[Artwork] How to make Gwent feel like Gwent.

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To avoid the pitchforks I am going to start by giving a disclaimer that I will be comparing Gwent to another game you probably all know. Hearthstone. This post is done with the knowledge the art style of Gwent is being changed with the Homecoming update and with the hope someone listens. Now, to begin.

Hearthstone, set in the World of Warcraft universe, actually feels like you are playing in-universe. The boards look the same both in WoW and in HS, so do the cards and the tokens that appear in their place on the boards, and one can imagine being in a WoW tavern playing Hearthstone while playing the game on his browser. This is some next level artistic consistency and immersion that is simply not present in Gwent.

In Gwent, Gwent actually is card game supposedly devised by the dwarfs of Mahakam in the Witcher universe, yet the cards you play look nothing like those in the Witcher 3, and in fact do not look like cards at all, just a square with a picture inside and a weird anime frame showing which faction the card is. Premium cards move for no reason, which looks cool but is inconsistent. For example golden cards moving can be explained in WoW and Hearthstone by the abundance of Magic, but in a Witcher setting just looks weird.

The board (which is supposed to be a tavern table or the sort) does not feel like a board, and instead of different board varieties (Like Velen Tavern for example or the more more luxurious tables like the ones at the Passiflora when a tournament occurs there, or perhaps even a table at the Nilfgaardian court in Vizima) , you get faction-designed cartoonish rows for each of the players, which also makes no sense at all.

What would be good is for the devs at CDPR to try at least to capture the feeling of being in an actual tavern, playing Gwent vs some poor sod from Velen, or a student from Oxenfurt or even a Nilfgaardian Noble. This board variety could also depend on the rank of the player or the mode of the game too. (like some sort of a cursed table if you are playing O'Dimm's arena)

Once this level of immersion is achieved, the game will become a lot more captivating, at least in my opinion.
 
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So lets get to a conclusion:

HS is based of a ancient MMO that looks and plays like a pixelated childrens game playable on any toaster you can get your hands on with very little attention to detail and artwork right out of this years toddlers coloring book.

Gwent on the other hand features a HD animated and mature artstyle capable of being rendered in 4K and playable only on next gen consoles and Pc's with at least a fairly decent CPU and in many cases also a dedicated GPU. Artwork and level of detail adds to immersion unprecedented in any other digital CCG on the market.

Good insight +1
 
So lets get to a conclusion:

HS is based of a ancient MMO that looks and plays like a pixelated childrens game playable on any toaster you can get your hands on with very little attention to detail and artwork right out of this years toddlers coloring book.

Gwent on the other hand features a HD animated and mature artstyle capable of being rendered in 4K and playable only on next gen consoles and Pc's with at least a fairly decent CPU and in many cases also a dedicated GPU. Artwork and level of detail adds to immersion unprecedented in any other digital CCG on the market.

Good insight +1

Let me get to a proper conclusion.

Hearthstone's art style is consistent with its parent game and is immersive.

Gwen't's art style is wacky and totally not in line with where it comes from, thus does not capture the feel properly.

That is not even including the hardware points you have thrown here, which were not the point at all.
 
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