Suggestion: How To Achieve More Diversity

[Archpriest]

Suggestion: How To Achieve More Diversity

In ranked: penalise a player who uses the same deck more than 3 matches in a row.
Something like "have to change 3 cards or a leader and 2 cards" rule...

Thoughts?

 

[4RM3D]

Instead of penalizing players, reward them instead when they use different decks. You could even make it a daily quest; play one game with each faction.

On a side note, penalizing players is bad in general. It usually works better when you give them an incentive to do something else instead.

 

[Archpriest]

Like gaining more mmr for being creative? Or losing more mmr for being less creative? I think that might work, giving the situation.

I don't like the idea of forcing players to play each faction. I mean it's more than I propose and you oppose to.

 

[Guest 3973540]

Huh? How do I learn to play, then? How do I understand if a deck / a strategy is working at all?

Learn to play this particular deck, I mean.

 

[Archpriest]

Huh? How do I learn to play, then? How do I understand if a deck / a strategy is working at all?

Learn to play this particular deck, I mean.

Casual?

 

[JohnathanHopkins]

Having an incentive to play different factions would be fine and sounds like a good idea. Penalizing players for playing the game the way they want to is bad form for a game dev and would turn people off the game.

That said, it can be hard when you are just starting out to have viable decks in multiple factions, especially if you have ranked up a bit using one type. It would need to either scale, or kick in at higher levels.

 

[NatoGreavesy]

In ranked: penalise a player who uses the same deck more than 3 matches in a row.

As someone who decided to mill all of their excess cards and focus on enhancing one specific deck... no thanks. I'd rather not be punished for deciding to invest time and effort into perfecting a deck I'm comfortable playing with.

 

[Archpriest]

As someone who decided to mill all of their excess cards and focus on enhancing one specific deck... no thanks. I'd rather not be punished for deciding to invest time and effort into perfecting a deck I'm comfortable playing with.

You're playing high rank with cards for only one deck? Really?

 

[Guest 3973540]

Casual?

How do I know something works in ranked?
And this:

it can be hard when you are just starting out to have viable decks in multiple factions

So, after rank 15, maybe. Imagine you got 1 faction legendary, your first. Wouldn't you be building you deck around it?

But positive incentives are still better than penalties.

Maybe something along these lines could work:

Define “distance” between 2 decks as ~# of different cards (maybe give differing weights to golds-silvers-bronzes-leaders), and identify clusters of similar decks.
E.g. in the previous patch there would have been 3 distinct clusters around Bran Morkvarg discard, ST melee overbuff and Dagon Consume. And a few smaller clusters, of course, like Radovid Control. Obviously CDPR has all the stats.

Then tweak match-making: For decks close to the center of big clusters (met decks), increase the chances of a match with another meta deck and especially of a mirror match. Let them play vs each other! The non-standard decks will then automatically have reduced chances of facing meta decks. He who wants fun gets his fun. He who wants meta competition gets that, too.

 

[reliusclover]

i do like @4RM3D suggestion, would gives us more ways in getting them sweet sweet ores/scraps

 

[Archpriest]

People. Whoever reaches rank 10-12 max should have almost all cards, if I remember it right. And it is beta, you know, to test decks. Right now, everybody just playing with one deck all over again. None makes even little adjustments (apart from the top players).
I like that tournament has it tweaked to 4-1(of opponent's choosing). Obviously, CDPR isn't happy with the situation either.

 

[Guest 3973540]

Whoever reaches rank 10-12 max should have almost all cards, if I remember it right.

In my experience, it’s woefully untrue. I would be happy to see CDPR to comment on that, of course.
And weren’t you around for a couple of MONTHS before ranked play was even introduced?

 

[NatoGreavesy]

You're playing high rank with cards for only one deck? Really?

Well, yes. I have one faction in particular that I enjoy playing, so I've been milling all of my other cards to focus on adjusting and developing that deck.

 

[nhk3]

People. Whoever reaches rank 10-12 max should have almost all cards, if I remember it right.

Don't know when that was true, but I hit rank 13 with few legendary/epic cards about 2 weeks ago and I've been playng for a month by that time. I predominantly play a Monsters Weather deck and needless to say I don't have good cards to create a competitive deck for another faction.
My decks are tested in casual then I use the best performing one in Ranked. I can't see what will be a valid incentive to play an underpowered deck in Ranked mode if that would slow down your progress through the tiers. Players Rank 15 on the other hand are just trying their best to get higher on the ladder, seeing how close they are to the top, so I doubt any incentive short of a stack of kegs, will sway them.

 

[Archpriest]

In my experience, it’s woefully untrue. I would be happy to see CDPR to comment on that, of course.
And weren’t you around for a couple of MONTHS before ranked play was even introduced?

Yeah, probably. Still, let's say 40 level 13 rank should have a lot of cards...

Well, yes. I have one faction in particular that I enjoy playing, so I've been milling all of my other cards to focus on adjusting and developing that deck.

The suggestion wasn't to force people into playing a different faction. Not just that, at least.

Don't know when that was true, but I hit rank 13 with few legendary/epic cards about 2 weeks ago and I've been playng for a month by that time. I predominantly play a Monsters Weather deck and needless to say I don't have good cards to create a competitive deck for another faction.

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but not THAT wrong. "Time played" factors too ,of course.

My decks are tested in casual then I use the best performing one in Ranked. I can't see what will be a valid incentive to play an underpowered deck in Ranked mode if that would slow down your progress through the tiers. Players Rank 15 on the other hand are just trying their best to get higher on the ladder, seeing how close they are to the top, so I doubt any incentive short of a stack of kegs, will sway them.

Exactly. That's why they are forced by the rules to present 4 decks and the opponent can choose one he won't face in a particular matchup. So, incentive won't work very good. Something like a rule could.

 

[isnadtochiev]

Well, i really dont like the idea. This one is a much better option:

Instead of penalizing players, reward them instead when they use different decks. You could even make it a daily quest; play one game with each faction.
On a side note, penalizing players is bad in general. It usually works better when you give them an incentive to do something else instead.

Currently, if i wanted to play ranked outside of monsters/NG, it would take some serious grinding, thats something i dont want to do. Moreover, netdecking isnt going away. There is allways gonna be 2-3 decks that perform above the rest. And when you get to somewhat competetive enviroment - you'll know card by card whats in your opponents deck in most games, those 2-3 decks are gonna annoy you to the limit. Best a dev can do about it is balancing a game to enable more viable decks.

 

[Iuliandrei]

Quests or achievements would be a good way to do this, especially when we have so many tags unused atm, like "Mage".

 

[Archpriest]

Balance is my intention. Not saying this is a brilliant idea but seems that outside of a limited number of players none even tries... Another situation occured just before the tournament register was closed - people stopped playing in fear of losing. Kind of insane when you get rewarded for not playing, isn't it? Same applies to those who have vast collection but limit themselves to just one deck. Not even one faction, one deck.
If not rule, what kind of incentive could move these people? Keep in mind, we're still in closed beta. Can't imagine what is going to happen in open.

 

[RickMelethron]

In ranked: penalise a player who uses the same deck more than 3 matches in a row.
Something like "have to change 3 cards or a leader and 2 cards" rule...

Thoughts?

the point of ranked is to be as competitive as possible. if you want to play diverse decks, have fun on casual mode.

You could even make it a daily quest; play one game with each faction.

"play one game" wouldn't be very useful because people would just intant-pass to get the quest done ASAP... the better way to do it would be something like "play X cards from Y faction"
in a game like hearthstone, people can just fill a deck with the cheapest class cards, but that isn't feasible in gwent due to the nature of the game.

although it would still be a little annoying to people with smaller collections. if you get the quest to play NG and don't have good NG cards, it just feels like a chore. and videogames aren't supposed to be chores.

now let's talk about the real way to increase deck diversity: balance.
if all factions/archetypes are on a similar power level, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, people will just play whatever they want instead of flocking to the top 2 meta decks.

yeah, some decks will always be weaker than others... but there's a different between a 50% power difference and a 10% power difference.

 

[Archpriest]

Of course the point of ranked is competitiveness and of course balance is the real and the best way to achieve diversity.
However, we're still in a closed beta and many cards and decks are not used at all. How can you balance cards if none uses them? I'm open to any viable and realistic idea. Balance, at the moment, isn't there. Hence the thread...