Balance Council FAQ—What is it? How to use it?

[RyanSchou]

11.10 is the last content patch prepared by the GWENT team. Moving forward, all changes will be decided by your votes!​

With this update, we are introducing the Balance Council: a voting system that allows the players to decide which cards should be stronger, weaker, costlier, or cheaper.​

1. What is the purpose of the Balance Council? ​

Monthly changes to the cards are an important part of the GWENT content cycle; we always tried to ensure that there is something new to consider at the start of each season. We want to—at least to an extent—preserve this part of GWENT. This is why we developed the Balance Council, a feature that ensures changes to cards will still be happening as long as there are people who want them.​

The Balance Council works best when the community cooperates. As there is a minimum vote threshold required, per card, for a change to go through (see below), it is good to talk to fellow GWENT players (e.g., on Reddit or the official GWENT Discord) and decide on the priorities together. If you wish to submit your votes independent of community discussion, you are (of course) free to do so. In the end, all that matters for the changes to occur is for enough people to feel the same way.​

2. Who can vote in the Balance Council?​

In order to vote in the Balance Council you must fulfill the following conditions:​

a) Be at least Prestige 1 (New accounts cannot participate.)​

b) Either be in Pro Rank OR have won 25 ranked games in the current season​

We want those who participate in the Balance Council to prominently be experienced players that are familiar with the current meta; however, we also want to give lower-ranked players the chance to be represented, as long as they are active in the current season. We believe that both of these requirements will protect the system from potential abuse without being overly restrictive.​

3. How can I participate?​

You can enter the Balance Council from the main menu through the menu card. Once open, you will see an interface similar to the Deck Builder. Everything you need to participate is there; just drag the cards you wish to vote for into the appropriate brackets. (NOTE: The positions within the brackets matter; see below.) You can vote for up to 3 cards in each bracket. These are:​

• Provisions increaseProvisions decreasePower increasePower decrease

4. How many cards will be changed per voting cycle?​

• Max no. of changes per bracket: 15
• Min no. of votes required: 50
• Min no. of changes per bracket: 3 (Meaning that even if no cards met the required threshold of votes, three cards will still be changed per bracket.)

The reason for these limitations is that we want the Balance Council to be able to shake up the meta without creating chaos. It is difficult to predict how many players will interact with the feature before it is released, so we might tweak the thresholds according to the initial results.​

In the event of tie for the 15th card in a bracket, all tied cards will be affected.​

5. How does the position of the cards within the brackets matter?​

Placing a card in the top position (three stars) corresponds to giving it three votes. Following the same pattern, the middle position represents two votes, and the bottom position—one vote. The top vote will always be the most impactful, so think carefully about your priorities.​

6. How often will the voting happen?​

We intend to stick to the familiar pace of one cycle per month; however, in November (2023) we will have two voting cycles in order to test if everything works as intended.​

7. Can I vote for a card in multiple brackets?​

Yes. We want to avoid situations in which a player really wants to change a specific card, but has to guess which bracket it is more likely to receive more votes in. As a result, we want to be able to vote for a card in as many brackets as you like (even if they cancel each other out). Keep in mind that only the highest-voted change will go through in the end.​

8. Can a card be changed in more than one bracket?​

No. To ensure that nothing is overnerfed or overbuffed, each card can be changed in only one bracket—in whichever it received the most votes. In the event of a tie, the priority of the votes (the number of higher value votes) will be used as a tiebreaker. (However, if the card received an identical number of votes in each value, per bracket, the results will be canceled out.)​

9. Can I vote for fewer than twelve cards?​

​

Yes. Although you cannot vote for more than twelve cards, we have no minimum set in place.​

​

10. I want to nerf/buff a leader ability—which bracket should I put it in?​

​

Since it’s not always clear if a change is a nerf or a buff (e.g., power increase to Disloyal cards is usually a nerf), we went with very literal names for the categories. The cards have up to two numbers on them: one for power and one for provision cost. When you vote for increase or decrease, the Balance Council will always increase and decrease the number you see on the card. So, if you vote for a provisions increase on a leader ability, you vote for the number to become higher (which in this case is a buff).​

11. Can a card go below 4 provisions? Can a unit go to 0 power? Are there any upper limits?​

​

The minimum provision cost for cards is 4, and the minimum power for units is 1. You will not be able to vote for changes beyond the minimum values. There are no upper limits however. A card's provision cost can go as high as the players want. Same is true for power: in many years time, the dream of a 100-point Traheaern var Vdyffir may come true.​

12. What about Tokens and non-ownable cards? Can those be changed?​

​

No. Cards that are not in the Deck Builder will not be affected by the Balance Council. This includes the alternative forms of evolving or transforming cards.​

​

13. Can I change my votes after submitting them?​

Yes. As long as you edit the votes before the voting closes, you can change them and submit them again.​

14. When and where can I see the results of the voting?​

After the voting closes, the game will be updated with all the changes that met the requirements. You will be able to see the list of changes upon entering the game, on the welcome screen.​

 

[StanislavOZZO]

Initial feedback:

• Restrictions seem too high. You intend to have the voting every month, yet at the start of the season all players will have 0 wins. This means that they will have to play roughly 50 games with 50% win rate to even start voting.
• Decision thresholds seem too high. At a glance, I doubt that there will be 50 people of one mind that will select the same card and the same buff/nerf. I expect that people's opinions will spread out and it will be hard to agree on anything. It is very optimistic of you to think that people will go to discord in masses to discuss Gwent cards on a regular basis.
• Description about brackets is confusing. Let's see when it is implemented. I hope it is clearer then.
  
  

 

[quintivarium]

I would like to request that the voting requirement of either winning 25 matches or the requirement that the wins be in ranked play be relaxed. Either require 50 games in ranked (win or lose) or allow unranked play to count.

First, some players like myself don’t enjoy the binary decks that dominate higher levels of the ladder. A handful, including myself don’t enjoy the competitive nature of ranked games. That doesn’t mean we have no sense of meta or of balance. I can happily play to lose matches on ladder (to avoid rising to unpleasant levels) if your systems force this, but I strongly prefer not to. And I imagine my opponents would prefer that I not do so as well.

Second, for newer players with incomplete card holdings, there is a tendency to rise in rank until the competition has so much better cards than you do that victory becomes almost impossible. I oppose systems that encourage players to rise higher in rank than their card holdings support.

 

[duracell1955]

The Balance FAQ makes reference to the Gwent community. In my view that community is made up of individuals who have played the game, not only recently but over the years that it has been available. The player base is smaller now than it has been previously, and from some comments I have seen it is apparent that a proportion of those individuals (some very experienced) left because they did not like some aspects of the games evolution. If those persons were permitted to contribute to the Balance Council I believe that this would be of value going forward and could help to grow the player base. They are unlikely to want to play enough games each month to win 25 so I'd like to request that the voting requirement be simply restricted to numbers of matches historically played. That would have the effect of eliminating input from inexperienced players but cast the net wider to encompass the expertise of those who no longer play regularly.

To use an analogy, if I ran a business which had lost 75% of its customers and I decided to send out a customer satisfaction questionnaire with a view to receiving information which would help my business grow, then I would be well advised not only to send this to the 25% who remain as current customers but also the 75% who had left.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

The Balance FAQ makes reference to the Gwent community. In my view that community is made up of individuals who have played the game, not only recently but over the years that it has been available. The player base is smaller now than it has been previously, and from some comments I have seen it is apparent that a proportion of those individuals (some very experienced) left because they did not like some aspects of the games evolution. If those persons were permitted to contribute to the Balance Council I believe that this would be of value going forward and could help to grow the player base. They are unlikely to want to play enough games each month to win 25 so I'd like to request that the voting requirement be simply restricted to numbers of matches historically played. That would have the effect of eliminating input from inexperienced players but cast the net wider to encompass the expertise of those who no longer play regularly.

To use an analogy, if I ran a business which had lost 75% of its customers and I decided to send out a customer satisfaction questionnaire with a view to receiving information which would help my business grow, then I would be well advised not only to send this to the 25% who remain as current customers but also the 75% who had left.

Also a valid point.
IMHO, anyone with 1000+ hours in the game should be allowed to vote regardless of wins in the current season.

 

[Draconifors]

It wouldn't make any sense to allow players who have not played in a very long time to vote.

Such players would have no experience with the game in its even remotely current form, and, as such, would not be able to judge what needs or doesn't need changing.

It would just open the door for people with no intention of even trying to improve the game to join in.

I'm not saying the system described in the FAQ is ideal, but it is definitely better than only staring at total matches played (let alone hours played, since that includes a lot more than just matches).

 

[duracell1955]

I did consider the potential downsides before making my suggestion. It was my considered opinion that the potential benefits outweighed the potential disadvantages.

I felt that the potential for increasing the current player base was a benefit, as was tapping the expertise of the experienced individuals who were no longer playing Gwent. Anyone who has more than 1000 hours play time almost certainly loved the game, otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much time playing. Many of them would likely love to play the game again, provided the game changed to a more acceptable state to them. I accept that their knowledge would not be up to date, but they should have sufficient knowledge to contribute to any discussions on changes and consider these discussions prior to voting.

The fact that so many players will be eligible to vote should protect against any single embittered individual who wanted to join in without wanting to improve the game.

Personally I would like to see the Balance Council succeed and the game thrive. I have enjoyed playing Gwent for a few years now and wish to do so into the future.

 

[Blue-ibex]

I would like to make some comments about the Balance Council.

Of course it would be nice to nerf cards based on the results of the vote. But I think we need a different system for deciding which cards should be buffed. Because weak cards that are not looked at by anyone will not be voted on. We have lots of Cards too weak to be used.
So my suggestion is that for buffing cards, the system should automatically pick up and buff the cards with the lowest "usage rate" and "win rate" over the past 6 months. And this method should also be able to adjust the damage and boost values of special cards.
With this method, 4-cost special cards that would never be buffed by voting could be buffed.

The "usage rate" and "win rate" of cards and leader abilities in pro rank games should be made public. We can use those information as a reference for voting, and can notice mistakes when a high win rate card is buffed.
I am afraid, that strong popular cards (e.g. NG, NG...) will be buffed more and more by voting, and weak cards will be nerfed. These are very emotional.

Quantitative data and independence of votes are necessary elements for majority voting to work.Please don't forget that!

I think the Balance Council system is very ambitious and I look at it favorably. However, the adjustment by voting is very emotional and might not work. I hope some influencers such as streamers will not abuse the voting system.

 

[Bez_Imena]

Guys,

We should still have enough devoted and committed community and player base to actually keep the game going, (even keep it profitable?) in a "maintenance state" with minimum assistance from CDPR, but is time to make focused decisions. So if anyone has friends and connections with people who can actually turn the ship away from the abyss, its as good time as any to reach out!

[N.B. For the following, I will assume CDPR wont let Gwent die, with a new Witcher game on the way and the franchise still looking good, because otherwise it looks like a business decision error. That is why they are putting Gwent in stasis, reallocating resources and will probably try to revive it a few years later. However risking to chase away whatever is left of the game population, in hopes of future returns is probably not the best idea, because its pretty much rebuilding from scratch.]

I wont comment on how bad this balancing project implementation looks [...]...
Instead lets look at a few situations:

1. Keywords and mechanics
One of the hings that makes Gwent special is it has some cool mechanics
-What happens if Junior gets nerfed by 1 power?
-How about Berserk units?
-Seagulls at 2+ power, anyone?
-Clash and duel are still a thing
-a random defender at 6 power, just perfect when you run into that one leader
-Those cards interact with stuff based on power/provisions
-long live et cetera, et cetera,...

2. Voting rights
Every time i match up to more and more nonsense and need to take a shower :|
To see that:
-the one with 700 games just mill below 2300 MMr,
-the double scenario ball/cultist with 8 locks and 4 tall removals [...],
-the whole bunch of other cheesers i wont even bother naming
will have the same voting power and ability to affect card balance like:
-people who literally play about 1000 games every season, across the 6 factions, for years to challenge the ladder
-Lerio, who writes insane statistical analysis articles and created a bunch of tools for the community
-that steamer who used to play 15-17 hours every, and finally gave up because half the time the meta is unsafe for the mental well-being
Its beyond insane!!!!!

3. Yay we did it.... now what?
[voting in real life had worked incredibly well for hundreds of years, never divided people, of course its the best solution for a random game, because..... sure, why not?]
Lets go crazy and assume for a second by some miracle this works, the planets align every now and then, and we actually manage to balance a card. What happens then? Well guess what, we have to keep voting the same way, so a bunch of opposition voters do not get the upper hand and undo whatever we were trying to balance. At best, the balance council will drift into a stale mate (thus the whole exercise proves useless in the end). At worse it will provide wild swings for certain few cards (we all know and "love" them) between unplayable and OP, because remember we are "able to vote for a card in as many brackets as you like".
Bonus question how many months will t take to actually change something this way? What about some n cards that group up as a package?

4. Discussion
Thank you for still reading this far, or maybe you skipped past the rant, to the juicy part
Ask any derivatives trader to give you a one time fair price of an option that pays either 2 or 50 based on 30 market parameters and they will "politely" tell you to go away. This being said, none of the current major Gwent issues will be resolved by community voting on +/- 1 power/provision for a bunch of cards in a vacuum once a month.

A lot of the cards need complete rework, others need tweaking with cool keywords (timer, profit, fee, adrenaline, row lock, etc), and a few yeah they just need some power/provision adjustment. in other to do so the game needs to be balanced by a real council, by players interested in the game's long-term well being (and why would they be, they literally gave a few years of their life to the game, no one wants to waste that [...]...).

The Council members could be elected either by vote or merit
-Democratic election
Over the next few months we decide how many seats the council should have. The voting systems remains, but instead of cards, we vote for members from the top 200 (or whatever) players. The votes are counted seats are filled. We see now how many cards can be changed a month without too much effort on CDPR side, the council meets and a balance patch is produced same as usual, but with a fraction of the cost for CDPR

-Meritocratic election
Instead of voting for council members we can have seats auto-filled. For example:
Elders council (able to redesign x-number of cards): lets say the top 16 players every season
Balance council (able to tweak y-number cards): lets say the top 64 players every season
The council does council things. We see now how many cards can be changed a month without too much effort on CDPR side, the council meets and a balance patch is produced same as usual, but with a fraction of the cost for CDPR

-Mixed election
We can also go crazy and combine both systems.
The top 16 (or whatever) nominate and re-balance cards. The top 64 (or whatever) vote on the cards and reworks they agree. The cards that pass both councils get added to the community voting tool.
The top 64 (or whatever) designate cards for any provision/power tweaks. The cards get added to the community voting tool.
We see now how many cards can be changed a month without too much effort on CDPR side, the quota is filled by card votes.


Even having nothing and a stale meta, would probably be better than the +/- 1 voting wars that are about to begin

Cheers!

P.S. the ladder design, and matchmaking algorithm sill need fixing

 

[LeticiOrel]

2. Who can vote in the Balance Council?

In order to vote in the Balance Council you must fulfill the following conditions:

a) Be at least Prestige 1 (New accounts cannot participate.)

b) Either be in Pro Rank OR have won 25 ranked games in the current season

We want those who participate in the Balance Council to prominently be experienced players that are familiar with the current meta; however, we also want to give lower-ranked players the chance to be represented, as long as they are active in the current season. We believe that both of these requirements will protect the system from potential abuse without being overly restrictive.​

On the contrary of some opinions here, I would add one more restriction - to win at least 25 ranked games in the current season, but with no less than 4 factions, and for each faction at least 5 wins, or something like that...

 

[Trevorzan]

"without being overly restrictive."

right now it is super restrictive... for being prestige 1, a player needs months, maybe years playing. Players with prestige 8 (or 7) should be allowed to vote at least in the lower 1 star braket only.

 

[quintivarium]

"without being overly restrictive."

right now it is super restrictive... for being prestige 1, a player needs months, maybe years playing. Players with prestige 8 (or 7) should be allowed to vote at least in the lower 1 star braket only.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to restrict those who can vote to some extent:

• Voters should at least have at least experienced the cards they are voting on. Unfortunately, it is unlikely very new players will know many of the cards.
• Voters should have a reasonable sense of core elements of sound Gwent strategy. Experience at higher levels of play does not guarantee this, but it helps.
• Each player should only get one vote — restrictions make it much harder for one player to spam multiple voting accounts.
• Voters should have some sense of how changes are likely to affect the balance of decks currently being played. This requires both a minimal amount of experience and that experience must be current.

If we agree on the above, we can then ask whether the voting restrictions are reasonable and sufficient.

It has been a long time, but I think prestige 1 only took me about a month — and I don’t play all that much. I think I had two legendary cards (Geralt and Olaf) at that time. I had not yet crafted my first card; I had not yet designed my first deck; I thought Ard Feainn Tortoise was OP. For me at least, achieving prestige level 1 would not have led to a competent vote.

At low levels, 25 wins on ladder is not hard either — but it does require effort and time. It will greatly reduce account spamming and in many cases, it will guarantee reasonable facility with Gwent.

But to me, the problem with that criterion is that typically players advance in rank until they no longer have enough good cards or playing skill to compete. Then it takes several months accumulating cards to be effective again. Many will lose ability to vote during this period.

My second complaint with the 25 win criterion is that it is highly biased against players who prefer to play unranked matches (or matches against friends).

Finally, as a tool to ensure familiarity with the META, it is easily circumvented. Because I don’t want to play ranked mode, I dropped to rank 25 after playing exclusively unranked matches for a couple of years. Because I still don’t want to play at higher rank, I get my 25 wins by easily trouncing players with less experience and weaker cards, then deliberately losing enough not to advance in rank. It’s tedious and it’s not fair to opponents hoping for a meaningful matchup — but I did not set the rule excluding unranked play.

 

[Trevorzan]

well, I have been playing for a year and I just reached prestige 5 like two days ago. I have 1036 victories and 95% of my games hace been ranked. At this pace, I will be unable to cast votes in another year. I agree on what you said. I was suggesting to allow us players with low prestige to at least vote on the one-star bucket. Anyway, I guess I am screwed.

 

[quintivarium]

Prestige 5 is way beyond prestige 1. Unlike rank, prestige counts up! If the balance council tab says you are ineligible, check your number of ranked wins.

 

[duracell1955]

Is anyone else having problems voting? I meet the voting requirements and can complete the voting selection but when I submit I get a message that 'there was a problem - your votes were not submitted'. I have tried to vote five times now over the last couple of days and there are only two days to go before voting closes. If this problem is widespread then I suggest that the deadline is extended until it is fixed.

 

[quintivarium]

I voted several days ago with no problems. And I haven’t heard of other complaints on either the Gwent or Gwent Partner Discord site. I will try to get further information from the Gwent partner site, but I can’t guarantee a response there.

Meanwhile, I suggest you check your votes for abnormalities such a reducing power below 1 or provisions below four or multiple votes for the same card. Anything unusual that you are doing — even if legal — might provide a clue. Also be careful that you are logged in to your account.

 

[duracell1955]

Thanks for the advice. I checked as you suggested and then tried re-submitting with only three votes and still received the same message.

Post automatically merged: Oct 30, 2023

Successful voting today, same cards submitted as previously.

 

[quintivarium]

Unfortunately, the only replay I got was for you to submit a support ticket. I CDPR can be slow responding, but they eventually do. Even if you miss this council, this will at least give you a likelihood of being able to vote next time.

I doubt there is an appropriate topic — if not, just pick one that seems plausible.

Post automatically merged: Oct 30, 2023

Just noticed that your votes got through. I am glad (although it would be nice to know what went wrong),

 

[Trevorzan]

Prestige 5 is way beyond prestige 1. Unlike rank, prestige counts up! If the balance council tab says you are ineligible, check your number of ranked wins.

Thanks por the clarification!

Yes, it has to be because of number of victories this seasson, I only have 21.

 

[_monad]

The fact that so many players will be eligible to vote should protect against any single embittered individual who wanted to join in without wanting to improve the game.

It's not just about a single individual, it's also about a single individual's bot farm. Training mode and lower ranks are plagued by bots spamming thousands of forfeits or random BS. The balance council would be more accessible to these accounts too, if only some match count/play time threshold were required.