Almost all card games have problems with this, and several worked in different ways and did not succeed, I think in the card game community we have to get used to this problem that will always exist and ask for a rate between 45% and 55% of difference of who goes first and second (I do not know the rate of gwent).
Steped;n10745011 said:
Yes I agree it is a problem in all card games in fact both in HS and magic the win rate difference is 55-45. However, in Gwent from what people were reporting going 2nd gives a 70-80% win rate, much higher than going first.
I feel like the problem is that unlike HS or magic where going first gives you board presence and forces your opponent to react to you, in gwent going 2nd gives you card advantage arguably the most important factor in card games and unlike other card games, gwent has very few cards to give you card advantage (and only the silver spy is really viable in the current meta) which makes the going first or 2nd discrepancy really huge.
Thanks for all the feedback. There are lots of interesting ideas posted by folks. Hopefully CDPR will take a close look at some of these and do some internal testing to see if any of the are viable and try those out on a PTR.
Even if coin flip only affects a small percentage of ladder play, it would be good to have some way to mitigate if not outright balance (probably not possible), the advantages that go with playing 2nd.
Even if coin flip only affects a small percentage of ladder play, it would be good to have some way to mitigate if not outright balance (probably not possible), the advantages that go with playing 2nd.
Hi, I was thinking about the red/blue problem and came up with a fairly simple idea:
What if Blue always went second in round 2 regardless of winning or losing round 1?
This doesn't directly solve the problem of red being able to gain card advantage if blue tries to play round 1, but what it does do is allow the blue player to regain the lost card advantage in round 2. Currently if blue tries to win round 1 they will often be forced to go 2 cards down, and then will be unable to regain more than 1 card in round 2, because they are going first again. However, if they get to go second in round 2 even after winning round 1, they have an equal opportunity to regain the 2 cards lost, bringing the cards back to equal in round 3.
Of course in the case of red winning round 1 the game plays identically to before, but I don't think that is a problem at all; In the current system most blue players are quite happy to give up the first round for 1 card advantage.
Basically this suggestion gives both players a 'winning' position in round 1: Red by winning on equal cards, or Blue by winning 1 card down. There are also the two fairly break-even positions: Red winning a card down, or Blue winning 2 cards down. The reason Blue winning 1 card down is actually a 'winning' position is because they can potentially gain 2 cards in round 2 and be 1 card up in round 3 as a result.
I'm not sure how first player in round 3 should be determined, possibly the winner of round 2 goes first as usual.
What if Blue always went second in round 2 regardless of winning or losing round 1?
This doesn't directly solve the problem of red being able to gain card advantage if blue tries to play round 1, but what it does do is allow the blue player to regain the lost card advantage in round 2. Currently if blue tries to win round 1 they will often be forced to go 2 cards down, and then will be unable to regain more than 1 card in round 2, because they are going first again. However, if they get to go second in round 2 even after winning round 1, they have an equal opportunity to regain the 2 cards lost, bringing the cards back to equal in round 3.
Of course in the case of red winning round 1 the game plays identically to before, but I don't think that is a problem at all; In the current system most blue players are quite happy to give up the first round for 1 card advantage.
Basically this suggestion gives both players a 'winning' position in round 1: Red by winning on equal cards, or Blue by winning 1 card down. There are also the two fairly break-even positions: Red winning a card down, or Blue winning 2 cards down. The reason Blue winning 1 card down is actually a 'winning' position is because they can potentially gain 2 cards in round 2 and be 1 card up in round 3 as a result.
I'm not sure how first player in round 3 should be determined, possibly the winner of round 2 goes first as usual.
Jeydra;n10780141 said:
Indeed, if you get outplayed in round 1 you'll still get punished. The thing is though, you can usually play another card if player 2 passes and win two cards down. In the current system this is just as bad as going even cards and losing, because you get punished for winning by going first again in round 2. With my suggestion winning round 1 two cards down is not such a bad position and is recoverable with a strong round 2.
EDIT: Also to note if you're playing vs carryover like wardancers: In the current system if you win round 1 and the enemy has carryover, you don't even have the option of drypassing round 2 to get 1 CA back, whereas if you always go second in round 2 after going first round 1, at least player 2 has to play a card first or risk getting 2-0'd; You can always get minimum one card back with the instant pass.
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Kramin42;n10780271 said:
Hmm, seems like a partial solution then. Not a full fix, but a partial solution.
EDIT: Actually no. This makes it dangerous for the player with the red coin to lose round 1, which he very well can, e.g. opponent plays Half-elf Hunter, I play Wild Hunt Hound. He passes. Next round he has Wardancer + I'm going first ... yeowch.
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Jeydra;n10785121 said:
Assuming you play 1 more card after he passes to win the round 1 card down (the correct thing to do), I don't see how this is any different to the current system. If you win round 1 on red coin the game plays exactly the same. It's only when you win round 1 on blue coin that the game is different, as you get to go second in round 2 rather than first again.
But yes, you're right it can be dangerous to lose round 2 as red. I don't see how that is a bad thing, it should be dangerous to lose a round. Currently there's almost no risk playing into round 1 as red coin while the blue coin player has a lot to lose if they can't keep up on tempo.
My idea is that by removing the "going first in round 2" penalty that blue gets for winning round 1, round 1 becomes hotly contested as both players have something to lose. If red gives up too easily, they open themselves up to get pressured in round 2, however if blue doesn't keep up on tempo, they could be forced into the choice of 'lose on equal cards' or 'win 2 cards down'.
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Coin-Flip Considerations
Just something that popped in to my head last night:
- What if after I lose the coinflip (i.e. I have the blue coin and need to go first) I would have the one-time opportunity to switch my deck in reaction to when I see what my opponent is playing (obviously before the mulligan is happening)? This would be a bit similar to the tournaments where I can determine to "some extent" what my opponent will play and select my best answer to it. Not sure whether that could count as a coin-flip fix, but we all know that some match-ups are more favourable than others and getting the flexibility to respond to my opponents deck with one of my decks that is possibly better suited than the one I have in my hand might compensate at least partially for the fact I have to play first.
- Obviously the other thing that many people would like to see is that the theoretical 50% red/blue appearance is actually happening when playing. Now I realize that even with a 1000 games 50% may not be guaranteed simply by statistics. Therefore some mechanism should be in place where a rough 50% is mandated during one day of playing (i.e. coin-flip history of a player as an additional match-making parameter in addition to rank, mmr and level or whatever is currently used).
Just something that popped in to my head last night:
- What if after I lose the coinflip (i.e. I have the blue coin and need to go first) I would have the one-time opportunity to switch my deck in reaction to when I see what my opponent is playing (obviously before the mulligan is happening)? This would be a bit similar to the tournaments where I can determine to "some extent" what my opponent will play and select my best answer to it. Not sure whether that could count as a coin-flip fix, but we all know that some match-ups are more favourable than others and getting the flexibility to respond to my opponents deck with one of my decks that is possibly better suited than the one I have in my hand might compensate at least partially for the fact I have to play first.
- Obviously the other thing that many people would like to see is that the theoretical 50% red/blue appearance is actually happening when playing. Now I realize that even with a 1000 games 50% may not be guaranteed simply by statistics. Therefore some mechanism should be in place where a rough 50% is mandated during one day of playing (i.e. coin-flip history of a player as an additional match-making parameter in addition to rank, mmr and level or whatever is currently used).
I've seen this suggestion in another topic, and sounds interesting.
To be honest I think the "fun" part of it would get old very soon, as it wouldn't be long before a consensus arises in the community of what constitutes as the fair value of going second, so everybody would bid about the same amount of points. So not much deep strategic considerations and outwitting your opponent. But that's fine. In this sense it would pretty much be just a more flexible variation of other ideas here that suggest giving first player some fixed amount of points or a quasi-spy (which would usually just mean other player goes first but gets 13 points in exchange).
What I like about it in particular though, that it scales automatically with the meta. I.e. there's no need to guess beforehand the right amount of points to give to first player, it would emerge organically from the community just like the latest way of how to abuse your spy nowadays. Also if there's some change in the meta that would suggest a different "market value" for going second, there would be no need to re-balance it, the players would just adapt to it in their bidding.
While I don't think points for going first is a perfect solution, it still goes a long way of creating a balance: first player has the advantage of being able to win R1 easier, while in exchange second player could still force out a card advantage if outplaying first player, it just wouldn't be as easy as now.
So it all sounds reasonable, except this part:
While I would still very much prefer leveling the playing field on the most important CA aspect instead of giving different advantages to the players (extra points vs going second), I still find it a pretty good suggestion, if we want to go this way after all. Although probably I like it for different reasons than Udalryk.Udalryk;n10924166 said:
To be honest I think the "fun" part of it would get old very soon, as it wouldn't be long before a consensus arises in the community of what constitutes as the fair value of going second, so everybody would bid about the same amount of points. So not much deep strategic considerations and outwitting your opponent. But that's fine. In this sense it would pretty much be just a more flexible variation of other ideas here that suggest giving first player some fixed amount of points or a quasi-spy (which would usually just mean other player goes first but gets 13 points in exchange).
What I like about it in particular though, that it scales automatically with the meta. I.e. there's no need to guess beforehand the right amount of points to give to first player, it would emerge organically from the community just like the latest way of how to abuse your spy nowadays
. Also if there's some change in the meta that would suggest a different "market value" for going second, there would be no need to re-balance it, the players would just adapt to it in their bidding.While I don't think points for going first is a perfect solution, it still goes a long way of creating a balance: first player has the advantage of being able to win R1 easier, while in exchange second player could still force out a card advantage if outplaying first player, it just wouldn't be as easy as now.
So it all sounds reasonable, except this part:
If I understand it correctly, this feels like a bad idea to me for so many reasons:Udalryk;n10924166 said:
- I don't think it would actually incentivize higher bids. If you think about it, you're better off with both a higher and a lower bid: on higher bid you would get second play (maybe for a slightly higher price than what you'd like but still), while with lower bid you would at least get the full amount of points. So the only thing it would incentivize is avoiding to bid the same points as opponent (of which you have no certain way of knowing). Unless of course you feel lucky with the coinflip. So it's just pure RNG.
- The other thing it would incentivize is kicking the one who's already down. I mean I bid some amount of points meaning I would be okay of handing out this many points for going second. But my opponent - thinking the very same - bids the same and alas coinflip doesn't like me so I have to go first after all. Not only that but I don't even get the full amount of points? That doesn't sound fair.
- It actually counters what the bidding system suggests. When I bid some amount of points (say 13 ), basically I make a deal: I'm stating that I'm willing to play in a 13 point disadvantage if I can go second. In exchange I'm guaranteed to get at least 13 points if I have to go first. Except if we randomly bid the same and I lose coinflip then my guarantee just goes away.
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time_drainer;n10946225 said:
What I had in mind was that it incentivizes those who really don't want to go first, to bid higher. Those who don't want let anything to chance. Since 3/4 of bidden points would punish them 50% of the time (in addition to going first). But if going second, would be better for them. I thought this was a funny way to make it more interesting. But it's not a fundamental thing that has to exist in this system.
Good constructive feedback!
Just a note, you would probably not get those ghost points if the first card you play is a CA spy (you can still get them after, playing any other card). And you would never get them if your opponent passes after you for example play your spy. And I think CA spies in general must get some kind of rework. I guess you can increase their power to begin with (if no rework is in plans). To avoid some of their issues, they should probably just be 12 and boost by 3 when placed in enemy row, to 15.
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Voyagers;n10745101 said:
I have said this many times here; on CB conflip wasnt that much of a problem, people barely complained about it really, just because there were so many CA gain tools around. The devs went on the wrong direction (the history of this game, really) of restricting CA gain as much as possible and this created the monster of coin flip problem and people are even becoming to question the existence of spies now, even though on CB they were much better than now and werent auto-include since there was better options to acquire CA.
This is the classic case were no matter how much you nerf things, people will always complain about how broken is the next slightly worse one. Thats why you dont go around nerfing everything and straight up removing mechanics you think are problematic instead of trying to balance it first because, in the end, you are left with a head or tails game.
Laveley, Gwent was completely different before though. When many problems got fixed, only one problem emerged, spies. Not the worst trade. I'm not talking about midwinder update, wardancers, summoning circle, but earlier than that. Of course I agree that the game went in the wrong direction almost from the start (but it always had bad foundation to begin with). It's true that some of that old more complicated Gwent should return, but I just don't agree it should return in the same way. I always welcome complexity and depth, but the older Gwent wasn't the best answer to that.
Udalryk;n10946273 said:
Only one problem emerged? Yeah.. no.
And obviously the game was completely different before. Thats basically what i said without specifically saying it. Not just that but the game didnt had a coin flip problem.... i though i was clear enough really. And its good to realize why the game didnt had that problem back than.
I also heavily disagree that the game had a bad foundation. The game had a great foundation; row significance, yep, factions identities, also yes, tactically deep and skill favored, oh yeah, witcher dark theme? also yes.
Obviously it had its problems but the majority of them have nothing to do with what we have now. The game was full of bugs and imbalances, but the majority of things that the community is asking for now and are pointed out on homecoming were already present there.
gwent on CB was a rough diamond. Gwent now is an empty shell.
Well, in a game where you're guaranteed to get to play to the last card this is exactly the direction you want to go in my opinion. More cards doesn't just give you more options like in games where you can get killed and stuck with cards in your hand. It also directly contributes to your end goal, i.e. points that wins you the game. Any effect that comes from a CA card is basically free, cause you get a new card, that you're get to play in addition. Which is on top of the other benefits like better access to your key cards, being able to delay playing your finishers, etc. I mean even if the "effect" of the CA card is giving your opponent 13 points it's still OP. I couldn't imagine how broken the game was if it wasn't even the best CA option. Would people even bother to play other cards than ones that gives you CA?Laveley;n10946261 said:
Ah, but that's enough, I don't want to get sucked into another conversation about the "good old days".
To summarize I think the only thing they did wrong is not seeing this to the end and remove the CA spies as well along with coming up with a fix for the coin flip CA issue.
(CA options along the line of Ciri and Ocvist (so hard work, high risk and counterable) might be okay, though I wouldn't shed too much tears if they got removed as well.)
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