ToT NPCs excessively difficult

SeaGtGruff · September 2023

freespirit wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Lugaldu wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Honestly I am shocked at how badly the Npcs play, it really is very hard to lose against them, I don't remember them being this awful when I was playing a lot before.

Well, I would have completely agreed with you last year, but something about the AI of the Novice NPCs has been constantly being changed for months - I've been playing since the start of ToT, have probably played 1000 matches, and the constant changes in the behavior of the AI are annoying. Especially when they are no longer easy to defeat, whats the case right now - I see the direct comparison of the behavior of the AI a year ago and now, it is simply not comparable, it's light years between the (completely stupid) behavior of the Novice NPCs a year ago and right now.

the NPCs to me right now feel about the same as they did pre-necrom

ive done several days of ToT dailies now since the U39 patch adjusted the AI and im consistently beating the NPC like 40-60 to 0

theres only been even a few cases where the npc managed to get over 20 pts and that was when i did not get a lot of rahjin cards lol

i typically always play with rahjin because i like the deck, and since the AI change the NPC pretty much never hits rahjin, and barely uses hlaalu anymore

it does like to spam certain patrons such as druid king or reach, which just cause it to burn its generated power, further slowing it down

It is strange how people are seeing different npc behaviour though...

As I said loads of games played over last few weeks. npcs are for me are spamming Hlaalu Patron and to a lesser extent Rahjin, totally ignoring Orgnum.

Maybe a certain set of decks picked triggers these odd behaviours or maybe it's because I have for last few days constantly played proficient npcs?

I think this is a large part of it.

The different skill levels of NPCs have access to certain patrons, which is why the Novice NPCs never pick anything besides Pelin, Hlaalu, Crow, and Psijic, since they don't have access to the other decks.

And the NPCs' AI gives different priorities to the various decks-- the individual cards in each deck, as well as the patrons. So depending on which decks have been selected for the match, the NPCs will tend to hit certain patrons if there's a chance, or buy certain cards if they can, etc.

I'm not certain how much the AI varies between the NPC skill levels beyond which decks they can select from at the start of the match, but it does seem like there's a bit of difference between them. The thing is, it's difficult to tell, because the cards in the Tavern play such an important role. So even if you could try playing against all three NPC skill levels using just the first four patrons, it's impossible to eliminate the effects of RNG and which cards are in the Tavern on any given turn, making it very difficult to judge how much variation there is in the AI for the different NPC skill levels.

fall0athboy · September 2023

I do feel the Novice NPCs got vastly more difficult. Which I was not expecting. They absolutely are spamming Hlaalu a lot.

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Does anyone know if novices still use patrons?

Yes, they use them a lot more now.

I wish they didn't change the Novice difficulty. I just want an easy daily without much of an effort, man.

fall0athboy · September 2023

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

Lugaldu · September 2023

As long as the novice NPCs don't have Pelin AND Hlaalu in in the game, it's fine... Pelin is the worst.

spartaxoxo · September 2023

Lugaldu wrote: »

As long as the novice NPCs don't have Pelin AND Hlaalu in in the game, it's fine... Pelin is the worst.

Novice NPCs can only play the first four decks.

Lugaldu · September 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lugaldu wrote: »

As long as the novice NPCs don't have Pelin AND Hlaalu in in the game, it's fine... Pelin is the worst.

Novice NPCs can only play the first four decks.

I know, but there was a long, long phase in my games in which the NPC always chose Pelin and Hlaalu... If the novice NPC doesn't chose Pelin, then I'am happy because I can avoid the deck. ;-)

Necrotech_Master · September 2023

fall0athboy wrote: »

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

from my experience, not at all lol

the last time i did the tribute daily, all 3 of my novice matches i won like 50ish to 0 lol

spartaxoxo · September 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

from my experience, not at all lol

the last time i did the tribute daily, all 3 of my novice matches i won like 50ish to 0 lol

I think they are pretty hard for a novice. Novices don't really necessarily understand the game. The tutorial confused a lot of players.

Lugaldu wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Lugaldu wrote: »

As long as the novice NPCs don't have Pelin AND Hlaalu in in the game, it's fine... Pelin is the worst.

Novice NPCs can only play the first four decks.

I know, but there was a long, long phase in my games in which the NPC always chose Pelin and Hlaalu... If the novice NPC doesn't chose Pelin, then I'am happy because I can avoid the deck. ;-)

Ah. Okay, that makes sense. One of the reasons I prefer the expert NPC is because it chooses Pelin significantly less often lol. I don't like Pelin or Orgnum.

Necrotech_Master · September 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

from my experience, not at all lol

the last time i did the tribute daily, all 3 of my novice matches i won like 50ish to 0 lol

I think they are pretty hard for a novice. Novices don't really necessarily understand the game. The tutorial confused a lot of players.

i dont disagree with that, i remember when i first started playing it and even the novices were still a little dicey to beat sometimes mostly because the tutorial was awful and only teaches the basic win conditions, but not actually "how to win"

in terms of difficulty though, i dont think they are extremely difficult, everything is "extremely difficult" when your first learning it

spartaxoxo · September 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

from my experience, not at all lol

the last time i did the tribute daily, all 3 of my novice matches i won like 50ish to 0 lol

I think they are pretty hard for a novice. Novices don't really necessarily understand the game. The tutorial confused a lot of players.

i dont disagree with that, i remember when i first started playing it and even the novices were still a little dicey to beat sometimes mostly because the tutorial was awful and only teaches the basic win conditions, but not actually "how to win"

in terms of difficulty though, i dont think they are extremely difficult, everything is "extremely difficult" when your first learning it

I guess. They sure are a lot harder than I was a genuine novice though. So, I can understand the complaints from those that are actually novices. I really enjoy this game but I think that it bit to truly understand it.

fall0athboy · September 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

from my experience, not at all lol

the last time i did the tribute daily, all 3 of my novice matches i won like 50ish to 0 lol

I think they are pretty hard for a novice. Novices don't really necessarily understand the game. The tutorial confused a lot of players.

i dont disagree with that, i remember when i first started playing it and even the novices were still a little dicey to beat sometimes mostly because the tutorial was awful and only teaches the basic win conditions, but not actually "how to win"

in terms of difficulty though, i dont think they are extremely difficult, everything is "extremely difficult" when your first learning it

I guess. They sure are a lot harder than I was a genuine novice though. So, I can understand the complaints from those that are actually novices. I really enjoy this game but I think that it bit to truly understand it.

Hell, it's not even that I'm a novice; I just don't want to focus too much on a dang daily quest, or what's meant to be "easy" when I'm trying to farm levels to finish the questline.

Lugaldu · September 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i dont disagree with that, i remember when i first started playing it and even the novices were still a little dicey to beat sometimes mostly because the tutorial was awful and only teaches the basic win conditions, but not actually "how to win"
in terms of difficulty though, i dont think they are extremely difficult, everything is "extremely difficult" when your first learning it

I remember well when ToT came out and I had no idea how the game worked for days because there was no real tutorial and you could only really learn by playing. If the Novice NPCs had been as difficult back then as they are now, then I probably wouldn't have wanted to play at all.

fall0athboy · September 2023

fall0athboy wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

Okay, seriously, these need to be turned down in update 40. The novice is playing like an expert-level.

from my experience, not at all lol

the last time i did the tribute daily, all 3 of my novice matches i won like 50ish to 0 lol

I think they are pretty hard for a novice. Novices don't really necessarily understand the game. The tutorial confused a lot of players.

i dont disagree with that, i remember when i first started playing it and even the novices were still a little dicey to beat sometimes mostly because the tutorial was awful and only teaches the basic win conditions, but not actually "how to win"

in terms of difficulty though, i dont think they are extremely difficult, everything is "extremely difficult" when your first learning it

I guess. They sure are a lot harder than I was a genuine novice though. So, I can understand the complaints from those that are actually novices. I really enjoy this game but I think that it bit to truly understand it.

Hell, it's not even that I'm a novice; I just don't want to focus too much on a dang daily quest, or what's meant to be "easy" when I'm trying to farm levels to finish the questline.

Oh, and all this said, I did do "Challenges of the Past" last night. And the NPCs were pretty difficult.

Here's the thing: That actually makes sense that the quest NPCs were a challenge.

katanagirl1 · September 2023

So I’m probably an average ToT at best, I got to rubedite once early on but could never get it again because I lost too many times against other players. I played the npcs for a while.

I sort of quit playing after Druid deck came out, I wanted to get the chimera achievement but decided it was too much effort. Haven’t really wanted to learn the Almalexia deck either. I have other things I want to get done in the game.

Now that I need the lead for one of the Necrom mythics, I have started playing the npcs again. Since the last patch the cards get played so fast I cannot keep up with what is going on. This is undoubtably a result of complaints of the game taking too long. Yeah, I could take the time to look at the cooldown pile of the npc and all, but I am really disappointed that the causal player experience has been made worse. It would probably take more time to examine the cooldown pile each round than the previous slower card play from before the patch.

The expert npcs now are sort of hit and miss with the difficulty, I guess it depends on the decks they choose. Sometimes the tavern has terrible luck for me and great luck for the npc. I sometimes win 3 matches easily each time, but today I lost maybe 3-4 times before I completed the daily and got 3 wins.

As for the rewards today, since I didn’t get the lead (again) and didn’t get any card upgrade clues, the winning coffers were just as bad as the losing ones.

Lugaldu · September 2023

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Now that I need the lead for one of the Necrom mythics, I have started playing the npcs again. Since the last patch the cards get played so fast I cannot keep up with what is going on. This is undoubtably a result of complaints of the game taking too long. Yeah, I could take the time to look at the cooldown pile of the npc and all, but I am really disappointed that the causal player experience has been made worse. It would probably take more time to examine the cooldown pile each round than the previous slower card play from before the patch.

The expert npcs now are sort of hit and miss with the difficulty, I guess it depends on the decks they choose. Sometimes the tavern has terrible luck for me and great luck for the npc. I sometimes win 3 matches easily each time, but today I lost maybe 3-4 times before I completed the daily and got 3 wins.

As for the rewards today, since I didn’t get the lead (again) and didn’t get any card upgrade clues, the winning coffers were just as bad as the losing ones.

Yes, the fact that the cards are played so quickly irritates me too. In the past, you could write something in the chat during a round of ToT, but if you don't pay close attention to what your NPC opponent is doing, you'll lose immediately (unless you're very lucky with the cards from the tavern - but I hardly have luck with the cards either). It would be better if each player could adjust the speed individually.

Good luck trying to get the lead. I'm fed up after 100 games. 100 rounds of ToT in which I got 1 clue and 1 purple blueprint as the best rewards. The rewards are now so bad that you can't believe it.
I don't want to complain about ToT all the time, but I just have to because there was a time when the game was fun, but unfortunately it's becoming more and more of an annoyance.

fall0athboy · September 2023

Zos_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adjusted the difficulty of Novice Tribute AI to make it a bit easier.

THEY LISTENED. (Well, we'll see how it turns out)

MidniteOwl1913 · September 2023

I still don’t think the novice plays like a novice. It doesn’t take much bad RNG early in the game (first 2-3 rounds) for the NPC to be very hard to beat.

And it just seems to be weird, under some circumstances it seems like expert mode becomes enabled, the NPC goes from doing really dumb things to playing the patrons like a champ. I wish I knew what triggers it.

It now trades in writ of coins except when buying a good card would make more sense (before it would either ignore good cards and just exchange writs or not exchange writs at all). It buys more of a variety of agent cards and uses them well. It doesn’t just sacrifice cards Willy hilly if Huallalu patron is active. It most defiantly is not what I would consider a novice! The only thing it doesn’t do now is prioritize the patron win over everything else. That was annoying, but actually easier to beat than what it does now.

I don’t think these changes have been an improvement.

BigMakatak · September 2023

CoronHR wrote: »

yeah there's a huge problem with novice npcs. the term 'novice' is a joke now. i play expert npcs only now because i can actually win against them. they took a slightly enjoyable card game ... it's not bad, it's just not that great and i don't feel compelled to play it ... and they've made it something you want to run away from fast and hard

Probably because ToT was last year's big, new feature, so, naturally, the developers want people to run away from old content that they're no longer profitting from, and run toward this year's new content that they are profitting from.

ceruulean · October 2023

Wait I thought I was bad at the game when I started the ToT Intro quest last month. I wasted 2 hours and couldnt beat the novice so i gave up

BlackRaidho · October 2023

ceruulean wrote: »

Wait I thought I was bad at the game when I started the ToT Intro quest last month. I wasted 2 hours and couldnt beat the novice so i gave up

The tutorial is terrible, you can't learn how to play with it.

Actually, NPCs are very easy to handle, there is some obvious patterns...
The expert one is easier than the middle difficulty.

fall0athboy · November 2023

Alrighty, so how's the Novices playing now that the update happened? Any difference?

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

Well it doesn't really play like a novice. It was easier and more fun to play against before they "improved" it. Sometimes it mimics novice by avoiding buying the best card in the tavern, sometimes it sacrifices good cards like agent instead of coin cards. It uses the patrons but not often. But sometimes it does none of those things and it can be very hard to beat when it does. ANd even with some of the novice tricks it doesn't take much bad RNG early on to make it hard to beat.

I'm playing 6-18 games a day right now because I'm after the houseguest, but after that, I don't see myself playing that much. It's just really not that much fun anymore.

fall0athboy · November 2023

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Well it doesn't really play like a novice. It was easier and more fun to play against before they "improved" it. Sometimes it mimics novice by avoiding buying the best card in the tavern, sometimes it sacrifices good cards like agent instead of coin cards. It uses the patrons but not often. But sometimes it does none of those things and it can be very hard to beat when it does. ANd even with some of the novice tricks it doesn't take much bad RNG early on to make it hard to beat.

I'm playing 6-18 games a day right now because I'm after the houseguest, but after that, I don't see myself playing that much. It's just really not that much fun anymore.

So basically them making it easier didn't do much?

Lugaldu · November 2023

fall0athboy wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Well it doesn't really play like a novice. It was easier and more fun to play against before they "improved" it. Sometimes it mimics novice by avoiding buying the best card in the tavern, sometimes it sacrifices good cards like agent instead of coin cards. It uses the patrons but not often. But sometimes it does none of those things and it can be very hard to beat when it does. ANd even with some of the novice tricks it doesn't take much bad RNG early on to make it hard to beat.

I'm playing 6-18 games a day right now because I'm after the houseguest, but after that, I don't see myself playing that much. It's just really not that much fun anymore.

So basically them making it easier didn't do much?

Just gave it a try and I would say they made the novice NPCs again more difficult...

Necrotech_Master · November 2023

i didnt have a chance to play any tribute on monday since i was crafting master writs while i was working lol

ill probably start that again next week to work on practicing with the hermeous mora deck and to try to get the clues

i want to see how badly the npcs play with the new deck lol

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

Lugaldu wrote: »

fall0athboy wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Well it doesn't really play like a novice. It was easier and more fun to play against before they "improved" it. Sometimes it mimics novice by avoiding buying the best card in the tavern, sometimes it sacrifices good cards like agent instead of coin cards. It uses the patrons but not often. But sometimes it does none of those things and it can be very hard to beat when it does. ANd even with some of the novice tricks it doesn't take much bad RNG early on to make it hard to beat.

I'm playing 6-18 games a day right now because I'm after the houseguest, but after that, I don't see myself playing that much. It's just really not that much fun anymore.

So basically them making it easier didn't do much?

Just gave it a try and I would say they made the novice NPCs again more difficult...

Yes I think in a lot of ways it was easier to beat before they "reduced the difficulty bit". It's a lot less predictable now, and RNG matters a whole lot more. And really all in all it's just not fun. I am at a loss to understand why they thought the easiest level needed to be made harder in the first place.

Lugaldu · November 2023

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

Yes I think in a lot of ways it was easier to beat before they "reduced the difficulty bit". It's a lot less predictable now, and RNG matters a whole lot more. And really all in all it's just not fun. I am at a loss to understand why they thought the easiest level needed to be made harder in the first place.

Totally agree, I just don´t get it what is the point of making the novice NPCs harder at all. That's a contradiction to the "novice" and if players want more of a challenge, then they can play against the other NPCs or players.

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

Honestly the way the game is now if I was just learning I wouldn't like it either. The novice is much harder than it should be to help new players learn the game. I've been playing daily since the game came out and now a lot of games are close and some I lose. I'm at least a proficient player, the novice shouldn't be this hard.

And grinding for a lead is just boring, and frustrating. I used to really love ToT, not anymore.