Make the AI more challenging?

[BorisN]

When I first started playing Shadow Era, playing against the AI seemed challenging. Now that I have more experience, more cards, with weapons, armor, and such, playing against the AI is not as difficult. For example, playing from the Shadow side against Victor Heartstriker is not at all similar to playing against a real person with a Victor Heartstriker deck. The poor AI version of Victor Heartstriker never has a bow and arrows to take advantage of his +1 ability with a bow. I slaughter him mercilessly with whatever deck I have.

Playing a human hero against the Shadow AI has also become a massacre. I have yet to see the AI Darkclaw pull out a weapon or armor. The other wulven hero Moonstalker does whip out the special wolf weapon every once in a great while but he does not ever use Jewlers Dream. Gravebone has no weapons or armor, either. None of the Shadow AI heroes even have a Shriek of Vengeance or two so they can disarm my hero.

Real matches with real people have all sorts of cards in play that the AI just does not respond to as a human would.

Let's think about this: A hunter without a bow? Really? A warrior without armor or a sword? What is that? The AI Jericho Spellbane has never produced a Wizent's Staff. Poor guy. He runs out of cards, plays the Bazaar card in desperation, and I kill him so easily.

I try to use the AI to test out my decks but I have found it unreliable. Playing against the AI with a sample deck is not nearly as predictable for a real human to human match as it could be, if only the AI heroes had weapons to attack and armor to defend, not to mention the cards that disable opponent's weapons and armor. This is especially true for heroes whose abilities are tied to a weapon (like the human hunters). Please, give Victor Heartstriker a bow or two!

I do appreciate the need to keep the AI heroes pretty basic for beginning players who need to learn how the game works. If there is any way that the AI heroes can acquire more skill by using weapons and armor as a user's level increases I would appreciate it. In other words, make the AI get progressively more challenging for each level a human player attains in the game. Fighting a Shadow hero without a Shriek is like taking candy from a baby. And poor Victor, he just sits there with his one card in his computer hand and does very little because his ability requires that bow he does not have.

Thank you :-)

[Shattered Pearl]

Welcome to the forums, BorisN.

While it was probably a bad idea to begin your forum experience with a complaint instead of an introduction, an act that inevitably attracts flame; I have good news for you. The designers are aware of the problem. They are currently working on a better AI, which will probably be released in 1.27. AI is notoriously difficult to program, even in the limited environment of video games. Give them some time to perfect it.

[Warr Byrd]

Part of the problem is that the AI decks were made in the early history of the game. Like when weapons and armor didn't exist, or cards had different text and may have worked better together as a combo. Furthermore, the AI, being tricky to program, makes dumb moves.

Fortunately, the devs are working on a better AI that, from my understanding, will get better with the player. It is not ready and has lots of bugs, but it sometimes makes better moves. New decks for the AI to use have also been listed as upcoming features.

To test the new AI and work on finding bugs, go to the test server. You'll find a link on the forums.

To see upcoming changes, browse the forums a bit more, or look at JIRA, the developers "blog": http://dev.wulven.com:8080/browse/SE

[AnAdolt]

Yeah, we're working to not only improve the logistics of AI gameplay but also refine its deck. While AI decks scaled by difficulty is a ways further out, we are working on scaling the AI's strategy to your level so more experienced players can go toe-to-toe with at least a more competent opponent.

Then on the other end of the spectrum, we still have new players every now and then complaining that the AI is too hard. Which will be addressed by revamping the tutorial system to empower newer players with better knowledge and tactics to allow better handling of the AI.

[BorisN]

I wasn't trying to complain or open myself up to flaming. The topic of this section is suggestions for improvements. I'm glad you didn't flame me :-) That's very much appreciated.

I was just curious to know if my suggestion would be possible because it is very clear to me that programming an AI is complicated. I am very grateful to you all for working on the issue and look forward to how the new version will be. Since the topic is suggestions for improvement I thought I'd make one. No complaining here, just a suggestion for improvement and evidence as to why such improvement could be needed (my experience playing against the AI). Yes, I related my experience in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but I did not feel like I was filing a complaint but rather sharing what I thought could be improved.

At any rate, thanks for making some improvements! I look forward to them very much. This is a great game and I hope it continues for a long time.