Are Draoife Ritecaller and Eldertide Fenwitch the Most Poorly Designed Cards in TOT?

Personofsecrets

There are a few parts of these cards that make me feel that they have been poorly designed.

1.) They have multiple relevant effects that make them act in multiple ways at once. These cards not only power up the economy by potentially making purchasing and Writ of Coin making "cheaper," but they also serve to boost the economy by eventually filling a deck with druid cards.

Comment: If you look at what many modern card games are doing, it's having cards with several effects. Take Magic the Gathering for instance, it isn't enough that Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is a cheap creature (move over Jackal Pup. It's not enough that it creates a mana source. It's not enough that it messes with the opponents deck with what can have a nasty RNG result. It isn't enough that it can be a source of card advantage. It may finally be enough that the card also has a "Dash" effect which makes it versatile to also dodge some removal. What were the MTG designers thinking? Well, ask the TOT designers, they are probably friends with people at Wizards and clearly have been inspired by modern design, so maybe they devs know...

In all seriousness, we already have a "does everything" card that sees regular pickup and performs very strongly in games. It's called Currency Exchange. Currency Exchange had to be nerfed. The lesson of the story should have been "don't make another Currency Exchange." Okay, the real lesson is "don't make a card that does a bunch of stuff."

2.) These cards act as an "inevitable" threat. That means that over a course of a game, eventually these cards become highly likely to generate game winning value. Maybe they can be removed the first time, the second time, and the third time, but eventually, as agents with good health values and as totem makers, they will eventually stick around and create a game defining amount of value.

Comment: Inevitability cards are generally not that interactive or fun, but those qualities are especially true when considering that these cards can be purchased as early as the second players first turn. Take a lesson from how dull games have gotten in Yu-Gi-Oh! and ensure that inevitability can't be caused on the first turn of the game. I'll just speak from a time that I remember, Rescue Rabbit into Evolzar Laggia or Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En being invoked on the first turn of the game just didn't lead to very fun games. And Yu-Gi-Oh! has progressed to the point where I see people complaining about an opponent winning on the very first turn of the game. Note, that doesn't mean it was the opponent's first turn. It means it was anyone's first turn...

I challenge everyone to see how being able to call on game winning effects too early isn't a healthy style of gameplay that should be encouraged. Not seeing such effects for what they are, toxic, ensures that there will be more of them in the future.

3.) The reward for synergistic play is too high. For example the gold value gained from Totems generated by these cards can often be very high gold amounts. It's also the case that Psijic deck sorting cards go from not just sorting the deck and generating power, but to also being a source of gold generation. Time Mastery can potentially generate 6 gold while thinning the deck because of it's synergy with Ritecaller and Fenwitch. Nobody saw that, stepped back, and said "no, that's not right."

Comment: Many games today get synergies wrong. One of them was Elder Scrolls Legends. Whether it was Pathmage-Nix Ox-Uprising abuse, Namira's Shrine/Disciple of Namira abuse with low cost cantrips, various abuses with Unstoppable Rage, and Ash Berserker are just some of the cases where brutal and easy to enable synergies created oppressive game conditions that had to be nerfed.

Let's specifically review Ash Berserker. Ash Berserker could regularly have it's game spiraling draw effect enabled with practically no effort by just playing normally. So the decks it went into could reasonably rely on Ash Berserker being a must answer threat that could end the game via card advantage generation. On it's face, it appeared to be a card that required synergy to get off the ground. While that is technically true, it was so easy to synergize with Ash Berserker that it didn't really have much of a downside and could very easily take over games.

Josh Utter-Leyton, I'm writing directly to you right now. As much fun as it was to crush your field and board flip with Falkreath Defiler and Unstoppable Rage synergy, come on, we both know that it was wrong. So why was the biggest event of your time in TESL design, the Master Series, plagued by that particular synergy creating the most awful and boring games? Okay, maybe Josh won't read this and maybe there were MANY issues that plagued TESL, but that games constant balance issues should be a teachable moment.

And to not be a negative-Nancy, I'll describe what I believe was a powerful but more healthy synergy too. Daggerfall Mage... Daggerfall Mage wasn't too powerful on it's own, but had a synergistic effect with ward generating cards. This wasn't a synergy that just would happen for free. Not only did consideration have to be put into place as to how and when to re-ward Daggerfall Mage, but the advantage that it generated also had an additional mana-cost involved, the 4-cost of Tome of Alteration, to properly take advantage of. Tales of Tribute doesn't have mana costs. So think wisely during design.

4.) Lastly i want to bring up the fact that both Ritecaller and Fenwitch generate a gold when they leave play and go to the cooldown pile. So even when these cards are answered during a time such as the early or mid game, they still generate what can end up being a massive advantage, that last gold needed for a 6 gold or 7 gold power card.

Comment: I don't have a specific game that I want to pick on this time, but it should be fairly obvious that when a strong card is answered, that it doesn't continue to function even after being removed. If there is perhaps a time for cards such as this, it would be with the late end game cards that cost a lot of gold. These new cards have unique status as agents. Agent status can often be a strong benefit. When someone is finally able to answer an agent, then the opponent who lost their agent shouldn't just continue to gain value anyhow. For some reason the TOT designers had this insight with Firesong Haruspex, a fairly weak or i could say balanced card, but the insight escaped them when it came to wording Draoife Ritecaller and Eldertide Fenwitch. That was a mistake.

Anyhow, if anyone reading made it through all of that, thanks for taking a look at what I have to write and I look forward to potentially seeing other comments about these cards.

PrinceShroob

I'll say with regard to Legends' balance that they weren't afraid to explain their design process. I recall when people were complaining about Alfiq Conjurer a dev commented that the team had had a long discussion over whether to give the card 3 health or 4 health and decided to go with 4 health. Just knowing that the devs were cognizant of the potential issue did a lot for my trust in them. How much better would the cap on Critical Damage have gone down if the dev commentary was "We've realized that we have introduced too many sets that can boost Critical Damage and we think that merely reducing how much each set grants would not adequately address the issue"? Admission of one's own fault goes a long way.

The Druid King deck almost seems to be designed with Zenimax's usual "release overpowered content and nerf it later" model. That doesn't make much sense for a bundled card game, though, given how many people are virulently against the game--I don't think new decks are going to I understand that Tales of Tribute is diversionary rather than being a standalone card game that might require stricter balance, but it does have a competitive queue and so there should at least be the semblance of balance.

I don't have the Druid King deck unlocked so I've never played it had it played against me, so I don't really have much more to add other than I am immensely surprised they decided to add another "gotta catch 'em all" deck despite people's complaints about Duke of Crows.

spartaxoxo

I don't have access to this deck just yet, as I'm on console. However, I got to say, when I saw some of what y'all were posting here of it, my first thought was that it seemed wildly overpowered. You can point to a pretty significant limiting factor in each of the first 8 decks, even the overpowered decks like Pelin (it can be difficult to generate coin with Pelin). But, if you're getting value even after a card has been dealt with and sometimes even when your OPPONENT is playing, what's the downside to using that deck?

I'm seriously asking. I don't know. I haven't played it. What's the weakness you can point towards?

Personofsecrets

PrinceShroob wrote: »

I'll say with regard to Legends' balance that they weren't afraid to explain their design process. I recall when people were complaining about Alfiq Conjurer a dev commented that the team had had a long discussion over whether to give the card 3 health or 4 health and decided to go with 4 health. Just knowing that the devs were cognizant of the potential issue did a lot for my trust in them. How much better would the cap on Critical Damage have gone down if the dev commentary was "We've realized that we have introduced too many sets that can boost Critical Damage and we think that merely reducing how much each set grants would not adequately address the issue"? Admission of one's own fault goes a long way.

The Druid King deck almost seems to be designed with Zenimax's usual "release overpowered content and nerf it later" model. That doesn't make much sense for a bundled card game, though, given how many people are virulently against the game--I don't think new decks are going to I understand that Tales of Tribute is diversionary rather than being a standalone card game that might require stricter balance, but it does have a competitive queue and so there should at least be the semblance of balance.

I don't have the Druid King deck unlocked so I've never played it had it played against me, so I don't really have much more to add other than I am immensely surprised they decided to add another "gotta catch 'em all" deck despite people's complaints about Duke of Crows.

Don't give the TESL designers too much credit now. They also released the pre-nerf oblivion gate cards and were then reluctant to give soul gems to people after the nerf. This was all despite knowing for a year ahead of time that development for the game was planned to get cut.

As for your general sentiment, yes, it would be nice to hear more from the designers of TOT about their choices. Maybe then some of the new cards would make more sense. At the least, they do appear to be open to feedback. It would be nice to know why some feedback isn't acted on as readily too.

Personofsecrets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't have access to this deck just yet, as I'm on console. However, I got to say, when I saw some of what y'all were posting here of it, my first thought was that it seemed wildly overpowered. You can point to a pretty significant limiting factor in each of the first 8 decks, even the overpowered decks like Pelin (it can be difficult to generate coin with Pelin). But, if you're getting value even after a card has been dealt with and sometimes even when your OPPONENT is playing, what's the downside to using that deck?

I'm seriously asking. I don't know. I haven't played it. What's the weakness you can point towards?

Perhaps the biggest restriction is having to use the Psijics along with Druids. Druids get's alot of benefit from several of it's agents, but by using Psijics, there is a natural agent counter always available. That said...... like I wrote above, having to use the Psijic Patron can just result in getting behind and that is especially when killing Ritecaller or Fenwitch.

Necrotech_Master

i feel that overall theres a lot of strong cards in the druid deck

forest wraith and the upgraded card druid king vestments make generating power stupid easy, especially if you have a good gold generation to keep buying cards (which is further increased by the mentioned cards)

if you have enough of those agents that give you gold when buying cards that go into your cooldown, you can effectively get some of those basically completely free (or even give you gold back if it was like a 2 coin cost card and you have 3 agents that give you 1 coin when adding a card to your cooldown)

ive been playing with the druid deck a lot (combined with rahjin) and some of these things stick out

i would say one item in the druid deck that doesnt get a lot of use would be the chimera from the patron passive, by the time you are able to generate a 4-5 combo with druid cards, your already pretty darn close to winning the game at that point, so i rarely actually get to play a chimera unless i start burning power on the pelin patron (if its picked for a game at least)

Personofsecrets

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i would say one item in the druid deck that doesnt get a lot of use would be the chimera from the patron passive, by the time you are able to generate a 4-5 combo with druid cards, your already pretty darn close to winning the game at that point, so i rarely actually get to play a chimera unless i start burning power on the pelin patron (if its picked for a game at least)

Definitely the case with the chimera. It's interesting to finally get a patron that cares about players using their cards. At the same time, the chimera isn't really the focal point of winning with Druid cards. Either a player already has won when the get the chimera or they just so happened to get some kind of insane draw in combination with tavern contracts...