Re-couple leader abilities

[Archan6el]

I like this change. At least doesn't look like Francesca all the time.

No, but you still see Mystic Echo all the time. That's the trick and possible excuse for the devs to focus less on balancing leaders, because this tiny leader ability icon is much easier ignored and less in-your-face than a full blown 3D leader model that you see all the time. I'm not fooled by that.

 

[Lyserus]

I mean, I guess I am fine with decoupling, but I sure hope each leader ability is still tied to leader skin somehow

 

[SMiki55]

Decoupling is fine, but the abilities should receive their own cardart and flavour text instead of icons and quotes from before decoupling. Sth like below would be great.

 

[Lyserus]

Decoupling is fine, but the abilities should receive their own cardart and flavour text instead of icons and quotes from before decoupling. Sth like below would be great.

Damnn I must agree to this

And now we can reuse leader card arts as normal card units, probably a special expansion called "monarchs"

 

[SMiki55]

Yeah, some minor kings are already units (Roegner) and some leaders have card variants already (SY bosses). I see no obstacle in, let's say, Gernichora unit spawning a fruit on deploy/order.

 

[P3rsephone]

The conclusion is that it might not be worth creating premium skins, without decoupled leaders. Now, with the decoupling, the devs can create premium skins per faction, which more players can use (and thus more players will buy).

So its all about money??

But it sounds wrong. For example Riot didnt decouple their heroes. Not every heroe is available for every beginner, but they also created premium skins for their heroes.
So why can LoL have heroes with their special ability and special skins but Gwent not? Seems like they are doing something better (ok the one is a card game the other one is a moba or so...)

Post automatically merged: Oct 11, 2019

Incidentally, when the leader archetype gets (indirectly) nerfed, it would also have upset players who bought a premium skin for that leader, which they can no longer use. "Wasting" a skin on a leader almost no one plays might be a worse downside.

Again i have to compare with LoL. The exact same scenario happened there too. LoL is tsill doing fine, or arent they?

Edit: thx for merging.

I myself bought the Unseen Elder Skin. I almost never used him. Now im upset BECAUSE of the decoupling.

 

[4RM3D]

Again i have to compare with LoL.

Apples and Oranges. Incidentally, LoL's playerbase is a lot bigger, which allows the devs to create more selective premiums.

 

[Anciluart]

So its all about money??

We literally ask for a better monetization for the game(oriented on cosmetics due to the fastest adquisition of cards and crafting resources.)

Not every heroe is available for every beginner,

Yeah? If i open my LoL client i can see a store full of champions to buy, all of them available, just money.

So why can LoL have heroes with their special ability and special skins but Gwent not? Seems like they are doing something better (ok the one is a card game the other one is a moba or so...)

LoL champions are the equivalent of the cards here.
If you want to compare the actual decoupled avatars you can use the MtG Arena pets, you can play a Green deck with a lava cat as pet and a portait of Liliana. See? They have all decoupled too and they are doing fine.

 

[P3rsephone]

Apples and Oranges. Incidentally, LoL's playerbase is a lot bigger, which allows the devs to create more selective premiums.

Lols playerbase wasnt this big at the beginning and they did this (skins for heroes and nerf heroes) since the beginning and they still growed. So i wouldnt exactly say its a comparison between apples and oranges.

Post automatically merged: Oct 11, 2019

Yeah? If i open my LoL client i can see a store full of champions to buy, all of them available, just money.

You are right. What i meant was: Like Gwent you can buy them with Ingame money (at least it was so in the past), you dont have to buy them with money.

LoL champions are the equivalent of the cards here.
If you want to compare the actual decoupled avatars you can use the MtG Arena pets, you can play a Green deck with a lava cat as pet and a portait of Liliana. See? They have all decoupled too and they are doing fine.

I havent played MtG Arena but they launched the game in september 2019. The pets came in July 2019 during beta?
So with the official launch they had decoupled things? Right?

When did Gwent decouple things? Almost one year after official launch. Feels like an rip off for me.

The same feeling i had after Homecoming. Yes you will get a new playerbase. Im sure of it. But i believe you will also lose some. I bought packs before Homecoming. I bought packs after HC and i bought Thronebreaker, Crimson Curse and Novigrad... but i wont buy anything in near future with this... changes.

 

[jmoyano92]

It's a terrible move. Really weird too. Now it's just a random mess!

Leaders are losing identity and they have become just vanity items.

There is no point between choosing one leader over another now. Why on earth would I want to buy (through money or reward points) the Radovid skin now? If they had the skills blocked per character as before, I would.

Now you don't even know most of the time what ability is playing the enemy hero until he activates it.

Leaders and some of the cards/decks are losing personality, flavour and lore.

The new versus screen is also awful. Please revert these two changes. it has to be like before!







Is this Gwent or not? because with these two changes it looks like some other thing.
(if you want to monetize the game, do it with different artworks for leaders, but not with skins. Focus on what you guys do best!)

 

[Draconifors]

@jmoyano92 Thread merged.

The decoupling is hardly going to be reversed at this point. Leader skins like the Wraith and Gascon ones would never have been possible without the decoupling; it gives more freedom not only to players but also developers.

 

[jmoyano92]

@jmoyano92 Thread merged.

The decoupling is hardly going to be reversed at this point. Leader skins like the Wraith and Gascon ones would never have been possible without the decoupling; it gives more freedom not only to players but also developers.

Sorry but I don't share your point of view. Leader skills are not that difficult to create. I could make a hundred of them in one single day, all being 100% Lore friendly and most of them would be balanced for sure. Those skins that you mentioned were created + 1 year ago for Thronebreaker. They have there many more to add if they want.

This is called laziness and forced monetization. This is the only real reason behind this awful decision: Paid skins.

 

[Draconifors]

I could make a hundred of them in one single day, all being 100% Lore friendly and most of them would be balanced for sure.

I doubt it. I really doubt anyone could do that.

And in any case, the freedom aspect is true. Freedom in things like this may not be desired by all, but it is freedom regardless.

 

[Evangium]

This has happened for the first premium skin, Unseen Elder Blood Armor, but there are two major issues with this:
1. [From the users] You actually have to play Unseen Elder, which you might not want to.
2. [From the devs] They need to put a lot of time into developing these skins, which only a small percentage of players can use.

The conclusion is that it might not be worth creating premium skins, without decoupled leaders. Now, with the decoupling, the devs can create premium skins per faction, which more players can use (and thus more players will buy).

Yes, I have only mentioned the premium skins because that's the only relevant aspect of the decision. As such, I have a new suggestion, which is sort of a middle ground (and more feasible): Re-couple all leader skins, except for premium skins. For example, Meve will always be Boosting, but you can use Radovid with every NR ability.

Not a bad idea. The only problems I see is with it is premium versions of stock leaders creating confusion for players, and players who like a particular ability, but not the model it comes with. If things like Unseen Elder Blood Armor and Radvovid Africa didn't exist, then sure have at it with pumping out Gascon and Radovid skins while having stock leaders locked to abilities. That at least addresses the first problem.

As for the second, you can't really get a middle ground approach without either undermining an otherwise sound monetisation strategy or having someone feel their contribution as an F2P player isn't as valued as someone who spends real money on the game. I think moving forward, Gascon might just be the future of premium skins. Rather than reskin a faction locked leader, make unique premiums that can be used in any faction.

 

[DRK3]

None of these fancy skins is 1/10 as good as the old leader card arts...

 

[Raziel_888]

@jmoyano92 Thread merged.

The decoupling is hardly going to be reversed at this point. Leader skins like the Wraith and Gascon ones would never have been possible without the decoupling; it gives more freedom not only to players but also developers.

I understand the idea behind decoupling, but it would have been possible, as suggested before. New skins like Radovid or Wraith could have been added as an option for every leader in that faction. Although it is also true that once we have 100 of them, the difference will be unnoticeable.

Little taunt about that, but I don't understand why the new Ofir skin for NG is said to be a variant of Ana Henrietta. Since they are decoupled and they don't look alike? Or maybe it' just because this one doesn't get its own animations/taunts?

 

[Raunbjorn]

The devs can be a bit thick headed, no offense but I think this may be reverted at some point. The reason why I'm being optimistic is because of what they did regarding long/short card names. As long as people are persistant, I think it's only a matter of time before it happens if they wanna retain some sort of credibility.

FWIW, I would much rather have the awesome looking card art leaders instead. Basically the old system with Dandelion avatars was way cooler but I guess we aren't allowed to have nice things in this game.

 

[Raziel_888]

For the art, at the very least it would be nice to see them when you right click on the leader, instead of a huge description of the ability

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

The devs can be a bit thick headed, no offense but I think this may be reverted at some point. The reason why I'm being optimistic is because of what they did regarding long/short card names. As long as people are persistant, I think it's only a matter of time before it happens if they wanna retain some sort of credibility.

FWIW, I would much rather have the awesome looking card art leaders instead. Basically the old system with Dandelion avatars was way cooler but I guess we aren't allowed to have nice things in this game.

I really doubt that they will revert it. They introduced neutral leader skins, which wouldn't work anymore, so those had to either disappear completly or some other weird solutions would appear. And as those skins are bought with real money, a really huge shitstorm would happen.

Nonetheless, I would like to see the old leader cards as standalone cards too. A lot of them are really beautiful.
And I'm pretty sure Dandelion will sooner or later get his own skin, as well as Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer.

 

[kitsuneae]

I like this change. It allows for personality now you can't have your avatar do taunts (it's leader specific) while allowing leaders with unpopular abilities to appear more often.

I like to imagine the leaders are having someone use unorthodox abilities on their behalf. Either that or they have other, less obvious means of getting things done. A vampire with an arrachas queen at their disposal to summon swarms of bugs or summoning small critters with thrive ability via magic? Sure. Whoreson using his dad's connections to get some firesworn on his side? Possible, especially if they're duped or bribed. Adda's sheer rage motivating her troops every other turn? Of course.

This actually feels more realistic to me than a leader being a one trick pony.