Defender unbalances the game and other cards and create anti-gameplay while restricting viable deck options

[Jamborinio]

Maybe if Defenders only defended the immediately adjacent unit to its left or right or units both left and right, that would better balance their reach vs simply defending the whole row per se?

Without them, however, I could see a whole raft of cards being simply not worth it because removal is so powerful at taking out cards in one go. Anything at 4 or 5 value that you need to stay alive would be almost impossible without some defence.

More armour is an interesting alternative and upping base levels for key units might help, but then row attacks would need to be stronger for them to create any value whatsoever.

 

[StanislavOZZO]

You don't need, you think you need, but that is not true, I don't know why everyone is sensitive over some cards and wants to remove them at all costs, just do your Strategy, your Strategy brings in power aswell, I don't even include Bomb heaver in my main deck, and I usually win even if the opponent plays it's Scenario, it's not as if their cards will prevent you from playing your cards.

That's the thing, mate. I do not include those counter cards in my decks. And then I notice that quite often the reason for losing was that I did not purify that defender or destroyed that scenario.

 

[quintivarium]

Every argument I have heard against defenders is based upon one of the following:

Whining: I don’t like defenders, they have to go.

Hypocrisy: It’s not fair that I need one extra card to neutralize your defender, but it is fine for you to have to take a dozen to protect against my poison, locks, thefts, damage, ...

Falsehood: Defenders require all decks to tech from a very small pool of otherwise useless cards like Yennifer, Philipa, Vattier, Yrden, Regis, Ragh Nar Roog, Scorch, Dragon’s Dream, Heatwave, Axii, Maraal, Colossal Ifrit, Aard, Igni, Curse of Corruption, Rockslide, Surrender, Skellige Storm, Tesham Myrna Sword, Lacerate, Tempest, Stammelford’s Tremors, Rock Barrage, Moondust, Red Haze, Strays of Spalla, Pellar, Spring Equinox...

Tunnel vision: Cards are perfectly balanced by their risk and reward. This must never be affected by the cards around them.

 

[mazeebra]

Tunnel vision: Cards are perfectly balanced by their risk and reward. This must never be affected by the cards around them.

Sadly the game has never been more unbalanced than it is now. So many weak and useless cards and so many strong auto-include cards. In addition you have a really silly tech situation and binary win/lose conditions introduced with scenario and defender, heaver, purify.

Nothing is being done about either of these situation and it creates boring and non-strategic gameplay with only a very few decks being played at all, making it not only boring but dreary.

Personally I liked the game more before Ofir as it was more strategic and there was more room for creativity and different gameplay. Sure, the game was not perfectly balanced, but it was certainly well balanced compared to what it is now. It was more about the deck type and how you played it rather than just a few decks and no strategy at all.

I came from strategical games, and I like that kind of stuff, but Gwent has never been less strategic than it currently is for as long as I have played it (first post-beta release). People just copy decks consisting of cards with abnormally large deviations from the normal/average and play those. Forget playing any of the cards that used to be good, because now they are just plain bad, and no effort has been made to correct the abnormally large negative and positive deviations (aka balance the game).

If new players can just copy a deck and make it, and everyone just play those same decks, then goodnight. Funny thing is half the game was crying like babies when Skellen and Damien were still good cards. Ironically it was the defender that was the issue, not damien and skellen.

 

[bots_killer]

I find a tall defender okish (within reason) but 2 defenders on one side of the board, even if they are just 1/2 points is unacceptable.

 

[Tyr117]

That's the thing, mate. I do not include those counter cards in my decks. And then I notice that quite often the reason for losing was that I did not purify that defender or destroyed that scenario.

It depends on your deck, that is, you must know the powers of your deck and it's weaknesses and add some cards based around this, for example, I don't need a bomb heaver in my GS deck, because I can outpoint the opponent even if they play their scenario, so a bomb heaver is a waste of card for this deck, but I need purify, in order to deal with lock, Poisen, and Defender to be able to damage the enemy, and be able to use my Morkvag.
Now on the other hand with my Deathwish deck, I don't need purify, because it's a waste, since i don't interact with the enemy board that much, and there are very few Defenders anyway (the only time this deck is Screwed is when opponent plays Cahir, which is Luckily rare), and as a whole purify is not effective Vs Poisen NG, but I do need bomb heaver because i don't bring as much power as my GS deck, therefore I need to be ready for Scenarios.

Post automatically merged: May 28, 2020

Sadly the game has never been more unbalanced than it is now. So many weak and useless cards and so many strong auto-include cards. In addition you have a really silly tech situation and binary win/lose conditions introduced with scenario and defender, heaver, purify.

Nothing is being done about either of these situation and it creates boring and non-strategic gameplay with only a very few decks being played at all, making it not only boring but dreary.

Personally I liked the game more before Ofir as it was more strategic and there was more room for creativity and different gameplay. Sure, the game was not perfectly balanced, but it was certainly well balanced compared to what it is now. It was more about the deck type and how you played it rather than just a few decks and no strategy at all.

I came from strategical games, and I like that kind of stuff, but Gwent has never been less strategic than it currently is for as long as I have played it (first post-beta release). People just copy decks consisting of cards with abnormally large deviations from the normal/average and play those. Forget playing any of the cards that used to be good, because now they are just plain bad, and no effort has been made to correct the abnormally large negative and positive deviations (aka balance the game).

If new players can just copy a deck and make it, and everyone just play those same decks, then goodnight. Funny thing is half the game was crying like babies when Skellen and Damien were still good cards. Ironically it was the defender that was the issue, not damien and skellen.

Problem was Damien and Skellen, Because even if you immediately dealt with Defender, they were 7 Bodies on board that you had to remove in one turn, few cards can do that outside of NG itself, but now it's easier to deal with them, So the NG player will not have it easy and just play their Damien and Skellen at the Start of the round, which was usually the case, every one has to keep their valuable cards like this as their last 2-3 cards and it still might get removed, but NG players could just play their Damien and Skellen casually with little answer.

 

[mazeebra]

Problem was Damien and Skellen, Because even if you immediately dealt with Defender, they were 7 Bodies on board that you had to remove in one turn, few cards can do that outside of NG itself, but now it's easier to deal with them, So the NG player will not have it easy and just play their Damien and Skellen at the Start of the round, which was usually the case, every one has to keep their valuable cards like this as their last 2-3 cards and it still might get removed, but NG players could just play their Damien and Skellen casually with little answer.

The card could also be locked. Granted some of those decks did include Imperial Diviner. But alot of Damien Skellen decks were NOT imperial formation, they were Enslave. So 5 damage was enough to kill them. The chance of countering them was MUCH greater before the defender, so their risk/reward was significantly changed by the defender card and their success rate became too high, hence the issue.

 

[quintivarium]

I will concede that defenders exacerbate the problems caused by a small handful of previously overpowered cards. (I can think of three others complain about: Damien, Skellen, and Luiza. And, honestly, I don’t think any of the three are that horrible.)

Far more often, defenders enable the potential of otherwise underused cards and combos.

Let me give two examples. Olaf was the first legendary card I got outside the starter decks; of course, I tried to make him work. But there are three major problems with Olaf: he requires a second card to trigger self damage and that card is usually weak; he himself becomes increasingly weak before triggering to high potential; he requires an order to trigger. Almost always without a defender, either his necessary support is removed, or he is halted at very low value. Even with defender, he is hardly a win condition; but he is enough to push an opponent deep into the first round, or to support other cards in the third.

As second example, I have tried to create a movement based ST deck around treant boar, Malena, 2 Dryad Matrons, 2 Urihedd Brigades, and 2 Dol Blathanna Sentries. In theory it looked good; tremendous growth and damage potential, and while expecting to play all eight of these cards in the round is unreasonable, there are many 2-4 card combinations amongst this core that are still devastating. In practice, the deck is horrible. All the critical cards (except maybe boar) are initially very vulnerable, and the most critical (Malena and Sentries) remain so. Moreover, stopping the right card converts nearly all the others into bricks. While a defender can’t protect both rows, I expect it can at least protect some of the core long enough to be playable. (I have not tried it because I do not own th ST defender.)

I say fix what is broken, not the cards that allow creative new combinations.

 

[mazeebra]

I will concede that defenders exacerbate the problems caused by a small handful of previously overpowered cards. (I can think of three others complain about: Damien, Skellen, and Luiza. And, honestly, I don’t think any of the three are that horrible.)

Far more often, defenders enable the potential of otherwise underused cards and combos.

Let me give two examples. Olaf was the first legendary card I got outside the starter decks; of course, I tried to make him work. But there are three major problems with Olaf: he requires a second card to trigger self damage and that card is usually weak; he himself becomes increasingly weak before triggering to high potential; he requires an order to trigger. Almost always without a defender, either his necessary support is removed, or he is halted at very low value. Even with defender, he is hardly a win condition; but he is enough to push an opponent deep into the first round, or to support other cards in the third.

As second example, I have tried to create a movement based ST deck around treant boar, Malena, 2 Dryad Matrons, 2 Urihedd Brigades, and 2 Dol Blathanna Sentries. In theory it looked good; tremendous growth and damage potential, and while expecting to play all eight of these cards in the round is unreasonable, there are many 2-4 card combinations amongst this core that are still devastating. In practice, the deck is horrible. All the critical cards (except maybe boar) are initially very vulnerable, and the most critical (Malena and Sentries) remain so. Moreover, stopping the right card converts nearly all the others into bricks. While a defender can’t protect both rows, I expect it can at least protect some of the core long enough to be playable. (I have not tried it because I do not own th ST defender.)

I say fix what is broken, not the cards that allow creative new combinations.

So, basically what you are saying is that you want to play Olaf without the risk calculated into that move or the card itself or any other synergy cards?

Olaf was played in many decks before defender was introduced, and there was a certain risk/reward to it always. That added to the tactical aspect of "when" do you "cash in", where is the limit and what synergy cards is best to bring.

The ST deck you mentioned and any "underwhelming" cards that are "underused" is namely because the meta has moved on and those cards have not been rebalanced. There are alot of "bad" cards in the game currently, or in another view, there are quite many cards that are too good. There need to be a certain balance, and deviations go both ways, positive and negative.

Due to how the game has shifted the last year, alot of cards that were good are now not good. And somewhere in the overall game you have to adjust cards to be within a certain deviation. Then there are also cards with high risk/reward, who will easily win the round if unchecked. These cards are stronger than they should be, and to compensate for that, they are more vulnerable.

 

[Archbandit]

I'm a noob. On the whole I don't find defenders overly difficult either for my opponent to overcome them or for me to attack them. I'm still a relative beginner so perhaps this is because I'm playing people who don't fully understand the game yet, but I am actually quite unimpressed by them.

 

[quintivarium]

What I am saying is that the risk of playing Olaf relative to the rewards with the best synergies I can find is adequate only with defender in the mix. The same is true with probably a hundred other cards. And you seem to be willing to dump the possibility of those 100 cards because of a perceived imbalance with three cards which would be problematic even without defenders.

I frankly don’t care whether the cards were once used but no longer are or if they have always been weak. If defender allows many cards to be viable that are not without it, if it allows different strategies, if it promotes more creativity in both deck design and play, then I consider it a good mechanism.

 

[Darkwing_Don]

I'm a noob. On the whole I don't find defenders overly difficult either for my opponent to overcome them or for me to attack them. I'm still a relative beginner so perhaps this is because I'm playing people who don't fully understand the game yet, but I am actually quite unimpressed by them.

Yeah I run at least one purify card in every deck. There are so many uses for them that I consider them essential. I suppose that's why defenders have never bothered me.

 

[mazeebra]

What I am saying is that the risk of playing Olaf relative to the rewards with the best synergies I can find is adequate only with defender in the mix. The same is true with probably a hundred other cards. And you seem to be willing to dump the possibility of those 100 cards because of a perceived imbalance with three cards which would be problematic even without defenders.

I frankly don’t care whether the cards were once used but no longer are or if they have always been weak. If defender allows many cards to be viable that are not without it, if it allows different strategies, if it promotes more creativity in both deck design and play, then I consider it a good mechanism.

I guess you perhaps know, but before Geralt etc could take any targets above 8, and tall punish was more popular, and there was no defender. Yet people played Olaf more than they do now.

Furthermore, you see alot more players playing the same decks now than you did then, or even just some versions back when the game was more balanced and there was no defender or scenario.

I'm not saying defender is the only reason that viable decks are restricted. I've talked about large deviations from norms before, and that is even more a reason that fewer decks are played than defender. But defender certainly contributes to making less decks viable, and it also contributes to making deviations larger.

 

[quintivarium]

I’ve not been playing long enough to know the game before defender was introduced. And if I truly believed defender reduced variety in viable decks and opportunity for creative play, I would be the first to clamor for removal of that mechanism.

But I just don’t see it that way. Because of the plethora of ways to remove (without any real set up) virtually any desired unit and because of the vulnerability of most clustered synergies to a disruption in just one unit, I find only two play styles to be truly viable. Either spam the board with cheap junk not worth removing — except for one big card for last say, or wipe the opponent’s board in blood so no meaningful units survive. Defenders, if not immediately stolen, at least offer an opportunity to play more of a building style instead.

Perhaps our disagreement stems from differences in styles of play. I never find playing against defenders to be a problem; I rarely find cards the defenders protect to be a problem — I either work around the defenders or try to out-perform them. On the other hand, I almost always find not having a defender to be a problem. Building is harder than destroying, and requires some protection for all elements involved.

 

[mazeebra]

I’ve not been playing long enough to know the game before defender was introduced. And if I truly believed defender reduced variety in viable decks and opportunity for creative play, I would be the first to clamor for removal of that mechanism.

But I just don’t see it that way. Because of the plethora of ways to remove (without any real set up) virtually any desired unit and because of the vulnerability of most clustered synergies to a disruption in just one unit, I find only two play styles to be truly viable. Either spam the board with cheap junk not worth removing — except for one big card for last say, or wipe the opponent’s board in blood so no meaningful units survive. Defenders, if not immediately stolen, at least offer an opportunity to play more of a building style instead.

Perhaps our disagreement stems from differences in styles of play. I never find playing against defenders to be a problem; I rarely find cards the defenders protect to be a problem — I either work around the defenders or try to out-perform them. On the other hand, I almost always find not having a defender to be a problem. Building is harder than destroying, and requires some protection for all elements involved.

Well, I agree with you also. Some time back, quite awhile actually, the game was very much a competition between control and non-control decks, which is also not so appealing. I think everyone who likes Gwent agrees that variation makes for the best game.

Balancing the different aspects of the game might actually be one of the most difficult things. Too much boost, game becomes boring, too much control games becomes annoying, too much tactic the game becomes frustrating etc etc.

I don't think the defender solved the issue of "control vs non-control" style gameplay. The issue was "solved" long before that and a more rich and varied gameplay was already existing prior to defender. I really like the re-introduction of armour, and it is also a part in making the game more interesting. Same with shields. Both interesting ways to defend your units.

Defender just seems like a single bad patch to a perceived problem with no other solution. But part of the solution had already been introduced without defender! I think alot richer mechanics and refinement of those is the solution, NOT defender. I think the defender was a very poor solution which makes the game more binary in nature and creates a "tech hell", alike to bomb heaver for scenario. Demanding tech cards or losing simply because you don't have one is something entirely different than having a deck which is strong against something and not so strong against something else. That takes consideration for what kind of deck you build.

Tech card hell doesn't. Scenario and defender just creates very binary win/lose conditions and unbalance the game in a bad way.

Lack of ability of control is also a bad thing for the game, just letting everything run wild and it being a competition of who can make the most crazy points the fastest. It creates less variables in the gameplay if it's just a competition between me and the opponent of who can most efficiently throw up the most/best points.

 

[BartonFink]

I simply think the defender need some re-thought and in it's current state it imbalance the rest of the game quite alot, which is a bad thing. The rest of the game had a certain balance, but this was thrown out of whack with the introduction of the defender...

Hey, where can I get a Defender which actually defends my row?

Are units meant to be able to damage units in a row with Defender?

About 3 hours, I was playing a Seasonal game, I think, playing my newish Ske deck. I had Covenant Of Steel as a Defender in one row and my opponent, playing a Nor deck, played a Vissigerd unit. That unit damaged a unit in the row which I thought SHOULD have had all damage redirected to Covenant...

forums.cdprojektred.com

 

[quintivarium]

Defenders do not redirect damage; they prevent units from being targeted. That said, Vissigerd targets units. Are you sure the defender had not been purified or that the damage was not done by some other unit like Tridam Infantry?

 

[Joshleo]

my defender kept being poisoned or banished or purified... is it really that useful?

 

[Tyr117]

my defender kept being poisoned or banished or purified... is it really that useful?

No it's not, it does what it does and can be countered easily, you can still play it in the right time to get it's value, just like any other card.

 

[Alexander_Volgin]

If the ability of Vincent van Moorlehem was neutral, I dont think anyone would complain about the defender.