Gwent - Discussion (and Rant) 2021

[DRK3]

STORYBOOK BRAWL

You may have heard about this card game in the past few weeks. You may even be playing it.

1. I wanted to address the following issues im gonna talk about for over a week, but i wasnt sure whats the best approach... "should i create a thread, with the "click-baity" title of this game?" Nah, not a fan of clickbait at all. And im sorry if this is still not a good approach.
Also, i didnt want to make it seem like i am promoting this new game, which is definitely not the case.

2. I havent tried this game, nor do i plan to do so. Just like every other CCG out there.
But it looks so much like Hearthstone that for someone like me, i thought it was a new mode or mod of the Blizzard's card game

This thread is not to compare both card games, but to talk about the impact Storybook Brawl (SBB from here on) had on Gwent and its playerbase, which sheds light on a lot of issues that we must face.

In case you are unaware, SBB is a F2P card game that came out in the last month or so (i think its still in beta). Its an auto-battler (whatever that is...)
And a lot of Gwent streamers and creators have changed to stream SBB, not necessarily permanently but at least for the time being.
A lot of big names in Gwent, but most noticeably, Trynet123, who was Gwent's most regular content maker for years now, until recently (he hasnt left Gwent completely, still casted some tournaments and from last i heard, he's just taking a break from it).

I am not here to blame the streamers who switched games (actually its closer to the opposite), or to praise this new game, since im not well informed about it - only caught some small impressions of players who are having fun with it.

Now, SBB had a great release timing. Patch 9.3 on Gwent wasnt very well received, tons of bugs on launch (which is becoming a recurring issue) and players complaining about stale meta in day 2 or 3 due to lack of significant changes. I dont want to be a doomsday-sayer, but the morale of the Gwent playerbase is probably at an all-time low, or not far from it.
So a lot of players were eager to jump into a fresh new trend.

Except, this is nothing new!
When Legends of RuneTerra came out, also a lot of Gwent players moved on to that game.
(Now my PERSONAL opinion) - Some might say this is unavoidable, but i think its a testament to Gwent's poor health state, which has persisted for a long time.

Next month will be Gwent's (final version) 3rd birthday, or 5th birthday if we count the betas.
And i still think this game suffers from a lack of direction, at least one that is sustainable.
I believe if the game had solid roots on gameplay and an increased focus on its balance, Gwent wouldnt spiral down into disastrous states so easily, and players wouldnt become frustrated or bored with it so quickly after each patch.

What i mean with lack of sustainability - the focus on cosmetics, journeys and "providing content".
It feels like the short-term way to keep players engaged, because they're getting tons of stuff, the easy way of triggering dopamine release in our brains.
And i've seen enough posts, of players who got over this initial rush, and were unhappy because they dont want to play but since they bought the journey they feel like they must continue or they're missing out.

To conclude - the most frequent counter argument used in these discussions, to defend Gwent - "but there are some players who enjoy playing Gwent, and can still find fun in it."
That is true, and i respect them, and do notice their praise posts from time to time. But i did notice a pattern - they are ALL from players starting out relatively recent, or that have returned after many years away, and are still finding out new things. OR, players who play it casually, in short sessions, which is healthy and definitely decreases the risk of building up frustration.

If you ask veterans, streamers or pro players, with thousands of hours of Gwent, they will never say they are truly happy with the game's state (i have never found one, correct me if im wrong), some are like me and are blunt on their opinion, while others prefer to be more evasive, or neutral (like Geralt would like to say...)

I do hope things will change for the better in the future, but that hope is running dangerously short for me at least.

NOTE: yes, i am a Gwent Partner and yet im here being incredibly critical of the dev team, like ive been before getting such status.
You may say im "biting the hand that feeds", that im betraying them, but im just expressing my free speech, in a negative but hopefully constructive way, and i did warn them i wouldnt soften my words right on my Partner application, and i still got it so this behaviour must not be considered infringement and thus, censored.

 

[Aris_Tarkus]

I would love to see more balance brought to Gwent, and I am one of those who left for several months—missed all of Yennefer's Journey—and then came back.

Not meaning to insult anyone, but Gwent, in spite of all its faults, just seems to be a much more 'mature' game than either SBB or LoR, both of which I have tried. I can not get into the art, animations or terrible squeaky voices. I was never a Hearthstone player, and never really got into Arena either. I think a great part of the appeal of Gwent is it's ties to the WItcher games and books. It just feels much more fleshed out, like there is a solid backstory to it. And I find the art far superior.

Perhaps some of the appeal of SBB is its newness, or lack of a base META. Everyone seems to be on the same footing so to speak. Just nto for me.

 

[Easha]

According to the title, everything below it can be considered your personal opinion, as there are plenty of assumptions, feelings and assertions way above the disclaimer which you definitely should not present as a given and widely known - or even accepted - truth.

So there is another shiny card game. People who play GWENT try it. This is nothing new, indeed.
However, do you have any numbers to back up claims like 'many players leaving' ? This is most likely your limited view as the full player numbers are not public. Checking Steam statistics and making conclusions is an option, but this still neglects all the GOG players. Are download numbers of the mobile versions declining?
Oh-so-important Twitch streamers certainly have exposure, but do they have numbers as well? Especially since Twitch and Reddit tend to get exaggerated concerning their importance and/or representation as they are most certainly a rather... vocal bunch.

The amount of bugs right after patches most certainly is annoying and something the Reds do have to improve.
Players claiming the meta to be solved on day 3 (or even today, if you look at a recently released meta snapshot) is something I would be very careful with. It usually is not that simple and obvious like MO Relics last patch - which has been addressed in 9.3
You also should not tie Journey and game health to each other and simply conclude it is meant to 'force' people to play despite the game's declining quality: Journeys existed far earlier than those problems. Enjoyable metas developed and vanished again regardless of their existence, so drawing parallels here and making Journeys look like a band aid for a theoretical lack of game quality seems highly inappropriate to me.
The FOMO of the Battle Pass principle is intended by design, you should not blame the Reds for including it - especially since Journey is so much value for your money, entirely optional, and has been adjusted in favour of the players already. (I will never grind 175 levels for Ciri ever again...)

Also kindly elaborate what you mean with "providing content" - apparently to you it seems like something negative in this context? I need more information to address this point of yours. To me providing content is what I expect CDPR to do.

The newbies being happy about GWENT is a fundamentally good thing and something older players should be very careful to not outright spoil with subjective negativity. I rather give them the knowledge to form their own opinion instead of imposing mine on them. As for veterans and especially streamers: The thousands of hours might be the problem itself: you can only have so much even of your favourite meal before you are fed up. You even name that problem yourself, and yet do not take the next step and consider this conclusion.
But whatever you assume as their opinion, or whatever may be your own in that regard: Kindly refrain from implying this seems to be the opinion of all/most of the veterans. I consider myself one as well and I am very touchy when it comes to having my opinion declared for me by others.

As for the last paragraph: Your opinion is your own, Gwent Partner or not. Should that ever change and a Gwent Partner be incentivised to have certain (positive) opinion, I will be the first to resign from the Partner program. This is certainly not the case right now and thus should not even deserve being mentioned - especially as it may appear different and a reader might think 'because even the Gwent Partner needed to emphasise it, so it seems there are problems with having a recalcitrant opinion'.
No! There are none in that regard.

All in all this looks like mostly a rant, and pretty little discussion to me - certainly one among your weakest posts here from what I have seen.

 

[sfruzz]

When Artifact (The Dota Card Game) was released a lot of streamers (i.e. Lifecoach, Swim,...) left Gwent. Valve's game had a lot of hype and a 1 million $ tournament was announced. People thought the game would rival Heartstone in terms of popularity.

Storybook Brawl is a niche game. I don't expect any of the streamers who are switching for SBB to think they'll join the next n. 1 cardgame. I'd be greatly surprised to see a competitive scene thrive. Yes, there will be a tournament, but on a small scale.

So for me this is a big difference. People are not switching to Storybook Brawl to join the next big thing with the hope to make tons of money, but play it cause they like the game or want to add more variety to their gaming life. To be fair, I don't think, people are switching to SBB, but simply playing it alongside other games.

What i mean with lack of sustainability - the focus on cosmetics, journeys and "providing content".

In my opinion this is why, people who played the game a lot and streamers do currently struggle. New cosmetics and journeys are not new content. Cosmetics are just cosmetics. How long can a streamer talk about the Gascon skin? Half an hour?

Compared to Beta Gwent the Devs have improved the way to monetize the game, but on the content side, I think the game is lacking (if you have to stream 5 hours+ of Gwent a day).

 

[DRK3]

Thank you @Easha for your comment, your harsh but fair words are appreciated.
I do think we should be called up on our mistakes, and often others can identify them better than us, then we can improve.
And im inclined to agree this may not be a great post, probably i started with a clear theme but then wandered off into too many subjects, fueled by frustrations.

However, i do disagree, i was careful to put the disclaimer of where my personal opinion started, what's before is either facts or are assumptions based on the little information i had available, but in those cases the circumstances were clearly pointed out, to not mislead anyone.

And with that comment, we delve into another issue - the lack of information and statistics of the playerbase.
I've always been interested in knowing them, and many others have expressed the same wish. But the devs, or more likely CDPR itself, is very secretive about this data, the only official release we have are the winrates and playrates of leader abilities, which is welcome but not enough.
Then there's many more data available, but all by indirect sources - the Steam charts you posted, mobile store info, data collected and shared by pro teams, twitch numbers, etc...
But its really hard to add up all these numbers and reach a good estimate. Then of course all us players can claim and argument is conjecture, but its not our fault.

Regarding the Journey Passes, im not completely against them. And i do agree with you, they're very generous and for the price you pay you get an enormous amount of content (this was mostly the 'content' i was refering to), which probably required a lot of effort by the team's artists.
But getting so much content in the form of cosmetics is a bit excessive, for lack of a better word, having 300 avatars or 200 titles when you can only use one of each at any given moment, also there's no challenge in getting them, just keep playing, journey quests so easy you will do them by accident.
And i apologize, but your analogy between Journeys and band-aids - which i want to be clear is a description of what i was expressing and not your own opinions - is perfect and you've expressed my feelings better than i could, even if its inappropriate.

The newbies being happy about GWENT is a fundamentally good thing and something older players should be very careful to not outright spoil with subjective negativity. I rather give them the knowledge to form their own opinion instead of imposing mine on them.

Absolutely agree. And i do feel bad for posting these rants, mostly because i dont want to negatively influence whoever is enjoying the game.
But i can only stay silent for so long, instead of doing these ramblings every week like i wish, i do a big one per year on average, the year in the title is jokingly alluding to that.

As for veterans and especially streamers: The thousands of hours might be the problem itself: you can only have so much even of your favourite meal before you are fed up. You even name that problem yourself, and yet do not take the next step and consider this conclusion.

On this one i have to disagree - yes playing thousands of hours of a single game is probably not very healthy.
Believe it or not, Gwent is not my most played videogame of all time (yet), and even though i lack experience on other CCGs, i dont lack in online games. And what some of those games taught me is that with extremely great gameplay, the game doesnt require as many patches and new content and the playerbase will still have fun, even after hundreds or thousands of hours.

Maybe i shouldnt have put that note at the end, its just me being paranoid, thinking "the big guys" are gonna come after me and i wanted a failsafe, but its was probably unnecessary. And yes, the initial post was a rant... and now with the comments it becomes a discussion.

 

[TheonlyoneLarz]

As someone that has being playing the game all the way back when it was closed beta.
I have to say it sure has being a heck of a ride.

But im getting tired of things just flipp flopping so much.

Il cover what i mean in detail.

Draft
I love arena and i can see why it had to be changed and i can see the idea of Draft it being great. Becuse even being someone that has played the game for a while i can see that it's great for new pepole to try cards before crafting or getting it. and im suprised it wasen't marketed it in that way.

And my memory might be foggy but I remember for sure that it was said that you can't have a extensive amount of X cards

Meanwhile i have gathered many examples of having 2 heatwaves and 3-4 defenders or having 4 kambi's.
and the crutch of it is. its still WIP if i get the idea of it all.

and it needs to be more worked in to the game by having achievements or things that draws people in to playing it.
And at this point. Im getting the image of in the start it was a idea of a wacky game mode where you can have some intresting interactions with different cards from different factions. and the power scale wouldn't go sky high. but as of late with changes and how it is. you can go to some sky high levels with it. and the changes of needing to play one game and then you need to change the cards with time. when you can remove the 3 cards you picked in that run. basically making the card swap pointless. makes the idea of it all quite null. and the idea of needing to play the game has just made me go oh im not getting good synergy im just gonna throw in the towel. and pepole have done the same to me when playing the first game. so my mentality of how draft is now. isen't that far fetched. it was a good attempt to fix it. But from how i see it. It just makes redrafting and going for that perfect deck just more time consuming.

and i understand that card changes happen for a reason.


and i get the point that yeah they don't want to power creep heavily *Like other games* but as someone that has played the game for so long. Knew instantly that Teleport as a example is gonna be a crutch of future card design as you get two ability in one. Sure it's not able to use on the offensive side. But How oppressive old decoy was. and then they make it a bronze card resets the points. and you can replay it without shuffling it. Just makes me question *Why did you change decoy for the worse when you made a bronze one*.

and yeah it's just decoy and it's most common in mill. But im trying to have a understanding of it limiting future card design. as they have mentioned in regards to caranthir. as of late.

i still love gwent. But it's waining with time.
I even reached pro rank once before lockdown change.

Seasonal. I loved it aswell. But when we haven't had a new thing in regards to that in a very long time.it becomes very stale and you know what to expect.

But im just looking in from the outside.
But pro rank is the biggest slog to reach. and if you don't play all the factions and actively. and pro rank when i was at it. it felt worse then just normal ladder. as i got 2x time match up of just one deck at the time that for me was skellige.

And i feel like that all these pepole that really enjoy that one deck. and more power to them that they do. But how pro rank works has just bein so muddy in how it works and that might be a reason that pepole just grind one deck and thinks oh i can get in to tournaments. . But that's the impression i get of it.

and im fine with dbomb changes and bomb heaver changes. But when bearfication was released. Sure it's a more flexible card. but It makes past statement bit of a joke. as they diden't want bomb heaver and dbomb to be much of a tech option. well... Bearfication has more options. But i haven't seen at all. maybe once. So at that point doesen't it become a tech card aswell?

How do i see the future of gwent?.

Well.
I do enjoy having alot of removal option. But some of the older onces either need to A. a change to fit how it is today. B. Ability rework.
Becuse not to sound like everyone else but when you can have 8-6 points in regards to poison. and do the same as a geralt that isen't locked to a point requirement. it becomes a quite obvious option on what to pick. and is just a low 3 point play for 10 provision.

And i wonder what they are doing advertising wise?.
Becuse the biggest advertising moment was the witchercon.
But besides that dead silent. and if i remember correctly they showed the game to kripp (a heartstone content creator).

and how the card drops was. and it became exactly as you predicted. makes me question how much things was qa tested.
I would describe the game going from playing smart and having diffrent ways of changing the game board and so many diffrent game plans. Meanwhile now it's two ways. Point vomit or low amount of units and remove everything your opponent plays. Feels like a game of wack a mole.

and yeah i can't blame content creators for leaving. when nothing goes on and the game feels the same.
and yeah we are also in a pandemic.
So it's a situation that can't be fixed easily.


and i appreciate that you are being honest with how you feel. even when you are a gwent partner.
I wanna enjoy the game more but. at this point. i just play draft for half an hour and do some daily quest and do the journey and play something else. besides that i don't feel interest in doing anything else in gwent.

I have just being viewing the forums from time to time. But now i felt like i had to throw my five cents in to the mix.

I want the best for the game. But it just annoys me on how they do things.

 

[Gen_Liu]

Next month will be Gwent's (final version) 3rd birthday, or 5th birthday if we count the betas.
And i still think this game suffers from a lack of direction, at least one that is sustainable.
I believe if the game had solid roots on gameplay and an increased focus on its balance, Gwent wouldnt spiral down into disastrous states so easily, and players wouldnt become frustrated or bored with it so quickly after each patch.

Honestly, I couldn't agree more.
I, too, am an old timer of Gwent, being around since pretty much the first day of BETA and I fail to understand what's so complicated about keeping a healthy direction for this game.

Those couple last patches that we've got being, imho, the worst in term of balance. It's to a point where I'm wondering how CDPR are designing their cards. I mean, sure, balance had never been perfect in this game and it's something very difficult to nail but the mistakes they made in the past were, at least, rookie mistakes that was meant to be done in order to learn how to make a CCG (which is far more difficult than some people may think). Messing up with carry over, card advantage, point slam...It's obvious when we look at that in retrospect but you can't see everything before you experiment and peoples yell at you.

Now the situation is different though. Not only CDPR is supposed to have way more experience at designing the cards but they're also supposed to learn from their past mistakes and that's where I disagree and kinda find the state of the game discouraging atm.

Pretty much everything that has been a huge mistake at one point during the developpement (including things that they promessed not to ever do again) are back. It's as if they were keeping a list of all the things not to do and try to put everything back in the game.

BS Carry over that wins you the game ages before it ends (orbs, she who knows, Gord)...check.

Massive point slam that makes regaining CA on R2 or winning a short R3 pretty much impossible for your opponent (Pretty much every monster card they design, Eist, Melusine...)...check.

Oppressive removal oriented and uniteless strategy that are one sided and not fun to play against (Sabertooth, Madoc...)...check.

Also, mill had never been as aggressive as it is right now with Kolgrim and Sunset wanderer giving them massive power play on top of their shenanigans...Which is fascinating to me since mill is arguably the most hated archetype in the history of Gwent (and for good reasons since it's vastly uninterractive, RNG based and boring to play against) but they keep giving them tools to work with...It feels like they can't resist the urge of sabotaging their game (which sounds like a terrible idea to me but what do I know).

One last thing is the lack of consistence with the design of the different cards and effects.
For example, a powerful engine used to be easy to remove while a large body was supposed to provide less than what said engine would give you for the same amount of provisions. The same logic used to be followed with removals, cheap ones couldn't deal with tankiest units while pricey ones were able to deal with bigger/better units.
None of that is true anymore, the game design is a complete mess with engines that are either taller than they should or can produce most of their value as soon as they hit the board (like Cleaver, for example) which is so dumb and unbalanced...

 

[ReaperTek]

Tailbot around the time this Thread was created.

Tailbot now

Not saying that Gwent is dying or anything, but at this point the balancing seems to be mostly focused on a Audience that is already satisfied if there are a handful overtuned competitive playable Decks around and which are more concerned about new Cosmetics and QoL changes than a somewhat healthy balanced Game, but I kinda doubt that this will be good for the Game in the long run.

While it feels sad to see a true Veteran Pro Player like Tailbot go, i still want to wish him all the best for his future.