Adding an option to accept or reject the opponent match up

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Should there be a filter or an option to accept or reject the matched opponent

  • A filter for factions you wish to play against

  • The option to accept or reject the match-up

  • Neither

  • Both

  • A filter added only to Casual Mode

  • Add a filter for factions but lesson the rewards gained

  • Add a filter to casual mode but lesson the rewards gained


Results are only viewable after voting.
I think the problem is not net decks per se as every “net deck” actually has dozens of variants — it’s that each of the “variants” feels essentially the same.

The problem is that every “net deck” and probably every remotely competitive is built around a very small set of two or three defining cards with other cards chosen to synergize. An this is exacerbated by at least the following:

1. Too much difference in quality between top cards (like scenarios or heatwave) and bottom cards ( like peasant militia or spring equinox).

2. Too little creativity in cards — especially low provision cards which almost all either boost or damage in a zillion different irrelevant patterns.

3. Too much removal which forces central, win-condition cards to be either nonunits or units that have immediate, unpreventable effect.

4. Too many engines that generate too many points that are too easy to set up and too hard to shut down — thus necessitating the excessive removal.

5. Too many tutors that remove risk of not drawing overpowered cards — tutors partly necessitated to remove RNG of the draw when the discrepancy between top and bottom cards is too great.
 
I once started a thread about a necessity of some sort of blacklisting.

At least in a non-ranked gameplay.

Blacklisting a leader or entire faction from matchmaking , for a period of a week, each player may choose one for that period.

Developers are entirely ignoring the fact, that there is no fun in constantly facing the same OP faction.

Script kiddies want just to win with a faction that is temporary OP ? Fine. Do that in ranked only.

But some people want to make some thematic decks, play for fun, not to be stomped by the same boring OP Skellige / Northern Realms script deck.

Note this, that this is just a crutch, to solve a problem of developers constantly failing in balancing the game.
 
@Gimme_a_break, thread merged.

Blacklisting has been discussed before and while it may seem like a good idea, at first, it has some pretty nasty consequences. I've already written a detailed analysis here. So, I won't go into it again.
 
I think the problem is not net decks per se as every “net deck” actually has dozens of variants — it’s that each of the “variants” feels essentially the same.

This is true in many cases. But there are even more cases when people don't change a single card in their deck, when they import it to their game. At least that's my observation.

Blacklisting has been discussed before and while it may seem like a good idea, at first, it has some pretty nasty consequences. I've already written a detailed analysis here. So, I won't go into it again.

Your analysis was targetting 'entire faction ban', whilst I'm talking about blacklisting a single deck or player temporarily, and that would be an individual thing, meaning the blacklist would not affect anyone elses but your own matchmake. I also mentioned I consider this only for unranked games, so I can't agree with your points if you're referring them to my post.
 
whilst I'm talking about blacklisting a single deck or player temporarily, and that would be an individual thing, meaning the blacklist would not affect anyone elses but your own matchmake.

I was talking about individual matchmaking and it doesn't matter if you can blacklist a faction, deck or player because the principle remains the same as well as the inherent problems I've explained in my post.
 
So, a lot of CCG must be facing those "nasty consequences" with bad results...

Well, like M:tG for example. Poor sods, their game failed so miserably.
Not like some marvelous CCGs, that did not adressed game imbalances at all, and are thriving, like Doom Trooper.

Not.

Blacklisting is not a black and white situation. To ban or not ban. That is a very simplistic way of thinking.

It`s a proved solution to game designers inability to rework and balance their CCGs.

Happens a lot, because, well - CCGs major flaw are those imbalances, that emerge with every new edition, and are almost impossible to deal with.
That`s what blacklisting is for. Dealing with imbalances, instead of ignoring them and frustrating players.

M:tG mentioned above, has several game formats, with different levels of blacklisting cards.

Here in GWENT, some proper measures could be taken, to mitigate those "extreme, dire, terrible and nasty consequences".

Like - blacklisting just for one week, but no more that two consecutive weeks.
Or no more than one week in a month / season.
Blacklisting not a faction, but a leader.
And so on, some food for thoughts.
 
I was talking about individual matchmaking and it doesn't matter if you can blacklist a faction, deck or player because the principle remains the same as well as the inherent problems I've explained in my post.

Let me go through your points then.

1. A ban/reject mechanism is the wrong solution
Like I have explained, banning/rejecting a faction is not a good solution and it's only being suggested because some decks are far too common (and either annoying, OP or both). Banning a faction is like putting on a band-aid, instead of properly treating the wound. We have to look further and deeper. Because, if we don't, and we continue to band-aid everything, the game will not improve. If we accept such a solution, it sets a wrong precedence for Gwent.

So it seems the untreated wound is better than a band-aid, because for months there has been no improvement. It actually keeps getting worse. If more netdeckers is considered a game improvement, then I think I'm totally confused.
Setting wrong precedence? It's not necessarily wrong when you think it's wrong. It might as well be good, but we won't know until we try it.

2. A ban/reject mechanism can be exploited for other purposes
Every player can just ban the faction or reject the match-up their deck is weak against, creating an unnatural win-rate. Furthermore, they can actually start optimizing their decks, knowing they will never have to face X faction for an even higher win-rate. Ironically, the opposite can happen too, when players do not optimize their decks, they might no longer have a favorable match-up (because others ban such decks), which might actually lower their win-rate. This doesn't create a balance, instead it creates more polarization. To put it bluntly: it makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker.

This does not seem to be a valid point for blacklisting a netdeck. Simply because with one blacklist you could not ban all the netdeck variants (e.g. modified by 1 or 2 cards). It would take time and a lot of matchups against those to filter out enough of them to be even close to consider this option as faction ban, or to consider this mechanism a sort of abuse for unnatural win-rate improvement. You might ask - then what's the point of the blacklist if replacing just one card in a netdeck will not be preventing matchups gainst those. Well the point is, if player A faces player B using netdeck X and blacklists it, then unless B modifies X to be X1 variant, A won't be matched up with B using X. If player C uses the same X variant, or X1 (which would mean that either C copied it from B, or came up with the exact same modification idea - which btw. has a lower probability considering the amount of available cards), then A won't have to face C, and so on. The outcome of this would be:
- unmodified netdecks get filtered out by matchmaking for someone, that blacklisted it - meaning the number of repetitive matchups are decreased significantly, as most people don't bother modifying the netdeck even by 1 card, which I find especially shameful
- modified 'netdecks' - player A would need to still play them, and if decided to blacklist, then the same variant of netdeck will be filtered out from now on
- netdeckers would start modifying the decks they've copied (which would hopefully develop their desire to explore the deckbuilder), or leave them be and play only against people, who don't mind facing the same stuff all over again.

Would that lead to situation where, how you put it, the strong become stronger and the weak weaker? I'm not sure, but but currently the role of strong is assigned to the netdeckers, and the weak to the ones homebrewing their decks and experimenting.

3. A ban/reject mechanism makes the meta worse
Because of the above (point 2), it also shifts the meta into a weird direction, creating decks that should normally not be able to thrive. At first, you might think that this promotes variety, but at what cost? You are getting super-optimized decks that can run rampart, which exacerbates the issue a ban/reject mechanism was meant to solve.

Having in mind, that blacklisting would be only for unranked matches, I dont see such danger. People playing for fun, would have a bigger chance to enjoy the game, and for people playing competitively/rank, nothing would change.

4. A ban/reject mechanism will punish players unjustly
Furthermore, as mentioned by Draco, it punish players unjustly (i.e. creates too much collateral damage) because there is a major flaw in implementing a ban/reject mechanism. What about those players that are actually trying out a different deck (home-brewed or otherwise)? Can you spot those? No, not always. So, if Nilfgaard does get banned by everyone, for example, then that means that no one can make another non-meta NG deck. Thus a ban/reject mechanism actually adds more fuel to the fire, instead of less.

This is totally not the case, which reply to point 2 is clear about.

5. A ban/reject mechanism might be hated more (then what it tries to solve)
The last reason is somewhat of a paradox. But, if players truly want to have fun (i.e. chill out) in casual, then they shouldn't play (annoying) meta-decks. Yet, this is still happening. So, players have another idea about what casual should be. Because of this, we should be careful with changing casual. I don't know how many people are annoyed by faction X, but it may very well be that more players will get annoyed when their faction gets blacklisted.

Again, the blacklist I'm thinking of is a single deck oriented and made by an individual for an individual. Blacklist made by player A for deck X would not prevent player F from facing deck X unless F decides to blacklist that one on his own.
As for your point here, I also don't know whether more people in casual mode prefer to be netdeckers or are annoyed by facing those, but which variant is better:
1. having some % of players being happy netdeckers* and some % of players being frustrated of facing the former, or
2. having some % of players being happy netdeckers* and some % of players being frustrated of facing the former but having the means to reduce their frustration?

For me the choice is obvious.

* we also can't really tell if majority of them are not the type of people following the "if you can't beat them, join them" rule

6. [Bonus] No other CCG has done this either because of good reasons.

It's like saying cow dung must be tasty, because billions of flies cannot be wrong.




And to sum it up, I won't die for the idea of blacklisting, but I really do think it would be a good option to have a choice, because otherwise the situation will definitely not improve.

Edit: oh, and by the way, isn't it interesting, that in Gwent tournaments the participants ban one of the decks of their opponent? If it's not bad there, why would it be bad in casual modes, where the fun and not necessarily win-ratio should be the most important and tempting factor.
 
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@Gimme_a_break, your points don't really counter mine. The problem persists. However, I've talked about this at length during the first few iterations the topic popped up and and I am growing a bit weary of it. I'll leave it at that and just pick the new arguments you've added.

Simply because with one blacklist you could not ban all the netdeck variants (e.g. modified by 1 or 2 cards).

Besides all the points I've mentioned, such an implementation would be far too complex. No one is going to make a blacklist card for card. Also, because it can be easily circumvented, you end up playing a game of wack-a-mole (with every new card that pops up and rotates thereafter). This makes the blacklisting moot, to begin with. Never mind the UI needed to support this and the time and dedication needed of players to optimize it is just madness.

Edit: oh, and by the way, isn't it interesting, that in Gwent tournaments the participants ban one of the decks of their opponent? If it's not bad there, why would it be bad in casual modes, where the fun and not necessarily win-ratio should be the most important and tempting factor.

That's a poor argument. Tournaments have a different play style from casual (or ladder, for that matter) and cannot be compared because of this. In tournaments, blacklisting is actually a strategical decision and so is building your decks around it. Not only that, but also to counter the opponent.
 

ya1

Forum regular
I think ranked ladder, at least in pro where there's no way you don't have at least two decks, should follow the rules of tournament play. 1) You got four slots to fill with four decks (99% players do that already in theory). 2) You get matched up, see the oppo's leaders, ban one and vice versa. 3) Choose one deck from the remaining three (optionally after or before seeing the coinflip). 4) Knock yourself out without having to face autolose matchups. The only downside is not being able to always climb with the faction of your choice in every game. But this could be countered by allowing two decks of one faction into the roster just not the same leader.

Rock-paper-scissors and binary interactions is strong with this game. So is imbalance. Measures should be taken. Not either ignoring the problems, postponing solutions or redirecting attention to inconsequential things like the Bomb Heaver or the correct ratio of Reddit rants per one provision nerfed off Nilfgaard.
 
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Guest 4375874

Guest
I once started a thread about a necessity of some sort of blacklisting.

At least in a non-ranked gameplay.

Blacklisting a leader or entire faction from matchmaking , for a period of a week, each player may choose one for that period.

Developers are entirely ignoring the fact, that there is no fun in constantly facing the same OP faction.

Script kiddies want just to win with a faction that is temporary OP ? Fine. Do that in ranked only.

But some people want to make some thematic decks, play for fun, not to be stomped by the same boring OP Skellige / Northern Realms script deck.

Note this, that this is just a crutch, to solve a problem of developers constantly failing in balancing the game.
It's terribly disappointing that not much has changed since making this post. You're correct, the bigger issue is balancing and it's a sad state of affairs when players have to think of ways to make the game more fun.

I like the weekly blacklisting idea however a lot can change in a week. If say an expansion or patch or hotfix drops during that period then you may have a change of heart at which point you'd be stuck until the week ends. Frankly while many think the filter is just too "EXTREME" I don't think it is and I think eventually it will be unavoidable. the main counter I see against this is "people wouldn't play against meta decks". Well that's already happening, they either play the meta decks themselves (look at the play rate for NR vs last season) or they leave the game.

I stand by it, just add a filter to exclude a select faction and or leader ability for that match. One of my main issues is the matching algorithm. Frankly I would choose to play against NR or SK or NG for example in small doses...the problem arises when I get spammed with them match after match and I suspect many players would play against them too, just not all the time and it would discourage netdecking at the same time.
 
What if, in casual only, instead of full on blacklisting, it was a "take a break from" feature? You could only take a break from certain matchups for a couple days, and you would have a cooldown for when you would be able to use the feature again.

For example, take a break from faction x for 5 days, this feature can only be activated once every 2 weeks, or something like that and for casual only?
 

nehu

Forum regular
i would like to have an option to ban one leaders ability, to never met it on battlefield

at least for seasonal mode (and in arena / in its upcoming successor)

as i dont see any fun in facing lockdown, unfortunately its heavy popular there

i dont think its overpowered or anythin, its just annoying

edit: it wasnt fortunate, to merge my thread with this one, this one is too radical, possibly game breaking
 
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Guest 4375874

Guest
i would like to have an option to ban one leaders ability, to never met it on battlefield

at least for seasonal mode (and in arena / in its upcoming successor)

as i dont see any fun in facing lockdown, unfortunately its heavy popular there

i dont think its overpowered or anythin, its just annoying

edit: it wasnt fortunate, to merge my thread with this one, this one is too radical, possibly game breaking
I'm curious, what's game breaking about it?
 

nehu

Forum regular
I'm curious, what's game breaking about it?

u know, there are some rock-paper-scissors relations between factions/synergies

so try to imagine, that anyone will filter out all factions except one, totally broken matchmaking then

rejecting matchup is the same, just under other name, manual rejecting ~ automatic filtering, even worse, a lot of wasted time

even just one filtered faction will broken matchmaking, faction1 is too good vs faction2, all faction2 players filter out faction1

faction1 one is too weak vs faction3, all faction1 players filter out faction3, thats -2 factions to matchup for faction1 players

or some extreme example, faction4 is above all, all other factions will filter faction4 out, then faction4 players will play just mirror matches or dont play faction4 at all?
 
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or some extreme example, faction4 is above all, all other factions will filter faction4 out, then faction4 players will play just mirror matches or dont play faction4 at all?
I'm honestly curious, you truly consider this to be a bad thing? People often choose Casual in order to escape Gwent's persistent balance problems. If CDPR releases another Tier 0 deck with the next expansion, which is probably inevitable with their track record, why shouldn't players be able to avoid it in the Casual format? People using Tier 0 decks (really all meta decks) should at least stick to playing Ranked. Casual, by its very definition, is supposed to be more laid-back.

Also, everyone should realize that this feature will never actually exist since it would require a good deal of work to implement, and if CDPR actually cared about Gwent and were willing to expend a lot of time and energy making improvements, then that time and energy would be better spent fixing Gwent's numerous problems and actually balancing the game rather than enabling its users a way to escape from some of these problems. Still, it's fun to imagine potential work-arounds.
 
I'm honestly curious, you truly consider this to be a bad thing? People often choose Casual in order to escape Gwent's persistent balance problems. If CDPR releases another Tier 0 deck with the next expansion, which is probably inevitable with their track record, why shouldn't players be able to avoid it in the Casual format? People using Tier 0 decks (really all meta decks) should at least stick to playing Ranked. Casual, by its very definition, is supposed to be more laid-back.

Also, everyone should realize that this feature will never actually exist since it would require a good deal of work to implement, and if CDPR actually cared about Gwent and were willing to expend a lot of time and energy making improvements, then that time and energy would be better spent fixing Gwent's numerous problems and actually balancing the game rather than enabling its users a way to escape from some of these problems. Still, it's fun to imagine potential work-arounds.

I feel that once CyberPunk2077 releases, CDPR will put more effort into this game while they're making the next Witcher game. I can see the next year being dedicated to Gwent and CyberPunk2077. Right now, I feel they are trying to focus on making deadlines, as CP2077 was delayed another week. Plus the new game release patches and such.

I'm very optimistic.
 

Guest 4375874

Guest
u know, there are some rock-paper-scissors relations between factions/synergies

so try to imagine, that anyone will filter out all factions except one, totally broken matchmaking then

rejecting matchup is the same, just under other name, manual rejecting ~ automatic filtering, even worse, a lot of wasted time

even just one filtered faction will broken matchmaking, faction1 is too good vs faction2, all faction2 players filter out faction1

faction1 one is too weak vs faction3, all faction1 players filter out faction3, thats -2 factions to matchup for faction1 players

or some extreme example, faction4 is above all, all other factions will filter faction4 out, then faction4 players will play just mirror matches or dont play faction4 at all?

That's not equivalence, you essentially are counting faction 2's exclusion as part of faction 1's decision. No matter how you look at it, even if you are correct, you're removing a single faction/leader. The filter, at least as I have suggested it, is for a single matchup and frankly there's no rock/paper scissors matchup anymore. SK slaughters everything as does NR. NG blocks everything. Faction identities have overlapped to the point that MO in my OP isn't even the tall play leaders anymore.

As for your faction 4 example, that's already happening...look at SK and NR performance and look at NG play rates compared to last season, it's dropped significantly. The players have switched to SK and NR. It's already happening, the only difference is a filter would actually deter them from playing ONLY those factions because if they do then that's all they would encounter. Ppl are already wasting their time only to be paired with a net deck and then forfeit because there's no way to win. In any case I'm not saying it's the perfect suggestion but that or some variation or alternative I think would actually make the game healthier.
 

nehu

Forum regular
deter them from playing ONLY those factions

i guess that rejecting/filtering is not the way to make matchups more variable

its exactly the opposite, its less variable, thats the reason i think its too radical
 
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Either remove the ST engines that generate insane amounts of points (Gezras ofc being the main culprit!) or give us the option to chose to not play auto-lose vs ST ezymode.
 
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