Many newb impressions. Plus questions about cards, Gwentdb, Gwentup, & winrates.
I'm completely new to Gwent. I hadn't even played any of the Witcher games until I read about Gwent a couple weeks ago. (I finally fired up the Witcher 3 last week.) I'm enjoying it a lot. Here are some impressions.
1. First, the new-game experience is pretty good. I liked playing through all the AI challenges. They introduced me to a couple of archetypes for each faction. That said, the challenges did not include any mulligans, which seems like a big feature of the game to omit. Perhaps a future set of challenges could introduce mulligans? Also, I liked that the game doles out kegs and other rewards regularly to new players. It makes one want to keep playing. I was also happy to pony up for the $4.99 starter pack.
2. I'm glad to hear more PvE content is on the way. Inevitably, I don't have as much time, energy (or cash) to invest in CCGs as other players, which means sooner or later I'll start losing, lol. PvE can be good as a morale-boost.
3. The game-board seems too small to me, and too much UI space is wasted to the right and left of it. It's a shame that the beautiful artwork is hard to see on the board. Couldn't the board be enlarged vertically and pushed to one side or the other, allowing the hands to appear on the bottom-left or bottom-right of the screen? And the useless melee/ranged icons could be removed to free up more horizontal space (although I personally would like melee/ranged/siege position to matter in some way). The board layout drives me crazy.
4. Another UI complaint: fonts seem too small. My pet peeve here is the flavor text on zoomed-in cards. Why in the world can't that flavor text be larger? I find it hard to read. (The italicized font doesn't help.) If a user is zooming in a card, the user presumably wants a close look at everything, including the flavor text!
5. The structure of the game is a welcome change from Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, both of which I've played on and off over the years, as well as Elder Scrolls Legends. It's nice not to be sending minions into the center of a board to tangle with each other (although of course they do tangle from their rows, sometimes). Visually it looks more like an organized battle. I especially like Gwent's emphasis on deck-thinning and card advantage.
6. I love that Gwent enforces limits on gold and silver cards in constructed play. In Hearthstone, sometimes you play against a deck with a dozen legendaries, and you don't have a prayer. (I haven't tried Gwent's Arena yet, but I'm astounded that Arena doesn't give players the same number of golds/silvers. That's one thing Hearthstone's Arena does right.)
7. Does a 25-card deck make for enough deck variety? Net-decking is as inevitable as the day is long, but larger decks might make for more variety in deckbuilding and in the play of the hand. I'm not experienced enough to know whether this is a problem. Do Gwent games play out differently every time? Do you find yourselves playing the same cards in the same order every game?
8. I know this is a hot potato here, but to me, Gwent feels much less RNG-dominated than Hearthstone. I know there are concerns that Create and other new mechanics have increased Gwent's randomness, but it still seems far less RNG-like to me than Hearthstone. The Create cards I've used and faced in Gwent seem underwhelming compared to their crazy counterparts in Hearthstone.
9. Is there a site like Icy-Veins to tell us exactly how each card works, and why someone might include it in their deck? Gwentdb has great info on popular decks, and some of those decks include explanations of why particular cards are used. But the card database itself doesn't offer explanations of how cards work, or assessments of how good cards are. The only comparative tool I've found are the keg helpers at a couple sites. I ask all this because some of the card text is deeply confusing. What in the world does Ronvid the Incessant do? Why would one play one of the silver spies? (I think I get it now: at the end of a losing round, to gain card advantage.) Exactly how much damage does a particular weather thing do (2? 1?)? How big a boon is a boon? I like to make my own decks, but it's hard to do so without understanding how the cards work.
10. Is there any reason I shouldn't try Gwentup? (I'm on PC.) Given the wasted UI space to the right of the board, it seems like a no-brainer. Is there any Term of Use restriction on its use? Is it unsporting, given that XBox players have no such tool? (Or do they?)
11. Finally, this may sound silly, but I worry that I'm going to wreck my winrate by trying different decks on ranked play. Does winrate reset after each season, or is it a lifetime stat? Will my newbish flailing haunt me, statistically speaking, for the rest of my years?
Many thanks for reading, if you managed to read this far. Despite all the critiques I offer above, I do think Gwent is an awesome game. Thanks.
I'm completely new to Gwent. I hadn't even played any of the Witcher games until I read about Gwent a couple weeks ago. (I finally fired up the Witcher 3 last week.) I'm enjoying it a lot. Here are some impressions.
1. First, the new-game experience is pretty good. I liked playing through all the AI challenges. They introduced me to a couple of archetypes for each faction. That said, the challenges did not include any mulligans, which seems like a big feature of the game to omit. Perhaps a future set of challenges could introduce mulligans? Also, I liked that the game doles out kegs and other rewards regularly to new players. It makes one want to keep playing. I was also happy to pony up for the $4.99 starter pack.
2. I'm glad to hear more PvE content is on the way. Inevitably, I don't have as much time, energy (or cash) to invest in CCGs as other players, which means sooner or later I'll start losing, lol. PvE can be good as a morale-boost.
3. The game-board seems too small to me, and too much UI space is wasted to the right and left of it. It's a shame that the beautiful artwork is hard to see on the board. Couldn't the board be enlarged vertically and pushed to one side or the other, allowing the hands to appear on the bottom-left or bottom-right of the screen? And the useless melee/ranged icons could be removed to free up more horizontal space (although I personally would like melee/ranged/siege position to matter in some way). The board layout drives me crazy.
4. Another UI complaint: fonts seem too small. My pet peeve here is the flavor text on zoomed-in cards. Why in the world can't that flavor text be larger? I find it hard to read. (The italicized font doesn't help.) If a user is zooming in a card, the user presumably wants a close look at everything, including the flavor text!
5. The structure of the game is a welcome change from Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, both of which I've played on and off over the years, as well as Elder Scrolls Legends. It's nice not to be sending minions into the center of a board to tangle with each other (although of course they do tangle from their rows, sometimes). Visually it looks more like an organized battle. I especially like Gwent's emphasis on deck-thinning and card advantage.
6. I love that Gwent enforces limits on gold and silver cards in constructed play. In Hearthstone, sometimes you play against a deck with a dozen legendaries, and you don't have a prayer. (I haven't tried Gwent's Arena yet, but I'm astounded that Arena doesn't give players the same number of golds/silvers. That's one thing Hearthstone's Arena does right.)
7. Does a 25-card deck make for enough deck variety? Net-decking is as inevitable as the day is long, but larger decks might make for more variety in deckbuilding and in the play of the hand. I'm not experienced enough to know whether this is a problem. Do Gwent games play out differently every time? Do you find yourselves playing the same cards in the same order every game?
8. I know this is a hot potato here, but to me, Gwent feels much less RNG-dominated than Hearthstone. I know there are concerns that Create and other new mechanics have increased Gwent's randomness, but it still seems far less RNG-like to me than Hearthstone. The Create cards I've used and faced in Gwent seem underwhelming compared to their crazy counterparts in Hearthstone.
9. Is there a site like Icy-Veins to tell us exactly how each card works, and why someone might include it in their deck? Gwentdb has great info on popular decks, and some of those decks include explanations of why particular cards are used. But the card database itself doesn't offer explanations of how cards work, or assessments of how good cards are. The only comparative tool I've found are the keg helpers at a couple sites. I ask all this because some of the card text is deeply confusing. What in the world does Ronvid the Incessant do? Why would one play one of the silver spies? (I think I get it now: at the end of a losing round, to gain card advantage.) Exactly how much damage does a particular weather thing do (2? 1?)? How big a boon is a boon? I like to make my own decks, but it's hard to do so without understanding how the cards work.
10. Is there any reason I shouldn't try Gwentup? (I'm on PC.) Given the wasted UI space to the right of the board, it seems like a no-brainer. Is there any Term of Use restriction on its use? Is it unsporting, given that XBox players have no such tool? (Or do they?)
11. Finally, this may sound silly, but I worry that I'm going to wreck my winrate by trying different decks on ranked play. Does winrate reset after each season, or is it a lifetime stat? Will my newbish flailing haunt me, statistically speaking, for the rest of my years?
Many thanks for reading, if you managed to read this far. Despite all the critiques I offer above, I do think Gwent is an awesome game. Thanks.
