State of the Game

[Atomontage]

All it takes to win a game in Gwent nowadays is luck and ability to click on cards.

The amount of meaningful input in this game is equal to amount of input you can do while building a deck.

It's a battle of decks, not the players.

Also the cards in this game are retarded, yet the environment they are played in is very strict.

So the game turns into a battle of "who can abuse the game's faults as much as possible" (or more precisely -- who builds a better deck to do it).

To explain what I mean by the "environment", let me start by comparing Gwent with MtG.

In MtG you can draw as many cards as you want, in Gwent -- only 6. In MtG you can have up to 3 copies of any legendary card you want, in Gwent -- only 1. In MtG, the amount of abilities that let you generate additional cards is massive, in Gwent -- very limited.

Now let's show how illogical the design of cards in this game is in general, but also how it's just unearthly stupid to design such cards for such an environment.

You can have only 1 defender in this game, but the amount of things that kill it (in the opponent's deck or even hand) is billion. You can have only 1 copy of important card in your deck, but the amount of things that kill it is billion.

You can see that this has already manifested in the comical situation where you are either forced to play full deck of engines or none at all. ANYTHING in between is IMPOSSIBLE.

Now for more direct examples.

The poison cards are completely broken -- they take no skill and kill ANYTHING while having no chance of backfiring or any cost for the deck.

The design of poison makes it always valuable and therefore very abundant in the game. The design of purify and veil (the other side of this dynamic) and the cards with said abilities make them very lackluster and not worth running therefore very rare in the game.

Geralt: Yrden is a card that is COMPLETELY absurd, takes no skill, always works and has no counterplay. And no, just because it has a "deck cost" and a "chance of not finding the target" doesn't make it a fair card. Just like giving the players in a shooter game the ability to equip a wallhack and aimbot, but with a downside of halving their health and having a 50% chance of not working, is not fair and definitely is not an example of the ethical game design. Design of every card should be striking for making said card fair, skill based and for it to a have counterplay in EVERY game -- not making it completely useless in one game and completely unfair and plain absurd in another.

Maybe, just maybe in an ideal world where Gwent is not a bad game and you can have as many defenders as you want to battle all the removal, to cover as much rows as you want so you can spread your cards across all rows as much as you want and the cards themselves are not row locked (keep in mind -- there are only 2 rows anyway)... Geralt: Yrden would be SLIGHTLY less hideous card.

Lack of sophistication and low skill ceiling.

The game in general is very dull, uninspired and lacks any sophistication. Literally everything STARTS and ends with giving points. There are no cool abilities or even any non-point related ones. And where there are no cool abilities there is no skill requirement. Every action player makes in this game is straightforward, doesn't require any foresight or even has any variations (forget uncertainties) in outcome.

The worse example of this is "spies". You promised us "big support for the spies archetype" in the last expansion. And call me naive but I expected something new or even fun (from a video game of all things, I know). And what did we get? There are literally no abilities for spies or spy related cards. All there is are cards that get +1 point for each "spying" tag, in boost to themselves or damage, -- that's it. Even 2 out of 3 total "conspiracy" cards simply boost the card you played or targeted on the enemy side to steal by 2. Only a single a card does something interesting, but it's not helped by the fact that it is absolutely horrible, overpriced, not supported (how about adding actual good spies for a faction for starters?) and it's ability is irrelevant and therefore sees no play.

Solutions.

Stop printing so much removal and make it so after one player plays a card players can have a fair battle for it's life or at least make the removal have counterplay and some skill involved in using it (not point and click -- sorry, you are dead). Make the amount of threats and removal equal for most games, and introduce a serious cost to running only removal or engines in your deck (they would still have a strong representation and be seen in abundance, just not the default choice for a lot of factions -- like a SPECIFIC archetype with it's unique deck mechanics and/or costs). If you introduce the above you can still print as much removal as you want and players will have a better choice.

Nerf and rework poison. Keep the theme and overall purpose but don't be afraid to be creative -- no one is going to die in real life from a drastic change of a design of a card in a video game.

Rework or remove Geralt: Yrden.

Please try to make the game actually fun and design fun abilities. Start from the lore and go from there.

 

[4RM3D]

@Atomontage, post moved to a new thread, as requested.

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

Game is also very Draw Dependant ( even though decks are overall more consistent thanks to tutors ) but that's a variable present in most card games ( RNG can make or break your game ).
Now yes, I agree, decks should have way less limits both on card numbers and types. I also liked how some SY cards are usable in other faction's decks and I hope we will get another faction like this, maybe with all of its cards usable in any faction ( neutral ).
Many of us asked for a more dynamic game like it was in beta , with many cards moving from deck to field, from graveyard to field and much more interactions but the direction seems to be clear now.

 

[Atomontage]

Game is also very Draw Dependant ( even though decks are overall more consistent thanks to tutors ) but that's a variable present in most card games ( RNG can make or break your game ).
Now yes, I agree, decks should have way less limits both on card numbers and types. I also liked how some SY cards are usable in other faction's decks and I hope we will get another faction like this, maybe with all of its cards usable in any faction ( neutral ).
Many of us asked for a more dynamic game like it was in beta , with many cards moving from deck to field, from graveyard to field and much more interactions but the direction seems to be clear now.

1. Personally, I think the fact that you can have only 1 gold card in any deck is a good idea and the one which makes Gwent unique. Also, the gold cards are usually real characters from the world of Witcher, so I can commend CDPR on making it feel realistic and meaningful. Instead I think the amount of "non-character" cards, in this case removal, should correspond to the amount of gold cards equally, so that when one player plays a gold engine and their opponent plays removal both are making a commitment. One of the ways of doing it, which I mentioned, is to create "tax" on heavy removal or engine decks.
2. While interaction with deck and graveyard is fun and welcomed, this is not what I referenced to when talking about fun abilities. What I meant is completely unique out of the box thinking abilities that would make sense on said card. To use the spies example, it would make sense for them to gather intelligence, subvert the enemy etc.

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

1. Personally, I think the fact that you can have only 1 gold card in any deck is a good idea and the one which makes Gwent unique. Also, the gold cards are usually real characters from the world of Witcher, so I can commend CDPR on making it feel realistic and meaningful. Instead I think the amount of "non-character" cards, in this case removal, should correspond to the amount of gold cards equally, so that when one player plays a gold engine and their opponent plays removal card both are making a commitment. One of the ways of doing it, which I mentioned, is to create "tax" on heavy removal or engine decks.
2. While interaction with deck and graveyard is fun and welcomed, this is not what I refferenced to when talking about fun abilities. What I meant is completely unique out of the box thinking abilities that would make sense on said card. To use the spies example, it would make sense for them to gather intelligence, subvert the enemy etc.

Agree to both, especially on the revival of the spies archetype.

 

[ReaperTek]

Yrden bricks usually against non greedy Decks, but I kind of agree that he can be quit devastating like all row punishment Cards since the removal of the third row you can't much play around them anymore.

Yrden became impossible to balance at the point when they introduced Defenders ( most binary Card's in the Game either you have a counter or you can watch for example Vysogota and Dandelion whipping the floor with you) before that I would probably gave him the Nivellen treatment (he could move all units on a row before the nerf which made him insanely overpowered in combination with Dragon's Dream) that he can only reset 3 units on a row but that would completely kill the Card because you can't target @&€# if there's a Defender on that row.

 

[DRK3]

I disagree with some of the OP's points, but agree with most though.

Disagree:
I havent tried MtG or any other virtual CCG actually, but i think the limit on 1 gold is neccessary. This limit was always there, but allowing more golds per deck would benefit the veterans who have more resources, and would then have better decks. I know this from experience, on Gwent's early beta days legendaries were very hard to come by and i would win more often simply because i had more and better cards. This is highly unfair to newer players, and rewards playtime instead of skill.

Agree:
Deckbuilding is too important (SK Warriors can make winners even out of the worst players) due to a lack of balance, removal is too cheap and effective, poison is still too strong (you either gain the point/provision ratio, if the poison succeeds, with no real ceiling, or you tie, if the poisoned unit is purified/consumed, you never lose)

And worst of all, the low skill ceiling. Im tired of seeing the top pro players in tournaments playing exactly at the same level and same decks as pro rank or even lower, because there really isnt enough space to improve. I know this is not an easy task to fix, but it hasnt really improved, not even a little bit, in years.

 

[Allistre]

There are no cool abilities left anymore. I've said it so many times that they all got purged in Homecoming. Gwent is just about counting points on your fingers now like a child.

Without unique card abilities, every card is just going to continue to feel the same no matter what faction or archetype you're playing.

 

[Fargothwave]

Y'all are missing a crucial point - at its core, Gwent is a game of competing numbers...so it's not like you can completely escape that premise, no matter what.

Still, I do agree that removal got out of hand lately, but note that some people around here actually like it this way (I honestly don't get the fun of playing cards that don't ever stick, though).
But I sure do get the fun of denying your opponent all the plays they are attempting. Pure fun-sized sadism, that.


Linear unconditional removal stuff like Rebukes, Oils, Heatwaves should honestly cost 1 to 2 prov more, because as of now they play for way above their value, through prevention of combos and snowballing.

 

[BAT0MAN]

All it takes to win a game in Gwent nowadays is luck and ability to click on cards.

The amount of meaningful input in this game is equal to amount of input you can do while building a deck.

It's a battle of decks, not the players.

Also the cards in this game are retarded, yet the environment they are played in is very strict.

So the game turns into a battle of "who can abuse the game's faults as much as possible" (or more precisely -- who builds a better deck to do it).

To explain what I mean by the "environment", let me start by comparing Gwent with MtG.

In MtG you can draw as many cards as you want, in Gwent -- only 6. In MtG you can have up to 3 copies of any legendary card you want, in Gwent -- only 1. In MtG, the amount of abilities that let you generate additional cards is massive, in Gwent -- very limited.

Now let's show how illogical the design of cards in this game is in general, but also how it's just unearthly stupid to design such cards for such an environment.

You can have only 1 defender in this game, but the amount of things that kill it (in the opponent's deck or even hand) is billion. You can have only 1 copy of important card in your deck, but the amount of things that kill it is billion.

You can see that this has already manifested in the comical situation where you are either forced to play full deck of engines or none at all. ANYTHING in between is IMPOSSIBLE.

Now for more direct examples.

The poison cards are completely broken -- they take no skill and kill ANYTHING while having no chance of backfiring or any cost for the deck.

The design of poison makes it always valuable and therefore very abundant in the game. The design of purify and veil (the other side of this dynamic) and the cards with said abilities make them very lackluster and not worth running therefore very rare in the game.

Geralt: Yrden is a card that is COMPLETELY absurd, takes no skill, always works and has no counterplay. And no, just because it has a "deck cost" and a "chance of not finding the target" doesn't make it a fair card. Just like giving the players in a shooter game the ability to equip a wallhack and aimbot, but with a downside of halving their health and having a 50% chance of not working, is not fair and definitely is not an example of the ethical game design. Design of every card should be striking for making said card fair, skill based and for it to a have counterplay in EVERY game -- not making it completely useless in one game and completely unfair and plain absurd in another.

Maybe, just maybe in an ideal world where Gwent is not a bad game and you can have as many defenders as you want to battle all the removal, to cover as much rows as you want so you can spread your cards across all rows as much as you want and the cards themselves are not row locked (keep in mind -- there are only 2 rows anyway)... Geralt: Yrden would be SLIGHTLY less hideous card.

Lack of sophistication and low skill ceiling.

The game in general is very dull, uninspired and lacks any sophistication. Literally everything STARTS and ends with giving points. There are no cool abilities or even any non-point related ones. And where there are no cool abilities there is no skill requirement. Every action player makes in this game is straightforward, doesn't require any foresight or even has any variations (forget uncertainties) in outcome.

The worse example of this is "spies". You promised us "big support for the spies archetype" in the last expansion. And call me naive but I expected something new or even fun (from a video game of all things, I know). And what did we get? There are literally no abilities for spies or spy related cards. All there is are cards that get +1 point for each "spying" tag, in boost to themselves or damage, -- that's it. Even 2 out of 3 total "conspiracy" cards simply boost the card you played or targeted on the enemy side to steal by 2. Only a single a card does something interesting, but it's not helped by the fact that it is absolutely horrible, overpriced, not supported (how about adding actual good spies for a faction for starters?) and it's ability is irrelevant and therefore sees no play.

Solutions.

Stop printing so much removal and make it so after one player plays a card players can have a fair battle for it's life or at least make the removal have counterplay and some skill involved in using it (not point and click -- sorry, you are dead). Make the amount of threats and removal equal for most games, and introduce a serious cost to running only removal or engines in your deck (they would still have a strong representation and be seen in abundance, just not the default choice for a lot of factions -- like a SPECIFIC archetype with it's unique deck mechanics and/or costs). If you introduce the above you can still print as much removal as you want and players will have a better choice.

Nerf and rework poison. Keep the theme and overall purpose but don't be afraid to be creative -- no one is going to die in real life from a drastic change of a design of a card in a video game.

Rework or remove Geralt: Yrden.

Please try to make the game actually fun and design fun abilities. Start from the lore and go from there.

Agree with this.The binary nature of play is what tilts me everytime when it comes to deck matchups.
Answer or lose. That's just it, and makes removal so valuable that sometimes you build your decks around having removal.
Like right now on ladder, you hold on to purify against the NR matchup with Vyso+Defender bc w/o it, you just autolose.
Most of the time it just takes the creativity and fun out of the game.

 

[ShinAkira00]

The majority of the points you made are contradicting. You say the game is too binary but players are too restricted in the number of cards. The MM expansion has given a glimpse of what being able to play whatever you want when you want will do to the state of the game. It makes it more binary than it ever has been. I'm order for that to work every faction would have to have similar cards because some are slow tempo or mid tier.

Example I just played a match against SK and first turn Maidens, 18pt play with Roach etc. I now either have to play tall knowing it will get heatwave or take several turns to play thrive units all while he's still putting down units and thinning his deck to prepare for Lippy. What you are suggesting cannot work for a game so closely tied to each faction identity. That would have to change and the devs have already shown they are incapable of balancing the game in its current state.

 

[BAT0MAN]

Even Tailbot said it best himself when he was interviewed: "THE GAME IS QUITE STALE."

 

[CorruptedSIime]

I think the introduction of token manipulation was a mistake, it hasn't brought anything valuable to the game except even more binary gameplay. Poison has always been a terrible mechanic and should be removed instead of expanded.


Personally I stopped playing this game after they removed Arachas Queen unique ability. Devs since Homecoming are like: "Yeah, this new ability is boring but at least easier to balance." Now almost every card is very flat in design and those few interesting cards left are usually unplayable (useless).

And on top of that, there is a massive amount of useless old cards and even though buffing them looks like a very simple task (unless you plan to rework them), the devs don't seem to care.

 

[Allistre]

Even Tailbot said it best himself when he was interviewed: "THE GAME IS QUITE STALE."

And worst of all, the low skill ceiling. Im tired of seeing the top pro players in tournaments playing exactly at the same level and same decks as pro rank or even lower, because there really isnt enough space to improve.

Do you guys remember a couple months ago when they interviewed all the tournament players with the question "What's the most important skill in Gwent?"

Most of them answered with "Drawing into your Scenarios/gold cards". I laughed so hard. Even the pro players aren't afraid to admit there isn't any skill to current Gwent.

 

[SpudCakes]

I like the fact we can only use 1 gold card but couldn't agree more with the rest i played earlier this year after getting into because I love making my own decks as I thought that is half the game but people just copy of youtube etc I really don't get that where's the fun or provide but some broken mechanics like poison have fully allowed these [...] people that can't make their own decks to ruin the game so I complained like mad on the forums to no avail so I quit and then recently saw that "veil" hat been introduced, ahhhhh finally !! The answer!!! Or not -_- I've just played 3 nilfgaards back to back all lock and poison and I'm not saying they are overpowered as a fraction but just with the theme of posion and yenns innovation (the best card in the game for 9 provisions) so I play the first one but down my defender after baiting a lot of removals... and he's destroyed by the dude with destroy a unit with status, no problem I came prepared for this with revive for my defender, so revive him and he used the lock stratagem(which is ridiculous to have as a stratagem) and the destroys me again with the guy that destroys a unit with a lock, so kind of annoying as a I'm depending on my defender but I have a back up in sukrus defending the unit that's most important to me ..or not....again he just gets locked or they poison the unit I'm trying to protect or both they have so many poisons and locks, so I lose that game after being scenarios to death with fangs of emoire, so I literally change my deck to anti nilfgaards still angry that poison is ride I bring in loads of veil units and purfifys even though all these cards are useless and take up spots I need I put them in anyways and would you guess it's nilfgaards again same thing but this time I out trastamere down so I'm ready to veil my defender or sukrus if by miracle they don't have the card that removes a unit with status and so I place it down.... It gets locked before I can use to give a veil to a unit to prevent that unit from being locked.....how stupid is that really and the same with the deploy veils ...it's already to late. Why can't we have a deploy unit that effects cards in hand like you can with boosts?? Anyways whatever I get on with it and fortunately by some miracle they don't have that card but this time they just purify my defender instantly because they also have super cheap purify cards and conveniently have a card that can purify or poison so they don't even need to complicate their braindead poison deck.... And thus the same shit happens I lose ...... So I play them for a 3rd time this time getting all the way to the 3rd round without my defender and had him ready with a revive and sukrus, super defense ready to go... Play my defender and he gets yenns inno which obviously means I can't revive so I play sukrus and he gets heatwaved I mean he hasn't even started with his poisons and my defense had gone and none of that could have been countered by any card in the game that was available to me ... So where is the skill? Just dumb as hell mechanics that allow such basic decks and play to win and why is the best card in the game or at least better than any unit in the game yenns inno still a thing and only 9 provisions at that, imagine setting up one super expensive unit for a play that took you hours and hours of thought and testing to just be instantly stolen no counter no nothing so so dumb really is the stupidest card in the game if nilfgard need a buff then buff them but don't make individual things like poison or yenn OP broken be side they are BROKEN

 

[BAT0MAN]

THE NAME OF GWENT SHOULD BE DRAWING GOLDS.

It's so stressful to play pro ranked to have just +7 mmr on win and at times -10 on lose. SO WTF?

 

[Kolto66]

I am intrigued by two statements:

1. What's the most important skill in Gwent?
2. "let me start by comparing Gwent with MtG"

I don't want to compare Gwent with MtG, this would be another thread and in the end it just comes down to taste. But i looked into the skill aspect and found this:

A list of skills, which are implied to be important for Magic the Gathering:
---
"Chess Skills"

• General strategic thinking: How can you win? How can you stop your opponent from winning?
• Looking for opportunities: Is your opponent vulnerable to an attack? Is this a good time to get in some damage?
• Patience: Is this not the time to attack? Sometimes in Magic, waiting is best. Don't feel like you need to make a big play, just for the sake of making a big play
• Thinking a move or two ahead: Is the game going to come down to a damage race? If so, how can you make sure you win that race?

"Playing-Card Game Skills"

• Factoring in variance: Remember, you don't need to be a math wiz; if you can count, you can be good at Magic. Just remember that you don't have total control of what comes off the top of the library, and try to make the most of any situation.
• Considering hidden information: And you don't have to be a mind reader either. You're not meant to know every card in your opponent's hand at all times. However, sometimes you might get a hint or two. What are the likely possibilities? What is your best play for each of these possibilities?
• Focus: Be present in the game, be aware of everything on the board, take it slow, and don't jump in without thinking

--- Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/level-one/what-magic-2014-12-15

Since i am not so experienced with Gwent, i would like to ask you all to go through this list and evaluate Gwent. Is it really so that drawing golds is the skill most important in Gwent and thus quite stale or is there more to Gwent, like for example the skills mentioned above? Are above skills valid for Gwent, too, or can i ignore to develop those, if the statement with drawing only scenarios and golds is true?

 

[Ulubey0]

Since i am not so experienced with Gwent, i would like to ask you all to go through this list and evaluate Gwent. Is it really so that drawing golds is the skill most important in Gwent and thus quite stale or is there more to Gwent, like for example the skills mentioned above? Are above skills valid for Gwent, too, or can i ignore to develop those, if the statement with drawing only scenarios and golds is true?

I would like to say that there's more to Gwent than just drawing your gold cards, but honestly that statement is true nowadays. About your questions though, a lot of the those Magic concepts don't apply to Gwent. There is no "racing" or "patience" since games are always the same length in terms of cards played. The passing mechanic is something unique to Gwent and it's the probably the closest thing to the kind of patience you are talking about. Although i think passing has been pretty much gutted in terms of strategy ever since the hand limit was introduced. Now it's only logical to pass at set moments in the game and it feels like it's been put on rails, and the player doesn't have as much choice. For example, you can't really pass with 8 cards in hand round 1, you will just be giving card advantage away since you can only draw 10 cards.

The bottom line is that if you get unlucky with your golds draws there is very little chance of you winning the game, simply because they are so extremely powerful.

 

[ya1]

"Chess Skills"

• General strategic thinking: How can you win? How can you stop your opponent from winning?
• Looking for opportunities: Is your opponent vulnerable to an attack? Is this a good time to get in some damage?
• Patience: Is this not the time to attack? Sometimes in Magic, waiting is best. Don't feel like you need to make a big play, just for the sake of making a big play
• Thinking a move or two ahead: Is the game going to come down to a damage race? If so, how can you make sure you win that race?

"Playing-Card Game Skills"

• Factoring in variance: Remember, you don't need to be a math wiz; if you can count, you can be good at Magic. Just remember that you don't have total control of what comes off the top of the library, and try to make the most of any situation.
• Considering hidden information: And you don't have to be a mind reader either. You're not meant to know every card in your opponent's hand at all times. However, sometimes you might get a hint or two. What are the likely possibilities? What is your best play for each of these possibilities?
• Focus: Be present in the game, be aware of everything on the board, take it slow, and don't jump in without thinking

Interesting take. Now let me translate that to Gwent reality.

"Chess Skills"

• Talent: Get 10 queens while the other guy gets 10 pawns.

"Playing-Card Game Skills"

• Card-playing skill: Play a 6-point card and hope it somehow gets more points than a 19-point card.