How DraftMaster's NPC Logic Works

by **lord of 13** » 10 Jan 2010, 05:10

NPCs draft cards based on the cards' ratings, and in essence choose the best card. For the first five picks, they draft the highest rated card with the highest rarity. After that, they choose cards within the two most commonly occurring colors of their picks. They prefer to draft decks in which the nonland cards are about 2/3 creatures, and will pick suitably. Moreover, the NPCs draft cards based on the mana curve of their decks. Even if they need creature cards, if the only available creature(s) cost would disrupt their deck's curve, they choose a different card.

DraftMaster's innovative logic comes from its Player Rating System, which takes the average turn a player picked a card and, if the card has been drafted at least 10 times, is used by the Logic to evaluate the card instead of the default rating. This allows for DraftMaster to adapt to a player and their valuation of cards. For example, if you force red every time and highly pick red cards, over time, the NPC Logic will start drafting red more often, leaving you with fewer red cards than you used to get. As you stabilize, the NPC will stabilize to your values, and become more "entrenched" in its old "ways of thought", making it harder for you to change its perception of a card's rating or value.

by **juzamjedi** » 12 Jan 2010, 22:47

Neat concept. I have downloaded it because I really like to draft, here is some constructive criticism:

1. It is hard to read the text for the white cards since the name of the card is in yellow text. Could this be something easier to read or just plain text?
2. The TIPS are interesting even if I don't agree with some info. I imagine that TIPS make it more difficult for you to implement new card expansions without being a "required" feature. Is the cost/benefit worth it?
-> as an example Tendrils of Corruption is VERY strong in a mono-black deck, but still playable if half of your lands are swamps.
3. Jace Beleren is misspelled. This leads me to believe you are hard coding the card lists. If you could rework the back end to make use of someone else's card list then it would save you a lot of time. For example Nate's deckbuilder uses a CSV file which (I believe) is derived from the MWS Masterbase.
4. It would be very nice if I could sort cards by color and converted mana cost, power, and toughness.
5. It seems cards are randomly put into packs which is not accurate. 3 copies of a common (Lightning Bolt?!?) should not happen in real packs.
6. I was not able to save my draft results the program throws an exception.

by **lord of 13** » 13 Jan 2010, 01:32

1. Yes, I can change it to another color. What do you suggest? Black is already using plain text.
2. TIPS are not required - just leave the line blank in the dmf-tips file, and DraftMaster doesn't care.
3. Yes, I am hardcoding the lists. I have, however, switched over my focus to Smart MtG (a rules-enforcing ai-included mtg-playing game) so would appreciate if another developer or programmer wanted to do this. Otherwise, I might get to it after months.
4. Ditto
5. Yes, they are. However, the problem you are talking about stems from the fact that M10 is only aprox half-way done, with only 10 commons.
6. Can you go to the DraftMaster forums and post in the bugs thread with all of the details?

Thanks for your input,
Lord of 13