Page 10 of 13

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 22 Sep 2014, 21:56
by RandomPerson
Xyx wrote:Here it is. I still plan on doing some minor adjustments and pruning, but it's quite serviceable.

Needs this line in worlds.txt:

Code: Select all
Name:Block 30: Theros|Dir:30 Theros|Sets:THS, BNG, JOU
Sloth wrote:Having cards the AI can't play in quest decks is not a good idea. Some players consider it a bug or they post about it in the AI improvement section of the forum. So anyway they are annoyed and expect us to fix it. Why do it in the first place when it can be easily avoided?
I tried to avoid bone-headedness. The only truly egregious examples that remain are ones that should be fixed in the AI, not in the decks. Particularly the AI's propensity to dump all of its mana into mana sinks (Stormcaller of Keranos, for instance) before casting any spells.
Hey, thanks for this. I've been really enjoying playing around in this world.

One problem, though - it doesn't have any challenges, which results in Forge throwing tantrums whenever it tries to find a challenge. Do you have any intention to add some, or else does anyone have any tips on an easy way to make some to throw in?

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 22 Sep 2014, 22:52
by Rooger
RandomPerson wrote:
Xyx wrote:Here it is. I still plan on doing some minor adjustments and pruning, but it's quite serviceable.

Needs this line in worlds.txt:

Code: Select all
Name:Block 30: Theros|Dir:30 Theros|Sets:THS, BNG, JOU
Sloth wrote:Having cards the AI can't play in quest decks is not a good idea. Some players consider it a bug or they post about it in the AI improvement section of the forum. So anyway they are annoyed and expect us to fix it. Why do it in the first place when it can be easily avoided?
I tried to avoid bone-headedness. The only truly egregious examples that remain are ones that should be fixed in the AI, not in the decks. Particularly the AI's propensity to dump all of its mana into mana sinks (Stormcaller of Keranos, for instance) before casting any spells.
Hey, thanks for this. I've been really enjoying playing around in this world.

One problem, though - it doesn't have any challenges, which results in Forge throwing tantrums whenever it tries to find a challenge. Do you have any intention to add some, or else does anyone have any tips on an easy way to make some to throw in?
I've started developing a couple of weeks ago one Theros world for my personal quests, then i stumbled upon Xyx's worlds and decided to merge what i had (just a few decks i found online, some of them i haven't tested yet) into his Theros challenges. I'll share it with you guys and if you want feel free to improve them, they sure are far from 100% AI ready but it's a start i guess.

They are all about the Gods. Every challenge features a deck with one of the gods, the AI starts with the respective god already on the battlefield, giving him/her a great advantage, they also start with 40 life and the player with 20. If you beat him/her you'll get a 500 credits reward, plus this good stuff:

- for mono-colored THS gods you'll get a 66% chance of getting 4 rares in the color of the said god, a 33% chance of getting his/her weapon and you'll always get the god him/herself (for ex: if you beat Erebos you might get 4 black rares, Whip of Erebos and Erebos himself)

- for multi-colored BNG and JOU gods you'll get 66% chance of getting 2 rares of one color and 2 rares of the other, a 33% chance of getting 1 multicolored rare and always the god you've just sent to olympus (for ex: defeating Iroas you might win 2 white rares, 2 red rares, 1 multicolored rare and, of course, Iroas)

As i said, this was just an idea i had for my personal quests and i'm still testing it, these are set as (and intended to be) very hard because...well they are gods, but i'm not sure if all of them live up to that difficulty setting. Again fell free to used them, improve them, ignore them, insult them, whatever you feel like doing to them.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 23 Sep 2014, 00:57
by RandomPerson
Rooger wrote:I've started developing a couple of weeks ago one Theros world for my personal quests, then i stumbled upon Xyx's worlds and decided to merge what i had (just a few decks i found online, some of them i haven't tested yet) into his Theros challenges. I'll share it with you guys and if you want feel free to improve them, they sure are far from 100% AI ready but it's a start i guess.

They are all about the Gods. Every challenge features a deck with one of the gods, the AI starts with the respective god already on the battlefield, giving him/her a great advantage, they also start with 40 life and the player with 20. If you beat him/her you'll get a 500 credits reward, plus this good stuff:

- for mono-colored THS gods you'll get a 66% chance of getting 4 rares in the color of the said god, a 33% chance of getting his/her weapon and you'll always get the god him/herself (for ex: if you beat Erebos you might get 4 black rares, Whip of Erebos and Erebos himself)

- for multi-colored BNG and JOU gods you'll get 66% chance of getting 2 rares of one color and 2 rares of the other, a 33% chance of getting 1 multicolored rare and always the god you've just sent to olympus (for ex: defeating Iroas you might win 2 white rares, 2 red rares, 1 multicolored rare and, of course, Iroas)

As i said, this was just an idea i had for my personal quests and i'm still testing it, these are set as (and intended to be) very hard because...well they are gods, but i'm not sure if all of them live up to that difficulty setting. Again fell free to used them, improve them, ignore them, insult them, whatever you feel like doing to them.
Thanks a lot! I'll have a play around with them.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 17 Nov 2014, 17:19
by Fizanko
I made an update to the Innistrad quest world.

- added more icons, now all difficulty levels opponents have their own picture instead of sharing the same with previous difficulty ones.

- added some flavour text in the opponent descriptions (previously there was only the name of the custom deck used)

compatible with Forge 1.5.38 (and previous, and probably future version too)

How to install

In your ..\ForgeMainDirectory\res\quest\world\
open the file named worlds.txt and add this :

Code: Select all
Name:Innistrad|Dir:innistrad|Sets:ISD, DKA, AVR|Banned:Chaos Orb; Falling Star
save the changes.

Download the attached file named Innistradworldfinal1530.zip and extract it with winzip/winrar/7zip/whatever you prefer.

In the extracted directory you will find 2 folders, one is named "icons" and the other is named "innistrad"

The icons folder contains all the opponents and challenges pictures, select all the jpg image files it contain and move them to the Forge icons directory located in :

C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Forge\Cache\pics\icons\
or
C:\Users\<yourusername>\Application Data\Roaming\Forge\Cache\pics\icons\
or
C:\Documents and Settings\<yourusername>\Application Data\Forge\Cache\pics\icons\
(depending on which version of window you're using)

For Mac it should be something like
<your home directory>/Library/Application Support/Forge/Cache/pics/icons/

Then take the innistrad folder and move it to
\ForgeMainDirectory\res\quest\world\
(where was found the file worlds.txt you previously modified)

You can now play and travel to Innistrad or start a quest in it when you want. All quest opponents have AI compatible cards

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 18 Nov 2014, 01:45
by Xitax
Is this quest world usually distributed with the betas?

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 18 Nov 2014, 01:50
by Fizanko
No it's not, you have to download it separately if you wish to play in this quest world.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 25 Nov 2014, 20:51
by serrasmurf
Welcome to Mirrodin!

In the latest release you’ll find the Mirrodin quest world with 53 opponents (decks) ready to battle you.
Specifically: 11 easy opponents, 17 medium, 19 hard, 2 very hard & 4 challenges.
In the attached file you’ll find the deck files, the world specifications file, icons & a deck overview sheet.

Mirrodin world setup
I chose to include only cards from the 6 sets of the 2 Mirrodin blocks. No core sets, no extraterrestrial cards, just pure Mirrodin.

Deck development was done from 3 angles:
- Adaptations of intro/precon decks. These are mostly your easy/ medium opponents and nicely cover all themes of Mirrodin
- Adaptations of (block) constructed decks, these are always hard opponents
- Other random decks, around combo’s, cards etc.

Cards & decks that did or did not make it
These are the Mirrodin cards that are banned for official tournaments:
Mirrodin block: AEther Vial, Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, Artifact lands, Skullclamp
Modern: Artifact lands, Chrome Mox, Cloudpost, Second Sunrise, Seething Song, Skullclamp
Legacy: Skullclamp
Vintage (restricted): Trinisphere, Thirst for Knowledge


In this world they are all fair game.

The reasons for that are:
- It’s a tool to make strong opponents, like the moxes in the main world. You’ll mostly see these cards in hard+ opponents
- The AI can’t handle most of these cards optimally
- Some cards don’t have the support in this world to become broken
- Banning cards is not in the spirit of Forge, you can always choose not to use the cards yourself and avoid battling opponents playing a lot of these cards.

Mirrodin has 1147 cards, almost 20% can not be played properly by the AI, these cards are not in the opponents decks. You won’t be battling against:
- Sunburst
- Imprint
- Sacrifice artifact cards
- The plethora of “machine” combo’s that this world has to offer (Blasting Station, Myr Galvanizer combo, Triskelion, Clock of Omens, Staff of Domination, Mycosynth Lattice, Eggs, etc.)
- several of my favourite cards: Venser, the Sojourner, Mimic Vat, Proteus Staff, Death Cloud, Isochron Scepter
- and yes, i tried them all in dedicated decks, and they let all me down :( Some simple AI code however would allow dedicated decks with these cards, e.g.: AI uses Proteus staff to target their own creatures; Mimic vat: don’t activate it when nothing is imprinted; don't play Isochron Scepter when no valid cards in hand.
The good news is: it is up to you to discover and build around all these cards!

I used 4 cards that are deemed not playable by the AI according to Forge. They work however sufficiently well in the decks i crafted for them. These cards are: Birthing Pod, Dispatch, Magma Giant, Endless Whispers

Karn Liberated is listed as playable by the AI, but in my opinion he is not. Are planeswalkers coded that they only use the + ability and the ultimate? Too often the wrong ability is chosen resulting in a loss instead of a certain victory. Tezzeret does the same, but remains strong enough to earn his spot in a few decks.

Power level
Crappy opponents are scarce. Mirrodin has some strong synergy themes (dump lot’s of artifacts on the battlefield…) and that is something the AI handles pretty well naturally. If you find yourself losing more than you can handle emotionally, try some of the following:
- Play on “Easy” level
- Make sure you have lot’s of artifact & creature removal (Viridian Shaman, Shatter, Pyroclasm, Skinrender) to break the synergy and stop a creature rush (which is basically where most strong decks are about).
- Change your quest preferences settings:
: Forge let’s you progress pretty fast. Change the “Wins for …AI” to : 16-32-48
: Get more credits for a win, so you can save for some shop goodies
: increase the number of “starting rares”to make sure you have some bombs that can take down opponents
- Your sideboard is your best friend (to dump your artifact removal cards for instance when you meet opponents with the same game plan)
- Start with a 40-card deck, expand to 60 later
- Have an infect sub-theme/creature, infect kills yield more credits
- Some opponents might look tough at first encounter, but are much easier to beat if you have the right plan; AI decks are in that sense a puzzle you have to solve.
- For the easy opponents it is hinted what they play so you can anticipate. For the tougher opponents the hints are more subtle: make sure you have all the tools you might need in your sideboard
- The mana fixing is horrible in this world (specially for opponents as AI can’t play some of the fixing). Don’t play more than 2 colours and play all these great artifacts of course!

Storyline/ Vorthos
The Vorthos is not that strong in me, but I tried to adhere to most of the storyline by allocating the appropriate characters to the right decks with the right quotes . You’ll mostly meet the people & haymakers of Mirrodin. But sometimes you’ll meet a stranger; you can’t stop Wall-E from planeswalking, can you?

I could have told the story linear, batlling first the original Mirrodin decks and later the myr & phyrexians form Scars, but you would sacrifice too much by doing so.

What I did do is using the duel decks respresenting the 2 decisive battles:
- Glissa versus Memnarch
- Mirrans versus Phyrexians
These duel decks are your challenges in this world.

A final multiplayer battle between the 5 Praetors would have been cool but is unfortunately not possible. They don’t command duel decks either because there would be too much overlap with other cooler decks.

Any feedback is welcome. Last not but least, have fun!
Alex

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 25 Nov 2014, 22:10
by Fizanko
Nice, just in time for me to start a new quest now that i'm finished with my long Zendikar one :)
Got beat by Metalcrafty on my first duel, it was a very close one as i won the 1st round easily (that surprised me as that starting deck i am using isn't really good but i had good luck on the order of card i picked), but got bad luck with nasty low mana (could only get 2 lands) on the 2nd round and the 3rd round the AI got his best guys early and destroyed my poor deck without troubles :)

Going to be fun as i'm not used to the 2 Mirrodin blocks, it's going to be a nice refreshing quest.

serrasmurf wrote:- I created duel decks for the challenges, copied some code from sorin vs tibalt, but I can't get them to work, hope that someone can help out!
I've been told that duel decks as challenge unfortunately only work on main world :
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14680&p=154630#p154629

I hope it will be made compatible with other quest worlds in the future, the concept of imposed decks is very fun.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 26 Nov 2014, 13:45
by Sloth
The Mirrodin world looks solid. Good work serrasmurf!

Some of the decks are really well polished (The NiMillator for example).

I found 4 cards that weren't recogized by Forge because the set code was wrong. I fixed that.

I can add the world to the source code right away. Are you okay with that serrasmurf?

serrasmurf wrote:- Sacrifice artifact cards
The AI will sacrifice Myr Sire, Spine of Ish Sah, Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring without hesitation. A deck based around them is definitely possible.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 26 Nov 2014, 14:26
by serrasmurf
Hi Sloth,
Thnx!
I'm OK for adding it to the next beta.
Unfortunately the duel decks I created for challenges don't work as a duel deck. I hope that some dev finds it interesting enough to make that possible outside the main world.
The challenges do work however, you just play with your normal deck against these opponents. They have the same decks as they have in the normal duels, which makes the challenges easier than they should be. But I'd rather leave them now as they are, so they keep the right specs for when they do work.

I just noticed one deck issue: Martin Luther needs a few more mountains for Koth of the Hammer

I'll try to make a sac-artifact deck, let's see if I can get Slobad to do some dirty work :)

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 26 Nov 2014, 16:09
by friarsol
serrasmurf wrote:Unfortunately the duel decks I created for challenges don't work as a duel deck. I hope that some dev finds it interesting enough to make that possible outside the main world.
The challenges do work however, you just play with your normal deck against these opponents. They have the same decks as they have in the normal duels, which makes the challenges easier than they should be. But I'd rather leave them now as they are, so they keep the right specs for when they do work.
I'll take a look. I think I might have an idea on how to do it differently.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 27 Nov 2014, 03:40
by friarsol
friarsol wrote:I'll take a look. I think I might have an idea on how to do it differently.
Ok, I believe this works now, which I'm sure will make Fizanko happy, since I think he tried to do these with his world too.

One thing of note, be careful with the clarity when naming duel deck titles. I've changed the names to <Opponent> (as <Human>) as opposed to the previous structure of <Opponent> (vs <Human>). I left the names of the files alone for consistency.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 27 Nov 2014, 04:14
by Fizanko
There are many worlds in which it can be interesting, creating your own duel decks to re-enact the storylines of those worlds as challenges can be a lot of fun.

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 27 Nov 2014, 20:07
by serrasmurf
Sloth wrote:The AI will sacrifice Myr Sire, Spine of Ish Sah, Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring without hesitation. A deck based around them is definitely possible.
There is an aggro and a control variant possible, but they take more time
- quite a few cards are marked as non-AI playble, thus need good testing to check if they work in the right shell
- the power level is low (it remains a clungy theme for the AI), so need to choose to accept it or find a another shell (e.g. Spine of Ish Sah and the wellsprings as a side theme in a control deck)

I'll post the decks probably in a few days

Re: World Deck Development thread

PostPosted: 06 Mar 2015, 14:57
by serrasmurf
Would it be interesting to create a World with the current Standard? Would people be interested to play that? Or do people rather play gauntlets for that purpose?
It takes some maintenance work to keep updating it, but it may be doable:
All easy/medium decks are precon-decks, we only need to replace the cards that are not playable by the AI.
All hard decks are official tournament decks. The thing I noticed is that all current top standard decks hardly have cards the AI can't play.
Hence this world idea.