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

[mazeebra]

What the title says:
1. It restricts viable deck options and narrows viable tactics into less cards and less options (yet another forced tech-card to bring)
2. It unbalance other cards, making OP cards out of cards that on their own are ok, because they have a carefully balanced provision/body/ability (defender unbalance this equation)
3. It creates situation where people just hide behind a defender and plays their moves, with no counters (upsetting sequencing also)
4. All in all, considering 1,2 &3, defender creates and imbalance many places in the game overall, making less viable cards more viable and already strong cards even stronger

As someone who has lived with the previous very bad frustration of playing certain Northern Realms tactics, I fully understand how useful a defender can be, however, despite that I think the defender is a pretty bad thing for this game overall. I'm not saying the idea is all wrong or bad, perhaps it is even viable under some circumstances. But for 9 provisions this card creates great imbalances in the game.

Without changing anything about the defender, just re-valuing the provision vs defender ability from 1 (currently) to say 3-5, which is the actual value of the "defender status", I think it would be reasonable to have the defender cost somewhere between 11-13 provisions instead of 9. Probably 12 is the very best number, but I don't know. So why 11-13? Simply, it will reduce the use of defender, and make it a card one only plays in certain kind of decks (at an additional cost).

I think at 11-12 it is still a viable card, but at 13 it starts becoming less viable. Currently at 9 is ridiculous, with armour, body etc, this values "defender status" at 1 provision, which is WAY too low. The card being so cheap also makes it more of an auto-include in certain kind of decks, which is quite annoying.
The body of certain powerful order ability cards are calculated, I guess, so there is a chance to actually counter those cards, not making their ability an automatic one. This goes for many factions, and not only order ability, but also turn-by-turn abilities.

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...

 

[Qzman]

Sorry, I'm not convinced. Defenders give engines and combo units a chance to actually live and do what they're supposed to do... You can't have more than one (or two very weak ones if you're Syndicate) so there's that for balance.

 

[mazeebra]

It contributes to making the game more one-dimensional, just like scenario, bombardment and poison also.

 

[Archan6el]

I have to agree with OP. Defenders mess up the balance. The devs have apparently already forgotten why they changed Eredin's Immunity-giving leader ability. Defenders are binary stuff and as with all binary stuff, the game gets a much higher variance because of it. It's the gamble of getting high points when a Defender sticks and low points when it gets purified/removed. Unsurprisingly, this is perfectly aligned with some dev's communication that he likes big point swings.

 

[mazeebra]

It's a bit similar to scenario/bomb heaver as well. Sometimes, not always, but "I did not draw the purify card, so I lose" or "I drew the purify, card so I win".

 

[Rogue.Eagle]

Eh, I like them, but there is one problem.

First off, though, it makes units immune to targeting. It doesn't make them immune. Row damage and adjacent effects still work. A lot of people neglect this thought because they run so many individual target removals.

The problem is, some of the defenders themselves are too powerful. They have too high of power and typically have armor or a shield. That's a bit uncalled for. If anything, a defender should "block" against 1-2 turns. Instead, it's turning into the entire round, which I agree is bonkers. A combo can usually be instigated in 1-2 turns. After the result of the combo, your opponent should be close to killing your defender.

Right now, that's not the case. I would personally keep their provision cost the same, but lower their stats.

Cave troll - 4 strength, 3 armor.
Fifon - 1 strength, no armor (should be self-explanatory why).
Donmir - 3 strength, 2 armor, shield
Covenant - 5 (beserk 4 gain 1 armor)
Figgis - Fine as is.
Azar -Give Azar 1 armor, scarabs should be 2 strength, no armor.

That's just an on-the-fly proposal. Overall, I think the mechanic is fine.

 

[Archan6el]

Defenders are probably one of the most important issues this game has. A lot of (balance) problems are directly related to the use of Defenders. I cannot imagine what the devs were thinking when they created Defenders. Then again, based on communication and dev streams, I get the impression they don't think much about game mechanics at all.

Post automatically merged: Mar 18, 2020

Eh, I like them, but there is one problem.

First off, though, it makes units immune to targeting. It doesn't make them immune. Row damage and adjacent effects still work. A lot of people neglect this thought because they run so many individual target removals.

The problem is, some of the defenders themselves are too powerful. They have too high of power and typically have armor or a shield. That's a bit uncalled for. If anything, a defender should "block" against 1-2 turns. Instead, it's turning into the entire round, which I agree is bonkers. A combo can usually be instigated in 1-2 turns. After the result of the combo, your opponent should be close to killing your defender.

Right now, that's not the case. I would personally keep their provision cost the same, but lower their stats.

Cave troll - 4 strength, 3 armor.
Fifon - 1 strength, no armor (should be self-explanatory why).
Donmir - 3 strength, 2 armor, shield
Covenant - 5 (beserk 4 gain 1 armor)
Figgis - Fine as is.
Azar -Give Azar 1 armor, scarabs should be 2 strength, no armor.

That's just an on-the-fly proposal. Overall, I think the mechanic is fine.

That would be a good start. Defending an entire row is also bonkers and makes no sense.

 

[mazeebra]

I really like the reintroduction of armour. I think we could get rid of the defender again, and do more with armour somehow, it's a good mechanic, defender is not.

I do understand why they introduced the defender, having played quite alot of Northern Realms at one point, it was just so frustrating to have no value for anything you put on the board being removed so easily.

This has changed independent of defender anyways, with introduction of things like formation and less dependence on orders.

 

[Pacifixer]

Defender is not a bad idea, but it is poorly implemented and causes lot of problems. Unfortunately you can say the same thing about half of the mechanics - Harmony, Thrive, Poison, Seize, GS and Dagur, Singleton decks, Scenarios, Artifacts.....

As i see it, the main problem of Gwent is that it is an unexplored area. This game is the first (and only, as far as i know) of its kind - a card game that cannot be balanced with RNG, but has to be balanced with skill and complexity instead.
I sincerely belive Gwent has the potential to be the best card game ever made, but it will take a lot of time and effort and patience.
Since closed beta i noticed huge improvements in the ways devs do things, but i also noticed that they somewhat lack a direction - Novigrad was a step in the right direction (complex, skill oriented, interesting,...), but MoO was a step back (boring, binary, RNG focused,...).

I think it is pointles to argue about Defender, it's problematic, but right now it's kind of OK-ish. Imho what Gwent needs the most right now is to evolve - big changes, big improvements not just to Defender, but the core mechanics as well. Devs have to stop beeing scared of making those changes, they have to get more creative and have clear goals and directions. And we have to be patient and just give them some time and space.

 

[Archan6el]

I really like the reintroduction of armour. I think we could get rid of the defender again, and do more with armour somehow, it's a good mechanic, defender is not.

I do understand why they introduced the defender, having played quite alot of Northern Realms at one point, it was just so frustrating to have no value for anything you put on the board being removed so easily.

This has changed independent of defender anyways, with introduction of things like formation and less dependence on orders.

No, don't think like that. The root cause was too much removal. Reduce the removal, then you don't need Defenders and the game stays balanced. Tinkering with specific balance issues only causes more problems, as the current Defenders clearly show.

Defender is not a bad idea, but it is poorly implemented and causes lot of problems. Unfortunately you can say the same thing about half of the mechanics - Harmony, Thrive, Poison, Seize, GS and Dagur, Singleton decks, Scenarios, Artifacts.....

As i see it, the main problem of Gwent is that it is an unexplored area. This game is the first (and only, as far as i know) of its kind - a card game that cannot be balanced with RNG, but has to be balanced with skill and complexity instead.
I sincerely belive Gwent has the potential to be the best card game ever made, but it will take a lot of time and effort and patience.
Since closed beta i noticed huge improvements in the ways devs do things, but i also noticed that they somewhat lack a direction - Novigrad was a step in the right direction (complex, skill oriented, interesting,...), but MoO was a step back (boring, binary, RNG focused,...).

I think it is pointles to argue about Defender, it's problematic, but right now it's kind of OK-ish. Imho what Gwent needs the most right now is to evolve - big changes, big improvements not just to Defender, but the core mechanics as well. Devs have to stop beeing scared of making those changes, they have to get more creative and have clear goals and directions. And we have to be patient and just give them some time and space.

The main problem is that the devs do not have a clear development plan, do not have basic ground rules for the game - just trying out stuff that unbalances the game like it's an early beta and, as they indirectly admitted themselves in the recent dev stream, simply do not know what they're doing. Harsh criticism maybe, but I believe also fair.

Edited. @Pacifixer

 

[Pacifixer]

No that's not the main problem. The main problem is that the devs do not have a clear development plan, do not have basic ground rules for the game - just trying out stuff that unbalances the game like it's an early beta and, as they indirectly admitted themselves in the recent dev stream, simply do not know what they're doing. Harsh criticism maybe, but I believe also fair.

Well, that's what i said
They don't have a clear direction and because Gwent is so different, they can't draw inspiration from other card games.
The trial and error approach is not ideal, but if it doesn't completly break the game (like on-release IJ before hotfix), it's acceptable. But it would be nice if they could find the right way soon

 

[mazeebra]

It's getting very annoying to build decks and always having to consider "how do I deal with scenario" && "how do I deal with defender"..

Ignoring them (as an option) can be the death of your deck too.

Post automatically merged: Apr 22, 2020

It's getting very annoying to build decks and always having to consider "how do I deal with scenario" && "how do I deal with defender"..

Ignoring them (as an option) can be the death of your deck too.

I guess an option for defender to make it less techy is to just make it a 9 body with defender status to enable tall removal to deal with it.

 

[Tyr117]

What the title says:
1. It restricts viable deck options and narrows viable tactics into less cards and less options (yet another forced tech-card to bring)
2. It unbalance other cards, making OP cards out of cards that on their own are ok, because they have a carefully balanced provision/body/ability (defender unbalance this equation)
3. It creates situation where people just hide behind a defender and plays their moves, with no counters (upsetting sequencing also)
4. All in all, considering 1,2 &3, defender creates and imbalance many places in the game overall, making less viable cards more viable and already strong cards even stronger

As someone who has lived with the previous very bad frustration of playing certain Northern Realms tactics, I fully understand how useful a defender can be, however, despite that I think the defender is a pretty bad thing for this game overall. I'm not saying the idea is all wrong or bad, perhaps it is even viable under some circumstances. But for 9 provisions this card creates great imbalances in the game.

Without changing anything about the defender, just re-valuing the provision vs defender ability from 1 (currently) to say 3-5, which is the actual value of the "defender status", I think it would be reasonable to have the defender cost somewhere between 11-13 provisions instead of 9. Probably 12 is the very best number, but I don't know. So why 11-13? Simply, it will reduce the use of defender, and make it a card one only plays in certain kind of decks (at an additional cost).

I think at 11-12 it is still a viable card, but at 13 it starts becoming less viable. Currently at 9 is ridiculous, with armour, body etc, this values "defender status" at 1 provision, which is WAY too low. The card being so cheap also makes it more of an auto-include in certain kind of decks, which is quite annoying.
The body of certain powerful order ability cards are calculated, I guess, so there is a chance to actually counter those cards, not making their ability an automatic one. This goes for many factions, and not only order ability, but also turn-by-turn abilities.

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...

Defenders are easy to deal with tech cards, that makes them to be weak, also they are so good at taking damage that makes it OP if you lack the tech cards. probably making them easier to kill with *Damage*, but harder to instantly disable, would make things better in my opinion, cus currently you can`t kill them with damage dealing, yet they are useless, they are not OP, cus there is too many ways to deal with them, the main problem is the amount of control tools in the game, all these control tools get changed, then defenders can change too, because Defenders are completely useless against control decks, and thats the weird part, it should be the other way around, they can deal with it quite easily. its only powerful against other types of decks, and can actually do what its supposed to do.

 

[quintivarium]

I believe defender opens more deck options than it closes. It only really hurts decks dependent upon mecanics that can themselves be questioned: lock, seize, poison, uncapped removal, etc.

Defenders do not hinder the more passive strength, spam, and engine archetypes, only the more aggressive damage, lock, poison, and seize archetypes. As one who plays both, I can say the more defensive decks and subtle decks are the ones that need a boost — not the aggressive ones. And defenders work well in that capacity.

And I disagree that defenders are binary — not in the sense that scenario/bombheaver are. The cards that hurt defenders: heavy damage, purify, movement, etc. have multiple uses and synergies in a multitude of contexts. Unlike bombheaver, there is no real disadvantage to holding these cards in your deck when your opponent does not have defender.

If the complaint is that defenders protect OP cards like Damien, I propose the developers address the root problem — the original OP cards.

That said, I do believe defenders carry too much value for their provision cost. I do not like the idea of reducing their strength to the point where one cheap removal card (or, even worse, a seize card) eliminates them; but a provision cost rise to 10 or 11 is reasonable.

 

[DRK3]

I think Defenders are fine, the problem is SY Defender Azar Javed.

Not necessarily because he's too strong, but because to counter it in 1 turn, you need a totally different approach - instead of a purify unit, you need a way to destroy both scarabs, that's why Lambert Swordmaster and Myrgttabrake or lacerate/surrender can be seen a bit more in the meta - mostly to deal with those stupid scarabs.

So, you need a purify to deal with 5 possible defenders, a way to deal with SY defender (since SY is pretty popular and 100% of its decks use its Defender), and bomb heaver to destroy the scenario played after the defender... that is 3 tech slots in your deck already, and i know you're not supposed to tech against everything, but its so frustrating having bomb heaver, a way to deal with Luiza, Saul, the seductresses, and losing because of those stupid freakin scarabs...

 

[Guest 4368268]

Agreed with pretty much everything you said. There are so many statues now that could/should require a purify (a long term bleeding, locks, opponents vitality, resilience etc.) and now defenders as cherry on top. It's well known there's not many good purifies around. I've complained about this before, but I don't like to run a ton of removal cards. I usually use 2/3 stronger ones and pick my moments. Defenders get in the way of that and force me to tech more and more boring cards I don't want to play. I think very proactively. I don't want to play solitaire, but I don't wanna be sabotaging my opponent at every turn either.

If my opponent plays Cahir/Damien though I need to be able to remove it. Cahir is balanced around being in a certain removal range. If I have a heatwave as only removal option in hand I now have to blow it on said defender instead. It creates auto-lose conditions that I feel don't do the game any favours. They keep introducing mechanics that are so strong that I must respect them to be competitive, and they might as well just start making my decks for me.

 

[quintivarium]

I agree with Nathan277, but I want to add a couple of comments.

Tech should be for specific decks to address weaknesses of the deck — it should never be a necessity in all decks against a specific card — that is poor design that eliminates strategy in the game. Cahil, Ball, and Passiflora are definitely horrible cards. I don’t notice Damien and the other scenarios to be as problematic, but that could be a feature of my main deck. I still maintain this is not a flaw in defenders, but in the cards they protect.

In fact, I maintain that defenders are themselves tech cards especially appropriate for decks that rely on passive growth and have few coping mechanisms for massive numbers of damage/interference cards. And I think defenders are appropriate as such. They are vulnerable to damage, to purify, to movement; they do not guard against row effects and untargeted effects; and they are very limited in number.

It is only when other cards force immediate attention such as overpowered order cards that defenders overreach fair value. And that’s why cards either shouldn’t be individually game deciding or should at least have multiple vulnerabilities.

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

I posted this in other threads, but it would make Defenders less broken if the developers would at least restrict them to only making adjacent units immune. Defenders should definitely not protect an entire row, and the artifact protection could probably be dropped as well, given how overpowered Scenarios are at the moment. I also wouldn't complain if they were bumped up to 10 Provisions.

 

[Tyr117]

I don't see how Defenders are OP, they are fine as they are, they are not that good, and are usually easily dealt with, but a slight Prov nerf might be justified, afterall they are supposed to defend your cards.
Also about teching, you don't need to tech against things you think are OP, you just need to tech against Your decks weaknesses, for example, I have a GS Deck, I don't run Bomb heaver, because i simply have more power than the opponent even if they play Scenarios, even if it is Ball, I can just keep my GSs for last cards, along with Defender, and I had success with this deck, no need to be intimidated by Scenarios with this deck, though the most difficult matchup is Poisen NG, but that is the case for every one, and I found out playing bomb heaver against them, atleast with my deck, is not good, I had more success without it.
I've had games where the opponent played three Bribery, Damien, and still lost, most of these cards happen to play for their Prov, just as your cards, you only need Removal and tech cards when you are going to generate less power than the opponent if you don't remove that one or two cards.

 

[Sj8407]

I think Defenders are fine, the problem is SY Defender Azar Javed.

Playing NR I am forced to include Falibor aginst SY defender even if I don't like to play these card and Geralt: Axii or Heatwave aginst NG defender or others even if I don't like theśw card also and both only aginst defenders, and I have to hope that I will get it in the right moment. And that is why cards like defenders or artifact's with binary counters shouldn't be introduced into game at the first place, but now they should be dealt with by balance or rework