SY & NR dominance

[ardeathwing]

I'll try to be as polite and political as possible.
1) When is this dj/foltest/maeve bs going away?
2) Who thought that having 2 factions completely overpower the rest for a whole season is a good idea? What was he smoking?
3) When is this dj/foltest/maeve bs going away?

thanks

PS:
Ah, one more thing:
4) So ppl thought that SK had too much thinning in the past. So after a number of deliberate SK thinning nerfs someone came up with the awesome idea:
Let's make multiple decks that thin to zero (or worst case 1-2) without any issue! Awesome! So much balance so cool!

 

[StrykerxS77x]

I'll try to be as polite and political as possible.
1) When is this dj/folters/maeve bs going away?
2) Who thought that having 2 factions completely overpower the rest for a whole season is a good idea? What was he smoking?
3) When is this dj/folters/maeve bs going away?

thanks

Next patch
Who knows
Next patch

 

[4RM3D]

2) Who thought that having 2 factions completely overpower the rest for a whole season is a good idea? What was he smoking?

Yes, SY and NR are strong, but the other factions are by no means weak and they can still beat SY and NR. Seeing too much SY and NR can skew your perception though.

Anyhow, CDPR has mentioned they want to overhaul each faction one by one, starting with NR. And while this does lead to some temporarily power difference between factions, it would be a suicidal task to overhaul all factions at the same time.

So ppl thought that SK had too much thinning in the past. So after a number of deliberate SK thinning nerfs someone came up with the awesome idea: Let's make multiple decks that thin to zero (or worst case 1-2) without any issue!

While consistency was a strong advantage for SK, it was not the main reason thinning to zero was too strong. Bran provided extra (damage) points, together with Coral for discarding cheap Special cards. Other factions actually need to utilize all cards and build a whole deck around it; usually also a very predictable deck. So, you might be able to thin to zero, but, at least, you have to pay a fair price for it, now.

 

[ardeathwing]

While consistency was a strong advantage for SK, it was not the main reason thinning to zero was too strong. Bran provided extra (damage) points, together with Coral for discarding cheap Special cards. Other factions actually need to utilize all cards and build a whole deck around it; usually also a very predictable deck. So, you might be able to thin to zero, but, at least, you have to pay a fair price for it, now.

I totally don't agree with this. SK had a thinning package that included birna/scalds/skirmishers/mogvarg/derran (which are now totally unplayable btw, haven't seen them in even 1 deck for the whole season). All of those required luck of the draw to play correctly and often bricked. They also did not provide any other functionally apart from raw points on the board (and the thinning in question). Bran is also just 1 leader from the faction that could achieve hyper thinning and was never an OP one, apart from the gimmickly beasts stacking some time ago.
Now we have cards that draw other cards which draw cards on their own, things like portal and summoning circle that add up to the OP stuff that some factions already have, the thinning extravaganza with tibor, all the 'summon all this stuff from deck' etc!
ON TOP of all that we have 6-7 mulligans for everyone which is so OP for certain leaders that if you told anyone this would happen an year ago, they would laugh in your face. ( talk about those annoying SY and NR decks with 99% consistency due to the mulligans)
And all of this after the SK thinning nefs and the trio witcher nerfs (that again nobody uses anymore btw since so much other OP thinning stuff exists)
Thinning and tutoring is out of control

 

[Archan6el]

...

I don't think thinning and tutoring are out of control. It's a great way to get more deck consistency and focus on units. I would like to see artifacts and specials to be tutored/used by units so that there is more focus on units and less unitless play. Portal is a cool (and expensive) card.

You cannot throw Portal and Summoning Circle on the same heap. Summoning Circle is a delayed combo-, point-slamming card. The real problem is the binary artifact removal, making point hoarding too easy (similar to other artifacts that hoard points).

You mentioned Tibor and thinning. The problem here is not deck thinning. The problem is that provisions are not used to properly balance cards with a value range. Yennefer: Divination and Xarthisius are both 9 provisions and when they reveal Tibor, they provide way too many points for their provisions (16 and 18 respectively). For balancing, their value range should be capped at max 12 or something, so that if you play them well, you get max value, but not some ridiculous OP value like they can give now. This would make the game more tactical and would significantly reduce the amount of "abusive" combo's.

Yennefer: Divination and Xarthisius are problematic by design as they are high-RNG cards (that can become OP when RNG is removed by thinning the deck). 9 provisions, based on what? Balancing through RNG is a very bad concept, especially for a strategic game.

 

[4RM3D]

SK had a thinning package that included birna/scalds/skirmishers/mogvarg/derran

That's what I was talking about, though I didn't specifically mentioned Morkvarg and Co. Those cards, on their own, were fine. but the total package was a bit too much.

PS. You're throwing "OP" around way too often. Be careful not to wear it out.

The problem is that provisions are not used to properly balance cards with a value range. Yennefer: Divination and Xarthisius are both 9 provisions and when they reveal Tibor, they provide way too many points for their provisions (16 and 18 respectively). For balancing, their value range should be capped at max 12 or something, so that if you play them well, you get max value, but not some ridiculous OP value like they can give now.

I hate putting arbitrary (hard-)caps on cards. I rather have the card be dynamically soft-capped based on the board state. Regardless, you cannot use provisions to properly balance combo card. They usually go over the value and you cannot nerf them (too much) because then no one will risk it due to bricking the combo. As such, the balancing should (also) be done by other means.

On a final note, I am actually okay with Yen and Xarth because their power swings only work in a hyper-thin deck solely dedicated to this purpose. And it's okay for all-in (one-trick-pony) decks to get the extra value from it.

 

[Bruele]

In ladder only foltest and dijkstra. Developers belance the game please. And tests the cards before.

 

[ardeathwing]

...

I know I'm ranting a bit, maybe I had too much already this season. I wanted to point out that when you combine arbitrary balance in favor of 2 factions and then give them very high consistency (thinning options and a lot of mulligans) the game becomes extremely repetitive and boring.
Also I don't believe that predictability is a weak point of the thinning decks. You can't gear towards countering only 1 specific deck, in this case tall point removal late in game, and we all know even if you do, you can still lose round one due to the extreme thinning point slams or simply not draw your counter - let's say yrden or some other geralt in this case.
All I'm saying is this thinning mistake was done and fixed before just to be introduced again with other cards in other faction. Also not a huge supporter of this high number of mulligans for everyone. This drives me nuts.

 

[williamr1024]

I can't believe how powerful NR became after those few tweaks. I have climbed from around level 14 to level 4 using just the NR deck with a couple tweaks of my own. I rarely loose and when I do it is because I miss clicked or accidentally played my card on the wrong row because I wasn't paying attention, etc. There is a SY deck going around that they spend coins to give units bleeding and they bleed your whole side of the board. I crush that deck every single time. One time he bled my entire side of the board with tons of units and had double bleed rounds, etc. I just converted them all to Revanants (or whatever they are called) which removed all the bleed. He immediately shut his system off and disconnected.

The deck also has a lot of high point cards that also give units vitality for rounds equal to their base value. That is an insane amount of points if played between two already high level cards. Two points every round early on adds up fast plus the card's base value is already high.

Plus if you save your golds to round 2/3 you can easily 2-0 most decks because the bronze cards in this deck become very powerful if left unchecked dealing a lot of damage over time or boosting up and up.

 

[ardeathwing]

I can't believe how powerful NR became after those few tweaks. I have climbed from around level 14 to level 4 using just the NR deck with a couple tweaks of my own. I rarely loose and when I do it is because I miss clicked or accidentally played my card on the wrong row because I wasn't paying attention, etc. There is a SY deck going around that they spend coins to give units bleeding and they bleed your whole side of the board. I crush that deck every single time. One time he bled my entire side of the board with tons of units and had double bleed rounds, etc. I just converted them all to Revanants (or whatever they are called) which removed all the bleed. He immediately shut his system off and disconnected.

The deck also has a lot of high point cards that also give units vitality for rounds equal to their base value. That is an insane amount of points if played between two already high level cards. Two points every round early on adds up fast plus the card's base value is already high.

Plus if you save your golds to round 2/3 you can easily 2-0 most decks because the bronze cards in this deck become very powerful if left unchecked dealing a lot of damage over time or boosting up and up.

That's what I'm saying, Foltest is beatable only if somehow they don't draw a single commando round one and misplay their Dualing removals (crazy mechanic btw). Banishing commandos harldy tickles that deck, there is so much more in it.
Meve needs to misplay a lot of stuff to lose or again have a horrible draw luck since every single card in that deck is an engine, you simply can't shut them all down. Her ability awards on average more than 25 points per match as it works with most cards in her deck.
Dj SY is beatable only if you win round one (last say), quickly disable the guy that slams 2 point of dmg x 99999 times (the existence of this card baffles me to no end) and keep your tall removal for the townsfolk madness as last play. GL dealing with the bounty stuff and the seizing cards they got in the meantime. This deck combines infinite removal with the option of infinite tall growth, which imo should be always 2 separate decks, and not possible to do in 1.

 

[Bruele]

In ladder only foltest and dijkstra. Developers belance the game please. And tests the cards before.

Ok, it s the leader challenge

 

[Raziel_888]

The thing is that they sold the rework as NR being a greedy faction, which on the paper is awesome, but they gave it a lot of instant power not relying on the greedy part. Ok, some units can use charges, or vitality or bleed, but it's just a bonus that you don't need to get value.
For a quick tour (and again, it's just my opinion), and I'm gonna try not to take into account that leaders like Maeve and Foltest can add value to those all game long:
-Bronzes, Tridam Infantry breaks even on deploy and then 2 points for every boost. Trebuchet also breaks even and then 1 point per turn. Drummer is one point short but with all the boosting/inspired cards, he also doesn't need much.
-The ones that are supposedly but always get value, because instant, or high body, or zealed. Most of them are hard to remove in one turn so always give value: Vissegerd, Botchling, Ves, Foltest's Pride, Nenneke, Reynard
-The ones that are just really good and don't need anything (not calling OP, although some of them might be): Seltkirk and Anseis are often instant removal, Bloody Baron is like a Peter Gwynleve on amphetamines, Falibor (even if you don't shoot 3 times, he's still ok at 1 shoot and good at 2), Draugr has always been good if handled properly, special mention to Keira Meitz, the absolute winner (where is she greedy? she's big, I mean 7 body? really? she should be 3 or 4 with that ability), usually played on big units and you can't remove the 2 of them at once). And for the last 4, even if they are countered, they are still 7 body each! I thought that was a monster thing XD
-In the end, the few that I really see as "greedy" are: Windhalm (need a shield), Vysogota (that needs to stick), Roegnar (that needs set-up), and Dandelion. Those are for me the 4 worthy cards that need some set up or some luck or some skill or whatever to get value. They can be super powerful if left untouched but are easily disturbed or shut down. Those are the types of cards that NR should see more I think, as they are interesting in design and need proper play...

Maeva was always good but is now even better with all the inspired/formation cards. Foltest definitely didn't need the boost, I don't understand where that comes from. Calanthe is WTF, she should be back to drawing a card, or choose an NR card with lower provision cost as the one played or something.
Adda is the only leader that I like the tweak: she fits into the greedy aspect: either you assure an 8 point removal, or you remove a small and they hope that the greed stick. That's fun and well thought.

 

[Archan6el]

I hate putting arbitrary (hard-)caps on cards. I rather have the card be dynamically soft-capped based on the board state. Regardless, you cannot use provisions to properly balance combo card. They usually go over the value and you cannot nerf them (too much) because then no one will risk it due to bricking the combo. As such, the balancing should (also) be done by other means.

Soft-capped would be the best. I wouldn't call Reveal a combo. These cards have too much variance on deploy, which is problematic for various reasons. Having hard caps for these type of cards (but within a proper range to keep them interesting) would make the game more balanced and strategic, fighting for single points. A 4 provision Swindle gives between 4 and 6 coins, not between 4 and 9. There's a reason for that.

 

[4RM3D]

I wouldn't call Reveal a combo.

It's an odd one. The ability works without needing any setup. However, to gain consistent value, you need to build a whole deck around it. And because those cards aren't being used otherwise, it's still qualifies as a combo, albeit not a typical one.

 

[Archan6el]

It's an odd one. The ability works without needing any setup. However, to gain consistent value, you need to build a whole deck around it. And because those cards aren't being used otherwise, it's still qualifies as a combo, albeit not a typical one.

Perhaps. Their variance is too large, that's why they're only being used in a full-thinning deck, in which they are OP. The problem is too much variance. That's why I gave the Swindle example. If they would have smaller variance, maybe they would see more play in other decks, making the game more varied.

 

[soph912]

I don't agree much with Raziel and other opinions here. Bloody Baron is certainly better than Peter but he has 10 provisions and Peter has 6 so this should be expected.
Windhalm, Vysogota and Dandelion don't need skill to play. They are just cards which promise more than one point per turn if they stick and this depends on the deck you have to play against. Is it a control heavy deck like Ardal tactics they probably won't. If it's an engine deck they might.

Tridam Infantry is not a standalone engine. Trebuchets are but they are worse than a tax collector for example.
Botchling can be muzzled or removed so does not always give value. Ves is simply a bad card now.

Draug is clearly overpowered for 13 provisions.
Roche is clearly overpowered for 11 provisions.
Draug only needs some humans on the board and some low units on the other side and Roche needs some Commandos in deck.

Keira can often be countered with muzzle or seize. Seltkirk and Anseis are only really good together with Foltest. With the other NR leaders they are not great.

 

[bojerbela]

I don't agree much with Raziel and other opinions here. Bloody Baron is certainly better than Peter but he has 10 provisions and Peter has 6 so this should be expected.
Windhalm, Vysogota and Dandelion don't need skill to play. They are just cards which promise more than one point per turn if they stick and this depends on the deck you have to play against. Is it a control heavy deck like Ardal tactics they probably won't. If it's an engine deck they might.

Tridam Infantry is not a standalone engine. Trebuchets are but they are worse than a tax collector for example.
Botchling can be muzzled or removed so does not always give value. Ves is simply a bad card now.

Draug is clearly overpowered for 13 provisions.
Roche is clearly overpowered for 11 provisions.
Draug only needs some humans on the board and some low units on the other side and Roche needs some Commandos in deck.

Keira can often be countered with muzzle or seize. Seltkirk and Anseis are only really good together with Foltest. With the other NR leaders they are not great.

Did you see Pumpkin's Calanthe-Shield deck? No Draug, no Roche, but Lebioda, Reynard, Keira, Falibor, Anna...and the bronzes....he 2-0d the most Dikkstra decks and did not lost a single match agaimst Ardal (that's what I saw). Some NR golds are broken at the moment...

 

[soph912]

Did you see Pumpkin's Calanthe-Shield deck? No Draug, no Roche, but Lebioda, Reynard, Keira, Falibor, Anna...and the bronzes....he 2-0d the most Dikkstra decks and did not lost a single match agaimst Ardal (that's what I saw). Some NR golds are broken at the moment...

I watched it but only some minutes. I saw him losing against DJ townsfolk abuse. Also his opponents didn't know what to expect, I suppose. Calanthe decks usually play Draug without Commandos or Shupe sometimes.

Falibor is 12 points on average. That doesn't seem broken to me. Keira is a bit more points on average but plays into a juicy Philippa (and Igni maybe).

 

[RyseAurellius]

Its a bit rough at the moment yeah. CDPR though are fully aware of how far ahead SY and NR factions are at the moment. As has been said in earlier posts they are working on each of the factions. Have to be patient for them to bring the other factions up.

I hope there isn't too much nerfing going on. There are enough cards and leaders in the game that don't get used as it is, because when something is nerfed people always abandon it.
Obviously there needs to be some minor tweaks to NR and SY but hopefully most of the work will be going into bringing the other factions up, especially monsters. Monsters seem to be the farthest behind at the moment.

I think the September patch will be pretty damn good for the game.

 

[The_Loon_King]

I'm so sick of nothing but removal being viable. What is the point of the shield mechanic (and armor whenever they add it) when there are a myriad of "destroy" card archetypes like Geralt, Letho, Igni, Graden, Moreelse, Scorch, etc. Imo the mechanic of "destroy" should be reworked. It makes tanking and protecting your units completely pointless as "destroy" doesnt do any damage it just takes your card off the board. Imo "destroy" should do the amount of damage equal to the target card's current power to remove it, rather than just taking your card off the board.