Please post more on the forums because it’s nice to have good things to read 
The AI’s fantastic luck seems to be mixing very poorly with the current issue with skulls being way more common now. I don’t exactly mind more skulls being around in general, but it does get to be rather egregious when I have a battle like the one I was just in where literally every turn the AI took had a sky-drop of 3 consecutive skulls.
Not sure how I would be dealing with this new update if I hadn’t fortunately drawn Gorgotha just before it. Without being able to negate 75% skull damage, almost any team I can think to build would be crushed in an instant by the new skull-heavy atmosphere.
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I think it is safe to say Gorgotha will regain a lot of the relevance it had in the good old true shot meta, once the new kingdom is released.
Gorgotha never ceased being relevant as far as I’m concerned!
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Of course i didn’t mean to imply it was completely irrelevant now, just not “has to be in every single invade team”-relevant as it was back then 
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I used Queen Ysabelle, Mang, Queen Ysabelle, Queen’s Herald until 500. Had to swap at 500 though.
500 was Scale Guard, Lamia, Scale Guard, Zuul’Goth… Scale Guard starts at 6/8 and one shots any of your troop in the mid-late 400s. Those were uh… fun.
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That’s the potential hi-risk issue. You are correct when you say that he should only be cast when a match-4 is possible to guarantee the extra turn. But, what about afterwards? The fact that doomskulls explode introduces a new problem. So, what happens after the initial match 4 + explosion + doomstorm skyfall that the player is left with 2 or 3 potential 3-doomskull matches on the board with no match-4 available? That’s a dangerous board to give to the AI. There’s also the potential issue that on taking one of those 3-matches, that as a result of the explosion, a 4-match doomskull could “magically” fall into place for the AI (as is prone to happening nowadays).
That’s what everyone has been referring to as the “luck factor”.
As far as I am aware of, there has not really been any player-facing direction on describing the increased “difficulty” from the devs on the matter. It just suddenly happened one day (with the 3.3 patch?) without warning. This has lead to a lot of frustration upon the playerbase, because of the lack of expectations on what constitutes increasing difficulty in Events.
Specific details aren’t expected here, as that area is likely something that is adjusted from time to time, leading to outdated and bad information. However, what would be highly useful is a broad set of guidelines on what generally constitutes an increase in difficulty to explain what everyone is seeing and frequently reporting on the forums as normal behavior at high internal difficulty settings.
Example statements (completely made up for illustration):
Difficulty increases in an Event as players advance to successive Stages of that event.
Difficulty increases in an Event as the boss/tower level increases.
Skulls are increasingly likely to appear to longer a match progresses.
General explanations of what Difficulty affects would also be highly beneficial to know (again, completely made up illustrations):
Increasing chances of favorable match 4/5s appearing for both sides.
Increasing chances of skulls/doomskulls over normal rates to fall over other gem types for both sides.
Increasing stats for AI opponents because of increasing opponent levels.
At the end of the day, in my usual long-winded manner, is that players want to know that they are not completely crazy people (we do play GoW, so we are somewhat insane 
) and there IS a rational explanation for what players are experiencing.
It’s a lot easier to accept these difficulty changes when players know something about the game’s behaviors and are not resorting to presenting random wild assertions about what they are observing in the game and fanning the flames of hysteria amongst the playerbase as a result.
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I just want to chime in and let you know that we haven’t touched the RNG and AI behaviour in quite some time.
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It’s bitter and needs to be touched.
It’s abusing your player base due to lack of attention and love from it’s creaters.
Before you know it, it’s going to be like Westworld up in here. And still y’all will tell us that nothing has changed.
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You know we are invested in our playerbase @awryan. We have a lot of time and care for you all, what you are saying is unfair and doing our work a disservice.
The last changes we made to the RNG and AI skewed it once again more towards the player being lucky.
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Again i have to disagree, there is no high risk here.
First off after your cast, at the very least half of the board disappeared in explosions and gets refilled from the top(if you work with a blue gem spawn to prepare the board for BH, it is more likely that almost the complete board will be replaced in the explosion of BHs cast).
Then you get to clear all the 4-matches on your terms and only leave possible 3-matches for the AI at which point you are exactly where you would normally be, with the AI making a 3-match and potential cascade madness. You have this same cascade madness either way, you have it now without BH.
And while a BH cast with 10+ Doomskulls exploding at once will be incredible damage, a single 3-match with 1 or even 2 Doomskulls for the AI is not that threatening at all.
Not any riskier than it is right now without BH.
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I was actually joking with my last comment. Including the Westworld statement.
But that’s honestly how it feels sometimes. It goes crazy and no one believes us players on that one subject.
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Just to be clear though. I was saying that the “AI” was bitter and unloved. Not your player base. I think y’all go above and beyond to connect with your players. Which is why I was happy once upon a time ago. To invest so much money into the staff/game. I’ve always been impressed with your individual customer service Salty. So I hope nothing I said makes you feel any different. You are aware I’ve had a long time feud with the AI.
Fair enough, as I see your point as a possibility as well. Either way, everyone’s going to have a much better understanding of the interactions with Bloodhammer’s kit within a few days and everyone will be the wiser as a result.
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Thanks @awryan.
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Random chance means that while a six-sided die has 1/6 chance of resulting in any number, there will be cases when same number comes up several times in a row. True random chance means that if two people throw the dice, both of them will get about the same number of each result. But if you only lose when your bet is low and always win when you bet loads of money, the casino guards are not likely to believe that is purely random chance.
It is perfectly possible for the player to get several cascades or extra turns in a match, as long as it is not important to win that match quickly. In explore mode they just slow you down, but try playing guild wars and it becomes more obvious how 4-matches only seem to appear when you are frozen, the mana you can take is wrong color so taking it will just lose you points because of the turn limit, or your first troop is entangled and the board is suddenly full of skulls… That’s why people “remember bad luck more than the good luck”, because when it would be important you rarely have any good luck to remember.
Meanwhile the AI gets extra turns on 3-matches, and not only once but even on 4x game speed the cascades and extra turns can keep on coming for ten seconds straight. As even the mythics that need 20+ mana will be ready to cast in 1-3 turns and any troops with explode or mana generation will restart the extra turn spam, the game will not be about figuring out matches but filling your team with tanks that can survive long enough to do anything.
The problem is when that happens in addition to the opponents being much tougher. PvP and GW have a limit on how high the stats can go, so AI getting 10 skull matches in one turn will usually only kill one or two troops. In later stages of raid/invasion/bounty the AI team has so high stats that even the minions can easily kill any of your troops with one or two skull matches, so spam like that will wipe your whole team.
The traits that activate on 4/5 matches are another fine example: Fill the player team with Elemaugrims and go play a normal difficulty explore battle and you might be able to stomp the AI team; go play a 3-trophy PvP match or a casual with higher difficulty, and any enemy troop with such trait can cripple your team without using their spells or matching skulls at all.
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I’ve been saying this for forever. There’s so many added things like “combo breaker” that they prevent matches from being true RNG. But it’s there AI to balance however they like. I, and at least a few others, are under the belief that they don’t know how their AI is actually operating. I’m sorry it’s just how I feel. The devs don’t have enough time to play the game nearly as much as we wish they could. I think they are all great people. Who are great at what they do. They rely on the players to report how the game is actually functioning. And I’m 100% good with that. But too often, I feel, like any talk about the AI is quickly dismissed. Because they, on the coding side, they haven’t adjusted it in months. Well like any code, things start to bug out over time.
Has anyone else noticed the tendency for Summoners to summon the same troops in a match? Despite any sort of mathematical laws of chance? I’m willing to bet that hasn’t been adjusted in years. Yet that too feels bugged to me. But despite what you see on the forums as of late. I ask myself… Why say anything? If I report a bug or an issue. I will be faced with much more criticism or personal attacks… Than any praise possible. Or better yet… scolded publicly when I was just trying to help someone out. As much as I feel like I’m helping the community by being a “straw man”. I can’t deny that my immunity for pitchforks is wearing thin. So perhaps it’s better to let this game F it’s self. Than to waste time trying to help it become the great game it once was.
(Any idea or thoughts in this post are that of my own. They do not reflect the words said by any dev to me. In neither a public nor private conversation.)
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Here’s what I think about “luck factor”, some people have touched on these points and I’d like to smoosh them together.
I don’t think much has changed, but there are a lot of factors clouding my vision. I got Infernus recently, which has dramatically changed which teams I use in all scenarios. That means, of course, everything I see is different than what I’m used to. This also means I’m facing very different PVP teams than I used to. And the recent nerf to Nyx means many of the teams play a little differently as well.
But also, I think PvP and Explore are so low-stakes for me I just don’t pay attention to dramatic losses. I’m there to grind out trophies or souls or get gold or something. If I lose I still get some rewards and all I care about is getting to the next round. If the AI gets a 12-round cascade and I lose, oh well, I probably got 40-50 souls along the way and I’m good.
But in Raid Boss and Invasion events, it matters and I notice every dang cascade. I only get so many sigils to spend, and I want to maximize the points I get. So I remember very well when the AI gets enough cascades to cast Zuul’Goth 3 times by turn 4. And I sure as heck remember it when, like today, turn 2 gives the opponent so many cascades my first 2 troops are dead by turn 4. Both of these games represented very significant differences in my leaderboard position within my guild, and since that corresponds to the prizes we all get and I don’t get to “try again” I felt it.
So:
- I have noticed what feels like an abnormal number of cascades and free turns from the opponent.
- But I’ve recently changed all my PvP teams so this could be a contributing factor.
- However, since raid/invasion events use sigils, bad luck hurts MORE than it used to.
That said, part of the reason I quit original PQ way back in the day was it was more “luck” than “puzzle”.
I think people want more “puzzle” out of GoW than it can give. A “puzzle” is a thing where a “solution” is guaranteed. There are many situations in GoW where your loss was determined before you even made a move. You don’t “solve” a GoW board. Occasionally you have to choose between several decisions, and in those circumstances we can discuss which ones lead to the best possible states. But ultimately random gems will fall from the sky and even if we think there’s a 99% chance of success someone has to be in the 1%.
well its fine that they say they havnt touched the ai code in months because thats how long ive noticed the difference xD huge change from before 3.3 and after 3.3
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