GWENT Homecoming — see what's next for GWENT

[SigilFey]

I understand the general idea behind full mill value after a balance change. My point is that as soon as you apply it to every card in the game, people can not only use this for the purpose you stated: milling cards that they spend precious resources on to craft them, but people can use them to mill every additional copy they own in the game, while still keeping 1 copy of every epic/legendary and 3 copies of each common and rare. Knowing this 6 months in advance (along with any previous saving people may have done) will amount to a whole lot of crafting materials.

Not that I don't appreciate CDPR trying not to harm anyone, but this might be being overly generous to the point where it might harm them. Perhaps full mill value should only be applied to milling of non-spare copies of a card. Not that I think coming back on the full mill value is a realistic option, just philosophizing about a solution I suppose.

Anyway, though news for the coming months, but I hope the changes work out. I appreciate CDPR not being afraid of major overhauls. Hope they can re-introduce some meaning to the row mechanics, regardless of whether we end up with two rows or three. Depends on what mechanics you come up with I suppose.

I imagine that's the goal!

I wouldn't lose sleep over the milling grace period. It's the same system that has been used very successfully since the closed beta. It's never been an issue. Ideally, people should be left feeling torn about whether they really want to mill that card or not. Think of it as a way of putting the ball back where it was after the goal-posts are moved.

 

[Void_Singer]

[...]Ideally, people should be left feeling torn about whether they really want to mill that card or not.[...]

Realistically one should mill every card that has full mill value, and they should do it before opening kegs.

• if you get it back in a keg, you've gained value.
• if you didn't use the card you can apply the scraps to something else and you've gained value.
• if premiums give full scrap value, and you re-craft with meteor powder, you've gained value
• if you re-craft a regular (worst case scenario) you've only lost the time it took to to mill and re-craft.

The only case where you can lose any value is if you mill a premium and get scraps + powder value, and then use the powder on a lower quality card.... I've never noticed whether premiums at full mill only give scraps, or if they give both, so I'm not even sure if that scenario is possible.

 

[Jokfish]

CDPR want Gwent to be awesome and fun to play. I want Gwent to be awesome and fun to play. We're on the same team.

The way I see it is that CDPR have given us about 5 completely different Gwents in the last year. I have found all of them fun to play. Many people are worried about the stagnation of the next 6 months, but in the mean time CDPR are making massive core changes that need to be tested. It doesn't get more dynamic than that.

So I say this to CDPR. Some of us don't mind change. Some of us don't mind MASSIVE change. We don't mind Beta, or finding out that a new mechanic doesn't work. We just enjoy playing the game and want to help make it better. So let us help.

The best way to enable this, in my opinion, is to link the dailies and quests between the PTR and the main build, so that testing time is rewarded. I would happily spend all my time in the PTR if I felt my time was working towards something.

 

[-Arkane]

Just seems like a desperate attempt to bring back those players that already left, I'm guessing they want to remove a row to fit the UI onto mobile it seems smh. They went down the road of dumbing the game down to make it more accessible and in the process lost it's core playerbase. Mechanic's such as Create is an example of bad variance added into the game. Many card effects have been changed to a more simplified and flavorless effect of which has shaped the game into mindless point spamming now.


The game needs to go back to it's roots of closed beta which had some depth to it, just needed some balancing and ironing out of card effects/mechanics and it would've still retained it's charm and flare of what made Gwent different in comparison to other CCG's. But no they just removed everything that made it original instead of refining/balancing whatever mechanic seemed problematic for design space (Gold immunity/faction abilities) at the time. It just comes down to incompetence really.

Gwent has been in beta for almost 2 years now, with all the feedback it has moved at a snails pace and can't even say gone backwards as it's left its roots in favour of a more solitaire approach. Bring back faction abilities/identity, gold immunity and unit's that can be played on specific rows only.You can refine these instead of removing them completely out of the game. Why are almost all units agile now, what is the point of having rows? Guess I'm too late on the inb4 CDPR removed rows because we've heard your feedback logic.You don't need to remove gold immunity you just need to design more cards that target golds just how Iorverth did as it's first iteration of the card of dealing 6 damage. Golds being removed by any removal card effect just makes it seem like you're playing a 25 card deck of where gold and silvers have no meaning. Design more golds and silvers that can target golds.. Have a few more bronze cards such as shackles that can lock golds but keep them as spells, units that can lock or target golds should be golds/silver themselves as it would be too powerful otherwise for a bronze with a body and that ability. Change weather to affect both sides again but refine the effects of weather cards. Give unit's for specific rows weather immunity and some more unit's the ability to clear weather from specific rows only. This gives the game another layer of depth again which it sorely misses.

On that note please only change cards that need to be addressed for balancing do not change card effects for a more simplified game.. Schirru has been changed 3 times.. He was fine as the ambush version and even still flavorful as his second iteration of scorching one of your own cards in hand. Now it's; apply scorch or epidemic which is very lackluster and basic to say the least (there are many more examples but I need to end this rant) especially when gold immunity is removed..Same with the majority of the bronze cards/engines of brainless spam.. Gwent just doesn't feel like gwent anymore and even the card effects have become mundane and boring lacking flavour and reducing the game to point spam rather than skill. 6 Month road map to make rows impactful again (maybe) but will also possibly remove one row is ironically and sadly laughable.

At least they're finally looking into the coinflip issue not late at all.. I quit just after the mid winter update I'll be sure to check in after 6 months to see where Gwent is at once again. The developers seem to be confused on the games identity it's been overhauled randomly too many times stripping away the added layers to the game and adding in the random crap such as create, we do not want another hearthstone clone thank you, no cartoony UI, RNG love and upbeat music.
End rant/

 

[Captainkrueger]

I really hope this is not goodbye. But 6 months feels a lot like it.

 

[RitalinFIN]

Why does it take 6 months to do these changes? The game has already those "homecoming" attributes baked inside the code (row placement, gold immunity, faction abilities... and so on). Probably takes less than a week to have a seasoned c# pro to turn this game upside down. Now for some unexplained reason it takes 6 months.I'm just guessing here, but I think for the last 3months or so they have been focusing 99% on the mobile version and the conclusion of that testing is that 8 rows is just too much. It looks bad. So now they want to start from 0 and make Gwent revolve around mobile interfaces.

 

[Vanaar]

I'll be brief.

I like Gwent alot. I enjoy it very much "even" in its current state.
Waiting for 6 months is unfortunate, but I'll probably still continue playing until that time.

I will definitely be there when Homecoming hits and I'm also looking forward for Thronebreaker! I hope your plans work out and the end result is a better and more popular game!

 

[DMaster2]

Why does it take 6 months to do these changes? The game has already those "homecoming" attributes baked inside the code (row placement, gold immunity, faction abilities... and so on). Probably takes less than a week to have a seasoned c# pro to turn this game upside down. Now for some unexplained reason it takes 6 months.I'm just guessing here, but I think for the last 3months or so they have been focusing 99% on the mobile version and the conclusion of that testing is that 8 rows is just too much. It looks bad. So now they want to start from 0 and make Gwent revolve around mobile interfaces.

I suppose your experience as a game developer talks here.

 

[DMaster2]

I understand the general idea behind full mill value after a balance change. My point is that as soon as you apply it to every card in the game, people can not only use this for the purpose you stated: milling cards that they spend precious resources on to craft them, but people can use them to mill every additional copy they own in the game, while still keeping 1 copy of every epic/legendary and 3 copies of each common and rare. Knowing this 6 months in advance (along with any previous saving people may have done) will amount to a whole lot of crafting materials.

Not that I don't appreciate CDPR trying not to harm anyone, but this might be being overly generous to the point where it might harm them. Perhaps full mill value should only be applied to milling of non-spare copies of a card. Not that I think coming back on the full mill value is a realistic option, just philosophizing about a solution I suppose.

Anyway, though news for the coming months, but I hope the changes work out. I appreciate CDPR not being afraid of major overhauls. Hope they can re-introduce some meaning to the row mechanics, regardless of whether we end up with two rows or three. Depends on what mechanics you come up with I suppose.

It's not overly generous.

You know why are they doing this? This is their way to give people incentive to actually play the game for the next 6 months. If there was full refund only on playsets people like me that have a full collection wouldn't have a single incentive to play in those 6 months.

They are basically giving you a full collection for the next couple of years in terms of ores and scraps in exchange for us keeping up the game alive while homecoming is getting worked on. They'll make money from thronebreaker and new players anyway.

 

[NomanPeopled]

Considering that much better funded CCG powerhouses have never managed to balance their games on a consistent basis I would say 6 months is very, very little time. The forums are full of good, solid, ideas that are however fully untested.
It can take 2 weeks for a metagame to settle, and that's with tens of thousands of players involved and no changes made to the game in the meantime. CDPRs job is to make a game that is easy to get into yet skill-intensive on the higher levels, has several top decks from several factions each, implement factions that work differently yet can achieve the same goals, test the whole thing at every step, and change the interface as well es technical implementation as needed.
That's a pretty tall order. Like I said, I don't envy them

To be sure, CDPR is a company that seems to perform way below peak efficiency when on a strict timetable. They've been called lazy in this thread and elsewhere; but I don't see a reason to doubt their declared goals and work ethic. I just think they've failed to adapt their usual approach and workflow to the fast-paced, multiplayer CCG format. Here's to hoping they learn quickly now.

 

[quantum_number]

I came across an interesting article about Mafia 3 and its devs, Hanger 13.

https://kotaku.com/how-the-makers-of...way-1825242177

Jason Schreier has a lot of these articles, but the reason I'm posting this one is because there seem to be some parallels with CDPR and Gwent. I find it interesting that it doesn't just tell us what went wrong, but also how and why.

The most obvious one is how pushing down the wrong path, hoping for things to sort themselves out can lead to where Gwent is now.

Another is that a big dev team can be a blessing and a curse. The inertia starts carrying the team and a 100+ people can find it more difficult to change direction than 10. 2K bosses spoke of a studio of 150 people, a familiar number.

There's also the fact that not everyone of the rank and file devs is happy with the direction management is taking the project. Some might prefer to be on a project with better focus and more internal "hype", in the case of CDPR, Cyberpunk 2077.

Food for thought.

 

[NovaKZ75]

The only thing that I don't like and that worrie me is the row removal, it doesn't really go well with the idea of bringing back the original concept of gwent, and Also cards like weathers or, especially, Geralt:igni would need some serious changes.
Again, if we think about the other goal of the project homecoming which is making the rows really matter, I think the removal of one of them will heavily limit the possibile combos or archetypes that take advantage of them and, in general, take away some strategy from the game.

 

[dobikuba]

YES!
CDPR mirroring my thoughts almost exactly gives me hope for the game (and my skills as a game designer )
One thing to add: Part of the battlefield feel is symmetrical weather. It is one of the things that made the original Gwent unique. (And symmetrical effects in general are cool) Make it work.
And I think people are correctly worried about removing a row: It makes row choice binary, removes major avenues of tactical play. (but you probably know this)
once again: SO MUCH YES!

 

[Pruny]

Pasak was 100% right: cdpr dont listen to sugestions .
they rushed create in ranked and destroyed the game.
I think gwent needs weekly balance hotfixes because its abusable mecanics.
If cdpr dont listen to sugestions homecoming will be another disaster.
:bored:

 

[Sheva007]

Yeah well, some of us saw this coming. Some of us warned you that the path you were taking was going to be a disaster. We were told off, "CDPR knows better", they said. It turns out that we knew better.

but lets be honest here. The problem is you tried to get casual players by the adding of RNG, removing key mechanics and features for the shake of simplicity, and other questionable decisions.

The casual audience failed to answer your call, since, well, they are in HS, thats where they should be, and thats where they are going to stay.

Now you turn to your original audience, players looking for a more strategic and a less RNG dependant game and tell them "okay, so you wanted a more strategic and deep game you say? Could you please wait for us 6 months?". Well, good luck with that.

and about Thronebreaker. Yeah, ok, sounds great and all, but dont lose your focus, you are developing a CCG here, a singleplayer mode is a nice addition, but it should be secondary. Sometimes when people talk about TB it sounds like its the key feature Gwent is missing., and its not, lack of singleplayer mode is the least of Gwent 's problems.

in any case, if i were CDPR, í would Cancel GWENT straightaway. It was a nice try, closed beta looked GREAT, but you dropped the ball. And its ok, its not the end of the World, CCGs are a difficult genre.

as far as i can see, all the streamers are moving away from Gwent, players will start leaving by the thousands soon enough, and the game will be dead in a couple of months. Do you expect people caming back in 6 months? Only die hard fans will, lets be honest. This is the last nail in the coffin.


So my suggestion is, cancel Gwent, and use all the resources in Cyberpunk, it will be the best for CDPR and the gaming community.

 

[Pacifixer]

These are AMAZING news!

For me Gwent was always "THE Game with no RNG", so when create happened i felt betrayed and stopped playing. I don't care how many times you fail to balance the game, i dont care how long it takes to create some meaningful content other than ranked, but lazy unfare unfun garbage RNG mechanics like create a big taboo for me! I'm really happy, that you realized your mistakes and are doing something about it.

Gwent haves the potential to be THE BEST CCG ever, even better than Magic, so PLEASE don't fuck it up. 6 months of nothing is small price to pay for years of amazing fun.

 

[NomanPeopled]

Ithink gwent needs weekly balance hotfixes because its abusable mecanics.

Absolutely not. I'm not building and testing decks that might suck next weekend.

 

[mishant]

Gwent surely need a few fixes in almost all aspects. But the direction it is going in is destroying the very "Soul/foundation " on which it was built & what made it soooo awesome.
People liked the Witcher 3's ingame version of gwent, which lead to its online version happening in the first place.
But the way CDPR is mutating it to make it (in their mind) a accomplished eSport is just not the right direction.
I have played it since the closed Beta days... & though its most fixed/stable than ever before...i personally find that it has become less & less fun to play with each update since the " gold Immunity update "
though i still have hope it will turn out to be a Great game (like any other CDPR game) by the time it exits publicBeta

 

[MasterOfRobness]

It's not overly generous.

You know why are they doing this? This is their way to give people incentive to actually play the game for the next 6 months. If there was full refund only on playsets people like me that have a full collection wouldn't have a single incentive to play in those 6 months.

They are basically giving you a full collection for the next couple of years in terms of ores and scraps in exchange for us keeping up the game alive while homecoming is getting worked on. They'll make money from thronebreaker and new players anyway.

Suppose you're right about the reasoning behind it, hope it works out this way. For me it will feel strange, having such an insane amount of scraps (although I probably could complete my collection already at this very moment).

 

[jgolden234]

Seems gwent creates a lot of passion, and even the people that are furatrated are coming from a love of the game. I hate waiting but I am really looking forward to the full release. Thronebreaker sounds amazing and even with some aggravating mechanics in the game now I still enjoy it. I appreciate CDPR being willing to take a step back to fix things. I am also glad they will be giving us the balance patch in May, so it sounds like we won't have to wait forever to have a shake up of the meta (*cough* great swords and bears *cough*).

Thanks CDPR! I hope we hear about a beta for the full release soon and that I can try it out then