I would agree diplomacy can be VERY frustrating at times.
A suggestion for the civic diplomacy tutorial though:
Can we have special civic diplomacy NPC's that are ONLY for the tutorial. I have a halfling diplomat and have been running through Tursh trying to get it done. Because of my race, class, and my choses rewards earlier, gossip is EXTREMELY difficult for me. I think I lost about 60 faction trying to win about 4 arguments to get me my 2 blackmail to finish that part of the quest (and the only reason I won is because I had good luck on my timers).
Now I'm not saying it shouldn't be difficult, but depending on your race, class, and rewards chosen, it could make the civic introduction extremely easy, or just about impossible. If you could make the intro to civic easier to teach HOW it's done and what to look for that would greatly help. I have found I can Entertain and interview crafters very well, so I've been sticking with that to level up some and get better cards and items. (then I can go back and build decks for the others)
I do love the difficulty of the diplomacy (though at times sometimes it's too difficult). But getting into the civic diplomacy through the introduction could be just a bit easier to not scare everyone off before they can find a deck they are good with.
Over all I love the diplomacy, I have found I'm doing diplomacy more then anything else, and even was grinding out adventuring levels just to get up high enough to continue the diplomacy line
Keep up the good work.