Suggestions for Rebalancing Nilfgaard

[Sj8407]

Maybe instead of balancing poisons, let''s just as a test give players players (except maybe prorank ones) a choice if they want to play meta with poison or without and these who want will be paired only with others who choose it (according to poisons sourvay it is about 60/40). The same choice that we geave to people if they want to play seasonal mode, or classic mode, instead of forcing them to play seasons every month; I've played a lot on unranked games recently and I have to say, that to my suprise almost nobody is playing poisons there. And that is why I honestly feel that some players are even looking for "poison free" sanctuary in unranked games. So maybe choice could be a good thing: solution without reworking poisons or nerfing it into useless from the one hand, and without flustrating many players with them in the same time. And If it will turns out that with time there won't be many players playing poisons on opposite, than we can remove that kind of mechanics from the game, or choice to play without them - depends on results. And on top of that, if these test of "players choise poisons" will works as is expected, in the future we can apply the same solution for other highly controversial mechanics in the game if they will be implemented

 

[irrrregular]

I disagree with these things, NG need a rebalance, which is mostly that it needs a boost. Double ball need to go as it gives the wrong impression of the overall strength of Nilfgaard as a faction. All the abovementioned cards are fine or even need a boost (damien should not be rowlocked).

Alot of NG cards need a boost, in particular the sabotage ones, unless the developers plan to rebalance all currently deviating cards to the old balance.. in the current situation, alot of core NG types and cards are too weak to be usable or competitive, which is why these cards need a boost. Alot of them are bronzes.

Among the most urgent ones are lock, which value has been eroded greatly over time and need a boost in terms of tempo. The same goes for sabotage units, the drawback to the initial tempo is just too big with the current situation. Some soldiers also need improvements, most urgently slave infantry and darlean.

NG need a rebalance away from double ball back towards making sabotage and locks more viable again. The sad state of things is that Usurper/lockdown has now become a Shupe/Redeyah deck or double ball. All the old Usurper types are now too weak, and I personally want them back!

Any perceived problem is due to scenario, but this is not exclusive to NG. Scenario get a disproportionally huge value for 14 provisions, which has created the rather unfortunate scenario/bomb heaver situation.

there he is

 

[IvRoz]

Skellen and Damien can't be compared to engines? Really, alot of engines I know of get alot more value than Damien or Skellen, even in their old state. Even much lower provision engines get alot more value than Damien and Skellen.

That's quite an interesting statement.

Could you please provide some examples?

Please, consider what @Nerevarine228 pointed out:

1) Other engines can be dealt with eventually.

2)You can tech against them at the end of the round

3)The need to get rid of Skellen and Damien in two turns.

 

[Fargothwave]

Well, I'm quite happy CDPR re-implemented armour and when they first (re)implemented shields. I think more could/should be done with this and the defender be removed from the game. One possible card to quickly move away from defender towards armour/shield is a new Geralt: Quen card. in the longer run, improving the armour and shield mechanic/interaction would be the better option.

Skellen and Damien can't be compared to engines? Really, alot of engines I know of get alot more value than Damien or Skellen, even in their old state. Even much lower provision engines get alot more value than Damien and Skellen.

Don't know about this Quen thing. First of all, what should it be? Automatic shield for 3 units after it? That is arguably even worse than defenders in some match-ups. Immunity, maybe, but it's every bit as binary as defender again.


And yes, while "lower provision engines" get more value than what Skellen/Damien provide directly, like I said they get nuked/reverted afterwards all the time...and can't possibly ruin enemy's winning condition as hard as Imposter/Bribery spam. Numbers are just what they are - numbers, whereas these guys can facilitate stealing/blocking of win-critical enemy units. Ultimately, this has way more impact on the outcome of the match than 20 points of value (and few engines can go that high anyway).
A good example would be Bribing a Greatsword/Dagur and then Morkvarg against Greatswords SK or Impostering/Enslaving Saul/Vysogota/Luiza/whatever else. I'm sure beating your opponent with their own tools feels good, but the problem here is that this brutal combo would only be a supplement for you own, an icing on the cake, so to say, while your opponent is left with nothing. Here's another good example from my own experience - I run a movement-heavy row-punish deck, and whenever I run into NG, they always seem to be able to get their hands on my Malena/Nivellen, one way or another. Ultimately this amounts to over 40 points of damage lost for me. Can any engine really compare to that?

 

[mazeebra]

Don't know about this Quen thing. First of all, what should it be? Automatic shield for 3 units after it? That is arguably even worse than defenders in some match-ups. Immunity, maybe, but it's every bit as binary as defender again.


And yes, while "lower provision engines" get more value than what Skellen/Damien provide directly, like I said they get nuked/reverted afterwards all the time...and can't possibly ruin enemy's winning condition as hard as Imposter/Bribery spam. Numbers are just what they are - numbers, whereas these guys can facilitate stealing/blocking of win-critical enemy units. Ultimately, this has way more impact on the outcome of the match than 20 points of value (and few engines can go that high anyway).
A good example would be Bribing a Greatsword/Dagur and then Morkvarg against Greatswords SK or Impostering/Enslaving Saul/Vysogota/Luiza/whatever else. I'm sure beating your opponent with their own tools feels good, but the problem here is that this brutal combo would only be a supplement for you own, an icing on the cake, so to say, while your opponent is left with nothing. Here's another good example from my own experience - I run a movement-heavy row-punish deck, and whenever I run into NG, they always seem to be able to get their hands on my Malena/Nivellen, one way or another. Ultimately this amounts to over 40 points of damage lost for me. Can any engine really compare to that?

Well, the problem with Skellen/Bribery was never Skellen, it was the way Bribery worked (was/is bugged), only counting each unique card in deck, rather than each card in the deck.

Besides that, another problem is defender. It is much more viable to get rid of Skellen and/or Damien without defender, even with a lock (even for formation).

Aside from that, replaying an 8p gold card is not that strong! Nor is replaying the leader. I think people highly overestimate the value of Skellen and Damien, especially in the current situation of the game. If Damien and Skellen was a thing say 18 months ago, it would be a super powerful thing, now now? Eh.. Have you even seen some of the things going on in this game? Damien is pretty good yes, but not great. Skellen also.

I was never a fan of Enslave 6, and that deck seems to be the main perceived problem. Could be solved fairly easily by removing some tactic tags and making these obnoxious low unit high special card decks less viable. But this is not an NG exclusive problem.

Not sure how a Geralt: Quen could work, but some armour or shield mechanic as its base could do something useful without being as binary and unbalancing for the game as defender is.

 

[Fargothwave]

Well, the problem with Skellen/Bribery was never Skellen, it was the way Bribery worked (was/is bugged), only counting each unique card in deck, rather than each card in the deck.

Besides that, another problem is defender. It is much more viable to get rid of Skellen and/or Damien without defender, even with a lock (even for formation).

Aside from that, replaying an 8p gold card is not that strong! Nor is replaying the leader. I think people highly overestimate the value of Skellen and Damien, especially in the current situation of the game. If Damien and Skellen was a thing say 18 months ago, it would be a super powerful thing, now now? Eh.. Have you even seen some of the things going on in this game? Damien is pretty good yes, but not great. Skellen also.

I was never a fan of Enslave 6, and that deck seems to be the main perceived problem. Could be solved fairly easily by removing some tactic tags and making these obnoxious low unit high special card decks less viable. But this is not an NG exclusive problem.

Not sure how a Geralt: Quen could work, but some armour or shield mechanic as its base could do something useful without being as binary and unbalancing for the game as defender is.

Replaying the leader that effectively adds 1 important card to your side and removes one from the enemy side isn't "that strong"? Just FYI, most comparable leader abilities revolve around playing just one card from their deck/graveyard, so NG leader abilities are already (conditionally, provided there's something worth stealing on the table, which is nearly always) stronger than what other people have. Played twice? Crazy strong.

And Bribery in its current form always pulls the best things you have in your deck, so "replaying 8p" is actually "replaying anything you need up to 14p", which is, incidentally, the main problem with the Ball. Gold replay is a tricky business, and it should never be so easy in general. Skellen would be fine, if this broken card weren't around (or broken. But it is borh, and for the time being Stefan is broken because of it.

 

[wonderboy870]

At first people complained about Skellen and Damien, they got nerfed to the ground and it's quite easy to play around them these days, making them very often dead cards. That just completely killed off IF with soldiers only. Now people think it would be "fun" to also destroy the viability of poison ("rebalancing" is just very likely to nerf it, everyone knows that). Nilfgaard is okay, the only thing that MAYBE needs to be balanced is the ability to replay gold cards, whether or not it's ST, SK or NG.

I think you make a few good points but are missing the bigger picture. The problem with Damien is that he should be neutral or his power should change and a neutral card should be created with repeat leader ability. The defender does a lot to remove the row lock penalty and OP is correct that with imposter it can be game breaking. Cahir is game breaking as well with protector (especially against monsters.)

NG biggest problem is that they don’t really rely on archetype or synergy to dominate. They have a ton of removal and lock even without poison. What I think should happen is NG should be completely retooled from the ground up. They should get a viable spy archetype, an improved assimilate, and a swarm archetype similar to tutor type from homecoming but more focused on tokens then cards. Yen should be neutral and the kill with status guy should be limited to kill any unit up to 5 power with status. The leader abilities are mostly OP but NR pincer attack is still the top of the food chain.

NG bronze cards all need buffs (lock and solider especially,) while NG gold need to nerfed.

 

[Qzman]

That's quite an interesting statement.

Could you please provide some examples?

Please, consider what @Nerevarine228 pointed out:

1) Other engines can be dealt with eventually.

2)You can tech against them at the end of the round

3)The need to get rid of Skellen and Damien in two turns.

...but Yen's Invocation is "too good".

 

[Tyr117]

Tournaments are not representative of game meta. Still, Imperial Formation is now strong but doesn't even use many cards deemed broken by the (vocal anti-Nilfgaard part of) community, who complained even while Nilfgaard was tier 3...

Those Meta Snapshots are usually wrong, sometimes extremely wrong, Double ball is tier 3? What? Nonsense.
Also, You NG players need to accept the Fact your Faction is OP and extremely annoying for most people, please stop Defending it, obviously most ppl think Whatever they are playing is weak and underpowered and all that, but it isn't, not with NG.
Also who plays Shupe these days? That is the NG you are talking about? Play double ball with Lockdown and you'll see what everyone is talking about, if you haven't already.
For example, I play SK, it's my main faction, and I do think that Second wind Wildboar Greatswords deck is OP at the moment, mainly because you can play a Card like Wild Boar or Morkvag 2 times, but I don't come around and defend it if someone Complains about it, and Some already did, please stop Defending the Game breaking parts of NG, these is a reason why everyone, literally, is Frustrated about, although not every complain about NG is correct too, but still, you need to find a middle Ground instead of Purely Fanboy NG no matter what or purely hate on it no matter what, just like everything else in life.

 

[Actuas]

Tournaments are not representative of game meta. Still, Imperial Formation is now strong but doesn't even use many cards deemed broken by the (vocal anti-Nilfgaard part of) community, who complained even while Nilfgaard was tier 3...

Lol what? They are THE meta. If something is strong, it's played to win in tournaments.

 

[Qzman]

Those Meta Snapshots are usually wrong, sometimes extremely wrong, Double ball is tier 3? What? Nonsense.

What do you base that on? I'd assume professionals and teams know their stuff and have a huge pool of plays to deduct from, not just a hunch.
Also, they're wrong for placing Double Ball in tier 3 but not for placing Imperial Formation in tier 1?

Also, You NG players need to accept the Fact your Faction is OP and extremely annoying for most people, please stop Defending it, obviously most ppl think Whatever they are playing is weak and underpowered and all that, but it isn't, not with NG.
Also who plays Shupe these days? That is the NG you are talking about? Play double ball with Lockdown and you'll see what everyone is talking about, if you haven't already.
For example, I play SK, it's my main faction, and I do think that Second wind Wildboar Greatswords deck is OP at the moment, mainly because you can play a Card like Wild Boar or Morkvag 2 times, but I don't come around and defend it if someone Complains about it, and Some already did, please stop Defending the Game breaking parts of NG, these is a reason why everyone, literally, is Frustrated about, although not every complain about NG is correct too, but still, you need to find a middle Ground instead of Purely Fanboy NG no matter what or purely hate on it no matter what, just like everything else in life.

I agree Nilfgaard is super annoying but it's far from broken, just like Skellige. I wish the devs would provide some facts and data regarding decks and cards, that way we could move toward objective estimates. So far the best analysis is provided by pro snapshots, which say everything the people complain about is within norms of balance.

Lol what? They are THE meta. If something is strong, it's played to win in tournaments.

Wrong. In tournaments the decks that best counter opponents are played. To be honest I haven't really followed Gwent tournaments but from watching Hearthstone championships it's easy to see the difference between regular ranked meta and decks aimed at particular opponents.

 

[irrrregular]

I noticed something that this overpowered faction has with Bribery.
I dont know wth the developers did, but Bribery ALWAYS displays the BEST OF THE BEST of my deck for the opponent to pick.
How the hell this card costs only 8 provisions ?

http://imgur.com/sx9F0S5

http://imgur.com/e3K72wN

http://imgur.com/7N7Yjum

Just another overpowered card to ruin the game

 

[DrunkHemplar]

You blame the problem on the wrong thing. It's scenario that allows poison spam. Without scenario poison is not that good. I'm all for removing scenarios as well. I think they were a major mistake alongside defenders and create huge imbalances in the rest of the game and very binary win/loss conditions.

There was an outcry when Skellen and Damien hid behind a defender like some cowards, but how do you really think it is like with other factions? It's just the bloody same thing, except everyone just hates on NG, while doing the exact annoying things themselves, just in a different way.

You can easily and effectively poison spam without the Scenario; what the Scenario does is give you 2 free poisons; in essence while getting a Dame out to plus off of your status shenanegans.

Syanna+Rot Tosser
Asaire+Puffball

Are two very potent plays that get even more potent when Letho is involved; both of which result in 3+ poisons being applied in a single round.

Post automatically merged: May 23, 2020

I think that NG isn't as op as some people are making them out to be but they have some serious, serious balance issues in both directions.

1. Poison needs a rework. Personally, I like the idea of purify adding "resistance" which would make the purified unit immune to the next status effect applied to it.

2. Damien needs to be removed from the game (or completely reworked). Reusing Leader abilities is overpowered nonsense.

3. Locks needs some love, not the lock status itself but they need some provision tweaks since lock status isn't that amazing these days (its not awful but things like Alba Cavalry really should be a 4 point card with a 3 power body, like how it used to be).

4. Bribery needs to be investigated. It's weird as hell that it keeps giving the best cards so frequently.

5. As much as I really hate to say it...Syanna is bonkers with NG...she gives the entire deck so much utility and power play options. You can Letho out a 2nd Syanna and then get out 3 Rot Tosser Cow Carcasses in 1 turn, you can use her on Asire, Vincent, etc. There's no end to the combos with gold and bronze cards. I'm not sure if it's Defenders being overpowered here or if it's actually Syanna but something here has got to give. Defender+Syanna+Letho=hilariously imbalanced and robust combo that can work with almost any 4th card or even without Letho.

 

[Sj8407]

I noticed something that this overpowered faction has with Bribery.
I dont know wth the developers did, but Bribery ALWAYS displays the BEST OF THE BEST of my deck for the opponent to pick.
How the hell this card costs only 8 provisions ?

http://imgur.com/sx9F0S5

http://imgur.com/e3K72wN

http://imgur.com/7N7Yjum

Just another overpowered card to ruin the game

It always geave golds 10+, because of probability - if in the deck are 25 cards, and among them are about 8 cards that are x2 bronzes, than Bribery take under consideration only 17 cards (because it is not taking doubles as an option to generate). Therefore when in average deck are about 6 cards with 10+ provision, and game is generating choice of 3 from 17, than mathematically probability is near 100% of gold 10+ to choose. It is just bad design of these card , that is works exackly as You mentioned except games aginst shupe/radeyah singleton decks. From my own expirience levels of absurd was reached when my opponent (I was playing NR) was litelarey setting my units for 3-2-1 power before using Bribery, because he was so convinced that he will get Falibor - and guess what? He of course get him lol

 

[irrrregular]

It always geave golds 10+, because of probability - if in the deck are 25 cards, and among them are about 8 cards that are x2 bronzes, than Bribery take under consideration only 17 cards (because it is not taking doubles as an option to generate). Therefore when in average deck are about 6 cards with 10+ provision, and game is generating choice of 3 from 17, than mathematically probability is near 100% of gold 10+ to choose. It is just bad design of these card , that is works exackly as You mentioned except games aginst shupe/radeyah singleton decks. From my own expirience levels of absurd was reached when my opponent (I was playing NR) was litelarey setting my units for 3-2-1 power before using Bribery, because he was so convinced that he will get Falibor - and guess what? He of course get him lol

thats absurd
and sometimes they use it twice, as i forementioned in one of the pics.

 

[Guest 4368268]

Defenders break this games' balance in a nasty way. Certain cards with a game shattering effect like Damien are obviously balanced to be within plausible removal range (5p removal specials, movement) but often you have to use your strongest removal on the actual defender instead of the targets you have it for. The way this game works on a competitive level just feels fundamentally flawed to me. I don't want to stuff my deck with removal. I don't want to be one of those players.
But if you don't you just get overwhelmed by stuff like the infamous enslave six.

I know it's not described as 'tier 1' by Aretuza and I'm sure its winrate is nothing out of the ordinary either. But I'd rather not have to be absolutely compelled to run one of every tech card out there. Tech a bomb heaver or masquerade ball steamrolls you. Tech a purify or their defender keeps you from targeting anything on their board. Tech a zap because otherwise Damien plays for 30 points. I don't mind sacrificing some proactive strategy and adapting to the meta and my opponents. I think that's a lot of fun and to be expected. But HC has taken this to a frustrating level.

In OB Gwent when NR had 4 engines on the board I wouldn't stress about it. In Homecoming it means round/game over, because said engines will probably just destroy anything you try to play. But hey, I guess that's part of the 'Gwent is a battlefield!' aesthetic. Hooray I guess.

 

[Fargothwave]

In OB Gwent when NR had 4 engines on the board I wouldn't stress about it. In Homecoming it means round/game over, because said engines will probably just destroy anything you try to play. But hey, I guess that's part of the 'Gwent is a battlefield!' aesthetic. Hooray I guess.

Here's a couple of (kinda) unrelated fun facts for you -
1) Heroes of Might and Magic VI, one of the latest entries in a rather famous TBS game series, was the only one, where battles had a somewhat smooth, tactic-heavy, gradual dynamic, supported by a lot of healing/resurrection options as opposed to trading oneshots in I - V and VII (V was relatively smart with it, but still revolved around heavy blows that left no room for retaliation, it's just that for the first time ever you needed to actually use your brain for setup and execution)

2) HOMM VI is (near)-universally considered to be the worst game in the series for precisely this reason.

Point is, people love messing up their opponents, people love to deliver crushing one-sided defeats and feeling their opponents' frustration over being left with nothing and, finally, many (most?) people like it to be easy. Oh, and some of them love to humble brag about it, too.

In regards to GWENT, this principle translates to the absolute prevalence of Braindead Ball/Enslave players over all the other decks, both of which provides all of the above, with a side bonus of easy ranked points. They don't actually need to be tier 1 to attract people, they have to be exactly what they are - easy trolling/self-gratification tools. Of course, the same could be said about Spellataiel (but fortunately this one isn't as good/popular)
Occasionally they run into something that counters them, but it doesn't ruin the fun of breaking someone else's sandcastles elsewhere. Simply put, a lot of people play this game to bully, and there's no escaping that as long as the game provides tools for it.

 

[IvRoz]

...but Yen's Invocation is "too good".

I'm not following.

Could you please elaborate?

 

[irrrregular]

I'm not following.

Could you please elaborate?

Yennefer picks ANY card on the board (even if it is boosted by 2, 5, or 80 points) and place it in the opponents deck.
Provision ? 9p

 

[IvRoz]

Yennefer picks ANY card on the board (even if it is boosted by 2, 5, or 80 points) and place it in the opponents deck.
Provision ? 9p

I see.

I still can't understand how that is related to what he quoted from me.

Is it a neutral card?