You guys really need to lower the amount of chains the computer can get

[Mithran]

@KrudlerTheHorse

So is there some bizarre set of conditions that allow the AI to get more “luck” because it tends to do the “stupid” things which are the very inputs off which the broken scripts function?

Yeah, I got what you were saying but went a bit off track with my answer. I think that the robotic inputs that the AI does could set up conditions where its spawner cast is more likely to connect, but I don’t have enough evidence to really definitively say one way or the other, hence I still believe the larger issue is perception. A human using spawners will usually attempt to increase the balance of that gem on the board, possibly taking several extra turns in the process, before firing their spawner. An AI will generally just go in swinging with a spawner. Since I still believe that first spawner casts are more likely to connect (again, contrary to the official dev word, and something that is really hard to prove one way or the other), this may or may not be one instance where the “dumb” AI inputs can set them up for more actual luck.

Everything else I believe that the AI inputs set them up for more perceived luck. In addition to what I have said before, it has also been officially stated that the AI combo breaker kicks in for PvP has gotten a certain amount more “lucky” as the player, with luck being defined in a scoring system that I’m unable to find the original dev post at the moment but includes pre-matched sky drops and extra turns. With the teams that are generally seen on defense these days and the fact that the player goes first and may accrue some of this “luck points” to start, and the overall effectiveness a single cascade can have with the way that defense teams are constructed, I believe that a lot of the problem is that the combo breaker simply won’t activate in time for a player to not get straight annihilated by the events following a single cascade chain. The cascades that the AI gets still very well may be “fair random”, but it is enough to basically close out the game and is also not something that would have happen often on Adobe.

There still remains some possibility that the “combo breaker” is broken in a different way that is allowing the AI more “actual luck” at present, but it is not what I’m personally experiencing. The devs did do a sweep for AI bias a while back and posted the results, but I believe this was before the most recent tweaks to the combo breaker. Its hard to pull back player perception from actual data, but I also don’t think it is something that should just be ignored. I can explain it away all I want, but this doesn’t mean the devs shouldn’t be doing the due diligence. The very perception that it is unfair being so widely held at the moment (theres always a few, but I’m seeing now more than ever) is something that I would generally see as a problem.

For reference, here is one of the many posts on the subject of combo breakers and how they were “fixed” going into Unity:

Who flipped the "F*** You" switch?

Of course not all your fights over 2.5 were grossly unfair, but we have been very transparent over the last 2.5 years that the game does lean in favour of the player. I feel like I haven’t explained things as well as I could have, so let me try again. On normal mode, cascades and RNG are much more in favour of the player. In PVP and Guild Wars, the RNG is still in favour of the player, but to a lesser extent. This is even truer now we have fixed the RNG to be slightly fairer as of the PC move …

Sirrian’s explanation of the gem spawner streak breaker (calling it that for clarity, since they also call this a “combo breaker”, but it is a different combo breaker):

How often are YOU running into the "super lucky" opponents?

Kind of… And this has never been a secret - we announced it was in the code about 18 months ago when we added the feature (old forums unfortunately, so I can’t bring up a link here). Here is how it works… If you’ve managed to generate 5 extra-turns WITH GEM-CREATION FROM SPELLS, without the enemy taking a turn, then it triggers the combo breaker. Next time you cast a spell (and the enemy has still not taken a turn) there is a 20% chance for it to avoid generating the gems into a position th…

Salty’s confirmation that spawn streak breaking still works as described by Sirrian:

POLL: Random Gem Spawners

@Versheenah, though you may feel otherwise, it isn’t possible to satisfy every player with our AI and RNG. There will always be cases where the AI is perceived as luckier than the player, even if this isn’t necessarily so, due to our perceptions of luck when playing video games. We are working on improving the AI as I have said in many other threads. However, this takes time, care, and rigorous testing. It is not something that we will be able to move on quickly if we want to get it right. Yes…

(Note that my original findings when the streak breaker was inverted contradict this explanation, as taking any extra turn was very clearly influencing how gems spawned, and it was very clearly active after one extra turn taken. This may have very well been “fixed”, but the fact that the fix came mid patch cycle and leaves me very suspicious as if the underlying code is actually working as described.)

For reference, when it was broken, it looked like this:

So how is everyone experiencing the console cascades?

Here is another good example of what I was talking about. I know that many people have looped Giant Spider and Kraken in the past for a few casts, but how many consecutive casts would you usually get out of Wight and Kraken? PC Players that have used Wight in the past, think about how many extra turn casts you’ve ever gotten from Wight, period. With that in mind, watch this: [Gems of War - Will it Loop?] Again, pay special attention to how “random” the casts are if they are cast …