Does anyone take Tales of Tribute seriously?

YstradClud

I just started doing the dailies for this and doing some group finder matches and noticed how many achievements there are for this and the competitive stuff.

Katheriah

To answer the question: yes.

But there's different ways to enjoy the cardgame. I know players that aim to be high on the leaderboard. I also know players that just play some matches against friends, guildies and/or NPC's. And everything in between.

I got most achievements, but it's a bit annoying that I have to wait until the next update before I can fetch the last 2.

FluffWit

Theres a lot of achievements and the rewards are pretty good but no, I don't take it seriously. I've done the tutorial, a 2nd game vs an npc they pretty much forced me to play and a couple vs other players. I just found it boring and felt it took too long- like 15 minutes a game.

I could see me getting into one of these games but I'd rather play it in mobile while I watch tv or something.

kieso

Lately its mostly what I do in-game.

Psiion

Greetings,

As this thread is in regards to Tales of Tribute, we have moved it to the appropriate section of the forums.

tsaescishoeshiner

I try to get in 2-3 wins each day, but climbing the leaderboard takes a LOT of playtime. I'm somewhere between rank 200 and 100, and still learning new things every few matches. No way I could climb higher, even with a good winrate, without putting in 2-3x as many games per day. Seasonal rewards are currently not great, should be better for reaching Rubedite.

The red and gold dyes for the achievement are amazing, by the way. Two of my favorites now.

How seriously do I take it? It's fun and a different journey each match, and I really look forward to it every day. I only play a few games at a time because I start to get "ladder anxiety" where I worry too much about the pressure of losing lol. I COULD play casual, but I want to challenge myself a bit.

Tribute has enough RNG in the tavern that you have to try and focus on your long-term results, and not get too let down after each loss.

I take my argonian, Draws-Hands, to Murkmire or Summerset to play for the nice background music every day. :v

YstradClud

I only just found how the rewards system works. I could see it becoming something you could get into if you put in the time.

SeaGtGruff

Most of my matches against NPCs take between 7 and 10 minutes; occasionally they last more than 10 minutes, or less than 7 minutes. I tend to be an aggressive player rather than a cautious one, so I don't spend time fretting over my choices before deciding on my move; I just quickly do whatever looks best at the time. Most of the time I win-- but as I said, that's against the NPCs. I've yet to play against another player. The NPCs tend to be fairly predictable, especially in the early portion of a game, at least the Novice and Proficient NPCs are.

redspecter23

I really enjoy the game and would participate in player run tournaments, but I'm just not a fan of the current leaderboard structure. I'd prefer a 2 out of 3 set (to somewhat mitigate RNG) and would also add a "loser of previous match chooses who goes first" rule for a 2 out of 3 set (to also mitigate RNG). The completely unreliable massive spikes in points gained/lost combined with just enough RNG in a single game match makes things a bit too swingy for my liking.

The game is fairly well designed for fun casual games, but there is just a bit too much RNG for me to take competitive leaderboard games completely seriously. Some of the card changes on PTS look promising so ZOS does appear to want to take the game seriously from their side so I'll watch with cautious optimism over the course of the PTS regarding Tribute changes.

Sync01

Personally no, but I do play it for the achievements.
I looked up some tips on how to win games, got to rubedite, and I'm now just playing it for the dailies and the achievements that you need to rank up for.

Honestly though I find it to be a bit boring It's not the worst but it feels like it takes ages, especially against npcs.

Veryamedliel

Ranking around the 200-250 mark and having all of the available ToT achievements (still missing the bugged one) you could say I take ToT seriously, but only up to a point.

Sometimes I prefer playing ToT over the other dailies ESO offers since I've been doing those for years now. This is just something I enjoy more than doing the same old undaunted or fighters guild daily that won't even benefit a companion, let alone myself. I take ToT seriously insofar I find it an entertaining part of ESO like some people enjoy PVPing.

But in the end, it's just entertainment, nothing more, nothing less. And if it goes well, great. If not, oh well.

Casdha

I try to play until I hit the Rubedite (and it gets frustrating) but once I'm there I play more as a time killer when I ain't got nothing better to do. I know I can't devote the time (or sanity) to try and stay on the leader boards.

Heck to be honest I haven't logged in for about 4 or 5 days now.

merik1999

Its mainly what I play now. I don't have much time to play alot so I play about 5 games per day. I am usually between 150 and 50 level. Somedays I win 5 straight and sometimes I lose 5 straight.

Its like any card game, there is a bit of skill and sometimes you just don't get anything and take the lose. Usually when I lose like 5 straight i play badly twice and three times I just dont get anything at all. And when I win 5 straight Skill gets me 2 wins, luck gets me two and my oppenent just sux gets me a win....

Austacker

YstradClud wrote: »

I just started doing the dailies for this and doing some group finder matches and noticed how many achievements there are for this and the competitive stuff.

ToT is so heavily luck / snowball based in it's 'strategy', I don't really think you can take the game too seriously.

I mean, you don't even build your own decks in ToT...

How can anyone take this game seriously?

lol!

FrancisCrawford

Sync01 wrote: »

Personally no, but I do play it for the achievements.
I looked up some tips on how to win games, got to rubedite, and I'm now just playing it for the dailies and the achievements that you need to rank up for.

Honestly though I find it to be a bit boring It's not the worst but it feels like it takes ages, especially against npcs.

I haven't seen much to read in the way of tips. Is there a Discord somewhere?

Skvysh

Austacker wrote: »

I mean, you don't even build your own decks in ToT...

The genre is literally called Deck Builder. The entire point of the mechanic is that you build your deck as the game progresses, rather than making one before the game starts. It puts more emphasis on adaptability and makes the game more approachable without knowing all the cards by heart, as opposed to classical CCGs with constructed decks, where you're constantly rebuilding your decks because new expansions were released and you have to memorize thousands of cards.

Luke_Flamesword

Tales of tribute is serious game and even companions plays it for real. Look for example at Bastian Hallix. When he started playing, it was just couple games for fun. Everyday he felt that he WANT more fun, so he played more. And more. It quickly turns into addiction. Couple games in morning, some after dinner with many Huzzah's. That was not enough. So he played more and more often. At some point there was not enough players to play with, so Bastian becomes angry man. At beginning it was only shouting at some people, but with time he started to beat them to force them playing. It was against his personal values, so he started to drink and with time he becomes agressive, skooma addict.

Here is picture of Bastian after many sleepless nights full of playing, beating people and skooma:



So yes, some people take this game seriously.

Austacker

Skvysh wrote: »

Austacker wrote: »

I mean, you don't even build your own decks in ToT...

The genre is literally called Deck Builder. The entire point of the mechanic is that you build your deck as the game progresses, rather than making one before the game starts. It puts more emphasis on adaptability and makes the game more approachable without knowing all the cards by heart, as opposed to classical CCGs with constructed decks, where you're constantly rebuilding your decks because new expansions were released and you have to memorize thousands of cards.

I understand what you're saying, I'm pointing out that the entire point of deck building is to create your strategy & tactics before you sit down.

Now I can appreciate that doing it on the fly and with a 'shared' pool of cards is most certainly an interesting concept that has a lot of merit at the conceptual level.

But in practise, it turns out that the 'even' contest of drafting cards isn't actually even at all and far too skewed towards sheer luck.

Not only is it too strongly favouring the luck of the draw from the first turn, but it also is more prone to the snowball effect I've seen in any CCG ever before.

This is why people who face turn one Armory / Siege & turn 2 Rally just concede. Anyone with experience knows that after you've had literally ONE turn to 'build' your counter deck, you've already lost.

That's a fatal game design flaw.

Similarly, this is why people detest facing Orgnum players who quickly snowball out of reach if you don't drop whatever plan you're trying to run and battle the 3 coins per turn for the patron.

It's why the PTS has already put cost changes into place for the offending power cards.

ZOS and the experienced playerbase already damn well fully know that the game is so reliant on early draw luck and snowball play that the tactics in ToT are honestly a joke.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy ToT and I've played (literally) hundreds of games already - but I come from a very long CCG history (since the birth of Magic the Gathering) and in that many years experience, you can smell a mile off if there's balance / game design flaws.... and ToT has many, some of them fundamentally and fatally flawed.

I haven't played a CCG that could effectively end the game before the opponent starts playing since the original MTG Black Lotus / Channel / Fireball combo.

But ToT has it in turn 1 Armory / Siege, turn 2 Rally.

The game is stupidly flawed and broken at the moment and I just cannot take this game in it's present state as a 'serious' CCG at all.

Sure, it's fun and the rewards are great.

But I'm under no false illusions on it's drastic shortcomings or so bias as to try and explain away it's tactical flaws with an asinine comment like 'it's literally called deck builder' to try and say it's on the same tactical level as it's competition.

Nah, I don't buy that in the slightest.

Skvysh

Austacker wrote: »

But I'm under no false illusions on it's drastic shortcomings or so bias as to try and explain away it's tactical flaws with an asinine comment like 'it's literally called deck builder' to try and say it's on the same tactical level as it's competition.

It's one thing to hate the game because of its balance (if you dig just a bit into this sub-forum, you'll see that there are plenty of complaints about it). It's another thing to hate a deck builder/area control game because "there's no deck building". When you fail to get the core concept of the game, it's hard for anyone to take your criticism seriously.

Deck builders aren't a new concept, they come in different flavours - Dominion has a pre-determined pool of 10 different types of cards that players can always purchase - the only real luck element (I haven't played all the expansions, though) is the shuffling and drawing, which is always going to be present in CCGs.

[snip] Armoury/Midnight Raid/Rally/Siege Weapon Volley are oppressive, but it's not just because of their cost/amount of power they generate. Other cards that generate power either generate very little, are too expensive and in general are low in quantity (Rahjin has no power generating cards, while Hlaalu can generate a whooping 1 via Hostile Takeover). There's also the fact that other cards in the same price range are either not strong or are very situational. F.x.: you don't purchase Imprisonment on turn one, bar very few specific edge cases (mainly dealing with Anseir patron). Other cards require a well-built deck to proc all the combos to be valuable, whereas Rally/SWV/Armoury give you a lot of power upfront. Even Midnight Raid is still decent without the combo.

So yes, *** on the game all you want - but do so for the right reasons. Dismissing it because of the genre (especially when you haven't played one before) is dumb. There are plenty of other (better, IMO) deck builders out there - both physical games and apps you can play on your PC/phone (you even have weird things like Slay the Spire - a rouge-like deck builder).

[edited for profanity]

JJMaxx1980

Just like every other card game, there is an element of luck but knowing how to manage your luck, or lack thereof, during the game is where the skill comes in. Look at Poker, for example. You randomly get 5 cards out of a 52 card deck and yet the same people wind up at the final tables year after year.

In ToT, there is luck in the cards given at the Tavern, but there are so many impactful and strategic decisions that need to be made which require the skill. You need to know what your opponent has to draw, what is left in the Tavern, decide if it’s better to clear a card or not, when to patron power and when to hold. Now, each of these small decisions may not affect the outcome of the game by themselves, but a skilled player will make these small tactical decisions throughout the game and will win despite their bad luck. I have had an opponent get Armory and Rally in the first few turns and I have still won. I play 4-5 games a day and I win probably 80-90 percent of the time. I’m always improving, always honing my decisions, always learning from my losses.

Bottom line, luck can get you some wins but skill will make you have a much better win rate.

Austacker

Skvysh wrote: »

There are plenty of other (better, IMO) deck builders out there - both physical games and apps you can play on your PC/phone (you even have weird things like Slay the Spire - a rouge-like deck builder).

Won't disagree with you on that one.

My comment on no 'deck building' is more in line with the traditional sense of building decks in CCGs where there's no common card pool in play and you don't 'build decks' on the fly.

it's a matter of context here, I'm looking at it from a different perspective to you is all - which is why we're not seeing the same summation of the point the same way.

No harm, no foul - I recognise that.

But I will stand on the hill regarding the fatal flaw of the shared pool concept.

In ideology it sounds balanced as you can't 'outplay' your opponent by having the stronger deck from the start.

But I'll say that the alternative here is worse in that whilst you 'share' the power of the Tavern pool, it's not an equal opportunity there to take the cards you want/need and once taken, you're playing against the clock to match that power creep is just straight up lose the game.

Having an entire turn to take cards from the Tavern can wildly swing the power balance.

There has to be a better way here to make the game feel more strategic, less 'snowbally' and less frustrating.

Austacker

JJMaxx1980 wrote: »

Look at Poker, for example. You randomly get 5 cards out of a 52 card deck and yet the same people wind up at the final tables year after year.

That's not a great comparison IMHO, there's elements of strategic play in Poker that are external to the game itself.

In ToT you can't read a bluff or use psychology to get the upper hand, it's 100% based on the cards in your hand.

But I agree, the 'management of RNG' isn't unique to ToT at all and to be fair, it's not my main gripe with the strategic balance of ToT play.

More so, I think the biggest issue with the game is it's tendency to snowball so fast and so easily, making the reactionary, tactical counter play both extremely limiting and often frustrating.

Similar to Magic where you can get mana starved by an unlucky draw, ToT suffers from similar issues in coin sparsity combined with limited Tavern options.

If your opponent 'lucks out' with a Rally / Siege / Armory on their turn and you're left with useless trash for your follow up turn, you just know that you have maybe one more turn (two at the most) where you can match that power creep or it's game over.

Given that you have to both clear the trash from the Tavern to get to the 'good' cards, it's a double whammy in that you clog your deck with worthless trash (diluting the synergy in your deck building) AND waste resources trying to clear the Tavern AND have enough resources to buy something worth while AND hope you don't leave good cards for your opponent to pick up on their turn and Snowball even further ahead.

Not only does your opponent get rewarded for simply being lucky on their turn, they now don't need to do anything more strategically. They're already well ahead on their card draw (with good synergy being built) and it's now it's all on the opponent to not only clear the bad cards in the Tavern with limited resources just to match, but also not give the opponent even more opportunity to pick up premium cards on their turn simply because they're resource starved.

You are effectively being punished multiple times here simply because you couldn't get your pick from the Tavern options first.

That's bad game design IMHO.

That's where I think this game's fatal design flaw is & that's why I mock the 'serious' view of this being a strategic CCG.

How often do you play and if your opponent gets Armory first turn, Rally 2nd turn (or Siege) you just give up, knowing that on TURN TWO (and after YOUR turn ONE) the game is basically already 'over'?

That's the experience you have knowing you can't recover from there.

Not from anything you did wrong. Not from any bad play. Not from poor deck / patron / card construction.

You just were not first to pick up the power cards and coming back from that sort of balance is just not possible.

Similar to Orgnum players who get a good 4 Coin power card on their opening hand and then just spam patron for the rest of the game knowing that the snowball effect will counter ANYTHING you can do in time to stop them hitting 40.

Again, bad game design that benefits the snowball effect.

Skvysh

Austacker wrote: »

My comment on no 'deck building' is more in line with the traditional sense of building decks in CCGs where there's no common card pool in play and you don't 'build decks' on the fly.

I understand the confusion, but your idea of "deck building" is a dangerously wrong term to use here. In my limited CCG experience, people would instead call it "constructed", to differentiate between the drafting phase seen in "arena" game-modes. Dominion's recognized as the "grandfather of deck builders" and dates back to 2008 - not as old as MtG and such, but old enough to establish the then new mechanic as a completely separate sub-genre of card games.

Austacker wrote: »

But I will stand on the hill regarding the fatal flaw of the shared pool concept.

The concept itself isn't flawed - just different from what people are used to. The main benefit is that it's easy to pick up the game and you don't need to learn all of the cards before you can even play a casual game. Card synergy is often simple, there's little text to go through, so you don't need to know much before diving into your first game. The cards are then easier to memorize and so it's easier to get into a competitive scene, since you don't need to know every single card that was released up until now (compared to the walls of text you see in traditional CCGs).

Besides that, the idea is that a) every game's different due to strategies not being determined at the start of the game and b) players are, more or less, on even ground - you can't be at a disadvantage for not having certain cards available to you before the game. While luck's a factor (as with any card game), it should only become a really strong one only when two players are equally matched in skill i.e. able to determine the allegedly best course of action at every turn.

Austacker wrote: »

There has to be a better way here to make the game feel more strategic, less 'snowbally' and less frustrating.

Proper card balance. The core mechanics can and should stay the same. The issue is that some cards are too oppressive, while others are very situational and just barely decent in even the best of circumstances. While it's fine for certain cards to go well with most strategies, it shouldn't come to a point where people do everything to either pick them up or Remove them from the tavern row. Purchasing a couple of lucky "powerhouses" and then not purchasing any more cards for the rest of the game to not alter your frequency of drawing those cards shouldn't be a valid strategy. Nerfing certain cards is one way to go, but there are other issues - just because Armoury will cost 1 gold more doesn't mean that people will stop picking them up. And when your opponent gets one of those cards and then the rest of the tavern row is filled with either cards you won't be able to afford for a long time or contracts like Tithe and Ambush - that's a bad game design from balance side.

It's perfectly fine for certain cards to be strong in general, certain cards to be stronger with specific strategies or situational. But a lot of Treasury contracts are too situational and so you end up with a situation where people don't buy any cards at all because their purchase won't be rewarding and they risk revealing a strong card for their opponent to acquire next turn.

Other issues, IMO, are the fact that high cost cards generally aren't as rewarding as the ones in 5-6 range; the fact that both regular and upgraded cards are in play (limiting the number of unique cards there are in a deck) and the fact that agents' cost is high just because they are agents, especially given all the removal available in the game.