Balance Changes - November 2023

[ShinAkira00]

Well it looks like the community will be spending most of it's time nerfing and reverting NG changes.

Nauzicaa is definitely being added back to the nerf list for the next cycle. Same for Alba, Slave Driver, Thirsty Dame and all the NG cards that were buffed. Battle Stations isn't here but That's going to the top of my list. None of these cards needed to be buffed. NG was just as broken over the past month which just demonstrates how overtuned the faction is. I didn't vote to nerf any NG cards in this last balance cycle because I didn't want to over nerf the faction and the balances were actually pretty fair but seeing this I'm definitely adding all these cards on the next one. It seems no amount of balancing will be done for other factions until NG is addressed because NG players will never be satisfied unless they have every broken card under the sun.

 

[WorstMetaEver]

Lowest winrate at top-500, top-100 and top-2500, almost no present at current tournaments (polish one, Nik_r tournament). Sure, NG after first council was OP, yeah.
At 2500-2600 NG was like 1 of 10 games. According to Lerio in his last 60 games was ONE NG at between 2500-2600 MMR.
Reverting changes was rather reasonable from community. Some wasnt needed imo (slave driver), yet ball and soldiers was left playable only at lower rank and wasnt even close to good, solid tier-2 decks this season. After this patch NG will be solid and strong (as ANY faction deserves to be), but definitely not OP.

Stop pretending like game with 6 faction is better when there is only 4,5 (SY was half-dead, NG was overnerfed and dead between patches) and leave those silly reddit-esque biase ranting about "broken cards". There is many broken cards indeed and other faction have their own. But if ALBA considered broken with 5 for 5 and lock it is some serious lack of undertsanding base game mechanics and trades between engines and control.
Nausica is fine playing 9 for 6? Due to assimilate procs? With drawback of being unable to be played at 1 round or during the push/bleed offensively round 2? Are you sure? Then look at deckbuilder at other factions 6 provision slot.

If anything isn't particular fair here, it is Slave Driver. With old state Nausica and alba he' too strong and versatile to be 5 provision card.

But overall reverting those nerfs (17 per faction with closest contender gets 6 nerfs and more buffs) is good choice as it brings more decks and arcehtypes to the game AND fixed faction balance.

 

[Brippe]

Oh no, the Alba, Slave driver and Nausica nightmare again.....
This system is a hot mess...

 

[Barracuda88]

Yeah, way too many NG buffs in this one. Joachim needed a buff, really? Rainfarn? Lol. Now, with pretty much all of the season's NG nerfs reversed and the new buffs on top of the buffs already given to Vigo and Braathens, get ready for the return of the idiotic 50% NG meta. Had a nice 1-month breather I guess.

 

[rrc]

In the end NG ended up as the clear winner and benefitted the most from BC

Almost all nerfs reverted and the sneaked in buffs to Vigo and Brathens stayed. It is going to be 80% NG matchups with all flavours of Assimilate dominating the meta. Well done everyone, especially the NG players. Congratulations. I only wish ST players are this passionate about their faction. If NG has one season with ST level of presence in the ladder, it gets buffed like crazy and here ST players are just OK with pathetic ST state and presence in ladder for months and months.

Slave Driver has no reason to be 5P and Sergent was fine at 3 power. But who am I to say. Let the NG carnage begin.

 

[ThorR_RPG]

"Thank you" NG lovers for bringing back "great" meta. 4 out of 5 first games after patch against NG. Congratulatios.

 

[Bakaaraloca]

View attachment 11373742

well as [...] dont play anything else than NG it's tottaly normal, alba armored cav should be 4 strenght or 6 provisions that's obvious, vilgefortz should be 10 prov , i dont understed why magic compas went 10 prov again, it's not an abused card, and build a deck focused on it is really hard

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

mutagenator 8 prov loooooool

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

i dont understend those [...] guys, it's not that hard to agree and fix things to make all factions playable but no, let's buf NG only and play only NG to make it a really boring game, are u guys happy playing NG again and again to face NG again and again ?

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

Oh no, the Alba, Slave driver and Nausica nightmare again.....
This system is a hot mess...

the system should be based on playing all the factions, wich mean u need to play at least 10 games with each factions to be able to vote, this will push NG noobs to play other things than NG and maybe make them a little more clever, or allow only peoples that know all factions to vote

 

[WorstMetaEver]

[...]

As those [...] player, perhaps, knows, reverting nerfs to NG was priority for some top-players. Namely Pajabol as well as some other polish pro.

As well our team voted for this changes (i personally skipped "wonderfully" balanced season where there was only three decks with variations: Nekker Pirates, Ogroids, Mutadegenerator abuse, yet at least one of my friends who votes same was at top-64 as usual).
Cause, you know, statistic matters. And nerfing whole faction to the ground along with some off-meta tier-2 (or lower) archetypes like BALL wasnt so great idea, so it is only natural to fix those stupidity. OFC NG required some nerfs last time (it was obvious that Batlle Station is straight OP for example) and i personally voted ONLY for nerfs for NG. Yet sheer amount of nerfs was so huge it literally killed the faction, so adressing this issue is, again, only natural.

[...] I voted for almost all those buffs (except for Slave Driver, which deserved nerf to 6 provision).

And here is my stats last time i played. Shitty placing cause, you know, usually you need more games to get to top-100 and i was lazy bitch.
[...]

 

[ThorgerWolff]

reverting nerfs

Not a big fan of reverting so soon after change.

personally skipped "wonderfully" balanced season where there was only three decks with variations: Nekker Pirates, Ogroids, Mutadegenerator abuse

True, still there must be a better way, we're jo-jo-ing now.

Cause, you know, statistic matters

They do, use these to revive the dead cards which should have been done prior balance council.

NG required some nerfs last time (it was obvious that Batlle Station is straight OP for example)

Also facts, but NG was nerfed too hard yes. Now, with lesser changes possible, we playing jojo unfortunately. I agree on some of the reverts but i dislike reverting change so soon.

Shitty placing cause, you know, usually you need more games to get to top-100 and i was lazy bitch.

Looks really good to me. Lazy? Maybe but sometimes you just have shtuff to do.

 

[Barracuda88]

[...]

As those [...] player, perhaps, knows, reverting nerfs to NG was priority for some top-players. Namely Pajabol as well as some other polish pro.

As well our team voted for this changes (i personally skipped "wonderfully" balanced season where there was only three decks with variations: Nekker Pirates, Ogroids, Mutadegenerator abuse, yet at least one of my friends who votes same was at top-64 as usual).

Oh yeah, because the meta before that was SO MUCH better: 5 NG decks and 1 from each of the rest of the factions, whichever one was the least affected by NG. Oh, and ST with the meme deck, which was since "nerfed to the ground," but not a priority for "top players" I guess.

Cause, you know, statistic matters. And nerfing whole faction to the ground along with some off-meta tier-2 (or lower) archetypes like BALL wasnt so great idea, so it is only natural to fix those stupidity. OFC NG required some nerfs last time (it was obvious that Batlle Station is straight OP for example) and i personally voted ONLY for nerfs for NG. Yet sheer amount of nerfs was so huge it literally killed the faction, so adressing this issue is, again, only natural.

[...] I voted for almost all those buffs (except for Slave Driver, which deserved nerf to 6 provision).

So funny, this talk of stupidity. The Dame is LITERALLY Fleder, except it boost for EVERY status instead of just bleeding AND it has no turn counter, so where Fleder is capped to only the first bleeding applied, the Dame can potentially boost 5,6,7 points per turn easy, but aw, it's NG and the ball is "2nd tier" so "top players" don't think it should be the same provision as Fleder. Cuz ball will get killed, sadface.

"Literally killed the faction." No, you know what happened? "The faction" stopped being in every freaking other matchup on the ladder. Not that it doesn't deserve to be killed, but unfortunately we can't all get what we want.

And here is my stats last time i played. Shitty placing cause, you know, usually you need more games to get to top-100 and i was lazy bitch.
[...]

View attachment 11373757

But I don't have stats or friends in top 64 or names to drop, so what do I know?

 

[Philido]

By far not all meaningful nerfs for NG have been reverted. The faction will probably still be one of the weaker ones in terms of power, so maybe a little bit more is needed. But this council has definitely been a huge step towards NG's resurrection.

 

[ShinAkira00]

As well our team voted for this changes (i personally skipped "wonderfully" balanced season where there was only three decks with variations: Nekker Pirates, Ogroids, Mutadegenerator abuse, yet at least one of my friends who votes same was at top-64 as usual).
Cause, you know, statistic matters. And nerfing whole faction to the ground along with some off-meta tier-2 (or lower) archetypes like BALL wasnt so great idea, so it is only natural to fix those stupidity. OFC NG required some nerfs last time (it was obvious that Batlle Station is straight OP for example) and i personally voted ONLY for nerfs for NG. Yet sheer amount of nerfs was so huge it literally killed the faction, so adressing this issue is, again, only natural.



View attachment 11373757

Valid statistics matter, not ones that are nitpicked from unofficial sources. "Trust me bro my friend said, is not valid statistics". NG wasn't nerfed to the ground, again this is just generalizing and over exaggeration.

If NG was killed why on earth did it still have a presence on the ladder in the past month? I didn't face them 80% of the time like previously, maybe 50% but that is in no way a bad thing. Ppl want to play other factions. None of the previous nerfs were bad. it's literally 1 provision or 1 power changes. Ppl could have even voted to nerf it a second time and they didn't which suggests no one is trying to kill the faction but maybe that is what needs to be the priority. That way we can move on to balancing the other factions.

 

[WorstMetaEver]

How convenient there is one.

Valid statistics matter, not ones that are nitpicked from unofficial sources. "Trust me bro my friend said, is not valid statistics". NG wasn't nerfed to the ground, again this is just generalizing and over exaggeration.

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

Ah, and one more thing

None of the previous nerfs were bad. it's literally 1 provision or 1 power changes.

Quantity. Overall many nerfs was reasonable, yet it was overkill due to sheer amount of nerfs (as i said earlier - 17 compared to closest contender with 6, even now NG suffered quite strong blows, which is overall fine for me, cause pre-nerf NG was somewhat too good).

Look at aristocrats - simpliest example, cause they havent see play at high MMR or on tournaments. -3 provision (or even -4 IF played with Battle Station) and quite severe nerf to key engine (in case of Phillip -1 power is a difference between cheap control or hard removal/expensive control. Any strong engine fate decided not only be potential effect, but by they ability to stick to the board).
Previously lesser sum of nerfs many times proved to be lethal even for strongest meta-decks.
T2 deck (ball wasn't weak, but was FAR from being top-tier) cannot survive such avalanche of nerfs.

Soldiers and enslave was much stronger, but, again, too much nerf to one deck and deck is obliterated.
It is unhealthy. Nerf something that is overplayed and too oppressive? Sure, whatever. Kill deck outright? Well, if Gwentifinity aimed to leave LESSER playable decks overall - fine, great, that is the way.

 

[Selestes]

Why would someone vote for reverting ng???

Are you not tired of bloody Vilg in every deck? Bloody nausica spam 4-5 copies with Ramon and slave drivers??
Ng 7 games out 10???

Such a disappointment ((

 

[ShinAkira00]

How convenient there is one.


View attachment 11373769

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

Ah, and one more thing


Quantity. Overall many nerfs was reasonable, yet it was overkill due to sheer amount of nerfs (as i said earlier - 17 compared to closest contender with 6, even now NG suffered quite strong blows, which is overall fine for me, cause pre-nerf NG was somewhat too good).

Look at aristocrats - simpliest example, cause they havent see play at high MMR or on tournaments. -3 provision (or even -4 IF played with Battle Station) and quite severe nerf to key engine (in case of Phillip -1 power is a difference between cheap control or hard removal/expensive control. Any strong engine fate decided not only be potential effect, but by they ability to stick to the board).
Previously lesser sum of nerfs many times proved to be lethal even for strongest meta-decks.
T2 deck (ball wasn't weak, but was FAR from being top-tier) cannot survive such avalanche of nerfs.

Soldiers and enslave was much stronger, but, again, too much nerf to one deck and deck is obliterated.
It is unhealthy. Nerf something that is overplayed and too oppressive? Sure, whatever. Kill deck outright? Well, if Gwentifinity aimed to leave LESSER playable decks overall - fine, great, that is the way.

Sure, drop the official CDPR link to the Play rates AND Win rates and I'll give it a look. We'll need to compare October with the previous months to establish this "killed" faction you are claiming the balances caused. Noting also that those balance changes took effect towards the latter part of October so what you shared is already not valid to your claim. For a "killed" faction it also very much seems to be alive from your chart but I'll wait for the official CDPR link before speculating further. Whatever you've just shared looking at one piece of stat in a vacuum with several discrepancies isn't how stats work so I'll be happy to look at the whole thing. I'll wait for that official data spreadsheet.

 

[Selestes]

There are >1000 dead cards, but hey, let's buff ng even more, Joachim, rainfarn, even madam which is already playable and good...

 

[luk757]

There are >1000 dead cards, but hey, let's buff ng even more, Joachim, rainfarn, even madam which is already playable and good...

This is partly due to players laziness/lack of time. People don't even want to waste time scrolling through over 1,000 cards and thinking about it, so most people rely on the meta from the last 3-4 months max. It's like building a deck, what % of people create it themselves? That's why so few forgotten cards are in this list. ~50 changes are the minimum to see some progress, because half of them will be a reversal of the previous ones.

 

[Draconifors]

It's getting really old having to say this over and over again: If you want to post here, you are required to always be respectful towards everyone.

Several posts edited and deleted due to their posters failing to follow that simple rule.

 

[quintivarium]

I think there is one major oversight in most of this Balance Council Discussion -- and certainly in the voting so far. That is failure to look ahead beyond the "next" meta. Given the structure of Balance Council, as long as there are sufficient votes, there will basically be one nerf for every buff. Thus, for any deck to be made better, another deck must be made worse. NG status decks being unable to compete in the top meta is not justification for reverting fully justifiable nerfs -- what would justify the buffs would be the deck being noncompetitive with average decks -- at least those that are well constructed. Clearly NG status decks do not perform badly against the likes of ST traps, SY spendthrift (decks based upon Casimir, Evaline, and other cards that benefit from spending all coins every turn), MO Rat Swarm, SK Healing, bonded Bandits, NG mages, NR Witchers, etc. If NG status (and other recently nerfed decks) are no longer top meta, fix that by nerfing better meta decks -- not by burning boosts that are desperately needed by literally dozens of archetypes that are in much worse shape.

Before every vote, we should ask what the game will likely look like in 6 months if these votes go through. What I've seen from Balance Council so far suggests a game that will be virtually unchanged. This is OK only if you truly believe the current state of Gwent the the best it could possibly be.

 

[WorstMetaEver]

I think there is one major oversight in most of this Balance Council Discussion -- and certainly in the voting so far. That is failure to look ahead beyond the "next" meta. Given the structure of Balance Council, as long as there are sufficient votes, there will basically be one nerf for every buff. Thus, for any deck to be made better, another deck must be made worse. NG status decks being unable to compete in the top meta is not justification for reverting fully justifiable nerfs -- what would justify the buffs would be the deck being noncompetitive with average decks -- at least those that are well constructed. Clearly NG status decks do not perform badly against the likes of ST traps, SY spendthrift (decks based upon Casimir, Evaline, and other cards that benefit from spending all coins every turn), MO Rat Swarm, SK Healing, bonded Bandits, NG mages, NR Witchers, etc. If NG status (and other recently nerfed decks) are no longer top meta, fix that by nerfing better meta decks -- not by burning boosts that are desperately needed by literally dozens of archetypes that are in much worse shape.

So, instead of leaving alone what works and buffing what doesnt we must make already viable decks thrash like mentioned "Rat Swarm" or "SK healing"?. You havent named a SINGLE average deck. This is utter garbage, that plays only at 2300 or ranks. This is'nt AVERAGE, this is deck that must be buffed to became at least viable. Average is something like White Frost - deck that isnttop-tier, but with skill and knowledge you can compete with it.

Well, bad news there is quite many decent decks here. Deatwhish, by such standards, must get nerf treatment. As well as White Frost, Warriors, Pirates (compass-less), Bounty and many others.
Thats rather strange aproach.

Why dont we leave alone decent tier-2 decks and just buff others to their level, meanwile from time to time adjusting real tier-1 decks?

Community butchered tier-2 deck, not "brought deserved nerfs to top-tier".

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

Sure, drop the official CDPR link to the Play rates AND Win rates and I'll give it a look. We'll need to compare October with the previous months to establish this "killed" faction you are claiming the balances caused. Noting also that those balance changes took effect towards the latter part of October so what you shared is already not valid to your claim. For a "killed" faction it also very much seems to be alive from your chart but I'll wait for the official CDPR link before speculating further. Whatever you've just shared looking at one piece of stat in a vacuum with several discrepancies isn't how stats work so I'll be happy to look at the whole thing. I'll wait for that official data spreadsheet.

Look at Gwent-data yourself.
You will see that NG playrate was ABSURDLY high pre-nerf, but winrate was quite low. So pre-nerf NG was somewhat problematic.
But post-nerf NG got average playrayte and lowest winrate which is porblematic.

https://www.gwentdata.com/