Note: i planned on adding this to my gwent retrospective thread. But since nobody commented, it would just get attached to the other post and the thread wouldnt get bumped. Im sorry but i didnt spend hours thinking and writing this for it to be never read. Even if it's just a few who have the patience to do it, it'll be worth it. If you do read, please do comment and share your opinion, i appreciate it even if you disagree on everything.
Part 1 -
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/gwent-2019-a-year-in-retrospective.11018987/
Sorry for this giant text, it's probably my biggest on this forum.
Part 2 - Personal Take
Important note: i will make some very harsh criticisms now, that might make it seem like i hate CDPR and Gwent. That is incorrect, i love this developer, for what they did with Witcher 3 and Gwent Betas, and i just want them to improve this game in every way, while still making it profitable and sustainable for them.
Communication
I think this one is easy to solve. Establish a closer connection with the playerbase, like they promised in the beginning of HC. Making dev streams is nice, but not enough. The ask a dev thread goes unanswered for several days, sometimes weeks (maybe make more devs answer, not just Burza?). I barely see any dev presence, both here and on Gwent Reddit (am i missing some secret place? Twitter?). We rarely get information on what they're working on and when there's big problems, what they're doing to fix it. I get it, the fans arent always right and sometimes you think its better to do something your way, but i would rather you answered the requests and justify why you're not implementing them instead of just ignoring them.
And this maybe is just me, but it's incredibly frustrating seeing the devs on stream always so positive and never really opening up about the issues they're having and the game has, i think it's a PR/psychological tactic and i feel like you're not being honest with us, i would prefer you kept no secrets. Finally, a lot of focus on QoL, UI, aesthetics this past year, which is important to captivate new players. But guess what? Its not those players that are watching the stream, it's the fixed playerbase, that want to know about gameplay and balance instead.
Control
I've complained and whined about this a lot, and so did many others, but the devs just ignore it. Gwent in HC is very arithmetic, lots of damages and buffs. And usually they cost the same, which is the problem. The risk of playing buffs and big units isnt taken into account, so control and removal run rampant. Not long ago engines were not viable, so CDPR buffed bronzes, and lots of 3pt units became 4pts. But even though that caused a big shift in the playstyle overall, in the end it was still control and removal! Just control engines, instead of direct damage. Its easier to destroy than to build, dont forget that, CDPR.
Provisions
This has been debated recently on these forums, and i agree - the concept of provisions is good, but the execution is terrible. We have leaders from 160 to 169 provisions leaders, yet most fall in the 164-166 area. We have leaders with only 1prov difference, or even the same, yet one reliably delivers 8, 10, maybe even 15 points over the other! Its completely offbalanced, and maybe the range should be 155 to 175 provisions? I dont know, but the current system sucks, and that's why only 4-5 leaders are played.
Tutor Leaders
This seems to be the current big problem, and it may get fixes in just a couple of days, but until then...
When this year started, the game had 20 Leaders. Now it has 36! And yet, that doesnt matter when we only see 4 of them, with some sprinkles of a few others, mostly on SK and MO that dont have a tutor leader. Cards like Portal, Roche, Novigrad Justice are super popular, because they can put many engines on board, while the opponent usually can only deal with them one at a time. Defenders also add to this problem, but they are not the root of the problem, the tutor leaders are. I dont know if removing these abilities is the solution, but they certainly need to changed in some way.
Powercreep
This is a lesser problem, and one CDPR actually profits from, so it'll probably persist. With each expansion, new cards come and are more powerful than the old ones. Lots of cards become obsolete, when there are cards that are direct upgrades. I didnt analyze this thoroughly, which would require going through the entire cardpool and see which percentage is still "playable", but a value below 50% is kinda scary, and not far from reality. Just look at Prophet Lebioda and how NR Defender is simply better. Or the entire SK Discard archetype, which hasnt been touched for many months and what was once the meta is now completely unviable.
Dumbing Down
This has been a constant accusation on Gwent HC, which i think it's fair, but recently its getting worse and i've come up with a solid example that proves it: one of the biggest skills in Gwent is knowing when to pass and when to push your opponent. However, in the latest (very well-established) meta, i notice nobody cares about this. Everyone is pushing everyone, playing mindlessly aggressive, for the 2-0, with the safety of their versatile metadecks. Before it was something that SK and MO did, specially against NR, because one worked well in a short round and other on a long round. Now? Even NR goes for the bleed, and its damn deadly, when they start and immediately set up several engines, which you cant catch up (props to the 'Snowball thread' by another user which tackled this grave issue)
Isnt this dumbing down? Before, only newbies made this mistake, never drypassing R2 and they would end up losing CA and the match for that, but now that is less risky and every faction can do it. Just keep playing, never pass. It completely removed one of the layers of the game.
[ . . . ] Im having Prestige 3,4,5 players who only know the cards in the meta and never tried anything for themselves. And making dumb mistakes like double mystic echo 4 berserkers when i literally just played letho and telegraphed i have both auckes and serrit on hand and would just lock them all, or putting 4 of those stupid dwarves TOGETHER when on previous round i used Triss TK for Arachas venom, so he knew i had that card on deck... And do you wanna know the best part? Even with those dumb mistakes, those guys still almost won, since their deck was so good!
Meta
Best for last uh? I know this is probably an unpopular opinion, but sites/teams like Aretuza and Leviathan killed Gwent for me. Netdecking already existed in the betas, with decksharing sites like GwentUp and streamers making certain decks more popular, but it was only with HC Gwent that established metas became ridiculous, sometimes only taking 2-3 days after a new update to reach the point where all you see are the same decks, played the exact same way, guided by better players.
And this is a double-edged sword for CDPR - on one side, they declare they arent fans of netdecking (just recently on the latest stream, for example), but they know these meta-dictating sites bring lots of new players, making the new player experience easier, and so they have to advertise them and say 'check them out'... even if they're responsible for making this game stale, robotic and skillless.
