Guest posts by Lunatic

1

General Discussion / Re: Unavoidable Disadvantage Problem

« on: February 18, 2010, 12:45:56 am »

Fair enough, Essence, yet although you can label the gods as a static element, the entire challenge system must be taken into consideration. I will mention, however, that you ignored my point about the addition of new gods. Nonetheless, as you created an argument of your own, I will offer my thoughts on your assertions. Providing players with new cards will give them an advantage, as they receive the benefit of being able to play against a not completely static, but slow-to-change, singular false god. In all fairness, I will consider this a static element, and agree with you that under normal circumstances we would have the upper hand. Unfortunately, this is not the problem I implied. The issue arises when the false gods are able to execute a strategy, albeit a simple one, against us with more efficiency due to the addition of new gods along with new cards. Their strategy might remain the same, but with the presence of so many gods, the degree of control and improved efficiency we acquire is shadowed by the small advantage each god gains.

To present this another way, let us assume a set of 12 new cards are released. Following the previous trend, a few major changes will occur to the level 6 AI system:
1. A small improvement in AI is introduced to ensure the false gods can better counter the strategies you may use (This is a well-justified course of action, in my opinion.)
2. Existing false gods are given a new set of "tricks" and strategies to make use of new cards. (Very basic, but surprisingly effective. Once again, a good course of action.)
3. If one god is not diverse enough with their set of elements to use a new strategy that has now emerged, a new god is created to fill the void and allow its (the strategy's) use.

With the third step, success rates of anti-false god decks fall. We will now have better results with decks specialized to defeat one god, but a worse result overall. Despite our creative, unique, and more efficient decks, we see a decrease in victories. This is the reason people can win almost 100% of the time against Incarnate and Miracle, while most rainbow decks have trouble dealing with Divine Glory and Obliterator. No deck can be good at everything, but although the gods only have a few strategies each, we have to prepare our deck for all of them at random. In my opinion, it is better to have a set of 10 hard false gods than 20 with a near guaranteed win against half, and a near guaranteed loss against the others. If the first two steps are improved rather than using the third, superior decks and strategies will be better rewarded. 

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General Discussion / Re: Unavoidable Disadvantage Problem

« on: February 17, 2010, 08:34:52 pm »

At the risk of sounding rude, I will speak my mind. Firstly, Gl1tch, nowhere in any of my posts did I say that the false gods are too hard for me. If that is the conclusion you draw from my posts, despite my efforts to clearly state that this is not the intention of my thread, then I cannot help you further. I have also not whined or anything of the sort. Instead of giving a legitimate answer, almost every reply made in this thread has picked on straw men. If i wanted easier false gods, I would have clearly said it. You cannot dismiss these issues by saying I am flat out wrong and that the game has been improved with every change.

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General Discussion / Re: Unavoidable Disadvantage Problem

« on: February 17, 2010, 04:00:40 am »

I did not mean that in such a harsh tone, Essence. However, I think in the time it must have taken to design so many new gods, granted it has the same basic framework, an improved level of AI could have offered much more. Although it has been improved considerably, and with a doubt, considerable effort from Zanz, I don't see the path of adding new gods for a challenge as ideal.

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General Discussion / Re: Unavoidable Disadvantage Problem

« on: February 17, 2010, 03:20:52 am »

Quote from: Lunatic on Today at 01:52:33 AM

    I mentioned that our mind gives us an advantage in this situation, but it is the only advantage.



Does that include the advantage of knowing the exact contents of our opponent's deck and every one of its "thoughts"? That's a pretty good advantage IMO

The advantage I speak of here applies to the benefit false gods receive with the presence of each card, not the fact that we have a functioning brain in general. The ability to know the AI's "thoughts" is also less advantageous than you think. Of course we can use precognition to see its hand and look at the script to see what move it will make, but I think you will find it doesn't matter when you don't have the cards to execute a counter-strategy. I can think of what I need to do in a certain situation, but it's quite different from actually being able to do it (and against every god, almost every turn, for that matter). Having knowledge without being able to apply it really doesn't matter when playing.

To your second point:

Quote

    Despite the number of cards we are presented with, the game allows us a 30-60 card deck, which isn't too limiting considering too few cards limit  strategy and comebacks, while too many cards will cause bad draws. However, I think you're ignoring the fact that although more cards give us the advantage while planning a long-term strategy, we are limited to the cards we will draw before the god can kill us (unlike chess, in which all of your options are presented from the beginning),



Sorry, if I fail to grasp this but - what is your point? That we only have access to the limited of cards that we included in our deck AND drew in the actual game before it finished? That would be obviously true but true for both sides and another factor of complexity that we could use against the AI.

I am simply saying that no matter how complex you are able to make your strategy, in the end, you are limited to what you possess in your hand and in the near-future. Although it may reveal the AI's weakness, complexity also gives rise to error. This is not true for both sides, because the AI only needs a few key cards to execute their strategy, while you need to enough quanta and the cards to pull off an ideal, complex strategy. They can repeat their 8-12 card strategy many times throughout their 100+ card cycle, whereas you are restrained by your intricate approach despite your lack of cards.

at some point any improvement you make against one God will come at a cost of weakening your matchup against the others.

and

Once again I have to ask you what exactly you mean with this... wouldn't a greater variety of strategies among the Gods make it harder for us to beat each of them?

I did not argue that we should be able to specialize our deck without consequence. The fact that each false god employs a unique strategy makes is much more difficult than tweaking our deck for small changes to existing gods. Entirely unique decks are more difficult to defend against when compared to AI improvements and a change of strategy in existing ones, which also refers to this question (I'm not going to re-quote myself):

Once again I have to ask you what exactly you mean with this... wouldn't a greater variety of strategies among the Gods make it harder for us to beat each of them?

So now we come to your basic point (as far as I can read it): That the new cards are somehow making games against the AI harder. I just fail to see any validation for your opinion. Take the latest additions to the game - the Nymphs, Shards and Alchemy cards. The AI has no access to the Shards and is horrible at handling the Nymphs and Alchemy cards correctly (just for laughs, grind AI5 for a while to see how it tries to use Liquid Shadow). Tell me a concrete example, where the addition of new cards was detrimental to the chances of the humans.

You do not understand my point throughout the post. I was saying that introducing new cards into the game is creating changes that make the game unbalanced. Instead of improving the AI system, new gods are being added in the game. The cards are not making the game harder or unbalanced; having to deal with 10 new false gods is. Win rates are not lower because of each god being more difficult, but rather the fact that there are so many new ones to deal with that no one deck can handle them all. You laugh now at the AI's impotence, but how would a rainbow deck-crushing amber nymph based false god sound? The fact the AI5s fail is that they have too wide a strategy. With the current trend, a new god for every element's nymph would be more likely than improving the AIs for handling them.

As with your last point, defeat simply means losing to the false gods. They can defeat us more easily with their simplistic strategy than we can them because of the range we are forced to have. The false gods are not "hard," and as you mentioned earlier, you know their entire deck and strategy. So why is it you can only win 50% of the time with a perfect strategy? It is because luck plays too large a factor when so many false gods are present, and this is what must be prevented.

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General Discussion / Re: Unavoidable Disadvantage Problem

« on: February 17, 2010, 01:52:33 am »

To Kamietsu:

I think you misunderstood my last sentence. I said: "Do you see any solutions to this save giving us the option to choose which false god to fight?" (Here I mean: What other solution is possible except for giving us this option?).

To Silkenfist:

I mentioned that our mind gives us an advantage in this situation, but it is the only advantage. Despite the number of cards we are presented with, the game allows us a 30-60 card deck, which isn't too limiting considering too few cards limit  strategy and comebacks, while too many cards will cause bad draws. However, I think you're ignoring the fact that although more cards give us the advantage while planning a long-term strategy, we are limited to the cards we will draw before the god can kill us (unlike chess, in which all of your options are presented from the beginning), but particularly by the fact that we have to plan for every false god.

To keep from designing too complex an AI for one god, new false gods are created, and we now have to plan for each one. The problem does not stem from the increased number of strategies, in which case, we are able beat every god with ease, but rather the way they are handled in the game. I am proposing finding a better way of dealing with the introduction of new cards to keep players and false gods at a good balance, not stopping the production of new cards entirely. Twenty uncomplicated AI systems given the advantages false gods are find it easier to defeat one very complex, yet very limited mind that must deal with all of them at random. 

Edit:
To PuppyChow's message below:

I support your idea, but this thread deals more with the how the AI and game changes according to the new cards that are released, and veering away from creating new gods every time a major change occurs. Nonetheless, your solution is very good to simplify programming needs while letting us have some degree of choice.

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General Discussion / Unavoidable Disadvantage Problem

« on: February 16, 2010, 11:22:08 pm »

I'm not an experienced player by any means, but I see a staggering flaw in implementing new cards into the game. Simply because false gods have all these advantages against players (while players only benefit from having a conscious mind), every new card that is added into the game will be more detrimental than helpful to the us. I realize we can make use of new strategies with new cards, but false gods will be able to abuse any new strategy created unless it is extremely situational or is based on a rainbow deck, in which case a very advanced AI for Rainbow (the false god) becomes a nightmare. In addition to this, new false gods can be created to take advantage of a particular strategy, once again making things more difficult for us. I know challenge is part of the game, but giving players more options should not come with such a drawback. If this trend continues, games could potentially be more dependent on luck rather than deck-building and playing skill.

Do you see any solutions to this save giving us the option to choose which false god to fight?