Non-Randomized Expansions, Avoiding RNG, and learning from Hearthstone's Mistakes
Short Version:
Consider making your expansions non-randomized as much as possible. Keep up the good work not falling prey to Hearthstone-style RNG.
I’m a currently shopping around for a new strategy game and I think that Gwent has potential to be it.
CDProjektRed can expect between $60 and $100 out of me each year—a fair price for video games in my view—if they learn from the two things that plagued Hearthstone:
By contrast, I liked Hearthstone’s Adventure-based expansions, because you knew exactly what cards you were getting, as opposed to their booster-pack-style expansions that relied on RNG to get the right cards. The downside of an Adventure-only approach is that after your second expansion, the apparent cost of entry to new Gwent players goes up because inevitably two-to-five key cards from each expansion remain essential years in the future. But this can be avoided, if every time you release an Adventure expansion, you incorporate the previous Adventure’s cards into the standard randomized set (keggable, craftable, and millable.)
Regarding RNG, I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far in Gwent. There are limits on how many Golds and Silvers you can have in a deck overall, which addresses both the high-price and RNG concerns. It’s a mechanic that encourages smaller decks. I like it. The ability to make progress towards a daily reward by winning just one round is great too.
The generous mulligan phase and lack of card draw removes much RNG from the system too, and I haven’t seen Gwent cards that turn the entire game into a coin flip like Hearthstone’s “Unstable Portal” or “Yogg-Saron”. It’s not satisfying for me to watch my opponent outplay me and then have me still get a victory I don’t feel I deserved just because I had RNG go my way. It’s even worse to lose to RNG. Some randomness is fun but I want it to come from my opponent being clever. I want the players to be the Wild Card.
The worst possible thing to do would be to rapidly release randomized expansions with many scarce, essential and “strictly better” cards, or to shake up the meta or by seasonally changing the text on cornerstone cards archetypes people will come up with. I’m actually afraid to spend money on any of these microtransaction-based card games after my experience with Hearthstone, but Gwent might get me to crack open my wallet and dig in!
Short Version:
Consider making your expansions non-randomized as much as possible. Keep up the good work not falling prey to Hearthstone-style RNG.
I’m a currently shopping around for a new strategy game and I think that Gwent has potential to be it.
CDProjektRed can expect between $60 and $100 out of me each year—a fair price for video games in my view—if they learn from the two things that plagued Hearthstone:
- The high price of competitive decks, and
- A gameplay shift that moved into pure RNG
By contrast, I liked Hearthstone’s Adventure-based expansions, because you knew exactly what cards you were getting, as opposed to their booster-pack-style expansions that relied on RNG to get the right cards. The downside of an Adventure-only approach is that after your second expansion, the apparent cost of entry to new Gwent players goes up because inevitably two-to-five key cards from each expansion remain essential years in the future. But this can be avoided, if every time you release an Adventure expansion, you incorporate the previous Adventure’s cards into the standard randomized set (keggable, craftable, and millable.)
Regarding RNG, I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far in Gwent. There are limits on how many Golds and Silvers you can have in a deck overall, which addresses both the high-price and RNG concerns. It’s a mechanic that encourages smaller decks. I like it. The ability to make progress towards a daily reward by winning just one round is great too.
The generous mulligan phase and lack of card draw removes much RNG from the system too, and I haven’t seen Gwent cards that turn the entire game into a coin flip like Hearthstone’s “Unstable Portal” or “Yogg-Saron”. It’s not satisfying for me to watch my opponent outplay me and then have me still get a victory I don’t feel I deserved just because I had RNG go my way. It’s even worse to lose to RNG. Some randomness is fun but I want it to come from my opponent being clever. I want the players to be the Wild Card.
The worst possible thing to do would be to rapidly release randomized expansions with many scarce, essential and “strictly better” cards, or to shake up the meta or by seasonally changing the text on cornerstone cards archetypes people will come up with. I’m actually afraid to spend money on any of these microtransaction-based card games after my experience with Hearthstone, but Gwent might get me to crack open my wallet and dig in!
