Suggestion: Allow the devs to better focus

[Archan6el]

Instead of doing many things at the same time (creating all these expansions and trying to do balancing at the same time), the devs should focus on the most important. It's not about doing more, it's about delivering quality. A meta that is again dominated by an OP faction is not quality. Balance is the most important for maximum fun. Especially with all the netdeckers out there that are greatly helping the devs with identifying balancing issues (let's put it like that ), isn't it blatantly obvious that balance is the most important thing? It seems that for some reason that basic understanding is ignored or very poorly used. I don't see people complaining about a lack of cards. I do see people complaining about balance issues. Focus on the most important!

 

[InkognitoXI]

I was complaining about a lack of new cards, also specifically the issue of completely reworking the entire cardpool, rather than allowing new strategies, while scraping all older archtypes.
Balancing will always be an issue and you stating them to put their focus on that alone implies that you assume they should have seen it coming.
There is no excessive testing that equals a very large amount of players testing out the limits of what they can do.
Balancing issues will always appear and unlike most other studios CDPR actually responds to them reasonably fast.

Do you remember when everyone thought Imlerith: Sabbath was just a meme all-in card and how a single person (in this case Swim) showed that if you reduce the frame on that strategy enough to not be commited too much to care about it being answered it will become a "answer and trade down or concede right away" type of card ?
There is no way that one can see all of that coming in every single instance and the team is working on fixing these issues reasonably fast.
However in the past (especially pre-homecoming) there were much less stale metas, where the entire meta would shift in a matter of weeks and there were no adjustments necessary to balance the current meta decks of that time.

 

[Archan6el]

I was complaining about a lack of new cards, also specifically the issue of completely reworking the entire cardpool, rather than allowing new strategies, while scraping all older archtypes.
Balancing will always be an issue and you stating them to put their focus on that alone implies that you assume they should have seen it coming.
There is no excessive testing that equals a very large amount of players testing out the limits of what they can do.
Balancing issues will always appear and unlike most other studios CDPR actually responds to them reasonably fast.

Do you remember when everyone thought Imlerith: Sabbath was just a meme all-in card and how a single person (in this case Swim) showed that if you reduce the frame on that strategy enough to not be commited too much to care about it being answered it will become a "answer and trade down or concede right away" type of card ?
There is no way that one can see all of that coming in every single instance and the team is working on fixing these issues reasonably fast.

With the recent changes, I think anyone with a good understanding of the game could have known that ST would be OP with the latest patch, just as other factions were OP with previous patches. Fast response is good, but imo that compliment is only justified if there are no blatant serious balance issues that could have been prevented in the first place. There is no excuse for this in a fully released game where AAA prices are asked for expansion packages.

However in the past (especially pre-homecoming) there were much less stale metas, where the entire meta would shift in a matter of weeks and there were no adjustments necessary to balance the current meta decks of that time.

Exactly. And that was a beta. So create focus to deliver quality: First create a good balanced game, then add an expansion aligned with that balance, balance again, add expansion aligned with that balance, and so on. Not all at the same time.

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...]
Exactly. And that was a beta. So create focus to deliver quality: First create a good balanced game, then add an expansion aligned with that balance, balance again, add expansion aligned with that balance, and so on. Not all at the same time.

However that is not how these card games work.
Regular expansions are also required to keep financing the game.
Also no matter what happens one deck will always be a slight bit more overtuned than others.
Perfect balance is an illusion and only leads to a simplified game to the point of it becoming boring.
You should be happy they are doing both and not just focusing on the expansion, as other studios are doing.
Also most other studios do no care about tier 1->0.5 formats and fix them much latter than that is the case in Gwent.

With the recent changes, I think anyone with a good understanding of the game could have known that ST would be OP with the latest patch, just as other factions were OP with previous patches. Fast response is good, but imo that compliment is only justified if there are no blatant serious balance issues that could have been prevented in the first place.

Yes, this time one could have seen it coming and still, there will always be the one strongest faction, even if just by the thickness of a hair.
The idea was that the changes to Fran would weaken her (while overlooking that the strongest targets were still available), that the changes to Weeping Willow would leave it too strong, do not pretend a rework of that magnitude is not risking issues.
There are other cards that deserve a mention, however reworks are obviously very likely to not be perfectly balanced right away.
New cards or rebalanced cards tend to often take further fine-tuning.

There is no excuse for this in a fully released game where AAA prices are asked for expansion packages.

And yet noone forces you to pay to play the game, the game is completely free to play, the resources are easily available without paying money.
The Ornaments are obviously mostly available without money, that is how a good free to play card game should work.
I agree that the price on the expansion package is high, however they afterwards made another package for less than half available, unless you care about the ornaments of course (animated cardback (although I like the non-animated version more anyways), alternative leader skin, the kegs being premium kegs).

 

[Archan6el]

However that is not how these card games work.
Regular expansions are also required to keep financing the game.
Also no matter what happens one deck will always be a slight bit more overtuned than others.
Perfect balance is an illusion and only leads to a simplified game to the point of it becoming boring.

Did you not see that I am proposing regular expansions? Just with one specific: Iterations of game balancing and expansions should alternate and not overlap too much. Right now the game hasn't been properly balanced and a new expansion is already coming. Against what is this new expansion going to be balanced if the game is not balanced overall? That's working without optimal focus and not delivering highest quality (a balanced and fun game without a crazy OP faction).

You should be happy they are doing both and not just focusing on the expansion, as other studios are doing.
Also most other studios do no care about tier 1->0.5 formats and fix them much latter than that is the case in Gwent.

Telling other people what they should be happy about. Please don't. Other studios are not getting my money for good reasons. CDPR is doing both, but it's clear that doing both at the same time does not really work well. Therefore my suggestion for more focus, which is simple best practice. It's a suggestion for how they work, not what they do.

Yes, this time one could have seen it coming...

Yes, one could have easily seen it coming. Having a meta with some blatantly OP deck(s) after every last patch could have easily been prevented by more focus (time and testing before release) and less stress to get an expansion out at the same time. Forget fine-tuning, there wasn't much tuning at all it seems.

And yet noone forces you to pay to play the game, the game is completely free to play, the resources are easily available without paying money.
The Ornaments are obviously mostly available without money, that is how a good free to play card game should work.
I agree that the price on the expansion package is high, however they afterwards made another package for less than half available, unless you care about the ornaments of course (animated cardback (although I like the non-animated version more anyways), alternative leader skin, the kegs being premium kegs).

That's not my point. My point is that for a fully released game that is charging serious prices for expansions, one may expect higher quality balancing and gameplay judging by these prices (and to create willingness and justification for paying these prices).

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...]
Telling other people what they should be happy about. Please don't. Other studios are not getting my money for good reasons. CDPR is doing both, but it's clear that doing both at the same time does not really work well. Therefore my suggestion for more focus, which is simple best practice. It's a suggestion for how they work, not what they do.
[...]

I am sorry if that came out wrong, I was unsure if I should change that in case you would missunderstand how it was meant (which is fairly easy I have to admit), but decided I did write that.
It was not meant as a kind of demand.

[...]
That's not my point. My point is that for a fully released game that is charging serious prices for expansions, one may expect higher quality balancing and gameplay judging by these prices (and to create willingness and justification for paying these prices).

The expansion itself does go through a lot of playtesting though, Munro Bruys alone got changed multiple times according to Sir Pumpkin.

 

[Archan6el]

I am sorry if that came out wrong, I was unsure if I should change that in case you would missunderstand how it was meant (which is fairly easy I have to admit), but decided I did write that.
It was not meant as a kind of demand.

Appreciated, thanks.

The expansion itself does go through a lot of playtesting though, Munro Bruys alone got changed multiple times according to Sir Pumpkin.

I hope it will be a better balanced expansion than the last one (including patches). Looking forward to it.

 

[InkognitoXI]

[...]
I hope it will be a better balanced expansion than the last one (including patches). Looking forward to it.

The last ones were a completely new faction and support in the broken/pre-rework state of the game though.
It should be difficult for things to go that badly again.

 

[Vedamir]

The really main thing is the GRAPHICAL DESIGN. Until the game is dark and dirty, noone will stay here for a long time and noone will pay for it, noone will love it. Light graphical design will make developers and players more effective, more positive. Do u know, how the light on dark picture is called? How is called the style we see in this forum and game at all? It is called NEGATIVE.



And what do u want if game and forum is negative? Nothing good will come until this really main thing changes. If they choose to kill their game and company with all this negative veiw - let it be. It's their choice.
U can change gameplay, u can balance better, but all this doesn't metter until the design is negative. All this just comes to death and oblivion...

 

[hachri80]

The really main thing is the GRAPHICAL DESIGN. Until the game is dark and dirty, noone will stay here for a long time and noone will pay for it, noone will love it. Light graphical design will make developers and players more effective, more positive. Do u know, how the light on dark picture is called? How is called the style we see in this forum and game at all? It is called NEGATIVE.

You know you can increase the brightness of your screen?

Come on, you started a whole thread about this til people got tired and no one answered any more. I love the art style of gwent and think that the dark atmosphere fits the world perfectly. There are dark boards like the monster and the NG board and there are bright boards like the ones of ST or the lyria board.

Instead of ranting you should get used to it or play a more colorful game like hearthstone.

 

[Vedamir]

You don't get the idea. Brightness of screen does not fix ugly disgusting style of the game. Game brightness is ok now - the style is not. I like some of the elements. I like the book of rewards for example - it is made very good. But other parts of the game are disgusting, too dirty and ragged. Dark colors prevail too much. It'll be very good, if all the game is made in a style of the reward book. It'll be very good if fog is removed. Especially I hate this ragged frames - they are so ugly! REDs made them a little neat past update, but it's far not enough. It's very far from Beta beautiful neat frames and light royal style.
All the dirtiness does not feat Gwent's Royal Court style with the crown as a symbol. Current style must have a symbol of torn smelly dirty boots, which passed all the dirty fields of current Gwent. But not a crown. It's not a royal game now, it's a game of beggars. So, it's not surprising that noone pays for it, cause it's look cheap and even disgusting.
Bad style - bad people's relation. Simple. Who will pay for dirty ragged cards? I don't even want to hold them in my hands.

 

[hachri80]

So, it's not surprising that noone pays for it, cause it's look cheap and even disgusting.

I do and others too.

Again: if you think the game is disgusting you shouldn't play it. That's all I have to say.

 

[Draconifors]

Don't derail the thread, please. Keep the visuals thing to its dedicated thread; this thread is not about that.