You see, your points only say that some people have problems with those things. They don't prove that the game itself is bad. There is a big difference between those things.
You not seeing the potential doesn't mean there is none.
Points 1 and 2 are about balancing, not game design. Sorry, hand limit does change the way you play but it's a change in strategic approach. Previously, it essentially boiled down to "did I draw my spy", "did I draw good in r3. So far, this isn't the case. And I think it's a good change.
You seem to be pedantic with the word
some his points are still valid he doesn't expand on it because it would be one long post and it's been mentioned before plenty of times, which players who are defending HC ''Gwent'' conveniently forget or don't address. Whereas
some or even the word fewer is more apt for players defending HC ''Gwent''. Judging by the posts on here and reddit and the overall impression I get for the reception of ''HC'' alongside with the concerns of some pro players not mentioning those who have left already, I feel more rather than some players feel that the game no longer resembles Gwent that they played/tested in beta. More things have been stripped than added some of the things that have been ''readded'' were in some form or shape in the beta before anyway.
I'll give an example; Gold immunity was removed on the basis that it is uninteractive gameplay despite having some cards that would interact with them [Shackles+more] and the fact that you only had a cap of 4 Golds in the deck. Now instead of creating more cards to interact with Gold cards they went ahead and removed the Gold immunity all together on the basis of freeing up design space. Fast forward to HC ''Gwent'' you now have Artifacts that can't be interacted with unless you place the few cards in your deck that do interact with them, you also have cards that have the tag ''immune'' [essentially gold immunity] that you can't interact with of which neither have a 4 limit cap for inclusion. The cards you've included for Artifact removal will literally be useless facing a deck that does not play Artifacts. Where as before your shackles could still see play because every deck would include golds it's not the case here however. It's as Binary as the 2 row system that
some players gush over that it has meaning. Now It's hard even if I were a CDPR fanboy to defend this nonsense.
The other example I can give is that of the 2 rows rather than 3 rows sytem which I touched upon above..
enough with this farce. We now have 2 rows that supposedly have meaning.. It shouldn't be difficult for even newcomers to the game to see that the supposed meaning of the rows is very binary. If I place Swordmaster on the Melee Row she get's her effect if I place her on the Ranged row she has no effect, this isn't very engaging or meaningful in the slightest. I also can not see so far what they did with 2 rows that they could not do with 3 rows. It is as clear as day that they have a mobile version in the pipeline of which is why the game was systematically simplified and stripped of it's core mechanics.
Those two points are in line with game design which ultimately affects balance, Hand limit is essentially a game design that supposedly tried to ''balance'' stop you from drypassing to gain card advantage. However it's not the best solution or even a good solution to a problem that wasn't even an issue in closed beta. In CB you had other ways of obtaining card advantage, so wether you lost or won the coin flip it didn't matter as much.
Ui; This is more prefence than anything else if you were to argue about it but if I were to create a game I would defineitely take the feedback of the players who were to play it. Things as simple as making the ground/dirt [Board] brighter for players to see what they're doing, I personally feel the tavern board style of Beta gwent looked more clean and less cluttered which I prefered amongst other reasons such as how the game was intended to be played lorewise. Alot of players also don't find the 3D cheerleaders on the ground fitting as they seem cartoony and don't fit with the witcher vibe, they'd belong in something like Hearthstone though. The game also feels slow and clunky with the animations and cards being dropped rather than placed. I feel this is shared with alot of players not just a few but I could be wrong.
The key point here though is that alot of changes were not asked for and were implemented anyway whilst removing the core mechanics. They kept doing doing this update after update. They removed Gold immunity, Factions Passives, made most units Agile if not all, 3rd row removal, 3 Bronzes down to 2, Silvers being removed. Weather was bad In CB yes but in HC it feels like an afterthought. Then there's the cards themselves being once again changed for the most basic bland iterations of themselves that lack flavour in favour of mostly Damage/Boost/Ping abilities. Archtypes being blurred or nonexistent, before you had atleast 2-3 for each faction now it feels like you're playing Arena in Ladder which the 2 bronzes cap and provision system reinforces. It's more like did I draw my high provision cards, no okay I'll play down to 7 or 4 pass then redraw a full hand of which hopefully I do draw my higher provision cards. The lucky players who do draw good gets to save his mulligan's isn't that great for the player who doesn't.. kappa. When you do draw your high cost cards players play down to 7 or 4 cards anyway and you can mention the exceptions but I'm stating for the most part. Want the last say play down to 4 and drypass round 2 with a full hand in round 3. Card advantage is less of a thing so rounds feel forced.
I mean the provisions system makes it easier to balance superficially by tweaking numbers but the game feels like a shell of itself with the potential of better balance for a simplified game. Of which so far even the balance aspect of it isn't even it's highlight.
I can touch upon more but this post is already a book and I apologise.
