Cheating AI?

[J. Lutes]

I've heard some complaints from players that the AI "cheats." Specifically, that it "knows" what gems are going to fall from offscreen, and/or creates gems to fall from offscreen to make combos happen. In my own experience, lucky combo cascades seem to happen to me as much as to the AI, but I'm wondering if that's the actually the case.

It would be great if Mr. Fawkner could enlighten us about this possibility. He's known for the excellent, non-cheating AI in his other games, so I would be surprised if such shortcuts were taken here. If the AI in PQ does cheat, it wouldn't bother me personally, since PQ is easily my favorite DS game to date, but I'm still curious as to whether there's any truth to the claims I've seen made by other players.

Thanks for any response!

[MarcDerell]

As far as I can say, the AI doesn't cheat. The gems fall to the favor of one side or the other...and I've played that game quite a lot during development. It's most likely just the mind playing tricks, esp when you're starting to loose.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I've beaten the game too often for it to really cheat.

[sil]

I have leveled my character in the PC demo up to 40 for each attribute. And with higher attributes you get more and more combo cascades. With my high attribute character I have only a few moves in a combat without combo cascades.

First I had the same thoughts, but then I realiesed that the opponent was 2 or 3 levels higher than me.

[KGB]

I'm with Marc, there's no way the AI cheats. And I've played well over 1000+ games. Not to mention I can easily take down the L40 monsters with L15-20 characters which would be impossible if the AI cheated.

What I do notice is that the actual random gem falls aren't very random. At least not to my mind. The number of 3 of a kinds that fall are MUCH higher than bejewelled and bejewelled has fewer gem types. So I suspect at times the random generator doesn't do a good job and it gets into patterns of gems that I can predict from experience.

Also, the longer your battles go, the more chance the random numbers fall and end up screwing you badly in some manner. For example with my Wizard, battles tend to be over in 10-12 moves so there is only a small chance of bad gem falls hurting me. With my Knight, the battles are taking much longer (20-30 turns) and so the gem falls tend to end up hurting me a lot more. That's one reason I much perferred the Wizard as a character.

KGB

[Quakespice]

Y'know, I've often gotten the same feeling about the computer cheating. I get lucky combo cascades now and then... I've had a vertical column of 4 skulls drop, I've had four pieces fall into connect to a fifth, I've had heroic chains spawn from a simple 3-piece chain, things like that.

But if I'm working near the top of the screen, it's almost like I can predict what pieces will drop after my turn is over, based on the worst possible scenario. If my top row looks like this:

S S R R B R Y S Y

and I switch the reds to make a horizontal chain, it seems that more often than it should, a skull will drop in the 4th column (enabling the computer to chain it).

Fighting Dugog, I can't even tell you how many times I lost from 30-40 hit points in one turn. Dugog would connect a simple 3-chain, and either full skull chains would cascade in, or he'd get a series of extra turns from skull chains, or multiple consecutive opportunities for 4-chains would spawn, or SOMETHING. I eventually won around level 14, but I tried at least a dozen times, and Dugog clobbered me for 30+ points on the last turn at least six of those tries.

Maybe it's just perception, I don't know. But my wife, who is level 30, said the same thing after a couple hours of playing.

[SteveFawkner]

Hi All,

I can definitely state that the AI in NO way cheats, nor does it know what gems are going to fall. I wrote the AI code myself, so I am 100% certain of this.

Look at it another way...
a) I am a programmer, so I'm basically lazy
b) Writing a cheating AI with look-ahead & multiple board evaluations is a LOT more work than writing a non-cheating AI that merely evaluates a single board
c) If I wanted to make the game harder, I actually would have done the LAZY thing and just given the monsters more Life Points

Cheers

-Steve

[Saishu Heiki]

Based on how often the AI seems to be able to chain tiles that are not on the board yet, I have wondered if the tiles already exist but have not been blitted to the screen yet.

This means that the AI is aware of what is above the "top" row that a human player can see.

If this is the case, the AI is not cheating, it just has a somewhat unfair advantage.

-SH

[KGB]

Quakespice,

I too can often predict what's going to fall. Based on that, I often make a move I don't want to make, just to alter the sequence of gems falling.

I call this the random number generator not being truly random. In other words, it seems to fall into patterns that over time players can learn to recognize. Once I see I am in a pattern, I either cast a spell to change the board or I make a random move instead of one I wanted to.

One of the classic patterns I see a lot is there are only a few matches on the board. None are mana (just gold/XP). I move and it generates a match for the AI to make a mana match. Then it's my turn and I can only make gold/xp again. So I do and the AI makes another mana then I'm back to gold/XP. It's annoying and it can go on for 3-4 turns in a row unless you change the map with a spell or cast a spell to make the AI get into that pattern of giving you mana.

As a hint for players out there. If you want big chains of gems, you need to pull from the bottom of the board. That allows more gems to fall (since all gems in the column need to fall) generating more chances of massive chains. Taking from the top will almost never generate a long chain.

As for Dugog, he has that super item that gives him extra turn chance from skull matches. That alone makes him a VERY tough opponent. He's not meant to be easy to kill like other monsters. Sometimes I beat him first time (as I did with my Wizard because the Wizard is a fast monster killer due to great attack spells) and other times it takes 4-5 times (with my Knight because the knight takes a long time to kill enemies because he lacks killer spells).

KGB

[lunker]

Originally Posted by KGB

As for Dugog, he has that super item that gives him extra turn chance from skull matches. That alone makes him a VERY tough opponent. He's not meant to be easy to kill like other monsters. Sometimes I beat him first time (as I did with my Wizard because the Wizard is a fast monster killer due to great attack spells) and other times it takes 4-5 times (with my Knight because the knight takes a long time to kill enemies because he lacks killer spells)

Good lord, yes. I just spent 10 tries on Dugog and I'm taking a breather, lest I smash my DS against my cubicle wall. His abilities and equipment are what make him a lot tougher.

I've had the suspicion that the AI cheats, but I honestly think it's just me trying to rationalize being on the short end of the luck stick. I've had a lot of accidental combos slip in my favor, too, so it's not cheating. I've noticed that the game definitely sets up a lot of matches, but again, it seems to fall both ways. I managed to win against a random monster in less than five turns one time because of one lucky stream of chains.

[Quakespice]

Originally Posted by KGB

As for Dugog, he has that super item that gives him extra turn chance from skull matches. That alone makes him a VERY tough opponent. He's not meant to be easy to kill like other monsters. Sometimes I beat him first time (as I did with my Wizard because the Wizard is a fast monster killer due to great attack spells) and other times it takes 4-5 times (with my Knight because the knight takes a long time to kill enemies because he lacks killer spells).

KGB

Coin matches actually And take a look at the Knight combo I just posted... it may be too late for you (it requires an item you get at the early stages of the main quest), but it really drops the house on your enemies.

I've noticed the XP/gold situation too. When that happens, I usually launch Stun/Divine Right to shake the board up a little bit, and that almost always opens up skull or mana-chain possibilities. Intentionally mana draining the board is another option, but that's ANOTHER situation in which I got the feeling the computer cheats When YOU only have one possible move, and then an easy mana combo drops for the computer, and then you only have one possible move, and then the computer gets a cheap 4-skull...