Gaunter's Ultimate Challenge explained!

[Guerreroymago]

Quote of another closed thread.

Y_A_M_A: "I don't think this is bug, people are reporting that reward system was stealth nerfed - no more 6,12,24.
Looks like new reward system is 24=2rp.
This is big nerf for new players. "


What??? I need to win now 24 rounds for 2RP??????
if i finish the 30 crowns bonus it's too much!!!

 

[Slizzl]

Wait what do I use these crown point thingies that I get from the challenge on? These used to advance the journey but there is no journey at the moment so?

 

[Six-Sided-Prism]

I think the recent change is actually discouraging people to play the game more than it is encouraging them to spend money on it.

That's definitely the direction I'm leaning towards. I've been playing for a little over 2 months, and my collection is at least decent (although I have barely any Legendary cards). But regardless of whether or not I'm able to participate because I own one of the applicable evolving cards, Gaunter's Ultimate Challenge isn't even remotely fun. It took several days of excessive grinding just to complete the first four quests and have the option to get an extra reward point every day. Since I don't even have an evolving card that applies to next week's set of challenges, I'll probably choose to not play Gwent, rather than waste 800 scraps on one of the other evolving Legendary cards. I mean, really? Tons of grinding with the same deck for almost no rewards? I think most people will make the same sensible decision that I'm making. Let's hope August really turns things around because if it doesn't, then Gwent probably won't last the year.

 

[Slizzl]

This is all very confusing and kinda takes away from the excitement of a new expansion for a lot of people it seems. I don't think you should just remove journeys like this especially when you're trying to build excitement for new stuff. If I understood correctly there was an unexpected delay (?) on the next one but just let the old one stay in for a bit longer then. I don't think people would be too bummed about that.
Still, I love the expansion and to me this isn't such a big deal. Just something to think about next time.

 

[Maanwee]

The new reward system is a step into wrong direction.

In times of the old reward system I enjoyed playing every day, when after 3-5 games I received 2 RP. It gave me a feeling of progression and being rewarded for my time in the game.

In times of the Journey reward system, it was not as enjoyable as in old system, but anyway due to well rested crowns, on a new day starting from 0 crowns, after 6-9 games I received 2 RP.

Now, in the new reward system, the reality is much different. On the first day of a new 6-day cycle I received 3 Journey Weekly Quests that took me 3 hour to complete it gave me decent number of crones (90) - the feeling is nice. But what comes after that is awful and rejecting me from playing, because during next 5 days I need to play 12-18 games to receive 2RP I used to receive for 3-5 games in old good times.

Yesterday I completed 24 crowns, and today I logged into the game only to see that I will need to play 18 games and win 50% of them to get next 2 reward points. This feeling is not fun at all and it repelled me from playing.

It lies deep in the human nature, the need to be rewarded somehow for the efforts for spend time (e.g. in the game). Gwent used to reward active players by regular, daily income of RP. The new system introduced sneakily broke this routine!

 

[Xurumys]

I think that this is the wrong direction to go with the game. You know that this is wrong when you didn't even announce in the patch notes because nobody would like it.

 

[AiringHouse]

I'm one of these new players - played for about 5 weeks up to now. At first, I thought this game was very fun, addictive (in a good way), and *rewarding*. As I've learned how the game was before I started playing, as I've experienced what it is, and as I'm reading about what it is becoming, it looks like they're focusing on the "addictive" part, rather than the "fun" and "rewarding" parts.

Because it was all three, I spent money on the game to reward the developers on crafting a great user experience. The game is f2p, so did I need to? No. Did I feel like I *had* to pay to advance? Not really, no. I put money into the game because I thought the devs deserved it.

The game, now, isn't as rewarding. The grind is grindier, the card/faction restrictions are unfortunate. As a new player, I do not have many high tier golds. I have a pretty well developed Monster deck, but if I have to do journey quests or challengers as another faction, it will be tough for me. I even did resource management pretty well. I saved enough RP and ore to open about 100 kegs when the expansion came out. Did it put a dent in my decks? Not really.

We are at a point where the game is becoming like other freemium games - we are approaching the time at which the game annoys you to the point where you feel like you need to buy kegs.

I get why. There's more money in the "addictive" part of the game than the "fun" or "rewarding" parts. Instead of buying cosmetics to reward the devs back for a great game, they're changing the reward system to subtly push us to feeling like we need to buy kegs. As a relatively new player, this feels predatory.

I want to put money into a game I support because it is being developed in the right way. I don't want to put money into a game because the game's internal system is designed to make me feel like I *have* to.

 

[DRK3]

As a longtime player, this change is also indirectly affecting me in a negative way:

I dont care if i get more or less RPs, still sitting on a ton of them, and got full collection MM day one (still, that sweet MPowder is getting harder and harder to get...)

But thanks to these changes, players are more desperate for resources, so im getting more often players that enter the match, play an evolving card then forfeit. I dont care about easy wins, i want real matches, and finding more and more of these situations is frustrating.

 

[nehu]

I dont care about easy wins, i want real matches, and finding more and more of these situations is frustrating.

thats one of the weakest points of new system, tons of pointless games

former system was like: "hey play some games in the way u want, u will get some reward"

now its like: "hey play some games in the way u dont want, u will get like almost nothing"

 

[AiringHouse]

thats one of the weakest points of new system, tons of pointless games

former system was like: "hey play some games in the way u want, u will get some reward"

now its like: "hey play some games in the way u dont want, u will get like almost nothing"

you're absolutely right. when the journey makes me play certain faction or cards ( esp a faction one may have 0 cards for), it would be a waste of everyone's time for making them play against a hodgepodge deck of random cards compiled specifically for journey tasks.

i didn't play at the 6/12/24 era, but that sounds so good.

 

[rrc]

As a longtime player, this change is also indirectly affecting me in a negative way:

I dont care if i get more or less RPs, still sitting on a ton of them, and got full collection MM day one (still, that sweet MPowder is getting harder and harder to get...)

But thanks to these changes, players are more desperate for resources, so im getting more often players that enter the match, play an evolving card then forfeit. I dont care about easy wins, i want real matches, and finding more and more of these situations is frustrating.

I just played 10 games and did exactly that. Dry-pass R1, R2 play Eithne, Pass. In my defense I had played much more than 10 games and had played Eithne in R3, but the quest is bugged. It didn't progress. I read somewhere that it only works on R2 Eithne

I saw a small update (no one know why or what it is, as it was not communicated) and thought it contained bug fixes. So, played another normal game; played Eithne in R3 and no progress. Then I said "f**k it.. all the RPs are hidden behind the 4th quest which doesn't progress if I play properly" and just completed the quest with 10 dry-pass games. I was not proud of it, but I was kind of forced to do it; The workaround for the bug CDPR haven't fixed.

But if someone does that to me, I wouldn't be annoyed. I will understand it and take the victory (as it gives 2 crowns, which is 1/12 for 2 RPs ) and will give GG to the person who is going through a junk chore to workaround the bug. I wouldn't usually do this, but now that RPs have been made like real Gold, and effectively denying the chance to get it when played right, what options we players have?

 

[nehu]

what options we players have?

1st option: tell developers "such way is completely wrong"
2nd option: dont do nothing and suffer forever
3rd option: dont play it

i started in better times, but to start gwent nowadays with foresight of mindless grinding all the time to get at least some cards, instant 3rd option

i was satisfied with f2p model, so i bought fast travel during journey, mostly to support the game/developers

but later i found out, im paying for same or less than before in f2p and now its even worse than during journey

 

[Y_A_M_A]

As a longtime player, this change is also indirectly affecting me in a negative way:

I dont care if i get more or less RPs, still sitting on a ton of them, and got full collection MM day one (still, that sweet MPowder is getting harder and harder to get...)

But thanks to these changes, players are more desperate for resources, so im getting more often players that enter the match, play an evolving card then forfeit. I dont care about easy wins, i want real matches, and finding more and more of these situations is frustrating.

That's interesting, this didn't happened to me yet but funny thing is that earlier today I have decided I'll do exactly that. 2nd round play evolving card and pass no matter am I winning or not, just to be quickly done with quest. Those non stop quests are starting to drain all fun from the game. They are like really boring chore in the long run. Not a good sign. I always liked Gwent events in the past. Game right now is turning into awful grind if you care about any rewards. And back to my previous point - Dev. team want me to grind for cosmetics ( and sell them ), why should I care if they don't bother to fix visual bugs for such a long time.

 

[EduFerraz]

so, i think everyone is blaming about the changes. The devs will continue with that?

 

[ProteccAttacc]

Hi! So, I'm also a dissappointed new player who doesn't have time to play gwent all day long. Today I only had time to do one Gaunter's quest and got 1 RP. Besides, during the games I was more focused on meeting the requiements of the quest than on games themselves. So, basically, instead of playing Gwent I was playing cards necessary to do the quest. And I don't even feel that I was rewarded enough for that neither did it excite me.
People in this thread are saying that CDPR was once overly generous to its players and now many have resouce overload. Unfortunately, I wasn't here to experience that generousity. The only thing I have expericenced so far is opening 60 kegs I have been collecting ever since the expansion was announced to find 0 legendary cards and hardly enough resources to craft more than 5 of them. At first I was OK with that cause I though I'll spend this month playing normal games and collecting cards for the next ranked season, but now I understand that with the new reward system I won't be able to craft 3-4 playable decks by the start of August.

So I think I will be leaving gwent. It's sad cause I only managed to get to pro rank for the first time last seaon after playing for 3 months. But the truth is, the game wiil just become a second job for me if i stay.

I didn't mind green powder nerf, cause I'm ok with free playing content+expensive cosmetics policy, but the latest changes are just too much. To those who keep playing I wish a lot of patience since I don't really expect the game to go anywhere other than down from now on. It's really sad since it is now with the new expansion attracting many new players to Gwent that CDPR decide to ruin experience for them in order to get better monetization.

 

[Y_A_M_A]

Hmmm well... I suppose if devs. will turn gwent in to Korean style mmo grind I'll take a long break. While I kinda liked Journey overall, somehow at the end I just felt exhausted by doing quests over and over again, to the point I barely played last couple weeks. Imo something is very wrong with latest design choices. Gwent starts to fell like second job - I should have fun and just chill out, yet somehow something is wrong. I can't exactly pinpoint yet what is it? Constant unrewarding quest overload maybe???

 

[AlexSanderKB]

I never really trusted capitalism and big corporations. Why should I when the end goal of the system is to gain money at all costs, including by exploiting the consumer?

In the video game industry, there are a lot of companies that sell lot boxes with horrible drops or incomplete games where to have the full experience you must buy the Downloadable Content (DLC) that doesn’t offer much for the price you pay.

But then in 2015 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released, offered 16 free DLC and two enormous expansion for a more than fair price.

So… maybe I was wrong? Maybe it was possible to offer good content for a fair price, without exploiting the consumer.

You fooled me back then CD Projekt Red!

These are some of the statements that are present on “Strategy of the CD PROJEKT Capital Group for the years 2016-2021”:

“We forge strong, direct contacts with our player base. We believe that only ongoing, open and honest customer relations matter”.

“Quality is the foundation of our long-term strategy and development plans. We do not seek easy profit and are not interested in taking shortcuts. We focus on ambitious plans with the potential to achieve global impact, and we make no compromises in pursuing them”.

Can we really say that those statements are true about Gwent?

Changing the reward system without telling anything about that to the consumer and omitting those changes in the patch notes, even though you had time to include the studio's developer's pets in the credits, is a joke and a bad one.

The worst however is spitting in our face and saying that it’s rain:

“In hindsight, we should have spent more time talking about this topic. As you may have noticed, we had some technical issues with 7.0 update and all communication about the update got seriously delayed. However, it’s not a good excuse for not communicating all nuances of the Daily Crown change and its connection to Gaunter’s Ultimate Challenge prior to the update. I’m sorry for the confusion caused by the lack of a proper heads-up”.

It isn’t even an excuse at all. You had plenty of time to communicate those changes and I’m pretty sure that your communication team is not the same responsible for correcting your technical issues, though that would explain why there are so many of them.

As a returning player, I’m really disappointed with those news. It doesn’t matter that the amount of the reward is the same, because I can’t progress since I don’t have the cards necessary… But, oh, wait, I can buy that pack with all the evolution cards that are necessary to complete those quests, right? There is something wrong here, I thought that you guys didn’t seek easy profit and were not interested in taking shortcuts.

When Homecoming released you said that:

“A year later, we took GWENT to Public Beta and — again — tons of gamers jumped in and checked it out. We still had a lot to learn. But, as always, we adapted. What we didn’t realize back then was that we also started slowly drifting away from our original vision for standalone GWENT. While fighting with the everyday reality of regular updates and content drops, we lost sight of what was unique and fun about the game. And you played a big role in making us realize that. Thank you for your sincere feedback!”.

“We saved the best for last. After Homecoming concludes, we will launch GWENT along with Thronebreaker — our single player campaign. A dedicated team has been hard at work to deliver you a great new story from the Witcher universe. Expect goodness!”.

Now you guys don’t have plans for another single player campaign since it wasn’t lucrative enough…

Congratulations, CD Projekt Red, you lost sight of what made you a good company and now Gwent will become another generic expensive Card Game in the market.

I'm out.

Sources:

Strategy - CD PROJEKT

CD PROJEKT Group Strategy Update – presentation CD PROJEKT Capital Group strategy for the years 2016-2021

www.cdprojekt.com

GWENT Homecoming — see what's next for GWENT

I love GWENT — especially when I am winning. At times, I hate it — it’s when I get my ass kicked. GWENT is one of the very few games I play almost every day (I clocked close to 350 hours). Why am I telling you this? It’s because I want you to know that I’m invested and treat GWENT very personally.

www.playgwent.com

 

[bojerbela]

I don't like this new system. Not a bit. And if the devs don't do something, we will lose many new players. I read on reddit, I read it here that newer players leave the game. I can't do nothing, only hope... If the devs made a really big mistake in the past, they tried to repair it. I hope they will do that this time too. And for the new and dissapointed players : wait a bit! Maybe the devs hear this uproar and make things straight again. If not, then the game will lose many-many players.

 

[Archbandit]

Bullet point time. TLDR version: I'm sceptical about what's to come and unimpressed with what currently is on offer.

I started playing two months ago. I bought stuff: same reasons as most of you.

I have to get 156 cards to have them all: 33 epic and 123 legendary.

My current MMR score is zero. My highest rank is 15. It took me three days to get to that from 16. I lost time after time after ....

I play casually: for fun. Even if I had all the cards I wouldn't be much higher ranked I wouldn't think as, for one thing, I like to play quickly: I work on 3 seconds to put a card down. For another, I'm not that good and I'm not interested in following the required script to be 'good'. It's slightly related: I give GGs less and less and less. If I meet someone with a worse deck than me I play down at their level, most players (in casual, not ranked) seem to just to want to steamroller someone because it makes them 'good'.

So. A large part of the player base that I meet sucks. That might mean you although I don't recognise the names on the forum with those I meet. Games are slow and often boring. I've played this game a lot in a short space of time. I can usually read you pretty quickly unless, for example, you're doing a challenge in which case I might not work you out for a while longer. The requirements to be competitive are to either work out a lot about the cards and their interactions or have power cards. This is to make a game of it because that will get me the 3 matches/crowns in 2 games that apparently everyone gets. Under the old system that's just finished 6/12/24/14 I would do this and under the Season of Magic I would do well enough (Gord SY deck) and have several hours to get to the 4th 24.

With that in mind, if I get the following:

a) boring games
b) opponents who must win, who goad you, who rope, who like to show off their amazing prowess, who think that winning at this type of game in the casual set up makes them special but they don't appear in the higher ranks (because I've looked, because the matchmaking system doesn't usually pit me against the better player and because I can recognise a good player and they aren't it: they're play it by numbers or reactive);
c) my time being wasted and nothing to show for it and the threat of more expansions which will drive me further behind;
d) the opportunity to get more keys (ok, they will eventually equate to cards) and cosmetics (worthless);
e) the intense feeling of dissatisfaction because with all of the above, at my level and in casual, I should have a reasonable expectation of both fun, good games and as they give it something (rewards) because that's necessary in the improved cards arms race
f)bugs aplenty e.g. the contract to play a number of level 3 evolving cards has not triggered despite my managing to play Viraxis Prince 3 times today on top of all the others (mostly Harald) that I've played

and probably more, it's a very simple question: what do I spend my time on this game for?

The reward system as was would at least have meant that if I ground (past participle of 'to grind', if you're interested) out the wins/matches I could eventually get the motherlode of golds that do make the difference and mean that I could be competitive in games which ought to be about fun and clever play. As it currently stands that's been quashed greatly and my interest in spending time on the game has diminished greatly. Part b) above is especially important because the chances are these people are new and thus will require time and games to get a better understanding of how the game is played. Flattening people may be good for the fragile ego but it doesn't build a player base, it probably hinders it. That, coupled with a reward system that makes it much harder for newer players to get a foothold in the game (even if they buy journey) doesn't bode well for the longevity of it.

While I've said before we wait and see what's on offer, I would be very tempted to scrutinise the detail for quite a while before deciding if I am to buy it. And if I don't, it's likely I just won't play at all because a journey each month won't interest me; it suggests there'll be much more emphasis on paying to be able to possibly have fun, let alone win, it will be a high expense for no value, after a while it will become self-defeating as all you'll be playing for is cosmetics or a time of mostly highly attritional games. Or trying for the pro ranks, which I understand are full of net decks.

 

[thewhitewind]

First time posting here. I started playing end of April and Gwent has been a blast to play. Journey was fun and it was cool to progress through the different levels and anticipating the rewards that you could get further down the line.

Now with the new system, I feel like I have to play 'quest decks' just so I can accumulate RP. It feels too much of a grind and I think I will be spending less time in Gwent.

A question to the devs.

Do you like playing against an opponent who plays the new and exciting Auberon in the first round and dry passes?

Tldr: I would hate to play against myself now just to grind RP.