I've got to call **** on PVE vs 3*Thanos

Jesus Jones

I can't tell you the number of times that I've tried to pull of his Come and Get Me! move only to have it magically cascaded away with 1 tic of the CD tile left to go.  It's gone from a freak coincidence to an annoyance and now to flat out frustrating!!  I am not a conspiracy person, but this just can't be a random occurrence, I just witnessed this THREE TIMES in a row this morning!!

IlDuderino

Yeah me too. Even when it plops in a bottom corner it normally gets erased by a match 4

bbigler

You actually think the devs wrote code specifically to make Thanos' CD get destroyed by the AI in some way?  Come on, you know they didn't, it's just bad luck.

zodiac339

Oh, there's definitely conspiracy coding in the game. CD tiles that get destroyed out of nowhere by AI dumb "luck". Professor X getting surprise match 5s more often than any other AI enemy. I brought a Teen Jean with me in SHIELD Sim to counter Prof. She was in front when he got 3 match 5s in one cascade and got Brain Lasered to death before her passive could go off. Then there's the specific mission from Deadpool vs Heroes with him getting a surprise match 5 in at least half of the attempts at it, often leading into Nick's Demolition.

Stupid conspiracy codes.

Jesus Jones

bbigler said:

You actually think the devs wrote code specifically to make Thanos' CD get destroyed by the AI in some way?  Come on, you know they didn't, it's just bad luck.

My normal trio is Carol Danvers, 3*Blade and SW, all of which at some point run CD tiles simultaneously, sometimes multiples of each and I never ever see them get marked for destruction at the pace that Thanos's CD tile does, it's not even close.  I've had games where I've had 2 of Carol's Photonic Barrage and they both reach the end from 5.  IMO that would be harder to do than 1 of Thanos's reaching the end from 3. 

No I don't believe that it's been done intentionally, but I do believe that there is a bug making it targeted more than anyone else's that I've seen.

consumedfire

I've had the same problem with my champed 5* Thanos. The AI seems to play much better when Thanos's green is out. But man it's powerful when it does go off.

bbigler

The answer to this observed phenomenon is psychological. 

Because it's very distressing to have this happen, (along with other things in MPQ) you remember it much better than other ordinary events.  This is probably due to the desire to avoid / prevent it from happening again.  So, all of these bad memories build up, bringing you to the false conclusion that it happens all the time, which leads to another false conclusion that someone is causing it to happen.  In reality, it doesn't happen all the time, but you remember more of the bad moments than the good ones, thus skewing your judgment into being cynical. 

This also explains why some people think the RNG process of gaining covers is purposely working against them, because they remember much better the times when they don't get what they want than the times when they do.  Plus, those times when they get duplicate covers are remembered well as you see the covers sit in your queue for up to 2 weeks. 

An objective and unbiased test would show that there's no conspiracy. 

granne

I frequently forget that Thanos has active powers.

Coincidences happen. Confirmation bias is real.

Vhailorx

3-turn, randomly placed CDs are relatively fragile.

Knowing this, take steps to mitigate the problem.  It only spawns on green, so wait until there are fewer green tiles on the board and no ready matches.  Bring along tile fortifiers like 4* cage or 5* HE/GG, or tile accelerators like Coulson or carol or hood if possible.  or board control characters like Lazy Cap or QS that can help you protect thanos' tile. 

Beer40

zodiac339 said:

Oh, there's definitely conspiracy coding in the game. CD tiles that get destroyed out of nowhere by AI dumb "luck". Professor X getting surprise match 5s more often than any other AI enemy. I brought a Teen Jean with me in SHIELD Sim to counter Prof. She was in front when he got 3 match 5s in one cascade and got Brain Lasered to death before her passive could go off. Then there's the specific mission from Deadpool vs Heroes with him getting a surprise match 5 in at least half of the attempts at it, often leading into Nick's Demolition.

Stupid conspiracy codes.

One of the most reliable things I can count on, in game, is when I'm playing a team that has Teen Jean...there's always a tasty match 5 waiting for me at some point. She's the only character it happens with every time 

ZootSax

Beer40 said:

zodiac339 said:

Oh, there's definitely conspiracy coding in the game. CD tiles that get destroyed out of nowhere by AI dumb "luck". Professor X getting surprise match 5s more often than any other AI enemy. I brought a Teen Jean with me in SHIELD Sim to counter Prof. She was in front when he got 3 match 5s in one cascade and got Brain Lasered to death before her passive could go off. Then there's the specific mission from Deadpool vs Heroes with him getting a surprise match 5 in at least half of the attempts at it, often leading into Nick's Demolition.

Stupid conspiracy codes.

One of the most reliable things I can count on, in game, is when I'm playing a team that has Teen Jean...there's always a tasty match 5 waiting for me at some point. She's the only character it happens with every time 

That's so true.  Also, for me, an AI Juggernaut will always destroy all my special tiles with his green while also collecting enough red for a Headbutt next turn.  It's like clockwork...

MoosePrime

ZootSax said:

AI Juggernaut will always destroy all my special tiles with his green while also collecting enough red for a Headbutt next turn.  It's like clockwork...

It's not always Headbutt, sometimes it's only enough green for another Unstoppable Crash.

Jarvind

Given how often cheating happens and how much info gets leaked pre-release, there's obviously datamining going on in the game. You don't think that if there was code to cause something like this (and I don't even know how you'd begin to do that in the first place), somebody would've found it by now?

Yepyep

Jarvind said:

Given how often cheating happens and how much info gets leaked pre-release, there's obviously datamining going on in the game. You don't think that if there was code to cause something like this (and I don't even know how you'd begin to do that in the first place), somebody would've found it by now?

The code would be easy. It would be the equivalent of Riki's blue power but around the subject tile rather than the center of the board.

I agree that there is tile distribution-distortion favoring the AI in many, many cases. The Jean issue mentioned above is painfully obvious. As is the Thanos green -- I've literally never had it count down.

This is simple economics favoring the game and the sale of goods (mostly health packs, but everything, really). Also, there is no "rule" addressing it so why not implement it? It is no different than casino games favoring the house. Nobody questions the reality/existence of that...

jamesh

Yepyep said:

This is simple economics favoring the game and the sale of goods (mostly health packs, but everything, really). Also, there is no "rule" addressing it so why not implement it? It is no different than casino games favoring the house. Nobody questions the reality/existence of that...

The "house advantage" for most casino games can generally be calculated from the public rules of the game.  Secretly subverting those rules (e.g. taking something that should have a uniform random distribution and biasing it) will generally get a casino in trouble with regulators.

Yes, they could rig Juggernaut's moves so it secretly targets your special tiles, but do they need to?  As described, it destroys 16 out of 64 tiles on the board, or 25%.  If you've got multiple special tiles out, the chances are quite good that it will hit one: e.g. there is a 58% chance that it will hit at least one of IM40's three recharge tiles.  And since his powers only require two matches to charge, it isn't that unlikely that a lucky cascade will allow him to use another ability next turn.

csista

I'm definitely suspiscious of secret coding. A week of boosted Bl4de means a week of boards with hardly any red. At least half the time I play IM40 or Wasp, getting two simple yellow matches suddenly becomes a challenge. When playing 4* Cage, an overwhelming amount of black tiles so the protects have plenty of opportunity to get matched away quickly. Etc...   Maybe it's just coincidence, but at the rate examples like these seem to happen, I'm not so sure.