New players will have enough options.
Repetativity is destroying the game.
Locking decks will increase diversity.
New players will have enough options.
Repetativity is destroying the game.
Locking decks will increase diversity.
I think the i only real fix is kind of drastic but possible. Cdpr built in the deck share feature so they know what decks are meta. They could go one of two ways. Take the top 5 meta decks and match make these players with other netdeckers. The other option is to create a ladder / game mode called creative where the top played net decks are not permitted. Players would have to change 4 to 5 cards to make it unique enough to be able to play. I don't see any other way to balance them.This would being so much variety to the game. I've stopped playing rank once I get to rank 11 because it's unplayable for me after.
I disagree, from my own perspective if I was locked out of using decks I wanted to use I simply wouldn't play the game. I think most other players would also just not play the game if locked out of their own decks, its essentially taking cards away from them that they have already unlocked. And if they spent real money on card kegs then that is doubly insulting to take cards and decks from players.
And new players wouldn't have many options, other than the starter decks, which are not competitive against cards and decks that veteran players have.
I understand where you are coming from but I feel diversity is tied to balance, once the game is better balanced diversity will probably sort itself out.
So, i wanted to post on the infamous 'Gwent is uninstalled sadly' thread, but it seems to have been locked.
I didnt actually uninstall it, but i'll stop playing it for the short/medium term, maybe until the next expansion comes, around November or so.
That 'skill beats luck' tagline the game STILL uses got stuck in my mind... What they dont say is 'skill beats luck, but not metadecks'.
Took me awhile to figure this out, but one of the things i miss from Betas is not having a better winrate, but feeling i can still beat netdeckers with weirder decks, through skill and strategy.
Now decks are more streamlined but also more resilient. I'll explain with these last 2 seasons metas: Foltest and Dijkstra decks were incredibly powerful, had a higher ceiling than current meta's NG hyperthin and SC Francescas, but were easier to counter, these current decks have almost no weaknesses, it's play it safe to the extreme, not to mention extremely boring.
Finally, the game is extremely slow, most of the playerbase is terrible, including pro rank players (in gwent Betas, all pro players were at least decent). The meta is more balanced than last month? Probably yes, but at the cost of fun, since it's probably the most boring meta in HC, which makes it painfully frustrating to play.
The playerbase is dwindling(im near top 500 in rank 6, WTH?), but im not jumping ship like the masses - like i said, i will return with the new expansion, those are always exciting even if they also bring imbalance. Maybe it will be the mobile launch that saves or breaks Gwent, but i dont really have high hopes that that move will improve the game and please the current players, we'll see.
(EDIT) Forgot to mention, the decision to lock casual mode beyond rank 7 is probably the worst decision CDPR made this year, and it has some fierce competition, it's probably causing a lot of players to leave. I can play it but now the matchmaking on that mode is also worse, with also tons of metadecks.
I didnt actually uninstall it, but i'll stop playing it for the short/medium term, maybe until the next expansion comes, around November or so.
That 'skill beats luck' tagline the game STILL uses got stuck in my mind... What they dont say is 'skill beats luck, but not metadecks'.
Took me awhile to figure this out, but one of the things i miss from Betas is not having a better winrate, but feeling i can still beat netdeckers with weirder decks, through skill and strategy.
Now decks are more streamlined but also more resilient. I'll explain with these last 2 seasons metas: Foltest and Dijkstra decks were incredibly powerful, had a higher ceiling than current meta's NG hyperthin and SC Francescas, but were easier to counter, these current decks have almost no weaknesses, it's play it safe to the extreme, not to mention extremely boring.
Finally, the game is extremely slow, most of the playerbase is terrible, including pro rank players (in gwent Betas, all pro players were at least decent). The meta is more balanced than last month? Probably yes, but at the cost of fun, since it's probably the most boring meta in HC, which makes it painfully frustrating to play.
The playerbase is dwindling(im near top 500 in rank 6, WTH?), but im not jumping ship like the masses - like i said, i will return with the new expansion, those are always exciting even if they also bring imbalance. Maybe it will be the mobile launch that saves or breaks Gwent, but i dont really have high hopes that that move will improve the game and please the current players, we'll see.
(EDIT) Forgot to mention, the decision to lock casual mode beyond rank 7 is probably the worst decision CDPR made this year, and it has some fierce competition, it's probably causing a lot of players to leave. I can play it but now the matchmaking on that mode is also worse, with also tons of metadecks.
How? If a new player is using his best cards to make his best deck then how would locking him out of it not really hurt him?
It's not an ehtical thing to do but even if it was I don't see how it could be practical either. How does locking someone out of their own deck work? So after you use it like 30 times you have to use a different deck right? Why couldn't I simply change one card and continue using it?
Because all players have to deal with this perhaps changing the system to lock a leader after 30 games would be better.
So if you played 30 games with Francesca you can unlock her by playing 30 games with 3 individual leaders or so.
If you have invested in good ST cards you can still use them with the other ST leaders.
To keep players interested/happy give objectives to the leaders you pick to earn nice rewards.
The thing is if you leave everything like it is now the top meta decks will dominate every season.
Restrictions will force the playerbase to play differently because they can't play top winrate decks infinitly anymore.
Yes a lot of players won't like this but this greedy behaviour of playing the best deck without concequences is the whole problem in Gwent.
The game has much more to offer yes balancing things out can help but thats impossible if you have 600+ cards.
If it's up to me I would opt for a even harder aproach.
After you finished 30 games with a leader the game will randomly show one leader of each faction to choose from for your next run
The game would be more skill driven then metadeck driven and would be a lot more exciting and most importantly FUN
So if you played 30 games with Francesca you can unlock her by playing 30 games with 3 individual leaders or so.
If you have invested in good ST cards you can still use them with the other ST leaders.
To keep players interested/happy give objectives to the leaders you pick to earn nice rewards.
The thing is if you leave everything like it is now the top meta decks will dominate every season.
Restrictions will force the playerbase to play differently because they can't play top winrate decks infinitly anymore.
Yes a lot of players won't like this but this greedy behaviour of playing the best deck without concequences is the whole problem in Gwent.
The game has much more to offer yes balancing things out can help but thats impossible if you have 600+ cards.
If it's up to me I would opt for a even harder aproach.
After you finished 30 games with a leader the game will randomly show one leader of each faction to choose from for your next run
The game would be more skill driven then metadeck driven and would be a lot more exciting and most importantly FUN
Because all players have to deal with this perhaps changing the system to lock a leader after 30 games would be better.
So if you played 30 games with Francesca you can unlock her by playing 30 games with 3 individual leaders or so.
If you have invested in good ST cards you can still use them with the other ST leaders.
To keep players interested/happy give objectives to the leaders you pick to earn nice rewards.
The thing is if you leave everything like it is now the top meta decks will dominate every season.
Restrictions will force the playerbase to play differently because they can't play top winrate decks infinitly anymore.
Yes a lot of players won't like this but this greedy behaviour of playing the best deck without concequences is the whole problem in Gwent.
The game has much more to offer yes balancing things out can help but thats impossible if you have 600+ cards.
If it's up to me I would opt for a even harder aproach.
After you finished 30 games with a leader the game will randomly show one leader of each faction to choose from for your next run
The game would be more skill driven then metadeck driven and would be a lot more exciting and most importantly FUN
I respect your opinion but I'm pretty sure this idea would kill the game. It's already a low population.
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This idea isn't too bad. Players aren't forced to play something they don't like but if they want to rank up they will have to look to a different deck.
The only problem here is top meta decks are still going to dominate regardless. Each faction is going to have a few and players will still just choose those. Maybe the game would feel a bit better like that though.
Locking cards after you've played them x amount of times is a good idea I think. Thronebreaker forces you to change your deck. While this is kind of annoying I do understand the reason. If they want us to use many different cards in our preferred faction. They should probably do this. You would have to rotate your deck.
I can't think of a better way to make the remaining players stop playing for good.
I can't believe the discussion is still going on about locking cards or forcing players not to play certain cards/decks. This will alienate more players than it would appease others. Reddit and Twitter will flood with fury and so will the forums. The only real solution would be to rework or buff unused junk cards. There are plenty of cards (nearly 80% of all the cards) which provide less value than the other cards for the same provisions. Some cards are extremely extremely limited in use while also being very costly. Just fix those cards and bring the power level of all cards to kind of the same level. That will allow creativity. As long as NG has tactic-hyper-thin 99% of the NG players will only play that even though Assimilate is also very strong. Hyperthin is no brainer while Assilimate would need you to plan properly. As long as SK has SvalBlod with all the strong cards, no will try other leaders even though other leaders are also good. At least ST has three viable decks (dwarfs, harmony, and poison; but I am playing Brouver movement which is obviously weaker than the rest, but I like playing it). NR can't play much as long as NG has 20 million removal options. SY is pretty much dead. Fix the weak and junk cards/archetypes/factions than locking or forcing players to play a certain card or deck.
Make Portal 14 provisions, Summoning Circle 10 provisions (this will allow players to not bring an artifact removal just for this one ****ing card). SC is the only engine artifact which is just ****ing unhealthy for the game.
Make Portal 14 provisions, Summoning Circle 10 provisions (this will allow players to not bring an artifact removal just for this one ****ing card). SC is the only engine artifact which is just ****ing unhealthy for the game.
I personally have a more optimistic vision of the game.
I think it's possible to ballance Gwent to an acceptable degree, it has been done once in the past and it only requires CDPR to be cautious about the new cards they implement into the game and those that they rework.
Ultimately, yes, netdeck will still be a thing BUT in a meta that's more ballanced, deck builders will be able to make viable and competitive decks out of more various factions/archetypes and they will, because some peoples like pears and other prefere apples and as long as both provides the same benefits at the end there is no reason to be picky.
Additionally, the game being more balanced overall, peoples will also be able to create decks including rarely used or usually considered weak cards and be able to do something with them, simply because the gap to close between a well done homemade deck and a competitive one won't be as ridiculous.
In the current state of the game, CDPR included a lot of OP concept and design with SY and reworked NR with the idea to bring it on par with SY. Just my opinion but I believe it was a mistake, the right call would have been to bring SY and NR on par with the rest of the game (one by nerfing, the other by buffing).
I'm not saying they can't do it the way they started it (by buffing NR to SY point and then assumably bringing every other faction back to that level) but it requires significantly more effort, work and more importantly time.
I mean, how long it's gonna take for them to bring EVERYTHING back to an acceptable level? Gwent has grown quiet a bit since Closed BETA, that's a lot of cards to rework.
Furthermore, thinking that the process of uping every other faction is gonna go smoothly is an utopia, yes, there is going to be more ballancing issues in the future and CDPR will have to adjust things many, many times ahead. If you add to that some possible patch including new cards/factions/archetype just to complicate the process even more and you can understand me when I say I don't want to be in CDPR staff's shoes at the moment.
Now, don't get me wrong, I trust CDPR and I'm not saying they won't succeed in that plan but I'm just saying that it's gonna be real tough and requires significantly more cautious than when they made SY (as good as SY is as a faction, from a gameplay perspective).
@1990BW
As mentioned by others, locking players out of their cards is a bad idea. As with most game designs, you want to incentivize players to pick a different route, not penalize them or, worse, force players. In pro-rank you are required to play different factions, but, at least, you are giving some leeway in which factions you want to play and in what order. I've also made several suggestions in the past, some of them I have explained in The Ranking System is Backwards.
As mentioned by others, locking players out of their cards is a bad idea. As with most game designs, you want to incentivize players to pick a different route, not penalize them or, worse, force players. In pro-rank you are required to play different factions, but, at least, you are giving some leeway in which factions you want to play and in what order. I've also made several suggestions in the past, some of them I have explained in The Ranking System is Backwards.
Then maybe the solution is roughly as follows:
(Notification should be on the battle screen(what you need) to prevent people being unaware of this)
Rank 18 - 15: You can only get the last mosaic if you won with two different factions in the rank you are in, or if you win two times in a row waiting for the last mosaic.
Rank 14-12: You can only get the last mosaic if you have two wins with a faction and two wins not with that faction, or if you win three times in a row waiting for the last mosaic.
Rank 11-7: You can only get the last mosaic if you have won with three different factions that rank, or if you win three times in a row waiting for the last mosaic.
Rank 6-2: You can only get the last mosaic if you have won with three different factions that rank, or if you win four times in a row waiting for the last mosaic.
Rank 1: You can only get the last mosaic if you have won one battle with four different factions and accept the Rank 0 terms of service.
Of course, these requirements need to be performed when you are in that rank.
That sounds like it could work, similar to Round Robin Deck Ladder, but with a more incremental difficulty.
I like that the suggestion has an alternative condition, even if it is much harder.
Or what would be, if instead of the faction condition there was a set number of different cards you have to have won with.
Or what would be, if instead of the faction condition there was a set number of different cards you have to have won with.
1) How many games per deck (let alone faction) does one need to master it enough to compete in ranks 6-0? (With heavy balance changes every season...) In my personal experience, the answer is about 40-50 games. Many people only have time to play a limited number of ranked games per season, let's say 100 (my case). So, they could afford to switch decks only once. Under the proposed rules, they simply wouldn't be able to reach Pro, whereas now they are. Do we really want to make reaching Pro more grindy?
2) What's the point of forcing people to switch between 4-5 metadecks anyway? You don't think people who play metadecks now would suddenly fall in love with homebrew stuff, do you. Under the proposed rules, they would still cycle between top tier decks.
I've got no interest in PRO ladder. Just don't want to see PRO decks where I am Rank20 something. Bloody ridiculous.
There really isn't such a thing as a pro deck. Well put together decks are going to come from different places and they are going to spread because people like to win. What needs to happen is for there to be many more viable decks for people to use without getting crushed. Monsters needs more help, SY was a little over nerfed ( I think), NG needs more viable decks in its faction and hyperthin needs some changes, many useless cards in the game need to be reworked or just buffed.
Just better balancing in general.
[ . . . ] perhaps removing the provisioncosts wll be good for diversity.
You deleted a good joke man.
You deleted a good joke man.
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