Hard to get (back) into Gwent

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I played gwent since open beta and also hold onto it when homecoming happened. But since HC I wasn't invested so much anymore and started pausing the game, for weeks, then months, now it's been over a year. The latest expansion I was somehow invested was merchants of ophir. Now I wanted to go back for a round of gwent but am completely overwhelmed with all the new cards, abilities etc.
ImO, Gwent in its current state is REALLY hard to pick up, not only for new players, but also unregular/older ones. There are just too many cards to keep track of.
 
It's not user friendly anymore. I played way way back. Decided to come back and it's no wonder why they games dying. New users don't stand a chance and it's all meta that doesn't get fixed. Kinda regret telling my friend about it. Wasted a week of his time and now he thinks witcher series is garbage (he had doubts bc Netflix series ruining it) then he played this and refuses to even try the real games. Lol oh well devs only risk their own jobs.
 
If there were no new cards/mechanics introduced over time, then players would come to the conclusion, that the game is stale, is not developing and becomes boring and is going to die soon, and it's time to leave.
I get your point, but this is the attitude I really dislike - people want to be successful right away without putting any effort in. New players trying the game and expecting to be competitive with players, that are regulars and devote hours of play on a daily basis, is simply not right and should not be happening.
 
If there were no new cards/mechanics introduced over time, then players would come to the conclusion, that the game is stale, is not developing and becomes boring and is going to die soon, and it's time to leave.
I get your point, but this is the attitude I really dislike - people want to be successful right away without putting any effort in. New players trying the game and expecting to be competitive with players, that are regulars and devote hours of play on a daily basis, is simply not right and should not be happening.
I'm not complaining about wrecking or getting wrecked in competetive, but just the fact that if you want to play a good ol' round of gwent, you firstly have to look through numberous abilities which sometimes you'll only understand in a game because of unprecise phrasing. The game is to complex to get into. I'm not saying complex games are bad, I love them, but there should be a balance between complexity and understandability. and im the case of Gwent (which by the way relies heavily on new players picking up as like... every online/mobile game) this balance is heavily shifted towards the former.
 
only 3 decks are playable at this moment. and seems like only 3 decks are played. boooooring!
some months its no more fun to play the game. we need to wait until they have have sold their new overpowered cards and fixed balance.

sadly that this is in my holidays
 
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True and sadly the meta requires high expensive crafting rates or dropping $100+ on the game like the bottom feeder meta players for new players to even stand a chance since you can't win against meta with starter decks to win keys to unlock reward book. No wonder they struggle to even keep a fan base of 10k players when others peak at millions and settle at 60k-300k player base. I understand the game reviews now.
 
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That's a wonderful thing about Gwent. You better read the books, play the game and play Gwent. Then it makes a good sense, you get a lot of relevant lore and so on. It's the only card game I think that can go so deep on each card.
 
I played gwent since open beta and also hold onto it when homecoming happened. But since HC I wasn't invested so much anymore and started pausing the game, for weeks, then months, now it's been over a year. The latest expansion I was somehow invested was merchants of ophir. Now I wanted to go back for a round of gwent but am completely overwhelmed with all the new cards, abilities etc.
ImO, Gwent in its current state is REALLY hard to pick up, not only for new players, but also unregular/older ones. There are just too many cards to keep track of.
Well, after reading your post, I'm still debating on whether Gwent has become too complex or not.
I started playing in September of 2018, then about 4 to 5 weeks later Homecoming war released, which changed the game considerably. I continued to play until May 2019 and then stopped for exactly 1 year till the middle of May 2020.
By then the game had a new faction, several new expansions and a whole plethora of cards and new abilities. Nonetheless, I was able to pick it up rather fast and in only 2 weeks got from 25 to 7 rank. In 3 months I got to pro for the first time.

Gwent is not a simple game that can be picked up in a day, but it's not overly difficult either. The real problem is that it has become stale, with the new meta creating a narrow alley of gameplay options. It needs to breathe more and the OP problem has to be addressed soon

As someone who as played this game for over 2 years, I still recommend it to anyone with a little patience and the willingness to learn one of the most strategic online card game out there.
But it's not rocket science!
 
For coming back into the game I think the best advice I can give you is to try to set your sights low for now and try to cobble together some average decks which don't rely on specific expensive or rare cards. It's always much better to have the best cards on hand but that doesn't mean that you HAVE to have them to be able to play the game.
It is dumb advice but it is also true. You will need to either put some money or some time and patience into the game until you've amassed more resources and can afford to be more free-handed with your decks.

The problem here isn't really with Gwent as a game as much as it is with the game genre. These are card collecting games after all and part of their design is to reward players who stick with the game with a growing collection of cards.
Unfortunately the flipside of it is that as you're meant to collect things gradually, you won't have everything from the start.

It is easily doable, it's just that it does take a while. In time you'll be able to get whatever legendary card you like just from duplicate scraps alone.

Also as a word of context I would just note that the other card games out there are not better in this regard. I've played Hearthstone and MTG Arena and both of them are much less new player friendly. Just try getting epic or legendary cards in those games without playing!
 
Idk what is the problem with collecting the cards.
IMO Gwent is the most generous CCG in terms of getting full card collection comparing it to other CCG I played (MTG, Hearthstone, even Elder Scrolls Legends).

It always happens when you're a newcomer and you don't quite get all the things right, but it's just a matter of time.

Additionally, I recommend creating a new gwent profile, since they changed the starting decks gradually from what they were since 2018, adding better faction cards for each faction and a better starting decks overall.
 
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Hello everyone. I started playing Gwent back in 2017 when it was released. I quickly understood the mechanics and had a lot of (casual) success. I played every faction, mostly MO. I stopped playing at the end of 2017 and picked the game back up just a few days ago. EVERYTHING has changed. And I mean everything. Back then frost dealt 2 dmg to each unit (if same hp), dwarves constantly buffed each other and syndicate wasn't even a thing. All the keywords (that I still need to look up) are so confusing, however I managed to build a deck and win. I won all of my 15 ranked matches in a row. i know it is not much, but with no knowledge of the cards whatsoever nor the correct interaction of effects I feel like I have achieved something for myself. It was basically a new game for me. However I feel like it looks a lot scarier to newcomers than it actually is.
 
Hello everyone. I started playing Gwent back in 2017 when it was released. I quickly understood the mechanics and had a lot of (casual) success. I played every faction, mostly MO. I stopped playing at the end of 2017 and picked the game back up just a few days ago. EVERYTHING has changed. And I mean everything. Back then frost dealt 2 dmg to each unit (if same hp), dwarves constantly buffed each other and syndicate wasn't even a thing. All the keywords (that I still need to look up) are so confusing, however I managed to build a deck and win. I won all of my 15 ranked matches in a row. i know it is not much, but with no knowledge of the cards whatsoever nor the correct interaction of effects I feel like I have achieved something for myself. It was basically a new game for me. However I feel like it looks a lot scarier to newcomers than it actually is.
Yeah, everything is scary for newcomers. That's what newcomers are for, but the game becomes clearer for them as the time passes by (considering they play the game). That's why they start at the lowest rank (it's not so competitive, the whole rank 30 is full of newcomers so they can practice, learn the game, new mechanics, build their first decks etc.
And again Gwent is very generous in terms of resources, so beginners can craft their own decks or try some cards they don't know in Draft mode.
 
Hello everyone. I started playing Gwent back in 2017 when it was released. I quickly understood the mechanics and had a lot of (casual) success. I played every faction, mostly MO. I stopped playing at the end of 2017 and picked the game back up just a few days ago. EVERYTHING has changed. And I mean everything. Back then frost dealt 2 dmg to each unit (if same hp), dwarves constantly buffed each other and syndicate wasn't even a thing. All the keywords (that I still need to look up) are so confusing, however I managed to build a deck and win. I won all of my 15 ranked matches in a row. i know it is not much, but with no knowledge of the cards whatsoever nor the correct interaction of effects I feel like I have achieved something for myself. It was basically a new game for me. However I feel like it looks a lot scarier to newcomers than it actually is.
As far as the new abilities and cards go, I think it's best to start by playing one faction and gradually trying new things in your deck. It's better to learn slowly but make progress than it is to try to learn everything at once and be overwhelmed. You'll get there in the end.

Another suggestion to people coming back into the game after a while would be to play the Northern Kingdoms faction to start with. Most of their tactics are based on direct boosts and direct damage dealing so it's easier to understand what you need to do to play those decks.
From that simple basis you can then experiment with more complicated NK cards and while you do that you'll also the your enemies use other factions and other tactics so you'll be learning from them as well.

And on an unrelated note - do yourself a favour and listen to the witcher games' soundtracks. They're very enjoyable.:)
 
I play for about two weeks and I found the game quite friendly in the beginning. Lot’s of rewards and free stuff, much more then in comparable games.

On the low ranks you also don’t need full meta decks, you can experiment. My cobbled together MO deck based on thrive does quite well, my main deck is SK warriors, really good even though I miss supposed key cards.

My only gripe is that it seems to be quite bug ridden. I purchased the premium journey and now I can’t progress the quests anymore, I don’t get daily quests etc. The fact that this happens in a game that’s supposedly mature makes me honestly hold on to any further spending.
 
I read several comments and I both agree and disagree. Several comments said Gwent is not generous as it is anymore which I agree on this part because before Journey, the reward system seems better. But during journey, rewards were moved to contract at the end of journey. I started playing gwent during end of may 2020 when gwent introduced in Steam. and I still think Gwent Reward system is far better than other digital card game that I played (hs)

The part that I disagree is people said meta deck is expensive. How long you expect to have all top tier meta decks for free and you can say that the F2P game is generous? In Gwent, I can make 1-2 meta decks for free every month! and this is only with 7 games win per day. In my previous experience, I paid $80 for a mega bundle in the other game and I can't even make 1 single meta deck!

I think I had all cards used in top tier meta deck after 6 months of play time but what I did is, I played with starter deck for one month to reach prestige 1 and then I got 2 rare from kegs. This make me collect rare faster and get some extra scrap.

I don't know much about the meta in rank mode. Do we have really 3-4 decks now? last week when I played rank mode with SK pirate, I played against several deck. I rarely see top meta deck but I'm only rank 14 - 7. I'm not sure which rank you guys said only 3-4 decks.

I don't think new players have to craft anything especially rank lower than 20. Starter deck plus cards from reward book should be fine. it's more fun to build deck from cards you have during the initial state of the game rather than copy net deck. Copy net deck will ruin the fun of the game not only to your opponent but to you in the long run.

One more thing, if you want to play something not in the meta. Try to make a deck and play before the meta come out. Once the meta come out, several players will play the meta deck XD. Let's see tomorrow. The balance change should address some issue e.g. SY KOB and ST Milva get some nerfed. Then, a few cards, some archetype will get buffed.
 
I get the rants on Gwent meta, balance and mechanics but I really don't understand how people expect to pick up the game and right away start winning against experienced meta players. What kind of a shit game would that be if that was possible
 
I don’t think I have fought against an experienced meta player yet. Those wouldn’t really be on my level.

If the game matches you that badly, it would really be bad, but I don’t think it’s happening.
 
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