Developer Stream 09.03.2020

[akhorahill]

what the developers are basically saying is don't play our game for a month or you will get screwed

The auto mill ensures one does not have a stash of cards to mill and get a ton of meteorite powder when they change the economy. It is not an accident that it has been implemented, it is a maneuver to strengthen the pillars of their new economy (or to prevent us from sabotaging it, however you see fit to interpret it).

Sure one can use ore and buy 400+ packs and gather stash but they cannot do anything regarding one's gold without causing a massive riot and getting rid of the extra cards is better than doing nothing.

We have to wait and see what the changes will be, bearing in mind that they probably feel the need to make MP scarcer if they want to sell it. If we all can have a good premium collection just by playing, how in hell are they going to earn money from the game?

 

[AMANiac21]

I am still annoyed about the meteorite powder situation. If they want to make it scarcer, take them out of the reward trees and replace those nodes with Ore/Scraps/Kegs/Skins/anything else. The problem they created was that they devalued the reward points with their approach and massively so.
Easy solution, no meteorite powder in reward trees. That way for new players they'll still get value out of the nodes because 30 powder for 3 reward points is a joke.

 

[Luckless_Jack]

Finally in regards to milling, as they admitted themselves its a fucking mess; and basically by delaying the no-mill for extra transmute copies until End of March, and no way of reverting milling that has already been done; what the developers are basically saying is don't play our game for a month or you will get screwed (if you haven't already) if by accident you click on the deck builder or if you want to build any new decks.
The fix for this should have been implemented ASAP, NOT end of the month by which time a lot more people will get screwed over by the auto-mill.

As you point out, surely the most sensible option at this moment, given where we are now, would be to simply disable the auto-mill until they can implement a proper solution. It could also still be argued that control of milling should lie entirely with the player, given that they may have spent money on the items that auto-milling is otherwise destroying without their consent.

I really do despair sometimes at the lack of foresight that CDPR seem to have with this game and the changes they make.

Many people were able to spot the flaws and shortcomings of their proposed changes in advance and even raised them on this forum - a forum that CDPR really should be paying attention to and, when applicable, taking heed of. If they did, so many of these debacles could be avoided. If they aren't capable of anticipating these adverse impacts themselves, it would be wise to take advantage of the extra oversight that their forum users (who are often very devoted to Gwent and keenly aware of its various ins and outs) can provide. Communication should be a two way thing if it is to truly be effective.

I would like to say that while I do not enjoy these frequent, entirely avoidable blunders by CDPR, I do appreciate their candour and willingness to own up when they get things wrong. I just wish they had less need to do it!

 

[Lantea]

We have to wait and see what the changes will be, bearing in mind that they probably feel the need to make MP scarcer if they want to sell it. If we all can have a good premium collection just by playing, how in hell are they going to earn money from the game?

Powder is already hard to get as it was, keep in mind you need 150k+ powder for a full premium collection, from all the reward book you would get what maybe 10k powder at the old rates, so in no way did the powder from reward books undermine the selling of powder.

 

[Luckless_Jack]

Powder is already hard to get as it was, keep in mind you need 150k+ powder for a full premium collection, from all the reward book you would get what maybe 10k powder at the old rates, so in no way did the powder from reward books undermine the selling of powder.

I wonder if making meteorite powder too rare and too expensive is actually counter-productive financially?

In Beta, I was able to obtain a pretty much full premium collection - mostly through purchasing hundreds of kegs with real money during the premium keg events. The closer I was to completing my collection, the more incentive there was to maybe spend "just a little more" to fill in the few remaining missing pieces.

With how the economy is now in Homecoming, I am so far from achieving a full premium collection, and meteorite powder is so overpriced, that I now have no inclination to even try any more. I'll just learn to live with what I've got and pick up the odd "must have" premium if/when I see one.

 

[dragoonzen]

CDPR is literally getting away with doing damaging things to the playerbase with a simply forgivable apologies. There is no repercussions of any kind compare to the amount of so-called blunders that they have made that ended up costing the playerbase.

 

[Pacifixer]

This stream was a very pleasant suprise
- MP changes - So if i understand it correctly, they will reduce the MP income and the transmutation cost? I have no problem with that, as long as they don't reduce the mill value as well. If premiums get cheaper and we get more MP priced vanities, i'll be very happy and maybe even spend some money on MP.
- seasonal reward trees - Love it! Mistakes were made, mistakes were fixed.
- auto-mill - I still don't understand why people care about this. Keeping an extra copy of a card just to have full collection after you transmute it, seems ridiculous to me.
- pro rank names - I don't stream snipe, so i don't care And my memory is too poor to remember those !@#$% that play Nenekke Scorch or random Dragon's Dream.

I hoped for some, at least small, reveal, but it looks like we will have to wait for few more days.

 

[mazeebra]

Ooh my, you guys look quite tired. I know it's your job, but make the Gwent Masters into a real party for your staff and go and have yourself a good and cheerful time!

People might complain about different things and react to different things, but the game is mostly awesome. It's like a wife, it's way easier to blow out of proportion the bad things than the good things

 

[4RM3D]

- auto-mill - I still don't understand why people care about this. Keeping an extra copy of a card just to have full collection after you transmute it, seems ridiculous to me.

Taking control away from the player wasn't a good idea, in this case. Furthermore, all duplicates were milled, meaning players actually lost scraps because they have to recraft the cards again first.

 

[PellKovy]

game is too generous. looks like they are going to reduce meteorite powder income from trees or maybe increase the transmute amount cost.

Though it's what made them and Gwent so popular and successful to begin with. People love to throw money at fun, and I understand that this can't be a discussion about beta/hc which is better. I feel that things started to get rough when the demand for mobile overwhelmed the scene. Just look at the endless controversy, Gwent has been a truly unique experience.

It seems to be there's more of an uproar about restrictions on things like meta reports.

I get it, some folks just don't like building their own decks. I myself like to try out things I see people running a lot, and complaining about. I legit lol'd at the screen the first time I used NR/NG scenarios. The problem for me is that instead of being there as a resource, it became the go to way to play the game for just too many and you see it everywhere, complaints about the same 2 or 3 decks all the time and it's because the shift has gone too far in the direction of not being able to handle losing a game once in awhile.

This should not feel like a job, unless it's actually a job for a person. All the research and practically automated playing game after game sounds more like working than playing.

As far as the whole powder thing, I'm fortunate to be a long time player with a boatload of cartoons to enjoy on my account. It's my hope that if they are shifting in this direction with mp, maybe there can be better overall quality to the cosmetics they offer in exchange for it. Very hit and miss with things like leader models, card backs, and even avatars/borders. I'm happy to put in more time to grind for powder, maybe even drop a few bucks, if what I'm seeing available is worth it to me.

 

[bojerbela]

I'm really happy now: Seasonal Trees are back tomorrow!

MP change: we must wait and see. Even they have no idea, what they want to do with MP. (
Side note: In the Reward Trees -all of them including Seasonal Trees of last year - I can collect max. 20.000 MP with the OLD rate. MP was already very expensive...no need to make it more expensive. For a full prem. collection you need 150k Powder...it is really hard to make even with the old MP-rate. Beta players can do it, but for new players it takes years...again with the old rate. So I don't understand, why they think, it was easy to make premiums. In theory I have a full premium collection +27.000MP...but I played 2800 hrs in the last 3 years with full mill value in Beta/Premium Kegs Events/etc. The new players can't do that. In short: MP was OK.

Automill is not a good feature, but I can live with that.

 

[croloris]

This stream was a frakking disaster. I'm sorry just doesn't cut it when you keep screwing over your fan base repeatedly. It is clear that there is a clear power struggle going on behind the scenes for the direction of the game, and judging from your body language and tone, the dev and PR teams are losing badly.

I feel like you have painted yourselves in a corner where it is Android or bust from a financial point of view. It is sad that due to poor investment of resources this version could not be released during the holiday season along with the TV show and the death knell for console support, but it is here now. Despite just releasing a 20 minute video apologizing for your past frack ups and promising more communication, YOU ARE NOT COMMUNICATING WITH THE COMMUNITY RIGHT NOW about future changes as you head up to your most important release date.

Idiotic.

You have all the streamers there, you should utilize that resource to get some opinions on your new ideas, since it effects their livelihood, and then let them propose your changes to the community BEFORE an influx of new players.

Otherwise you'll be making another apology video in April before shutting down the whole program in December.

 

[Archan6el]

Meteorite Powder: Crucially, an explanation for why this change was decided and implemented is missing. Do the devs really expect players to believe that they made this change without any idea or purpose? Now let's all wait until the end of the month, without any guarantees. Still no clear communication and transparency. And players are only tired of changes that aren't needed.

Seasonal trees: There is simply no other acceptable choice than to make the old trees available again, at least for this year. It's good to get new and improved seasonal trees. Perhaps let new seasonal trees be available for three seasons so that players with less time can complete them.

Auto-milling: "An unfortunate oversight", "we didn't fully appreciate the regular experience that people go through", "that sucks". OK. So an immediate stop to auto-mill then? No. Let's continue the auto-mill until the end of the month. Insulting the intelligence of players again.

 

[Anciluart]

With how the economy is now in Homecoming, I am so far from achieving a full premium collection, and meteorite powder is so overpriced, that I now have no inclination to even try any more. I'll just learn to live with what I've got and pick up the odd "must have" premium if/when I see one.

The same happens to me, in the beta I bought MP in the store, I didn't need or expected to generate it for free. But at that time I enjoyed the game a lot more and the quality of the premiums was quite similar.

Now there are premiums that are worth the same as the best ones they have created but they are a disaster, they do not motivate me to pay for them, by doing that I already know that if I need them for gameplay my deck will not be full premium, for that reason if it is not Full does not matter to me that no one is premium.

They can put the price of the MP for the clouds that if it is not interesting to buy it nobody will do it.

Worst of all, the community will now be constantly in a mode of distrust for everything that is done. I personally invested money in some beta cards that are now clowns.

The next time I see an interesting card, would it be worth paying for it?

 

[DRK3]

I just want to remind, or let know to newer players, that the biggest source of M.Powder is not exactly the reward book but the milling of premium cards, in particular after prestige 5 where you get a guaranteed premium.

By that time a player should have all or almost all premium bronzes, so every keg is worth at least 20 powder.

I noticed a big difference with the expansions - when crimson curse was released i wasnt Prestige 5 yet, but on the subsequent expansions i already was and those big keg openings after an expansion provide a ton of powder, what yo get from the reward book doesnt even come close.

 

[Lexor]

Auto-milling: "An unfortunate oversight", "we didn't fully appreciate the regular experience that people go through", "that sucks". OK. So an immediate stop to auto-mill then? No. Let's continue the auto-mill until the end of the month. Insulting the intelligence of players again.

This!!!

 

[StanislavOZZO]

@StanislavOZZO Just finished the stream and you were right on the money, regarding the auto-mill and how they dont back up the data so they cant revert the changes and the dupes players got auto-milled which they wanted to keep.

At least we got some good news regarding the seasonal trees, and the meteorite powder situation they still haven't cleared up (probably will change the 100/200/300/400 MP to transmute cards that has been in effect for so long), but it will probably be an improvement and they did say they'll try to warn what the changes will be before they are implemented (like they ALWAYS should do).

It was a disappointing stream overall. I was hoping that between 5.2 patch and yesterday they had enough time to come up with at least a decent strategy if not an implementation of it already. Considering the impact they did, it should have been their top priority.

Instead we heard them mumbling that something would be done about the trees and powder by end of the month. There was no reassurance to the players that it would be a change for the better; even now they are phrasing it cautiously (they probably know that the players might not like their current ideas). And no compensation whatsoever for the players whose collection was force-milled. I really feel for those guys.

It was an opportunity for CDPR to regain some trust and satisfy the players. I don't think they managed to do it.

 

[Lantea]

I just want to remind, or let know to newer players, that the biggest source of M.Powder is not exactly the reward book but the milling of premium cards, in particular after prestige 5 where you get a guaranteed premium.

By that time a player should have all or almost all premium bronzes, so every keg is worth at least 20 powder.

I noticed a big difference with the expansions - when crimson curse was released i wasnt Prestige 5 yet, but on the subsequent expansions i already was and those big keg openings after an expansion provide a ton of powder, what yo get from the reward book doesnt even come close.

Even more reason to not mess with the amounts of powder from the reward trees. If the new 10/20/30 powder nodes stay it is a complete waste of reward points and they need to then just remove powder nodes from the trees completely.

They have still not explained why they changed all old reward trees!!!

 

[BoYoDes]

I have ZERO sympathy for both Burza and Slama, ESPECIALLY after this stream. They were speaking gibberish, gave half-a--ed apologies, confessed that they DON'T KNOW WHAT TEHY ARE DOING (with the MP) and asked not to mill any spare cards... wait, what? How TF can I do that when you added the coveted AUTO-MILL function? I guess I won't be playing, but what about all my cards that were AUTO-MILLED already? Oh, there is no back-up? Nice to know, thanks for the advice.

This is now the second (even third, if you split the initial HC debacle in two) time they did this exact thing with screwing with the entire player base collection and in-game economics, ROBBING the players of resources and excuse themselves with "We actually didn't thought about it".

Also, this was not the first time that they are admitting that the communication (on THEIR part) sucks.

Learned much?


Here's for the next one.

 

[Marginal0]

The stream did the things that could reasonably be expected, but it would've helped if they offered more perspective outside of "watch our next stream". Imagine if they announced they're going back to the 3-card bronze system now? I would laugh hysterically.

I honestly don't care about the extra milling as there's no point keeping extras given: 1. there is no more full-value return after rebalance patches and 2. you can turn off animations in the options (with full animations it runs really slow on my laptop). I believe most people are mad about it merely out of principle: you paid for something, and they just take it away without any communication or warning. That fact is quite... unsettling and doesn't bode well for the future.