clear skies and weather: unhealthy game design

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I was about to make this same thread! Good stuff! :) My thoughts:

I had a decent chunk of hours in the closed beta but inevitably stopped playing for all of the reasons mentioned above with weather. At the end of the day, while we like to pretend that 'weather' is some cool new feature that CDPR made up, its not. It's simply a recurring AOE effect that requires immediate action, under a cool new name called 'weather'. As mentioned by others, this kind of effect is very unhealthy for a card game without cheap tech cards that effectively counter it; which is why it isn't a staple in many popular card games out there. Since coming back to the game I've been pretty satisfied with the changes to weather, at least its headed in the right direction. They've made the AOE smaller, for most effects, and added more 'wut we'll pretend are tech cards'. The unfortunate reality is that they haven't solved the key problem with weather; tech cards need to punish exponentially harder, or the effect needs to be limited - none of this infinite value bullshit.




EXAMPLE OF PROBLEMS:

In the current state of the game a bronze weather effect beats out a bronze weather tech, a silver weather effect beats out a silver tech, and a gold weather effect is just gonna kick your ass; mainly because you can cash in the weather damage at the start of your opponents turn to get instant value before your opponent can react; very "fun and interactive" ;P . Let's say your opponent plays the frosty wild hunt guy, so he instantly gets 5 + <# of non-gold units in your largest row>, you then respond with, correct me if I'm wrong, the best bronze weather tech, clear skies to clear the weather effect. To sum it up you only put clear skies in as a weather tech and when you got the perfect opportunity to play it you still went something closed to -7-10. Better yet, let's get more efficient, instead of clear skies we will clear the weather with a griffin dude, which I believe is 7 strength. Summing that up your closed to net 0 or net negative a few...realistically. This is where the problem lies, net trade for weather tech cards of the same color in optimal situations are realistically 0 - <-1-3>. Tech cards in these situation NEED to be netting 5-10 for this kind of effect to be healthy for the game. Mind you this is the optimal situation, that you instantly have the best response; most of the time you wont though, it just happens. In those scenarios weather can outright win you a round.

Another: I know alot of people are complaining about 'Drought' and RNR so I'm not gonna pile on I just want to lay out some current argument and address a positive realistic situation. Situation: Your opponent plays one of the above and instantly get 6-9 value realistically, you then counter with a silver which spawns clear skies; mind you this is optimal. Net result is -3-6, but but but you just traded a silver for a gold, which does carry a decent about of weight. And that would be OKAY if it wasn't the optimal tech trade situation, if that was an average to slightly below average situation than its fine. The issue is that the average net for these two cards in a trade is probably about 21+, mainly because the high roll potential is limitless and singlehandedly wins games.




PROPOSED SOLUTIONS:

--- Limited Duration--- > Give each weather effect a limited max turn duration. This would be very easy to add to the text of the card and the UI, you could simply add a counter to the right of a weathered row. While this wont solve the best case net negative tech trade issue, it will address the FACT that the AVERAGE net trade of weather cards is too positive in weather's favor. It places a cap on the highroll potential and thus lower the cards average value. For instance, for 'Drought' and RNR place a 3 turn cap on the effect; the caps could be different depending on the weather effect. This still provides the weather user with instant damage whilst capping damage in the absolute worst case to be 27. While this seems bad, it should allow good players with any deck to properly play around them to the point where their average value is that of most other gold cards. This would also offer up new design avenues as cards could extend and shorten the duration of weather effects.

--- Actual Fucking Weather Tech Cards...Jesus Christ --- > Let's stop pretending that the tech cards in their current state actually do their job, cause as we've seen above they are generally net negative in the best case on trade. In my opinion weather tech cards when trading at their same color level should net the following: Bronze = 5, Silver = 10, Gold = 15. The higher the rarity the more specific the tech effect but the larger the effect. For instance for bronze you could have a card like griffin dude but if he removes weather from the row he is on buff him by 6. Since frosty hunt guy is about 7-9 stats realistically with the damage, this would put net optimal trade at about 5. In fact you could even lower griffin dudes base strength and up the tech effect. A proposed gold card could be a six strength gold which has the ability "If all rows are effected by weather, then SPAWN 'clear skies' and BOOST self 18." You may think this is crazy, but many games it will be a 6 drop gold...pretty shit. On the other hand if you properly counter an AOE weather then you are greatly rewarded. Lets look at the above example again; Opponent plays RNR gets about 9 damage realistically, you play <New Card> clearing the weather and getting a 24 strength gold. Net effect on optimal trade is about 15. On average the tech card is probably a below average gold card but when it hits IT ACTUALLY DOES ITS FUCKING JOB...UNLIKE THE CURRENT WEATHER TECH! It's like 'Eater of Secrets' in HS, on average its below average for its power level, but when it hits it wipes the fucking floor with your opponent.

---- Make Weather an End of Turn Effect --- > I much prefer the two previous solutions, but if you're feeling particularly lazy this would be a VERY SIMPLY way to make weather more "fun and interactive"; also this helps with net optimal tech trades.




LASTLY:

I just hope that we stop seeing weather cards as 'weather cards' and start seeing them as AOE infinity value cards that trade net positive even in their worst matchups. There is a reason AOE recurring damage effects aren't a staple of DCGs; balancing is a bitch and it's incredibly unhealthy for the game even when it is balanced. More than any effect in the Gwent, losing to an infinite value single weather effect makes you not want to play another game.

CDPR you guys have been making incredible changes to the game since I joined in the closed beta and I have no doubt that the game will become even more incredible than it already is. Thank you for all your work and the great content that you've provided thus far! I know that many others, myself included still do not believe that weather is in a healthy state for the game, even ignoring balancing issues. Please continue to adapt and evolve the game; maybe even add the top two suggestions from above ;)

Thanks for listening,
p3wp3wp3w
 
Laveley;n8661250 said:
I claim that the majority of the units are agile and that is simply true.

Have you noticed the game completely changed from CB?

Leaders, factions, card abilities...why, of all things, agile units' number should remain the same?
 
There are loads of way to deal with weather, LOADS.
ST dwarves can move units outside of weather and have units that can spawn clear light, reuse special cards and even duplicate them.
NR has armor and units that can spawn clear light.
NG has horse (don't know the name) units that can clear weather on rows.
Monsters have a few units that can also spawn clear light and have griffins that can clear weather on rows.
Skellige has resurrection and basically build their units while they're in the graveyard.
Not to mention the ordinary bronze Clear Light units that you can add x3 in your deck.

And there are even more cards I don't know about that have similar weather clearing effects.

You just need to learn to play around weather and it's relatively easy once you get a hang of it.
Not all people use weather, not all know how to use it well.

I won rounds with Ragh Nar Roog by outnumbering my opponent since all my units were on one side and I kept buffing the highest one.

P.S. I don't get people that complain that they have to add weather counter cards to their decks. You have to be prepared for everything.
P.S.S. Look how much weather Monster decks can spam and people still complain that Monsters are too weak and easy to beat. So weather is not an issue.
 
Checco515;n8663420 said:
Have you noticed the game completely changed from CB? Leaders, factions, card abilities...why, of all things, agile units' number should remain the same?

So yout argument is; if we change one thing we have to change it all (even the things that are already good)?

Whats the logic on this?

I already said on previous posts why i think the rows restriction on the majority of units was a good game mechanic, i'm not gonna keep repeting myself, sorry.
 
Instead of nerfing weather, I think it'd be a cooler and more interesting decision gameplay-wise to introduce new cards that clear weather without a significant tempo loss. Things like Archgriffin.
 
to be perfectly honest, i dont feel any chances of the public beta update improved the gameplay. they certainly tried to adress certain issues, but most problems as a whole have just gotten worse.
 
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