badblackbishop
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Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:19 pm

It appears to me that the AI has changed in PvP mode. In the past if the opposing team had a guardian in it then it's first move would be to take one of the center tiles. However now the AI is attacking my weakest link or anyone who moves into the center tiles. This has a profound impact on how I if not others have played the in the arena. I would always fight anybody also long as they had a guardian because I knew what the first move would be and it prevented any archers trigger teams from killing one if not two or more of my hero's right at the start. That's why I never fight any archer trigger teams w/o a guardian because f they get to move first at least one person is dead and then they have the initiative advantage and it's pretty  much over at that point. Now however that will occur with any archer trigger team, and even simply moving in the center is a deadly proposition as that hero will now become the target of the opponents strongest character. In fact recently I have choosen not to even move in the center at all and take my chances at a distance. So it seems like the one thing that was keeping the archer trigger teams at bay at least for a turn is gone. Now I won't fight any archer trigger team  no matter what, it is simply a losing endeavour. Thanks devs for making an archer paradise even more of a reality.
 
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Xinhuan
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:51 pm

There is no change to PvP AI as far as I have seen.

If the enemy has a hero that is able to one-shot any of your heroes (taking into account 2nd/3rd row ranged penalties), it will do so, as the AI has always prioritized one-shotting. If more than one enemy target is one-shottable, it will pick the one with least overkill damage to one-shot.

It might be there you have climbed in the arena rankings high enough to start meeting enemy rangers/mystics with 16-20k attack that can straight up one-shot some of your heroes without critting. In this scenario, the AI will always choose to one-shot instead of moving a guardian to tile cap.
 
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Silmeria
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:38 am

Rangers has always been strong in PvP.
But in this meta there are a lot of heroes to counter rangers, both premium and non-premium units.
You should either join the ranger bandwagon or create an anti-ranger formation to counter them.

Because just like Xinhuan said, ranger AI has been acting that way from the beginning.
 
badblackbishop
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:44 pm

The other option is to just not fight them. And in 1000+ Arena matches the computer has always up until followed the predictable pattern of if it has a guardian and an empty center tile is available it will always move there first. It was something you could absolutely count on. Which is why if a ranger trigger team had one then I was willing to fight it. This is because at least I had a chance of not losing one if not two or three hero's in the event I didn't get to go first.The only exception I noticed was with Merlin's soul chain, for some reason if that option was available it would do that first. However if a guardian was not present then it would attack the weakest target in the most efficient way. As for the option of joining the Ranger trigger band wagon it seems that they have increased the chances of obtaining potential 5 star Ranger class hero as of late. Or maybe I've just been getting lucky I don't know. Finally I thought that maybe I am fighting stronger opponents and a one shot one kill was more likely but the fact is I have raised to the next division for at least two months. So I don't believe that would be the issue.
 
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Zvalmiekloranesh
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:35 am

I felt some changes in AI too, not really only in this kind of team, but... How can I say that...?

My friend (the only one left in the game, sigh) and I are often doing tests in arena, and the AI sometimes do weird things, like making my units go back for no reason. He has made a video to show it to me, and I was like "wtf is the AI doing ?"

Anyway, I felt the same way few days ago about the tank not moving forward at the beginning of the match.

- Before, the tank was going forward and my Shizu was making holes in the opponent's team, then the rangers survived because of the miracle set, and finally attacked like crazy but taking Arthur paladin's damage return and falling like the annoying flies they are (yeah, I'm using Arthur paladin and not the HD  :roll: )
- Now, against the same opponents, the rangers are always attacking, no matter what.

So I've switched Arthur PLD for Aden BK  :mrgreen:
 
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Sn1v33
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:02 pm

i think the problem is you don't have a counter to ranger squads. Their AIs are designed to select a target based on who they would inflict the most damage on. I think what you fail to see is you could use that knowledge of their AIs to your advantage and design your squad to have someone who wants to get hit and then subdue rangers with that hero's aura. One prime example of which is Zhuge warlock whose aura sleeps attackers when she is hit. If she sleeps a good number of rangers, the ranger square formation is essentially crippled. Things like Merlock's fear will also potentially break ranger formations to stop their near infinite trigger chains. The playstyle of rangers is very easy to counter once you understand how their AI works. Furthermore, they have no defenses to speak of so I think it's fair that their form of defense is their overwhelming offensive capabilities. My squad is neither a ranger squad nor a cassandra squad but I can reach 4.3k+ with it in Arathos server. I don't see why you can't accept the fact that since rangers are a common strategy, naturally, smart players would counter them with countertrigger lineups. You don't expect to survive arena if you have no counters to meta squads, right?

PS: I don't think rangers' AI have changed. It has always been like that since I started playing over half a year ago.
 
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Sheryl
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:10 pm

I felt some changes in AI too, not really only in this kind of team, but... How can I say that...?

My friend (the only one left in the game, sigh) and I are often doing tests in arena, and the AI sometimes do weird things, like making my units go back for no reason. He has made a video to show it to me, and I was like "wtf is the AI doing ?"

Anyway, I felt the same way few days ago about the tank not moving forward at the beginning of the match.

- Before, the tank was going forward and my Shizu was making holes in the opponent's team, then the rangers survived because of the miracle set, and finally attacked like crazy but taking Arthur paladin's damage return and falling like the annoying flies they are (yeah, I'm using Arthur paladin and not the HD  :roll: )
- Now, against the same opponents, the rangers are always attacking, no matter what.

So I've switched Arthur PLD for Aden BK  :mrgreen:
Sometimes AI will move around for no reason. I believe it's because AI have a priority to link auras by moving units if there's really nothing else to do. This will cause AI to move backward/sideward to link aura with other heroes... Even ranged hero sometimes give up a chance to attack and move to link aura... I don't know the detail of how AI is programmed but it's AI and we all know it sux...
I give up using melee heroes a long times ago... they keep moving around and it's unpredictable...
I hope devs can implement some AI options for players to choose instead of force every team using the same ai. I believe some squad would prefer their melee stay in formation instead of moving forward...
 
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Zvalmiekloranesh
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Thu Feb 15, 2018 6:37 am

Yep.  For exemple, a little bit ago...

- When I was playing : I was using two tanks on the side to take square points on the middle of the map (up and down, letting the enemy take the middle one), and then jumping on him with Rhea DRG to get all three squares, being focused because less def but protected by tanks and triggering shield and counterattack.
- When the AI was playing my team : it was just moving the character in the middle forward. Then moving the tank down behind the unit which moved first instead of taking points square. Don't even telling was sh*t it was doing when playing second...

Anyway, AI is trash if not playing ranger team (and ranger team is trash, but this is just my opinion :mrgreen: or maybe I just hate them a little bit too much eheh)

Maybe we should give given the option to give some basic instruction to our team, to make them reproduce it in arena ?
 
badblackbishop
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Re: Changes to the PvP AI - Ranger Paradise

Mon Feb 19, 2018 6:12 am

Thank you all for your input as I have heeded it and swapped out my Leon (who I had to swap out for my Altima do to freezing problems) for Aden. This change kind of works at least in theory. His aura gives him a 75% to inflict damage to opponents when some one in his aura is attacked. However in practice this seems to be more like 33% of the time he inflicts damage onto enemy archers which doesn't really help most of the time. But when it does work it's great as I have seen archers continue to attack my weakest unit in the process killing themselves. Maybe I'm just unlucky with regards to Aden's aura triggering.