History Main / AIRoulette

* The Tag Duel gameplay style in recent {{Yu-Gi-Oh}}! games tends towards this. To explain, a Tag Duel is you and (usually) a computer ally against two computers with 8000 Life Points and one playing field per team. You each have your own decks and hands and can use your team member's cards to your advantage when it's your turn.

*** The only boss that can easily be seen to run on a pre-programmed pattern is [[FinalFantasyVII Safer Sephiroth]]. The only parts in which he varies are his stat caps and when he replaces his seventh attack with Heartless Angel on low health.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', your very first battle against your rival essentially comes down to luck, as they can either attack or use a status lowering move. Whether you will win comes down to how much they will use their non-directly damaging move.
** Well, not really, since you could take out a Potion from your computer and heal, an option which isn't mentioned at that point making it a GuideDangIt.
** The move Metronome is this. Move that is a Pokémon equivalent to the wrath of God has the same chance of being called via it as the move that has no effect whatsoever.

*** Interestingly, Gym Leaders are smart enough that any attack that is weak against the opponent is removed from their roulette.

** Truth is, this varies from game to game and trainer to trainer... among the AI trainers. However, wild Pokémon will ''always'' use an AI Roulette. This is probably justified by the wild Pokémon not having the decision-making skills of humans.
*** And it falls apart again when you realize that some Psychic-types are supposed to be as smart or smarter than people, but still use the Roulette when wild.
** Graveler on the Victory Road in GSC have been known to blow themselves up rather than have to deal with a Bug/Poison type like Spinarak they have a 30-level advantage over.
** The Roulette that AI trainers use prevents them from using moves that will be not very effective... which can make them even dumber than if they just used random moves. In Yellow Version, Giovanni has a Nidoking and Nidoqueen that, when faced with a Grass/Poison type like Bulbasaur, will only use Leer or Tail Whip due to what their other moves are. When you don't understand the Roulette, seeing them beat your Pikachu in one hit and then be taken down by a level 10 Bulbasaur is utterly baffling.

** The move Metronome is this. Move that is a wrath of Pokémon equivalent to the God has the same chance of being called via it as the move that has no effect whatsoever.

* {{Iji}}'s [[FinalBoss General Tor]] is a partial aversion. It starts off as straight AI Roulette, but the probabilities adjust to favour attacks that have already hit you as the fight goes on. Fortunately, this doesn't apply to his [[TacticalSuicideBoss charged shots]] [[PlayingTennisWithTheBoss that you can reflect]] ForMassiveDamage.

* In ''{{Pokemon}} Red and Blue'', your very first battle against your rival essentially comes down to luck, as they can either attack or use a status lowering move. Whether you will win comes down to how much they will use their non-directly damaging move.

* Enemies in ''DragonQuestVIII'', even bosses, paid little attention to the state of the fight. They'd use a special move removing all effects on the party, even when there are none. They'd cast buffs on themselves when they're about to die anyway. They'd call for backup even when their party is already full, and other pointless actions.
** That is, in fact, emblematic of the entire ''DragonQuest/Warrior'' series.
** In the original ''DragonQuestIV'', this also applied to your ''allies''. In order to represent that everyone aside from your hero was an experienced warrior by the time you recruited them in Chapter 5, the player only got to directly control their HeroicMime. All the other heroes had their own AI, which... didn't work out that well in practice. Such as having [[TheMedic team Cleric]] [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Cristo/Kyril]] constantly casting his [[UselessUsefulSpell rarely-hitting insta-death spell]] against ''bosses''. Thankfully, they added a manual command option in TheRemake.

* ''Liero'''s AI is ''entirely'' random. Even in tweak programs the only things that can be changed about the AI are its actions' probabilities. Needless to say, it was pretty dumb.

* In FinalFantasyVIII After some plot events, Rinoa gains a new LimitBreak ability ''Angel Wing'' which sends her into a unique berserk state: the player loses control of her actions but she gets boosted speed and magic power, (limited) status immunity, and continuously casts offensive magic at no cost. Sounds great at first, but berserk Rinoa prefers [[EnemyScan Scan]] and [[StandardStatusEffects Silence/Sleep/Confuse]] over damage-inflicting magic and rarely uses high-power spells ''depending on which magic she has available''. With a full stock of spells, AIRoulette makes Angel Wing about as useless as Rinoa's starting ''Angelo'' LimitBreak but [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer when all she has is]] [[AwesomeButPractical Ultima]] [[GameBreaker (or Meteor!)]] well...
** This became so common that it developed a nickname of Meteor Wing. The trouble comes with the fact that her base magic attack is fairly dismal. However since she only casts offensive spells, the preferred tactic was to boost her other stats with cure/cura/curaga. Unfortunately, Meteor further did random damage so she might spend ten minutes hitting only once or twice.

* Spellcasters in ''NeverwinterNights'' can be just ''embarrassing''. Casters with access to powerful damaging spells will instead start casting 0th level protective spells like Virtue or Resistance, and target you with Daze, a spell with a 5% chance of very briefly incapacitating you. Then randomly they'll take off half your health in one hit, before going back to casting Dispel Magic on someone without any spell effects on them.

* ''TheLastRemnant'' for the Xbox 360 is an unusual case in that you, the player, are subject to partial AIRoulette just as much as the enemies due to the battle system. Though you still have command over your units, the available list of commands you can pick from turn to turn (as well as depending on the enemy you target) is determined entirely by the AI. Sometimes the commands available are entirely logical and normal, sometimes they're nothing near what you need (i.e. no healing commands when you could certainly use some), and sometimes they give you access to your uber attacks for trash enemies.

* A few fortunate spins of the AI Roulette is your best chance of defeating Werdna in {{Wizardry}}. Amongst his devastating attack and spells is...Zilwan, a "kill undead" spell. Since you don't have any zombies in your party, you'd better hope he decides to Zilwan you three or four times in a row, because you're not surviving much else.

* A common issue with ''CityOfHeroes'' and ''CityOfVillains'' mooks and bosses, especially later in the game. Rikti suffer horribly, as Mentalists will spam sleep powers on Heroes stuck in poison gas, Guardians will heal allies at full health and shield almost dead ones, and Drones can spend a lot of time running from characters with accurate ranged attacks. The Praetorians and the Freedom Phalanx tend to suffer from this, too, especially Numina and her evil counterpart. They'll beat you to within an inch of your life, turn on an invulnerable force field, and then run away.

* In FinalFantasyVIII After some plot events, Rinoa gains a new LimitBreak ability ''Angel Wing'' which sends her into a unique berserk state: the player loses control of her actions but she gets boosted speed and magic power, (limited) status immunity, and continuously casts offensive magic at no cost. Sounds great at first, but berserk Rinoa prefers [[EnemyScan Scan]] and [[StandardStatusEffects Silence/Sleep/Confuse]] over damage-inflicting magic and rarely uses high-power spells ''depending on which magic she has available''. With a full stock of spells, AIRoulette makes Angel Wing about as useless as Rinoa's starting ''[[WonderDog Angelo]]'' LimitBreak but [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer when all she has is]] [[AwesomeButPractical Ultima]] [[GameBreaker (or Meteor!)]] well...

Not related to XanatosRoulette or {{AI is a Crapshoot}}. Compare ArtificialStupidity

* {{Golden Sun}} has this with ''all'' of its bosses.

* The battle system in ''EarthBound'' relies on this to make fighting some enemies easier. Many enemies (with few exceptions) have "do nothing" type actions in the list, such as furrowing one's brow or falling down. These are chosen from an enemy's list of attacks just as often as their regular attacks are, so it's possible to get lucky and have an enemy spend several turns idling.

** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX FFX]] suffered from this short cut as well. Although more commonly the bosses were a combination of AI and randomness. (IE random single damage attack followed random [=AoE=] attack followed by random buff, heal if low health) [[AnticlimaxBoss The final boss]] in that game has an attack that reduces your entire party to 1 HP. Potentially dangerous, but not if he uses it multiple times in a row...

** The most painful situation possible, however, is if the AI controlled Terra chooses to Trance herself. For some bizarre reason, whenever that happens the AI will simply sit there, letting Terra soak up whatever the enemy chooses to throw at her, for up to a ''minute'' at times. This is a triple-whammy: It wastes the precious MP points Terra uses to stay in Trance mode, it essentially ruins the battle for you, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and it's boring as hell to watch if the enemy can't kill her quickly.]]

* Enemies in ''FinalFantasyXI'' generally pick attacks and spells at random. Sleepga spells can render an alliance useless, and the mob could go to town on targets one-by-one... if they could only remember to not cast any damaging Area-of-Effect spell, which wakes everyone up. Sometimes they even use Sleepga after casting Poisonga, which makes sleep ineffective due to poison damage keeping people awake. Some Notorious Monsters, however, either have only one spell, spells of a specific element, or a very small set of spells that maximize the NM's performance. [[http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Shadowhand At least one]] NM is actually scripted to cast Sleepga 2, then [[OhCrap Thundaga 3 for massive [=AoE=] damage]].
** [[FinalFantasyX FFX]] suffered from this short cut as well. Although more commonly the bosses were a combination of AI and randomness. (IE random single damage attack followed random [=AoE=] attack followed by random buff, heal if low health) [[AnticlimaxBoss The final boss]] in that game has an attack that reduces your entire party to 1 HP. Potentially dangerous, but not if he uses it multiple times in a row...

* In ''Crisis Core: FinalFantasyVII'', you will run into enemies on the harder missions who outnumber you 5 to 1 and have the AI roulette. Example: One of the Wutai missions pits you against 5 Silver Wutai Soldiers, who have a move called "Death Missile" that kills you in one hit unless you have that rare item that makes you immune to Death. They seem to like this move a lot.
* ''FinalFantasyVI'' presents a unique scenario for this trope: the Coliseum, wherein the player chooses a single champion from the active party to fight solo against the enemy. The AIRoulette will then take over this character. The problem is, the more abilities (or spells) the character has, the more likely it is to perform something useless (like trying to cast Imp at Siegfried for ten turns in a row, or using Remedy or Float on oneself) or downright harmful (such as Meltdown, summoning Crusader, or Self-Destruct.) Many a player has gone into the Coliseum with [[GameBreaker a fully-leveled up Sabin, armed with a Genji Glove and a Master's Scroll/Offering]], expecting to kill the enemy in one shot, only to see him cast [[HeroicSacrifice Soul Spiral]] and kill himself on his first turn.

* The bonus boss of EtrianOdyssey subverts this. It has three elemental attacks, any one of which will wipe out your entire party if not blocked by the specific, one-turn-only anti-elemental technique. The only way to beat him is to memorize the entire set 50-turn-long sequence of attacks he uses so you can counter them at the appropriate time; so strictly speaking (barring an insanely defensive tactic), he's only ''beatable'' because he subverts this trope.

** The AI also seems unable to cast targetable [=AoE=] attacks properly and always casting them on itself.