Hilarious Side Effect of the XP Announcement for Match Wins

famousfoxking

Getting the "You Win!" XP announcement a turn (or two!) before the actual end of the match is unintentionally hilarious.

Fury uses "Demolition" I make a match. "YOU WIN!" then all of the AIs side casts their powers, THEN Cap matches a red trap and BOOM. Spectacular.

Better, however, playing DDQ, Ms Marvel casts Sonic Boom. The countdown gets to 1, I make my match and "YOU WIN!". The enemy gets their entire turn, then my turn starts and the countdown goes off taking out the other side.

I have a whole new love for the game now.

famousfoxking

Also, D3 THIS IS NOT A BUG REPORT. DON'T YOU TINYKITTY DARE MOVE THAT BANNER TO LATER IN THE ORDER OF OPERATIONS.

Sluggo

I had a great one today: I was using Switch in one of the Civil War side nodes, I made a move and I get the VICTORY! banner and XP announcement. And I sat there, fascinated as to how I was going to win this without making a move.

The answer: the AI made its move, which involved a few cascades, and then my Switch's CD tile went off, which involved more cascades, and turned into a match-5 that killed the AI. I chuckled.

It's sort of a fascinating glimpse into MPQ's programming, that it doesn't just calculate its own turn, but also factors in everything that's going to happen on your side, including CDs and cascades, before you get to make a move, in displaying the Victory banner.

broll

I don't find it hilarious, I find it incredibly annoying. Just like the recent one of the damage numbers showing up before the hit. Not game breaking by any means but they are bugs I'd like to see squashed.

We_are_Venom

There was a topic a while ago that discussed the how random the game truly was. I noticed this behavior a while ago in which I lost a match I want to say 5 turns out and I knew because I couldn't retreat when I had been stunned.

I was scolded many times for feeling the game less random than we are led to believe. The only thing that seems to be random is our selection and only because it can't be programmed.

Can someone explain to me how everything about the gameplay is not predetermined other than our selection? I can't wrap my mind around it.

halirin

No one can explain it in a satisfying way because you want to believe in a weird conspiracy.

But the short version is that you move, then behind the scenes:
Your move resolves
the computer chooses a move
That resolves up to your next move, unless the match ends.
That all happens very quickly, then animations take their sweet time to wrap up.

OR!!!! Maybe it's a cascade conspiracy!!!

GrumpySmurf1002

We_are_Venom wrote:

Can someone explain to me how everything about the gameplay is not predetermined other than our selection? I can't wrap my mind around it.

Open excel.
In A2, type A1+RAND()
In A3, type A2+RAND()

Copy that down however many times you'd like.

Now type something in A1, and see how long it takes for the rest of the cells to recalculate.

That's what's happening in game. Your single input is triggering a giant set of randomness that is near-instantly calculated, with the lone exception of randomness coming from the AI's move set, the algorithm for which has already been posted and is incredibly simple.

The only reason it appears different to you in game is because every random value calculated comes with an animation of some kind, which takes considerably longer to display than it does to calculate the value behind it.

mckauhu

Happened to me too today and I was like what in earth?? Because there was two opponents still left and almost with full health bars! But what you know, when my Switch's CD tile resolved, it made a huge cascade that just kept going on and making match-5:s which lead Prof X to destroy them.

We_are_Venom

halirin wrote:

No one can explain it in a satisfying way because you want to believe in a weird conspiracy.

But the short version is that you move, then behind the scenes:
Your move resolves
the computer chooses a move
That resolves up to your next move, unless the match ends.
That all happens very quickly, then animations take their sweet time to wrap up.

OR!!!! Maybe it's a cascade conspiracy!!!

I was actually looking for someone to explain it in detail, not continue a conspiracy. Relax, bud.

Orion

During the Heroic PvE I got the banner when I made my move. The AI took its turn and then my Flame Jet counter resolved and finished him off.

My favorite was when I got the banner on the first turn after making a simple match-3. Some tiles dropped down that caused a HUGE cascade that obviously killed them all off. I thought that one had to be a bug because I had no idea what was about to happen.

huktonfonix

The logic isn't perfect, because I got the XP/match win banner in the recent heroic for a move that left an enemy Daken alive until my next move.

I wish I'd kept count of the blue tiles on the board. I'm assuming it either determined that healing and heat would kill him, and then blue dropped so he got healing instead of heat, or it determined that my flame jet would kill him without accounting for the healing. Either way, I had to make another move to win after the announcement.

I did enjoy getting the banner on my very first move in the first round of Civil War, using my team of 1-cover 5's to take on level 17 opponents. Sure enough, a cascade wiped out the entire team on my first turn.

TheDrStrange

So, I work in games, and might have a bit of insight into this. I don't know the specific architecture of this game or anything, but this is my guess. The game engine already knows all of the results of a move as soon as that move is determined. It's able to process that info super fast on the rules engine side of things. The rules engine sends a bunch of messages in a sequence that allows the display of those results to the player. Those visuals take way longer to play out so that we can follow the action and actually see what happened. Since the AI knows that you already won based on the ability used, tile placed, etc., it's popping that XP announcement immediately when it should probably be put at the end of the sequence. That's my guess.

cardoor

broll wrote:

I don't find it hilarious, I find it incredibly annoying. Just like the recent one of the damage numbers showing up before the hit. Not game breaking by any means but they are bugs I'd like to see squashed.

It saves a bit of time as-is though and that can matter if you are competing.

babinro

It's interesting to see how much the game calculates in advance so it knows to show the banner almost instantly.

It's also kind of sad how many banners and effects we're forced to sit through to watch things play out.
I get it, OML is healing, I get it Bolt created charged tiles, etc

This display issue makes me wish the game played out quicker.

torontoraptors

That's basically their algorithm is calculating your damage in advance, for instance, once AI finishes it's move, it knows already that a move like human torche's flame jet will finish the match. I think it is actually pretty cool

Eddiemon

We_are_Venom wrote:

There was a topic a while ago that discussed the how random the game truly was. I noticed this behavior a while ago in which I lost a match I want to say 5 turns out and I knew because I couldn't retreat when I had been stunned.

I was scolded many times for feeling the game less random than we are led to believe. The only thing that seems to be random is our selection and only because it can't be programmed.

Can someone explain to me how everything about the gameplay is not predetermined other than our selection? I can't wrap my mind around it.

Well it depends on how you choose to define 'predetermined'.

If your friend rolls a dice 6 times and writes the numbers down without showing you, are those numbers 'random' or 'predetermined'?

That's all that happens here, your turn ends and the match engine does all it's dice rolling and calculations, and then it shows you what happened.

Before you ended your turn it didn't 'know' what numbers would come up next. And as most random number generators use time as a seed, when you finished your move was also critical.

dokiy

famousfoxking wrote:

Getting the "You Win!" XP announcement a turn (or two!) before the actual end of the match is unintentionally hilarious.

Fury uses "Demolition" I make a match. "YOU WIN!" then all of the AIs side casts their powers, THEN Cap matches a red trap and BOOM. Spectacular.

Better, however, playing DDQ, Ms Marvel casts Sonic Boom. The countdown gets to 1, I make my match and "YOU WIN!". The enemy gets their entire turn, then my turn starts and the countdown goes off taking out the other side.

I have a whole new love for the game now.

I absolutely love this new feature and hope it never goes away. I love making a move and seeing the XP banner pop up, then watching the victory happen. No snark, seriously I love this.

famousfoxking

huktonfonix wrote:

The logic isn't perfect, because I got the XP/match win banner in the recent heroic for a move that left an enemy Daken alive until my next move.

My guess is that there was literally no move you could make that would leave Daken alive. Like I said, I've won on my turn and not actually ended the match until my next turn. Same general theory, you resolved your move and won the game because the "AI" had actually already calculated your win, including match damage from your next turn.

wymtime

I was taking on the boss battle IM and I fired OML black when IM had over 10k health and got the XP. I watch IM move then SW CD popped and caused a huge cascade and down went IM.

On 2nd note later I made a match when SW CD was at 1 and I thought I would see the XP, but nope. IM had under 1k health so I knew he was going to die when I made a match. SW CD went off and made a match and then game over.

It was interesting to see variability in when the XP showed up.

famousfoxking

wymtime wrote:

It was interesting to see variability in when the XP showed up.

Yeah, I've definitely had instances where I took the exact same action that has given me the early XP notification (casting Demolition, for example) and not gotten the banner until the other side was fully and completely down. Different powers check for win conditions at different points in their processing, which is why ending a match with some powers that destroy tiles will still force you to sit through cascades, while others (Sniper Rifle, for example) were relatively recently recoded to check much earlier in order of ops. I think the powers each side has available end up playing a part in the final order of operations of a match/power.

Dark Nova

If the XP banner appears and you're still allowed to make a move afterwards, I understand that ANY move you make will kill off the other team, but what happens if you retreat at that point? Do you get to keep the XP even though you lost the match??