But that's the point right. There's room for everyone how they've set up things. Spending cash wont make you a better player. It'll just get you gold cards faster than someone who is playing it for free, because the game does give you more than enough free resources to build whatever deck you want if you spend some time and the Grind isn't even bad. Its actually better to grind your way to a good meta because you don't know when you start what combinations work best, and you are more likely to spend resources collecting units that look good individually, but just wont work together.
I am currently focusing on building the best Scoiatael deck I can come up with for the Invigorate ability. Since I need 100 wins with that, I am only focusing on that one deck. Once I have 100 wins, I'll move to the next Scoiatael ability. Even on the rewards tree, I am only clearing the Scoiatael ones for now, so that once I am done with one faction and have all the cards, I move to the next one. My deck is pretty solid for now and I am doing about 55% wins 5% draws and 40% losses at Rank 14 with most of the losses coming when I try to transition new cards into my deck to see what bronze units fit best and I am more than happy with that.
Implementing it would cause some players to leave. There would also be backlash, and accusations.
Fixing what isn't broken and putting the change (that would directly benefit players) behind a paywall would simply be a really bad idea.
I wasn't advocating putting the game behind a paywall. My suggestion is to pay to have the ability to 'freeze' the game in a sense, i.e. to have it as an option.
Here's how the game is broken and how my idea would fix it:
You start out with the basic starter deck. You play against similar decks. Your improve your rank and your level. As that happen, you encounter superior decks. You can try to keep up with the meta. If you don't, your basic starter deck will keep getting matched against people of your 'rank'. That's a broken game. My idea fixes that. Whether you're a new player, or a prestige 5 player, you could be matched to play against each other because you are using a similar deck. That can't happen now. In any case, people have already posted on these forums that they already leaving because of the matchmaking system.
Are those my stats in your image? I know the my stats say I have a near 50/50 split in wins, which doesn't seem right. I do KNOW that I've had days where I've played multiple games in a row without a single victory. Maybe between a handful and double figure number of games where I've gotten no wins.
I'm not sure what you mean with your Artifacts and Valve comment. Please explain.
Maybe read my reply to the moderator, which I replied to first here today, for my further comments on my suggestions, in case you aren't correctly interpreting what my proposal entails.
I'm not sure if I've played MtG Arena. I played MTG years ago and there were always decks I hated playing against, e.g. magic decks. I'd have to say that MTG sucked more than GWENT does at its worst though. GWENT is a slight improvement on MTG.
I've not paid for the game and I win all the time. I was even high ranking at one point until I decided to take a break.
Regarding matchmaking, I think there is actually some mechanic to match on other things than marely rank or whatever. It seems that when I play certain decks, I always meet certain types of decks, and when I play other types of decks, I don't meet those, but other types of decks that I don't meet with deck A.
I get suss matchmaking at times too but this may just be variance. E.g. I might start a session with 3 consecutive games against Nor against my one deck I'll be thinking: FFS!
It can get really annoying. But maybe it's like the lotto. Can you say that you would rule out the possibility of the division 1 prize winning numbers being 1,2,3,4,5,6? I wouldn't. It's a BS combo, but can it happen.
Technically the game is not pay-to-win. There's always the option to throw good money after bad to try to pay to win. You can slightly improve your deck, if you are maybe average in what cards you get with real money. I've been meaning to say that for a while now, but you seem to be saying it here, but even if you're not, I do agree with your final conclusion. Grinding isn't fun.
As you improve and gather resources you're supposed to also improve your deck(s); you can't expect to get to high ranks without ever changing from the starter decks. That wouldn't make any sense, not in a competitive, multiplayer game.
Playing the ranked mode will rank you up when you are successful, which naturally leads to getting opponents who are also at higher ranks. If you don't like that then there is casual, seasonal, and also Arena (though that is an entirely different mode, it is an option regardless).
And yes, your idea would make the game pay-to-win: it would be possible to get more favourable matchups by paying real money, which in turn would grant better chances of winning. It is the very definition of pay-to-win.
Also, more chances of winning means more experience and resources, which means better cards and decks -- another reason why such a system would make the game pay-to-win.
I honestly don't see how that could possibly be argued about. There's no way such a system wouldn't mean pay-to-win.
As you improve and gather resources you're supposed to also improve your deck(s); you can't expect to get to high ranks without ever changing from the starter decks. That wouldn't make any sense, not in a competitive, multiplayer game.
Playing the ranked mode will rank you up when you are successful, which naturally leads to getting opponents who are also at higher ranks. If you don't like that then there is casual, seasonal, and also Arena (though that is an entirely different mode, it is an option regardless).
And yes, your idea would make the game pay-to-win: it would be possible to get more favourable matchups by paying real money, which in turn would grant better chances of winning. It is the very definition of pay-to-win.
Also, more chances of winning means more experience and resources, which means better cards and decks -- another reason why such a system would make the game pay-to-win.
I honestly don't see how that could possibly be argued about. There's no way such a system wouldn't mean pay-to-win.
Casual mode? That's unranked, right? I played that once and faced a veteran player, I'm sure, when I was just starting to play the game. They absolutely smashed me and I haven't played it again.
I'm not a fan of Seasonal's shenanigans although I do play it sometimes if I think that it's doable.
"favourable matchups"? Definitely not. It would be "equal matchups". It would be like two people playing chess, not one person playing with chess pieces and another person having a GWENT deck against them...where they can seize their opponent's queen and use it against them and have two queens on their side.
Actually, my idea of paying real money would only grant a guarantee of facing an evenly matched deck which has no bearing at all on your chances of winning. It's like chess. The better player would most often win, not the person with the BS magic chess pieces.
Getting more experience and resources means better cards and decks? I'm saying the money buys you the guarantee of facing evenly matched decks...if I want to play my starter deck, why would I upgrade anything? You're missing the point of my suggestion.
You keep saying that my suggestion is something that it isn't. It's not pay to win. It's pay for the guarantee to play decks of similar, proven effectiveness to your own.
At the moment, you get people on the forums complaining about new cards being OP. The devs eventually nerf those cards...and then later make other cards which are OP, which people complain about. It' s a boring merry-go-round. A bad idea for a card is introduced and you may have to wait months for the devs to fix their mistake.
It would be like two people playing chess, not one person playing with chess pieces and another person having a GWENT deck against them...where they can seize their opponent's queen and use it against them and have two queens on their side.
Actually, my idea of paying real money would only grant a guarantee of facing an evenly matched deck which has no bearing at all on your chances of winning.
This is exactly what 'favourable' means, except you're vastly exaggerating with the differences between decks.
You want to play against people whose decks are similar to yours, rather than ones whose decks counter or otherwise are stronger than yours; in other words, you want matchups that you'd be more likely to win.
A dictionary definition of 'favourable' is "giving you an advantage or more chance of success" -- and what you are describing is just that.
Getting more experience and resources means better cards and decks? I'm saying the money buys you the guarantee of facing evenly matched decks...if I want to play my starter deck, why would I upgrade anything? You're missing the point of my suggestion.
You're missing the point about pay-to-win. Playing games, no matter the results, earns you experience and resources, and easier matchups mean easier rewards.
You keep saying that my suggestion is something that it isn't. It's not pay to win. It's pay for the guarantee to play decks of similar, proven effectiveness to your own.
Your whole rebuke shows that you haven't played any other CCG and that your vision of how you want a CCG to work is actually causing more harm to the game. There is a reason no other CCG does this. Paying money to change the outcome of the matchmaking is the definition of pay-to-win. No matter the arguments you make for it.
Furthermore, the argument I've quoted goes against the core of what a CCG is. A starter deck is exactly what the name implies, a deck you start with. The same principle goes for any other deck you want to make, it needs a raison d'etre. That is, make it competitive and win or make it fun and win spectacularly, once a blue moon, while losing most other matches.
A CCG is about deck building, not slapping together whatever you want to play. Sure, you can, but why do you want to? Hey, I want to make an all female deck. That would indeed be super fun. However, I do not expect to win a lot, but when I do win, I can take pride from my meme deck. What I do not want is just leveling the playing field because I have to win with my silly little deck.
Lastly, the netdeck dominance is a problem inherent to all CCG. Instead of putting on band-aids to circumvent the problem, the focus should be to stimulate a more diverse meta, by making more decks viable and by giving players more meaningful choices, not by pay-to-win matchmaking.
This is exactly what 'favourable' means, except you're vastly exaggerating with the differences between decks.
You want to play against people whose decks are similar to yours, rather than ones whose decks counter or otherwise are stronger than yours; in other words, you want matchups that you'd be more likely to win.
A dictionary definition of 'favourable' is "giving you an advantage or more chance of success" -- and what you are describing is just that.
I never used the word "favourable". There's nothing in my post which says that this is what I want. You're putting words into my mouth.
I'm saying that I want to play against decks which are demonstrably equivalent to decks that I want to play. All I want is to have a roughly 50/50 chance of winning.
I'm fine with decks which can can counter my deck.
The telling comment of yours is "You [don't] want to play against people whose decks are...stronger than yours", Okay, I added "don't" to your sentence but the sense is yours. So, that IS what I want. Who on Earth wants to play against decks that are stronger than theirs? That's kind of what Ranked match-ups are meant to avoid, isn't it?
You're missing the point about pay-to-win. Playing games, no matter the results, earns you experience and resources, and easier matchups mean easier rewards
Again, I never said "easier" match-ups in the sense of "easy" match-ups. So, I want "easier" match-ups in the sense that I don't want to play against decks which can obliterate me and win from a long way behind with one card to play in the 3rd round, unless there is a good reason for it, like me boosting just one unit a lot and someone destroying it with their final card.
Your whole rebuke shows that you haven't played any other CCG and that your vision of how you want a CCG to work is actually causing more harm to the game. There is a reason no other CCG does this. Paying money to change the outcome of the matchmaking is the definition of pay-to-win. No matter the arguments you make for it.
I've played MTG. It sucked more than GWENT does on bad days. Going by messages on these forums, it seems that a lot of people do think that there is a problem with the match-making. Some of them say that they're not playing the game anymore or will not play it anymore. Don't you think that's causing more harm to the game?
Again, my suggestion is not to a pay-to-win to model. It doesn't matter how many times people say that, it doesn't make it true. It's paying to have some constants in the game, so you don't have to take a forensic interest in the meta, to deal with all those times that the devs change things up and wreck the balance of the game and you have to wait for them to maybe fix the balance at some point further down the track.
I can take pride from my meme deck. What I do not want is just leveling the playing field because I have to win with my silly little deck.
Lastly, the netdeck dominance is a problem inherent to all CCG. Instead of putting on band-aids to circumvent the problem, the focus should be to stimulate a more diverse meta, by making more decks viable and by giving players more meaningful choices, not by pay-to-win matchmaking
Fair enough for your first point. But my suggestion would allow you to play against similarly strong decks when you login and not face 'ranked' match-ups which does not take into account your actual deck.
Glad that you mentioned "making more decks viable". Hey, I remember having one of those! It was the Nil Poison deck. Not it's unviable a lot of the time...one some days I can play up to double figure matches and not win one because of the BS decks I face. You know, the ones which can be double figure points behind with only one card to play in the 3rd round and...and they play that card and they spawn half a dozen units and totally wipe the floor with you. That is not a good game.
But that's the point right. There's room for everyone how they've set up things. Spending cash wont make you a better player. It'll just get you gold cards faster than someone who is playing it for free, because the game does give you more than enough free resources to build whatever deck you want if you spend some time and the Grind isn't even bad...I am currently focusing on building the best Scoiatael deck I can come up with for the Invigorate ability. Since I need 100 wins with that, I am only focusing on that one deck. Once I have 100 wins, I'll move to the next Scoiatael ability.
I've posted a thread here, which has probably been merged, commenting on how you spend a lot of cash on this game in an attempt to pay-to-win but that would not work, as you are pretty much throwing good money after bad, as you just get heaps of cards you have or don't want and none of the cards that you don't have or do want. That's a general rule. It's how CDPR make their money.
We're different...you think that the grind isn't that bad. If I had to get 100 wins to get a desirable feature of the game, I'd call that a grind. I started out playing Mon, until I started losing regularly with that. Then I played Nor, until I started losing regularly with that. For a while my Nil Poison deck was working for me more often than not, but the other decks that I face most of the time have made my deck unviable, pretty much.
No, I'm not. You are refusing to see the truth, logic, and reason in what I've said just because the wording is different. Rewording things =/= putting words in someone's mouth, when the rewording conveys the exact same message as the original wording.
Continue doing that if you want, but don't be surprised if no one seems to agree with you or this suggestion of yours.
No, I'm not. You are refusing to see the truth, logic, and reason in what I've said just because the wording is different. Rewording things =/= putting words in someone's mouth, when the rewording conveys the exact same message as the original wording.
Continue doing that if you want, but don't be surprised if no one seems to agree with you or this suggestion of yours.
Like I said, your "rewording" of my view does not equal my view. You'll notice that I reworded a quote of yours. The meaning of that was exactly the same as your intention.
I could say that you are refusing to see the truth, logic, and reason, etc. etc. etc. But I won't.
"favourable matchups"? Definitely not. It would be "equal matchups". It would be like two people playing chess, not one person playing with chess pieces and another person having a GWENT deck against them...where they can seize their opponent's queen and use it against them and have two queens on their side
Vastly exaggerating? How would you know? You wouldn't. You're saying that as if it's true, when it isn't. Your 'truth' is fake. You just made it up. And you're pretty close to calling me a liar over my comments. Truth, logic and reason would require that you are familiar with what you are commenting on. I played the games. I know what I'm talking about. I was there. You weren't.
You want to play against people whose decks are similar to yours, rather than ones whose decks counter or otherwise are stronger than yours; in other words, you want matchups that you'd be more likely to win.
Your 'truth' is that you believe that you have the superpower of reading people's minds. You don't. I look forward to your truth, logic and reason based defence on your supposed ability to read people's minds. For the record, I want matchups which give close, even contests, no matter what the faction or units or cards involved. We're not getting that, I don't think.
You're missing the point about pay-to-win. Playing games, no matter the results, earns you experience and resources, and easier matchups mean easier rewards
Last time I didn't have time to address this point, which might be the heart of the matter, or, at least, the heart of your objection to my suggestion in this thread. Here's my solution to your objection: scrap experience and resources based on wins. Just give them every time you play a game. It wouldn't kill CDPR to allow people to choose their reward too, e.g. keys, gold or whatever, if they insist on splitting rewards in these ways.
I started my thread with the observation that matchups aren't competitive a lot of the time. The counterargument is that the system is fine, it's not broken. Nothing to see here.
"Vastly exaggerating" suggests that there is SOME truth to my observation. An unexaggerated comment would be that often decks are uncompetitive with others? Well, that's kind of what this thread is about...finding a BETTER matchmaking system than the one we have. In other words, minimise to the maximum extent possible the number of these uncompetitive matchups, which are due to the decks that we happen to be playing. The current system just treats 'ranking' as relating only to your Rank. I want the primary focus to be on WHICH deck we are playing, not get thrown into a match based purely on our rank.
This is exactly what 'favourable' means, except you're vastly exaggerating with the differences between decks.
You want to play against people whose decks are similar to yours, rather than ones whose decks counter or otherwise are stronger than yours; in other words, you want matchups that you'd be more likely to win.
The telling comment of yours is "You [don't] want to play against people whose decks are...stronger than yours", Okay, I added "don't" to your sentence but the sense is yours. So, that IS what I want. Who on Earth wants to play against decks that are stronger than theirs? That's kind of what Ranked match-ups are meant to avoid, isn't it?
Draconifors didn't really get back to me on that last comment of mine. I.e. their logic is that I'm exaggerating the differences between the decks. My logic is well, if you say that, then they wouldn't have a point about playing decks that "counter or otherwise are stronger than yours". That's a a logical contradiction. I.e. there's really not much difference between decks but you don't want to play against decks that are stronger than yours.
It's illogical. My logic is that I'm okay with decks that counter mine. I'm not okay with RANKED matches where I constantly encounter decks that "are stronger than yours". Really, that's what Ranked matches are supposed to lessen the likelihood, right?
