Is Gwent a pay to win game?

[Wasteland_Ghost]

What's the point of making it free to play if starter decks can't stand a chance? How can one even get into the game without paying a lot of money from the get go?

I'm not new to CCGs (at least real life ones) and there are mechanics in other games that allow you to win even without high level cards. In gwent playing a card has no cost and current deck restrictions are not enough to prevent the player with high level cards from using them all reliably in a game. The game needs better design or it's going to be not fun to play at all at some point.

Having at least better matchmaking system can solve the problem: matching a player with starter cards with a player with tons of cards should never happen.

No one's talking about getting good cards for free, but currently progression without paying is very slow.

 

[Tarathelion]

Thats not true at all i haven't bought anything and am winning majority of games basically plying starter decks with some minor modifications. You absolutely have a chance, as the best synergies involve bronze cards anyway and these ones are reasonably easy to craft. Just because someone is losing does not mean he has inferior deck, it usually means you did not play well enough

 

[Mak0r]

At least in BETA not at all. U can make an ultimate deck ~10 hours with ingame money.

 

[Yourfacetm]

Thats not true at all i haven't bought anything and am winning majority of games basically plying starter decks with some minor modifications. You absolutely have a chance, as the best synergies involve bronze cards anyway and these ones are reasonably easy to craft. Just because someone is losing does not mean he has inferior deck, it usually means you did not play well enough

This is so true. I've been free to play so far and yes I have ran into players who have bought lots of cards but I still put up a really good right, with the exception of the CD project red staff player that wrecked me lol.

I've spent a few hours, to the point of a headache, playing this game non stop. I feel I win more than I lose. Ofcourse, I built my own beginning deck because I don't trust starter decks.

Overall though, every card game has a pay to win. If a good player vs a good player and one of them has the entire collection then there is definitely an advantage. This is not a problem. THE PROBLEM that comes into play is when a below avarage player can beat a good player because they have more cards. If the game is balanced correctly then a good player can take entry level cards and beat any other lesser skilled player, even if they bought cards.

In less words, card variety and power should not carry weak players. I haven't played enough to get a grasp on how this is right now but I am leaning towards a balanced game where I feel like I can beat someone who has less experience regardless of their collection.

 

[Infiltrator]

It is a free card game! How else can they earn money? NO it is not a pay to win. You want to earn the best cards without work? Or better, you want to have a change to get the best cards without work? Then pay... But really, what is the point after getting all the good cards? just playing and winning? Where is the fun in that?

I prefer not to pay for kegs. Trying to collect the ores to buy kegs is more fun to me. I will pay (possibly) for buying a mission pack or something like that but not for kegs. I want better cards, i am playing more, find strategies with the cards i have now. More fun, more challenge.

I believe that Gwent will be a card game for mature players who knows how the game works. This is gonna be great. The players who wants childy game, easy game etc will go back to HS.

You talk about maturity yet your post reeks of the opposite from your literacy to your arguments - you think this is some binary equation where gwent can only be one or two things (positive or negative to the extreme). Obviously that's a childish notion so maybe you should talk about maturity when you reach it yourself.

The game rewards are extremely slow-paced, if I am lucky I can get 1 keg a day, games like duelyst are much more fair when it comes to gold distribution. Plus there's no arena mode for anyone interested in that kind of gold acquisition. Honestly CDPR, you've always been kind with things and I've come to expect this of you, please revise the system.

 

[Tarathelion]

Well i think you can get around 4 kegs a day, which is not that bad

 

[tsokgr]

Do you know what beta means?

When the ranked system will be released, you will be with player at your level of power. So you will get your wins, so more ores, so more kegs, so more better cards, better level, etc...

 

[Kinglionsfox]

I win more matches after spending money. Seems like the match maker needs tweaking. I was getting slaughter by some amazing decks before I bought card kegs. Now with a decent deck, I win more often. I sometimes feel sorry for the decks I go against, because it obvious they don't have access to the same amount of cards. I have 118/208 of the cards after about 40+ free kegs.

 

[Nyanko73]

Ok so I have bought 15 kegs in the game shop to check if the game had a pay to win trend. And my final answer is definitely no, unless you are very rich of course. Cause in 15 kegs (19 €) I got one leader card, one gold card and two silvers, AND IT'S ALL RANDOM so I got nothing I wanted basically. So I think it would take a considerable amount of money, a huge amount of money even, to be able to get the cards you want, thus not like other games with cash shop where 10€ make a huge difference on the board.

And milling besides looks like being a very looooooong process.

 

[SentryOmega]

Please stop these allegations.

This is only the beginning of BETA and no numbers and reward rules/mechanics have been ultimately determined yet.

 

[Guest 3885261]

This is only the beginning of BETA and no numbers and reward rules/mechanics have been ultimately determined yet.

That's exactly why it's important for players to give feedback. It's early, there's still plenty of time for systems to be tweaked and revised before things are finalized. If people have qualms or concerns about the game's business model they should speak now, the longer we wait the less time CDPR has to make changes.

 

[Tedling]

TLDR: Once you have a deck with maxed out 6 silver and 4 gold cards, there is no need to buy more cards with real money. IMO, it is not a pay2win.

I agree that it is very important to at least cap out the gold and silver card limits in your deck. If you don't have 4 gold and 6 silver cards in your deck, you will most likely lose against a player who does.

For me it took ~30 kegs to get to this point in one of my decks (Monster deck), including creating some cards with scrap. When playing without spending money, currently you will have to spend quite some time to get 30 kegs.

In the end it is very important that the matchmaking will not match players with a weaker deck (not maxed the limits of silver and gold cards) to one with a stronger deck (silver and gold card limits maxed out). Then, you will be able to win even without spending money. And once you have your first deck with maxed out silver & gold cards you will have the prerequisites to win a game just as good as someone who paid money.

 

[Ecceptor]

Wait a new day and you'll get delicious scraps.

 

[Daikuza]

I never bought any keg for real money and I would say my win-rate is about 90+ % atm. This is not supposed to sound conceited or something.

I just wanna say, good cards alone will not win the games for you. There is also the luck-factor:
1. You can open 10 kegs and don't get a single card you need for your deck.
2. You open just 1 keg and you get 3 or more awesome cards that you need for your deck.

Also don't forget that only playing will reward you with 'scraps' to craft cards (you can choose from every card in the game).

I had 10-15 kegs so far and I don't even had much time to play.

 

[Yourfacetm]

I never bought any keg for real money and I would say my win-rate is about 90+ % atm. This is not supposed to sound conceited or something.

I just wanna say, good cards alone will not win the games for you. There is also the luck-factor:
1. You can open 10 kegs and don't get a single card you need for your deck.
2. You open just 1 keg and you get 3 or more awesome cards that you need for your deck.

Also don't forget that only playing will reward you with 'scraps' to craft cards (you can choose from every card in the game).

I had 10-15 kegs so far and I don't even had much time to play.

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).

 

[Greyboxer]

With all of the RNG built into Kegs, repetitive cards and many, many epics and legendaries to collect, I feel that a bump to ore-rewards would be a welcome change, even for people (like me) who have spent $$ on kegs. Wouldnt hurt anyone, since it would still take what, 900 kegs to get every card, with the right RNG? And it would help get new players on their feet faster even if they dont spent money on kegs.

 

[C0bR]

I think people are overreacting because the beta has been out for three days and some people who bought up have jumped ahead a bit. The rate of acquiring free keks and cards seems to much faster than something like HS though so things should eventually even out pretty quickly. Especially considering the deck building limitations.

 

[liujeffqi]

It is indeed faster than HS but I think what most ppl felt it is pay to win as people get a head of rest of gamers and have some complete crazy combo in the deck already where we normal players stuck in the middle of everything. as losing give you no rewards and you only getting reward after win few rounds, alougth you gain alot ores at level up or medcore rewards after complete a segment but feels discouraging after winning a good fight and see "oh i progross 1/3 of this segment only so no rewards for being winning a good game" if the segment is longer and have more consistant reward could be better. like winner get 10 scraps, (i think scraps t has lesser value) by default and can complete segment getting misterious rewards. and loser gets 5 scraps

 

[Wasteland_Ghost]

I'm not willing to pay for kegs atm as there are no regional prices and I'm not willing to spend that much money on the game. As a result I feel like I'm slowly grinding for better cards with my almost starter monster deck, because it's the only deck I'm able to win reliably with. I'm hoping to get better cards for NR deck (already got some) and start playing with it. I was very unlucky on my last two kegs as I mostly got duplicates of cards I already had x3. So I'm basically playing with the same deck over and over again, which feels kinda boring. I tried other decks, but my win rate with them is very low and as much as it fun figuring out new strategies with basically no rewards for loosing I get no progression.

I'm 7 hours in, for me it's a lot. I wasn't watching each and every pre-beta stream, wasn't preparing myself by reading gwent database. I'm just a regular player with some RL CCG background, big love for TW3 and an interest in gwent, trying to figure out things on my own. And I feel like the game is very very slow. Again, at least for an average player with average amount of free time.

 

[Valvatti87]

I never bought any keg for real money and I would say my win-rate is about 90+ % atm.

Might be.But everytime someone says on the forums, lets say, world of tanks. My average damage on tiger is 2.5k. That game has really extensive statistics tracking. 95% of the time, you go check guys stats and it says awerage damage on tiger is 1.2k
Same goes in win ratio.
Not saying youre lying, but people do have habit of only remembering only the "good games"..