Is Gwent a pay to win game?

[Mr.Zorro]

I think before answering this question (whether Gwent a pay-to-win Game or not) we should remind one important thing - the balance between spending time and paying money.

Look, what I mean.
We usually(in games) have 2 resources - real money and game money. So for people who have much free time(or spend much time by playing it) it is not a problem to earn a lot of game money and won't spend the real one. But for those who have not much time or don't want to spend a lot of it etc. more preferable way is to spend their real money and save some time.

Now we come to the point of balance. As far as I can understand per day we can get rewards only for 3 lvl ups and for 8 winning games.
So what d'you think whether it is enough or not for free-to-play card game?

You see people who spent more time and get higher lvls will play with others who can have much better cards.
Eg. one player play just 1 hour per day, get 3 lvl ups and 8 wins. 30 days later he'll be 90 lvl and get, well, let it be 90 kegs
Another play will go this way from 1 lvl to 90 for, well, 7 days(he will have A LOT OF FREE time) and get only 30(or less) kegs as a rewad.

Is it a right situation?
I think the situation is not right. Those people who spent more time should have more rewards. Want to get more rewards? Play more or spent real money. It's ok and I'm sure a lot of people will donate. Maybe not 50$ per month, but atleast 10-15$ per month - why not?

Nowdays the situation is - you enter the game - make 8 wins and get 3 lvl ups - the game is over for you for today, cause if you will go on playing next week or month you'll be higher lvl then people of your time, You will have to play against people who didn't hurry up, that's why they have more cards and better decks and you'll lose them again and again and the reason of your losing will be not your skill but cards and you may even stop playing GWENT cause the sistem of rewards is not fair.

People who play more should get more rewards, I think. Cause if in this game will play only those who always donate they will not have opponents or will wait for an opponent for atleast 20-30 minutes.

What do you think, guys?

 

[Maverickman]

hearthstone has a similar cap with 100 gold.

 

[Mr.Zorro]

hearthstone has a similar cap with 100 gold.

True, but the reason of it - banning bot programs. But this way shows it is not so effective as it should be in theory. Much more players'd go on playing if they had got rewards for it.

So, anti-bot system should be different from that Blizzard uses in HS, I think.

CDPR should reward those who play a lot and make online high for those who spend money.

Certanly the rewards shouldn't be very high. MB 4+ lvl up per day leads to 50 orge/scrapes.

 

[Domhnallaich]

Gwent seems very Pay to Win

I just started the beta tonight, so perhaps it's just my lack of understanding the game atm. But, when doing friendly PvP, there are many people who have superior decks to what I am starting out with. The rate at which i can earn enough in-game currency to get more cards feels really slow. Is it just my lack of experience with the game, or is it really like this to some folk?

Edit:

I am sure CDPR said that the stuff you can buy is cosmetic. But, the kegs you purchase have random cards in them, so this can't just be cosmetic.

 

[Maverickman]

True, but the reason of it - banning bot programs. But this way shows it is not so effective as it should be in theory. Much more players'd go on playing if they had got rewards for it.

So, anti-bot system should be different from that Blizzard uses in HS, I think.

CDPR should reward those who play a lot and make online high for those who spend money.

Certanly the rewards shouldn't be very high. MB 4+ lvl up per day leads to 50 orge/scrapes.

The 100 gold cap isn't for bots. They have anti bot detection now and you don't see really many bots running around at all. They cracked down on all of them. They just didn't want people earning all the cards through mass playing. (Unless its Arena which is very hard to do)

 

[devivre]

Of course if you spend money on let's say 20 kegs you'll get a few useful cards. That's normal. But considering the fact that kegs are often useless I wouldn't overrate that (crafting is often more useful I think).

Most people I've played against had normal decks. Only few exceptions. But in most cases winning is possible- still you will need to adjust the deck to your style of play (and use the faction that works best for you).

Don't forget that you can practice against the computer. You don't necessarily need gold or silver cards to win (some bronze cards are worth crafting...). But you need to understand the advantages of the faction you want to play and make use of it as much as possible...

 

[theflyingram]

Skellige or Monsters would be good choices if you don't want to spend real money on kegs right now. I have around 80% winrate with a really cheap Skellige deck. Just give the game some time, learn your faction advantages and you will be grinding wins for rewards. Just spend your scraps mostly for synergetic silver or bronze cards.

You will eventually fill your card collection, maybe just a bit slower than those who paid for kegs. This is a CCG after all. And a really good one

 

[Nyanko73]

Ok, so more testing on the pay to win trend. I bought more kegs, so I got 30 in total, and in order to get a decent deck after that (meaning the leader I wanted, 2 more gold cards along with geralt and 5 silvers), I needed to mill all the other decks and their leaders included.

My deck is not perfect still and needs a few more cards to be complete. So now I leave to you the conclusions. After 38€ and 5 hours in, I get around 80% of the deck I wanted. But to the sacrifice of any other deck I could have made with other factions.

 

[Daikuza]

I feel like you are exaggerating. I've maybe got 10 kegs and I have played for several hours. The grind for a single pack may not be as bad as Hearthstone but objectively, it still takes too much time (outside of the daily rewards which still take some time and seem to only give about enough ore for two packs).

I have 8-9 hours of gameplay by now and I got more than 10 kegs.
Exaggerating? If anything, the time you need to get 100 gold doesn't take that much time, you can't expect to get 3 kegs per hour, cdpr can't give you anything for free.


People forget that we can farm scraps, if you have enough of them you can choose from any card in the game.
I actually got the best cards from crafting, I wasn't really lucky with kegs.
It would be another story if you could buy scraps/cards.

 

[kmepring]

TO be honest, I watched a guy stream who bought 60 kegs. And from those 60 kegs he got...one silver legendary and one epic gold. That's it.

 

[Nyanko73]

Yeah, I guess, unless you are super lucky, most of the gold and silver cards will be obtained by milling.

 

[DragomirG]

Yeah, I guess, unless you are super lucky, most of the gold and silver cards will be obtained by milling.

I prefer it that way - people will play more, will get addicted and will spend their free time instead their $

 

[DrDrPremu]

After three days I already managed to grab four gold cards without paying any money. Plus I created some nice combos by crafting (inlcuding all three silver witcher cards)

For my Skellige Deck I could even manage to fill all four gold slots (Geralt, Yennefer, Hjalmar, Birna Bran)

But it seems that now there are almost none worthy opponents for my Skellige Deck anymore - so the match making algorithm prevents me from taking such a deck to trash anyone with a beginners deck.

This means that anyone who gains gold cards by spending a lot of money will have the same problem. He will be able to play earlier against players with great decks, but he won't dominate anyone.

Another factor is of course: If you have only a rather random collection of cards and you're playing against a well balanced deck, you'll get trashed. I learned that if I just wanted to try my luck with my Scoatiel deck after obtaining Milva, but for which I didn't have any real strategy yet.

 

[Aleenik]

All CCGs are pay to win. That is the nature of CCGs. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or a blind fanboy. They simply differ in their degree of pay to win. When it comes to digital CCGs, in addition to being pay to win, many of the more popular ones allow you to do an extreme amount of grinding over an extremely long period of time to win. CCGs are set up in a way to make as much money as possible.

I am much more of a fan of the LCG model. They require less money to compete and there are no blind purchases.

 

[Likierr]

It is pay to win in some degree.
We have definitely unbalance cards like Regis or Roach in combination (both legendary, hard to get) or some really good epic.
F2P progress is reasonable fast so if Cd Projeckt ballans cards little bit better and with more players matchmaking will be more fair i don't See reason to complain too much.

 

[Domhnallaich]

Thanks guys. Appreciate the input.

 

[Rawls]

As an additional tip, if you know what deck you want to play consistently, you can mill your other decks for scraps and build up a pretty decent deck without spending any money. I haven't bought a single keg (other than with ore) and have a much improved Scoia'tael deck. Of course, if you want to keep multiple decks, this is a less viable option.

 

[drewg22]

All CCGs are pay to win. That is the nature of CCGs. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or a blind fanboy. They simply differ in their degree of pay to win. When it comes to digital CCGs, in addition to being pay to win, many of the more popular ones allow you to do an extreme amount of grinding over an extremely long period of time to win. CCGs are set up in a way to make as much money as possible.

I am much more of a fan of the LCG model. They require less money to compete and there are no blind purchases.

Isn't it hard to make this claim without seeing the campaigns and how they will help build decks?

Yes, people that pay will have better decks faster but will they always have a better deck?

 

[OptoNick]

Low-level Skellige wounds-oriented deck and Scoia'tael special_cards-oriented deck can easily beat much stronger decks. Especially Scoia'tael one - opponents always underestimate you, but you can pull up to 120+ points from 5 cards in hand.

Weather-oriented Monsters deck tough to overcome, but need investments to work at full potential. Breeding-oriented deck much cheaper and easier to play.

Improved with silvers and golds NK deck is a pain in the ass to play against, I personally start to do faction-specific crafting from it.

----
In three days I'm at lvl 13, playing with all 4 factions equally - winrate, I think, near 2/3. Haven't bought and not going to buy kegs. Crafted Vesemir+Eskel+Lambert set and Natalis hero card (NK), half way to next 200 scraps-worth card.

 

[Aleenik]

Isn't it hard to make this claim without seeing the campaigns and how they will help build decks?

Yes, people that pay will have better decks faster but will they always have a better deck?

If they pay and others don't or others don't feel like grinding an insane amount over a large period of time, yes the people with good cards will do better than the people with bad cards on average.

Every CCG is based around blind purchases to acquire a good deck of cards. No exceptions. Every CCG is based around spending lots of money in order to have a better deck than your opponent. No exceptions. Yes, you might well be able to get some cards through campaigns, but the core business model will remain. I have gotten some free Magic: The Gathering cards from friends, but Magic: The Gathering still remains an extremely expensive game to be competitive at. The core business model remains despite those free cards I have obtained.