Us players view the overall response as the "AI". If the priority list alters behavior from before than its not actually the same AI to us. It's a different "AI". If we had a better understanding on how the WD prioritizes it would help a lot. Proximity to location, first deployed, hp quantity, unit type priority list (<- sounds like this with gunner on top of list. What's the actual unit priority list? How does he decide to change targets?). I understand why its so hard. With different strategies there are different ideas of what the "best" AI is by players. Some want protection for the tanks, others want support protection, skel resurrection, etc. The "drop and no control" of this game type means somebody will always be unhappy. It just can't determine what everyone wants with simple rules. Clash of Clans has the same problem with healers. Running through an entire base to reach a gunner on the other side is a little absurd though. I didn't mind the previous AI so much if the WD had kept the tanks at the edge of his shield area instead of hugging them and eating mortar. Why have a large ability radius and only use the center of it? Annabelle can do that and I don't mind though since she has the hp to take it. Spoiler Side ramble didn't feel like deleting... Simplest dumb dumb rules might prioritize the nearest group of a unit type nearby when deployed. Then it places the decision/blame on the player. Really horrible if the units are deep inside the enemy base though and randomly picks a nearby unit type that is actually closer but not intended to be picked. Can't make everyone happy.
@ Ultimate Sea Dog. That would perfect. Shame some pirates can't have second triggerable abilities. If it was an ability, we would be limited to 1-2 uses per attack. Would be a really cool ability/option.
It shouldn't be hard to just "Pick the closest pirate" every attack cycle (say once a second) and adjust its course to follow that one.
Wait what? players PREFERRED wd going off to focus on a lone unit? Is that what you are saying here because I feel like I'm not understanding what you are saying here.
I think what @Lynsey [Midoki] is trying to say is that no-AI is ever gonna please everyone. They changed it based on some people (most likely the people here or fb) and no change will ever make everyone happy, especially on a forum that complains about the likes of not getting enough free stuff, or free streaks made me put effort in, or...(fill in the blank)... whatever is in fashion this week
And the invincible WD makes 3 doesn't it? Yes but he seem to prioritise Gunners now over every other troop, so a change like that can make it a completely new AI to a player like me that uses Skellywags, he never before chased lone Gunners battle after battle, it happened on rare occasions. Never happened 10 times per day.
The invincibility was a bug, and not a change to the AI - AI refers to the unit's decision making process and behaviour, not its base stats (damage, protection, hit points, etc). Whilst invincible, he behaved and made choices exactly the same as he would have done without it, the only difference is that he was able to stay alive. It's more comparable to training abilities - increasing the damage or the toughness of a gunner doesn't change its AI for example, it just changes its stats. There are other things that can feel like they're changing the AI of troops - for example, when bases become larger and more complicated, it increases the number of potential paths units can take. Different troop combinations will lead to different results. The path a unit takes may change because a wall is level 10 instead of level 7, but that will depend on the level of your units, etc. But his AI now is the same as it was prior to 1.9, as was vocally requested.
Thanks for the explanation Lynsey. another thing to think about is that when we all had this old AI, our troops levels were different, our strategies were different, it was all different. Throw in a couple AI tweaks in between that we had to adjust to and now going back feels wrong. I agree he's a little wonky still but man oh man he works a ton better for me at least. His ability to hang back a little is great which means he lives a lot longer and can resurrect a lot of fallen skellys or skeletons to finish the battle off with. I'm winning harder battles and only using one WD.....I'm sold.
Ok you're totally right, it was a bug & noting to do with his actual AI. But this new AI is not identical to the old AI, it can't be, I've never seen him behave like this before, I did a 10 streak yesterday & 8 out of those 10 battles he followed lone gunners, splitting away from my huge group of Skellies, Bombers & 1 Priestess to do so, never before did he do this so often, something has changed, before I could go days without him peeling away after single troops, now I'm more surprised if he actually stays with a group.
Since the revert AI, he's only followed a lone gunner a couple times for me and never raced off after one clear across that map like when he had a death crush on juggs. He does favor gunners above all else it seems which I can't remember in the past if that were true or not.
He always used to randomly follow lone gunners too though. Before people complained about him following juggs, they were complaining he would follow a random gunner.
Right but not as often as BloodBath is talking about. The jugg thing was different in that the WD would seek him out anywhere on the map where as the gunner issue is intermittent (for me at least). I will gladly take the WD following a gunner once in awhile over him getting killed in the first 2 seconds of a battle hugging a jugg.
NEVER as often, he does it every battle now with me, I'm actually REALLY surprised now if he actually stays with my whole crew, it's that bad. I have so many new SS of him following lone Gunners, but I'm huffing & puffing here about using photobucket & the time it takes me to post them all haha. I'll get around to it haha, I just love showing how completely stupid he is. I have no idea why this only seems to be happening with me, because it's EVERY battle he's doing this.
It's odd that you're having these problems with him. I think we use similar crews and I've been loving his AI.
Make sure he picks a target before deploying your side gunners and he will be much less likely to sheer off! If you have one gunner with your normal army, and make sure he's following that, you can probably safely deploy the rest of your gunners without him wandering off in most situations.
Reading most of the tread replies I miss one behavioural aspect of the "running bride" of a WD. All the occasions that my WD ran of it was towards a unit I dropt late in the game (1 min plus) to clean up a building I forgot). To me it felt the WD picked the last unit I placed in the game. Normally they would be pretty close/most on one side of the island. So if the WD would walk away toward on of those you do not immediately notice that he has gone off...
