Season of the Bear is ending!

[zargez]

A bit of rng is NEEDED. You want that a game become passians when you know exactly what will happen and in waht order. There will be situation that (for example) NG beat Skellige and Skellige beat Monsters but Monsters beat NG (most of the time). A bit of rng make that every deck now can beat every other deck (most of the time and with a bit of luck).

This is actually not correct when it comes to create. There will always be a heavy RNG element in card games of this nature already without extra mechanics that multiply it many times over. You know, like what cards you draw and in what order, what your show two cards show, what cards that have some kind of random effect hit or do, etc. Even if you try to make your decks really consistent, there will still be some RNG every game. Luck will always be a factor.
No single deck should be able to beat absolutely everything, it's just way too much reach for a consistent deck, especially if it's just luck that decides it instead of any kind of skill. You can always play different archetypes within factions, you can always play different cards within an archetype, and so on. A card like Ida Emean aep Sivney is already in about every green deck for the very reason that it has so much reach. Some cards and combinations will be better than others, that's hard to avoid - though blatantly overpowered cards will always be problematic if not changed - but luck of an unnecessary mechanic like create does not need to be the deciding factor in a game where luck already plays a big part.

 

[NlelithZ44]

Didn't play a single ranked game this season. No balancing since the last one didn't make it appealing at all, and I already got Roche.

 

[Void_Singer]

people complaining about Roche being easier to get this season...
did you suddenly lose the Avatar you previously got? do you commonly complain about sales this month of items you bought last month and expect a refund? if you do the latter how often do the service desk people manage to keep a straight face instead of pointing and laughing at you?

 

[Ic3Purple]

IMO I don't feel Avatars and Borders should be that exclusive. I feel that Titles being difficult to obtain makes more sense, at the end of the day bragging rights comes down to MMR and leaderboards not the Avatar, Border, or Title. Also some seasons are easier to rise the ranks others aren't so I have no problem with the Avatar being given out at Rank 15. Just food for thought or fuel to your fire whichever you prefer.:listen:

It is a matter of tastes. Personally, I couldn't care less of the titles. For me the best prizes untill now have been Factions borders and "Hero" Avatars. Sure thing, they could use something else as prizes for the TOP, but they'll have to figure it out. By one side I'm okay for making the avatars easier to access to most part of the community, but for those who played before this changes, it is indeed a bit unfair. As I find it unfair I can't have Eredin because I started to play just a few months ago and he's my most wanted avatar.

However, I hope they will add also Foltest, Avallach, Bloody Baron, Vesimir, and the Crones would be cool too lol!

 

[Esmer]

Didn't play a single ranked game this season. No balancing since the last one didn't make it appealing at all, and I already got Roche.

This is one of the best seasons in terms of balancing. All factions have viable top tier decks (well, perhaps monsters could use a slight buff) and all factions have almost equal shares on the ladder in all MMR brackets.

Monsters are a bit too strong on the lower ranks and a bit too weak on the higher ranks. But I guess that is primarily because high rank players know how to counter both consume and deathwish, and mandrake is also more prevalent on higher ranks.

 

[Esmer]

ST don't run Vesemir, the ST & NG runestones are used coz they are OP and almost give you a good value; slave driver not only give one extra body but also reveal the opponent's deck and destroy their strategy; it's one of the most disgusting cards atm. Only players who play them think that they are fine xD.

ST don't run Vesemir cuz they have Aglais and Isengrim:Outlaw.

And if slave driver is such an OP card, why many alchemy decks run only 2 of those now? Right, because Mardroeme provides more value.

I personally played several top tier decks this season (Henselt, Veterans, Greatswords, Alchemy) and I do believe skill pretty much always beats RNG from create. It is possible to win with any deck against any other deck. Sure, some matchups are easier, some are harder for any given deck, but your chances of winning or losing are between 40-60%, which I think is a sign of a good balance.

Furthermore, I think mulligan bug/feature hurts most of the decks more than create. It's one thing when your opponent has like 10-15% chance to get a perfect counter to your strategy, and another when you have 50%+ chance of getting a card you blacklisted in the previous 2 rounds.

 

[zargez]

I personally played several top tier decks this season (Henselt, Veterans, Greatswords, Alchemy) and I do believe skill pretty much always beats RNG from create.

You know, I actually made a Dwarf deck this season, not that long ago. I used it on ladder and went from 3001 MMR to 3300+ with maybe two losses. I only remember a Nilfgaard double Scorch loss.
I've not payed complete attention to how exactly that point gain works, but it felt like I had to play some extra games because I won so many matches in two rounds. At least one even quit second round even though he could've won at least that one. He probably noticed it was not winnable after using so many of his value cards.
The secret was creating another Yarpen Zigrin with Mahakam Horn. If that was not the best option, Dennis Cranmer. Or maybe Els, Cleaver or Paulie. The point being that it almost always gave me a really powerful second copy of something that already was in in my starting deck.

I've won and lost completely based on create based luck many times. It doesn't matter how hard you had to work, how much you had to outplay an opponent, you can still lose a game just because of create. Casual, ladder, even against worse players. I've lost with Unseen Elder to a Ciri: Nova deck because Dorregaray of Vole created Ocvist. I've lost to Aguara: True Form creating exactly that Artefact Compression it needed to be. I've seen Elven Scouts create just that one specific card way too many times, on top of it giving +1 value already. I've seen Slave Drivers still create my best bronze more than three times in a row. Winches, RNG Runestones... Even the small things affect how a game ends - on top of the RNG that card games like this always have.

 

[Pruny]

This is one of the best seasons in terms of balancing. All factions have viable top tier decks (well, perhaps monsters could use a slight buff) and all factions have almost equal shares on the ladder in all MMR brackets.

Monsters are a bit too strong on the lower ranks and a bit too weak on the higher ranks. But I guess that is primarily because high rank players know how to counter both consume and deathwish, and mandrake is also more prevalent on higher ranks.

What?! This season is trash like previous, the top tier decks are braindead with no skill. I want to see spies not alchemy, discard not bears, ambushes not cleaverswarm ...
i hope cdpr remove create from ranked and balance the game next season.

 

[Esmer]

You know, I actually made a Dwarf deck this season, not that long ago. I used it on ladder and went from 3001 MMR to 3300+ with maybe two losses.

I went from 2800 to 3900 on veterans deck and had 26 wins and 4 losses.
My deck had one create card – a runestone. And only because I needed a second target for Vesemir. And now that I think of it, I would be better off with the foul ale. It's a solid 18 point play (24 with Vesemir), since everybody plays around Birna and puts units on different rows.

Anyway, the point is there are very good decks that don't rely on create cards.

 

[zargez]

Anyway, the point is there are very good decks that don't rely on create cards.

Of course there are, overpowered even. Do you think you often miss the point of a post?

 

[StrykerxS77x]

What?! This season is trash like previous, the top tier decks are braindead with no skill. I want to see spies not alchemy, discard not bears, ambushes not cleaverswarm ...
i hope cdpr remove create from ranked and balance the game next season.

I don't know why people think this game has ever had a ton of skill. Al the decks are easy to pilot.

 

[NomanPeopled]

Thrilled for the new season.

 

[Captainkrueger]

Is there a patch coming with the new season ? New cards perhaps ?

 

[JimboVT]

So let me start off by saying I am by no means a top tier player. I usually end my seasons between 16-18 and I win probably about 40% of my matches. I don't net deck which is probably why I lose. Overall I think Gwent game mechanics and game balance is good but not great. Maybe when you get into the top 10000 things get repetitive and the same deck archetypes always come up, I don't know I can't say but their are a few cards that stand out to me as either really bad as in why would you ever play with them and some that are completely OP. A popular complaint seems to be about slave drivers. To me slave drivers are a sort of hit or miss card. The complainers get mad at their opponent getting insane value out of them but I have seen them wiff really bad to where you or they play one and you get a blue mountain commando or a vicavaro medic and their are no cards in your opponents graveyard. Slave drivers IMO have a high upside but they can cost you the game to by being really poor value so on the whole I think they are just right. Bears used to be insane. Dwarves seem to be a popular complaint, I don't know I have never been overly annoyed by Dwarves. Anyhow without further ado this is my opinion on the current state of Gwent from an admittedly bad Gwent player.

Cards that need to be buffed:


Gaunter O'Dimm - I love playing with this card. He is fun but in terms of practicality he sucks. Is he supposed to have 33% chance of getting the said effect? I think I get value out of him maybe 20% of the time and the times I do gamble and win with him the said effect is usually not good enough to make much of a difference. I prefer'd the original design where you guessed what card was in your opponents deck and if you guessed right that was the card you played. I would suggest maybe have a coin flip where he has a a 50% chance of generating a create mechanic for a random gold or silver card. As he is now he ends up being a a 6 drop most of the time.

Stamelford's Tremors: - The way this card is now it seems pretty bad and the only decks that it would be worth playing in is in Skelige decks that make use of Tuisearch Axeman or Serran. Your opponent would need at least 10 cards on the field before this was even an average bronze card. Maybe spawning an earth elemental was to strong as was the previous version. Maybe making this card similar to Crowe's Eye wear it checks the number of other Tremors in the graveyard/discard pile and increases the damage by 1 for each previous time it was played.

Rock Barrage: I have never seen anyone play this against me and for good reason it is almost always inferior to Alzur's Thunder. I have tried to make this card work and I have never been able to kill a unit by forcing it into a row the above row that is full. My suggested buff would be that this card be allowed to move units to any row and that you would create maybe one or two chasm/mountain tokens which would have no value for your opponent but would occupy space on your opponents rows. This would have the effect of possibly disrupting their adjaceny effects and also forcing your opponent to to play into rows that are under hazzard.

Treason: I will admit I have some times gotten good value (12+ point swing) out of this card but more often than not I usually regret putting this in my deck. I would estimate that I usually net about a 5-9 point swing when I play this card. I am not sure what the right fix is for this card is because I like the concept but this card needs work.

Cyprian Wiley: - Cyprian is not really a bad card but I wish he would reset and weaken a unit instead of just weaken a unit. I feel like he is more times than not inferior to Peter Sar Gwynleaf

Cards that are OP


Ciri Nova: I f*#&*ng hate this card. I think its lazy, requires very little deck design and gives you a 22 point drop for almost nothing. I refuse to craft one out of principle. At least with Olaf you have to earn your way to making him super buff. At the very least Ciri Nova should be boosted not strengthened.

Imlerith: Sabbath: My only complaint is that he kind of creates a stagnant board state if he gets buffed with a potion or has an adrenaline rush on him. Their are answers for him but it can be really demoralizing to play against him. My suggested nerf might be that you can only target Imlerith: Sabbath once with one of your own effects.


Things I would like to see change or bring back


Stop making every unit agile: I would suggest that Gwent go back to having units be row specific but with a slightly different twist. If you play a unit outside of its row it should get a -1 penatly to its power.

Make it so that when I right click a card I can see its base power. I have lost games because I could not remember the base statistics of units that are damaged or boosted.

Bekker's Twisted Mirror: bring back mirror to its original design of where it switched the power of the highest and lowest units out right. CDPR if your not going to nerf Ciri Nova at least make mirror awsome again so that I can make my opponents cry when they drop a 22 point Ciri Nova as their last card.

Ragh Nar Roog: Game wise the card is perfect as is I just wish you did not change the animation. I prefer'd the older animation of the asteroids hitting my opponents rows every turn.

Quen: Bring it back!! I miss that card.

Shield Maidens: They used to be awesome now they suck. I had all three art animations for them. I loved their war cry. Being that cards are a little more powerful now then when the game started I am hoping that CDPR will go back to the original design or something similar with Shield Maidens instead of them just being a three unit 9 drop.

 

[Khreygond]

I don't know why people think this game has ever had a ton of skill. Al the decks are easy to pilot.

Well, spies weren't. Still aren't. Now they take too long to gain power, though.

Nilfgaard in general has decks that are actually difficult to pilot, alchemy is a slight exception but even that has a bit more difficulty than other factions imo. Not to mention that alchemy in general sucks. Never had a problem facing it. Never could make it work when playing with it. Just like some people can't make deathwish work, I could never make Alchemy work

As for reveal, I assure you it may seem linear but it takes a lot of predicting, knowing what cards are in your deck, saving revealers for when you draw reveal targets, etc. It's not as difficult to play as spies but it actually is one of the hardest I've played to play efficiently with.

 

[Skybeatzz]

In every Season i played the Meta changed a bit and i think it will happen again. Its quite nice, cause that is changing up the style every time. But i also love to see and play againts a non-meta deck at rank 21 cause its always hard to figure out what is comming next

 

[StrykerxS77x]

Well, spies weren't. Still aren't. Now they take too long to gain power, though.

Nilfgaard in general has decks that are actually difficult to pilot, alchemy is a slight exception but even that has a bit more difficulty than other factions imo. Not to mention that alchemy in general sucks. Never had a problem facing it. Never could make it work when playing with it. Just like some people can't make deathwish work, I could never make Alchemy work

As for reveal, I assure you it may seem linear but it takes a lot of predicting, knowing what cards are in your deck, saving revealers for when you draw reveal targets, etc. It's not as difficult to play as spies but it actually is one of the hardest I've played to play efficiently with.

Some decks take a little learning or getting used to but skill isn't a word I would use for this game very much.

 

[Pruny]

Control decks require skill but these days not much to control braindead vomit point decks. I hate elvenscout
​https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=682E8ce9j0s

 

[G4merY]

Well, this is quite strange. I don't know why I tried like mad to get this Vernon Roche avatar couple seasons ago (Rank 20) and now almost everyone will get him for "free". I don't consider myself "elitist" or whatever and honestly I'm not against spreading rewards between more and more players but at least CDPR should make "former" Vernon Roche avatar special/different. Otherwise it's quite unfair.

Sounds like an elitist to me. :comeatmebro::victory:

 

[NomanPeopled]

It does devalue a reward if everybody gets it.
On the flip side, they are purely ornamental.