About Rng in ToT…

Heartrage · June 2022

Yes, Rng is an important part of the game. You can lose a game while playing perfectly with the cards you are given. However, this is a feature of every card games. Playcards, after all, are physical objects used to create random numbers just like dice do.

It doesn’t matter if you are playing Uno, yu-gi-oh, poker, magic or solitaire, Rng is always there and you can win/lose all these games with no fault of your own.

Does it mean that you can’t effect your winning odds? No! If you don’t agree, I suggest playing the game by picking tavern cards at random, spamming patrons power without thinking and making no effort to understand what is happening during the game. If the game is purely Rng, you will win 50% of the time and your games will be much shorter.

Tot is about understanding and maximizing your winning probability. It starts while choosing your starting deck and it continues with every decisions you take. Because you can only affect your probabilities, you can’t ever win 100% of your matches, but this is true for every card game.

One real problem I see with ToT Rng, right now, is that a player can get crazy good odds that make them virtually undefeatable but still take another 10 minutes to win because of the slow flow of the game.

It’s one thing to lose because of bad RnG, it’s another to loose to bad RnG in slow motion. For this reason, I think ToT needs, at the very least, a way to surrender the game.

redspecter23 · June 2022

Heartrage wrote: »

Yes, Rng is an important part of the game. You can lose a game while playing perfectly with the cards you are given. However, this is a feature of every card games. Playcards, after all, are physical objects used to create random numbers just like dice do.

It doesn’t matter if you are playing Uno, yu-gi-oh, poker, magic or solitaire, Rng is always there and you can win/lose all these games with no fault of your own.

Does it mean that you can’t effect your winning odds? No! If you don’t agree, I suggest playing the game by picking tavern cards at random, spamming patrons power without thinking and making no effort to understand what is happening during the game. If the game is purely Rng, you will win 50% of the time and your games will be much shorter.

Tot is about understanding and maximizing your winning probability. It starts while choosing your starting deck and it continues with every decisions you take. Because you can only affect your probabilities, you can’t ever win 100% of your matches, but this is true for every card game.

One real problem I see with ToT Rng, right now, is that a player can get crazy good odds that make them virtually undefeatable but still take another 10 minutes to win because of the slow flow of the game.

It’s one thing to lose because of bad RnG, it’s another to loose to bad RnG in slow motion. For this reason, I think ToT needs, at the very least, a way to surrender the game.

I have to agree with everything said here. RNG is definitely a factor, but your skill level compared to your opponent counts as well. Assuming two equally skilled players, making no clear mistakes, this is where you start to see the complaints about RNG because at that point, it becomes more of a factor. You can't win based on pure skill as your opponent is also as skilled as you are. You need that bit of luck in order to get the upper hand.

This combined with a matchmaking system that should put you up against someone of similar skill level can lead to seeing more games decided by RNG and not necessarily skill as you are ideally equally matched. If you were to truly face off against completely random opponents and you play at an extremely high skill level, you should see matches against players of lower skill and be able to win often, even with less RNG than they have.

My thought is that the effect of RNG on games is amplified due to matchmaking factors, making it very difficult to play an opponent with a wildly different skill level than your own. This all assumes that matchmaking works like this and matches players based on skill. I may be wrong in that assumption.

Personofsecrets · June 2022

I typically expect good winning odds

redspecter23 wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

Yes, Rng is an important part of the game. You can lose a game while playing perfectly with the cards you are given. However, this is a feature of every card games. Playcards, after all, are physical objects used to create random numbers just like dice do.

It doesn’t matter if you are playing Uno, yu-gi-oh, poker, magic or solitaire, Rng is always there and you can win/lose all these games with no fault of your own.

Does it mean that you can’t effect your winning odds? No! If you don’t agree, I suggest playing the game by picking tavern cards at random, spamming patrons power without thinking and making no effort to understand what is happening during the game. If the game is purely Rng, you will win 50% of the time and your games will be much shorter.

Tot is about understanding and maximizing your winning probability. It starts while choosing your starting deck and it continues with every decisions you take. Because you can only affect your probabilities, you can’t ever win 100% of your matches, but this is true for every card game.

One real problem I see with ToT Rng, right now, is that a player can get crazy good odds that make them virtually undefeatable but still take another 10 minutes to win because of the slow flow of the game.

It’s one thing to lose because of bad RnG, it’s another to loose to bad RnG in slow motion. For this reason, I think ToT needs, at the very least, a way to surrender the game.

I have to agree with everything said here. RNG is definitely a factor, but your skill level compared to your opponent counts as well. Assuming two equally skilled players, making no clear mistakes, this is where you start to see the complaints about RNG because at that point, it becomes more of a factor. You can't win based on pure skill as your opponent is also as skilled as you are. You need that bit of luck in order to get the upper hand.

This combined with a matchmaking system that should put you up against someone of similar skill level can lead to seeing more games decided by RNG and not necessarily skill as you are ideally equally matched. If you were to truly face off against completely random opponents and you play at an extremely high skill level, you should see matches against players of lower skill and be able to win often, even with less RNG than they have.

My thought is that the effect of RNG on games is amplified due to matchmaking factors, making it very difficult to play an opponent with a wildly different skill level than your own. This all assumes that matchmaking works like this and matches players based on skill. I may be wrong in that assumption.

One other thing to consider. A game with good symmetry and balance will better be able to discern "equally" skilled players from each other more easily than a game with poor balance.

The luck factor usually comes from the cards. And the bigger the imbalance is between cards, the more that the luck factor will be able to press on the scales of the game. Something that I find to be a poor development in modern times is that players are getting on digital card games and calculating their win rates after thousands of games to determine how well they are doing. Thousands of games. It shouldn't take that much to prove oneself better than others, but the RNG factor throws so many games out the window that it takes that many more games to have "fair" games where skill was able to be the greater contributing factor.

I like to think that in a balanced game, though there may be a fair number of equally skilled players, they can still differentiate themselves from each other due to personal styles that can be improved. So even though someone like Paul Morphy was bounds ahead of their contemporaries due to a certain type of skill that the game allowed at the time, it's a different kind of skill that puts Magnus Carlson far ahead of today's contemporaries. Today's game is more solved and more heavily studied, but Magnus still finds something that may be invisible to most of his piers.

Rouz · June 2022

redspecter23 wrote: »

Assuming two equally skilled players, making no clear mistakes, this is where you start to see the complaints about RNG because at that point, it becomes more of a factor. You can't win based on pure skill as your opponent is also as skilled as you are. You need that bit of luck in order to get the upper hand.

This combined with a matchmaking system that should put you up against someone of similar skill level can lead to seeing more games decided by RNG and not necessarily skill as you are ideally equally matched.

This is my issue and why I really dislike these posts claiming RNG isn't a factor. I push leaderboards anre shift around rank 50-120 now a days. Not many people make mistakes that high up. They know how to play cards. They know what cards are good. It's the tavern system that is a big pile of s**t. So many people this high up get an advantage, then just don't draw any cards. By the time the opponent gets enough money to counter, boom the advantage player has a 15-25 point lead. It's happened so many games. Both ones I've won and lost. I've just lost count. But you really see the issues of RNG at higher ranks. Now I've played unranked. I've gone up against people who were obviously bad. But there's a huge difference in skill once you get to leaderboards and the BS RNG becomes a more prominent factor.

I'm going to be pissed if they decide not to do anything about this in 2 weeks once the season ends. If Season 2 starts with the same tavern design, I'll probably just bounce from this game. Not worth the trouble and I've seen the game so the trophies/bragging rights wont be impressive either. Even if they balance the game, the tavern system needs adjusting in some way. A new meta will form and then people will just grab that meta and turtle. I don't care what they do to the tavern system, but do something to make games more about strat vs strat instead of "Uhp, I got the good cards. Time to not do anything for 6 rounds except play them over and over again". Rotate cards, take out neutral cards, I don't care. Something needs to be done.

Youmee · June 2022

Heartrage wrote: »

Does it mean that you can’t effect your winning odds? No! If you don’t agree, I suggest playing the game by picking tavern cards at random, spamming patrons power without thinking and making no effort to understand what is happening during the game. If the game is purely Rng, you will win 50% of the time and your games will be much shorter.

Totally agree!
I was so used to doing craft dailies why watching Netflix on the second monitor that I implemented the same policy with ToT. And it almost always goes like:
WAIT!!! When did my opponent acquired 39 prestige?

But still when they think for too lomng it is annoying (