Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I have attached the chart which summarises what is spelled out below.
Based on my experience and on feedback from other players, I have put together this "Gwent gameplay fun curve", which describes the journey of playing Gwent and the fun you can expect to get along the way.
This touches mostly on the gameplay aspects of the game itself, and not that much on the satisfaction you might get from collecting all sorts of stuff: vanity items, premiums, achievements, cardbacks, etc. which of course might also add to the fun of playing Gwent.
Have you gone through the same process?
How much fun do you have playing Gwent?
(might need to right click/view image to be able to read the text XD)
phase 1: Starting to play Gwent. Unless you immediatelly feel this game is not for you, this is a good part of the experience, in particular with the new starter decks. Provided you figure out that you must play "ranked", you will have fair games against other new players who are on the same boat. The fun starts!
phase 2: Starting to create your own decks and climbing the ladder.
This is one of the best phases and a lot of fun; some experienced players even creating a new account just to experience it again!
You start to understand rules, combos, synergies and on your own merits start to build/improve a deck.
Saving the distances, it is a bit like kids learning to play chess with only a few pieces and adding more as they are comfortable with the rules.
Matchmaking works well for the most part and you have tons of fun climbing the ladder and coming up with new decks.
Turning point A: You meet the first meta decks and start losing games (and you probably have not even heard from them before).
phase 3: You might try to hold the fort and even if you are losing, you try to stick to your baby (*your* deck) and make the best out of it. It gets more and more frustrating and eventually you find out about the meta decks and the ever polemical concept of "netdecking".
The chess analogy is that it feels a bit like playing without the queen; you are either a genius or you will get frustrated pretty quickly.
You start to grind to get enough scraps for a meta deck.
Turning point B: You are probably frustrated because you wasted some scraps in the past in useless cards, but you are there. You have the first meta deck with a cool faction of your choosing and put it to the test.
phase 4: You start to win games again. While you get to play the meta deck, you learn a bit less about deck building but learn more about the gameplay. When to pass, what blue coin/red coin implies depending on the match, which combos are the best, what other meta deck weaknesses are, details like the order of effects, etc.
phase 5: It feels like playing without any unfair disadvantage. While you still meet players who are still in phase 3, you soon climb to a point where everyone is playing meta decks. Matchmaking does its job and you learn to make small adjustements to a working deck to adapt to slight changes in the meta.
Gameplay is strategic and fun.
Turning point C: The meta changes, your deck gets nerfed (for example artifacts deck) and/or you are bored of always playing the same deck. You realise you need a new deck to keep playing Gwent to its full potential and don't have enough scraps.
phase 6: You don't have enough scraps to craft a new meta deck. If you were playing a powerful deck and you were quite skilled with it, now you cannot win with the current set of cards and you probably feel out of place in the current rank. You soon discard the idea of trying to craft a whole new deck by yourself, since you know you will waste scraps and failed in the past... You have to grind for scraps to get to the good cards, and in essence, gameplay is no longer that much fun.
phase 7: The cycle repeats itself: You grind enough to craft a new meta deck and get to a point were the matches are fair again and eventually you get bored of that deck,or the meta changes,..., but everytime you will have more tools to adapt and can create bigger deck variations with a bigger card pool.
phase 8: (Many beta players probably got here directly). You have all the cards, which allows to play on an even field, where everyone has access to the whole card pool.
To win you need skill, and the learning journey is by far not finished.
Once you have access to all cards, meaning all meta decks, you can play all and learn their strengths and weeknesses, you will be able to predict what other players will play, you can play around those strategies, try to find new tweaks to the decks to beat those counter strategies,...
This feels how Gwent is intended to be played.
phase 8+: If you want to make it to the top of the fun curve, and really enjoy Gwent to its full potential, it is not good enough to drag along playing existing meta decks. You have to come up with new decks!
Having all the cards allows for experimentation, without penalties for crafting bad cards; and in Gwent you can innovate, find new strategies, new archetypes that might become the new meta,... good examples can be seen watching streamers. Granted, that it seems quite difficult to find new good decks, unless you are a very good player, and you might feel nostalgic of phase 2...
In any case, CDPR adds new factions, new cards, new rules, etc. regularly, which helps greatly to keep Gwent fun.
Based on my experience and on feedback from other players, I have put together this "Gwent gameplay fun curve", which describes the journey of playing Gwent and the fun you can expect to get along the way.
This touches mostly on the gameplay aspects of the game itself, and not that much on the satisfaction you might get from collecting all sorts of stuff: vanity items, premiums, achievements, cardbacks, etc. which of course might also add to the fun of playing Gwent.
Have you gone through the same process?
How much fun do you have playing Gwent?
(might need to right click/view image to be able to read the text XD)
phase 1: Starting to play Gwent. Unless you immediatelly feel this game is not for you, this is a good part of the experience, in particular with the new starter decks. Provided you figure out that you must play "ranked", you will have fair games against other new players who are on the same boat. The fun starts!
phase 2: Starting to create your own decks and climbing the ladder.
This is one of the best phases and a lot of fun; some experienced players even creating a new account just to experience it again!
You start to understand rules, combos, synergies and on your own merits start to build/improve a deck.
Saving the distances, it is a bit like kids learning to play chess with only a few pieces and adding more as they are comfortable with the rules.
Matchmaking works well for the most part and you have tons of fun climbing the ladder and coming up with new decks.
Turning point A: You meet the first meta decks and start losing games (and you probably have not even heard from them before).
phase 3: You might try to hold the fort and even if you are losing, you try to stick to your baby (*your* deck) and make the best out of it. It gets more and more frustrating and eventually you find out about the meta decks and the ever polemical concept of "netdecking".
The chess analogy is that it feels a bit like playing without the queen; you are either a genius or you will get frustrated pretty quickly.
You start to grind to get enough scraps for a meta deck.
Turning point B: You are probably frustrated because you wasted some scraps in the past in useless cards, but you are there. You have the first meta deck with a cool faction of your choosing and put it to the test.
phase 4: You start to win games again. While you get to play the meta deck, you learn a bit less about deck building but learn more about the gameplay. When to pass, what blue coin/red coin implies depending on the match, which combos are the best, what other meta deck weaknesses are, details like the order of effects, etc.
phase 5: It feels like playing without any unfair disadvantage. While you still meet players who are still in phase 3, you soon climb to a point where everyone is playing meta decks. Matchmaking does its job and you learn to make small adjustements to a working deck to adapt to slight changes in the meta.
Gameplay is strategic and fun.
Turning point C: The meta changes, your deck gets nerfed (for example artifacts deck) and/or you are bored of always playing the same deck. You realise you need a new deck to keep playing Gwent to its full potential and don't have enough scraps.
phase 6: You don't have enough scraps to craft a new meta deck. If you were playing a powerful deck and you were quite skilled with it, now you cannot win with the current set of cards and you probably feel out of place in the current rank. You soon discard the idea of trying to craft a whole new deck by yourself, since you know you will waste scraps and failed in the past... You have to grind for scraps to get to the good cards, and in essence, gameplay is no longer that much fun.
phase 7: The cycle repeats itself: You grind enough to craft a new meta deck and get to a point were the matches are fair again and eventually you get bored of that deck,or the meta changes,..., but everytime you will have more tools to adapt and can create bigger deck variations with a bigger card pool.
phase 8: (Many beta players probably got here directly). You have all the cards, which allows to play on an even field, where everyone has access to the whole card pool.
To win you need skill, and the learning journey is by far not finished.
Once you have access to all cards, meaning all meta decks, you can play all and learn their strengths and weeknesses, you will be able to predict what other players will play, you can play around those strategies, try to find new tweaks to the decks to beat those counter strategies,...
This feels how Gwent is intended to be played.
phase 8+: If you want to make it to the top of the fun curve, and really enjoy Gwent to its full potential, it is not good enough to drag along playing existing meta decks. You have to come up with new decks!
Having all the cards allows for experimentation, without penalties for crafting bad cards; and in Gwent you can innovate, find new strategies, new archetypes that might become the new meta,... good examples can be seen watching streamers. Granted, that it seems quite difficult to find new good decks, unless you are a very good player, and you might feel nostalgic of phase 2...
In any case, CDPR adds new factions, new cards, new rules, etc. regularly, which helps greatly to keep Gwent fun.
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