Tales of Tribute - game is TERRIBLE for new players. What is even going on?

Dahveed

Title.

I've since played a lot in the past couple weeks and I have updated my thoughts, along with some suggestions.

This is my original rant:

I'm very slowly trying to figure this game out without having to just google everything. I'm playing the novice NPCs for the daily and I'm on my third game.

Why is there no history which explains what just actually happens? I had my agent out - Bangkorai Sentries, which supposedly prevents my opponent from converting power to prestige, right?

I place him on the board, my opponent takes his turn, and flip flip flip a bunch of... stuff? happens and my sentry disappears for seemingly no reason and my opponent's 4 power converts to prestige. I didn't even see anything happen. There is nothing in his play that I saw, he has no discard pile I can look at, and the 2 "played effects" on the left of my screen say something like "draw cards" or "gain power".

NOTHING on my screen gives me ANY indication that something bad happened to me, or that my opponent made a play and knocked out my sentry. I'm paying very, very close attention to everything that happens and doing my best to slow the game down to a crawl, so that I can learn step by step. But I rarely have any idea what my opponent is even doing, or why my cards are just vanishing from the screen with no explanation.

There needs to be some kind of history I can click on which recaps my opponent's turns, especially on novice when I can't even figure out what's going on.

And here is my updated opinion:

This game is actually really fun and well made. With the quests and dailies it feels rewarding and it is generally well integrated into the base game; it feels like a new game that is "all the rage" in Tamriel, and not just shoehorned in (aka like Gwent, as much as I love the Witcher 3).

Even when I lose I feel like I got a decent consolation prize, and if you just want the daily and are having a run of bad luck, you don't have to suffer through 3 wins, you can just get 1 and then case out.

However my original salty rant is still valid IMO. Yes it was ranty and somewhat hostile because I was very frustrated, but my point still stands.

Here are my main suggestions:

1 - Make the tutorial game by Braghas infinitely repeatable.

Unless I missed it, you only get one crack at the little tutorial game. To be perfectly honest I don't really even remember any of it. In retrospect I should have just abandoned the entire quest and started over again so I could once again see what's up. Either give me an option to repeat that quest, or perhaps even add a "stage 2" tutorial where they show you a variation of strategy and a deeper delve into what cards do, etc.

2 - Make a new, separate "new player" tier which allows brand new players only.

Different conditions could be set, i.e. less than 50 games played, only the 2 starter decks allowed, etc. That way I'm matched against someone who is as clueless as I am. If this isn't possible, at the very least try to match me against players with starter decks, because there are just too many new unknown cards shoved into my face too soon. I haven't even figured out the base cards of the base decks yet (to say nothing of getting used to the game mechanics in general), but now I am constantly spammed brand new, powerful cards and combos against which I am utterly clueless.

3 - Rename and/or repurpose the "casual" room.

I dunno what you would call it. But in every online video game I've ever personally played in my life, "casual" means laid back, stress free, usually easy, sometimes beginner. For example when we talk about overland questing in ESO, everyone will agree that it is a "casual" experience - meaning braindead easy and stress free.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

I'm done posting and I'm done with this insanely frustrating game until they incorporate an actual "casual" room for beginners.

Competitive matches you by skill level-ish. Casual isn't for beginners, it's an unranked mode for everyone of all skill types of be mixed together.

Once you do your comp placements, you'll be given a ranking. And the only other people in that rank will be top level players that haven't bothered to rank up yet (they give bonus points to these to quickly kick them out) and other people of your same skill level.

This should be made more clear: When I selected "casual" play, I did so because "ranked" seem serious and scary to me as a brand new player. I didn't want to play any competitive/ranked matches until I got my bearings and became more comfortable with the cards.

However once I took @spartaxoxo 's advice and went straight to "competitive", after having lost about 20 matches in "casual" by vastly superior and more experienced players, I just sailed through winning about 8 in a row to start. (Indeed the match making system thought I was some kind of ToT legend and ranked me up about 4 tiers instantly.) Now in the "ranked" room I am playing consistently even, back-and-forth games which are almost always competitive.

4 - Remove the penalty for conceding a match in casual, and/or remove the penalty for conceding a match for new players.

Or perhaps give one free concession per day... or something. When I was starting out I often felt stuck in hopeless games that I was obviously going to lose, learn basically nothing (or very little) from having to suffer through it. All the new cards I didn't understand and all the "flip flip flip" of my opponents was just too much information, and I know I'm going to lose anyways, and I know I'm wasting my time.

5 - Add some kind of optional "play history" screen (kind of like Death Recap) which I can click to slow the game down.

New players should be able to recap each turn to see how and why they are getting wrecked. Others here have pointed out that you can *sort of* do this already with the played cards pile, but that is more difficult for newbies, and still doesn't neatly explain what happened. Just a plain text, scrollable, line-by-line "Dahveed did x, then "Dahveed did y" explaining what happened would be immensely valuable for people trying to learn.


That's all I have for now, I'm sure there are things I've forgotten. Maybe others have better suggestions.

But the new player experience is still awful. I'm sorry if I came across as salty or aggressive before, but I was REALLY mad after getting pummelled into guar paste for so long. That's never happened to me in a card game before, and I was salty!

Dahveed

This is a screenshot of my game, right after my sentry *poofed* out of existence with no explanation whatsoever:

EDIT - As I pointed out in suggestion #5, a button I could press to see what happened during this turn, and why my sentry died, would have been of great help.

ESO_player123

Bangkorai Sentries has Taunt in its description (it has to be attacked first). So, if your opponent had any power at the end of their turn it will be used first to attack it. If they have enough, it will be removed. The rest of the power, if any, will be converted to prestige. If there was not enough power to remove, Bangkorai Sentries' health will be reduced accordingly.

Example: Bangkorai Sentries was at full health (4), and the opponent had 9 power. Then, 4 of that will be used to kill the Bangkorai Sentries, and 5 will be converted to prestige (assuming there we no other agents with Taunt).

Edit: my explanation is relevant if the agent was removed as the final action of the opponent's turn. If it was removed in the middle of the flip flip flip, then the opponent most likely used an action that removes an agent (as described in two detailed posts below).

HatchetHaro

Well, it's hard to say without a video, but either they got a good combo off and gained enough power to kill your agent, pulled a Black Sacrament card from the shop, or flipped the Celarus patron.

The best way to know what's going on on their turn is to watch exactly the cards they play and actions they take. Keep track of their deck - draw pile, played hand, and cooldown pile.

Lastly, I agree, Tales of Tribute has a terrible new-player experience. Everyone I've met who has tried Tales of Tribute has mostly complained about how they keep losing without understanding what they did wrong, since the pivotal choices they make don't take visible effect until it's too late and they've already lost. Unfortunately, right now, there are not many of ways to "get good" other than playing the game yourself and learning the cards.

Pink Apple has a bunch of videos on Tales of Tribute, and while they may be a little bit outdated, the concepts he showcase are still very useful.

Taril

Yes, ToT would benefit a lot from having some form of turn recap to allow players to look over the actions that were taken.

As far as the Agent "Poofing", there are 3 main ways to remove an Agent:

1) Using Power. If you have enough power to take an Agent to 0 life, it dies. Agents with Taunt MUST have power used on them at the end of a turn (While Novice NPC's will always use power against your active Agents with exception of the Psijic Apprentice which they completely ignore).

2) Cards that remove agents. Some decks feature cards with this ability. But there are general cards like Black Sacrament and Ambush that will appear in the shop of any game that can remove an Agent (Or 2 for Ambush). These cards must also target Agents with Taunt first.

3) The Psijic Patron ability allows you to pay 4 gold to remove an Agent. Again, Taunt Agents must be targeted first.

Given your statement about the 4 power not being used on your Agent and instead converting into Prestige, the decks that are in play and the screenshot showing that the Psijic Patron is neutral, the most likely answer is that the opponent bought a Black Sacrament card to remove your Bankorai Sentries.

Gabriel_H

Taril wrote: »

Yes, ToT would benefit a lot from having some form of turn recap to allow players to look over the actions that were taken.

You can see their played pile, but a proper "combat log" recap would help new players a lot, and veteran players who go grab a quick drink.

Dahveed

If indeed the agent was "attacked" by my opponent's remaining power, why isn't that move telegraphed by an animation like in every other online card game on the planet?

In hearthstone, for example, if one critter attacks another, it is SUPER OBVIOUS with a huge animation and sound effect, you would have to be literally AFK to miss it. After playing another game I noticed (barely) at the end of their turn one of my agents took 2 damage, which was telegraphed by a barely perceptible flash of my agent's HP and a concomitant reduction.

I indeed noticed a separate occasion (while basically holding my own eyes open with duct tape and staring wide-eyed at the screen like an insane person) that the "contract" card was played, but if I had blinked or scratched my nuts for a split second I would have completely missed it, because his discard pile was shuffled into his deck a second later. (Which, I suspect, is what happened in the example above, since there was nothing in my opponent's discard pile in that instance.)


IMO there are two possible solutions:

1 - Either give us a "recap" button we can press at any time during a turn with a move-by-move textual representation of what happened;

and/or 2 - Add more robust telegraphing, i.e. when my opponent's power is used to attack a sentry, some sort of obvious animation should play representing this move, or when a Dark Brotherhood contract is performed, perhaps have an assassin's face with a dagger appear over my targeted card. It would make the game more visceral and "immersive" (like Hearthstone) and be easier to follow, without having to worry that I'm going to miss my opponent's move if I happen to take a sip of coffee at the wrong split second.

Even a third possibility would be to select a game speed when playing against AI opponents. Perhaps adding a 1 second delay between each of the AI moves so that new players could actually follow and see what my opponent is doing.


I appreciate the insights everyone, thank you. But as I said, I really hate having to go out of game and google obvious stuff that the game itself doesn't tell me. ToT does a really bad job at coaching.

Gabriel_H

Dahveed wrote: »

If indeed the agent was "attacked" by my opponent's remaining power, why isn't that move telegraphed by an animation like in every other online card game on the planet?

You should see a flash animation on their power, and your cards life go to 0, before the card is then tossed out of play. There are also sound effects but I can't remember them, as I usually play with sound off.

Dahveed

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

If indeed the agent was "attacked" by my opponent's remaining power, why isn't that move telegraphed by an animation like in every other online card game on the planet?

You should see a flash animation on their power, and your cards life go to 0, before the card is then tossed out of play.

You typed this as I was writing my latest paragraph about this: Yes you can barely see it, but IMO it needs to be way more obvious than a tiny flash of a tiny icon that anyone (even veterans) might miss if they look down at their phone for one fifth of a second.

DenverRalphy

There is indeed a rather distinctive sound made when power us used to attack an agent.

[edit] And now that I think about it, the same sound is also use when agents are taken out by cards like Black Sacrement.

ESO_player123

Dahveed wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

If indeed the agent was "attacked" by my opponent's remaining power, why isn't that move telegraphed by an animation like in every other online card game on the planet?

You should see a flash animation on their power, and your cards life go to 0, before the card is then tossed out of play.

You typed this as I was writing my latest paragraph about this: Yes you can barely see it, but IMO it needs to be way more obvious than a tiny flash of a tiny icon that anyone (even veterans) might miss if they look down at their phone for one fifth of a second.

I do not mind if more flashes and bangs are added to the Novice NPCs if that will help new players. However, I would prefer to keep flashy effects to its current level for the rest of game (or have them, but make them optional).

DenverRalphy

I don't know that anything needs to be more flashy or noticeable, moreso than the AI player needs to have a Transition phase between actions. Like an eBook reader has a transition time between page turns. The animations and sound effects are there, but the Human player doesn't have enoug time to recognize or interpret them when they fire off rapidly one after another.

Sometimes the AI does go slow, but it seems that after it's determined a plan of attack, suddenly boomboomboom 3 actions at once fire and you're still trying to interpret the 1st when the 4th starts to play out.

Dahveed

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I don't know that anything needs to be more flashy or noticeable, moreso than the AI player needs to have a Transition phase between actions. Like an eBook reader has a transition time between page turns. The animations and sound effects are there, but the Human player doesn't have enoug time to recognize or interpret them when they fire off rapidly one after another.

Sometimes the AI does go slow, but it seems that after it's determined a plan of attack, suddenly boomboomboom 3 actions at once fire and you're still trying to interpret the 1st when the 4th starts to play out.

Yes... This is why I suggest adding a toggle in the settings which slow down the AI, have a fast/medium/slow selector so that if you're brand new like me you can really slow things down and see what the AI is actually doing. But if you've been playing a long time you don't want to slog through a long and boring game.

SpiritofESO

I must have gotten used to the speed of the game at this point, but I remember when I first tried to play the game I was utterly overwhelmed and could not understand it in the least.

However, I found an excellent Tales of Tribute YouTube video that was only a few minutes long and it explained the basics easily and simply, after which I found my self saying, "Ah, so that's how you play the game! And I began understanding and winning my games.

Even when playing my hand, I have it set to Auto Play Cards, which does make the game go rather fast. However, if you search YouTube you are bound to find a really good video to teach you the basics of Tales of Tribute... and then you will understand it and have fun. And also win a lot of games.

Taril

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Taril wrote: »

Yes, ToT would benefit a lot from having some form of turn recap to allow players to look over the actions that were taken.

You can see their played pile, but a proper "combat log" recap would help new players a lot, and veteran players who go grab a quick drink.

Yeah, played pile exists... It's just that any Contract cards get poofed out of the game once their turn is over and the played pile gets added back to their cooldown pile (And then often reshuffled) at the end of their turn.

Meaning it's not the most useful for tracking what is played (And it doesn't show things like, if they used an already favoured Patron, or if a card got sacrificed etc)

tsaescishoeshiner

The starting 4 decks are pretty easy to understand, as well as the unlockable 4 decks with High Isle. All the decks after that (Druids, Almalexia, Hermaeus Mora, Alessia) are more complicated. I think the "novice" NPCs use the simpler decks, but they might have added the newer ones to their rotation, which is too bad.

I played my first Alessia game last night, and it wasn't until like 15 minutes in that I started to get how the deck works and which cards in it were valuable. And then it was another 15 minutes to finish the match lol (not a fan of that patron now!).

At most, you can look at the cards in the Collections Menu to try and get a sense of what the game plan/strategy is for each patron deck, and so that you're not trying to understand the effects in the middle of a game. But there are things like contract cards or "while in play" effects from Druid/Almalexia/Alessia that are harder to understand until you see them, but it still helps.

The game has some info under "Help" -> Tales of Tribute. But it should probably have more screenshots and gifs. : P

Aggrovious

What you are experiencing is bad RNG and Tales of Tribute is notorious for it. You have to grab the right cards and combo or you will fall behind. Patrons can be used to catch you up

DigiAngel

Heh....glad I never bothered with it...looked like a complete waste of time.

Elsonso

Wait... you mean there is nothing in the ToT game UI that tells you what has happened? SMH

tsaescishoeshiner

Elsonso wrote: »

Wait... you mean there is nothing in the ToT game UI that tells you what has happened? SMH

There is, on the left, it's just not as comprehensive as Legends/Gwent/that one with the murlocs. Could use more detail, at least the past like 5-10 moves or something. But this wouldn't track everything like the "while in play" effects or something. I think this would help players learn in NPC matches where they have time to go through the moves played.

At least you can see what's in the players deck/hand and discard piles at all times, but I think some players don't check that often.

SeaGtGruff

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I played my first Alessia game last night, and it wasn't until like 15 minutes in that I started to get how the deck works and which cards in it were valuable. And then it was another 15 minutes to finish the match lol (not a fan of that patron now!).

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the Alessia deck, either. The patron isn't so bad, but some of the cards can make the match tedious or frustrating if your opponent gets them but you don't. I can often win the match anyway if the NPC picks that deck (I haven't collected it yet myself), but it can depend on which cards the NPC buys before I can buy them. And even if the NPC gets just one single Alessia card (especially the one that lets them knock out all of the agents-- theirs and yours-- in one blow) it can make the match almost unbearable to finish.

Personofsecrets

In ToT, you are either paying attention or your not.

I won't discourage the idea of additional features that offer more information. At the same time, knowing exactly what happened to your Bankorai Sentry probably wasn't going to help you. It died. It became a sunk cost. At that point, you can easily evaluate the information that you do have at your fingertips, such as the contents of both players decks, and move on.

Taril

Personofsecrets wrote: »

At the same time, knowing exactly what happened to your Bankorai Sentry probably wasn't going to help you. It died. It became a sunk cost. At that point, you can easily evaluate the information that you do have at your fingertips, such as the contents of both players decks, and move on.

Except you're discounting the value of you know... Learning.

As a new player, not understanding what happened to the Bankorai Sentry means not understanding how to use the information about what happened to it to inform future decision making.

While it's possible to continue playing that specific game with what is presented before you, learning how to play better is only acheived through knowing what happened and thus learning how to approach those events in the future.

o_Primate_o

record your game and watch it later.
Practice makes perfect. stick with these four decks and learn basics before you unlock the others.

SeaGtGruff

Personofsecrets wrote: »

In ToT, you are either paying attention or your not.

I won't discourage the idea of additional features that offer more information. At the same time, knowing exactly what happened to your Bankorai Sentry probably wasn't going to help you. It died. It became a sunk cost. At that point, you can easily evaluate the information that you do have at your fingertips, such as the contents of both players decks, and move on.

I'm actually inclined to wish that ZOS would remove certain information, such as the ability to see your opponent's cards, or see which cards you've got in your draw pile, because to me that kind of ability in a card game seems an awful lot like cheating. But I know that a lot of ToT players use that ability constantly, and would riot if it were removed. It's just that it feels "dirty" to me.

shadyjane62

Not just for new player, old players too.

Taril

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I'm actually inclined to wish that ZOS would remove certain information, such as the ability to see your opponent's cards, or see which cards you've got in your draw pile, because to me that kind of ability in a card game seems an awful lot like cheating.)

For a regular CCG/TCG, yes. That would be the case.

But for a deckbuilding card game like ToT, it's not cheating. It's literally information you'd have anyway by using your eyes.

You know what both players starting decks are. You know what cards each player buys. You know what cards each player plays (Or tosses, because graveyards/cooldown piles are freely available for anyone to look at - As is standard because it's necessary to avoid cheating). Ergo, you know what cards are remaining in each players decks.

The only thing you don't know, is the order of the cards. Which is where things like Psijic cards "Toss" ability comes in, to let you scry the next few cards.

Dahveed

Personofsecrets wrote: »

In ToT, you are either paying attention or your not.

I won't discourage the idea of additional features that offer more information. At the same time, knowing exactly what happened to your Bankorai Sentry probably wasn't going to help you. It died. It became a sunk cost. At that point, you can easily evaluate the information that you do have at your fingertips, such as the contents of both players decks, and move on.

It's not a question of winning or losing that individual game, or even the immediate fate of that particular card. It's about knowing how and why my card was countered, so I can learn from my mistake. (I won that game, by the way.)

Yes, I eventually learned from it by going online and here through the forums. But you know the tutorial has failed when I have to alt-tab to figure out the most basic of game mechanics, whose information is nowhere to be found (and I mean literally nowhere in the game's UI or history) in the actual game, because I blinked for a split second and missed the little flashy thing nine square pixels wide on my screen which is already overwhelming me with brand new information, since I am a new player.

I'm far from a dummy, but this game makes me feel stupid. I've played a LOT of card games in my day, and I have never had any trouble learning them form the get-go. Either because the rules are intuitive enough, or they are actually explained by the tutorial or instructor. And the game/turn information is actually presented in a comprehensible fashion.

Cooperharley

Agree, but to be fair, a ton of this games systems are terrible for new players and rely way too much on outside research and sources or other players to pick up the slack.

joergino

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Not just for new player, old players too.

Yeah, it's been terrible since it was created.

cyberjanet

After doing the tutorial on every single one of my nine characters across two servers, I have only the vaguest idea of what's happening.