History Main / ComputersAreFast

* Many enemies in ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' dodge projectiles or attack a player healing with a [[HealingPotion flask]] when they aren't in the middle of another action. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbuGGnntRA They react as soon as the projectile is spawned or the drinking animation starts]], before a human could possibly visually identify the action. Amusingly, because enemies always dodge projectiles when they're ''launched'', [[ArtificialStupidity they completely jump the gun]] on [[PainfullySlowProjectile slow]] {{Homing Projectile}}s used from a distance.

* Every ''VideoGame/MarioParty'' has a few minigames requiring players to do something really fast on the controller, and computers on the highest difficulty are nearly impossible to beat in many of them. The first game had a couple of stick spinning games that were incredibly hard to beat except with unorthodox methods such as using the palm of your hand to spin the stick, forcing Nintendo to give away gloves so players wouldn't get a rash playing the game. Even so, the analog sticks get worn down so fast that they can no longer register full ranges of motion.

* This is the bane of many RTS players' existences. A human player can only do so many things at once -- each step of checking in on a unit (even with hotkeys), seeing what's happening to it, deciding what orders to give it and issuing them takes a certain amount of time; meanwhile, computers can issue instructions to any of their units anywhere on the map so fast that by human standards they might as well be controlling them all simultaneously.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Reunion}}'' the mouse interface does not allow to quickly give orders during surface battles. The computer-controlled units have no such problem. Clicking a unit to select it, clicking Move or Attack buttons and finally clicking the target takes enough time for your previous units to travel half a step, making enemies concentrate fire on the first one. Yet computer-controlled units move in perfect ranks. The game was released rather unpolished.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' game ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'' the AI keeps track of all bullets near it and can dodge them perfectly unless the RNG decides it's time to suicide. This has some interesting consequences-- The AI is much better with fast characters than slow ones, exactly unlike most humans, and it doesn't get walled by anything that has gaps, like Mystia's bullet chains, but it's vulnerable to things it can't "see" develop, like Aya's EX attack (a very fast, moderately large aimed bullet from the top of the screen, which is balanced when used against humans by a long start time) or Yuuka's flowers forming a wall.

*** In Melee, Ganondorf was probably the worst example of this with his ''ridiculously powerful'' '''''and''''' ''fast'' jab and Up Special. In Brawl, there are numerous examples, but the most egregious are undoubtedly Mario, Luigi, and Mr. Game&Watch. They will pull unreasonable combos out of nowhere, and continue using attacks the exact second your shield goes down, your atttack is about to go into effect, and for extra obnoxiousness, the exact ''frame'' the "cooldown" of their previous attack ends. It gets ridiculous right about when Level 9 Luigi lands 5 successive aerial attacks on you to kill you immediately after respawning. Luigi can also hit-stun players, which is normally impossible in Brawl, but [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard that's another trope.]]

* This is the bane of many RTS players' existences. The computer appears to be doing several dozen things simultaneously, which a human player cannot. This is, in fact, not the case; the computer is just doing them all one at a time at speeds humans can't match.

Humans can do this too, in Tool Assisted [[SpeedRun Speed Runs]], and, to a lesser extent, in games with RealTimeWithPause. RobotsThinkFaster is a subtrope.

Humans can do this too, in Tool Assisted [[SpeedRun Speed Runs]], and, to a lesser extent, in games with RealTimeWithPause.

Usually not quite part of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, as the concept of "cheating" gets abstract; the computer by necessity has to be the one drawing the action, and it's never really using a controller. The idea is that someone with SuperReflexes could theoretically pull off the same with a TV and controller.[[note]] In practice, display and control devices do have their own physical limitations ("lag") that would prevent even a superhuman player from matching an AI at full speed, so only a [[{{Speedrun}} Tool Assisted Speedrunner]] could do it.[[/note]] Normal players, on the other hand, need to [[GameplayDerailment drive the focus away]] to something else that they can beat the computer at, often resulting in a single-player {{Metagame}} that in no way resembles the multi-player one.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Reinion}}'' the mouse interface does not allow to quickly give orders during surface battles. The computer-controlled units have no such problem. Clicking a unit to select it, clicking Move or Attack buttons and finally clicking the target takes enough time for your previous units to travel half a step, making enemies concentrate fire on the first one. Yet computer-controlled units move in perfect ranks. The game was released rather unpolished.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' has the [[GameBreaker Calculator job.]] Basically, the Calculator would cast a spell on every single unit who met certain criteria. You could spend time looking up everyone's stats, grabbing their weaknesses and optimizing for damage. Or you could give the AI control of the Calculator, and watch them cast the best spell in an instant!
** [[GameBreaker Or you could teach him Holy and use CT multiple of 5 to hit basically everyone on screen, and have it absorbed by your Chameleon Robe wearing party]].

* InUniverse example in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. [[spoiler: Legion, the Geth (robot) party member turns out to be quite the gamer, as evidenced by the dossier the Shadow Broker has on him, and thanks to him having 1183 programs running at the same time, can do such things as "Commanding 23 pets without using macros" or having a "Reaction time significantly better than possible for organics", which got him flagged for "Suspected use of VI Assistance" (basically using the space opera version of an aimbot) twice. Somehow, he overturned these flags without showing he was a Geth, in a universe where robots like him are shot on sight by most people.]]

** The AI in the Wii U/3DS version possesses a one frame reaction time, meaning if they can dodge or shield an attack, they ''will'' do it, barring rare instances of ArtificialStupidity. It gets worse when fighting characters with counters, who can and will abuse them to the fullest to get easy KOs on anyone tries to hit them with powerful attacks while they aren't open. Neither are exclusive to the level 9 AI, as even a lowly level 1 AI will occasionally dodge/shield/counter something no human would have any business avoiding.