The card game is too complicated

ZOS_Kevin

No worries! It went live yesterday. I'm putting up a post tomorrow highlighting the new sub-category to give everyone a chance to dig into High Isle first.

Lysette

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

No worries! It went live yesterday. I'm putting up a post tomorrow highlighting the new sub-category to give everyone a chance to dig into High Isle first.

Thanks that would be helpful, we need to establish an active community playing the game - it is much better than many think and it would be sad, if they are giving up on it too early on.

AzuraFan

I just tried this for the first time. It looks like it could be fun, but...

1. The games take too long. I just played a game with a novice NPC that took almost half an hour. That's way too long.

2. The tutorial is okay, but then when I played my first game, other tutorial boxes popped up. And they only come up once. I shudder to think what will happen if I ever take a break and then come back and try to play again. Please have a game help window we can switch to WHILE PLAYING NPCs.

3. I thought I understood that the power points you have at the end of a hand become prestige. So I was surprised when that didn't happen for me on one hand. I had 5 power points, but they just went away with nothing added to prestige. Was it because of an opponent's agent card? Is it a bug? Who knows, because there's virtually no information from the game about what's happening. At the end of each hand, it would be nice to have a hand summary so I can see what happened. Again, only have it if playing NPCs if that makes more sense. But it would be very helpful when trying to learn the game.

The game looks engaging, but because of how long it takes to play a game, I doubt I'll play it very often. Reduce a game to 10 minutes and I could get hooked.

Marcusorion1

Another noobie question

The Patron cards that list Combo 2 / 3 / 4 : how do those work as " combo" ? my first thought was to play them in a certain order but , it didn't seem to change anything ( action-wise ) - what make's it a combo 2 or combo 3 ?

ty:)

Sly80

Marcusorion1 wrote: »

Another noobie question

The Patron cards that list Combo 2 / 3 / 4 : how do those work as " combo" ? my first thought was to play them in a certain order but , it didn't seem to change anything ( action-wise ) - what make's it a combo 2 or combo 3 ?

ty:)

I thought the same, but you can play them in any order, and the combos still register. I still like to play them in order though, so, for example, I play all my Crow cards that combo before I play other cards; that way I can see and understand how combos work.

Re other comments here:

With the 4 starting decks, there's a lot of luck involved. If the cards don't fall your way, you will struggle. But it is a great learning curve, and when you get your fifth deck and/or start playing master NPCs with all 8 decks, the strategy element takes over and it is great fun; you can be Sun Tzu reincarnated

Lysette

AzuraFan wrote: »

I just tried this for the first time. It looks like it could be fun, but...

1. The games take too long. I just played a game with a novice NPC that took almost half an hour. That's way too long.

2. The tutorial is okay, but then when I played my first game, other tutorial boxes popped up. And they only come up once. I shudder to think what will happen if I ever take a break and then come back and try to play again. Please have a game help window we can switch to WHILE PLAYING NPCs.

3. I thought I understood that the power points you have at the end of a hand become prestige. So I was surprised when that didn't happen for me on one hand. I had 5 power points, but they just went away with nothing added to prestige. Was it because of an opponent's agent card? Is it a bug? Who knows, because there's virtually no information from the game about what's happening. At the end of each hand, it would be nice to have a hand summary so I can see what happened. Again, only have it if playing NPCs if that makes more sense. But it would be very helpful when trying to learn the game.

The game looks engaging, but because of how long it takes to play a game, I doubt I'll play it very often. Reduce a game to 10 minutes and I could get hooked.

that might have been that contract agent I talked about - if your opponent has that agent active, your power points at the end of a turn are lost - they will not get converted. To gain information about any card just hover with your mouse over it. You can as well examine what cards are in your played and cool down stack by clicking on it. Furthermore downstairs in the gaming hall you can get a recap of the rules. The duration of the game shrinks with getting used to - the more you play, the faster you can make decisions.

Lysette

Afaik combo 2 is playing 2 cards of the same patron, combo 3 then 3 cards of the same patron - and so on.

KaGaOri

Card game instructions made me think of this :
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HNPyZsPH8TI

SilverBride

It made me think of this:

https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Calvinball#:~:text=Calvinball is a game invented,Calvinball game is like another.

tinythinker

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't know if the card game is too complicated or if the instructions when doing the initial quest just aren't clear enough, but I ended up abandoning the introductory game midway through. I wasn't going to try it at all but then I found out there are furnishings obtained through the game so I feel pressured to participate.

One of the biggest problems I had was understanding what the NPC was saying, but I made a chat tab for NPC dialog so that fixed that. But I just don't get what I'm supposed to do.

Yeah.

Just finished the tutorial, in which I also had zero understanding of what I was doing. I know, "get prestige or pay off patrons", but the actual "how" and "why" through real cards other than the simplest of the simple was not really addressed. When Billy Boyd -- er Bragass or whatever, told me to watch him to see if I could figure out his strategy, then rapidly clicked two cards away before I could see what they were, I sprained an eye from rolling it so hard.

Might try ToT again one day this week or next month. Maybe I will eventually love it and become addicted. But it didn't feel fun at all from the game's opening chance to sell me on it. I hope others like it but with a whole new zone to explore and quest through, trying to study what cards to go for or ponder which card I should play under what set of conditions is last on my list at this time.

For those used to these types of card games I hope you are having a good time. A great time! And if any of you get around to a tutorial for people who play after being relentlessly burned out by school or work (i.e. a guide for people with zero patience, planning capacity, or attention span beyond "me smash bad thing with big hammer"), please share and accept my gratitude.

EDIT: Well, the quest chain required I play again, this time an actual game vs. a novice NPC. It was only slightly less confusing and satisfying that time, especially wwhen a card I picked up that told me I could select so many cards from "ABC" yet nothing on the table was labeled ABC (I clicked on everything). OK...hmm? I turned my tired brain back on to still not have any better of an understanding of how to play. I won 46 to 20-something but only by luck I guess. Never had more than six gold per hand while the NPC was making several moves per turn like a fat cat tycoon Too bad it took so long to finish that single match. I hope I'm just one of a rare few who just don't process things in the way the card game designer intended. It would be a shame if the feature ZOS invested so heavily in was a bust

tinythinker

DagenHawk wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't know if the card game is too complicated or if the instructions when doing the initial quest just aren't clear enough, but I ended up abandoning the introductory game midway through. I wasn't going to try it at all but then I found out there are furnishings obtained through the game so I feel pressured to participate.

One of the biggest problems I had was understanding what the NPC was saying, but I made a chat tab for NPC dialog so that fixed that. But I just don't get what I'm supposed to do.

I looked for tutorials on YouTube but didn't find anything that explained it any better. Does anyone know of a good tutorial or have any tips to offer?

I knew it was going to be a issue when the creator took 45 minutes explaining one turn and it still was convoluted...

DagenHawk wrote: »

The card game that EQ &EQII use to have was simple to learn and hard to master...that is how games like that should be.

Yeah I like the card game in FFXIV because the basic version is stupid easy (if you made a good deck), but, then different NPCs might play by wild and crazy rule sets that you have to adjust to.

SilverBride

tinythinker wrote: »

Just finished the tutorial, in which I also had zero understanding of what I was doing. I know, "get prestige or pay off patrons", but the actual "how" and "why" through real cards other than the simplest of the simple was not really addressed.

This is where it fails. I somehow got past the tutorial and tried a game with a novice NPC and had my behind handed to me. I'll never be able to become proficient if I'm just randomly clicking cards because I don't know what else to do.

tinythinker

SilverBride wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

Just finished the tutorial, in which I also had zero understanding of what I was doing. I know, "get prestige or pay off patrons", but the actual "how" and "why" through real cards other than the simplest of the simple was not really addressed.

This is where it fails. I somehow got past the tutorial and tried a game with a novice NPC and had my behind handed to me. I'll never be able to become proficient if I'm just randomly clicking cards because I don't know what else to do.

I read the cards but at least a couple either A.) didn't do what they were supposed to or B.) could use clearer wording. I do get the gist. Try to pump up gold to get what you want from the cards in the middle, but knowing you can't keep your leftover gold. And the cards should help you get power or prestige. Got it. And you can use resources to get bonuses from the favor of four patrons on the left and right side of the table. Yup.

But then tutorial notes would pop up talking about things like the shape of the health bar of some agent card, even though I wasn't sure which part was the health bar or which card was being referred to (none of the cards on the table at that time had any digit on it in a shield-like shape despite what the pop-up said). And some cards... there didn't seem to be anything active that they were relevant for. I did "remove" about 4 or 5 agents from the Novice NPC's side of the table but most cards in the tavern were too expensive to grab and try out

AzuraFan

Lysette wrote: »

that might have been that contract agent I talked about - if your opponent has that agent active, your power points at the end of a turn are lost - they will not get converted. To gain information about any card just hover with your mouse over it. You can as well examine what cards are in your played and cool down stack by clicking on it. Furthermore downstairs in the gaming hall you can get a recap of the rules. The duration of the game shrinks with getting used to - the more you play, the faster you can make decisions.

I think you're right about the agent blocking the conversion to prestige. In my next game, I paid more attention to the NPC's agents and figured that out.

IMO, what's wrong with the game is the lack of guidance. There's one tutorial, which doesn't even include important stuff. For example, the treasury. I noticed the NPC was using it a lot. I hovered over it, read it, wasn't sure about its usefulness until I read the tips in this thread. Why isn't this sort of information included in the tutorial?

Instead of one tutorial, I think several smaller tutorials would have been better, with each focusing on only one or two aspects of the game. For example, start out by practicing playing a hand (meaning just selecting cards and playing them) and buying cards from the tavern. Then have another tutorial that explains patrons and the treasury. Then another one that talks about combos and agents, and also how to best use what's been taught already. And finally a tutorial that introduces basic strategies and tips.

Instead, we get one tutorial that doesn't cover everything and barely scratches the surface for what it does cover.

This might sound dumb, but the thing I struggled the most with in the tutorial was playing my hand. I didn't understand at first that I have to play every card because I was told that any power cards in my hand at the end of the turn are converted to prestige. I took that to mean that I should hold on to those cards and not play them. But no, I have to play every card.

Anyway, as I play over time (ToT definitely won't be my main activity but I'll play the occasional game), I'll catch on more. But due to the lack of guidance and information, I believe there will be a significant number of players who might have enjoyed the game, but won't give it a chance, which is a shame. They'll give up because they aren't introduced to the game in a way that gives them the information they need to play the darn thing and not feel lost.

(Yes, I'm sure there will be guides and videos on external sites, but ESO should be doing a better job of teaching players the game. It's as if they don't really care if anybody plays it.)

Lysette

SilverBride wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

Just finished the tutorial, in which I also had zero understanding of what I was doing. I know, "get prestige or pay off patrons", but the actual "how" and "why" through real cards other than the simplest of the simple was not really addressed.

This is where it fails. I somehow got past the tutorial and tried a game with a novice NPC and had my behind handed to me. I'll never be able to become proficient if I'm just randomly clicking cards because I don't know what else to do.

Ok, I try to help - each round you play all your cards on hand anyway - so whatever these cards provide are basically your resources to do something with it - that is gold and power. What you do next depends of if your opponent has an agent active or not - if he has one active, then look up what that agent does. Eventually it is required to immediately deal with it, one of the patrons has that power, and you should have enough resources to activate him, then click on that agent of your opponent to remove him. So this is that, now you dealt with this danger.

Next is examine what cards are available in the tavern, which you could buy. Look out for possible contract agents or other cards, which can be immediately played, benefit you directly or hinder your opponent. If none of them is available check the other cards and buy what you might need (like cards granting power). If nothing else is available you could consider the treasury to exchange one of your 1 gold cards with a 2 gold writ or eventually get the favor of one of the patrons.

This is basically what a round is like - if you are done, you press the hourglass. All your remaning gold is lost and power will be converted to prestige if no foreign agent is hindering this conversion.

Edit: so why looking for agents in the tavern first, you might ask?- the difficult patron in our starter decks is the one, which requires that you have an agent card in your deck somewhere - without that agent card you will not be able to activate him. While the other 3 patrons are no problem, that 4th one is - by this reason. If you manage to get the favor of all 4 patrons, you would have won as well.

Marcusorion1

Speaking to players who played it " a lot " on the PTS, having more decks involved opens up more strategies and games against players tend to be quicker ( as expected ) with more knowledgeable opponents.

Having the desire and patience to go and collect all the cards/fragments and whatever else is necessary to equip more decks will require a genuine 'want' to spend the time on it. Not having a decent grasp of the very basics of the game due to poor tutorials and bad early experiences will not lead to success for this feature.

I like the idea of a series of tutorials mentioned above, each focusing on a particular aspect and then putting it altogether with a more full explanation of the thought process.

If players don't like it from the start, they are unlikely to go searching the internet for guides.

Also, reward boxes, even for wins vs NPCs seem lackluster considering the time put into each game. I know on the PTS the initial rewards were way over the top but as is tradition ZOS appears to have over-corrected on the opportunity-cost factor of this addition. Let us enjoy the suffering maybe, just a little?

SilverBride

@Lysette I appreciate you trying to help and it sounds like you have a good grasp of the game, but I don't know what half of the terms mean.

How do I recognize a contract agent or know it from any other card? Then there are symbols on the cards... what do those mean and what is their significance? How do these affect what I do next? And if I can only play some cards immediately does that mean there is a delay in playing the others? And I'm completely lost on the patron agent thing.

I just don't get it. I'm trying but there just isn't enough explanation of what these terms and symbols etc. mean in the tutorial.

tinythinker

SilverBride wrote: »

@Lysette I appreciate you trying to help and it sounds like you have a good grasp of the game, but I don't know what half of the terms mean.

How do I recognize a contract agent or know it from any other card? Then there are symbols on the cards... what do those mean and what is their significance? How do these affect what I do next? And if I can only play some cards immediately does that mean there is a delay in playing the others? And I'm completely lost on the patron agent thing.

I just don't get it. I'm trying but there just isn't enough explanation of what these terms and symbols etc. mean in the tutorial.

Lysette can give a better answer but some cards that will do something like keep the other player from earning prestige or take out an agent used by the other player or give you so many extra gold. These are purchased from the middle . The ones that look like people or monsters are (often? always?) agents you can purchase that get put down just to your side of the middle of the table and do whatever the card says the do. Same for your opponent. Somehow agents can fight each other I think? But I don't know how that works. The cards that you get from the middle that let you look at or choose cards from other card piles can also be confusing sometimes.

SilverBride

I did go back and play the novice again and this time I won. I can't say I know what I did to win, though.

Lysette

SilverBride wrote: »

@Lysette I appreciate you trying to help and it sounds like you have a good grasp of the game, but I don't know what half of the terms mean.

How do I recognize a contract agent or know it from any other card? Then there are symbols on the cards... what do those mean and what is their significance? How do these affect what I do next? And if I can only play some cards immediately does that mean there is a delay in playing the others? And I'm completely lost on the patron agent thing.

I just don't get it. I'm trying but there just isn't enough explanation of what these terms and symbols etc. mean in the tutorial.

You simply hover over any card to read their card info - any effect is explained in words there - those symbols on the card are just a visualization of the effects - like a red rhombus stands for power gain, a coin for gold gain and so on. If it is on the left side, then it is the card's effect for just 1 card played from this patron - symbols on the right side of the card stand for combo effects. A combo is 2 or more cards played from the same patron deck during the turn. Combos can be pretty powerful, so it is not bad to gather cards from the same patron. The edge's color make it easier to see, which cards would create a combo together.

Btw if you want to have a look at all the cards in a deck, go to the collections UI - the last tab there is for tales of tribute decks. There you can examine all the cards which are in a specific deck. You will find, that specific decks favor specific gains or effects. This makes it during gameplay easier to quickly get what is offered in the tavern.

Tricky are those cards, which let you move cards from you draw stack to your cool down stack. This can be 2 or more which can be moved - this way you have some control over which cards will be next - for example by moving normal treasury cards to the cool down stack, that better cards will be more likely in your next hand of cards.

Then there are cards which let you remove cards from the tavern - you can make room for others, which will immediately replace them. So basically these type of cards manipulate the contents of the tavern when played. But let me stop there, I don't want to confuse you (too much). Start with examining card decks in the collection UI - that will help you understand.

SilverBride

@Lysette That makes some things a lot more clear. I'll take a look at the decks tomorrow in the collections UI. Thank you for your great advice.

Thanks to everyone. There is a lot of good info being given and I appreciate it.

Lysette

SilverBride wrote: »

I did go back and play the novice again and this time I won. I can't say I know what I did to win, though.

Well, it's a strategic game with quite a bit of luck involved as well. so far I lost 3 games - one shameful with just 22 prestige, one really unlucky with 44 to 50. The loss with 22 prestige was not to win - no chance, the other player had more than 4 agents against me, I could not remove them faster than he brought new ones - that was a disaster. I won most games though, I just tell you about my losses, because they can happen, even if you play well - RNG can just stand against you sometimes. But sometimes RNG can as well be in your favor, I won a few being more than 30 prestige ahead of the opponent as well.

Lysette

@SilverBride you will get the hang of it, just keep playing. And finding your strategy is just a matter of practice. You found out how combat in ESO works, you will find out as well how to fight your opponent well in Tales of Tribute. I would suggest though, to stay with NPC opponents for quite a while. There you can take your time to think about your actions. In a tournament your time is limited and decisions have to be made quickly.

xgoku1

Marcusorion1 wrote: »

Another noobie question

The Patron cards that list Combo 2 / 3 / 4 : how do those work as " combo" ? my first thought was to play them in a certain order but , it didn't seem to change anything ( action-wise ) - what make's it a combo 2 or combo 3 ?

ty:)

Real simple, play cards of the same Patron.

Let's take Crow deck (Purple patron)

If you have a combo 2x card -> the effect activates if you play 2 purple cards in the same turn (including the card with combo)
If you have a combo 3x card -> the effect activates if you play 3 purple cards in the same turn
If you have a combo 4x card -> the effect activates if you play 4 purple cards in the same turn

LordRukia

The tutorial explained everything I just find it the most boring card mini game even compared to old final fantasy single player card games. Bizzard made hearthstone fun despite it being p2w this just feels severely uninspired, the only recognizable feature was taunt cards. Everything you buy from the pot goin into your discard deck feels hilariously awful but okay.

Techwolf_Lupindo

What trip me up when I tried it out on PTS when it first dropped on there was you have to play the cards, there is no advantage to holding onto cards, at the end of the turn, they are discarded. They really need to improve the tutrial as the music makes it VERY hard to hear what the NPC is saying. Could be an ADA issue too and no ToS can overide the ADA. So ZOS really needs to address this issue and fix it.

Lysette

Techwolf_Lupindo wrote: »

What trip me up when I tried it out on PTS when it first dropped on there was you have to play the cards, there is no advantage to holding onto cards, at the end of the turn, they are discarded. They really need to improve the tutrial as the music makes it VERY hard to hear what the NPC is saying. Could be an ADA issue too and no ToS can overide the ADA. So ZOS really needs to address this issue and fix it.

Yes, all cards will either be played or discarded in each turn - but it is sometimes beneficial to play just a few, make a move and then play the rest - like when you exchange cards in the tavern against others - the strategy might change due what those new cards are. But in the end all hand cards will be played.

Eporem

Does the level of your character matter when playing this and the NPC's we play - how skillful are they knowing what to do with the cards. and also:) is there a reason why our account name shows as playing instead of the character's name we choose to play? (for roleplay - guilds maybe wanting to create tournments it would be nice to see the characters name when playing)

Lysette

Eporem wrote: »

Does the level of your character matter when playing this and the NPC's we play - how skillful are they knowing what to do with the cards. and also:) is there a reason why our account name shows as playing instead of the character's name we choose to play? (for roleplay I think it nicer to see a characters name when playing)

There is a ranking system in place - you start as a novice once you are a member of the Roister's Club and play on the upper floor against novice NPCs. You need 900 ranking points to get to the next rank which is Trainee. A win provides 45 or 90 points, I guess based on how well you did, but you get as well points, if you loose.

As far as their skill goes - I have seen both - really poor strategy and quite amazing one as well.

SilverBride

Lysette wrote: »

There is a ranking system in place - you start as a novice once you are a member of the Roister's Club and play on the upper floor against novice NPCs. You need 900 ranking points to get to the next rank which is Trainee. A win provides 45 or 90 points, I guess based on how well you did, but you get as well points, if you loose.

Where does it show what our rank is? I found it under Group & Activity Finder.

And it's the rank per character or account? I was just told it's per account.