This is considered an AI3 opponent?

[Essence]

Low player retention is killing them because, even more than, say, Dungeons and Dragons, Higher Ground takes a LONG time to learn to play well.  It took me 2-3 years to even get a solid character build going and enter the final dungeons.

Wow...harder to learn than D&D?  That's...that's incredible. 


About the new AI3 -- it's not so much that the decks are harder to beat.  It's that they're actually different in their abilities now.  All of the old AI3 decks were pretty much variations on a theme.  Sure, some had Heal and some had Bone Wall, or whatever, but they were all just creature spam decks with (possibly) one trick up their sleeves.

The new AI3s are much better representative of what people actually play -- there are defensive powerhouses (Shrodinger's Bones), there are toxic stalls (DuneDial), there are crazy control decks (Pharaoh's Empathy), and there are just plain goofy decks (Pendulum Farm).  Any given one of those decks is easy to beat -- but finding an unupped deck to get a good winrate against all of them is going to be tough.

That's a good thing.  Is it harder to farm?  At the moment, it feels like it, but only because we already had a list of decks with amazing winrates against the old AI3.  Now, the boards will get together, analyze the new decks, and a new tier of AI3 killers will come out that does just as well.  It may take a month or so, but if you're patient, they will arrive.

[funplay]

I believe you are looking at new players the wrong way. What you are talking about mainly applies to new people that have been playing a little (a couple weeks to a month).

To someone who just started the game, they will see no problem with sticking with the ai2. It seems ridiculous to people from before the latest patch since they are use to fighting ai3, but to someone just starting, they will just think that they need to make better decks to face ai3.  I have always thought it was too easy to progress from lvl 1-lvl3. It was almost as if lvl1 & 2 didnt exist. Now they will exist to the newer players.  I think making players stay at lower difficulties is good because then they understand how the game works better.

I have to agree to most of that, i only AI1&2 very few times. But not only because they werent a challenge for me, but mostly they offer practically no reward.

So the case "Better AI3 decks" is solved for me. Keep them. There still has something to be done about suitable rewards for new players, imho. But thats another topic

[Jocker13]

Why Is there a Red Nymph in an Ai3 deck?
Not that it'd matter, but AI5 doesn't have Nymphs(or at least pre patch), thus it makes little sense for AI3 to have one.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

i tested two of the most popular unupped AI3 farmers: shrieker rush and adrenaline frog rush, didn't have all that much trouble
I also tested USEM and the christmas EM deck: still the good old EMs

oh yeah, some of the new elders do have nymphs, i believe the gravity/earth has some earth nymphs, and the water/fire has some fire nymphs

[BluePriest]

Why Is there a Red Nymph in an Ai3 deck?
Not that it'd matter, but AI5 doesn't have Nymphs(or at least pre patch), thus it makes little sense for AI3 to have one.

Yeah they did. I saw a nymph in them occasionally. Mainly Gravity ones, but I occasionally saw a fire nymph as well.

[hainkarga]

I'm one of those who believe this is screwing newbies, severely crippling to move on to higher content. As it is now, a new player needs to play against ai3 sooo long time to move onto next content. Rich getting richer very easy where the poor hast to devote his life just to be able to get one single upped card.

My opinion is that it would be much more fun like this;
- Ai3 stays as it is now, challenging decks
- Ai3 should have much and much better rewards. This helps the newbies to have upped cards at a more reasonable time.
- Ai3 should NOT allow you to fight it with an upped deck. Once you click ai3, your deck is temporarly converted to unupped. This should compensate for the good reward so that rich people can't abuse it.

In fact, i will post this to suggestion forum.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

@hainkarga, i like all three suggestions, cept the third one, we like our EMs, u know...

i think it should that once u get like 5000 (more? less?) score, the good rewards go away, also, once u get that score, even if it goes down due to losses, u still won't have the reward back

[Izzythemachine]

I completely agree, ai3 should stay challenging, but with better rewards. base reward of 25 electrum or cut the scaling back by half (instead of -1 per 10hp missing change it to -1 per 20 hp?)

maybe, for the first 7 days after creating your account you get better rewards. I think a score limit would work as well, but it might be abused...

I think that ai2 should have better rewards as well(3 spins or more  bonus), if ai3 meant for players with a well constructed deck. Truthfully, unless new players check out the forums, their decks aren't going to turn out very well. Newbies probably wont understand quantum usage, wont have as much exposure to all of the different cards, and most likely will choose the wrong weapon (i know i did). If grinding is bad, then lets make it easier to build decks and more about experiencing all of the aspects of elements.

btw, why does ai3 have nymphs?? It makes no sense.

And @hainkarga, I agree with TheIdioticIdiot, ai3 should not temporarily downgrade your cards.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

how will the score limit be abused?
if u mean to lose it on purpose, plz read my comment clearly

[johannhowitzer]

Wow...harder to learn than D&D?  That's...that's incredible. 

Dude... yeah.  You have NO idea.  They keep introducing new content, like WoW does, too.  I beat the Nine Hells (Baator) a couple times, but then they introduced Elysium and Aboleths, and I was faced with a new wall of fresh learning curve.  I ran both of the new runs and with my three or so years' experience in the game, I had no CLUE what was going on.  Asmodeus, the final boss of Nessus, 9th layer of Hell, usually takes a good half hour just for the boss fight, I think I ran one that went 45 minutes, most of which was spent on the edge of our seats just trying to survive.

If that game had a maintainable playerbase (they're working on ideas for that, but I think it's doubtful), you could totally lose yourself in it for decades without playing any other games.  WoW has nothing on it.  They actually cracked and modified the game engine to support all kinds of new features, including 20 extra levels on top of the game's hard cap.  And they did it all without requiring new players to download any extra files.

But I'm going off-topic again, if you want to hear more, PM me or something.

[rowcla]

I just recorded the "Life Queen" (Life/Air duo) deck...if anyone of us had proposed a that much focussed deck, i would have "way too strong" for AI3...its pretty much the Fire Queen, but i think with Hope almost stronger^^ - not having a fast deck or not enough creature control - your dead.

Just my 2 cents...

just saw the actual deck and i can tell you this is a pretty bad ffq deck

i mean its only life cards are life pendulums and empathetic bonds, that means it has no rustlers, heals or adrenaline, its definitely been made worse then they could have so don't panic about its difficulty

[funplay]

I just recorded the "Life Queen" (Life/Air duo) deck...if anyone of us had proposed a that much focussed deck, i would have "way too strong" for AI3...its pretty much the Fire Queen, but i think with Hope almost stronger^^ - not having a fast deck or not enough creature control - your dead.

Just my 2 cents...

just saw the actual deck and i can tell you this is a pretty bad ffq deck

i mean its only life cards are life pendulums and empathetic bonds, that means it has no rustlers, heals or adrenaline, its definitely been made worse then they could have so don't panic about its difficulty

sure, it could of course be even more focussed/better...i was just surprised at that point to see that the new AI3 had some focussed decks.
But that was not the thing i wanted to point out...it was about making the game quite tough for new players and about game balance...just take a look back, and follow the discussion between BluePriest and me, if your interested...