I also dislike losing matches, but I play the Expert NPCs and can still win most of the time.

The change in logic has been a lot of fun for me-- for the most part-- but if the logic keeps getting improved with every patch then eventually I might not be able to win.

I haven't played against the Novice and Proficient NPCs in several months, but ideally their logic and skill should match the logic and skill of the majority of players who play at those levels. If that isn't the case, then it will be much more difficult for new ToT players to learn and enjoy the game if they have almost no hope of winning any matches.

I haven't tried proficient/expert NPCs to compare, but the novice ones are definitely considerably smarter. They've improved NPC intelligence a few times, but this most recent patch seems to FINALLY have done it lol.

One main difference I noticed is that Novice NPCs are much more likely to choose a powerful card from the tavern in the early game INSTEAD of using the Treasury, whereas they used to use the treasury instead of picking up cards early on. This might be a point for adjustment to make them easier.

Yeah... I've normally always been playing against expert NPCs. After the patch, they're still fun and even more engaging which is nice when I want to play a game for my level. But when I don't want to spend 20min per game for the daily with the chance of a loss even, I was like Ok I'll just do 3 quick novice games. I barely noticed a difference in difficulty between novice and expert. Like what?

I don't understand why the novice NPCs were even adjusted. Have experienced players been playing against them and saying they're too easy?

Anyone can play against novice if they want to, sure, but it should be balanced around new players.

Novice NPCs should remain novice level difficulty. This game is actually initially hard to learn

To be honest I just play ranked matches to get the daily rewards. I just give a *** for my position on the leaderboard. The leaderboard is broken and it will remain broken even if they repair the points system due to the many possibilities to manipulate the leaderboard. And because of the most extreme snowballish nature of that card game that puts more and more advantage on that player who had a bit of more luck during the early phase. I could as well just roll dice with my match partner. So who cares if I am top of the leaderboard. I don't as it has zero significance.

Roxxsmom wrote: »

I am guessing the novice npcs might have been changed to prevent fast, easy patron victories. Since they never used to use the patrons at all (though prior to necrom the more advanced npcs hardly used them either), it tended to be easy as pie to get a patron victory, barring the inclusion of situation-specific patrons (like the psijic patron) that might come up in game. This was ideal for players who wanted to do some quick ToT matches for reward farming.

I am guessing this might be why the novice player nearly always turns the crow at the beginning of the match, now. That makes a patron victory very hard, though it also takes the crow out of play for them later in the game (if the human player doesn't need to use it).

However, this does make them rather challenging for newer players, and using ToT to farm mats and furnishings (the latter of which IME are hardly ever dropping in coffers anymore) was still as time consuming and as unreliable as other methods in the game. Now the pay off is hardly worth in, in my opinion.

I asked about the rewards in another thread. Transmute crystals no longer appears to be dropping (at least for me) and the furniture mats appear to drop a lot less frequently.

I am curious about if anything gets addressed in mondays eventual patch, but I am going to stop doing the dailies until then. Rewards vs time involved feels no longer worth it.

Yeah, the Novice NPCs might be a bit too challenging now. I started doing the ToT daily quest versus Novice NPCs mostly because the awards seemed decent, but I actually found myself enjoying the game and moved on to Expert NPCs fairly quickly.

After Necrom dropped I did one match versus a Novice to see what the new AI was like, lost (RNG wasn't in my favor, which also had something to do with it), and went back to Expert NPCs because the difficulty seemed about the same but they at least sometimes pick decks I haven't unlocked yet, which makes it more fun.

If I'd lost most of my first matches versus those novices however when I started doing ToT, it's likely that I would've given up on the game before I got to the point that I enjoyed playing it.

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

I like ToT but probably will play less if the novice NPC are buffed this much. A good part of the enjoyment for me is a relaxing game that doesn't require too much thought. If I wanted a challenge there are the expert players. Why on earth would you buff the lowest level?

I would like one, just one update that I could look forward to instead of dreading. Somehow it just never seems to happen.

Recently got back to doing ToT because of the new stuff locked behind reward boxes from it and it's a shame to see what changes have occurred. I also liked ToT for the relaxing, low thought game that it used to be. Glad I got the Master achievement for it back when it first came out. If I wanted more of a challenge, I'd go to the more elite NPCs, or play matches with players.

Edit: I tried a few NPC players, and I genuinely had an easier time with an Expert tribute NPC than I did a Novice.

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

To be honest I just play ranked matches to get the daily rewards. I just give a *** for my position on the leaderboard. The leaderboard is broken and it will remain broken even if they repair the points system due to the many possibilities to manipulate the leaderboard. And because of the most extreme snowballish nature of that card game that puts more and more advantage on that player who had a bit of more luck during the early phase. I could as well just roll dice with my match partner. So who cares if I am top of the leaderboard. I don't as it has zero significance.

I see people manipulating the NPC matches on a regular basis. I'm not sure what macros or scripts they're running, but it seems odd when the NPC cards are flipping faster than fire, while my cards are slow as molasses. Add in the fact that the opponent's cards seem stacked in their favor, while my deck always has the lowest ones turn up first, no matter how many high cards I've purchased.

Then when the match ends, there always seem to be the same players lurking near the table - or they run off to avoid being detected/reported! I take screenshots when I can, but cheating players will always find some loophole to jump into.

Sepultura_13 wrote: »

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

To be honest I just play ranked matches to get the daily rewards. I just give a *** for my position on the leaderboard. The leaderboard is broken and it will remain broken even if they repair the points system due to the many possibilities to manipulate the leaderboard. And because of the most extreme snowballish nature of that card game that puts more and more advantage on that player who had a bit of more luck during the early phase. I could as well just roll dice with my match partner. So who cares if I am top of the leaderboard. I don't as it has zero significance.

I see people manipulating the NPC matches on a regular basis. I'm not sure what macros or scripts they're running, but it seems odd when the NPC cards are flipping faster than fire, while my cards are slow as molasses. Add in the fact that the opponent's cards seem stacked in their favor, while my deck always has the lowest ones turn up first, no matter how many high cards I've purchased.

Then when the match ends, there always seem to be the same players lurking near the table - or they run off to avoid being detected/reported! I take screenshots when I can, but cheating players will always find some loophole to jump into.

What are you talking about? If you see other players near the table while you're about to play, or have just finished playing, against an NPC, those are other players who are also there to play against one of the NPCs. Their matches have no effect on your matches, and vice versa. Players can't manipulate the NPCs against you while you're playing.

Malyore wrote: »

Are you on PC? I played only a few rounds of ToT when it first came out, then stopped. Picked it up again in February. I forgot how to play the game, did a few rounds and relearned the mechs. Since then I'm still only level 2 (trainee) and playing novices, but they feel fine. I'm a beginner and they play about the same that I do, they just don't like to go for the patrons when nearing 40 prestige as much as I do. I usually win with 20-30 more points than them. Sometimes that almost makes it feel like they're below novices tbh since they ignore some blatant tactics that could let them win their final hand. But I'm on PlayStation, idk if the AI is different? Unless they changed the AI again since your post?

After seeing people's discussions on here I went ahead and logged in to try the expert NPCs, which I can only even play against during the daily quest since I'm level 2. They certainly play faster and use the patrons favors more which made it feel tense. I wasn't as relaxed while playing. They also were using decks on occasion that I haven't used before which was a little rough 😅. Because of all that they certainly FELT more experienced than the novices. I also have no idea how to read opponents tactics, so they may have been playing much more expertly and I don't know how to tell. I felt a stress difference. That being said, I won against all three experts for today, but the wins were much closer scores now. Only won by 10-20 prestige. ToT has a lot to do with luck though, so maybe I lucked out a fair bit this time around. As a novice player though, the experts definitely felt scarier to play. Especially with it being faster paced.

With that being said, hows the difficulty change between the experts to the named NPCs I see people talking about? I think there's a khajiit that people seem to loathe. When do I get to try them out?