Platform, device version and operating system
Android, Samsung Galaxy S9+, Android 8.0
What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened
I expected the balance of GoW to remain somewhat consistent. Currently the RNG favors the AI incredibly too much. Has been this way for at least 2 weeks. Was hoping the new patch would adjust it. Not so much.
How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
Happens every 3-4 months. The AI gets crazy and wonky. After a lot of complaining. The devs look into it and fix it… Until it gets cray cray again.
Steps to make it happen again
Succeed too much in your game. Or certain game modes such as GW or Raids. The AI will chalk it up you getting “lucky”. Which will cause the AI to gain a laughable amount of “lucky” drops to supposedly balance it out.
Monday the Raids were balanced, Tuesday I didn’t play. And after reset today…I wasted 2 sigils (4 if you count the Valraven that killed 3 of my troops) before I realized that for me… It’s impossible to win currently. Pointless to try. Therefore more of a “fixed” game than a competitive/challenging one.
I’ll wait the appropriate week or 2 before the AI gets the appropriate attention it needs.
I dunno. If anything I’ve been having higher win rates. Maybe you should build better teams
Using raids is kind of a poor measure. Monday you probably sailed through boss levels 10-150 or so. Those are much less powerful and even 4x Peasant has a chance of winning many of those matches. Tuesday was a wise choice, I lost 2 sigils for trying to play. But of course you find Wednesday more challenging: instead of starting at boss level 50 or so, you’re starting at level 150. If anyone’s to blame, it’s you! If you want a more balanced Raid, win less.
I don’t want to write an essay so bullet point form for the rest:
Doomskulls will make matches a little swingier but so far my observation is “I win or lose the same matches faster”.
It is true that in Invason/Raid and even Pet Rescue, doomskulls are imbalanced because 5 damage is a more significant portion of your HP and the enemy has multiple instakills available for cheap.
I used emotes on the sentences that were mostly jokes, but it’s true that I’m finding my PvP experience hasn’t changed much. Mab’s still Mab, Ishbaala’s still Ishbaala, Infernus is still Infernus.
Luck’s always been a major part of this game. F2P appeals to gamblers, and gamblers are by definition people who have a flawed understanding of the luck/skill balance.
Don’t just reduce Doomskulls impact on the game to the bonus damage though. Until the next kingdom is released the biggest impact of Doomskulls are the explosions creating both, an additional manafeed and possibly more spiky and erratic cascade opportunities.
This is notable and I do think we have to re-evaluate Doomskulls as more troops use them.
But I don’t like talking about “the future” today. If you want a hypothetical:
I feel like a Doomstone generator will be a strictly-better Divine Ishbaala, who is already oppressive when paired with Infernus. However, even though the Infernus/Ishbaala combo has been clear and present in PvP for months, the meta is still preferring Nyxbringer and it’s the one we were complaining about until Doomskulls arrived.
Based on that, I think the “more powerful Ishbaala” will take a while to have an impact, and won’t be nerfed until someone puts it in Slot 3 of “the Queen Mab team that is constantly dominant but we’ve tried nerfing every troop but mab”.
I don’t really care to debate particulars because I think it’s enough to concede, “When we get there, I’ll decide if I agree with you, but today that isn’t reality.”
Hold up, just to clarify: i didn’t mention nerfs, i don’t want any nor do i see nerfs helping this particular issue in any way, i also don’t want to debate as i have no opinion on either Nyxbringer or Ishbaala, it is all fine to me.
I was merely pointing out the major impact of Doomskulls on the game right now is the explosion with the extra manageneration and cascade opportunities they create, that is all.
So if the OP feels the game is more “crazy and wonky” now he is probably spot on and it has little to nothing to do with the puny +5 bonus damage.
Thanks Devs for the quick fix. Raids are currently challenging, but not impossible. Hopefully, it stays this way. Now I’m just super annoyed by the Marilith and Naga Queen combo.
I’m not sure it’s luck as much as either a poor implementation of an RNG, improper use, or both.
I have noticed that some weeks the AI luck is insane, from the starting board to the cascades to the “chance” actions. Last week (or maybe two weeks ago) I had a significantly lower invade success rate. That same week I was something like 36-20 on defense, and I haven’t touched my defense team in over a year. I never get anywhere near that many battles and certainly not that many wins, so that tells me others were experiencing the same thing.
When compounded with the broken troops and weapons, it’s easy to lose after a single turn (facing goblins) or be severely crippled (Infernus/DB).
The devs don’t admit to it, but a lot of the “chance” actions are heavily skewed. I posted before about the Kraken and how it was waaaaay off, and you see this more often with other troops. Watch goblins loop infinitely with exactly the right action they need and exactly the right cascade. It’s infuriating.
You…DO know that they didn’t do anything, right? You just had a streak of bad luck before, then a streak of good luck now, and everything still averages out?
Luck does seem to be way off. The only way I can keep my sanity playing is by just considering the bizzare luck of the AI to be part of the challenge and just accept that it will always get luckier plays than me.
It certainly is not a matter of imagination though; the game inadvertently includes ways to tell for sure. If you get a long cascade, you get a treasure map, and if you get a 4 match you get 4 gold; a 5 match gives five gold. I get a treasure map from a cascade usually 3-4 times a week, and generally I get around 30 gold per game when I’m not using a looping team (which at most means 7-8 4-matches for the entire game).
Comparatively, the AI generally gets a cascade long enough that it would have earned a treasure map several times a day, and can easily reach 7 4-matches per turn when my win streak starts to get too high.
I would like it if this didn’t happen, but I doubt it will change. The AI just isn’t smart enough to be challenging without luck heavily favoring it, unfortunately.
A Doomskull is worth 0 mana on its own, and explodes at most 7 other gems (because one adjacent gem must be a skull. You only get about 70% of that 7 mana, so exploding a Doomskull is worth 4-5 mana depending on how the game rounds.
Considering you can’t arrange 8 adjacent gems of the same color (because they would inherently match) that means a Doomskull is worth less than a 4-match.
We could try to argue cases where a Doomskull explodes other Doomskulls, but I think that is as frequent as “cascades” and is not something new.
Minor impact for endgamers. Again, far more impactful for earlier gamers. When you have TDS and Infernus and a host of endgame teams, these have almost no impact. I have a feeling there’s some tongue-in-cheek in his post combined with some legit frustration. I feel it too.
At the moment, I have 41 wins and 2 losses for the week in PvP, for a 95.3% win rate. Overall, I have 9753 wins and 543 losses, for a 94.7% win rate. If “luck heavily favored the AI”, then I wouldn’t almost always win almost every game I play. So either 1) luck doesn’t artificially favor the AI, or 2) luck favoring the AI is the only way that you ever lose a game, and even still it almost never matters because it happens in inconsequential amounts.
Regardless of which it is, it’s a silly claim to make - and the fact that the original poster thinks that there’s a difference now just shows how much stronger our perceived reality is to us than actual reality.
As I said, the AI isn’t smart. It will frequently make mistakes like attacking a target for normal damage with a spell that could do X3 damage to another valid target, or making a 4 match out of some gems that are lined up perfectly for a 5 match. It will often favor Skulls over mana even when you have Gorgotha up front, and it doesn’t seem to deliberately choose matches which result in an on-screen cascade. The one, and only thing it has going for it is it’s incredible luck with sky drops.
Just as much as you know they didn’t. Of which you don’t. What I do know for a fact is that the RNG isn’t insane anymore in favor of the AI. At least not currently. So whether I should be thankful to the devs, Buddha or baby Jesus. I am thankful for the change.
To assume that they never mess with the RNG aspect of the game is a bit myopic.
When it’s dumb… It’s dumb on purpose. And when it wants to be… It’ll be unstoppable against even the most seasoned player. This is done on purpose to scale the difficulty in the game. Never too easy… Never too hard…
They choose to scale it that way. So be it. I don’t have a better alternative.
There’s another mechanic besides the difficulty called “the luck factor”. There’s different variables on how that works… But essentially… It acts like a storm in that it increases the drop of certain Mana or skulls for the AI. The Luck Factor is 100% dependent on the player it’s facing. And in theory… It’s supposed to work both ways.
I forgot you saw you my matches and see the game exactly the same way as me? To assume so much is rather silly to me.
Or is it… You can’t fathom the notion that a “bug report” would actually make a difference?
I expressed appreciation to the devs… And you find offense in it.
I am not sure if people are suggesting that the devs don’t touch the RNG and cascade probability, but they most certainly do. The “combo breaker” issue was known several years ago and discussed in depth. Additionally, there were other changes (relating to increased difficulty) that seem pretty obviously caused by a proverbial finger on the scale.
So, given that they have publicly talked about RNG errors and cascade manipulation in the past - many times - it would be pretty naive to automatically assume it’s not a possibility.
