Doppleganger's misbehavior

Platform, device version and operating system:
Windows 10 x64

Screenshot or image:

What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened:
In the battles with Hero, enemy’s Doppleganger tries and tries to copy my hero. Without much effect, not counting Curse. Why? As I see, rules forbid him to duplicate the hero, so he simply burns mana, no?

How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
It happens too often. I have no idea what logic Doppleganger follows, but it definitely must not include troop that cannot be duplicated.

Steps to make it happen again

  1. Take the hero into your team and enter the battle with the Doppleganger.
  2. Wait while he will charge.
  3. Watch this stupid expression when he will fail to copy my hero again.
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They’ve said (somewhere, sorry, can’t remember where) that hero can’t be copied. So, I think what you are seeing is intended behavior.

The Doppelganger can’t copy the hero.

This is probably a weird side effect of a similar bug that actually lets some troops target troops they shouldn’t be able to target. (I forget the mechanics but it was in a forum thread within the last 2 or 3 weeks.) I said “bug” but this is one of those things with a stranger categorization because it’s arguably intended.

Basically: the code that makes sure you can’t target completely invalid things is associated with a bit of code that executes when the player needs to make a selection. In general they don’t want you to cast a spell that will fizzle unless there are really no valid targets. But that bit of code isn’t part of the AI’s targeting process. It tends to just pick a troop slot at random, ignoring only Stealthy in the situations where Stealthy can’t be targeted.

So while the player experience suggests “this is an invalid target”, the game logic is more concerned with “doing that makes no sense, so I’ll try and help players by preventing it.”

In the other case it’s aggravating because the AI can make strategic-looking moves that players can’t. In this case the AI’s just sort of a victim.

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