The AI Should Always Play Adventure Cards in Spell-to-Creature Order

jtwood
jtwood Posts: 1,285 Chairperson of the Boards
edited January 2020 in MtGPQ General Discussion
MTGPQ's AI has never been able to play multi-mode cards in this game. Cycling never got cycled, and split cards were only cast for their "front" half. And if we're being honest, this sort of makes sense. It asks a lot of an AI to determine the best way to play those cards. But it did really suck that some matches would result in our opponent playing the **** version of a card, thereby removing any sense of competition from the match.
Adventure cards are unlike other multi-mode cards to grace MTGPQ. Most notably, if their spell side is played first, they come back to the hand as a single-option card. And this game knows how to play a single-option cards. And just to make things more interesting, most of the Adventure cards are better if you play the spell first. That may not apply to all cards at all times, but as a general rule of thumb, I would say that always playing the spell first is better than always playing the creature side. Petty Theft into Brazen Borrower... Fertile Footsteps into Beanstalk Giant... Swift End into Murderous Rider... Heart's Desire into Lovestruck Beast. So many of those cards work better when played spell-to-creature.
All of this to say that I think the AI should be told to always play Adventure cards spell-to-creature. I think it would make the AI better, make this game more interesting, and generally improve the quality of play. And what's more, I bet this wouldn't be an egregious implementation update, too.

Comments

  • Pantagruel
    Pantagruel Posts: 79 Match Maker
    It probably shouldn't still be killing it's own creatures with burn spells after 3 years, either.
  • jtwood
    jtwood Posts: 1,285 Chairperson of the Boards
    Pantagruel said:
    It probably shouldn't still be killing it's own creatures with burn spells after 3 years, either.
    They have generally fixed that.. so much so that the AI won't use Fleshbag Marauder's ability to sac its own creature to kill an enemy creature :D
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,259 Chairperson of the Boards
    jtwood said:
    MTGPQ's AI has never been able to play multi-mode cards in this game. Cycling never got cycled, and split cards were only cast for their "front" half. And if we're being honest, this sort of makes sense. It asks a lot of an AI to determine the best way to play those cards. But it did really suck that some matches would result in our opponent playing the tinykitty version of a card, thereby removing any sense of competition from the match.
    Adventure cards are unlike other multi-mode cards to grace MTGPQ. Most notably, if their spell side is played first, they come back to the hand as a single-option card. And this game knows how to play a single-option cards. And just to make things more interesting, most of the Adventure cards are better if you play the spell first. That may not apply to all cards at all times, but as a general rule of thumb, I would say that always playing the spell first is better than always playing the creature side. Petty Theft into Brazen Borrower... Fertile Footsteps into Beanstalk Giant... Swift End into Murderous Rider... Heart's Desire into Lovestruck Beast. So many of those cards work better when played spell-to-creature.
    All of this to say that I think the AI should be told to always play Adventure cards spell-to-creature. I think it would make the AI better, make this game more interesting, and generally improve the quality of play. And what's more, I bet this wouldn't be an egregious implementation update, too.
    I've had this same thought, and wondered why it wasn't implemented that way.  I'd be all for it.
  • Vangor
    Vangor Posts: 8 Just Dropped In
    I honestly think that implementing this would just result in more game breaking bugs in an already buggy broken game. For this reason alone I would leave it as is.
  • Bubbles_CS
    Bubbles_CS Posts: 332 Mover and Shaker
    I think a simple “spell first” decision could cause these cards to become stuck in Greg’s hand if the spell can’t be cast. I’d prefer to see something closer to “cast the spell if possible; otherwise, cast the creature”.
  • Mburn7
    Mburn7 Posts: 3,427 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020
    Bubbles_CS said:
    I think a simple “spell first” decision could cause these cards to become stuck in Greg’s hand if the spell can’t be cast. I’d prefer to see something closer to “cast the spell if possible; otherwise, cast the creature”.
    Whoah there buddy, that is waaay to complicated.  An if/else statement, in this code?  Be real.
    (extreme sarcasm)

    Fun fact:  Origins Liliana used to work kind of like this way back in the day when Greg was semi-intelligent.  She would not use her first ability unless you had a card in hand to discard.
    Also, Greg would not cast a kill spell on his own creatures or a buff spell on yours.
    Also he would always make 4 and 5-matches if possible, especially in his colors.

    Sadly this concept of "semi-intelligent AI" was lost and forgotten aeons ago, only to return for 20 min back in the Ixalan Block and then never again.
  • jtwood
    jtwood Posts: 1,285 Chairperson of the Boards
    I miss smart and powerful Greg. 

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