New Changes to PVP AI & Boards

Unknown

I am placing this here instead of the "bugs" section due I would like to get the feedback of the game experience of other players to verify the existence of the increase in difficulty of the game as well as determine the scope of the change. Especially in PvP today, we noticed overall fights seemed tougher, which lead to a discussion which lead to this thread.

As many of you are aware we recently had an update with Patch 60 and what appeared to be a ninja update on Friday where the the game re-loaded to the title screen. I am not sure which of the two to attribute the changes players in our alliances and other alliances experienced today in PVP. Many of us have noticed the level of AI and board difficulty have increased. We are not sure if this was a global change affecting everyone, is affected by the players used in a match, or if it's affected by a player's mmr and/or roster strength.

The changes that we have observed include the following.

1. Boards are more frequently color unfriendly to the players' characters.

2. The AI does a better job of denying a player's color strengths. Especially, when the player only needs one more match to have enough AP to activate that color ability.

3. AI activating abilities without sufficient TUP's or AP, but players do not have screenshots (yet). Steam players could really help with this one (maybe after this season).

4. The AI seems to be more random in which of same color abilities it uses. For example, if AI has green Ares and green Thor, it seems more random which of the ability it will use.

5. AI better at using abilities. For example, Sentry will drop WR then activate sacrifice.

6. AI better at nullifying abilities. For example, I never activate WR then drop sacrifice the same turn. A significant amount of the time, the AI will find a way to destroy the sacrifice strike tile regardless the lay out of the board.

In addition we have observed other changes such as rewards arrive faster and shielded players continue to appear in nodes longer than previously.

This already in addition to other AI advantages that we have continuously been told are coincidences such as AI Rags green and Hulk green regularly get large cascades and players seldom achieve the same amount or level of cascades. In general, the AI continues to get larger and more frequent cascades than players.


I would really like player feedback to include the following:
1) Have you noticed any recent increase in difficulty of the AI and or Boards?
2) What level roster do you have? New Player ( 1-2*'s); Transitioning Player (2-3*'s), or Veteran Player (multiple maxed 3*'s)
3) Have you noticed if the AI and board lay out gets harder as your PVP score goes up, is difficulty throughout the entire PVP, or the level of difficulty is sporadic throughout the PVP?
4) Do you have any other examples of increased difficulties?
5) Any screen shots of AI using abilities without the required AP?
6) Any other useful comments.

Please excuse any grammar or spelling errors.

Big thanks for major contributions to Hail Mary and Daveomite.

Also thanks to Locked for the awesome title suggestion of "Crouching AI, Hidden Cascades."

dkffiv

I've noticed AI Sentry do the WR then next turn Sacrifice.

I may just be unlucky but it seems the AI spends more time targeting specific characters. For instance the bot cascades into a 6 red for Juggernaut, he'll hold off on using it on Hulk and the second black widow is forced to make a match he'll one shot her.

IamTheDanger

I'm surprised some know it all has not replied with a "conformation bias" post yet. Anyway, my alliance and I have noticed the same thing. It's like the Ai is smarter. Something is most definitely different. I have no idea what, but the Ai seems to be playing "almost" like an actual person sometimes.

You are not wrong, something has changed. It has been denying colors I need even though it does not use that color at all. That is, when those colors show up. Whatever colors I need are the rarest ones.

My theory, and this is just a theory, but my theory is that the whole rarity and denying of my strongest color may have something to with the Xforce buff that gave him a black ability centered on the enemies strongest color. Maybe there is some kind of connection, I just cant put my finger on it. Need a bit more data to know for sure.

Sgt. JJ

Unknown

There's no observeable difference in what color they choose to go after. If the AI is stronger it'd be because they now evaluate chains more efficiently, but that'd be borderline impossible to prove they're indeed better or if it's just confirmation bias. They certainly still do plenty of their 'must have TU tiles' when looking at their color selection. Now whether they planned to have that match 3 TUs cascade into a 5 chain or it just happened because the AI loves TUs, that's beyond our ability to prove.

daveomite

I know some of us, meaning several people in various alliances (SHIELD, Django, Ace of Blades, etc) proposed recording video to showcase what Vale mentions in his post.

Stephen/Valeyard polled several of us, both in his alliance and in others, if we had noticed similar things. We all agreed that we had, some in detail. That is part of what prompted this post by him.

As he's already aware, but I will post here for the record, I agree that something is indeed different. The likelihood of some of the "lucky" matches/cascades that the AI gets has increased significantly. The amount of times getting a color light board has increased. And without a doubt, the number of TU heavy boards has also increased. That also includes watching the AI use either an ability or TU power before they have enough AP/TU.

One thing I have always found convenient is thst the AI almost always uses TU's similar to your level, never a 1* ability in a 3* fight for instance. However, it also seems to, very often, use the exact right TU needed to disable your countdown, trap or next move. That has long been my concern about an AI controlled TU system... as that gives the AI 100% advantage 100% of the time. Whereas a player does not have the ability or option to select the exact right TU if plans change mid match, which is often the case.

Situations, like what Stephen has detailed in his post, just makes things like the TU usage even more pronounced.

john1620b

stephen43084 wrote:

2. The AI does a better job of denying a player's color strengths. Especially, when the player only needs one more match to have enough AP to activate that color ability.

This is definitely true, but it's not new to R60. It's been this way for at least a few weeks, possibly longer.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

There's no observeable difference in what color they choose to go after. If the AI is stronger it'd be because they now evaluate chains more efficiently, but that'd be borderline impossible to prove they're indeed better or if it's just confirmation bias. They certainly still do plenty of their 'must have TU tiles' when looking at their color selection. Now whether they planned to have that match 3 TUs cascade into a 5 chain or it just happened because the AI loves TUs, that's beyond our ability to prove.

Forget observable differences for a second. The question is more basic. Have you or anyone in your alliance noticed a difference in having tougher figure in the last few days?

Unknown

I have to agree wtih OP, the last few days I have started most battles with a usually bad board. The only time it may be in my favor is the new match after my previous matches wiped me out and I just spend 2-3 health packs and re-enter the same match. (feels like the more wins you have in a row the worse the board trying to stop you dead in the tracks)

Either way I find the AI has been modify to resemble a real player, where it would not activate (e.g. headbutt) even though it has enough ap. but waits a few turn so that I cannot place the right person in front. etc etc.

While it is great for the challenge an improved AI = more unique situations and higher death. The notion of easy wins on high scaling nodes are fading hard and fast. (even if I ran sentry/daken in the previous PvE) it is not guaranteed) I boosted my ap heading in and the AI / Board still finds a way to deny me green for 5+ rounds.

Over all I welcome the continuous AI improvement, but if there are algorithms that intentionally sets you up on a bad board, then this is where I question! You should not start with a disadvantage like that, that is what scaling is for.

Unknown

After 2 full clears in PVE this morning and an uncanny number of unfriendly color boards for the characters i was using, i started to think thay they changed something. Glad to see that other members of tje community caught it too.

marc

Unknown

djsquillz wrote:

After 2 full clears in PVE this morning and an uncanny number of unfriendly color boards for the characters i was using, i started to think thay they changed something. Glad to see that other members of tje community caught it too.

marc

why do they not tell people when they make tweeks like that unless their intention is to throw everyone off and let players die unexpectedly....to what? promote sales again? while I enjoy MPQ very much, the day I leave is because of this very reason

atomzed

daveomite wrote:

One thing I have always found convenient is thst the AI almost always uses TU's similar to your level, never a 1* ability in a 3* fight for instance. However, it also seems to, very often, use the exact right TU needed to disable your countdown, trap or next move. That has long been my concern about an AI controlled TU system... as that gives the AI 100% advantage 100% of the time. Whereas a player does not have the ability or option to select the exact right TU if plans change mid match, which is often the case.

What you said is untrue. The AI TU is already fixed at start of match. It cannot change mid way during game to suit" the situation.

atomzed

stephen43084 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

There's no observeable difference in what color they choose to go after. If the AI is stronger it'd be because they now evaluate chains more efficiently, but that'd be borderline impossible to prove they're indeed better or if it's just confirmation bias. They certainly still do plenty of their 'must have TU tiles' when looking at their color selection. Now whether they planned to have that match 3 TUs cascade into a 5 chain or it just happened because the AI loves TUs, that's beyond our ability to prove.

Forget observable differences for a second. The question is more basic. Have you or anyone in your alliance noticed a difference in having tougher figure in the last few days?

I did notice more cascades, but then again it seems like I having more cascades too.

The other thing I agree is that the AI will hold on to their AP longer, so it may not do a 5 AP onslaught, but do a 8 AP onslaught instead.

And one last thing I can be certain is that the matches are getting tougher...bec of the new blue ability for daken... he deal upwards to 2k dmg, and it is so tough to deny 5 blue ap.

quadiak

could it be the age of ultron upon us? Or do we just need a server reset?

op is 100% correct in his statement.

+100

Unknown

Seems the same as it always was to me. The occasional lucky cascade will ruin your day, but other than that the AI seems to take colors at random.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

daveomite wrote:

One thing I have always found convenient is thst the AI almost always uses TU's similar to your level, never a 1* ability in a 3* fight for instance. However, it also seems to, very often, use the exact right TU needed to disable your countdown, trap or next move. That has long been my concern about an AI controlled TU system... as that gives the AI 100% advantage 100% of the time. Whereas a player does not have the ability or option to select the exact right TU if plans change mid match, which is often the case.

What you said is untrue. The AI TU is already fixed at start of match. It cannot change mid way during game to suit" the situation.

I think he might be saying the ai can choose it's tup for a match based on your characters and Tup's, but players can't plan for the tup the ai has selected, since we only get to see the tup selected after we have entered a match.

HailMary

Veteran player here.

I'm one of the OP's alliance-mates who noticed a significant uptick specifically in what I'm calling PVP "board hostility," starting yesterday.

The AI is definitely playing the Sac Rupture combo smarter, and shielded players are queuable in fresh nodes longer. The AI using abilities without sufficient AP has been a long-standing problem.

However, what I mean by "board hostility" is the color composition of the board itself, both initially and over the next few turns, seems very noticeably more hostile to my characters' strongest ability colors than before. This was true (and was especially noticeable) when playing against AI teams with similar primary colors, e.g. Sentry + Hood mirror teams, my XF + UD vs. enemy GSBW + CMags. In multiple fights, the AI proceeded to make an available match (in a weak color), cascade into match-4 (as it's often done before), then drop in a pre-matched 6+ in a neat column of our shared strong color, e.g. yellow or green. In the last PVP, this led to further strong-color cascading in a majority of cases, which then directly led to a fully-fueled high-damage ability for the AI, e.g. GSBW Sniper Rifle.

Boards becoming starved of a color after a few match-3s of that color is par for the course. That's always happened. AI causing multi-cascades more frequently than a player can/would (esp. in cases where Loki's Illusions is used) has also been a long-standing behavior. However, boards starving both teams of matches in their primary colors right off the bat, for several turns, right up until a massive cascade, is something I've very palpably noticed happening much more frequently in the last 36 hours.

Unknown

Ok, no, it can't. The "AI" isn't smart. It chooses everything it does by Random Number Generator, except in hard coded cases like match 4's and TU tile preference. I guarantee the selection of TU used by the enemy has nothing to do with your team or your chosen TUs.

As for "Board Hostility", you could have taken that weak match and gotten that cascade. You didn't because it was weak. The AI did because the RNG told it to. Board cascades to oblivion. These things happen. They happened before yesterday, they will continue to happen tomorrow.

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

Ok, no, it can't. The "AI" isn't smart. It chooses everything it does by Random Number Generator, except in hard coded cases like match 4's and TU tile preference. I guarantee the selection of TU used by the enemy has nothing to do with your team or your chosen TUs.

As for "Board Hostility", you could have taken that weak match and gotten that cascade. You didn't because it was weak. The AI did because the RNG told it to. Board cascades to oblivion. These things happen. They happened before yesterday, they will continue to happen tomorrow.

as much as I like to say it is RNG I have to support the OP, there is something going on as it happen again (just now) I kept getting bad boards until I finally got wiped, used 3 health packs, and right off the next match they finally give me a good setup with a critical green 5 ready for matching. It happened more frequently than I can count. its becomes a trend after a while.

Also when the AI clears a column for 5 tiles. Guess what, 5 green comes down all in a row. wth was that all about.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

There's no observeable difference in what color they choose to go after. If the AI is stronger it'd be because they now evaluate chains more efficiently, but that'd be borderline impossible to prove they're indeed better or if it's just confirmation bias. They certainly still do plenty of their 'must have TU tiles' when looking at their color selection. Now whether they planned to have that match 3 TUs cascade into a 5 chain or it just happened because the AI loves TUs, that's beyond our ability to prove.

Forget observable differences for a second. The question is more basic. Have you or anyone in your alliance noticed a difference in having tougher figure in the last few days?

Does the AI feel like it's tougher? Sure it does. That's why on another thread I posted about how what if the game goes close to 50/50 in PvP and part of that is indeed because it feels like the AI plays better now. But its basic moves are still totally consistent with what it did before. If there's a difference it'd be that now they average a 2 chain instead of a 1.1 chain on their boring moves. That'd lead to a significant increase in difficulty, but there's no way to collect data on this kind of stuff unless someone happened to have a very large number of AI games recorded pre R60. These chains aren't being created out of thin air. It's not like AI hits this button that says 'give me all drops that are all 3 of the same color'. You can see that their chains are still mostly made out of existing tiles and the good ones from new tiles are generally in positions that are very favorable. Now has the AI been tweaked to recognize these positions is anyone's guess. They also still definitely miss the best chains occasionally, but again this is a matter of percentages. If they used to miss the best chains 50% of the time but only do so 25% of the time that'd be a significant increase in difficulty.

My observation is that if you played very carefully and studied every move and never made any significant mistake, the AI can't hit a bailout button that suddenly turns a bad position into a good one. But even a small mental lapse and they sure seem more ruthless before, and I am concerned about that because you can't play the game by studying every position on every move and never have even a small mental lapse. That's way too tiring and especially for PvP, the health pack situation would never work out if the AI can indeed capitalize most of the human mental lapse moments.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Veteran player here.

I'm one of the OP's alliance-mates who noticed a significant uptick specifically in what I'm calling PVP "board hostility," starting yesterday.

How would board hostility even matter in PvP when most of the top teams are the same? If it's hostile to your Sentry it's also hostile to their Sentry.

But board hostility can be explained by a better AI at matching. This game has an inherently adversarial relationship on moves. That is, if you made an awesome mode, the next guy's move is usually pretty bad because you just took all the great stuff. On the other hand, if you made a terrible move, the next guy's move is usually quite good since you not only took the bad move away but you may have opened up more opportunities for a better move. It is not 100% true since tiles generated is random, but there is consistent pattern of the rich gets richer where the rich is the guy who made the first great move. If the AI is indeed better at finding good chains that'd quickly turn a board hostile to the player because this increases the chance they find the first great move before you do.

HailMary

Lerysh wrote:

As for "Board Hostility", you could have taken that weak match and gotten that cascade. You didn't because it was weak. The AI did because the RNG told it to. Board cascades to oblivion. These things happen. They happened before yesterday, they will continue to happen tomorrow.

In three separate fights yesterday, over the course of an hour of sporadic play, the board starved itself of available strong-color matches nearly from turn 1 (the AI couldn't even reliably match our shared strong color via cascade joy), forced me into making the sole available match (twice it was TUAP, once in a weak color), after which the AI follows up with a match made available by my match, cascades into a row/column clear, neatly drops in a pre-aligned match-6+ in a shared strong color, and cascades away further freshly introduced strong-color AP.

I've seen plenty of oblivion cascades. I don't recall ever seeing the above situation before. Based on its level of "this sucks not because the AI is smarter/more cascadey now, but because it's like the board is colluding with the AI" frustration, this likely means that I've never seen it twice in one day before. This, due to its lead-up, was quite different from the usual oblivion cascades.

Phantron wrote:

HailMary wrote:

Veteran player here.

I'm one of the OP's alliance-mates who noticed a significant uptick specifically in what I'm calling PVP "board hostility," starting yesterday.

How would board hostility even matter in PvP when most of the top teams are the same? If it's hostile to your Sentry it's also hostile to their Sentry.

Preferential initial-board color comp is something I'm used to, and something I've observed for a long time. However, the situation I just described to Lerysh is something that, if not new, is something that's been made significantly more likely.