An idea for Artefact rework

[FG15-ISH7EG]

If I get it right, what you are suggesting is making Artifacts secondary leader abilities? While I like the idea I believe it could potentially be too much. The artifact being on the board on game start first of all means that you don't have to play it first and therefore can use it anytiem without loosing momentum. That makes particulary artifacts that would play units extremly strong, similar to how leaders playing additional units are really strong.
I'm afraid that such a change would create a whole new problem for the game.
Also, what would happen to traps?

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind the opposite thing. Adding an indestructable leader artifact to the board which makes the leader ability easily visible now that leaders themselves are only skins.

 

[StrykerxS77x]

Forgive me that I come back to this but it is absolutly not obvious to me. Maybe its because I didn't experienced the abuse of those cases and lack this emotional involvement.

How new to the game are you? The start of homecoming was a prime example of artifacts being problematic. The last few really problematic ones like summoning circle have finally been changed recently.

"They are cards that you can do nothing about without specific counter cards." this argument wont work. It wont work because there are many other mechanisms which dont even have a counter card or cant be countered.

The only things that I can think of that is even close to the same thing is coins and weather. Weather had the same issues since the start of closed beta and has been nerfed so heavily it's hardly even playable anymore. Coins has been criticised with some of the same arguments. They might be able to handle coins since it's only in one faction but it still has some of the same problems.

You can't counter any deploy skills killing your cards on field, you can't counter deploy damage, deploy destruction. Well you sort of can, If you field functions on your field which can't be touched, oh wait thats exactly what half the artefacts are...
You can't really counter immune cards (only a few cards can), you can't really counter seize either.

Deploy effects aren't at all the same thing as an artifact sitting on the board that pulls out multiple cards from your deck setting up insane combo's. Also you can to some extent counter deploy effects by protecting your key cards in various ways. You can bait out removal, protect your cards with armor or buffing. The game now has defenders to protect your cards as well.

Immune cards have largely been stripped from the game for these very same problems. At least certain destroy effects and row effects can still hit immune units. Nothing stops artifacts except artifact removal. That is just bad design and a lesson the devs should have learned from all of the problems they have had with weather since the very beginning of this game. Oh and immune units. Back in closed beta we used to be able to turn many cards on the board gold (which was immune back then) this was extremely problematic so it was taken out.

The game is full of reactive cards which create huge pointswings using your opponents field. The only way to dodge them is not fielding anything making those turns wasted for the enemy. Under such conditions the rise of unitless decks is sort of a logical development. Unless you take the hit and manouver around it. But if you can do that with all those mechanisms why can't you do that with artefacts?

The devs have already stopped unitless decks. The player base did not like them at all.

At the end, the question remains is something imbalanced because of the mechanism itself or due to the lack of finetuning of numbers. The old summoning circle was not properly balanced and was too flexible compared to its provision cost. And popularity is a terrible measure for balance.

Please help me to understand why artefacts are bad. The current arguments presented do not convince me. I dont mind change nor the proposal in the OP.

The only thing wrong with old summoning circle was that it was an artifact. You shoudln't be able to just throw cards on the board that the opponent can do nothing about without specific counter cards that everyone has to shove into their decks just in case they run into summoning circle or Sihil.

OP's idea is good but I don't really have faith in the devs to implement it now. The game has plenty of other balance issues to deal with.

 

[Jan_Szybawski]

The start of homecoming was a prime example of artifacts being problematic. The last few really problematic ones like summoning circle have finally been changed recently.

You remember how sick was sword artifact before nefring? If there were two at the table it was better to pass than fight these. But the most ridicolous was devs first reaction to the artifact mess that they in themselves created: in a intention to nerf swords artifact they bounded it with units deployement, and in the result the swords were more powerfull than ever, with even 4 additional dmg per turn! They finally nerfed it to current strengh in the next patch finally; You remember these times?

 

[Vedamir]

The main bad thing for artifacts is their immunity, while they can control the board. It breaks the game. The game is interaction between players. But with artifacts it's not interaction. It's domination and tyranny, cause opponent can do nothing to the artifacts. Is it fun? No, it isn't. It is fun only for manicas with tyranny inclinations.
Game must be interactive, there must be interaction. And not only by damage, but by positioning, card's shuffling, revealing, spying, tossing. That should be fun. But artifacts are not fun. Unfortinatly, devs don't have the sense of the game and fun...

 

[Jan_Szybawski]

The main bad thing for artifacts is their immunity, while they can control the board. It breaks the game. The game is interaction between players. But with artifacts it's not interaction. It's domination and tyranny, cause opponent can do nothing to the artifacts. Is it fun? No, it isn't. It is fun only for manicas with tyranny inclinations.
Game must be interactive, there must be interaction. And not only by damage, but by positioning, card's shuffling, revealing, spying, tossing. That should be fun. But artifacts are not fun. Unfortinatly, devs don't have the sense of the game and fun...

So true! 100%!
Long time ago, when artifacts were in they peek, i've made a suggetion on polish forum to combine a semmelsford quake (deal all hostele units 1 dmg, 6 privinsion) with white frost (destroy all artifacts, 6 privinsion) - thanks to these we could have a reasonable card aginst artifacts spam, and usefull in a way if there will be no artifacts in play. But of course no one geave a shit about it

 

[Anima_13]

IT appears to me that the real issue with artifacts are the uselessness of their counter cards. Therefore a thoughtexperiment:

Imagine following change:
Infiltrator: Meele: On round end shuffle this unit into your opponents deck. This unit is recognized as artifact.

NG Infiltration deck:
The idea is simple, at some point of round 1 you start to field infiltrators and other cards to hyperthick your opponents deck. Then you use artifact destruction to destroy those cards in later round when your opponent is forced to play them. You can fit all artifact destruction cards in such a deck.

The ability to shuffle artifacts into your opponents deck could give most artifact counter cards a purpose without the need to change them.

 

[Vedamir]

IT appears to me that the real issue with artifacts are the uselessness of their counter cards. Therefore a thoughtexperiment:

Imagine following change:
Infiltrator: Meele: On round end shuffle this unit into your opponents deck. This unit is recognized as artifact.

NG Infiltration deck:
The idea is simple, at some point of round 1 you start to field infiltrators and other cards to hyperthick your opponents deck. Then you use artifact destruction to destroy those cards in later round when your opponent is forced to play them. You can fit all artifact destruction cards in such a deck.

The ability to shuffle artifacts into your opponents deck could give most artifact counter cards a purpose without the need to change them.

It's terrible That's why artifacts are bad.
Another bad thing is that u can counter every artifact (even 15p) by 4p-card. That's why almost noone uses them. People use mostly instant artifacts and instant cards. All this deffered mechanics are too binary. U r always afraid of control, which make u loose too much value. With instant deploy effects u r not afraid. it just works. If to make instant artifacts, then why make them immune? Just make this card as a simple special card. What's a sense in making artifact swords, which just uses deploy ability and then just laying on the field doing nothing? It's a simple special card mechanic. The only difference is that u have an immune body on the field, which takes one cell and does nothing. It's just a trash. The same for Land of thousand tales. Why make it as artifact? What's a sense here? Just to add some artifacts? They are not needed. Too immune, too useless, too unstable, too binary in control. Better make artifacts with no power but with the armor, which can be controllable by any card and not so binary. More armor - more value. But I should make armor only for buildings. Hand things like books and swords must be just a special cards. Cause there is no sense of laying them on the field and acting like units. It's just a small weapons.
Just use logic! It solves all problems. It's easy.

 

[Guest 4336264]

It's terrible That's why artifacts are bad.
Another bad thing is that u can counter every artifact (even 15p) by 4p-card. That's why almost noone uses them. People use mostly instant artifacts and instant cards. All this deffered mechanics are too binary. U r always afraid of control, which make u loose too much value. With instant deploy effects u r not afraid. it just works. If to make instant artifacts, then why make them immune? Just make this card as a simple special card. What's a sense in making artifact swords, which just uses deploy ability and then just laying on the field doing nothing? It's a simple special card mechanic. The only difference is that u have an immune body on the field, which takes one cell and does nothing. It's just a trash. The same for Land of thousand tales. Why make it as artifact? What's a sense here? Just to add some artifacts? They are not needed. Too immune, too useless, too unstable, too binary in control. Better make artifacts with no power but with the armor, which can be controllable by any card and not so binary. More armor - more value. But I should make armor only for buildings. Hand things like books and swords must be just a special cards. Cause there is no sense of laying them on the field and acting like units. It's just a small weapons.
Just use logic! It solves all problems. It's easy.

Interesting points here.

I don't think you can have 'armour' on artifacts as that'd be ridiculous. What would be needed is the equivalent of armour - enchantment (magical shielding).

Artifacts should start with a certain level of enchantment (damage resistance) which (depending on various issues for developers to consider related to balance) may or may not be able to be augmented by spells as well as the deployment of certain mages (some mages who are currently underused and likely considered fairly useless - the sort that remove weather effects, etc.). This would go some way to counter the effect of a 4 point card being able to easily defeat an artifact that costs several points more (only the top level killer cards such as - Korathi Heatwave should be able to eliminate most artifacts with relative ease).

Additionally, it might be an idea if, like enslave, there was some way to steal an opponent's artifact - not sure how, or if, that could be implemented.

I don't think artifacts should be able to be attacked by *all* units though (perhaps witcher units could damage artifacts - reducing their abilities, if not outright destroying, by using signs such as IGNI - burns up certain artifact, AaRD - Sheer force removes from the field, or reduces effectiveness of certain artifacts, QUEN - shields the witcher unit from certain artifact attacks.

Otherwise, I think it should require magical units in particular to attack a magical - enchanted - item. Items that are not magical could possibly be destructible by non-magical units (i.e non-mages, witchers, etc.). The trade-off in all of this is that some higher priced artifacts would need to be improved, because, unfortunately, from my own experience, they aren't worth playing against certain decks that are commonly used.

 

[Vedamir]

I don't think you can have 'armour' on artifacts as that'd be ridiculous.

As I said, I should split all current artifacts into two categories: weapons and buildings. Buildings are mostly doing nothing to the battlefield, so they must not have power. But they are destroyable, so they can have an armor to control them. There can exist some cards, that deal a great damage to armor and, accordingly, to buildings - it's the Battering Ram and the same crushing units.
Weapons must not have an armor, of course, they are too small to destroy them. In a battle they can be stealed, maximum. May be there can be some spyes, some special agents, that steal such an artifacts. May be, it's better to remove such complication and make weapons just a one-time-use special card, that adds some new abilities to units. But using weapons, like swords, poisons like units on the board is looking strange. In reality they are too small and too dependent to act by their own will. They are just weapons.

 

[Guest 4336264]

As I said, I should split all current artifacts into two categories: weapons and buildings. Buildings are mostly doing nothing to the battlefield, so they must not have power. But they are destroyable, so they can have an armor to control them. There can exist some cards, that deal a great damage to armor and, accordingly, to buildings - it's the Battering Ram and the same crushing units.
Weapons must not have an armor, of course, they are too small to destroy them. In a battle they can be stealed, maximum. May be there can be some spyes, some special agents, that steal such an artifacts. May be, it's better to remove such complication and make weapons just a one-time-use special card, that adds some new abilities to units. But using weapons, like swords, poisons like units on the board is looking strange. In reality they are too small and too dependent to act by their own will. They are just weapons.

Hmm... Some interesting ideas - particularly like buildings. Are you suggesting some type of fortification cards such as were in ThroneBreaker? In some battles it was necessary to destroy a gate and other barriers before it was possible to attack units on the ranged row.

Personally, I like the graphics of some of the weapons, such as swords. It'd be a shame to have the removed completely from the game. What I'd probably prefer to happen, taking your suggestion on board, is, like the original GWENT in The Witcher 3, place certain cards to the SIDE of the BOARD - still visible on screen (SEE IMAGE), and demonstrating that its effect is active. Like you have stated, such artifacts like sword could be given to a specific unit - soldier, warrior, etc., which gives the unit a special power.

I love how the leader cards appeared on this original board, too.

At any rate, playing a special card could place it somewhere to one side of the board and the effect is given to a unit. I'm not sure how potions and other artifacts could work if such a mechanism were in place.

Also, the good thing about the original board design was that you got to see the WEATHER EFFECT cards at the side of the board. With the current design, the certain PREMIUM CARDS do *not* benefit from being fully on display when played - the only time the animations are seen is when in your own hand (and then they can be difficult to see). Having a system like the old design, WEATHER cards would be placed to the side allowing for the PREMIUM ANIMATION to be displayed for the 3 - 4 turns it's in play.

I think the developers can do a better job for weather cards and certain other cards that do not currently get to be displayed in their fully glory when played.

I agree that being able to steal artifacts should be possible. And, if, as you suggest, artifacts are given to specific units, this would remove the need to give artifacts armour as the specific unit would be responsible for the protection of such an artifact. I guess potion artifacts could likewise be displayed to one side of the BOARD and given to a specific type of unit to utilise during the round(s).

 

[Vedamir]

Are you suggesting some type of fortification cards such as were in ThroneBreaker? In some battles it was necessary to destroy a gate and other barriers before it was possible to attack units on the ranged row.

Yes, it's one of the ideas. As I suggested in another post, melee row is always a defender for the ranged as it is in reality. Only archers and some other units (mages, agents) can attack ranged disregarding the melee. Another units (like crossbowmen and warriors) must destroy the melee first. Of course in reality there cannot be the situation, when one knight is defending the crowd of archers. In this case there can be another rule - ranged is defended only if melee is wider or equal to the ranged. For example, if there is 3 warriors and 3 or less ranged units. May be, this second rule can be dropped to make game more simple.
With this rules, there can interesting stiuations appear, when u sacriface ur ranged unit, placing him on melee without using his ability and not covered with armor - only as a body, but protecting some important ranged units by this action.
So the buildings can be such melee-protectors too, because they have a big amount of armor. And they can protect all the ranged units, because such a building as stone wall, for example is very wide in comparison to a simple warrior. To easier break through them, there can siege towers, battering rams, explosives and other stuff exist.

Personally, I like the graphics of some of the weapons, such as swords. It'd be a shame to have the removed completely from the game. What I'd probably prefer to happen, taking your suggestion on board, is, like the original GWENT in The Witcher 3, place certain cards to the SIDE of the BOARD - still visible on screen (SEE IMAGE), and demonstrating that its effect is active.

I don't think, they must be removed. May be, they can be bound to a unit and u can see them, when u hover the unit card and by some other signs may be. Artifacts go to the graveyard, when unit is dead or round is ended. Or, to make it simpler, they can be just a special cards, which completely dissapear after use and are bound to unit forever until game ends. So, u can ressurect ur units with artifacts' effects bouded to them earlier.
Concerning row effects. Yes, I think, that there can exist a place for weather and other row effects' cards. Not that u showed with an arrow, but three places left to all rows, where the horn card is placed. The place u have shown is used for global effects. The weather was global in Alpha/Beta and in Witcher's Gwent. But now we don't have global effects.

 

[Guest 4336264]

Yes, it's one of the ideas. As I suggested in another post, melee row is always a defender for the ranged as it is in reality. Only archers and some other units (mages, agents) can attack ranged disregarding the melee. Another units (like crossbowmen and warriors) must destroy the melee first. Of course in reality there cannot be the situation, when one knight is defending the crowd of archers. In this case there can be another rule - ranged is defended only if melee is wider. For example, if there is 3 warriors and 3 or less ranged units. May be, this second rule can be dropped to make game more simple.
With this rules, there can interesting stiuations appear, when u sacriface ur ranged unit, placing him on melee without using his ability and not covered with armor - only as a body, but protecting some important ranged units by this action.
So the buildings can be such melee-protectors too, because they have a big amount of armor. And they can protect all the ranged units, because such a building as stone wall, for example is very wide in comparison to a simple warrior. To easier break through them, there can siege towers, battering rams, explosives and other stuff exist.

I don't think, they must be removed. May be, they can be bound to a unit and u can see them, when u hover the unit card and by some other signs may be. Artifacts go to the graveyard, when unit is dead or round is ended. Or, to make it simpler, they can be just a special cards, which completely dissapear after use and are bound to unit forever until game ends. So, u can ressurect ur units with artifacts' effects bouded to them earlier.
Concerning side effects. Yes, I think, that there can exist a place for weather and other row effects' cards. But not that u showed with an arrow - the three places left to all the rows, where the horn card is placed. The place u have shown is used fot global effects. The weather was global in Alpha/Beta and in Witcher's Gwent. But now we don't have global effects.

Yeah, I like the idea of fortifications. Whether or not what I saw in Thronebreaker could be implemented into this game - multiplayer - is another matter...

The way archers play at the moment, I'm not a great fan of. I think that certain archer units should be restricted to the ranged row (excluding crossbow men), and either randomly attack enemy units on any row, or choose a specific ROW to target - random units fired upon (if there are no units on the row, the archers will fire on the row with units). Crossbow units should be deployable on both ranged and melee, and probably able to continue to be able to fire at specific units.

As for the image I provided above, it was merely to point out a way that artifacts COULD be displayed - I wasn't suggesting it be done exactly as in that image. You made the point in an earlier post that you didn't like seeing these artifacts on the board. Thus, placing them to the side of the battlefield - where it is still possible to see the PREMIUM animations of such cards - is the point I was making.

Again, currently, due to the removal of the section of board you stated was for 'global effects', it's not possible to see WEATHER cards at all. I'd like a place on screen reintroduced that displays such weather cards (and possibly artifacts), because the PREMIUM animations for such weather cards are not being seeing like the rest of the cards. When this 'global effect' box was utilised in the original GWENT, you could clearly see such cards.

 

[Vedamir]

As for the image I provided above, it was merely to point out a way that artifacts COULD be displayed - I wasn't suggesting it be done exactly as in that image. You made the point in an earlier post that you didn't like seeing these artifacts on the board. Thus, placing them to the side of the battlefield - where it is still possible to see the PREMIUM animations of such cards - is the point I was making.

Ok, but there is no a big sense in showing artifacts on the left side of a row or in a middle place, made for global effects. It's ok, when artifact affects the whole board or the whole row. But when it affects a unit, it must be displayed on a unit. if it affects a hero, it must be displayed on a hero. I don't think, that this is a problem. It can be done. Concering artifacts' displayng I meant that I don't like to see them acting by their own will as units. It's not realistic and that's why it's looking strange.

 

[Guest 4336264]

Ok, but there is no a big sense in showing artifacts on the left side of a row or in a middle place, made for global effects. It's ok, when artifact affects the whole board or the whole row. But when it affects a unit, it must be displayed on a unit. if it affects a hero, it must be displayed on a hero. I don't think, that this is a problem. It can be done. Concering artifacts' displayng I meant that I don't like to see them acting by their own will as units. It's not realistic and that's why it's looking strange.

Thanks for the clarification.

Well, your suggestion may be acceptable so long as when a player hovers the pointer over the unit with the artifact a LARGE image/animation of the ORIGINAL artifact card pops up and is displayed somewhere nearby to make clear this artifact has been attached to that unit. This would also allow the PREMIUM animation to continue to be displayed in some manner. CDPR removed a row to show off their cards and animations; thus, it's of critical importance that PREMIUM versions have the ability to be shown off at every opportunity. This is also why there needs to be a place for WEATHER cards, because currently these cards are *not* being shown off.

 

[Archan6el]

It seems that some people at CDPR don't want to listen, don't understand root causes and/or are too proud to make changes based on community feedback (having to admit mistakes). Look at the (early) communication in the last dev stream about artifacts. "I think we're considering...just removing artifact removal from the game and just trying to balance artifacts around their provisions purely so they're less binary." So they're made uninteractable, just like the problematic SY coins? That would be a terrible idea. The uninteractability in combination with Order and Charges is exactly the root problem. It should be a risk to play an artifact with Order and Charges. Therefore artifacts should get Armor so they can be destroyed.