There is only one way to win, one strategy

SilverBride

It doesn't matter what strategy anyone uses. The only way to win a game is to hold on to the rights cards until the last hand then rack up huge amounts of power making it impossible for the other player to ever catch up. Someone actually accumulated 55 power in one hand in a game I played yesterday. A game where I had been in the lead by quite a bit up until that point.

I don't know what cards they are holding on to our how they manage to get them every hand but that isn't my idea of competition. There should be way more to winning than just one big play on the last hand.

Unless something changes where it takes real strategy throughout the entire game I'm done. I'll just play NPCs to complete the quests and for the achievements.

Sly80

How can you hold on to the right cards until the last hand if you have to play all your cards with every hand?

Whoever managed to rack up 55 power in a single hand has the most brilliant strategy imaginable and should be paraded through the streets on the shoulders of the founders.

SilverBride

Sly80 wrote: »

How can you hold on to the right cards until the last hand if you have to play all your cards with every hand?

Whoever managed to rack up 55 power in a single hand has the most brilliant strategy imaginable and should be paraded through the streets on the shoulders of the founders.

It happens almost every ranked game I play. It will be a close game or I am ahead by 10 or more, until the last hand then the other player accumulates a large amount of power all at once and there is no way I can catch up. Usually it's about 15 to 25 power but it's always enough that I can't catch up to them.

I don't know how they do it. Maybe they are using the cards that moves these to the top of their draw pile so they are able to play them all at once. I really don't know, but it happens so consistently that I just expect it now and honestly it's sucking all the fun out of playing others.

Sly80

When I first started playing, I completely ignored the Psijic deck, which is actually one of the strongest decks strategically. Yes, you can control what cards you play, putting some into cooldown and others to the top of the pile. I was late to learning that lesson

Dagoth_Rac

What you are describing sounds like the opposite of the post title. It looks like there is strategy involved, and your opponents are deploying a strategy aimed to give themselves good cards as the game nears the end. If there was no strategy involved, you would be just as likely to get good cards at the end as they are. So clearly they are engaging in some kind of strategy and tactics and effort to make that happen. You admit you don't know how they do it. If you find out how they do it, you can probably deploy a strategy of your own to short circuit them.

It is a lot like Cyrodiil. Someone comes up with a "meta" combo of skills/sets/classes that seems impossible to stop and kills players with ease. Then people start to figure out how it is done, where it is used, what the best counters and defenses to it are. And then that meta combo goes out of style once it stops being an easy I Win button. And it gets replaced with a new meta combo.

Personally, I find needing to treat the game like a full time research job and keeping up on the latest meta and counters to it, is kind of a pain in the neck and not much fun. But skill and strategy definitely play a part.

SilverBride

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

What you are describing sounds like the opposite of the post title. It looks like there is strategy involved, and your opponents are deploying a strategy aimed to give themselves good cards as the game nears the end. If there was no strategy involved, you would be just as likely to get good cards at the end as they are. So clearly they are engaging in some kind of strategy and tactics and effort to make that happen. You admit you don't know how they do it. If you find out how they do it, you can probably deploy a strategy of your own to short circuit them.

It is a lot like Cyrodiil. Someone comes up with a "meta" combo of skills/sets/classes that seems impossible to stop and kills players with ease. Then people start to figure out how it is done, where it is used, what the best counters and defenses to it are. And then that meta combo goes out of style once it stops being an easy I Win button. And it gets replaced with a new meta combo.

Personally, I find needing to treat the game like a full time research job and keeping up on the latest meta and counters to it, is kind of a pain in the neck and not much fun. But skill and strategy definitely play a part.

There is no strategy for doing anything but gathering the same cards from the same deck and playing them the exact same way every game. This completely invalidates the cards from the other decks because using their attributes will do nothing to help you win, no matter how much you study and learn about how to play them.

If the only way I can win is to do the exact same thing every single game then I don't care to learn it. It's not a real competitive game if only one deck and one "strategy" matters.

Sly80

SilverBride wrote: »

If the only way I can win is to do the exact same thing every single game then I don't care to learn it. It's not a real competitive game if only one deck and one "strategy" matters.

Have you tried Orgnum yet?

SilverBride

I don't have the Orgnum deck and haven't seen it being used yet.

Sly80

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't have the Orgnum deck and haven't seen it being used yet.

Well, hang on to your hat

SilverBride

I'll probably never get it. Not if it requires playing other players... and winning.

kevkj

It sounds like your opponents have something resembling a strategy (accumulating specific cards and combo-ing them after a few turns to leapfrog you to victory) and you are the one who do not.

Luck will sometimes be against you and they get a good card on their turn but often, you are able to at least slow them down. If I had to guess, the players you are facing just keep buying Crow cards, which eventually snowball to let them draw practically their whole deck in a turn. Then with 15+ gold or however much they have accumulated, they use the Crow patron to convert that gold into power.

I also want to add that not all games are won by a huge combo swing, some of my games have been won and lost with one side just slowly stacking power/prestige every turn. All deck builders are designed around growing the resources available to you each turn. 5 gold and 1 power is what you start with but is no longer an amazing hand on turn 5.

*Edited for truth.

SilverBride

I understand that they are accumulating cards that they can generate combos to play at the end of the match for large amounts of power.

My complaint is that as far as I've seen this is the only way to win a game.

Faulgor

I'm not sure what you'd have them do to change this. Knowing when to "pull the triger" and setting it up beforehand is part of the strategy, and they are not easy or foregone decisions.

If your complaint is that there are no surprises when you see which suit of cards your opponent is collecting for combos, you're a victim of your own insights. Figuring out your opponents strategy and denying it to them should be part of your strategy. Seems you are half way there.

What ZOS could do is add a new patron deck that feeds of different suits in your deck/hand, so the winning strategy with that patron would be to collect all the suits available, and not just one or two. Something like "Unite the Houses" in Legends. In fact, make Indoril Nerevar the patron!

SilverBride

Faulgor wrote: »

I'm not sure what you'd have them do to change this. Knowing when to "pull the triger" and setting it up beforehand is part of the strategy, and they are not easy or foregone decisions.

The problem is there is only one way to "pull the trigger" and only one deck that this can be done with.

Tuonra2

SilverBride wrote: »

I hear what you are saying and I do understand that they are accumulating cards that they can generate combos to play at the end of the match for large amounts of power. And I have an idea what cards they are gathering to do this.

My complaint is that as far as I've seen this is the only way to win a game. Predictable and absolutely no sense of suspense because everyone knows exactly what is going to happen every single time.

If this is what I have to do to win then no thanks, I'll just stick to NPCs.

Since you are posting on the forum, I'm going to assume you actually secretly like the game and are looking to be proven wrong so you can give it another shot so here goes my attempt to help:

I agree with you that crow can have powerful swing turns, and in the first few days of ladder it totally got me to top100 ranks, but then people started countering, pelin for example as mindless as it is can put on immense amounts of pressure if you can pick up an armoury, a volley or, Talos forbid, a rally. But even if you don't get any of those, if you face a crow player, the easiest thing to do is just buy the crows yourself. this will either slow the game down leaving you on an even playing field and then you try to beat them with a better combo, Or even better you could buy other cards and use cards like barter or prophecy or red eagle cards to remove crow cards from the tavern, if you can buy a card AND pay one gold to deny your opponent a good card, that's a huge swing!
This alone will get you to higher ranks where crow is much less prevalent, and then you will see that all decks have winning strategies like this, some are just less obvious. Hlaalu for example, you use gold to buy her cards, but then you use those cards to buy better cards in a sort of 'ladder' of power, and after you use a card, you can 'sell' it for prestige, eventually you will buy powerful cards like currency exchange and get extra patron triggers in a turn, this lets you either threaten to get all 4 patrons if your opponent isn't constantly using them too. The difference is that you have 10 gold per turn and spend maybe 4 of that to buy a card and sell it, while the crow player gets 10 gold every 3 turns and 6 gold on the others, but he still needs to spend about 4 gold to keep you from winning w/ patrons, leaving you with 6 gold and them w/ 2. Who's gonna win that game after a few turns of an imbalance that big, not the crow :P And then you use hlaalu patron twice in one turn to sell 8 or 9 gold cards for massive prestige jump as a killing blow

This is just one example of how you can dismantle a particular strategy by knowing how it works, knowing what they need, and then knowing how to take it away. A crow player needs time, a hlaalu player needs to draw their 'ladder' in order, a pelin player needs to be able to buy the cards they want...

I hope this gives you the spark to go back to playing ToT, or at least practice a strat like this vs the AI. I know I loved the game when I used crow sot get 50+ power in one turn vs the AI, but against a real player, I'm lucky if I get 15 in a turn these days.

-Tuorna2

SeaGtGruff

As far as strategies go, I've been practicing different approaches in my NPC matches (I've yet to play a human opponent), but my basic approach is a two-way strategy:

(1) Try to win by accumulating 40+ prestige.
(2) Try to win by currying the favor of all four patrons.

Sometimes I win through prestige, other times through patrons. I work on both strategies at once, so it's fun to see whether a given game will end by accumulating prestige or patrons. Lately it's usually been through patrons.

I'm only able to play the novice NPCs right now, so I don't know how much the AI for the various NPC skill levels vary, but the novice NPCs are very predictable and it's easy to curry the favor of all four patrons because the NPCs never try to thwart you at it. Of the four basic decks, Pelin is the most difficult patron to get because of the conditions needed, Psijic is second-most difficult, Crow is the most trivial, and Hlaalu is second-most trivial.

I'm hoping the AI for the higher NPC skill levels will make it more difficult to win through patrons, because I think it would be fun to try to win that way against a player who's trying to thwart me at it. Hopefully I'll be able to play against the next level of NPCs by tonight, so I can see how different their AI is.

I'm also looking forward to being able to play with additional patrons, so I can see what's needed to win their favor and how best to work that into my overall strategy.

SeaGtGruff

SilverBride wrote: »

Unless something changes where it takes real strategy throughout the entire game I'm done. I'll just play NPCs to complete the quests and for the achievements.

By the way, speaking purely for myself, I see nothing wrong with playing only NPCs if that's what you decide to do. The whole point is to have fun, and you can certainly have fun playing Tales of Tribute against NPCs.

It's trivial to win against the novice NPCs-- at least, as long as you "get" the game; before that it might not be as trivial for you to win-- but I'm hoping the NPCs' AI does truly ramp up in difficulty so they won't be as predictable as the novice NPCs are.

But once a player is able to play against NPCs of various skill levels, they can figure out which NPC skill level is the most fun to play against and stick with that most of the time. As long as the player is having fun, who cares whether it's against NPCs or other players?

Of course, for some players it's going to be most fun to compete against other players, especially against "worthy" opponents, and that's fine, too. But sometimes people prefer to sit around playing cards together in a friendly and relaxing way, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Tuonra2

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

As far as strategies go, I've been practicing different approaches in my NPC matches (I've yet to play a human opponent), but my basic approach is a two-way strategy:

(1) Try to win by accumulating 40+ prestige.
(2) Try to win by currying the favor of all four patrons.

Sometimes I win through prestige, other times through patrons. I work on both strategies at once, so it's fun to see whether a given game will end by accumulating prestige or patrons. Lately it's usually been through patrons.

I'm only able to play the novice NPCs right now, so I don't know how much the AI for the various NPC skill levels vary, but the novice NPCs are very predictable and it's easy to curry the favor of all four patrons because the NPCs never try to thwart you at it. Of the four basic decks, Pelin is the most difficult patron to get because of the conditions needed, Psijic is second-most difficult, Crow is the most trivial, and Hlaalu is second-most trivial.

I'm hoping the AI for the higher NPC skill levels will make it more difficult to win through patrons, because I think it would be fun to try to win that way against a player who's trying to thwart me at it. Hopefully I'll be able to play against the next level of NPCs by tonight, so I can see how different their AI is.

I'm also looking forward to being able to play with additional patrons, so I can see what's needed to win their favor and how best to work that into my overall strategy.

Sounds like you have a good grasp of the idea behind the game, and a good realization that the NPCs are absurdly easy to beat w/ patrons, the difference I noticed in higher tier NPCS was that they have other decks, and the expert ones have sometimes used barter to remove the card I was wanting to buy, which shows at least some understanding of the relative power level of cards.

That said in my ranked matches I thing 1-2% of them end in a patron victory, maybe 5% in 80 prestige, 1% in a concede before a win condition is met and the rest are just some combination of hitting 40 and winning or losing before hitting 80.

Don't build it up too much tho, playing against a real opponent is no big deal, just go for it, no stakes

if you have any more questions @ me ingame EU

Heartrage

@SilverBride

SilverBride wrote: »

The problem is there is only one way to "pull the trigger" and only one deck that this can be done with.

No it does not, hlaalu also can build up a lot of power rapidly to end the game.

Also, by using psijiic, you can prevent building up crow cards and, by using rajhin, you can make comboing difficult.

Ansei, pelin and orgnum can also build up huge amounts of power while your adversary is still building up their combo deck.

The only toss up is red eagle because it synergize very well with crow but it also has powerful cards that can end a game under 10 turns.

SeaGtGruff

Tuonra2 wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

As far as strategies go, I've been practicing different approaches in my NPC matches (I've yet to play a human opponent), but my basic approach is a two-way strategy:

(1) Try to win by accumulating 40+ prestige.
(2) Try to win by currying the favor of all four patrons.

Sometimes I win through prestige, other times through patrons. I work on both strategies at once, so it's fun to see whether a given game will end by accumulating prestige or patrons. Lately it's usually been through patrons.

I'm only able to play the novice NPCs right now, so I don't know how much the AI for the various NPC skill levels vary, but the novice NPCs are very predictable and it's easy to curry the favor of all four patrons because the NPCs never try to thwart you at it. Of the four basic decks, Pelin is the most difficult patron to get because of the conditions needed, Psijic is second-most difficult, Crow is the most trivial, and Hlaalu is second-most trivial.

I'm hoping the AI for the higher NPC skill levels will make it more difficult to win through patrons, because I think it would be fun to try to win that way against a player who's trying to thwart me at it. Hopefully I'll be able to play against the next level of NPCs by tonight, so I can see how different their AI is.

I'm also looking forward to being able to play with additional patrons, so I can see what's needed to win their favor and how best to work that into my overall strategy.

Sounds like you have a good grasp of the idea behind the game, and a good realization that the NPCs are absurdly easy to beat w/ patrons, the difference I noticed in higher tier NPCS was that they have other decks, and the expert ones have sometimes used barter to remove the card I was wanting to buy, which shows at least some understanding of the relative power level of cards.

That said in my ranked matches I thing 1-2% of them end in a patron victory, maybe 5% in 80 prestige, 1% in a concede before a win condition is met and the rest are just some combination of hitting 40 and winning or losing before hitting 80.

Don't build it up too much tho, playing against a real opponent is no big deal, just go for it, no stakes

if you have any more questions @ me ingame EU

Thank you! Yes, I think I've picked up on the ideas behind the game. It seems well thought out and put together, and I'm having a lot more fun playing it than I'd originally expected to.

From what you said, it sounds like my sneaking suspicions were correct-- that the basic AI for the different NPC skill levels is more or less the same, and the main difference is in the decks they have available to choose from. If that's true, I hope ZOS can analyze their game data from all the humans playing ToT and can come up with ways to improve or at least vary the AI. For instance, some NPCs could have more "cautious" play styles, while others could be more "aggressive" or risk-taking; and they could perhaps have different capabilities or tendencies as far as paying attention to what the human player is doing and thinking ahead a certain number of moves to anticipate what the human's next moves might be and trying to thwart them.

SilverBride

Tuonra2 wrote: »

Since you are posting on the forum, I'm going to assume you actually secretly like the game and are looking to be proven wrong so you can give it another shot so here goes my attempt to help:

It's no secret that I have enjoyed ToT and I have made other threads discussing the game. It wasn't until I started playing ranked matches that I became disenchanted with it for the reasons I stated. Yes I would like to play against other players instead on NPCs, which is why I brought up this concern. I hope something changes so I can enjoy that.

SilverBride

To clarify, I'm not referring to the Duke of Crows deck.

Heartrage

@SilverBride
Which deck then?

Katheriah

Respectfully, but I don't think you have fully grasped the concept of deckbuilding yet. It is strategy to end up with cards that are going to win the game for you.

Might I suggest to play against some NPC's or do some casual matches against players where you actually play around with the use for every deck you own? Try getting some monster-scores, because it is possible and you can do it too. Make sure you go through the info of each card. You can view them in your collections.

SilverBride

I've played NPCs, casual matches, ranked matches and with friends. I've played around with all my decks to see what I can do with them. (I have 6 at the moment.) It doesn't matter what I do. The only games I've won against other players were those I could tell were new.

Losing to the same exact thing every time really sucks the fun out of the game and ruins any sense of real competition for me. Others may not agree but it's what I observed, and all I want is for there to be more than one path to winning a match.

Marcusorion1

At 75% of Rank 3 and with only the Ansei deck added I am trying to learn strategies vs NPC's utilizing the new deck and before levelling up at Rank 4. I have tried vs players a few times both Ranked and Unranked and lost, sometimes miserably in the "final lap".

I certainly understand that feeling of " why bother? " challenging other players, especially after reading posts in the forums regarding the next decks and the final deck's strengths and possible OP-ness . It is especially tricky to fully understand new strategies/decks without a good history of the card play order ( beyond the combo-played list ) by the opponents. Often the card movements, especially near the end of a turn and before the opponent's deck is shuffled is too quick to see what is going on and to learn anything.

It would be helpful to be able to see a play by play ( text-wise, preferably ) of a game , after the fact to help learn more about strategies.

I like the game overall and want to continue to enjoy playing it as I rank up but would really appreciate being able to review play-orders to fully understand it more, especially as I gain new decks. Playing vs NPC's will have to do for now, hopefully some more features will be added to help the learning curves.

Watching others play in real time would also be awesome.

Gundug

I agree with the original poster that it’s weird how the winner always gets their victory on the last hand. They must have perfect timing not to win after, or even before the last hand...

SilverBride

Every win is on the last hand.

I find it completely predictable that these players accumulate mass amounts of power all in one hand which then becomes the last hand because the other player is unable to catch up.

In this card game slow and steady doesn't win the race and never will.

SilverBride

Quoted post has been removed.

Of course the last hand wins. I never said anything was wrong with that. I was commenting on a previous statement.

Quoted post has been removed.

I already mentioned that I am not talking about the Duke of Crows deck. What the particular deck is doesn't matter anyway.

The problem I have with it is that the only way I have seen to win a game is to collect the right cards from the right deck to generate a big amount of power all in one hand that is next to impossible for the opponent to counter.

Why aren't other strategies feasbile? Why give us multiple decks of most of them don't matter? Why not a deck that lets a player obtain decent power throughout the game? Why does it have to be just this one way to win or nothing?

Skvysh

SilverBride wrote: »

The problem I have with it is that the only way I have seen to win a game is to collect the right cards from the right deck to generate a big amount of power all in one hand that is next to impossible for the opponent to counter.

Because the only ways to win the game are to either have more prestige than your opponent or to gain favour of all 4 patrons. Adding other victory conditions would be possible (see: Star Realms' Missions expansion), but the game lacks balance as-is and any additional victory conditions would make entry level into the game much higher. As such, we have a straightforward victory condition to go for - more power.

SilverBride wrote: »

Why aren't other strategies feasbile? Why give us multiple decks of most of them don't matter?

Multiple decks are there to give you options. Some decks are clearly meant to be a support deck, helping you fuel your deck and hand with cards that generate power. You can't win on Rahjin alone, victory through Hlaalu only will take forever and Psijic's power generation can't compete with Ansei/Pelin/Red-eagle/Orgnum. Of course, patrons shake things up, but we're talking about cards primarily.

SilverBride wrote: »

Why not a deck that lets a player obtain decent power throughout the game? Why does it have to be just this one way to win or nothing?

What do you mean "deck that lets a player obtain decent power throughout the game"? There's Ansei, Pelin, Red-eagle and Orgnum that all generate power/prestige already, so the suggestion/request, as it is now, doesn't make sense.

You seem to be providing some conflicting information here - the only way to realistically achieve "55 power in one hand" as you described in OP is through the usage of Crows + either Hlaalu or most of the power-heavy cards, and yet you say that "you're not talking about the crows deck". Moreover, to pull of those numbers, the game needs to go on for long enough for a person to build up the right deck - and yet, you say that "slow and steady doesn't win the race and never will". Overall, it sounds like your main issue is people building up decks that rely on combos to eventually generate power - but that's how the game is made and that's how the cards have value. If cards didn't have combos, your choices would be even more limited.

Otherwise, you're gonna have to be more specific about what your issue is - a video illustrating your point would help people understand what "issue" you're having with the game.

SilverBride

Skvysh wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

The problem I have with it is that the only way I have seen to win a game is to collect the right cards from the right deck to generate a big amount of power all in one hand that is next to impossible for the opponent to counter.

...you're gonna have to be more specific about what your issue is...

I don't know how to be any more specific.

The only way I have seen to win this game is to generate a big burst of power that is too much for the opponent to counter.

There are multiple decks and cards and there should be multiple strategies that are capable of securing a win, but there aren't.