Complaints about AI Cascading...

mpqr7
mpqr7 Posts: 2,642 Chairperson of the Boards
edited March 2016 in MPQ General Discussion
I see a lot of complaints on FB against AI cascading... but (knock on wood), so far I haven't really seen it more than once in a blue moon. Does it often happen to you? Am I just better at seeing potential cascades and making sure I don't set up any openings? Or because even when they do happen, it rarely affects the outcomes of my matches, so I don't even really notice them?

I'm curious if this is a problem for you or not at all.
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Comments

  • Alfje17
    Alfje17 Posts: 3,910 Chairperson of the Boards
    I see this quite often in PvP: AI makes a 3 tile match instead of a 4 or 5 one, simply because he knows what tiles are coming in. So the resulting cascade does a whole lot more damage and I end up losing a character icon_mad.gif
  • Bossblack
    Bossblack Posts: 80 Match Maker
    It does happen..but it happens on both ends. Sometimes the AI gets crazy cascades but sometimes the player does too! To me I think it's totally random but we all hate to lose a match because of the AI's lucky cascades, however we never complain when we get one and win the match in a few moves.
  • Magic
    Magic Posts: 1,199 Chairperson of the Boards
    Alfje17 wrote:
    I see this quite often in PvP: AI makes a 3 tile match instead of a 4 or 5 one, simply because he knows what tiles are coming in. So the resulting cascade does a whole lot more damage and I end up losing a character icon_mad.gif


    Interesting. I've been playing for almost 2 years and have never seen AI not taking 4 match or 5 in a straight line if one is available.
  • chamber44
    chamber44 Posts: 324 Mover and Shaker
    Alfje17 wrote:
    I see this quite often in PvP: AI makes a 3 tile match instead of a 4 or 5 one, simply because he knows what tiles are coming in. So the resulting cascade does a whole lot more damage and I end up losing a character icon_mad.gif
    confirmation bias. From what I understand, the AI *must* take the 4/5 match (if it's horizontal - the AI won't make L or T shaped matches on purpose). It's kind of like a blackjack dealer at a casino who must "hit on 16 and stand on 17."
  • mpqr7
    mpqr7 Posts: 2,642 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yes, AI will match-5 on purpose only if it's five in a row. AI doesn't see the L-shaped match-5s. Also AI will always match 4 if it sees one.
  • zodiac339
    zodiac339 Posts: 1,948 Chairperson of the Boards
    The biggest **** is when then match four destroys a column and drops a match five into it. Random? I suppose they could say that's random, but the system shouldn't allow 4 or 5 of the same color to drop in consecutively. Same with row drops, cause I've seen a row drop in with a match five too.
  • PeterGibbons316
    PeterGibbons316 Posts: 1,063
    Alfje17 wrote:
    I see this quite often in PvP: AI makes a 3 tile match instead of a 4 or 5 one, simply because he knows what tiles are coming in. So the resulting cascade does a whole lot more damage and I end up losing a character icon_mad.gif
    That never happened.
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Happens to anyone, AI or not. I have, on more than one occasion, cleared an entire column only to have it replaced with nothing less than 8 AP of the same color.

    And clearly the AI does not "know" what tiles will fall onto the board after it makes a match. Do do that the game would have to have pre-generated an absurdly large number of 'fresh' tiles rather than simply generating each at random as the situation arises. They would also have to program the AI to make matches intelligently, planning for the future, which anyone who plays the game can tell you it absolutely does not do (matching away its own CDs, using Flame Jet repeatedly until it has no Green AP anyways, etc...)
  • TxMoose
    TxMoose Posts: 4,319 Chairperson of the Boards
    play enough and it happens to all of us. to me it tends to happen in groups/waves. and usually in pve. but I play more pve matches/day than pvp, so numbers say it should happen more there. many many times AI ends up with 20-40 ap after 1-2 turns. sometimes happens to me too, but as a human player, I chase colors for my best abilities. AI just takes whatever match-4 is out there, whether its a useful color or not. humans do sometimes pass over the match-4. I think that can lead to a little more AI 'small cascades', but the non-linear match-5s that we can make that they can't lead to more 'large cascades' for us. also, we remember bad things that happen to us more than good.
  • Jarvind
    Jarvind Posts: 1,684 Chairperson of the Boards
    Jaedenkaal wrote:
    And clearly the AI does not "know" what tiles will fall onto the board after it makes a match. Do do that the game would have to have pre-generated an absurdly large number of 'fresh' tiles rather than simply generating each at random as the situation arises. They would also have to program the AI to make matches intelligently, planning for the future, which anyone who plays the game can tell you it absolutely does not do (matching away its own CDs, using Flame Jet repeatedly until it has no Green AP anyways, etc...)

    Don't forget "matching TU tiles over colors when its TU ability is Web Slinger."
  • Xenoberyll
    Xenoberyll Posts: 647 Critical Contributor
    It's pretty difficult to create a truly random number but the RNG D3 uses just sucks. If this was poker a straight flush would be a very common thing considering how many complete match 5s drop from the sky.
  • TLCstormz
    TLCstormz Posts: 1,668
    zodiac339 wrote:
    The biggest **** is when then match four destroys a column and drops a match five into it. Random? I suppose they could say that's random, but the system shouldn't allow 4 or 5 of the same color to drop in consecutively. Same with row drops, cause I've seen a row drop in with a match five too.

    This is my complaint about the situation.

    Its always that they make a match 5 and then four or five other match fives magically appear from the heavens to fall down on top.

    And the people saying confirmation bias are out of their mind in my opinion, because no human player is going to match correctly and predict the future of incoming tiles like the artificial intelligence WILL. Suggesting so is really really cuckoo.
  • SnowcaTT
    SnowcaTT Posts: 3,487 Chairperson of the Boards
    Usually the majority jumps in these and says "confirmation bias", surprised I see more complaints about the cascades then against them.

    It is a bummer when you have successfully AP denied the opponent and then they drop a horizontal match-six on the top row to get the AP they need. It happens. I saw a vertical match-seven (all but one) this season, first time I've seen that. I've seen horizontal match-sevens (all but two) many times.
  • udonomefoo
    udonomefoo Posts: 1,630 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yesterday I cleared a vertical column with a match 4 and 7 blue dropped in with a TU on the end spot. I did not complain.
  • TheWerebison
    TheWerebison Posts: 431 Mover and Shaker
    SnowcaTT wrote:
    Usually the majority jumps in these and says "confirmation bias", surprised I see more complaints about the cascades then against them.

    It is a bummer when you have successfully AP denied the opponent and then they drop a horizontal match-six on the top row to get the AP they need. It happens. I saw a vertical match-seven (all but one) this season, first time I've seen that. I've seen horizontal match-sevens (all but two) many times.

    It's mostly because we remember the bad things more than the good, and because people with complaints are generally more vocal than people without.

    I've gotten some very nice cascades myself, and I try to take note of them every time they happen. I've made vertical matches and come up with full rows of one color. It does happen both ways. It's part of my depression mental reconditioning to really pay attention to times when things go right as opposed to only when things go wrong.
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Xenoberyll wrote:
    It's pretty difficult to create a truly random number but the RNG D3 uses just sucks. If this was poker a straight flush would be a very common thing considering how many complete match 5s drop from the sky.

    Yeah except in this odd poker game of yours, there's only one face value, and 7 suits. (or one suit and 7 face values, if you'd like). And you get to draw more than 5 cards at a time, in a lot of cases. And there are ~50 other cards that you could potentially use already on the board.

    Wait, this analogy doesn't work at all.
  • carrion_pigeons
    carrion_pigeons Posts: 942 Critical Contributor
    I once had two adjacent vertical match 4s on the board, kind of interlocked? I switched them to match both match 4s at once, and 16 yellow AP dropped from the sky.
  • Tatercat
    Tatercat Posts: 930 Critical Contributor
    I've actually seen 7 same color tiles drop in one column after a 4 tile match cleared it. That one seemed excessive to me, and probably should have a code fix.

    But as much as it seems like the AI has a cascade bias, the truth is they seem to be evenly distributed between both sides. It's just the AI ones get you madder so they stick out in your memory more (I'm guilty of angry posting about it too.) But there have been times when I made a simple match and then looked at the TV, only to turn back 20 seconds later and the whole AI team has been wiped.
  • TheWerebison
    TheWerebison Posts: 431 Mover and Shaker
    Tatercat wrote:
    I've actually seen 7 same color tiles drop in one column after a 4 tile match cleared it. That one seemed excessive to me, and probably should have a code fix.

    But as much as it seems like the AI has a cascade bias, the truth is they seem to be evenly distributed between both sides. It's just the AI ones get you madder so they stick out in your memory more (I'm guilty of angry posting about it too.) But there have been times when I made a simple match and then looked at the TV, only to turn back 20 seconds later and the whole AI team has been wiped.

    Oh, god, that's the worst. I remember doing a pvp match, and in the first turn, the AI took one of my characters down by half his health. I made another match and turned away for a bit, and when I looked back, my first guy was dead and another character was down to 16 health. I gave up.
  • JVReal
    JVReal Posts: 1,884 Chairperson of the Boards
    It seems to come in waves. I'll have an easy climb one PVP, then the next suffer cascade wipes.

    Last night at the end of season, I'm trying to stretch 12 Health packs to get me my goal in PVP and climb back up in Simulator... 3 total wipes from AI Cascades and subsequent ability spams. Chose my PVP climb over my sim climb.

    After 3 in a row of cascade deaths, I force close the app and restart.

    The more frustrating thing for me is being denied the AP I need and the AI doesn't. I had IM40, just needed my 6 AP to generate some AP for my other guys... I went through the entire match with only 3 yellow, AI had 16 and didn't even need it. OML matched it because it's one of his colors. So frustrating. IM40 was useless that match.

    We all know that the board setup does tend to favor the AI. If the AI has 3* Cyclops, the board will be flooded with Red or Black. If I need Yellow, there will be 3, 1 in each corner... lol.

    I do get the occassional favorable cascade, or immediate yellow matches for IM40, so I'm happy when that happens. But when the AI matches 4, and a match 5 drops down, followed by another match 4 to fill that gap... it gets very irritating. That seldom happens to me, if ever.

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