How to make the game more friendly for new players.

[zkenpachiz]

How to make the game more friendly for new players.

After reading and discussing a lot about matchmaking, on several topics, I came to the conclusion that ONLY a fair matchmaking system for the "Casual Match" room won't be enough to make the game appealing to all new players, especially to the people who never played a card game before.

Gwent is a very complex game, with a very big learning curve, and will get even more complex with the future new cards and new factions.

I think the best approach is to create a simpler version of the game, inside the game itself, something similar to the Kill The Server 2.

The game should have an extra room, along with Casual and Friendly Matches, and you could call it, for example, Quick Match.
How this room would work:
- PREDEFINED decks, the player can not change the cards;
- 2 or 3 decks for each faction, with their most basic archetypes, 10 or 15 basic decks in total, including Nilfgaard;
- HALF the experience and rewards of the Casual Match room, to reduce the presence of more experienced players in the room;

Without the pressure and responsibility of creating a competitive deck from the start, the new player will be able to focus on learning the match system and the cards' interactions, while gathering a little of experience and rewards in the process.
_____

I would like to see what everyone think about my suggestion, but please let's NOT turn this topic into ANOTHER discussion about "free to play" versus "pay to win" or about how unfair is the current matchmaking system. There are other topics about those subjects already.

 

[Treamayne]

Not a bad idea. I also think there isn't enough emphasis on the practice room for New Players. I think I played 10 matches or so there, against the AI, before playing my first match in the casual room and it helped a lot with the learning curve aspect.

 

[zkenpachiz]

Not a bad idea. I also think there isn't enough emphasis on the practice room for New Players. I think I played 10 matches or so there, against the AI, before playing my first match in the casual room and it helped a lot with the learning curve aspect.

I have no idea how the practice room works, since I can't play the game and I'm limited to what people show on streams and YouTube videos. So, unfortunately, I can't form a proper opinion on the matter.

I just think that, today, being a good deck builder is a HUGE part of winning and therefore evolving your Card Collection, through rewards. I have no problems with this system, but, for a complete new player, it's very intimidating and might be very frustrating. If this new and inexperienced player doesn't have time to watch hours and hours of tutorials OUTSIDE the game itself, on Twitch or YouTube for example, he'll most definitely quit and don't come back.

Because of its importance and complexity on high level matches, Deck Building should NOT be an obligation for the new player, but an option with better rewards (experience, ore and scraps).

 

[bre3zer]

I have no idea how the practice room works, since I can't play the game and I'm limited to what people show on streams and YouTube videos. So, unfortunately, I can't form a proper opinion on the matter.

VS an AI.

 

[FreezingSun]

Certainly couldn't hurt to implement something along those lines, either in the open beta or on full release. I think for the duration of the closed beta CDPR will concentrate on other things like ironing out bugs and balancing cards, since most of us who signed up for it have at least some prior experience with Gwent. It's definitely a good idea though, and would hopefully serve to ease new players into the game without them getting their asses kicked constantly and losing interest as a result.

 

[Treamayne]

I just think that, today, being a good deck builder is a HUGE part of winning and therefore evolving your Card Collection, through rewards. I have no problems with this system, but, for a complete new player, it's very intimidating and might be very frustrating. If this new and inexperienced player doesn't have time to watch hours and hours of tutorials OUTSIDE the game itself, on Twitch or YouTube for example, he'll most definitely quit and don't come back.

Well, maybe it's because I come from a 20+ yr Magic background, but I would put Gwent as simpler than, say, Munchkin. Also, there are really three categories of inexperienced new players, to me, that would need to be considered. Those that have never played Gwent and:
- Have CCG experience.
- Have played a CCG before, even if not experienced.
- Have never played any other CCG before.

I would say that only the first of those three will really gain any value from watching videos about Gwent. There is too little displayed on screen, things moving too quickly (1) in the videos for people without quite a bit of CCG experience to get much value out of a video, even if it has commentary. The Tutorial is huge. I think everybody should play it. (2) And actually go slowly and absorb the material

After the tutorial, you have access to 4 pre-built decks (one for each faction) and you also have access to the Practice room where you can play any of those decks against a computer AI. This step is also very important. It gives the player as many chances as they need to read cards, see them in action and discover how they interact with each other. Personally, I started with 2 games for each faction in the Practice room (interspersed with trips to the Collection screen so I could take my time reading the cards that did not make sense in the last practice game). I ended up going back for a third Skellige and Scoiatel practice game because I wasn't quite sure on a couple cards. This may sound like a lot of "work" to play a game, but I thought it was fun. A no-pressure way to learn the basics and understand the new cards. Only then did I start playing casual games, and it wasn't until I was level two and earned my first Keg (after the Keg received for completing the Tutorial) that I started trying to edit the four "Starter" decks and personalize my build.

Sorry for the long explanation, but the reason I did was to add context to say this: There are already four Starter decks, and we can already play them for practice. I think it's a great idea to add to the practice room as screen asking if you want to practice vs the AI or in a paired match. That would seem to be the most logical place to implement your idea and I think it would be a good addition to helping new players without CCG experience really get the fundamentals down.





Note 1: A card flashed for a second, too quick to see, and a lightning bolt strikes my unit and the dude dies - I asked myself "What happened?"... that was my first experience with Alzur's Thunder and it took me a few minutes to find out how to display the graveyard so I could read the card text since it does not display on the Left where the opponent's "last card played" is displayed.

Note 2: I've seen a number of thread asking "How to X" and stating "I played the tutorial, but it did not mention X." I really want to answer "Yes it did, you didn't pay attention" but instead I just give step-by-step instructions because that's what being a good neighbor is.

 

[Nekojin]

As I commented in another thread, the entry level to this game is not very rewarding or fun to a new player, particularly if they have no experience with the game from the Witcher games. The devs would do well to look at other CCGs - particularly Hearthstone and Plants vs. Zombies Heroes for ideas on how to give people a means of feeling progress even when they're losing. Both of those give quests that can be completely tangential to winning, and encourage people to try playing different deck designs.

When the only rewards come from winning, and the early game involves losing A LOT, expect people to rage-quit and never come back.

As for the Practice Room - some people will ignore it completely, because it's completely unrewarding. There's no visible benefit to playing there - you get no Win credit, no ore or scraps to use. And that's how a LOT of players are going to view it - it doesn't give them progress to getting more cards, so it's useless. Telling them that they're "looking at it wrong" isn't going to win any arguments, it's just going to make them that much more likely to say, "screw this," and quit.

 

[zkenpachiz]

Well, maybe it's because I come from a 20+ yr Magic background, but I would put Gwent as simpler than, say, Munchkin. Also, there are really three categories of inexperienced new players, to me, that would need to be considered. Those that have never played Gwent and:
- Have CCG experience.
- Have played a CCG before, even if not experienced.
- Have never played any other CCG before.

I would say that only the first of those three will really gain any value from watching videos about Gwent. There is too little displayed on screen, things moving too quickly (1) in the videos for people without quite a bit of CCG experience to get much value out of a video, even if it has commentary. The Tutorial is huge. I think everybody should play it. (2) And actually go slowly and absorb the material

After the tutorial, you have access to 4 pre-built decks (one for each faction) and you also have access to the Practice room where you can play any of those decks against a computer AI. This step is also very important. It gives the player as many chances as they need to read cards, see them in action and discover how they interact with each other. Personally, I started with 2 games for each faction in the Practice room (interspersed with trips to the Collection screen so I could take my time reading the cards that did not make sense in the last practice game). I ended up going back for a third Skellige and Scoiatel practice game because I wasn't quite sure on a couple cards. This may sound like a lot of "work" to play a game, but I thought it was fun. A no-pressure way to learn the basics and understand the new cards. Only then did I start playing casual games, and it wasn't until I was level two and earned my first Keg (after the Keg received for completing the Tutorial) that I started trying to edit the four "Starter" decks and personalize my build.

Sorry for the long explanation, but the reason I did was to add context to say this: There are already four Starter decks, and we can already play them for practice. I think it's a great idea to add to the practice room as screen asking if you want to practice vs the AI or in a paired match. That would seem to be the most logical place to implement your idea and I think it would be a good addition to helping new players without CCG experience really get the fundamentals down.





Note 1: A card flashed for a second, too quick to see, and a lightning bolt strikes my unit and the dude dies - I asked myself "What happened?"... that was my first experience with Alzur's Thunder and it took me a few minutes to find out how to display the graveyard so I could read the card text since it does not display on the Left where the opponent's "last card played" is displayed.

Note 2: I've seen a number of thread asking "How to X" and stating "I played the tutorial, but it did not mention X." I really want to answer "Yes it did, you didn't pay attention" but instead I just give step-by-step instructions because that's what being a good neighbor is.

Despite existing other games with more complexity, Gwent is not an easy game to learn and especially to compete at high level, when you are totally new to the concepts and mechanics.

As a person who never played a CCG match in my life and have all the knowledge acquired through videos and forum discussion, I have to strongly disagree with you in one point. People can learn a lot of the BASIC game from tutorials outside the game, BUT, as I said, it takes hours and hours of not playing and just studying the game, which a lot of people (probably most) would not get behind this idea.

I believe most people don't have the time or don't want to spend so much time just to START playing the game with a reasonable level of satisfaction.

The 4 pre-built decks currently are not optimized at all and they are a part of your Card Collection, therefore they CAN be edited, which we don't want in this simpler room.

I didn't say it explicitly (my bad), but, in my suggestion, the 10 or 15 predefined decks are not supposed to be a part of your Card Collection. They are supposed to be part of the "Quick Match" room itself and the player only have access to those decks, when they enter that room. And those decks should even have a few epic and legendary cards, that are NOT part of your Starter Card Collection.

About including this idea inside the Practice Room, I can't agree with it.

Let's face it! 99% of the players skip through tutorials and practice mechanics in every single game. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit the number, but it's definitely the majority.
And you could argue that, if people skip the tutorial, they can't blame the game for being difficult. But it doesn't matter who's fault it is. If the players are having a bad experience and abandoning the game for good, the only ultimate loser here is CD Projekt Red, since they need players to keep their business running.

No matter how you look at this, the developer will always have to "babysit" the new players until they are hooked. It's a part of the job.

So, based on that, I think this new room should be very noticeable, in the main menu, along with the Casual Match and the Friendly Match rooms, as just a different type of match. And this new room also should NOT be labeled or associated to PRACTICE or TUTORIAL, since these names have the "power" of being ignored. Casual players don't want to play tutorial or practice, they wanna jump straight to the game itself.

Choosing the proper name for the room and making it evident like the most important ones, it's a way to massage the new player's EGO. They will feel like playing the full game, even though they really are not. They will try their luck on the Casual Match room, see amazing combos, get their asses kicked and go back to the Quick Match room. They will learn more, collect more and better cards and, later, they will try the Casual Match room again. Once the player starts to have a nice time in the Casual Match room, they normally won't want to go back to the Quick Match room and receive only HALF the rewards and play with a inflexible deck.

My suggestion is to create a natural progression for the new players, without blatantly calling them "noobs that need to practice or play a tutorial", but actually giving them the option to practice, without them noticing it.

Before you know, lots of casual players will become hardcore players, without being forced to do it. While today, with this configuration of the Beta, the new player have to go hardcore since the start and he doesn't even know if he likes the game.

I believe that, with this new room, Gwent would start simpler and become more complex at the players pace, since they can choose when they will migrate to the harder and more complex room.

 

[ioler]

I disagree. Any extra splitting of the community beyond casual/ranked will kill the game.

 

[Treamayne]

Despite existing other games with more complexity, Gwent is not an easy game to learn and especially to compete at high level, when you are totally new to the concepts and mechanics.

You're right. I apologize if I marginalized your opinion, that was not my intention. I, obviously, can't provide the same opinion as a player new to CCGs. I should have said that I wouldn't expect new players to get much value from just videos. With the point being that hands on is really needed to improve with almost any game.

I would like to see the practice room give rewards, as an incentive to practice (about the same as a GG reward - tiny, but one reward for every practice game is something).

Now that you mention the Quick Decks being entirely separate from a player's collection, I agree it could be a great addition. Not only for new players, but if you can get the available decks (example, 3 from each faction - 15 total once Nilfgaard is added) and make sure the Epic and Legendary distribution has no duplicates among the decks, then it would also allow established players to test some cards in a live game before investing that 200-800 scrap to craft a card they think they want, but it might not play as they expect.

I think the idea has a lot of merit and hope it gets some attention (from CDPR and as discussion/refinement from more forumites).

 

[Guest 3857871]

We could really do with a Tutorial for newbies about the basics of mind games. Just today i was playing against such an opponent. I was able to guess what they were going for from the few first cards they played on the first round and so on able to efficiently counter all of their attempts at beating my strength score. It would had really helped them if they were not so blatantly obvious about their intended strategy.

They had many weather cards and Philippa in their deck as i was expecting. They could not get any of their strong units made gold because they were damaged before they reach any great amounts of strength.

It was rather an easy win. All i needed was to place the Dimeritium bomb at the right moment and pass the second round once he had raged enough and used up all his good cards.

 

[Nekojin]

I disagree. Any extra splitting of the community beyond casual/ranked will kill the game.

If that's true, then the game's already dead, it's just going through the motions.

Realistically, if the game is strong enough (has a high enough player base), having multiple different avenues of participation DOES NOT harm the player base. It's a matter of appealing to different interests. If, on the other hand, the game's player base is so small that fragmenting it into several groups leads to the game's self-destruction, the truth is that it was already functionally dead, and didn't realize it.

Blizzard realized this a LONG time ago in World of Warcraft, and started giving people additional things to do other than just leveling and raiding. The "PokeCraft" pet combat system and the farm management from MoP are two good examples, and their different modes in Hearthstone (Arena, PvE, etc) also support it.

On the flip side, if there's only one way to play your game - only one mode that is actually rewarded and recognized - you run a risk of stagnation and boredom by the player base, which is just as lethal for an under-performing game as splitting the player base into different game modes would be.

So, hopefully Gwent's stronger than you think it is, and can support a variety of different game modes over time. If not... well, there's already a long list of failed CCGs, isn't there?

 

[zkenpachiz]

I disagree. Any extra splitting of the community beyond casual/ranked will kill the game.

I can't see how it would split the community. Only new players would get advantage on playing in the Quick Match room, since they are still learning and don't have a good Card Collection.

Even if you think the half experience, half rewards, and the inflexible decks are not incentive enough to keep the experienced players away from this room, the developers could also not count the victories on this room for the ranking of the Casual Match room, any promotions or tournaments would only consider statistics of the Casual/Ranked Match room. There are many ways to avoid splitting the community, by estimulating the experienced players to play on the Casual/Ranked Match room.

You're right. I apologize if I marginalized your opinion, that was not my intention. I, obviously, can't provide the same opinion as a player new to CCGs. I should have said that I wouldn't expect new players to get much value from just videos. With the point being that hands on is really needed to improve with almost any game.
I would like to see the practice room give rewards, as an incentive to practice (about the same as a GG reward - tiny, but one reward for every practice game is something).
Now that you mention the Quick Decks being entirely separate from a player's collection, I agree it could be a great addition. Not only for new players, but if you can get the available decks (example, 3 from each faction - 15 total once Nilfgaard is added) and make sure the Epic and Legendary distribution has no duplicates among the decks, then it would also allow established players to test some cards in a live game before investing that 200-800 scrap to craft a card they think they want, but it might not play as they expect.
I think the idea has a lot of merit and hope it gets some attention (from CDPR and as discussion/refinement from more forumites).

No need to apologize. It's all good. I hope they at least think about it... and some feedback would be nice too. I think it's a reasonable idea and it would be nice to hear something from them.

We could really do with a Tutorial for newbies about the basics of mind games. Just today i was playing against such an opponent. I was able to guess what they were going for from the few first cards they played on the first round and so on able to efficiently counter all of their attempts at beating my strength score. It would had really helped them if they were not so blatantly obvious about their intended strategy.

This kind of "malice" and evolved perception is exactly what you can't expect to acquire from practice or a tutorial against the AI, because the AI is most of the time very predictable.

That's why I think an easier mode with a player versus player match up is essential. In this easier mode, the new player doesn't need to think about building a deck and already knows what the opponent have in their deck, like it was on the Kill The Server 2. Under those rules, the new players can focus on learning how the cards and the matches work and still gain minor experience and rewards to help them have a better time in the more advanced mode of the game.

 

[Vaishar]

Or they can introduce a gradual progression. Lets say a limit on victories 20-30. and pair new players in that range and after 30 victories (or what limit they choose) introduce them in the general MMR system.

 

[Zik_Maker]

I think this game would be much more new player friendly if we actually had a little bit more keys....

 

[luvCiriTrissYen]

The game should have an extra room, along with Casual and Friendly Matches, and you could call it, for example, Quick Match.
How this room would work:
- PREDEFINED decks, the player can not change the cards;
- 2 or 3 decks for each faction, with their most basic archetypes, 10 or 15 basic decks in total, including Nilfgaard;
- HALF the experience and rewards of the Casual Match room, to reduce the presence of more experienced players in the room;

Without the pressure and responsibility of creating a competitive deck from the start, the new player will be able to focus on learning the match system and the cards' interactions, while gathering a little of experience and rewards in the process.
_____

I would like to see what everyone think about my suggestion, but please let's NOT turn this topic into ANOTHER discussion about "free to play" versus "pay to win" or about how unfair is the current matchmaking system. There are other topics about those subjects already.

Sounds intresting but I disagree with there being ANY rewards at all for playing in that room. If you want to practice that is fine but you should not have a "reward reason" to want to go there. I also I feel it would be used to get rewards easier without supporting the game .

 

[zkenpachiz]

Sounds intresting but I disagree with there being ANY rewards at all for playing in that room. If you want to practice that is fine but you should not have a "reward reason" to want to go there. I also I feel it would be used to get rewards easier without supporting the game .

I guess you are missing the point of the room's existence.

It's not a place for everyone to hang out and practice. It's just the entrance door, a warm welcome to the new and inexperienced players, a place where they can play without having to learn all the game at once. They won't need to learn how to build a competitive deck and don't need to guess which deck the opponent is using, because everyone will be using the same predefined decks. This will reduce the learning curve and they will have a satisfactory gaming experience earlier, they will have a sense of evolution and development of their skill.

As soon as the players start to accumulate new cards through KEGs, they will want to go for the other room... build and test their own decks and also receive double experience and rewards.
Besides that, remember that with predefined decks won't be that easy for players to win as you think, because the simpler game will be a lot more predictable than the normal game in the Casual/Ranked room.

Anyways, this was just an initial thought on how to keep the experienced players out of the Quick Match room, but the developers have so many ways to stimulate their more experienced players to play on the Casual/Ranked room. If you think the half experience, half rewards, and the inflexible decks are not incentive enough to keep the experienced players away from this room, the developers could also, for example, not count the victories on this room for the ranking of the Casual Match room, any promotions or tournaments would only consider the players' statistics of the Casual/Ranked Match room.

The Quick Match room is just a way to give the new players an alternative place to learn, if they can't keep up with the full game from the start. And the rewards are a way to keep them still having at least a slow growth, which will stimulate them to play the complete version of the game later, in the Casual/Ranked room, where they can spend those rewards and discover new features, like building decks, milling and crafting cards.

Having no reward at all, completely defeats the purpose of the room's existence.

 

[zkenpachiz]

Or they can introduce a gradual progression. Lets say a limit on victories 20-30. and pair new players in that range and after 30 victories (or what limit they choose) introduce them in the general MMR system.

Ooops, that took me a lot of time to answer, I'm sorry. I was reading the thread again and just notice your comment unanswered.

I don't like this idea.
You can NOT quantify in how many matches a new player will develop enough skill to be paired against experienced players. Some people have a CCG background, others don't have any background with similar games. People also have a natural different learning speed.

This idea wouldn't solve the problem, but luckly would just mitigate a little.

And, if you consider that people can get wins from forfeits and disconnections, this idea loses its remaining bases, if there was any to begin with.

You can't assume that with just a few victories the new players are capable to build a competitive deck, even if they have bought a great Card Collection from the start. Also, absorbing all the mechanics and the complexity of the cards interactions might take a lot time for some people.

I still think that letting the players themselves decide if they want to play a more complex a hostile game mode from the start or not, like I have suggested, is the best way to go.
- If a player have a lot experience with CCG's, he can jump straight up on the Casual/Ranked room and try his luck.
- But, if a player doesn't feel confident enough for the challenge, they have the option of a simpler mode, that takes much less time to learn. And, while he is in that simpler room, he will be contantly reminded of the other room's existence, because the more complex room is the only place where he can utilize the rewards he's receiving. And, naturally, the player will eventually migrate to the more complex and better rewarding game mode, in the Casual/Ranked room.