New player's beta feedback, part 1: What's GWENT without spies?
Greetings, I am Mister Scallywag. I am an experienced TCG-player, playing Magic: The Gathering since 2012 and Hearthstone since its official release. I have started playing GWENT last saturday and I would like to share my thoughts. Note that all my feedback will be written from a new player's perspective (levels 1-10) and may not apply to players with a wider collection of cards available to them. In fact, my first piece of feedback will address the limitations of the starter-decks and starter-collections: The lack of spies.
Now, complaining about spies in GWENT is always tricky. After all, in the original Witcher III-minigame, they were a broken mess that you could just bombard your opponent with and win anything. They were in desperate need of redesign and balancing, but still, I am confident to say that spies are an integral part of GWENT. Because the key to all GWENT is (or at least, is supposed to be) knowing when to pass. Giving your opponent a free unit is not that much of a loss if you give it to them in a round that you have no interest in participating in. At the same time, if you fear that your opponent is going to bail on you, a well-timed spy might change their mind. Or does it? This is what I like about GWENT. It's a TCG that feels like playing poker. It's a game where seeing through your opponent is more important that pulling off the fanciest combos. But sadly, the new player experience is nothing like that because there are no spies. You might argue that I'm technically wrong because there are Ambassador and Emissary, but I think they don't play like spies at all - rather, they function like regular units. You play them, gain unit strenth, and that's it. Not a lot of intrigue going on.
I know that throwing around spies may be considered advanced strategies. I understand that players need to familiarize themselves with the game's basics before using them to bluff. But without cards that incentivize passing, all matches play like regular TCGs: You take turns playing cards until nothing is left, then at the end, you compare your numbers. The one with the higher one wins. There is no subterfuge, no misdirection. Just straight-forward number crunching. That doesn't feel a lot like GWENT. (Note that this may also be caused by the additional cards drawn at rounds 2 and 3, but that's a different topic.)
Hopefully this will change at higher levels, but I believe that players should be introduced to the concept of bluffing more early. And for this, we need access to more cards that incentivize throwing a round, other than that cute cow. In short: Please consider giving your players more bluff-related cards more early - especially more spies.
Greetings, I am Mister Scallywag. I am an experienced TCG-player, playing Magic: The Gathering since 2012 and Hearthstone since its official release. I have started playing GWENT last saturday and I would like to share my thoughts. Note that all my feedback will be written from a new player's perspective (levels 1-10) and may not apply to players with a wider collection of cards available to them. In fact, my first piece of feedback will address the limitations of the starter-decks and starter-collections: The lack of spies.
Now, complaining about spies in GWENT is always tricky. After all, in the original Witcher III-minigame, they were a broken mess that you could just bombard your opponent with and win anything. They were in desperate need of redesign and balancing, but still, I am confident to say that spies are an integral part of GWENT. Because the key to all GWENT is (or at least, is supposed to be) knowing when to pass. Giving your opponent a free unit is not that much of a loss if you give it to them in a round that you have no interest in participating in. At the same time, if you fear that your opponent is going to bail on you, a well-timed spy might change their mind. Or does it? This is what I like about GWENT. It's a TCG that feels like playing poker. It's a game where seeing through your opponent is more important that pulling off the fanciest combos. But sadly, the new player experience is nothing like that because there are no spies. You might argue that I'm technically wrong because there are Ambassador and Emissary, but I think they don't play like spies at all - rather, they function like regular units. You play them, gain unit strenth, and that's it. Not a lot of intrigue going on.
I know that throwing around spies may be considered advanced strategies. I understand that players need to familiarize themselves with the game's basics before using them to bluff. But without cards that incentivize passing, all matches play like regular TCGs: You take turns playing cards until nothing is left, then at the end, you compare your numbers. The one with the higher one wins. There is no subterfuge, no misdirection. Just straight-forward number crunching. That doesn't feel a lot like GWENT. (Note that this may also be caused by the additional cards drawn at rounds 2 and 3, but that's a different topic.)
Hopefully this will change at higher levels, but I believe that players should be introduced to the concept of bluffing more early. And for this, we need access to more cards that incentivize throwing a round, other than that cute cow. In short: Please consider giving your players more bluff-related cards more early - especially more spies.
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