Solution on No Unit Decks

[Pounc3e]

- Second Edit: Amount of engines that remove in Gwent especially from Crimson Curse Expansion makes you wonder what is the need of Specials, as Engines can remove certain enemy unit(s). To move forward in the game, I personally think it is best we rid of Specials in its entirety BUT Artifact(s) can stay which they are not that much of a problem now or a slight better change for them in order to not play an entire deck of, or rely on just like Specials currently which is called "No Unit Deck". Engines are a better tool to remove things than that of Specials in this meta.

Edit: If this proves to be a problem for other things including most Artifact in Gwent then only allow Specials to be in a slot, and Artifact and units are free to slap in however many according to one's deck building.

In the deck builder have a slot that separate units and Specials/Artifact.

Example in this is Thronebreaker, as the deck builder in that requires only to have a few Specials and 1 Artifact, from this would allow you to switch (swap) according to the battles that you had faced/will face.

This is what Specials and Artifact are used for, to be of another alternative to deal with certain circumstances.

In Thronebreaker, I think the slot consist of 4 Specials and with 1 Artifact and no more.

Although, I would propose after further investigation that Specials in a slot should be no more than 3 and 1 Artifact in a deck, and rest are units. I say this because decks are maximum 25 so take away 4 and from the 4, includes 3 Specials and 1 Artifact giving you 21 available spaces left for including units.

 

[nedders]

There's a number of solutions. Not slots, per se, there could just be a cap on how many. No more than 6 per hands.

Or you change them so they're faction specific, like Eldain Traps; he's only got, what, 6 or so to pick at any one time? Do the same with artefacts - keep Petri's Filter only for Skellige, Thunderbolt for Northern Realms only, just divide it up and try to bring identity into it.

But the problem as I see it isn't the constant suggestion threads, it's whether CDPR are willing to listen. As far as I can guess, they have their hands full squeezing this game onto your iPhone and that's the only thing they're interested in right now.

 

[4RM3D]

Limiting the number of artifacts and specials in deckbuilder should never be done. It might be a solution to no unit decks, but it will make other things worse. As I have mentioned in the other thread, we need more creative decks and less homogeneous (net) decks. So, instead of lunging straight for the no unit problem, CDPR needs to take a step back and look for a proper solution.

BTW, no unit decks have suddenly become popular but it always was possible to play them. This only becomes an issue if those decks are tier 1. But they are not.

Also, as for your suggestion:

 

[Pounc3e]

Limiting the number of-??- -A-rtifact-s- and -S-pecials in deck builder should never be done. It might be a solution to no unit decks, but it will make other things worse. As I have mentioned in the other thread, we need more creative decks and less homogeneous (net) decks. So, instead of lunging straight for the no unit problem, CDPR needs to take a step back and look for a proper solution.

BTW, no unit decks have suddenly become popular but it always was possible to play them. This only becomes an issue if those decks are tier 1. But they are not.

Also, as for your suggestion:
View attachment 10998439

I agree, that is a fair approach, and certainly we do need more creative decks but a no unit deck - a creative deck is debatable.

Also, the Specialist achievement you mentioned afterwards about "win a game using 15 Special cards" This can be reworded and reworked with a Specialist achievement "win a game using at least 3 Special cards".

 

[Archan6el]

I don't like hard limits. People should be able to build what they want. I believe it is the inherent game mechanics that should make it impossible to create a viable deck with only artifacts and specials and one or two units. That is currently not the case.

Gwent should be about armies clashing, a battlefield and strategic play, so it needs focus and must center on units. We still want to play special cards, so how do we solve this? As I proposed and explained in the other thread, I believe we need tutors and/or as 4RM3D proposed, units that equip artifacts instead of spells and artifacts working by themselves.

Make it so that no spell or artifact can be played without an applicable tutor/carrier unit. This make sense, is much more interesting and aligned with the vision of a battle between armies. Artifacts can be only be played by "artifact carriers/users", who can play an artifact from the deck and/or hand. Spells can only be played by mages, sorcerers and the like, playing a spell from the deck and/or hand. Leaders may have similar abilities. Francesca for example may play any spell from the deck, making her focus on spells. This way:
1) Playing units is always needed for playing artifacts and spells (except when using leader) - yes, a real battle!
2) Creation of more and very specific archetypes is stimulated and more interesting units can be created.
3) There is more deck thinning and consistency, something that most players seem to want.
4) Playing artifacts and spells is based on the provision cost of an artifact or spell: For example, a bronze tutor/carrier unit can only use a bronze spell or artifact up to a specific provision cost.
5) For additional fine-tuning of balancing and creating very specific archtypes, it does seem a good idea of re-implementing bronze, silver and gold cards like they were in beta. A tutor's ability can then be very specifically balanced, like: "Play a bronze or silver spell/artifact up to 9 provisions from your deck".
6) Deck size can be enlarged (maybe 35 cards) to find a balance between tutoring and too much deck consistency. Enlarging deck size can reduce bricking your hand and can also be used to balance consistency.
7) Blacklisting in mulligans can be reintroduced (from beta) to help against bricking your hand and balance deck consistency, together with the deck size.

 

[Pounc3e]

I don't like hard limits. People should be able to build what they want. I believe it is the inherent game mechanics that should make it impossible to create a viable deck with only artifacts and specials and one or two units. That is currently not the case.

Gwent should be about armies clashing, a battlefield and strategic play, so it needs focus and must center on units. We still want to play special cards, so how do we solve this? As I proposed and explained in the other thread, I believe we need tutors and/or as 4RM3D proposed, units that equip artifacts instead of spells and artifacts working by themselves.

Make it so that no spell or artifact can be played without an applicable tutor/carrier unit. This make sense, is much more interesting and aligned with the vision of a battle between armies. Artifacts can be only be played by "artifact carriers/users", who can play an artifact from the deck and/or hand. Spells can only be played by mages, sorcerers and the like, playing a spell from the deck and/or hand. Leaders may have similar abilities. Francesca for example may play any spell from the deck, making her focus on spells. This way:
1) Playing units is always needed for playing artifacts and spells (except when using leader) - yes, a real battle!
2) Creation of more and very specific archetypes is stimulated and more interesting units can be created.
3) There is more deck thinning and consistency, something that most players seem to want.
4) Playing artifacts and spells is based on the provision cost of an artifact or spell: For example, a bronze tutor/carrier unit can only use a bronze spell or artifact up to a specific provision cost.
5) For additional fine-tuning of balancing and creating very specific archtypes, it does seem a good idea of re-implementing bronze, silver and gold cards like they were in beta. A tutor's ability can then be very specifically balanced, like: "Play a bronze or silver spell/artifact up to 9 provisions from your deck".
6) Deck size can be enlarged (maybe 35 cards) to find a balance between tutoring and too much deck consistency. Enlarging deck size can reduce bricking your hand and can also be used to balance consistency.
7) Blacklisting in mulligans can be reintroduced (from beta) to help against bricking your hand and balance deck consistency, together with the deck size.

So your solution is, return to the ways how it was in Beta Gwent... Seems Good. Though, this is bringing "Deja Vu" to mind of when Spells were actually played through tutors and lots of deck thinning - same cycle, repeat same mistakes just relive Beta Gwent and end of this Homecoming CC atrocity. Problem solved.

 

[Archan6el]

So your solution is, return to the ways how it was in Beta Gwent... Seems Good. Though, this is bringing "Deja Vu" to mind of when Spells were actually played through tutors and lots of deck thinning - same cycle, repeat same mistakes just relive Beta Gwent and end of this Homecoming atrocity. Problem solved.

It's really a mix of beta Gwent and HC. There was a lot of good stuff in beta Gwent that got unnecessarily discarded instead of build upon. It's very important that tutors are properly balanced. That is currently not so much the case, with tutors (including Francesca) having a huge variance: being able to play the cheapest bronze and the most expensive legendary specials. Provisions have so much potential for balancing the game and especially tutoring, even more when combined with some mechanics from beta Gwent (bronze, silver, gold cards) that would allow for further fine-tuning.

 

[Pounc3e]

It's really a mix of beta Gwent and HC. There was a lot of good stuff in beta Gwent that got unnecessarily discarded instead of build upon. It's very important that tutors are properly balanced. That is currently not so much the case, with tutors (including Francesca) having a huge variance: being able to play the cheapest bronze and the most expensive legendary specials. Provisions have so much potential for balancing the game and especially tutoring, even more when combined with some mechanics from beta Gwent (bronze, silver, gold cards) that would allow for further fine-tuning.

I agree, thoroughly understand now. However, the only part is this "Silver" cards which the whole sole purpose is to return to the root of lore and "Silver" cards are or were not part of Gwent in The Witcher Universe namely - (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt).

Let us keep to Bronze and Gold cards, this "Silver" you speak of is IRRELEVANT and in the past.

 

[nedders]

It's really a mix of beta Gwent and HC. There was a lot of good stuff in beta Gwent that got unnecessarily discarded instead of build upon. It's very important that tutors are properly balanced. That is currently not so much the case, with tutors (including Francesca) having a huge variance: being able to play the cheapest bronze and the most expensive legendary specials. Provisions have so much potential for balancing the game and especially tutoring, even more when combined with some mechanics from beta Gwent (bronze, silver, gold cards) that would allow for further fine-tuning.

Do you not think with the insane removal that changing to a kind of dynamic that NEEDS units would kill off artefacts entirely? Worse I think it would lead to every deck being removal, as the threat of allowing a unit on the board at the same time as an artefact would be very difficult so removing one is necessary.

I just don't think they work at all. As I said elsewhere, I think it would be a better idea to get rid of them all but incorporate their abilities into many of the 4 and 5 prov bronzes, increase the provs by a couple of points and have a wide and interesting array of bronze cards. If we went make the artefacts and weapons have an "equip" status, you would still have too much bronze filler, potentially bricked artefacts and even more reliance on the horrible reduced hand size deal dynamic. Imagine you want/need Sihil with Geralt for some kind of power boost? Possibly, but most of the game would need reworking as Geralt would have to "summon" Sihil, then presumably would have orders.

 

[Archan6el]

I agree, thoroughly understand now. However, the only part is this "Silver" cards which the whole sole purpose is to return to the root of lore and "Silver" cards are or were not part of Gwent in The Witcher Universe namely - (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt).

Let us keep to Bronze and Gold cards, this "Silver" you speak of is IRRELEVANT and in the past.

Sure, if provisions are enough for balancing, no problem. But we'll still have common, rare, epic and legendary cards, and I think it would make sense to enhance visual impact when such a card is played. Legendary cards now make much less of a visual impact. But that's another topic.

Do you not think with the insane removal that changing to a kind of dynamic that NEEDS units would kill off artefacts entirely? Worse I think it would lead to every deck being removal, as the threat of allowing a unit on the board at the same time as an artefact would be very difficult so removing one is necessary.

I just don't think they work at all. As I said elsewhere, I think it would be a better idea to get rid of them all but incorporate their abilities into many of the 4 and 5 prov bronzes, increase the provs by a couple of points and have a wide and interesting array of bronze cards. If we went make the artefacts and weapons have an "equip" status, you would still have too much bronze filler, potentially bricked artefacts and even more reliance on the horrible reduced hand size deal dynamic. Imagine you want/need Sihil with Geralt for some kind of power boost? Possibly, but most of the game would need reworking as Geralt would have to "summon" Sihil, then presumably would have orders.

Too much removal is a general problem that affects everything. If the removal is reduced, it will fix a lot of issues, including the concerns you brought up. Also, the tutor pulling a special or artifact should be a Deploy effect. Orders are creating problems as well, especially in combination with binary stuff, see no-unit decks. I can see your idea work, but then we would miss opportunities to create more options for interactions between tutors and different spells or artifacts and leaders interacting with specific cards in the deck (like Francesca pulling a spell instead of replaying it).

 

[OG.laloquaint]

Having a limit on specials would hurt the game a lot. There's some archetypes that benefit from having lots of special cards, like Tactics, for example. So if they're going to attempt anything, I say they'll make some cards more expensive.

In my opinion, they added way too many special cards with the update. One could already tell how this would affect the game. Hopefully next time we get more units instead.

 

[Hybridizati0nn]

I dislike the idea of artificially limiting the amount of certain type of cards a player can play in their deck. I also dislike the idea of adding tutors for the spells, because it didn't feel good in Beta Gwent. Although it could be more balanced through provisions, generally I see either tutors being too good or too bad to be played. In case they are too bad, it wouldn't solve anything, and if they are viable then it would results in excess thinning and bad feeling when you draw a special in your hand (as you would like to tutor it) and tutors bricking. Basically it would increase the prevalence of drawing the right hand / mulliganing (translating to some extent RNG being more prevalent). I'm generalizing a things little bit to explain things shorter, and things might not be as drastic as I'm depicting them but you get the point.

Instead I would like to think of a solution when it comes to costing hard removal in general. I think a lot of players agree that removal is too prevalent in the meta right now and limiting the decks that can be played, and somewhat a consensus in the player base is that it could be toned down. If pure (deploy) removal points were costed higher, it would also take effect in these specials. Basically it would lead to a situation that you don't want to run too many excess removal than necessary, because you'd be losing points compared to playing value cards. Translating to specials, running only removal specials thus (in theory) wouldn't be viable and in turn for a value special card to be played, you need a unit on the deck you can play them on (non-immune), so the other player could interact with this unit as well.

The only possible problem I see with this approach that if it is overdone, it could lead to players ignoring the opponents side of the board and playing their own game, but I think carefully (in iterations if needed) raising the provision cost of deploy removal could find the sweet spot of players not wanting (in most cases) to run mostly removal cards but wanting to run some removal cards to have the capability to strategically remove the opponents most intimidating cards.

 

[Iuliandrei]

Just rope them every single turn

 

[Guerreroymago]

The solution to a problem that does not exist.

 

[Hybridizati0nn]

The solution to a problem that does not exist.

At what rank do you play if you don't see this as a problem? Just asking because wondering whether this is focused more only on one end of the spectrum.

 

[Guerreroymago]

At what rank do you play if you don't see this as a problem? Just asking because wondering whether this is focused more only on one end of the spectrum.

Rank 3 actually.
Playing special card decks, I have already 20 days in this rank.
Is impossible for me to go up to rank two. All people knows to play, have cards to counter, and most have tier 1 or 2 decks.
Is very difficult to win. Some archetypes are impossible to win. If you are the first player 80/90% you lost the match. If you d´ont have the right cards you lose.

When you win looks very stronger, but the reality is another.

 

[Panos_Sigma]

IMO the problem with no unit decks isn't specials. Most of them are bad and very situational and the good ones are very expensive on provisions. Their combination with artifacts and the abuse of immune units is the problem with these kind of decks. With specials you have to gain some value instantly at the turn you're playing them. Artifacts like Summoning circle, tainted ale, thunderbolt and others, stay on the board and can get value whenever you want to play a unit (usually at last 2 turns). The solution for me with these decks is to either remove the immune mechanic from the game completely or (like in Thronebreaker) to have an upper limit of 2-3 artifacts per deck.

For my memey Eldain boy, the artifact tag of traps could be changed into ST only tactic cards. Trapping your enemy is a war tactic / strategy after all.

 

[C7Racehead]

I share the same stance as 4RMED and the majority of voters on this; CDPR should not attempt to sweep these types of decks under the rug by limiting the number of specials/artifacts in deck building. This is not a good long term solution as it does not promote variety nor does it solve the inherent problem.

I believe much ground can be gained by introducing 2 new cards:

1) a gold unit
Melee: Units on this row cannot be the target of specials
Ranged: Units on this row cannot be the target of damage inflicting units

2) a bronze artifact
Charges: 4 (or whatever amount is best based on provisions)
Give a unit a shield

 

[Restlessdingo32]

I picked the leave it alone option because most "problems" surrounding spell/artifact/special heavy decks aren't exclusive to them. So drawing the line in the sand at them, so to speak, feels out of place. More importantly, drawing such lines is a slippery slope likely to add additional problems to the mix.

With that said... I wouldn't be disappointed if immune disappeared from the game. Nor would it break my heart if artifacts went poof. The game played just fine when Promote got removed from the equation. It played just fine when the only non interactive cards were specials. It never needed convoluted concepts or these type of additions to have depth. Perhaps those areas are a different topic altogether but it certainly ties into issues surrounding "no unit" builds. That view may not appeal to the masses but, meh....

 

[4RM3D]

Just rope them every single turn

Besides being unsportsmanlike and wasting your own time such behavior can result in a ban.