Any of the original beta players still playing Gwent?

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Like a lot of other people, Homecoming broke my heart.

I don't want to go into the specifics as they have already been covered in great length in the forum i'm sure.

I'm interested if any of the original beta posters are still playing Gwent, forgive me its been a while and i forget everyone's username.

If you are still playing, why? Do you have hope for the game and do you ever think they will bring it back to traditional gwent like beta and witcher gameplay?
 

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Closed beta player here, still playing it. Why? Because Gwent still offers a gameplay completely different from any other card game and because Gwent is still a great card game. It has some flaws but I really don't miss beta gwent which had his great limits. Witcher 3 gwent can't work in a real pvp enviroment.
 
If you are still playing, why?

Beta players might have left the game because it went into a different direction than they had hoped, but, at the same time, many new players could have joined precisely because of the game's new direction.

I still like the game. Overall, it has improved compared to beta, even though some things were better back then. Also, when you spend enough time, a game can grow on you.
 
I've been here since the beginning. I've accepted the beta is gone and have accepted homecoming fir what it is. I really really try. There is hope here but there needs to be another huge rebalance before the game is fun or playable. I tried playing ranked today with a good deck however syndicate is so trash unbalanced it cleared my board again. 2 freaking matches is all I could handle today. Sure I could netdeck like most players but there is no fun in that.II miss playing decks like my old fearless deck which required work and planning and the result was a 45 to 50 pt madman lugos. Anyway this days are gone. I used to play all day in the beta but rarely get my 6 wins now.IIt's so frustrating unbalanced and removal heavy that task strategy goes out the window. This game makes me an insane person and it's healthier if I don't play again until midwinter 4 arrives.
 
I still like the game. Overall, it has improved compared to beta, even though some things were better back then.

What has really improved though? Homecoming is super imbalanced, more binary, has more RNG, has worthless filler cards now, etc.


Also, when you spend enough time, a game can grow on you.

Thats not really an excuse. Beta players have seen what a better game looks like. It wont grow on them easily because it just reminds everybody what was lost with Homecoming.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
Closed beta player here, only stopped playing around when Project Homecoming was announced, until Homecoming was launched (5months).

Still playing, even though i still prefer the open beta. Mostly because of habit.

The game was actually starting to get close to the level of open beta after Crimson Curse, but then several months without balance patches for dominating Skellige, plus this new update and faction, the game is basically walking 2 steps back for each step forward, in terms of balance.
 
I play from the first day of Open Beta...and still playing. I did not like Homecoming, wanted the OB Gwent back, but I said I give this game a try. It was painful in the beginning but the game became better with the patches. Now with the new faction there are many balancing issues but they can be fixed. This is the one and only CCG I play so I try to enjoy it. If the fun is over then my CCG-Adventure will end. But I have hope...
 
What has really improved though? Homecoming is super imbalanced, more binary, has more RNG, has worthless filler cards now, etc.

- Beta was also unbalanced, but nostalgia goggles cloud people's view.
- Binary is an overused word which has other connotations than people realize. Anyhow, the biggest issue are some of the artifacts. However, that's only a small part of the game.
- More RNG, yes, but still less than most other CCG. More importantly, beta had too much thinning (consistency), which was one of the factors that broke the game, in a bad way.
- As for the filler cards, some will be reworked. Regardless, the provision system allows for more balance tweaks, which makes it easier to release new expansions.

Thats not really an excuse.

It wasn't meant as such. I was just saying I put a lot of time into the game and that creates an attachment.
 
Yes. Been playing since the second wave of closed beta invites and I still enjoy the game even if I don't play all that much.
 
Closed beta player. Started playing gwent from day 1. After few days of playing homecoming I decided to leave as I really don't like the most of changes & modern approach they introduce to gwent.

It's not about nostalgia but 1st time I played gwent in WItcher game & I like that game so much so just ask yourself is this the same gwent we are playing now & the clear answer is NO. Of course witcher game gwent is not perfect & to make it stand alone version some changes is definitely required but this homecoming is not a change but almost a complete different game with 2 rows & other removed factors from main gwent game.

I strongly thinks that they have decided to go for two rows not to improve gameplay but to introduce gwent on mobile device as more rows means small cards & as it's a touch device so... & If it's true then for me they have took the very bad decision like Nokia decided to go for WIndows rather than Android.

Why I am here? Just to check News section every day to see some good news that CDPR decided to go back & bring us the old gwent we like so much Simple but Effective as I really don't care about all the shiny effects but the only thing I care about is nice tactical gameplay which immerse you so deeply that you forget about time or you just don't want to hit exit.
 
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Like a lot of other people, Homecoming broke my heart.

I don't want to go into the specifics as they have already been covered in great length in the forum i'm sure.

I'm interested if any of the original beta posters are still playing Gwent, forgive me its been a while and i forget everyone's username.

If you are still playing, why? Do you have hope for the game and do you ever think they will bring it back to traditional gwent like beta and witcher gameplay?

I started in beta and drifted away after gameplay felt too samey. I like the new style better. While there's definitely room for improvement, it's certainly more playable.

complete different game with 2 rows

3 rows was just so redundant though. Witcher 3 Gwent was always a single player game, meant to stomp AI, and never was intended for multiplayer. Thus when they went to Gwent beta, the 3 rows were unnecessary. Having a close and far row is really all they need -- although I still think they need to add more row identity to the cards. Too many cards feel irrelevant where you play them, or are forced to pick a certain row, rather than using rows in a more meaningful way.
 
Well, there are a lot to say. I've been playing since Nilfgaard was introduced as a faction (probably Closed beta, don't remember). I still like it, even though I really miss a few features from beta.
I think visual effects are stunning now (but a little slow), and game has become very beautiful. And i'm still having fun experimenting with various strange self-made decks, trying to make them work (and bashing controller against a table, well, just joking))). In that matter, game is still giving me the same feelings of being creator and tester.
I don't miss third row. But i think such things as Strengthening and Weakening was great. They was adding a lot of strategic depths into the game. Now it's gone. Also weather was great. It's still there, but there is only ONE unit that benefits from it (Vedermakar, have never seen him in the game).
And also, well, I think game lacks more interesting and wild card effects, like it used to have (maybe I just miss old Camby, or those NR units that jumped out of the deck when opponent would get far ahead). Now there are some clear patterns for faction cards (pinger cards with cooldown, bronzes that summon its copy, gold stop-it-or-you-lose engines and so on. Maybe it's the same as in beta, I don't remember.
I think "Binary" is a good word to describe the problem with current state of Gwent. Some matchups are just unwinnable (try Demavend against Locks, or Arachas Queen swarm against traps or Shirru etc.). Was it like this in beta? Yes, but not as much. I think it will always bring the sense of imbalance, even if the game is balanced. (I really admired when watching old beta tournaments how so different decks achieve so similar results).
All in all, i like current Gwent (and don't like moaning and complaining) and still want to play it, however I feel nostalgia sometimes.
(sorry if i made some mistakes, English is not my native language).
 
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Beta tester here (since pretty much the beginning of BETA, I experienced the gold untouchable trebuchet that pined your board for the entire game without the victim being able to to anything about it....Ahhhh good times lollol) and I still play the game.
Why? because I think the game as been considerably improved and unlike some, I believe that Homecoming was an improvement in almost every aspect.

The first shot had its flaws, like the fact you could burn cards due to hand limit, for instance but overall, it was just better, at least for me personally.
It may be due to the fact that I have an open mind that allow for complete change on a game.


I think "Binary" is a good word to describe the problem with current state of Gwent. Some matchups are just unwinnable (try Demavend against Locks, or Arachas Queen swarm against traps or Shirru etc.). Was it like this in beta? Yes, but not as much. I think it will always bring the sense of imbalance, even if the game is balanced.
Wow really? I mean, I respect your opinion, obviously, but I have the opposite experience. Gwent went through some insanely unwinnable match ups, like carry over Dwarf was unbeatable against quiet a few decks, PFI was basically impossible to beat unless you played Scoiat'ael control, Armor was impossible if you played Harald...

There is still some difficult match up but I don't think any of them are impossible now and I experienced with probably every decks you can possibly experiment with (every time new expansion shows up, I erase all of my decks and remake at least one deck per leader...I enjoy making decks more than actually playing the game lol).
 
Beta tester here (since pretty much the beginning of BETA, I experienced the gold untouchable trebuchet that pined your board for the entire game without the victim being able to to anything about it....Ahhhh good times lollol) and I still play the game.
Why? because I think the game as been considerably improved and unlike some, I believe that Homecoming was an improvement in almost every aspect.

The first shot had its flaws, like the fact you could burn cards due to hand limit, for instance but overall, it was just better, at least for me personally.
It may be due to the fact that I have an open mind that allow for complete change on a game.



Wow really? I mean, I respect your opinion, obviously, but I have the opposite experience. Gwent went through some insanely unwinnable match ups, like carry over Dwarf was unbeatable against quiet a few decks, PFI was basically impossible to beat unless you played Scoiat'ael control, Armor was impossible if you played Harald...

There is still some difficult match up but I don't think any of them are impossible now and I experienced with probably every decks you can possibly experiment with (every time new expansion shows up, I erase all of my decks and remake at least one deck per leader...I enjoy making decks more than actually playing the game lol).

It's hard for me to say whether the game is better now or right before homecoming. I wouldn't want to go back because of things that I am used to and like now. For example I like how leaders are used now. Then there are aspects that to me are very obviously worse. Artifacts do nothing but make the game worse. Archetypes were supposed to get better and are much worse. Card abilities are a mixed bag. Some of them are so much worse like Lambert Swordmaster. Some of them are the best design we have seen before. I'm not sure if unwinnable games is worse now than it was then but it definitely still exists.
 
It's hard for me to say whether the game is better now or right before homecoming. I wouldn't want to go back because of things that I am used to and like now. For example I like how leaders are used now. Then there are aspects that to me are very obviously worse. Artifacts do nothing but make the game worse. Archetypes were supposed to get better and are much worse. Card abilities are a mixed bag. Some of them are so much worse like Lambert Swordmaster. Some of them are the best design we have seen before. I'm not sure if unwinnable games is worse now than it was then but it definitely still exists.
How does Artifacts make the game worst? That argument could have made a degree of sense when they were OP because peoples tend to dislike OP things but this is not the case anymore.

I personally think that the game is just better in pretty much every aspects but that's just my opinion.

Also, do you seriously think that there is unwinnable match ups in current Gwent? Because SY appart (since it's gonna be patched soon) I can't think of a single match up that's unwinnable. Difficult, sure but I have a pretty clear definition of unwinnable, it's when you have nearly o% chance to win any game against a deck. As I said, I probably played every deck you can possibly make and I don't see any match up being that hard, I can win games consistantly with every deck no problem, no matter what I'm playing against.

Of course, I'm talking about "playable" archetypes, CDPR has the bad habit to make cards that support archetypes that don't exist. Hemdal for example but you're not supposed to play those cards, they basically don't have enough support to do anything with them.
 
Been playing since closed beta and through all its iterations. I find it extremely frustrating with how unbalanced things are (a couple decks being so popular/OP, the very odd match making results of constant unique counters to decks I make, the changes that favor one faction (e.g. Syndicate) that makes them so powerful.

Why do I still play with all that? It is still a great card game set in the world of the Witcher. Closed Beta, Beta, etc. were very unbalanced and suffered from all the same issues as above. I don't wish for those days back, I enjoy the direction the game is going. The voice acting, the visual aspects are very impressive, it is a solid card game in need of some changes. Every game in the world is in the need of some changes and cannot make 100% of its player base happy. Despite its flaws, the game is fun to play.
 
How does Artifacts make the game worst? That argument could have made a degree of sense when they were OP because peoples tend to dislike OP things but this is not the case anymore.

It's not about whether they are OP or not. It's how they change the game with their one dimensional design. You have to have special removal cards just for them or you can't even touch them. That's such a bad idea especially after all of the other similar designs that didn't work out or are still a challenge to balance for now. It's a bad idea to put cards on the board that you can do nothing about aside from artifact removal. I still expect summoning circle to be nerfed. Honestly they will probably continue to be nerfed into obscurity just like weather cards were and that's because of their bad design.

Also, do you seriously think that there is unwinnable match ups in current Gwent? Because SY appart (since it's gonna be patched soon) I can't think of a single match up that's unwinnable. Difficult, sure but I have a pretty clear definition of unwinnable, it's when you have nearly o% chance to win any game against a deck. As I said, I probably played every deck you can possibly make and I don't see any match up being that hard, I can win games consistantly with every deck no problem, no matter what I'm playing against.

The game is critiqued pretty regularly for it's rock paper scissors dynamic. If you are playing high removal you can take care of engines pretty easily. If you are an engine deck you can easily beat point slam that has low removal. Point slam used to easily beat removal but that's changed some lately due to new decks. This isn't something I discuss much or have big opinions on. I just agree that it's there to a fairly big extent. I don't think it's as apparent right now due to certain very powerful decks that combine removal and point slam.

Of course, I'm talking about "playable" archetypes, CDPR has the bad habit to make cards that support archetypes that don't exist. Hemdal for example but you're not supposed to play those cards, they basically don't have enough support to do anything with them.

Yes I still believe there were a lot more playable/healthy archetypes before homecoming.
 
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