Post patch feedback from CBT player
Gwent was a fascinating experience, and there is a huge credit of trust given to CD project, That being said, i just dont feel like giving it any more shots.
Its not so much about changes to particular cards or mechanics, but overall approach to such changes.
No card game ever had perfect balance, its not achievable. But given gwent round by round nature and small deck size, it shown alot of promise.
However after half a year, it feels like its going anywhere.
You just cant release patches without playtesting, And there was no playtesting behind any patch i remember, or at the very least, no traces of such from player perspective.
Its ridiculous when dominant and unplayable decks are clearly readable from patchnotes even before it goes live. Best part of any CCG is a process of building your own deck, figuring out what works and what doesnt, experimenting. Take that away and you're left with mindless grind. That target audience is fairly small and isnt going anywhere from Diablo 3, The Crew and so on.
You cant solve balance issues by simply strapping powercreep units to any faction that underperforms.
It simply creates more issues to solve later, and the amount of work gets overwhelming. So, naturally, when initial problem a solved, a new one is created. Many of us remember 8 power being a bronze baseline, And then we get NG with some more interesting units. Allright, but for some reason, it was restricted for NG, Then came bronze Eredins, and so on, and so on. There was a little hope after OBT and reset, with major game rework, What we see now? Fine, we powercreep BSS to counter weather dominance. Weather is gone, BSS is still miles ahead of its collegues. So we still have like half of all cards that are still balanced around the same old baselines. And the other half, that is playable. So, approach basicly hasnt changed.
You cant add mechanics that work inconsistently, or dont work at all.
Trio mechanic looks cool! Does it work? No, Not a single trio is playable. And lets add a bunch of cards that can remove enemy units straight from their deck, to make sure, it wont ever work unless we remove a frustrating mechanic we've added to counter units buffed in deck. There was alot of complains about gravehag going that 16+ power as last turn play being not interactive. A 1 power card, that was silver. And it was infuriating, Allright, added timer to it, not its easily counterable. Now lets make a bunch of bronzes following the same pattern. Because reasons.
Armor mechanic had a good idea behind it. Protect core units from direct removal. Is it implemented consistently? Lets see. Arachas behemoth? Check. Impera brigade? No, screw them. WH riders? Reaver Hunters? You see where this is going, right.
ATM there is simply no sense of progression towards the game, during CBT it at least felt that most patches solved more issues than they created. That is no longer the case.
I do understand that is really hard to make gwent truly interesting, after all, there is no minion combat, no player health, But prancing around reddit complains, stumbling upon the very same mistakes over and over again wont cut it, Forcibly shifting metagame every patch is a solid marketing strategy, and surely noone works for free. I guess i just expected something beyond that from CDPR. Maybe im just being unfair, after all the game had slowly evolved for quite a while. In recent patch - it didnt. Weather was opressive, something had to be done. But simply removing it without giving a thought to balacing cards towards the new state of the game solves only one trouble while creating many. There are many mechanics allready present in other CCGS that help with troublesome damage sources. "Guard" mechanic from MMDoC comes to mind, but i digress, "balancing" approach has been covered enough.
Ill probably revisit the game in a half a year or so, but as of now, it all got a little too old. Cheers.
Gwent was a fascinating experience, and there is a huge credit of trust given to CD project, That being said, i just dont feel like giving it any more shots.
Its not so much about changes to particular cards or mechanics, but overall approach to such changes.
No card game ever had perfect balance, its not achievable. But given gwent round by round nature and small deck size, it shown alot of promise.
However after half a year, it feels like its going anywhere.
You just cant release patches without playtesting, And there was no playtesting behind any patch i remember, or at the very least, no traces of such from player perspective.
Its ridiculous when dominant and unplayable decks are clearly readable from patchnotes even before it goes live. Best part of any CCG is a process of building your own deck, figuring out what works and what doesnt, experimenting. Take that away and you're left with mindless grind. That target audience is fairly small and isnt going anywhere from Diablo 3, The Crew and so on.
You cant solve balance issues by simply strapping powercreep units to any faction that underperforms.
It simply creates more issues to solve later, and the amount of work gets overwhelming. So, naturally, when initial problem a solved, a new one is created. Many of us remember 8 power being a bronze baseline, And then we get NG with some more interesting units. Allright, but for some reason, it was restricted for NG, Then came bronze Eredins, and so on, and so on. There was a little hope after OBT and reset, with major game rework, What we see now? Fine, we powercreep BSS to counter weather dominance. Weather is gone, BSS is still miles ahead of its collegues. So we still have like half of all cards that are still balanced around the same old baselines. And the other half, that is playable. So, approach basicly hasnt changed.
You cant add mechanics that work inconsistently, or dont work at all.
Trio mechanic looks cool! Does it work? No, Not a single trio is playable. And lets add a bunch of cards that can remove enemy units straight from their deck, to make sure, it wont ever work unless we remove a frustrating mechanic we've added to counter units buffed in deck. There was alot of complains about gravehag going that 16+ power as last turn play being not interactive. A 1 power card, that was silver. And it was infuriating, Allright, added timer to it, not its easily counterable. Now lets make a bunch of bronzes following the same pattern. Because reasons.
Armor mechanic had a good idea behind it. Protect core units from direct removal. Is it implemented consistently? Lets see. Arachas behemoth? Check. Impera brigade? No, screw them. WH riders? Reaver Hunters? You see where this is going, right.
ATM there is simply no sense of progression towards the game, during CBT it at least felt that most patches solved more issues than they created. That is no longer the case.
I do understand that is really hard to make gwent truly interesting, after all, there is no minion combat, no player health, But prancing around reddit complains, stumbling upon the very same mistakes over and over again wont cut it, Forcibly shifting metagame every patch is a solid marketing strategy, and surely noone works for free. I guess i just expected something beyond that from CDPR. Maybe im just being unfair, after all the game had slowly evolved for quite a while. In recent patch - it didnt. Weather was opressive, something had to be done. But simply removing it without giving a thought to balacing cards towards the new state of the game solves only one trouble while creating many. There are many mechanics allready present in other CCGS that help with troublesome damage sources. "Guard" mechanic from MMDoC comes to mind, but i digress, "balancing" approach has been covered enough.
Ill probably revisit the game in a half a year or so, but as of now, it all got a little too old. Cheers.
