The Elder Scrolls Online gets deck-building card game Tales of Tribute

blog.playstation.com:

During today’s High Isle Chapter Preview event, the development team behind The Elder Scrolls Online’s next big adventure had a chance to share more about Tales of Tribute, the new card game taking Tamriel’s taverns by storm. To get the inside scoop, we reached out to some of Tales of Tribute’s designers for a breakdown on this new system.  

“The team is always exploring potential new features and quality of life improvements for ESO, and historically we’ve added a major new gameplay element with each annual Chapter release,” explains Rob Garrett, ESO’s Gameplay Lead. “For some time, we’ve had interest in exploring the idea of a tavern game. Something the inhabitants of Tamriel play for recreation and, much like Antiquities, could serve as a fun activity for adventurers looking to take a break from their usual escapades.”  

The result was the creation of an all-new card game system, fully integrated within ESO, that anybody who owns High Isle can pick up and play. 

Tales of Tribute is a two-player deck-building card game that can be played against NPCs and other adventurers you meet within ESO. Secure the win by collecting enough Victory Points or gaining the favor of all four Patrons at once. 

Patrons are a unique kind of mechanic in that there are four of them in play at any one time, and each Patron is associated with a specific type of card (like suits in a normal card game). And each of the Patrons, you earn their favor by doing various tasks – some require gold while others require certain actions or combos to be played. This is a big part of the strategy of the game where players have to decide if they want to focus on trying to gain the favor of just one type of Patron or focus on multiple Patrons. If players do