POLL: Random Gem Spawners

In a word: Money, and as someone who has already invested enough to hit VIP 6, it makes me mad.

The broken random gem spawners and the AI’s permanent Bonestorm (yes, it’s a thing) were done to slow players down because of money. Can’t have players farming gold too fast or not one will buy it, right? Consider how many LTs the top guilds have been grinding out since the implementation of 4x speed.

I really wish the Devs would just come clean about why they broke what they broke (and smack the bean counters who made them panic and break it to begin with). Making the game less fun will drive players away, not convince them to spend more money in the shop. I know I’m done spending until I see how this is handled.

I don’t expect a troop like Jarl to give a match-4 or match-5 100% of the time, but I also don’t expect it to only give one 5% or 10% of the time.

(On a distantly related note: I wish there were more MICRO transactions in the shop instead of all the $20-25-30-35-50 choices. Instead of 36 arcanes for $35, what about 5 of a specific arcane for $5? etc. Having more less-expensive options available should generate more sales, but I’m no bean counter so I could be way off.)

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There was a bug in the Unity code. The devs acknowledged the problem and attempted to hotfix it. Unfortunately that didn’t go as well as hoped, and it also appears that PC and mobile use the same settings, so the PC fix broke mobile. I wish things were getting fixed quicker, I’m frustrated too. But their actions and comments have shown a desire to fix the issue, so putting forward conspiracy theories and attributing them malice is a bit of a stretch. I applaud their efforts so far, despite the poor results recently, and trust they will continue to keep trying to get this resolved properly.

It does suck right now though :frowning:

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I have no doubt they want to fix it. Overall I’m really happy with the game, which is why I’ve supported it :slight_smile:

I’m patiently awaiting a fix as much as the next person (or as patiently as I can) and trying not to feel too hamstrung due to the crazy failure rates for some of my favorite teams.

Courage failling a on skulls when i have 19 reds and 14 skulls is bollocks, i stand by your side.

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Has there been any new info on this? Have the devs communicated in any way?

P.S. True random RNG for the win!

There have been a few similar posts. To me this says “players were steamrolling too much, this is intentional”.

I’m down to one reliable team (missing required mythics for other still-solid teams) and only playing one team in pvp all week is boring, but I can’t bring myself to play a team that will consistently donate free turns to the AI.

My gameplay has decreased noticeably since the “upgrade”.

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And this is a problem how? That’s RNG. Gems fall how they fall. Change the spell if you don’t like it.

Difficulty settings are for that purpose exactly??

Make a better AI?

Really? The poll says otherwise.

So am I.

Same here.

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Just as a point of fact, the spawn streak denial code has been a part of the PC/Mobile in the Adobe version of game for about two years now (see below). Different codebase means that they had to write new code for Unity for the spawn streak breaker, and it was inverted for the first week of Unity release on PC, causing spawns to pretty much never fail after one extra turn. It is not a part of the current console code and the code they are tweaking now is part is going to be introduced to console in the future according to @Saltypatra.

From context, I can tell that they are hoping to back away a bit from the Justice/Mab meta by introducing the spawn breaker in consoles since without it, it is common to get spawn streaked to death by this team if you let it cast once. However, I think this is ignoring the larger issue that the Unity codebase itself (more generous with mana, bigger cascades on both sides) and the design of the troops is what makes this possible in the first place. A situation where a spawner has, for example, 70% chance to hit on a given board, without manipulation, then whatever reduced or increased chance based on how it mods the board from there should naturally streak break itself either by not getting enough mana, clearing out too much of the board for lower chances on subsequent casts, or just hitting that bad RNG. The issue is when the magnitude of effect on the spawner is such that a natural streak break often won’t occur until after the game is already either finished or unwinnable and the spawner will continually refill itself. Applying the same arbitrary extra turn limit before going into critical failure territory as if they all spawners get the same out of a cast just doesn’t make sense from a logical standpoint.

In my experience, the current state of things is first casts are more generous, second and third casts are about equal or maybe a bit less, and beyond that you better have 2/3 the board filled. My experience with the Adobe version has always been that “priming” by getting a lot of your color out by means of converter would greatly help the chance of your streak continuing, but Unity just doesn’t seem to work like that. Basically, I never “felt” the presence of the spawn streak breaker on Adobe like I am now (though I didn’t use spawners that much, admittedly), the distribution of gems didn’t seem to change so drastically and so quickly. If I did use a spawner, I would prime the board as best I could, then hazard the cast. How it “feels” on the current Unity version is that the amount of extra turns you have taken is far more relevant to your success with a spawner than the number of gems on the board, which is far too heavy handed for my tastes. How it feels is that you want to intentionally break your turn and start a new one before casting a spawner or it will blow up in your face, which is exactly the opposite of how I’d want to use a spawner - spending my time taking all the 4/5 matches off the board, intentionally breaking my turn on a skull or something, then using a spawner cast when I get my turn back. Coincidentally, this is also how the AI will play sometimes, which may be why people notice them getting better spawn RNG. Of course, part of this still may be personal bias based on the information that I have, so take that as you will.

At the very least, I’d like a disclosure of when the spawn streak breaker triggers and why so I can at least plan around it. It pretty clearly to me works a bit differently than described here by @Sirrian:

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I’d love for the devs to clarify as well. But as best as I can tell from my testing, it seems that the combo-breaker is kicking in immediately rather than after 5 turns, and then increasing the severity (%) each additional turn after that. Which would also be consistent with your findings about casts beyond the third, since using Sirrians 20%/turn but without the 5 turn start, it means by the fourth cast you’re at 80% “denial”.

@Versheenah, though you may feel otherwise, it isn’t possible to satisfy every player with our AI and RNG. There will always be cases where the AI is perceived as luckier than the player, even if this isn’t necessarily so, due to our perceptions of luck when playing video games.

We are working on improving the AI as I have said in many other threads. However, this takes time, care, and rigorous testing. It is not something that we will be able to move on quickly if we want to get it right.

Yes, difficulty settings are for that purpose. However, Guild Wars and ranked PVP are meant to be the more challenging parts of gameplay, they shouldn’t be as easy as Explore or Quest battles.

@Beanie42 @Mithran this combo breaker is working as intended, and how Sirrian outlined in February, on PC and Mobile. This will be coming to console with the next update.

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And what about the actual spawns? Combo breaker is all well and good, but as it stands you don’t even need a combo breaker for gem spawners below 10+ gems.
Currently troops like Jarl have super expensive common troop level damage spells, that even if they don’t fail catastrophically and deliver 20+ mana and multiple extraturns to the opposing side, struggle to even create as much mana for the user as they cost to cast on average.
Remember Jarl was a troop notorious for being able to loop itself, with spell chains of 3-4 casts being a common sight, where he not only got multiple extraturns but also managed to fill itself each time.
This is especially hurting them since now taking a simple 3-match with the following cascades results in more managain on average than it used to and is often a more efficient way to create mana than firing a spawner which is rather idiotic in my humble opinion.
Meanwhile no combo breaker or other shenanigans interfere with transformer loops in any way, who reign supreme even more so than they did before, which apparently is no problem.

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Isn’t that what this team is all about. What it should be? This is what their spells/traits allow them to do! Or should allow them to do, anyway. Why introduce such cards in the first place then?

In my experience even at the first cast with 15+ gems of the required color I still miss in the most ridiculous ways.

Lol, for that I would actually need to land an axtra turn first. But thanks for the tip! Maybe I will get a chance to try it.

As long as this is true random luck, it’s fine. Bad luck happens, good luck happens.

What you have done takes the luck, good or bad, out the equation. Now every unlucky gem spawn or cascade will be perceived as the game intentionally screwing over players.

Bad luck = players are angry at the RNG.
Your “bad luck” code = players are angry at the game itself.

Even from your perspective this algorithm is a mistake. Not to mention that the absolute majority of voters in this poll tells you so.

Are they not already? I’ve seen so many players dropping out of top guilds because GWs are too stressful.
I have guildmates who refuse to play GWs at all, even tho their losses would still give points to the guild, because GWs are torture for them.

Challenging is Casual at max difficulty. How about rewarding that more, with more gold, guild seals and more trophies, so that players who want torture had a reason to play it?

Or let ppl change difficulty in ranked pvp for more points and trophies!

Just please, please, please, think about what you guys doing and how it affects your community!

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sigh ugh

Though you might see things this way, doesn’t mean everyone does. Some players will see any luck against them as cheating, not as RNG or luck.

You also have to remember that this poll does not represent our playerbase as a whole, it is only captured the opinions of a very vocal and small part of our playerbase. We won’t dismiss the results out of hand, but we are also focussing on the big picture and how this alongside other changes will affect it.

We are always thinking about our community and how to make the game better and more enjoyable. That is why we have been investigating this issue so thoroughly and taking on board a lot of suggestions. Not all of these suggestions are viable, but we are very involved and invested in our community. I believe we have shown this many times in the past.

At any rate, a lot of the issues brought up in this thread are getting repetitive. To clarify, we are reading your responses and are hard at work doing what we can. There is nothing else to be announced at this time. When we have further information for everyone I will make an official post outlining everything.

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Before it was pretty viable, all it needed was a little tweak :smiley:

Now I’m thoroughly confused. Sirrian specifically stated last March that the combo breaker will be turned off as players progress pvp ranks.

Two different combo breakers. One stops excessive looping from the AI and player, which is the one we were discussing above.

The second one stops the AI from getting as many cascades as the player. This gradually decreases as you progress through the PVP ranks, making the chance of getting lucky more even between the player and the AI.

Please be aware that there is a difference with these between our platforms at the moment. By the time Mobile and Console receive the new update, everyone will be on the same playing field and there will be more consistency.

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Yeah, and you kinda cemented that with this algorithm.

Uhm… That is good. Only in this case it didn’t work that way. Kinda the opposite actually.

Thank you!

And please consider introducing difficulty to ranked pvp for more points/gold/trophies for those few who want the nightmare mode. So that the rest of us can enjoy the game again.

Also I want to say that I’m sorry for what you have to go through right now, Salty! And for my part in it. I’m very upset and I’m not expressing it in a plesant way.
Please get enough sleep and rest. We’ll wait.

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And won’t be so broken right? :smiley:

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This one? (thanks @Mithran for finding it)
Loop breaker?

Cascade breaker?
So these unfair battles (ie advantage for the player) are only ~30 first battles (ie attain PVP Rank 1) in the week? After that, the battles are completely fair?

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