open hands

Suggestion about new game mode (campaign, EDH, etc...)
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rawsugar
Posts: 228
Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2010 11:05 am

open hands

Post by rawsugar »

Would be great w a game mode where the AI's hand was visible so you could see what it had.
I'm starting to get to the point where most kinds of decks have been made and I'd like to start working on interesting AI decks that work, but its tricky to figure out which spells the AI can play and how and when it plays them. This would be a great hlp for testing decks.
Also it would change the gameplay somewhat adding some interesting variation. i think it would actually be more strategic with this option running since you have to keep track of up to 14 cards rather than just the 7.
Dr.Solomat
Posts: 975
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:12 pm
Location: Germany

Re: open hands

Post by Dr.Solomat »

I like the idea very much!


This game mode would be very helpful to test the AI gameplay. Maybe it should be called "AI test mode" or sth.

I WANT IT! : ;)
Sets Coded/Released: Legends, Visions, Weatherlight, Tempest, Stronghold, Portal I & III, Urza's Saga BLOCK, Mercadian Masques, Invasion BLOCK, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Guildpact, Conflux, Alara Reborn
mnguyen
Posts: 229
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 4:13 pm

Re: open hands

Post by mnguyen »

for debugging purposes I agree that this is good. But for regular play, it breaks all the rules. The key point about what makes CCGs great is the variability from game to game. The fact you don't know what the opponent has is what drives what you do. The second you know, you can build up cards, set up combos, etc which defeats the purpose. Already it's been said the AI is weak in comparison to a player. Adding this mode outside of debug/design would essentially give the player full control of the game. Unless of course you cast a "Telepathy"(?) or something, I don't think this should be allowed. It'll only be fair if the AI could actually take advantage of knowing what you had like a real player. If it could setup combos or sneaky stuff like that.

just my two cents.
:D

KF1,
Do you have any statistics on which decks are 100% compatible with Wagic? I've tried a number of your decks and it seems the majority of the ones i've tried have unsupported cards. This would be useful for us to know if and when we add them to the Wagic set.
Zethfox
Posts: 3029
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:28 pm

Re: open hands

Post by Zethfox »

i would much preffer to see "demo mode" converted into a test suite style "test" mode. where we can see Ai vs Ai and how they interact with certain abilities, and log all errors it finds and with which cards.
Dr.Solomat
Posts: 975
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:12 pm
Location: Germany

Re: open hands

Post by Dr.Solomat »

Maybe we could make this game mode available only for svn version users.
Sets Coded/Released: Legends, Visions, Weatherlight, Tempest, Stronghold, Portal I & III, Urza's Saga BLOCK, Mercadian Masques, Invasion BLOCK, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Guildpact, Conflux, Alara Reborn
rawsugar
Posts: 228
Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2010 11:05 am

Re: open hands

Post by rawsugar »

dont really see the issue with "cheating" plenty of bugs in the game as it is (my favorite is the each time you tap a merfolk gain 1 life that works every time you choose to attack, even if you unchoose and then rechoose:P). Not to mention that easy economy mode beats any cheating at all. If its a issue for some just deduct say 400 for open hands/test mode.
wololo
Site Admin
Posts: 3728
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:42 am
Location: Japan

Re: open hands

Post by wololo »

rawsugar wrote:Would be great w a game mode where the AI's hand was visible so you could see what it had.
I'm starting to get to the point where most kinds of decks have been made and I'd like to start working on interesting AI decks that work, but its tricky to figure out which spells the AI can play and how and when it plays them. This would be a great hlp for testing decks.
For that you can use the demo mode, which with the default options will show you the hand of player 1 as if it was the human player. This should be "good enough" to see which cards never get played by a specific AI deck.

For "playing with hand visible", you can probably change the rules in rules/mtg.txt yourself somehow, to allow you to sneak peak at the AI hand at every upkeep, or something like that. Other than that, I really don't see an interesting use case for now.

My point is that some solutions to your suggestion already exist, at least partially, just want to make sure you are aware of them before we discuss further :)
rawsugar
Posts: 228
Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2010 11:05 am

Re: open hands

Post by rawsugar »

well I suppose thats true and if i have only a few decks in the AI folder that should give me the info i need, but to really get a good feeling about a deck you would have to watch 10-50 matches and I would much rather do so as an integral part of gaming than sit down and stare at my AI.
And I'm hoping the coding would be fairly straightforward? just open the closed hand....

any thoughts on how to do so tho? in the mtg as you said. I looked up baleful stare, that's supposed to reveal opponent hand, hoping for a clue but w no luck. Help would be appreciated!:)

And its not just that they never get played, its also about when. Fx i made a sliver deck at one point using the green +2/2, I THINK that the AI refused to put down any slivers if it had one of those in hand before it had that 1 down because of the coding that it generally wants to play buffers w or before buffed,. If i waited long enough it would get it down in 5th and then all the smaller slivers and in 6th and then kill me. But obviously most of my decks would overrun it before it got started...
ive noticed something similar w soldier decks but its more of a random thing there than a rule. weeding out the broken cards with demo would be helpful but to get a good idea of the quirks in AI gameplay open hands would be much more suited. it would allow for the same sort of finetuning that you can do with player decks adding or removing a card here and there as you see fit. While playing, making good AI decks fun rather than an annoying series of tests.
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