But that wasn't really what the post you quoted was all about. It was simply pointing out that applying the new concepts on the current version of Gwent may not be the best way to go.
But that wasn't really what the post you quoted was all about. It was simply pointing out that applying the new concepts on the current version of Gwent may not be the best way to go.
People don't play the rounds because it's extremely dangerous to do so, due to the risk of losing CA on Blue Coin. In a vacuum, this change means that it's impossible to play anything in Gwent other than pure tempo, because if you HAVE to play a minimum of two cards into the first round, only tempo decks can survive blue coin. Even with a "fix" for the coin flip issue, it still definitely promotes tempo over everything else. If that sounds like a great change to you, well, there really isn't any common ground between us.
No one WANTS to dry pass... but this doesn't "fix" dry passing. It just punishes non-tempo decks.
Not to be rude, but you don't seem to understand the strategy behind dry passing. People don't dry pass to ensure long R3s. In fact, quite the opposite. Decks that prefer long R3s take a fantastically terrible risk dry passing R1 because it cedes complete control to their opponent over the length of R2. The reason those decks frequently prefer a dry pass is because they lack high tempo openers, and can't risk losing CA to more aggressive decks.
I agree. And in other threads, that are about thoughts on Homecoming, I have done this exact thing. Voiced my disagreement with the 2 rows, in a polite manner too, for example.
However this thread is about the hand size limit, a specific concept that cannot be properly examined out of context I feel.
Why not think about what you’re saying first. Yeah it can take skill. And no I don’t mean holding the button to do so. I mean knowing what opportunities and archetypes take advantage of it. Judging your hand and determining if you have enough engine pieces to gain enough value against a tempo based deck, or just deciding if you opened well enough to not need to pass and gain some of your engine or combo pieces in round 2. I don’t know exactly where you get in your head that all 3 rounds aren’t utilized and we need to disallow or punish dry passing because they serve no purpose. Apparently the “common complaint” the the 3 rounds aren’t played is news to me since I’ve never heard or seen anyone complain about that as an issue.
Not to mentioned this “solution” isn’t even really able to solve the issue as long as someone plays 3 cards in round one and just dry pass immediately in round 2 which everyone does if they’ve gone first and won one card down, especially if their deck can’t 2-0 someone.
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Exactly this. Completely the reason why Henselt decks fight so hard for round 1, because if they lose it they may be bled and forced to play their machines or Henselt himself just to keep pace or avoid getting 2-0.
Most people dry pass in round 2 because playing by means potentially going down a card. If you win round one going one card down, and play a card in round 2, you better hope he doesn’t overcome it in a single card or you’re screwed.
I was talking about winning r1 and drypassing r2 (which is basically what happens every time already), i thought it was implicit from my argument but i guess i have to point it out.
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Why not read properly first. I was talking specifically about the overused "red coin win r1 drypass r2" scenario.
Okay man, sorry for getting you wrong. But it's not always about your CA vs your opponent; sometimes you just need to bait out certain cards from a player, so that you're ready to go down 1 card and leave your opponent without his finisher. You can't simplify the game like that, you know...
Sure, you go against Henselt you want him to use it before r3. You go against Axemen you want to bleed them r2. But as i said you always know when to drypass and when to push, and most of the times drypass is the correct answer.
In fact certain decks (like eithnee scorch) wants to always drypass after winning r1 to make sure they have the last say.
P.S.: I'm not saying it's wrong, i do it too since i'm a sucker for control decks, but if this game is supposed to have 3 rounds i think it's better if those 3 rounds are actually played properly. For example i like tourneys a lot because drypassing r2 is rare and the games are battled out all the 3 rounds.
Maximum hand size doesn't change this at all though. As long as you won't draw over 10 cards going into R3, there's no incentive to play into R2. So it isn't really germane to the topic of this thread.
Besides which, if you want all rounds to be played you basically don't want engine decks to be a part of Gwent. The three rounds don't NEED to be played, but they need to be OPTIONS to be played. That's what gives R1 its impetus: you want to control the length of R2. If your deck wants a short or mid game, but your opponent's deck wants a long R3, you need to win R1 so you have control over the length of R2. If all decks play a mid game into all three rounds, the only decks that will dominate in that meta will be bland tempo point-slam decks that require no real set-up or extended synergy.
Apologies for the misunderstanding. i was unaware dry-passing in R2 after winning R1 was viewed as problematic. This is the major advantage to winning R1. You get to dictate R2 length. Remove the methods players employ to abuse coin flip and it could even be argued it's just as much of advantage. Punishing players for taking R1 is out of place.
A dry-pass by the blue coin player in R1, followed by the other player winning the round and subsequently dry-passing R2 has more to do with the decks in the match. Case and point, if your deck likes long rounds it would make sense to skip R2, dry-pass and end up with a long R3. I'm unconvinced it would always be the proper choice. It would depend on the relative strength of the long and short round of each deck, and to some extent hand quality of each player (an area you would have minimal information on for the opposing player, in this instance). Just because a behavior is routine does not mean it's without any consideration or correct.
I wouldn't say either behavior is completely brain dead. This is not to say most players do not view it as such because, well, it's easier to instantly pass instead of risk screwing up.
In any case, neither behavior was commonplace until more recent versions of Gwent. Players didn't immediately dry-pass in R1 or R2 without placing more thought into the decision. They didn't suddenly discover dry-passing either. Artificially punishing players for when and where they decide to pass is lazy design, pure and simple. If the developers don't like the behavior they should look into why players started feeling obligated to dry pass so frequently.
I see 2 main reasons. Carryover is nonexistent in most games now. Back when carryover was prevalent dry passing was risky because the opponent could just play carryover and then you were fighting an uphill battle round 2. Also carryover made playing into the round less risky because it prevents the drypass.
Second is the rise in tempo plays. Not specifically points of tempo plays because Crones or Calveit opener were harder to overcome in their respective metas than any opener currently, but every deck has a higher number of tempo plays available that can punish any low tempo play. Tempo is no longer something you save as a wincon, but a resource you spend in pursuit of card advantage and controlling round length. The main exceptions being shupe decks, and consume monsters, both of which are strong because they have a nonstandard wincon in the current meta against decks are built to fight mainly for CA.
Fair point. Funny thing is carry-over itself was never really oppressive in it's original form. It was over-tuned carry-over cards (hi Harpies, I remember you) and the extent a player could spam buffs into carry-over units.
Also a fair point. This is arguably one of the bigger mistakes made with game play changes. High tempo became too easy to throw around aimlessly. Much of these high value point plays also stopped taking nearly as much planning and setup.
This ties into CA generators to some degree. Once upon a time CA generators were plentiful. Several of those had interesting mechanics to them. They provided a unique method for acquiring CA beyond putting out more points. It also meant you had recovery options to counter tempo, or problematic scenarios like red coin+spy+blue coin player has no spy access. I remain mystified why CA generators got hacked down to essentially being CA spies, and nothing else.
Fast forward to now and, yep, now CA spies are on the chopping block. Once all CA generators go bye bye the game is left with a single method for acquiring CA. You want CA? Put more points on the board.
I'm repeating this to the point that people should already start to read it and start to think "oh, not againt", but it has to be said since pretty much all games problems right now seem derived from it; when you restrict CA again, the only form that remains to gain CA is tempo plays.
And you cant "delete" tempo like they did with all those ca gain cards (and like they will do with spies too). You can always nerf tempo plays, but there will always exists the next very best tempo play.
The future of this game is tempo pointslam if they continue to restrict CA gain. thats pretty obvious and it is, more or less, what the game already became. The hand size restriction is just a step further.
Instead of embracing the truth that CA is the holy grail of gwent and enfasize the gameplay on strategic cards that gave CA like on closed beta (vanilla ciri was my prefered and was a highly strategical card on CB which, no, it wasnt auto include back than, like many other cards that also gave CA, like ocvist which was much more powerful than nowadays) they instead went the other way around trying to restrict CA gain as much as possible and creating a plethora of problems along the way, like carryover became too strong and coin flip problems. Whats left? Tempo it is...
Restricting hand size to enforce Round 1 or concede right away is a silly and shocking (at least to me, given that I did not imagine they would consider something so ridiculous) solution to dry passing round 1, which only someone who has to go first would do, given that the disadvantage resulting from losing round 1 is at least better than getting outtempo'd round 1 and losing for certain.
The obvious solution would be to make it more desirable to ply round 1, whether you have to go first or not.
Swim's solution for that (a polished phantom point solution) would actually be an interesting way to deal with the issue (though a necessary change would be that one cannot pass after getting those points, given that the 3 turn limit would be inconsequential with that) and should in theory solve the issue, the point gain could also be a second stat on leaders to allow the idea to evolve with card changes and powercreep.
If there is a way to actually not be at the mercy of the player who goes second it does incentivice not losing round 1 and dry passing round 1 is always negative, given that you cannot dictate how long round 2 plays out and under normal circumstances lose "Last Say" during round 3.
Noone except a lunatic would willingly given up round 1, unless they have no other chance, which is why the hand limit "solution" only makes the issue worse and allows immediate reward (a.k.a. tempo / non-setup) decks to get a gamebreaking advantage.
If the coinflip issue gets fixed dry passing round 1 turns into a silly meme and passing round 2 is not getting addressed by this anways, if you play round 1 you would propably always get out 3+ cards and thus not care about that limit.
Beyond that the hand size limit breaks cards like avallach (at least in his current form), given that it allows players to immediately regain lost card advantage, paying for itself and being a silver spy on crack (if the opponent is at 9+ cards) as an opener or something like that.
Some may not like tempo being the main idea of getting card advantage, however having "uninteractive"/"unstoppable" means of getting it (a.k.a. silver spies) is an ever worse and less skillfull way to do that (which does not mean I disapprove of the existence of cards like the original ciri, which requires actual thought).
The obvious solution would be to make it more desirable to ply round 1, whether you have to go first or not.
Swim's solution for that (a polished phantom point solution) would actually be an interesting way to deal with the issue (though a necessary change would be that one cannot pass after getting those points, given that the 3 turn limit would be inconsequential with that) and should in theory solve the issue, the point gain could also be a second stat on leaders to allow the idea to evolve with card changes and powercreep.
If there is a way to actually not be at the mercy of the player who goes second it does incentivice not losing round 1 and dry passing round 1 is always negative, given that you cannot dictate how long round 2 plays out and under normal circumstances lose "Last Say" during round 3.
Noone except a lunatic would willingly given up round 1, unless they have no other chance, which is why the hand limit "solution" only makes the issue worse and allows immediate reward (a.k.a. tempo / non-setup) decks to get a gamebreaking advantage.
If the coinflip issue gets fixed dry passing round 1 turns into a silly meme and passing round 2 is not getting addressed by this anways, if you play round 1 you would propably always get out 3+ cards and thus not care about that limit.
Beyond that the hand size limit breaks cards like avallach (at least in his current form), given that it allows players to immediately regain lost card advantage, paying for itself and being a silver spy on crack (if the opponent is at 9+ cards) as an opener or something like that.
Some may not like tempo being the main idea of getting card advantage, however having "uninteractive"/"unstoppable" means of getting it (a.k.a. silver spies) is an ever worse and less skillfull way to do that (which does not mean I disapprove of the existence of cards like the original ciri, which requires actual thought).
Admittedly old Ciri was a powerful card. She was not auto-include but it could be argued she was close to it. She was this way precisely because she provided another means for gaining CA, and did it in a way where losing a round was beneficial to some degree. Most coin flip abuses involve leveraging the coin flip advantage into CA gains. Red coin+spy+blue coin can't pull spy, dropping a high tempo play at the right time as red coin, spy+1 card to overtake the spy points as red coin (could be considered another form of dropping a high tempo play at the right time).... More CA generators, where the CA is directly earned instead of gained via points, provide more mechanisms for handling these scenarios. If you have more ways to handle these scenarios you're less likely to get completely screwed by them (essentially what happens in most of them).
Ciri, unlike a lot of stuff, was actually a very skill oriented card too. Not just for the person playing her but for the opponent as well. Ocvist, Ciaran, etc. were good design for similar reasons.
Yeah, pretty much. Dry passing R1 because you got blue coin is another symptom, or response, to coin flip abuse. If coin flip gets "fixed" the behavior would likely stop being routine. This raises the question of why they would need to both "fix" coin flip and institute a hand limit. If anything a hand limit makes coin flip abuse worse, as it removes a method players have started using to handle it.
If I had a dime for every time silver spies were considered a non-skillful way of gaining CA..... Silver spies may not be as interactive as something like old Ciri or Ocvist but to imply they do not require skill to use most effectively is completely false. If anything knowing why and when a player puts a silver spy on the board is one of the more skillful areas of the game.
There are really only two major problems surrounding silver spies. Both of these have existed in some form or another for most of the life-time of the game. Yes, removing silver spies would solve both problems, and alleviate the coin flip issue. Giving players more ways to generate CA so they can respond to the problems surrounding silver spies would too. Even giving everyone a reliable means for getting their spy would do it. One could argue this would be the same thing as removing them. I'd argue otherwise given the statements on spies above (they require player skill to maximize).
No, she wasnt, she was balanced when gold immunity was balanced, i.e. when gold/leader cards could also target gold cards. On a metta where radovid was one of the most popular leaders and could just kill her she was almost "never-include" (as she is today). Having her was a big gamble since your opponent could just remove her. All the factions had tools to remove her too. Iavin for example could remove her and was almost auto-include on ST too. It was another skill ceilling to know how and when to play her properly.
She just became auto-include when cdpr reverted gold immunity mechanics to full immune, than they would subsequently remove it altogether and than ciri just became what she is today.
As for silver spies; they were also more fleshed out on CB. All of them had secondary effects and some of them required some though process to take full advantage of. They werent bland negative point cards that you just trade for CA. There little consideration nowadays as when you want to play or keep your spy as it had back than. And they werent auto-include either, although very popular, since there were other CA options around, sometimes frequently better, as ciaran and decoy.