Dragons need huge improvement

The title says it all. The dragons ai is extremely flawed. I'm not talking about the dragon not going for the air defense. Here is what happened.
I was about to attack in a clan war. I didn't know what was in the clan castle, so I brought a dragon to kill them. I start my attack, and bait out the clan castle, and 2 skeleton traps. So I bring all the troops out to the corner, and place my barb king to distract them and use my dragon to kill them. Should have worked. But if course, my dragon messed up. He stood their for 5 seconds, looking straight at the troops, before attacking once. And then, he only got one shot off before we died. This ruined my attack, and made me pretty upset, so now I'm here. Basically, I think that troops should not target the enemy, then wait 5 seconds before doing anything. My dragon was just sitting there watching.
What I think happened is my dragon and barb king were targeting the same troop, even though they were on different sides of the mass of troops, and the barb king killed the troop, and then they targeted the same troop again. My suggested solution for this is for all splash damage troops to act more like the Valkyrie. The Valkyrie targets multiple buildings to hit at the same time. So, why don't splash damage troops target groups of troops within their splash radius. That way, dragons wouldnt shut there watching my barb king take on 5 wizards or whatever, but attack the group and actually work.
I tried to keep away from raging in this post, but this just happened to me, so sorry if it was a bit raging. Please leave comments to show your support, or if you have to, say this is a bad idea. Any comment is appreciated, so comment away!

Well.. Those skeletons traps change the attacking with dragons. They got more stupid. Ive seen one attack, when dragons was going back by 6 tiles back and back again to finish th and again they went back to finish those skeletons and again they ran to th. Its was funny atack, but it took 2nd star at the end of time with luck.

I like how they are, just sometimes it really bugs me.

solution:

make dragons a little bit more viser, if the ground troops doesnt have the ability to attack air, so the dragon wont go for them.

it would be more interesting if you put them in the clan defense, so you will need something to attack ground troops :) just an idea.

Every troop will do the same thing when targeting another enemy troop. When they target a troop, and that troop is killed by one of your other troops, it takes a while for it to target and attack another one. Look at what wizards do when this happens with a troop or building they are targeting gets destroyed just before they release their spell, they pause, almost looks like they are shooting blanks. Drags are the same.

Its not just dragons. Watch replays if you don't believe me. All troops pause.

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Originally Posted by TintJunkie

Every troop will do the same thing when targeting another enemy troop. When they target a troop, and that troop is killed by one of your other troops, it takes a while for it to target and attack another one. Look at what wizards do when this happens with a troop or building they are targeting gets destroyed just before they release their spell, they pause, almost looks like they are shooting blanks. Drags are the same.

Its not just dragons. Watch replays if you don't believe me. All troops pause.

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I know. I realise all troops do this. But since dragons and wizards do splash damage, they should not be stuck shooting blanks, as you say. I used the dragons because it was the most prominent example in my mind at the time. Now that you have told me this, what do you think of my idea? Valkyries use their splash damage to their advantage and target things differently. Why shouldn't dragons and wizards?

Well, dragons will/can take out a group of troops. I understand the frustration, but its equal on both sides. The reverse could happen from the enemy cc troops.

I don't think its so much of a problem that needs or could be fixed.

Just this morning, I replied to a thread about dragons being OP... :rolleyes:

So I guess, based on Wisdom of the Crowd theory, dragons are just fine?

Dragons are fine, just they could be more wiser with their splash damage targets. Its frustrating when witches skeletons always spawn and the dragons just kill them with no reason, cause they wont do any damage to them, they should go for the caster or smthn. In all mythology dragons arnt that stupid. :)

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Originally Posted by WarrenJames

Just this morning, I replied to a thread about dragons being OP... :rolleyes:

So I guess, based on Wisdom of the Crowd theory, dragons are just fine?

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I saw what thread you commented on. In fact, I commented on your comment, Agreeing with everything you said about how all dragon attacks should not be limited. I also saw every other comment agreeing, saying that all dragon attacks are fine. But the all dragon attack is completely unrelated to this topic. This is just one dragon, or wizards, targeting groups instead of single targets, like a Valkyrie. The one thing in your comment on the other post that relates to this topic was when you said dragons are brainless. This is designed to help dragons become a bit smarter, in a small way that won't make them overpowered. So do you want to make dragons less stupid, or are you done with them being brainless?

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Originally Posted by Quake

Dragons are fine, just they could be more wiser with their splash damage targets. Its frustrating when witches skeletons always spawn and the dragons just kill them with no reason, cause they wont do any damage to them, they should go for the caster or smthn. In all mythology dragons arnt that stupid. :)

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Allow me to make some clarifications. My idea is just to change how the dragon targets troops, not change who it targets. Although I understand your frustration, I would prefer it if dragons still attack ground troops. I often use my dragon to take out the cc troops, but if they wouldn't attack ground troops that can't attack air it would ruin is purpose. It's a fine idea, but not what this post is after.

I don't think the dragon needs to be changed at all....I think most of you need a better way of dealing with the CC. Why the hell are people sacrificing a king and 20 troop slots to take out a CC? What kind of attacks are you all doing? Use an attack that doesn't require the CC being drawn out like the big kids do, or take it out the right way with couple archers, a witch and wizard...you will only lose the archers if you do it right and you still have your king for helping to funnel drags or helping your main force.

The dragon has to have these kind of flaws or mass drags could just roll over anything. All the troops DO pause when they target other troops, but high dps troops like dragons and pekkas take longer between each attack then say an archer so it seems like it takes longer for them to relock on a target. That's because it does.

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

I know. I realise all troops do this. But since dragons and wizards do splash damage, they should not be stuck shooting blanks, as you say. I used the dragons because it was the most prominent example in my mind at the time. Now that you have told me this, what do you think of my idea? Valkyries use their splash damage to their advantage and target things differently. Why shouldn't dragons and wizards?

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False, Valkeries also target and position themselves and while thier attack splashes they are pretty dumb too... if you have 3 buildings around a valkery and it is attacking and a building somehwere else nearby dies the valk will sometimes stop and decide if it wants to move or not... if one of the buildings it is attacking dies it will move for sure. the valk always tries to position itself for max dammage but in doing so spends so much time running around it actually does less than if it stayed put and just finished the other two buildings.. by the time the valk makes up its min on what to t attack the targets are already changed and it has to move to the next one and is often just shot down in the time it spends walking around like a fool.

likewise with troops if you have a bundle of archers to kill and you drop two archers and a valkery the valk could just stand around and watch if the archers attack too fast and kill her target. this happens all the time

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Originally Posted by ArseKickerson

I don't think the dragon needs to be changed at all....I think most of you need a better way of dealing with the CC. Why the hell are people sacrificing a king and 20 troop slots to take out a CC? What kind of attacks are you all doing? Use an attack that doesn't require the CC being drawn out like the big kids do, or take it out the right way with couple archers, a witch and wizard...you will only lose the archers if you do it right and you still have your king for helping to funnel drags or helping your main force.

The dragon has to have these kind of flaws or mass drags could just roll over anything. All the troops DO pause when they target other troops, but high dps troops like dragons and pekkas take longer between each attack then say an archer so it seems like it takes longer for them to relock on a target. That's because it does.

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I realise that high damage troops take longer in between strikes, I also realise that all troops pause in between attacks. But 5 seconds without doing anything is just wrong. Also, with this change, mass dragons would not roll over anything anymore than they already do. I just think that a dragon targeting a group of troops is a lot better than it targeting one. All that would change is that if there is a group of troops, and one dies, it won't spend the next 5 seconds doing absolutely nothing.

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Originally Posted by kmsoji

likewise with troops if you have a bundle of archers to kill and you drop two archers and a valkery the valk could just stand around and watch if the archers attack too fast and kill her target. this happens all the time

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Well then maybe Valkyries should target troops differently also. I am trying to eliminate troops standing around doing nothing, because it seems extremely flawed for any troop to do this. I think it makes perfect sense for something that will damage a group to target a group.

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

. . . I think it makes perfect sense for something that will damage a group to target a group.

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I agree with your basic reasoning here but I'm not sure if it is even possible. Thinking back to the recent-ish valkyrie update which changed them to target two buildings when possible, it caused other glitch targeting issues and complaints. I would rather have valks stay the way they are than have them do a single attack to a group leaving most of them alive, then take off running across the map because another group all of a sudden has more troops in it making it a "better target". Based on that I am not sure the concept of "group as a single target" is even possible.

Then again healers are now supposed to follow larger groups instead of single troops so there is evidence to the contrary as well. Regardless of whether it is a programmatic limitation or not I look at it this way. Different troops are different in more ways than one. The better I understand those differences the more of an advantage I have against other people because (in theory) I can utilize them better. Don't look at it so much as a problem. Consider it a challenge and use it to your advantage. That's what strategy games are all about.

It isn't so much dragons, as it is the core AI behavior and odd size and attack feature of dragons that makes the standard AI do some enraging things. I've said this before... I don't know where, or I'd quote it or reference it, but dragons more or less use the same 'favorite target: any' as barbarians. Thing is, there are very few tweaks done on the AI for dragons, namingly the fact they spread out or don't go straight in towards a target. This one thing, used in many other units, keeps them from bunching up in one spot. If it didn't do that, you could have 200 archers in one tile, which could be s bit annoying if even a small Splash/AoE attack hit. Also it just looks silly to have that many in one spot.

Anyway, AI quirks are exaggerated in dragons. They spread out more, act larger, and have a short ranged splash attack making attack angles even wider, and because you can have only so many of them, any slight difference in positioning can drasticly change thier path and result in a significant amount of them split off more than you normally see in 'smaller' units.

One Clan War attack, I cleared out part of a base to help funnel in dragons deeper into a base by allowing me to target one building further inside. I dumped 8/10 of my dragons, from one spot, and they circled around it, and easily wrecked the Dark Elixir storage. BUT, 5-6 took a left, way off target, and the rest took a right, towards the Air Defence. Why? because of how they circled around. Half were closer to one building than the other, and so went thier own way. The left group wandered off, and burned the base edges while the other died horribly from lack of support. That cost me; I couldn't use my last 2 dragons to patch a mishap that big.

Anyway, long story short, much of the AI fits we have are because of core AI quirks that are exaggerated by how a dragon is ran. The AI is optimized to run small units in large mobs, like of barbarians and archers, not a 'small' flock(?) of large dragons.

The question we have to answer if we want to 'improve' it is, improve it in what way? What kind of simple AI rules do we want to have for just dragons, and how would those rules affect thier overall effectiveness? If we 'improve' it too much, then they can be 'too efficient' and more balancing will be needed.

This will not be a simple fix.

Dragons are not upto the mark...they need improvement or bring on lvl 5 drags with improvements....

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Originally Posted by WarrenJames

...
The question we have to answer if we want to 'improve' it is, improve it in what way? What kind of simple AI rules do we want to have for just dragons, and how would those rules affect thier overall effectiveness? If we 'improve' it too much, then they can be 'too efficient' and more balancing will be needed.

This will not be a simple fix.

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I think I get what you are saying, and what I'm trying to fix should be pretty minor, not improving it too much. What I want is just grouped targets for splash damage troops, a small step that might lead to larger changes, but I definetly agree and don't want to change it too much.

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Originally Posted by iceageg

Regardless of whether it is a programmatic limitation or not I look at it this way. Different troops are different in more ways than one. The better I understand those differences the more of an advantage I have against other people because (in theory) I can utilize them better. Don't look at it so much as a problem. Consider it a challenge and use it to your advantage. That's what strategy games are all about.

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I don't think it would be too hard to program it, what I imagine happening, not sure if this will work, but after the Dragon selects it's target (as it does now), it then performs a search for troops in the same area, during the time where it waits to attack, and then groups the troops it finds in its search. This results in a minor change, not changing who it targets at all.
As to what you said about understanding troops and using the differences, I generally agree completely with you. But, in this case, all troops seem to do this. Many other comments will point this out to you. And, I don't see a way this can benefit me in any way, knowing dragons will take large amounts of time to attack if their targets are killed. For now, I'm just going to avoid using dragons for this purpose. But yes, that is what strategy games are all about.
One last thing, the dragons are just an example I used. Most troops act this way, I'm not only trying to change dragons. But, I would like to thank everyone for your comments, and please continue letting me know what you think. Thank you

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

I realise that high damage troops take longer in between strikes, I also realise that all troops pause in between attacks. But 5 seconds without doing anything is just wrong. Also, with this change, mass dragons would not roll over anything anymore than they already do. I just think that a dragon targeting a group of troops is a lot better than it targeting one. All that would change is that if there is a group of troops, and one dies, it won't spend the next 5 seconds doing absolutely nothing.

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The 5 second issue isn't particular to dragons. Your barbarian king has a quicker attack speed than the dragon, and is killing the CC troops in one shot. And due to quirks in AI, friendly units almost always target the same enemy troop in a group, regardless of which friendly troops are closer to which enemy troops. So wizards always get screwed if they're grouped with archers in the CC.

For this reason, I stopped mixing archers and wizards in my CC for defense. For example, in a CC with 15 space, I used to use 3 archers, 3 wizards. But you know what would happen? The wizards would never shoot. The archers and wizards would all target the same unit. The 3 archers would take out the target (usually an archer). The wizards would almost shoot, but then the archer would die, so they'd start over. After 6 or 7 archers died this way, with my wizards never once shooting, the wizards would be dead. It was so frustrating watching replays, where I knew that if the wizards had gotten off one shot, they would have taken out a whole clump of 15-20 archers. Instead, nothing.

So now, I'd rather have 3 wizards and 3 empty slots. Or 15 archers.

Of course, now I have 20 space in my CC, so that's 5 wizards. (Or 3 wizards and a valk.) On my TH8 with 25 space, I bring 6 wizards and one archer. One archer won't ruin my wizards attack, and it's an extra target for the enemy troops to be distracted by.

If you're going to drop a troop to distract while your dragons do their thing, make it a troops with decent health and low DPS. Like a barbarian. Or a giant, they won't even fight back, and it's only 5 troop space.

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Originally Posted by Xitra

The 5 second issue isn't particular to dragons. Your barbarian king has a quicker attack speed than the dragon, and is killing the CC troops in one shot. And due to quirks in AI, friendly units almost always target the same enemy troop in a group, regardless of which friendly troops are closer to which enemy troops. So wizards always get screwed if they're grouped with archers in the CC.

For this reason, I stopped mixing archers and wizards in my CC for defense. For example, in a CC with 15 space, I used to use 3 archers, 3 wizards. But you know what would happen? The wizards would never shoot. The archers and wizards would all target the same unit. The 3 archers would take out the target (usually an archer). The wizards would almost shoot, but then the archer would die, so they'd start over. After 6 or 7 archers died this way, with my wizards never once shooting, the wizards would be dead. It was so frustrating watching replays, where I knew that if the wizards had gotten off one shot, they would have taken out a whole clump of 15-20 archers. Instead, nothing.

So now, I'd rather have 3 wizards and 3 empty slots. Or 15 archers.

Of course, now I have 20 space in my CC, so that's 5 wizards. (Or 3 wizards and a valk.) On my TH8 with 25 space, I bring 6 wizards and one archer. One archer won't ruin my wizards attack, and it's an extra target for the enemy troops to be distracted by.

If you're going to drop a troop to distract while your dragons do their thing, make it a troops with decent health and low DPS. Like a barbarian. Or a giant, they won't even fight back, and it's only 5 troop space.

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Yes, I understood why it happened. I have stopped using dragons to kill cc troops now, but didn't realise this when I attacked. My fault, and I know that.
But, you seem to have had the same problem, just with wizards and archers. So I think it would solve a common problem in a minimal change way.

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

Yes, I understood why it happened. I have stopped using dragons to kill cc troops now, but didn't realise this when I attacked. . .

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That's what I meant by having an advantage over my opponents. Now you have that knowledge. Certain troops work better together from a CC as defense than they do alone or with other troops. Knowing this is part of that advantage. As for the delay before the initial attack instead of the first attack being instant and all time between attacks coming after the action I look at it like this . . .

The time it takes me to get from holster to first shot, or low ready to first shot is substantially longer than it takes to get off subsequent shots. To me the delay makes sense even though it is irritating. Then again this is a video game. I'll be the first one to admit that I don't want my games to accurately portray reality. Who wants to play a game called "My crappy life"?

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

The title says it all. The dragons ai is extremely flawed. I'm not talking about the dragon not going for the air defense. Here is what happened.
I was about to attack in a clan war. I didn't know what was in the clan castle, so I brought a dragon to kill them. I start my attack, and bait out the clan castle, and 2 skeleton traps. So I bring all the troops out to the corner, and place my barb king to distract them and use my dragon to kill them. Should have worked. But if course, my dragon messed up. He stood their for 5 seconds, looking straight at the troops, before attacking once. And then, he only got one shot off before we died. This ruined my attack, and made me pretty upset, so now I'm here. Basically, I think that troops should not target the enemy, then wait 5 seconds before doing anything. My dragon was just sitting there watching.
What I think happened is my dragon and barb king were targeting the same troop, even though they were on different sides of the mass of troops, and the barb king killed the troop, and then they targeted the same troop again. My suggested solution for this is for all splash damage troops to act more like the Valkyrie. The Valkyrie targets multiple buildings to hit at the same time. So, why don't splash damage troops target groups of troops within their splash radius. That way, dragons wouldnt shut there watching my barb king take on 5 wizards or whatever, but attack the group and actually work.
I tried to keep away from raging in this post, but this just happened to me, so sorry if it was a bit raging. Please leave comments to show your support, or if you have to, say this is a bad idea. Any comment is appreciated, so comment away!

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u dont know how to kill cc troops....learn how to attack first
u dont need to lure cc while using dragons...cc lures dragons to the center...and that is key for a dragon attack to be a success

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Originally Posted by iceageg

The time it takes me to get from holster to first shot, or low ready to first shot is substantially longer than it takes to get off subsequent shots. To me the delay makes sense even though it is irritating.

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I get your analogy, and I'm fine with the delay, normally. But in the case where the gun you are using is a flamethrower or rocket, in the Dragon and wizards case, if you intended target is taken down as you were about to fire, but there are other targets that would still get hit, why not just fire anyways and take out the others? That's just what I think. Thank you for your comments, they are greatly appreciated

Just another player realizing that Dragons aren't the "end all be all" troop that they were at lower TH levels...

On a related note I would suggest not using dragons to clear the CC troops. When I run a strategy that requires pulling the CC I usually use about 12 archers and one wizard after they are pulled out and bunched together. It works like this . . .

Understanding that troops will generally attack the closest target
&
Wiz do AOE damage
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Wiz have a shorter range than archers (will be closer to the CC troops so targeted first)

1) surround CC troops with a few archers
2) drop the wiz a bit farther away so it has to run in which gives you time to
3) drop a couple of archers in the center of the cluster of CC troops
4) the CC troops target the archers in the center
5) drop another archer in the center at a rate of about 1 per second
6) CC troops continue to acquire the new archers as their next target
7) the wiz gets in range (but far enough to not be selected as a target)
8) wiz melts CC troops

With a little practice this can be done with 20 unit space against most common CC troop combinations. Again, once clustered together. You still need troops to pull them and set them up.

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Originally Posted by kyleksq

Just another player realizing that Dragons aren't the "end all be all" troop that they were at lower TH levels...

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I don't think dragons are all powerful, I never did. Just normally, when I've used them, they can actually attack troops. And as I've said earlier, it's not just dragons. It's all troops. Did you read any of the comments?

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Originally Posted by ansen123

u dont know how to kill cc troops....learn how to attack first
u dont need to lure cc while using dragons...cc lures dragons to the center...and that is key for a dragon attack to be a success

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I didn't do a dragon attack. My attack required clan castle troops to be lured. Also, I know how to attack. And, learning is a process. I now know that Dragons won't attack if the barb king is interfering too much. I've said I've changed my attack.

SO NOW THAT I'VE SAID THAT, will people a) stop telling me what I did wrong, I already know that and b) read the comments and realise that is not just dragons in talking about. Do either of you have anything to say about having splash damage troops target groups, or are you just here to assume I'm doing an all drag attack or whatever, making an @$$ out of you and me?

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

I don't think dragons are all powerful, I never did. Just normally, when I've used them, they can actually attack troops. And as I've said earlier, it's not just dragons. It's all troops. Did you read any of the comments?

I didn't do a dragon attack. My attack required clan castle troops to be lured. Also, I know how to attack. And, learning is a process. I now know that Dragons won't attack if the barb king is interfering too much. I've said I've changed my attack.

SO NOW THAT I'VE SAID THAT, will people a) stop telling me what I did wrong, I already know that and b) read the comments and realise that is not just dragons in talking about. Do either of you have anything to say about having splash damage troops target groups, or are you just here to assume I'm doing an all drag attack or whatever, making an @$$ out of you and me?

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So you didn't do a dragon attack, but spent around 30k and 20 troop space to kill the clan castle... hrm

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Originally Posted by ShaneHed13

So you didn't do a dragon attack, but spent around 30k and 20 troop space to kill the clan castle... hrm

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What I did isn't the point. The point is to stop the dragons and wizards from sitting around doing nothing. If you want to talk about what I did, then you should go to another subforum, perhaps the attack strategies subforum, not the ideas and features request forum.

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Originally Posted by WarrenJames

Just this morning, I replied to a thread about dragons being OP... :rolleyes:

So I guess, based on Wisdom of the Crowd theory, dragons are just fine?

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OP??? You must have a weak base, because for what they cost, and how long they take to make, thy get crushed very fast on anything above a TH 8. If anything, they need more power, made faster, or cost much less.

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Originally Posted by Penguin9990

I think I get what you are saying, and what I'm trying to fix should be pretty minor, not improving it too much. What I want is just grouped targets for splash damage troops, a small step that might lead to larger changes, but I definetly agree and don't want to change it too much.



I don't think it would be too hard to program it, what I imagine happening, not sure if this will work, but after the Dragon selects it's target (as it does now), it then performs a search for troops in the same area, during the time where it waits to attack, and then groups the troops it finds in its search. This results in a minor change, not changing who it targets at all.
As to what you said about understanding troops and using the differences, I generally agree completely with you. But, in this case, all troops seem to do this. Many other comments will point this out to you. And, I don't see a way this can benefit me in any way, knowing dragons will take large amounts of time to attack if their targets are killed. For now, I'm just going to avoid using dragons for this purpose. But yes, that is what strategy games are all about.
One last thing, the dragons are just an example I used. Most troops act this way, I'm not only trying to change dragons. But, I would like to thank everyone for your comments, and please continue letting me know what you think. Thank you

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AI programing is surprisingly hard, especially when trying to make simple and elegant set of rules handle complex problems. That's the reason why it has been said coding will be a problem. You have to set rules and values just right for the simple set of rules to do the task you want it to. Computers, being the ultimate literalist, have to be told exactly how things need to be done, with only as much wiggle room as needed, because they will follow those orders and will go too far with things, if there is nothing to limit it.

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Originally Posted by gowylde

OP??? You must have a weak base, because for what they cost, and how long they take to make, thy get crushed very fast on anything above a TH 8. If anything, they need more power, made faster, or cost much less.

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No no, I was on a thread crying about dragons being OP. I wasn't the one saying they were. I was counter arguing how it wasn't a 'brainless' tactic to use mass dragons armies. How could I say they are OP with a signiture like I've got?!