AI getting too many drops on console, still?

[Saltypatra]

The only time the Ai ever ‘cheats’ it does so in favour of the player at lower difficulty levels. There was a thread in March found here where our console developers ran numerous tests to determine if the AI was luckier than the player. The thread itself is a bit long and unwieldy so I’ve gone through and found all the relevant examples of this. Feel free to give it a read yourself if you have the time and inclination.

@GoldPhoenix0

the AI has no knowledge on what is going to be dropped next on the board. The AI will make a move based only on what the player can see, the board and spells it can cast. There isn’t even any code in there to line up any further moves or check for cascades, and as much as I would love to add that into the AI, I know that all it would cause is more complaints about “Cheating AI”, as much as it would then be closer to a smarter human opponent.

@GoldPhoenix0

Playing on Normal difficulty does affect the “luck” the AI will get, in which it enables what is generally called “Combo Breaker”. The AI will also be a bit more random with it’s decisions on Normal difficulty as well. These changes are always disabled in Ranked PvP, as you are unable to select a difficulty.
Gem Preferences. Players can influence their AI for gem matches in Ranked PvP. This is were the AI will now no longer be baited for Skulls if the Defending player modified the slider to give it a lower preference. This means that the AI will, in general, act closer to that human player.

@Sirrian

We define a “lucky” drop as one of the following events (relative weighting is show in brackets):

A Skull drops in to form a 4+ Skull match, when that skull was not previously visible on the board (5 pts)
A Gem drops in to form a 4+ match, when that gem was not previously visible on the board (3 pts)
A Skull drops in to a space where the opponent then immediately gets a 4/5-of-a-kind Skulls (4 pts)
A Gem drops in to a space where the opponent then immediately gets a 4/5-of-a-kind (2 pts)
A Skull Gem drops in to set up a Skull match for the opponent (3 pts)

@GoldPhoenix0

For more information on how these tests are run, here is a breakdown on how we have conducted these tests

1. These tests are run in the PvP environment. This means there is no interference with any luck/combo breaker code.
2. To keep things fair, we have the following rules for picking teams

• Teams are formed by picking random troops from the complete troop pool
• Each troop is level 15 with NO traits (As to stop any trait interference)
• Both players are given the exact same team, as to ensure that any spells cast (like mana generators) are given an equal chance to cast these spells

3. If a game takes longer than 20 minutes, the game ends and deems it to be a stalemate, and continues onto the next round

Over the past 72 hours, we have produced and analysed 2024 unique battles using the same scoring system according to @Sirrian 's post to produce the following results:

LUCK SCORES (based on weightings above)

Average Player Luck Score: 23.153
Average AI Luck Score: 22.982
Difference in Luck Scores - the human player was on average 2.62% luckier than the AI player

LUCKY GAMES (counting number of games and the associated luck score)

Games with Equal Luck: 58
Games where the Human was Luckier: 1007
Games where the AI was Luckier: 959
Difference in Lucky Games: The Human player was luckier in 1.22% more games

CASCADES (number of cascades which occurred in a match)

Average Player Cascades: 36.534
Average AI Cascades: 36.894
Difference in Cascades - the human player had on average 1.88% more games with more cascades than the AI player

4 OF A KIND MATCHES (number of 4 of a kind matches performed by each player)

Average Player 4 of a Kind Matches: 5.744
Average AI 4 of a Kind Matches: 5.514
Difference in 4 of a Kind Matches - the human player had on average 1.88% more games with more 4 of a Kind Matches than the AI player

5+ OF A KIND MATCHES (number of 5+ of a kind matches performed by each player)

Average Player 5+ of a Kind Matches: 2.217
Average AI 5+ of a Kind Matches: 2.136
Difference in 5+ of a Kind Matches - the human player had on average 6.72% more games with more 5+ of a Kind Matches than the AI player

BOARD MATCHES (number of board moves which each player has taken)

Average Player Board Moves: 26.049
Average AI Board Moves: 26.734
Difference in Board Moves - the AI player had on average 1.09% more games with more board matches than the human player

SPELLS CAST (number of spells cast by each player)

Average Player Spells Cast: 6.577
Average AI Spells Cast: 5.627
Difference in Spells Cast - the human player had on average 18.33% more games with more spells cast than the AI player

Normal Difficulty

@GoldPhoenix0

Just to confirm that our code is working correctly, we have been performing further tests using the same test conditions as the previous test, but on Normal Difficulty in a mode which is not Ranked PvP. This here would be the difference between playing the rest of the game on normal difficulty, and then playing Ranked PvP, where the Combo Breaker is no longer enabled.

Over the past 90 hours, we have produced and analysed 2870 unique battles using the same scoring system according to @Sirrian’s initial post to produce the following results:

LUCK SCORES (based on weightings in the initial post)

Average Player Luck Score: 40.107 (vs 23.153)
Average AI Luck Score: 19.989 (vs 22.982)
Difference in Luck Scores - the human player was on average over 100% luckier than the AI player

LUCKY GAMES (counting number of games and the associated luck score)

Games with Equal Luck: 1
Games where the Human was Luckier: 2870
Games where the AI was Luckier: 0
Difference in Lucky Games: The Human player was equal or luckier in every game

CASCADES (number of cascades which occurred in a match)

Average Player Cascades: 39.532 (vs 36.534)
Average AI Cascades: 30.655 (vs 36.894)
Difference in Cascades - the Human Player had on average 38.40% more games with more cascades than the AI player

4 OF A KIND MATCHES (number of 4 of a kind matches performed by each player)

Average Player 4 of a Kind Matches: 5.784 (vs 5.744)
Average AI 4 of a Kind Matches: 2.893 (vs 5.514)
Difference in 4 of a Kind Matches - the human player had on average 38.40% more games with more 4 of a Kind Matches than the AI player

5+ OF A KIND MATCHES (number of 5+ of a kind matches performed by each player)

Average Player 5+ of a Kind Matches: 2.252 (vs 2.217)
Average AI 5+ of a Kind Matches: 1.000 (vs 2.136)
Difference in 5+ of a Kind Matches - the human player had on average 35.61% more games with more 5+ of a Kind Matches than the AI player

BOARD MATCHES (number of board moves which each player has taken)

Average Player Board Moves: 24.580 (vs 26.49)
Average AI Board Moves: 24.332 (vs 26.734)
Difference in Board Moves - the Human player had on average 8.48% more games with more board matches than the human player

SPELLS CAST (number of spells cast by each player)

Average Player Spells Cast: 7.262 (vs 6.577)
Average AI Spells Cast: 3.737 (vs 5.627)
Difference in Spells Cast - the human player had on average 44.11% more games with more spells cast than the AI player