ESO is getting a new card game, Tales of Fame, with High Isle – Here’s how it works

With High Isle, the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online gets its own card game. You can gamble against NPCs, but also against friends and against other players in a ranking list. We at MeinMMO were able to try out the content in advance and reveal exactly how the fame stories work.

What card game is this? Tales of Glory is a very strategic game that differs significantly from card games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering. Although you fight against someone else in 1v1, the typical combat elements take a back seat. You also don’t have to turn off the opponent’s life points.

Instead, you build a deck within the match, the goal of which is to win the game in two different ways:

• You collect 40 prestige points
• You win the favor of all 4 patrons on the table

If you succeed in one of them, you win the match. In PvE, this primarily means following a little story or dueling for some resources as a reward.

However, there is also a PvP aspect where you can choose to challenge friends who are nearby or compete against another player via a queue.

Build a hand that wins you

How exactly does the game play? At the start you only have cards in your deck on the field that give you either a gold coin or one power. You draw 5 of them each round.

• You can use gold coins to buy the cards that are in the middle of the table.
• Power, in turn, becomes prestige at the end of your turn, which you can use to win the match.

If you buy a card from the middle of the field, it goes into your discard pile. This discard pile is shuffled back into your deck as soon as you run out of cards, which happens very quickly in the beginning since you only start with 6 cards.

The game is always played alternately. If you have no more cards in your hand, you can end your turn and it is your opponent’s turn. It’s a good idea to play all of your hand cards, since your hand will be discarded at the end of your turn anyway.

What do the cards in the middle do? The cards you buy from the middle can be of one of three types:

• Action Cards – These have an activation and a combo effect. Combos are activated when you play the required number of cards. As a rule, these effects bring additional gold or more power. However, some also let you draw additional cards or remove cards from your deck, such as the boring 1 gold cards.
• Agents – They have effects similar to Action Cards, but remain on the field until the opponent has removed them. As a result, their effect activates automatically every turn on Gold or Power. Some have the effect of preventing enemies from gaining Prestige Points if they are not defeated. In order to defeat them, you have to reduce their life points to 0.
• Contracts – These cards only work once, so they are played as soon as you buy them.

So within a match you build the perfect deck to win the game. You start with boring maps and get stronger from round to round.

How do I win now? The easiest way is to play a total of 40 Powers over the course of the game. At the end of your turn, Power is always converted to Prestige. If you have 40 prestige, you win.

However, there is a second way you can win. There are 4 patrons at the edge of the game, from which each player chooses two at the beginning of a match. You can “buy” these patrons with gold, power or other effects.

You have the states:

• Friendly
• Neutral
• Hostile

All patrons are initially neutral and become friendly or hostile depending on which player “buys” them. However, you can buy them back to neutral and later in a friendly way. However, buying a patron is only possible once per round.

In addition, each patron has a special effect if they are friendly or hostile to you. These effects provide more gold or let you remove cards from your deck again. We will add the exact effects to this article in the future.

The cards in the middle are determined by the players’ decks

How are the cards in the middle created? The cards in the middle come from a total of 4 decks. Each player brings two of them into the round. However, these decks are fixed and cannot be changed.

At the beginning you already unlock four different decks via the tutorial. You get another four decks by completing special quests or achievements. These decks contain about 20 different cards with different effects.

There will be no decks in the shop, nor will there be trading or trading between players.

What are these new deck quests and achievements? We’ll update this part of the guide once we’ve had more time to test the new expansion.

You can compete against NPCs and other players

How can I unlock the new card game? The activation takes place via a new tutorial quest, which you can accept in the harbor town on the high islands.

How do I play against other opponents?

• In every tavern you can challenge NPCs
• You can play directly against friends
• You can join a queue for the Glory Stories in the party search, where you also register for dungeons or PvP. There you can compete against other players in the unranked or in a ranking list.

The rewards are achievements, collectibles, furnishings and gold.

What do you think of the new card game? Are you drawn to the Fame Stories, or will you focus on other High Isle content?

We have collected everything about the new expansion here:

ESO: Everything about the new expansion High Isle and the content in 2022