Developer Stream 04.05.2020

[KenLBlack]

I have to admit that as much as I love Pawel and Jason and all that they have done for the fans--and I realize that this patch is not entirely on them single-handedly--this stream really left me feeling cold. For the first time in probably two years I may just sit this season out.

In America, us old folks remember "summer reruns" on television, and this upcoming season sounds like it may be the Gwent equivalent of a summer rerun. (OK, maybe it's not quite summer, but you get the point.) I am soooo sick of dealing with NG and Harmony decks (and yes, I do play both myself, as I'm sure most of us do at some point); plus, SY still sounds like it's going to do just fine. While some may wonder "why the complaint if there's at least 3 viable factions?" it's just that it's been like this for--what?--at least two if not three seasons in a row?? Bomb Heaver is going to continue to be a virtual requirement in many decks, double Masquerade Ball will still be a thing for NG to do, and despite the nerf to Luiza, SY still has plenty of options. I hope I'm wrong, but this sounds like it will be a very boring season indeed.

 

[Mardak]

This stream was the first one I really disliked. Not because of the news but because it was boring to watch the stream.
There are more things people would like to know or hear. Instead you were playing the game.
I personally would have liked to hear more of a roadmap. The last month felt tedious (lack of balancing) and I don't like the idea of having to play this game for another 6 month after the next expansion release with just minor changes everytime.
How about releasing 5-10 cards a month or every second month? (like kegs: 4 bronzes, 1 epic / legendary)
Why was there no desert board when you released MOO? It would have fit perfectly.
Will there be a new 2D or even 3D cardback for the graveyard?
The cardbacks from the journey you leaked several month ago was already enough to get the playerbase excited for the upcoming month. But this stream was ... meh

 

[Alexander_Volgin]

Didnt quite feel the Hugo Martin level of enthusiasm watching them play the game. I mean, atleast they could have played their own made decks, trying to show what they actually like about certain cards or mechanics. And Burza explaining that he always plays his leader round 1, doesent sound quite right. It sounds as if they aren't aware, or dont understand the frustration of their player-base. They are obviously not exposed to it.

 

[wonderboy870]

Didnt quite feel the Hugo Martin level of enthusiasm watching them play the game. I mean, atleast they could have played their own made decks, trying to show what they actually like about certain cards or mechanics. And Burza explaining that he always plays his leader round 1, doesent sound quite right. It sounds as if they aren't aware, or dont understand the frustration of their player-base. They are obviously not exposed to it.

I got the jist from the above comments, but can someone please spell out exactly what they roadmapped for next month? More specifics on new contracts, did they mention the next expansion? More info is appreciated.

 

[Pacifixer]

I got the jist from the above comments, but can someone please spell out exactly what they roadmapped for next month? More specifics on new contracts, did they mention the next expansion? More info is appreciated.

This month they only did some small balance changes and added the mastery contracts for new leaders.
Next month there is probably (unconfirmed) going to be an expansion - they will release only 2 expansions this year and the second one will most likely be releaset before Xmas. In new year stream they said that they don't want to add new mechanics this year and rather focus on polishing existing ones - Spy and Wild hund archetipes were leaked/hinted.
They are also working on some major arena rework, which will probably be released between expansions (unconfirmed).

 

[kl12joseph]

I must applaud the devs for being able to completely ignore the "DOUBLE BALL" comment screeming in their faces.
Burza: "Anything to add Slama?"
Slama: "Nothing at all Burza."
Chat: "DOUBLE BALLLLL, BALL, TRIPLE BALL..."
Burza and Slama: "Well goodbye then!"

The double ball is not as good as people think. This deck has to put a lot of cards that are inefficient in points just to be able to use the scenario 2 times. Imperial Formation with scenario is a better deck than double ball.

 

[Jamborinio]

Yeah, must admit, I was rather underwhelmed but the stream. Yes they nerfed HC and a little bat hit Uprising, but there was so much more that could have been done, and very easily, with the some of never used golds like Saskia, Hym, the Ciris and so many others, even if it was just to reduce their provision cost a notch.

Like others above, this season will most likely just be re-run of the last as I seriously doubt we'll see much in the way of new decks making it to the fore. Harmony and Poison will dominate and Uprising and Hidden Cache will still be a thing.

We shall see I guess, but I may just sit the ranked part out.

Post automatically merged: May 5, 2020

Do you know the other thing that amazed me, is they seemed totally detached from their own game in the sense that they didn't even know that Monster isn't really a viable thing (at the highest level of play). If you don't know these simple things about your own product, how can you sensibly proceed with patching and developing?

Their game at the end of the session was frighteningly poor, at least from the Dwarf player. I've only been playing a month and even I could've piloted that deck in a more proficient manner, lol.

 

[Qzman]

SY still sounds like it's going to do just fine. [...] and despite the nerf to Luiza, SY still has plenty of options.

Are you saying they should have killed the Syndicate? "Fine" shouldn't be a problem.

The 'poison nerf' they think they've done is a weird one. They say they think poison is too cheap so they put one particular poison card from 4p to 5p.. and buff it by one power at that. When people already run poisons in the 5p slots as it is (ST, Nilfgaard, Syndicate) so that won't really help whatsoever. On top of that they say they "like poison as a mechanic"

Once again, it just shows they're on a fundamentally different level of thinking than the people that actually play the game rather than develop it.

You said it right. They ARE on a different level of thinking. Because they have all the actual numbers on cards efficiency, payoff, individual win rate and deriving from all those - their real worth. [...]
P.S. They buffed the Syndicate poison unit's stats exactly because the poison availability is the issue and not the units' stats. Would nerfing Fangs to 3p be enough for poisonphobes to stop whinging about poison? Highly doubtfully...

 

[Pacifixer]

Yeah, must admit, I was rather underwhelmed but the stream. Yes they nerfed HC and a little bat hit Uprising, but there was so much more that could have been done, and very easily, with the some of never used golds like Saskia, Hym, the Ciris and so many others, even if it was just to reduce their provision cost a notch.

Like others above, this season will most likely just be re-run of the last as I seriously doubt we'll see much in the way of new decks making it to the fore. Harmony and Poison will dominate and Uprising and Hidden Cache will still be a thing.

We shall see I guess, but I may just sit the ranked part out.

Post automatically merged: May 5, 2020

Do you know the other thing that amazed me, is they seemed totally detached from their own game in the sense that they didn't even know that Monster isn't really a viable thing (at the highest level of play). If you don't know these simple things about your own product, how can you sensibly proceed with patching and developing?

Their game at the end of the session was frighteningly poor, at least from the Dwarf player. I've only been playing a month and even I could've piloted that deck in a more proficient manner, lol.

Monsters are 100% viable, it's not the best faction, but you can still easily win with it, even at the highest lvl.
Burza always makes terible plays when he's playing on dev streams. I think he does it on purpose. Plus he's a community manager, not a developer.

 

[Selestes]

No real balance patch, as expected.

Why??? Is it so hard to tweak completely unused cards by a little provision of power???
If it will bad somehow, just change it back in the next patch.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

did they announce when they will make the publish?

 

[Guest 4368268]

Are you saying they should have killed the Syndicate? "Fine" shouldn't be a problem.

You said it right. They ARE on a different level of thinking. Because they have all the actual numbers on cards efficiency, payoff, individual win rate and deriving from all those - their real worth. [...]
P.S. They buffed the Syndicate poison unit's stats exactly because the poison availability is the issue and not the units' stats. Would nerfing Fangs to 3p be enough for poisonphobes to stop whinging about poison? Highly doubtfully...

'Poisonphobes'.. lol. Right, because win rate is all that matters after all. What the players consider is 'fun' and what isn't surely shouldn't matter period. Just raw statistics. Never mind that that style of playing is actually making (new) players give up on the game prematurely because of how frustrating it is. Well as a primal poisonphobe I can tell you no, I'd not stop complaining if fangs went to 3 power. However I was speaking about the power not just staying the same, but going up.

You strike me as someone that just defends a given 'archetype' just because you happen to enjoy it. [...]

 

[Draconifors]

A couple of posts edited. Insulting and ridiculing others is against the rules, so please do not do it.

 

[Mikroval]

The double ball is not as good as people think. This deck has to put a lot of cards that are inefficient in points just to be able to use the scenario 2 times. Imperial Formation with scenario is a better deck than double ball.

Why is “being good” or not a relevant metric here? People are complaining because it is not fun to play against (not even fun to play it for that matter), it has ZERO entertainment value as far as I, and a lot of people, are concerned. You might wanna make a game mode that says: “Play a card, then remove a card, then repeat”, I would struggle to understand anyone wanting to play such garbage, yet that is exactly what CDPR are offering us here. Take it as you may, but a game’s primary objective is entertainment, once that is lacking people search for it elsewhere. I’m limited by the amount of time I can spend playing games, and if I have to play against poison decks (double ball being the poster boy for them) most of the time I might as well be throwing my time away.

 

[Qzman]

'Poisonphobes'.. lol. Right, because win rate is all that matters after all. What the players consider is 'fun' and what isn't surely shouldn't matter period. Just raw statistics. Never mind that that style of playing is actually making (new) players give up on the game prematurely because of how frustrating it is. Well as a primal poisonphobe I can tell you no, I'd not stop complaining if fangs went to 3 power. However I was speaking about the power not just staying the same, but going up.

You strike me as someone that just defends a given 'archetype' just because you happen to enjoy it. Then everyone who feels different is the 'big baby' because that's clearly the matured line of thinking.

Not so much... I play more against poison, don't have any issues with it and I manage to protect most of my units... I acknowledge the tempo tradeoff of poison units and their necessity vs tall units.

 

[ReaperTek]

did they announce when they will make the publish?

What publish the patch? Usually at 12 Gmt+1 on PC so 20 minutes from now, it's out on Mobile already.

Kind of disappointed that they didn't add some kind of Tree in the Reward Book for the new Leader Skills, still having a empty Wererat page feels kind of sad.

Balance patch is really underwhelming especially with the few expansions this year, I was kind of hoping they show some love to some off the outdated barley usable Cards.

The change to Caretaker back in the days feels kind of half hearted too when two FACTIONS (although SK is way more unreliable than NG) are still able to replay the Scenario they should just give them Doomed or banish it after completing it.

 

[Duhad]

This was... Underwhelming, though given the lock down I can't say I blame the team for being fairly sloppy when trying to throw together a whole expansion over discord calls. Would have been REALLY nice if they had tweaked a few more provisions, but I imagine if the next content release is coming in the next month or two (given its MoO sized and they shot that one out real fast without a ton of build up, I would not be surprised if it gets put out a couple weeks after announcement) they don't want to F around with the balance too much when making a whole bunch of cards designed to boost up under played archetypes.

Given Wild Hunt and Spies have been hinted at being something they are going to look at and the confirmation that they want to spend more time exsploring old mechanics rather then just adding new ones, I would guess they are hoping to address balance issues by adding new cards to help struggling archetypes and maybe counter some of the more oppressive stuff.

Now I DON'T think that's a good way of balancing a game, but again... I can't imagine the lock down has made things easy for them and I can pretty easily imagine they just had to make a hard choice between carefully balancing the live game and addressing changes to the current card pool in the new cards they are making. Spend more time on the expansion OR make as few changes as possible to the live game to insure that they can (hopefully) ship the new expansion in a balanced state due to knowing EXACTLY what the meta is they are releasing the cards into. And with the pipe lines clogged up thanks to C-19 and the pressures of getting all this work done in a timely fashion... The lesser of two evils was the one that would give the most breathing room possible to the team, even if it came at the cost of a crummy season for the players.

This is my, admittedly charitable, interpretation of events and why I hope that while this update was pretty lack luster, 1. We'll be getting new cards soon and with them possibly some more serious balance changes and 2. We should all try and at least cut them a little slack as... Well its a really, really, really difficult time for everyone, game developers included and right now. The fact that an expatiation IS still coming in the near-ish future despite everything is pretty damn wild!

So... Thanks Gwent team. You disappointed me, but I am glad you tried and I'm going to try and keep an open minded going forward.

 

[PolkadotZebra]

That's... alot of bonus points left

 

[borut0207]

Burza always makes terible plays when he's playing on dev streams. I think he does it on purpose.

And I think he's just a bad player, probably because he doesn't play the game much.

 

[ReaperTek]

And I think he's just a bad player, probably because he doesn't play the game much.

I wouldn't call him a bad player I think he stopped playing regularly after homecoming, he even said that he plays the game the same way he did 3 years ago, which was an entirely different Game.