Is it just me or Nilfgaard is absolutely ridiculous right now?

[nemirni]

I'd wager it's because NG Spies is one of the few archetypes that hasn't significantly adversely affected by the previous few patches, whereas most others have.

I am inclined to agree here. Although if we look at the patch notes only two factions had their significant cards nerfed. Restore and Harpies and I hope we can all agree they were indeed OP as they were?
On the other hand NR and ST had no negative changes i can think of and ST even got the whole new archetype and consume monster became quite viable again too.

If you're playing it and still losing it's probably to other NG players who can out-skill you on equal terms. My advice would be to get better and abandon the crutch you so obviously need.

but it's interesting that they scare you and inspire some jealousy

Scared, jealous in need of a crutch, and here i was thinking I am discussing with an adult. Anyway i see this discussion is making you salty so i ll just leave you be. Cheers.

 

[Odious_T]

Adults playing videogames is adulting at its bestest. ;]

I'm here to talk about game balance and in particular a faction that seems to be currently out of whack with the rest. I'm not trying to make you feel personally offended - that's an entirely unintended outcome. To be fair though, if you really like things the way they are with NG it might not be best for your good humor to hang out in a thread critical of your favorite faction.

The very first thing i wrote here was that the number of NG players you draw in ranked play shows an obvious bias toward what is most reliable. I could have left it at that to avoid offending the thin-skinned but frankly there's more nuance to it than the obvious situation on the ground.
For some reason or perhaps a few reasons combined NG strategic dynamics are low-risk high reward at the moment which wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take all night for them to resolve their four turns for every one of yours.

I think it's still about the amount of choice and control afforded when equivalent cards are subject to a lot of RNG.
And it doen't matter how many time one goes back to the patch notes to cobble together a pseudoanalytical defence of NG it won't change the present issue: http://gwentlemen.com/snapshot/

 

[frytom]

Let me ask something: Which card in Gwent can reset multiple Skellige units to the original/basic strengh? Dimetrium bomb can't. Maybe we need a new neutral card that can reset (more than just one unit like dimetrium bomb or rework dimetrium bomb that also Skellige units would be reset to original strengh) all factions' units. Because I think, that might be a current imbalance: Boosting vs strenghtening. Imho NG is problematic in terms of massive and too strong combo'ing as standard maneuvers, the massive combo'ing should be reduced. A good game method keeps it simple. Always. And always well balanced.

 

[Marginal0]

Wether I played correctly or not is besides the point. The deck is just brutal as it is, and it needs to go down.

Maybe you're right. In the end, it's all just a gamble. Same thing with Mangonel, which I still play in the deck (even though it's utter crap in ranked). If you don't open with it when second, why bother? Yarpen does have a little more flexibility but with the dwarf deck you always have the option to play him so the opponent will always keep his removal ready.

As an opponent, it doesn't feel right if you get the "i'm f/cked"-feeling after seeing a leader pop up.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

NG spies is strong but arguably not OP or much more over powered than other factions decks can get.

NG Mill is absolutely horrible for the game. It needs to die forever.

 

[Mystikast]

Nilfgaard is Overpowered

What the heck is going on?

 

[Draconifors]

Mystikast Since we already had a thread on the topic, I merged yours with that one.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

There are 5 factions. But in a ranked game you're only going to come up against the same 2 most of the time which says everything that needs to be said.
I flat-out refuse to play an NG spy deck out of reluctance to contribute to the problem.
NG spy disrupts every other strategy and deck and most of the decisions are being made by the NG player while you sit and watch them pull spy after spy until they get the card they want.

OK enough kvetching.
My suggestions for constructive changes to the spy system would be: either boosting power of spies to 3 so they require 2 shots to kill thereby breaking the infernal loop.
And/or IE crossbows only getting a shot for each spy placed AFTER they are on the board. This current retrospective observation is brutal and requires little to no planning on the part of the NG player.

What MMR are you? I don't find that to be true at all. I would say that I run into NG, SK, and SC pretty evenly and I occasionally see NR and Monsters. I don't' play NG spies at all and I still expect to hit 4000 MMR in the coming week or two.

 

[Odious_T]

I'm just limiting myself to using NG spy decks as my example or threads like this quickly devolve into a total charlie foxtrot if one tries to take on all the issues at once. I'll let someone else raise other issues with NG since I'd still like some time leftover to improve my game.

Currently NG spy's the tier 1 deck and the most obvious issue.
Ideally there should be 5 T1 decks and we'd be talking about which dynamic or specialty of each faction was not worth bothering with rather than which ENTIRE faction was too weak to compete.

I've played quite a lot over a short period of time Currently sitting at around 2770 MMR, since you ask. About 800 wins. On friday i was within 25 points of my rank 15 but since then i've been drawing the same opponents running the same NG decks over and over. (I honestly don't know enough about the matching algorithm to comment on that and i waited for a while to write anything in case i was in some kind of temporary bubble or rut of bad luck.)

I'll usually switch factions every other day or so. I run decks of my own design, sometimes just for the fun factor and I've found that weaker decks can do really well simply on being unpredictable. It's fun to watch the interactions play out or catch an opponent off guard with a non-standard play.
My win ratio sat around 60-70% for most factions and, like most, i'm carrying my learning curve and all it's horrible ghastly mistakes in my numbers...
I'm an average player. Not trying that hard, i play for fun but it's always nice to win.

By asking my MMR i suspect you aim to make this a dick-swinging contest where MMR equates to relevance.
If so, you'll probably want to run a reliable low-risk deck to boost your credibility... see where i'm going with this?
If not I apologize, maybe like me you're wondering if leveling-up results in being matched with more ruthless, win-ratio focused players who run this sort of deck but then how do you explain this?

If one cares to compete with the tryhards it's necessary to run the same boring deck. It turns up over and over, not always, but often and with the number of possibilities open to a game with hundreds of cards and the potential for millions of combinations in play this shouldn't be the case.
A balanced game would enable a variety of approaches - what we have right now is a dynamic process that looks more like convergent evolution in an ecosystem.

As long as it's fun to experiment people will do so, making for interesting and enjoyable play time. But the more often those players are shut down with a bulletproof deck the less chance there is that you will see those players taking chances on their own ideas. Ultimately this negatively impacts the community and goodwill. ragequits become the norm and the whole thing toxifies because "MLG bitchez..."

 

[4RM3D]

Hmm, in the Gwent Open Tournament, currently everyone is blacklisting NG.

:thinking:

If everyone is that scared of NG (Spies), maybe something should be done about it.

Tricky business this is, trying to balance everything.

 

[partci]

Climbed two Ranks today, up to 17. With my decks NG Spies was maybe my easiest prey to play against - it's so predictable. Best thing that works for them is winning CF (haha) and decent draws the first round. If you have a well thought of finisher, sometimes even this will not help them.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

I'm just limiting myself to using NG spy decks as my example or threads like this quickly devolve into a total charlie foxtrot if one tries to take on all the issues at once. I'll let someone else raise other issues with NG since I'd still like some time leftover to improve my game.

Currently NG spy's the tier 1 deck and the most obvious issue.
Ideally there should be 5 T1 decks and we'd be talking about which dynamic or specialty of each faction was not worth bothering with rather than which ENTIRE faction was too weak to compete.

I've played quite a lot over a short period of time Currently sitting at around 2770 MMR, since you ask. About 800 wins. On friday i was within 25 points of my rank 15 but since then i've been drawing the same opponents running the same NG decks over and over. (I honestly don't know enough about the matching algorithm to comment on that and i waited for a while to write anything in case i was in some kind of temporary bubble or rut of bad luck.)

I'll usually switch factions every other day or so. I run decks of my own design, sometimes just for the fun factor and I've found that weaker decks can do really well simply on being unpredictable. It's fun to watch the interactions play out or catch an opponent off guard with a non-standard play.
My win ratio sat around 60-70% for most factions and, like most, i'm carrying my learning curve and all it's horrible ghastly mistakes in my numbers...
I'm an average player. Not trying that hard, i play for fun but it's always nice to win.

By asking my MMR i suspect you aim to make this a dick-swinging contest where MMR equates to relevance.
If so, you'll probably want to run a reliable low-risk deck to boost your credibility... see where i'm going with this?
If not I apologize, maybe like me you're wondering if leveling-up results in being matched with more ruthless, win-ratio focused players who run this sort of deck but then how do you explain this?

If one cares to compete with the tryhards it's necessary to run the same boring deck. It turns up over and over, not always, but often and with the number of possibilities open to a game with hundreds of cards and the potential for millions of combinations in play this shouldn't be the case.
A balanced game would enable a variety of approaches - what we have right now is a dynamic process that looks more like convergent evolution in an ecosystem.

As long as it's fun to experiment people will do so, making for interesting and enjoyable play time. But the more often those players are shut down with a bulletproof deck the less chance there is that you will see those players taking chances on their own ideas. Ultimately this negatively impacts the community and goodwill. ragequits become the norm and the whole thing toxifies because "MLG bitchez..."

I was asking MMR to compare my experience to yours not a dig at relevance. All players experiences matter whether it's high mid or low MMR. I think right now my opinion is that other factions need to be improved to match the consistency of NG spies. Nerfing spies will probably just remove them from being played at all. I am happy to see spies because my SC deck with lots of removal wins against them the majority of the time. I can see how other decks might find them to be overpowered but from my view they aren't. I remember when Skellige was legitimately over powered and something like 80% of games were playing against them because they were just that good. NG spies is strong and consistent but nothing like Skellige was then.

 

[Odious_T]

Nonsense. This is a screen name. a handle. I can go out there with it and battlethe hordes of strangers comfortably because it's a disposable pseudonym and i use my gwent name in the forums because i have NOTHING to hide. Odious_T. go find me. look at my profile. Send me a FR if you like and play a few private games against me to see if i actually suck as much as you think or if i'm on to something - i won't bite. much. i care not a jot & neither should you...
Why have public ranks and profiles if it's not ok to use them to analyze what's actually happening? Weird.
I could be playing bots dialed down to look like humans without some sign that they are flesh and blood.

I've only started paying attention to names on the last week or so since some began to look familiar.
A bit more testing and i realize i'm being drawn against the same handful of players over and over.. Is this bubble intentional?
It would go some way to explaining why some commenters are reporting different bias in their match draws.
Can anyone shed some light on what's going on, please? can't be THAT few gwent players on the west coast.