Is AI cheating?

[Izelor]

I don't know what is going on in this game. It seems like AI in the hardest difficulty has always a specific starting hand, according to the deck they are playing. I am talking about practice mode and not campaign. Not only that, but the shuffler is terrible too. Other than that, you may get a perfect hand and then see the AI draw the answer card to your strategy a round before you swing for victory. This really sucks big time. Finally, you may be in a tough spot and then the AI will make a terrible mistake that would allow you to win the match.

I don't know about you, but I feel mistreated when I face the bots...

[Shan]

It has been speculated that the AI, on Planeswalker difficulty, has knowledge of your hand and makes plays accordingly.

[Izelor]

What about their opening hands? They seem to be getting the same 5-6 cards every time and they always draw the rest in a few turns.

[Rat King]

I suspect that many of the AI duels have scripted hands to steep difficulty, but I could be wrong

[Izelor]

This isn't the best way to increase the difficulty though.. Cheating is cheating, regardless of the purpose.

[Kadota]

I don't think so, on the default difficulty at least. I've seen them get mana screwed badly including Avacyn when I played against her. I think she only got two cards out the whole game. The last game I played while exploring Shandalar kept getting lands but nothing to use them on after he got me down to two life.

[False Prophet]

look at it this way a 60 card deck has presumably 23-24 lands that leaves 37-36 cards left to put in your deck if we say anyone only has 2 copies per card were looking at about 18 different cards in your deck to cast. Now thats if they only have 2 copis of each card, which is often not the case so i say we could safely assume that we could lower that diversity to 14-15 different spells. Thats why it seems like the AI always seems to have what they need because they keep a limited number of cars in thier pool. that why when i play IRL magic i only play EDH 100 card decks only 1 copy of each spell.

[Rat King]

Originally posted by Izelor:

This isn't the best way to increase the difficulty though.. Cheating is cheating, regardless of the purpose.

Yeah, it's what I call artifical difficulty, wherein the developer attempts to increase difficulty by allowing the AI to manipulate the game in unfair ways. A lot of devs do this, sadly

[DirectOrder]

I don't know for sure about 2015, but in every previous DOTP game, the higher difficulties allowed the AI to:

1) Stack the deck: this means better opening hand, drawing low cost cards early (when they are most useful) and higher cost cards later (when they are most useful and can actually be played), lower chance of getting mana screwed/flooded, etc.

2) Have access to more powerful and better cards then on previous difficulties

3) Draw cards as needed: this means if you just put out a nasty game winning creature and they have a murder in their deck, they have a very high chance to draw the murder during their next draw phase

4) I believe that on planeswalker, in the previous games, they could also see your hand, so they can see if you are holding a counter spell for instance, and will try to bait you into casting it before they bring out their big guns

Yes, the AI cheats. But if it didn't cheat at all, it would not be able to stand against a half-way experienced player. There was an interesting article about the AI a while back that talked about how it worked (VERY similar to the evaluation function in chess games). The AI just doesnt have the time (even with Alpha-Beta pruning) to search very deep in the game tree. If you know anything about how chess AIs work, you know what I'm talking about here.

I like the archmage difficulty the best, because it doesnt get access to ALL of those cheats, but it doesn't make idiotic moves like on mage. That being said, I think they have improved the mage AI. In previous versions, it would make complete bonehead moves like targeting its own creatures with damage spells and the like (when there was no good reason to do so). In 2015, the mage difficulty is still easy, but I haven't seen near as many "bonehead" moves.

TL;DR: If you play on planeswalker, be ready for a nasty fight :)

[Izelor]

Originally posted by The Prince of Saiyans:

look at it this way a 60 card deck has presumably 23-24 lands that leaves 37-36 cards left to put in your deck if we say anyone only has 2 copies per card were looking at about 18 different cards in your deck to cast. Now thats if they only have 2 copis of each card, which is often not the case so i say we could safely assume that we could lower that diversity to 14-15 different spells. Thats why it seems like the AI always seems to have what they need because they keep a limited number of cars in thier pool. that why when i play IRL magic i only play EDH 100 card decks only 1 copy of each spell.

The thing is that on the highest difficulty, they almost always draw what they need and their starting hand is perfect. On the other hand, players can get some pretty bad starting hands. I find myself restarting the duel at least twice before I can even get an average starting hand.

[arealhumanbean]

It definitely cheats in some ways, excluding the fact that the AI has cards exclusive to them that will (sometimes) give an overall edge. I've seen instances where certain AI characters will draw twice in a single turn. Hell, when Garruk uses Triumph of Ferocity, it always draws cards for him regardless of whether or not he even has creatures! First time I tried Garruk I thought he was going to deck himself because he kept discarding everything.

[False Prophet]

Originally posted by arealhumanbean:

It definitely cheats in some ways, excluding the fact that the AI has cards exclusive to them that will (sometimes) give an overall edge. I've seen instances where certain AI characters will draw twice in a single turn. Hell, when Garruk uses Triumph of Ferocity, it always draws cards for him regardless of whether or not he even has creatures! First time I tried Garruk I thought he was going to deck himself because he kept discarding everything.

i think he would draw cards off of triumph of ferocity if he had no creatures if you as well had none.

[arealhumanbean]

Originally posted by The Prince of Saiyans:

Originally posted by arealhumanbean:

It definitely cheats in some ways, excluding the fact that the AI has cards exclusive to them that will (sometimes) give an overall edge. I've seen instances where certain AI characters will draw twice in a single turn. Hell, when Garruk uses Triumph of Ferocity, it always draws cards for him regardless of whether or not he even has creatures! First time I tried Garruk I thought he was going to deck himself because he kept discarding everything.

i think he would draw cards off of triumph of ferocity if he had no creatures if you as well had none.

He always draws from them, even when you both have creatures and yours has more power. I first noticed it when he had a single 2/2 bear and I had a two 3/3 ogres. He just kept drawing from it, even the turn after I killed the 2/2 bear and he didn't have anything.

[Izelor]

I don't know if it's a bug, but sometimes AI creatures aren't dealt combat damage by player creatures. Also something that has happened once was that I couldn't deal damage to the AI at all, even if all my creatures were not blocked.

[WickedMagic]

Doesn't matter if the AI cheats or not, it just makes you think and figure out a way to outsmart the AI. Anyway the AI is just a meh way to pratice, it't much better to practice against humans
(What's the waste thing that can happen? a lose is just a lose with gained experience)

[arealhumanbean]

Apparently Garruk's sorcery spells kill hexproof creatures as well. Just had three buffed Primal Huntbeasts, maybe one or two turns from me winning the final duel, who were wiped out by his second stage "I win" spell.

This is getting damn frustrating. I keep blowing past the first duel, knocking him down to like 5 HP in the second duel, and then he pulls off these godly draws. Three times in a row I've had him by the balls, then he draws that wipe spell, then throws down a 6/6 regenerating count gain beast after the wipe. Is this nonsense scripted, or do I just have bad luck?

I guess I'll go make a blue/black deck and leech him to death for an easy win.