Needless to say, if I'm taking time to write here on the forum, that means that I'd rather do that than play TOT. The game comes in waves for me. Sometimes it's fun and other times it's a pain. So I'd like to take this moment to be very specific about changes that could be applied to TOT which, in my opinion, could make the game better.

1. Because of the St. Pelin and Red Eagle power generating starter cards, I feel shoehorned into making Patron selections that aren't personally enjoyable.

I don't like playing games where power matters so much. I can see how some players may find it interesting, but to me it isn't a very elevated way to enjoy a game. While others think "I win through prestige, so I want to generate power," I think "I want to make a strong deck with solid synergies and the win condition will appear by itself."

It is genuinely unfun and aggravating to virtually lose a game because the order that the power generating starter cards showed up in thus giving the opponent additional opportunities to purchase the stronger Tavern cards.

It's understandable that the starter cards should be unique from eachother, so my solution is to make all starter cards generate 1 gold by default, but have combo 3 just like the Sorcerer-King Orgnum starter card.

2. Too often deck improvement for one player accelerates while deck improvement for the other player is a constant.

This issue can happen in a number of ways, and one of them will be the next point, but for this point I'd like to focus on how oppressive the Tavern can be. Far too often one player is buying cards there and able to stretch their resources in order to pick up a just revealed powerful card as their opponent is stuck buying either worse cards or just using the treasury.



This was the tavern from a game I had today. It's the early game and the opponent has 2 Midnight Raids. The game is over. If this type of game were to happen just sometimes, then that would be expected since it's a card game with a luck component, but this type of game happens frequently and is extremly unfun.

My suggestion is that the Tavern become expanded to 7 cards as to better ensure that a variety of strong purchasable cards is available, for both players, the entire game long. And that's coming from someone who prefers games where nobody is buying cards from the Tavern.

3. The balance surrounding a few of the economy cards is way off.

The balance of Luxury Exports, Pounce and Profit/Grand Larceny, and Prescience/Prophesy is so wrong that it is the number one thing that makes me want to lose compusure and be extremly critical of game development. I don't want to be "that person" and I go out of my way to be civil, but these cards are so poorly balanced that it becomes a difficult task to be constructive. The question that comes up is "how don't they know." Well, we are sure that you do know! So what gives?

All of these cards are so efficient at jump boosting an economy in the early game that they are essentially "I win" game pieces even from just the first turn. For anyone who realizes this dynamic of these cards, it can be extremly depressing when the opponent get's that first turn economy booster with zero counterplay options.

The solution that I would prefer for these cards is that it should be a rule in design that no card which can produce more than 2 gold without combo should be able to be purchasable on the first turn with the possibility of the Treasury also being used that same turn. Such rule would demand that Luxury Exports and Prescience/Prophesy become changed. The counter to strong cards is being able to purchase strong cards or permanently improve the deck via the treasury, so my rule would ensure that there aren't games where one player is able to do both of those things while the opponent only get's the option of doing one of those things.

As for Pounce and Profit/Grand Larceny, the cards are simply "cracked." Neither of them should be producing more than 3 gold and that is especially because they inherently answer on board threats while boosting the economy. I understand that these cards could help prevent there from being games were the Rajin patron effect locks people out of the game, but they have created far more oppressive and lopsided games than Bewilderment cards have.

4. Other notes.

So the above is aimed toward having games where there is more genuine back and forth and even interraction between players. There should be less games where one player isn't "able to play" and less games where they continue to "play" even though it is just turn after turn of them losing. A metric that I think developers should be able to look at is number of games conceded. Look at the number, it is way up. I think that it could be good to take into account how many games are conceded because one player genuinely got a game winning advantage on their 3rd turn and use that data as a justification for lowering the concede penalty. And if the worry about the concede penalty is the extra rewards that players could get, isn't it a little late to worry about players "gaming" the reward systems in the game when people have been able to abuse daily crafting writs to amass hundreds of millions of gold for ages? What's it matter if a TOT player get's some extra Pewter Dust? I'd also like to point out that the que timer has been going higher and higher. Sometimes I get matched right away, but I'm also getting one minute all the way up to 4.5 minute que times. Perhaps release TOT for everyone in the game? I also am regularly getting matched with the same players over and over. Sometimes for 3 games in a row (make that 4). It gets tiring.

Anyhow, there are other things about TOT that I could take issue with here or there, but I think that what is outlined above are the most fundamental downsides that I see when playing TOT as well as possible solutions for them. I'm not so shortsighted that I think my way is best or would be without any problems that could pop up, but I also have held back on critique for a long time because I wanted to give the above issues, that is the developers original vision for the game, the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to just assume that I know better, but the scales of my judgement are starting to tip toward the direction that maybe I do know better with regards to some of the game pieces. Again, looking at you Pounce and Profit/Grand Larceny.

And do know, this isn't to say that there aren't fun and compelling games, there definitely are. I'd like their to be more. This isn't to say that the devlopers have done a bad job. I think that they have done a good job and I want them to continue to do a good job by continuing to improve the game.