshot as a sniper, I yell cheater. A person gets a head shot with a sniper rifle, I think "damn he's good". So just about any scenario where the NPC shows some prowess in the SKILL of the game, it becomes upsetting.
I find that the unexpected nature of PvP is less upsetting than some designer throwing random crap at me. The designer's goal isn't to 'win', but to confuse me and delay my progress with no distinct goal other than the extension of gameplay time. His toolkit is anything he and the programmers can come up with, leaving me at a completely unfair advantage without using guide books. Another player's goal on the other hand is clearly to win. Any confusion, delays, and deaths are towards a distinct goal that is in opposition to my goal of winning. His toolkit is the same as mine, being whatever the game provides. This often means that any tactic that is good for the enemy is good for me, making things feel less arbitrary, and more fair (expecially in situations where I'd obviously lose, because it is easier to understand how I could have won).

Secondly, I do put up with NPCs being more cheatyface than other players because there is still some level of expectation that the player can't lose. People tend to not like games that are in fact no-win scenarios. In fact, I'd say there is an overly large trend away from games with the arcade standards of 1-3 lives. This means that no matter how unfair the situation, lets say an ambush, there is expectation to either win now, or revive and return to win. The expectation might be under false pretence, and in fact a particular player can't win at their current level, but the scenario is winable with the right preconditions of level or strategy. This leads a player to a few tries to win, and either they succeed, or they decide they need to level up/practice more. PvP experiences tend to stress people out because the winners often become labeled 'griefers' since they pick and choose battles where they can obviously win. Ambushes having an expectation of loss for the ambushee.

Thirdly, there are people who don't even put up with the NPCs cheating. But the nice thing about NPCs is that they are often scripted. This means that people put up with NPCs because they are predictable. Once you learn the pattern you can defeat them every time. And, if you don't want to learn the pattern, you go find a walkthrough on gamefaqs.

For the most part, PvE gameplay tends to fall into the low stress catagory from the points above. While PvP falls into a high stress category for anyone not willing to put up with losing until they get better. The low stress gaming is less rewarding, but easier to stay attached to for a long time. Thus why I think most people prefer the NPC cheating over the player cheating.

I think that I can usually cope with 'cheating' NPCs if they conform to one or more of the following rules; a) their 'cheat' drives the game forward, b) you can get revenge, c) the 'cheat' is not a permanent handicap.

The best example of this would be the drow rogue at the start of the Hordes of the Underdark expansion for Neverwinter Nights. She steals your equipment, then tries to kill you. This drives the plot, by introducing the drow, you get to kill her moments later and you get your stuff back later in any case.

On the other hand, there is the example of the assassin from Morrowind's Tribunal add-on; you get ambushed as you sleep and it often seems like you have a 50/50 chance of surviving it. Yes, it drives the plot, and yes, you get to keep the assassin's nifty armour, but it still felt like the game was cheating slightly by catching me unprepared.

Generally, I think NPC behaviour can be forgiven as long as it serves a purpose and gives the player a chance to react or respond. If a pickpocket targets me, I want a chance of catching them. Make me chase them across the city if you like, let me lose them if I fail a jump across a canal or from one roof to the next, but at least give me that chance to fail through my own lack of skill rather than 'designer fiat'...

As a designer, I would probably even tweak that last example so that the pickpocket steals a small amount from me, maybe 5-10% of my gold, and the event only happens once in the game. If it were an RPG, I might even give the player a chance to spot the thief if they had the right skill and maybe stop the theft entirely and maybe even gain back more than was stolen; this rewards the character for having the skill.

I think it comes to 3 key issues:

1 - Is it a bug?
There is the general expectation of players that anything unexpected that occurs in a game is a bug, even though it maybe something you’ve done intentionally the player’s gut reactions will be that the they have found a bug. For example in Batman Arkham Asylum there is a scene where they break the 4th wall and make it appear that a disk read error has occurred. Loads of people ended up returning the game thinking that they had gotten a faulty disk. Like wise if you made a game where you could buy the ultimate sword of power from a shady dealer but ended with a dull sword instead most people would think the game had a bug in it.

2 – Cheating Game Mechanics
There is nothing worse then when the game mechanics are inconsistent such as making things easier for the NPC then the player. Half cost buildings in RTS is common example. Likewise giving the player the unpickable lock is always cheap tactic used to keep players out of quest areas until the right time. Personally nothing breaks a game for me more than being able to pick every lock in a game expect for ones that are part of a quest.

3 – Fun Factor
Being tricked by a game can be fun if it feels like a natural part of the game. For instance I played Shenmue 2 years ago and you could make money gambling at darts. One opponent was easy to beat and continued to offer bigger stakes and then when I decided to play for big money he crushed me completely. I felt hustled but that just added to fun and realism of the game.

I really compare NPCs to my typical assumption of a real person in their position. A good game will not have me thinking about the NPC as just a NPC in the first place if the immersion is reasonable.

Certain games allow for abilities where timing is the only crucial element, yet NPCs are able to always time them perfectly. That's not realistic, therefore pulls me out of the game, which seriously ticks me off (many times making me quit playing altogether).

NPCs that simply do things that would be considered 'evil' or 'wrong' by the typical standards of the game/genre, such as a quest where at the end the NPC has taken off with the goods you supplied him without giving anything in return.. would make me mad at THAT NPC just as it would make me mad if my employer 'forgot' to pay me irl. I don't believe I would think differently of the NPC just because I might know it's just a scripted behavior.

You specify thievery, ambushes, lies, and cons as examples. If a player stole from me vs a NPC stealing from me, I'd be equally upset. The primary difference would typically be me 'chatting' with the player about the incident. Ambushes are a bit different. Randomly spawned monsters that 'ambush' based on you being at the wrong place at the wrong time gets frustrating and makes me upset with the design of the game. Games that have monsters positioned at the side of a road 'waiting' for players to come by, is frustrating but only because I fell for the trap.


The easy answer is no, I'd be just as willing or non-willing to put up with those kinds of actions from NPCs as I'd be with players. It's mostly just a matter of realism and/or good design mechanics.

Remember the ThiefBot in Descent? It was fast, manoeuvrable, hard to see, sneaked up on you from behind, and would repeatedly steal your best weapons if you didn't manage to nail it.

On the flip side, the ThiefBot was one of the highlights of the game. It was the only opponent that could do you real harm (everything else necessitated a save->death->reload cycle). It was the only opponent that ran away from you (everything else just attacked), leading to high-speed chases that wouldn't otherwise have occurred. And because it was so different to the rest of the game, and so darn annoying, many players would spend twenty minutes trying to kill the ThiefBot, even on levels that only took 5-10 minutes to complete.

eh... but NPCs are expendable, especially if i can kill one and then reload if it was a mistake. so if they steal from me, they're going to die. if I then have to reload because I wasn't supposed to kill that player, then the immersion is broken

I don't get it, why do you want to create an NPC just to piss and fu#k with the player for no reason?

If the said NPC is behaving in such manner because it's part of the plot, i.e. stealing an item from the player so that the player will have to go after the NPC, and discover further plot, I would accept that, but to make an NPC thief stealing random item from the player, just to hinder the player's progress, I would consider that to be a revenge of a mind impaired programmer on the player. It is totally unacceptable and meaningless, in my opinion.

Wav, I get what you're saying.

The reason is that we trust that interaction with NPCs will pay off. Any trouble from an NPC will pay off later in terms of narrative, or in terms of reward. The expectation is that an abusive NPC will occasionally strike, but not often, and when he does, it will be a net win once the "arc" plays out.

With human players there's no such expectation -- the player did it to amuse himself, and there will likely be no payoff for you as a result. Further, that player is probably free continue his abuse ad nauseam, until he gets bored. That's not fun or rewarding, which is what a game should be.