Inglorious Return to ToT

El_Borracho · November 2023

Took some time away from playing ToT, then heard that the AI was improved for playing against NPCs. So I checked it out. Apparently, the "improvement" was to improve the NPCs chances of getting the exact card they need at the right time. If that doesn't work, its to somehow allow the NPC to play their 2-3 best power cards over and over again, even as you watched those cards go into the cooldown pile and magically appear in their hand for the next turn. And the next turn. Without using decks like Celarus or Ansei. Which, at first I chalked up to me not really paying attention. Then I did. And watched as the NPC played Legions' Arrival, Rally, and the Armory 3 times in a row to level the game, despite only having one of each of those cards in his pile. The other 3 decks for that game? Crow, Rahjin, and Red Eagle. And no, the NPC did not whittle his deck down to 5 cards using Red Eagle, but instead stocked up on Rahjin

Look, I enjoy the challenge and don't mind losing to the game. It makes it more fun when you know you can be beat straight up. But this is weak.

Necrotech_Master · November 2023

based on my experiences on monday playing tribute with the NPCs it seems like the AI was almost changed back to what it was

which means the novices still enjoy spamming hlaalu patron

which made winning pretty darn easy with some rahjin spam, any card they bought from the tavern they destroyed with hlaalu patron

i only lost 1 match so far because i was also testing out the hermeous mora deck and had too few -prestige cards from rahjin deck available

my usual go-to to easily win against the novices are rahjin + druid king (as the NPC will also senselessly waste power on the druid king patron)

valenwood_vegan · November 2023

Super interesting, OP - you know I suspected the same thing when I returned to ToT to get the necrom music box lead... but I lacked the interest / attention span to actually pay attention to confirm my suspicions. Got the lead and never played ToT again so I can't comment on more recent changes.

It's a bit unfortunate, because when it first came out and the novice AI made for a relatively easy / relaxing experience (and the rewards were a bit better), I played a lot to level up the skill line and finish the quests. It wasn't my favorite activity, but I did begin to get into it and sometimes played the harder NPC's and dipped my toes into playing other people sometimes.

Then other things were added to the game that interested me more and I ended up leaving ToT behind.

But if I were starting to play it now, I think I would be so turned off after getting stomped by the novice AI over and over and not understanding why, that I would have never gotten past the intro quest.

Personofsecrets · November 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

based on my experiences on monday playing tribute with the NPCs it seems like the AI was almost changed back to what it was

Shhhh, you might make the devs realize that the accidentally rolled back those and other changes!

SeaGtGruff · November 2023

I can still usually beat the NPCs, but sometimes they do get amazing luck with the Tavern and end up just rolling over me and never giving me a chance to catch up. Last night I lost two games in a row against one NPC before I finally won and was able to continue on to the match in the next city. I cringe whenever I see the NPC choose Pelin, because as much as I used to love that deck when I first started playing ToT, oh boy is it very highly likely that the NPC is going to be able to snatch up all of the good Pelin cards and pound me into the dirt with them.

Jaimeh · November 2023

I've never noticed that, but sometimes the cards move too fast to see what's happening. What I did notice is that sometimes the game might try to 'force' a NPC win (there was a theory here in the forums about the game trying to average out wins vs loses) by handing out an extraordinarily rare combination of cards, though it could just be RNG, but I did notice that happening more on games after a streak of wins, so maybe that's the case.

SeaGtGruff · November 2023

In my opinion, "a streak of wins" would be the logical time to expect one's luck to change, like flipping a coin a getting heads 10 times in a row and then (finally) getting tails. Skill is definitely a factor in ToT, but RNG/chance is always a factor, too, and sooner or later one's skill isn't going to be enough to overcome the effects of RNG.

JemadarofCaerSalis · November 2023

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I can still usually beat the NPCs, but sometimes they do get amazing luck with the Tavern and end up just rolling over me and never giving me a chance to catch up. Last night I lost two games in a row against one NPC before I finally won and was able to continue on to the match in the next city. I cringe whenever I see the NPC choose Pelin, because as much as I used to love that deck when I first started playing ToT, oh boy is it very highly likely that the NPC is going to be able to snatch up all of the good Pelin cards and pound me into the dirt with them.

This is exactly me.

I like Pellin, but I know that the NPC is going to be able to snatch up all the good cards because they will turn up after I picked something and have to end.

Today I beat the Final Round because the guy choose Red Eagle. Then proceeded to get rid of every card he picked up and then some.

I took my leisurely time getting to 40, because all he could do was just end the round.

I have also noticed that it seems like the NPCs can play cards much quicker than they should (ie, play a card then next round play the same card) but I don't usually pay that much attention to say for sure whether they did or not.

El_Borracho · November 2023

@SeaGtGruff Oh totally, there is a difference between luck and "oh come on now." With the latter being one I saw today where the NPC got 3 contract agents in a row, 2 of them being shield bearers, then crept over the 40 point finish line. Or when you get an agent or two and suddenly the flaming wheelbarrow appears on their turn and, wouldn't you know it, they have enough gold to get that and a good card. And while both are frustrating, I can accept that. Bitterly, yes.

And, yes, the NPC does have great fortune when running the Ansei, Celarus, and Almalexia decks. But the recycling of cards is something else.

SeaGtGruff · November 2023

El_Borracho wrote: »

@SeaGtGruff Oh totally, there is a difference between luck and "oh come on now." With the latter being one I saw today where the NPC got 3 contract agents in a row, 2 of them being shield bearers, then crept over the 40 point finish line. Or when you get an agent or two and suddenly the flaming wheelbarrow appears on their turn and, wouldn't you know it, they have enough gold to get that and a good card. And while both are frustrating, I can accept that. Bitterly, yes.

And, yes, the NPC does have great fortune when running the Ansei, Celarus, and Almalexia decks. But the recycling of cards is something else.

I don't disagree that the NPCs can get some incredible-- as in, utterly unbelievable-- luck with which cards come up for them to buy. But the same thing can happen when playing against other players. I generally try to avoid buying garbage cards just to let the game draw another card from the Tavern draw pile, purely because I hate seeing a great card pop up that I can't buy and watch my opponent grab it instead.

As for the recycling/reshuffling where they seem to keep playing their best cards turn after turn after turn without missing a beat, well, that can be awfully suspicious. But I don't necessarily think it's the game cheating on their behalf. Aside from those situations where decks are in play that let them discard unwanted cards from their draw pile, or return cards from their played pile to the top of their draw pile, they seem to follow a strategy of paring down their deck as much as possible, by whatever means possible. This can lead to some comical situations, such as ending up with 0 cards, but it also makes it more difficult to use the Almalexia deck to imprison their cards, since they might have fewer than 10 cards and hence their discard piles are constantly being shuffled back into play after every turn.

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

ZOS has totally put its thumb down on the scale in favor of the NPC's! After playing far far to many games to get the Spears I can tell you the NPC's do indeed use cards that shouldn't have access to and conversely the players good cards just never seem to come up.

I've even started prioritizing the delete two cards card over crow because at least it gives me something of a chance to get my power cards to come up. This is with base game decks + Red Eagle.

And yes, I rarely remove cards from the tavern because when I do it nothing good comes up for me, when the NPCs do it they always get a good card to buy.

To avoid a huge waste of time when doing the dailies I've learned to just concede under a number of differing circumstances. The RNG is almost always in their favor.

And the novice is again using all the patrons, it is also playing with a lot more expertise than I did as a novice. And no it's not anywhere near as much fun as it was when it was first release. If I were a novice now I probably wouldn't bother with ToT as it is.

El_Borracho · November 2023

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I've even started prioritizing the delete two cards card over crow because at least it gives me something of a chance to get my power cards to come up. This is with base game decks + Red Eagle.

And yes, I rarely remove cards from the tavern because when I do it nothing good comes up for me, when the NPCs do it they always get a good card to buy.

Agree as to both. The deleting cards has become a priority as it seems that in the reshuffle, I get a lot of coin cards on the top of my deck (which can be nice under the right circumstances) while the NPC seems to get Midnight Raid glued to his War Song card for every other round, or something similar. And the only time I find myself removing cards from the tavern to end a turn is when I have taken a card I need, only to see it get replaced by a monster that I don't have enough coin for. Otherwise, you know you're going to eliminate a bank card and see it get replaced by The Armory or Siege Weapon Volley

MidniteOwl1913 · November 2023

El_Borracho wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I've even started prioritizing the delete two cards card over crow because at least it gives me something of a chance to get my power cards to come up. This is with base game decks + Red Eagle.

And yes, I rarely remove cards from the tavern because when I do it nothing good comes up for me, when the NPCs do it they always get a good card to buy.

Agree as to both. The deleting cards has become a priority as it seems that in the reshuffle, I get a lot of coin cards on the top of my deck (which can be nice under the right circumstances) while the NPC seems to get Midnight Raid glued to his War Song card for every other round, or something similar. And the only time I find myself removing cards from the tavern to end a turn is when I have taken a card I need, only to see it get replaced by a monster that I don't have enough coin for. Otherwise, you know you're going to eliminate a bank card and see it get replaced by The Armory or Siege Weapon Volley

Yes I've noticed this too. If the NPC gets Midnight Raid early on it's most likely game over for me.

Necrotech_Master · November 2023

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I've even started prioritizing the delete two cards card over crow because at least it gives me something of a chance to get my power cards to come up. This is with base game decks + Red Eagle.

And yes, I rarely remove cards from the tavern because when I do it nothing good comes up for me, when the NPCs do it they always get a good card to buy.

Agree as to both. The deleting cards has become a priority as it seems that in the reshuffle, I get a lot of coin cards on the top of my deck (which can be nice under the right circumstances) while the NPC seems to get Midnight Raid glued to his War Song card for every other round, or something similar. And the only time I find myself removing cards from the tavern to end a turn is when I have taken a card I need, only to see it get replaced by a monster that I don't have enough coin for. Otherwise, you know you're going to eliminate a bank card and see it get replaced by The Armory or Siege Weapon Volley

Yes I've noticed this too. If the NPC gets Midnight Raid early on it's most likely game over for me.

usually the best way to counter npcs with good cards is rahjin spam and hope that they are dumb enough to remove their own cards lol

i have won against an npc who had 2 armory cards by mid game and i had little power generation, but won through rahjin spam and the npc ended up removing their own armory cards (because they never remove bewilderments oddly enough)