Feedback to designers from Gwent newcomer focusing on Scoia'tael

[Charles5pencer]

Hello, I would like to give feedback from viewpoint of beginner, which means, that I may miss more advanced points, which are clear to pro level players, but otherwise, I try to give honest assessment.

Season of Mahakam was my first season in Gwent and The Wild Hunt is going to be my second one. When I started playing, I tried to use all default Leaders first and then if I was content with them, I kept them using, but when it was feeling like pulling shorter side of rope, I tried other Leader. Naturally, there are some leaders, which are more suitable for beginners, because they are easy to use, which is connected with easy to use deck archetype and there are Leaders, which are connected with more complex archetype, which is not so easy for a beginner to play effectively.

I want to focus for now on Scoia'tael faction. I tried Filavandrel and made deck focused of buffing units. From my beginners viewpoint, I realized, there are no good enough cards to make it reasonably performing on my level of experience. So I switched to Eithne as dealing damage deck archetype is much easier for beginner to handle. I want to point out, that I do not express, that it is not possible to make good Filavandrel deck, I just can not make it with my level of experience. On my level, Eithne was completely dominating over Filavandrel. I started at rank 30 with Filavandrel and I managed to climb up to rank 25, but then I could not progress further. After I completely changed deck archetype to Eithne Elves (no artifacts, no Schirru, no Regis, no Geralt, no Wolfsbane, just mostly bronze Elves, simply, no combo at all) and I managed to climb over rank 15.

Now, please let me fast forwad to new season. There has been done lots of adjustments in patch and both Eithne and bronze Elves were hit very hard. It is practically finish for my deck as it was. I do not agree with that approach, because I think, that Eithne archetype was mostly good because of combos related to it, not because of mere bronze units, but I can accept that from bigger picture point of view. However this approach just means, that now are bronze Elves not reasonably playable on their own, they really need to employ combos as much as possible to be viable. That means, if those changes were aimed against Eithne decks, which were dominating through board clears because of great combos, its result is, that such deck type is now viable only with powerful combos, but all other Eithne decks, which were taking a little different part, have no chance to have their say and so if there will appear Eithne deck with lots of bronze Elves, it will probably be doing nastiest things possible things to oponent.

Now I want to get to the main point of my post and above, I just wanted to make clear, that there is understood difference between constructive strategy and destructive strategy (sometimes, they can be a bit combined in one deck, but still one of them is major deck theme, which is winning games). I completely disagree with what was done to Milva. First, Milva is not contributing to Eithne damage clear control combo theme, which was the most disliked by players. Milva is clearly following constructive theme, which I personally (as I wrote above) find much more difficult to play in Scoia'tael decks. Beside damage decks are easier to play for beginner and are effective and that is making significant part of their popularity, what if there is really no reasonable boosting deck, because you, designers, are not alowing it? What if Eithne control was so much favored, because there is no reasonable way for other approach in Scoia'tale, which is reasonably strong not only with comparison to Eithne control, but also in comparison to other factions, because deck has to be able to win against other factions too. Changing Milva to worse is yet another step how to sink other deck archetypes.

Please let me compare Milva to other card, which I find to be quite similar. I think, Alpha Werewolf has very similar function to Milva. They are both immune and they both can grow with more units played by you. Alpha Werewolf just needs bigger and bigger units and Milva needs more and more faction units. In decks, constructed with focus on this, both is not problem and there will for sure be cards, which are supporting such strategy. From my point of view, they are functioning almost same way. Now lets see what are their stats. Alpha Werewolf has currently 4 power and 5 provisions, while Milva has 3 power and 7 provisions. And all that with Alpha Werewolf being "mere" epic, while Milva is legendary.

If Scoia'tael legendary cards, which are supporting boosting theme are so underpowered (and I do not mean only Milva, I really tried before Filavandrel deck with boosting dwarves theme including Xavier Moran), it is no wonder, why players are using mostly destructive combos. They simply have no reasonable other option.

I would really like designers to consider my post and to possibly do some improvement for "legendary" Milva, which is worse, than comparable epic. If 4 power is too much for Milva, why not at least decrease provisions? Please, make it possible for Scoia'tael players to have some reasonable deck focused on boosting, other than just Aglais combo, which is not really making deck theme, it is just one shot combo for last turn of third round.

 

[4RM3D]

About the Scoia'tael nerfs, it may seem to be too much and maybe it is, but we have to look at the big picture. Most cards in a vacuum are still fine, even those from ST. However, when you can stack those cards or combine them, they may become too overwhelming. It might not even be that card 'A' is too strong, but that its interaction with card 'B' is too powerful and card 'B' cannot be adjusted for whatever reason.

Furthermore, your comparison between Alpha Werewolf and Milva is flawed. Different faction means different synergies. A card in one faction can be weak, while it can be monstrous in another. As such, its power level should be adjusted according to the faction.

 

[rrc]

Please let me compare Milva to other card, which I find to be quite similar. I think, Alpha Werewolf has very similar function to Milva. They are both immune and they both can grow with more units played by you. Alpha Werewolf just needs bigger and bigger units and Milva needs more and more faction units. In decks, constructed with focus on this, both is not problem and there will for sure be cards, which are supporting such strategy. From my point of view, they are functioning almost same way. Now lets see what are their stats. Alpha Werewolf has currently 4 power and 5 provisions, while Milva has 3 power and 7 provisions. And all that with Alpha Werewolf being "mere" epic, while Milva is legendary.

Charles, the only explanation I can think of is, Milva can be played as the first card in the long round and every single card can boost her. Whereas, Alpha Werewolf will have to be played after several other low powered thrive units (to effectively use it) and there can be way lesser cards that can boose AW than Milva. While Milva's assistants can be safe from Scorch or Geralt, AW's assistants are prone to Scorch and Geralt. Milva also synergizes with Filandravel and Yaevein (or whatever his name is )

Furthermore, your comparison between Alpha Werewolf and Milva is flawed. Different faction means different synergies. A card in one faction can be weak, while it can be monstrous in another. As such, its power level should be adjusted according to the faction.

Monsters can put more power on the board for the same provision than any other factions. Golyat and the other Sleeping Speartip.. Compare that with the neurtral which takes 11 provision to give 9 power. But.. may be that is why they are called monsters. They don't know how to be fair

 

[Charles5pencer]

About the Scoia'tael nerfs, it may seem to be too much and maybe it is, but we have to look at the big picture. Most cards in a vacuum are still fine, even those from ST. However, when you can stack those cards or combine them, they may become too overwhelming. It might not even be that card 'A' is too strong, but that its interaction with card 'B' is too powerful and card 'B' cannot be adjusted for whatever reason.

That is exactly, what I was pointing out. While those "lower quality" cards have no chance to stand on their own anymore, players are "forced" to make decks, with the most powerful combos possible, because those bronze cards otherwise are significantly less useful. If weakening of certain archetype was the point of those adjustments, in result, it encourages to make decks like that, because other types of deck with those units are not reasonably powerful. In my opinion, there should have been really adjusted different cards, which are making combos. But as I already mentioned in original post, I can understand it if it was done from bigger picture viewpoint.

Furthermore, your comparison between Alpha Werewolf and Milva is flawed. Different faction means different synergies. A card in one faction can be weak, while it can be monstrous in another. As such, its power level should be adjusted according to the faction.

I am very well aware, that this is comparison of 2 different factions, but honestly, I really think, that if I should find any card, which is the most similar to Milva, from all the currently existing Gwent cards, I think, that Alpha Werewolf is the closest one. This is why I used it for comparison. There was no intention for being suggestive through using intentionally flawed or intentionally manipulative comparison. I can also perfectly understand there could be different measures for different faction. I mean, cards could be considered to be "equal" if in one faction is gap power/provision differing by 1 point and in other faction power/provision would be differing by 2 points. That could be part of "faction style", where each faction has its characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, etc. But this reasoning can not be used in defense of any gap. I mean, if there would be vanilla Monsters unit power 4, provisions 5 and at example vanilla Scoia'tael unit power 1, provisions 10, such argument for defense would be invalid, because here is gap "visibly" too big. That means, if there is difference Alpha Werewolf power 4, provisions 5 and Milva power 3, provisions 7, I consider this to be too big gap, which is beyond equal including faction characteristics being considered. I hope you understand, what I wanted to express with it.

Summary: I do not want to say, that I want Milva to be power 4, provisions 5, so it will be "equal" to Alpha Werewolf. I perfectly understand faction characteristics. But I consider this gap of 4 points for Milva to be too much in comparison to gap 1 point for Alpha Werewolf. And I mean it with including "faction style" to be considered. Not to mention, that Legendary card should impact power provision difference into its favor over Epic card in vacuum without considering other factors. I have no intention to make equalisation of absolute numbers between Milva and Alpha Werewolf.