DRAFT - First impressions

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Reroll til you get Haunt and Dettlaff. Leader abilities need to be looked at for synergy issues
Having a coin pack every single roll is obnoxious.

Lack of rewards is annoying but it's fine as a fun less competitive game mode
 
I got a great Nilfgaard+Skellige combo in my current deck. 2x Artorius Vigo, 3x Crow Messenger, 2x Crowmother, Restore.
In the first and so far only match:
Crow Messengers R1.
Vigo into a Crow Messenger R2 -> trio of crows summoned from grave. Played both Crowmothers.
R3 first play Vigo into a Crow Messenger --> four crows summoned from grave. Next, Restore on the Created Crow Messenger --> both Crowmothers summoned from grave. Hilarious, and a massive amount of points.

Draft has just as amazing combos as Arena did, much better ones than this one.
Tourney Shaelmaar (When did you last see it in constructed? I never have.) can get insane value in draft, for example.
 
Returning player here. Are there any rewards for winning in the draft mode now? And also, how many losses till I get kicked out? I think I already lost 3 matches but for some reason I am still allowed to play
 
I am not a huge fan of draft mode although I loved arena mode. The main reason I enjoyed Arena was because you could escape from the ranked and seasonal mode metas for a while. Both the deck i drafted and my opponents deck were likely never to be seen again. In addition it was rare to see one broken combo.

Now all i see is the same set of decks with the same cards. And a drafting meta developing that is so [...] I simply returned to ranked competition to face a greater variety of decks.

Why are the decks more varied in ranked than in draft mode?

Cdpr left arena alone for years and it did develop a following. It's only flaws were no cosmetics, being purely random, and receiving zero love from the dev team. Removing 2/3 of the choices and tripling the combo caffeine eas a terrible decision.
 
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Yeah that just kinda sucks. Hopefully some kind of reward will appear soon, playing a ccg draft without it feels kinda lame
It's early access (open beta), has no entry fee, and there is no limit on redrafting. Rewards would be a really bad idea at the current state, only further encouraging redrafting until getting a crazy deck. I for sure wouldn't want to see any more of the Hidden Caches with insane combos or Charge decks with a billion Vysogotas, Priscillas, and Dandelions.
 
It's early access (open beta), has no entry fee, and there is no limit on redrafting. Rewards would be a really bad idea at the current state, only further encouraging redrafting until getting a crazy deck. I for sure wouldn't want to see any more of the Hidden Caches with insane combos or Charge decks with a billion Vysogotas, Priscillas, and Dandelions.
Well, let them add the entry fee again, perhaps lower the price a bit, considering the 7 game cap?
 
Well, let them add the entry fee again, perhaps lower the price a bit, considering the 7 game cap?
Nah. Adding a fee will only result in complaints from players what with the insane decks that just crush opponents.

Draft is supposed to be a casual mode:
Required investment to play
In our Arena mode, following industry trends, we introduced a ticketing system in order to participate with rewards based on your performance to potentially offset entry cost. This dynamic caused us to disconnect Arena from regular progression systems until somewhat recently. We believe this system creates an unnecessary barrier to players who would otherwise prefer this way of playing instead of constructed formats.

With that in mind, entry costs to our new Draft mode will not exist. As a consequence, we will not initially have the matching reward system based on your performance. While the latter may be seen as a positive or negative depending on your preference, we hope you can respect why we chose to head in this direction and that this is an unavoidable outcome.
Not casual player friendly
We feel like Ranked / Pro Rank formats are the place for competitive GWENT to shine, and having that element be the core focus of a secondary mode is a wasted opportunity. We felt that -- for newer players in particular -- the extra punishment for losing a match created a stronger feeling of matchmaking anxiety, and this additional pressure isn’t what we wanted from the mode.

No need for rewards when it already gives you everything that unranked does.
 

ya1

Forum regular
Rewards would be a really bad idea at the current state, only further encouraging redrafting until getting a crazy deck.

OK, I'm just gonna pretend I didn't just see another unbeatable 7xSewer Raiders, 3xSaul, 4xHorst with some Geralts and Roches... People will be redrafting no matter the reward. Because they already are. Because it's no fun to never stand a chance. The only way to keep them from redrafting is to design a system where it's not free to do so.

Also, on the margin, any deck in Gwent is crazy as long as you're lucky, and the other guy isn't. The only difference is that Draft doesn't have a upper limit on that craziness.
 
The only way to keep them from redrafting is to design a system where it's not free to do so.
So you want to punish ALL players just because some players, no doubt a minority, take advantage of free redrafting? Horrible idea (but a great way to drive players away from the mode), and like I already pointed out the REDs very clearly indicated it is not going to happen.

A much better idea would be to limit redrafting. That would only punish the perfection seekers and not the players who play the mode in a more reasonable and fair way.

-------

On a sidenote, the lack of rewards is, in fact, a way to discourage spending time redrafting over and over again; in the same amount of time spent it would be possible to get more by playing one of the constructed modes.
 
OK, I'm just gonna pretend I didn't just see another unbeatable 7xSewer Raiders, 3xSaul, 4xHorst with some Geralts and Roches... People will be redrafting no matter the reward. Because they already are. Because it's no fun to never stand a chance. The only way to keep them from redrafting is to design a system where it's not free to do so.

Also, on the margin, any deck in Gwent is crazy as long as you're lucky, and the other guy isn't. The only difference is that Draft doesn't have a upper limit on that craziness.

I defended draft and I hope it will be refined and invested on to make it superior to arena but I just really felt the need to quote your message. I play draft to have fun, but sometimes the rng is so bad that you can keep re-drafting and still get a very bad deck with just random cards. I had one of the longest defeat streak I've ever had in this game in draft and I was so tilted that the last game I just gave up on R1; i had many matches against SY decks that were just busted meta decks, the rest was just NR with 3x Vysigota and a plethora of gold cards.
So yes, I play for fun, but there's no fun when you just autolose.
Even make redrafting having a cost won't solve the matter because then you will just have to pray to rng to get a crazy deck on the first draft and go stomp, basically making it the exact copy of arena.
 
Nah. Adding a fee will only result in complaints from players what with the insane decks that just crush opponents.

Draft is supposed to be a casual mode:


No need for rewards when it already gives you everything that unranked does.
For me only unranked is supossed to be casual but I guess im in the minority here. Draft always was a place to gamble my gold, win card kegs, dust and scraps. Roll, get rolled, or something in between.

Well it is what it is, we'll see how it goes
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
How about - implement minor rewards in draft mode, keep the 'no entry fee' policy but introduce a ore cost for redrafting?

I have never redrafted, if i get a bad deck i accept the challenge as a veteran to see what i can still do with it. I have been repelled by streamers who only show draft decks that clearly have been subject to tons of redrafts until they got perfect decks, then seeing super experienced players with OP decks stomping everyone in their path.
 
Well, I've played a bunch of draft mode now and with some fairly successful decks. My verdict - I liked Arena much, MUCH more. Arena was a wildly random game where anything could happen. It was exciting in that I never knew what my opponent would play next. Draft has just turned into another version of the normal, constructed deck game with it's own boringly predictable meta decks.
 

ya1

Forum regular
no doubt a minority [is people who redraft]

Is there any data on that? Because I've played Draft a couple dozen times. About 3 in 4 my games were against very well synergizing decks the likes of which you don't get unless you redraft a lot. Moreover, about a third of my games were against Hidden Cache. You don't get that much of one leader without rerolls. (In fact, people reroll the leader till HC not just because it's so strong with muliple copies of the same golds but because it saves you time on redrafting packages. Since more than every second roll is either coins or hoard.)

This is including redrafting after seeing the first card which I'm sure plenty people do a lot (no wonder since the first card has nothing to do with the leader). I'm basing this on the amount of Tourney Shealmaars I've been seeing. Shealmaar is so broken in Draft that it's not even funny.

On a sidenote, the lack of rewards is, in fact, a way to discourage spending time redrafting over and over again

Yes, like many Gwent solutions as of late, that's very logical and sounds great when you say it in a conference room. And in real world, isn't working all that well. People are redrafting anyway. Maybe they would indeed redraft even more if there were rewards? Dunno. Honestly, it doesn't really matter. The mode is pure rng and got zero(-ish) player agency anyway. Even if there were no redrafts whatsoever (or mandatory 10 redrafts and then choose the best roll), not much would change in that matter imo.
 
Unranked is not casual anymore as even there you will often find pro rank players and/or meta decks.
The same is now applying to draft, you find players redrafting like crazy until they get a deck so busted you can basically play cards at random and still win. The problem with both modes lies within the playerbase because:

- Assuming you are playing to advance on journey you don't need that many rounds win everyday ( there's no reason to rush ) so there is no reason to plague unranked with meta decks too. The same applies to draft. If both players just play whatever they get, the games are usually way more fun and if you win R1 you can just drypass R2 to have the other player get at least one round and to get to a crazier R3.

- If you just like to curbstomp people using a meta deck against even a starter deck then you are not a good player or probably just play to see the other player stressing out with trying to keep up with the points. If that's the case, don't post on this forum complaining about people not giving GGs anymore or "game's bad, meta stale" if you are the one netdecking in the first place. I too sometimes use meta decks or variants but If I encounter a non meta deck or a new player I have at least the decency of not making it a 2-0 game. Same goes for draft. I just laugh when I see people redraft like crazy and then post here " draft bad, give arena back". Again, the problem is you, not the mode.

- Ranked exist. You cannot lose rank, so if you want to test your netdecking against another persone netdecking here's the mode for you.

Also, I hope that was just my lack of luck, but do you ever get neutral cards package? I can't seem to find neutral cards apart from some geralt there and there.
 
I'm basing this on the amount of Tourney Shealmaars I've been seeing.
Shaelmaar is also included in at least one package, and draft is the only place where it's worth playing. It's not broken, it's just good.

Because I've played Draft a couple dozen times. About 3 in 4 my games were against very well synergizing decks the likes of which you don't get unless you redraft a lot. Moreover, about a third of my games were against Hidden Cache. You don't get that much of one leader without rerolls. (In fact, people reroll the leader till HC not just because it's so strong with muliple copies of the same golds but because it saves you time on redrafting packages. Since more than every second roll is either coins or hoard.)
Unless you can prove your claim is true, using objective data, it's just confirmation bias. The odds are the majority don't waste time redrafting over and over again, because perfection seekers who go to serious lengths to win will never be a majority when the game has plenty of casual players.

Obviously you just want to hate on the mode, so I'm done with this as it's a waste of time. Draft almost certainly isn't getting an entry fee, not when it's been so clearly stated it won't, and it's a good thing.
 
Exactly, the current Draft mode has it's own meta now (that being Hidden Cache 100% SY and the charges spam from Visigota/Dandy/Priscilla) and it's far less diverse then then even standard ranked/unranked mode lol. :s
 
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