I have some things to add to my previous post.
I Love that weather is finally a limited effect, I made this suggestion around midwinter. 8 points even seems fair in this meta compared to other cards, although i cant remember what the provision cost was and I'm not much of a fan of a meta where an 8 point card is good. Not sure if its worth building a deck around, or even carrying a counter for because its not super threatening, but dagon had many day's in the sun. weather can piss off for a bit! who wants to get mud on our fancy new boards anyways?
I already posted this but i need to reiterate I Absolutely despise how mulligans function now. Blacklisting gone, capped amount, somehow supposed to soften disadvantage to the blue coin with an extra kick, but when you only get two or ugh god 1 single mulligan for an entire game the blue coin is actually at a pretty big advantage in certain cases (especially if you understand how to use combat advantage). So stupid that you have to save mulligans for R3, this was one thing that made open beta so good that everyone got a kick for R2 and 3 (and if you should even take the risk of drawing a brick). The only reason not to be able to mulligan is because you don't have a card in the deck to swap with! Also if a leader is inherently so strong to only receive 1 mulligan, to double their mulligans is so much more impact-full than a leader with 4 or 5 getting an extra they might not even have needed. Yet another point of imbalance to the coin-flip since mulligans are now such a valuable resource. *Absolute nightmare.
The organization of the provision system in the deck builder seemed really sloppy. Maybe its because its an unfamiliar card set and system, but the deck building process took far longer to find something agree-able. It took quite a while to find the cards I wanted to include and then balance the the food of the deck to 165. After messing with the deck for a while, I needed flex bronzes at 4 5 and 6 recruitment cost just to be able to juggle and test different high cost cards. I cant imagine how that would be for a new player without a full set of cards outside of a PTR situation. Also with this system its more like a 25 card Maximum... how could you ever make a deck of 40 4-6 cost units and expect to win games. So in addition to unnecessarily complex, it feels very restricting in that it narrows the provision tiers of card you can include as you fill the deck.
4 gold 6 silvers was so simple and elegant, and the decks I wound up constructing on PTR had a direct resemblance to old decks, around 4 good golds and 6 cheaper golds for power or consistency (so witchers or "catalysts" for example frightner artifact). I just don't feel like this change is necessary. Now we have cards of all provision cost from 4 to 14, instead of 3 tiers of cards we now have 10. whats the point in even having card colors if they aren't what define the tiers? I guess bronzes still have copies but its feeling more than a little arbitrary. We already pulled out of 30 card decks, honestly i can think of several other things I'd prefer not change.
***Decks and graveyards need a display number or at very least a tooltip*** how did this missed? especially deck since you can look at your GY.
***there is no 0th card turn. Without discussing why, I think this is a massive oversight.
Cards felt very homogeneous and shoehorned into the provision system.
I cant stand the 2 bronze constraint. This should be moving in the other direction- 4/5/deck especially with the power deflation and departure from tutors.
Gwent without Spies felt just naked. There's nothing to bail you out of a bad CA situation. Although I will admit the natural length of rounds 2 and 3 does soften a disparity; The problems that have arisen from extra draws and the card limit are creating an even worse environment where the game is often over before round 2, round 1, or perhaps even a single card is played. Also I feel like playing with spies helps folks understand the dynamics of a complex game, and new players will never be able to benefit from that knowledge which ABSOLUTELY carry's over to Homecoming/ decks without CA spies. New players will have an even harder time understanding why they lost a game, and how they might have won, when in fact they might not even have been able to. I sit down to every game knowing there are permutations where both players are the victor, and to look for one where that is me. I certainly played games on the PTR where this was not the case.
clicking on and playing a card felt clumsy and several other factors played to games being on average 5-7 minutes longer than normal (if it even played out before somebody forfeiting). The last UI updates have been great for the flow of the game, but this is a clear regression even with the expectation of PTR bugs.
Not a fan of the new emotes. I played mainly deathwish as Woodland and he doesn't speak English. It was impossible to emote with purpose (something I already don't like about avatars like maerlorn or the pheonx). Also I liked the old avatar system. Its nice to be able to change what your emoting without changing decks.
I don't hate 2 rows, but I also don't decidedly like it. Any way you slice it its reducing design space. anything that can be achieved in a 2 row system can be achieved more dynamically in a 3 row system. reach would be so dynamic with 3 rows and its honestly a little lackluster with only 2 modes (1 or 2 reach, there was no 3 as there does not need to be with 2 rows)
also Reach is the wrong name for the tag. Reach already means "if you have enough points to close a gap". Needs to be "range". I sent this in a private feedback email the day after the first HC stream, I can only assume that devs missed my suggestion or disagree. I'm sure there's a lot of people submitting feedback, and I can obviously be somewhat long-winded, but I don't think this should slip through the cracks.
I was not a fan of reveal to play against, and the reveal mechanic in general. In fact, maybe its just my own bias against NG or mill and letho-regis PTSD, but I kinda just don't like nilfgaard now. Before it was just specific effects or archetypes I found over tuned; such as letho in various states, sweers, alchemy vipers or previously NG spies and the retroactive impera enforcer etc. I'd need more time with the game to elaborate but I will say that I don't think it ends with Nilfgaard.
NG leaders shuffled around, enough of this! For real, put them back. It completely arbitrary and it feels awkward.
I don't like how the camera pans up and covers the bottom of your cards when its not your turn.
I'm not big on my favorite card the OPerator. Hes finally in a really good spot. His points are reflected in perhaps the most unique way in all of gwent. Please Stop fixing things that aren't broken.
I'm not certain but i think Duel is trash in this power meta, which is a shame because it was one of the most satisfying and mathematically complex mechanics in all of gwent. Not that I even saw many duel cards past seltkirk i think? feels bad.
I hate that playing your leader does not constitute a turn. more specifically because your essentially promoting one of your cards with whatever your leader does, which is insane for combo decks like axemen/Harold for example. perhaps you can stick one with an artifact, and play the other straight with Harold for like 25-30 points in a 4-12 point meta.
Where is the development??? Why is there no new faction like Toussent or Vengerburg or even Redania like Burza was hinting?? how many cards were being tested? I hope it wasn't the full set, but i think it was! PVP suffered for 6 months now for thronebreaker, which who is it for? Witcher fans like the Witcher. Gwent fans like Gwent. Sure there's an overlap but Gwent fans want Gwent to be good before playing whatever TB is. I was always more of a Gwent fan than a Witcher fan especially since open beta, and I cant really say I'm even into trying TB. As a Gwent fan Its really disappointing that TB sapped so much from the development of open beta/HC.
Overall this was a very poor PTR imo. between its short length (4 days on Thanks frikin Giving weekend? compared to 18 months of open beta), *** the faction forms I cant complete because the server shut down before I got a chance, new players giving advice about things not understood. Who do you even want feedback from? The amateurs who started playing in june this year and don't know anything other than a meta with Imlerith Sabbath? Or the people who been playing since TW3 play through in 2015? Honestly this game does not remind me of TW3 Gwent. It reminds me of early closed beta footage before all the fun stuff came along. It's still Gwent, but its a shell of what it is on open beta. As nice as it looks, I'd prefer another 6 month delay with a small patch for the things ruining open beta like sabbath. Or just roll with version we spent the last 18 months testing.
My apologies for being so negative and snide at times but the more I think about this the worse it feel. I've wrote a fair amount of feedback over the last year, both played and watched thousands of games +tournaments on twitch, and I'm a little sour that the game we've put so much into testing is changing so drastically.
Love you guys, but today, "I am sadness"- Iris 2k17