"Random" Isn't So Random

The NPC's playing "Random" decks don't randomize their cards; they have the same 3-4 star deck each time depending on the npc.

If players have 30+ cards and we fight an NPC in a "Random" game why are our cards still deck restricted? Why can't we have a chance to load 2 or more 5 star cards to fight against their deck?

As it stands it appears we get 1 high level card and have a chance to decrease the maximum power of our deck which flies in the face of the term "random". Currently this feels far to restricted when fighting specific "Random Game" npc's.

Doing this players are literally haemorrhaging MGP while praying to RNGesus that they win the next round (which rarely happens).

It'd be nice to see some kind of adjustments made to this mode.

>__<

random was the most annoying rule in 8 as well, I remember purposefully removing that rule from everywhere in the world.

your right though the npc's who use the random rule should have an extended deck so there is more variance to them, not just on the player themselves.

of course you could farm the high level cards first before playing the random rule matches then increase your deck after getting the cards, but of course unlike 8 you cant dispose of the low level cards once gained to give yourself that advantage.

Agreed it would be nice just for "random" to lift the restriction on the rare cards

It's annoying, but you can avoid it almost all the time. There are only three NPCs in the game that use the "Random" rule as a fixed rule: Rowena, Aurifort of the Three Clubs, and Landenel. If "Random" is chosen as a regional rule, just don't play NPCs in that area until the next day (regional rules change every day). And while it's annoying that it affects you and not the NPCs, take comfort in the following two truths: 1) because their card pool is so small, you can write down every card they own so you know what they almost definitely have in their hand, and 2) the Triple Triad AI is horrendous. I've seen quite often a situation where the NPC had two cards and there were two open spaces. Three of the four valid plays would win the game for the NPC. They choose the fourth nearly every time.

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Originally Posted by chidarake

random was the most annoying rule in 8 as well, I remember purposefully removing that rule from everywhere in the world.

your right though the npc's who use the random rule should have an extended deck so there is more variance to them, not just on the player themselves.

of course you could farm the high level cards first before playing the random rule matches then increase your deck after getting the cards, but of course unlike 8 you cant dispose of the low level cards once gained to give yourself that advantage.

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While I do personally have more than a few high level cards, due to deck restrictions in place when playing "Random" npc's, there is no way to increase the power of my deck through being dealt multiple said high level cards. The only outcome of this is that, with absolute certainty, my deck will decrease in power; "randomly" being by how much.

They should seriously just change the name of this rule to "Detriment" since "Random" would imply that I would have a chance at getting a better hand and that's just simply balderdash.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

It's annoying, but you can avoid it almost all the time. There are only three NPCs in the game that use the "Random" rule as a fixed rule: Rowena, Aurifort of the Three Clubs, and Landenel. If "Random" is chosen as a regional rule, just don't play NPCs in that area until the next day (regional rules change every day). And while it's annoying that it affects you and not the NPCs,

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This is true. Although the thought of having to wait instead of getting to "randomly" use multiple of my lovely high level cards kills me inside. @_@

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

They choose the fourth nearly every time.

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I almost wonder if the "Triple Triad AI is horrendous" is relative to how you play the NPC. I know this sounds ridiculous, because how could each NPC store individual PC patterns in an MMO, where literally hundreds of thousands of permutations would need to be recorded and stored....

Yeah this doesn't sound viable at all, EXCEPT!

I was beating Sezul on the first day and trying to farm cards from him. I was whooping his butt (if I do say so myself) consistently with a deck I built around his rules to bait him into positions that gave me a good chance to win. Then the day after the patch, I saw the post in General Discussion outlining the "90% chance rate to beating him" by using that starter deck set-up and the same moves every time...

I won 5/50 with that set-up. Near the bottom of his post he says that the strategy basically goes FUBAR if the NPC plays Biggs/Wedge at the bottom middle square to flip your dodo. Sezul flipped my dodo with Biggs/Wedge at the bottom every single time. My 5 wins only came when Sezul started off, and he followed the script outlined (which he doesn't do for me very frequently at all).

I began to wonder if he remembered me whooping him with a slightly better deck, and using my own reactive strategy as opposed to baiting him with the same move every single time. Obviously this sounds ridiculous lol. I went back to my own strategy and my good deck and continued whooping his butt :D

There's an easy solution to this.

Simply require that NPCs have to follow the same deck restrictions as the rest of us do. If they still need to have such ridiculously high ranking cards for beginner level game then give them the appropriate amount of cards needed to be allowed to have those rarer cards in whatever quantity.

I really don't see why this was done the way it is other than to simply be lazy.

Right now it's barely worth it to play an npc with the random or chaos rule. Both are more or less blatant cheating by the triple triad system as most times it gives you worthless * cards against an opponent with a 3, 4, and 5 * deck, whose card list is so small as to be not random whatsoever.

Two changes (either one or both) would make this rule far more "fair" when playing vs NPCs:

1. Give the NPCs more card in their collection. If they have multiple 2+ cards in their deck, give them at least 10 1*-2* cards in addition to their best 5. If they have multiple 3+ cards in their deck, give them at least 20 1*-2* cards in their deck in addition to their normal 3+ cards.

2. When randomizing your deck, one card is randomly chosen from your highest tier of cards (so if you had only 1 5* card, it would always be in the deck). The rest are chosen randomly from the highest tier you can use (so, all ** cards if you have 30-59 in your collection). This way your deck isn't weaker because of the Random rule, but it's still random.

Having change #2 in place for PvP matches would also balance things out, rather than having them be totally arbitrary. That way, you don't get a match where two people with the same collection are playing vs each other, and one has 5 * cards while the other has 4 ** and a *****.

Honestly, the only rule that's of any fun with the current NPC setup (with them having typically only good cards with 1 or 2 extra good cards to play), is Plus and MAYBE Ascension or Sudden Death. Without those rules, you pretty much stand no chance unless the NPC does something stupid in your quest to obtain 30 cards (and then 60+). Thankfully, they do stupid things from time to time. Random generally involves loss after loss, until the NPC does something stupid (again). Ditto for Chaos or any of those other irrelevant to 4-5 star deck rules.

There are actually five rules where the strength of your deck doesn't really matter as much, giving you a huge edge over NPCs: Same, Plus, Swap, Sudden Death, and Reverse. Same and Plus are just easy modes and so easy to exploit. Swap requires luck, but if your * card is swapped for your opponent's ***** card, it really makes the match pretty easy. With Sudden Death, you just need to steal one of your opponent's good cards without losing your good one, and then you just have to tie. Repeat until your deck is all 3-5* cards and your opponent's consists of the worst cards between the two of you. Then, win. Or tie and try again. Reverse means your crappy cards are now amazing - those 13-point * cards are now 31-point cards, and their 28-point ***** cards are now 16-point cards. Yours went from being half as good as theirs to twice as good. It's so easy to beat NPCs with this rule that there are ZERO NPCs that have it as a fixed rule.

Ascension can be easy too - just fill your deck with Beasttribe cards. Early on, four of the * ones plus a mutamix/memroon/frixio/Scarface is really nice. Later, just put all four of the ** beast cards in your deck along with a random 5*. If you have all the cards, switch to using an all scion deck - 4 *** scions and 1 **** scion.

All-Open and Three-Open rules make the game solvable by applying some simple Game Theory (I think there are online apps to do that already?).

The rest of the rules are pointless or irritating. Fallen Ace rarely has an impact. Descension has no impact if no one is using typed cards, and who would if that's the rule, unless you did a Roulette? Order/Chaos are a pain, as is Random as stated above.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

Ascension can be easy too - just fill your deck with Beasttribe cards. Early on, four of the * ones plus a mutamix/memroon/frixio/Scarface is really nice. Later, just put all four of the ** beast cards in your deck along with a random 5*. If you have all the cards, switch to using an all scion deck - 4 *** scions and 1 **** scion.

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bold and italicized - I did this until I noticed that every single time I lost to one of the Ascension NPC's, it was literally because I was playing Squall when I didn't want to. I switched Squall out for a full 2* beast tribe deck and I rarely ever lose anymore. My personal experience has been about a 95% win/draw rate (with a much higher % of that being actual wins and not draws)

I did a brief outline of what I do in this thread: Ascension Deck Strat

I've gotten to the point where I am grinding against Landenel... and good god this is an awful, AWFUL MGP sponge.
Random, but he always has Odin... which is an excellent card against random because it has an 8 on 3 sides, making it extremely versatile, which is king in a random match.
On top of Odin, he always has Ifrit or Titan and usually has Bahamut. So multiple 7 sided cards, Bahamut w/ 2 9's, and Odin w/ 3 8's...
Honestly his deck would be bad enough without a random rule. He's about as strong as King and Rowena, but makes you suck.

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

bold and italicized - I did this until I noticed that every single time I lost to one of the Ascension NPC's, it was literally because I was playing Squall when I didn't want to. I switched Squall out for a full 2* beast tribe deck and I rarely ever lose anymore. My personal experience has been about a 95% win/draw rate (with a much higher % of that being actual wins and not draws)

I did a brief outline of what I do in this thread: Ascension Deck Strat

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Good advice, thanks!

Scion Deck is ridiculous. 100% win ratio on the Imperial. Definitely the go to GMP farm team. Primals are good also but they have very moderate stats and can't easily beat themselves.

As to someone's comment earlier, I'm believe they're is some AI learning. Several strategies on many difference NPCs that would give me a solid 20+ win streak will randomly get shut down (by nearly the same card every single time) and never work again until different cards are used. Least this is what I noticed on the Imperial, Rhiki, and the Hearts NPC in Golden Saucer.

random is so unfair considering how many cards we have...but i managed to beat Rowena and land (odin guy)..and got all their cards.

As stated above, Random needs a good fixing if they pretend us to have a decent chance against NPCs like Rowena and Landanel. By all the gods of RNG, I was blessed that by winning Rowena like a total of 6 times out of... 80 matches or so... I got 2 Gerolts and 1 Luis. I only got Titan from Landanel so far out of the wins I got to him. His deck is just enfuriating unless you have probably already 60 cards, but if you're trying to get the brothers and Odin/Titan from him, chances is you have not that many, and all his cards will just flip your deck, no matter what you play, unless he goes batshit stupid in 1 match out of 50 and you had the luck of your life with your own cards.

Its not Random at all.

For the NPC its not Random

For the player its not random as it only picks amoung your crappiest cards.

It should be renamed to "Seemingly Random"