my biggest reason why i dont really participate in ranked pvp tribute (though i do want to reach the rubedite rank once for the achievements) is mainly the pts loss when you lose a match

i dont care about losing the match itself so much as i do actively losing progress, i would rather go in play to get to rubedite and then just be done with it, and its pretty hard to do that especially with losing pts on losses

that would also solve high rank players problems who gain few to no points on a win but suffer 100-150 pt losses

they could keep the scaled down win pts as your nearing the top of the leaderboard which would still make it competitive for those who want it to be competitive, and they could at least still play instead of risking the chance of a massive pt loss if they lost a game

thats really my overall biggest pain point with avoiding ranked tribute matches, as of right now i basically dont play tribute at all vs players except occasional for fun matches with friends

Very nice summary, I'd actually take those changes just as they are.

- Concede option

The funny thing about that idea is that game designers do their hardest work that they can to make games like these short in match time. So one would think 2 things based on their game length obsession.

1.) That they wouldn't punish conceding because the game goes by more quickly when a concession has happened.

2.) That they wouldn't punish conceding before 10 minutes has been reached because players may feel like a game is lost within a short amount of time as a direct result of design choices and game length policy.

- Veto

It's unfortunate that ToT design fell for the meme of making something for everyone and thus made at least one thing that everyone hates.

- Coin

Obviously, any resource flexibility improvement for 2nd player will help diminish the power of 1st versus 2nd player. And that should probably be done. But it needs to compliment other changes to the game.

1.) The 1st/2nd player RNG system needs to be made more fair as it is clearly "picking it's winners" as one player aptly put things. Just today, I acknowledged to a player that I have a whopping 90% win rate against the unfair nature of the game because, out of 24 games, they have only gone first 8 times. It's common for my player data, when it does show a skew in 1st/2nd player between myself and another player, for there to be this 2/3 to 1/3 ration of 1st to second.

2.) If we hypothetically dissect all of the parts that make up 1st player advantage, then we would probably find that 1st player advantage often revolves around them being the player who buys the first cracked card. That is to say that 1st versus 2nd player discrepancy are due to balance issues and, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a designer interest in balancing cracked game pieces that maybe should even be called "win buttons."

- High combo turns

When players are struggling during these types of turns against the timer, it's usually because they are making decisions slowly. The game shouldn't reward players that lack the skill to win a game that they are obviously crushing.

A time extension mechanic could also give an unfair advantage to a player who uses the extension versus the player who doesn't need it. It could increase the opportunities for trolling. The mechanic costing some in game resource breaks the spirit of fair play.

What could maybe be done is an increase in animation speed as it is quite possible to be artificially limited by the animations alone. The Elder Scrolls Legends developers learned this lesson early on, so it's interesting that development from another in franchise card game didn't educate design in ESO and cause them to apply the lesson to ToT.

- Rajhin

Any change that makes there be less needless bewilderment spamming is probably for the best. Not only is the issue one of the most complained about issues, but it is also a noob trap. Designers make changes to their games all of the time as to make the game more noob friendly and accessible. Having this trap, especially because of how it impacts a game, is something that seems antithetical to design standard design principles.

I did write any change though and while the cost of the patron is part of why it is abused, it's also just the best play in a number of cases that someone get's a cracked card and the tavern is lame. That is to say that the consequences of bad game balance rears it's ugly head again. I've lost against even a single Midnight Raid followed by the use of Rajhin every single turn, so clearly the play patterns that it enables are skill diminishing and toxic.

- Alessia

Making the turn back cheaper is a good idea and would relieve some cheesy play. I'm not so sure that it would do enough to make Alessia not be the most hated deck though. The heart of the issue though is the imbalance caused by one player starting with 1 or 2 agents. There are too many games with a lame tavern where such start is just a random blow out. On top of this all, the real 1st / 2nd player counterplay to Alessia is in and of itself restrictive and lame.

Any game piece that makes poor players, who normally concede any game that they don't get a good 1st card, not only having a fighting chance, but dominate a game stemming from the use of that single game piece alone are axiomatically poorly designed. Changing the cost of the flip back, okay it's something, but it isn't likely to change most games or the overall experience.

- Mora

As few games as possible should begin with wacky cards being in players decks by their 3rd turn. The 1st Mora flip is fine as is. The rebalance idea is certainly in line with the theme of Mora, but only because the theme of Mora is poor by being based around mindless chance. It just so happens that the RNG system of the game lends itself toward card repeats so taking a random Lantern/Pact isn't punished nowhere near as often as it should be and the move instead becomes quite rewarding.

But the way that the game works under the hood is really here nor there. Ultimately there should be less wacky games, not more. So that means less games that start with both players having a random copy of cards such as Marketplace, Knight Commander, Hagraven, or Ansei's Victory for no reason of skill and planning, but just because the designers decided to make this awful patron ability one day.

Lastly, in case those ideas aren't engaging, there is also incredible imbalance introduced in some instances of a player being able to add a card to their deck, before the shuffle, but after the opponent has just shuffled their deck. So someone can then leverage that power card more quickly into two power cards and go exponential while their opponent has at least a couple of turns of normal play. This type of game really isn't that interesting or fun. It is merely abusing a poorly designed game piece to win. Don't enough games that have been invented have that type of game piece already? There is no reason to make such issue more prominent.

- Whispcaller Totem

Eldertide Fenwitch is extremly powerful. The difference in the power level of the generated card between it and Ritecaller is sort of a red herring. Both Fenwitch and Ritecaller are early game must buys that do a lot to determine the pace of the game.

Regarding the morph system in general, it's a bad system. Having morphs, in the first place, only creates branched game possibilites, for no reason but chance, where players may win or lose based around the power level of the morphed versus unmorphed card. The morph system was also implemented in an awful way as it doesn't allow options for savvy players to include only the unmorphed cards into their deck. Druid games without Vestments or Envoy of the Draoife are just fundamentally different compared to games with them. If morphs are to exist, then players should be better able to determine the kind of experience they want via some form of morph deck building. This type of system could even add a skill component to the game. Instead, nobody (including myself), really thinks about morphs at times and nor can the full consequences of morphing ever be truly known because ToT is a changing game (well up to 2 years ago). So it's sort of shameful for players to be shoehorned into choices that impact their play experience, including competitive experience, forever. Additionally, the alternative option of not morphing cards by not finding clues means not being able to progress achievements. How sad of a design.

- Overall

Yes, any little change can help ToT, but there has been a bunch of stuff that players have complained about a whole lot with zero impact. When players say that design isn't listening, ToT seems to be a good example where the ivory tower has been constructed and all changes are based on common designer go-tos such as the psychology classes they took in college rather than what players cared enough about to explicitly state their preferences as part of a 10 page thread.

Of course I can't diminish the value of any good change. I just think that there is zero chance of the good changes happening. That's a big reason that I will no longer write balance threads. One can only show how turn 1 pounce into turn 3/4 Marketplace or whatever is bad design and a bad play experience so much before realizing that the people who may or may not be listening have done what they have done in a deliberate way and have no plans to change course regardless of the objective truth.