The AI does not cheat...

russreid91

...but sometimes it sure feels like it.

**Disclaimer this is not another AI cheats post, I have read all the reasons why it feels like the AI cheats and I get it**

This is just one of those moments that make you feel like he does. I accidentally went into a match without properly healing my guys and so did end up dying which again is why this sticks in my brain a little more. However you know this little cascades that the AI seems to get a lot of, the one where it matches 3 of them from off the board? This is one of those.

All my characters are hurt and Psylocke and Ms Marvel are really low so I'm trying to get Patch to tank everything but he is also down under 2k in health. I have enough green for Beserker Rage and I'm just waiting to take out Rags before setting it off on Daken (Bullseye is already down). Looking at the board I figure as long as the AI doesn't get of Chemical Reaction I should be ok and there is maybe 4-5 blue on the board all spread out.

The AI makes a match somewhere on the board which cause a black match 3 to fall in the top row from off the board and I can almost hear the AI think to itself "Nope black isn't what I'm looking for". Next up is a green match 3 from off the board "Nope green isn't what I'm looking for, but it did create some nice strike tiles", next is a red match 3 from off the board "Nope red isn't what I'm looking for but Rags can us it" and then the blue match 3 falls "Ah that's what I'm looking for".

Cascade stops, AI casts Chemical Reaction fueled by the strike tiles created during the blue match search and I'm dead. AI follows it up with Rags red and green just to make sure.

I know that I get cascades like this as well and when they happen I really try to make a mental note of it in my head to remind myself of them when stuff like this happens. I just figured I would post this as it usually make me feel a little better when I hear of others that are having the same difficulty or running into the same type of cascades that I sometimes get.

Hopefully this can make somebody feel a little better knowing that they are not the only one the AI is picking on.

Unknown

I think the AI has two secret powers, one is 'miracle cascade' and another is 'just give me 6 blue AP'.

Lystrata

Lol - sucks. But I can assure you, you're not alone in these experiences! Whenever it happens to my bf, I swear the neighbours must think he's being tortured with all the "No, no, no, ouch, ****, noooo!" that goes on.

Not that I'm any better, I'll be all: alkjdkfa!
Him: Awww, it's okay...
Me: It's not **** okay, the **** **** that **** is cheating, the sonnuva...


... and that's how we roll.

Point being... I feel your pain.


(Outside of this game, I don't actually tinykitty all that much... )

EDIT: This game, and Mario Kart. That blue shell...

Unknown

5/5/5 daken is not cheating?

Level 395 daken is not cheating?

russreid91

When I was getting mauled in the Florida sub last night at first I was yelling at my iPad and then I just started laughing out loud at how ridiculous it was. I'm sure my neighbours must have

I'm usually a pretty calm and laid back person myself but this game can really get to you. I had to start my own rant group on LINE so that I wouldn't clutter up our regular alliance chat group.

CrookedKnight

I think a big part of why we see the AI as a cheating SOB it is that when there's a huge death cascade favoring the player - which absolutely does happen, I've lost track of the number of times I've wiped out goons with them - we just smile, collect our points and move on to the next fight. They get lost in the long, long chain of victories necessary to succeed in PvP or PvE. But it only takes two wipes to eat a full supply of health packs and stop a player's push completely cold for three hours. It's pretty much the perfect environment for confirmation bias.

Unknown

If you tried to suicide a large number of teams in PvE back when this worked you'll find that you get a surprising number of crazy cascades when you're trying to lose on purpose.

Unless you work out every state of the board, including what is likely to drop, the good moves you see aren't as good as they appear and the bad moves aren't as bad as they appear. That 2 chain you found could easily setup a match 4 for the other guy, or vice versa. Due to the significant emphasis on playing fast at the high level of playing, the quality of the player's move is rarely better than just guessing randomly and you'll notice is if you ever tried to lose a game on purpose where the moves you think are bad somehow turns out to be totally awesome.

Unknown

I think I get more cascades than AI overall but I choose almost all of my moves to lead into cascades if possible. I just look for matches that will drop more matches all the time. You get fast after some practice.

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

I think I get more cascades than AI overall but I choose almost all of my moves to lead into cascades if possible. I just look for matches that will drop more matches all the time. You get fast after some practice.

It's easy to make good cascades after practice but cascades where you did not compute the complete state the board can also lead to a very good move for the opponent. There are also some moves that are good but are still dangerous. For example:







It's a no brainer to take the red match 4, but there's a 2/7 chance the enemy will immediately get a green match 5 (and 1/7 chance you get the match 5). Should you not take the match 4? Of course not, but there's a good chance it turns out the AI win in this case. I think at least once every other game I have a scenario where I made a 2 or 3 chain that immediately handed a match 4/5 to the opponent from just what I can see. Now if you can get a 3 chain is it really that bad to hand them a match 4? Usually not, except the time the match 4 you handed them turned out to be a miracle cascade.

Unknown

At the start of pve I targeted Dakens exclusively for the damage that chemical reaction can do. Pretty quickly I knew that this was a bad idea as ignoring rag means I'm ignoring potential for game ending castings of its green and red to win matches it had no business winning. Never remember rags being such a head ache before or maybe I've just been lucky/unlucky. Plenty of times I had to physically look away from the screen to hope that maybe the cascades will end once I look back. Having said all that I'm pretty sure that it's not the AI cheating but more it being lucky at my hapless expense.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

I think the AI has two secret powers, one is 'miracle cascade' and another is 'just give me 6 blue AP'.

... and I love it when it chains the latter. I just got hit with cmag's blue 3 times in about 10 turns (and no, this was pvp, so no goons)

russreid91

So what about this then







Do you match the 4 red for the row or the green for the double match. I usually evaluate the row and the colours involved but is it still usually better to grab the match 4?







Especially if you take the potential for the match 5 out of there?

BTW, thank you for many of your insightful posts, I have learned a ton from you and others on this forum that really do a more in depth look at the game then just match 3.

Unknown

russreid91 wrote:

So what about this then







Do you match the 4 red for the row or the green for the double match. I usually evaluate the row and the colours involved but is it still usually better to grab the match 4?







Especially if you take the potential for the match 5 out of there?

BTW, thank you for many of your insightful posts, I have learned a ton from you and others on this forum that really do a more in depth look at the game then just match 3.

In the first scenario you should still take the red match 4 and take the 2/7 risk the enemy gets a green match 5 (if green falls above or below the GGXGG). The only reason to break up that chain is if the game is absolutely in the bag and you have no reason to take chances. This might be possible if you have say, Captain America and is just waiting for your CDs to recycle for a stun on their last guy so you're more interested in keeping the board defused so they can't get rid of your blue AP CD. Such scenarios are very unlikely against high level opponents because you simply don't leisurely mop up the strongest PvP teams or the insane high level PvE teams. When it's all said and done, anything that's 2 chain or better that has a high chance of handing the enemy something very good is something you should still take, but if you understand the risk involved it wouldn't seem so crazy when you take a match 4 and the AI hits their 2/7 chance of making a green match 5 immediately out of that. It takes way too much time to compute the complete state of the board (this includes what may drop) for anything more complicated than a 2 chain so you usually have to take your chances, but if you computed those moves before you'll see that most good moves aren't as good as they appear, and most bad moves aren't as bad as they appear either, and this may help you cope with the AI's ability to pull seemingly miracle out of nothing easier. Especially for PvP where time is generally a premium, it simply does you no good to figure out the best move because in that time someone could've already Sentry bombed you three times.

lukewin

I think most people that have the mentality of the AI does cheat, have selective memories. I know there have been plenty of times where the AI just gets ridiculous amounts of matches and cascades, and with the nodes with high level Venom and Ragnarok nodes, it sometimes felt like the AI was robbing me of a turn, like I should have been unstunned and been able to make a move by now, type feeling. I believe the devs when they say there is no AI edge, because I do remember the times when there are ridiculous amounts of matches and cascades, in my favor. I think most people tend to forget those wins fairly quickly, attribute those wins to their awesome skills, and not just random falling tiles, but when it's a loss, it's sticks more in their mind and they think, the AI is cheating. If the AI was really programmed to cheat, I'm pretty sure the devs would've made sure that the AI actually made all possible match 5's, instead of turning them into match 4's. Or maybe the devs threw that in there, to make us think that the AI is not cheating. Smooth move devs, smooth move. Just kidding, the AI does not cheat.

Polares

In this last PvE (Blade reward) with Rags and Daken it certanly did seem that AI was cheating, I know that's not true, but it certanly seemed so.

I had some matches against Rags, Daken and Venom where AI played for more that 6 rounds with more than 12 powers launched in a row. Of course everything is a combination of Venom stun, Daken cheap blue and Rags Godlike power, but it was infuriating. I didn't lost a match because my teams were fairly superior, but they were able to down some team members.

Unknown

The AI cheats (the devs didn't gave that Omega cascade of death for nothing), and it does so to make us use healthpack faster. before the cascade change, I could do 4-5 fights before using a pack, now 1 or 2 ... and there is sometime where the game is uploading in match as if it search a configuration for a good cascade before it makes his move (on PC).

And yes sometime we get a good cascade, but how many times for us and how many for the AI ? It seems to me that AI get it more for itself. I hope we will get the comeback of Puzzle from "Marvel Puzzle Quest" and that "Marvel Cascade Quest" will end soon.

Unknown

Yesterday took an innocuous horizontal match 3 in one round only to have a line match-5 setup drop in from the top. The AI matched it, and the resulting crit created another line match 5, which created another line match 5. 2 guys down. Good times.

Unknown

A character like Daken feels like they're cheating because he is powerful and you feel the effect. If a team of 3 Bagman made the same matches you wouldn't notice it as much because he can't do anything dangerous. Characters like Venom and Ragnarok have very strong board controlling abilities, and when they have a level advantage they have a lot of time get their board controlling moves up. It's just a matter of time before Ragnarok hits a good Godlike/Thunderclap combo and gets a crazy amount of AP. Why doesn't this work for you? Because your Ragnarok is 26 levels lower than anyone you ought to be facing, as opposed to 50 levels higher than anyone you have so he can't last that long to get his combos going. Also the AI starts the fight with everyone at 100%. For a player, even if you're given a level 250 Ragnarok to use, he's going to get wear down each fight since it does take some time for him to do his stuff and then his effectiveness will be reduced (or you got to use health packs). No such problem for the AI who has everyone at 100% every game.

Unknown

LOL Love the topic, btw but it DOES!

So I'm not the only one it does it to. almost glad to hear it.
If this isn't cheating it does than I nominate the developers with finding a partial AI code .

That cascading/tumbler thing effect I've already let go, due to the score 100 - 36 in its favor so, but it never makes the L-shape if it can so OK ill give it that one. Except when it gets diamond after diamond and your struggling to even plan for one.

But because I play a lot with Black widow 2 star ( she steals 4 of each color with ), I keep track of the combo the Ai makes, which color it has and how much before I steal them. i don't steal for 2 black and 1 green.

But I've noticed that it sometimes, even just after the first draw, it can still make an (special/launch)attack If it needs 4 or more to do that attack it does it with 3.
or 2 attacks with total 10 or more, when it got less, more then a few times I just checked the AI's balance, cause I need extra red or something, saw that the highest was 6 of anyone color,I end my move and it launches 2 blue attack 1 costing 6 and the other 4 blue ...?!!?****???...

Wonko33

What if it does cheat? what if the AI can see the next row on top?
What if it is the only way to make the AI remotely competitive vs the power of the human brain? understanding combos and tons of little rules we make up to optimize our damage, to use the powers in the right order, not to waste our black on intimidate when Black Panther is just waiting for his 12th one to unleash
Rage.

What if a little bit of AI cheating is the only thing keeping this game from turning into a slaughter borefest? How many defensive wins would you get then?

I don't care if AI cheats as long as it keeps the game competitive and fun

Unknown

While I do my fair share of vocal complaining (OH, COME ON!!!!) it's ridiculous to say the AI cheats. Everytime someone accuses the AI of cheating, I want to ask them if they have ever noticed that the AI INTENTIONALLY avoids making L or T 5 matches. I also notice that the AI doesn't always bother to clear out a countdown tile of yours that is ripe for the taking. If they were concerned about the AI not being good enough, they could just program it to actually play the game well...

-blackfire83

Edit: I literally just got a massive double 5 match cascade as I was typing this. I didn't need it, but it just helped to hammer home the point that sometimes things cascade in your favor.