frequent balance patches?

[scorba]

frequent balance patches?

one of the huge advantages of electronic CCGs is that the cards can change anytime if they need balance, unlike real paper CCGs.
still, it is for some reason very very rarely used by other eCCGs (like HS).

I would love it if a game like this would check at the end of each Season (2 months) the top 20 "most frequently used cards" in the top 100 decks and weaken them a bit, and check the "20 least frequently used" cards in the top 100 decks and strengthen them a bit.
this would eventually make all cards balanced, and it would really keep the meta always fresh.

I mean, nerfing cards, that looks more important, even HS does it rarely, but I'd really like to see giving the least used cards some boost too so that every card remains usable. I guess it's easier to just come out with new expansions and just leave the bad cards unplayable, but it kindof makes me sad that some cool cards never see play because they're kindof weak.

 

[gapaot]

I would love it if a game like this would check at the end of each Season (2 months) the top 20 "most frequently used cards" in the top 100 decks and weaken them a bit, and check the "20 least frequently used" cards in the top 100 decks and strengthen them a bit. this would eventually make all cards balanced

...what? How would that make cards balanced? You do understand that it'll show, at the barest minimum, all leader cards, most good bronzes, FL... You effectively will be just nerfing every good card and forcing players to pick shitty cards, instead of making all cards usable and valuable, even if only in certain strats. I kinda see your point with last part of suggestion, though, buffing least frequently used cards would be nice.

 

[scorba]

well it would exclude leader cards, certainly.
although I really would like if ALL leaders could be used in top decks, maybe that could be a separate thing to balance them periodically.

but of course it would balance the cards, how would it not? you really don't like the word "nerf" that much?

 

[devivre]

Being used often doesn't necessarily mean there's an issue with these cards.

 

[4RM3D]

The top 20 cards say nothing about their strength. And the opposite also holds true. There could be a card that is only useful in a very specific deck, but when you do use that deck, the card becomes very strong.

Regular balance patches are fine. However, it shouldn't be arbitrarily based on a figure that really says nothing about the card.

 

[scorba]

I guess it wouldn't be automatic, the testers can see if that card is otherwise fine, or if it's something that makes a specific type of deck too strong in the meta.
these kinds of statistics would help them spot these cards, it would be foolish not to take advantage of it.

I think no card should be "auto include" (or close to that), which is exactly what "being used often" means.

if you dare not touch favorite cards, that could easily lead to power creep in the long run.

however I myself would be more glad to see the least used cards being buffed from time to time, that could also result in different types of decks becoming top tier, without adding much to the power creep, since it would only make unused cards become used. (and that's something HS never does and I wonder why.)

I mean a sepcific card may only be strong in a specific type of deck, but if that type of deck is not making it into the top 100 decks, or there are too many of that type of deck in the top 100, it does let you know if a card needs nerf or buff, and along with it, the deck type it's supposed to be used in.

 

[devivre]

I think no card should be "auto include" (or close to that), which is exactly what "being used often" means.

if you dare not touch favorite cards, that could easily lead to power creep in the long run.

But that's not really what you said before - "check at the end of each Season (2 months) the top 20 "most frequently used cards" in the top 100 decks and weaken them a bit, and check the "20 least frequently used" cards in the top 100 decks and strengthen them a bit" - is just not the same thing.

That no card should be auto include is a different matter and well, if you've been part of the Gwent beta since the beginning you know that fav cards are NEVER really safe and it does seem like CDPR is checking the statistics of each card.

 

[scorba]

yeah I appreciate that CDPR is already trying to make sure of that, and probably they will continue to do so.

but I think that the statistics of the top 100 decks can tell you more about what cards are close to auto-include than any amount of testing or user feedback can.
you may think that "ah it's just a card that can be used in only 1 specific type of deck, it's not autoinclude", but if you find that 50% of the top 100 decks ARE this exact type of decks, and this one card makes that type so powerful, then it is kind of "auto include" in the top of the meta, and needs nerfing.

(or, just by looking at it, you might think that a card is powerful because it's so good in 1 type of deck, but noone actually uses that type of deck in the top 100 decks, it could at least tell the devs that that deck type could use some buff, if not that specific card.)

 

[DMaster2]

Despite agreeing with the fact that regular balance patches should be the way to go, i totally disagree with the OP idea. A popular card isn't necessarely an unbalanced one.

 

[scorba]

ok, maybe I was not clear by what I mean by "top 100 decks". I meant the decks used by the players who make the top 100 in the Ranked list.

yeah they could be using different decks from time to time, but probably they have one that they use most often (if not always).

those players don't tend to choose a card just because they "like it". if a card goes into a deck that makes it to the top 100, that's a strong card, not just a popular one.

(the database can probably also look for "decks that brought the most Ranked score to its player" and make the top 100 from that list.)

 

[MrRagdoll]

ok, maybe I was not clear by what I mean by "top 100 decks". I meant the decks used by the players who make the top 100 in the Ranked list.

They made it to top 100 because they combined multiple cards to work perfectly together. They are simply insanely good players and nerfing the cards they use would simply make them create new deck. Your idea would punish those who aren't THAT good while making no impact to top plays.

 

[scorba]

They made it to top 100 because they combined multiple cards to work perfectly together. They are simply insanely good players and nerfing the cards they use would simply make them create new deck. Your idea would punish those who aren't THAT good while making no impact to top plays.

well that would be true if the statistics showed that the top 100 use wildly different decks.
but if it turns out that most of them are more or less the same decktype with many common cards that most of them use, then it does indicate that those cards need some balancing.

 

[Laveley]

Statistics isnt everything. Most of people can use shitty underpowered cards because the majority of people that play this game isnt pro players.

A nice example i can give you is last patch of CB; ST was one of the top factions and one of the most played (along with monsters consume). For some reason that i never really understood, the majority of people was using yaevinn instead of ciaran, even though ciaran was pretty much an improved version of yaevinn. You saw that behavior even on higher elos, although i know for a fact that the majority of the top players used ciaran instead of yaevinn.

In other words; statistics isnt everything and i think its a serious mistake to balance the game around it. It is, at best, one secondary tool to balance that should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

i wouldnt be surprised that some of the "wtf?" changes we see on some patches are work of the skewed statistics information. The incoming nerf on queensguard for example; queensguard are already garbage, but maybe the devs looked to the statistics and just because they were popular for some time they though "OMG! QG's imba we have to nerf it to oblivion!".

But rest assured that the devs are taking statistics into account since themselves already stated that several times.

As for the frequent balance patches, there is a reason why they arent that frequent; they have a cost. For gwent, specifically, this cost is probably higher because it is a multi-platform game. Every patch cdpr uploads, they have to pay a fee for microsoft and sony to upload it on their consoles (and i imagine its not a small one).

 

[KasumiGoto]

Statistics isnt everything. Most of people can use shitty underpowered cards because the majority of people that play this game isnt pro players.

A nice example i can give you is last patch of CB; ST was one of the top factions and one of the most played (along with monsters consume). For some reason that i never really understood, the majority of people was using yaevinn instead of ciaran, even though ciaran was pretty much an improved version of yaevinn. You saw that behavior even on higher elos, although i know for a fact that the majority of the top players used ciaran instead of yaevinn.

In other words; statistics isnt everything and i think its a serious mistake to balance the game around it. It is, at best, one secondary tool to balance that should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

i wouldnt be surprised that some of the "wtf?" changes we see on some patches are work of the skewed statistics information. The incoming nerf on queensguard for example; queensguard are already garbage, but maybe the devs looked to the statistics and just because they were popular for some time they though "OMG! QG's imba we have to nerf it to oblivion!".

But rest assured that the devs are taking statistics into account since themselves already stated that several times.

As for the frequent balance patches, there is a reason why they arent that frequent; they have a cost. For gwent, specifically, this cost is probably higher because it is a multi-platform game. Every patch cdpr uploads, they have to pay a fee for microsoft and sony to upload it on their consoles (and i imagine its not a small one).

Well in most cases Yaevinn seems better. You have a body for your damaging specials, and you also get a card which is usually 1<. Ciaran is just 1 point useless card after he gives you CA.

 

[Laveley]

Well in most cases Yaevinn seems better. You have a body for your damaging specials, and you also get a card which is usually 1<. Ciaran is just 1 point useless card after he gives you CA.

Yeah, that probably what most people though back than, without realizing that essentially yaevinn was a -14 spy while ciaran was a +1. Anyways, lets just not go off-topic here, it was just an example of how the usage of a card isnt necessarily an exact indicator of its power, you can agree or no (probably no, because again, thats what most people though back than), but its not really the point of the topic here.

 

[scorba]

Statistics isnt everything. Most of people can use shitty underpowered cards because the majority of people that play this game isnt pro players.

yes, but that's why I said, that as STEP 1, take only the top 100 players' decks that gathered the most Ranked score for them, and run the statistics on those.

I understand that it doesn't mean anything statistically, what ALL of the players use most often, but if you only look at the top players' decks, that's a lot more useful information.

yeah I know it's not easy to specify what's a "deck" when the players can change a few cards anytime, but with some good database query it can also tell you if a deck got more successful after the player changed certain cards or less.

As for the frequent balance patches, there is a reason why they arent that frequent; they have a cost. For gwent, specifically, this cost is probably higher because it is a multi-platform game. Every patch cdpr uploads, they have to pay a fee for microsoft and sony to upload it on their consoles (and i imagine its not a small one).

I didn't know that! that is probably a good reason not to patch too frequently indeed, I can totally accept that.