Stop the effing cheating!

Unknown

The cheating of the AI has been well-documented on this forum, but it's getting absolutely ridiculous.

The app needs a 'record' mode so that we can expose how stupid it's gotten lately.

I have spent enough money on this app to make this demand. Stop wasting people's time and ensure a fair game.

This means removing/fixing the following bugs and issues:
Knowledge of dropped tiles (which the AI has demonstrated knowledge of and uses when making matches)
Full sleeves (rows/columns) of the same color, which by the laws of probability does not truly happen as often as you force it to happen.
AI using FIVE OR MORE abilities in a turn.
Venom using Symbiote Snare every. effing. turn.
More than one countdown tile per ability per Thug character (e.g. Two 'Morale Boost's on the board on a constant basis)

The game is fun and challenging on its own - introducing 'manufactured difficulty' is poor game design and a smack in the face to your customers.

Unknown

SaboUmaru wrote:

1. Knowledge of dropped tiles (which the AI has demonstrated knowledge of and uses when making matches)
2. Full sleeves (rows/columns) of the same color, which by the laws of probability does not truly happen as often as you force it to happen.
3. AI using FIVE OR MORE abilities in a turn.
4. Venom using Symbiote Snare every. effing. turn.
5. More than one countdown tile per ability per Thug character (e.g. Two 'Morale Boost's on the board on a constant basis)

The game is fun and challenging on its own - introducing 'manufactured difficulty' is poor game design and a smack in the face to your customers.

1. You can't prove this.
2. I get that as well. It's not exclusive to AI.
3. I didn't count but I bet I use even more abilities in a turn sometimes.
4. It's annoying. I guess pairing Venom with purple generators makes an annoying node to play.
5. Again annoying. Depends on how much they can generate AP, how much the hero character helps with his matches etc. You can slow it down by matching those colors yourself but it's difficult to do when you can't use that color yourself or there are too many to deny of the same or different colors.

Unknown

What? Of course you can. I'm not the only one that has picked up on it.

I like how people downvote valid complaints. It's like they don't actually want to make the game better.
While I'm frustrated that such terrible design made it through QA, I'm trying to genuinely help.

MojoWild

If you can prove it, prove it. I'm not sure how you could though unless you have access to the code. Just because several people have complained or made allegations doesn't make it true. IceX has already advised in other posts that every drop is random. Oh, wait, maybe he's part of the conspiracy...

Dayv

SaboUmaru wrote:

I like how people downvote valid complaints.

Your complaints were misinformed and highly inaccurate. They've bern brought up, discussed to death, and put to bed on these forums again and again. People are not as good at pattern recognition as they think, so they focus on the times their luck goes really poorly and assume the universe/game is acting against them in a deliberate manner.

Unknown

Then it's on them to reduce the appearance of it. The player is the decider; perception is reality.

In a game where a good portion of people are customers rather than just users, they deserve to not have their time wasted.
Besides, you're only commenting on the dropped tiles - there are plenty of other things that need fixing.

MojoWild

How do you propose they do that except to adjust the already randomness of it into your (the attacker's) favor, and D3 jinking up the randomness is what you're already accusing them of. And then when you're the defender, all your attackers will have that benefit as well.

pmorcs

SaboUmaru wrote:

Then it's on them to reduce the appearance of it. The player is the decider; perception is reality.

In a game where a good portion of people are customers rather than just users, they deserve to not have their time wasted.
Besides, you're only commenting on the dropped tiles - there are plenty of other things that need fixing.

This is actually awesome. Demiurge_Will has commented in the past on the fact that the AI used to be smarter -- knew how to match 5 properly, for instance -- but they lobotomized it because people thought it was cheating.

Yeah, let's just keep dumbing the AI down until it hits rock bottom and nobody ever loses.

Dayv

SaboUmaru wrote:

Then it's on them to reduce the appearance of it. The player is the decider; perception is reality.

You're confused there. Reality is reality. Perception can be and often is misleading. There are probably some things they could do to help perception issues, but the absence of those improvements does not qualify as a bug.

Besides, you're only commenting on the dropped tiles - there are plenty of other things that need fixing.

The rest was all equally misinformed or misunderstood at best. The AI does not have advance knowledge of tile drops. Neither the player nor the AI is restricted from multiples of the same countdown out at once -- the player actually has the advantage here because the AI will not fire a skill twice in one turn. Venom will use his skills as often as he has AP to do so, subject to the same once a turn AI limitation.

Every issue you raise has been discussed before. None of them are bugs. I'd suggest you read more and post less until you get up to speed.

Unknown

And I suggest you stop defending terrible design practices. Regardless whether it's intentional or incidental, the simple fact is that the end result is wasting the customer's time, which any company should look to avoid at all costs.

Maybe you enjoy spending money on something where you're an inch away from furthering your goal and then suddenly the AI team pulls 8 different skills and/or a 10x match chain out of their **** to win. I don't. These things are bugs.

I suppose you'll say it's okay for the AI team to have MUCH more AP than the player even when matching fewer tiles? In those games where the AI executes those high numbers of skills, I look at their AP and they have 40+ for everything where I have 15 at most. They're not matching any more than I am, they're getting an inflated amount of AP. It's a bug. It should be fixed.

MojoWild

Well, that point wasn't in your OP. Are you talking about the AP automatically generated by the goons each turn? Because that's part of the game. If you don't want them generating AP, take them out.

Dayv

SaboUmaru wrote:

Maybe you enjoy spending money on something where you're an inch away from furthering your goal and then suddenly the AI team pulls 8 different skills and/or a 10x match chain out of their **** to win. I don't. These things are bugs.

You know that "bug" doesn't mean "thing I don't like", right?

I suppose you'll say it's okay for the AI team to have MUCH more AP than the player even when matching fewer tiles? In those games where the AI executes those high numbers of skills, I look at their AP and they have 40+ for everything where I have 15 at most. They're not matching any more than I am, they're getting an inflated amount of AP. It's a bug. It should be fixed.

You know those characters (HAMMER agents, Maggia, Brotherhood mutants, SHIELD agents, Doombots, etc.) that don't match tiles and only create countdown tiles? We call them "goons". Instead of making matches, they generate a fixed amount of AP per turn. Is that what you're talking about? Because those are the first enemies you fight in the prologue, most people have probably assumed you'd have figured that out by now.

Yeah, it's annoying that their generated AP can sometimes fuel other characters' more immediate and dangerous attacks, but it's not a bug. It's a deliberate design choice that I am sometimes frustrated by. Not a bug.

Unknown

No, the games I was referring to included all enemy Heroes.

Unknown

What a funny thread. Honestly, drops can go either way. My paper trail says the ai is slightly ahead on 10+ ap moves, but barely. Yes the goons are annoying and quite obviously broken at higher levels where they generate ap faster than God himself could.
With xforce on my squad and previously obw I've easily used more than five abilities a turn... Why shouldn't the ai?

You do realise making the ai more dumb will hurt you in the long run in pvp right? Plus it would follow a clear level increase to compensate in difficulty in pve.
Sometimes, very rarely, there is a bug where the ai will launch an ability just before they get the ap. It happens randomly though.

The only other real bug is critical rules sometimes resolving before the drop.

MojoWild

Believe me, you don't want the AI playing like a real person. The AI does all kinds of dumb things like matching away its own special tiles while ignoring yours, doing a four in a row even when there are better choices, playing abilities when it has enough ap instead of waiting for a better ability or combo. The AI also can't directly choose which of your characters it hits or control which of its own characters you hit. The most annoying characters to fight have the lowest cost ap abilities.
So tell me again which side has the odds in their favor?
Cascades happen, and they happen on both sides. Once in a while it's going to happen. That's just probabilities.

Unknown

Welp, here's more stupid cheating.

In the current event, there's a matchup with Magneto, Falcon, and Iron Man. Obviously we target Magneto first, due to the his protect tiles. But instead it's Falcon who creates a stupid amount of them. I try my best to remove all of the yellow matches to prevent Inspiration, but for the VAST majority of the game, there were no close yellow matches for me, but plenty within drops for the AI, nearly every turn. Yet another example of the non-randomness of dropped tiles.

At one point there were four tiles that protected for 196 - and something like 10 total across the entire board. Even my special moves started doing 1 damage. Every handful of turns, another one of the characters would put more protect tiles. You cannot tell me this is not a bug. Players must ALWAYS have ways to pull their way out of situations.

Demiurge/D3 has some serious explaining to do, and what steps they are taking to correct the the flawed logic present in this game.

MojoWild

Not sure how that's cheating if it's using the abilities it has to choose from. I usually target Falcon first to prevent all those protect tiles and stop Redwing. Denying blue denies Magneto and prevents Redwing. Also you want to grab purple. Inspiration can't improve things that aren't there. If you can't prevent one thing, you have to adjust and try something else. I don't know who you were using. Maybe try characters that use the same colors so that you gain something when you match.

Unknown

MojoWild wrote:

Not sure how that's cheating if it's using the abilities it has to choose from. I usually target Falcon first to prevent all those protect tiles and stop Redwing. Denying blue denies Magneto and prevents Redwing. Also you want to grab purple. Inspiration can't improve things that aren't there. If you can't prevent one thing, you have to adjust and try something else. I don't know who you were using. Maybe try characters that use the same colors so that you gain something when you match.

I do target Falcon too for a couple of reasons.

1. His yellow is annoying with enemy strike/shield tiles.
2. He has low hp, quick to be defeated.
3. His blue is infuriating and cheap if you can produce any special tiles.
4. Once or twice I dared letting him collect 12 AP. It was not pleasant.

I'm a transitioning player. 3* and above players' idea about his priority may vary.

@SaboUmaru
Sorry for being a bit too harsh on you earlier. I had Falcon defeat me with his shield tiles before, so I know how you feel but, no, 1 damage is not a bug. If you hover over shield tiles, you can see their strength on PC version. Not sure how it works on mobile if you're playing there.

lukewin

I am with OP. The devs need to explain why I can't win every match, why all my tokens don't give me gold covers, why the AI makes special moves that are clearly in their descriptions. I have not spent any money, but the OP has, so he has the right to make this demand. For a new user, I am surprised how good a grasp the OP has on the situation, that no one has had the guts to say or stand up to the devs. Bravo OP! If more people get behind him, the devs must do something. Look how they listened to the userbase when we spoke up to cancel the Juggernaut Heroic.

Successful troll is successful.

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

with his shield tiles before, so I know how you feel but, no, 1 damage is not a bug. If you hover over shield tiles, you can see their strength on PC version. Not sure how it works on mobile if you're playing there.

Oh, I do know that the 1 damage isn't a bug in itself; how we got to that point was.
The AI should not have the ability to stonewall without recourse.

MojoWild

SaboUmaru wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

with his shield tiles before, so I know how you feel but, no, 1 damage is not a bug. If you hover over shield tiles, you can see their strength on PC version. Not sure how it works on mobile if you're playing there.

Oh, I do know that the 1 damage isn't a bug in itself; how we got to that point was.
The AI should not have the ability to stonewall without recourse.

Them's the breaks...