Poker night 2 cheats outrageously
The odds against what the computer is getting is so astronomical I can only assume it is cheating. I lose every showdown no matter what the odds are - as an example, I went up against one of the computers with a hand that had the same high card and a higher low card, such as
Ace - king
and the computer had
ace - 2
and then on the flop there were two 2's. This happened literally 3 times in a row (not aces and twos every time, but we both had the same high card and I had a better low). Then the very next hand one of the cpus went blind all in before the flop and got a royal flush. I have played poker for many years and I've never seen anyone get a royal flush before, getting it blind is ridiculous. I played one tournament where I lost 9 showdowns in a row where my "chances" were over 75% before the flop.
Why would anyone ever want to play a poker game that cheats? What is wrong with you, telltale?
Ace - king
and the computer had
ace - 2
and then on the flop there were two 2's. This happened literally 3 times in a row (not aces and twos every time, but we both had the same high card and I had a better low). Then the very next hand one of the cpus went blind all in before the flop and got a royal flush. I have played poker for many years and I've never seen anyone get a royal flush before, getting it blind is ridiculous. I played one tournament where I lost 9 showdowns in a row where my "chances" were over 75% before the flop.
Why would anyone ever want to play a poker game that cheats? What is wrong with you, telltale?
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It's not cheating. The game has no motivation to cheat! Why would we write cheating code into a game which is only fun when it's authentic? There's no money on the line, only unlocks which we want you to have. No cheating, I promise.
So, questions/notes: 1) Were you playing Omaha or Texas Hold'em? 2) Start uploading screenshots if you're convinced that you're being cheated, so we can see what's up.
Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 1
Why hello there fellow Steam Community Hub member!
I gotta say, at first it looked like the computer was a bit cheaty, but then I got used to it and just started playing smarter.
But this coupled with the unskippable lines that you've heard a million times, the slow menus, the once again prolonged outros, because you can't skip even if you've heard and seen it shitloads of times and the increased (fairly or unfairly) difficulty couples into one idea that the devs are trying to stretch the time sunk into the game by the players. I mean, really, unskippable lines? Why? Especially when GLaDOS spouts the same two lines every time you even think about pressing something.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=141943307
Normally things like that happen maybe once in a blue moon, but things like that happen suspiciously often in PN2, not always against the player i will admit, but look at that:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=141631870
Stacking the cards in any way defeats the purpose of random chance, but if they say it's not then i'm willing to believe them. (As it indeed doesn't make a whole lot of sense.)
Jake, I came to the forum (first time poster) to post something about this. First off, I love you guys and think you do one hell of a job and what you do. I wish that was the first thing I came to your forum to say, I would much prefer that. However, I came here to look and see what other people were saying first.
I started playing this game yesterday. A buddy of mine treated me to it since I love Claptrap and Brock. I am by no means a poker champ, I kind of suck at it. However, it isn't my skill that frustrates me. I already know I suck balls playing it. The frustration comes from the wildly improbable things I am seeing that I have actually started tracking. I don't like it coming, "from the gut," I prefer having actual statistics to back it up. While I won't say you guys programmed the game to cheat as that would be utterly ridiculous, perhaps the coding is doing something unexpected.
I have numbers to backup 65 games that I have played. That is after I played anywhere from 75-125 games on my XBOX. I started tracking it because I was noticing an alarming trend, in a showdown scenario the NPC I was playing against was getting the EXACT card they needed like it was magical bullshit. My wife heard me cursing thinking it was just me being an ass or a sore loser. She stuck around eating her lunch and was noticing exactly what I was getting mad about without me pointing it out. I let the table play their game even if I folded. For the most part the hands they were playing and winning with were consistently a pair of high cards, or two pair. Sometimes it'd be a three of a kind or even rarer was a full house, but it was very rare.
However, when I would go ahead and play my hand, the hands they were winning with went up in quality dramatically. I wrote it off for a while as just being chance, but the odds of what was going on seemed to be very, very odd. Once I began tracking the hands for each character (as much as I could should they not fold) it blew my mind. Nearly every time if a showdown situation came to pass, I lost. I started analyzing it and was forcing the situations to see what cards they would draw. A staggering 3 out of 8 times a showdown came up, they pulled the EXACT card they required to win. They began to consistently beat me with flushes, straights, even a straight flush. I would be happy thinking, "SWEET, I got a 3 of a kind," only to see them pull out a full house or higher; while if they were going at it after I folded they had nothing better than two pair over 90% of the time. Oftentimes they were actually down to less than 20% probability to win before pulling it out entirely to beat me with that last card.
I am still tracking the numbers and compiling the statistics that I can and would be more than happy to share them with you guys. I don't think you created the game to cheat. That just seems kind of stupid to do and it doesn't make any sense. However, I am either pathetically unlucky (which I won't rule out) or there is something going on which I am not qualified to identify. Please don't think I am just a whiny chump trying to justify my lack of winning with you making a poor game. I actually love the game despite the improbability of some of the hands I have witnessed. I would just like to find out if there is some type of issue causing the problem.
Sincerely,
A huge fan (not huge as in physical, rather in terms of of my admiration of your product)
Aww man, how will you make them look into it if they don't think a mountain 'o man is gonna come for them.
Quick, tell them you know someone huge!
Oh shit. Good point.
I retract my previous goodwill statement. I know this guy, and he IS HUGE, like Gregor Clegane on steroids. He owes me money. The debt will only be repaid in your blood. Yeah. That sounds cool. I will stick with that.
If it is random, what are the chances that after quitting and returning he would still get a three of a kind like he did?
Make that four times he went all in, and managed to pull out a three of a kind once the last card was flipped. I had a probability of 78% to win then it dropped to nothing. And on number five, he went all in. I had a straight from the first three cards on the flop until the last card gave him a flush.
I'm fully willing to chalk it up to being a sucky poker player. I learned hold 'em for the first time in order to play PN1, I know I'm not good at it. But it just seems like the same things happen a lot. In PN1, it seems like an unusual number of times in showdowns, the character and I would both have pairs and mine would be higher, but the character would end up getting three of a kind. In PN1, it also seemed like characters would go all-in on nothing and get something in the last two cards strangely often. I'm not seeing that one as much in PN2, partly because Ash and Brock will go all-in on nothing a lot and it stays nothing what seems like a fair amount of the time.
Still, I feel like all-ins get weird sometimes. In a recent game when it was down to me and Claptrap and I had $75K+, Claptrap kept going all-in before the flop, which seemed foolish, and I'd read in reviews/tips that he's the most sensible, least erratic player, so I thought he must have something. But at the fourth all-in I figured sensible or not, he must be bluffing to steal the blinds, so I called him-- and he had a pair of aces for his hole cards. Next hand, he went all-in before the flop again, so I called him again. He had another pair for his hole cards, don't remember what now, but seriously. Twice in a row. And he had gone all-in three times before that-- so first he bluffed three times on nothing, presumably, and then he just happened to have pairs for his hole cards the two times I called?
I just came to the forums because it's down to me and Brock, and I was at $78K. Brock went all-in with a King and a two, I called with a pair of sixes. The flop doesn't help anyone; it looks good for me til... last card was another King, so Brock just doubled his money. It's not so unusual for Brock to go all-in with just a King in his hand, but those last-card saves do seem to happen weirdly often, especially when it's down to player vs. one character.
You can't beat this kind of thing for drama. If you were watching the game as a spectator, I think having these reversals on the last card would make it more exciting, and that's what I wonder-- if there's something in the programming to add to the drama by making the last card decisive more often, but it's not working quite like it should... or maybe the computer players just take advantage of it more often because they're more aggressive than the player, who's more likely to fold before the magical last card.
I don't know. I see other people are in the forums complaining that PN2 isn't hard ENOUGH, so I feel for the developers. Clearly there's no pleasing everybody. I do really miss having Normal and Hard mode, though, and being able to turn down the chatter. I don't want to shut everyone up entirely and play in total grim silence, but the long dialogues are repetitive.
In the second hand: Claptrap, Brock and I get into a showdown, both Claptrap and Brock have low miscellaneous hole cards, mine are both face cards. Pair of twos on the table, and I have an Ace high, so it looks like I'm going to win... til Brock gets a ten on the last card to match the ten in his hand, and takes the pot.
Later, it's me, Claptrap and Sam. Claptrap folds, Sam is down to $6K and he goes all in on a 4 and a 2 after the flop, when there's nothing out there remotely useful to him but a 5. I have a King in my hand and one in the flop, so I call him. I have a pair of Kings, his odds are in the teens... and then the last two cards are a 6 and a 3, giving Sam a straight.
Same game eventually comes down to me and Sam. Sam has $11k and goes all-in before the flop on a Jack and a 2 of different suits. I call him with a Jack and a 4, same suit. A Jack goes down in the flop, looks like a win for me... nope, the last card is a 2.
It's not just that characters get the cards they need... it's that it keeps happening on the last card for what subjectively feels like an improbable amount of the time.
Or maybe I just notice the 'last card wins' effect more often because it's more dramatic when it happens. I really don't know.
I had that suspicion too, which is why I started jotting down the players hands and actions to try and remove personal bias and stick with numbers. I've helped develop software before, so I know how one little thing can cause unexpected havoc. I want to love this game, it has great charm. Like, ten times more charming than Arnold from Green Acres. I just feel as though I'm getting shafted left and right which makes it hard to want to play.
Frankly the game would be boring if the guy with 5% always lost. IF you really are putting that much faith in to the numbers and not the strategy, you deserve to lose. I am a xcom die and I can tell you one thing for certain: percentages dont mean sh*t, unless they are 100 or 0.
The guy with a pair of 2s has just as much chance at winning as the girl with pocket aces.
Your opinion is super important to someone. I'm using mathematical modeling to see if there is an error somewhere. Yes poker is supposed to be random. That's the problem, a lot of the outcomes don't seem very random. When I watch a game where I fold versus one where I don't fold I see the dealt cards proportionately favor everyone not you. Saying I deserve to lose because I'm using analysis to try and figure something out is ridiculous. Playing poker, whether you admit it or not is all about judging probability and percentage.
What are the chances I will be dealt X card to make this combo?
What is the chance he is bluffing?
What is the chance he is holding a better hand?
And like Jake said, cheating would gain us nothing.
Mike "Winners Never Cheat" Stemmle
Once the table is down to 2, if you get too far ahead of the other guy he will go all in before the flop every hand. He will do this until he is "back in the game", ie pretty even on chips. If you call him at all during this he will automatically win with magically awesome flops.
I honestly wouldn't even be as mad if GlaDos was explicitly cheating - they could work hat into the dialog, it would be funny. But they don't so its obviously just some garbage in there to make the game harder because they didn't want to code the AI better.
I'm a few years out of the game, but I used to be great, titles and what-not a decade or so ago. I know a little something about poker. Oh and by the way, that was the highest hand I've seen the CPU players have outside of Omaha.
The game keeps giving me bad cards (2,5,jack,8 and nine are the ones ive seen the most) while for example, ClapTrap almost every time has a pair in he's little robot hands. In last game he had 2 aces while i had 2 and five.
Ive never seen Sam get anything else than Flush or Straight
Brock keeps getting 2 pairs or Full Houses.
Ash keeps getting 3 of a kind or 2 pairs.
For me, its extremely rare to even get a pair.
I dont know what is up with this game. Or why do i keep getting bad cards.
And when it comes to 1v1, it seems that i never get pairs. This was proved in the latest 1v1 against Brock. He got 3 pairs in a row, i got 0.
In one tournament, me and Ash had same cards. And the 5h card was an ace.
Suddenly, Ash won with and Ace kicker, even tho we had the same cards (10 and 5)
I mean, come on!
I had the lead in chips so I'm trying to bully Sam out by getting him to go all in, the game seems to REALLY not like this. I pull a 4 and a 7s and the flop is 4, 7, 3. Sam pulled a 2 and 3. The turn is a 5. Victory is assured right? NOPE! Sam steals the pot a 3 on the river.
Okay, yeah that's poker, couldn't happen again, no way.
Very next hand. I pull pocket 9s, and bet big again to get Sam on the run. He goes all in and has trash; 6 and 4. The flop is Q, K, K. Very interesting, but I still win...right? The turn is a 6, but that shouldn't matter. Once again the river comes and ruins my day again with another Q.
So Sam goes from 10k to 40k in two hands because the grand will of the poker gods seems to be on his side.
Then I go on to win the tourney with a pair of twos on the turn.
What is this, I don't even
I remember accusations of cheating were flying left and right when Poker Night 1 came out too. (Funny how everybody's saying PN1's randomness is reasonable now!) I think part of the problem here is that nobody bothers to post when the game is "cheating" in their favor, or when nothing seems statistically out of the ordinary. Dog bites man, not news. Man bites dog, news! So people sign onto the forum and see all these "man bites dog" posts and get very skewed ideas of who normally bites whom.
It is the nature of poker. Sometimes you start with a 2 and a 5, sometimes with a pair of aces. I did start a round with a pair of aces, and I lost that hand. And there was that time I started with a 2 and a 5 and won with two pair, when everyone else who didn't fold had 10 or higher cards.
It happens. The reason why you're getting more bad cards than good cards is that there are more numbered cards in a deck than there are face cards.
It simply happens. I know of situations where I lost a hand with 87% or even higher probability (which is what game says), but many other times I also won despite the seemingly nigh impossible odds. Once I was goaded into a horrible all-in situation whilst having nothing but a high card, and I won the showdown with a straight that completed the string in the river card. And once or twice I won showdowns with a flush, that I had forgot to take into consideration throughout the whole hand.
It's not cheating it is just horrible logic. I like the dialog but I will not be purchasing a future Poker Night because it is not fun to play and the computers logic is screwed.
This is pretty much how I feel, yeah. I have gone from a 95% chance of win to 0% just because of the river. That's poker; it just happens.
If I were Telltale, I'd be writing tests where the AI plays itself (perhaps a fifth AI can substitute for the player so as not to change the number of players) for millions of hands to make sure that the distribution of hands they end up with is fair.
Still, in all probability, the cards are fair and we're just seeing people getting the short end of the stick from Lady Luck.
Seriously, I have played numerous times in real life with friends, heck, I've played numerous card games with my friends, like Shithead. I mostly have the luck that two of the three hidden cards are cards that would allow me to instantly finish the round. Heck, I had a streak where I would just win like that, despite various friends shuffling it thoroughly.
I've started watching and staying in more hands looking for that last-card phenomenon. I haven't been keeping track on paper unfortunately, and it seems pretty late to start now, since I don't know how much longer I'll be playing. Right now I'm down to me and Sam, and GLaDOS talked about putting us both in cryogenic suspension to replay the tournament, then Sam told his 'straddling the line like a Lithuanian lapdancer' joke, I raised and got the dreaded "ample posterior" line, we finished the hand... and GLaDOS made the same cryogenic suspension remark, and Sam told the same lapdancer joke, I raised and got "ample posterior" again. At that, I gave up and turned off the dialogue. I never imagined I would ever, ever in my life turn off Ellen McLain's GLaDOS voice.
Anyway, I am noticing that if I stay with more hands, I seem to benefit from the magic-last-card effect too. I just won the tournament because I was trying to fulfill the 'steal the blinds' challenge and put Sam all-in with an A and 8 in my hand. Unexpectedly, he called me, and he had a low pair after the flop. But the river was an 8, so I won.
In the previous couple of tournaments, I stuck with an unpromising hand and ended up with a straight on the last card; I raised big and got a third Jack on the last card, beating someone else's pair of Kings; and a few hands later with a lot of money on the line, I got a flush on the last card.
It feels like the game rewards bold play and drama. But again, it could just be biased observation, since drama is more noticeable.
I wish we weren't talking about this in a thread with "cheats" in the topic name, because I don't think the game cheats. It just seems like there are odd things going on with the randomization to make it less than perfectly random at times, in a way that might actually break the player's way as often as it does the AI's way, depending on the player's style.
Adding: Just played another. I was trying to steal the blinds again but it's down to me and Brock, who of course is too macho to let a big raise go by. I put him all in, and he called with a 2 and a 4 to my A and 10. Third card of the flop is an Ace, the turn is a 10. Hooray! Nope. Brock got a straight on the last card. Even if it really is totally random it just feels so weird for a player to go all in on a 2 and a 4 and then beat 2 pair. On the last card. DRAMA.
Adding again: I'm finding it CRAZY hard to steal the blinds. I just played a tournament solely trying to steal the blinds and no matter how high I bet, the characters went for it. It ended up with me and Claptrap, who I thought from tips I'd found is supposed to be the most sensible player. I put him all in and he called. I wanted to steal those stupid blinds so I did the quit-and-restart trick to do the hand again. I played that hand five times and he always called no matter what garbage he had in his hand.
Specifically, determining which cards each player starts with is a game logic issue, while animating the dealing of the cards is a user interface issue. It's not uncommon for these two things to be entirely separate.
Still, my hypothesis was only that -- a hypothesis. For it to work, the RNG has to be bad and the players would have to receive cards in a set order. It doesn't strike me as a likely scenario.
I'm done
Whenever I play, I notice that the flop (or I guess GLadOS) always seems to go for straights, and it's usually in no one's favor; and in other times, it's in my favor.
It's a bit weird when the AI gets JUST the card they need, but it's poker; the AI will get lucky sometimes, and so will you. Just from playing today, sometimes Sam or Ash would get the card they need right at the river, looking totally done for at the flop or turn. But, then again, I did get about 3 or 4 full houses in a row, so random=random.
According to probability, it has a roughly one in 16 quattuordecillion (16 followed by 45 zero's) chance, not sure what your definition of "miraculous" is, but...
He has 3 & 8 of Hearts, the flop;
all Hearts
To quote the bot himself
Really?