History Main / GameBreaker

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Universal]]
* Any game with a finite number of states and which does not make use of randomness may be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game mathematically solved]], resulting in a guaranteed win or draw ("[[PerfectPlayAI perfect play]]") for whoever has the correct starting conditions. "Perfect play" does not mean "good play", it means being able to see every potential future state of the game and choosing the absolute best move at each point. Thus, there really is only one way to play these games "perfectly," except when choices are pretty much equivalent. Once a strategy for perfect play is discovered, the game can be considered completely broken, unless played by naive players. The most well-known example of this is Tic-Tac-Toe, which any skilled player can play perfectly to a draw.
** Connect Four has been solved, and becomes a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_player_win first player win]] for perfect play. To two sufficiently advanced programs playing the game, the game comes down to who wins the coin flip for first turn.
** Checkers may be the most popular [[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518.abstract solved game]]. The game has 500 quintillion possible states. No human can comprehend all that. From a sufficiently advanced computer's point of view, Checkers is as trivial as Tic-Tac-Toe. Perfect play results in a draw. Because humans lack this perspective, we cannot play Checkers perfectly and don't grow bored of it like we do Tic-Tac-Toe.
** Chess and Go, [[SmartPeoplePlayChess the quintessential games for geniuses]], are both in principle solvable by computation, as both games have a finite board and no random elements -- though it would require a computer many orders of magnitude better than anything available now. For some perspective, there are [[http://www.chess.com/blog/Billy_Junior/number-of-possible-chess-games?_domain=old_blog_host&_parent=old_frontend_blog_view about 10^120 possible chess games]] compared with [[http://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/ about 10^80 atoms in the observable universe]]. Go is worse because it branches out much more, making the options explode too widely to analyze with the methods used for Chess in any reasonable timeframe, with no obvious way of pruning 'bad' choices quickly.
** On a double-meta level, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy-stealing_argument strategy-stealing argument]], which can prove for many games that perfect play isn't a win for player 2, without anyone having to figure out what perfect play actually constitutes. It works on any game where the players start in the same scenario, and getting an extra turn can never harm you. Notably, this does ''not'' include Chess or Go, as there are scenarios in Chess where [[MortonsFork every possible move weakens your position, but passing isn't allowed]], and Go traditionally gives player 2 some extra points to compensate for the known advantage player 1 has.
*** Additionally, as Go's metagame has evolved, the points given to player 2 has risen over time, as players have found going first to be more and more advantageous.
** Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect 4, and Chess also help introduce some ideas about why a game might be easier or harder to solve. Consider Tic-Tac-Toe. At first, it seems like the first player has 9 options for where to place their first mark, but that isn't the case. The play space is symmetrical. Each corner square is functionally identical, as is each side square. Thus, there are really only three options: side, corner, or center. Suppose first player chooses the center square. Now second player only has two options: corner or side. The number of meaningful choices in the game is surprisingly small, and it can be broken with a brute force search through those possibilities with a sheet of scrap paper.
*** Connect 4 has a symmetrical seven columns the first player can place their piece in, so really they have only four choices for first turn: center, one away from center, one away from the outside edge, and outer edge. If they drop into the center, the second player has the same number of choices (4), but if they drop into any of the other columns, then there is now a difference between all of the columns and second player has 7 choices, and so on. It takes a computer to use brute force to go through that many possible moves.
*** The chessboard is not symmetrical, and there is a difference between moving the king's bishop's pawn one square and the queen's bishop's pawn one square. White has 8 distinct pawns that can move to one of two squares and two knights that also could move to two different squares each, for a total of 20 possible initial moves. Black has the same options, for another 20 distinct responses. That's four hundred possible states for the game after both players have had their first turn: after both players have had two turns there are 197,742 possible states, and after three, 121,000,000.
** So far, we've looked at board games. In theory, however, there is no reason that a hypothetical computer with enough power couldn't solve a competitive video game or develop a perfect speed run or max score run if the game has no random factor. Time and distance and options in video games by definition are finite and discrete.
*** Consider ''VideoGame/PacMan''. Every ghost has a simple script that tells it where to go, which famously gave each ghost its personality. The speed of Pac-Man and every ghost, as well as the duration of each power-up and appearance of each bonus item, was determined from the start of the game. Thus, a hypothetical computer could solve the game for whatever a human determines is perfect play, such as obtaining the maximum possible score before the KillScreen or else getting to the kill screen as quickly as possible.
*** Remarkably, six humans have indeed managed a perfect score in ''Pac-Man'', so a fair definition for a perfect game of ''Pac-Man'' might be, "Get the maximum possible score in the shortest amount of time, as measured in frames."
[[/folder]]

** ''GameBreaker/SuperSmashBros''

** ''GameBreaker/{{Warhammer 40000}}''

** ''GameBreaker/TrialsOfMana''
** ''GameBreaker/WarriorsOrochi''

** ''GameBreaker/DynastyWarriors''

* GameBreaker/{{Sports}}

* ''GameBreaker/TheWitcherGameOfImagination''

** ''GameBreaker/TheWitcherGameOfImagination''

** ''GameBreaker/Forza''

** ''VideoGame/AethrasChronicles'' has several bugs that severely unbalance the game, to the point where a fan release has been made to patch them out.
*** Equipping a Power Ring or Ring of Power gives a character a boost to their total magic points, and a +10 bonus to archery. Except that that archery bonus is not +10 to the Bows skill, it's +10 ''attacks per round'', turning a level 1 character with a decent bow into a Gatling gun that can take down pretty much anything short of a Minotaur boss in a single round. And there is a Power Ring in a shop in the very first city, and you can afford it with your starting gold. And multiple rings ''stack''; give a character 3 or 4 of them, and they will just not stop shooting until the target is dead.
*** As your characters gain more experience, the Deadly Strike skill becomes arguably even more broken. When Deadly Strike activates, it performs a critical hit that will instantly kill most enemies. However, unlike a normal weapon attack, it doesn't end your turn; it merely uses a movement point (this is almost certainly a bug). Since it's entirely possible for a skilled character with the right gear to have over 30 movement points, and it's also very feasible to train Deadly Strike until it activates almost every time, you can basically go through enemy groups like a scythe through wheat. Even when enemies are tough enough to survive the first Deadly Strike, you can just keep doing it until you run out of movement points or they drop; 3 or 4 Strikes will take down practically anything.
*** It's less impressive compared to the previous two bugs, but stacks well with them: the Summon Shadow Guardian spell doesn't behave like the manual says it should. You're supposed to be limited to one guardian at a time, but you aren't. You can give a single character all the best gear you can find (eg turning them into a master of Deadly Strike), then fill your party with clones of them.

** ''GameBreaker/YuGiOhDuelLinks''

** ''GameBreaker/TheBindingOfIsaac''

** ''GameBreaker/EnterTheGungeon''

** ''GameBreaker/{{Borderlands 1}}''
** ''GameBreaker/{{Borderlands 2}}''
** ''GameBreaker/BorderlandsThePreSequel''
** ''GameBreaker/{{Borderlands 3}}''

* ''GameBreaker/Destiny2''