Tales of Tribute: It should be a 4-player game

merpins · June 2022

Tales of Tribute is a party game, it's not a competitive card game like ZoS claims. The way this game works, it could easily be a physical card game, as it does not currently take advantage of the fact that it doesn't need to adhere to real-world limitations. It lacks half of the appeal of a normal card game, that being the ability to construct your own deck out of the cards you've collected, but simultaneously lacks the appeal of a party game, that being a game that can be played by at least 4 players. It also is a game that is accessible to everyone by having all (or most) decks unlocked from the get-go, but unfortunately it falls into a similar genre as chess in that players that know the system very well will win (most of the time) against players that do not know the system very well. It's accessible, but not balanced well.

That said, the game itself is okay. It could use more cards that take advantage of the fact that it's a digital game in a world where magic exists, but other than that, I believe its main downside is the fact that it's only a game for two players. The only mechanic really stopping the game from being 4 players after all is the Patron system, but that, too, can be fixed. They could keep the game as it is for two players. It doesn't really need changing here, though it could use more patrons and more cards.Here's a short list of how I think they could fix this game to make it a good time.

1. Make a 4 player mode. In this mode, the four players face off against one-another in a diamond shape similar to online Uno.
2. At the beginning of the game, each player chooses 1 deck instead of 2.
3. Change the Patrons from arrows to colors. Each player has a color associated with them, and a Patron that favors you is your color, and if it's neutral, it's grey.
4. Increase the amount of Prestige needed to win to 80, up from 40.
5. Add cards to each deck that are for 4-player mode specifically. Think Uno again; cards that change the turn order from clockwise to counterclockwise, skip the next player's turn, or let you choose and hit a player with a damaging card that reduces their prestige.

They could also add other cards here that help the game as a party game if they increase the number of players to 4, and i think this game would greatly benefit from doing so.

Lysette · June 2022

The idea is ok, if you assume that all players stay for the duration of the game. But that gets more and more unlikely with the amount of players. It would take longer to start a game and it might not be finished properly, because someone is dropping out by whatever reason. 4 Players would double the time to about 30 minutes - that could already be too long.

merpins · June 2022

6. Unrelated to the idea, the card log that shows what's been played should also show what's been added to a deck, and there should be two; one for each player, where you can hover over a card and have its effect appear so you can take a moment to understand what you or your opponent got. This will help with overall game understanding for newer players.

merpins · June 2022

Lysette wrote: »

The idea is ok, if you assume that all players stay for the duration of the game. But that gets more and more unlikely with the amount of players. It would take longer to start a game and it might not be finished properly, because someone is dropping out by whatever reason. 4 Players would double the time to about 30 minutes - that could already be too long.

I mean that's how party games are. I'd say they make it a queue option, and the default is 2 players. You can do a daily with 4 players, but you'd have to change the setting to that (similar to queuing for the party version of BGs).

There'd need to be a penalty like with random dungeons where if you leave, you can't queue again for 10 minutes. I'm sure that already exists on these dailies but it doesn't hurt to make sure. It would then just be 1. you don't get any rewards for the game if you quit, 2. everyone else gets rewards based on their current Prestige.

Basically, in a 4-man game I think the rewards should be; last place doesn't complete their daily, but gets a pity reward like with BGs. 3rd, 2nd, and 1st place complete their dailies, with 2nd place getting the lower tier box and 1st getting the higher tier box. That way if a player leaves and you were just in it for dailies, you'd already have finished.

Anyway, this idea is just to expand on the idea. Party games are more fun when there's more players, and this game is already designed as a party game. It's just for 2 players for no reason. a 30-minute party game is average for a game like this already. Fluxx, Munchkin, games like those are what this game is already like, and those last about 30-45 minutes on average. There probably won't be a ton of people queuing for the 4-man randoms. Those would probably end up being games that people set up rather than queue for, like with dueling. But that just increases the longevity of the game.

ZOS_Hadeostry · June 2022

Greetings,

This thread has been moved to the Tales Of Tribute section, as it is better suited there.

Thanks

kevkj · June 2022

For the purposes of matchmaking/ranked, I do think it will be simpler and better for it to remain 2 players. After playing it, I do agree that a 4 player adaptation would be interesting to play and it would be nice to see an option eventually to challenge your party to a 3/4 player game.

merpins · June 2022

kevkj wrote: »

For the purposes of matchmaking/ranked, I do think it will be simpler and better for it to remain 2 players. After playing it, I do agree that a 4 player adaptation would be interesting to play and it would be nice to see an option eventually to challenge your party to a 3/4 player game.

100%.
I think it would be fine to have a ranked option for 4-person play, but it would need to be a separate ranking system from the 2-person ranking system.