Another NPC Shuffle Rant: Almalexia Edition

El_Borracho · October 11

For those who don't know what I am talking about, it is the constant amazing fortune the NPC has when it gets all of its power cards shuffled to the top, its combos cards seem to be stuck together, it gets a string of agents stuck together, and/or immediately gets to play a card they just acquired. I've been whining about this for a while, but saw something today that basically proves the ridiculousness of the "randomness" of ToT.

Got the good fortune to get one of Almalexia's agents in Round 1. On the next turn, after the NPC got a shuffle, I paid the agent to try to move one of the NPC"s cards to the cooldown. All he had were 3 cards, all of them single coin. Next turn, hit the agent again, he got a reshuffle, same thing. This happened again on the 3rd turn, again with only 3 cards (NPC was destroying and exchanging 1 coin for 2 coin cards on these turns). I kept doing this every turn, just to see what was going on. Even after the NPC bought real cards (agents, power cards, etc.) I hit Almalexia to see what cards I got to choose from. Every single time it was all coin cards. Even when I captured his cards, further reducing his hand, I still got only coin cards. The coup de gras was when I had reduced him down to under 10 cards, I STILL only got to choose treasury coin cards, meaning every time he got a shuffle, he only got premium cards in his hand.

I still won, but that is irrelevant. The AI is a joke. I would prefer a better strategic engine from the game than relying on these hacky tricks to keep the NPC in the game or artificially ahead.

sayswhoto · October 12

I played a few games against the expert AI and could not recreate the issue. The AI actually didn't buy many cards, just went for contracts and writs.

This could have been some RNG seeding issue specific to your log-in or however the game handles the RNG seeding. I'm not too familiar with the software side of things. I will say the shuffle does seem questionable sometimes against human opponents, but not to the level of you had described.

sayswhoto · October 12

Speaking of AI, I just noticed these from the Skingrad ToT NPC's. I found them kinda funny, as a light-hearted commentary by the devs.

El_Borracho · October 15

sayswhoto wrote: »

I played a few games against the expert AI and could not recreate the issue. The AI actually didn't buy many cards, just went for contracts and writs.

This could have been some RNG seeding issue specific to your log-in or however the game handles the RNG seeding. I'm not too familiar with the software side of things. I will say the shuffle does seem questionable sometimes against human opponents, but not to the level of you had described.

This is probably it. But the fact that it occurs, and not rarely, is frustrating. I had one after I posted this where the NPC had ONE Druid card. On the hand before, he flipped the Druid patron to favor him. The board had one Whispers of the Grove card. NPC took it, wiped a different card which was replaced by another Whispers of the Grove. Took it, wiped a different card, which was replaced by ANOTHER Whispers of the Grove. He took it, got his Chimera and was able to snag a Druid agent that happily popped up after the last Whispers card since he still had over 6 coin.

Yeah. "Random."

vuwuv · October 16

Randomness is the common factor of ToT, but who cares about NPCs? They are so bad they can win only by been extremely lucky and Orgnum on the deck (mb also Pelin). Every example provided above can occure with human opponents, we just pay more attention to unlucky situations than lucky ones.

El_Borracho · October 16

vuwuv wrote: »

Randomness is the common factor of ToT, but who cares about NPCs? They are so bad they can win only by been extremely lucky and Orgnum on the deck (mb also Pelin). Every example provided above can occure with human opponents, we just pay more attention to unlucky situations than lucky ones.

I play the NPCs when doing the Cards Across the Continent to try to get fragments when bored. I agree, they are a joke. But I also do it to see what changes are made to the shuffle and the RNG for when I play actual players. The NPC is so bad, you get to see a lot of cards that "randomly" pop up in certain combinations. If those combinations occurred with a player that knows what they are doing, then its much different