Is the game becoming a bad copy of Hearthstone?

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Hydrahead;n9977331 said:
That's the problem. They listen to Swim and Merchant lol. They wanted the discover mechanic in Gwent which is horrible for the game IMO. Yes, it's still in beta but that doesn't make it any less weird that they completely changed direction with all this RNG. And I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about a "natural progression" when it's comes the increasing amount of RNG? Doesn't seem natural to me at all...

This is purely my own speculation but I think the community (at least most guys) don't like the new direction. It's a couple of streamers who routed for that. But what do I know?

You are right, I am not a big fan of it, either. I am speculating about the intersection between good marketing practices for a CCG, the age of such a game, and what types of mechanics should be introduced. In a vacuum, let's say three card games are designed from scratch and none of them begin with any sense of randomness in their card designs. Over time, more mechanics are introduced and the game increases in complexity. This affects the ability for developers to consistently create "balanced" cards judged by the ever more scrutinising eyes of the community. A game based on numbers alone is particularly vulnerable to such scrutiny (see Swim's reviews of the new cards as a prime example i.e. pretty much all "one star cards"). It's like being able to read and understand a book by just reading a single page. A card's usefulness is summed up by its synergy with other cards and its maximum value on the board. If long-time players keep coming back to see cards that are objectively worse than previous cards still in use, then the game's complexity throw rows and other mechanics becomes a bit pointless. However, if the value of a card is undetermined (Whispering Hillock), even if it seems stupid to a lot of players, there must be a reason why, from a design perspective, it is the best direction to go in. I'm not saying I know what that reason is. I'm just saying that like any category of product, card games have a particular player base and they all go through similar stages of development. Power creep, for instance, is inevitable because time is a factor. Merging of mechanics and updating of card effects are also bound to happen. As much as I hate to admit it, maybe this injection of randomness, while painful right now, is intended to help the game survive past its current stage.

I suppose my main point is that the game would eventually reach a point where randomness is inevitable, but I think the amount they have included in this patch is a bit ridiculous.
 
Somebody said (answering a question in his chat): If the developers aren't able rebalancing the complete competitive system, what can be done? Add new cards with randomness. And then as a developer you don't have to care much about, because the rng isn't touching the current competition, it's only adding something new independently , just a new game mode, nothing concerning the competitive "scene". So it might be helpful camouflaging the developers' inability regarding rebalancing the competitive issues (i.e. the general ST weakness / boredom /being the least interesting faction and its increasing factional competitve gap - minus the OP spell'tael crap).

I'm concerned a bit about the amount of rng cards coming with the midwinter patch without releasing the new game mode at the same time. Is it accidentally or intentionally? I have to admit, adding rng is not that bad, if at the same time all competitive issues are solved. And we take a look @ the ladder's stats somewhere in the near future and we will see, wow all factions have virtually gained the same playing percentage. That is my main point. Equal competitive factions, nothing more but also nothing less. Then add rng as much you like, just keep all rng cards less important and sub par so the player doesn't need to build them for competitive gaming. If the player decides to play a gwent fun/draft rng multiplayer setup, well why not, it might be funny enough and it's adding more diversity.

If ever Gwent becomes apparent looking like HS toddler's style, well, then I'm done with Gwent. I like Gwent, because of its adult look. Thanks developers for matured unique Gwent style. Be and stay unique!
 
I really hate RNG, I would prefer Gwent to be like chess with Witcher characters and those sweet animations, but this is after all a card game and it works like card game, all of them have RNG and some pretty smart people took it on themselves to explain why it is not a bad thing.

As for the evolution of Gwent I am not sold on the downward trajectory some imply, there will be no card ever that will come even close to RNG-factor of the draw, not to mention infamous coinflip.

People play Hearthstone in millions even though it is RNG fiesta I doubt Gwent will ever be because. There are popularity concerns and viability as esport concerns for the devs, and I highly doubt anyone at CDPR would be so misguided to take to copying HS, since many tried that already and it never payed out.

Some people will get some cheesy wins with RNG based decks, but will any of them be any more highroll-y than playing 40 card Foltest?

It will have little impact on laddering since it will eventually even out for everyone, yeah it will suck for someone to lose major money in some event but those events will be more interesting to broad audiences to watch, and then there would be more events and maybe unlucky guy became the lucky bastard the next time.
 
@Weevil89, I agree with everything you said, and I although I'm also turning my nose up to the upcoming changes, I also did so to many other changes before CDPR had them implemented, and most of them IMO turned out for the better.

About the upcoming changes and cards, I won't say I like them, but I'm fine with them. I'm pretty sure CDPR made lots of testing with the new game mode they will be presenting to us and felt that spicy mechanics like Spawn could drastically increase its playability and fun. My only complaint really goes to the new leaders, it felt like they got a bit lazy with creating new and unique ones in the midst of all these Spawn tags.

About the OP question, Gwent will never ever be similar to Hearthstone, no matter how close card effects they can have, because the core mechanics of both games are totally different. No mana, rows, positioning, hazards and boons, different end goals (best of 3 rounds vs killing oponnent hero), less draw dependent and more tactical (Gwent) vs completely dependent on draws and the luck with them (HS)... They can copy all HS cards and effects and add them to Gwent, they will still be totally different games.
 
m0bius8;n9939081 said:
Around 109 cards and they hinted on a mode or two as well. How can You be not excited????

most of the cards in the game see no play whatsoever... they can add a thousand cards and it wouldn't make a difference; just more long-forgotten cards that nobody plays because they're worst versions of something else

as for the "new game mode", it's just going to be a draft mode, nothing to get excited about. every other card game has one, and gwent should have had one for a long time (if CDPR weren't a small indy company...)
i don't see anything particularly exciting about draft modes... they mostly come down to who got the better options in the deckbuilding screen

OG.laloquaint;n9938051 said:
There's ALWAYS so much complaining for updates before they actually hit, it's just ridiculous.
and much more often than not, they end up being correct. case in point: people complained that gold cards without deploy abilities would be useless if they removed gold immunity, and it's exactly what ended up happening
 
Weevil89;n9977281 said:
it is still in beta, lol

this is the worse excuse i see people using... they built an entire ranking system based around professional play, and have a yearly plan for monetary tournaments. you can't do something like that and hide behind "beta" when the game's problems come knocking at the door.

for all intends and purposes, "beta" means "release of an unfinished product", like all the buggy games being rushed out the door in other genres


PS: you don't seem to know how to use "lol"
 
StrykerxS77x;n9977371 said:
I don't think the RNG cards are even very good. So I just won't use them. Simple.
The problem is that someone else will use it against you, and when you'll lose ranked points due to an rng swing (and it will happen) you are going to be annoyed a lot.

Which is also true for streamers (like Merchant and Swim) that are in favor of rng bs now. Now exactly, but when they'll start losing a lot to rng i want to see if they dare complain on something they suggested and approved.
 
Healthy RNG cards will put some "action"on a ladder its boring to play the same deck vs same deck all over again...u know what the guy is playing when he plays like two cards and u know whats gnna happen next and same the other way around....there is an ocean of RNG to cross for gwent to be like heartstone...so dont worry...have faith in CDPR
 
DMaster2;n9984431 said:
The problem is that someone else will use it against you, and when you'll lose ranked points due to an rng swing (and it will happen) you are going to be annoyed a lot.

Which is also true for streamers (like Merchant and Swim) that are in favor of rng bs now. Now exactly, but when they'll start losing a lot to rng i want to see if they dare complain on something they suggested and approved.

I doubt I will complain about losing to RNG since I don't think those cards are good. The consistent cards are better so if I lose to someone playing RNG I won't be blaming it on them having better cards and I won't care if they got a little lucky. This game is going to have luck wins either way. The coin flip in itself is a big advantage.
 

Raunbjorn

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JackBurton.;n9985161 said:
Healthy RNG cards will put some "action"on a ladder its boring to play the same deck vs same deck all over again...u know what the guy is playing when he plays like two cards and u know whats gnna happen next and same the other way around....there is an ocean of RNG to cross for gwent to be like heartstone...so dont worry...have faith in CDPR

I never get this argument. We will stil see the same decks even if they introduce RNG cards just like Hearthstone's got jade druid/pirate warrior. The spawn cards aren't gonna change that. Sure some of the cards you get from the spawn effect can change the outcome of a game but that just leads to more annoyance and it doesn't solve the problem of not drawing your nekkers are whatever.
 
RickMelethron;n9984061 said:
most of the cards in the game see no play whatsoever... they can add a thousand cards and it wouldn't make a difference; just more long-forgotten cards that nobody plays because they're worst versions of something else

as for the "new game mode", it's just going to be a draft mode, nothing to get excited about. every other card game has one, and gwent should have had one for a long time (if CDPR weren't a small indy company...)
i don't see anything particularly exciting about draft modes... they mostly come down to who got the better options in the deckbuilding screen


and much more often than not, they end up being correct. case in point: people complained that gold cards without deploy abilities would be useless if they removed gold immunity, and it's exactly what ended up happening

On the most recent Twitch stream, CDPR showed off existing cards (Alzur's Thunder, Malena) with brand new abilities. They are aware that old cards need changes. Pretty sure they're coming with the update.

So you're not excited for the new cards nor the new game mode. Why are you even playing the game for then lol?

As for the gold immunity change. You just gotta know when to use gold cards without deploy abilities. I do understand that some of them are terrible. Like Yen:Con, Succubus and Triss: Butt. I wouldn't be surprised if they got changed. I've said it before and I'll say it again, wait for the update to come. If it's as bad as people say THEN you can complain all you want.
 
OG.laloquaint;n9990461 said:
On the most recent Twitch stream, CDPR showed off existing cards (Alzur's Thunder, Malena) with brand new abilities. They are aware that old cards need changes. Pretty sure they're coming with the update.

and..? there's a difference between saying they're aware of it and actually getting it done... as someone who spent several months seeing the black mulligan screen, my position is "i'll see it when i see it"
also, there were quite a few instances where cards that were good got nerfed into the ground and never saw play again; as well as cards that got buffed but still weren't good enough to run

OG.laloquaint;n9990461 said:
So you're not excited for the new cards nor the new game mode. Why are you even playing the game for then lol?

i'm not, actually. i stopped playing a while ago due to the stale metagame; especially with the nonsense that is spy NG. just keeping up with the most important news to see if something interesting comes up
PS: using "lol" arbitrarily just makes you seem silly

OG.laloquaint;n9990461 said:
As for the gold immunity change. You just gotta know when to use gold cards without deploy abilities. I do understand that some of them are terrible. Like Yen:Con, Succubus and Triss: Butt. I wouldn't be surprised if they got changed. I've said it before and I'll say it again, wait for the update to come. If it's as bad as people say THEN you can complain all you want.

and pretty much all the others. honestly, i can't remember when was the last time i saw tibor or hjalmar being played
this whole "you just gotta wait for an update" thing is nonsense as well. it was an obvious issue that was called out by EVERYONE right when the gold immunity change was announced, and CDPR just went along with it, ignoring what people said.

at this point, gwent development is like playing whack-a-mole... every time they try to fix something, something else gets broken. it's been like this since closed beta, and throughout every patch of open beta. fixed gold weather and brokvar hunter? game got dominated by frost spam. fixed frost spam? game got dominated by carryover spam. "fixed" carryover spam? game got dominated by ludicrous tempo plays. i've waited for plenty of updates to solve the issues that have been around for all this time, and i have no faith that anything will get better after the midwinter update. if any of the current issues get fixed, something else will pop up to take its place
 
RickMelethron;n9992721 said:
at this point, gwent development is like playing whack-a-mole... every time they try to fix something, something else gets broken. it's been like this since closed beta, and throughout every patch of open beta. fixed gold weather and brokvar hunter? game got dominated by frost spam. fixed frost spam? game got dominated by carryover spam. "fixed" carryover spam? game got dominated by ludicrous tempo plays. i've waited for plenty of updates to solve the issues that have been around for all this time, and i have no faith that anything will get better after the midwinter update. if any of the current issues get fixed, something else will pop up to take its place
You are clearly in the wrong place then, because it seems you have no idea how CCGs play like. It's humanly impossible and to this date I it's also impossible to any machine to calculate all possible scenarios using all the effects and plays possible in the game so that you can have a perfectly balanced one. With every update, some new decks will rise, others will fall, cards that were powerful might not be anymore, others might take their place... This is just how a card game like this is, and there's nothing to do about that. Either you like this kind of game, or you don't, and you fit in the later category.
 
I never played heartstone but do new players have decks as good as high level players? Last season I was able to climb the ladder reasonably well with my ST deck. This season i'm getting pwnd by new players with pro players decks which is bloody ridiculous! I don't netdeck I have a deck of cards consistent with what a player of my rank should have. Yet, I keep coming up against players with amazing cards in ranked and can't buy a win! I can win alright in casual against players much higher level and rank than me but on ladder? I get matched with decks I can't beat before a card has been played.

Just me?
 
I am still okay with the changes.... I hope. But I think the devs should tell us why they make those changes. I watch most of the twich talk , they just tell something about the cards but never really tell us what they are aiming for and why they changed that lately. Weather change, gold change, ... I forgot the reason or did they even really explained it?
 
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Don't know how Hearthstone is since I only played it in first week so I can't compare. All I can say is Beta should be considered more like a trial and error phase to create a proper backbone. Drastic changes are not something that's gonna happen often once the game is fully released. I'm all in for every trial and error in Beta. It's the best way to settle a game for the better.
 
Theodrik;n9992791 said:
You are clearly in the wrong place then, because it seems you have no idea how CCGs play like. It's humanly impossible and to this date I it's also impossible to any machine to calculate all possible scenarios using all the effects and plays possible in the game so that you can have a perfectly balanced one. With every update, some new decks will rise, others will fall, cards that were powerful might not be anymore, others might take their place... This is just how a card game like this is, and there's nothing to do about that. Either you like this kind of game, or you don't, and you fit in the later category.

never asked for perfect balancing, but the state the game has been in the past few months is just ridiculous, and it seems like CDPR is either uninterested or incapable of handling its problems.
just look at caleno harpies; the card got its power reduced 3 times and was still the best unit in the game. the problem of carryover was more than obvious to everyone, but it still took them several months to address it. and when they did, they decided to make tremors spawn an earth elemental, which gave people carryover as well. a problem that everyone called up beforehand but still got released into the game

i don't have a problem with mistakes, and i don't have a problem with a couple of decks being marginally better than others, but there's a limit to how much nonsense i will tolerate from a triple-A development company.

i played yugioh for five years and hearthstone for two, don't be presumptuous to tell me what i like
 
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RickMelethron;n9984061 said:
(...) every other card game has one, and gwent should have had one for a long time (if CDPR weren't a small indy company...)
RickMelethron;n9995881 said:
(...) but there's a limit to how much nonsense i will tolerate from a triple-A development company.
You seem to change your opinion at the same rate you change your underwear...
 
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