Just a quick note for those who might be interested:
Had one enemy troop frozen, when it had the option to take a match-5 and a match-4 (both brown, brown troop frozen) the AI decided to match 3 skulls instead. So it decided to a) not collect 10 mana, b) leave 14 mana for me (me using Frost Giant, so very welcome) - if it left me the 3 skulls and took the match-5 instead, I would have caused only little damage due to stone skin.
So I guess if you freeze an enemy troop, the AI will never take a match-4 or match-5 of a frozen color.
Well, I did wonder how the AI behave when frozen, but I guess you are jumping to conclusion a bit too fast : skulls are quite high in the usual matching priority list of the AI.
Maybe it prioritize skulls over mana, but if the 5-brown was in the balance of any 3- match other than skull match, I think it would go for the 5-brown, even if it doesn’t have any brown mana user (maybe not if you don’t have any brown mana user, I don’t know)
But that’s a pure wild guess, I haven’t tried frozen too much : while I do think it is very strong and have confirmed it when facing fully traited Bone Dragon, I won’t try it just yet since I can’t trait my Ice Witch
This time the frozen enemy was the hero with Prismatic Orb, so he was frozen on all colors. A blue match-4 was available but it decided to match 3 random greens, and again, I was happily using the blue match-4 for myself.
So no skulls available this time.
I hereby declare: AI will never match-4 of a frozen color, unless it matches 3 skulls at the same time.
Oh! Well, despite all the “come on guys, Frozen won’t be so OP talk”, even after being nerfed (before it even left the nest !) it is not only very strong, but also mind numbing the AI !
Slightly off topic, but I just had similar disappointment in a sense. Arena, the computer player (hereby I refuse to call it AI not to offend every half-intelligent being on this planet ;)) had both Burning Scythe and Sabretooth Lion ready to shoot. What did it do? Cast the Lion’s spell of course - even though it could probably kill one of my troops with Lion after the Scythe. OK, I did a 3-match and what does opp do? Matches 3 greens…
Personally I think it’s weak on purpose, at least to some extent. Considering the many voices of “AI cheats” I guess people would simply stop playing if AI was any good. And I have to say I’m ambivalent here - AI is sometimes frustratingly stupid, but it’s also no fun to sit and watch your team being obliterated. Imagine what could happen if AI played decently a board-control-heavy team - like Eternal Flame-Alch-Banshee-Valk. Especially something like that one, as it’s not only very efficient in getting extra turns, but also very slow to kill opposition. A long and painful agony…
So I think there’s no real point in beating this dead horse
Yeah, let’s imagine. We can have at least dream, can we? Having AI that plays in sensible way (controllable by difficulty) would net allow the unbalanced mess of troops and abilities we have now, so there would be a good meta.
And games made interesting to actual players, not tuned for the “I win, therefore I rule” addicts.
The side effect would be it is no longer fit for the freemium model so would be sold like PQ and other games where being fun is the main driving force of sales… So dev efforts would not longer bleed 96% to monetization from the real flesh.
