Open PTR feedback

[RayZhu]

1. I have a problem about the card design itself. Why there is no icon on the card itself to show weather it will trigger any thing for different position. It is very bad experience for me to have to read the text to know which line it should be played. There should be an apparent icon like the immune green thing on the card to show which line it is supposed to be played on. Another thing is that maybe it is better to add a kind of visual animation to distinguish which line the card should be played. For example, the card will trigger a deploy power on the first line, when a player choose the card, the first line can have a green or blue color and another line has no such color. And then I know it is supposed to be played on the first line. Now it seems that the game force me to remember all the position information...
2. When the SKELLIGE hero use its power to damage 10 units, I can't do anything and the animation takes too long especially there are two other An Craite Greatsword on board. It takes forever.

 

[Roxy89]

I really like ptr so far.There is some bugs but it`s fun.When you go to second round the place where was tactical advantage stay white,recruit is buged he sometimes boost other units or boost himself when your opponent have bigger card, Yennefer sometimes boost sometimes not and vilgeforc play card on random row.There is some issues with loggin in.I really hope this will help you to fix some bugs.Game is great when you get use to it I`m sure it will be perfect when it come out

 

[_Simple_Jack]

It is obvious that you made Homecoming for Thronebreaker players, while Thronebreaker will be fun, because it is singleplayer and cards and abilities will be crazier, sadly Homecoming is not. Just delay it and focus on improving current Gwent.
Provision system is great, visuals are great, most of other things are not.
You talked about faction identity, but there is almost none of that, create is still a thing, most of synergy bronzes were changed for simplified damage/boost by x amount if on melee/ranged. You removed crewman, you removed alchemy, you removed a lot of things that made Gwent great. Sure current Gwent has problems, but they are nothing compared to Homecoming.
Cheers.

 

[CTeronMer]

NR Order cards - awesome concept but it feels as though they're all useless since any deck that isn't solely tempo can easily kill them off before they can do anything; the Golds are particularly bad for this due to their high provision cost (see: Kiyan).

The idea behind the following suggestions is the prevention of NR order turning Gwent in to a glorified game of whack-a-mole:
The issue wouldn't be so bad if Foltest had more charges, but with only 3 you can't afford to be throwing him at your low-provision cards just to make sure you're getting minimal value out of them. Maybe remove the boost aspect from him and add more charges?

Perhaps a deathwish could be added to all NR soldiers, one idea could be: "For your next turn: The first card played on the melee row receives Zeal. The first card played on the ranged row receives +1 boost."

 

[NidhoeggrOmba]

if i read most of the comments here from a economic point of view : Consider Homecoming as sunk costs and restart the game as it was in closed beta and most of us are good to go i guess

 

[oOxhaosOo]

+ like the new look nice dark
+ nice new faction based board look
- less over view (why my cards try to hide while enemy rounds)
- but it feels not realy smooth
- feels like everything needs more time
+ reduced power feels great
- still problems with power creep of some factions and leaders while others are just weak
+ some great new ideas for abilities
- still to mutch rng abilities
- many unique abilities are deleted
- some factions lost mutch of their unique playstyles

 

[Virridian]

Hey there,
Long time watcher, semi-regular card game player interested in Throne Breaker (<--target market ^_^)
I know almost everyone here sees Gwent as a brilliant, tactical card game.
For me though, Throne Breaker will redefine Gwent as a "game that uses cards" instead of a card game.

RPG's are CDPR strength and playing to your strengths is always smart. I started playing Gwent because I loved the Witcher III, not because I love card games. So hit me with a new Witcher story to enjoy and when I'm done I'll give multiplayer a shot, whether it's balanced or not. It just needs to be fun and let me hangout with my favourite characters again. Gwent needs to leverage the deep lore this universe offers to really enhance the multiplayer aspect and I hope to see more focus on that in future.

So, the PTR. Well done essentially creating a new multiplayer game in 6 months. Good or bad I respect the effort put in by the team. Of course there's still a way to go with card design and balance. That's fine, it'll happen. What's important right now is for the game to be fun and easy for new players to get into. There's a lot of things that have already been mentioned by others; from my initial experience these are the standouts:

Things I'd like addressed as a new player arriving with Throne Breaker (and can be achieved in 2 weeks):
Deck management:

1. In the deck list, I personally found it difficult to determine at a glance which number referred to unit strength and which was provisions. Icons would make it clearer.
2. I expect the cards to either be ordered alphabetically by name or by the left-most number but actually it's the next number across (provisions). Would be great if strength and provisions were switched.
3. I'd like to see spell and artifact icons added to the deck list.

Basic game interaction:

1. It's unclear how to deselect a card you've clicked on (to then choose another card). This can be confusing coming from other card games which require you to hold instead of click.
2. There needs to be an indicator when a card's conditional ability is available (eg: row based, bloodthirst etc). This is easy to forget when you're learning the game.
3. Improve the control of Leader actions. Some leaders' abilities require you to choose a target and some trigger immediately when clicked (Harald). That first can be canceled, the later cannot which is frustrating.
4. The idea of the camera moving to focus the opponent on their turn in nice but it needs to move back if I want to review my cards (which I'm unfamiliar with as a new player).
5. Many unit actions felt slow. I want more excitement and less time pressure as I learn the game.
6. It felt too fast when cards are revealed from each decks and compared. I want them bigger and visible at the same time.
7. The row value counter doesn't relate visually to the row for me. I'd like to see it placed on the battlefield instead of floating as a HUD.
8. Remove oppressive hate cards; they are no fun unless you're an internet trollololo. Tech cards are OK, Usurper is not.

The (little) things I like in Homecoming:

1. Bringing the Leaders to life was a cool idea.
2. Really liked begin able to quickly edit or switch decks after a game.
3. It was fun watching Roach get around while I searched for opponents. Stop spinning the card and just let me watch

Things to (value) add in the future:

1. Flesh Leaders out even more. I want them to be more active/vocal during the battle. Who are they, what are their motives? Give me more, I want to know.
2. I want to be able to make a theme deck more easily. Currently, I feel like I'm adding bronzes to fill slots because I have to, not because I want to
3. Would be great to be able to sort my deck by provision, strength, colour, card type, category etc.
4. I want to be able to view my available cards faster. It feels like a waste of space to show a premium card next to the standard version and I'm constantly having to use the filter to view the set more efficiently. It would be nice if they could use a single slot.
5. I find it weird that I can look at the cards in my graveyard but not in my deck. Would be great if there was something like a deck tracker in the game rather than have to install a 3rd party app.
6. And side note, where on the screen is the streamer's head supposed to go?

To Gwent, the Witcher game that uses cards. Your upcoming solo player adventure is really the biggest point of difference over your competitors and what I personally crave in similar titles. You may for a while turn into a game with a great campaign and a mediocre multiplayer and that's OK. Use your strengths while working to improve your weaknesses.

All the best team.
You have a lot of good will behind you, stay the course.

 

[Kain2097]

It takes three modes:

- GWENT ARENA
- GWENT CLASSIC (classic mecanique, classic visual etc.)
- GWENT HC

 

[Avranjir]

I didn't play it myself yet, but I watched it for hours and have to say that most the criticism, here, are kinda on point.
I feel disappointed, a little bit sad but mostly... puzzled.
I mean: did you really need a PTR and hundred of players to realize that the board is way too dark? Does someone among you, right there, honestly think this is a good game? I can't really believe it. This feels empty and... plain; it lacks of any depth and personality.
The "old Gwent" (barely) managed to survive months and months without updates or balancing of any sort (while it would have been indeed so easy to fix some of its problems - but no: apparently you were too focused on this). This HC version... won't stand for half that time. And I say it with no joy or pleasure at all: I'm not one of those hyped about "other, new ccg" and for sure I don't crave to go back to HS.
I'm not even mad about your "unfulfilled promises": if this game were good enough I would go over the RNG, over the two rows and the real reasons behind them, over the fact that it feels like Gwent no more; I wouldn't care. But it's not, sadly.
Esthetically the game is fine, even more (darkness apart): one may like or not, but the graphic team clearly knows how to work. But everything else... irrelevant pass, boring abilities, anonymous factions and so on. And a very slow pace, overall. Everything already said.
What I really don't get, in the end, is: why don't (/didn't) you listen to us? What you probably see as a bunch of whining guys are instead your customers. Customers. And the customer is always right. Be strong enough to put your pride aside, please: if people don't like this game (and they don't), they just won't play it. End of story. Everybody lose. Don't know why, but this reminds me of ME3 and the "artistic integrity" matter.
Little more than two weeks, guys.

 

[rrc]

All those who advice CDPR to fix the existing Gwent and give up on HC, please stop doing it. It is not going to happen. You are wasting your time typing it and making others waste time by reading it. Instead give feedback about how to make HC good. I shared the feedback through playgwent.com/support, but wanted to post it here to. The feedback I gave:

Absolutely MUST Fix (without which don't release HC, no matter what):
Usurper: Players build decks based on the leaders. If, for the entire battle, an enemy leader will be disabled, it is just ridiculous. He may disable leader ability for a few turns each round, or on a round of his choice (or two max). But entire battle, if enemy leader is disabled, it is very bad design. You will fix it later I am 100% positive. Please do it when it is released. Please don't give the chance for people to troll and flame in the forums. [Even in PTR, I just want to forfeit the game if I am facing Usurper. It is that annoyingly broken. If you want to keep his ability, give him significant disadvantage: He always go first, and he has to destroy his Tactical Advantage to enable his ability and has 0 mulligan charges, so that he gets 1 for the entire game; and still it is broken.]

Usability: I know this is WIP, but usability of the game UX is very poor. It is counter intuitive. For old players (I have 600+ hours in Gwent) itself, it is quite hard. If a new player comes to play, he/she will be bewildered and it will be too much to take for them (on top of all the new things the have to learn). I want a lots of new players coming to Gwent and stay. Please have super elaborate tutorials. Explain each and every single aspect of the game. Make the deck building smarter and easier and more user friendly. Now, I can't filter on special cards or artifacts as they don't have that tag. If I have 5 cards to add and I have only 25 points left, disable all 6+ cards. It will make the deck building easier and will give an idea.

If I were in your top management, for such a complex game, I would give top most priority for usability than new features or more visual aspects.

Saving Time of Players:
1) If I have nothing else to do (No Order or anything), the 'End Turn' or 'Pass' should happen automatically. We shouldn't need to make any clicks which is unnecessary.
2) In general make the games faster. With 16 cards to play, every game seems much much longer.
[3) I even feel like every action we do is much slower and should be made faster. Like triggering an Order etc.]

 

[Alir_the_neon]

[Bug] Background messes up during a sudden connection loss and recovery. Picture is attached. It ends up having some part of a deck in the background. I managed to replicate the issue by going to deck builder, modifying a deck, then turning off connection, exiting the deck so game tries to save the deck, and turning on the connection. Then the background would have a bluish part sometimes with cards from deck builder view.

 

[TamamasaG]

Dimeritium shackles doesn't flip over face-down ambush cards. It does the targeting for damage but can't execute the flip over.

Now that the cards base power are nerfed a lot large base power cards followed by Adrenaline Rush are too powerful.

Ale of the Ancestors has Zeal in it's description but it's an artifact. It doesn't need Zeal.

 

[Fimbulthrym]

The 3d just makes gameplay slow. Sorry to be a downer here.

Also - how did this guy play 2 cards here (1 was not from his hand):

View attachment 10979381

First be plays Spotter:
Deploy.
Melee. Reveal a random unit from the enemy deck and boost self by its power.

He immediately then got to play a 2nd card that wasn't from his hand
Vilgefortz:
Deploy.
Melee: Destroy an enemy unit, then your opponent Summons the top unit frmo their deck.
Ranged: Destroy an allied unit. Summon the top unit from your deck.

I was most likely his leader's ability. He can see top three cards and play one out of it. Leader's abilities dont count as a turn itself, so he can play another card in this round. This alone shows different the leaders are in terms of strenght

 

[Vitoslav]

Just downladed Open PTR, but as I start the game I can't see any of the main menu "buttons" and graphics (apart from the corner small icons).

Also no cards are visible, neither in loading screens or in decks.

Anyone has similar problems?

I have the same problem.

no main menu:

no cards in deck builder:

no cards in mulligan window:

System spec.:
Windows 7 PRO x64
DirectX 11
CPU: Intel i3-2350M
RAM: 8GB
GPU: VEN_8086&DEV_0116

 

[KaidzenMonada]

Archetype. There is a lack of buids for every faction. Earlier every faction had several archetypes. For example: Nilfs had
1. Spies
2. Reveal (reveal and buff or reveal and damage)
3. Mill
Now there is only one archetype (boost and destroy) for nilfs. All other cards just can't make a proper builds. All cards seem more like a bunch of random cards, that can't work together as a deck. Hope you will add more spies for example. And the mill deck (my favorite) is dead now(((

 

[DrahirVirun]

General feedback:

1. Auto-pass when there is nothing left to do.
2. Slightly brighter board to make the beautiful cards really shine.
3. Return the drag and drop of cards like ‘old’ Gwent - new way it doesn’t feel like you play a card game.
4. Fix all the missing sounds of cards and make the impact when played on board more ... impactful.
5. Include the W3 soundtrack like old Gwent to make it more upbeat.
6. Better and more clear description of abilities.
7. Consider changing ‘bronze’ colour to something which stands out more compared to ‘gold’.
8. Make the hand when not your turn a bit more easy to see (get the feel of holding cards though).
9. Not sure three cards between each round works - becomes too much about R3.
10. Lower the artefact on blue to 3 (?). Extra mulligan seems fine.

That’s all for now - I am sure HC can become a great game

 

[Koi.Master]

1. User's Interface is too dark, it give a weird feeling combine with BGM, I don't feel like playing a gwent. I would love if we can turn on old style "Table like" board.
2. Every deck are the same, Bronze are important and It need more love. at the state of the game, all deck are just put in the best Bronze you can fit in. which most of them are bad, and there's not much choice in bronze pool, as the game goes Developer create more and more gold, treat Bronze like a filler random cheap card. For Example, every NG deck have a lock. and with 2 duplicate now every NG deck has 10+ card that are exactly same no matter what deck it is.
3. Hand limit are not optimal. You're forced to play worst car in your hand so that you have 7 card at the end of Round 2. Card Advantage abuse people, but all CA are gone. If you're getting CA that's mean you play bad tempo. It's your false, but you get no punish at all.
4. Row still meaningless. It's meaningful than before but it still meaningless. It just punish you for place it in wrong row.
5.Order mechanic is great, but it's too much of em. which lead to the next problem.
6.*Gwent lose it simplicity* This not mean OLD Gwent is Easy, There's a complexity in playing a car per turn .Playing any single card is meaningful. In Homecoming, you just Throw any trash out of your hand to active *Order* ability because you cannot simply pass.
7. Game is Much slower, It doesn't make me feel challenged, instead it's boring. Everything is dark and quiet, animation is so slow. Every Order player take make the game much much longer. I rather wait a player spend time thinking than rush all their order card in time.
8. Deck builder need a better sorting/filtering. I can't sort unit's by power, I can't filter Artifact card. ETC.
9. Power Scale. I don't know why you decided to change the Scale. or you just don't like a BIG NUMBER. Big number make card balance easier. It's make 1 power has more vaule. This make power Harder to control. every unit become 3 3 4 3 4 2 3 4 3 2 2 4 4 3 4 power (that deal/boost).
10. (almost) Every card are the same. Every card are just x power damage/boost x with some condition to make it look more like a deck.

 

[星随影]

DISLIKE："draw three cards per round" & "less searching card" may reduce the game's strategy, for i think Gwent's kernel is bo3, and now it's hard for the leading side to get an advantage in the number of hands through a strategic pass. and because now we have more hands and lower quality, that make the bo3 more like three separate games. And the deck builds become so redundant that can hardly counter each other.
LIKE: "hand limit" is good, it‘s a simple way to balance “the coin”.

 

[Amaroc]

Please consider swapping the leader abilities of Emyr and Calveit etc. It feels totally unatural, because Emyr used to be the extra "Decoy" since the beginning of Gwent and Calveit was the one that allowed you to search the top three cards.

And also, where are all the cards? It feels like the number has been reduced.

Lastly, please consider that someone who plays his last card does not automatically pass, but rather has to pass the next turn. That is only fair, because if I have a card advantage, I should be able to activate these new abilites.

 

[TanatosRex]

Mulligan is the biggest problem for me right now in HC open ptr. I really, really don't like it.
Remember when we talk about auto include cards in decks and that it was bad because we would see them over and over ? Well, now we will see auto include leaders with the most mulligan points.
I wanted to make Francesca deck and she have 1 (ONE!!!) mulligan point for the entire game. What? WHAT?!?
Why can't we have ALL leaders with 5 mulligan points? They're not cards with power on the battlefield anymore, they will not change our number of points in a round. You don't play leaders on the board, you just use their abilities. So, if our leaders have no power on the board - they could have equal points for mulligan and it will not affect your score.
Second thing about mulligan - why can't we go back to old system but mix it with the new one? All leaders with 5 mulligan points, right? So at the start of the match - mulligan 3 cards. Second round - mulligan 2 cards. Third round - mulligan 1 card. With less tutors and only 2 bronzes I CAN'T use leaders with one or two (even three) mulligan points because I won't be able to fix my hand that often.
This thing is killing this game for me right now
Also, hand limit need to go