PTS Update 34 - Feedback Thread for Tales of Tribute

redspecter23

Punches_Below_Belt wrote: »

White food is not a reward. It is a nuisance that has to be “managed” for inventory by being sold or thrown away.

This is absolutely true. Why are we being "rewarded" with inventory management? Just remove them. This is a situation where getting nothing at all in that slot is better than what you're giving us. What is being accomplished by including white quality food in the rewards besides a small amount of gold that you could just add to the gold total we receive anyway? That's an honest question that I'd love an answer to. You could argue that it adds a small amount of flavor to the rewards, but the counter argument is that it causes annoyance to provide this feature. I'd say it's not worth the tradeoff.

Kelinmiriel

Suggestion for the NPC AIs regarding their use of the Duke of Crows Patron:

PLEASE wait until the end of their turn to use it!

I've been noticing the NPCs invoking the power of the Duke of Crows Patron when they only have a couple gold to convert to power, then continuing the rest of their turn, which includes gaining more gold that they could've possibly also converted - but they can't.

This should be a fairly simple and obvious strategy to a living player.

TheImperfect

I judge on whether it's enjoyable or not, definitely found it enjoyable. Some of the other sides card animations could be sped up a little.

Sly80

redspecter23 wrote: »

Punches_Below_Belt wrote: »

White food is not a reward. It is a nuisance that has to be “managed” for inventory by being sold or thrown away.

This is absolutely true. Why are we being "rewarded" with inventory management? Just remove them. This is a situation where getting nothing at all in that slot is better than what you're giving us. What is being accomplished by including white quality food in the rewards besides a small amount of gold that you could just add to the gold total we receive anyway? That's an honest question that I'd love an answer to. You could argue that it adds a small amount of flavor to the rewards, but the counter argument is that it causes annoyance to provide this feature. I'd say it's not worth the tradeoff.

When it goes live, it might be an idea for the lower level rewards to include incentives for both new players and established players, e.g. just gold + one valuable crafting material, and rewards would increase in value for greater achievements, e.g. more gold and a rare motif that can either be used or sold.

James-Wayne

What are your thoughts in general regarding the gameplay and quest components?
I'm ok with the gameplay now that I've learnt it, its much simpler then other CCG but for a ingame mini game its fine. I think the tutorial needs work but I'm not sure what else you mean by quests, I dont think I ever saw quests outside tutorial, once I finished that I was off exploring the world to find NPCs to play with.

What is your level of experience with competitive card games?
Started playing Magic the Gathering when I was young stepping up to other CCG, been playing ES Legends since beta everyday and still playing.

Approximately how long did it take for you to grasp the concept of Tribute?
If I found the Tales of Tribute card menu faster I probably would have learnt it faster but it took me a few games past the tutorial to learn everything I needed to know.

How long, or how many games, did you end up playing?
I've played over 50 games now, ranked right up

What took the most time for you to understand?
Locating all the NPC players in the world to play against, if we had a icon on the city map would help a lot but this is a one time thing, once you know you know. Oh you mean mechanics, probably agents but once you understand them muwhahaha I beat a number of real players that didnt understand the concept because of it!

Was anything confusing or unclear while you were playing?
The icons on the cards, there isnt anything I can see that explain what the icons mean.... you can work it out but it isnt easy.

Did you mainly play against NPCs or other players?
Both but more NPC because player count in PTS is super low to none

Were you able to easily find the Roister Club and the tutorial quest?
Yes there isnt a map icon for it (there should be) but its not overly hard if your exploring the city.

What was your favorite and least favorite deck, and why?
Duke of Crows is the easiest to play by far which being a starter deck should be, I like Rajhin for the discards and dummy cards to opponent. I havent found a set I dislike per say but there is definitely a lack of different cards in each pack.

Did you feel any cards were too strong or not strong enough?
They are definitely super easy ways to beat the AI but I think that is AI issue and not about the cards. I didnt find anything but once Ive played against more real players I may change my mind

How did the Patrons feel? Did you find they fit into the game and general flow with their related decks?
I think each one has a nice theme but like I said not a lot of cards in each pack so you cant really get a strong feeling for what the theme is.

What did you think of the rewards you received?
Garbage. You asked. Look ESO has a massive reward system problem that is not new so I dont think we can fix the rewards before launch but we need to seriously think of what we can give players for their time. We have heaps of materials, furnishings, items, motifs etc so surely you can come up with a table of items to provide. We also need to stop giving players all these trinkets worth 15 gold to fill up our inventory, it started with Elsweyr dragon bags and continues here.... please limit it as they are more nuisance then anything. The random game per day that says is a purple reward is actually 3 bags of green, I was shocked to receive that and sure enough all 3 bags of green had worthless items. If we want people to play Tales of Tribute it needs worthwhile rewards. Look at random dungeon, 10 transmute plus purple item set, perfect... well not perfect but better then worthless.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I'm glad your last question was about rewards because I dont have any other feedback to provide except provide meaningful rewards.

EDIT: I see a number of people here have mentioned the reward system is quite good which tells me the RNG of getting the rewards is garbage. I didnt get any of these materials or tempers like people are saying, if we can guarantee that (maybe by removing the garbage drops) I think it might be ok.

Epona222

SantieClaws wrote: »

Just a possibly unpopular thought?

Could there be an option to skip the tutorial - for those who have done it several times in Test Tamriel or those completing it perhaps for the umpteenth time with another character?

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

This, please please this, 100x

I was just coming here to post the exact same request, I LOVE Tales of Tribute, but the thought of going through the tutorial game with every single one of my characters is making me want to hurt my computer.

redspecter23

Since the update today, I've had multiple matches against players that stall at some point when the game begins. In two separate games, I've been able to make it as far as drawing my starting hand and I then can't select any cards to play and can't even interact with the hourglass to end the turn. My timer eventually runs out (three times) and it doesn't even show me my autoloss at that point. The game board just sits there frozen until I concede or reloadui.

Has anyone else seen this bug today? I'm trying to figure out if there is a specific trigger as it doesn't happen every game.

VeiledCriticism

RNG on tavern can be very unbalanced and annoying.
A starting tavern with 5 cards with 6+ cost is very inconvenient and somewhat regular.

40 prestige points can be way too little for most games, since the game start getting interesting when one of the playing already have 25+ prestige.

xgoku1

Card playing speed in 8.0.3 is pretty fast, which makes the game feel snappy. But with the default option of Auto play cards set to ON, its probably going to be confusing for new players to see what's being played.

Although only basic cards that give gold/power are auto-played, it's still probably better UX to leave Auto-play off by default and let players understand that those cards don't "need" to be manually played.

xgoku1

IMO the rewards for Tribute games are very lackluster and a missed opportunity to provide strong incentive to play the minigame. (mostly talking about 'green' reward boxes from NPC matches, I don't have the data on 'purple' boxes from PvP)

Despite the negative reception this feature got, Tribute is actually fairly unique in the ability to play against NPCs. As it is less stressful than timed PvP it's probably going to see a lot of players "try" out the minigame. The rewards in its current state don't provide any reason for players on the fence to continue.

Ideally you want it to be something like Gwent in Witcher 3, yes it was polarizing, but for the people who found it fun there was a strong incentive to keep playing as you had a deck-building element which Tribute does not have.

I think compelling rewards are going to be an organic way to attract a much broader playerbase to the game as you'd want someone go "Ehh, I don't like card games much, but the rewards are nice, I have some free time between activities, why not play Tribute?" until they find it weirdly fun to play.

A simple way to implement this would be to change the NPC match Daily rewards as such:
1 match played: Green reward
2 matches played: Green reward + Blue reward
3 matches played: Green reward + Blue reward + Purple reward

where they currently just give 3x Green rewards.

Svenja

Are there supposed to be "season rewards" during the PTS testing? Because a ranked season just ended and there are no rewards, this is the second time this happens already. There are no rewards shown in the ranked match finder menu, either.

Punches_Below_Belt

According to the interface, rewards for competitive seasons are going to be “massive”. The only reward I’ve ever seen that qualified as “massive” was top 1% in winning PvP campaign and the nest boxes that have been annual rewards in August.

Punches_Below_Belt

When you but an agent card from the tavern, how do you know if it is going to be played immediately or go into your cooldown pile? Likewise, when an agent card’s health is reduced to zero, how do you know if it is going back into your cooldown pile or discarded from the game?

tsaescishoeshiner

Punches_Below_Belt wrote: »

When you but an agent card from the tavern, how do you know if it is going to be played immediately or go into your cooldown pile? Likewise, when an agent card’s health is reduced to zero, how do you know if it is going back into your cooldown pile or discarded from the game?

Contract Cards (they have a special border) get played immediately and NEVER go into your deck. There's a nice article about this in the Help menu, but it took me a while to figure out what was happening or which cards were contract cards.

phantasmalD

The description of Taunt is inaccurate.

It doesn't actually stop the power conversion. Rather, it forces the opponent to attack the agent at the end of their turn. This action only consumes as much power as the HP of the agent (like normal attacks).
Thus power still gets converted once the agent(s) are removed.

Based on the tooltip, the expected behaviour would be for the opponent's power to be nulled and no attacks taking place.
I recommend rewording the description of taunt.

Sly80

It would be better if, after the player plays their first real game upstairs in the gaming hall, the opponents there all stay visibly available so that the player can get in some immediate practice - maybe allow up to 5 games if there has to be a limit? On my latest alt, I found myself inadvertently playing in a tournament after a single game.

Sly80

Small point, but don't you think the celebrations at the Gaming Hall should be curtailed after a day or two?

Serenez

Question ? - When queuing for PVP on live server what happens if the queue has a massive wait time? Are there plans to mitigate this? Since one of the dailies requires you to play another player are you going to be matched with those that are a higher lvl than you simply due to the queue not being busy?

I understand PTS is a very tiny player base and the PVP queue is reflective of that. I was waiting for over an hour last week and just logged off. I played the same person twice and clearly had more experience than I, as I was right out of the Tutorial at lvl l and they had cards I had not yet unlocked.. For me I have a basic knowledge of the game as I played it before a few weeks ago, but a brand new player fresh out of a tutorial, it is a bit unbalanced. I certainly didn't mind as I was also learning as I was losing lol. but what mitigation will be in place for launch day so that a brand new fresh out of the Tutorial player doesn't get matched with a player that is several tiers ahead of them. I agree with those in a different post, that if you win against a player higher than you then the rewards should scale accordingly.

I have not directly dueled PVP with Tales of Tributes. Challenging a player directly rather than queuing? Are there rewards for this ? Could there maybe be a fail safe that if the queue is busy . that you can direct duel someone else but not get the same tier rewards but can at least complete your daily ? Maybe someone that has played around with this could provide some insight.

Mysanne

I was just coming here to post the exact same request, I LOVE Tales of Tribute, but the thought of going through the tutorial game with every single one of my characters is making me want to hurt my computer.

I so agree

Mysanne

I have a question: Do Mentor Rajhin's bewilderment cards count towards Orgnum's calculation?

In other words: If I add cards to my opponent's deck using Rajhin, does it benefit him if he uses Orgnum?

Punches_Below_Belt

If you use the neutral treasury patron on a writ of coin, do you just get another writ of coin back?

Sirona_Starr

I feel Orgnum is a bit of an overpowered set, and could use some changes. The basic strategy is just use that patron all the time, every turn. It also ruins any kind of fun in the card game. You hit Orgnum, I hit Orgnum ad infinitim.

I've played a real life player more than once who relies solely on this strategy. He's won every time so far. I also tested on an npc, and yup, you win.

Duke of Crows also seems to cause a similar issue tbh.

Sirona_Starr

Punches_Below_Belt wrote: »

If you use the neutral treasury patron on a writ of coin, do you just get another writ of coin back?

Yes. I accidentally did this today :P You just get the same writ back.

Mysanne

I feel Orgnum is a bit of an overpowered set, and could use some changes. The basic strategy is just use that patron all the time, every turn. It also ruins any kind of fun in the card game. You hit Orgnum, I hit Orgnum ad infinitim.

I've played a real life player more than once who relies solely on this strategy. He's won every time so far. I also tested on an npc, and yup, you win.

Exactly.
I did the same. But there is hope because while playing mindlessly against an NPC (to see what would happen), I managed to lose by spamming Orgnum. I think there is a strategy to play with the red deck (St Pelin? It seems to me that it has changed its name) or with Rajhin, but for that you need the answer to my question: do the cards added to the opponent's deck by Rajhin count in favor of the other player if he spams Orgnum?

The problem is also that it takes a rather long time to counter the "Orgnum spam" and that can only be done towards the end of the game, around 40 points. You have to use for example the "Banneret" or Shield Bearer", but they cost a lot...

Wouldn't it be better if the decks were randomly drawn from those we unlocked? Or if we could only choose them against NPCs but not against "real players"?

I think that a really good player is the one who knows how to adapt his strategies to all situations, not the one who only knows one way to win (a not very interesting way, moreover!)

Another solution would be to increase the cost of using the mentor Orgnum: go from 3 to 4 or 5 coins.

xgoku1

Mysanne wrote: »

I have a question: Do Mentor Rajhin's bewilderment cards count towards Orgnum's calculation?

In other words: If I add cards to my opponent's deck using Rajhin, does it benefit him if he uses Orgnum?

I think Rajhin is supposed to be the counter-play to Orgnum, as you pollute the opponent's cooldown with Bewilderment cards.

Mysanne wrote: »

I feel Orgnum is a bit of an overpowered set, and could use some changes. The basic strategy is just use that patron all the time, every turn. It also ruins any kind of fun in the card game. You hit Orgnum, I hit Orgnum ad infinitim.

I've played a real life player more than once who relies solely on this strategy. He's won every time so far. I also tested on an npc, and yup, you win.

Exactly.
I did the same. But there is hope because while playing mindlessly against an NPC (to see what would happen), I managed to lose by spamming Orgnum. I think there is a strategy to play with the red deck (St Pelin? It seems to me that it has changed its name) or with Rajhin, but for that you need the answer to my question: do the cards added to the opponent's deck by Rajhin count in favor of the other player if he spams Orgnum?

The problem is also that it takes a rather long time to counter the "Orgnum spam" and that can only be done towards the end of the game, around 40 points. You have to use for example the "Banneret" or Shield Bearer", but they cost a lot...

Wouldn't it be better if the decks were randomly drawn from those we unlocked? Or if we could only choose them against NPCs but not against "real players"?

I think that a really good player is the one who knows how to adapt his strategies to all situations, not the one who only knows one way to win (a not very interesting way, moreover!)

Another solution would be to increase the cost of using the mentor Orgnum: go from 3 to 4 or 5 coins.

I tried doing mindless Orgnum spam in week 2 of the PTS and I noticed it's viable if you get some good cards from the other decks first. If you spam from the start it's not really a guaranteed win as you leave the Tavern cards open for the opponent to buy.

From what I remember, I won consistently spamming Orgnum after hitting 15 Prestige, by which point I had gotten some good cards. Crow, Hlaalu, Pelin are good patrons for this.

That being said, I have lost to another player doing Orgnum spam, but it was way too close a competition to justify my stupid playstyle (spam Orgnum every turn from the start).

I doubt they'll change Orgnum because people have complained here since Week 1 that turning the Orgnum dial back and forth is really annoying.

Punches_Below_Belt

I kind of enjoy how Orgnum changes up the game. With that both sides are now trying to make due with only a couple maybe three cards. It is kind of the reverse of the crow cards where you see how many cards you can flip.

phantasmalD

The regional clubs should have been placed in secondary towns. For example: Stonefalls - instead of putting it in Davon's Watch it should have been placed in Ebonheart or Kragenmoor.
Capital cities already have so much going on, smaller non-capital cities could use some love and more reason to visit them outside of doing the town's story quests.

Punches_Below_Belt

I like your thinking on that. Maybe after Tribute has been established and if it finds some popularity that might be a good change in the future.

Midni

Mysanne wrote: »

I feel Orgnum is a bit of an overpowered set, and could use some changes. The basic strategy is just use that patron all the time, every turn. It also ruins any kind of fun in the card game. You hit Orgnum, I hit Orgnum ad infinitim.

I've played a real life player more than once who relies solely on this strategy. He's won every time so far. I also tested on an npc, and yup, you win.

Exactly.
I did the same. But there is hope because while playing mindlessly against an NPC (to see what would happen), I managed to lose by spamming Orgnum. I think there is a strategy to play with the red deck (St Pelin? It seems to me that it has changed its name) or with Rajhin, but for that you need the answer to my question: do the cards added to the opponent's deck by Rajhin count in favor of the other player if he spams Orgnum?

The problem is also that it takes a rather long time to counter the "Orgnum spam" and that can only be done towards the end of the game, around 40 points. You have to use for example the "Banneret" or Shield Bearer", but they cost a lot...

Wouldn't it be better if the decks were randomly drawn from those we unlocked? Or if we could only choose them against NPCs but not against "real players"?

I think that a really good player is the one who knows how to adapt his strategies to all situations, not the one who only knows one way to win (a not very interesting way, moreover!)

Another solution would be to increase the cost of using the mentor Orgnum: go from 3 to 4 or 5 coins.

The cost increase for Orgnum would be awesome! I liked Orgnum the best in the first week, and then all my initial impressions turned 180 degrees after a good number of matches. Now, whenever someone chooses Orgnum, I'm expecting to play the least interesting kind of match.

I like to use Rajhin against Orgnum for the potential cascading loss of prestige and cards, which can be spectacularly fun. I experienced that a couple of times when Rajhin was on the table, and had good laughs when it happened, whether I lost or won. Subversive Rajhin is subversive.

Setting the cost to 5 coin for Orgnum would reintroduce fun and some degree of thinking while playing with this deck, rather than just the obnoxious dial turning and clicking.

Naomi_K

Midni wrote: »

I like to use Rajhin against Orgnum for the potential cascading loss of prestige and cards, which can be spectacularly fun. I experienced that a couple of times when Rajhin was on the table, and had good laughs when it happened, whether I lost or won. Subversive Rajhin is subversive..

I don't really enjoy playing the Orgnum deck. If one player decides to use the patron every turn you are forced to as well or you will lose.

Yesterday I was playing a match against a person who chose both the Rajhin and Orgnum decks. They were trying to troll me by waiting out the full 1 and a half minute EVERY SINGLE TURN instead of letting me have my turn and spamming my deck with Rajhin cards while discarding the rest of their coins instead of buying useful cards for themselves.

So I bought as many cheap cards as I could and let them continue spamming Rajhin cards. When I had a good stack of cards, I started using the Orgnum patron. They conceded the match.