State of the Game is Terrible

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Honestly, I'm considering quitting the game at this point. Every deck that I face (which is just Discard Skellige and various Gernichora decks) use the same cards. "Just build a deck to counter them!" That's easier said than done honestly. You could try running Xavier to counter Lippy and other large Monster cards but what's the point? Almost every move they make is 6 - 8 points. Yeah whatever this is a rant, but I'm honestly so tired and annoyed at the moment. I cannot win one match. I don't care about my rank but seriously, it doesn't matter if I play Casual or Ranked. I am not enjoying the game whatsoever anymore. Every deck that I make simply cannot keep up with every other shitty meta deck that EVERYONE copies or runs a variation of. I love the game and it can be fun but there's a clear difference in tempo between NR/ST/NG vs. MO/SK. How am I supposed to keep up with them when they can put down almost 20 points in two plays without using the same cards as them? It's literally impossible. Neutral cards should support the deck you make not have them be auto-include in every deck, that's just not healthy for the game. Don't even get me started on the insane amount of removal that is in the game which basically makes any engine-based deck absolutely worthless.

Sorry for the rant, to those that are enjoying the game, good for you. I'm simply not having fun anymore. I can see myself quitting this game soon even though I've been supporting it since Closed Beta. Although the expansion seems great on paper, how will it actually affect the game? I hope it makes it enjoyable for me again.
 
Hello @OG.laloquaint, I very much understand you and you have very valid points in your post, but, please, let me add my point of view to it.

Every deck that I face (which is just Discard Skellige and various Gernichora decks) use the same cards.
There are definitely more decks, however in my opinion, Skellige decks and Monster decks are being played so often, because they are so powerful. I do not like Skellige (personal reasons), however I play even them sometimes, because of contracts. Regarding Gernichora, it is a bit unfair right now, because there is "faction week" as result of faction challenge and it is very natural to face many Gernichoras. I can honestly tell you, before this week, I did not play even one game with Gernichora and I made deck only because of faction week, to get extra experience, so I can unlock perks faster. Please, bear with Gernichora presence few days more, as there will end faction week and things sould probably change after that.

Every deck that I make simply cannot keep up with every other shitty meta deck that EVERYONE copies or runs a variation of.
It is very unfortunate and so called "netdecking" is hurting card games very much. However, it is not just problem of Gwent, you can face it in all other card games of this type. It is even more unfortunate, that developers now support netdecking through newly introduced tool for netdecking, so you can expect it becoming even worse. However point is, if you like card games, changing to other card game will not help you, you will highly probably face netdecking there too. There are only 2 options, quit playing card games at all or simply keep playing card games even with its fault, depends how much you like card games.

I love the game and it can be fun but there's a clear difference in tempo between NR/ST/NG vs. MO/SK.
I fully agree with you. I do not understand, what developers are doing. I remember how they were hastily coming to "save game" when Scoia'tael had its 5 minutes of glory at start of game release (coming out of beta) and leveled it to the ground, but they tolerate Skellige and Monsters for months, without any significant action. However it could have been even worse. When there are 2 strong factions, they hurt each other a bit. If there would have been only one dominant faction, it would probably felt even worse.

Don't even get me started on the insane amount of removal that is in the game which basically makes any engine-based deck absolutely worthless.
I understand your point, but certain amount of removal is also needed. I think, single target removal is definitely healthy thing for the game, in my opinion, problem is mostly with mass removal. At example Regis ...

Although the expansion seems great on paper, how will it actually affect the game? I hope it makes it enjoyable for me again.
I do not know, I am afraid of certain cards from new expansion, but generally, it will increase card pool, so it should bring more variety to the game. I have kind of mixed feelings about expansion.

I wish you to find joy in playing Gwent again, if you like this type of game. In my opinion, searching elsewhere for different card game could bring you a little different experience, however I think, that you will face similar problems in other card games too. I think, Gwent could be improved if there would not have been faction weeks as they are now, because they are polarizing game environment even more, than not while they should rather bring more diversification to encourage players to experiment, to play something, what they do not usually play, which leads to wider variety in matches. There has already been suggestion of "underdog week" instead of faction week presented months ago by @4RM3D, however developers are probably not interested in it. :(
 

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The card expansion is right around the corner OP, if this doesn't tweak what are common decks atm my mind will be blown.

That being said I do kind of want Gerni nerfed a small tad. Maybe provisions or something, she seems to have too much tempo.

Bran + Coral is rough but they have a bad time if you win round 1. Maybe they will tweak Coral again but I am not sure what they could do for her at this point, make provisions cost +1 perhaps? Either way, I don't find this deck THAT oppressive as they seem to almost always be the same deck to a T which means you can predict almost every single move they do. Due to that I've won when I shouldn't because the opponent doesn't know my deck on the flip side so they guess when to use what few targeted damage they have.
 
[...] and if others feel the same way then it must be a problem, no?
Not necessarily, there are always people which complain, no matter how you balance the game.
If the game is too balanced people will start complaining about the remotest difference in card power and once the last of that disappears they complain that the game lost every last bit of depth and is actually auto-play, given that no matter what you do it has to net the same results [nope]
I am not saying that is the case right now, however your "argument" is contradictory and not disproving what Melysan said in the slightest.
 
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Not necessarily, there are always people which complain, no matter how you balance the game.

These ppl complain for the sakes the game isn't balanced. The wrong cards got nerved since the devs are easily influenced by complaining for example about Hubert on the forums. Keep changing the wrong cards and Gwent will brick itself.
 
Not necessarily, there are always people which complain, no matter how you balance the game.

These ppl complain for the sakes the game isn't balanced.
[...]
Not necessarily, my point is that even if the game well balanced, as long as there are even slight differences and not all decks are tier 1 there will be people which will complain.
Also my point is that after that people will complain that the game is too balanced, in fact it is impossible to reach a state in which not a single person complains.

[...]
The wrong cards got nerved since the devs are easily influenced by complaining for example about Hubert on the forums. Keep changing the wrong cards and Gwent will brick itself.
I disagree on Hubert not being supposed to change, keeping 1 completely unbalanced card in a faction limits the entire faction to it and I am not saying it should not be able to reach an absurd amount of points, my argument is the same as for the Archespore nerf, a card should not be uncounterable.
And if you counter every single engine with removal Hubert should not be able to still reach more points than his provision cost.
An entire faction to be completely forced on a single card, given that it is imbalanced to the point of not allowing the average power on the other cards limits design and turns the game stale and boring.
 
The state of the game seems fine to me as it gets but I know what you mean.
Seeing the same decks over and over again is pretty boring. One of the reason is the small card pool which will increase a lot with the upcoming expansion.

The other thing is that many players are just copying decks. Unfortunately you have this kind of netdecking in almost every online card game. It's not a fault of the game per se.
 
Not necessarily, there are always people which complain, no matter how you balance the game.
If the game is too balanced people will start complaining about the remotest difference in card power and once the last of that disappears they complain that the game lost every last bit of depth and is actually auto-play, given that no matter what you do it has to net the same results (this is also one of the reasons why communism does not work).
I am not saying that is the case right now, however your "argument" is contradictory and not disproving what Melysan said in the slightest.

I'm not here to argue about anything. I'm not complaining for the sake of complaining. I'm not trying to disprove anyone or anything, it's literally just my opinion.

Btw, what does communism have to do with a card game? (Don't answer this, i just think it's a dumb comparison.)
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So which is the underdog right now? Scoia'tael?

ST is overall crap actually, except for movement + row effects, which is keeping the faction afloat, I'd say.
 
This isn't a Hubert discussion but just quick, if you break all the engines and Sabrina then Hubert won't boost at all. Playing him as last card with a boost of around 10-15 is cheesy and cheap as hell. My deck where Hubert can become over 40 (even when you make his power 1) doesn't rely on Huberts boost alone and can win without him as well, doing about 40 damage in one round. Changing his provisions will weaken the entire deck though. Gotta change cards then and add lesser important cards.
 
I'm not here to argue about anything. I'm not complaining for the sake of complaining. I'm not trying to disprove anyone or anything, it's literally just my opinion.
[...]
That was not directed at you, all I was saying was that already in theory is impossible for people to stop complaining.
You have every right to complain if you feel like it and/or it helps you, after all that is also what a forum is for, given that sometimes stress can only be relieved by talking about it.
Someone said people complaining would be enough of a proof that something hs to be wrong and my entire point is that that conclusion is wrong.

[...]
Btw, what does communism have to do with a card game? (Don't answer this, i just think it's a dumb comparison.)
[...]
The answer is simple and short, it is an example for the above argument to proof wrong.
Maybe it as not the most fitting comparison, however it merely an example I assume we can all agree on.
 
Does anybody else think that there should be a very small amount of cards that can be used for "removal"? I mean, they reduced all the STR of the cards, so why didn't they make it so damage was harder to dish out? You can remove a lot of decent cards with a crap bronze. I like having provisos in place, such as bloodlust, but if they just made it so you knew most cards had a good chance of getting one round of use it'd be really helpful.

That's why I really enjoy Arnjolf. I've fairly easily got to L3 with a Monster deck, but it becomes dull. Anjolf isn't about removing cards - you need oppo cards on the board to incite bloodlust and get the benefits. More decks should be like that; do more damage if there's more oppo cards, boost greater if there's more oppo cards, do nothing if the other side is empty, etc.

The game should regularly be about each player having 6+ cards on the board, and staying on the board. Removal should be really costly, not 9 provs or less. Genuinely think that could save the game. Just nerf every cards' damage by 50%.
 
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The game should regularly be about each player having 6+ cards on the board, and staying on the board. Removal should be really costly, not 9 provs or less. Genuinely think that could save the game. Just nerf every cards' damage by 50%.
At that point removal is unplayable and engines would be undisputed, the one to just slam more engines and greedier engines just wins the round.
Foltest Pride would immediately be a tier 1 or even .9 or something like that deck.
At this point the game is balanced with the potential removal in mind, without it people would either have to spam lock (which means only NG can afford to even attempt control) and Ale will just make that an awful trade and be in every engine deck.
If you have a triangle and just crush one of the sides you cannot be surprised the entire balances crashes and we would likely see a tier 0.5 deck or something like that.
For all complaining that almost 50% of the matchups would be Gernichora, imagine 95% against the same engine slam deck.
 
At that point removal is unplayable and engines would be undisputed, the one to just slam more engines and greedier engines just wins the round.
Foltest Pride would immediately be a tier 1 or even .9 or something like that deck.
At this point the game is balanced with the potential removal in mind, without it people would either have to spam lock (which means only NG can afford to even attempt control) and Ale will just make that an awful trade and be in every engine deck.
If you have a triangle and just crush one of the sides you cannot be surprised the entire balances crashes and we would likely see a tier 0.5 deck or something like that.
For all complaining that almost 50% of the matchups would be Gernichora, imagine 95% against the same engine slam deck.

Then save your removal/lock for the Foltest Pride or whatever other card you think your opponent is relying on. Problem solved.

Control is about disruption, not removing/locking every single card your opponent is playing.
 
At that point removal is unplayable and engines would be undisputed, the one to just slam more engines and greedier engines just wins the round.
Foltest Pride would immediately be a tier 1 or even .9 or something like that deck.
At this point the game is balanced with the potential removal in mind, without it people would either have to spam lock (which means only NG can afford to even attempt control) and Ale will just make that an awful trade and be in every engine deck.
If you have a triangle and just crush one of the sides you cannot be surprised the entire balances crashes and we would likely see a tier 0.5 deck or something like that.
For all complaining that almost 50% of the matchups would be Gernichora, imagine 95% against the same engine slam deck.

Sure, I meant that as well as removal being tweaked down, so all engines could have order, and have to wait a turn to act. It's just about slowing things down a touch, let cards be played and more possibilities play out. If every bronze NR card could only perform its' actions every OTHER turn, like Sihil, then it balances it up.
 
At that point removal is unplayable and engines would be undisputed, the one to just slam more engines and greedier engines just wins the round.
Foltest Pride would immediately be a tier 1 or even .9 or something like that deck.
At this point the game is balanced with the potential removal in mind, without it people would either have to spam lock (which means only NG can afford to even attempt control) and Ale will just make that an awful trade and be in every engine deck.
If you have a triangle and just crush one of the sides you cannot be surprised the entire balances crashes and we would likely see a tier 0.5 deck or something like that.
For all complaining that almost 50% of the matchups would be Gernichora, imagine 95% against the same engine slam deck.

I have to disagree.

There are two types of negative interactions: direct and indirect.
Direct negative interaction means that if an opponent play THREAT A, I can play HERO A to remove it. Completely.
Indirect negative interaction means that I don't remove directly the threat of my opponent, but I (indirectly!) build a strategy that will make the threat not a threat anymore.

Let's make an example in Gwent Beta:

Opponent's play Archeospore [At the end of your turn, damage a random enemy by 1]

Direct negative interaction:
I play Alzur's Thunder and remove it from the field.
No development for anybody here.

Indirect negative interaction:
I play Mahakam Marauder [Whenever this unit's power changes, boost it by 2]
Suddenly I inderectly answered my opponent, and a board is developed for both players, leading to future interesting strategic choices.

Other ways of Indirectly interact with opponents are (or should be?):
- messing up with their engines/triggers/timers with your spies play and positioning (remember disrupting old Longsword-Light-longship combo?)
- aligning units for scorch-like effects
- Indirect removal through multiple low area-damaging effects, ecc.

I think that targeted removal is not healthy for the game if it is too cheap (as it is right now), leading to the boring gameplay: play an engine>remove an engine>repeat.
But the fault is multiple: there are also:
- lack of timer effects that support engines
- lack of interesting engines that affects cards other than themselves
- order effects are tactically better than other engine, because they do not waste any points and allow for stacking effects and removal optimization.

There is a lot more, but I'm trying to reach 10 messages to post a 35 pages analysis on this topic... long way ahahahah
 
Sure, I meant that as well as removal being tweaked down, so all engines could have order, and have to wait a turn to act. It's just about slowing things down a touch, let cards be played and more possibilities play out. If every bronze NR card could only perform its' actions every OTHER turn, like Sihil, then it balances it up.
You know, I would be willing to accept that if the cardpool would be rebalanced around that idea, however without that you would just break the entire balance and make Gwent less balanced than ever before.
Then save your removal/lock for the Foltest Pride or whatever other card you think your opponent is relying on. Problem solved.

Control is about disruption, not removing/locking every single card your opponent is playing.
No, control is about playing cards intended to answer high risk, high reward cards in an opportune way.
It is not only Foltest Pride, which would be broken beyond words, it would be every engine that can significantly break their provision cost.
Cards like Aretuza Adept and Demavend would be tier 0.5, given that the entire game would work around mindlessly slaming engines without any worries and the one to be the greediest wins, in that case it would be Demavend.
You can deny it, however the game is balanced in a fine way around engines, based on the premises they made, the Crimson Curse will introduce more cards to help fine tune that for now, however the idea of breaking the triangle in the game is just a short sighted idea.

I have to disagree.

There are two types of negative interactions: direct and indirect.
Direct negative interaction means that if an opponent play THREAT A, I can play HERO A to remove it. Completely.
Indirect negative interaction means that I don't remove directly the threat of my opponent, but I (indirectly!) build a strategy that will make the threat not a threat anymore.

Let's make an example in Gwent Beta:
[...]
In the pre-homecoming version of Gwent control was just a meme and engines were balanced around "tempo", which was toned down to oblivion in homecoming, you should not pretend that not to be what kept engines in check.


And by the way, engine overload already works, not to mention that Avallac'h exists in case you really want to have a fragile unit like Vysagota be uninteractable.
 
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