The newest changes that I was right and wrong about.

Personofsecrets · December 2023

- WRONG -

The Lesson of Ayem - This card seems appropriately costed now. Maybe it cost cost 5 as to discourage less experienced players from buying it, but it seems fine as it is.

Mournhold Clergy - Although having this card be cheaper is questionable because it is quite strong and can cause early game blowout scenarios through it's confine key word, it is somewhat interesting that the card costs less now because sometimes that means you keep an extra card in hand before being able to purchase it which then means that the donate key word is more likely to be useful.

Jeering Shadow - This card doesn't seem like much of a problem.

Prowling Shadow - I'm putting this card in the "wrong category" because I haven't experienced it's new strengths that much. That said, at the philosophical level, the card can be problematic

Eldertide Fenwitch/Draoife Ritecaller - I considered that maybe different nerf for these cards was more appropriate, but the change made by the devs seems like it is better than my prior suggestion.

- Right -

Armory - The change was fine. Not necessary, but fine.

Storm Shark Wavecaller/Serpentguard Rider - These cards are stupid.

Psijic's Insight/Cephorah's Insight - These cards are both very clearly way too good now. They were perfectly fine before. It may be hard to see how scrying get's people ahead, trust me it does.

Time Mastery - I can't find any reason for this change.

Bardic Veneration/Festival of Forbearance - This was an abhorent change. Whoever came up with it is guilty.

Customs Seizure - Possibly the worst balance change to happen in all of ESO's history. Whoever came up with it is beyond guilty.

- Not Previously Commented On -

Wispcaller Totem - This card makes more sense now. I didn't understand the patch note prior to playing with the updated card.

Rally - I rally don't understand why this card has had to be changed twice now. The first change was just so-so and taking off a single power from an 8 drop seems sort of mincing. Did a spreadsheet tell you to do this or what? All hail spreadsheet, master of devs.

- Conclusion -

Six of the changes I was correct about and 5 of the changes the designers were correct about. And that is being somewhat generous because two of the cards that give points to the designers didn't really need to be altered and I was lenient in my evaluation of them as to give the designers benefit of the "doubt."

Not only that, but there are some cards that didn't become changed that clearly should have been. So I am a more reliable source for game balance than the designers. And I realize that the designers have different goals than I do, but I don't see my vision as excluding what I think their vision is. Presumably, because I am a more reliable source for game balance, that also means that I know more about the game and that everyone should listen to me. Sure, there are some various opinions and differing perspectives that I don't really care about but may be worth exploring. But overall, I'll humbly accept the title of master of games. It's time to duel!

IncultaWolf · December 2023

Customs Seizure is hilariously op now, it's like getting the original armory card.

spartaxoxo · December 2023

I actually am glad they changed customs seizures. It was actively harmful in the mid to late game so needed to be fed to the patron. Other cards while more powerful early than late weren't necessarily as much of an issue.

They just need to up it's coin cost now or perhaps make it's main effect a combo one with x coin(s) as the new main play effect, or something along those lines. Whatever they do, I do think it needs further balance adjustments but it's new effect is more consistently useful.

Personofsecrets · December 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I actually am glad they changed customs seizures. It was actively harmful in the mid to late game so needed to be fed to the patron. Other cards while more powerful early than late weren't necessarily as much of an issue.

They just need to up it's coin cost now or perhaps make it's main effect a combo one with x coin(s) as the new main play effect, or something along those lines. Whatever they do, I do think it needs further balance adjustments but it's new effect is more consistently useful.

It was a perfectly fine card that I used to success many times. It was great to pair with Midnight Raid or the old Psijic/Cephora's insight strategies as a way to have some economy and push future prestige via the Hlallu Patron.

As for updating it's cost, yes, if it stays with the same effect, then it should obviously cost more. But another player pointed out how changing it's cost will be clumsy when considering another card in the Hlaalu pool, Hostile Takeover.

And let's talk about usefulness. Is Hostile Takeover useful? Sometimes it is. The same can be said for Portcullis or Deepwoods Ritual. That's what the game should be all about, finding average cards usefullness by discovering ways to make them work with other cards. It shouldn't be knocking players over the head with sheer power.

spartaxoxo · December 2023

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I actually am glad they changed customs seizures. It was actively harmful in the mid to late game so needed to be fed to the patron. Other cards while more powerful early than late weren't necessarily as much of an issue.

They just need to up it's coin cost now or perhaps make it's main effect a combo one with x coin(s) as the new main play effect, or something along those lines. Whatever they do, I do think it needs further balance adjustments but it's new effect is more consistently useful.

It was a perfectly fine card that I used to success many times. It was great to pair with Midnight Raid or the old Psijic/Cephora's insight strategies as a way to have some economy and push future prestige via the Hlallu Patron.

It really wasn't. I'd literally just vendor it once it hit mid game and 5 coin cards were generally less useful to my deck. I used it to success sometimes to get an early game lead and didn't mind then. It was also super useful against Orgnum, so I'm not saying it was totally useless.

But, I actually found it to be the single most lopsided card in that regard where it could be pretty powerful early game but an actual detriment to end and mid game because you might as well have drawn a bewilderment (unless you trashed it so it couldn't keep polluting your deck and at least got that little bit of power out of it).

I'm sure their data showed it was similar for many players.

Personofsecrets · December 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It really wasn't. I'd literally just vendor it once it hit mid game and 5 coin cards were generally less useful to my deck. I used it to success sometimes to get an early game lead and didn't mind then. It was also super useful against Orgnum, so I'm not saying it was totally useless.

But, I actually found it to be the single most lopsided card in that regard where it could be pretty powerful early game but an actual detriment to end and mid game because you might as well have drawn a bewilderment (unless you trashed it so it couldn't keep polluting your deck and at least got that little bit of power out of it).

I'm sure their data showed it was similar for many players.

Why should all cards be great at all points of a game? Deck builders are dynamic in nature. View the card from that perspective.

Additionally, if not being able to pick up new tavern cards is really an issue, then there are worse offenders than the old Customs Seizure such as games caused by the gameplay of the Sorcerer-King patron which tend to lead to dead taverns. Or the designers could even add a 6th spot in the tavern. Also, how many turns do the power generating starter cards screw up? Certainly the answer is in the magnitudes more than turns that a Customs Seizure has felt bad.

So their approach to this problem was incredibly narrow and it created a new problem.

Six gold is a specially important amount of gold. So even if Customs Seizure was rebalanced to cost 5 or 6 gold with it's current effect, it would undermine core gameplay by making the purchasing of a 6 drop plus the ability to do something else on the same turn too easy.

As for the designers data, I'm not so certain that the designers do use data to guide their decisions in appropriate ways. What does their data say about Pounce/Grand? Why hasn't the data revealed that such toxic gameplay should be changed instead of cards that the lowest common denominator aren't able to find the usefulness of? Their data showed them that one of the morphs shouldn't generate 5 gold. So being able to buy Hagraven Matron or Ansei's Victory with zero effort was just slightly to good, so players have to settle on Marketplace or Rally. Great use of the data - I guess that it was something.

My novel idea is that the game actually teaches players how to play the game rather than teaching them how to press the Crow patron button. Apparently, the designers aren't troubled by the data of people who press Crow on turn 1 since they haven't changed the tutorial. Instead of helping to make players better, they make cards better to makeup for their mistakes.

spartaxoxo · December 2023

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Why should all cards be great at all points of a game? Deck builders are dynamic in nature. View the card from that perspective.

I don't think they need to always be great, but none of them should feel completely useless at entire stages of the game. And custom seizure often fell into that category for me. I literally couldn't play it and had to just patron it.

"Whataboutism" doesn't change that. Yes, there are other problems with the game. It doesn't change that custom seizure was too weak later on. It needed a buff.

Personofsecrets · December 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Why should all cards be great at all points of a game? Deck builders are dynamic in nature. View the card from that perspective.

I don't think they need to always be great, but none of them should feel completely useless at entire stages of the game. And custom seizure often fell into that category for me. I literally couldn't play it and had to just patron it.

"Whataboutism" doesn't change that. Yes, there are other problems with the game. It doesn't change that custom seizure was too weak later on. It needed a buff.

The "whataboutisms" go to show that the principle which is speculated to be behind the Customs Seizure change isn't applied consistently accross the game. So the principle is therefore called into question.

Ultimately the designers took a tool that clever players could take advantage of in different ways and they made it broken. Your "whataboutisms" regarding your personal experiences with the card don't change that. The card was changed. The change was bad.

spartaxoxo · December 2023

Personofsecrets wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Why should all cards be great at all points of a game? Deck builders are dynamic in nature. View the card from that perspective.

I don't think they need to always be great, but none of them should feel completely useless at entire stages of the game. And custom seizure often fell into that category for me. I literally couldn't play it and had to just patron it.

"Whataboutism" doesn't change that. Yes, there are other problems with the game. It doesn't change that custom seizure was too weak later on. It needed a buff.

The "whataboutisms" go to show that the principle which is speculated to be behind the Customs Seizure change isn't applied consistently accross the game. So the principle is therefore called into question.

Ultimately the designers took a tool that clever players could take advantage of in different ways and they made it broken. Your "whataboutisms" regarding your personal experiences with the card don't change that. The card was changed. The change was bad.

Whataboutism is when you bring up things that aren't the matter at hand rather than addressing the point made, turning the conversation into a different one. It is a logical fallacy. The matter at hand was the change to customs seizures, so anything that involves customs seizures is staying on the matter at hand including personal experience . Other things that are also broke are whataboutisms that are trying to turn the conversation into a different one. My position was that change to customs seizures was the right direction but was too powerful, so it needs a nerf now. I used my personal experience with it to illustrate why I thought that, and then pointed out since they have data they probably found other players experiencing similar.

I never made the claim that Zenimax's balancing for ToT has been consistent or perfect. That's a separate idea that the whataboutism leads the conversation towards. And it is not a point that I believe remotely.

Customs seizures change was good because it stopped frequent situations where it might as well have been a bewilderment card. It needs a nerf now in other ways because it's too powerful. That's not something I ever disputed.

Personofsecrets · December 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Whataboutism is when you bring up things that aren't the matter at hand rather than addressing the point made, turning the conversation into a different one. It is a logical fallacy. The matter at hand was the change to customs seizures, so anything that involves customs seizures is staying on the matter at hand including personal experience . Other things that are also broke are whataboutisms that are trying to turn the conversation into a different one. My position was that change to customs seizures was the right direction but was too powerful, so it needs a nerf now. I used my personal experience with it to illustrate why I thought that, and then pointed out since they have data they probably found other players experiencing similar.

I never made the claim that Zenimax's balancing for ToT has been consistent or perfect. That's a separate idea that the whataboutism leads the conversation towards. And it is not a point that I believe remotely.

Customs seizures change was good because it stopped frequent situations where it might as well have been a bewilderment card. It needs a nerf now in other ways because it's too powerful. That's not something I ever disputed.

My impression of "whataboutism" is that it is a rude way to dismiss an idea that someone else has. The logical fallacy in play is essentially a form of name calling. Idea is "whataboutism" and therefore wrong.

You mentioned the issue of having turns where cards aren't very useful. That idea isn't a good enough explanation for the change. You mention data which really isn't a good enough reason for the change.The reasons that these explanations or their combination isn't a good enough explanation is exactly because there are tons of other points that can be brought up that show the inconsistincies that are baked into making such points. It would make more sense to just say that the designers are trying out something by random and seeing how well it works.

And what about your personal experience?

" I'd literally just vendor it once it hit mid game and 5 coin cards were generally less useful to my deck. I used it to success sometimes to get an early game lead and didn't mind then. It was also super useful against Orgnum, so I'm not saying it was totally useless."

As soon as Customs Seizure had been used to purchase 4 gold worth of cards, then it not only paid for itself, but also provided value through the Delmene patron value once identified as a target for sacrifice. More than half of the cards of any given game are going to cost 5 and less. So I don't see how you had a personal issue with the card.

If you think that the overall game is better now with the current Customs Seizure than it would be if it had the previously one, then you are mistaken. Someone winning because of the power level of a specific card being very high is a worse problem than cards sometimes providing a low amount of value.

I'm going to thank you for the discussion here and not risk moderation via having a "back and forth." You are, of course, welcome to respond further. Maybe you should make a thread advocating for better balance of Customs Seizure - I honestly don't see the designers working in the future to find a better design space for the card, but maybe they will.

spartaxoxo · December 2023

Personofsecrets wrote: »

My impression of "whataboutism" is that it is a rude way to dismiss an idea that someone else has. The logical fallacy in play is essentially a form of name calling. Idea is "whataboutism" and therefore wrong.

It's not that those points are wrong. The points could be very accurate! Just didn't address the point they were in response to.

Person A: "I think soda is trash. It's objectively terrible.

Person B: "I think that soda is delicious. Taste is subjective"

Person A: "What about all the people who can't drink soda??? What about grapefruit juice???"

Is an example. That isn't involving name-calling nor were they incorrect but the whataboutism is addressing tangential points (there are people who cannot have it, there are alternatives) rather than the arguments put forth by person B (taste is subjective. They personally enjoy it).

You mentioned the issue of having turns where cards aren't very useful. That idea isn't a good enough explanation for the change. You mention data which really isn't a good enough reason for the change.The reasons that these explanations or their combination isn't a good enough explanation is exactly because there are tons of other points that can be brought up that show the inconsistincies that are baked into making such points.

The inconsistent balance has nothing to do with whether or not it's a good idea. Most of the stuff listed was issues they absolutely should address. Like I don't know what to do with the power starter cards but things obviously aren't okay as is.

Customs Seizures wasn't just as bad card in those situations because it didn't have a lot of use. It had NO use. Even 1 coin cards might give you enough to buy something that you couldn't otherwise. Custom Seizure ran into the problem where it would often have no value whatsoever. Bumping it to 6 greatly increased it power (and that does need to be addressed) but it also objectively increased the number of scenarios it was usable at all.

I don't agree that such a state is better as I would rather them accidentally go too far fixing a problem and need to dial it back later, than to completely ignore the issue at all. They have completed ignored other problems (some of which you listed) and it's just been allowed to go on way too long. I'd rather they make a mistake attempting to fix something that needed fixing, than leave it alone for ages.

I hope they address the power starter cards, bewilderments, and honestly many other things you have brought up in this thread and other posts.