Sloppy Wording on Cards

+
Right now, having lost what might have been an interesting match by believing the wording on a Gwent card, I am frustrated and wish to make a simple request of CDPR: please fix and be careful of wording on cards. I can name numerous cases where the wording is incomplete, unclear, misleading, and/or inconsistent. I do not claim this to be even approaching a complete list, but here are some problems I have encountered:
1. Wording inadequate to describe a card. Some examples: the description of Knickers gives almost no information on how the card works — and how this card works can definitely impact game decisions. Mandrake used to have a description that was complete and clear — if I hadn’t been around since before the change, I would have no idea what “reset” encompasses. Resilence should explicitly state that damage and statuses other than resilence are carried over.
2. Ambiguous wording. Many cards refer to highest or lowest without clearly specifying the trait that must be highest or lowest. For example, marching orders does not indicate whether the trait is power or provisions.
3. Timing of effects. Sometimes the order in which multiple effects occur is important; but it is never clear in card’s wording. For example Mardrome does not trigger berserk because the boost is computed before the berserk condition is checked. It is consistent to have entire effects triggered before looking for triggered effects, but is counterintuitive to beginning players. Another example of this is when Blueboy is destroyed by damage, no damage is done to a random enemy unit (Blueboy is removed before the random ping is triggered). When Artis damages a card by “half its current value”, current includes deploy effects.
4. Vacuous actions with and/then wording. Ok, and should mean that both effects occur, even if the first is impossible. Then means the second effect should occur only if the first occurs. But descriptions are unclear (and the game is even inconsistent) as to what constitutes an action occurring. If the first part of a then condition involves applying a status, it counts even when the status is “applied” to a veiled unit and hence has no effect. Ok, this is consistent, but should be clearly stated so players know. But what about other kinds of actions? If you discard from an empty hand, this (as is intuitive) does not count as filling the first condition. If you “draw” to a full hand, it does. And if you draw from an empty deck, it also fills the first condition. But if you do certain other things to an empty deck, it does not count. So I played viper witcher alchemist when my deck was empty — I did not get the top card from my opponent’s deck, and that is reasonable. Later, I played Vicovaro Novice with the same empty deck and was forced to move a card from my hand to the deck. This is not consistent.

I understand the game is complex. I understand card descriptions have to be fairly brief or they become hard to use in game. But not knowing what to expect from a card eliminates all elements of strategy — I may as well play blindfolded. I think CDPR has missed the mark on multiple cards.
 
I understand and agree with your point, some descriptions are very unclear until we see it working first-hand. However, nothing beats experience to become familiar with the effects described on cards. That's the main reason I use the AI training feature: to check new cards' interactions and effects. The most recent example I have of this validation was using Viraxas' order on Shani - I was unsure if he would reset the cooldown back to zero and re-enable her order. It did.

With that being said, a word of caution: the AI training matches should always (I can't stress this enough) reflect the behaviour seen in matches against other players. I say this because I wanted to check the interaction between Ancient Foglet and weather effects givers and, when in training mode in patch 8.5, all weather effects boosted each Ancient Foglet by 1, as opposed to the total number of turns the effrect would be active.
 
Thank you! As a new player with a little under 200h of gameplay behind me, I've already encountered insanely frustrating misunderstandings stemming from the poor descriptions. The definition of "Spawning" for example, doesn't mention that it is not Playing (the way the definition of "Summoning" does) and therefore doesn't trigger Deploy abilities. You make the mistake once and you learn but it just feels like it would be such an easy fix.

Also the computer makes "unlawful" decisions for technical reasons and they're simply not mentionned anywhere on the cards, case in point: Cahir Dyffrin (whenever an enemy receives a boost, boost self by same amount) who, if he's present on both sides of the battlefield, would cause an infinite loop, nowhere do they mention what happens in that case, I had to find out the hard way that they simply don't bounce off each other, a secret rule of sorts, again, such a simple fix... Spell it out on the card!
 
However, nothing beats experience to become familiar with the effects described on cards. That's the main reason I use the AI training feature: to check new cards' interactions and effects. The most recent example I have of this validation was using Viraxas' order on Shani - I was unsure if he would reset the cooldown back to zero and re-enable her order. It did.
This is good advice, but it still has limitations. I can’t test a card if I am using the description to decide whether I want to craft it. Some situations are very hard to set up: how many games against the AI will you play until your deck is empty, your opponents is not, and you have a viper witcher alchemist in hand? Not to mention testing taking away from limited play time.
 
2. Ambiguous wording. Many cards refer to highest or lowest without clearly specifying the trait that must be highest or lowest. For example, marching orders does not indicate whether the trait is power or provisions.
There isn't a single card operating based on provisions that does not specifically mention 'provision cost' or 'cost' in its ability text, and cards that operate based on base power always state 'base power'.
Everything "highest" and "lowest" always refers to current power unless otherwise indicated.

There is no inconsistency there.
 
The mardroeme interaction for me its something really wrong.

If The unit gets his berserk triggered it should trigger and than boost.

The same goes to consume/OH charges in a row full.

If you use OH charge in a row full, it will destroy The unit but it wont spawn ekimmara, since The row was full (but, of course, you consume One unit in that row, só it wasnt full anymore).
The same goes for deathwish spawn units (nightwraith and enfrega eggs) iff you consume them in a row full, it wont spawn anything
 
Few days ago during a game in battle rush seasonal mode I have played the Syndicate scenario in round 3 and ended my turn (my ability was JACKPOT)
Right after that, on his turn the opponent played Rico Meiersdorf by 14 points. It contradicts the card´s description "Whenever opponent plays A UNIT while Rico is in your hand or deck, set his power equal to THAT UNIT¨S POWER.
No screenshot made since the nature of speed of the match.
 
It could easily be Sigi Reuven in previous round with 10 buff because of an active 9 coins stack.
Yes:)
It does not contradict the discriptions
Post automatically merged:

Thanks for clarifying the situation.
 
Few days ago during a game in battle rush seasonal mode I have played the Syndicate scenario in round 3 and ended my turn (my ability was JACKPOT)
Right after that, on his turn the opponent played Rico Meiersdorf by 14 points. It contradicts the card´s description "Whenever opponent plays A UNIT while Rico is in your hand or deck, set his power equal to THAT UNIT¨S POWER.
No screenshot made since the nature of speed of the match.

So what was the last unit you played?
Draconifors question is totally viable.

Its the last unit, no mather the round. So you probably finished the last round with a Sigi profit 10 and already has 9 coins, so he goes to 14, and also rico.

For your opponent luck, you played cenário in the first turn, so rico stayed with 14 points
 
I agree on some of the wording being a bit unclear on some of the more obscure or complicated cards, but after seeing them or using them a couple times you get the hang of it. That being said, I still have absolutely no idea how knickers works :)
 
I still have absolutely no idea how knickers works
A general consensus seems to be that he has a set % chance of showing up, and the % goes up as the number of cards in your hand decreases.
Never been confirmed by CDPR, as far as I know, so it might not be correct.

His ability is definitely vague on purpose, that I have no doubt of; it's too vague to not be intentional.
 
A general consensus seems to be that he has a set % chance of showing up, and the % goes up as the number of cards in your hand decreases.
Never been confirmed by CDPR, as far as I know, so it might not be correct.

His ability is definitely vague on purpose, that I have no doubt of; it's too vague to not be intentional.
That's what makes this card interesting: it's unreliable. Doggo may come out, or he may not...on the wrong row (or not). Or make a hero pass legendary. Quite the prankster this dog, love this card's design.

PS: I put the link just to show the card's description, which embodies the whole idea very well.
 
last week i was trying to do the "combo" wich make me create my last topic (megaescope being ress by lippy and when he goes to board automatically create the last unit he created).

And, of course, i was using a lippy deck with knickers.

For the first time, i was in the middle of round 2 and knickers doesnt appeared. I need to use lippy and knickers goes direct to gy.

I couldnt beleve on that, he almost always come in the first round or in the beggening of the second.
 
That's what makes this card interesting: it's unreliable. Doggo may come out, or he may not...on the wrong row (or not). Or make a hero pass legendary. Quite the prankster this dog, love this card's design.

PS: I put the link just to show the card's description, which embodies the whole idea very well.
I like the unpredictable and uncontrollable aspect of the card too but, for new players, the description "This unit may raid the battlefield to aid you in battle" is pretty useless.

An improvement could be something like:

"At any time, even after you've passed a round, this unit may Summon itself from your deck to a random allied row."
 
Top Bottom