Faction abilities could be fun

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IN the OG Gwent from the witcher 3 each faction had their own passive ability. NG would always win a draw, Scoia`teal would be able to choose who would start a game, NR would draw a card after a won round and monsters would always have a random card stay at the board at the end of a one. Maybe having passive faction abilities like these in gwent could be a very good thing? it would seperate each faction more, making them more special and give each of them more identity.

Take NG,s passive ability for example, if something like it was introduced to gwent you would maybe have rethink your strategy against ng because if you drypass 2 round you cant drypass too because your opponent will win it. The passive faction abilities dont neceserraly need to be like they where in the witcher 3, they could be anything litteraly anything.


Oh! Please come with your suggestions of what these passive abilities could be in the comments! :)
 
Gwent did have passive faction abilities during beta, but the devs removed them because it limited the design space and made certain (card) mechanics too strong.
 
Are you aware that once upon a time factions had their own passive abilities? :confused:

But apparently they had to go, to ease the balance, to grant more design space, etc...
 
Cannot say I miss the faction passives... they did more harm than good, and I'm glad they were removed.
 
Gwent did have passive faction abilities during beta, but the devs removed them because it limited the design space and made certain (cards) mechanics too strong.
Huh, i did not know this, though this does not necceseraly have to be a problem again if they introduce some very neutral passive abilities that dont make you build decks around them but still synergizes a bit with their respective factions, like an extra mulligan for nr, or some less boring (though arguably too powerfull) passive faction ability like the win a draw thing NG has in the witcher 3.
 
Cannot say I miss the faction passives... they did more harm than good, and I'm glad they were removed.
Gwent did have passive faction abilities during beta, but the devs removed them because it limited the design space and made certain (card) mechanics too strong.
Ye, let's make game where every card just damage another by one point. It's easy to balance it. Why make diversity, why make fun? Why make different abilities? It's too unbalanced! Let's better remove abilities at all, remove leaders (oh, it's removed already), remove row meaning (oh, it's removed already), remove all the sense (i can hardly find it). It's too hard to balance different things and sell the skins! Let's make all factions, all leaders, all cards similar to each other, let's remove their names and call it just card #1 and card #2, leader #1 and leader #2, faction #1 and faction #2, tactic #1 and tactic #2. Best plan ever! Easy to control and balance!
 
Why make diversity, why make fun?
That was the reason faction passives where removed, because they restricted diversity. They promoted certain tactics and automatically made everything else by that a lot weaker.

remove row meaning
The only meaning rows ever had was restricting diversity which you are demanding at the same time while complaining about rows.


Back to topic. Faction passives will only work, when the player can make decisions between different ones or else they will promote too much certain archetypes. And at the point, where the player can choose them, they will be more or less secondary leaders.
 
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Ye, let's make game where every card just damage another by one point. It's easy to balance it. Why make diversity, why make fun? Why make different abilities? It's too unbalanced! Let's better remove abilities at all, remove leaders (oh, it's removed already), remove row meaning (oh, it's removed already), remove all the sense (i can hardly find it). It's too hard to balance different things and sell the skins! Let's make all factions, all leaders, all cards similar to each other, let's remove their names and call it just card #1 and card #2, leader #1 and leader #2, faction #1 and faction #2, tactic #1 and tactic #2. Best plan ever! Easy to control and balance!

Yeah, valid points in this post.

Leaders are now 'skins' - the ability can be applied to any leader skin related to the applicable faction. No leader is unique - besides the skin appearance. There are pros and cons to this design. From the developer point of view - bringing in funds to keep the game alive (servers are not free, etc.), it is probably a necessary 'evil'. There's only so much than can be offered to players for 'free', while trying to pay the bills. I can see why there has been a change to leader skins to promote sales of said skins - as well as boards, and other items.

However, when balance becomes the overriding concern in designing the game, there's no doubt that factions will end up with cards that appear different - as different 'skin' (design/animation) - but play the same. In the end, it will lead to factions becoming just like leaders - different skins with no unique abilities of their own (making leader choice almost irrelevant).

I constantly see cards that are played on the ranged row which, in reality, should be playable only on the melee row for their attack functions to work. This means that when applying row effects, players can simply avoid the row with certain cards because they can engage a melee attack even on the ranged row - which is pretty poor.

One example:

Morkvarg_Heart_of_Terror.jpg


The above card can be played from the Ranged or Melee row. In my opinion (for what it's worth...), I think this card should be playable from *only* the Melee row. I could produce a massive list of cards that should be restricted to one row or the other. The only cards that are pretty much restricted to the Ranged row are certain archer units and catapults.

For some reason, there is a Battering Ram card; however, there is no gate type structure to batter down. Apparently, according to GWENT, battering rams were used on the battlefield to inflict damage on other enemy units...

At any rate, besides the animations and artwork, soon, like leaders, there'll be very little else to distinguish between the different factions and cards. The only difference will be in the appearance - 'skin'.
 
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