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Homecoming was the beginning of the end.
I will say very little from now on, but watch it unfold with sadness and fond remembrance of past times...
And then be right back here to say "I told you so", and to set anyone straight who is going to pretend like they don't understand why the game flopped.
I will say very little from now on, but watch it unfold with sadness and fond remembrance of past times...
And then be right back here to say "I told you so", and to set anyone straight who is going to pretend like they don't understand why the game flopped.
First . I played 130 H of closed beta okay, i loved the cards. I loved the deck i loved the music. I knew that cdpr gonna change the game okay changing working of 90% cards was not big suprise for me. Well i can say that i dont liked it but after time i was starting to learn the game again. Still i did not know why actions of 90% of the cards has been changed. And now here we are , goddamn homecoming. Most of the cards has been changed again WITHOUT ANY GODDAMN REASON . AGAIN my only question is why , and i am disapointed. Anyone asked for it ? Was it really necessary ? Here i end my adventure with Gwent.
Nobody can understand what CDPR is doing with Gwent, even themselves don't understand what they're doing. I think they want that players stop playing Gwent, this is the only reason that comes to my mind...
If you are genuinely curious about the history of Homecoming, please, see here.
It honestly gets me worked up reading that again! They followed through on everything except the most important aspects, the gameplay related ones.
Faction identity is weaker now. Monsters don't have Wild Hunt Frost or Dagon Fog. Nilfgaard doesn't have spies. NR doesn't have Crewman so machines are just normal cards now. These made the factions feel unique since no other faction used them. Also in HC, bronzes with like 5 provisions all have similar abilities across board. Neutral cards (like artifacts, Uni/Chiro , Geralts etc.) are in every deck because they are overtuned, which takes even more away from faction identity.
Also, Homecoming shattered every known archetype. With less bronze cards available and the 2 bronze limit, their new archetypes are anything but distinctive. You have to include cards outside your desired archetype since there just aren't enough cards now, so really what Homecoming introduced are "filler" cards when you think about it.
Create is one of the few mechanic in the entire game to actually make it through Homecoming unscathed! They added a ton more terrible RNG like Spotters and Viper Witcher too. That statement just seems like hot air now lol.
Personally i think the problem of binary cards is way worse in Homecoming than it was in Beta. Binary cards (like usurper, artifacts, yrden with only 2 rows etc.) really subtract from this being a skill based game if all the games are won in the deckbuilder. It doesn't seem like that statement about player skill being a focus was sincere either.
I just wish they had stayed true to their ideals in the initial announcement, they could've had a really special game unlike any other!
I like how they conveniently dropped the "Homecoming" name, and just called it "Gwent: The Witcher Card Game".
And I find it sad that "going back to the world of the Witcher 3", to them, meant putting a silly grey filter over all the graphics to make the mood "dark". Let's forget about the fact that many cards in beta actually had abilities that were tied in with their lore. Let's forget about the fact that the graphics in beta resembled the Witcher 3 a million times more.
I don't know if the people working on this new Gwent ever actually played the Witcher 3, but in that game red was red, blue was blue, green was green. It was a superb game graphically. While Geralt's choices sometimes might have come in tones of grey, the world sure didn't.
So I really don't understand where this new look for Gwent is coming from. Probably to distance the game from its cartoony competitors? Anyway, I think it wasn't done correctly.
And I find it sad that "going back to the world of the Witcher 3", to them, meant putting a silly grey filter over all the graphics to make the mood "dark". Let's forget about the fact that many cards in beta actually had abilities that were tied in with their lore. Let's forget about the fact that the graphics in beta resembled the Witcher 3 a million times more.
I don't know if the people working on this new Gwent ever actually played the Witcher 3, but in that game red was red, blue was blue, green was green. It was a superb game graphically. While Geralt's choices sometimes might have come in tones of grey, the world sure didn't.
So I really don't understand where this new look for Gwent is coming from. Probably to distance the game from its cartoony competitors? Anyway, I think it wasn't done correctly.
TB and Hc are badly optimized, and it isn't a secret. Here's my specs: i5 750 @ 3.8 GHz, GTX 1060 6GB, Ram 8 GB. And I was not able to play TB due to horrible stuttering in the battles when the fire was put on the row. Besides, I had other problems with starting the game itself. Hc doesn't crash as Gwent before but still. As for hc gameplay, there was a little hope after Mulligan Update, but the last patch made me sad again. There are no signs that they are going to restore the vital elements of Gwent we knew from closed and open beta. I checked gogstats today and again after the patch people stop playing the game. In Gwent it was always the opposite, new content = new reasons to play. I am ready to play Gwent again, but I have to get these reasons. It cannot be otherwise. I will not play the game that I do not like.
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Just immagine the opportunities developers have to create a strong bronze core with only 2 duplicates. A few expansions from now, and you would prefer this over gwent beta point spam of playing the same copies of cards like in SK greatswords, or NG soldiers - which technically is still an archetype present in Gwent HC, albeit not that strong.
Also, did someone mention spies ? https://gwentup.com/decks/3645
Enjoy.
Also, did someone mention spies ? https://gwentup.com/decks/3645
Enjoy.
Give my a hint was should be that great after a "few expensions"? To be honest: Each part could be good after a "few expansions". Depends of the content in it. But i am far further than imagine, i see what the last "expansion" brought to me and i was disappointed.
How can you know? Are you part of the design team?
We already HAVE point spam. Look at the strongest faction atmo. Monster. Thrive and consume is all over the game.
And now we have Filavandrel and his buffing and untouchable dworks.
You could count NR into it with all their buffing and charges.
Or did i misinterpret point spam?
There is literally only 1 card in that entire deck (and HC in whole) that synergizes with spies, just Impera Enforcers! That's not an archetype lol, not even a package.
In beta, spies had Impera Enforcers, Impera Brigade, Infiltrator, Nauzicaa Brigade... plus all the non bronze supports like Callaech, Rainfarn, and Menno! You could have the entire deck be spies synergy if you wanted, but look how many fillers are crammed in that deck u posted...
Also it's like you forgot that you could have 2 bronze copies in beta if you wanted. It's not like people forced you to run 3 copies. All Homecoming does is force you to have less flexibility. It's less design space overall and I don't see how you could still dispute that.
This idea that the lack of fleshed out archetypes is due to not having enough cards is somewhat misguided. It is down to poor card design. There are simply too many filler cards - usually low provision bronzes that are slight variants of each other. Mind you, even the golds aren't that great. There are too many generic abilities among those too. It doesn't help that much of the lore-appropriate flavour has been lost in HC either.
To put it in perspective, here are the numbers of unique cards available in Beta vs Homecoming -
Bronze cards, which should be the core of the deck archetypes, had 199 unique cards in Beta vs 190 in HC - not a big difference. Certainly not enough to excuse the current pitiful lack of archetype support.
Sure, the future expansions should help, but there is no excuse for the feeble archetype support right now. There are enough cards, they are just poorly designed. Even taking 2 vs 3 bronze copies into account, there should still be enough. There are 32 different bronzes in each faction in HC. That should be more than enough to support a few good archetype cores in each, even leaving room for a few more generic ability cards. I'd rather have 2 or 3 fleshed out archetypes in each faction, than 5 or 6 partial ones and lots of filler, especially as it will be going on 6 months between HC launch and the scheduled first expansion. We don't even know if that will fill out those existing partial archetypes, or just add new ones.
At present, Monsters seems to have more coherence than the other factions, probably because deathwish and consume go hand in hand and thrive fits anywhere. This probably contributes to its current dominance.
I doubt CDPR will revisit the design of many of the current cards any time soon, so I guess we just have to wait for the expansions (more in hope than expectation, personally speaking).
I know Thronebreaker isn't exactly balanced, but at least the card design there was coherent, and fun. There were several potential archetypes and plenty of synergies. Not that I'm saying that most of the 6 months of the Homecoming redesign time looks like it was actually spent on TB design, rather than HC...
These are just a few areas where design space was reduced for very little gain -
To put it in perspective, here are the numbers of unique cards available in Beta vs Homecoming -
- Leaders : Beta 21 - HC 25
- Legendary : Beta 110 - HC 120
- Epic : Beta 150 - HC 162
- Rare : Beta 135 - HC 80
- Common : Beta 64 - HC 110
Bronze cards, which should be the core of the deck archetypes, had 199 unique cards in Beta vs 190 in HC - not a big difference. Certainly not enough to excuse the current pitiful lack of archetype support.
Sure, the future expansions should help, but there is no excuse for the feeble archetype support right now. There are enough cards, they are just poorly designed. Even taking 2 vs 3 bronze copies into account, there should still be enough. There are 32 different bronzes in each faction in HC. That should be more than enough to support a few good archetype cores in each, even leaving room for a few more generic ability cards. I'd rather have 2 or 3 fleshed out archetypes in each faction, than 5 or 6 partial ones and lots of filler, especially as it will be going on 6 months between HC launch and the scheduled first expansion. We don't even know if that will fill out those existing partial archetypes, or just add new ones.
At present, Monsters seems to have more coherence than the other factions, probably because deathwish and consume go hand in hand and thrive fits anywhere. This probably contributes to its current dominance.
I doubt CDPR will revisit the design of many of the current cards any time soon, so I guess we just have to wait for the expansions (more in hope than expectation, personally speaking).
I know Thronebreaker isn't exactly balanced, but at least the card design there was coherent, and fun. There were several potential archetypes and plenty of synergies. Not that I'm saying that most of the 6 months of the Homecoming redesign time looks like it was actually spent on TB design, rather than HC...
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This was one of the things that bothered me most about the direction that HC design took.
These are just a few areas where design space was reduced for very little gain -
- 3 rows to 2 (ok, I guess larger cards do look prettier though...)
- 3 bronzes max to 2
- 3 card colours to 2 (what was gained by removing silver cards?)
- Between 25 and 40 cards in deck to 25 (basically forced thanks to the provision system)
- Lower card strengths causing less granularity and hence greater problems with damaging and board wiping cards
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Just to add to your list:
- They removed half the tags in the game so there's way less room for interactions between cards. I mean there's no more SK clans, NR countries etc.
- Tons of mechanics like Armor and Strengthen/Weaken gone for no reason. We could really use Armor back especially now to help balance the ridiculous removal meta.
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Good points. I guess technically the design space is still there for those, but CDPR just aren't utilising it for some reason.
Things like 2 rows, 2 bronzes and effectively fixed deck size look like permanent design space reductions though. The others could potentially be reversed with less upheaval, especially now that full refunds for changed cards are less of a factor.
Just in terms of gameplay and card design, this game really does feel more like an early beta than a full live release, even though it's already been 'fully released' for over 3 months. The question is, how willing are CDPR to make such changes now that they class Homecoming as live? (Still can't bring myself to call it Gwent...)
Im on ps4 and the game runs fine.. I dont have crashes, neither on thronebreaker...
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The game is fun and way better then the old gwent. I dont know why ppl like it before Hc ?
I think Cdpr knows best, and this change, for me at least, was great.
Played about 10 games in the beta, got borred, uninstalled after that.
Hc is way better folks !
And about playerbase... and queue time... I played on my Ps4 all the night and didnt experienced more then a 10 sec waitin for the game to find me a match... and that was in the middle of the week, not on weekend so dont trow lies that the game has few players and such. After the Hc update, more players joined, few left... and about those that left, they have returned and accepted the change...
[Edited for tone -- SigilFey]
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Maybe you shoud
Im on ps4 and the game runs fine.. I dont have crashes, neither on thronebreaker...
So, maybe you are an isolated case.. Bye !
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The game is fun and way better then the old gwent. I dont know why ppl like it before Hc ?
I think Cdpr knows best, and this change, for me at least, was great.
Played about 10 games in the beta, got borred, uninstalled after that.
Hc is way better folks !
And about playerbase... and queue time... I played on my Ps4 all the night and didnt experienced more then a 10 sec waitin for the game to find me a match... and that was in the middle of the week, not on weekend so dont trow lies that the game has few players and such. After the Hc update, more players joined, few left... and about those that left, they have returned and accepted the change...
Have a nice day ! In a few months this thread will be closed . U know why ? Because Cdpr will make Gwent even better, and complainers will start to fade of, and accept it or leave it for good.
While I like the current game plenty there are aspects of old gwent that I miss. 3 bronzes and better archetypes are a couple of them. Then there is stuff that they still have yet to get right. Card balance is still a mess and I don't know when they will nail down a good process for it. They added stuff that is downright bad for the game like artifacts and Usurper. I have hope for the game so hopefully the next few big patches take it in a good direction. I do think that player numbers are down and there is pretty good evidence for that. Console doesn't even have the option to play with only other console players anymore and I don't even need to ask why. The wait times would be absolutely terrible.
Edit: Also lots of people have technical issues with the game. I don't know how you have apparently avoided them on PS4. Homecoming launch was unplayable for nearly a month due to crashes and the latest leaders patch also brought with it many crashes.
[Edited -- SigilFey]
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