Sheldon Skaggs

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I would prefer to change Skaggs to deal 3 damage, 5 if boosted instead. It removes the high variance of the card and makes him a good value removal. Raising his provisions and lowering his strength means he is a risky card and depends on good draw to get value. He did cost 9 provisions and had 2 strength in the beggining of HC and nobody took him.

Ohh, that's interesting.. I don't think the 5 damage idea is good. That's just not very good value. 8 for 8 is not a special card. It would not be what I would want for ST, and I don't even play ST.

Perhaps the supporting cards were not good enough when he was 9-2?

I dunno, I haven't played Skaggs, so I don't know how difficult he is to build, but my imagination says it's about the same difficulty vs value as Hubert Rijk.

Fully agree with Gyg. Sheldon is another high variance card, especially as the handbuff value gets doubled through the damage he does. High variance does not belong in a strategy game and I believe that's the root cause why several people don't like this card.
As solution, don't touch his provisions, but limit his variance. Let him do a max of 5 damage when buffed to 5 or higher. This makes him a 10 pointer for 8 provisions, or 8 pointer with 5 damage for 8 provisions when subtracting the 2 point buff from for example the Dwarven Agitator. That is balanced.

I think the reason people do not like this card is because it can do too much damage to large cards and it feels bad. But you (I also) did not really consider what it took to build it up, and the luck of timing etc that he could actually damage the large card you put out.

If he is buffed by another card it does not make Skeldon a 10 pointer for 8 provisions if he is facevalue 3 (boosted to 5 by ANOTHER card) and does 5 damage. That's 8 value for 8 provision. The other 2 is the value of another card actually.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
I am very interested in knowing the opinion of all the players who want to have Sheldon doing fixed damage to reduce high variance about the following cards:
1) Ulfheddin - He can be worth anything from 2 to 10 or even 15 or 20 in crazy Aglais cases (Now if you say it he doesn't always get high point card to target, it is the same case for Sheldon too. We are only discussing about the high variance part of these cards)
2) Hjalmar - He can be worth any where from 5-6 to 15 depending upon which cards were discarded and he having a valid target. And he can adjust his damage based on the need too. And he is played 100% of the time. When was the last time you didn't see him destroy your crucial card the next moment you played your card? If it is having more than 8 points, Jutta is used or the 8 power guy is used. 100% of the time.
3) Peter - Extremely high variance. He can get much much more value than 10 Power Sheldon or worth less than 5 or 6 points to.
4) Shilard - He can be worth 4+3 (4 point unit in hand), or 4+11 (Speartip) or even 4+20 (11 point Sheldon at hand)
5) Vincent - He can be worth just 2 points or even 13 points
And of course Geralt and Leo who can be worth huge or just 3 points. High variance of Sheldon is debatable and every possible point has been debated to death here. When facing NG, you can't use him. Period. He is denied by Shilard. In the most favorable match, he is worth a lot because of the carry over and low tempo plays early in the game.
 
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Gyg

Forum regular
And here we touch the core of the problem - high variance cards in Gwent. Are we ok with them or not?
 
but fact that low-ranked unexpirienced players pushing devs to nerf good, well-designed balanced cards

I'm not really on the side of nerfing the card yet but what you said there is assumptions. Sheldon is overplayed right now. It could be because he is too good or it could be the state of all of the cards and meta right now. Maybe ST just doesn't have enough good cards.
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That is another manipulative claim. I was checking 8 provision cards and in fact about 80% of golden 8 provision cards is able to give better value than very little boosted Sheldon Skaggs.

Would you care to list all of the 8 prov cards that can give more than 10 value? Just curious since I can't check myself right now.
 
Would you care to list all of the 8 prov cards that can give more than 10 value?
I could have done it this way right away, when I wrote my post and it was even my original intention, but when I noticed, there is majority of such cards, which could give even or better value than little boosted Sheldon Skaggs, I resigned from that intention, because it would have been really lots of work and it would bring me nothing.

If you really want, we can do it that way... You will make list of all 8 provisions golden cards and I will tell which ones of them can not fulfil such claim, which will mean, rest of listed cards will be able to provide such result (beware, it will be pretty long list).
 
I am very interesting in knowing the opinion of all the players who want to have Sheldon doing fixed damage to reduce high variance about the following cards:
1) Ulfheddin - He can be worth anything from 2 to 10 or even 15 or 20 in crazy Aglais cases (Now if you say it he doesn't always get high point card to target, it is the same case for Sheldon too. We are only discussing about the high variance part of these cards)
2) Hjalmar - He can be worth any where from 5-6 to 15 depending upon which cards were discarded and he having a valid target. And he can adjust his damage based on the need too. And he is played 100% of the time. When was the last time you didn't see him destroy your crucial card the next moment you played your card? If it is having more than 8 points, Jutta is used or the 8 power guy is used. 100% of the time.
3) Peter - Extremely high variance. He can get much much more value than 10 Power Sheldon or worth less than 5 or 6 points to.
4) Shilard - He can be worth 4+3 (4 point unit in hand), or 4+11 (Speartip) or even 4+20 (11 point Sheldon at hand)
5) Vincent - He can be worth just 2 points or even 13 points
And of course Geralt and Leo who can be worth huge or just 3 points. High variance of Sheldon is debatable and every possible point has been debated to death here. When facing NG, you can't use him. Period. He is denied by Shilard. In the most favorable match, he is worth a lot because of the carry over and low tempo plays early in the game.

Gold cards are suppose to be special with variance. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't.
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And here we touch the core of the problem - high variance cards in Gwent. Are we ok with them or not?

High variance is essential to the game. Some risk/reward moves on gold cards is a good thing. Some cards just do simple things, others do more. Many cards have alot of variance. Just look at Northern Realms boosting cards or charge cards as an example. They can have absolutely ridiculous value, but they can also fail and be worth very little.

Without that risk/reward aspect, the game would be alot less interesting. Sheldon or Hubert is just part of a large group of such cards. I personally bring Geralt Yrden and Leo in my deck. Do they always pay off their provisions? No way. Alot of cards are like that.
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I'm not really on the side of nerfing the card yet but what you said there is assumptions. Sheldon is overplayed right now. It could be because he is too good or it could be the state of all of the cards and meta right now. Maybe ST just doesn't have enough good cards.

Nah, personally I think Sheldon is popular post-crimson, due to the more powerful set of hand-boosting ST cards after the release of the new card package. I don't think bumping him to 9 provisions and 2 face value would decrease the use back to what people said was almost no use at all at game release.
 
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I could have done it this way right away, when I wrote my post and it was even my original intention, but when I noticed, there is majority of such cards, which could give even or better value than little boosted Sheldon Skaggs, I resigned from that intention, because it would have been really lots of work and it would bring me nothing.

If you really want, we can do it that way... You will make list of all 8 provisions golden cards and I will tell which ones of them can not fulfil such claim, which will mean, rest of listed cards will be able to provide such result (beware, it will be pretty long list).

I'll just take a look when I'm online.

It takes one agitator for Sheldon to be just as good or better than any other 8 provision card? That doesn't sound like an argument claiming he is fine.
 
And here we touch the core of the problem - high variance cards in Gwent. Are we ok with them or not?
The root cause, nice work and list rrc. Of course these cards are not ok. They are all high variance, either inherently or through RNG. As a fundamental principle, high variance cards do not belong in a strategy game. Their abilities should we well defined, and the cards should be balanced with a quite consistent value : provision ratio. I think that would also reduce the rock - paper - scissors deck match up problems. Playing the cards at the best time, in the best order and in the best combination with other cards (yes, strategically!) should be the key to winning this strategy game and not some high variance and RNG nonsense.
 
I'll just take a look when I'm online.

It takes one agitator for Sheldon to be just as good or better than any other 8 provision card? That doesn't sound like an argument claiming he is fine.

That's the value of the agitator adding up on the Sheldon card, not Sheldon himself. It's not Sheldon who boost himself. So 5 damage if boosted above 3 would still be 8 for 8, where the other "value" comes from some other card.
 
I'll just take a look when I'm online.

It takes one agitator for Sheldon to be just as good or better than any other 8 provision card? That doesn't sound like an argument claiming he is fine.
And you again didnt count playing 2 power agitator card.
Those 25 rank ppl with their "valuable" opinion just enrages me.
 
The root cause, nice work and list rrc. Of course these cards are not ok. They are all high variance, either inherently or through RNG. As a fundamental principle, high variance cards do not belong in a strategy game. Their abilities should we well defined, and the cards should be balanced with a quite consistent value : provision ratio. I think that would also reduce the rock - paper - scissors deck match up problems. Playing the cards at the best time, in the best order and in the best combination with other cards (yes, strategically!) should be the key to winning this strategy game and not some high variance and RNG nonsense.

It's a card game!!!! Not a strategy game. As it is now, I feel Gwent is alot more down to skill than luck. It's a skill based game with card elements of luck and randomness. This is not a problem, all card games are skill/luck. Most other card games are more luck than skills though, Gwent is the opposite.

Randomness and high variance should NOT be changed, and it is not the solution to unbalanced factions and cards.

The solution is for CRPR to stop developing new stuff, and take a good look at every single faction and every single card and adjust the provisions of each card, and tweak cards properly to make faction balance and powers great, and make each card as equally viable as possible. Now some cards are way overpowered, while others are barely used. Why is this? Because some cards provide way too much value and/or are too good, while others are just not good enough or does not provide enough value.

Same goes for factions. ST was adjusted to be more competitive, but still SK and MO are the "best" decks. This leads one to think that both Nilfgaard and Northern Realms are underpowered factions and need to be rebalanced to become better.

Alot of cards are fairly balanced, some are bad value and some are good value, some have high variance and randomness. The bad and the good value is the issue, not randomness. With variance, you need to have a provision and "value" that matches the "average", not the high, and not the low. Hubert was adjusted from 7 provisions to 8 provisions, which I thought was good. 7 was just too much value. Hubert and Sheldon seems to be a debate to perhaps fine tune those cards to hit that perfect "average" value and risk/reward.

I think there are alot of cards that are more important to adjust. Take the 50% of available cards that are almost never used. Obviously they are either too expensive (provisions) or they are not well balanced and/or useful enough. Some cards are overly specialized and only work in a few circumstances.

CDPR need to look at every single card and fine tune the whole game, not remove what bit of randomness and variance there is, it's a cardgame afterall.
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And you again didnt count playing 2 power agitator card.
Those 25 rank ppl with their "valuable" opinion just enrages me.

Perhaps you should be less rude and more respectful then. He might not be the highest ranked or an expert, but he is a player, and his opinion is just as valuable as yours. This is why I actually gave him a special thanks, because I appreciated his straightforwardness and his opinion. He did not come here under the pretense of being an expert or the "best", and he was not arrogant, which is more than can be said about everyone on this forum.
 
As a fundamental principle, high variance cards do not belong in a strategy game. Their abilities should we well defined, and the cards should be balanced with a quite consistent value : provision ratio.

No. All CCG need variance to thrive. Like with RNG, some of it is good, other parts, less so. The whole point is playing a card at the best possibly time to gain maximum value. All engine cards have variance by definition. Regis: BL also has variance, quite a lot of it. It only matters whether or not the variance can be controlled or countered. For Sheldon, both applies. However, something like Kambi doesn't follow this principle. You simply do not know whether or not the opponent uses Kambi, unlike with Sheldon, and it's very difficult to play around. One last example, Anna is high variance and RNG, but it's still well-designed.
 
No. All CCG need variance to thrive. Like with RNG, some of it is good, other parts, less so.

This is in my opinion a very good thing. Essential to the game. It would be a much lesser game without some variance.
 
That's the value of the agitator adding up on the Sheldon card, not Sheldon himself. It's not Sheldon who boost himself. So 5 damage if boosted above 3 would still be 8 for 8, where the other "value" comes from some other card.

The value is also given from Sheldon himself that takes the value given and doubles it with removal value.
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And you again didnt count playing 2 power agitator card.
Those 25 rank ppl with their "valuable" opinion just enrages me.

How exactly do you so confidently make these assumptions? I find it so odd. FYI I am literally one game away from pro rank right now.

You may think my opinion is based on nothing but you would be extremely wrong. I have multiple SC handbuff decks that I am maining right now. It is very easy to buff Sheldon with agitators and not get screwed. I don't even care about winning the first round most of the time. I can drop an agitator or two there and it's no big deal. Or in most cases I drop them in round 2 just to get to 7 cards so they are free carry over points that add up HUGE in the last round.

Try talking to people before making such strange accusations. It's the adult way to converse. Oh and if credentials is so important to you then maybe we can compare who has been playing this game longer?
 
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It's a card game!!!! Not a strategy game.
You're wrong here. It's supposed to be a strategic, skill-based card game. Check the Gwent website and dev streams.
I specifically chose to write "quite consistent value : provision ratio", not completely consistent. Some variance is needed, but needs to be reduced to make strategic play matter a lot more than variance or RNG.
 
You're wrong here. It's supposed to be a strategic, skill-based card game.

And that is just exactly what it is as well. I don't see your problem.

I specifically chose to write "quite consistent value : provision ratio", not completely consistent. Some variance is needed, but needs to be reduced to make strategic play matter a lot more than variance or RNG.

Part of being a card game IS having variance and randomness.

Sadly the software piece for randomness in this game is not working as it should. I've discussed this extensively in another thread:
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...well-look-at-what-random-unit-means.10989859/
 

Gyg

Forum regular
Nah, personally I think Sheldon is popular post-crimson, due to the more powerful set of hand-boosting ST cards after the release of the new card package. I don't think bumping him to 9 provisions and 2 face value would decrease the use back to what people said was almost no use at all at game release.
Crimson Curse added a single handbuffing card - Sirssa. With strength 2 and 9 provisions you would need to buff him by +5 to get good value.
To address other thing - by high variance cards I meant cards with on deploy ability - engines can generate many points but opponent can counter them before they generate too many points.
 
The value is also given from Sheldon himself that takes the value given and doubles it with removal value.

Yes, now it is, but I'm talking about the suggestion to change the card to "if boosted, damage by 5". That would make the card an 8 for 8 with no variance at all. Any additional value from boost would be value added by ANOTHER card.
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Crimson Curse added a single handbuffing card - Sirssa. With strength 2 and 9 provisions you would need to buff him by +5 to get good value.
To address other thing - by high variance cards I meant cards with on deploy ability - engines can generate many points but opponent can counter them before they generate too many points.

My bad. I get what you are saying, I just made a poor answer.

I was actually thinking about a card I often use, Tibor Eggerbracht, when thinking about variance. Or even Imperial Golem. I don't play ST and/or Skaggs, but I guess alike with Tibor and Golem there are things you can do to negate the risks and increase the rewards likeliness of variance and/or randomness. At least I can with both those cards.
 
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