Observations about gwent
I have been playing the game from back in Witcher 3 when I would play the physical card game with my brother, so I want the best for Gwent. However, I have found that there are some issues I find weird.
Player Etiquette:
- In ranked games, it is not uncommon to have players who spam taunts, leave no GG, is this common?
Game Etiquette:
- A 60-second timer in ranked is unacceptable. Chess has a timer in competitive games for a reason. I could sit there with GwentDB open and scrutinize every card that is played for those 60 seconds to make sure I play every card perfectly, but I don't need to, but in ranked some people actually take up 40-50 seconds per round, whats worse is that if you play a non-standard card your opponent might stare at your card for 40-50 seconds. I thought this was ranked. I thought you needed to have a decent understanding of the game's cards, and mechanics to get you to level 10. A 30 second timer in ranked is more than enough. the game and card awareness of newer players can be addressed by fixing issues I highlight below.
Player Decks:
-Meta decks appearing about 90% of the time. I think is caused by websites like GwentDB allowing people to make their meta deck to climb ranks fast, this is not helped by the fact that it is incentivised to climb ranks fast to get any decent amount of kegs. My issue with this is a proliferation of meta decks which hurts every card game, but also that because it is incentivised for new players, in particular, it stifles game and card knowledge and creativity.
Keg RNG:
-In the closed beta, I had no issue with card drop rate, but because I played the beta I have been spoilt by that drop rate. In the open beta I feel like that dilution of the card pool with animated cards has only caused the keg RNG rates to worsen, Instead of having a large amount of high drop bronze cards and low drop silver and gold, you now have twice as many high drop bronze cards, which does not half your chances at getting silver or gold but more like quarters you chances due to probability.
-I know the animated cards were added for meteorite powder, but as one of the many players who doesn't care for animated cards, I feel like meteorite powder is worthless and not worth the trade off for diluted keg RNG.
Cards:
-The guardian, Silver, Nilfgard. This card needs an adjustment, even though its play rate is rare it is still very bothersome. The card drops two 6 power tokens onto the top of the player's deck which ruins their strategy. The only way to counter this is to lock the card to negate the deathwish ability. The chances of someone having this card, the opponent predicting it enough to carry a lock card, and the penalty of a ruined strategy that is not made up for by two 6 power cards. What is worse is that if the player discards one of these cards at the start of the next round there is a chance to pick the discarded 6 power card as their draw in the third round, which has personally happened.
- I feel like if the ability was to spawn one 3 power token then it would be much better balanced.
-Treason, Gold, Nilfgard. This card used to bring a spy on the opponents side of the field to your side. An amazing strategy was to run Letho, Dimeritium, and treason in that order so as to massacre the opponents side, demote Letho, then bring him with his power boost to your side of the field. This was way too overpowered and was rightly fixed, but it was fixed in the wrong way. Treason was a great card, and a great idea, letting you drag a spy that the opponent may have boosted to your side of the field, just because Letho was abused does not warrant this card being ruined. Letho should have had a stipulation stating he could not be affected by treason. I know this is not what the developers want, as a single card exception is a no no and stifled game knowledge which is why the Witcher only boost bonus from swallow was removed. But maybe Letho could have been balanced to only consume one card on either side of him.
-Rot tosser, Bronze, Nilfgard. Needs to be dropped from 6 to 5 so that he can be targeted by Triss. The reason this is warranted is through the over proliferation of Rot tosser spammers.
Abilities:
-Reset. reset is an ability for a card to reset only the base power of a boosted or damaged card. I feel like this is underpowered, leading to the underuse of the cards that use the ability. It would be much more beneficial to reset the card to its original play state, or intended play state minus all effects, damage, boosts applied to it. So it should reset in particular armour.
Faction:
-Some factions are more OP than others. This order specifically. Nilfgard > Monsters = Skellige > Northern realms > Scoiatael.
-This creates Meta decks which I have stated above do nothing positive for a game.
-But more specifically I think Nilfgard is the only OP faction. They have the most versatility in play style, some of the strongest cards, and this has lead to their over-representation in the player base.
-Northern realms and Scoiatael fall under what I think should be the baseline at Monster and Skellige level of power, and they need a buff. Scoiatael has some very strong strategies but they need a lot of non-standard cards to do this, leading new players to shy away from them and creating an underrepresentation. They are also very faction specific and get steamrolled due to lack of strategy diversity in most matches.
Just some observations about the game at present. I'm sure I left some stuff out that has slipped my mind. I would love to hear what you guys think about these points in particular without the comments devolving into card bashing or massive fix wish list.
I have been playing the game from back in Witcher 3 when I would play the physical card game with my brother, so I want the best for Gwent. However, I have found that there are some issues I find weird.
Player Etiquette:
- In ranked games, it is not uncommon to have players who spam taunts, leave no GG, is this common?
Game Etiquette:
- A 60-second timer in ranked is unacceptable. Chess has a timer in competitive games for a reason. I could sit there with GwentDB open and scrutinize every card that is played for those 60 seconds to make sure I play every card perfectly, but I don't need to, but in ranked some people actually take up 40-50 seconds per round, whats worse is that if you play a non-standard card your opponent might stare at your card for 40-50 seconds. I thought this was ranked. I thought you needed to have a decent understanding of the game's cards, and mechanics to get you to level 10. A 30 second timer in ranked is more than enough. the game and card awareness of newer players can be addressed by fixing issues I highlight below.
Player Decks:
-Meta decks appearing about 90% of the time. I think is caused by websites like GwentDB allowing people to make their meta deck to climb ranks fast, this is not helped by the fact that it is incentivised to climb ranks fast to get any decent amount of kegs. My issue with this is a proliferation of meta decks which hurts every card game, but also that because it is incentivised for new players, in particular, it stifles game and card knowledge and creativity.
Keg RNG:
-In the closed beta, I had no issue with card drop rate, but because I played the beta I have been spoilt by that drop rate. In the open beta I feel like that dilution of the card pool with animated cards has only caused the keg RNG rates to worsen, Instead of having a large amount of high drop bronze cards and low drop silver and gold, you now have twice as many high drop bronze cards, which does not half your chances at getting silver or gold but more like quarters you chances due to probability.
-I know the animated cards were added for meteorite powder, but as one of the many players who doesn't care for animated cards, I feel like meteorite powder is worthless and not worth the trade off for diluted keg RNG.
Cards:
-The guardian, Silver, Nilfgard. This card needs an adjustment, even though its play rate is rare it is still very bothersome. The card drops two 6 power tokens onto the top of the player's deck which ruins their strategy. The only way to counter this is to lock the card to negate the deathwish ability. The chances of someone having this card, the opponent predicting it enough to carry a lock card, and the penalty of a ruined strategy that is not made up for by two 6 power cards. What is worse is that if the player discards one of these cards at the start of the next round there is a chance to pick the discarded 6 power card as their draw in the third round, which has personally happened.
- I feel like if the ability was to spawn one 3 power token then it would be much better balanced.
-Treason, Gold, Nilfgard. This card used to bring a spy on the opponents side of the field to your side. An amazing strategy was to run Letho, Dimeritium, and treason in that order so as to massacre the opponents side, demote Letho, then bring him with his power boost to your side of the field. This was way too overpowered and was rightly fixed, but it was fixed in the wrong way. Treason was a great card, and a great idea, letting you drag a spy that the opponent may have boosted to your side of the field, just because Letho was abused does not warrant this card being ruined. Letho should have had a stipulation stating he could not be affected by treason. I know this is not what the developers want, as a single card exception is a no no and stifled game knowledge which is why the Witcher only boost bonus from swallow was removed. But maybe Letho could have been balanced to only consume one card on either side of him.
-Rot tosser, Bronze, Nilfgard. Needs to be dropped from 6 to 5 so that he can be targeted by Triss. The reason this is warranted is through the over proliferation of Rot tosser spammers.
Abilities:
-Reset. reset is an ability for a card to reset only the base power of a boosted or damaged card. I feel like this is underpowered, leading to the underuse of the cards that use the ability. It would be much more beneficial to reset the card to its original play state, or intended play state minus all effects, damage, boosts applied to it. So it should reset in particular armour.
Faction:
-Some factions are more OP than others. This order specifically. Nilfgard > Monsters = Skellige > Northern realms > Scoiatael.
-This creates Meta decks which I have stated above do nothing positive for a game.
-But more specifically I think Nilfgard is the only OP faction. They have the most versatility in play style, some of the strongest cards, and this has lead to their over-representation in the player base.
-Northern realms and Scoiatael fall under what I think should be the baseline at Monster and Skellige level of power, and they need a buff. Scoiatael has some very strong strategies but they need a lot of non-standard cards to do this, leading new players to shy away from them and creating an underrepresentation. They are also very faction specific and get steamrolled due to lack of strategy diversity in most matches.
Just some observations about the game at present. I'm sure I left some stuff out that has slipped my mind. I would love to hear what you guys think about these points in particular without the comments devolving into card bashing or massive fix wish list.
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