PTS Update 38 - Feedback Thread for Almalexia Patron Deck

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for the new Tales of Tribute Patron Deck, Almalexia. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you find this new deck fun?
• Were you able to understand what the new Patron power did?
• Were the effects of the cards in this deck easily understood?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

kyatos_binarini

1. yes, the mechanic "discard cards from hand and draw same amount of cards" looks fun, familiar, but still new.
2. yes
3. yes
4. "Call additional patron" on agents with 5 health looks overpowered since it can provide easy win through patron's favor. I think it would be better to place this effect on action cards, contract agents or at least agent's health should be lowered to 1-2

BlueRaven

My feedback:

Please remove patron card lead from the Bastion Nymic quest.
Basically with that placed there you are saying casuals are excluded from using that deck.

Zilian92

New patron has very interesting mechanic it definitely one of the most interesting patrons. Thank you very much that you continue to develop Tales of Tribute, for me this card game has become one of the favorite things in TESO, can play it all day.
But please implement patron ban feature, at least for ranked games, for example, so that each player can ban one patron, as the number of patrons increases it becomes more relevant, most top players usually use the same patron combinations, so ban feature will add competitive counterplay element. With it we will see more unusual combinations of patrons in top level ranked games.

Sotha_Sil

kyatos_binarini wrote: »

1. yes, the mechanic "discard cards from hand and draw same amount of cards" looks fun, familiar, but still new.
2. yes
3. yes
4. "Call additional patron" on agents with 5 health looks overpowered since it can provide easy win through patron's favor. I think it would be better to place this effect on action cards, contract agents or at least agent's health should be lowered to 1-2

I disagree with you on the point 4. The card costs 8 gold, which is a lot and it has no other effect. There is a card that does that in the Hlaalu deck and it brings 5 gold when you play it.

Zilian92 wrote: »

New patron has very interesting mechanic it definitely one of the most interesting patrons. Thank you very much that you continue to develop Tales of Tribute, for me this card game has become one of the favorite things in TESO, can play it all day.
But please implement patron ban feature, at least for ranked games, for example, so that each player can ban one patron, as the number of patrons increases it becomes more relevant, most top players usually use the same patron combinations, so ban feature will add competitive counterplay element. With it we will see more unusual combinations of patrons in top level ranked games.

That's a good point, I am sick of crow haha.

Overall, the new cards look interesting and bring fun mechanics, although I couldn't really test them on the PTS because it's hard to find someone willing to try it.

Catagami

Zilian92 wrote: »

New patron has very interesting mechanic it definitely one of the most interesting patrons. Thank you very much that you continue to develop Tales of Tribute, for me this card game has become one of the favorite things in TESO, can play it all day.
But please implement patron ban feature, at least for ranked games, for example, so that each player can ban one patron, as the number of patrons increases it becomes more relevant, most top players usually use the same patron combinations, so ban feature will add competitive counterplay element. With it we will see more unusual combinations of patrons in top level ranked games.

I've seen the patron ban requested a few times before, and agree it could be interesting, but how do you see it actually implemented?
It is possible for people to have access to only 4 patrons, if one of those gets banned you might end up without a possible fourth pick.
If you only do the banning when both players have at least 6 patrons, it might lead to players not unlocking new patrons on purpose to avoid having their favorites banned.
I just don't see a great way to actually make this work.

Zilian92

Catagami wrote: »

I've seen the patron ban requested a few times before, and agree it could be interesting, but how do you see it actually implemented?
It is possible for people to have access to only 4 patrons, if one of those gets banned you might end up without a possible fourth pick.
If you only do the banning when both players have at least 6 patrons, it might lead to players not unlocking new patrons on purpose to avoid having their favorites banned.
I just don't see a great way to actually make this work.

Simple solution: ban feature only for ranked games and allow ranked games only for people with at least 6 patrons.

Midni

1. Yup, totally! The "donate" mechanic is refreshing and calls for further and new types of strategic thinking. It's also nice to see a bit more gender diversity in the patron decks and Almalexia has an interesting identity represented through the cards. I'm inspired to revisit existing questlines to see how the deck matches stories with or about her.
2. Yes.
3. Yes. Just like the other decks, the best way to learn it is by playing and experimenting, and after a couple of matches with NPCs, Patron power and card effects become quickly clear.
4. Nope. Thanks for designing interesting mechanics and looking forward to seeing the dynamics the deck brings once is live.

Kovuash

1. Yes, I've spent most of my time playing this evil laughing... and possibly bullying poor Ervinas a little too much.
2. Yes
3. Yes for Confine and Donate. Hand Refresh was slightly confusing at first as its symbol currently matches Deck Refresh's symbol — I was wondering for a good five games why Almalexia had a worse Ansei card.
4. Almalexia is very fun to play and encourages a lot more thinking in the order of playing cards rather than just 'spam all five and go'. We've already seen bits of this in Druid (Vestments before Psijic mill cards, Draoife before playing other agents, etc), but Almalexia takes the thought process even further and I appreciate that a lot as a combo addict.

In terms of patron interactions, however:

a. Crow and Almalexia is lethal — As it is, even with Pilfer and Plunder nerfed, I can very confidently bet that this combination will plague ranked ToT, worse than Crow on its own currently in live. Draw into Donate into Draw into Donate into Draw... I think you can infer the rest.

b. Rajhin is definitely Almalexia's best counter (Bewilderment cannot be interacted with by Donate, and Knockout counters Confine Almalexia), but left alone with Crow and Almalexia will become a plague.

c. Druid's problem with finding other Druid cards without draw is now covered by Almalexia without Almalexia crippling her own combos like Crow currently does when paired with equally combo-heavy Druid. Good boost to playability and a fun gold-generating strategy.

d. Ansei and Hlaalu are given a few interesting combos (Ansei Deck Refresh into Donate, Hlaalu patron rush with Currency Exchange and the Almalexia taunts), but not enough in my opinion to knock Crow and Rajhin off the meta. Might help these two decks feature a little more in ranked, though!

e. Pelin has a net neutral interaction with Almalexia — Confine is a long, LONG awaited management system for the early Armory and Rally, but Pelin's sheer power-per-card overwhelms Confine agents, while taunts will help immensely with protecting the same Confine agents.

f. Orgnum seems to be tamped down a little by Confine Almalexia, but I need to test it against a full Orgnum patron rush in PvP before I can comment more on this.

g. Psijic theoretically allows for dodging Confine by forcing deck reshuffles, but in practice has practically no synergy or counter.

h. Reach now has an alternative in Almalexia, but otherwise does not interact much with the latter. Foreseeing Reach being replaced by Almalexia higher up the leaderboard.

TLDR: Crow and Rajhin are now even worse problems than before but very fun to navigate combos. Druid, Ansei, Hlaalu, Pelin get additional interactions and are fun alternative games with Almalexia. Reach potentially to be replaced by Almalexia in high-level play. Orgnum gets indirect nerf from Confine. Psijic completely unaffected.