Do you on some days have the feeling that RNG is deliberately working against you?

Seraphayel · May 29

Title.

I‘m furious right now and I basically cannot describe how I feel, because playing ToT today enraged me to the max. I think I’ve played about 20 matches, I lost 15 of them. I think I had like 4 or 5 consecutive losses, not because I was playing bad (at first, maybe later on when my rage took over), but because the RNG just completely stopped me from either getting any valuable card from the tavern or did clearly act in favor of the opponent.

These situations all happened to me today and left me totally bewildered:

Situation 1: I’m having four (!) agents out, two tanks and two regulars (from the tavern). The opponent had a completely new draw pile consisting of around 20 cards. You know which card he got? The one Rahjin card to kill 2 agents at once. I thought okay, this is really some bad luck, what can one do. Two or three rounds later, the exact same scenario. I put up another tank and an agent. Opponent gets his hand out of ~ 18 cards. You know which card is there again?

Situation 2: round three, opponent already bought 4 good cards. I bought one. Nothing in the tavern. After that point opponent is either stacking agents or making 7-8 coin per round while I’m stuck with 5 at most. This game was over before it began.

Situation 3: opponent gets two contracts for additional patron uses on top of the one he got from the get go. You know the only winning condition for them because they had no power cards? Right, patron.

Today just feels completely surreal. Like I did not have one opponent, I had two. The RNG deliberately sabotaging me, mostly due to terrible hands (while opponent gets great hands) or a tavern that just shows me the middle finger and laughs at me. I know RNG is RNG, but this just felt too much at once and too deliberate to be completely random.

Yesterday I was rank #8, then I dropped to #25 with a loss. When I started today I was still rank #25. You wanna know where I am now? #172

I‘m just sitting here in disbelief. I‘m aware that you‘re playing worse if you‘re angry, but I simply couldn’t stop because it enraged me so much. I‘m sure y’all now these situations that feel like a ZOS employee handpicks the tavern cards or the opponent‘s hand each round to make sure you’re definitely going to lose.

How are you coping with situations like these? Just quit the game?

spartaxoxo · May 29

I can't say I have had a loss streak like that. But that's because I stop playing if I start losing too many in a row. For one, I do think that sometimes it's just not your day for RNG. For the other, even it were, once you're tilted you're not going to see it. I realized that when I started hitting the share button to analyze my own play after games where I played annoyed, and quickly realized I was making some mistakes I shouldn't have and wouldn't have if I had played calmly.

Now I just exit if I let TOT impact my mood. I'm not winning in that mindset.

El_Borracho · May 29

Your first 2 situations describe almost every blowout loss I have had in this game. Not every loss, but blowouts, where you can tell early on its just not going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it.

That RNG shuffle is infuriating, especially when you are getting trash on your shuffle and then you opponent seems to manage to play the same card 2-3 times in a row or immediately after picking it up. Don't get me wrong, I can tell when I am the beneficiary of it. Like when an opponent Rajhin spams me, but I get a Celarus in my shuffle to avoid it. Or when my Rajhin agent killers pop up the very next turn after they think they got lucky with one or more contract agents. But I would rather not experience it at all.

Situation 2 could arguably be likened to a cold streak in blackjack or poker for a few hands. But I suspect the streak you were on was the type where you reluctantly take a card out of frustration, only to see something great take its place that you are incapable of getting. And it happens again and again and again.

Seraphayel · May 29

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I can't say I have had a loss streak like that. But that's because I stop playing if I start losing too many in a row. For one, I do think that sometimes it's just not your day for RNG. For the other, even it were, once you're tilted you're not going to see it. I realized that when I started hitting the share button to analyze my own play after games where I played annoyed, and quickly realized I was making some mistakes I shouldn't have and wouldn't have if I had played calmly.

Now I just exit if I let TOT impact my mood. I'm not winning in that mindset.

I know that‘s the best advice, but I’m feeling like one those gamblers in Vegas that keep on losing and that are telling themselves just one more game and I’ll win.

But again, some of these matches just felt completely unreal, like they were scripted against me. No matter what I did, the opponent could counter it either due to his lucky hand or a lucky tavern.

spartaxoxo · May 29

Seraphayel wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I can't say I have had a loss streak like that. But that's because I stop playing if I start losing too many in a row. For one, I do think that sometimes it's just not your day for RNG. For the other, even it were, once you're tilted you're not going to see it. I realized that when I started hitting the share button to analyze my own play after games where I played annoyed, and quickly realized I was making some mistakes I shouldn't have and wouldn't have if I had played calmly.

Now I just exit if I let TOT impact my mood. I'm not winning in that mindset.

I know that‘s the best advice, but I’m feeling like one those gamblers in Vegas that keep on losing and that are telling themselves just one more game and I’ll win.

But again, some of these matches just felt completely unreal, like they were scripted against me. No matter what I did, the opponent could counter it either due to his lucky hand or a lucky tavern.

That happens in all card games. It's just the luck of the draw sometimes. To quote a great song....

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away and know when to run

NoSoup · May 29

Yeah I've pretty much thrown in the towel with ToT, going to stop playing for a while. I've come to terms with the RNG but the super frustrating part is still the scoring. Two nights ago I won 4 matches that gave me a combined increase of about 60 points then lost one match that wiped 150 from my score. This is nothing new and extremely annoying, but the tipping point was looking at the leaderboard afterwards and seeing that player move up to around half way on the leaderboard when I wasn't even in the top 100. I know losing 150 points is common when you are beaten by a player ranked below you but to lose max points when losing to a player clearly ranked above you is just plain stupid.

DragonRacer · May 30

100% and sometimes it feels personal.

I had a match yesterday where I was leading 35 to 2 and then the Tavern awarded my opponent with 2 of the contract "turn 2 patrons" cards in a row and the ability to use both of them. In literally one hand, by pure "chance", in a game where I was gonna conceivably end it next hand, the game gave a ranked win to my opponent with absolutely nothing I could do except sit there, dumbfounded, watching it happen. All the "smart" cards bought and the strategy/gameplay employed prior to that moment in time didn't matter one single lick. Just a big giant middle finger to me.

Things like that and what you describe are absolutely factors that drive me away from ToT and it's infuriating because I otherwise enjoy the game. But games like that? Not enjoyable at all. If I get railed by the RNG system two games in a row, I stop playing ToT and go do something else. Because I've had enough experience that when the game decides it hates you today, it is not going to stop hating you. You're just gonna get bent over and screwed repeatedly until you finally give up.

So I simply give up before the game can drive me to the point of affecting my real life mood for the rest of the day because that is not healthy.

DragonRacer · May 30

Equally as enraging is to finally have a good match going where you are leading, after having a bad streak the day prior, and during the course of playing the game decides to disconnect you back to the main title screen. This happens at least 2-3 times a month and ALWAYS when I am having a good match - never when it's a misery loss game that I am simply riding out to a loser "reward" box - and it's NOT an issue with my Internet. That kinda thing honestly makes me wanna put a controller through the screen.

Personofsecrets · May 31

The go first / go second algorhythm is obviously broken.

Seraphayel · July 17

Today‘s just one of these days again. Out of 18 matches I’ve lost 14. Most of them going second and most of them against the same 3-4 opponents on top of that, it’s beyond absurd.

I know, you should just stop when this happens, but the game feels so rigged against you that you basically can’t stop. Some of the situations where I just sat there with an open mouth were ridiculous when it wouldn’t have felt like the RNG is deliberately playing against me.

From #6 to #154 by the way.