I was playing against a Mage in Wild. I had 6 frozen minions on the board, the Mage had 1 health and an active Secret (Ice Block) on the board, along with a Doomsayer and 2 other minions.
I had a Hellfire in my hand for lethal. Knowing that the Secret was Ice Block (I had already tested for every other possible Secret), I played Zephrys to get Flare. But he didn’t offer Flare; instead, he offered Consecration, Fireball and one other card that I don’t remember.
In the end, Zephrys costed me the game by not offering Flare when I clearly needed it. Please fix.
Considering that Ice Block was one of the possible secrets and I already had lethal in my hand, I didn’t need more damage; I just needed a Flare in case of Ice Block.
If there’s a Secret in play and you already have lethal in your hand/on the board, then Zephrys should offer a Flare in case the Secret would prevent lethal.
Zephyrs only knows public information and keywords. He doesn’t know what’s in your hand or any card text beyond health/attack and the presence of keywords.
If you want him to give you flare, you need to set up the board and your available mana to make it a priority for him.
While there are arguably situations where Zephrys’ AI needs more work, yours is not one.
Blizzard made a deliberate decision to NOT have Zephrys know anything beyond what can be seen by all (cards on the board, number of cards in hand, number of secrets in play, and of course health total).
Think of it as if Zephrys himself enters the playing table. He looks left and sees your opponent holding five cards in his hand. He looks right and sees you holding three cards. But he is in the middle, on the board, so he only sees the back of those cards.
Then they made a poor decision, as this caused Zephrys to miss a patently obvious lethal.
Here’s an even more obvious lethal puzzle that Zephrys cannot solve:
Your opponent has 12 health and an 8/8 on the board. You have 10 mana, no minions and a Fireball in hand. You play Zephrys first. Zephrys should offer you another Fireball for lethal, but he doesn’t.
If Zephrys is incapable of solving an incredibly simple lethal puzzle, one which could likely be solved easily by an 8-year-old, then his card text is wrong, because he does not offer the perfect card.
Since not looking at your cards was a design choice, none of these are bugs.
You are free to disagree with the design and argue that Zephrys should be changed. But not her, on the bug report forum, since that detracts from actual bug reports. Please take your request to the Multiplayer Forum.
As for your example with the Fireball in hand … why not cast the Fireball first and then play Zephrys? Then you WILL be offered that second Fireball you crave.
Zephrys’ behaviour is extensively documented. So that you, the player, can set up the situation where you get the right card.
His card text is bugged. “The perfect card” is an inaccurate term and should be changed.
Why should I have to cast the Fireball first, when it should be patently obvious that I need a second Fireball either way? Why go to the trouble of designing an intricate AI specifically for this card, only to create an arbitrary restriction that renders it incapable of solving a simple lethal puzzle?
Making the algorithm perfect would be an impossible task. Another reason it’d be wasted effort is that it’s an additional chance for skill testing. Can you set up the board & mana into such state that he offers you exactly what you want? That’s an extra puzzle for you to solve to get everything out of him.
Again, suggestions to change the card should go somewhere else.
This forum is for QA staff. They are not in charge of making card changes. So your posts here are DEFINITELY not going to change anything.
Making the algorithm perfect is impossible, but it should be more than capable of solving a simple lethal puzzle.
Compromising gameplay, intuitiveness and simplicity just for the sake of making things more “skillful” is a terrible idea, especially since it goes against Hearthstone’s core design philosophy of appealing to a casual crowd, rather than the MTG crowd. If Zephrys’ card text says it will give me “the perfect card”, then I expect to receive the perfect card when I play him, without needing to manipulate my own board and mana before he’ll give me the card I actually want.
Especially in a case like the one in my original post, where it’s patently obvious that I need Flare, not more damage.
Then why are changes to Zephrys’ AI listed under bug fixes?
With that logic you could also argue that he should give you a 0 mana “deal 100 damage to your opponent” card. It doesn’t exist, but it would be perfect.
Many HS cards have simplified card text. That’s why a lot of extra information is available for those who want to play at a more advanced level. For Zephrys, that documentation is more extensive then for any other card. You can choose whether or not you want to acquire and use that knowledge.
Because all changes made so far ARE bug fixes. They are cases where, based on visible board state and cards available in the basic and classic sets, Zephrys failed to present the best option. And now he does.
What you are asking for is a change in design philosophy. You want Blizzard to revert their deliberate choice to make Zephrys NOT peek in your hand. And that’s not a call for QA to make, that’s for the game designers.
I’m inclined to agree that Zephrys should “expect” Ice Block if the enemy has a Mage secret and either their health is very low, or lethal is already publicly visible. However it’s not necessarily a bug if he doesn’t.
The fact that he can’t read cards in your hand is a design choice to not take on a Sisyphean task. If they had given him the ability to see your hand, it would be as limited as his ability to read Deathrattles. Parsing arbitrary text is a monumental technical challenge and implementing the ability for him to interpret what Spells and Battlecries you’re holding would be nigh impossible. It would also require exponentially more maintenance than his current design, which is already considerable compared to most other cards. Every new card and interaction would have to be correctly handled by his AI.
His ability give a card well suited to what is currently in the Battlefield is a much more manageable task. It still can’t read Deathrattles, auras, and triggered effects, but somehow even as limited as it is most people seem to be able to get what they need from him in a majority of cases.
Because some of the changes to his AI were bugs fixes. He had the public information, and he made a wrong decision. Those were bugs. Requesting that he take Ice Block into consideration in certain circumstances is a suggestion. Requesting that he take cards in your hand into consideration is also a suggestion, which will probably never happen.
The irony is, that card still wouldn’t have given me lethal in the situation I listed in my original post. But Flare would. So his card text would still be wrong.
When Zephrys misses lethal, for any reason, that’s a QA problem. Period.
You can proclaim the last word if you like, but you don’t really have the final say in the matter. The developers have stated how the card is supposed to work, and it seems consistent with the events you’ve described, so this isn’t a bug. Ignoring the official intended behavior and creating your own interpretation won’t make an invalid report valid.
Then the developers intentionally created a card that doesn’t work. A card that misses lethal in obvious circumstances. I could understand if he missed lethal in cases where it’s much more obscure and muddled by complicated card text, but this isn’t one of those cases.
I had Hellfire in hand (A card that Zephrys himself can offer), 6 Frozen minions, and my opponent had 2 health, and a Secret on the field. It should be patently obvious that I don’t need more damage; I need Flare.
Zephrys would then have to figure out whether or not the secret is a counterspell, which would be pointless to get flare so you might as well get any spells.
Patently obvious … for someone that can see your hand.
You keep ignoring the fact that Zephrys can’t.
You are free to have that opinion. You are also free to keep proclaiming it here, where it won’t have any effect, instead of posting it in a location where the game designer might see it and you actually have a (small, admittedly) chance of it having an effect.