Hand Size Limit

[lakired]

In the Team Aretuza Talk Show, Burza confirmed that there will be a hand size limitation implemented of 10 cards, meaning that if you dry passed R1 you would immediately discard the two cards drawn at the start of R2.

Personally, I think this is an absolutely asinine change. While obviously we do not yet have information on their final decision on how to handle the "coinflip problem," regardless this is going to really push the game more towards tempo based decks. At a minimum, every deck will need at least two consistently drawn up tempo options to avoid going down in CA in R1. Which is to say, farewell to all the slow build engine decks like spies, axemen, discard, etc. Especially with the removal of silver spies from the mix.

Call me cynical, but I suspect it has to do with limiting the number of cards on the screen to assist with a future mobile port. Or maybe call me optimistic, because otherwise it seems the development team hasn't learned anything from the Midwinter fiasco.

Am I missing something with my off the cuff analysis here? I certainly hope I'm overlooking a way in which this can be skewed positive, but I'm definitely not seeing it.

 

[jgolden234]

I believe the purpose is to reduce or punish dry passing so that each round actually counts, which is a common complaint. I certainly see your point and concern, however, it could add a new layer of complexity. I don't think it will kill engine decks, after all they like a long round and that will still be possible.

 

[Guest 4226291]

Yeah this is a terrible idea and once again shows they’ve made no progress in learning mistakes from the past. The whole reason the midwinter update was terrible was introducing so many sweeping changes to the game at once. Before, significant changes to the game came slowly and spread out to give players time to adjust and to allow feedback to see if further changes were necessary to solve problems. The problem of the coin flip, as in the disadvantage of going first, should be solved by tackling issues one at a time instead of making a bunch of changes hoping it’ll work. I liked the idea of the initiative stat, where higher tempo leaders like Crach or Henselt would go first simply because they could play more points in a single turn vs low tempo leaders that had less immediate value when played like Foltest or Francesca. This is a great idea as usually the decks that can handle going first would now go first and low tempo decks that got more disadvantaged by the blue coin now wouldn’t be going second as often.

But apparently the plan is now to do everything to remove card advantage, which is only a symptom of the coin flip problem. Because playing your Francesca on a blue coin only for them to play Brouver into Barclay into Cleaver makes you lose on even or win 2 down. Giving them card advantage to win the game. Card advantage gained through spies and dry passing requires more skill than getting lucky on a red coin. So instead of looking at just the problem of coin flip being random, they’re now making it impossible to gain any form of card advantage (even through skillful play) by removing the ability to dry pass, as well as removing Silver Spies from the game. They haven’t learned anything from mistakes of the past. I can almost guarantee if a properly implemented Initiative stat was in the game, the unfair coin flip would be gone.

EDIT #1: To be honest, if silver spies and dry passing are removed, why even have 3 rounds? It’s pointless to have multiple rounds if you can’t even stall or bleed your opponent, or to gain a card on them by dry passing if you can win on even or lose +2. Dry passing on the first round is a legitimate strategy for certain decks. All these changes are just going to streamline this game into the same repetitive boring strategy of all decks, instead of utilizing the multiple round structure of Gwent to dry pass in the first round if you get a bad hand for example. I’m really disappointed in the changes that have been announced. Not to mention bronzes now being limited to two which kills so many archetypes automatically.

EDIT #2: I agree they’re attempting to make changes to accommodate a mobile version. In the Midwinter update they removed graphic heavy effects and sounds as well as dulling certain effects and visual flare. They removed the meteors from Ragh nar Roog, the flame effects surrounding cards got changed into a plain coloured border, all the damaging effects in the game became one single sound and unique sounds like Alzur’s Thunder became generic damage sounds. I’ll never for the life of me understand why removing those things was a good idea to them, just like shortening all the card names for mobile, which only after getting huge backlash did they finally change and improve.

 

[lakired]

I believe the purpose is to reduce or punish dry passing so that each round actually counts, which is a common complaint. I certainly see your point and concern, however, it could add a new layer of complexity. I don't think it will kill engine decks, after all they like a long round and that will still be possible.

Dry passing R1 is a symptom of the coin flip issue. No one would intentionally cede control over their fate unless forced to by the imminent threat of losing CA. Furthermore, forcing players to do something is absolutely terrible design. If you have to introduce artificial limitations to ensure players play the game "right", then your entire design is faulty (which, right now, it admittedly is). Players should be incentivized to play all three rounds, not have to choose between punishments. FIX the coinflip... no more dry passing R1 as a rote strategy.

Engine decks like long rounds... however two cards is not a long round. The issue here is tempo. If you lose the coin flip and play a low tempo opener (e.g. an engine card), you risk your opponent going high tempo with their first two plays and passing for CA before you get a chance to gain value from your engines. So now if you run an engine deck, you also have to have a really consistent way to generate high tempo for when you lose the coin flip, which also means delaying and/or shortening your engine. And at that point... why not just go full tempo?

Tempo play is also highly incentivized because anyone able to generate a ton of points quickly now has the advantage of knowing their opponent can't pass their way out of the situation. Go first, play high tempo twice and pass... if their deck can't make up the gap in three plays, they go down a card. Go second, play high tempo twice... well, we all know how that ends.

I don't see any way in which this doesn't significantly hurt engines (and heavily promote tempo), unless coin flip is fixed. And if coin flip is fixed, we don't need to force anyone to play R1. Which is why the only explanation that makes sense to me is they're doing it to make it easier to port the game to mobile, once again at the expense of the game's core appeal.

I liked the idea of the initiative stat, where higher tempo leaders like Crach or Henselt would go first simply because they could play more points in a single turn vs low tempo leaders that had less immediate value when played like Foltest or Francesca. This is a great idea as usually the decks that can handle going first would now go first and low tempo decks that got more disadvantaged by the blue coin now wouldn’t be going second as often.

At the risk of veering off topic here, I personally LOATHE this solution to the coin flip, which unfortunately (for me) seems to be what they're leaning towards last I heard. What it does is fix leaders to specific archetype builds. Bran, for instance, has deck/archetype variants that are both extremely high tempo openers (e.g., Bran+Mork+Raider+WB) as well as insanely low tempo ones (e.g., Bran+QG+QG+Cerys). Where do you place him in the hierarchy? Place him too early in the order, and you make it impossible to run his low tempo variant. Place it too far back and his high tempo variant becomes incredibly oppressive.

This will also inevitably lead to tons of coin flip abuse. A major facet of deck design will be trying to figure out wombo combos on reactive leaders. And then CDPR will either need to change that leader's initiative (thereby killing any of their former archetypes/deck builds that didn't abuse this wombo combo), or constantly nerfing abusable cards. For instance, let's go back to pre-Cleaver Brouver. He'd probably be middle of the road to low initiative. Now introduce Cleaver. Well, obviously Brouver is now super super high initiative. However, once you've changed Brouver to match this high initiative... well, goodbye any Brouver deck NOT running Cleaver.

Ultimately, the only solution that works is one that awards Blue Coin some number of "buffer" points.

My personal vote has always been for a bid system (each player enters a blind bid following the mulligan phase, the highest bid then gives the other player an equivalent number of guaranteed points in exchange for going first). This allows dynamic shifts to accommodate the evolving meta, without having to constantly tinker with balance. It also heavily promotes skill based play as the better players get a feel for the optimal bids in various match-ups. The major downside is that it's potentially too complex for new players (would require a very well done tutorial explaining it). Vanitas has a good video exploring this solution, as well as making it more "new player friendly":

Swim's recent idea is pretty solid as well (~5 pt. "Roach" given to Blue Coin, only available R1, that allows a second action after, but vanishes after 3 rounds):

Essentially buys Blue Coin some temporary tempo to set up their engine, or escape a bad situation and get out of the round. This is an idea I hadn't considered before, and I think I like it though I'll have to consider it some more.

 

[Guest 4226291]

At the risk of veering off topic here, I personally LOATHE this solution to the coin flip, which unfortunately (for me) seems to be what they're leaning towards last I heard. What it does is fix leaders to specific archetype builds. Bran, for instance, has deck/archetype variants that are both extremely high tempo openers (e.g., Bran+Mork+Raider+WB) as well as insanely low tempo ones (e.g., Bran+QG+QG+Cerys). Where do you place him in the hierarchy? Place him too early in the order, and you make it impossible to run his low tempo variant. Place it too far back and his high tempo variant becomes incredibly oppressive.

This will also inevitably lead to tons of coin flip abuse. A major facet of deck design will be trying to figure out wombo combos on reactive leaders. And then CDPR will either need to change that leader's initiative (thereby killing any of their former archetypes/deck builds that didn't abuse this wombo combo), or constantly nerfing abusable cards. For instance, let's go back to pre-Cleaver Brouver. He'd probably be middle of the road to low initiative. Now introduce Cleaver. Well, obviously Brouver is now super super high initiative. However, once you've changed Brouver to match this high initiative... well, goodbye any Brouver deck NOT running Cleaver.

Ultimately, the only solution that works is one that awards Blue Coin some number of "buffer" points.

My personal vote has always been for a bid system (each player enters a blind bid following the mulligan phase, the highest bid then gives the other player an equivalent number of guaranteed points in exchange for going first). This allows dynamic shifts to accommodate the evolving meta, without having to constantly tinker with balance. It also heavily promotes skill based play as the better players get a feel for the optimal bids in various match-ups. The major downside is that it's potentially too complex for new players (would require a very well done tutorial explaining it). Vanitas has a good video exploring this solution, as well as making it more "new player friendly":

Swim's recent idea is pretty solid as well (~5 pt. "Roach" given to Blue Coin, only available R1, that allows a second action after, but vanishes after 3 rounds):

Essentially buys Blue Coin some temporary tempo to set up their engine, or escape a bad situation and get out of the round. This is an idea I hadn't considered before, and I think I like it though I'll have to consider it some more.

Honestly, you’re absolutely right about how having a fixed system like that really limits deck building, because if your leader has high initiative then building any non-tempo deck with them becomes impossible. And before you even mentioned it I had already considered the issue with Bran. You can go crazy and discard three raiders for a 16 point play that thins 3, or discard skirmishers to set up combos in which he becomes ultra low tempo. In my mind, I thought that increasing the initiative stat to every card in the game would fix this, but realistically that seems like way more trouble than its worth. Not to mention how abusable it would be if the stat wasn’t hidden, because then you could look up the meta decks and construct the exact same deck with one card change to always go second.

Regarding extra points given to the person going first, I never liked the idea. And not because I think it wouldn’t work or be fair, but I just dislike the idea of an arbitrary amount of points being given to the player going first, especially for decks that don’t suffer if they go first, and then people will disagree on what the value should be. Of course, a bidding system could solve that, but then that doesn’t feel like a proper or fair solution to me. I’m probably not explaining myself well but I just never felt that implementing a system like is good for the game; albeit I don’t really have any other solutions. Something I’ve thought about is if someone wins on a red coin, as in they started second, they can’t dry pass on round 2. Meaning if someone wins on even when they went second, they don’t automatically get the extra card free, they have to outtempo their opponent in round 2 to get it by playing a stronger card for two of their opponent’s weaker cards, or the opponent out tempo’s them and round 3 is even for both players. Since usually the person going first is aiming for anyway (an even round 3).

Not saying it’s perfect or would even work, just a thought I’ve always had.

 

[AVK1995]

It is wrong to pass judgement based on incomplete knowledge. All you know is hand size limit of 10 cards and yes, with just this piece of information it does seem like it punishes low tempo opener decks. It does feel like it punishes blue coin even harder because you can't even dry pass now. But there may be a lot of other changes that make this change good. Like new ways to interact with graveyard, new opening hand size (less than 10) which is likely because CDPR also confirmed 2 bronzes / deck. So just wait and watch.

 

[devivre]

I'm curious how this change will work out. It surely can add some complexity to the game, which is good I think. And yes, how well it works will depend a lot on the other changes.

It definitely would not work with the current version of Gwent, but we already know that quite a lot will change with Homecoming, so it might work out just fine. We'll see

 

[lakired]

It is wrong to pass judgement based on incomplete knowledge. All you know is hand size limit of 10 cards and yes, with just this piece of information it does seem like it punishes low tempo opener decks. It does feel like it punishes blue coin even harder because you can't even dry pass now. But there may be a lot of other changes that make this change good. Like new ways to interact with graveyard, new opening hand size (less than 10) which is likely because CDPR also confirmed 2 bronzes / deck. So just wait and watch.

Is it wrong to pass judgment on jumping off a bridge? Who knows, maybe a giant eagle will swoop in and save you. We can't possibly know until we've tried it, right? That's an absurd argument.

Did you watch the interview? Burza literally said that if you dry passed R1 you would discard the two cards drawn in R2. Not to mention, if their solution to the problem they just created by limiting hand size is to reduce the cards drawn... that's even worse! Far, far worse, in fact. Part of what makes Gwent good is the strategy involved, a big part of which is the large amount of the deck seen every game.

The more I've considered it, the more I'm convinced there's no way to tie yourself in knots justifying this change. It's just bad for the game.

I'm curious how this change will work out. It surely can add some complexity to the game, which is good I think. And yes, how well it works will depend a lot on the other changes.

It definitely would not work with the current version of Gwent, but we already know that quite a lot will change with Homecoming, so it might work out just fine. We'll see

How will changing the game to an even MORE of a tempo based model "add some complexity"? It does the opposite.

Homecoming will be the final version of the game. We will no longer have the luxury of constant changing of core gameplay features as we've hitherto had in Beta. Hence there's a lot less room for them to mess this up. So I for one am most definitely not in the "wait and see" camp. I want this done right. Not that us debating it will likely accomplish anything, but...

 

[devivre]

How will changing the game to an even MORE of a tempo based model "add some complexity"? It does the opposite.

As long as we know so little about the upcoming changes I don't see the point in assuming that it's going to be more "tempo based". Maybe it is, maybe it is not!

But as long as we haven't seen the new version of Gwent it's all just speculation. All I can say is that I'm willing to give this change as chance. But that's my personal opinion.

 

[lakired]

As long as we know so little about the upcoming changes I don't see the point in assuming that it's going to be more "tempo based". Maybe it is, maybe it is not!

But as long as we haven't seen the new version of Gwent it's all just speculation. All I can say is that I'm willing to give this change as chance. But that's my personal opinion.

There are many ways in which they could change Gwent to make it less tempo based. However, there is no way that THIS change can. Regardless of what other changes they make, this one DOES make the game more tempo based. There's just absolutely no way in which it doesn't. Yes, we don't yet know the overall complexion of what the game of Gwent will become post-HC, but we do know this one detail, and it merits discussion.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

The issue I have with it is it's not addressing the reason dry passing R1 has become more routine. All it's doing is saying dry passing R1 is a "problem" and punishing players for doing it, thereby eliminating the practice. If the devs do not want players to dry pass R1 considering why they're doing it and addressing the related areas appropriately is the correct course of action. In other words, address the coin flip.

It should be noted the flip itself has never been an insurmountable advantage. The issue with it is more the ability of the player winning the flip to take the advantage and amplify it into a larger one. Coincidentally, this should be suitable information to answer the question of why players began routinely dry passing on blue coin. This is to say the ability of the red coin player to amplify the flip advantage has become easier, either because they can do so more reliably or amplify it to a greater degree.

Given the above, it stands to reason one of the following is a better option...

1. Place severe limits on the ability of red coin players to amplify the coin flip advantage into a bigger one.
2. Give blue coin players more methods to negate the coin flip advantage.
3. Fix the coin flip by removing the advantage altogether.

I'm not sure #3 is realistic. #1 and #2 are doable, and could be done concurrently. To an extent they are doing #1 with spy removal. Unfortunately, it's the same thing as the hand limit. Removal of the problematic area instead of correcting it.

And yes, this particular change is... eh . 2 bronzes, 2 rows, spy removal.... Those can be worked with. One could make an argument the game still has the potential for improvement with those changes. A hand limit? Bleh....

 

[kotpeter]

I may sound a little rude, but hear me out: round 1 drypassing is a symptom of another problem, not a problem itself, and needs no remediation. The only reason for limited hand size I can think of is preparing the game for mobile development. All other concerns seem unreasonable for me atm.

Also, coinflip is not a problem, the problem is that red coin has greater winrate than blue coin. If the devs preserved coin but reworked the game to give specific advantages to both coin sides (ideally, flavorful and involving mindgames), no one would complain and everyone would be happy.

Band-aiding coinflip disadvantage with extra points/cards is bad because it means that devs :

1) accept the fact that there is an inherent disadvantage for the blue coin player and we refuse to alter core game design to fix that;
2) add something on top our design flaw to hide it;
3) hardcode a set amount of points into a core game mechanic, which prevents them from being able to fully manipulate the powercreep of card sets in the long run.

It's not the way people put the game into release, you know. It could work a year ago, but now when we expect the polished Homecoming to make our dreams come true.

I actually have a suggestion regarding coinflip, and I made a separate thread on it on reddit and duplicated it on this forum as well. Here's the forum thread: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...inflip-solution-for-my-favorite-game.10977452 . The real way IMO is to expand game design and add something new and flavorful to it, which could also be utilized to fix the coinflip problem.

 

[lakired]

I fully anticipate that they will also be separately addressing the coin flip problem. My hope with this thread was more to specifically engage with just the implementation of a hand size limit irrespective of any other changes to coin flip. The reason being that I think even if Blue Coin's disadvantage were "solved," this change to hand size limits would still be absolutely awful for the game. More importantly, it betrays the fact that the development team doesn't seem to understand what it's major missteps were in the past, i.e., favoring a more tempo based mode of play over synergy/engines/skill.

 

[DMaster2]

Imho it's a great change, it will push people to actually play 3 rounds instead of 2 or even 1 (double drypass, often seen in arena as well).
As for balance, pretty much almost every card will be changed so that isn't an issue.

I also like the spy removal as well, since drawing it while your opponent doesn't often wins you the game, especially on red coin.

Yeah this is a terrible idea and once again shows they’ve made no progress in learning mistakes from the past. The whole reason the midwinter update was terrible was introducing so many sweeping changes to the game at once. Before, significant changes to the game came slowly and spread out to give players time to adjust and to allow feedback to see if further changes were necessary to solve problems. The problem of the coin flip, as in the disadvantage of going first, should be solved by tackling issues one at a time instead of making a bunch of changes hoping it’ll work. I liked the idea of the initiative stat, where higher tempo leaders like Crach or Henselt would go first simply because they could play more points in a single turn vs low tempo leaders that had less immediate value when played like Foltest or Francesca. This is a great idea as usually the decks that can handle going first would now go first and low tempo decks that got more disadvantaged by the blue coin now wouldn’t be going second as often.

But apparently the plan is now to do everything to remove card advantage, which is only a symptom of the coin flip problem. Because playing your Francesca on a blue coin only for them to play Brouver into Barclay into Cleaver makes you lose on even or win 2 down. Giving them card advantage to win the game. Card advantage gained through spies and dry passing requires more skill than getting lucky on a red coin. So instead of looking at just the problem of coin flip being random, they’re now making it impossible to gain any form of card advantage (even through skillful play) by removing the ability to dry pass, as well as removing Silver Spies from the game. They haven’t learned anything from mistakes of the past. I can almost guarantee if a properly implemented Initiative stat was in the game, the unfair coin flip would be gone.

EDIT #1: To be honest, if silver spies and dry passing are removed, why even have 3 rounds? It’s pointless to have multiple rounds if you can’t even stall or bleed your opponent, or to gain a card on them by dry passing if you can win on even or lose +2. Dry passing on the first round is a legitimate strategy for certain decks. All these changes are just going to streamline this game into the same repetitive boring strategy of all decks, instead of utilizing the multiple round structure of Gwent to dry pass in the first round if you get a bad hand for example. I’m really disappointed in the changes that have been announced. Not to mention bronzes now being limited to two which kills so many archetypes automatically.

EDIT #2: I agree they’re attempting to make changes to accommodate a mobile version. In the Midwinter update they removed graphic heavy effects and sounds as well as dulling certain effects and visual flare. They removed the meteors from Ragh nar Roog, the flame effects surrounding cards got changed into a plain coloured border, all the damaging effects in the game became one single sound and unique sounds like Alzur’s Thunder became generic damage sounds. I’ll never for the life of me understand why removing those things was a good idea to them, just like shortening all the card names for mobile, which only after getting huge backlash did they finally change and improve.

Oh so now drypassing requires "skill". You always learn something new.
Seriously what's the point of having 3 rounds if only 2 (and often only 1) rounds are played?

 

[kotpeter]

Imho it's a great change, it will push people to actually play 3 rounds instead of 2 or even 1 (double drypass, often seen in arena as well).
As for balance, pretty much almost every card will be changed so that isn't an issue.

I also like the spy removal as well, since drawing it while your opponent doesn't often wins you the game, especially on red coin.




Oh so now drypassing requires "skill". You always learn something new.
Seriously what's the point of having 3 rounds if only 2 (and often only 1) rounds are played?

The possibility of drypassing is an open world for design decisions. In future, more archetypes can utilize drypass for sweet R2 and R3. Remember: drypass has not ever been a problem itself, it's all due to the coinflip winrate skew. Why get rid of something that fits well into the game?

 

[DMaster2]

The possibility of drypassing is an open world for design decisions. In future, more archetypes can utilize drypass for sweet R2 and R3. Remember: drypass has not ever been a problem itself, it's all due to the coinflip winrate skew. Why get rid of something that fits well into the game?

There isn't much decision.

You are playing Eithnee scorch? Drypass even with Yaevinn in hand so you get a guaranteed last say r3 for double/triple scorch.

You are playing axemen? Drypass so you can play a long r3.

You are playing letho+regis reveal? Drypass so you can play a long r3.

And so on. It's seriously a no brainer like 90% of the times, because it's simply deciding if playing r2 is favourable to you or not, and if you don't suck you should know the answer.

 

[kotpeter]

There isn't much decision.

You are playing Eithnee scorch? Drypass even with Yaevinn in hand so you get a guaranteed last say r3 for double/triple scorch.

You are playing axemen? Drypass so you can play a long r3.

You are playing letho+regis reveal? Drypass so you can play a long r3.

And so on. It's seriously a no brainer like 90% of the times, because it's simply deciding if playing r2 is favourable to you or not, and if you don't suck you should know the answer.

Okay, and... what's so bad about it? And by the way, by giving away 1st round you essentially allow your opponent to control the length of the second round, so you cannot rely on R3 length. Also, you cannot rely on your strongest cards and combinations, because they will be bled out during R2 by an experienced player.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

And so on. It's seriously a no brainer like 90% of the times, because it's simply deciding if playing r2 is favourable to you or not, and if you don't suck you should know the answer.

How exactly does conceding R1 let you decide if playing R2 is favorable or not? By bailing from R1 immediately the other player gets to dictate R2 length. There is a reason both players used to aggressively attempt to take R1 in most cases. Likewise, there is a reason R1 dry-passing became more routine. The developers adding in a hand limit to punish players for doing it is like dangling a piece of candy in front of them and smacking their hand when they reach for it.

 

[Khreygond]

There are many ways in which they could change Gwent to make it less tempo based. However, there is no way that THIS change can. Regardless of what other changes they make, this one DOES make the game more tempo based. There's just absolutely no way in which it doesn't. Yes, we don't yet know the overall complexion of what the game of Gwent will become post-HC, but we do know this one detail, and it merits discussion.

Funny I can already think of at least one way. If Gwent becomes a more traditional CCG where you can under circumstances play more than one cards in one turn and you get to draw every turn for example.

Maybe you should consider that it's going to be widely different before applying the new concepts to the Gwent we have now.

I am not saying I expect Homecoming to be a success, quite the opposite actually, but there is no reason to judge as of yet, with the minimal info that we have about it, like devivre said

 

[kotpeter]

Funny I can already think of at least one way. If Gwent becomes a more traditional CCG where you can under circumstances play more than one cards in one turn and you get to draw every turn for example.

Maybe you should consider that it's going to be widely different before applying the new concepts to the Gwent we have now.

I am not saying I expect Homecoming to be a success, quite the opposite actually, but there is no reason to judge as of yet, with the minimal info that we have about it, like devivre said

While I wholeheartedly understand your scepticism and share your concerns, I still feel that you emphasize on it a bit too much. We just have to wait and see what the devs are going to offer, so let's wait. And while waiting, let's try to shout out load on what we want from our beloved game, so that they hear us and try to make things better than they are now. Merely saying that "Homecoming is going to be a failure" doesn't help anyone and doesn't bring anything constructive to the discussion.