Hello forum users / gwent players.
-I started to jest a few years ago that i make a huge post on what's wrong with Gwent anually, but the joke slowly became reality... And here we are!
-I considered reusing my thread of last year's, or one of the similar threads of the same subject, but ultimately decided this warranted a new thread.
-I wanted to write this for 2-3 weeks, but i've kept delaying it because of its overwhelming scope. Still, i think what i am about to address are problems that are deeply ingrained in Gwent's core by now, so the timing of the post is irrelevant, because the content itself wont lose relevance.
-To blabber and accuse the Gwent dev team of things that have been said a thousand times before would be a waste of time (regardless of being true or not). But im confident that what ive got to say now its new and may bring a new light to these discussions. Whether i am right or wrong, i will leave up for discussion.
TYPE OF PLAYERS
Putting all Gwent players in just 2 "boxes" may be reductive, but its a simplification that should help a lot in explaining my point.
Lets say there's the 'Type A' player and 'Type B' player in Gwent.
The A player is the type that creates its own decks, likes to explore different strategies and learning and understanding the game is more important than winning.
The B player is the one that never bothered to fiddle with the deckbuilder, out of fear, patience or "lack of time", and netdecks for each meta.
What happens when these 2 types of players clash?
SNOWBALL EFFECT
The following theory is nothing new, im just applying it to Gwent, or more specifically, its playerbase.
Lets say at some point in Gwent's lifetime, the ratio of type A and type B players were 50-50. Personally, this would not be the ideal scenario for me, i would have 100% of type A players and eradicate the type B... but im biased, and that is not the point. At 50-50, the playerbase would be in a sustainable state, and the vast majority of both types of players could easily find enjoyment in the game...
Now im no longer speaking hypothetically, this is what happened throughout the years (obvious to anyone paying attention to player's response in "Gwent places"): expansions were released in Gwent, with an undeniable amount of powercreep and an arguable amount of toxic and unfair cards and strategies. With each of these expansions, there was a rush of new players coming in, lured by the new content, but also a portion of the existing playerbase leaving the game, due to frustration with the game's gameplay state. And guess what? These were all Type A players.
More and more expansions. The 50-50 became 40(A)-60(B) then 30-70, and so on...
This is the snowball effect - the number of netdeckers didnt necessarily increase, but the number of "homebrewers" definitely decreased a lot, as they left the game in frustration that all they faced were netdeckers that didnt allow original deckbuilding to flourish, and they couldnt find other players like them.
This problematic effect isnt linear, but exponential - today leaves one, tomorrow 2, then 4... next thing you know, the number is in the thousands. And the "snowball" doesnt increase just in size, but in momentum. Which means as it progresses, it gets harder to stop, to a point where even if the developers did a 180 in their direction of the game, it might be too late to fix this issue anyway. As a pessimist, i do believe we're already way past that point.
TWISTING THE NARRATIVE
This topic may seem to be more critical of the actual Gwent players than of the Gwent team... its not.
They played a major role in shaping up the playerbase into what it is now, by the direction they chose for the game. One of the most evident points is the focus on appealing to new players and disregard the existing ones. Player retention is attempted through Journeys and cosmetics, rather than quality of gameplay... but i digress.
There are other major differences between Type A and B players, which help a lot in seeing the big picture here:
Type A players are very vocal, and active online. If you're reading this, there's already a very strong chance you're a Type A player.
B players are more casual - they just want to play the game, maybe occasionally see a streamer (which are probably the biggest source of netdecking currently), but dont want to engage with the community, for time reasons, and understandably to avoid conflicts.
Of course the dev team will like the Type B players more. They dont complain, they're always OK with the game, sometimes even make a praise post in a sea of criticism, and they maybe more inclined to spend money on the game to get an edge. They also help descredit Type A players, claiming those "complain all the time" - which maybe true, but it doesnt make the complaints any less valid!
These players are actually the vast majority of the current playerbase, but because they arent active online, it may not seem this way. Take this into account the next time you see 90+% of posts in this forum/reddit complaining about an aspect of Gwent and yet it is disregarded or a solution delayed by the team in charge of the game.
Even with constructive criticism, the vocal players - the ones left (re-check the snowball effect section) - have become the villains to the devs because we are not supporting their efforts blindly, which is ironic because its precisely those players that care more about Gwent and are worried with its state in the long term and would like to see it improve rather than just seeing it as another game and what it can offer to said player, and if not enough, he will simply move on to another game without any sort of personal attachment.
-----------------------------------------------
As always, feel free to share your opinions on these, even if you strongly disagree, as long as you back it up with solid arguments.
PS - if you're wondering how can even there be any 'Type A' players left?
There's at least two sub-types:
-Mine, the veterans who became addicted to the game, and cant drop it now, even when they disliked it. This is only possible because you get "hooked" when the the game is good in your eyes, but then after it gets progressively worse, you're already too deep in it.
-The saints, with neverending patience for BS. Sorry, i dont know how else to describe them. These are overwhelmingly positive people that can endure a legion of facing metadecks even when they dont like it, but somehow are still able to remain calm and in a healthy relation with Gwent. Still there were a few streamers and creators we all thought were like these but even they've had enough and quit it in the last year or so.
-I started to jest a few years ago that i make a huge post on what's wrong with Gwent anually, but the joke slowly became reality... And here we are!
-I considered reusing my thread of last year's, or one of the similar threads of the same subject, but ultimately decided this warranted a new thread.
-I wanted to write this for 2-3 weeks, but i've kept delaying it because of its overwhelming scope. Still, i think what i am about to address are problems that are deeply ingrained in Gwent's core by now, so the timing of the post is irrelevant, because the content itself wont lose relevance.
-To blabber and accuse the Gwent dev team of things that have been said a thousand times before would be a waste of time (regardless of being true or not). But im confident that what ive got to say now its new and may bring a new light to these discussions. Whether i am right or wrong, i will leave up for discussion.
TYPE OF PLAYERS
Putting all Gwent players in just 2 "boxes" may be reductive, but its a simplification that should help a lot in explaining my point.
Lets say there's the 'Type A' player and 'Type B' player in Gwent.
The A player is the type that creates its own decks, likes to explore different strategies and learning and understanding the game is more important than winning.
The B player is the one that never bothered to fiddle with the deckbuilder, out of fear, patience or "lack of time", and netdecks for each meta.
What happens when these 2 types of players clash?
SNOWBALL EFFECT
The following theory is nothing new, im just applying it to Gwent, or more specifically, its playerbase.
Lets say at some point in Gwent's lifetime, the ratio of type A and type B players were 50-50. Personally, this would not be the ideal scenario for me, i would have 100% of type A players and eradicate the type B... but im biased, and that is not the point. At 50-50, the playerbase would be in a sustainable state, and the vast majority of both types of players could easily find enjoyment in the game...
Now im no longer speaking hypothetically, this is what happened throughout the years (obvious to anyone paying attention to player's response in "Gwent places"): expansions were released in Gwent, with an undeniable amount of powercreep and an arguable amount of toxic and unfair cards and strategies. With each of these expansions, there was a rush of new players coming in, lured by the new content, but also a portion of the existing playerbase leaving the game, due to frustration with the game's gameplay state. And guess what? These were all Type A players.
More and more expansions. The 50-50 became 40(A)-60(B) then 30-70, and so on...
This is the snowball effect - the number of netdeckers didnt necessarily increase, but the number of "homebrewers" definitely decreased a lot, as they left the game in frustration that all they faced were netdeckers that didnt allow original deckbuilding to flourish, and they couldnt find other players like them.
This problematic effect isnt linear, but exponential - today leaves one, tomorrow 2, then 4... next thing you know, the number is in the thousands. And the "snowball" doesnt increase just in size, but in momentum. Which means as it progresses, it gets harder to stop, to a point where even if the developers did a 180 in their direction of the game, it might be too late to fix this issue anyway. As a pessimist, i do believe we're already way past that point.
TWISTING THE NARRATIVE
This topic may seem to be more critical of the actual Gwent players than of the Gwent team... its not.
They played a major role in shaping up the playerbase into what it is now, by the direction they chose for the game. One of the most evident points is the focus on appealing to new players and disregard the existing ones. Player retention is attempted through Journeys and cosmetics, rather than quality of gameplay... but i digress.
There are other major differences between Type A and B players, which help a lot in seeing the big picture here:
Type A players are very vocal, and active online. If you're reading this, there's already a very strong chance you're a Type A player.
B players are more casual - they just want to play the game, maybe occasionally see a streamer (which are probably the biggest source of netdecking currently), but dont want to engage with the community, for time reasons, and understandably to avoid conflicts.
Of course the dev team will like the Type B players more. They dont complain, they're always OK with the game, sometimes even make a praise post in a sea of criticism, and they maybe more inclined to spend money on the game to get an edge. They also help descredit Type A players, claiming those "complain all the time" - which maybe true, but it doesnt make the complaints any less valid!
These players are actually the vast majority of the current playerbase, but because they arent active online, it may not seem this way. Take this into account the next time you see 90+% of posts in this forum/reddit complaining about an aspect of Gwent and yet it is disregarded or a solution delayed by the team in charge of the game.
Even with constructive criticism, the vocal players - the ones left (re-check the snowball effect section) - have become the villains to the devs because we are not supporting their efforts blindly, which is ironic because its precisely those players that care more about Gwent and are worried with its state in the long term and would like to see it improve rather than just seeing it as another game and what it can offer to said player, and if not enough, he will simply move on to another game without any sort of personal attachment.
-----------------------------------------------
As always, feel free to share your opinions on these, even if you strongly disagree, as long as you back it up with solid arguments.
Post automatically merged:
PS - if you're wondering how can even there be any 'Type A' players left?
There's at least two sub-types:
-Mine, the veterans who became addicted to the game, and cant drop it now, even when they disliked it. This is only possible because you get "hooked" when the the game is good in your eyes, but then after it gets progressively worse, you're already too deep in it.
-The saints, with neverending patience for BS. Sorry, i dont know how else to describe them. These are overwhelmingly positive people that can endure a legion of facing metadecks even when they dont like it, but somehow are still able to remain calm and in a healthy relation with Gwent. Still there were a few streamers and creators we all thought were like these but even they've had enough and quit it in the last year or so.
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