How much should GWENT cost?

+
That is true, and why i didnt base my comments on my own case, since when Gwent HC started i was already on 4 digits and got full standard collection day one. I was commenting based on several remarks i've seen from other players, stating how long it took them to complete or near complete their card collection.

We just had a user saying it took him 1000h... Im not questioning that, but that value still seems too high, i think 400-600h might be enough with correct management and taking advantage of events, although i may not be considering the added difficulty of latest expansions with more cards, and the new keg system with the ultimates and removal of expansion kegs.
I think you're just out of touch. Progression in the game has been nerfed quite a bit since I started playing less than a year ago. Based on my projections, a thousand hours is the bare minimum amount of time that it would take to collect every card, and that number will obviously grow with each new expansion. I've already invested somewhere around six hundred hours over the course of nine months (and I'm not even Free to Play), yet I'm probably still six months away from competing my collection.
 
As I mentioned several times, my example is there for reference.
Being a relatively new player, I started playing Gwent in April 2020 on a daily basis.
I've reached 1.000 hours played and Prestige 5-6 in December, and a full standard collection at the end of January, 2021.


Being overly generous at some point becomes an issue. Taking my example, I find it an actual problem that I managed to get mostly all the cards available - leaving me with only Premiums to collect in less than 1 years played. Anything more generous than this would be straight harmful for the game in my opinion.

So an average of 10 hours a day, my personal opinion but I don't consider it an healthy amount of hours invested daily. My point still stands however.
 
So an average of 10 hours a day, my personal opinion but I don't consider it an healthy amount of hours invested daily. My point still stands however.
I think your math is off. It's more like Messyr played around 4 hours a day (granted, that's still a lot) in order to complete his card collection in 8-9 months. If someone actually played 10 hours every day, they would hit the Reward Point cap and end up losing out on a lot of resources.
 
I think your math is off. It's more like Messyr played around 4 hours a day (granted, that's still a lot) in order to complete his card collection in 8-9 months. If someone actually played 10 hours every day, they would hit the Reward Point cap and end up losing out on a lot of resources.

Yeah, I thought something was wrong about the hours, didn't put much attention before writing. Point is that many people with the same playtime have at best half of the amount of his cards so there's no point in indulging in this calculation any longer ( too subjective? I don't know ). Maybe he's telling lies, maybe not, I don't really care at the moment because I quit for the same reason many are quitting right now. There's no shame in spending money in a game if I want an headstart for my collection, it would actually help the company and that's why something like 15-20 dollars for all the neutrals core and some kegs it's not a bad idea in my opinion. The problem lies within the over the roof prices and the focus on cosmetics.
 
Point is that many people with the same playtime have at best half of the amount of his cards so there's no point in indulging in this calculation any longer ( too subjective? I don't know ). Maybe he's telling lies, maybe not, I don't really care at the moment because I quit for the same reason many are quitting right now.
That's just flat out not true. I fully believe Messyr is being honest since everything he is saying fits perfectly with what I've tracked within my own collection. As long as a player is reasonably intelligent (e.g. doesn't scrap cards below 1 copy per Gold and 2 copies per Bronze), he should be able to achieve a complete collection of cards (only Standard obviously and not Premium) within a short time after playing for a thousand hours, maybe plus or minus a couple hundred hours depending on how much money is spent and how much of that time is spent constructing decks.
 
We just had a user saying it took him 1000h... Im not questioning that, but that value still seems too high, i think 400-600h might be enough with correct management and taking advantage of events
That might be doable, but I have my doubts.
This 1.000 hours I've spent was done with a relatively dedicated mindset, that includes optimal scrap management and taking full benefit from all events.
I've done all 3 Journeys the grindy way (for example finished at lvl ~230 in Ciri's Journey).
Reached Pro every month starting from the 3rd, so managed to pull the maximum RPs from that system too.
Post automatically merged:

I think your math is off. It's more like Messyr played around 4 hours a day (granted, that's still a lot) in order to complete his card collection in 8-9 months.
That is precise.
Post automatically merged:

Maybe he's telling lies, maybe not,
Why would I? No benefit in that for me. Nah, these are the approximately precise figures.
 
Last edited:
IMO
Expansions are priced adequately.
Powder is a little bit expensive but manageable. For people who are interested in premium versions that's definitely the shortest path to get it.
Cosmetics price is way off. Should be 3 times cheaper, then maybe somebody would buy it. A trinket priced at 10-15 bucks? LOL, I'll pass. Never bought any cosmetic in this game.

Progression was definitely slowed down by CDPR, no doubt about it. Couple of years ago they published an Excel chart with exact math for Prestige levels. I figured that in 600-700 hours of play I'd get there. It feels now it's pretty much double that. As a result, not many people have that desirable Level 10 that will ensure lots of powder. Which potentially leads to more purchases, so we know the drill...
 
I don’t know what it should cost. Someone from the finincial department or a chief like SlamaTwoFlags could answer that question. I would think of that you have to pay the staff, insurance, equipment, software, power, heating, rent, and so on. When all those costs are covered up you can start making money as a company which will be further reduced by taxes. So you can assume the prices reflect how much it costs to keep a game like Gwent running and make a profit.

What a service game like Gwent costs, depends on you how you put it. You can have fun without paying anything or spend hundreds or even thousands of money into it.
A „normal“ game costs about 60€ where you spend 20h, 50h or maybe 100h in it compared to a service game you can easily spend several hundreds or even thousands of hours in it.

As of my experience you need about 1000h+ to get a full standard deck, which increases with every expansion. I’ am currently at 861h and I bought several levels during the Ciri journey which equals about 70h game play. If I consider the amout of resources I have I would say it takes another 50h to 100h for a full standard deck. I also have to add after about 600h gameplay I intended to play more and more resource orientated (mininmal effort max output). Nevertheless I still have my fun.
A premium deck is out of question for me. Even reaching prestige 10 (more than 1000h more), I guess, you need another 4 digit amount of kegs. That’s for beta players or someone with a big wallet. Luckily I am not much interested in premium cards.

Overall, in my opinion, service games are more expansive than usual games where you pay once to get all whereas you pay a lot or have to spend a lot of time. No wonder such games florish.
 
I've reinstalled the game just to check if there were some good offers on the shop.

- Caravan raid pack: more than 42 euros for premium stratagems
- Ultimate starter pack: still more than 30 euros
- Witcher reinforcement pack: more than 12 euros ( this one made me seriously laugh )
- Versatile bundle: close to 60 euros

Just a quick reminder that kegs are the closest thing to lootboxes at the moment.
Still think that those price are right? The caravan raid pack in particular is ridiculously overpriced.
 
I've reinstalled the game just to check if there were some good offers on the shop.

- Caravan raid pack: more than 42 euros for premium stratagems
- Ultimate starter pack: still more than 30 euros
- Witcher reinforcement pack: more than 12 euros ( this one made me seriously laugh )
- Versatile bundle: close to 60 euros

Just a quick reminder that kegs are the closest thing to lootboxes at the moment.
Still think that those price are right? The caravan raid pack in particular is ridiculously overpriced.
Prices aren't set up based on what is optimal for you or me - they are based on what players generally tend to pay for these services (considering the competitor titles on the market as well).
Now, if you look at offers on Hearthstone as an example, you'll see that many of these services are below that level - the Journey being at ~20-25 EUR is a prime example, especially if you consider the amount of goods you receive for that money compared to a Gwent Premium Journey.

So yes, at one hand, of course those prices are high, I fully agree. On the other hand however, you always need to consider the entire market to see what is a "good or bad" price for something.
And of course, keep in mind that the game also needs to be profitable. No profit for the company = no "free" game for you.

As long as the game itself is free to play and you require almost no money to be competitve, I'd say this is a fair trade.
 
Prices aren't set up based on what is optimal for you or me - they are based on what players generally tend to pay for these services (considering the competitor titles on the market as well).
Now, if you look at offers on Hearthstone as an example, you'll see that many of these services are below that level - the Journey being at ~20-25 EUR is a prime example, especially if you consider the amount of goods you receive for that money compared to a Gwent Premium Journey.

So yes, at one hand, of course those prices are high, I fully agree. On the other hand however, you always need to consider the entire market to see what is a "good or bad" price for something.
And of course, keep in mind that the game also needs to be profitable. No profit for the company = no "free" game for you.

As long as the game itself is free to play and you require almost no money to be competitve, I'd say this is a fair trade.

:coolstory: Cool story bro
 
if it included all content for 'free' so to speak, or if progression were super fast, then i could definitely see myself paying as much as 40 dollars. 50 is pushing it but i would expect it to be on sale occasionally.

for contrast artifact was 20 dollars but progression was slower than that of gwent, which made me feel it wasn't worth the price. despite the quality and experience justifying it.

Paying $40 to $50 seems steep to me, unless you have been able to play the game for free (and found that you enjoyed it), as I said in my previous reply, in which case some people might find that good value (but not me). My scenario is to leave the game like it is, with a never-ending grind, or pay real money for every card up to the moment (or your choice of all the cards for whatever expansion set that you want), with the option of never-ending grinding for subsequent expansions or a cash price for them.

I'm not sure what you mean by $20 for "artifact". What's that mean?
Post automatically merged:

So, you dont need nearly as much commitment to get a simple full standard collection, a few hundred hours should do it (without spending money, that is)

I've been playing since late 2019. If I'd known some of the shortcuts to accumulating keys, like some of those stupid, grinding Journey contracts, I might have gotten every card by now. So, maybe I could have done that within a year, maybe. Then again, COVID means that I've been playing more than I otherwise might have. So, in regular times, maybe it would take you over a year to get every card without going crazy on the amount of hours you put in.

Also, maybe playing this game for over a year is just a natural amount of time to get sick of the game, in which case all that grinding really accelerates boredom with the game. Having the ability to pay cash for it and getting all the cards in it might make the game more enjoyable for the year that you played it though.
Post automatically merged:

Progression was definitely slowed down by CDPR, no doubt about it. Couple of years ago they published an Excel chart with exact math for Prestige levels. I figured that in 600-700 hours of play I'd get there. It feels now it's pretty much double that. As a result, not many people have that desirable Level 10 that will ensure lots of powder. Which potentially leads to more purchases, so we know the drill...

Not too long I reached the prestige level which gives you a key for every daily challenge that you complete, which is nice. However, increasing your prestige level is a grind. I'm not really factoring that in anymore as an incentive. The rewards that I have now seem ok, with a premium in every standard keg you get plus the extra key. Not sure that extra powder is a selling point for me now. I've mentioned before that some cards that I want to animate also need shards, which nullifies the advantage of having extra powder.
Post automatically merged:

I would think of that you have to pay the staff, insurance, equipment, software, power, heating, rent, and so on. When all those costs are covered up you can start making money as a company which will be further reduced by taxes. So you can assume the prices reflect how much it costs to keep a game like Gwent running and make a profit.

I don't think that companies like CDPR would require GWENT to profitable though. I.e. they sell a lot of different stuff. So long as the rest of the business is profitable, they can afford to pay GWENT staff etc.

Maybe it's like MS and Sony with their consoles: they sell them at a loss to hopefully make money with the games. I don't find GWENT good value though. But many people here are saying that they regularly pay for the Journeys or loads of premium kegs. Different strokes.
Post automatically merged:

Paying $40 to $50 seems steep to me, unless you have been able to play the game for free (and found that you enjoyed it), as I said in my previous reply, in which case some people might find that good value (but not me). My scenario is to leave the game like it is, with a never-ending grind, or pay real money for every card up to the moment (or your choice of all the cards for whatever expansion set that you want), with the option of never-ending grinding for subsequent expansions or a cash price for them.

I'm not sure what you mean by $20 for "artifact". What's that mean?
Post automatically merged:



I've been playing since late 2019. If I'd known some of the shortcuts to accumulating keys, like some of those stupid, grinding Journey contracts, I might have gotten every card by now. So, maybe I could have done that within a year, maybe. Then again, COVID means that I've been playing more than I otherwise might have. So, in regular times, maybe it would take you over a year to get every card without going crazy on the amount of hours you put in.

Also, maybe playing this game for over a year is just a natural amount of time to get sick of the game, in which case all that grinding really accelerates boredom with the game. Having the ability to pay cash for it and getting all the cards in it might make the game more enjoyable for the year that you played it though.
Post automatically merged:



Not too long I reached the prestige level which gives you a key for every daily challenge that you complete, which is nice. However, increasing your prestige level is a grind. I'm not really factoring that in anymore as an incentive. The rewards that I have now seem ok, with a premium in every standard keg you get plus the extra key. Not sure that extra powder is a selling point for me now. I've mentioned before that some cards that I want to animate also need shards, which nullifies the advantage of having extra powder.
Post automatically merged:



I don't think that companies like CDPR would require GWENT to profitable though. I.e. they sell a lot of different stuff. So long as the rest of the business is profitable, they can afford to pay GWENT staff etc.

Maybe it's like MS and Sony with their consoles: they sell them at a loss to hopefully make money with the games. I don't find GWENT good value though. But many people here are saying that they regularly pay for the Journeys or loads of premium kegs. Different strokes.

Edit in: I don't want to give CDPR any ideas but gambling companies love whales...that lose a lot of money. They hate people that win on their site and ban them. So, for people who lose a lot of money on their site, they give them 'money' to bet with, to encourage them to return. If CDPR want to expand their repertoire of methods used by gambling companies to get people addicted, they could give 'money' to GWENT players who have previously spent a lot of money playing the game, be it for Journeys or premium kegs or other such stuff. I.e. these players would be able 'purchase' more of that kind of stuff in the game. CDPR would hope that that would get them spending more of their own money on the game, as they have in the past.
 
Last edited:

ya1

Forum regular
This GWENT policy is actually very interesting. It's very F2P (free to play) friendly and at the same time very P2W (pay to win) unfriendly.

Pro level collection (4 full meta decks) is achievable in about 100-150 hours without a single dollar spent. The season before WotW - I started it with zero mats, didn't really grind MMR just played casual and seasonal for relaxation, I didn't buy the Journey - but I could afford over 100 kegs when WotW hit. I bought universal kegs because they didn't sell WotW kegs at first. But still now I got all the decks in the game anyway, and reserve scraps to craft half a full deck.

But as soon as you wanna speed things up, the cost is just ridiculous. Journey is half the price of an AAA title. Lately they started adding fixed legendary cards but before that Journey hardly ever helped with progress, consisting mostly of cosmetics and very few keys. Kegs are just horribly overpriced. There used to be pretty okay (relatively) keg sets like the base entry set (iirc 10 base kegs, one random base legendary and some powder for 5 USD) but they removed those a while ago. EDIT: they got that Starter Pack again now. It's such a no-brainer, I don't know how they get buys on anything else honestly.

But if it works it works. I was astounded by how F2P friendly Gwent was and would buy Journeys as a matter of courtesy.
 
Last edited:
I don't think that companies like CDPR would require GWENT to profitable though. I.e. they sell a lot of different stuff. So long as the rest of the business is profitable, they can afford to pay GWENT staff etc.
Mate, you really must be joking here.
Right?
Post automatically merged:

But if it works it works. I was astounded by how F2P friendly Gwent was and would buy Journeys as a matter of courtesy.
Yes, pretty much the same for me. Although I don't buy kegs or smiliar offers, I always purchase the Premium Journey out of courtesy for the game being as F2P as it is.

But as soon as you wanna speed things up, the cost is just ridiculous. Journey is half the price of an AAA title.
"Speed things up" services are generally very costly in most games, not just CCGs in general. I remember when I was playing one the the top MMO titles, having your character boosted to a certain level was considered by far one of the (if not the) most overpriced items in the shop.
I believe the reason behind this is that they want you to actually spend time with the game instead of just get what you want and log out.
 
Last edited:

ya1

Forum regular
"Speed things up" services are generally very costly in most games

They put Starter Pack back on offer. This is a very affordable (relatively) boost to your collection if you just wanna play a deck now and are missing one or two cards. For 5 bucks, you get about 1.5 legendaries worth of scraps. And powder. And a shot to actually roll useful cards.

IT's still kinda pricy. But the rest of their offer is so out of whack compared to this.
 
Interesting topic @BartonFink, thanks for raising it.

Paying $40 to $50 seems steep to me, unless you have been able to play the game for free (and found that you enjoyed it), as I said in my previous reply, in which case some people might find that good value (but not me). My scenario is to leave the game like it is, with a never-ending grind, or pay real money for every card up to the moment (or your choice of all the cards for whatever expansion set that you want), with the option of never-ending grinding for subsequent expansions or a cash price for them.

It's an interesting idea, to be able to just pay once for the game (& each expansion) and get all the cards. And then daily quests and such would no longer be a thing, and the focus would just be on playing the game how you wanted. But having such a system coexist easily with the game as-is would be difficult, I think. It would be hard for newer players not to feel like things were pay to win, and as someone else mentioned above, having access to every card immediately would be very overwhelming for newcomers. I definitely found that getting cards from kegs as I earned them, and adding things to the starter decks as I went along, was a good, manageable way to learn the game and the cards better.

I'm not sure what you mean by $20 for "artifact". What's that mean?

That'll be the CCG game Artifact released by Valve, which I think didn't have any gambling-style economics.

I think it would be cognitively healthier to rework Gwent to have the option to not have any gambling / buying cards elements, and I would like that. However I do think it would be tricky to get right, particularly while keeping the free to play side healthy (which is no doubt important to getting new players).

I'm happy that I'm now in a position with Gwent where I don't have to worry about resources too much, having played for almost exactly a year. But I still feel the need to try to complete quests even if they aren't fun, so I can be assured to have enough resources to craft new cards if I want to try out a new deck idea with a faction I don't play much, and that does suck.
 
It's an interesting idea, to be able to just pay once for the game (& each expansion) and get all the cards. And then daily quests and such would no longer be a thing, and the focus would just be on playing the game how you wanted...I'm happy that I'm now in a position with Gwent where I don't have to worry about resources too much, having played for almost exactly a year. But I still feel the need to try to complete quests even if they aren't fun, so I can be assured to have enough resources to craft new cards if I want to try out a new deck idea with a faction I don't play much, and that does suck.

Playing the game for fun, it's unimaginable, isn't it? I've said it before, me and others play the game because of the game's gambling mechanics, the little rewards which the game doles out like small change on the pokies when you win something.

having such a system coexist easily with the game as-is would be difficult, I think. It would be hard for newer players not to feel like things were pay to win, and as someone else mentioned above, having access to every card immediately would be very overwhelming for newcomers. I definitely found that getting cards from kegs as I earned them, and adding things to the starter decks as I went along, was a good, manageable way to learn the game and the cards better.

One of my earliest posts or threads here was the suggestion to be able to filter ranked matches according to what decks you could play. That was just because I found (find) the matchmaking unpleasant. It feels rigged often, as you often read on this forum. I even had that feeling with MTG. There were certain decks I liked, e.g. the starter decks, that were uncompetitive online. Or there'd be interesting decks which had a long run-up, so to speak. I.e. they're slow but powerful decks, potentially. It would have been good to be able to play a slow deck against another slow deck, but you can't really pick your opponent (it would be possible to do that in MTG but not practical, probably). For GWENT, being able to filter for starter, base, or expansion decks would be good, I think. But not according to moderators here who told me what they thought of that idea. That idea would counter new players being overwhelmed by novelty. As a year-long player of GWENT I'd like it too.

That'll be the CCG game Artifact released by Valve, which I think didn't have any gambling-style economics.

I looked the game up on Wiki. The game never recovered from the review bombing and the last figure I saw when I scanned the entry was that the game had 100 players in July 2019.

Recently I played a little bit of MTG. It reminded me why I hate playing it. I've followed through on my last thread here from the last time that I posted about having less to do with GWENT now. I login in every day now for the reward for doing so but I'm pretty much only playing when the new challenges for the Journey come out. So, one day a week.
 
Top Bottom