Systematic quirks in the “recommended move” algorithm?

DieOmimi

Hello everyone

I played some levels yesterday and I also noticed discrepancies. But it seems to be coincidental. While in the past the special sweets are always placed next to each other, yesterday it was only in some cases.

In the past, Rachel's special sweets were always placed next to the paint bomb, yesterday it was thrown somewhere.

I had to try this level several times. As can be seen, Yeti sometimes placed his sweets well, but sometimes also in places where I could not use them at all.

Grumpy_Old_Man

I hve also noticed that some of the characters need to aim better. I see it a couple of times a day, but I just put it behind me and attempt the level again. Now that this has been mentioned, I will take note of what happens.

As far as the suggested moves goes, my understanding it's primarily to assist somebody if they take a long time to move. Clearly the app thinks the player can't see a valid move and simply points one out.

ElenaVorona

@DieOmimi

It seems to me that the Studio is experimenting to make the character "friend" more useful to the player.

I made this conclusion based on my observations.

Sometimes I see how the Yeti throws his bomb not next to another booster (as I expect), but he throws it near the cells on the field for which I have not yet completed the task (I have not yet smeared jam in the cell, there is still an octopus in the cell and similar situations).

If such an experiment of the Studio really happens, then I do not like it. We are accustomed to certain behavior of "friends". If in the game "friends" start to act according to a completely different algorithm (like the Yeti now), then it will be a completely different game and you will have to master it all over again.

I do not want it.

Uncle_Bob

https://community.king.com/en/candy-crush-friends-saga/discussion/comment/1697037#Comment_1697037

@gr33n3y3z , Here are 3 annotated screenshots about Yeti placing the Cyan wrapped candy in some useless place rather than next to a special candy like a fish or a striped candy. These examples happened to me using Yeti this morning on level 4430. yeti did not always malfunction in this way, but it was happening on average of once every 1-2 attempts at this level, which was a bit frustrating and definitely supports what @Pitty_Kitty documented in her example above. It would be nice to have Yeti behave more predictably, so if you could talk to the programmers about it, I and I think many other players would appreciate it! Examples:

The final example below is more ambiguous, but Yeti threw the Cyan wrapped candy in with a bunch of other Cyan candies rather than next to either of the orange striped candies. This is ambiguous for me because the wrapped candy in that position could be matched with the other Cyan candies to create a new Cyan striped candy and also explode the cyan wrapped candy, so it might have truly been a better placement.

Is this enough data or would you like me to collect more?

ElenaVorona

@Uncle_Bob

All of your screenshots have confirmed what I wrote in my previous post.

The Yeti tossed you his wrapped candies near the "problem" places in the game. You had to move the cookies and he threw you his wrapped candies near the cookies.

Uncle_Bob

Another example of the Suggested Move Algorithm ignoring the potential destructive power of the Coloring Candy combined with a wrapped candy:

And a case where the Suggested Move was a very weak “combine Red an Yellow Fish, which would have just created 3 non-jam Fish, compared to moving the Red Striped candy up onto the Orange Wrapped candy , where the blast pattern completed covered the remaining area on the screen with jam.

You do, however, have to consider exactly how you combine things then affects results like the blast pattern! In this case if you moved the Orange Wrapped candy DOWN onto the Red Striped candy, the blast pattern would only have covered the lower two rows, leaving 3 uncovered spaces in the row above (although those 3 spaces might have been covered by the 4 released jam-loaded Fish, not sure.).

ElenaVorona

@Uncle_Bob

We discussed the Yeti behavior in the game here. I have a complaint against this "friend". I talked about this above.

But do you already have complaints about other friends (for example, Misty)?

UncleBob2

Another example of the “Recommended Move” algorithm suggesting a simple combination of a wrapped and striped candy rather than the far more destructive Coloring Candy + Wrapped Candy combination. I think that the recommended move algorithm is fairly simple, and to be fair, evaluating the destruction of some of these Color Bomb or Coloring Candy combinations would require a decent amount of computation and thus maybe be too slow on some devices. But the take-home message is to be especially wary of the Recommended Move when you have a CB or CC and some special candies available !

UncleBob2

Sometimes the Recommended Move algorithm will suggest using a Color Bomb or Coloring Candy, but even then you must carefully check that the algorithm is really recommending the most effective move for your exact situation. In the example below, the Recommended Move was CB + Cyan Striped Candy, but given the distribution of red candies near each of the hearts that had to be moved, the CB + Red Wrapped Candy was a far better choice: