Have you lost to an NPC?

spartaxoxo

I'm just curious.

Jaimeh

Yes, a few times, some because I wasn't paying attention, or building up a strategy that paid off too late, and most memorably, the first time the NPC chose the Orgnum deck, which I wasn't familiar with. I learned the hard way to be careful about it next time

Nestor

Only with Expert NPCs. And I get them the next match.

Other players, I am currently 0 and 5.

I stopped playing ToT

spartaxoxo

Jaimeh wrote: »

Yes, a few times, some because I wasn't paying attention, or building up a strategy that paid off too late, and most memorably, the first time the NPC chose the Orgnum deck, which I wasn't familiar with. I learned the hard way to be careful about it next time

The NPC with Orgnum deck is closest I've gotten to lose. Not gonna lie, last time I faced it I got lucky in the tavern at my last chance. Beat it by like 1 point lol. Too close. It's gonna get me eventually 😜

FrancisCrawford

Jaimeh wrote: »

Yes, a few times, some because I wasn't paying attention, or building up a strategy that paid off too late, and most memorably, the first time the NPC chose the Orgnum deck, which I wasn't familiar with. I learned the hard way to be careful about it next time

Similarly for me, plus the times I lose by forfeit due to being disconnected.

Sometimes I try strategies that I suspect are bad, just to see if they'll actually work out. Usually I save those games when they go wrong, but not always.

SilverBride

When I was new to the game. I don't play NPCs any more but will when the new deck is live to practice using it.

ESO_Nightingale

sometimes you just can't buy anything good because they buy anything good when the board is bad. sometimes they pick orgnum and snowball too fast. those are generally the only things that will cause me to occasionally lose.

Necrotech_Master

generally i have about a 90% win rate against npcs, sometimes the tavern is not favorable to me with what is available, or i grab a good card, only to have it replaced with another equal or higher value good card that the npc grabs the next turn

spartaxoxo

I got, got 🤣 I knew it would be to Orgnum hahaha

newtinmpls

Of course. I had no clue in the beginning, losing was how I learned.

NeKryXe

Probably everybody lost to a NPC during the first days learning the game. But now it's almost impossible to loss a match to a NPC unless we get distracted.

kevkj

I lost trying to beat Orgnum spam without touching it myself.

ocdcoder

I lost a bunch of times as I was experimenting with various ways to beat Orgnum spam. (Crows + Red Eagle usually works really well, although it's much more satisfying to completely destroy them with Rajhin. Last Orgnum game, I ended up winning something like 48 - 2 )

SeaGtGruff

I would guess that I win more than 80% of my PvE matches-- perhaps more than 95% of them-- but every once in a while I get soundly thrashed by whatever NPC I'm up against.

Sheezabeast

I had a Proficient NPC get over 100 points the other day, bad luck game all around.

SeaGtGruff

I can't say for sure, but it seems like the various Expert-level NPCs have different personalities and AI as far as their typical strategies. In particular, there are two or three who sesm to be particularly skilled, daring, and-- dare I say it-- vicious in their strategies. Sometimes I'll lose two matches in a row to them before I finally win and can move to the next zone for the next match in the daily.

Other Expert NPCs seem to be almost inept in their decision-making skills, and it's usually an easy matter to win against them regardless of how much of an advantage they seem to have in terms of the cards they're abke to buy, because it's almost like they're programmed to squandor their numerous opportunities to win the match.


It would be interesting to have everyone post which particular Expert NPCs they are losing to, to see whether there are any observable patterns.

El_Borracho

There are occasions when the NPC will just have the most unreal RNG and get the right cards, at the right time, all the time, while you get drowned in high priced nonsense and endless bucket cards. Then there are other times when the NPC sure seems to be able to play the same card every single round, like Siege Weapon, Armory, or Midnight Raid, even without the Celarus and Ansei decks. And it always makes its way to the top of the deck. So weird. But I digress...

@SeaGtGruff I don't know if its a particular NPC, I'll have to start paying attention to it more. I typically will run into trouble with the expert NPC in Blackwood when I am doing the daily. She put a beating on me yesterday with a 20 point turn with the Orgnum deck that I still can't figure out how.

ocdcoder

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

It would be interesting to have everyone post which particular Expert NPCs they are losing to, to see whether there are any observable patterns.

I've been wondering about this. I haven't extensively played against all of the expert NPCs, but I tend to find Bumphalarg in Greenshade really challenging... Not counting games when I'm distracted or the decks just hate me, she's pretty much the only one who still occasionally beats me, Sorcerer-King or not. She's the one I go to when I want to test out new strategies. If I can consistently beat her, I can usually beat any of them.

Heartrage

I’d say over 90% of my losses with npc are orgnum games. The rest is inattention or lack of focus combined with bad odds.

beenbadder

I've never won any after the tutorial

Muizer

Heartrage wrote: »

I’d say over 90% of my losses with npc are orgnum games. The rest is inattention or lack of focus combined with bad odds.

Yeah I've been leveling rank and trying out different strategies, but against the "expert" NPC I have not found a counter (where the NPC uses it and I try something else) against Orgnum's deck.

I hear it's even worse in PvP. If so, I hope ZoS will rebalance the deck, because that could destroy the game pretty much.

It's got some rather obvious positive feedback effects for the player using it that force the opponent to counter it head-on. The higher rewards for "favoured" vs "neutral" and the extra cards gained.

Compare that to the Crow's deck where you can get no reward at all once it favours you.

SeaGtGruff

I win against Orgnum a lot in Expert NPC matches. Sure, if the NPC has much better luck in which cards are available for them to buy from the tavern then it's difficult to win. But if you're able to buy some good cards, and are willing to stop mindlessly spamming Orgnum yourself just to try to counter the NPC, you can use your turns to build up your deck and call on the other patrons to your benefit. You can still go back to counterspamming Orgnum for a few turns if that's the best option available to you during those turns, but in many cases it can be better to stop counterspamming Orgnum so you can use your move to do something else.

Mysanne

kevkj wrote: »

I lost trying to beat Orgnum spam without touching it myself.

Yes, that's the main reason why I lose against NPC. And when I try to get a score like that, but failed.

ocdcoder

Muizer wrote: »

Yeah I've been leveling rank and trying out different strategies, but against the "expert" NPC I have not found a counter (where the NPC uses it and I try something else) against Orgnum's deck.

I hear it's even worse in PvP.

Sorry, this got long.

I can beat NPCs fairly consistently with Duke of Crows and either Saint Pelin or Hunding, unless I'm exceptionally unlucky or just not paying attention. The NPCs will generally make such stupid moves that it's pretty easy to build up a nice collection of crows, especially early on, when they tend to go to the treasury first no matter what cards are out. Crows, plus one or two good Pelin/Hunding cards, is usually enough for a win. If I'm feeling really grumpy about Orgnum, I'll go with Rajhin. That's a bit harder, as it can take a while to build up an effective deck, but ending the game with scores like 75-0 is so satisfying. (I hated Rajhin as much as Orgnum when I first started, but I've grown rather fond of it as I've gotten used to it. Brings back memories of playing the blue "permission decks" in MTG back in the day.)

As for other decks, that depends on what they choose as their second deck. Psiijic Loremaster and Hlaalu are really useful for helping to make sure I draw the cards I need, as is Red Eagle, since it allows getting rid of extra cards. Really, it just depends on my mood.

I generally ignore the Orgnum patron early on unless I have no better options. It can be somewhat useful to hit it early, as they'll often ignore the tavern until they can get it back to neutral, but I usually find it a better strategy to just focus on my own deck. Later in the game, I'll hit it if they start getting too much power from it, but even then, I prefer to just collect a bunch of agent cards with "taunt." 2-3 of those will usually counter most/all of any power they get from Orgnum, even in late-game.

Other than all of that, I'd say the best strategy is just to practice. The more I've played against NPCs, the more I've gotten a feel for what strategies work the best in different circumstances for my play-style. I've spent entire evenings playing the same NPC over and over, not just against Orgnum, but against other decks as well. Sometimes I'll give myself challenges like limiting myself to only using cards from 1-2 decks so I'm forced to use cards I wouldn't normally pick, or seeing how many points I can get in my final turn. (My record, at least since I've been tracking, is 77 (final score: 108-20)).

Beating Orgnum against another player is much harder, since players who pick it are likely to be MUCH better than NPCs at strategy. Paying close attention and having some idea how to counter various strategies obviously can help, but more often than not, I find that it just comes down to luck.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

kaushad

When I played recently, during the ESO+ trial, I didn't lose, but came really close sometimes. And I only won those games because I knew how to use the Duke of Crows and Hlaalu patrons and the NPCs apparently didn't. For all I know, that might be a novice NPC feature.