Golden Age of Dwarves

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Golden Age of Dwarves

I gave a break around ten days or so to not to lose my love for the game and wait for bugfixes and hopefully balance to bs level dorf deck. Apparently it's not gonna happen until next month (don't fell like calling them seasons tbh. 2 month was optimal 1 month is too short)

Netdeckers and popularity/win rate ratio have been discussed many many times here so I won't even bother that discussion. Netdeckers are inevitable and popularity comes and goes. That's OK.

BUT

If your game has a deck that with 40% POPULARITY and 53% WIN RATE for a LONG TIME, it's obvious that something amiss (Imlerith voice here). It's not a recent problem as this has been like this with every single patch. Fix one to break all others... (Eithne, Dagon, Bran, Emhyr once in a while, Henselt and now our new favorite Brouver the former Hoog striped of his surname because of reasons undisclosed)

CDPR I'm calling you. Unless you find solution to this balance problem which happens with every patch:
  • Nobody will care about upcoming game mode where allegedly "Create" shines and you are rightfully excited about (I don't know about reddit but surely can't see hype here)
  • Most people will restraint from spending money because more cards=/=diversity or fun. Just get the 25 cards some streamer using and be done with it.
  • Some devoted players like me (1000+ hours and tens of thousand of matches) will not want to double-click on that Gwent icon on the desktop because they know that at least 4 out of 10 games will be against a predictable and nobrainer deck. I'm not a bot. I don't want to play the same pattern over and over again if it's punishing. I love grinding in most games but this is not even grinding.
  • "Brainstormers" won't even bother with constructive critism because it's never taken into consideration. They will whine and cry (like this thread) and just shout "DO SOMETHING".
Nobody expecting every archetype to be a possible winner against any deck combination. Some may (like Emhyr Spies) but those has drawbacks of their own. Problem is having to craft a deck you don't want or enjoy just to counter ONE SPECIFIC DECK because of it's unbalanced popularity and winrate (i.e. dorf)

"Just tech against it". I shouldn't. If the deck I crafted has around 40% WR for the meta popular deck and 60% WR against all others, I consider myself a better player and won't thrash my deck just to counter Dwarves. I wanna rank up with the strategy I created yet there is no way because literally at least 4 out of 10 decks is the broken one.

Your bona fides is unquestionable. You are trying is to fix one thing while not breaking two instead but there is something wrong with your approach and it's not working. I'm a lawyer. I can go on for hours and hours and say nothing of value just to cloud your mind but this is not one of those times guys.

Seriously.

p.s.: Brouver GwentUp report for 30 Dec 17 – 05 Jan 18
https://imgur.com/a/UMq5L
 
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Altaybek.. you said it as I wish. Thank you for lending a supporting voice to my thoughts. I love The Witcher, and I until recently, I was enjoying Gwent. This is not a deep strategic game; it's clear that CDPR is catering to the "lowest common denominator", for money.
 
I totally agree with you. November 2017 was one of the most balanced months regarding faction popularity, but since last patch, the variance of faction popularity has reached its peak. There are 5 factions out there and the Scoia'tael alone holds more then 50% of the player base. Also, I hope that when attempting to fix this problem, you don't actually break the deck. It just requires some fine tuning, like decreasing the base strength of some Scoia'tael units by 1 or 2 points. Another suggestion would be to change all the Create units like Slave Driver, Elven Scout and also the Dwarven Agitator into a card that transforms into the target, instead of playing it. This way, it won't freely add 2 strength to a bronze move.
 
It's understandable. Scoiatel was the least played faction before the Midwinter patch (Bran was played more than whole ST combined) and they wanted to fix that. Apparently they overdid it.
 
The thing is though, I don't think they aren't hearing our complaints.

It just takes time to implement fitting changes.

We got 100 new cards this update, so it isn't simply reverting all the rules to preupdate.

Lets give them some time to fix it.

And probably with the new update there will be some other deck everybody hates.

There will always be someone coming up with a hugely nifty deck and people will copy that.

So complain about it, but keep it reasonable.

I do think they are trying to make a game that everybody enjoys.
 
TheEpicWhale;n10229802 said:
The thing is though, I don't think they aren't hearing our complaints.

It just takes time to implement fitting changes.

We got 100 new cards this update, so it isn't simply reverting all the rules to preupdate.

Lets give them some time to fix it.

And probably with the new update there will be some other deck everybody hates.

There will always be someone coming up with a hugely nifty deck and people will copy that.

So complain about it, but keep it reasonable.

I do think they are trying to make a game that everybody enjoys.

I already said they have good will and trying to fix. If it's not working than there is a fundamental problem with the design team. They have the power to prevent that "OP Deck of the Patch"
 
TheEpicWhale;n10229802 said:
The thing is though, I don't think they aren't hearing our complaints.

It just takes time to implement fitting changes.

We got 100 new cards this update, so it isn't simply reverting all the rules to preupdate.

Lets give them some time to fix it.

And probably with the new update there will be some other deck everybody hates.

There will always be someone coming up with a hugely nifty deck and people will copy that.

So complain about it, but keep it reasonable.

I do think they are trying to make a game that everybody enjoys.

I disagree completely, and view your comments as vague deflection. Yes, there will always be some unintentional buffing/nerfing, but the last two patches, it seems as if the (created) imbalances are so absurdly pronounced that they should have been caught in the testing phase. These changes ARE tested, are they not? If so, then what the hell?

Let me be blunt: I'm fairly sure my cat could autopilot a dwarf deck to Grand Master by walking on the keyboard. To a lesser extent, this applies to a couple of Skellige memes.
 
They just introduced a sh*tton of new cards plus new mechanics. How can anyone expect balance? I understand you guys are somewhat fed up with one deck being op for a long while (and bugs are superannoying ofc) but i give props to CDPR for taking the right approach in gathering data, analysing how these new mechanics affect the game BEFORE doing changes to current cards while still listening to feedback.Gwent was in need of new mechanics. They are experimenting with ideas from other card games and i think some of the additions are really great. And nothing is set in stone, they have high standards and they dont want this game to fail. Its still a beta and as they planned to release the final build in 2018, expect a few more rollercoaster seasons.
Doing it the right way just TAKES time. I understand you guys are passionate about Gwent and you need to vent sometimes, but you arent telling a multimillion dollar company something new or give useful advice unless you provide concrete ideas for card and mechanics changes.
 
You know, the game before the last 100+ cards had become kinda stagnant, but it was actually well balanced and with few tweaks it would have been even more balanced. Than came Armageddon. I don't know what happened, but it's like chaos of mindlessly vomiting points without any set up, everything flies everywhere without particular reason.

I liked the game more when the units were more trimmed with rows. It required more strategic thinking of both sides, made more sense... I actually do like the new stuff either, but it's so much more infuriating when a 20+ points swing appears via just one card, one play (and I am not talking about Ciri: Nova).
 
MystereSC;n10229992 said:
They just introduced a sh*tton of new cards plus new mechanics. How can anyone expect balance? I understand you guys are somewhat fed up with one deck being op for a long while (and bugs are superannoying ofc) but i give props to CDPR for taking the right approach in gathering data, analysing how these new mechanics affect the game BEFORE doing changes to current cards while still listening to feedback.Gwent was in need of new mechanics. They are experimenting with ideas from other card games and i think some of the additions are really great. And nothing is set in stone, they have high standards and they dont want this game to fail. Its still a beta and as they planned to release the final build in 2018, expect a few more rollercoaster seasons.
Doing it the right way just TAKES time. I understand you guys are passionate about Gwent and you need to vent sometimes, but you arent telling a multimillion dollar company something new or give useful advice unless you provide concrete ideas for card and mechanics changes.

Have you not been reading these forums? There are so many good ideas floating around!

And really? You think that the testing performed before release has been adequate, especially in light of this MidWinter Patch? Really? C'mon.. that's glaringly false.

Furthermore, what "new mechanics" have been implemented that are truly innovative? In fact, they truly dumbed-down the game in favor of sheer point-spamming, as evidenced by changes to many cards (e.g. Field Medic and Temerian Drummer as just two examples).

 
MystereSC;n10229992 said:
They just introduced a sh*tton of new cards plus new mechanics. How can anyone expect balance? I understand you guys are somewhat fed up with one deck being op for a long while (and bugs are superannoying ofc) but i give props to CDPR for taking the right approach in gathering data, analysing how these new mechanics affect the game BEFORE doing changes to current cards while still listening to feedback.Gwent was in need of new mechanics. They are experimenting with ideas from other card games and i think some of the additions are really great. And nothing is set in stone, they have high standards and they dont want this game to fail. Its still a beta and as they planned to release the final build in 2018, expect a few more rollercoaster seasons.
Doing it the right way just TAKES time. I understand you guys are passionate about Gwent and you need to vent sometimes, but you arent telling a multimillion dollar company something new or give useful advice unless you provide concrete ideas for card and mechanics changes.

I agree and disagree with that.

So, sure, they added a lot of cards which obviously caused those balancing problems but here's the thing : They didn't had to.
What I mean is that, imo they released too many cards and made to many change to existing cards at the same time. Yes it obviously caused the game to be unbalanced (it's unavoidable when you change so many things at once) but they could have done that step by step instead.
For example fix the cards that were unbalanced in the previous patch, then release a first pack with 25 cards, see out it goes and progress like that every 2~3 month for example.

As I said in another topic, it's pretty frustrating to leave a game almost perfectly balanced than the one we had before the midwinter update just to find a huge mess like the one we have right now.

And the problem isn't even Dwarf specifically, right now this deck is the OP one that the vast majority of players are using but it's also a veil that covers a LOT of other issues regarding the balance of the game.

Mark my words, when they fix Dwarfs, if they don't do anything about Consume, that will be the next OP deck that 5O% of the community are going to play because Nekkers are technically unbeatable by regular means. And that's the biggest drawback in rushing and releasing too much feature at once, you find yourself in the middle of a mess where problems pop out from everywhere and it becomes even more difficult to fix them. With all the love I have for CDPR they made their life a lot more difficult than it should be.
 
I never said the community doesnt provide any ideas, ofc it does. But there are even more completely useless rants and advices.And i didnt say anything about how testing was adequate or not. But to answer that anyways, proper testing/balancing of so many new cards affecting the current state with a small team would only delay new patches by aLOT. And what do we have a beta for? They have the best test environment around possible with thousands of players of all skill levels, ofc they take advantage of that, and they should. Also i didnt say they implemented innovative ideas but are experimenting with ideas from other games.
I can only /rolleyes about how people write the game is being dumbed down for mobile/money/lowest common nominator etc or how it is dying if not something happens asap. They are taking the right approach in testing all waters, like it or not. The only thing that can truly be complained about is the amount of bugs introduced. And i attribute that to a tight workload schedule around christmas. Maybe they put too much pressure on a small team, idk.
 
GenLiu They probably had to push out that amount of cards because they have deadlines to release the final game soon so they pressed the turbo button. They would not have added that amount if they didnt had to. As you said the balance befvore the update was good, so they are capable of achieving it.
 
MystereSC;n10229992 said:
you arent telling a multimillion dollar company something new or give useful advice unless you provide concrete ideas for card and mechanics changes.

The amount of ideas and suggestions in forums and reddit were enough to create a new game from scratch. I'm not even gonna discuss that. Just because someone isn't employed in CDPR that doesn't mean their ideas aren't worthy.

I'm certain the talent and abilites of individuals in think-tank are not the thing to be questioned therefore the problem should be originating from higher ranks. I fear they are getting "tunnel vision" over development.
 
altaybek Yea that is what i just wrote about? I am absolutely aware that we have phenomenal players in the think-tank.Their actual ideas about card changes etc are absolutely worthy, i dont understand how you can misinterprete what i wrote. I was clearly refering to all the advices given by many players how they should handle the current situation as a company without providing concrete solutions how to fix the current state. Just like your OP. No offense, you clearly did lay down your criticism in a positive way but its nothing new for them. And i am pretty sure they look and make their decisisions from a completely different viewing angle. They KNOW dwarves are imbalanced. There is no need to tell them over and over. And im completely sure they are and were aware about the state of the game at any point. But to fully understand how all mechanics come together and how the new mechanics evolve organically in actual player environment it takes time. Just turning some knobs on numbers is not the correct approach. To create a good and dynamic game, patience and perseverance is needed, which they have.

The community doesnt make it easier for them, as everybody is netdecking the same decks for no good reason. If people actually tried to come up with new strats instead of following the trend, it would be much easier to understand what the different archetypes need to become viable. Unfortunately too many players care for illusionairy internet points and a number that actually means nothing and is not even a representation of anyone's skill, when the game is not balanced. Even the streamers. If people actually tried to come up with decks of their own and begin to really understand the game instead of aping what the best players use, the balance would be completely different. So for whom do you balance? The average skill player or the top level? Depends on the audience. But the result is very heavily distorted because of how popular netdecking is. And i dont buy into any other reason than chasing for a pointless number besides the avatar.
So they look at how the new dynamics play out, maybe some genius finds the anti-strat anyways. Sometimes it has to become worse before it can get better.

I agree that they probably have a lot of pressure from higher ranks, and a deadline to release the final game as i wrote earlier. The gwent team seems to be relatively small so the best we can do is to provide constructive feedback , keep positivity and play for fun and to help evolve the game into a great one.
A lot of the issues can be blamed on the community.
 
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@MystereSC I agree that useless community feedback is actually overshadowing proper ones but they are the ones to filter.Most people already gave tons of constructive feedback yet they are indifferent about it. Even when they hear our pleas they are going "all-in" approach. Take Yrden for example. It was supposed to reset ALL units and remove ALL tokens which was objectively unbalanced. They listened to community then limited it to one row only and now it's almost useless. Vesemir & D-Bomb is even better if that's your game. They could just make it like let's say, Igni. "Reset all units and remove tokens on enemy rows with 25 points or more". I JUST threw this out of my arse and it already sounds better than what it is now. Still conditional but that's ok as long as you can utilize.

They are swinging in extremes. Most cards are either crucial or totally useless. An archetype revolving around a card is completely natural but when you ignore to balance other cards just to make that card work, things go out of hand. (Bear, Dorfs etc). I'm excluding Nova because that needs a properly planned and thinning deck that has the ability to gain CA while playing with 2 copy bronzes.

I even missed Millgaard...
 
GenLiu;n10230272 said:
I agree and disagree with that.

So, sure, they added a lot of cards which obviously caused those balancing problems but here's the thing : They didn't had to.
What I mean is that, imo they released too many cards and made to many change to existing cards at the same time. Yes it obviously caused the game to be unbalanced (it's unavoidable when you change so many things at once) but they could have done that step by step instead.
For example fix the cards that were unbalanced in the previous patch, then release a first pack with 25 cards, see out it goes and progress like that every 2~3 month for example.

As I said in another topic, it's pretty frustrating to leave a game almost perfectly balanced than the one we had before the midwinter update just to find a huge mess like the one we have right now.

And the problem isn't even Dwarf specifically, right now this deck is the OP one that the vast majority of players are using but it's also a veil that covers a LOT of other issues regarding the balance of the game.

Mark my words, when they fix Dwarfs, if they don't do anything about Consume, that will be the next OP deck that 5O% of the community are going to play because Nekkers are technically unbeatable by regular means. And that's the biggest drawback in rushing and releasing too much feature at once, you find yourself in the middle of a mess where problems pop out from everywhere and it becomes even more difficult to fix them. With all the love I have for CDPR they made their life a lot more difficult than it should be.

Sweers by itself will keep nekkers from getting too popular.
 
MystereSC;n10230862 said:
altaybek

The community doesnt make it easier for them, as everybody is netdecking the same decks for no good reason. If people actually tried to come up with new strats instead of following the trend, it would be much easier to understand what the different archetypes need to become viable. Unfortunately too many players care for illusionairy internet points and a number that actually means nothing and is not even a representation of anyone's skill, when the game is not balanced. Even the streamers. If people actually tried to come up with decks of their own and begin to really understand the game instead of aping what the best players use, the balance would be completely different. So for whom do you balance? The average skill player or the top level? Depends on the audience. But the result is very heavily distorted because of how popular netdecking is. And i dont buy into any other reason than chasing for a pointless number besides the avatar.
So they look at how the new dynamics play out, maybe some genius finds the anti-strat anyways. Sometimes it has to become worse before it can get better.

It is very unsurprising that nobody wants to lose and therefore players gravitate towards the powerful decks other people have made. Chances are a player isn't going to come up with something awesome that great players haven't already tried or thought of. Sitting around spending tons of time losing with less powerful original decks just isn't appealing to many people.
 
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