Opinions on Gwent's Current State

[duracell1955]

I've enjoyed Gwent and don't really want to stop playing it, however there is a reality that I must recognise which will likely lead me to quitting.

When I first played Gwent it was around the time of the Crimson Curse expansion. I found the game challenging at that time, but enjoyed it all the same. However, it has become more complex with every expansion, I have no idea how many mechanics there are now but this additional complexity, whilst undoubtedly attractive to some, has made the game much more difficult to play successfully for me. I feel that my win rate has decreased with each expansion, and after the latest one is now very low.

My increased difficulty in playing the game successfully wouldn't matter so much if the matchmaking system was more efficient. I thought that as my MMR decreased I would find myself playing against weaker opponents, which would lead to closer games. The reality is quite different, my MMR in some factions is quite low (1361 for MO at present) but I still find myself losing heavily to my opponents, so I have little faith in the efficiency of the matchmaking system.

So I am faced with a choice - either accept that my limitations will mean that I only win the occasional game and accept the losses to (and sometimes taunts from) my opponents, or find another game. The latter looks more desirable by the day.

 

[judgecsk]

I've enjoyed Gwent and don't really want to stop playing it, however there is a reality that I must recognise which will likely lead me to quitting.

When I first played Gwent it was around the time of the Crimson Curse expansion. I found the game challenging at that time, but enjoyed it all the same. However, it has become more complex with every expansion, I have no idea how many mechanics there are now but this additional complexity, whilst undoubtedly attractive to some, has made the game much more difficult to play successfully for me. I feel that my win rate has decreased with each expansion, and after the latest one is now very low.

My increased difficulty in playing the game successfully wouldn't matter so much if the matchmaking system was more efficient. I thought that as my MMR decreased I would find myself playing against weaker opponents, which would lead to closer games. The reality is quite different, my MMR in some factions is quite low (1361 for MO at present) but I still find myself losing heavily to my opponents, so I have little faith in the efficiency of the matchmaking system.

So I am faced with a choice - either accept that my limitations will mean that I only win the occasional game and accept the losses to (and sometimes taunts from) my opponents, or find another game. The latter looks more desirable by the day.

- I'll start by agreeing with you on the matter of the sheer number of cards that exist in the game atm, it can be a lil bit challenging to remember each and every one of them and what they do.

- What i've done to help me improve my knowledge and thus my chances at winning is to concentrate on playing 1-2 factions for a certain period of time.
I try to memorize what my oponent's use on their decks especially when i'm facing one similar to mine.
I also watch YouTube videos to keep my self informed and up to date on the latest meta decks and cards.

- What i've mentioned above is easy and fortunately isn't as time consuming as reading and memorising all the different cards and their abilities which i'm sure you'd agree that is quite a daunting task to undertake.
It's a shame imo for you to like the game to quit just like that.
I hope you reconsider and find joy in creating more/new decks and get your wins !

Cheers !

 

[Balgar-bard-slayer]

Tried reinstalling today, playing about 10 games with a dwarves invigorate deck. I know I know, worst deck in the game. But I thought it might add some entertainment value. But...

The game is just incredibly dull. Everyone takes forever with their moves, whilst playing OP meta decks, it really is draining. I never see anything surprising anymore. After just 10 games I feel like I've had my fill for another month at least. Thought I did see a Regis spies deck ( I at least appreciated the loss)

Not to mention Invigorate is insultingly underpowered. (And how long has that been the case...). Dwarves have terrible synergy (And how long has that been the case....) Terrible engines, terrible damage dealers, terrible finishers. And yet if I draw Oneiromancy (echo...) in R1 I seem to have a 60-70% chance of winning on the pro ladder.

Who designed this shite?

Utter utter dirge

 

[judgecsk]

Tried reinstalling today, playing about 10 games with a dwarves invigorate deck. I know I know, worst deck in the game. But I thought it might add some entertainment value. But...

The game is just incredibly dull. Everyone takes forever with their moves, whilst playing OP meta decks, it really is draining. I never see anything surprising anymore. After just 10 games I feel like I've had my fill for another month at least. Thought I did see a Regis spies deck ( I at least appreciated the loss)

Not to mention Invigorate is insultingly underpowered. (And how long has that been the case...). Dwarves have terrible synergy (And how long has that been the case....) Terrible engines, terrible damage dealers, terrible finishers. And yet if I draw Oneiromancy (echo...) in R1 I seem to have a 60-70% chance of winning on the pro ladder.

Who designed this shite?

Utter utter dirge

- Try a MO-Keltulis deck, it's good for sh!it's n' giggles, make sure to grab little Caranthir with ya and the Beast and you're good to go.
Troll-cheese ftw..!

P.S. Don't forget to bring a cave Troll with ya..!

 

[Shadow-Strike]

this thread reminds me of another game where people constantly said "i'm quitting" because x color does this , non interactive , op, playing x deck x times. everyone of those complaints are part of CCG and meta.

It's fine and actually really fun for some decks to complete shut down opponents , or have unanswerable threats or be non interactive. No you are not going to have fun playing all the time , it's not the job of your opponent or the devs to ensure you are having fun when you are losing or have a bad match up. If you can't find enjoyment in those games you should look in the mirror the problem is in there not with the game or the devs.

"SK is so powerful now that in the last match I played against it I was beaten in round 3 despite having 2 card advantage and a good hand. Ridiculous. "

there is nothing wrong with what happen other then the op being salty about it.. It actually proves the game is doing well if this was able to happen.

 

[judgecsk]

this thread reminds me of another game where people constantly said "i'm quitting" because x color does this , non interactive , op, playing x deck x times. everyone of those complaints are part of CCG and meta.

It's fine and actually really fun for some decks to complete shut down opponents , or have unanswerable threats or be non interactive. No you are not going to have fun playing all the time , it's not the job of your opponent or the devs to ensure you are having fun when you are losing or have a bad match up. If you can't find enjoyment in those games you should look in the mirror the problem is in there not with the game or the devs.

"SK is so powerful now that in the last match I played against it I was beaten in round 3 despite having 2 card advantage and a good hand. Ridiculous. "

there is nothing wrong with what happen other then the op being salty about it.. It actually proves the game is doing well if this was able to happen.

This is your opinion man, also go read some stats on the forums, SK getting nerfed twice in a row by devs definitely meens something.
I agree with you on some parts but everyone is entitled to his opinion, just like you are entitled to yours.

 

[Shadow-Strike]

This is your opinion man, also go read some stats on the forums, SK getting nerfed twice in a row by devs definitely meens something.
I agree with you on some parts but everyone is entitled to his opinion, just like you are entitled to yours.

you are correct it is just my opinion. but for clarification i was just quoting the op

" I played against it I was beaten in round 3 despite having 2 card advantage and a good hand. "

I was mostly noting that someone winning under the condition the op spoke about is not a sign of a problem in fact if that was not able to happen ithink that would be a sign something is wrong.

 

[Anciluart]

you are correct it is just my opinion. but for clarification i was just quoting the op

" I played against it I was beaten in round 3 despite having 2 card advantage and a good hand. "

I was mostly noting that someone winning under the condition the op spoke about is not a sign of a problem in fact if that was not able to happen ithink that would be a sign something is wrong.

What you quoted referred to the situation of SK, which can be seen in the following graph. But surely you will also say there are no problems with that.

[...]

 

[luvCiriTrissYen]

What you quoted referred to the situation of SK, which can be seen in the following graph. But surely you will also say there are no problems with that.

[...]


View attachment 11055065

So sk has a lot of deck in the meta and currently a deck that is the top performer and yes they have been nerfed 2 x already.

If you look at actual play rate the best performing one has close to the the same play rate as the least performing on of a different faction. the only thing your post and lot of the comments proves is the existence of salt.

 

[bots_killer]

you are correct it is just my opinion. but for clarification i was just quoting the op

" I played against it I was beaten in round 3 despite having 2 card advantage and a good hand. "

I was mostly noting that someone winning under the condition the op spoke about is not a sign of a problem in fact if that was not able to happen ithink that would be a sign something is wrong.

It's a sign of a big problem: imbalance. If imbalance isn't a problem for you, well, let's agree to disagree.

 

[lor1keet]

What you quoted referred to the situation of SK, which can be seen in the following graph. But surely you will also say there are no problems with that.

[...]


View attachment 11055065

What you are showing is not a little imbalance, but a HUGE imbalance.

The hotfix did nothing to change that unfortunately. It will show when they release the stats after this season is over.

 

[kmpat]

Only came back for Ciri. Can't wait to be done and uninstall for good.

 

[Slizzl]

There is zero effort from the devs to nourish deck variety. Just think for a second how many leader abilities are left to rot. What reason is there to not use Uprising for NR? What reason is there to not use Hidden Cache for SY? This goes for all factions, they have 1-2 abilities that work the rest are a waste of space because the devs don't develop cards around them and instead just add in whatever spur of the moment idea they had at the time of an expansion, most of the time stolen from some other popular CCG that don't play at all like Gwent.
This leads to a handful of decks being viable which in turn makes the game painfully repetitive long term. Now when I face Monsters I know just about every card he will be using, same with NR, same with SY, same with SK. NG has a couple of decks I guess.
The second someone tries something other than these they will lose, that's why we have this situation.

The abilities themselves are also highly flawed in terms of promoting deck variety. You'd think something like Imperial Formation would promote a soldier heavy archetype but in reality it's just a point-slam tool.
I think the devs got too fixated on the idea that every leader ability needs to be hyper-flexible that they didn't realize they became basically interchangeable regardless of deck. When Skellige could just swap Second Wind with Patricidal Fury the moment it got nerfed and still achieve great results your CCG has a problem.

Oh, and this upcoming rework is targeting mostly abilities you never see these days anyway so I have no faith in it leading to more deck variety.

There's of course also the ever increasing amount of obsolete cards as well. This happens when you make new cards objectively better rather than different, something particularly noticeable in a game like Gwent.

No, I'm done. I need a break.

Post automatically merged: Aug 22, 2020

Ok, take this with some grain of salt I was particularly salty after desperately trying to make a bounty deck work.

 

[DRK3]

Funny, i did a similar rant post also a few min ago, on the patchnotes thread. Also mentioned some of the specific issues you mentioned...

Always the same leaders, yeah... Except for SK, where the OPness is in the cards so you can use any leader and still win

But i didnt even complain about the staleness/netdecking, i hated it for so long, that i've reached a state where i dont care about it anymore.

I think i've played several hundred matches this month, like 500, only on seasonal. Which i thought would be less frustrating, even if they were the same decks over and over, because at least it was quick, but eventually the frustration came back. So im also stopping, at least until next season, im curious to see what will happen, even if its awful.

 

[Luckless_Jack]

Ditto. The more I play, the more frustrating the game's fundamental issues become.

It's only the fact that I've bought the journey that is keeping me playing at all now. However, having realised that there is no way I can currently face playing enough games to grind for some of the content in it, that is feeling more and more like a mistake, especially with those 75 extra levels.

Journeys and reward books are just baubles and distractions when all is said and done, the core gameplay is ultimately what matters. The thing that concerns me most, is that the devs still haven't got that right after 4 years of working on it. Will they ever?

Sorry for being so negative. Perhaps it's time I stepped away too.

 

[Lufstoospooje]

It's very depressing.

It's just the same decks, over and over and over and over...

I guess the Devs have a different idea of what is fun than I do. I wish there was a CCG that didn't almost always end up like this. Only a handful of viable decks and luck of the draw whether or not the deck you're (kind of forced to) playing works against one of the half dozen or so that your hundreds of possible opponents might play.

 

[Pacifixer]

100% agree! I've complained about the lack of archetipe identity and generic leader design numerous times.
Over the years i've noticed some improvements in design and balance, but they improve way too slowly.

This season i'm playing only seasonal for jurney and masteries, 2/3 games i play are against MO (I HATE MO!!!), just a break will not be enough for this, i will need a therapy!

 

[wonderboy870]

You need to accept that Gwent is going to continue to get worse not better. Since Beta any number of changes have brought game to this point. Worse, the continued power creep forces decks to adopt specific cards to compete. For every breakthrough like devotion you get a scenario or evolution card that in many cases is auto include. Also, Gwent is not well run. The devs almost never seek out player input before making sweeping changes many of which so significantly upset the player base that they need to undo them.

 

[Guest 4368268]

Yeah, some cards get reworked from good support cards for certain leaders that need it (Valbjorn in onslaught) to tutors for already strong decks (Warriors SK) and then you look at the amount of absolutely unplayable cards out there that get neglected and will probably continue to get neglected. When I played the seasonal where a cards power is equal to its provision cost I saw archespore for the first time in probably two years and I thought "4 power is what that card should be in regular Gwent" but it's just one of the many many examples you can come up with.

There's definitely not a lot of space left to explore in Gwent and I think the developers like it that way as it makes it easier for them to control the meta and make sure nothing gets out of hand. Granted, they've failed miserably at doing that, but I think that's their approach anyway.

The thing that bugs me about Gwent is that Arena is unplayable due to the faction specific (leader) abilities everywhere, casual is usually unfun because you either play against beginners with starter decks, people practicing their netdeck or people playing weird hyper control stuff and pro ladder is of course an MMR grind where you know what you're signing up for.

There's not many options for decks where it's like "this would be very satisfying to get off" and the options that are available are so dependent on luck (coinflip, draws, match-up) that you can never reliably play it in a competitive environment.
The closest thing to a 'creative' a.i unorthodox deck I've seen this season is unitless Cadaverine but that's obviously as dreadful to play against as it gets.

 

[Alexander_Volgin]

There is zero effort from the devs to nourish deck variety.

Just read this, agreed, and signed out. No wall of text needed to get my support, peace.