The future of Neutral cards

[Lyserus]

The future of Neutral cards

We have more neutral cards than any factions...and while mostly unused, there are some that good enough, HOWEVER, problem follows.

Because neutral cards are allowed to be played in any decks, good neutral cards eventually means less unique style for factions, and hence reduce the gaming experience.

And this lead to this---Neutral cards are not suppose to be good. Annnnnd, why do we have not-good cards in the first place??

This paradox is not going anywhere until we give a clear definition/goal that why neutral cards exist. Until then we will only have good neutral card that everyone uses in almost any decks, or bad cards noone uses.

Here are some of my idea about the neutral cards' purpose, just food for thoughts.

1.Easy-no more/few neutral cards, move neutral cards into factions, if there are too many factions and/or too many cards in one faction, like I said sub-faction is always go-to when card number is overwhelming.

2.Works, but not great. Neutral cards is not really good, but they provide factions' unique mechnics, but independently not that good. For example, we don't have reveal in non-NG faction, but there is a 8str neutral silver card that can reveal a unit. （probably not a good example, but you get the idea）They can perform things in a deck when there are certain things this faction can't do, in exchange for weaker str etc. The problem of this idea is that it provide chance for a even “puerer” netdecking.

3. Counter: Neutral cards become specific counter cards toward certain factions. For example, witcher neutral cards are not “that bad” in a deck, but it has bonus damage/other abilities and become viable when against monster cards. While I believe this is an interesting idea, these cards are probably too risky in random rank/ladder games, but probably for tournaments and possible future tournament game mode. For example, players have one chance to change one of his deck, and that chance can only be used if opponent has more than one deck to choss next.

Again, this is just food for thoughts, many ideas need to be polished.

What do you think should be the future of neutral cards?

 

[njmcshane]

While I understand and respect your opinion... I must say I disagree. As sad as it sounds, neutral cards a necessary evil.

why?

Well, most decks play to a certain archetype which changes every so often (patches, resets etc etc). These decks often lack counters to the current meta, regardless of how you redesign them. That's where neutral cards come in.

Often the neutral cards are the only way to hard counter the meta.

Otherwise you can guarantee after every patch there will only be one faction played. Ever. The one that is currently considered best. Which leads me to my second reason why neutral cards are needed.

Variety. If you just have your set deck of cards and nothing else it will get very boring very quickly. Neutral cards allow me to experiment with different wacky combinations. That's half the fun of gwent for a lot of players. Especially when I find a use for a card that I thought was useless. Lack of variety will kill the game very quickly. And yes I know everyone plays very similar decks higher up the ladder. Still very few decks are exactly the same. I personally love Monsters. For me that's gwent, sure I dabble with other decks... But I just don't feel much for them. I love being able to make a deck that could compete with the meta (currently NR) other people I suspect do the same.

That sort of leads me to my final point. I love this game I really do. I am sure you do as well. In order for it to survive, it will need new players. Those new players decks won't be very good. They can't necessarily afford to spend 80 € you get the cards or scraps to build a decent deck. Neutral cards allow a small measure of tipping odds, especially if they haven't settled on a deck to main. (Granted Trisses hailstorm needs looking at a bit) so they can try new decks and not get punished for it.

As for making neutral cards faction specific... I think that's a very bad way to go. How would it be decided who goes where?

However, if it did happen... Monsters calls dibs on Regis.

Edit- It occurs to me that I never answered the question. How rude, sorry. Honestly until CDprojekt master game balance and each faction is perfect against each other... (then they can sell the formula to every other games company and make billions!!!! I suspect that we would never see Cyberpunk 2077 then) Then it will remain the same. Which does make me sad.

I would like neutral cards to turn into minor force multipliers. They do something that accents a couple of cards in each archetype in some way. Possibly modifying the played cards ability a little. Example : playing Regis higher vampire means that in monster decks it allows one played card with the consume ability to be used again. Rather than Regis just eats a random card.

In a NR deck playing Regis might allow a card to toggle a lock on something. Etc etc.

That's enough insane rambling....

 

[Cabowse]

I agree with njmcshane, Neutral cards are the spice to each faction that allows you to experiment. Most of the Neutral cards work with each and every faction and that's what makes it fun.

Many of these cards don't have a banner that they run with and if you tried to split them between the factions, you'd only end up with a disproportionate amount of cards going to the different factions. Monsters and NR getting most of them.

 

[Shahzaky]

"We have more neutral cards than any factions...and while mostly unused..."
Woah there! Unless I'm totally mistaken, Monsters, NR and Skellige all got bigger collection of cards than the neutral dito. And what do you mean that most of the neutral cards isn't used? Do you have any stats that support your claim cause I can see most of the neutral cards being played on a regular basis.

"why do we have not-good cards in the first place?"
Well, more cards means more possibly deck combinations and someone somewhere might actually play the cards you consider not-good, which brings variety to the game. Also, what cards that is considered good or bad is both individual and possibly to change as the meta changes. We cant just remove cards which is considered not-good cause that would kill the game.

As for your ideas, I don't quite understand what you're after since I personally don't see any problem with neutral cards. You say that "good neutral cards eventually means less unique style for factions", which I think is a valid point, but that holds true for any card considered good and it's up to CDPR make all cards viable and balanced.

 

[idomyownstunts]

Gee I don't know about all this, I'm kinda luke-warm on the whole concept. Neutral even.

 

[njmcshane]

Gee I don't know about all this, I'm kinda luke-warm on the whole concept. Neutral even.

Baddum-tish!

Dad joke level: adept.

*eyes idomyownstunts suspiciously* How very... neutral of you.

Kiff, raise the white flag of war!

 

[xDivinity]

Leo should become a neutral thats all i want.

 

[idomyownstunts]

Baddum-tish!

Dad joke level: adept.

Kiff, raise the white flag of war!

:victory:

 

[RickMelethron]

We have more neutral cards than any factions...and while mostly unused, there are some that good enough, HOWEVER, problem follows.

won't bother to check the numbers now, but i don't see how this is relevant. the idea for any cardgame is that neutrals should be a complement to decks, this is why they usually have broad and generic abilities that could be useful for everyone depending on the situation

Because neutral cards are allowed to be played in any decks, good neutral cards eventually means less unique style for factions, and hence reduce the gaming experience.
And this lead to this---Neutral cards are not suppose to be good. Annnnnd, why do we have not-good cards in the first place??

see what i said above. geralt igni doesn't belong in any deck you try to make, but it's one of the most effective cards in the game at dealing with greedy decks (at least it used to be)
if you make igni faction specific, most other factions will flat-out lose to said greedy decks that put out a couple of large units. if you make d-bomb faction specific, most will lose to greedy boost decks, and so on.

as for your suggestions: you didn't even establish what is the problem with neutral cards.
you said they're supposed to be good, which is a problem because it would reduce diversity, but said that they aren't that good, which is also a problem because those "not good" cards won't see play

so... what is it?

 

[SkippyHole]

I do think neutrals are necessary for the game, but I think they are a bit too effective at what they do a lot of the time. In the last patch, pretty much every Scoiatel deck ran Neutral gold cards instead of any faction one, and Northern Realms seemed to have Dandelion and neutrals in previous patches. Yes, that is mostly a fault of the faction's golds being poor, but I do think more focus should be paid on making these better. Neutral bronzes and silvers fitting in to every deck aren't too bad (provided they are balanced properly), but I feel like golds should be important pieces of the deck that are tied in to the factions lore, which ideally should be faction specific, at least mostly. I think a large part of the trouble is no new faction specific golds were introduced in the last patch, which will hopefully change soon.

 

[ALonelySpirit]

i agree with SkippyHole