Dear developers (if you actually do read all this stuff) and forum users! I’ve played on PTR-server for an amount of time and would like to share with you my opinion on the game we’re going to in result (if nothing is going to be changed at some point). First of all, let us start with some positive aspects of coming novelties:
1) Visual design was made actually cool, BUT leaders’ phrases are written very small. In my point of view, to see them well one has to use a lens.
2) There appeared some new interesting mechanics, someone can hardly argue with that. Especially I enjoyed how consume archetype was remastered.
3) IMHO the best novelty of the whole homecoming is fixed coinflip (that was actually eagerly desired by players) and removing spies.
And now let’s move to some negative aspects. To my shame, there are more of them:
1) Some cards are totally broken (imbalanced). Imlerith (ex-Sabbath), for instance. You have to be a wicked sick sadist to let it get immune in the game, where this card could be played TRISE a match (copy, original and from renew). And about Sihill (Sabbath v 2.0 exactly from the “old” gwent but with a new art, that can only be countered by specials, that one will hardly use a lot in a deck): it destroys everything played against it, especially when run in Eithe deck.
2) Weather is totally slain. It is expensive, plays too weakly, cause it has timer now, and the most annoying thing about it, that it has to be played only from hand. What was the problem, when Hound (for instance) could play weather from deck? It doesn’t take too much space in a row and spins the deck.
3) As we’ve started to discuss the deck thinning… it’s just absent now. Actually, in some forms it is possible, but only 24-25 cards can do this. At the end of the round you do get 3 cards, but it’s not so descent, and such CARD DRAWS do a lot of mess. Many people like me while playing gwent want to play a deck that would play the way it was planned and built but not to depend on card order in deck. Some write it made the game more Hearthstone-like ‘cause it is actual Hearthstone trait.
4) Card draw. You’ve fixed the coinflip, but broke the card advantage by these draws. As for me, it is easy to fix: after the second round each player draws 1 card instead of 3. That’s simple maths actually: if players play 3 cards (there’s no sence to take in account less than 3), they will draw these cards and go to round 2 with 10 cards. BUT one side has already lost the round that makes this option dissatisfied. And if the round is taken in 4 cards the winner dry passes and gets 7 cards in round 3 and the opponent gets only 6. But what’s happening now is an actual nightmare! People MUST spend 6 cards in round 1 in order to make an opponent to play 1 extra-card. In any other case they are going for a long round 3, where each player has 10 cards. The reasonable question: is why we need first two rounds if we practically play long "round 1"?
5) There are some interesting mechanics but there are extremely few. Old mechanics are either totally removed (mill) or broken (spies and special control). And there are too many similar cards cards with A LITTLE BIT changed (or swapped) abilities. You told that you removed 1 row for some NEW and INTERESTING mechanics that we don’t actually observe right now.
Verdict is the following: it was obvious that the actual “home coming” goal was to adapt the game for mobile client. There’s nothing horrible, but you forgot TO DO THE GAME ITSELF. The game looks VERY underfulfilled . You should spend at least one more half-year to make it “releaseable”. You could avoid this just by fixing coinflips and removing 13-points spies. The idiom ”give (someone) enough rope and they will hang themselves” describes the current situation the best way.
P.S. Thanks for the translation in English to NicKnighter.
1) Visual design was made actually cool, BUT leaders’ phrases are written very small. In my point of view, to see them well one has to use a lens.
2) There appeared some new interesting mechanics, someone can hardly argue with that. Especially I enjoyed how consume archetype was remastered.
3) IMHO the best novelty of the whole homecoming is fixed coinflip (that was actually eagerly desired by players) and removing spies.
And now let’s move to some negative aspects. To my shame, there are more of them:
1) Some cards are totally broken (imbalanced). Imlerith (ex-Sabbath), for instance. You have to be a wicked sick sadist to let it get immune in the game, where this card could be played TRISE a match (copy, original and from renew). And about Sihill (Sabbath v 2.0 exactly from the “old” gwent but with a new art, that can only be countered by specials, that one will hardly use a lot in a deck): it destroys everything played against it, especially when run in Eithe deck.
2) Weather is totally slain. It is expensive, plays too weakly, cause it has timer now, and the most annoying thing about it, that it has to be played only from hand. What was the problem, when Hound (for instance) could play weather from deck? It doesn’t take too much space in a row and spins the deck.
3) As we’ve started to discuss the deck thinning… it’s just absent now. Actually, in some forms it is possible, but only 24-25 cards can do this. At the end of the round you do get 3 cards, but it’s not so descent, and such CARD DRAWS do a lot of mess. Many people like me while playing gwent want to play a deck that would play the way it was planned and built but not to depend on card order in deck. Some write it made the game more Hearthstone-like ‘cause it is actual Hearthstone trait.
4) Card draw. You’ve fixed the coinflip, but broke the card advantage by these draws. As for me, it is easy to fix: after the second round each player draws 1 card instead of 3. That’s simple maths actually: if players play 3 cards (there’s no sence to take in account less than 3), they will draw these cards and go to round 2 with 10 cards. BUT one side has already lost the round that makes this option dissatisfied. And if the round is taken in 4 cards the winner dry passes and gets 7 cards in round 3 and the opponent gets only 6. But what’s happening now is an actual nightmare! People MUST spend 6 cards in round 1 in order to make an opponent to play 1 extra-card. In any other case they are going for a long round 3, where each player has 10 cards. The reasonable question: is why we need first two rounds if we practically play long "round 1"?
5) There are some interesting mechanics but there are extremely few. Old mechanics are either totally removed (mill) or broken (spies and special control). And there are too many similar cards cards with A LITTLE BIT changed (or swapped) abilities. You told that you removed 1 row for some NEW and INTERESTING mechanics that we don’t actually observe right now.
Verdict is the following: it was obvious that the actual “home coming” goal was to adapt the game for mobile client. There’s nothing horrible, but you forgot TO DO THE GAME ITSELF. The game looks VERY underfulfilled . You should spend at least one more half-year to make it “releaseable”. You could avoid this just by fixing coinflips and removing 13-points spies. The idiom ”give (someone) enough rope and they will hang themselves” describes the current situation the best way.
P.S. Thanks for the translation in English to NicKnighter.
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