Death Curse needs to go... at least from guild wars

Might be alone in wanting this, but instead of silly insta kill mechanics. Why not work on making the AI smarter than a bag of rocks?

That way defense teams would be varied as the AI can use them correctly, and people wouldn’t get so pissed off over unavoidable things like death mark.

People would probably lose more matches, but it would be because the other team was better, not because rng decided you should lose. I’d be much less frustrated that way, personally.

Sadly neither code base nor devs resources are likely to make this happen.

It’s also not really in the interest of the devs, as people who lose more generally quit more. For every player that likes the extra challenge, there are 14.2 that don’t and quit cos this stops them collecting stuff.

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Shame. I’d rather lose 10 battles due to the AI being clever over 1 battle because death mark kills everything straight away.

As you can tell. I’ve had awful experience with death mark :laughing:

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@AngryMidget Its also been mentioned a few times Apple has some very strict scripting guidelines so unless they were going to drop iOS entirely as a platform (not going to happen) having an enhanced AI is not in the cards.

The negative impact i mentioned is a more complex concept than simply losing. It’s very possible to lose a match and still find it a decent experience, but once you face a effect that can, sometimes, instantly end your team, the implications are more severe.

Those are also not very interesting mechanics, but they usually will take only one troop while DK’s trait, that as i said could be the only thing to be changed in my opinion, but as i already explained my guess is that Death Mark was already in the devs’s “observation list” and they decided to change it and still preserve DK’s trait.

I don’t think it’s interesting to introduce mechanics in the game that will prevent the player’s agency as we didn’t reached a better balancing point on all troops. Some colors are clearly in disadvantage covering certain effects wich is fairly good, except that some troops are clearly useless…

To me, it would be optimal to have all effects being better distributed on all colors but with some little details here and there posing as a lesser or medium disadvantage. Every color would still be a specialist in some effects while others could also access it but with a higher cost…

An example regarding Cleanse’s case: It would be nice to have a Red troop capable of cleansing all allies, but this cleanse would come with a drawback of causing Burning on all of them for example. Some sort of “purifying fire” that fits the theme and also adds versatility on buildings using only Red mana. It would be great to use in teams immune to burning, not so great if you face an enemy that deals extra damage to burning targets… I believe that’s a better way to introduce much more interesting and interactive teams, and counter teams, instead of giving the hero the power to Deathmark everyone when he dies…

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While I agree with this (looking at you PQ1, though I could claim recall bias there and say PQ1’s AI cheated too :stuck_out_tongue: ) but a smarter AI would also increase complaints that the AI is cheating. Some people would have trouble being outsmarted by a machine :stuck_out_tongue:

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This seems like a good start. I hope this reduces the number of DeathKnight matches I have to face next GW. :smiley:

NowayJoe2Go

That’s what I was hinting at, but with a more accurate explanation from someone who understands things…

There is no reason why a smarter AI would require a script processor. The two concepts are orthogonal.

A smarter AI could be achieved in many ways, from increasing the ruleset of the decision tree (simple and straightforward) all the way to machine learning algorithms (neural networking, clustering, linear regression). These can be implemented in the binary code of the game and would not be any different than any other algorithm provided in, say, a mobile real-time strategy game.

Scripting, on the other hand, is the deliberate deferral of stepwise logic to (usually) text files that may be distributed independently of the binary code. This is a flexible concept and subject to interpretation, as essentially every data file constitutes a form of “scripting” insofar as it directs the code to follow certain paths. When those paths are sufficiently close to machine instructions, like for example a text file containing JavaScript or LUA code, this is widely regarded as “scripting.” It is against Apple’s developer policy to distribute any engine that allows for this sort of scripting to occur against data files not distributed with the code.

However, higher-level constructs can be codified by a programmer as well. Gems of War’s data files contain spell step sequences that define in broader strokes what the spell should be doing, and the code interprets that data and runs the spells in sequence. This is also a form of scripting, and yet it is acceptable to Apple (presumably since the basic units of execution are higher-level and less flexible than a Javascript instruction is).

The developers have every right to improve the complexity of their AI should they choose to do so. What they are unable to do, is to do so by means of a “low-level” script file that can be downloaded independently of a binary patch. This is not a substantially-limiting restriction, and as such, the simplicity of the AI can be surmised to be a deliberate design choice on Infinite’s part, rather than platform policy.

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@sirrian once told me that there were two main reasons: deliberate choice not to make it too hard for players AND coding limitations imposed by Apple. Maybe the devs aren’t as smart as you @lyya

Or they didn’t felt the need to explain such details. Lyyas’s explanation at least gives a hint, if i understood correctly, that Apple doesn’t approves scripts probably because those can also be developed for piracy/cheating/exploiting intents… So having their softwares following “locked codes policies” instead of flexible policies, with advent of scripts, is how they want to keep things safe and profitable. That’s my guess.

People been saying this in general for quite some time now. It’s never going away though. The devs don’t care enough, frankly, to do proper balancing.

Death Mark is getting nerfed in the next patch. It has been addressed.

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@htismaqe is correct, we are intorudcing a nerf to death mark with our next update.

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Which next update? A minor one (ie will be release soon) or a big one (ie coming in months)?

And I wish it was already here. Lost a GW fight today due to Death getting a cast off I had an apothecary ready to cleanse and I lost all 4 troops at the start of my turn instant defeat. I had already dealt with the Death knight killing it when stunned so I was feeling okay about the match until that happened.

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That is some truly awful luck. At least the death mark need will prevent that from ever happening once it is implemented

we shall see how will it go trying to keep a cleanser filled when there is enemy mana-drainer at it :weary:

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How about we push this out a little faster then “whenever” ?

At least that’s somewhat tactical as opposed to the way it is now.