I hope it isn't more decks. More is sometimes less...

More decks is just going to make it even less likely for people to get into it. Honestly, ToT may as well not exist, for the presence it has in this game. The percentage of eso players who play ToT is on par with a statistical error.
Whenever I hear it brought up by others outside the forums it's never positive, either they forgot it existed or simply don't like it.
Unfortunate, but not all experiments are bangers.

sharquez wrote: »

Why not? I'm glad it has continuing updates. More unique brain-twisty mechanics to figure out, more fun.

Because their addon decks weren't "weird brain twisty mechanics," they were even worse RNG farms than pelin and crow used to be. Druid and Mora have all but ruined this game, and not only do they refuse to nerf these disgustingly broken RNG farm decks, but the community is hemorrhaging skilled players increasing the per-capita of people who need RNG to carry them and crave every game being a coin toss where luck is more important than skill.

Their unwillingness to nerf druid and mora tells me that whatever they have next in store for this game will NOT be fair, balanced, or require skill. It will be the worst RNG farm yet and the only people left playing will be gambling addicts.

I actually don't think Druid is that big of a deal. But, Mora definitely needs a nerf.

Regardless, I think that new content is something to look forward to. I still enjoy ToT and I look forward to more decks.

Largomets wrote: »

Druid on the other hand has the ability to snowball off itself, in a single turn.

It does but it's not common. You can also counteract it by using the patron and Psijic deck to get rid of cards that enable that card or buy them away from your opponent.

Most of the time what Druid does is allow deck control and coin generation. And I'd rather deck control decks be more powerful because it takes more skill than power spam. I also prefer them to opponent control decks, although those are also more skillful than power spam.

I'll take playing against Druid, Psijic, Hlallu, and Red Eagle over Mora, Pelin, Rahjiin, or Almalexia any day.

Largomets wrote: »

Psijic is deck control. Rajhin is deck and opponent control. Druid is RNG spam where no-talent nobodies pollute an otherwise fun game by literally making the game and RNG farm. Any deck that combos off itself where a single hand can change the balance of a game irreversibly is poorly balanced and in need of nerfing. Those decks are Druid, Mora, and to a lesser extent Hlaalu, although that is at least mostly balanced.

Comboing off itself is a standard part of the game. The most powerful Druid combo requires two decks, Psijic and Druid. And you need the scrying cards in particular to make that work. Deny Dreaming Cove and the Agent in particular, and you've already defeated a lot of the potential power.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Largomets wrote: »

Psijic is deck control. Rajhin is deck and opponent control. Druid is RNG spam where no-talent nobodies pollute an otherwise fun game by literally making the game and RNG farm. Any deck that combos off itself where a single hand can change the balance of a game irreversibly is poorly balanced and in need of nerfing. Those decks are Druid, Mora, and to a lesser extent Hlaalu, although that is at least mostly balanced.

Comboing off itself is a standard part of the game. The most powerful Druid combo requires two decks, Psijic and Druid. And you need the scrying cards in particular to make that work. Deny Dreaming Cove and the Agent in particular, and you've already defeated a lot of the potential power.

No, I don't think you understand. There is a difference between a deck comboing off itself (all of them), comboing off itself with many cards requiring good tavern and draw RNG (rahjin, psijic, hunding, pelin etc), comboing off of itself requiring good tavern and draw RNG over smaller numbers of hands (hlaalu, orgnum, crow, red eagle, alma) and then the insanity that is Druid and Mora where on a single hand, a player can go from nothing to un-stoppable on pure RNG.

With Druid, early game, I can get vestments for 2 gold which now gives me power and currency domination early game, and power domination the entire game. 2 gold. That's all it takes to have the scales tipped to me. For Pelin, you need a minimum of 4 gold to get a much-less-powerful start. Even getting armory turn 1 as player 2 is not as strong. Crow requires multiple crow cards, so there isn't really a single "high value" crow card round 1 unless you get 2 back to back AND they combo. Sure it's an RNG farm, but there's still several mechanics. Cephora's insight is certainly a REALLY strong starting card, because you get deck control and an early bank advantage, and the chance of a combo for power, but only the most advanced players will use psijic to be a dominate deck, and it's still possible to mitigate as the opponent in a variety of ways. Every deck as a "clutch starter" that you could luck into, but only Druid and Mora have cards where the game is possibly over on turn 1 if a player "lucks out." Even really, really strong starting advantage cards like pounce, cephora's, and luxury export don't give me the "unstoppable" advantage that some druid and mora cards can in early game.

But lets also now consider "2 color cards + tavern contract" to see what some "single deck only" stacking can look like.

With crow, if I get 2 crow cards + law of sovereign roost, I can now get a nice little currency advantage early game and give my opponent a negative 1 penalty for 1 turn, but this is really annoying more than anything. 1 turn later and I can start working to mitigate my opponent. Anytime crow is in play I should have a counter-deck to it, probably rahjin, and I can just start breaking up their luck, making their deck more and more RNG based while I capitalize on a deck-control strategy like psijic, hunding, etc. Plus,

With Rahjin, lets go for a really powerful 2 cards + tavern. Lets say I got S-tier RNG and got 2 grand larceny cards early. Now I use them with a rings guile to stick with my pattern. I have now removed prestige for my opponent, penalized them with -2 cards, and got a good run at the tavern. Again, very powerful, very annoying, but any good player has been a victim of this before and still won. In fact, early game, this might even be stupid, because punishing your opponent with -2 won't actually hurt them badly since they have low bank anyhow, and now maybe you passed on a good tavern purchase that they might have a chance at. Annoying, powerful, but not a game changer.

Now let's look at a druid example of 2 green cards + a contract card. If I have 2 wispheart tokens, just the 2 of them alone procing off each other is nuts. I can use 4 gold to buy a forest wraith which now re-procs them bringing the total to 12 gold on just those 2 cards alone, and now every new card I buy gets me power. Since druid cards are so cheap, I can gobble up any 2 or 3 gold cards in the tavern and generate power. Now I can turn the patron so druid favors me, so I have deck control, lots of currency, a game-breaking agent my opponent MUST deal with next turn instead of whatever else they were going to do, and I'm 1 green card away from making a chimera. Literally having the 1 gold starter card also in my hand is all it takes to give me a chimera, and if whisper of the grove pops up, I can buy it for 2 tavern control slots since it pays for itself at this point giving me 2 new items to possibly purchase AND I now have a chimera. So in a single turn, I have given myself a massive buying advantage, greatly increased the chances of snowballing more chimeras, got a chimera, have the most powerful agent in the game for my opponent to deal with, and I got to leave the tavern looking how I wanted it to look, which won't be good for my opponent on several fronts. And that's not even getting into the fact that druid cards let you generate coin, power, and prestige on your opponents turn, so you can actually lose on your own turn if they have agents up that force the win check if you remove them, making it so that you literally cannot avoid a win in some situations, even though the opponent did not instigate a win check.

That deck is broken beyond belief, and it is my firm believe that the only people who defend it either aren't advanced enough at this game to understand how broken it is, or they are not advanced enough to win without RNG farming and would rather unfair steam-roll games that they occasionally win to stick around because then they can win without having to actually practice and get better.

Druid King Vestments is always an extremly good card to buy.

If Psijic is even so much a patron, it will be a game defining and more than likely game winning card.

If Almalexia is a patron, it will have added potential.

If the above decks are not part of the game, Vestments is stil VERY good, but not as good as some of the other power cards such as the Insights or Pounce/Grand.

The card having such wild power level in some matches is the definition of imbalanced.But the designers seem to have a more casual idea regarding the importance of card balance if we judge them by their many tell-tale actions.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

If the above decks are not part of the game, Vestments is stil VERY good, but not as good as some of the other power cards such as the Insights or Pounce/Grand.

Yup. I don't know how they could change it though. The biggest issue with Vestments comes from it's combination with other decks. Perhaps make it so it only works with agents or something IDK.

That is what the unmorphed version already does.

One thing that I didn't mention that is toward what Largo is saying is that the card only costing 2 is very relevant. It often means that one can make an early writ the same turn that they buy Vestments. So that already makes plays like an early Currency Exchange or purchase of a 5 cost agent plus making of a writ in the same turn much more likely. Maybe an additional fix to the power generation, whatever it hypothetically could be, would be a cost increase to the card. That said, the unmorphed version doesn't really deserve that...

I don’t think Mora cards need nerfing.

If anything, some of the penalties might need upping…giving your opponent “1 power” isn’t a big deal, but the additional cards and gold are!

One thing of note though, the AI for the NPCs might need adjusting, as the NPCs favour the Mora cards over all other decks, so it makes it predictable and easy playing a NPC.

More decks!

JustLovely wrote: »

I tried Tales of Tribute for the first time a couple days ago. It seemed more like a phone app than something that belongs in an MMO.

And yet many MMOs have mini games, just as this one does.

Honestly, despite what others say, I still, think crow is a problem. I really think the crow deck should not have power at all. Otherwise rng really does come into play and it becomes stupidly annoying.

The decks I think are the best designed are those that, by themselves or with only a little help from anything else, are unlikely to have all the elements necessary to win a game against a player who knows what they're doing. But they add something to the play style.

Rahjin is such a deck. Almalexia arguably is such a deck (although seriously annoying also). Even Pelin would count since you can't generate much coin using Pelin alone and there aren't many wildcards with extra features like Rally, or Red Eagle, which can do great things but only in conjunction with something else.

Crow's card pulling mechanic is so extreme that it defeats the limitations of the deck in terms of coin, and the "low" power amounts per card can stack up rapidly because the pulling can go on for aeons. In many games, it forces you to play one way.

Largomets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I actually don't think Druid is that big of a deal. But, Mora definitely needs a nerf.

Regardless, I think that new content is something to look forward to. I still enjoy ToT and I look forward to more decks.

Bad players complain about crow snowballs because "hurr durr buy all the crow cards and get snowball" but that's a super easy thing for an advanced player to mitigate. You can always tell when an advanced player is playing because they pass on the crow card and prioritize deck control.

But how?

Me, an advanced player, passing on crow cards and prioritzing deck control:
My "bad" opponent, buying all the crow cards and crowing off each turn regardless of what I do: