here's a few ideas I would like to see in homecoming (everybody has some, those are mine) :
(Oh ! And I'm french, so sorry if my english is not that good)
- A revamp row system : agility for everybody just feels wrong. In the earlier day, each units were linked to 1 row, which allowed for more predictability (especially whith weather). It was a good mechanic. I would love to go back to that or at the very, as some like Swim suggested, a system that allos rows to impact some or all the cards, depending where you play them (a unit that can gain armor or a boost depending on which row it is played). Rows are there : they should matter.
- Some cards were redesigned for god-knows-why and haven't seen play since. Maybe going back on the change could be good ? For example : today we have at least 4 different cards with the same exact effect : Arachas Drone, Alba Spikeman, Blue Mountain Elite, Drummond Shieldmaid, Mahakam Volunteer, Temerian Infantry. Among those, only the Blue Mountain ERlirte has another edge. It feels (sorry) a bit lazy and repetitive. Two of those used to work differently, and to me at least, it felt cooler. I would like the Shieldmaiden and the Spikemen to go back to their old selves (or something similar). Redesigning the Volunteer also sound like a good idea. The Drone has a "special" advantage in combo with their big sibling, and the Temerian Infantry is, well, temerian, so there's synergy here too, enough I think to keep them the way they are.
There are other examples of cards which might not have been redesigned because they were cool just the way they were, but I especially miss those two.
- Climate cards should be revamped. Like A LOT. I'm not a big fan of the old ways here : the time where climate could penetrate any armor and just kill anything was too much. I won't argue with that. But as it is now, it sometimes look like they were too downgraded. And with the coming of the (excellent) Moonlight card and boon mechanic, a whole new world of possibilities has emerged. And yet, it appears under-used at best. Except for the occasional beer under a moonlight, there isn't a lot of boon out there. Maybe it is time to revamp all bronze climat card into creating both a boon and a hazard, or at least change some of them into boons. And of course this would go with more options ot remove boons from the opposing side of the board (moves and counter-moves !)
For example, I never quite got why Fog was a damage effect. There are mechanics out there that allow Fog to be turned into a cool boon : giving immunity unit of less that X strenght (the one small enough to hide
) is one, but I sure there are others.
- More love for the locking mechanic. Today it's all about removal. Upgrading some engine cards or downgrading some removal could bring back the old locks in the game, which would be healthy i believe (diversirty is always healthy). Having to choose sometimes between scoring more points OR turn off a problematic engine is a good thing, and removal simply allows to do both with one card each time (yes, Dimeritium Shackles allows you to damage your target a bit, but Alzur's Thunder destroys it most of the time, so in both cases the engine no longer works but with the latter you score more points). Another lead would be to expand the scope of locks : if a locked unit can no longer be boosted, or if it is banished once detroyed for example.
- Increase leaders and factions identities. I understand that's a road the designers want to follow for the future of Gwent and I'm all in. Eist should be able to spawn a Veteran in order to compete with the less theme-accurate Crach in veteran decks. Ada should work differently, maybe spawning a cursed unit from a definite pool (like Eredin and Eist), maybe boosting all cursed unit on your side. Filavandrel and Eithne seem redundant. The Unseen Elder is almost useless and support no archetype at all (I don't have a solution to offer here : remove him entirely and turn Borkh into a leader ?). Theme-wise, I would like : more northern realm curse-related cards (a hazard or boon effect maybe ?) and a rewrinting of the Winch ("activate the deploy abaility of target warmachine" would be much better that its actual wording) ; a revamp of discard in Skellige (maybe by giving some love back to the Queensguard ?) ; more love for movement and/or ambush in Scoia'tel (why not create an hybrid theme by increasing synergy between movement and ambush ?) ; a whole new wraith theme in monster (that would be so cool) ; more spies for Nilfgaard (I love spies )
That's it !That's my two cents (for now)
(Oh ! And I'm french, so sorry if my english is not that good)
- A revamp row system : agility for everybody just feels wrong. In the earlier day, each units were linked to 1 row, which allowed for more predictability (especially whith weather). It was a good mechanic. I would love to go back to that or at the very, as some like Swim suggested, a system that allos rows to impact some or all the cards, depending where you play them (a unit that can gain armor or a boost depending on which row it is played). Rows are there : they should matter.
- Some cards were redesigned for god-knows-why and haven't seen play since. Maybe going back on the change could be good ? For example : today we have at least 4 different cards with the same exact effect : Arachas Drone, Alba Spikeman, Blue Mountain Elite, Drummond Shieldmaid, Mahakam Volunteer, Temerian Infantry. Among those, only the Blue Mountain ERlirte has another edge. It feels (sorry) a bit lazy and repetitive. Two of those used to work differently, and to me at least, it felt cooler. I would like the Shieldmaiden and the Spikemen to go back to their old selves (or something similar). Redesigning the Volunteer also sound like a good idea. The Drone has a "special" advantage in combo with their big sibling, and the Temerian Infantry is, well, temerian, so there's synergy here too, enough I think to keep them the way they are.
There are other examples of cards which might not have been redesigned because they were cool just the way they were, but I especially miss those two.
- Climate cards should be revamped. Like A LOT. I'm not a big fan of the old ways here : the time where climate could penetrate any armor and just kill anything was too much. I won't argue with that. But as it is now, it sometimes look like they were too downgraded. And with the coming of the (excellent) Moonlight card and boon mechanic, a whole new world of possibilities has emerged. And yet, it appears under-used at best. Except for the occasional beer under a moonlight, there isn't a lot of boon out there. Maybe it is time to revamp all bronze climat card into creating both a boon and a hazard, or at least change some of them into boons. And of course this would go with more options ot remove boons from the opposing side of the board (moves and counter-moves !)
For example, I never quite got why Fog was a damage effect. There are mechanics out there that allow Fog to be turned into a cool boon : giving immunity unit of less that X strenght (the one small enough to hide
) is one, but I sure there are others. - More love for the locking mechanic. Today it's all about removal. Upgrading some engine cards or downgrading some removal could bring back the old locks in the game, which would be healthy i believe (diversirty is always healthy). Having to choose sometimes between scoring more points OR turn off a problematic engine is a good thing, and removal simply allows to do both with one card each time (yes, Dimeritium Shackles allows you to damage your target a bit, but Alzur's Thunder destroys it most of the time, so in both cases the engine no longer works but with the latter you score more points). Another lead would be to expand the scope of locks : if a locked unit can no longer be boosted, or if it is banished once detroyed for example.
- Increase leaders and factions identities. I understand that's a road the designers want to follow for the future of Gwent and I'm all in. Eist should be able to spawn a Veteran in order to compete with the less theme-accurate Crach in veteran decks. Ada should work differently, maybe spawning a cursed unit from a definite pool (like Eredin and Eist), maybe boosting all cursed unit on your side. Filavandrel and Eithne seem redundant. The Unseen Elder is almost useless and support no archetype at all (I don't have a solution to offer here : remove him entirely and turn Borkh into a leader ?). Theme-wise, I would like : more northern realm curse-related cards (a hazard or boon effect maybe ?) and a rewrinting of the Winch ("activate the deploy abaility of target warmachine" would be much better that its actual wording) ; a revamp of discard in Skellige (maybe by giving some love back to the Queensguard ?) ; more love for movement and/or ambush in Scoia'tel (why not create an hybrid theme by increasing synergy between movement and ambush ?) ; a whole new wraith theme in monster (that would be so cool) ; more spies for Nilfgaard (I love spies
)That's it !That's my two cents (for now)
