Right now, having lost what might have been an interesting match by believing the wording on a Gwent card, I am frustrated and wish to make a simple request of CDPR: please fix and be careful of wording on cards. I can name numerous cases where the wording is incomplete, unclear, misleading, and/or inconsistent. I do not claim this to be even approaching a complete list, but here are some problems I have encountered:
1. Wording inadequate to describe a card. Some examples: the description of Knickers gives almost no information on how the card works — and how this card works can definitely impact game decisions. Mandrake used to have a description that was complete and clear — if I hadn’t been around since before the change, I would have no idea what “reset” encompasses. Resilence should explicitly state that damage and statuses other than resilence are carried over.
2. Ambiguous wording. Many cards refer to highest or lowest without clearly specifying the trait that must be highest or lowest. For example, marching orders does not indicate whether the trait is power or provisions.
3. Timing of effects. Sometimes the order in which multiple effects occur is important; but it is never clear in card’s wording. For example Mardrome does not trigger berserk because the boost is computed before the berserk condition is checked. It is consistent to have entire effects triggered before looking for triggered effects, but is counterintuitive to beginning players. Another example of this is when Blueboy is destroyed by damage, no damage is done to a random enemy unit (Blueboy is removed before the random ping is triggered). When Artis damages a card by “half its current value”, current includes deploy effects.
4. Vacuous actions with and/then wording. Ok, and should mean that both effects occur, even if the first is impossible. Then means the second effect should occur only if the first occurs. But descriptions are unclear (and the game is even inconsistent) as to what constitutes an action occurring. If the first part of a then condition involves applying a status, it counts even when the status is “applied” to a veiled unit and hence has no effect. Ok, this is consistent, but should be clearly stated so players know. But what about other kinds of actions? If you discard from an empty hand, this (as is intuitive) does not count as filling the first condition. If you “draw” to a full hand, it does. And if you draw from an empty deck, it also fills the first condition. But if you do certain other things to an empty deck, it does not count. So I played viper witcher alchemist when my deck was empty — I did not get the top card from my opponent’s deck, and that is reasonable. Later, I played Vicovaro Novice with the same empty deck and was forced to move a card from my hand to the deck. This is not consistent.
I understand the game is complex. I understand card descriptions have to be fairly brief or they become hard to use in game. But not knowing what to expect from a card eliminates all elements of strategy — I may as well play blindfolded. I think CDPR has missed the mark on multiple cards.
1. Wording inadequate to describe a card. Some examples: the description of Knickers gives almost no information on how the card works — and how this card works can definitely impact game decisions. Mandrake used to have a description that was complete and clear — if I hadn’t been around since before the change, I would have no idea what “reset” encompasses. Resilence should explicitly state that damage and statuses other than resilence are carried over.
2. Ambiguous wording. Many cards refer to highest or lowest without clearly specifying the trait that must be highest or lowest. For example, marching orders does not indicate whether the trait is power or provisions.
3. Timing of effects. Sometimes the order in which multiple effects occur is important; but it is never clear in card’s wording. For example Mardrome does not trigger berserk because the boost is computed before the berserk condition is checked. It is consistent to have entire effects triggered before looking for triggered effects, but is counterintuitive to beginning players. Another example of this is when Blueboy is destroyed by damage, no damage is done to a random enemy unit (Blueboy is removed before the random ping is triggered). When Artis damages a card by “half its current value”, current includes deploy effects.
4. Vacuous actions with and/then wording. Ok, and should mean that both effects occur, even if the first is impossible. Then means the second effect should occur only if the first occurs. But descriptions are unclear (and the game is even inconsistent) as to what constitutes an action occurring. If the first part of a then condition involves applying a status, it counts even when the status is “applied” to a veiled unit and hence has no effect. Ok, this is consistent, but should be clearly stated so players know. But what about other kinds of actions? If you discard from an empty hand, this (as is intuitive) does not count as filling the first condition. If you “draw” to a full hand, it does. And if you draw from an empty deck, it also fills the first condition. But if you do certain other things to an empty deck, it does not count. So I played viper witcher alchemist when my deck was empty — I did not get the top card from my opponent’s deck, and that is reasonable. Later, I played Vicovaro Novice with the same empty deck and was forced to move a card from my hand to the deck. This is not consistent.
I understand the game is complex. I understand card descriptions have to be fairly brief or they become hard to use in game. But not knowing what to expect from a card eliminates all elements of strategy — I may as well play blindfolded. I think CDPR has missed the mark on multiple cards.