About the PvP programmable AI menu

[Sidousai]

@Ozball
Several questions after twiddling around with the new PvP programmable defense.

1. Is there a setting for Guild War?
2. What priority is Troop Spell set as? I’m frequently seeing the troops opt to match Gems instead of firing off the spells.
3. Is there a way to reset to default?

I think these are the main ones that pop off the top of my head. I’ll add more as I encounter more questions.

[Ozball]

I’m not sure I’m the best to ask about this as I’m not a dev, however:

1. I don’t believe so.
2. Not sure sorry
3. I believe there is a Default button on the defense screen up the top that should do this.

[Sidousai]

UGH, Ok yea.
And this sometimes overrides the 4+ gems extra turns too =/
Well that’s just silly!

[Stan]

Based on how it is for console:

1. No - guild wars runs on default settings.
2. This is part of a complex calculation. Depending on the troops, mana amounts and board state, different actions can be taken. If you set the sliders to extreme values, you can get some weird and unpredictable results.
3. We have a restore default button. it appears near the upper right portion of the screen. Might be different for you.

[Sidousai]

I think I figured it out.
Spell Priority is just assumed to be at the Middle Default Value, even tho we don’t have a slider for it.
So effectively, just assume your Max setting is in the middle ground if you don’t want your gem-matching to override Spell firing.

[GoldPhoenix0]

I’ll try and drag up some useful posts from the past which explains the sliders in more defail.

@GoldPhoenix0

Just to explain how the sliders work, during each turn, the AI will determine what priorities each gem is worth depending on the troops on either team. Mana colors that you require is prioritized more over one that you do not need. Mana colors that the opponent has is prioritized over Mana colors that no one has. And Skulls in general is prioritized slightly higher than any Mana color. That is a simple overview of how the Mana Color Priorities function.

The Sliders directly modify these numbers via multiplication, where the middle is default, and is multiplied by 1 (effectively changes nothing from the AI’s priority mentioned above). Pushing the slider to the right will effectively increase the priority of the AI picking that mana color, and since it is multiplication, it has considerable effects on the scoring. This is similar with decreasing the slider to the left, where the priority is now a fraction of what it recommends. This is a simple overview of how the Defense Gem Priority sliders work.

Each spell is also given a priority. This priority is generally higher than skull matches, but that is all dependent on what steps that spell has (e.g. summoning a troop with a full team is pointless, so that lowers the priority of the spell, where if there is room to summon, it has a higher priority). When colors are involved in spells, the priorities above will determine the priority of that spell (e.g. exploding a gem. If there is a spot on the board where exploding the gem is beneficial, meaning that those prioritized gem values above are taken into account, then that will change the priority of the spell to cast in either a positive or negative way).

Taking all the above into account, spells and moves can now be quantifiable on the same scale (using priorities). Before, this was not the case, like where the AI could have an awesome spell ready to cast, but ignore it because there is a skull match. This means that changing the slider will change the AI. Changing the slider to MAX will now MULTIPLY into gem matching, meaning it could also be preferred over casting spells, or may even still try to match that Gem Color when it is not needed.

Basically, it is recommended to NOT put the sliders to MAX or MIN, but to give more subtle movements to them. But, there may be cases where you want to completely ignore or favor certain gem colors, hence why we provide the option, but I would still recommend to keep it close to the middle, as that is the recommended priority for each gem (using the statement from the first paragraph of this section).

TL;DR - Gem Priorities affect what gem matches are made by using multiplication. Using Extremes (low or high) WILL effect what the AI does, including when it should cast a spell or take skulls.

PC/Mobile: 3.1 Patch Notes

On the Defense Team tab in the PvP menu, you now have a slider available for each gem color. It affects the choices the AI will make when someone goes up against your defense team. And for a tip for using the sliders -

[Saltypatra]

I’m excited to see how player’s experiment with the new sliders. Should be interesting to see what kind of teams I find and how they behave in PVP!

[Sidousai]

@Stan

Based on how it is for console:

No - guild wars runs on default settings.

I just played GW, and I am clearly observing some strange non-default behaviors from the GW AI.
@GoldPhoenix0 Can we get a confirmation on whether the PvP settings will be applied to GW as well?
This is important for many players, because some of us use different defense teams for PvP and GW.

[Grundulum]

AI settings for Guild Wars is tricky. I use a different defense team for each day, so a setting that works for my anti-blue team might be awful for my anti-purple team. If I can’t set those team-by-team, I would be better off leaving everything at default. But setting AI priorities team-by-team is a huge hassle. I think leaving GW at default is a reasonable balance point.

[GoldPhoenix0]

Just double checked the code and the PvP Defense Slider settings are ignored in Guild Wars.

[Taisiakat]

Are you sure there isn’t a bug What if the person’s Defense team for PVP is the GW team as well?

Because I just witnessed the last GW game (Defense team) position 1 which was the EK ignored 3 skulls multiple times and the spirit fox who was in position 3 do what a player would do which was cast to remove the mana from my troops.

This person’s defense team showing on PVP is the same team for GW that I just fought

[Delinquent]

Personally, I think it should be removed entirely. I see the predictable nature of the AI as a really important part of the game. It informs how you play, the meta, etc. To the extent key info like that is obscured and unknowable, I think it’s a real problem.