Gwent Suggestion - Year of the Nerf

[quintivarium]

Suggestion: Year of the Nerf

Despite being some time from the new year, I would like to suggest that as Gwent ages, we need a year focused on nerfs. As I think about Gwent, I believe it suffers from two major (and intertwined) flaws: it is losing its strategic appeal, and it is getting stale. I think a significant contributor to both is the substantial difference between high end cards and junk cards, ill-conceived cards that are too binary and/or benefit sloppy play, and heavy reliance upon a small number of utility cards to control excesses of some cards. I doubt this is a pragmatic suggestion as I don’t know how it would be monetized, but hopefully developers will consider the very real problems it would help address.

Ultimately, my goal is twofold: to allow the elimination of unlimited removal (Heat Wave, Invocation, Eilhart, Muzzle), and to allow the elimination of all-purpose tutors (Oneiromancy, Royal Decree). For reasons I give below, I think both types of cards are horrible for the game but are absolutely necessary for its playability in its present form.

Unlimited removal (like Heatwave) allows the illusion that any card is balanced because it has a counter; in essence, it allows a “remove or lose” style of card design that is very binary, and not strategically interesting. It allows the type of excessive removal that leaves nothing on the board to strategize around. I think tall removal is important; I think removal of artifacts is important; I think banishing is important. I also think these types of removal need to be available in a form that is not virtually unusable unless the “right” targets appear. But not all this removal should be in the same card, and ideally through cards that can themselves be interacted with. Good examples of removal card(s) along the lines I appreciate are Villentretenmerth (promotes interesting tactics) and Kurt (gives choice of tech alternatives). Of course, restricting removal is only feasible if all the existing “remove or lose” cards can be eliminated from the game.

All purpose tutors are presently needed for consistency. When top cards play for 10 or more times the value of other cards in the deck, matches are won or lost based upon drawing these cards; tutoring them reduces variability. But allowing any card to be tutored also reduces the need for players to adapt to what they draw (simply tutor it instead) reducing both the strategy and freshness of each game. If cards are more equal in value, tutoring can focus on situational cards rather than big cards, thereby making tutoring strategic rather than rote.

Unfortunately, between power-creep and occasional poor judgement, a lot of really bad cards have not only made their way into the game but have become prominently featured in the top decks. To adequately convey my vision, I have made a list of cards I believe need nerfing (I am not sure it is complete as it is easy to overlook some). I don’t necessarily want to rank order them as I don’t want to quibble about things like whether Simlas is better or worse than Melusine, but some cards are clearly more damaging than others, so I have sorted my suggested nerf targets into high, medium, and low priority. I also want to give some indication of why I think each card listed is problematic. But certain reasons occur repeatedly. I have the following code for these (some cards will trigger multiple codes):

• Card plays for too many points in a single play
• Card is “answer or lose”
• Card is too binary for other reasons (coin dependence, draw order dependence, matchup dependent, too much variability, etc.)
• Card is too uninteractive or resistance to strategic response.
• Card promotes poor quality play.
• Card has too much potential for its provisions.
• Card is impossible to keep balanced.

My suggested “Nerf List”

Top Priority Nerfs
Neutral Cards

• Sihil 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
• Ornate Censor 3

Monster Cards

• Haunt 1
• Viy 3, 4, 5
• Fleder 2, 6

Nilfgaard

• Masquerade Ball 1
• Vilgefortz: Renegade (binary combination with Imperial Practitioner)
• Coup de Grace 7
• Cahir Dyffryn 2, 3, 5, 6
• Vypper 2
• Philippe Van Moorlehem 2

Northern Realms Cards

• Amphibious Assault 1, 7
• Siege 1
• King Henselt 2
• King Foltest 2

Scoia’tael Cards

• Feign Death 1
• Gezras of Leyda 2
• Simlas Finn aep Dabairr 1, 3, 4

Skellige Cards

• Gedyneith 1
• Fucusya 1
• Melusine 2, 4, 5, 7
• Dagur Two Blades 2
• Magic Compass 3, 4, 7
• Messenger of the Sea 2

Syndicate Cards

• Passiflora 1
• Dies Irae 1, 7
• Sacred Flame 1
• Roland Bleinheim 2

Medium Priority Nerfs
Neutral Cards

• Sunset Wanderers 1
• Aerondight 1, 3, 7
• Ring of Favor 1, 5
• Golden Nekker 1, 3
• Idarran of Ulivo 2
• Arcane Tome (tutoring too easy and cheap)
• Lady of the Lake (tutors only cards that ought not exist)

Monster Cards

• Koshchey 2

Nilfgaard Cards

• Artaud 1, 3
• Coup de Grace 7
• Jan Calveit 5
• Vilgefortz 1
• Imperial Practitioner 3

Northern Realms Cards

• Draug 1
• Tissaia de Vries 2
• Chapter of Wizards 1
• Raffard’s Vengeance 1
• Dandelion (too much carry over)
• Princess Pavetta (binary combinations)
• Mutagenerator (dangerous level of potential carryover)

Scoia’tael Cards

• Call of the Forest (the type of general tutor I think is bad for the game)
• Francesca Findabair 2
• Torque (dangerous levels of carryover)

Skellige Cards

• Blood Eagle 7
• Eist Tuirseach 1
• Lippy Gudmund (dangerous combinations, restricts design space)
• Rioghan the Undying 3
• Sigvald 2, 3

Syndicate Cards

• The Witchfinder 1, 2
• King of Beggars 1
• Philippa Eilhart 1, 3
• Vivaldi Bank 3, 6
• Savolla 1
• Imke 2
• Whoreson’s Freakshow 4
• Gellert Bleinheim 2
• Tunnel Drill 2

Low Priority (borderline need) Nerfs
Neutral Cards

• Syanna 2
• Alzur 3
• Angouleme 3
• Hen Gaideth Sword 3, 7

Monster Cards

• Regis Reborn 1
• Unseen Elder 1
• Arachas Queen (restricts design space)
• Kikimore Queen 2
• Witch Apprentice 2, 6
• Ard Gaeth 7

Nilfgaard Cards

• Anna Henrietta 5
• Kolgrim 2, 5
• Bribery 3
• Hefty Helge 2

Northern Realms Cards

• War Elephant 1
• Erland 1
• King Radovid V 1
• Vysogota of Corvo 2
• Alumni (too easy to cash in on patience carryover)

Scoia’tael Cards

• Saskia Commander 4
• Iorveth’s Gambit 3, 4
• Eldain 4
• Aglais 4
• Shaping Nature 7
• Vanadain (unhealthy combinations)

Skellige Cards

• Arnaghad (dangerous combination with Sukrus)
• Crach an Craite 2
• Junod of Belhaven 5
• Sigrdrifa’s Rite 6
• Knut the Callous (dangerous combinations – but very strategic)
• Drummond Shield Maiden (dangerous combinations)
• Discard package in general (too draw dependent)

Syndicate Cards

• Salamander 3
• Fallen Knight 4

 

[DRK3]

Very detailed post, and even though i dont agree with everything, i support the message.
The "old me" would make a huge reply post, commenting on where i agree or disagree, and add new topics.

Nowadays, i don't have the effort to do so, jaded by the continuous disregard the Gwent team shows for feedback provided by players.
Recently, i actually happened to watch a bit of a TWIG with Burza (it was the one with Rasheed), saying they liked feedback as long as it was constructive and detailed, instead of just insults and platitudes.

Well, that's a load of ****, because i've been a regular on these forums for years and i've seen so many of these careful posts that took a lot of work to write, by hopeful players (me included, at some point), which never got to the dev's attention.
And its not just these forums - the sub-reddit, discord, pro players, streamers,... the colossal amount of great feedback that was given to them, with no visible ackowledgment or results made me lose all respect for the competence of the people in charge of this game.

Sorry to the OP for ending up with another rant, and i ask to the other users to not derail this thread into the lines i've brought up, and be cooperative with the OP, not for the devs.

 

[DolphPingus]

I won't write a poem for the same reason given by DRK3, it's just a waste of time.
I agree with most of your points, but i would put aerondight, golden nekker, raffard's vengeance, saskia, artaud, sigvald and mutagenerator at top priority.

Mutagenerator is so lame lol, how can you print a 6prov that can potentially boost by 20+. It didn't shine only because outclassed by even more stupid tempo-oriented combinations. Very luck based and exaggerates importance of draws.

 

[Secuter]

Like the other replies, I don't agree with all the proposed nerfs. But I agree with overall message. I can agree to an extent with your dislike of tutors, but at the same time I like some amount of consistency. Call of the forest is actually a good example of a tutor I think works really well. It doesn't boost a unit by some ridiculous amount, it is faction locked, and it only plays once (no echo). That said, tutors should be placed in the game with great care, so they don't become too powerful.

There are also some card designs I simply can't understand how they made it into the game. Their potential are simply too big, and they are almost impossible to counter. The Mutagenerator is an example of such a card, Golden Nekker too.

 

[radesign]

Well...that requires actual work to do, not only releasing another bunch of OP cards that will skew the balance for a moment on behalf on another leader/faction.
Will Gwentstone be brave enough to do this ?

As for nerfing - one has to look at general strength of each faction base bronzes, in this category, Skellige has always been the king, with ton of large bodies with abilities to damage, remove and heal - that are universally best.

Some nerf ideas:
General unit status nerf - whenever a unit goes to graveyard, it loses all statuses apart from doomed forever (Veil as well)
Melusine - reduce base strength of neighbour units , instead of damage. While base strength goes to 0 - banish that unit.
Aerondight - damage/boost is limited by amount of cards in your hand

Generally - I wish for more devotion , more row-locks and row-bonuses, more card-to-card interactions (if you/opponent have this card/type on board - do this) , more lore dependant archetypes, maybe at last a a neutral - bandit - archetype support.

 

[Yopofthering]

I quite like the new Yennefer and Triss cards : not broken (I didn't see much complains), they invite you to build a deck around but not all-in. Can be answered. I think it's the way.
They don't need to add stupidly broken cards (hello Hidden Treasures !) because it's quickly boring : same auto-include cards, same counters, same decks and also, the space to create funny decks that aren't optimal is so small now. Gwent tournaments are super boring because I've seen all theses predictable combos a hundred times during the season.

 

[ThorgerWolff]

Kelly 2

 

[quintivarium]

One thing that would not eliminate all over powered combinations, but that might control al lot of abuses that are also very binary would be limits on the number of times cards can be played/created/ summoned in a match.
Obviously, tokens are designed to be used en mass, but if other bronze cards were limited to four in a single match and gold to two, a lot of the horribly binary decks (Vypper swarm, mill repeatedly using Kingslayer, Meditating Mage swarm, triple Keltullis, triple Nekker, Simlas/Waylay overload, absurd Mage Torturers in assimilate mirrors, Imperial Practitioner abuse, Alumni abuse, etc.)

Of course, there are a few cards that might need exceptions (e. g. Kikimore Warrior), but a lot of imbalances have been created by cards that are perfectly fine — even very interesting — until players find ways to get too many of them.

 

[uber_croupier]

Very detailed post, and even though i dont agree with everything, i support the message.
The "old me" would make a huge reply post, commenting on where i agree or disagree, and add new topics.

Nowadays, i don't have the effort to do so, jaded by the continuous disregard the Gwent team shows for feedback provided by players.
Recently, i actually happened to watch a bit of a TWIG with Burza (it was the one with Rasheed), saying they liked feedback as long as it was constructive and detailed, instead of just insults and platitudes.

Well, that's a load of ****, because i've been a regular on these forums for years and i've seen so many of these careful posts that took a lot of work to write, by hopeful players (me included, at some point), which never got to the dev's attention.
And its not just these forums - the sub-reddit, discord, pro players, streamers,... the colossal amount of great feedback that was given to them, with no visible ackowledgment or results made me lose all respect for the competence of the people in charge of this game.

Sorry to the OP for ending up with another rant, and i ask to the other users to not derail this thread into the lines i've brought up, and be cooperative with the OP, not for the devs.

This is very sad to hear, especially from you. I had similar feeling, but I just thought maybe I was too fresh on forum to be paid attention to, but on the other hand I knew, I gave constructive feedback that I personally tested more than once. I had, probably still have, a lot of faith in Gwent, I was angry at Hearthstone for wasting thousands of hours for what it turned out to be later, I'd be very sad if Gwent turned out to be the same.

Devs are treating ranked like it was open deck tournament, where we have a choice to pick a deck against known deck of our opponent. I mean, that would be very cool to have in ranked, I'm totally for tournament system in ranked ladder. That could fix some problems with increasing imbalance in strategies.

With current state of the game I cannot find much will to play, it's just sad too loose AGAIN to the same problem after your feedback about it was ignored. It's also sad to see devs THINK they know better, ignoring players who play their game and test their ideas. Some time ago I started to write down notes and suggestions, similar to OPs, but I stopped when I saw Caranthir still triggered Thrive of a unit he spawned - I mean, I've reported that over a year ago now, and it's stil broken

Post automatically merged: Jun 23, 2022

Suggestion: Year of the Nerf

Despit(...)ght 4

Very detailed post, I think you could change bullets to numbers for easier reference. I agree with most of them. Nice work.

 

[Deezy88]

I’d add Traveling Priestesses to this list - in the High Priority category.

 

[DRK3]

This is very sad to hear, especially from you. I had similar feeling, but I just thought maybe I was too fresh on forum to be paid attention to, but on the other hand I knew, I gave constructive feedback that I personally tested more than once. I had, probably still have, a lot of faith in Gwent, I was angry at Hearthstone for wasting thousands of hours for what it turned out to be later, I'd be very sad if Gwent turned out to be the same.

Devs are treating ranked like it was open deck tournament, where we have a choice to pick a deck against known deck of our opponent. I mean, that would be very cool to have in ranked, I'm totally for tournament system in ranked ladder. That could fix some problems with increasing imbalance in strategies.

With current state of the game I cannot find much will to play, it's just sad too loose AGAIN to the same problem after your feedback about it was ignored. It's also sad to see devs THINK they know better, ignoring players who play their game and test their ideas. Some time ago I started to write down notes and suggestions, similar to OPs, but I stopped when I saw Caranthir still triggered Thrive of a unit he spawned - I mean, I've reported that over a year ago now, and it's stil broken

Back in the day, there was even a thread in this forum where the users could ask questions directly to the devs, i think Burza was in charge of answering them, but it ended being neglected and the mods did most of the work of answering back.
The format was changed to a section in TWIG, but it still feels short of what the goal is supposed to be - the players being heard by the devs.

Also being a partner, and sharing a discord server with them isnt much better - there is a topic to share feedback, but - from the time i was there (i left it at the start of this year, when i intended to stop playing altogether) - most of it went ignored, dismissed or acknowledged but with lack of commitment to do something about it. In the devs defence, it was a lot, and some of it was more nitpicks than serious issues.

The sad part is how the Gwent team insists they hear the players when they clearly dont, and that if the game was truly community-driven, it would be in a much better state than it is now, because a large portion of the playerbase clearly are more passionate and know the game better than the devs themselves.

 

[WhiteWolf4207]

Back in the day, there was even a thread in this forum where the users could ask questions directly to the devs, i think Burza was in charge of answering them, but it ended being neglected and the mods did most of the work of answering back.
The format was changed to a section in TWIG, but it still feels short of what the goal is supposed to be - the players being heard by the devs.

Also being a partner, and sharing a discord server with them isnt much better - there is a topic to share feedback, but - from the time i was there (i left it at the start of this year, when i intended to stop playing altogether) - most of it went ignored, dismissed or acknowledged but with lack of commitment to do something about it. In the devs defence, it was a lot, and some of it was more nitpicks than serious issues.

The sad part is how the Gwent team insists they hear the players when they clearly dont, and that if the game was truly community-driven, it would be in a much better state than it is now, because a large portion of the playerbase clearly are more passionate and know the game better than the devs themselves.

Here's my feeling about devs, I personally think they communicate. They communicate a lot with the player base but I don't necessarily think they listen.

 

[yeahalright]

I think it would help if more devs actually played their game.

 

[saodhar]

This would be a great idea if devs actually cared about balance. Or at least stopped to think and consider the current card base. But even right now new cards and mechancs are being introduced in the next (mini)expansion.
I'm also afraid that even your detailed analysis isn't enough - the game is so far gone, that's it's easier to tear it down and just rebuild using the same card art. Of course, this will never happen.

 

[uber_croupier]

The sad part is how the Gwent team insists they hear the players when they clearly dont, and that if the game was truly community-driven, it would be in a much better state than it is now, because a large portion of the playerbase clearly are more passionate and know the game better than the devs themselves.

I agree, Gwent is too complex to expand at current rate. Just recently, we've got a very problematic, yet really ambitious expansion that took waay too long to get addressed(again). Point ceiling is sky-high while more strategies are becoming rather useless, continuing to narrow down cards we see in play, promoting more of dreadful net-decking, hurting the game on a deeper level.

Adding new expansion with current state of the game is the silliest of moves in my opinion - but, what do I know about marketing, right? From day one, Censer and Brokendight were obviously OP(and their mechanics), it still took two months to act on them. Similar problems occurred on previous expansions as well, killing my spirit, making our feedback feel worthless - as it took months to nerf some new releases. Why? To collect data? Their numbers are meaningless, as result of the game heavily depends on coin, not just draws, which is drastically expanding numbers of possible outcomes of very same lists playing against each other. If data is really a valid excuse, why did simple, yet vital change like Kingslayer's description took months to act upon?

There are so many issues with the game, yet we just received more new cards and keywords, that could potentially create even more issues, maybe one day bringing the game to the point where it cannot be fixed. Perhaps their new card game is more important to them?

Whatever that is, I'm starting to regret putting so much effort in my decks, which turns into lack of will to play. What's the point to play hundreds of games perfecting a deck, if soon, it will be obliterated by clearly OP, newly released cards that will need 2 months to get fixed?

 

[Gwentsan]

I hope your efforts are well rewarded!

 

[duracell1955]

There are comments in this thread which are put much better than I could express, so I won't go into any details, but I'd like to say that although I'm retired now, I was a Chartered Engineer in my working life and spent a good chunk of my career in equipment, process and systems design. It's my view that it's relatively easy to make things more complex, quite a bit harder to make them simpler but the best outcomes often appear when achieving the latter.

 

[zBleach25]

I agree with your criticism.
Truth is that the devs used to more careful about carryover, gold engines and uninteractivity whereas these days they just care to print the most broken stuff possible, which inevitably polarizes the game towards heavy control. Sigh.

 

[Gwentsan]

There are comments in this thread which are put much better than I could express, so I won't go into any details, but I'd like to say that although I'm retired now, I was a Chartered Engineer in my working life and spent a good chunk of my career in equipment, process and systems design. It's my view that it's relatively easy to make things more complex, quite a bit harder to make them simpler but the best outcomes often appear when achieving the latter.

Well said! Yeah, that takes lots of time and dedication.....