This was an unannounced but obvious change in the recent update. The AI, who most considered totally inept pre-update, has now been further downgraded.
Although Greg (our name for the AI) has never been the brightest bulb when it came to gem matching, it has recently started avoiding match 5's more frequently and even avoided breaking single shield supports. Greg has classically taken many forms of match 5's, but screwed up the L shaped version a good amount of the time. Now they will miss the straight line match 5's and not even for a higher priority target like an activate or support gem. Greg seems to prefer to not break player supports at this point either.
I assume the reason for dumbing down Greg even further is the continued desire to increase your retention rate on new players who download the game?
Spoiler: It wont work. Cascades will still happen that will cause people to rage.
What might work? At the end of each chapter of story mode, give players a big box premium pack. Also, up the drop rates. The best way to create the addiction you are looking for is to have those shaking gems come back with a nice bomb (or even a perceived one to newer players).
I will yet again chastise the company for taking a brilliant model of a collectible card game and refusing to let the players collect the cards. We won't get board if we have all the cards! There is plenty of options for new gameplay content and we all know Ixalan is right around the corner.
But I digress... please don't make the game any easier. Greg needed a buff to competence if anything. We shouldn't have tons of perfect scores on the first HoR and RotGP. It makes the game even more boring.
speakupaskanswer said: I noticed avoiding support shields that would have helped him (why not her?) too. That's a new one!But why are we even talking about this when the AI is still incapable of using the most powerful mechanic the game has at the moment? So, whenever you run into a cycling deck, you know it will waste mana on Drake Havens that will never be triggered?
If we can only focus on one problem at a time then I guess we should still be focusing on the plethora of bugs and server issues. But can't we multi-task?
But to your point.. if the AI learns to cycle then I will immediately quit the game. It's broken enough that I can build a 100 HP stack of drake havens. It's unthinkable that the AI can do it against me.
speakupaskanswer said: I'm not saying it should learn to use it but when discussing the AI that's what comes to mind first. It doesn't have the ability to use a key mechanic! It's the main reason why Solemnity is such an absurd card. So, if they couldn't even manage that (or make cycling balanced), why should we expect the AI to make reasonable gem swap decisions. Your question is valid, though, why make it even worse than before?
While I'm enjoying the fact that my supports last more than a turn or two, it feels dirty. The AI not taking the swap to destroy my Desert's Hold and instead taking a 3-swap of it's secondary color literally feels like it is intentionally "going easy" on me to let me win.
Doomstat said: I know this is way off base, but what if this was intentional?
Ohboy said: 1) let's improve the ai2) tries to maximize mana gain3) priority now shifted to landfall->mana gain->everything else in whatever order, including match 5 and special gemsAll yours big guy. As a programmer, you obviously know the explanation can be as simple as a tweak in priority leading to unexpected results.
Sure, but why would you ever have anything higher priority than a match 5? Lets just stick that at the top of the priority chain for the rest of time, and then shuffle the other stuff around. Seems pretty obvious doesn't it?
And I'm honestly asking, as I do not have a coding background.
babar3355 said: Ohboy said: 1) let's improve the ai2) tries to maximize mana gain3) priority now shifted to landfall->mana gain->everything else in whatever order, including match 5 and special gemsAll yours big guy. As a programmer, you obviously know the explanation can be as simple as a tweak in priority leading to unexpected results. Sure, but why would you ever have anything higher priority than a match 5? Lets just stick that at the top of the priority chain for the rest of time, and then shuffle the other stuff around. Seems pretty obvious doesn't it?And I'm honestly asking, as I do not have a coding background.
tfg76 said: The weird thing is that gem optimization seems like the simplest thing to implement! To be honest, the simplistic AI is one of the things that most hurts this game in my opinion. Most decent players can expect a win ratio of 95-99% against random decks, and that makes the leaderboards in events more about the tertiary objectives than anything else. Let's at least not make it even worse!