Everything Wrong With Gwent IMO

[4RM3D]

6. Hand limit eliminates the soft pass, but often brings the game to 5-4 or 4-3 in remaining cards in the first round. This is extremely bad, almost game breaking bad.

The hand limit tried to solve a problem, but by solving it, another took its place. Is the hand limit a bad design? Maybe. However, the situation in beta was probably equally bad. Losing the coin flip, going against tempo meant losing card advantage, which was made worse by the silver spy (or not drawing it). The solution to this was the dry pass, which basically shifted the game from 3 rounds to only 2 rounds or even 1, in some cases. This, however, is risky against decks that thrive on long rounds. With Homecoming, we have the same situation, but the problem has shifted. On the one hand, we can now play engines to build up points or junk cards if you want to throw the round, on the other hand, the freedom of choice is gone, meaning no more dry passes or tactical power swings.

PS. What happened to point 7?

 

[Wonderboy8700]

The hand limit tried to solve a problem, but by solving it, another took its place. Is the hand limit a bad design? Maybe. However, the situation in beta was probably equally bad. Losing the coin flip, going against tempo meant losing card advantage, which was made worse by the silver spy (or not drawing it). The solution to this was the dry pass, which basically shifted the game from 3 rounds to only 2 rounds or even 1, in some cases. This, however, is risky against decks that thrive on long rounds. With Homecoming, we have the same situation, but the problem has shifted. On the one hand, we can now play engines to build up points or junk cards if you want to throw the round, on the other hand, the freedom of choice is gone, meaning no more dry passes or tactical power swings.

PS. What happened to point 7?

Watching basketball, i fixed some of the typos, I even had a quasi racist typo where they turned into them. Not my finest moment.

To your point, taking silver spy out is a good thing. The coin flip was literally the main reason I left. One thing they could do (I suggested this in 2017,) is make the winner of the coin flip choose to start the 1st or 3rd round. Whoever wins the first round starts the second. In any event, I agree with your assessment of the situation, I just hate the applied solution.

 

[mzeebra]

are you kidding?

1. duh
2. you still have a lot of freedom and creativity in building decks, perhaps too much
3. and with very good reason, you need a balance
4. while changes should not happen often, reading cards is good habit. takes a second to glance
5. that wasn't a random attack or ai fault, that was your own fault. it says "highest card", many cards have this condition. if you have the highest card, or both do, don't play it! here it was a cointoss between to equal units. bad decision by you.
6. Not really, you can put in the same value deck, just the leaders have different values, making the "Overall" look different

There's so much wrong with what you write, I'll just stop right here for now.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

1. 4 gold max. This is both good and bad. The good is it limited finishers and forced players to use more strategy. The downside is that some gold's were underpowered and created a dangerous imbalance. Ultimately after mid winter decks started running the same golds with much greater frequency.
2. 6 silvers. Many of these became gold's. Ironically I was one of the people criticizing some silvers being as good or better than golds. The original difference was gold was always invulnerable and after a while they were not. The provision system forces you to compromise on silvers which is a bad thing. It is more constrained than when you could pick any 6. Especially with cards like scorch being moved to such extreme costs as 14 provisions instead of 1 of 4 golds. This change is where provisions really hurts Gwent.

This stuff probably isn't coming back. I'll admit I preferred some aspects of 4 golds/6 silvers. I do think there is potential with the provision system to be better. Whether it's been realized yet, or ever will be, is it's own discussion.

I do think the silver/gold distinction didn't need to go. It's less about the card abilities and more about sorting through the deck builder though. Silvers/golds provided more granularity here.

3. 3 bronze copies instead of 2. This is a really, really bad thing. Bronzes used to be equal in provision (before there were provisions.) You could load up on synergy cards and go to work. Now you have cards you will always mulligan, you are more restricted in your synergy, and provisions add even more imbalance (some factions have 6 point 4s, whereas others have 4 point 6s.)

Here I disagree. The 2 copies is actually a change I've always looked at in a positive light. The main reason is the 3 copy system always felt like it pushed the game toward the same cards being played repeatedly. 2 copies provides more variety in this regard. In theory it would also lead to more variety overall. Whether it has is also it's own discussion. If more cards were competitive across the card pull I think it would do so.

4. Weather, artifacts, and create are all broken. Weather is never countered because it just isn't worth it. At best it takes 8 points from your side and has an opportunity cost of a better card. Artifacts problems are mentioned above. Special cards are in general too costly provision and underpowered by points per turn.

Create is... meh. Artifacts are also... meh .

I wouldn't necessarily agree on weather. The 7p change at least makes it a viable option. The main issue with it is the tempo. The current game play feels dominated by tempo and point swings. "Slow" only really works with engines, setup or cards you don't necessarily want to play but don't want to see R3. DD is still a real threat as well. RNR is still a strong long round card.

5. The way they fixed the mulligan is just bad. With 8 point killers being so common, not to mention damage being so common, the points should be distributed 1 at a time and instead of being boosts, they should be permanent (traveling with resilience and into the graveyard.)

I'm assuming you mean the change from leaders balanced around mulligans back to the old, static system. Again, I'd disagree. The leader mulligan system was probably too hard to balance. Worst of all it made some leaders feel unplayable. Add in the fact a starting poor hand had a domino effect on the rest of the game and, yeah, good riddance. The current system isn't perfect but it still feels better, IMO. My only real complaints are the lack of blacklisting and the way tossed cards seem to come back with a high occurrence rate.

6. Hand limit eliminates the soft pass, but often brings the game to 5-4 or 4-3 in remaining cards in the first round. This is extremely bad, almost game breaking bad. If you get a bad draw you are stuck. If your opponent gets a great draw, you are stuck. If you get your finishers you are restricted from going deep into the round. The game is still usually about the 3rd round (the whole objective of the change was to keep the 1st and 2nd rounds relevant,) but gives increased opportunity to be screwed by the draw.

Hand limit has it's pros and cons. The reduction in the way tempo can push someone out of a round early to allow slower early round play is an improvement. The impacts on the CA metagame are less so, IMO. Granted, this is a double edged sword. When CA has limited impact for a higher percentage of a round it can lead to it having greater impact when it does matter. In other words, there are less points where you can earn it but it's more punishing to the opponent when you do earn it.

I'd also disagree on a lot of comments directed at R1-R2 having low relevance. At higher levels of play R2 pushes are a very real thing. It hinges heavily on match-ups but one player playing into R2, even when down a card, is not exactly rare. My only issue here is it feels like CDPR is trying to force this too heavily (certain leader design comes to mind).

R1 is in no way irrelevant either. Draws are important here but adjusting your play around them is equally important. Knowing when you have a shot at R1 vs not knowing is critical. Trying to bait an opponent into over committing to R1 when you have a poor hand, or trying to bait a R2 bleed, is a very real strategy. It's yet another area where there is a game within the game. Knowing the match-ups, reading the opponent hand properly, etc.

7. The mulligans should have some player control, 2 in first round and 1 in subsequent rounds should be players literally going into the deck list and picking the card(s) they want. This takes some luck out and gives some strategy.

Not sure what you mean here. Mind clarifying?

8. The biggest difference and thing I miss is the deck identity. Gone are the days of ambush units, reveal power swaps, armor decks, etc...

Again, I'd disagree here. Deck identity still exists. It's only different in HC in that pursuing one easy to recognize concept is less common. A bigger card pool would probably fix much of that. Even so, plenty of decks are centered around very specific goals. It just so happens most are playing toward 2-3 of them. I don't view this as a bad thing.

 

[mzeebra]

Each faction has its strengths and weaknesses, and each have many viable tactics, it's how it should be.

I'm pretty new to this game, but to me it seems very good as it is. Sure, tiny adjustments could be made for rebalancing purposes, but how difficult is that in such a complex games? Even a tiny change can have huge impact.

Some decks just hands down beat deck x, but then again, most players don't use deck x. You can't win them all! That's part of the game too. You kind of have to choose a strategy or a strength with your deck, OR you have to choose a diverse deck with a bit of this and that in terms of strategy.

But regardless of how good your deck is, you might always loose against one type of other deck, or two. To avoid that, you have to change your strategy, and then you will always loose against another type of deck.

 

[Wonderboy8700]

This stuff probably isn't coming back. I'll admit I preferred some aspects of 4 golds/6 silvers. I do think there is potential with the provision system to be better. Whether it's been realized yet, or ever will be, is it's own discussion.

I do think the silver/gold distinction didn't need to go. It's less about the card abilities and more about sorting through the deck builder though. Silvers/golds provided more granularity here.



Here I disagree. The 2 copies is actually a change I've always looked at in a positive light. The main reason is the 3 copy system always felt like it pushed the game toward the same cards being played repeatedly. 2 copies provides more variety in this regard. In theory it would also lead to more variety overall. Whether it has is also it's own discussion. If more cards were competitive across the card pull I think it would do so.



Create is... meh. Artifacts are also... meh .

I wouldn't necessarily agree on weather. The 7p change at least makes it a viable option. The main issue with it is the tempo. The current game play feels dominated by tempo and point swings. "Slow" only really works with engines, setup or cards you don't necessarily want to play but don't want to see R3. DD is still a real threat as well. RNR is still a strong long round card.



I'm assuming you mean the change from leaders balanced around mulligans back to the old, static system. Again, I'd disagree. The leader mulligan system was probably too hard to balance. Worst of all it made some leaders feel unplayable. Add in the fact a starting poor hand had a domino effect on the rest of the game and, yeah, good riddance. The current system isn't perfect but it still feels better, IMO. My only real complaints are the lack of blacklisting and the way tossed cards seem to come back with a high occurrence rate.



Hand limit has it's pros and cons. The reduction in the way tempo can push someone out of a round early to allow slower early round play is an improvement. The impacts on the CA metagame are less so, IMO. Granted, this is a double edged sword. When CA has limited impact for a higher percentage of a round it can lead to it having greater impact when it does matter. In other words, there are less points where you can earn it but it's more punishing to the opponent when you do earn it.

I'd also disagree on a lot of comments directed at R1-R2 having low relevance. At higher levels of play R2 pushes are a very real thing. It hinges heavily on match-ups but one player playing into R2, even when down a card, is not exactly rare. My only issue here is it feels like CDPR is trying to force this too heavily (certain leader design comes to mind).

R1 is in no way irrelevant either. Draws are important here but adjusting your play around them is equally important. Knowing when you have a shot at R1 vs not knowing is critical. Trying to bait an opponent into over committing to R1 when you have a poor hand, or trying to bait a R2 bleed, is a very real strategy. It's yet another area where there is a game within the game. Knowing the match-ups, reading the opponent hand properly, etc.



Not sure what you mean here. Mind clarifying?



Again, I'd disagree here. Deck identity still exists. It's only different in HC in that pursuing one easy to recognize concept is less common. A bigger card pool would probably fix much of that. Even so, plenty of decks are centered around very specific goals. It just so happens most are playing toward 2-3 of them. I don't view this as a bad thing.

Not good at block quotes on here, so I will just respond using numbers.

1 & 2. We mostly agree. I do think some silver should have been gold, old sweers and dudu we're good examples. Overall, I don't like provisions blurring the line, but it is passable.
3. Here we are just at opposite ends of the spectrum. I view having the freedom to load up on value cards as being able to build an effective strategy. Maeve is a great example. She has a card that when she heals it does 1 random damage to enemies. This is a card that when you limit to 2 copies weakens her deck. Your point about divserity is well taken, but every hand I have used in competitive games has had at least 1 auto mulligan bronze card.
4. There are some specials with value, and RNR is a full match card. But in the really old days of Gwent, weather devestated entire rows. Now it does a cap of 8 damage. Is 8 damage good, yes, is it guaranteed, not at all. Troops can be moved, consumed, etc... Weather is a non factor in 85% of competitive decks and that is shame.
5. I actually missed that whole thing. I got back around Feb 9-10 so we we're in the new update. When I left I told myself I wouldn't ever play Gwent again until the coin flip got fixed. I won a huge percentage of games where I won the flip, and lost a high percentage where I lost it. It was like 80 to 35-40. I didn't feel like I earned my wins going second, and hated the uphill climb going first. The new system is slightly better, but as stated above, it is to easy for the enemy to exploit the 5 points. If it were permanent instead of a boost, and distributed as 5, individual power ups, it would be better.
6. I agree bleeding in round 2 is a thing. I agree round 1 takes skill to navigate with a bad hand. I also disagree 100% with hand limits. It forces player 1 to play into a bad situation at best case, at worst it forces either a card disadvantage or using your finishers in the first round. Imagine you are unlucky enough to draw all your closers in round 1 (this has happened to me.) You should always have the option of dry passing or passing after only a few select cards are played without giving your opponent a crazy amount of advantage. Not only do they get to bleed your hand in round 2, but they can and likely will have a CA in round 3 if you passed too soon.
7. You start a game, the game deals you 10 cards. You go into your hand and select 2. The first card selected goes to the bottom of your deck. The second card selected is shuffled in. Now you see your whole deck in no particular order. You mark 2 cards and those cards are placed in your hand. So now a round has gone by, you have 5 cards left and lost the round. Round 2 you get 2 cards, you select 1 of your 7 and it is shuffled into your deck. Now you select 1 card to replace it with, (the same way you selected cards at the beginning of the game.) Round 3 and you have 6 cards (you only had to play 1 to win round 2.) The same thing happens that happened in round 2, draw 2 replace 1.
8. The reveal deck is the perfect example. Before you revealed your own cards in your hand. In doing so you could play them and draw new cards, you could do damage to enemy cards, you could increase some of your cards power by the highest revealed unit, etc... Now it's all random. Ambush used to be on units. They always needed more, instead it's on artifacts. The decks as they exist now do have identities. They just aren't all that different from each other. Thrive is just another engines deck. Horn decks are common across SK, NG, and ST. Regis decks and dream -3 decks are also common. At least ST has dwarves and eleves, they are just underpowered. With only 3 dryad cards. Remember armor decks, remember siege weapon decks, remember resurrection decks. Remember double boost decks, remember resilience decks. These were unique identities.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

3. Here we are just at opposite ends of the spectrum. I view having the freedom to load up on value cards as being able to build an effective strategy. Maeve is a great example. She has a card that when she heals it does 1 random damage to enemies. This is a card that when you limit to 2 copies weakens her deck. Your point about divserity is well taken, but every hand I have used in competitive games has had at least 1 auto mulligan bronze card.

Fair points.

The biggest gripe I have with the 3 bronze system was the limited variety. You would build a deck, identify the best bronze cards for it and shove 3 of each into it. Most decks did this or, at the very least, did so for most of the bronzes it carried. This meant every game would feature 3 of the same card being played over and over again. This is far less of the case with HC. It has quite a number of impacts in the game play. Case and point, games are less predictable. This expands the scope of "playing around" certain cards. It also makes the deck building less... obvious.

I'm not sure I'd agree with the auto-mulligan statement at all. Yes, many decks have cards they do not wish to play. This does not make them dead weight. It simply means the alternatives are better. Most decks with a lot of these "bad" cards are top heavy as well. Whenever you play a top heavy deck you're rolling the dice, to some extent. There is a reason it's often a good idea to run more thin/tutor cards (or discard....) to ensure you can find those key cards in any top heavy deck. Worst case your bad cards are pretty good throwaways for R2 passes following an early R1 win.

4. There are some specials with value, and RNR is a full match card. But in the really old days of Gwent, weather devestated entire rows. Now it does a cap of 8 damage. Is 8 damage good, yes, is it guaranteed, not at all. Troops can be moved, consumed, etc... Weather is a non factor in 85% of competitive decks and that is shame.

Weather also had quite a number of problems over the course of CB and OB. The overpowered claims are probably a bit of an exaggeration but it was not without it's issues. I often wonder if CDPR didn't just say screw it after all the weather iterations and give us HC weather.

5. I actually missed that whole thing. I got back around Feb 9-10 so we we're in the new update. When I left I told myself I wouldn't ever play Gwent again until the coin flip got fixed. I won a huge percentage of games where I won the flip, and lost a high percentage where I lost it. It was like 80 to 35-40. I didn't feel like I earned my wins going second, and hated the uphill climb going first. The new system is slightly better, but as stated above, it is to easy for the enemy to exploit the 5 points. If it were permanent instead of a boost, and distributed as 5, individual power ups, it would be better.

Coin flip will never be fixed . With the way Gwent works it's simply not feasible. The TA/Mulligan bonus is better compared to what it was but it's still the same advantage (TBH spies getting cut is a bigger deal... but don't tell anyone). When you go first you're down a card whenever you end your turn. In some match-ups blue may be better because of the ability to dump tempo early. In most red is still the "good" coin, IMO.

We are in agreement in regards to TA though. +5 points magically jumping to an engine is one of those things where suddenly it can translate to far more than 5 points.

I wouldn't consider hand-limit a coin flip fix. It's more to allow playing slow early into a round without getting punished and stop the R1 dry-pass behavior. The former is an improvement. The latter probably didn't need to be a thing. People only started dry-passing to prevent getting bent over and losing CA due to spy and/or tempo town abuse by the red coin player.

6. I agree bleeding in round 2 is a thing. I agree round 1 takes skill to navigate with a bad hand. I also disagree 100% with hand limits. It forces player 1 to play into a bad situation at best case, at worst it forces either a card disadvantage or using your finishers in the first round. Imagine you are unlucky enough to draw all your closers in round 1 (this has happened to me.) You should always have the option of dry passing or passing after only a few select cards are played without giving your opponent a crazy amount of advantage. Not only do they get to bleed your hand in round 2, but they can and likely will have a CA in round 3 if you passed too soon.

I mean... if you draw all your good cards R1 your chances of winning R1 go up. If it's all your finishers you can always mulligan some good cards. You'll probably draw into them again .

7. You start a game, the game deals you 10 cards. You go into your hand and select 2. The first card selected goes to the bottom of your deck. The second card selected is shuffled in. Now you see your whole deck in no particular order. You mark 2 cards and those cards are placed in your hand. So now a round has gone by, you have 5 cards left and lost the round. Round 2 you get 2 cards, you select 1 of your 7 and it is shuffled into your deck. Now you select 1 card to replace it with, (the same way you selected cards at the beginning of the game.) Round 3 and you have 6 cards (you only had to play 1 to win round 2.) The same thing happens that happened in round 2, draw 2 replace 1.

Sounds like a form of blacklisting. So, yes please.

8. The reveal deck is the perfect example. Before you revealed your own cards in your hand. In doing so you could play them and draw new cards, you could do damage to enemy cards, you could increase some of your cards power by the highest revealed unit, etc... Now it's all random. Ambush used to be on units. They always needed more, instead it's on artifacts. The decks as they exist now do have identities. They just aren't all that different from each other. Thrive is just another engines deck. Horn decks are common across SK, NG, and ST. Regis decks and dream -3 decks are also common. At least ST has dwarves and eleves, they are just underpowered. With only 3 dryad cards. Remember armor decks, remember siege weapon decks, remember resurrection decks. Remember double boost decks, remember resilience decks. These were unique identities.

There is a reason hardly any reveal decks actually run reveal cards, but instead exploit the high provisions on Morvran. Ambush getting transformed into traps is kind of annoying too.... Horn decks are kind of common in general because horn is a very good card . ST could certainly use some work but, IMO, Brouver has several viable builds worthy of or close to T1 status. They're just not very forgiving when piloted poorly.

I'm not saying the "pure" identities remain. But again, I don't see it as bad just because people can't be spoon fed deck archetypes.

 

[BoYoDes]

... you still have a lot of freedom and creativity in building decks, perhaps too much...

Good riddance with this statement.

Also, nerfing Borkh to burn just one card, RANDOM one, if there are few with the same number, is one of the biggest TURDS in Homecoming and an example of why people got repulsed from the game.

 

[Mr_Mugglez]

You're complaining about a nerf to a card that other factions never had. Zero sympathy. I don't know why CDPR favours one faction over another sometimes, but they are wrong to do so. It's evident that it's happened since OB. SK faction can do x, MO does Y etcetc Everyone only plays the faction that has a clear advantage. Obviously.

That affects the meta, then it gets changed again after a while. People running around in circles trying to win haha

 

[mzeebra]

Good riddance with this statement.

Also, nerfing Borkh to burn just one card, RANDOM one, if there are few with the same number, is one of the biggest TURDS in Homecoming and an example of why people got repulsed from the game.

Homecoming? What's that?

 

[nedders]

I'll reinstall the game when there are multiple ways to play and it's easier to build a variety of differing, interesting decks that don't operate in a rock/paper/scissors mentality.

I was relatively successful with a Shupe ST deck in Beta, regularly pushing 19/20 during seasons as a casual player. When it became Gwent HC76, I got a TONNE of scraps and basically created any/every card I wanted. But no matter the deck, there was only really 2, possibly 3, competitive decks. And the way Gwent's matchups tend to work, when you win a couple you're often paired against the perfect counter-deck. It became tiresome, joyless and repetitive so I gave up, uninstalled as completely as possible and took a break.

Couple of months later I'd heard of updates so reinstalled and tried the 'new player' approach. Objectively, it's not a great new player experience at all - you really have to understand Thronebreaker to have a chance in Gwent, and I can see why so many players simply copy netdecks because without them there's too much OP/meta matchups to simply learn your way through. In addition, as a new player trying to build competitive decks, it's WAY too difficult to get a decent set of cards. Kegs never give up the best cards, and i've burned through hundreds of kegs. Best I managed to get was Vilatrentenameth! The rest I had to mill/buy but by doing this you either have to know the game (I ended up level 5 with a Yen/Eredin deck I DIDN'T copy from online!) or, erm, copy a netdeck online. Either way, you'll be lucky to get one competitive deck with this approach. So then the issue becomes repetitiveness - you're stuck with the same deck because trying to then build one of the other meta's is expensive. More to the point, there's no interest in trying new decks because you could end up spending a lot on decks that just don't work, because a few OP meta's steal the show every time. I know this first hand having burned through a lot of scraps on Horn, Sihil, Caretaker, Regis, etc.

I think the game is deeply flawed across a wide array of areas. Archetypes don't allow for varied gameplay, most opponents are doing 'play by numbers', there's very little interest in deck experimentation because you're almost always punished. The only variety comes from tweaking the odd card - in my matchups I took pride in never seeing Eredin/Yen and now its' become popular, so that was nice, but I played so many games with it the lustre was taken off and, again, at level 5 I just uninstalled it.

However the very crux of the issue is that it's a very, very narrow, non-strategic card game. There's far too much filler in bronze, rather than lots and lots of interesting cards to try. Having so many cards that NEVER see light of day is just wrong. In fact, the same can be said for Golds too, there's a tonne of cards that just never pop up. Iris and Iris Companions, some of the Witchers, Morvudd, She-Troll, the set up is too complex for a removal game. It would work if you didn't have bronze cards that can wipe out a Gold in one play. Everyone is effectively picking from the same small pool of useful cards and it really limits the player experience, so much so it becomes a chore to bore your way through another game.

The worst problem for me, though, is playing it and relying on good deals. It's the most fixable, frustrating thing about the game. Going over what has been said earlier, about the rock/paper/scissors element, is something that MUST be fixed. EVERY faction should have the ability to compete in EVERY game. It's ludicrous that you are on auto-lose because of the match-up algorithm, before you even start a game! The hand limit at the start is preposterous, because you almost never play more than 75% of your total deck, which seems completely daft to me.

Solution? It should be flipped around so you definitely play 100% of your cards and there should be strategies built around the order, etc., but having 3 or 4 finishers all left in your deck and losing is just a baffling and stupid way to build ANY game! If CDPR thought about how they could ensure every player plays through their deck, it would remove any frustrations with the initial deal and mulligans. I think the first hand should go to 12 or 13, 2 cards then each round, no upper limit and the final deal should be the rest of your cards. Get rid of VW, it's the only card that really hurts this dynamic, but I'd definitely play a game like that - brings strategy back and cuts a lot of this RNGsus bullcrap that hurts Gwent HC76 so much.

 

[BoYoDes]

Homecoming? What's that?

It's Gwent' tombstone. Reads something like this:

"Here lies Gwent, a fun and engaging card game that disappeared without a trace, because Homecoming".

 

[Esmer]

That moment when post-Homecoming players say what's wrong with the game, and list exactly the same things as veteran Beta-players.

 

[mzeebra]

I still don't get it, what is "homecoming"? I've read around, and as far as I can see it was the old name of the game?

So, beta name, then the game had major updates for the final release and some of those were unpopular? ("ruined the game" etc)

 

[nedders]

Has anybody played the bear bollocks yet?

Basically all you're going to face is NG discard. It automatically wins unless you can save your bear. VW gives you a two card headstart, then it's Traeharn x 2 with Emyhr. Four cards down - because this bear is going to keep dying and you're going to burn through your cards before you can blink. The Isabel will pick one off, but NG has Assire to put one card back in their deck.

Help me out - is this as ill-conceived as it first appears, or am I missing something?

 

[mzeebra]

However the very crux of the issue is that it's a very, very narrow, non-strategic card game. There's far too much filler in bronze, rather than lots and lots of interesting cards to try. Having so many cards that NEVER see light of day is just wrong. In fact, the same can be said for Golds too, there's a tonne of cards that just never pop up. Iris and Iris Companions, some of the Witchers, Morvudd, She-Troll, the set up is too complex for a removal game. It would work if you didn't have bronze cards that can wipe out a Gold in one play. Everyone is effectively picking from the same small pool of useful cards and it really limits the player experience, so much so it becomes a chore to bore your way through another game.

The worst problem for me, though, is playing it and relying on good deals. It's the most fixable, frustrating thing about the game. Going over what has been said earlier, about the rock/paper/scissors element, is something that MUST be fixed. EVERY faction should have the ability to compete in EVERY game. It's ludicrous that you are on auto-lose because of the match-up algorithm, before you even start a game! The hand limit at the start is preposterous, because you almost never play more than 75% of your total deck, which seems completely daft to me.

Solution? It should be flipped around so you definitely play 100% of your cards and there should be strategies built around the order, etc., but having 3 or 4 finishers all left in your deck and losing is just a baffling and stupid way to build ANY game! If CDPR thought about how they could ensure every player plays through their deck, it would remove any frustrations with the initial deal and mulligans. I think the first hand should go to 12 or 13, 2 cards then each round, no upper limit and the final deal should be the rest of your cards. Get rid of VW, it's the only card that really hurts this dynamic, but I'd definitely play a game like that - brings strategy back and cuts a lot of this RNGsus bullcrap that hurts Gwent HC76 so much.

Are you serious? I'm post-beta player, and I completely disagree. Ofcourse the game is strategic, it's basically a strategy game. And why do you think one hand should be able to beat them all? That would be a poor game. It's simple, you can't beat all hands and strategies, this is a good thing!

You want cards to be safe at the board too? Now that would make for some interesting gameplay. Haha.

My experience so far is that most players I meet use different factions, and different cards/strategies even for those factions! So I think you are wrong in asserting people use the same few cards. I use some cards that others think would be absolute trash, but I have a reasonable success with them, and I've seen people use cards that I consider trash, and they have had success with them.

The choice of cards and the rich variety enables everyone to make a different deck, especially with the bronze cards, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. Even say there are cards that are never ever used, that wouldn't be bad, at least it is an option.

Relying on good deals? Ffs, that's part of what makes the game function. If everyone was dealt the cards they wanted, that would make for a bad card game for sure. Deck management is also a part of the game, and playing every single card in every game would be ridiculous. How would that work out for Nilfgaard or Skellige who have a more speciality in managing their deck during games? These things make the game interesting. otherwise you would know, "ooh, I will get this card at some point, definetely". The element of not knowing and not relying on any single strategy in your deck, due to randomness, is ofcourse a core part of the game.

I understand completely that people have legitimate concerns of some sorts about the game, but what you are talking about is creating another game completely, one that would be far less interesting, more predictable and remove any aspects that one normally finds in "CARD" games.

 

[BoYoDes]

I still don't get it, what is "homecoming"? I've read around, and as far as I can see it was the old name of the game?

So, beta name, then the game had major updates for the final release and some of those were unpopular? ("ruined the game" etc)

Actually the opposite. Gwent died with the Homecoming (the name of the Thronebreaker update), which had zero to do with home and even less with coming (cause the vast amount of players and streamers left, as evident).

Has anybody played the bear bollocks yet?

Basically all you're going to face is NG discard. It automatically wins unless you can save your bear. VW gives you a two card headstart, then it's Traeharn x 2 with Emyhr. Four cards down - because this bear is going to keep dying and you're going to burn through your cards before you can blink. The Isabel will pick one off, but NG has Assire to put one card back in their deck.

Help me out - is this as ill-conceived as it first appears, or am I missing something?

Err... any chance you got milled by a NG deck, while you played with SK?

 

[Mr_Mugglez]

I just played against NR seasonal mode. Quite enjoyed it actually. I lost, first time trying. He either buffed or damaged, that's it.

 

[mzeebra]

Perhaps, but as a new player I have to say it all looks very polished and reasonably well balanced. It has every appearance of a well made game that is fun to play and addictive. Without having tried the old game, but reading some things about it, old players left with the new game, but perhaps the old game would not have been able to attract new players in the long run?

I think the state of the game is good at attracting new players and really broaden the audience.

I'm not sure though, I'm not an expert. Could be that the potential player base would only be Witcher players++ a few. I think the deciding factor if they "neglected" old players (most of whom are witcher fans most likely), that they could have done damage to their permanent player base. But if the target audience are general gamers, then I think eventually there will be alot more players, and not only witcher fans.

All in all, the game is only a few months old actually. First main release was in January? I don't see any issues with the player base personally. I'm connecting quickly to games, and I see a variety of players with a variety of decks, at all levels that I have played until now (prestige 1).

 

[Wonderboy8700]

I still don't get it, what is "homecoming"? I've read around, and as far as I can see it was the old name of the game?

So, beta name, then the game had major updates for the final release and some of those were unpopular? ("ruined the game" etc)

If you go to YouTube, you can see the beta in action. It started more or less like the mini game in the Witcher 3. Little by little everything began to change, weather nerf, resilience nerf, gold immunity nerf, etc... Then the game kind of settled down and was looking like it had a promising future. Unfortunately mid winter happened. Mid winter added the tag create. It introduced tutor cards, and Shupe was born. As much RNG as you get. Mid winter drove away players. To be honest, I was willing to role with it (despite hating it,) but then i started noticing the key flaw in the game. Silver spies had been an issue for a while, getting progressively worse after mid winter. For those who don't know, silver spies put points on the opponents board but then let you draw a card, for a card advantage. Combined with the coin flip which was already mostly determinative (I won way too often when I went second, and lost way too often 60-65 percent of games when I went first.) This was the common experience for most players and the developers just wouldn't fix it. I came back to find most of what made Gwent worth playing is dead. I like some changes, reward tree, seasonal mode, more leaders. But I am stunned by the broken promises and lack of improvement. There should be more factions, there should be more cards (they took out more than they added since I left,) there should be more modes, and they should have improved ranked to keep decks rotating. If Gwent was a 7 when I started and 5 when I left, it is a 3 now.