I think I could somehow relate to the gem spawners hypothesis.
…
However, I cannot really come up with an explanation how is it possible that my adjusted justice team has lower win rate than before the update.
…
I could still say I feel somewhat more confident in using gem spawners now … But having an official word on this would help a ton.
I am still not outside of a biased opinion confidence level.
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When playing on my mobile AI get no cascades, No Skydrops of big globs of same colour or endless loops.
On steam on my PC have seen the opposite in every way. Cascades, massive globs of one colour falling, justice looping.
Crazy shit… After a few hours on steam I put the Android Mobile phone version back on. Ah that’s better I get a turn now. 
Edit…the others experienced no change yet what are you playing on? Phone/Tablet or steam PC?
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I’ve NEVER seen this before.
I’m full and the AI is full. I think my dead #1 was full.
[You may assume Gar’Nok is full since 75% of the board is red and brown mana.]
Summoning 11 red AND 11 brown gems might have something to do with it.
It’s still a board state I’ve never seen before.
[This is PC/Steam]
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Incidentally, anyone playing at 4x speed and therefore playing more matches will see more of _EVERY_thing.
Just something to think about.
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But console players already saw all this before it came to pc, at normal speed.
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@Mithran
Thanks for your insightful posts regarding this issue. I had you wrong. Sorry for that.
Using an all impervious team is a bit of a double edged sword, you’ll not get frozen or devoured but you’ll struggle to get anywhere and in guild wars run a huge risk of poor scoring. Sometimes you’re better off with that looping team and hoping the ai never gets a turn. Not ideal.
Because us consolers are coming up against justice mab and valkrie numerous times a day it gets frustrating and boring. A lot of us are still pissed off from being told it was all in our heads and belittled by the pc crowd. At least now we seem to be getting somewhere.
It needs fixing that’s for sure.
Regards
Daniel
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or less then everything?
things happen so fast i dont recognise most of whats happening
memory cannot register unrecognised cascade 
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Just to chime in: I have noticed differences in the number of cascades and skull drops. This isn’t biased towards me or the AI, it happens on both sides. Games are however, ‘spikier’ and often faster. Things can swing more.
I’d ask devs to consider the emotional impact of this:
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just a hint of what might be the case:
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@death Playing on PC/Steam.
… What I nailed down to was the comparison of before-patch and 4x vs 1x speed.
… And what I glued together is:
- Troops now gain much more mana due to 4-gem surges. That gives opportunity to much more mana accumulation for exploders and gem spawners/transformers
- I (and I assume much more people than me) miss out a huge ton of obvious cascades on 4x speed - leading to much more cascades given to enemy teams.
- Since the game is faster - more cascades happen per measure of time. Almost twice as much, to be honest.
- No change in AI has been observed. No change in pattern, no change in behavior, nor change in drop rates or anything of that matter.
My conclusion would be that Cascades happening has not increased. The “sensory” feeling of cascades of players who play on 4x speed increased because they happen more frequently and more mistakes are carried out - leading to more cascades (it’s harder to process denials of 4/5 gem matches at that speed).
- While I feel more cascades are happening at 4x speed - numerically that’s not the case at all.
If Gem spawning is at question: That is slightly different to what the OP is about. Might be worth investigating.
Is it confirmed that gem creation before could spawn them on their own color (guardians excluded), and that it came to the platform with the patch and now they always spawn new gems in addition to existing ones? (I’m not talking about mixed spawners of 2 colors. Those have overwritten their own gems before and do even now).
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What I concluded was that the cascades where increased for the AI and I shall call it the massacre of Flip on the 21st of June. It was a sad day and a bloody day, never have I lost so many cards/rounds after the new update.
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I lost much more battles myself. Not due to cascades but due to Astral Spirits and Star Gazer teams.
… While those teams are deadly, they also manipulate the board into cascades.
That’s not a case of “more cascades”. That’s the AI that we have had ever since I can remember, but work better with gem removal mechanics such as Astral Spirits possess.
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Finding myself having to clear skulls basically every other turn once the game goes a couple of turns, that is way more than before.
Mass exploders end up resulting in settled boards with 4-matches or skull matches(either side) easily noticebly much more than they used to.
The mechanics/algorithms that create or refill gems are clearly different now.
The whole game feels much more like waking on eggshells now, even what used to be really secure 3-matches now feel dangerous.
While all this this is circumvental by playing certain very controlled team setups, this change made several of my former bulletproof but chaotic fun teams get an auto-loss every now and then because they don’t control the game enough to avoid this happening.
Still deciding on whether i take those unavoidable losses now, or start streamlining my teams…
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@Gouki
If I may ask … How does it work? You mentioned that now even the 3gem matches now feel dangerous.
… But you can read the board absolutely the same way as you could before.
… You can check for alignments and how the board would look like after you make the move. That part - is absolutely the same, AI or not. Gems do not change by themselves on the board. They never did.
The only thing that could be different - is the drop rate of new ones. That I believe is the same. I personally do not believe anyone would bother forcing an algorithm that “sees” and “checks” the board - knowing it would be toxic.
If the code behaves in a way - it has specific values for new gems set, with skulls probably having its own, different value. Unless adjusted with a storm - the numbers are most probably the same for the colored gems. And that cannot be changed, since you cannot increase a drop rate of a certain gem without lowering others, first. And that - I refuse to believe someone developed.
My data still connects the cascades with Gem Removal mechanic. And that one is everywhere this event week. 4 times per team, quite often. And since Krystenax is a famous farming troop, I’d say 6-7 times per game.
… Paired with increased speed where human brain unconsciously prefers quantity over quality - I wouldn’t believe anything has changed.
Yes. AI forces more cascades if certain gems are removed from the board. Because that naturally increases the amount of clusters you get from other colors.
… As far as Psion Famine teams go … I haven’t noticed any difference at all. Except that I have much easier time filling up the mana - with surges that have nothing in common with AI.
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Noone says that, don’t read that into it. It could be something as simple as a different way of rng calculation delivering different, more or less streaky results, or whatever else.
When firing Gorgotha before, 4 matches happening after the board settled(either immediately for me or by being present for the Ai to take afterwards) were rare, now they are much less so, that is a simple observable fact, and for my ingame reality this is undoubtedly true.
Now you can dismiss this all you like, and i may not be able to tell what exactly has changed either, but the game is without a doubt different for me than it was before.
Edit: Just made another game against an Ai Gorgotha that casted its ability 6 times in a row in a turn connected by extraturn matches. I don’t think i have ever seen that happen in this magnitude before this patch, now it just takes a session of battles to see something like that happen
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I have actually experienced exactly that with TDS perspective.
… Frequently.
I can, without a slightest shadow of doubt, confirm that I “feel” the same way as most of you guys.
… But feelings are one thing. Data is another.
But as far as my limited coding knowledge goes - the way how gems are generated are a number. A set chance to decide for the gem type. The chances that specific command is bugged or flawed… are very limited.
This is not really about who is right or wrong.
… But with the current amount of data we have - I cannot get anywhere close to agreeing with the OP. There is no tangible background behind it. Why we all feel the game changed - I probably at least partially explained.
I am also just a human being, most probably wrong about most of things (might as well be wrong about this one, too) - but I always thrive to find the real truth behind issues.
I for one … believe that developers really worked their shirts off to get this update to work. They probably messed up at a lot of places - but I strongly believe this is not one. So instead of investigating something that might not be anything else but a simple “feeling” of us all - I’d like them to focus on other, more serious bugs there are. The real ones where random game results are added to guild wars and such.
Of course - if anyone can find more information about this issue, please, don’t hesitate to share. Seeing this is a hot topic - learning that the game has changed with a solid proof will definitely turn the tide of the discussion.
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It’s funny that you mention this:
Because that’s what my conclusion was too… more or less. I was speaking about: ‘risky business’. But I believe what you say because I’ve had the same experience with skulls and also the 3-matches too.
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I get you. I really do. But this is my problem: I don’t have this feeling, I’ve seen it happening and because of that I got that feeling. It’s an observation and it’s sad that I don’t have a clip to prove it (cascade after cascade). Only my own eye’s and memory. Those changes are very easily noticed and my point is, because of these changes I don’t want to play anymore. The devs can focus on other more serious bugs of course. But if this is a bug (or not, or it’s because of the difficulty settings) to me it’s serious because frankly I’m not having fun anymore. I’m walking on ‘eggshells now’ and games don’t need to be like that. Members from my guild are also wondering what has happened because they all experience the same thing. Not everyone though because I haven’t spoken to all of them. But something is up.
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@flip
… It’s difficult to see the difference since we cannot compare our gameplay toe-to-toe.
… I assume we’re all playing on PC devices (correct me if I’m mistaken here).
What speed are you guys playing at, and what teams are you facing?
I think somebody mentioned he experienced differences on higher speed, but found the game to be the same as it was at 1x speed option.
The last thing that I can think of at the moment is that if the game is faster - calculations behind the scene are fluctuating (cannot keep up with animations) and set the same value for different upcoming gems - making them the same color.
The tests should be done without Gem Removing troops, such as Astral Spirit or Krystenax (IMPORTANT). Given that a lot of you noticed the change with exploders - I’d suggest testing that one specifically.
I - tried to keep an eye on it this whole day, playing on 1x and 2x speed respectively, and didn’t feel any difference, and I’d dare to say my cascade connections were similar to the ones before, Extra turns per cast, that is.
I guess we could do roughly 100 cast tests on both 1x and 4x speeds (200 total) - and compare the results.
That would be my best bet on the issue. Since its weekend, it should be easy to do in quite a short amount of time.
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Difficulty matters, you have to be playing higher then normal, like warlord 2.
And it’s all about the cascades, pay attention to enemy making 1 move, and then 3 to 7 others fall into place behind it. Happens constantly, like every few games.
Even at x4 I still have to wait for the Ai to finish it’s one move while I’m speed farming 