CDPR Needs More Highly Ranked Patch Testers

[IAxiiYourMother]

CDPR Needs More Highly Ranked Patch Testers

CDPR Needs More Highly Ranked Patch Testers

I came to this conclusion after watching all the misplays on the live stream today, and noticing a lot of changes/new cards being added to the game that don't make any sense.

Examples:

• Bad Elven Merc fix decreasing synergy across the faction with BMC and cards that benefit from special cards being played.
• Bronze Care Taker that is going to be very very hard on SK (in addition to making the game near impossible to balance with all the potential stolen bronze combos).
• With so many ways to rob SK blind are they really the graveyard faction anymore?
• Why did NR need another muster card trio?
• Why creat a faction that can play its entire deck using Emissary and replaying it with bronze Care Taker immediately after nerfing a faction because it could empty its deck. (unintentional 3 cards left during the second round on stream... just wait till they bounce them with BMC if SC even runs them anymore....
• Why does NG have a Kayran?
• In addition to being able to thin the entire deck, the NG faction ability allows for picking golds out of the few cards left.
• Nerfing Aeromancy when dual weather cards will be the way to go next patch, and after weather was significantly weakened with buffs being remembered. Why is the bronze weather card it spawned kept??? Chances are Aero would have been used on the same row anyway.
• etc etc etc

Additionally it seems like there are 3 nerfs for every 1 buff when there are still a very high percentage of cards that are never seen played. Maybe small collections that are forced into using unpopular cards are skewing their statistics?

Other companies hired the top players on the ladder to help balance patches before they were implemented. They need to hire great players/deck builders like Dunkoro, GUMGUMFACEPUNCH, and Swim to break the patches and give feedback before they release them. On week 1 of the patch GUMGUM was crushing the ladder with PFI, and the other two both caused huge meta swings with their respective decks. Having them use their talents to balance the game could only help the patches move in a better direction.

I love CDPR and have very high expectations for them because they are such a great company. I'm definitely not sold on the patch they showed today, and I'm not one for blind faith.

Yes, I'm aware we haven't been able to play on the patch yet and see how it plays. It doesn't take a genius to see some major flaws though.

 

[Isi23_23]

Yeah totally agree. I mean, they at least corrected some cards from build they showed streamers that were obviously OP or weak. But I really wonder why they designed them like this, when any experienced player must seen that some of them where horribly unbalanced.

 

[Chaob_N7]

I agree with half of your assertions however, of course, you put 10 different high ranked testers in a room and everyone will have a different slant.

But I do absolutely agree they need a pool of a few dozen community play-testers who's win/loss ratios would prove unbalances that the devs don't catch in their own playstyles.

If SK or ST are broken it would show up statistically pretty quickly when you have a larger pool of hardcore gamer testers prior to pushing it out on everyone. CDPR has internal testers who probably aren't as good as the leaderboard players and combine that with the fact that they are in the development loop always skews how they play unlike the community themselves.

 

[Ugralitan]

One day everyone will bow down before King Bran, the King in the North!

Till that occurs, CDPR should definitely assembly a pro-player team to get specialized feedback.

 

[arz0]

CDPR Needs More Highly Ranked Patch Testers
[*]Bad Elven Merc fix decreasing synergy across the faction with BMC and cards that benefit from special cards being played.
[*]Bronze Care Taker that is going to be very very hard on SK (in addition to making the game near impossible to balance with all the potential stolen bronze combos).
[*]With so many ways to rob SK blind are they really the graveyard faction anymore?
[*]Why did NR need another muster card trio?
[*]Why creat a faction that can play its entire deck using Emissary and replaying it with bronze Care Taker immediately after nerfing a faction because it could empty its deck. (unintentional 3 cards left during the second round on stream... just wait till they bounce them with BMC if SC even runs them anymore....
[*]Why does NG have a Kayran?
[*]In addition to being able to thin the entire deck, the NG faction ability allows for picking golds out of the few cards left.
[*]Nerfing Aeromancy when dual weather cards will be the way to go next patch, and after weather was significantly weakened with buffs being remembered. Why is the bronze weather card it spawned kept??? Chances are Aero would have been used on the same row anyway.
[*]etc etc etc
[/LIST]

-Elven mercs, I kinda agree but we'll see, I think Scoai is going to move in the direction of more ambush and locking.

-I don't think the vicovaro medics are going to ruin skellige, skellige have had ways to have their graveyard robbed since the beginning of the game, Griffins, caretaker, monster only but still. The medics are 1 strength, and only res bronze, you are not going to use it to pull out a skellige card, it's going to be used to pull out any bronze disloyal card you give your opponent.
What bronze card do you see yourself needing that skellige runs over your own cards? They won't synergise with your own deck, most of of the time it will be just a pure value play, and nilfgaard from what we have seen have enough ways to put down a lot of strength without the need to rob their opponents graveyard.
Sure... You can deny your opponent a card they need if they really commit to one bronze card, but it's quite foolish of your opponent to do that. the game already has many ways to punish players for committing to one card.

-because of the change to reaver scouts. The foot soldier is used for pure thinning, and the scout is to pull another different card for its ability.

-I expect that is the combo the devs had in mind when creating the cards, and it does seem super strong. However just to take the opposing view, the emissaries are on your opponents side, and are under your opponents control. NR can promote them, so treason, Calveit, and the brigade and arbalest can't target them, monster consume can just devour them, and Scoai can bounce them for their own thinning. Skellige can resurrect them if they wish. And In some ways the emissary medic play is not that good, you may pull out a medic before there are any emissaries is the graveyard. if you want to make that thinning chain as optimal as possible you'll want to start off will all 3 emissaries and all 3 medics in your hand. So you don't draw emissary into emissary, or emissary into dead medic. All Scoai needed was one merc and 1 or two BMC, the rest could sit in their deck.

-I'd say letho and the kayran are quite different, for one thing letho is well.. 1 strength so whichever side you play him on he will not result in a meaningful point swing.
also letho banishes the units so he is designed to disrupt plays, be it on your side because your opponent is placing down disloyal units. Or your opponents side to interrupt a combo, and provide a 'spying' unit for synergies in that regard. The kayran is just about securing strength and providing 3 triggers for absorption, to buff nekkers, spawn Arachase. And because those units aren't banished it's food for your ghouls and katakan.
Letho as a way to secure strength seems to be a last resort as he has far better uses beyond that.

-I won't disagree with you on areo changes, but I do want to see how it will play out.
One of the biggest complaints about the Scoai aero play was that it gave two cards... Full stop. monster players had to waste 2 Griffins to deal with it.
Just having one card in the graveyard is a bit more manageable, now that we also have a card such as deathmold for NR, which can just banish that card from their graveyard. Also nilfgaard has an answer to Scoai weather with Assire var anahid, putting it out of control with agalis.

------------------------------------------

with regards to the actual suggestion, wasn't that kinda the reason that CDPR invited all those streamers such as greyboxer merchant and mcbearded? Sure they are not top of the leaderboard, but they definitely see the game from an outside perspective, and already highlighted some potential problems.

However WE ALL are the testers, why should it matter if we get a build that is a little bit broken in places? that's the whole point of use being beta testers.
The devs need numbers to truly balance the game, giving builds to top players can highlight certain issues, but changing aspects based on a those small number of players is not the way to balance the game. The devs sometimes will need to push out a build just to test out a new idea or concept in the game, and I actually don't see why we need a second filter for a build before it reaches us.

 

[IAxiiYourMother]

with regards to the actual suggestion, wasn't that kinda the reason for CDPR invited all those streamers such as greyboxer merchant and mcbearded. Sure they are not top of the leaderboard, but they definitely see the game from an outside perspective, and already highlighted some potential problems.

Thanks for all the feedback, and you have a lot of valid points. I would argue that greyboxer is the only notable mention on that list, the other streamers though popular entertainers are not good players. I'm sure you noticed that many of the decks they showcased in the stream were stolen from the players I highlighted in my post. They are second wave deck users that net-decked from the best and present them to the community through their media. Many of them were quite challenged by rank 3-4 players, and there were even losses to them on stream.

There is nothing wrong with being rank 3-4 equivalent, but you shouldn't be giving game play design feedback.

The streamers were invited to introduce the community to the new faction, not because they are good players, but because they are popular entertainers.

 

[arz0]

Thanks for all the feedback, and you have a lot of valid points. I would argue that greyboxer is the only notable mention on that list, the other streamers though popular entertainers are not good players. I'm sure you noticed that many of the decks they showcased in the stream were stolen from the players I highlighted in my post. They are second wave deck users that net-decked from the best and present them to the community through their media. Many of them were quite challenged by rank 3-4 players, and there were even losses to them on stream.

There is nothing wrong with being rank 3-4 equivalent, but you shouldn't be giving game play design feedback.

The streamers were invited to introduce the community to the new faction, not because they are good players, but because they are popular entertainers.

I'm actually specifically talking about Nilfgaard, when they went to test it out. I understand they were playing decks on stream that had been well established.

 

[IAxiiYourMother]

I'm actually specifically talking about Nilfgaard, when they went to test it out. I understand they were playing decks on stream that had been well established.

My point is still valid, they are not the people to go to for design feedback. They were brought there to introduce the community to NG, not balance them. If they wanted better players to analyze their patch they would have grabbed the players I mentioned in my original post, or others like them that are not as well known. They were chosen because they have lots of viewers for their media outlets. To balance the game, why not invite the top 10 ranked players?

 

[drzappleswag]

Agreed.

Either CDPRs Patch Testing team are all playing a different card game than the one I'm playing. Or CDPR Board made the executive decision to purposely make NG so desirable over the other factions, they hoped everyone would jump ship and buy more Kegs for NG cards.

There's no way you look at this patches' totem pole, where ST and NR was on top. And then Monster and SK at the bottom. And then proceed to give SKs multiple nerfs, and Monsters multiple buffs. How does that make any sense?

 

[arz0]

To balance the game, why not invite the top 10 ranked players?

To balance the game you need as many players as possible. We are the testers and that includes the top ranked players. You don't need to invite them over.
Also for those top players to fully build, refine, optimise a deck they need the environment of an actual release where everyone has access.
Honestly just inviting them over will probably just highlight glaring problems and issues. Issues that don't need a player to be top rank to notice.

 

[Archpriest]

I too agree with some of the points made by the OP. However, thinking that only high ranked players can give good feedback and constructive criticism is preposterous. And absolutely baseless.

 

[TheLimnalhymn]

They need to hire great players/deck builders like Drunkoro,

He's not drunk, wtf. At least when i last saw him streaming he seemed sober to me...

 

[nightweaver]

Thanks for all the feedback, and you have a lot of valid points. I would argue that greyboxer is the only notable mention on that list, the other streamers though popular entertainers are not good players. I'm sure you noticed that many of the decks they showcased in the stream were stolen from the players I highlighted in my post. They are second wave deck users that net-decked from the best and present them to the community through their media. Many of them were quite challenged by rank 3-4 players, and there were even losses to them on stream.

There is nothing wrong with being rank 3-4 equivalent, but you shouldn't be giving game play design feedback.

The streamers were invited to introduce the community to the new faction, not because they are good players, but because they are popular entertainers.

This is crossing the line a bit mate.
Just because someone else came up with a deck doesn't mean everyone else automagically steals it when do build a similar one.

Tone down on the accusations. You have good points but this just ruins it for you.

 

[IAxiiYourMother]

This is crossing the line a bit mate.
Just because someone else came up with a deck doesn't mean everyone else automagically steals it when do build a similar one.

Tone down on the accusations. You have good points but this just ruins it for you.

Sorry you feel that way, and I myself play modified versions of their decks. I do not have a problem with net-decking. The point I was making is I want the people who originally spark these "OP" decks to be making balance changes, not the celebrities that make spin-offs. Anyone can customize a good deck, but it's hard to build from scratch.

 

[nightweaver]

Sorry you feel that way, and I myself play modified versions of their decks and I do not have a problem with net-decking. The point I was making is I want the people who originally spark these "OP" decks to be making balance changes, not the celebrities that make spin-offs. Anyone can customize a good deck, but it's hard to build from scratch.

Exactly, and some do it faster than others. Doesn't make them the only ones that can.
But that is what you are implying.

Also, apology for my lash out.
I normally never do this. But as someone who slowly tests every nook and cranny of any idea I get. I can't help but take this personally.

 

[IAxiiYourMother]

He's not drunk, wtf. At least when i last saw him streaming he seemed sober to me...

Lol, my bad

 

[Monalba]

This is crossing the line a bit mate.
Just because someone else came up with a deck doesn't mean everyone else automagically steals it when do build a similar one.

Tone down on the accusations. You have good points but this just ruins it for you.

Nah, he is right.

Some of the guys that were invited were invited because they are entertainers, not because they are good players.
Mcbearded and Greyboxer are ok, they have knowledge and understand how the game works and how cards interact. KBT is a bit of a wild card, he experiments a lot so he tends to fail miserably, but the few times I saw using a netdeck/metadeck he actually did quite well. I don't know about MegaMogwai cause I haven't seen anything from him in a while. And Merchant and chaoticpriest... yeah, those are not particularly good players imo. Entertainers? Yeah, probably. But what I've seen from them is just blindly using whatever deck is ''hot'' at the moment, without really understanding how to use it and why every card is in the deck.

I mean, when you see and hear some really good players they have a reason, there is a logic, to why a card is in their deck. How it works and what to do when things don't go according to plan.
When I saw the stream and the videos that came after it, I felt like it would have been much better if some knowledgeable players would have been there. People that could immediately identify synergies and what cards would have a starring role in the next patch.

Still, I get that it was a show and they picked the guests based on it, but OP has a point.

 

[nightweaver]

Nah, he is right.

Some of the guys that were invited were invited because they are entertainers, not because they are good players.
Mcbearded and Greyboxer are ok, they have knowledge and understand how the game works and how cards interact. KBT is a bit of a wild card, he experiments a lot so he tends to fail miserably, but the few times I saw using a netdeck/metadeck he actually did quite well. I don't know about MegaMogwai cause I haven't seen anything from him in a while. And Merchant and chaoticpriest... yeah, those are not particularly good players imo. Entertainers? Yeah, probably. But what I've seen from them is just blindly using whatever deck is ''hot'' at the moment, without really understanding how to use it and why every card is in the deck.

I mean, when you see and hear some really good players they have a reason, there is a logic, to why a card is in their deck. How it works and what to do when things don't go according to plan.
When I saw the stream and the videos that came after it, I felt like it would have been much better if some knowledgeable players would have been there. People that could immediately identify synergies and what cards would have a starring role in the next patch.

Still, I get that it was a show and they picked the guests based on it, but OP has a point.

Not entirely.

He said the decks were stolen. From a few players he listed.
First error is that there is no stealing.
Second, there is no evidence they did copy it and not made it themselves. Some of those Entertainers have shown on stream them coming up slowly with their iteration of said deck wholly on their own.
Yet they still get insulted.
Skill level is relevant for this particular topic.

Also, let's not forget that because of the relatively small card pool it's not particularly difficult to get pigeonholed in pretty much the same deck everyone is playing.

I did not disagree with anything else he posted. As I said, he has some really good points.

 

[IAxiiYourMother]

nightweaver You have a valid point, and there is nothing wrong with coming to the same conclusion on your own after days and weeks of testing (especially for the average players it should be encouraged and admired). It would effect my choice of who to chose to help test patches.

For the purpose of picking through a patch and addressing OP and underwhelming cards and factions it would be necessary to do this very quickly, and the people I listed are very talented analysts and deck builders. They would outperform the average person when presented with a large number of changes each day to test and give feedback on.

I am suggesting that CDPR hire the elite of the elite for testing and innovation, and I do not mean to insult your deck building process in any way. I mean no offense to you or the streamers when I say there are better people out there for the job.

:cheers:

 

[nightweaver]

nightweaver I think you have a valid point, and there is nothing wrong with coming to the same conclusion on your own after days and weeks of testing (especially for the average players it should be encouraged and admired). But it would effect my choice of who to chose to help test patches.

For the purpose of picking through a patch and addressing OP and underwhelming cards and factions it would be necessary to do this very quickly, and I believe the people I listed are very talented analysts and deck builders. They would outperform the average person when presented with a large number of changes each day to test and give feedback on.

I am suggesting that CDPR hire the elite of the elite for testing and innovation, and I do not mean to insult your deck building process in any way. I mean no offense to you or the streamers when I say there are better people out there for the job.

:cheers:

Agreed.

I just took insult from that specific implication and felt it required rectifying.

I personally haven't heard of those you listed, but to have people that can analyze, compare and execute at a faster rate would be much more beneficial for balance testing then someone like me who likes to take the longer route.
And yes, entertainers are rarely suited for this kind of thing.

And don't worry, I still love you. (The first quote in my sig is there for a reason. I don't hold grudges etc.)
:cheers: