[Troubador]

Okay, not sure where to start. I'm mad too, but there must be a lot I don't understand. See my stats from my sig below. Now...

1) What shirts and what pants? From level 42 to 61, I could only win basically 1 or 2 types of parley. I have 2 Red cards (1 useless), 5 Green cards (3 useless), 11 Blue cards (4 or 5 useless), and 2 Yellow cards (1 useless). I say 'useless' due to the combination of cards I have coupled with the types of parley I must engage in, in my 'home' area. Other than the training quest parleys in Halgarad, the only place I've been able to win ANY parleys is in my starter town, Durogar's Post. There, vs the 50 and 75 ranked Guard types, I could win the Civic Incite parleys (Demand, Logic, and Persuade) most of the time. It took me a long time to get there, and by that time, my faction and prestige were both in the dust. Finally got those back up (~400 Faction and ~75 Prestige). Still, the ONLY rewards I ever got were Hearsay, Rumors, etc., none of which I can do anything with. The only Broker I've ever seen in a Blackmail Broker, and I have no Blackmail. I have Trends, and Arcane, and this and that. So, WHERE are you getting shirts and pants, etc.?? I can't finish the ONLY tutorial quest I've been able to find because my Domestic Skill is 7, and I need 8 to continue. I can't figure ANY way to get shirts or pants etc to boost Domestic without getting quests. Please Educate me here, even if it's painful. ;(

2) Remember that I said in my question above that I'd only generally been able to beat those level 50 guards in the ONE type of parley. That was BEFORE today's patch. The one combo that worked for me involved using my only decent card, Elocution, a purple card. Since the patch, all those guards now have a different strategy, one that involves a new card they've suddenly aquired, 'Flurry of Arguments'. It costs 3 Demand, gives me 1 Demand and 1 Flattery (not useable in these parleys), gives 4 Influence, and a delay of 1-2 turns. Now I have NO cards that use all the Demand that guards (and everyone else) use. They apparently took out the cards that gave the occasional Logic that my Elocution (delay of 4-6 turns) requires.

Diplomatic Play has so degenerated over the past couple of patches, and the lack of brokers to cash in the few assets I have, and the inability to complete the ONE quest that I have will likely result in my 1st month in Vanguard being my last. I've played MMORPGs for over 7 years. I've never been this frustated with a newbie char. Gaining higher levels, sure. But just getting started the 1st week of a game? Nothing else comes close in terms of difficulty or frustration level. It is looking more and more like this is another case of a product being released before it was ready.

Anyone else feel like this?