Please Don't Restrict Cards From Ranked Play...

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Please Don't Restrict Cards From Ranked Play...

Here's the thing, Ranked play is a realm where only the most powerful cards, combos, and decks survive and thrive. It's not just competitive, it's cutthroat... and that's a good thing. Ranked is where you should see the hardcore players testing their mettle against those with a similar mindset. Casual play is where the those looking for a less competitive environment go. It's full off oddball deck ideas and newbies either learning the ropes, or building up their collections to an effective Ranked deck are to be found.

So what happens when you declare some cards too powerful or too effective to be played in Ranked? They end up in Casual of course.This provides a horrible experience for newbies, since they won't have the collections nor the experience to play in either with any hope of advancement. It's also detrimental to the creative deck builders since they'll be swamped out by the power cards banned from Ranked. In either case Casual ends up as a cheese fest that doesn't serve the function of a "casual" environment to learn and play.

But it isn't fair to just say "don't do X" without offering up some alternatives, so here are some that might work....

Alternative 1: Commit to rebalancing all cards as time goes on, and not restricting any
I know some people will hate this idea, and it means extra work for CDPR... but it does preserve the nature of both Ranked and Casual play modes

Alternative 2: As above, but only restrict cards from Casual play mode
This would go even farther to encourage the division between these modes and prevent Ranked players from preying on Casual players for cheap wins for various events/rewards

Alternative 3: Only restrict cards at the Pro Ladder level
As a benefit it would be easy to change restriction lists each season, but at the downside of discouraging some players from entering the Pro Ladder

Alternative 3: Expand Ranked to two divisions, Pro track / Ranked Track
In this both Tracks would be identical in structure/rewards, but only the Pro Track would see card restrictions, and only the pro track would be eligible for Pro Ladder (which would have the same restrictions). The pros and cons are similar, but with an additional effect of dividing the player base more, which may be good or bad depending on how large the global user pool is.
 
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There is also Arena and I think the whole create card pool including leaders belongs there.
The annoying thing about create in ranked is that you don't play a archtetype.
It's just random point bashing, abusing ressurects, insane swarming value or copying your opponent.
Then you have numerous of broken combo's, Ciri Nova abuse, tons of removal, a lot of bad cards, half archetypes etc. etc.
To 'fix' this meta it requires several radical changes rather than optimizing and tweaking.
So I sincerly hope CDPR has the guts to do this instead of trying to 'please' everyone because that approach has lead to this bad meta.
 
I don't think anyone ever suggested that they restrict cards from ranked because they are too strong/efficient. They might restrict from ranked cards that they think are really fun to play casually, but triggering in a competitive setting (namely, too random).
 
The problem with Create mechanic currently is that it's just boring and stupid, with no condition.

What if instead (edited): Play Create card, then before seeing options, play another card from hand, then see the options and choose one created card to put in hand to be played next turn, revealed. (You would be able to play created card same turn if it's the only card in your hand.)
This way the other player would know exactly what's coming next turn, allowing that player to adjust his/her play accordingly. This would allow Create mechanic to be in competitive play as well, with no major upsets.
Buff to Reveal as well, pretty cool.

Edit: Effort mechanic must definitely return with Homecoming (preferred rows would mostly take care of it, but not completely). This would help with potentially too strong Create cards like Whispering Hillock getting a big power swing before playing the created card next turn.
The reason why many golds, silvers and some times bronzes with special conditions have high power bodies, is to compensate for those times you end up not being able to use their abilities. Effort mechanic had the potential to solve this, but was unfortunately removed from the game, for whatever reason, and has still not reappeared.

As the card pool gets bigger in Gwent, a buff to Create after this significant nerf could be displaying 4 cards, instead of 3. There could simply be different types of Create, current would be called "Create 3", then there could be "Create 2" and Create 4", depending on card pool size and strength of those cards.
 
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TrompeLaMort;n10923764 said:
I don't think anyone ever suggested that they restrict cards from ranked because they are too strong/efficient. They might restrict from ranked cards that they think are really fun to play casually, but triggering in a competitive setting (namely, too random).
This has nothing to do with create, but as you state, in the case of create cards that people hate.... If they are "too random" then they would not be used, because they would be ineffective, and there would be no reason to restrict them because no one uses cards in ranked that are mostly ineffective... they use ones that work. That's how they win.

so yes that is exactly why people want them restricted. Winch is a perfect example of this but hardly the only one
 
I'm also not aware of any other Ranked restriction planned other than Create, and the reason is too much random factor instead of being too powerful.

Restricting cards considered to be OP to Casual and Arena would indeed be a terrible idea. On that note, I think Slave Drivers, Elven Scouts, Winch and possibly some other cards actually need a rework instead of a non-Ranked restriction. I'm fine with rest of the Create cards banned from Ranked.
 
Watched SuperJJ stream today. He streamed for like... half a dozen games if so. He lost at least half of his games, as every lost he sustained was because of Create and it was stuff he could not possibly play around it - like TREASON to demolish a Longship and a Greatsword, for example. You could see how his mood changed and finally he just switched the game.

And this is something that 90% of the players and streamers are experiencing right now in Constructed. It's toxic. Can't wait for the patch next week - LONG overdue.
 
Erm...no. Just no.

I can only assume the cards you're talking about are "Create" cards, because the only cards so far that have been mentioned that "might" (holy Christ, I hope they are) be removed from Ranked are "Create" cards, and if they were that would be the closet thing this game has seen to righteous justice. These cards have no place in Ranked. None at all.

Myself and others have explained in detail why "Create" is bad in general over many threads, and at this stage if you are still all for the mechanic then nothing anyone says will convince you. You can argue all day about the relative power of these cards and how it will help someone win just as often as hinder them but if you do you are missing the point completely. It isn't about power or utility. It's about having skill be the deciding factor in as many matches as possible and with the mechanic in the game as it is, nevermind that it is lazy design (oh, play a 1 point card and pick one of three totally 3 random cards to play OR play this silver card that could actually be ANY card! Well done for playing a tight, thought out deck!), RNG decides far more than it should.

I have hope given the open letter that the dev team have actually listened and took this on board.

Pretty much every major GWENT streamer didn't step away from the game because "Create" created an exciting meta or was "fine".

partci;n10924382 said:
Watched SuperJJ stream today. He streamed for like... half a dozen games if so. He lost at least half of his games, as every lost he sustained was because of Create and it was stuff he could not possibly play around it - like TREASON to demolish a Longship and a Greatsword, for example. You could see how his mood changed and finally he just switched the game.

And this is something that 90% of the players and streamers are experiencing right now in Constructed. It's toxic. Can't wait for the patch next week - LONG overdue.

Agree 100%
 
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I feel like several of you are missing the point.... it's not about keeping cards people hate because of their absurd behavior, it's about having one set of cards to play from, rather than turning certain modes into a dumpster fire... if that means they remove those cards from the game, or completely rework them, that's fine too... It was the first alternative offered for a reason.
 
I understand your point and I agree with you. I think people are indeed missing the point though. Cards that are unhealthy for a competitive environment should not exist in the first place, let alone be usable in a "casual" environment only. It'll just poison casual because those cards will end up there and the reason why that is problematic is because they really are not all that random. Have fun facing the former powerhouse that is Alchemy with your meme deck.

If they were so random noone would run them as you stated yourself, so it really is about their power level they actaully are too powerful for RNG cards. Look at the MO runestone for example, nobody runs that because of the high risk of getting crones. It's not worth it. The NG runestone always gets mediocre value and has other benefits such as having the alchemy tag for example, which makes the card worth running.

The best alternatives in my opinion are Alternative 1 & 2. Rework them and don't restrict them, instead of just throwing them into casual or restrict them from casual.

I don't want to just say "change this change that" either so here's an idea for a rework from my part:
Remove all the tags from Runestones, Dopplers etc. The only reason why people are running them is because they are tutorable and provide Witchers an extra buff, in the case of Alchemy. Dopplers provide an extra body and thinning with Mercenary who can tutor it. That would bring their power level down without reworking the cards ability itself.
What do you think?
 
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Create was introduced to give the game more variation and flexibility to directly counter the staleness of predefined decks. This also works in Arena, which was the primary target for Create cards, stating that they wouldn't be viable enough for competitive play. (Hahaha)

So, instead of trying to solve the Create issue, maybe take a step back and look at which void the Create mechanic was meant to fill. We need an alternative for this, which might be nothing like the Create mechanic, but that's fine. With so many users having issues with Create, it might as well be removed altogether. Regardless, I don't want cards to be exclusive to a certain game mode (with the exception of singleplayer cards for Thronebreaker).

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Create is also used as a means the close the gap between (the skill of) players by high rolling a solution in an otherwise unwinnable situation. This, however, is exactly the problem many players have with the Create mechanic.
 
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I'm of a similar mind that straight out removing create would lead to a very stale environment... something would need to fill the gap... what, I don't know

I do find it kind of funny that of the cards that people love to hate, people want create removed, but want other cards changed
 
Void_Singer;n10947521 said:
I feel like several of you are missing the point.... it's not about keeping cards people hate because of their absurd behavior, it's about having one set of cards to play from, rather than turning certain modes into a dumpster fire... if that means they remove those cards from the game, or completely rework them, that's fine too... It was the first alternative offered for a reason.
Okay, if that's the intention then Alternative 1 seems to be the way to go, because all the others contradict the "one set of cards" principle*.
Also I don't think restricting too strong cards to the more competitive modes is good idea (if I get it right that's what Alt2-4 is about). I my opinion it just means balance problems..so it's not enough to just save Casual from them, they need to be changed or removed.

*As a sidenote personally I don't have a problem with Create staying in Casual and Arena (once they remove / rework the really broken cards). I don't mind losing to RNG in Casual, and have already accepted that Arena is mostly about RNG. But I'm okay with complete removal as well, cause I'm not a big fan of the mechanic regardless of the "RNG shouldn't affect competitive play too much" aspect.
 
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