How is autoplay configured

(1. Topic. so hopefully not in the wrong category.)

I would be glad, if someone could explain the logic of autoplay, because it looks rather stupid to me.
(I looked for similare topics, but couldn’t find any)

If you watch autoplay (don’t laugh :blush:) you realize, it plays really dumb, firing specials, whenever they are ready, starting on the left hand side, use 3tiles even if there are 4 or 5 tiles, which could be bound together, ending up at the boss(es) without a special most of the time.

I know that most of the time people use autoplay for farming, bring along a powerful team, and don’t care about good or bad play.

But once in a while (at least I hoped for it) I would like to try something without having to concentrate on the actuell playing. E.g. like watching the results of the adding up of specials kiril → jackal → wu kong and the damage of yellow tiles.

And you can’t autoplay difficult levels etc., if your team is just fit enough for it, if you play clever.
But, for me (maybe others) it would be nice to have this possibility, because I not always have time enough to e.g. play a titan right now, and than I have to come back later and miss valuable time to reload.

I know, its a luxury-problem :thinking: , but like to know anyway (maybe I am the courious type)

9 months still never using autoplay :man_farmer:

I use autoplay when I’m lazy. I never expect much from it, thought I almost wish there was a second button for “autodone” so I didn’t have to wait and watch the AI fumble through the match. :grin:

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You can’t let the machine take control !
They are evil !

Btw, i use it just now aaaand… Yes, it is really dumb.

It’s basically the same AI the events and raid defense use. Fire specials as soon as they charge, rudimentary targeting/gem cascades. It works for what it’s meant for- constantly farming levels your team can easily beat, even with a brain-dead child making moves. :slight_smile:

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Amen, @Dante2377

And in the immortal words of Coppersky’s Compendium:

The AI is not intelligent at all

:slight_smile:

Heck, I once flunked 20.4 on autoplay with Boldtusk and Rigard (!) on the team. Duh…
Looked too late … but saw lots of purple tiles on the board, more than enough to fire up Rigard and clean my team … was to late to switch to Manual … and lost .

I threw a fit.

The other heroes were Richard, Joon and Caedmon. All heroes maxed.

Well, I have since replaced Rigard with Alberich for 20.4 autoplay, and that works fine.

Lesson learned:
Use autoplay only for really safe and easy stuff.
Or watch a few times … and make sure that your heroes finish with almost full health.

1 Like

As stated previously, auto play AI plays extremely bad. There is a way you can mitigate the stupidity. The heroes specials always fire left to right, so you have to organize your heroes differently if you are going to auto play higher levels. Put all of your boosters healers to the left as the specials fire from left to right and put your attack heroes more to the right. That way you’ll heal, clear status ailments and boost first, then fire the attacks when in auto play mode.

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What’s really scary is to realize that the same AI that runs auto-play is almost certainly what runs our raid defenses. It’s sort of amazing we don’t lose every time!

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The optimum order can be open to debate though. I keep my dispeller to the left of my debuffers, to take down active defenses and buffs. And I always curse the AI because it doesn’t matter where I put single strike characters as opposed to area of effect, because it always seems to be the wrong way at the time, using area effects against a single target when I also have a single hitter ready, or nailing one target with the single, tehn fjjishjng the other with an area effect when the latter could have done it alone.

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im not certain but i think autoplay may have changed recently in one way. if i had a hero that targeted multiples, it would fire at the left one (or maybe a random one?), recently it seems to be targeting the guy in the middle so at least it hits all three. might be coincidence, but i use autoplay a ton every day (and yesterday was doing some autoplay benchmarking to see what team could make it through 8-7 the quickest… got it down to 1:07 so far).

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I have no issues to auto farming on levels that don’t require much input. I know it’s all AI and it’s set to play in a certain way.

I set my auto play teams to fire in the right order left to right.

My issues is how some specials are wasted in auto play. Grimm, Gormek, Tiburtus, Gravemaker, Drake Fong are some heros that hit 3 targets. When playing myself i maximise the special to hit 3 people. In Auto play this is not utilised I have seen the computer waste a special by hitting only 1 or 2 targets out of a potential 3.

Is there anyway the computer can select either the middle enemy or one either side to maximise a special.

1 Like

This has been asked over and over and over an…

The problem, I think, is that the AI logic got coded early on before the “hit three equally” heroes existed. It seems pretty clear that the AI decides who the priority target is and takes aim at it. (Or, perhaps, has some high probability of aiming at it; the titan doesn’t always hit the same hero twice in a row.)

While the “and nearby” heroes like Grimm do waste some of their special aiming in the corner, it’s not a completely dumb strategy because the target takes about twice the damage as the nearby. If you really want to kill that corner hero (I’m looking at you, Alberich), then that’s where you aim the attack.

But you’re right, on heroes like Drake, Falcom and Gravemaker, there is never a reason to aim at the corner unless the flank position is empty. (If a hero stands alone in the corner, you may still want to target it if killing it is the strategic priority, even if that means wasting two-thirds of the damage.)

There are a lot of ways that the AI could be improved, but this seems like an easy one to fix.

Ha ha - I guess that’s why they created those wonderful LOOT TICKETS! Eh
Love, love, love them!

@WoWi Yes it is very very stupid in special skills attacking (OMG)!!! As well bypassing those 5 in a row for a sweet diamond!!

HOWEVER: It works wonderfully for Farming! So I’m grateful its a feature - otherwise I wouldn’t have a job anymore.

When you are going about your morning routine - its great, when your at work - its great, when your getting ready for bed its great! 7.4 season 1 for monsters (finish that mission asap!) 8.7 season 1 for troops (so you can train, train, train). Currently these are still viable.

I’d give you season 2 tips, I’m still “experiencing it” however. I do have one though >>> Loot Tickets - NEVER use them in season 1, the loot doesn’t compare to season 2 - that is very obvious in my experience and I’ve gone through a couple 100 of them since season 2 started. Even last level of season 1 doesn’t compared to easy levels in season 2.

2 Likes

I had a look and couldn’t see any mentions on this in particular

If a special that is intended to hit three enemies (Gormek, Grimm, Drake, etc…) hits two (or one) enemies then the damage is increased for the hit.

No, that has never worked that way

It does when I do it. The splash damage is higher if you hit two enemies instead of three. I just tested it and it gives higher damage.

It’s worthless and uses zero logic. An enemy has 3 health left? Fire off Sartana’s special. There’s a vertical set up of 4 green gems for a blue enemy…fire the yellow ones instead and break up/destroy the 4 gem opportunity. Heroes at full health? Fire off Melendors heal. Absolute stupid garbage. It’s only good for grinding easy wooden sword levels when you’ve grown tired of doing it manually.