Game doesn't feel very friendly for casual (and F2P) play

[Mko00]

Game doesn't feel very friendly for casual (and F2P) play

Hi

I'm new here, but I've played a bit of the game and I thought since it's in beta I would share some of my thoughts. GOG is telling me just below 14 hours played, and I just reached level 9, so I did not reach ranked matches yet - just to explain my in-game situation. The game's been around for a while and for a long time I had it installed but didn't really play. I only started playing more very recently.

I think I understand some of the basic concepts of the game, e.g. build my deck around some strategy and minimize the size of my deck to decrease randomness. Overall, however, I think the game has some kind of a split identity, or it's just not clear to me. I mean, I don't think a game with randomness somewhere around choose(10, 25) with 3 possible replacements is very viable as a competitive game, the randomness is probably just too much. At the same time, there is quite a lot of depth, and what I would call "card ownership issues", which make casual play problematic as well.

I mean, if I want to have a good time playing the game, then I simply have to put time into analyzing the game, the cards I have and the cards I can get, then optimize my deck and hope for the best with the card draw. I don't know how the random matches MM works, if it only uses player level, or some ranking, or the power of my deck... but from just playing the game, I get the feeling that it uses player level. That would be horribly wrong, since people at the same level can have decks with very different power based on amount of money spent and luck with kegs. If someone approaches this as a F2P casual game, they can get rekt a lot and hard, and the game can also feel quite grindy. Sure, getting 6 round wins for one keg a day is OK, but the cards can repeat a lot and there is simply no telling what you will get from the keg.

Which brings me to another issue I have - I don't really like the monetization system. Alright, I can collect cards in the game, and I can spend money to collect more cards. Makes sense? Well, sort of, but not quite. As I said, the kegs are a huge lottery. Furthermore, it stinks of P2W or even pay to play a lot. If you get redundant cards out of a keg, you can mill them to get back almost nothing. If you craft the wrong cards, well it doesn't even make sense to mill them, just deal with it. The problem isn't really collecting cards, it's the viability of cards. Some cards are simply outright better than others, and you can pay to have a better deck than someone else.

As an example, I got Cealeno Harpy out of a keg, so I crafted harpies because I thought it would be an interesting combo to play with other cards. And it is, though it takes a ton of cards to execute. Except, I should have saved up and crafted the Leshen gold card and played weather instead.

I think there is quite a lot of potential in this game. I also think that it should identify itself better, either go more towards casual-oriented, or more towards competitive. It's extremely hard to do both at the same time. More friendliness towards F2P and casual play would definitely be nice. Simply put, more focus on playability, so that people can have a good time playing the game. Sometimes when I get rekt so hard I feel like I'm a 3 year old (though it's maybe not my fault), I find it hard to even do the 6 round wins for the keg. At the same time, if the game was more competitive-oriented and it was made clear, there would be no issue with that. One or the other, that's my point of view. Now I could definitely go deeper into the game, I'm just not sure if I want to commit the time (and money) right now.

I wonder what other people think - are there other similar opinions?

 

[DMaster2]

Hi

I'm new here, but I've played a bit of the game and I thought since it's in beta I would share some of my thoughts. GOG is telling me just below 14 hours played, and I just reached level 9, so I did not reach ranked matches yet - just to explain my in-game situation. The game's been around for a while and for a long time I had it installed but didn't really play. I only started playing more very recently.

1) I think I understand some of the basic concepts of the game, e.g. build my deck around some strategy and minimize the size of my deck to decrease randomness. Overall, however, I think the game has some kind of a split identity, or it's just not clear to me. I mean, I don't think a game with randomness somewhere around choose(10, 25) with 3 possible replacements is very viable as a competitive game, the randomness is probably just too much. At the same time, there is quite a lot of depth, and what I would call "card ownership issues", which make casual play problematic as well.

2) I mean, if I want to have a good time playing the game, then I simply have to put time into analyzing the game, the cards I have and the cards I can get, then optimize my deck and hope for the best with the card draw. I don't know how the random matches MM works, if it only uses player level, or some ranking, or the power of my deck... but from just playing the game, I get the feeling that it uses player level. That would be horribly wrong, since people at the same level can have decks with very different power based on amount of money spent and luck with kegs. If someone approaches this as a F2P casual game, they can get rekt a lot and hard, and the game can also feel quite grindy. Sure, getting 6 round wins for one keg a day is OK, but the cards can repeat a lot and there is simply no telling what you will get from the keg.

3) Which brings me to another issue I have - I don't really like the monetization system. Alright, I can collect cards in the game, and I can spend money to collect more cards. Makes sense? Well, sort of, but not quite. As I said, the kegs are a huge lottery. Furthermore, it stinks of P2W or even pay to play a lot. If you get redundant cards out of a keg, you can mill them to get back almost nothing. If you craft the wrong cards, well it doesn't even make sense to mill them, just deal with it. The problem isn't really collecting cards, it's the viability of cards. Some cards are simply outright better than others, and you can pay to have a better deck than someone else.

4) As an example, I got Cealeno Harpy out of a keg, so I crafted harpies because I thought it would be an interesting combo to play with other cards. And it is, though it takes a ton of cards to execute. Except, I should have saved up and crafted the Leshen gold card and played weather instead.

I think there is quite a lot of potential in this game. I also think that it should identify itself better, either go more towards casual-oriented, or more towards competitive. It's extremely hard to do both at the same time. More friendliness towards F2P and casual play would definitely be nice. Simply put, more focus on playability, so that people can have a good time playing the game. Sometimes when I get rekt so hard I feel like I'm a 3 year old (though it's maybe not my fault), I find it hard to even do the 6 round wins for the keg. At the same time, if the game was more competitive-oriented and it was made clear, there would be no issue with that. One or the other, that's my point of view. Now I could definitely go deeper into the game, I'm just not sure if I want to commit the time (and money) right now.

I wonder what other people think - are there other similar opinions?

Hi and welcome to the game. About your points:

1) What do you mean by randomness? Most of it comes from the draw, but that's an inherent "feature" of any card game, from solitaire to poker and gwent make no exception. As for in-game randomness, it mostly comes from the rally effect of first light. Thankfully this game have very few random effects.

2) Each player have a ELO, and the matchmaking puts you against people with similar ELO to yours. It make no difference which cards you have or don't have. Same for ranked play

3) I'm afraid no game in this genre use a different system, so you'll have to get used to it. Also keep in mind that gwent is by far the most f2p friendly ccg game you'll find around.

4) Well that's precious learning experience you get now, so you won't make the same mistakes once in open beta

 

[Mko00]

Thanks for the reply

1) By randomness I mean the draw. Drawing 10 out of 25, your chances to get what you want are quite slim (even when you can replace 3 cards). Not to say when you put 30+ cards in your deck. It definitely puts a lot of emphasis on optimizing decks, which is problematic if you lack the cards for a complete strategy. Also the randomness of the monster faction ability can troll you really hard, but that's not really an issue.

3) I'm really not familiar with card collector games, in fact this is the only one I ever played.

 

[Mivo]

As mentioned above, Gwent is by far the F2P friendliest collectible card game online. I recently posted some numbers based on keg value (small sample size of 500 kegs, so not necessarily reliable), and in summary, if you play about two hours a day, you'll get around at least 8 legendary cards per month of playing. The longer you play, the greater your scraps-"income" will be. One of Gwent's biggest advantages, especially for F2P, is that you only need to win rounds, not games. It's rare that you'll lose in two rounds, so almost always you'll get at least one round from a game.

If you do lose in two rounds often, it might be worthwhile to analyze why that happens and what you could change about the deck to make it more viable. This isn't a "get good" sort of comment. I face a losing streak today myself and I have been sitting down and trying to sort out what I could do differently, that is, why I lost games and to what degree that was my own doing. Sometimes it's just bad luck (no draws you need, opponent gets all the right cards), but i find that I often make mistakes that I could have avoided, chiefly the order in which I play cards, or synergies that I botched up. Stuff like that. Sometimes there are also opponents who simply have better decks, or I use a scissors deck and they have a rock deck. Sorting that out helps me to avoid frustration and gives me a chance to learn.

I feel both Monsters and Scoia'tael currently allow for solid budget decks, probably Nilfgaard too (the reveal type anyway). Of the unmodified starter decks, I think the Monsters one is the easiest/best/least unfocused choice. When you hit level 10 and start ranked play, you'll also meet people who have played much longer than you. The community is small still, and it's a closed beta, so the player pool is more limited. The matchmaking system will work better when there are more players who are on comparable levels (ELO, MMR).

Finally, the game will have a solo campaign too where you can presumably gain levels and cards (purely speculation on my part), and on Reddit they said that the AI will be overhauled and have settings, so that it doesn't eat new players when they try it out.

 

[Ruthless95]

95% of the time its player's fault for not looking up couple of youtube videos and practicing.
"As an example, I got Cealeno Harpy out of a keg, so I crafted harpies because I thought it would be an interesting combo to play with other cards. And it is, though it takes a ton of cards to execute. Except, I should have saved up and crafted the Leshen gold card and played weather instead."
you should have known this strategy is not used by anyone before wasting scraps on harpy strategy. there are 2 3 dozen ways to build synergies and try to be competitive in this game but only 5 to 10 of them will get you somewhere high
to give you a heads up i did go down the path of caranthir and leshen weather heavy deck, which logically would require you to put 3 foglets in which everytime you play the leshen they would be played automatically with the fog effect but you will slowly put those foglets away when you get unlucky and extremely frustrated when you pull 1 or 2 foglets in between rounds which are absolutely useless. this ultimately leads to putting away leshen entirely and looking for a more suitable gold card which doesn't cripple you mid game. you have to play through and understand what's good and bad for yourself. this game takes time, patience, and practice.

 

[Mko00]

As mentioned above, Gwent is by far the F2P friendliest collectible card game online. I recently posted some numbers based on keg value (small sample size of 500 kegs, so not necessarily reliable), and in summary, if you play about two hours a day, you'll get around at least 8 legendary cards per month of playing. The longer you play, the greater your scraps-"income" will be. One of Gwent's biggest advantages, especially for F2P, is that you only need to win rounds, not games. It's rare that you'll lose in two rounds, so almost always you'll get at least one round from a game.

If you do lose in two rounds often, it might be worthwhile to analyze why that happens and what you could change about the deck to make it more viable. This isn't a "get good" sort of comment. I face a losing streak today myself and I have been sitting down and trying to sort out what I could do differently, that is, why I lost games and to what degree that was my own doing. Sometimes it's just bad luck (no draws you need, opponent gets all the right cards), but i find that I often make mistakes that I could have avoided, chiefly the order in which I play cards, or synergies that I botched up. Stuff like that. Sometimes there are also opponents who simply have better decks, or I use a scissors deck and they have a rock deck. Sorting that out helps me to avoid frustration and gives me a chance to learn.

I feel both Monsters and Scoia'tael currently allow for solid budget decks, probably Nilfgaard too (the reveal type anyway). Of the unmodified starter decks, I think the Monsters one is the easiest/best/least unfocused choice. When you hit level 10 and start ranked play, you'll also meet people who have played much longer than you. The community is small still, and it's a closed beta, so the player pool is more limited. The matchmaking system will work better when there are more players who are on comparable levels (ELO, MMR).

Finally, the game will have a solo campaign too where you can presumably gain levels and cards (purely speculation on my part), and on Reddit they said that the AI will be overhauled and have settings, so that it doesn't eat new players when they try it out.

As for winning, I don't think I make too many mistakes, though yesterday I was too scorch-happy and scorched my own card as well as my opponents. Actually I threw Scorch out of my monsters deck, I found it hard to use. When I run into problems, it's because I don't have a counter to a specific powerful card, or I don't have the cards I need in my hand, or my opponent has a better deck than me, or simply plays better. Or a combination of all of that. I rarely lose 0-2, most of the time I manage to get at least 1 round. Actually I think it would be nice if there were statistics, it would be nice to know what my overall winrate and winrate per deck look like.

The biggest challenge for me is to optimize my deck, and that's where I think most of the skill in this game is. I basically can't get my decks below size 30. I've been playing Monsters and Northern realms almost exclusively, though I'd like to explore other decks in time, as there are some interesting strategies.

Oh I remember trying the AI back when the game was completely fresh. I didn't even win a single match

 

[AlenCT]

2) Each player have a ELO, and the matchmaking puts you against people with similar ELO to yours. It make no difference which cards you have or don't have. Same for ranked play

Do you mind if I ask what is ELO? I don't see it in guide to acronyms.

Thanks!

 

[Mko00]

Do you mind if I ask what is ELO? I don't see it in guide to acronyms.

Thanks!

ELO is a rating system, see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

 

[AlenCT]

ELO is a rating system, see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

Thanks again. Is this used for both casual and ranked matches?

 

[MDTycho]

Actually I think it would be nice if there were statistics, it would be nice to know what my overall winrate and winrate per deck look like.

As that is not an option in the game itself I suggest using this awesome Gwenttracker tool, it keeps the statistics and shows you the remaining cards in your deck while you play so that you don't have to count those damned Nekkers anymore

 

[Mivo]

1) By randomness I mean the draw. Drawing 10 out of 25, your chances to get what you want are quite slim (even when you can replace 3 cards).

Some of the current Skellige discard decks go through all 25 cards (and then some more from the graveyard) in a match. There are also various cards and abilities that let you draw and replace cards, manipulate the deck (place cards on top or at the bottom), take cards out of one's own graveyard or the opponent's, etc. Gwent puts a strong emphasis on card advantage, so passing strategically is important too. You only need to win two rounds out of three.

But you're also right, sometimes you just don't draw what you need and when you need it. It happens. Even the best decks and the best players don't seem to have more than a 70% win rate usually. If you look at the leaderboard, many of the top ranked players have win rates of slightly over 50-55% only (some have better ratios). Overall I feel that Gwent is less random that most other card games. It's not a purely skill based game, but that adds excitement and spice.

I think the early levels (or the tutorial) don't give a good picture of the game's depth. Early on, it's all about putting out the cards with the biggest numbers, plus some weather. It does get deeper later on. (I did better when it was more shallow! But I'm learning something new every game.) Keep playing and collecting cards, it's a very worthwhile game.

 

[magecutter]

Hi

I'm new here, but I've played a bit of the game and I thought since it's in beta I would share some of my thoughts. GOG is telling me just below 14 hours played, and I just reached level 9, so I did not reach ranked matches yet - just to explain my in-game situation. The game's been around for a while and for a long time I had it installed but didn't really play. I only started playing more very recently.

welcome to gwent -
you make some fair points however as you pointed out it's still closed beta.
I made the same mistakes, crafting the wrong cards or low point cards when I first started, I think most players have. with only 14 hours of play time you'll never have all the cards you might want, (I have over 250 hours and still need a few cards to 'perfect' some decks).

it's a learning experience and when the re-set/wipe happens for open beta we'll all be on even footing... except for our knowledge and experience.

watch some gwent streams/videos look at different deck builds on gwentdb. it'll help

good luck

 

[Mko00]

Well, I just had a nice win streak, managed to get the 12 round wins thingy. Though I lost the last 2 matches, both by a single point in the final round - grrrrr.

I love trolling people with the Succubus card

 

[magecutter]

Well, I just had a nice win streak, managed to get the 12 round wins thingy. Though I lost the last 2 matches, both by a single point in the final round - grrrrr.

I love trolling people with the Succubus card

nice I have the Succubus card, never tried it. might give it a shot.

 

[DEERCG]

I love trolling people with the Succubus card

"Such a shame, I must kill you" - She said.

 

[265feral]

According to GOG I've played 44 minutes of Gwent; I think it's safe to say I've played considerably more than that. I'm also a F2P player with no intention of spending money on the game (at least in terms of buying kegs - if other things became available like some aesthetic things that weren't too expensive then I might reconsider). I agree that the game requires you to put quite a bit of time into it to gain cards that really allow you to play the way you want but I don't find that surprising. It's taken me about a month to get to a position where I'm happy playing with my various ST decks and sometimes playing around with other factions to see how they work.

I feel the game mechanics in handing out ore and scrap is pretty generous overall - being rewarded for winning rounds rather than games is a fantastic idea especially when you're just starting the game - I found it really helped to keep my interest in the game; milling of cards seems a little low but it all adds up over time. The aim of CDPR is to get you to play the game (and then hopefully spend money on it), the longer you invest time in the game the more chance you're likely to want to spend actual real world cash on it. I'm happy to invest the time but have far more important things to spend my cash on (like food, clothes for the kids and enough vodka to make me forget about the daily drudgery of life ).