That part is actually easy.
They need to make every leader ability based on a simple pattern. Distributing their ability through all three rounds instead of everything in one.
For example, Stockpile, Sacrificial vanguard or Royal inspiration are well designed because you can't just hold your leader ability and create a massive tempo play on R3 (they encourage you to play all three even, since those abilities provide interesting options for bleeding your opponent).
Things they need to avoid are...Well...The usual suspect essentially, Pincer maneuver, Mystic echos, Enslave, which all provide all their value in one single turn.
And yes, I do realize it means changing almost every leader abilities in the game but they changed the leader ability from being essentially a "card" you can play to something free you can expand whenever you like. That's a big change and CDPR didn't expected it to have such a huge impact on the game but when you think about it, of course it does.
Think about a game that opposes Royal inspiration vs Mystic Echos for example.
How much value RI is gonna get during the last round realistically? 4? 5 points? And I'm being generous thinking of long a round.
In the current meta, Mystic Echo spawns 2 dryads with 4 points body each that's gonna grow to 8 no problem (let's say 6 even, just to show you how ridiculous this is). That's 12 points total (more than double what RI would produce if I'm thinking of the best case scenario for them), how are you supposed to beat that?
And even if you remove one of the Dryad, you basically spent a card in your hand, to remove something your opponent got for free (you don't even negate their entire opponent's leader ability since the second Dryad is still alive and kicking). Even dealing with one of those Dryad is still a bad play for you and send you behind.
This is why abilities like ME, PM, EN are so linear to play against (I mean, the game plan is ALWAYS the same: Win R1 and bleed their leader on R3). This shouldn't technically happen in a well balanced game. No leader should get the ability to produce such a massive power play in one single round compared to others.
I personally believe that's the general problem the game is facing when it comes to leader abilities. I may be wrong, but it makes sense to me.
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There is absolutely no need to rework any abilities or mechanics implemented in this game, unless they are too binary.
If an ability is OP you nerf the provision cost.
You nerf it to 160 provisions, while nerfing Usurper to 155 provision.
Card quality given the larger differences in provisions will make up for it, playing underwhelming leaders.
Consistency is another thing that still needs to be improved upon. It sucks to be left with 60+ provisions in the remaining 7-9 cards in the deck in the last round. The inconsistency is the only thing I despice most about Gwent. If I include a card or combination of cards, I want to draw them in a certain order. However this element of strategy is completely absent in Gwent 'Strategic card game' for two reasons. The opponent can bleeding your combo out if you manage to draw it. Mulligan the combo back into the deck is not a viable option. When playing combo decks you are at the mercy of RNG-draws.
I dont play this game as much as I used to, as it feels a bit boring and predictable. However Gwent is still my favorite card game, and I have no intention of trying anything else. I have a strong belief that the game is already great as it is, in terms of balance, and can further be improved upon, by redesigning binary elements in this game.
However, further balancing for the sake of balancing, wont make this game better. And it is very demotivating for designers to restrict themselves to lazy design for the sake of balanced card game. I want more variance in terms of the numerical value a card can prove such as Sylvanna or Aglais.
Im greatfull for what developers have done so far, and dont want to be the guy ends the post with whining about how everything is bad and unintercative.
If an ability is OP you nerf the provision cost.
You nerf it to 160 provisions, while nerfing Usurper to 155 provision.
Card quality given the larger differences in provisions will make up for it, playing underwhelming leaders.
Consistency is another thing that still needs to be improved upon. It sucks to be left with 60+ provisions in the remaining 7-9 cards in the deck in the last round. The inconsistency is the only thing I despice most about Gwent. If I include a card or combination of cards, I want to draw them in a certain order. However this element of strategy is completely absent in Gwent 'Strategic card game' for two reasons. The opponent can bleeding your combo out if you manage to draw it. Mulligan the combo back into the deck is not a viable option. When playing combo decks you are at the mercy of RNG-draws.
I dont play this game as much as I used to, as it feels a bit boring and predictable. However Gwent is still my favorite card game, and I have no intention of trying anything else. I have a strong belief that the game is already great as it is, in terms of balance, and can further be improved upon, by redesigning binary elements in this game.
However, further balancing for the sake of balancing, wont make this game better. And it is very demotivating for designers to restrict themselves to lazy design for the sake of balanced card game. I want more variance in terms of the numerical value a card can prove such as Sylvanna or Aglais.
Im greatfull for what developers have done so far, and dont want to be the guy ends the post with whining about how everything is bad and unintercative.
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After Ofir expension, Gwent become so tedious and frustrating that I barely play... just log... do easy dailies and log out.
All players do the same thing, all using Pre made internet decks.
CD Red would create a mode where playing against CPU IA would have more variety than playing against "humans"... The actual state of the game looks like more a bunch of bots than human beings.
All players do the same thing, all using Pre made internet decks.
CD Red would create a mode where playing against CPU IA would have more variety than playing against "humans"... The actual state of the game looks like more a bunch of bots than human beings.
Yup. Not only do they copy the decks which makes it tedious, but the majority of that subgroup will also follow a guide which takes the last little bit of autonomy away from the player. You are essentially just playing a bot and I notice that in more and more ways.
For example, pushing R2 (with a card down) against decks where it's completely nonsensical to do so. But hey, the guide said to do so.
The other day I met some Syndicate player in Seasonal who had a really funny (and good) combo going I'd never seen before and I remembered how much I miss that kind of stuff in Gwent.
Most of the time now your opponent slams something down turn 1 and it's like "Oh, so this is exactly what he'll be playing for the rest of the game."
If there's little guessing left for me to do then it's hard to concentrate, care and all-round just have fun playing.
You would still play the leader in one single round BUT I really like your idea nonetheless.
That's definitely a route CDPR could explore and I believe it could lead to some very interesting results.
Another idea I tough of would be to design a leader with 3 different abilities.
Players can choose one each round but only one and the same can't be chosen twice during the same game.
I think that would open some interesting opportunity as well.
That's the problem. Just changing the provision cost will not help with abilities such as PM or EN, for example, because they have a too large range of possible value depending on what your opponent's playing, the current meta and how the game goes.
So, of course, you could argue that it's kind of the same for any leader abilities but not to the same level.
Those abilities just don't fit the design of Homecoming, this is the type of effect that will be either OP as hell or completely useless depending on the provision cost you apply to them. It's just impossible to balance in this envirronement, remove or add 1 single provision to their leader ability and they will immediately jump from all black to all white.
I do share your opinion about CDPR though, I trully believe they're doing a good job with Gwent and to be fair, this is precisely why I participate to the forum (if the game was a lost cause, I wouldn't waste my time giving my opinion, I do it because I believe in this company and because I think they're going to the right direction).
Having said that they do some mistakes, obviously, everybody does and I think some of them can be fixed easily, like the leader abilities (I mean, "easily" may not be the correct word considering they still have to redesign some of them completely but let's say that the problem is easy to identify imo).
I mean, think about this, when Homecoming came out, they changed everything, the game was brand new and almost everything was different...Everything but most leader abilities for some reasons.
It was clear that a problem would arise from them sooner or later, it's like taking a rule from football and put it in tennis. You can't do that and expect your game to work properly, it's just not the same thing.