AI doesn't make match 5s always

Dninot
Dninot Posts: 214
Hi everybody.

Not sure if this is a bug or by design, and I know I won't be popular with some for pointing this out...

I find in many situations, if my move sets up a match 5 for the AI in an L formation, the AI doesn't recognize the match 5, and instead makes a move for a match 4. This actually benefits me quite a lot as I will take less damage and the AI won't get the extra turn, but it bugs me to no end that the AI can't recognize this specific situation and play the logically best move there.

It's a fairly unique situation, but I find I run into it atleast every few games, so I was wondering if it was being looked into.

Comments

  • The Ai also doesn't make match 5's in the "T" formation, instead always turning them into match 4s. I've ranted about this before in an old post but never got a response so I don't know if it's on purpose or not but, like you, I'd prefer they fix it as it just means my team isn't making them, either, when the AI controls them in defensive PvP against my attackers.
  • Dninot
    Dninot Posts: 214
    I like to imagine that my PVP team on defense bends over and pulls down their pants and makes a come hither face to my opponent. icon_e_sad.gif

    Wait... are there vulgarity rules on this forum? Should have checked first.

    edit: rules checked. No vulgarity. Ok, I'll save you what my team does in the last 30 minutes of a tournaments then.
  • Yeah i observed the AI as well, and she NEVER does T and L formations. I find this actually pretty calming because you sometimes can't control the offset of a T or L and 4 in a row does enough damage and tiles to deal with. And if you fight a lot upwards (as me) it's pretty helpful that the AI is relatively predictable (also rates environment tiles very high, no matter what map, etc., etc.). I think if the AI was much smarter it would be pretty frustrating in many situations. But you could think about expert tournaments where the AI is better. Personally, i would prefer in the normal game that the AI does not change.
  • Year later and the as is still unable to recognize them.
  • JamieMadrox
    JamieMadrox Posts: 1,798 Chairperson of the Boards
    I asked this question before and got a response from IceIX. It's by design. In fact, the AI is programmed to be "stupid" on purpose. It used to be smart and played ideally, but it was too powerful apparently.
  • Yeah, it is. If the AI would be able to do that, trust me your rating win will know it.
  • Dragon_Nexus
    Dragon_Nexus Posts: 3,701 Chairperson of the Boards
    I recall back after the Puzzle Quest 1 days (when it was an RPG of sorts) people talked about a cheating AI, how it always seemed to know what was coming next and made the moves accordingly.
    It wasn't true, but it comes down to psychology.

    The average person needs to have twices as many lucky cascades as the AI in order to feel evenly matched with them. When the AI gets an excellent cascade, it feels ****. It feels frequent, too. If you get one, it feels good or it feels par for the course, or maybe it feels like "about time" so it's evening things out.
    D3 ended up, for the sequel, making the AI a bit thicker to make things feel more balanced.

    Hey, I was just glad they removed the "Free go" aspect of gameplay whenever you made a 4 match.
  • Nerdknits
    Nerdknits Posts: 1 Just Dropped In
    They need to rework this aspect of the AI. As new characters, like Carnage (Prophet of Knull), will make matches when his passive skill is triggered. This skill has disrupted my strategy several times, and he is my own character.
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    The explanation I got when this was reported ages ago (like, back when Ragnarok was the OP must have char), is that "the match-4 gives more AP than a 'T' or 'L' match 5".

    While technically true, it's kinda not.  With a match 4, you get 8 AP (then entire row/column).  With a 'T' or 'L' match 5, you get 5 AP (the 5 in the match), but you do get another move, so the minimum for that move is a match-3, so 5 +3 is 8...
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
    The AI didn't use to be smarter, but in a test platform one of Demi's programmers, Justin Libby, did make it smarter, enabled it to "see" and make the match 5s, changed it so it would target your special tiles while leaving it's own special tiles alone, and apparently it was brutal to play against.

    Here's Justin's write up on his experiment/experience: https://www.demiurgestudios.com/engineering/a-worthy-opponent