Will Gwent ever change?

[ya1]

First, a little rant alert. I'm here to share my recent experience with Gwent, and it's not a very positive experience, unfortunately. After the initial fascination with the game's outstanding art, music and the setting in the Witcher universe, I realized that from the point of view of CCG gameplay, Gwent is not a very good game... After some time spent on the more competitive side of Gwent, I realized that it's quite a torture and requires nerves of steel and major frustration resistance. It's not easy to quit because of the time and money investment (luckily not so much of the latter) but I don't think it is okay to keep torturing oneself with a game that plays badly.

Number one issue is the ratio of player agency to good ol' luck. It is only maybe 1 in 4 or 5 of my losses where I can clearly pinpoint my misplays and know it's the misplays that cost me the game. About 75-80% of my losses seem like there was nothing I could do. Those games seem like the player has no agency in them whatsoever. You just draw for the win or you don't. Playing such a game where you are bound to lose from the start - it's like to watch your own doom, in the face of which you are totally powerless, slowly unfold in front of you. This is extremely frustrating. Especially when it's the Sisiphean task of MMR climbing.

But the realization of how unsatisfied with the game I really was came when I took a closer look at my wins. It was exactly the same. Very few wins felt like I got them "fairly." Majority of my wins, I was either crushing my opponents silly with draw and/or matchup advantage, or would have lost if they drew this or that. And in either case, how those games were actually played by the players was of no consequence.

What makes things worse, meta is swarming with decks that abuse RNG by fishing for unconditional R1 wins in order to abuse round control and last say. An example is the Ciris-Lippy deck. Or the MO decks that pointslam R1 with Haunt and Dethlaff and can't lose if they draw them, and then abuse R3 last say with some Glusties, Rats, no-unit strategies or other degeneracies. When those decks draw to win R1, it's already game over. If the game is over before it even started, it's not really a game, is it? And the problem is that regular meta decks aren't so much different from these fringe RNG abusers. Get the better draw for R1, get round control/last say while the oppo can do nothing about it, win the game. This is basically the essence of Gwent.

Another thing is that the game is MEGABINARY. Many games are like just flip your Heatwave coin and get done with it. Top-end card abilities are so ridiculously strong that it makes many games like "Get your removal A for the target X, removal B for the target Y and removal C for the target Z, mess one thing up on either side and it's game over."

Third thing is the "balancing." (Talking about Heatwave, devs will probably provision-nerf it "because it's too popular" and call it a day... I could bet a small sum on it ) This "balancing" without much insight into how the game plays in practice is really really tiresome for someone who follows it. Every patch seems like 30% ok changes and 70% total fails. The weakest archetypes, factions and decks get nerfs. The strongest, most oppressive interactions are rarely changed or remodeled but usually just get the lazy provision nerfs that change little or leave room to be replaced by other broken alternatives. Or sometimes, the most broken stuff gets additions that break it even more. It seems like no playtesting is ever done for the balancing purposes. Bad balancing only magnifies the core problems with the game.

Fourth, many obvious problems are never being addressed. Like the total dumpstering of the casual mode by mock quest decks. Again, why can't people do their quests in the training mode? I can guess devs wanted people to craft interesting decks and get them to match against each other in diverse and interesting games. Well, if that was the mission then here's a newsflash: MISSION FAILED. Casual is a dumpster for people who just slap weird cards together at random and spam them to get the quests done, never actually trying to "play Gwent" or caring for the win.

In conclusion, it's been fun. CDPR is best game devs ever (in general). Witcher universe is best. But I think it's time to quit. I'll stick around till next patch, see what's up (probably nothing) and then quit. Gwent seriously deserves better then what it's getting.

 

[Radzhi]

good riddance,i wonder what faction you play
people here whine even more than people on reddit

 

[sfruzz]

I think that the problems you describe are not confined to Gwent. They are common to all the cardgames I played (maybe with the exception of Prismata). Actually, Gwent minimizes some of those issues. It's quite a consistent game compared to Magic, Heartstone. You have not many cards in your decks, a lot of mulligans, thinning cards and plenty of tutoring cards.

Third thing is the "balancing." (Talking about Heatwave, devs will probably provision-nerf it "because it's too popular" and call it a day... I could bet a small sum on it )

True! I also expect Heatwave to be nerfed or maybe completely reworked. New Heatwave will be: "Destroy target artifact" with a four body attach to it.

I myself took a 9 month break from Gwent. So sometimes it can be good to have a break.

Hope you'll stay with the game.

 

[ya1]

i wonder what faction you play

All of them, thanks. Currently for pro, the most popular - I guess - selection of NR, SK, ST and MO.

I think that the problems you describe are not confined to Gwent. They are common to all the cardgames I played (maybe with the exception of Prismata). Actually, Gwent minimizes some of those issues. It's quite a consistent game compared to Magic, Heartstone. You have not many cards in your decks, a lot of mulligans, thinning cards and plenty of tutoring cards.

To be honest, I have little experience with other CCGs except some analog Magic in my youth. But the ruleset and game system in Gwent is totally different from Magic. Provision system makes it so that some cards are straight up better and some simply worse, and the gap between the best and the worst is just ridiculously large. This combined with a pretty straightforward general win condition of getting more points makes the game extremely draw dependent despite the fact that decks have less cards and possibly more tutors and thinning. (BTW, thinning is not necessarily helping with RNG since you can brick your paired thinning cards a lot.)

Also, game mechanics and power balance in the game right now puts too much emphasis on round control which makes it even more RNG since you don't see half of your cards before R2.

And this is not just me. Go to any esport team discord and see the language they use. The word "talent" is ironically used to refer to highrolls. Just about everybody will tell you that the most important thing in Gwent is drawing golds. Some might argue that matching up favorably is more important... rock-paper-scissors of matchups might be even stronger with Gwent than the draw-your-golds thing.

 

[Sogra88]

good riddance,i wonder what faction you play
people here whine even more than people on reddit

Pretty bold statement. Lots of different topics on reddit. I mean have you seen the wow reddit... Seems like there would be more crying on a site that covers more topics than these forums.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

First, a little rant alert. I'm here to share my recent experience with Gwent, and it's not a very positive experience, unfortunately. After the initial fascination with the game outstanding art and the Witcher universe setting, I realized that from the point of view of CCG gameplay, Gwent is not a good game at all. After some time on the more competitive side of Gwent, you realize that it's just a torture and requires nerves of steel and major frustration-resist. It is hard to quit because of the time and money investment (luckily not so much of the latter) but I don't think it is okay to keep torturing oneself with a game that plays so badly.

Number one issue is the ratio of player agency to good ol' luck. It is only maybe one in four or five of my losses where I can clearly pinpoint my misplays and know it's them that cost me the game. About 75-80% of my losses seem like there was nothing I could do. Those games seem like the player has no agency in them whatsoever. You just draw for the win or you don't. Playing such a game where you are bound to lose from the start - it's like to watch your own doom, in the face of which you are totally helpless, unfold in front of you slowly. This is extremely frustrating. Especially when it's the Sisiphean task of MMR climbing.

But the realization of how unsatisfied with the game I really was came when I took a closer look at my wins as well. It is exactly the same situation. Very few wins felt like I got them "fairly." Majority of my wins, I was either crushing my opponents silly with draw and/or macthup advantage, or would have lost if they drew this or that. And in either case, how those games were actually played was of no consequence.

What makes things worse, meta is swarming with decks that abuse that RNG by fishing for unconditional R1 wins in order to abuse round control and last say. Example is the Ciris-Lippy deck. Or the MO decks that pointslam R1 with Haunt and Dethlaff and can't lose if they draw them, and then abuse R3 with some Glusties, Rats or other degeneracies. When those decks draw to win R1, it's already game over. If the game is over before it even started, it's not really a game, is it? It's more of a "non-game." And the problem is that regular meta decks aren't so much different from these fringe RNG abusers. Get the better draw for R1, get round control/last say while the oppo can do nothing about it, win the game. This is basically the essence of Gwent.

Another thing is that the game is MEGABINARY. Many games are like just flip your Heatwave coin and get done with it. Top-end card abilities are so ridiculously strong that it makes many games like "Get your removal A for the target X, removal B for the target Y and removal C for the target Z, mess one thing up on either side and it's game over."

Third thing is the "balancing." (Talking about Heatwave, devs will probably provision-nerf it "because it's too popular" and call it a day... I could bet a small sum on it ) This "balancing" without much insight into how the game plays in practice is really really tiresome for someone who follows it. Every patch seems like 30% ok changes and 70% total fails. The weakest archetypes, factions and decks get nerfs. The strongest, most oppressive interactions are rarely changed or remodeled but usually just get the lazy provision nerfs that change little or leaves room to be replaced by other broken stuff. Or sometimes, the most broken stuff gets additions that break it even more. It seems like no playtesting is ever done for the balancing purposes. Bad balancing only magnifies the core problems with the game.

Fourth, many obvious problems are never being addressed. Like the total dumpstering of the casual mode by mock quest decks. Again, why can't people do their quests in the training mode? i can guess devs wanted people to craft interesting decks and get them to match against each other in diverse and interesting games. Well, if that was the mission then MISSION FAILED. Casual is a dumpster for people who just slap weird cards together and spam them to get the quests done, never actually "playing Gwent" or caring for the win.

In conclusion, it's been fun. CDPR is best game devs ever (in general). Witcher universe is best. But I think it's time to quit. I'll stick around till next patch, see what's up (probably nothing) and then quit. Gwent seriously deserves better then what it's getting.

I more or less completely agree with this. My main disagreement is with the statement that CDPR are the best game developers ever. I don't have much experience with their other games (I'm here because I'm a TCG aficionado who also happened to read Sapkowski's books), but all I've seen from them with Gwent is scaling back content/rewards. First, it was the entire crown system being revamped for the worse, then it was the Base Set kegs being removed, and now, there's talk of them shortly removing most of the other kegs from the game as well as all of the previous Seasonal trees; they even stopped doing Faction Challenges.

Returning to the main points, the balance of this game is undeniably poor. The Provision system is definitely problematic when there is a gap of 11 provisions between the cheapest and most expensive cards, but even if that wasn't the case, CDPR often has trouble assigning cards the correct Provision costs. As an example, there are 5-Provision cards that are more powerful than several 8-Provision cards, and sometimes, the comparison is simply ludicrous, like when you compare the 5-Provision faction thinners with the 8-Provision witcher trio. And I haven't even mentioned that some decks are practically guaranteed to win against others, solely due to the binary nature of the game, and this can often be exacerbated by abusing the red coin.

I keep saying I'm ready to quit, and so far, I have yet to actually uninstall the game; however, it's getting harder and harder to defend Gwent, which is sad because the art is phenomenal, and I absolutely adore the whole system of earning currency and trinkets by progressing in the reward books.

Finally, to completely prove Ya1's point, he said that he was going to wait and see what the next balance patch brought before completely quitting, but apparently, CDPR cares so little about Gwent that they aren't even going to attempt to release one next month.

 

[wonderboy870]

Taking a year plus off helps. I know, I did it twice. The downside is that coming back you find things usually got worse not better. Also, once you accept that Gwent pro ladder and even to a large extent gwent ranks 9-1 are all about net decks, you start to see the game for what it really is. Gwent is a fun way to pass an hour or two when you watch something in the background or listen to music. It is a good thing to do when your on public transportation or have literally nothing better to do. What Gwent is not is a healthy, well balanced, well run, masterpiece. If you don’t get any satisfaction from it then you are correct that it is time to move on, at least for a while.

 

[DRK3]

Unfortunately i have to agree with most of OP's statements. And unfortunately, most of these criticisms have already been made in these forums, some, a long time ago, and they persist to this day.

I really dont like the current mentality of the playerbase, always going for the red coin abuse or pushing for the 2-0. The addition of stratagems on HC was a good step to avoid CA abuse on the betas, but with the powercreep the 4-5 value of stratagems is not enough to make up going first on R1.

Also, 2-0s shouldnt happen that often if the game was properly balanced, and pushing R2 should feel more dangerous, not just a minor setback if you lose CA. Why?
Going for a push should be strategic, like when you acess you have a pointslam deck and your opponent has an engine deck so they will benefit from a long round, then it makes sense pushing. Instead, we have top tier decks that are so strong they push R2 everytime to try and test if their opponent got their best cards to survive the bleed, leavng no room for any intricate combos.

Finally, all of this competitiveness is understandable on high pro rank, on lower ranks, not so much, on casual? Its ridiculous, and yet its 90% of those matches. In my opinion this is worse than quest decks, the netdecks plaguing casual, nothing 'casual' about it anymore... well i guess its still 50% casual for suckers like me that actually play different decks there.

 

[ya1]

2-0s shouldnt happen that often if the game was properly balanced, and pushing R2 should feel more dangerous,

One of the reasons why bleeding R2 is a good strategy even for decks with relatively strong long round (like Hidden Cache or MO thrive) is that you can make a safe gamble that he misdrew from the R2 topdeck. By not drypassing, you give the opponent less chance to catch up with the draw.

Again, this is just another way of abusing how important RNG is in Gwent.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

The author makes a lot of sense, and I agree, it is frustrating to witness the evolution of Gwent.

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

You had me at Sisiphean task .

 

[uber_croupier]

It's not easy to quit because of the time and money investment (luckily not so much of the latter) but I don't think it is okay to keep torturing oneself with a game that plays badly.

I had the same issue with Hearthstone after playing it for 5 years, but I did eventually stop playing it. Gwent is much better than HS and I'm happy I moved. If you're looking for another card game replacement, you might be in the empty.

Number one issue is the ratio of player agency to good ol' luck. It is only maybe 1 in 4 or 5 of my losses where I can clearly pinpoint my misplays and know it's the misplays that cost me the game. About 75-80% of my losses seem like there was nothing I could do. Those games seem like the player has no agency in them whatsoever. You just draw for the win or you don't. Playing such a game where you are bound to lose from the start - it's like to watch your own doom, in the face of which you are totally powerless, slowly unfold in front of you. This is extremely frustrating. Especially when it's the Sisiphean task of MMR climbing.

I believe previously, game was more random than it is currently, due to big amount of tutors recently added to the game? I agree that random effects should be minimal in Gwent and more can be done in that direction. But on the other hand it is way less random than other card games I played.

 

[ya1]

I believe previously, game was more random than it is currently, due to big amount of tutors recently added to the game? I agree that random effects should be minimal in Gwent and more can be done in that direction. But on the other hand it is way less random than other card games I played.

Afaik, the power gap between cards of different provisions didn't use to be so large. Now, it's just ridiculous. One synergistic gold can outvalue multiple bronzes. Tutoring helps somewhat. But in a way, tutoring cards are just another high value card to draw to win or miss to lose.

 

[Fargothwave]

Eh
...
I mean, it's a CG, and random is an inextricable part of playing a CG of ANY sort.

Complaining about draws in this context is honestly kind of ridiculous...Or it would be if we were talking about a more conventional CG.

But I see the angle you're coming from. Card power disparity and generally atrocious balance. Sure. That makes a less random game full of tutors and stuff like that feel like a slot machine when compared to (technically) more random games.

Gwent's greatest downfall was the introduction and proliferation of easy-yet-efficient mechanics and cards without meaningful drawbacks. 5p removals. No-condition engines. Korathi. Poison. Champion's Charge, Passiflora Peaches, stupid Kerakek frigates... honestly, the list is long. Interestingly, some of them aren't comparable to older stuff even on paper - they are just blatantly, obviously stronger.

Cards that require no significant setup, yet pay off even better than the older cards that do became a bane of the game. Stupid good engines created an abominable all-removal meta (with stupid good removal), stupid good removal powercrept long and interesting combos into non-existence. They used to be risky, now they're just impossible, because only Shieldwall and Passiflora have a decent shot at protecting their stuff...their extraordinarily good stuff that directly punishes TUTORING of all things.



Of course, in a situation like this, meta becomes stale and toxic, and draws significance skyrockets.
It got to the point where Unga-Bunga thrive decks feel refreshingly original and that...says a lot, honestly.

I actually quite like this example for its now-unique quality - a certain interchangeability of the cards in it. You can draw better, you can draw worse, but you can never end up with a truly unplayable hand because 50% of your units do the same goddamn thing (and the other 50% do another same goddamn thing).

With how slowly updates roll out and how badly Gwent team apparently lacks hands for tasks at hand, there's virtually no hope to see most old stuff buffed into relevance. There're literally hundreds of cards to remake, and devs can't handle tens as of now.

The only realistic solution to this issue is to do the opposite thing and kick the currently broken cards down the same powercreep drainage pipe, so that they're on the same miserable level as everything else, and you know the old adage about everythings and nothings.

This would be much easier, too, because there's much fewer of them and also because they share the same problem - unholy mix of ease+reliability - and thus they can get the same treatment.
+1 provision on all "automatic" or pseudoconditional engines,
+2 on "automatic" or pseudoconditional engines that add more than 1 point a turn,
+2 on every direct unconditional or pseudoconditional removal card
+1 on stuff like Dark Ritual or Glorious Hunt
-1 on Epidemic, Blizzard, Lambert, Sandstorm, Cadaverine, Schirru and other tricky/easily brickable stuff.
This list is by no means comprehensive, but you get the idea.


This way reliability will come at a heavy price, like it should have been all this time, while risky plays will become risky again, as opposed to virtually impossible.
I don't think it's super hard to implement.


Edit: Obviously, this will decrease the overall percentage of stupid powerful golds and removal in decks, thus indirectly making bronzes and good ol' mechanics like lock or reset relevant again, while not really making said stupid golds worse. This automatically means you have fewer truly important cards in the first place, and everything you need is usually tutorable, thus decreasing the influence of luck factor.

 

[ya1]

Card power disparity and generally atrocious balance. Sure. That makes a less random game full of tutors and stuff like that feel like a slot machine when compared to (technically) more random games.

This. You nailed it.

Post automatically merged: Oct 27, 2020

I wanted to give the recent Open semifinals between WangID and Pajabol as an example

Maybe except the last game between Keltulis and Hidden Cache which was quite spectacular, the losing player never stood a chance in most of the games. And that is despite both contestants being capable of play on a very deep level - which in the end proves quite inconsequential next to the draw/matchup advantage.

Even the match (at 1:00:00 in the vid) between Keltulis and SK where Keltulis had card advantage and double last say in R3 - he could not have possibly won it. Even card advantage did not make up for having one or two less golds. This match in a textbook example of how missing one card auto-loses you the game.

Same thing with Schirru versus Gedy (1:20:00). The Schirru drew all the removal. It could not have been possibly won by the Gedy. Conversely, If the Schirru missed one of those things, Rockslide or Heatwave or all the chances to beef-up Skaggs throughout the game, he could not have possibly won against the points from the double-protected scenario and its engines. Textbook example of the binary Gwent coming down to one missing link (or lack thereof) in the chain of target-removal sequence.

None of this is not ofc meant to question Pajabol's ability. But these games do not prove in the least that he's a better player than WangID. If they changed places, WangID would probably have won the all the games he lost.

 

[Rolf_Longreach]

Finally, to completely prove Ya1's point, he said that he was going to wait and see what the next balance patch brought before completely quitting, but apparently, CDPR cares so little about Gwent that they aren't even going to attempt to release one next month.

I have seen a lot in the news about CDPR's big push to release Cyber Punk 2077. Even being criticized in the Washington Post for going back on their "no crunch" commitment they made in the past. I am betting they have all hands working on that right now and GWENT is taking a backseat for the moment.

I have only been playing a couple months. I am still learning the game and by no means fed up yet.
I have been playing card games long before they were on computers and the "luck of the draw" has always been a big component in every card game (deck builders included) I have played. If you build a good deck you can always help your luck and that is a skill combined with committing time either in game to earn rewards or $. In the physical card games I played in the past I would have loved an option besides buying little random packs to improve my decks or trying to trade with others who played the game. You also need a combination of the skill of knowing the correct moves and when to make them and the luck to get draws you can play well.

I probably won't play Cyber Punk but it is a big deal for CDPR and it's employees as well as a lot of people who want to play it. If that game will keep the lights on at CDPR and allow them to keep supporting a game I do enjoy like Gwent then I have no problem to wait for updates etc. . .

I am also willing to accept that luck of the draw or random number generator is just a part of these types of games.

 

[EduFerraz]

Sorry for the off topic, but i see the term RNG in a lot of posts and i dont know what is it.

Can someone explain to me?

 

[Rolf_Longreach]

RNG stands for Random Number Generator. It is like a computerized dice roll. Actually generating truly random numbers is something that is not as easy to achieve as you may first think. Ever had one of those CD changers that "randomly" plays the same CD or track over and over?
You can learn more here.

 

[EduFerraz]

RNG stands for Random Number Generator. It is like a computerized dice roll. Actually generating truly random numbers is something that is not as easy to achieve as you may first think. Ever had one of those CD changers that "randomly" plays the same CD or track over and over?
You can learn more here.

TY

 

[ya1]

Yeh rng is technology of generating random numbers. But in everyday English it just means "randomness" or "luck"