Any long-time players here? Has the game gotten better over time?

[BartonFink]

Any long-time players here? Has the game gotten better over time?

I was reading some reviews of the game on GOG's site and some long-time players were saying that the game has gotten worse since beta. Rows have disappeared and strategy has gone out the window as most changes involve units being boosted and maybe damage also being buffed.

I can't say that I'm happy with how some factions just endlessly boost their units. You really do need multiple crowd-control Geralts...which you can't get because they're too expensive or you are limited to only one of each Geralt. So, cheap boosting units, expensive crowd-control units. Seems busted.

I've only been playing GWENT since late last year. The gambling industry type incentives aren't really that appealing to me anymore, as far as keeping on playing this game. I'm just playing the rewards, which isn't that motivating. E.g. completing the reward book is some sort of incentive but it's such a grind doing that. And if I actually did complete the reward book, playing for 'fun' isn't really achievable, I don't think. Basically, I need an incentive to play the game but that incentive is looking less and less attractive to me.

 

[Draconifors]

Oh boy, this topic is as controversial as it gets when it comes to this game.

I've played since 2016, the very start of closed beta, and I would definitely say the game is better now than in beta -- not to mention it's clear Slama and his team are determined to keep improving it. And they have been.

The Reward Book is something that never existed in beta; back then we only had kegs and premiums to spend resources on, and resources were only gained by playing matches unless one was willing to spend real money on kegs and/or powder.

The mechanics may be simpler now -- beta had some really interesting card abilities and mechanics, there is no denying that -- but that aspect of the current version seems to be changing to some extent. Vypper is a good example of that, and so is Viy (as hated as that card is). I think there are some others as well that I can't think of right now.

 

[BartonFink]

Oh boy, this topic is as controversial as it gets when it comes to this game.

I've played since 2016, the very start of closed beta, and I would definitely say the game is better now than in beta -- not to mention it's clear Slama and his team are determined to keep improving it. And they have been....
The mechanics may be simpler now -- beta had some really interesting card abilities and mechanics, there is no denying that -- but that aspect of the current version seems to be changing to some extent. Vypper is a good example of that, and so is Viy (as hated as that card is). I think there are some others as well that I can't think of right now.

Your reply prompted a suggestion thread from me me:

It would be good to have a mode which...

It would be good to have a mode which... ...recreated earlier iterations of the game, e.g. alpha, beta etc. I've only been playing GWENT since late last year and it would be interesting to see what the game used to play like. Maybe if such a mode existed and enough people played it, the game...

forums.cdprojektred.com

Not sure who the man in that pic you posted is.

As for Vypper and Vly, as a Nil deck aficionado, I don't tend to hate these cards as my deck has the ability to make Vypper work to my advantage and if I draw well, I do have a chance to respond to Vly. I tend to hate those decks which go nuts on boosts. When I play that sort of deck, players usually have counters and when I play them, they generally beat me because GWENT.

 

[Jesting-Jack]

Not sure who the man in that pic you posted is.

This hurts me on a spiritual level.

 

[Damashiuchi]

Playing since closed beta... It's tough to say whether it's "better" now or then. I definitely miss some of the unique aspects that made the game "Gwent" back then: weather, card advantage, passive faction abilities and unique leaders (not just another tired 'damage/boost ally/enemy by X with Y cool down/charges'). Home coming was a disaster IMO, but it is getting better from that low water mark. Current state is good, but feels more generic than beta did. OP mentioned endless boosting and swarming which is why it is so stale now.

Wotw has brought back some interesting card abilities, so I think we're heading in the right direction. I make it known whenever I can that I totally despise 3d leaders, skins, and crappy animated battle grounds... They are a complete waste of resources and I should have the option to disable all of that on my side of I want to...but I realize those are another funding generator so I put up with them.

 

[Jesting-Jack]

I miss having 3 rows.

 

[Damashiuchi]

Baby, oh baby! Man I miss this:

Ahhh ...
The good ol' days ....

 

[Sensimilius]

3 rows too complicated
- Playing Viy and consuming it 10 times during a match = How Gwent was meant to be played.

 

[Jurus331]

Closed Beta

It's hard to say if the game has gotten better or worse. Definitely very different. While there are features I do miss, I think the main reason why Closed Beta is and probably always will be by far my favourite era of Gwent, is just the fact that back then it all felt new and exciting.

 

[sfruzz]

Gameplaywise I enjoyed Closed Beta the most. Different factions played really in a different way.

In Northern Realm you had 40 cards Foltest or the infamous Henselt Promote. None of the other factions had something similar. While now, you can play a swarm strategy with
- Syndicate (firesworn)
- Monster (insectoids)
- Scoiatel (elves)
- Northern Realm (witcher / volunteers)
- SK (alchemy)
- Nilfgaard (soldiers, not the best option, but there are still cards that support the archetype)

From the cosmetic side of things Homecoming brought some nice changes. The Reward Book was a great idea. The User Interface also improved and having larger cards is cool, but it came at the cost of the third row. So aesthetically a cool change, but it reduced the design space. Weather effects have been toned down for a reason. No way to hide on two rows! And Reach (a Homecoming keyword) was removed as it had only 2 options (Reach 1 / 2). With the third row I suspect Reach could have been more meaningful.

Still enjoying Gwent, but Closed Beta was my favourite era of Gwent.

 

[BartonFink]

Gameplaywise I enjoyed Closed Beta the most. Different factions played really in a different way.
...Weather effects have been toned down for a reason. No way to hide on two rows! And Reach (a Homecoming keyword) was removed as it had only 2 options (Reach 1 / 2). With the third row I suspect Reach could have been more meaningful.

Still enjoying Gwent, but Closed Beta was my favourite era of Gwent.

What's the story with weather effects? Right now they seem as pointless as artefacts which I only play non-ranked for the rewards.

I did enjoy that seasonal mode where your special cards were duplicated and I would play Rag Yeah Nah Rock. That was when the effect lasted until the end of round. Fun days! That's been nerfed and the weather effects that I've seen are pretty weak (well, they don't tend to pose too many problems for my opponents when I play these but they tend to hurt me more) and I never use them unless I'm incentivised to do so by rewards.

What you say about reach reminds me of MTG, where things like spiders had this and they could combat with flying creatures, which was nice.

I'd like the option to play old school GWENT, just to compare and maybe to call for it to be reinstituted.

I am finding factions balanced now but I'm still not a fan of the insane boosts that some of them generate. Looks like you need to netdeck to be competitive, which I've never done.

Post automatically merged: Jan 18, 2021

3 rows too complicated
- Playing Viy and consuming it 10 times during a match = How Gwent was meant to be played.

Does this site need a sarcasm font? Would you be using it for your post?

Post automatically merged: Jan 18, 2021

Wotw has brought back some interesting card abilities, so I think we're heading in the right direction. I make it known whenever I can that I totally despise 3d leaders, skins, and crappy animated battle grounds... They are a complete waste of resources and I should have the option to disable all of that on my side of I want to...but I realize those are another funding generator so I put up with them.

What is a good use of resources? There's so little to use ore for that I sometimes 'waste' it on stuff, e.g that recent Christmas reward book, so I had to get stuff I didn't want for things like the winter cardbacks.

If you could use ore to 'buy' certain boards, I'd be up for that but I wouldn't waste actual money on that.

Post automatically merged: Jan 18, 2021

Baby, oh baby! Man I miss this:


View attachment 11145839
Ahhh ...
The good ol' days ....

First version of the online game? Similar to The Witcher 3 version of the game? I haven't played any of The Witcher games yet.

Post automatically merged: Jan 18, 2021

This hurts me on a spiritual level.

Maybe having a magnifying glass would help as far as knowing who was in that picture. Then again, maybe I haven't seen that show and would still have no idea who it was! Who is it? Is he famous?

 

[Jesting-Jack]

Maybe having a magnifying glass would help as far as knowing who was in that picture. Then again, maybe I haven't seen that show and would still have no idea who it was! Who is it? Is he famous?

His name is Eskel.

 

[BartonFink]

His name is Eskel.

I was gonna say "Yeah, nah" but maybe you're truthin'. I dunno. It's a very small picture but it looks like some sort of sit-com character pose. Like I've said here before, I haven't played any of the Witcher games here yet so all the lore goes over my head. And that picture looks a bit different to the one in GWENT.

 

[Jesting-Jack]

Look at the forum emotes, there are two Eskel emotes there, one where he's smiling and a cartoonish version of him holding a mug of beer.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

If you haven't played for a long time, I suggest to give it a try yourself and form your own opinion.
The cards on average have become more powerful. Lots of new abilities were introduced. The gameplay became more linear and it is now simpler to pilot the decks.

Gwent is developing. Whether it's developing in the direction you might like only you can tell.

 

[Jurus331]

What's the story with weather effects? Right now they seem as pointless as artefacts which I only play non-ranked for the rewards.

The first version of weather decreased the power of every card on a row (except gold cards. Back then Golds were basically untouchable, their number in a deck was severely limited and they were truly powerful) to 1 as long as the weather effect was active. And it was not limited by turns, it had to be removed with a card effect. But there were some cards, mainly Monsters, that were better for weather with immunities (Wild Hunt units usually had Frost immunity) or special effects (Ancient Foglet was immune to Fog and actually boosted every turn under it). Also weather affected both sides of the board and it was row specific (Melee - Frost, Ranged - Fog, Siege - Rain), but then again so were most units (Except ST). Back then every faction felt truly distinctive.

Then it went through other changes like becoming a damaging card instead and over time decreasing the number of units it affected, started limiting its duration until it became the neutered, useless version we know now.

 

[Damashiuchi]

What's the story with weather effects? Right now they seem as pointless as artefacts which I only play non-ranked for the rewards.

What is a good use of resources? There's so little to use ore for that I sometimes 'waste' it on stuff, e.g that recent Christmas reward book, so I had to get stuff I didn't want for things like the winter cardbacks.

First version of the online game? Similar to The Witcher 3 version of the game? I haven't played any of The Witcher games yet.

Weather used to set the power of all units on the row to 1, last until the end of the round, and affect both sides of the board. So if you played biting frost, it would spawn on your side of the board and affect your own units as well. They quickly changed the effect to only spawn on your opponent's side, and only cause 2 damage per turn, however it still lasted until the end of the round (or until cleared by a card someone played). Now it only lasts a few turns, but I guess they tried to justify that by removing all the "clear skies" effects from the game. This is the current, essentially useless state of it.

When I said "resources" I meant computational resources. The visuals add nothing to the game so I would like an option to remove the unnecessary drains on my CPU just my opinion....

The screenshot was from an early version of the game... if memory serves it was either toward the end of closed beta, or early days of open beta... To me the game was in its most fun state here.

 

[BartonFink]

The first version of weather decreased the power of every card on a row (except gold cards. Back then Golds were basically untouchable...Then it went through other changes like becoming a damaging card instead and over time decreasing the number of units it affected, started limiting its duration until it became the neutered, useless version we know now.

It's like CDPR's GWENT team has only two gears: "Hey let's introduce a 'cool' new mechanic!"...GWENT players: "OP! Nerf it!"...CDPR GWENT team: "Ok. Let's make the cool new feature useless!".

A third gear would be good...a Goldilocks option: not too OP, yet not utterly useless.

That's a nice fairy tale.

Post automatically merged: Jan 20, 2021

When I said "resources" I meant computational resources. The visuals add nothing to the game so I would like an option to remove the unnecessary drains on my CPU just my opinion....

The screenshot was from an early version of the game... if memory serves it was either toward the end of closed beta, or early days of open beta... To me the game was in its most fun state here.

I hardly ever lose games due to a disconnection but I do win many games when this happens. I'd be surprised if was animation issue though. But hey, if I could rank-up by having a premium deck I'd take it!

Do you reckon it would work having an "Old school mode" for playing the game? Three rows, original cards etc.

Some of my earliest posts were calling for a filter for match-ups, e.g. can only use starter decks or basic set etc. You could have other variations too. I've got a digital version of Risk. You can play Classic mode or their 'new and improved' version. I don't like having to 'research' new cards. Having limits in this way would work for me.

 

[TheMrEstrada]

I played on and off for a few years and actually started playing consistantly around october last year...

The game has had some cool aditions over the years like the Syndicate faction, I don't remember if the Journey feature has been around foreverer but I personally like that too, along with the Reward Book (which are basically what have kept me going).

The adition of more Witchers has been awesome aswell but that takes us to the inevitable... the game has too many practically "auto-win" metas, the game is good overall but having cards that when played you know you're losing no matter what, for me that takes away a lot of the fun.

Now, I say practically because you can make a deck focused on stopping metas (locks, banish, whatever), but then that's only survival play, no creativity, not reall that much fun.

So yeah, tough times...

 

[BartonFink]

...I don't remember if the Journey feature has been around foreverer but I personally like that too, along with the Reward Book (which are basically what have kept me going)...

Same here. I've posted comments here too on how the game uses techniques used by the gambling industry to hook you into playing this game. The two things that you mention would be part of that. CDPR is lobbying governments around the world to allow them to provide a free dose of nicotine to players every time that they win two matches in a row.

That may or not be related to the fact that I personally have gotten tired of the gambling industry techniques to get you hooked playing the game (I replied to a sad case who posted on this topic here many weeks ago. They seemed addicted to the game to me, and it was messing with their life, it seemed to me). It's just a miserable grind trying to eke out keys or shards or whatever you call them to earn you cardbacks in the reward book, say, or enough shards to create cards that you don't already have.

I'm closer to Level 60 than I thought I would be at this point in time, so less grinding for me to do. Next Level 60 gives me an extra reward point or something. Not sure what that means. An extra key for challenges or something?

For the first time ever I spent money on the game, for the Alzur Journey. Doing another journey seems a grind to me now. I've got no plans to spend money on the game again though. I should have reached pro rank for that Journey but CDPR, being CDPR, robbed me of that with the way that they do things. Badly. They do things badly. Random people on the internet who play the game would do things better than them.