Why TES Legends is unfair and unbalanced

[Saxyct]

I have been playing for not so long but enough to be able to recognize when a game has a great potential but its core design has a concept issue.

THE RING

Before I started playing, I was reading discussions, watching videos and listening to people who had been playing for a while, and I kinda accepted the idea of introducing the ring in the game as a way to "balance" both gaming sides. The official explanation is that, in order to compensate for the advantage one has if starting first, the other player has the opportunity to use the ring while playing. In principle it sounds right. Now that I know how things work, I think this game is really annoying and frustrating to play just because of this absurd concept. Here is why.

1) unless you have a deck mostly built out of 0 and 1 cost cards (which is 0% of the playing decks), the probability to draw a 0/1 cost card the first turn is very, very low.

2) because of 1), what happens in most of the games is that the first player has to skip his first turn

3) because of 2), the second player is the ONLY player having an avantage during the game. And what an advantage! not 1, but 3 (three) turns in which he can play more magicka than his opponent. This makes the game completely unbalanced and unfair

The only case which would have justified the presence of the ring would be if the game was made of low-cost/high-value cards ONLY. so that the first player actually had a real advantage over his opponent in starting first. In that case, a single Ring usage would have been the right compensation for that advantage, since a single additional Magicka cost represents a real threat during the game. But 3 Ring usages could never be justified even in that case.


Example of a real match (valid at least 7 times out of 10):
Turn#1 -> Player#1 has nothing to play (=no advantage)
Turn#2 -> Player#2 has either a 1cost card or a 2cost card combination (which he can use thanks to the Ring)
Result: at the second turn Player#1 has a GREAT disadvantage since he has 0 cards versus 1-2 cards already in play from his opponent. This can severly affect or determine the course of the game.

I am really surprised that, after so long this game has been released, there has been no rebellion from the million of players who spend money and time for it, in order to change this absurd design misconcept.

Amen.

[Halfshell]

You're overlooking something really obvious here. Player 2 gets 3 turns of magicka advantage, player 1 gets infinite turns (-3) of magicka advantage. This ends up equalizing the tempo so that player 2 has turns to catch up. Other games just give an extra card to player 2, Hearthstone does both except 1 magicka from the coin (which is broken because it counts as a spell). Trading an extra card for 3 turns of tempo is fair. The worst case scenario is player 2 gets perfect 2, 3 and 4 drops on turns 1, 2 and 3 but how is that different than player 1 getting perfect 2 ,3 and 4 drops on turns 2, 3 and 4 in other games? At most its just a brief role reversal.

[sithlordofsnark]

I have played several games where I haven't used the ring and still won, so I am still of the belief that there isn't a huge advantage in having the ring.

[Saxyct]

Halfshell, I am not sure to follow your explanation. Why should player one have infinite turns of advantage?
Let's portray a real scenario:
Turn#1 -> Player#1 has no 1cost cards, skips the turn
Turn#2 -> Player#2 has 1 magicka as well, plus the ring (let's ignore here whether he uses it or not for now)
Turn#3 -> Player#1 has now 2 magicka, and so does Player#2. The only difference is that Player#2 might have already creatures on the field, while Player#1 doesn't.
Where is the advantage?

[carelessjet2]

my man all i can say is you need some lower cost cards in your deck. try low cost with lethal so in late game they have some use.

[Halfshell]

On turns 1, 2 and 3 player 2 (henceforth P2) drops 2, 3 and 4 cost creatures. Player 1 (henceforth P1) drops 2, 3 and 4 cost creatures on the turn after, P2 can trade effectively because of magicka advantage. But what about next turn? P2 can only drop a 4 cost creature while P1 now drops a 5 cost creature. And every turn afterwards P1 can play more magicka.

In actual games its very rare to get a perfect curve like that though. What usually happens is P2 gets 1 or 2 cards out earlier while P1 gets cards out earlier for the rest of the game. You are just ignoring that P1 gets to play cards earlier the rest of the time, no? Thats infinite advantage. Look, at worse this is just a role reversal from other card games where instead of P1 having early turn advantage, P2 gets early turn advantage.

Now imagine if P2 didn't have the ring at all, now all your examples work exactly the same except its P1 with the unfair advantage with P2 being unable to play cards on 1st turn. Thing is theres no way to balance this perfectly, theres always going to be an imbalance when 1 player always gets their turns 1st.

[Saxyct]

Originally posted by barberalaric:

my man all i can say is you need some lower cost cards in your deck. try low cost with lethal so in late game they have some use.

I have of course :) I am not a newby... I have tried several combinations and all sorted no difference.
if you build your deck following the common magicka curve (which is most of the decks), 1cost cards will represent 5-10% of your deck. this translates in a similar 5-10% probability of getting a 1cost card in your first turn. so that means that your opponent has a practical advantage over you in 90-95% of the games multiplied by 3 because he will have the possibility to use 1 additional magicka three times.

[Saxyct]

Originally posted by Halfshell cat:

Thing is theres no way to balance this perfectly, theres always going to be an imbalance when 1 player always gets their turns 1st.

I was not suggesting to eliminate the ring at all, but 3 shots of magicka in my opinion is not fair. most of the times P2 doesn't use the magicka straight away but later in the game, when at an additional cost you can summon powerful creatures.
The point of playing cards "earlier" in the game is not that critical in my opinion. It happened many times that my opponent was 3-4 magicka higher than me due to the items he played. So being earlier or later doesnt really make a difference, above all in the later stages of a match.What makes a difference is having 3 magicka to play, for Free, instead of including specific items or actions in your decks to increase your max magicka, or, if you have them, hoping to draw them at the right moment.

[Halfshell]

But P1 has an additional magicka turn 1, turn 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etcetera. The only time P1 does not have magicka advantage is when P2 uses the ring. Nerfing the ring just means P1 has more magicka advantage. Its just the same problem.

The reason in that game that your opponent had 3-4 higher magicka is because he built a deck for that, but guess what? Ramp is even better for P1 than it is for P2. Thing is, if you don't have all the cards you will always be at a disadvantage. Its true for all TCGs.

[carelessjet2]

Originally posted by Saxyct:

Originally posted by barberalaric:

my man all i can say is you need some lower cost cards in your deck. try low cost with lethal so in late game they have some use.

I have of course :) I am not a newby... I have tried several combinations and all sorted no difference.
if you build your deck following the common magicka curve (which is most of the decks), 1cost cards will represent 5-10% of your deck. this translates in a similar 5-10% probability of getting a 1cost card in your first turn. so that means that your opponent has a practical advantage over you in 90-95% of the games multiplied by 3 because he will have the possibility to use 1 additional magicka three times.

sory i did not think you were a newby. i don't like tri deck's for this. i find that the 75 card decks have really bad draw. again not calling you a noob just trying too help. also there is a 3 cost red support that make's all your guy's do 1 dmg at the start of your turn. put it a pilffer and count your win's you'll be asking yourself what ring after a few game's lol

[TheTycoon]

Just to clarify. P1 stops having magicka advantage after reaching the soft cap of 12 magicka. You cannot gain any more magicka from just advancing in turns after this point.

So P2 has 3 turns where they can use 1 extra magicka, P1 then has 9 turns with advantage (if the game lasts that long.)

[blade]

Its already been established in the past that the win rate is about 50/50 with and without ring. It can feel brutal when the other players get a clear boost from the ring, however this is confirmation bias, because you tend not to notice the opposite, where going first gives you the advantage.

[carelessjet2]

Originally posted by blade:

Its already been established in the past that the win rate is about 50/50 with and without ring. It can feel brutal when the other players get a clear boost from the ring, however this is confirmation bias, because you tend not to notice the opposite, where going first gives you the advantage.

well said

[Grundvarg]

Just learn to play the game. There is nothing unfair about you moron

[Mehno]

Originally posted by Halfshell cat:

You're overlooking something really obvious here. Player 2 gets 3 turns of magicka advantage, player 1 gets infinite turns (-3) of magicka advantage. This ends up equalizing the tempo so that player 2 has turns to catch up. Other games just give an extra card to player 2, Hearthstone does both except 1 magicka from the coin (which is broken because it counts as a spell). Trading an extra card for 3 turns of tempo is fair. The worst case scenario is player 2 gets perfect 2, 3 and 4 drops on turns 1, 2 and 3 but how is that different than player 1 getting perfect 2 ,3 and 4 drops on turns 2, 3 and 4 in other games? At most its just a brief role reversal.

Well said.

[Ormbearslayer]

Got boring and no fun anymore - Too many "Sheep" playing the same easy types of decks, Endurance,Agility and Intelligence (in whatever combination) it's like watching paint dry. In my experience it doesn't pay to play a Guildsworn or Crusader deck, but if you do play these and are making them work against the "Sheep" decks then i Salute you !