Deck veto for each player at start

Northwold · July 2023

I've reached the point everyone else is at that I'm fed up of playing crow and I'm coming close to not bothering with PvP ToT at all because of it.

Can I suggest that each player gets to veto ONE deck at the beginning of the game (the game would obviously need to prevent this if it means both players end up with a choice of fewer than four available decks).

Playing crow, whether you win or lose, is an utterly joyless experience.

Necrotech_Master · July 2023

the biggest problem i can see with this is that by default there are only 4 decks unlocked, you could play pvp tribute entirely with 4 starter decks (which might be why crow shows up so much as its a starter deck), and then you wouldnt be able to "ban" a deck at all if the player only has the 4 starter decks

which wouldnt actually prevent crow from showing up as you are intending

players could theoretically control that too since many of the decks require finding fragments, and as long as you dont unlock the deck, it would never show up as a choice (though once you unlock a deck its permanently unlocked)

if a player only had 5 decks, then there could still be no ban choice because then only 1 player would get a ban choice to still allow 4 deck minimum (and thus this wouldnt be fair), so both players would have to have at least 6 decks unlocked in order for both players to get a ban option

Northwold · July 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the biggest problem i can see with this is that by default there are only 4 decks unlocked, you could play pvp tribute entirely with 4 starter decks (which might be why crow shows up so much as its a starter deck), and then you wouldnt be able to "ban" a deck at all if the player only has the 4 starter decks

which wouldnt actually prevent crow from showing up as you are intending

players could theoretically control that too since many of the decks require finding fragments, and as long as you dont unlock the deck, it would never show up as a choice (though once you unlock a deck its permanently unlocked)

if a player only had 5 decks, then there could still be no ban choice because then only 1 player would get a ban choice to still allow 4 deck minimum (and thus this wouldnt be fair), so both players would have to have at least 6 decks unlocked in order for both players to get a ban option

As mentioned, the game would have to prevent it if that would mean not enough decks.

I can't see any issue with players being allowed to ban decks they don't themselves hold so I'm not wholly following your points re 5 decks. It only becomes an issue if the decks players happen to veto prevent there being four decks in total.

Necrotech_Master · July 2023

if you didnt know which decks your opponent could use, you would be wasting your ban pick, unless it was a starter deck

but unless the person had more decks than the starter deck, you couldnt pick anything, if you couldnt pick anything, then neither should the opponent

so like if you faced an opponent, you have no idea which decks they have and choose to ban orgnum, your opponent really only had the 4 starter decks but they choose to ban one of the decks they cant use (say reach)

so you couldnt pick crow anyway, and now you are down 2 decks to use (if you had all 10 decks) but your opponent still has their full selection of decks available

you would have to be able to only pick decks the opponent has access to in order to "keep it fair", which means both players would have to have at least 6 decks to do any bans (again so both players could do a ban, either both players can do a ban, or neither can do a ban again to keep it fair)

Northwold · July 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

if you didnt know which decks your opponent could use, you would be wasting your ban pick, unless it was a starter deck

I genuinely don't see why this matters. It's a veto over one deck. It the other player doesn't have that deck, tough. And if they do but your combined vetoes make only three decks available, again, tough, you lose your vetoes. It's not supposed to be some sort of added gameplay element that allows you to sit down, see what the other person's decks are and try to spike their play. It's just "you get one veto and that's it". You're both flying blind, there's nothing unfair in there.

In your own example, if you're saying it's unfair that a player with ten decks loses a choice but one with four doesn't, again, I'm not seeing the problem. Even in the worst case, you still have twice as many decks as the other player!!

emilyhyoyeon · July 2023

I like the suggestion in your other thread that someone mentioned of adding a deck that counters card drawing. I'd be curious to see how/if it'd balance out decks like crow.

I feel like this is a good option if deck bans aren't feasible.

Personofsecrets · July 2023

TOT badly needs a deck ban. There are plenty of ways to make it so that players with 4 decks aren't impacted by the veto system. It can be a feature after unlocking 8 decks. There, simple problem solved. Didn't take a genius to figure it out.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

Awful idea. Force yourself to play the game as it is and respond to your opponents choices, and the opportunities that arise. Don't try to control everything. The best poker player doesn't expect to win every hand, and that's a far greater game of skill than this is.

Northwold · July 2023

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Awful idea. Force yourself to play the game as it is and respond to your opponents choices, and the opportunities that arise. Don't try to control everything. The best poker player doesn't expect to win every hand, and that's a far greater game of skill than this is.

Well that is the entire problem. ToT, with decks like crow in play, *is not a game of skill*.

Personofsecrets · July 2023

rbfrgsp wrote: »

Awful idea. Force yourself to play the game as it is and respond to your opponents choices, and the opportunities that arise. Don't try to control everything. The best poker player doesn't expect to win every hand, and that's a far greater game of skill than this is.

Have you not provided feedback on the forum as to improve the game? And you didn't stop to think that you should just have to force yourself through the awful parts? Isn't that being too controlling?

Perhaps explain why the idea of people not being forced to play against the most awfully designed archetypes is bad. This above discussion point can be applied to any change that anyone ever asks for regardless of how much merit there is for such change, so it rests on flawed logic.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

I try to keep my "helpful" suggestions to myself because pretty much all gamer suggestions are rubbish. The one I can think of recently was adjusting two cards in the crow deck. That's a pretty light touch alteration, and very much on line with the types of edit already done to balance the cards.

Adding an entirely new mechanism changes the fundamentals of the game and really is more a big deal.

Yes, 8/10 PvP players pick the Crow/Red Eagle combo. But 8/10 of those players are noobs and you can easily beat them if you stick with it most of the time.

The fact it's a game of chance and not skill is exactly the reason why it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Don't seek to control the game. Seek to control the probabilities. Build your own luck and don't try to rely on skill.

Personofsecrets · July 2023

Perhaps winning and losing doesn't matter so much. If that's the case, then what does matter? If we are not to privilige the prevailing of the more skillful, then what is to be privileged? The only thing I see left at that point would be to privilige fun and not only do many players agree about the decks that aren't fun to play with or against, but nearly everyone finds some particular stategy to be unfun. So that is another possible justification for a deck ban.

Strategy bans are also not foregin to the card game world. The more novel way of going about business is digital errata. Maybe we find ourself with a game that could be just as good without bans, but the idea isn't unheard of and especially not unheard of at high level tournament play. For examples, bans were part of the official Elder Scrolls Legends tournament series.

rbfrgsp · July 2023

I don't care. It's a video game forum, not an undergrad philosophy class. But I'll tell you one thing that is a universal truth: tweakers ruin video games.

Personofsecrets · July 2023

There is much that can be taken from that statement. The mask of not caring despite being here with everyone else who did care enough to try to improve something that they enjoy and would like to enjoy more.

The idea that a philosophy isn't appropriate when considering game options. FYI, there are schools of thought regarding game design such as ludology. Perhaps you don't know that people pay hundreds of dollars and stand in line to listen about game design.

Tweakers? Are you making an insinuation regarding drugs or something?

Thank you for taking the time to discuss your idea. You are welcome to respond again, but I'm going to end my part of the conversation here as to not risk being seen as having a back and forth.

AnduinTryggva · July 2023

Northwold wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the biggest problem i can see with this is that by default there are only 4 decks unlocked, you could play pvp tribute entirely with 4 starter decks (which might be why crow shows up so much as its a starter deck), and then you wouldnt be able to "ban" a deck at all if the player only has the 4 starter decks

which wouldnt actually prevent crow from showing up as you are intending

players could theoretically control that too since many of the decks require finding fragments, and as long as you dont unlock the deck, it would never show up as a choice (though once you unlock a deck its permanently unlocked)

if a player only had 5 decks, then there could still be no ban choice because then only 1 player would get a ban choice to still allow 4 deck minimum (and thus this wouldnt be fair), so both players would have to have at least 6 decks unlocked in order for both players to get a ban option

As mentioned, the game would have to prevent it if that would mean not enough decks.

I can't see any issue with players being allowed to ban decks they don't themselves hold so I'm not wholly following your points re 5 decks. It only becomes an issue if the decks players happen to veto prevent there being four decks in total.

To be honest one should try if with only two decks one could still achieve victory. Maybe in the worst case it is a rush to who can turn all 4 patrons to his favor first... Would be interesting. Maybe some would have fun to test this with some matches on invite by some friends...

rbfrgsp · July 2023

You think you fix one problem doing this, but you create a whole bunch of new problems that weren't problems until you started messing under the bonnet.

If I can veto any deck then I veto Psijic and choose Pelin. Two decks that people rarely complain about, because they coexist in balance.

But without Celarus allowing me to wipe an agent each turn, I can stack taunt tanks to hide behind forever and suddenly you're asking for taunts to be nerfed....

spartaxoxo · July 2023

Hard pass. Decks should just get balance updates. Smash that concede if you really can't stand a deck that much, but it shouldn't be the case that people who like an unpopular deck just don't get to play it hardly ever.

Aggrovious · August 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Hard pass. Decks should just get balance updates. Smash that concede if you really can't stand a deck that much, but it shouldn't be the case that people who like an unpopular deck just don't get to play it hardly ever.

Funny enough, the players spamming these decks can't complain because that means dailies are done faster

Treeshka · August 2023

Maybe they can add two base game decks that has no requirement of unlocking so six decks in total for a starting player.

SeaGtGruff · August 2023

Personofsecrets wrote: »

TOT badly needs a deck ban. There are plenty of ways to make it so that players with 4 decks aren't impacted by the veto system. It can be a feature after unlocking 8 decks. There, simple problem solved. Didn't take a genius to figure it out.

After who unlocks 8 decks? There are 2 players in a PvP match, and they might not have the same number of decks unlocked. So if I've got only the 4 starter decks and you've got all 8 decks, you'd be able to veto but I wouldn't, or the other way around? Either way stinks, IMHO.

Honestly, if someone picks Crow-- or any other deck that you (meaning the OP and anyone else with a personal grudge against a particular patron) don't wish to play against-- either use the deck yourself or just concede and go find a different opponent to play against.