Join the Light Side! Popularity Analysis

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I generally just prefer good games with good graphics. If it is dark or not is irrelevant. If a game has bright ugly pokemon like graphics, it's highly unlikely I will play it in the first place.
Some of the best selling games of this generation is dark souls and bloodbourne, some of the "darkest" games around.
Dark Souls is not so dark, it shows quite light and understandable picture:
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Bloodborne is dark, true, but still it is not so popular. It's picture is hard to understand. And it can be dark, cause it refers to a horror genre as Dark Souls does. But Gwent is not a horror, it is a tavern game! Where is a tavern spirit? Why do we see such a boring picture? Why cannot they make it look like successful Witcher 3? It wasn't dark. It was light and may be too saturated (what I don't like) but I can accept it.
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It's obvious, you just don't want to see it.
No, it's not. You just wish it was. Say hello to some of the most successful games like Splinter Cell, Thief (the original, not the remake), Skyrim, Far Cry 1, Metro, Metal Gear, et al
(I'll stop here before it gets tedious)

Now tell me again about successful games being bright.
 
No, it's not. You just wish it was. Say hello to some of the most successful games like Splinter Cell, Thief (the original, not the remake), Skyrim, Far Cry 1, Metro, Metal Gear, et al
(I'll stop here before it gets tedious)
Now tell me again about successful games being bright.
Splinter Cell and Thief are stealth games - they must be dark. Gwent is not a stealth game eventually :smart:. Skyrim, Metro, Far Cry 1, Metal Gear et al are not dark [...}. Just look at the screenshots. In the Skyrim people even make many mods for realistic nights and lighting at all, cause they are too light in original.

Post edited. -Drac
 
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I still can't get over new HC visual direction. Sure, C/OBT Gwent wasn't visually stunning, but introduction of 3d leaders and battlefield-like boards still bothering me. Current boards are dark and cluttered with mud, i do believe that Lirian board, being the brightest of all, is quite popular.
However i personally would like to see wooden gameboards as if located in taverns of the world of the witcher. Imagine this: Passiflora board skin, The Clever Clogs board skin, etc. Warm lightning, optional inn chatter reaching out from background. With leader models replaced by cards. I don't even think that leader skins are an interesting offer for majority of players to justify their existence. Arguably It's not a good concept for a cosmetic in a game like this since as a developer you are quite limited with ideas for skins to stand out without disrupting lore and game style. But, as has already been said many times by devs, no more radical changes should be expected, so I don’t harbor hopeless expectations.
However, I can only welcome recently announced "inn" board for being bright and stepping away from battlefield theme.
 
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Notice that SirPumpkin, the most popular Gwent streamer, always chooses the Lyria board, because it's the brightest and the most suitable for viewing one. But still it has too many shadows.
 
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New tavern board with blood is bad. It's tavern, but it's bloody, dark, depressive tavern... Why do ur designers make such a depressive atmoshere? Can't u see that u r killing ur game?.. Gwent is for fun. Most people are not masochists, they won't go to ur game everyday to get this "beautiful" feelings which darkness and signs of murder give us. Make it neutral at least, but not so negative. Witchers are neutral, they are bound with gray and silver, but new design is devoid of this at all, like this is not witcher's, but monster's game.
If u r making game for people who like darkness, u will get just a 1-5% of all players, cause most of people are turned to the light and fun.
 
Playing decks full of midrange control and locks to not get screwd over by some engine on daily basis can make you miserable masochist shell of a former self, ya know!
 
Why cannot they make it look like successful Witcher 3? It wasn't dark. It was light and may be too saturated (what I don't like) but I can accept it.
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Touissaint! One of my favourite places of Witcher 3. I just replayed the game again, and that place is so nice. Yes, you are right about the lights, and that place. But I think you forget that most of the rest of Witcher 3 is quite dark, especially Velen, but also Skellige. Novigrad surroundings might be an exception, but it is nothing like Touissaint.
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Maybe a Tuissaint board would be nice.
 
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But I think you forget that most of the rest of Witcher 3 is quite dark, especially Velen, but also Skellige. Novigrad surroundings might be an exception, but it is nothing like Touissaint.
You forget that Gwent is not 3rd person RPG with adventures in the open world. It's a game which we are playing in a relaxing fun tavern or public house atmoshere. Noone plays cards in a tavern with blood or in the mud! Cards need a soft relaxing place. It's a one of the mistake of CDPR - to make a card game like Witcher or HoM&M (another mistake is charges). RPG can be dark cause it's adventure when u walk through mud and unexplored areas. Cards is made for relax and fun. When u come home tired of work and want to have some fun, this muddy fields, dark murdery taverns and foggy interface are not what u want to see, especially everyday. Cards exist for fun (it's their purpose) and atmoshere must be appropriate.
 
Witcher world is meant to be dark, its not some cartoon, so gwent is also dark i personally like it
This.

Also, the latest change to brighten everything up to [ . . . ] level was a bad move. The boards were not designed for that and now look strange (for example, the leaders now look like pasted in via good old green screen tech).

Moderator's note: Post edited. Please, refrain from mentioning diseases.
tulamide's note: I'm sorry! That was a direct translation of a word that means "most ugly graphics". Never expected it would mean something else when translated. Sorry again!
 
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The boards were not designed for that and now look strange (for example, the leaders now look like pasted in via good old green screen tech).
Yes, no shadows is bad, but now boards are much better, even with no shadows. I think, they need just add some shadows from leaders and some shadows on boards, but these shadows must be very very light. Without shadows picture looks a little cartoonish, not realistic. But this doesn't mean that they must return everything to dark original style, where u must squint to see something. Going to light is a right way for fun and relaxing card game.
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I think I understood ur, CDPR, mistake with Gwent's graphical design.
I just remembered that I, as all gwenters I knew, liked the Homecoming Preview very much. U can see it below:

But what had we got in reality? Why did our opinions change after release? Here u can see seeming small, but in reality a big difference between Preview and Release.

1. Battlefield
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Preview looked cool with bleak cards, animations, heroes and bleak dusty gamefield. Card's elements looked better and stylish. In Release we see too saturated picture, not what we saw and liked in Preview.
Even Thronebreaker had this low-saturated design:
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So if Gwent is a Thronebreaker's child, why does it have another style?

2. Mulligan
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Here u can see better a difference between cards' looks. In a Preview there was a bleak designed cards with much bleaker animations and borders. Ragged borders are ok with bleak overall style, but they are not ok with bright saturated style of Release cards. That's why my soul is suffering looking at this design mistake. Also Preview's borders was much thinner, what I mentioned before in this theme as a normal's card view.
If u are making bleak game, than make it bleak in all cases. Don't make cards saturated, while the world around is dirty and even card's borders are ragged and dirty. It's not ok.
Look at this:
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This design is looking wonderful: no oversaturation, realistic colors of realistic world. This what I like.

3. Card look
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Even this is much better in Preview. Card's frame is much more realistic, not so bright, plastic, thick and rounded like in the Release's one. Card's description is written on much better-looking scroll, while Released one is written on some piece of vague and bright plate. Sorry, but Preview is looking much better and logical. Scrolls are more definite and common to real world then this vague thick plate made of don't-know-what.

As u can see, everything has become oversaturated in Release, while in Preview we see bleak realistic colors. That's why everyone loved the Preview. Bleak colors are perfectly combined with mud and real world, while this oversaturated colors are ok only for HS-like game. But that bright and saturated type of game must be played in a tavern, on a gameBOARD, not on the REAL battlefield, cause real world is bleak, but current Gwent is not. So, u mixed two styles in one: bleak real world with mud and dust and the synthetic saturated funny picture of HS-like games. They are not compatible. Style must be definite. Or it is realistic and bleak, or it is bright and made for closed places like tavern or public house lightened with bright candles. Make game bleak or make it a board-like game like inside of W3. Cause this bright saturated style is ok here:
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I think, the easiest, fastest and cheapest fixing of this design mistake is just making overall style bleaker (animations, card's frames, interface) and changing description caption to that beautiful Preview scrolls. With this game look I even agree to smash my bleak (and thin) cards into the mud.
 
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Yes, that's true, card arts seems to be over-saturated compare to the game-board (battlefield). It will be nice to have few options of saturation, gamma, etc in the settings.
 
Putting my two cents on the table, I like it the way it is, dark and not bright.

The dark side is oh so much better.
 
I am playing Thronebreaker now. And I see two mistakes. The style is looking like W3 style: bright saturated elements and bleak maps. It looks quite good now, because it's an open world expedition. Except card's borders are looking badly: ragged border is bad for collecting card. Noone wants to collect ragged cards, they are not pleasant to hold in hands. I just want to through them out like a trash (cause they are looking like a trash even with the golden border). So I see here a third right design decision: to make cards' borders look good. Make it a little bit more beautiful and neat just to be proud of possession of these cards.
Second mistake is the symbol of the game - Broken throne's symbol. It is NEGATIVE. I don't know the whole story of the game, but it doesn't metter, because the symbol is not attractive. I think, it is a mistake to expose the negative idea as game's symbol. Because people are aiming to good things, so the broken throne is repulsive. Noone don't even want to buy such game, such broken thing, like u don't want to hold ragged trashy cards. So two mistakes I've seen have the only source. It is looking like u offer people a good product in an unpleasant wrapping. It's an irony, because the most common case of gamedev is to sell a shit in a beautiful package. But here we see the reverse case. U know, noone shall ever buy ur apples, if u paint them with worms. So I suggest to make a beautiful package for the game (Gwent in our case): make neat card borders and caption (Preview scrolls would be much better, because the are neat and defined) and make more defined and amiable interface.
 
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This game has become a TRASH. This word describes it best of all. Trashy design, trashy faction (SY), trashy mechanics. All is so ununited, foggy and discrete. Look, at what we had:

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We had clear understandable united view. And what we have now:

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It's foggy, dirty, trashy design. Why did u changed game so extremely? Why did u thrown all that old style and old community away? Just make old Gwent better. No need of revolution and atomic bomb thrown on the game to make it a pile of shards. No need of such an action. Game wasn't bad. It's ok now with overall point's reducing, ok with rows reducing, but another things I don't understand. Why change game so extremely to a trashy style? United clear style was much better. Yes, new one is much more expensive-looking and better worked, but it is not better, cause it's trashy.
 
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