It's official, the game does see above the top row.

Unknown

I've seen discussion in the past about if the tiles that drop from the top are totally random or if they are planned in advance. I was playing the final node in today's DDQ and with one goon left in round 3 at nearly full health I made my move and then he switched appearances with the first character of round 4 at the start of the cascade. A massive cascade fell from above and took him all the way from full to dead. Obviously the game knew the cascade was going to happen before any of the tiles were on the board.
Sorry if this fuels any crazy conspiracies but I thought this was interesting information.

nwman

This same thing happened to me a couple of weeks back, I wasn't even sure how it happened at first, but it sounds similar if not exact to what happened to you.

MarvelMan

So, exactly, HOW does this PROVE that the game "knows" what is above the board?

DrStrange-616

MarvelMan wrote:

So, exactly, HOW does this PROVE that the game "knows" what is above the board?

The game admits defeat (and switches to next round) before the last character has actually been defeated.

I'm not sure it's proof or not. I've noticed this A LOT in DDQ, but it's usually (I think) when there's one of those endless cascades at the v end of a round and the enemy is defeated and still pummeled. I'll have to pay more attention next time.

tanis3303

MarvelMan wrote:

So, exactly, HOW does this PROVE that the game "knows" what is above the board?

It doesn't, but it DOES prove that the game knew a cascade was about to happen and that said cascade was going to create enough damage to down the remaining characters in that particular wave. Does that mean it's actively matching and/or lining up cascades from beyond the visible board? No, but you have to admit it is slightly sketchy - since you also can't prove that its NOT doing that...

Unknown

I think the bigger question is, "at precisely what instant does the game know what is happening/going to happen?"

Sure, I've seen waves "begin" before the prior has officially "ended," but all that really proves is that at some precise millisecond, the game registers the value of the upcoming move and reacts accordingly.

Said another way, there's "AI cheating," and then there's "proc'ing at a pre-determined time that while unsettling for the player, is nonetheless totally legitimate."

Reading through my prior posts, you'll quickly discover that I look terrible in a cheerleading uniform, especially when it comes to MPQ gameplay, monetization, gambling mechanics, etc., but I think you summed it up when you used the phrase "crazy conspiracies."

It would obviously be far less unsettling to the player to have all the tiles falling into their proper places before any major changes occur, but the behavior discussed in the OP doesn't prove cheating or any real or perceived benefit for the AI, it only proves knowing, and the AI obviously has to know that something is going to happen at some point...

DBC

Malcrof

Hey, i found a fix for it.. kill the final guy with an ability not a match...

Always in DDQ, this is why i bring Punisher, i always end a round with his red, so i get first attack on 2nd and 4th waves.. which usually never get a turn.

problem solved.

Buret0

tanis3303 wrote:

MarvelMan wrote:

So, exactly, HOW does this PROVE that the game "knows" what is above the board?

It doesn't, but it DOES prove that the game knew a cascade was about to happen and that said cascade was going to create enough damage to down the remaining characters in that particular wave. Does that mean it's actively matching and/or lining up cascades from beyond the visible board? No, but you have to admit it is slightly sketchy - since you also can't prove that its NOT doing that...

What it is saying is that the game processes everything after you make your match almost instantly, but it slows it down to display it for the user one step at a time.

What it doesn't prove is that the AI takes into account when deciding what move to make what is going to fall on to the board.

Buret0

Malcrof wrote:

Hey, i found a fix for it.. kill the final guy with an ability not a match...

Always in DDQ, this is why i bring Punisher, i always end a round with his red, so i get first attack on 2nd and 4th waves.. which usually never get a turn.

problem solved.

Yes, but I can trigger the "bug" of it showing the next round characters while the current round characters are still dying most of the time.

If you are using Master Plan + Deceptive Tactics + Sniper Rifle, you can get all three characters to display the next round characters without much effort. Since I've switched to PX/SW/GSBW for DDQ, I've seen this visual bug almost every day.

Punisher5784

In DDQ today, during the opponents turn, they made a 4 match to clear column and down came a full column of black ! No other color just a full column of ! That is not random! I wish I took a picture..

MarvelMan

DBC was much more eloquent than me. What it says to me is that there are TONS of display bugs with survival nodes and does nothing to "prove" that the AI knows what is above.

The one, real/repeatable, game play bug is the Capt Marvel triggering on team damage, which is being fixed.

Buret0

MarvelMan wrote:

DBC was much more eloquent than me. What it says to me is that there are TONS of display bugs with survival nodes and does nothing to "prove" that the AI knows what is above.

The one, real/repeatable, game play bug is the Capt Marvel triggering on team damage, which is being fixed.

I'm sick of the Prof X Blind Spot proc bug.

If you make a PX match while attack tiles are present, the Blind Spot buffs don't activate until after the attack tiles have done their damage.

Since Blind Spot buffs should clearly be done during or at the end of the turn that PX makes his match, there is no way that the attack tiles should do their damage (at the start of the enemy turn) before Blind Spot had the chance to buff them.

There's definitely been times where I've intentionally set off a chain of matches with PX, which would have resulted in buffing attack and strike tiles multiple times, only to have the attack tiles do their damage before the buffs (allowing the target to survive the attack tiles), resulting in my team taking a nuke.

MojoWild

This doesn't prove anything to me. Just more conspiracy theories. Moving on...

Buret0

Punisher5784 wrote:

In DDQ today, during the opponents turn, they made a 4 match to clear column and down came a full column of black ! No other color just a full column of ! That is not random! I wish I took a picture..

Only a 1/5.7 million chance of that (or is it 1/720K?... 117K?). I've seen it before myself except all greens. Given the number of line matches that we as a community make, it wouldn't surprise me if we were making over a million line matches a day. I mean, how many line matches do you think you make in a game and how many would you say you play in a day?

Given that I've only ever seen a perfect column drop once in the 251 days I've been playing, I'm guessing it is just a coincidence.

Edit:

Okay... I think the odds are 1:5.76M for 8 black to drop on any given line clear. ((1/7 chance)^8)
I think that makes the odds for all eight to be the same color 1:823K. (first tile drops can be any color, then (1/7)^7 for the other seven spots to match the first color.)

Given the number of line drops we do, 823,543 isn't bad odds.

Malcrof

Hi, i am another cascade conspiracy thread, please lock me.

Unknown

The more likely explanation is that the game calculates the outcome of moves before the animations start. That way the game knows how to start the animated moves and in which sequence. Nothing nefarious, and it would have been completely out of character for D3 developers. They've been very fair with us this far.

hex706f726368

This is just a display thing.

The program underneath the covers is resolving the move to completion and then the UI is translating that into a display for the user. It's probably just a poor coding choice to have the AI react at the same time or before the UI is done displaying to the user what has occurred. It's the same reason why you take full damage from the AI's turn even if you retreat before their turn is over. The damage has already been done, you just haven't seen it all yet.

TLCstormz

That bug of "first character of the final wave appears before final character in 3rd wave dies" happens to me on a daily basis. Or at least every other day.

I thought it happened to everyone that often.

Maybe it's because I use 2hor, OGBW, cOroro every single day. That team gives me more kaskades than a DJ in Vegas.........

Unknown

hex706f726368 wrote:

This is just a display thing.

The program underneath the covers is resolving the move to completion and then the UI is translating that into a display for the user. It's probably just a poor coding choice to have the AI react at the same time or before the UI is done displaying to the user what has occurred. It's the same reason why you take full damage from the AI's turn even if you retreat before their turn is over. The damage has already been done, you just haven't seen it all yet.

****....

Unknown

I remember on the Ultron event, when one of the sentries did their destroy a bunch of tiles thing, sometimes the tiles from above the top row would already come down as attack/strike/defense tile.

ZommyGD

I had another experience to proove this.
Often times when I do a game-suggested match at the top row or second row from top, it caused a welcome, albeit small, cascade or provided necessary AP for a desired ability to fire!