Is the AI system highly skewed towards the computers side.

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  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Phantron wrote:
    One thing I find is that you don't really have to work on denying AI the obvious color most of the time, because they probably won't take it anyway because they can actually see a better move. Often time you see the obvious match 3 red and you think that's the best move since the other side has a heavy red attacker, but instead the AI will say match 4 environmental tiles for a row for junky tiles, because statistically that match 4 has a high probability of turning into a cascade and get it more tiles even if it's the worst kind of match 4 it can get. The AI also don't seem to have any sense of urgency. It is not going to try to deny you the last 3 red you need to fire off your move, and likewise it is not in a hurry to pick up the last 3 red it needs to finish you off if it sees a match 4 somewhere.

    I find that once you start seeing AI not making any cascades, you really want to match things near the top of the board, because you know the AI prefers cascades if at all possible. So the fact he made a move without cascade implies the board currently has no combo potential, and that's good for you, so you want to keep the board as is. Sometimes I'd even match 3 enviornmental tiles at the top row to just preserve the board.

    Indeed! Although we need to make this less wordy. This is profound yet so little comments.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Bugpop wrote:
    Phantron wrote:
    One thing I find is that you don't really have to work on denying AI the obvious color most of the time, because they probably won't take it anyway because they can actually see a better move. Often time you see the obvious match 3 red and you think that's the best move since the other side has a heavy red attacker, but instead the AI will say match 4 environmental tiles for a row for junky tiles, because statistically that match 4 has a high probability of turning into a cascade and get it more tiles even if it's the worst kind of match 4 it can get. The AI also don't seem to have any sense of urgency. It is not going to try to deny you the last 3 red you need to fire off your move, and likewise it is not in a hurry to pick up the last 3 red it needs to finish you off if it sees a match 4 somewhere.

    I find that once you start seeing AI not making any cascades, you really want to match things near the top of the board, because you know the AI prefers cascades if at all possible. So the fact he made a move without cascade implies the board currently has no combo potential, and that's good for you, so you want to keep the board as is. Sometimes I'd even match 3 enviornmental tiles at the top row to just preserve the board.

    Indeed! Although we need to make this less wordy. This is profound yet so little comments.

    Other things that are profound :
    When life gives you lemons, you say hey life, thanks for the lemons.
    Stupid is as stupid does
    The people who change the world are those crazy enough to think they can.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Consider the top three rows. Imagine a vertical match 3. Three tiles drop to fill the gap. Prior to the match consider the neighboring tiles. Are there two tiles along the same row that are the same color m would it produce a match-3 if the right color fell?

    There is a 1 in 7 chance of a match which is actually pretty good. In a choice of multiple match-4's, it's best to pick the one with the most possible horizontal matches.

    When the AI has trouble picking up cascading matches, its best to try matching horizontal in the top row for vertical cascades, just as phantom mentioned above.

    This is what I mean when I say that I get miracle cascades whenever I play in a similar manner as the AI. Sometimes the AI is able to calculate to far ahead to be reasonable for an average person to be any real opponent. I feel that a dozen cascades after the initial match is a bit extreme. Thirty-plus AP in a single move by the AI is not fun for most people and is difficult to recover. Its easy for a computer to calculate the most advantageous move but for players who are pushing the game to go quickly they can't do much better than see more than five real cascades, but determining the chance of potential chance cascades is beyond the scope of what a player might consider fun. It would take to long to consider each move. The awards are too small to bother with it.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I find that once you realize the AI always knows the best move it makes it a lot easier to play against them. If the AI makes an ordinary match 3 (no cascade), you don't have to spend time looking for good moves aside from the area immediately changed by this action, because if a good move exists, the AI would've found it already. Until your AP consuming moves are ready, you want to preserve a board with low cascade potential for as long as you can because here you're on even ground, while in a board with high cascade potential (like the opening of the game), the AI has a huge advantage since it knows all the cascade possibilties while you probably do not.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Phantron wrote:
    I find that once you realize the AI always knows the best move it makes it a lot easier to play against them. If the AI makes an ordinary match 3 (no cascade), you don't have to spend time looking for good moves aside from the area immediately changed by this action, because if a good move exists, the AI would've found it already. Until your AP consuming moves are ready, you want to preserve a board with low cascade potential for as long as you can because here you're on even ground, while in a board with high cascade potential (like the opening of the game), the AI has a huge advantage since it knows all the cascade possibilties while you probably do not.

    You seriously think the AI plans ahead?

    Really?

    That's hilarious.

    The AI has no idea what is off the board, any more than you do. The AI has no idea what move you'd make.

    It has very simple matching rules with simple preferences. It doesn't get mega cascades any more than you do, the difference is pure human psychology -- we remember things that hurt us FAR, FAR better than we remember things that help us.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin
    Zathrus wrote:
    The AI has no idea what is off the board, any more than you do. The AI has no idea what move you'd make.

    It has very simple matching rules with simple preferences. It doesn't get mega cascades any more than you do, the difference is pure human psychology -- we remember things that hurt us FAR, FAR better than we remember things that help us.
    Pretty much this. New tiles aren't generated until they need to fall. The AI has no idea what they would be any more than you do. The AI also uses a somewhat simple matching algorithm with some percentage slip to give it a bit of a more organic feel. It doesn't plan ahead at all.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I often feel like it's skewed toward the AI, even though I know it's probably really not. I usually think this when they create a chain that lasts for approximately 2 hours, no exaggeration. icon_rolleyes.gif Then again, I've sometimes made a match, been distracted by real life for a minute or two, only to come back and find that I've won the match. Apparently, I've gotten amazing chains that killed everybody when I wasn't even looking. icon_lol.gif
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    someguy wrote:
    Yeah, the AI doesn't know how to match a 5-tile L shape, or how to use the same character ability more than once per turn.

    If anything, the AI's dumbness and flaws give players the advantage. Which I think it should, otherwise newbies would angrily quit in droves, especially when fighting something like a 5/5 Rag for the first time. icon_e_wink.gif

    The L thing I've noticed. I'm pretty sure I've sat there after a monster cascade and watch the AI chain Thunderclap and Lightning Storm repeatedly until I'm dead dead dead.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Zhirrzh wrote:
    The L thing I've noticed. I'm pretty sure I've sat there after a monster cascade and watch the AI chain Thunderclap and Lightning Storm repeatedly until I'm dead dead dead.

    Not unless you're stunned.

    Last night in the 3* tournament I was getting stupid silly cascades at the end. The scoring was a mess, but I was taking out teams with all 3 being in the 100s in one or two turns. Repeatedly. Without taking any damage myself. Even while cursing the scoring I was also wondering when my luck was going to turn and and get trashed, but the closest would be before my string of monster cascades where my L105 Spidey died. Even then I didn't have significant damage to my other characters (115 Rags, 105 Mags).
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    IceIX wrote:
    Zathrus wrote:
    The AI has no idea what is off the board, any more than you do. The AI has no idea what move you'd make.

    It has very simple matching rules with simple preferences. It doesn't get mega cascades any more than you do, the difference is pure human psychology -- we remember things that hurt us FAR, FAR better than we remember things that help us.
    Pretty much this. New tiles aren't generated until they need to fall. The AI has no idea what they would be any more than you do. The AI also uses a somewhat simple matching algorithm with some percentage slip to give it a bit of a more organic feel. It doesn't plan ahead at all.

    ICEIX,

    My observation is that the AI does get more mega cascades precisely for the reason it follows an algorithm that enables it to select the match with the best chance of a cascade.

    The best I can offer from my anecdotal evidence is that I feel the AI has less mega cadcades and I have more cascades that I ordinarily get. The tradeoff is I must sacrifice the opportunity to get the color I need, or a critical tile and an extra turn.

    The benefit is that I deny the cascade to the AI, and often pick up the color I need. This has worked to my favor.

    I understand the AI does not know the colors that will fall. The AI doesn't even need to know probabilities. If its algorithm is set to choose matches based on the highest probability of a match from the falling tiles, then that's playing at a level higher than quite a bit if the player base. It is a bit skewed on the side of the AI in this manner.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    If by "algorithm" you mean that the AI blindly chooses 4-way matches regardless of color, then I'd agree.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Misguided wrote:
    If by "algorithm" you mean that the AI blindly chooses 4-way matches regardless of color, then I'd agree.

    That's generally the case. I have observed that rarely, a match-three will be chosen over a match-four. There are also certain priorities in which match-four to choose, when there are two or more to choose from.

    This is what I mean by algorithm. It doesn't calculate probabilities. It picks matches which leave in place two horz or vert tiles on one or both sides of a match. The dalling tiles have a 1 in 7 chance of matching.
  • Ronfar
    Ronfar Posts: 150
    I've gotten plenty of ridiculous cascades myself, so I don't think the AI is doing anything other than implementing a fairly dumb algorithm for choosing which matches to make. It does seem to have a sense of what colors to prefer, though, based on the character lineup; in the Venom vs Venom matches I faced in the Bad is a Good tournament, the AI usually preferred a black match 3 to the other colors...
  • ApocryphicV
    ApocryphicV Posts: 118 Tile Toppler
    I'm thankfully they didn't use the AI that they used for the original PQ. Boy was that one a hard one to beat with crazy cascades and perfect drops for them.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    ApocryphicV wrote:
    I'm thankfully they didn't use the AI that they used for the original PQ. Boy was that one a hard one to beat with crazy cascades and perfect drops for them.

    What makes you think they didn't?

    The original didn't cheat either.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Zathrus wrote:
    ApocryphicV wrote:
    I'm thankfully they didn't use the AI that they used for the original PQ. Boy was that one a hard one to beat with crazy cascades and perfect drops for them.

    What makes you think they didn't?

    The original didn't cheat either.

    Zathrus is right. They tweaked it a little, added some streak breakers, etc., but it is largely the same.
  • ApocryphicV
    ApocryphicV Posts: 118 Tile Toppler
    Zathrus wrote:
    ApocryphicV wrote:
    I'm thankfully they didn't use the AI that they used for the original PQ. Boy was that one a hard one to beat with crazy cascades and perfect drops for them.

    What makes you think they didn't?

    The original didn't cheat either.

    I wouldn't say it cheated, just really good drops in its favor. Game was still fair but I admit I cuss far less at MPQ than I ever did at PQ.

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