The ‘lucky’ Greg

ArielSira

Just as manascrew happens in paper MTG, manadenial happens here as well (which is why you don't use Koth outside of PVE or TG). Aside from the 5-matchings (which only make you focus more, a good thing) and extra swaps that come with it, I haven't noticed any difference in cards, luck, rng and strategy.

Some people buy 2 premium packs and get a mythic and masterpiece, others buy 10 and get 1 mythic. It happens, if it wouldn't it's not random. I'm winning the same amount of matches as before and the ones I lose are for the same reasons as before.

Houdin

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, what a conundrum, it seems as if this debate is a very contentious subject for all involved.

Whereas myself, I highly doubt the game cheats on matchmaking for the AI. I do completely agree with the idea that the AI is now programmed to make the best possible match with the highest probability of cascading. Something no human player can match, unless it was maybe like Steve jobs or Stephen hawking.

I am happy to see a smarter ai. It is a welcome change to 300 way ties in platinum. Perhaps though for lower tiers Greg should be dialed back a little?

adman149

This is by far my favorite thread to date. The AI is smarter, thankfully. No game should have players executing a 90%+ win rate. I fully believe Octal when he says the AI does not have an advantage with pre-created gems falling, nor do I think the AI has cascades more often than players do. There was not a 25 way tie for perfect in HoD this past weekend and I’m glad. This game being more challenging is much needed. I’ve gotten my butt handed to me a few times, and that’s fine. It needs to happen. This game for too long was a mindless, finger swiping affair with no real fear of being outplayed. 

Gilesclone

I recommend you take a look at the hinted move.  The hints use the same logic as the opponent.  You can see what Greg thinks is important.  It will usually be trying to get a cascade, a 5, the best on color match, kill a support or take away your match.
The hints are better than they used to be but often you can find better.  Greg is still fairly short sighted.

ShawnP1

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

miss_zoey

Houdin said:

I am happy to see a smarter ai. It is a welcome change to 300 way ties in platinum. Perhaps though for lower tiers Greg should be dialed back a little?

This. What's wrong with the AI playing differently at different levels of mastery?

Kinesia

A lot of the time when I think something is fishy, if I look back in the battle log I can see that I'm wrong and I just didn't understand something...

Like the Valentine event, I'd forgotten it was supercharged and thought Greg was cheating when he dumped his hand... He had a good match but the impact from it was larger because of the environment.

On the White Across Avacyn event the enemy creatures kept getting bigger and I couldn't work out why at all, I ruled everything else out and FINALLY remembered it was just the rules for that node, but I was sure he was cheating... (Sidenote: Node effects need to be added to the Battle log now, it's pretty important, treat them as hidden supports or something perhaps?)


When we don't understand things we get angry and upset and that _hampers_ us thinking about the problem properly and actually seeing what is really going on.


Your feelings only ever lie to you and betray you, even when you can see what they are doing.

Theros

The new creg is hard, even TG is hard. He is programmed to choke you out of planewalker colors. So many no more  matches and board reshuffle in 1 game.
gem changers are very important now

Sarahschmara

ShawnP1 said:

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

If you think that the opponent is getting better card draws then you may want to tweak your deck. Optimizing one’s deck to maximize the odds of getting a “lucky” draw is a huge part of the game and we should always be working towards skewing the odds in our own favor. 

Are there certain cards you find particularly unhelpful unhelpful in an opening hand? Those are the ones to cut first. 

Stormbringer0

Sarahschmara said:

ShawnP1 said:

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

If you think that the opponent is getting better card draws then you may want to tweak your deck. Optimizing one’s deck to maximize the odds of getting a “lucky” draw is a huge part of the game and we should always be working towards skewing the odds in our own favor. 

Are there certain cards you find particularly unhelpful unhelpful in an opening hand? Those are the ones to cut first. 

That's partially true. When the App gives you a support destroyer, a creature removal and a creature buff in your opening hand, you won't necessarily need to swap the cards in the deck. It's just unlucky.

I just felt that head to head races barely possible with the new AI. Or should I say "with the new mechanic regarding card drawing". If you're don't far ahead Greg, he hands your **** to you. Even more demotivating is that you can't come back when you're behind. Wether you're desperately searching for a card to handle Gregs creatures/supports or he kills everything you're playing. I often (not just a few times, often) had the situation, that Grag plays the third copy of a card which I wether had destroyed or it just came in handy for him. I'm on the edge to just stop playing (and I do so for almost two years now), because it feels unfair. Not because the AI makes better choices, not because the AI gets better combos. Because it feels plain unfair to struggle when you're behind and get the most useless cards for particular situations from the software itself. Btw. that has nothing to do with deck building. When his deck is full of removal of all kinds, Greg will kick my **** with it no matter what. Combo-based decks are nearly impossible to play now.

ShawnP1

Sarahschmara said:

ShawnP1 said:

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

If you think that the opponent is getting better card draws then you may want to tweak your deck. Optimizing one’s deck to maximize the odds of getting a “lucky” draw is a huge part of the game and we should always be working towards skewing the odds in our own favor. 

Are there certain cards you find particularly unhelpful unhelpful in an opening hand? Those are the ones to cut first. 

The problem is for newer players or people like myself who have been out of the game for awhile we have to master our cards while building up our collection so we have to use what we've got

Coilbox

Coilbox said:

THAT is what i mean. Im not crying or whinning or complaining about having a smarter oponent or a more difficult challenge as long as it doesnt involve tweaking the AI to just leave you with no good matches, THAT IS NOT FAIR PLAY.

I did stop using Koth too, cause its just ridiculous... the difference when you play with him and when you play against him is just... beyond noticeable.

You mean you don't strategically make off-color matches just to smother the AI and limit their mana gains? That's the implication I'm getting from this comment. Knowing when to take an off-color match instead of an on-color match is top-tier strategy, and it means the AI is actually more intelligent. I'm ecstatic that Greg is doing this now. It means he's actually playing intelligently, and it means I need to pay more attention. So I don't see how you can say you're complaining not about the intelligence level when that is exactly what you're actually talking about. Furthermore, if I can do it to Greg, why shouldn't he be able to do it to me?

Coilbox said:

I did see what he shared about the RNG, that kind of scientific randomness mess on the first image might apply for training grounds. The other events? im not quite sure.

Im not basing my comments on any science or anything, only on what i can observe, and  it's a drastic difference on how any events work compared to training grounds.

I find it a little ridiculous that you're asking someone to back up his assertions, while at the same time you freely admit that you're not doing the same for your own, and saying that they are merely what you've observed. Furthermore, the information that he's already shared is about as scientific as you can get, and not some "kind of scientific randomness mess". So I don't know what more you could want from him on this one.

Well, thanks for your tactical advise telling me that if you get rid of the oponent color gems you might take advantage, but i got there myself long time ago.

As for your second observation of finding ridiculous that im asking where he got his information from, i guess if someone tells you that you are wrong about something you might have observed you would just take his/her word as the final say not asking further, right? That i would find ridiculous if anything.

But nvm anyway, whatever i have to discuss or ask i will do it privately.

PS: what i called ‘randomness’ was the first image of his post, not his post as such.

FindingHeart8

octal9 said:

FindingHeart8 said:

Everything posted in these threads has to stand up to the test of disagreement.

Overall I'm not on the boat of thinking the AI is cheating.  But I'm also not going to blindly accept thirdhand information as fact.

Octal has made a significant claim.  One I am interested in reading into.

Without doubt, you shouldn't unquestioningly believe me. Its something you should be skeptical about.

I know a thing or two about the AI. Why? Because I'm insatiably curious and game AI/development has always intrigued me.

Curiosity is a good thing, unless you're a cat. I'm trying to not be a cat. Aren't you in ThePower9's discord?

I like your approach here.

Yeah I'm in ThePower9's discord, it's a really cool place I'm just really really bad at checking it, it's a bit hard to keep up with all the conversations going on.  I've always favored email-style messaging over instant-messaging (yes, I am just that archaic lol).

Sarahschmara

ShawnP1 said:

Sarahschmara said:

ShawnP1 said:

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

If you think that the opponent is getting better card draws then you may want to tweak your deck. Optimizing one’s deck to maximize the odds of getting a “lucky” draw is a huge part of the game and we should always be working towards skewing the odds in our own favor. 

Are there certain cards you find particularly unhelpful unhelpful in an opening hand? Those are the ones to cut first. 

The problem is for newer players or people like myself who have been out of the game for awhile we have to master our cards while building up our collection so we have to use what we've got

Oh. I misunderstood your goals. Mastering cards (and meeting secondaries) is a different strategy than just winning and it has more risk of losing. 

The most efficient way to master cards is in heroic adventures. However, it is important to remember that while the higher levels of play do offer more rewards, the opponents decks are even more highly tuned in platinum which will only exacerbate the problem. 

It can take take a while to build a collection and, in the beginning, it can be hard to make the best of what one’s got. This can be really frustrating for newer players! But you don’t really need to rush through the  tiers—it will come naturally as you acquire more cards that hopefully work better together. 

Good luck!

Sarahschmara

Stormbringer0 said:

Sarahschmara said:

ShawnP1 said:

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

If you think that the opponent is getting better card draws then you may want to tweak your deck. Optimizing one’s deck to maximize the odds of getting a “lucky” draw is a huge part of the game and we should always be working towards skewing the odds in our own favor. 

Are there certain cards you find particularly unhelpful unhelpful in an opening hand? Those are the ones to cut first. 

That's partially true. When the App gives you a support destroyer, a creature removal and a creature buff in your opening hand, you won't necessarily need to swap the cards in the deck. It's just unlucky.

I just felt that head to head races barely possible with the new AI. Or should I say "with the new mechanic regarding card drawing". If you're don't far ahead Greg, he hands your tinykitty to you. Even more demotivating is that you can't come back when you're behind. Wether you're desperately searching for a card to handle Gregs creatures/supports or he kills everything you're playing. I often (not just a few times, often) had the situation, that Grag plays the third copy of a card which I wether had destroyed or it just came in handy for him. I'm on the edge to just stop playing (and I do so for almost two years now), because it feels unfair. Not because the AI makes better choices, not because the AI gets better combos. Because it feels plain unfair to struggle when you're behind and get the most useless cards for particular situations from the software itself. Btw. that has nothing to do with deck building. When his deck is full of removal of all kinds, Greg will kick my tinykitty with it no matter what. Combo-based decks are nearly impossible to play now.

Oof. Yeah, sometimes we bring the wrong deck to a battle. There are a lot of viable strategies and different goals to meet and sometimes we just don’t have the answers we need to the opponent’s threats. That IS bad luck. 

Is winning every match very important to you? 

I think losing as little as possible is a fair goal to have but expecting to win all the time is unrealistic. Sure, there are perfect scores each event but that’s a combination of skill and luck (e.g. getting matched with a creatures deck when the secondary is kill x or more creatures is very bad luck as is facing Chandra burn on a take less than x damage node). Most of us accept the occasional (or, in my case, frequent!) losses as just part of the game. 

hawkyh1

I believe that the gem board has been optimized in gregs
favour (I've got 2 screenshots of match 5 traps taken
yesterday). 'the create gem board' is very different from
the 'what colour gems will fall'. I believe the gem board is
created in gregs favour at least partly to balance the fact
that greg plays cards poorly. similar to the +10 level pw.
problem is previously greg never took the match 5's. now
that greg takes those match 5's means a massive swing
in gregs favour. I've always been against consistent
match 5 traps and especially forced ones. I'm in favour of
making the game harder but it needs to be done fairly.
match 5's are pretty much a no brainer, giving greg more
match 5's is like saying greg can do this but the player
can't.

has greg gone backwards and stopped taking match 5's?

HH

Froggy

What it feels like is the game is now rigged 50% in your favor and 50% in favor of the AI.

Technically nothing wrong with that. Technically.

I guess I need to buy a cable to plug into the game so I don’t need to spend more than 0.000001 microseconds to know what gems to match.

Sorry, but THAT is what makes it appear that Greg is at an advantage FAR superior to any human conditioning and programming.

Sure, it should not be all simple and nothing to it. But the new programming has added a new feature to this game: player frustration. Even the best players make mistakes occasionally. But routine players make mistakes routinely. The AI does not. It follows a program.

I just get tired of trying to play with new decks and the AI rum circles around you with perfect gem matches and cascades. While your card draws run beyond 75% garbage draws and the new cards you put into your deck don’t show up for 10 turns... Sound familiar? How about having 3 Nyx in your hand to start the game with and your first new turn is... Nyx! Someone can do the math on how “lucky” a card draw that would be.

This can be viewed as a complaint, or just as my view on what I observed in the game.

But brushing aside ALL bias, rumor and scientific math equations put up in this thread - the complaints have gone waaay up. Hmm... Complaints. In a game. I’d say people are losing that “fun” factor. The devs are walking on thin ice the way I see it. In the end, when players leave the game due to no longer being satisfied (no fun), then the devs lose. And the rest of us lose as there will be less player involvement and interest.

Gilesclone

Greg is not “FAR superior to human conditioning and programming”.  I have only lost 1 game to him in the last 3 days and I’m not even a top tier player.

FindingHeart8

I feel a tinge of sadness when I see the perfect lineup of gems after I make a swap, and once upon a time I might have had a shot at getting it, should the AI make a match on the other end of the board.  But now know that the AI sees it to, and if it could, would laughing maniacally.

Kinesia

ShawnP1 said:

Sarahschmara said:

ShawnP1 said:

I've noticed that Greg does seem to get far better draws, and even in a 6/10 creature deck many times recently my opening hand and first 8 draws or so have been creatureless, or in a blue control deck I've only gotten gem converters and not my control cards for an equal amount of time. I won't argue the random gems issue. But card draw does seem to be significantly slanted in Greg's favor.

If you think that the opponent is getting better card draws then you may want to tweak your deck. Optimizing one’s deck to maximize the odds of getting a “lucky” draw is a huge part of the game and we should always be working towards skewing the odds in our own favor. 

Are there certain cards you find particularly unhelpful unhelpful in an opening hand? Those are the ones to cut first. 

The problem is for newer players or people like myself who have been out of the game for awhile we have to master our cards while building up our collection so we have to use what we've got

Cards that give options in multiple situations help a lot. Cycling cards are good for this (WITHOUT playing a cycling deck), like the cycling support destruction can be better than demolish because if you need a creature instead you can try it.
The cheap pyramid can help smooth things out a lot just because it gives you more options.

I try and build my decks for recovery rather than fast wins, I _aim_ to get hammered by the AI and then come back (and despite what people have been saying I almost always can. There are very occasional HUF-Deploy problems or omni loops but I was just going to lose to those anyway.)

No deck is bulletproof against _everything_, so you decide what things you can afford to risk. like Hexproof is too common, every deck needs a way to deal with it, but the gods used to be a problem and they hardly come up now, so you don't have to explicitly desl with those in every deck.