SY & NR dominance

[FG15-ISH7EG]

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.

I'm really not a fan of most of these cards. (Igni and Scorch are different as they serve kind of a different purpose).
But Geralt and co, are supposed to counter high value cards or point stacking, not completly remocing a card. I would rather prefer those cards only doing the point removal not the complete removal, by giving cards a status:

Fatal (Status): At turn start, set this units power to 1.
The idea is that this unit is on death's door, no matter what you do. Healing and boosting will only help getting it over 1 more round and the only thing you can do to stop it is purifying it, though that likely means that the enemy might kill it with normal measures.
Moreover, cards like Geralt and co, who will apply this status should have their provisions slightly reduced to balance the change.

 

[ElricVIII]

I'm really not a fan of most of these cards. (Igni and Scorch are different as they serve kind of a different purpose).
But Geralt and co, are supposed to counter high value cards or point stacking, not completly remocing a card. I would rather prefer those cards only doing the point removal not the complete removal, by giving cards a status:

Fatal (Status): At turn start, set this units power to 1.
The idea is that this unit is on death's door, no matter what you do. Healing and boosting will only help getting it over 1 more round and the only thing you can do to stop it is purifying it, though that likely means that the enemy might kill it with normal measures.
Moreover, cards like Geralt and co, who will apply this status should have their provisions slightly reduced to balance the change.

This is an interesting status effect to have in the game, but it shouldn't be in lieu of destroy. What really needs to be done is a reworking of immunity/shield to make things less binary.

I especially dislike shield, because it has such variable effectiveness based on the enemy deck. For example, I'm playing SY for the event, so I am obviously using a bounty package. Having all of my damage come in increments of 1 makes shield actually worse than just boosting the unit by 1; I hardly even care about the shields. But compare that to units that hit for 3+ damage and shield just becomes a horrible obstacle.

I heard that armor used to be in this game, but the way cards were designed, the only point of it was to remove it from your own cards for benefits, like Damned Sorceress. I really think that armor as simply a defensive measure (with very few cards that interact with it other than damage) would be a better mechanic than shield for tanking and survivability. All-or-nothing, binary mechanics are never good.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

This is an interesting status effect to have in the game, but it shouldn't be in lieu of destroy. What really needs to be done is a reworking of immunity/shield to make things less binary.

I especially dislike shield, because it has such variable effectiveness based on the enemy deck. For example, I'm playing SY for the event, so I am obviously using a bounty package. Having all of my damage come in increments of 1 makes shield actually worse than just boosting the unit by 1; I hardly even care about the shields. But compare that to units that hit for 3+ damage and shield just becomes a horrible obstacle.

I heard that armor used to be in this game, but the way cards were designed, the only point of it was to remove it from your own cards for benefits, like Damned Sorceress. I really think that armor as simply a defensive measure (with very few cards that interact with it other than damage) would be a better mechanic than shield for tanking and survivability. All-or-nothing, binary mechanics are never good.

I don't have a problem with shield being removed by small pings because that should mean the enemy needs setup for it. If SY would be nerfed in a way that they can't burst something with small pings without interactable setup, shield would be a lot better.

And yes armor might be uesfull to, but would serve a completly different purpose than shields are supposed to do.

 

[Shabman]

I'm just playing a nifty Usurper deck and sticking it to the man.

 

[ekedlon]

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!

I invested a lot of time and money in Gwent, and the last month was a real disappointment.
Playing almost every day the first 3 matches against OP decks is anything but fun.
I feel really betrayed by CDPR, I feel like a lab mouse used for testing (hint: CDPR, you can test your updates before releasing them).

 

[Archan6el]

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.

I agree that "Destroy" is bad. It's a binary no-brainer mechanic that ignores/punishes tactical decisions to protect a unit. Unfair, unbalanced. A card like Geralt should do high damage, not just simply destroy. With real tactical play, big units, boosts or boosting engines can be countered with (timely) removal, locks and resets, not some lame no-brain-solution-for-all "Destroy". The key to balance the game is to create acceptable variance ranges for the points that a card can provide (with an exception for engines).

Shield is another binary mechanic that makes no sense. It's ridiculous that Shield simply blocks any damage. This automatically creates unbalance between different factions/decks, because decks that ping don't give a crap about Shield, while decks that deliver damage in larger packages are at a disadvantage. Shield should be replaced with Armor. Gwent needs to get rid of all the binary crap (Destroy, Shield, artifacts) and uninteractable crap (coins, Immune, playing special cards without units) to make it more interesting, less annoying and frustrating, more tactical/calculative and last but not least: easier to balance.

 

[RyseAurellius]

Its not the only viable option... And I think it's fine, its not like there are huge amounts of cards with that ability. I played as DJ townsfolk for a couple of weeks and saw geralt igni once. And the other cards with destroy you still have to choose when and what to use it on, its not a guaranteed victory when you use it.

 

[ardeathwing]

Its not the only viable option... And I think it's fine, its not like there are huge amounts of cards with that ability. I played as DJ townsfolk for a couple of weeks and saw geralt igni once. And the other cards with destroy you still have to choose when and what to use it on, its not a guaranteed victory when you use it.

In general my observations are that currently there are plenty of tall removals while the 'wide' removals are kind of weak. This leads to decks that are in the middle and can spam multiple engines (NR in general) to prosper since nothing hits them too hard.
Geralt's 'destroy' has so many alternatives nowadays that I don't see the point of changing that card just for the sake of 'destroy'

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

Shield is another binary mechanic that makes no sense. It's ridiculous that Shield simply blocks any damage. This automatically creates unbalance between different factions/decks, because decks that ping don't give a crap about Shield, while decks that deliver damage in larger packages are at a disadvantage. Shield should be replaced with Armor. Gwent needs to get rid of all the binary crap (Destroy, Shield, artifacts) and uninteractable crap (coins, Immune, playing special cards without units) to make it more interesting, less annoying and frustrating, more tactical/calculative and last but not least: easier to balance.

Gwent and card games in general are discrete and not continous and therefore in the end everything boils down to something binary. That is the way it works. Though what effects that binariness has can be huge different and therefore the word shouldn't be used so lightly.
If you think about it, removing a card from the board in any way is probably the most binary thing in the entire and shields are protecting exactly from that.
And while ressurceting is something that is not easily available to players, every faction has easy access to ping engines, or other tools to destroy a shield. And there are still ways to circumvent those with purify or locks.
So having no shields in the game and units getting just removed without any counter measure would be a lot more binary.

 

[Archan6el]

Gwent and card games in general are discrete and not continous and therefore in the end everything boils down to something binary. That is the way it works. Though what effects that binariness has can be huge different and therefore the word shouldn't be used so lightly.
If you think about it, removing a card from the board in any way is probably the most binary thing in the entire and shields are protecting exactly from that.
And while ressurceting is something that is not easily available to players, every faction has easy access to ping engines, or other tools to destroy a shield. And there are still ways to circumvent those with purify or locks.
So having no shields in the game and units getting just removed without any counter measure would be a lot more binary.

There are loads of ways to protect your units other than Shield. And Armor would be infinite times better than Shield.

Yes, when it comes down to it, everything boils down to something binary. A card is removed or not removed, locked or not locked, boosted or not boosted, damaged or not damaged. Sure, fun argument. That doesn't mean that the mechanics that lead to these binary statuses have to binary as well, thereby creating all kinds of balance issues. This game should be about tactical play, calculating points and making timely plays and combo's to get just that bit more value. That is ruined by this binary stuff.

So let's try to clarify "binary". I believe that what is usually meant with a binary ability is that no calculation is needed, because the ability simply ignores points/strength. "Destroy" does not need calculation; a unit or artifact will be destroyed no matter what. "Shield" does not need calculation; any damage will be blocked. Destroy and Shield are not point-based.

And that's where the problem lies. With provisions, an attempt is made to balance cards around their point value. Decks focused on big (boosting) units are at a disadvantage against "Destroy". Damage-pinging decks laugh hard at Shield. Destroy and Shield simply ignore points and their value depends on the opponent's deck and abilities. That is why they become impossible to properly balance. That is also why Usurper is impossible to properly balance, as his ability's value depends on the opponent's leader and deck. This stuff makes the game less tactical and more matchup- and card-draw- (RNG) dependent.

But perhaps that's the whole commercial model? To create this type of imbalance and RNG in the game so that players need to grind and play a lot of games with the best decks to even out the highs and lows of RNG and get a 60% winrate? Instead of creating a game with much less RNG-dependent stuff so that every matchup will be tense and close, with the outcome much more depending on tactical skills? The model of players grinding instead of players truly wanting to play because every match is fun, balanced, challenging and very tactical?

 

[4RM3D]

But perhaps that's the whole commercial model? To create this type of imbalance and RNG in the game so that players need to grind and play a lot of games with the best decks to even out the highs and lows of RNG and get a 60% winrate? Instead of creating a game with much less RNG-dependent stuff so that every matchup will be tense and close, with the outcome much more depending on tactical skills?

First of all, this has nothing to do with money (directly, at least). To have an engaging game, some RNG is needed. Not only for new players to have a shot at winning, but also to stave off the staleness.

Furthermore, the rock-paper-scissors meta is an inherent part of all CCG. When something becomes popular enough, other decks (or tech cards) will emerge to counter it. Besides that, there will also be decks focused on one aspect, which are usually easier to shut down.

Also, when players (in the top rank) have a 60% win-rate, I reckon the game is balanced. RNG can mess up your game, yes. However, on average, skill still wins you more games than RNG makes you lose them. I have played many of the big CCG (Magic, HS, Shadowverse, etc) and all of them have terrible RNG and require less skill (as well as being more pay to win).

Finally, while a lower variance will lead to more games being a close race, it will also reduce the excitement. Those power swings are what gives the game its identity. And yes, Hearthstone goes in overdrive here, but there is a middle road when you need to invest cards and/or risk to get the combo off. Dijkstra + Townfolk being a bit too much, but Glusty is a fair example. Incidentally, not having these swing cards, will lead to all decks being mid-range which makes for a boring game.

 

[Archan6el]

First of all, this has nothing to do with money (directly, at least). To have an engaging game, some RNG is needed. Not only for new players to have a shot at winning, but also to stave off the staleness.
...
Also, when players (in the top rank) have a 60% win-rate, I reckon the game is balanced. RNG can mess up your game, yes. However, on average, skill still wins you more games than RNG makes you lose them. I have played many of the big CCG (Magic, HS, Shadowverse, etc) and all of them have terrible RNG and require less skill (as well as being more pay to win).

Match-up and card-draw is simple luck. Abilities like Shield and Destroy further increase the variance that this luck brings. This doesn't make the game more interesting, unless you like gambling. In a strategy game, having many different types of abilities, decks and combinations to play makes it interesting, not the rock-paper-scissors match-up and card-draw RNG. This RNG increases variance in the win-rate of good players (as you indicated), needing them to play many more games (grinding) to even it out. Isn't that an interesting model? I'm not judging here. I simply don't like so much RNG/luck in games, especially not in games that are supposed to be strategic.

Finally, while a lower variance will lead to more games being a close race, it will also reduce the excitement.... Incidentally, not having these swing cards, will lead to all decks being mid-range which makes for a boring game.

More games being a close race will reduce the excitement? I believe it's exactly the opposite.

 

[ardeathwing]

Also, when players (in the top rank) have a 60% win-rate, I reckon the game is balanced.

When you have the same deck go vs the same deck most of the time (with 2-3 decks being played the most on top of the ladder), naturally you will get a 50-60% win rate based on the luck of the draw. This has nothing to do with balance.
Today from about 10 matches I had to face 5-6 dj, 2 foltest and 2 other decks. (rank 7) I reckon the most common match is dj vs dj and it gets even more common in the lower brackets.
I bet if we could look at the average value per card for each faction, SY and NR will be at least 1.3x-1.4x compared to the rest.
What is even more annoying is that I mostly lose because of 1 card -Ewald Borsodi. Round 3 hop, he clears the board every.single.time. Doesn't matter if you win or lose round one, doesn't matter what coin you flip. And since SY have crazy thinning and carryover mechanics (eavesdrop), they draw him every time.This guy should be 14-15 provisions, not 8.

 

[Alexander_Volgin]

Another aspect of balancing could be to create the right incentitives for players to play different decks. I dont know how much faction-mmr helped to create more variety. However, we can take a step further and make it so that players who reached pro rank this month, will stay in pro rank when the season reset. Then we will see less pressure for race to the top, meaning that more decks will possibly be played.

Secondly, those who reach pro rank, will be incentiviced to play all 4 factions in order to retain their rank. I dont mind that this game becomes more casual, as it is already feels too restrictive. With a wide (expected) player base, it seems a little off that only 500 will retain privilege (in terms of easier head start, when the season resets) for no specific reason. Widening it to 1500 players or more, over the course of two months is another step to create the incentitives.

Either way, the most dedicated players will always stay at the top, despite the fact that the game becomes more accessible to the general population.

 

[RyseAurellius]

When you have the same deck go vs the same deck most of the time (with 2-3 decks being played the most on top of the ladder), naturally you will get a 50-60% win rate based on the luck of the draw. This has nothing to do with balance.
Today from about 10 matches I had to face 5-6 dj, 2 foltest and 2 other decks. (rank 7) I reckon the most common match is dj vs dj and it gets even more common in the lower brackets.
I bet if we could look at the average value per card for each faction, SY and NR will be at least 1.3x-1.4x compared to the rest.
What is even more annoying is that I mostly lose because of 1 card -Ewald Borsodi. Round 3 hop, he clears the board every.single.time. Doesn't matter if you win or lose round one, doesn't matter what coin you flip. And since SY have crazy thinning and carryover mechanics (eavesdrop), they draw him every time.This guy should be 14-15 provisions, not 8.

14-15 for Ewald is extreme overkill. If you want him to cost that much then you need to increase his power value or the dmg he does.

He is not that bad. You say he comes out in round 3 so that gives you 2 rounds to prepare for him to come. By ensuring you have removal or lock. During my run in the faction challenge I would say that I had Ewald locked or removed immediately after playing him AT LEAST 50% of the time.

 

[The_Loon_King]

Ewald Borsodi is so ridiculous lol. It seems odd that SY can use all their card abilities immediately without waiting a turn for order. You can wait to play Ewald until the opponents board is stacked and then unleash 18 coins/pts worth of damage in 1 turn it doesnt really make any sense to me.

 

[ardeathwing]

14-15 for Ewald is extreme overkill. If you want him to cost that much then you need to increase his power value or the dmg he does.

He is not that bad. You say he comes out in round 3 so that gives you 2 rounds to prepare for him to come. By ensuring you have removal or lock. During my run in the faction challenge I would say that I had Ewald locked or removed immediately after playing him AT LEAST 50% of the time.

Dude, you can't remove him before he acts, he insta kills your whole board if the leader is Dj, his ability might as well say 'If you are playing Dj, clear the enemy board'. He is also dirt cheap (8 prov) which means that they can always hugg him for R3 and push you with way more expensive cards during round 1 and 2. 14-15 is not overkill at all, he is WAY better than Scorch for example.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

I've read a couple of times the suggestion about the Borsodi brothers to give them a cooldown of 1 to balance them. What if instead each additional use in the same turn would cost 1 more coin? This way you could still use all your charges, but it would become a lot more expensive.

 

[The_Loon_King]

I've read a couple of times the suggestion about the Borsodi brothers to give them a cooldown of 1 to balance them. What if instead each additional use in the same turn would cost 1 more coin? This way you could still use all your charges, but it would become a lot more expensive.

Thats a good suggestion, Ive also considered whether it would be better for the coin purse to be attached to SY units on the board making The SY economy vulnerable. As it stands right now SY can build an economy of damage with no risk to their own damage dealing units.

 

[4RM3D]

In a strategy game, having many different types of abilities, decks and combinations to play makes it interesting, not the rock-paper-scissors match-up and card-draw RNG.

"having many different types of abilities, decks and combinations to play makes it interesting" is precisely why there is a rock-paper-scissors meta. Every deck has an Archilles' Heel because it would be overpowered otherwise. So, when one deck becomes popular, players are going to run counters. This is the very definition of meta and it's literally impossible to remove the rock-paper-scissors construct from the equation. The only question is how high the variance becomes because of this meta. When you look at Hearthstone, you know they have gone too far.

More games being a close race will reduce the excitement? I believe it's exactly the opposite.

When watching an actual race, it might be more exciting when the top is closer together. However, Gwent is not a race, but a skirmish. Have you ever watched a professional Judo match? For the viewers, nothing happens until one of the contestants loses his/her balance. Maybe it's exciting to play, but it's boring to watch. E-sports thrive on excitement and fast gameplay. Chess, for example, being the opposite of this, while it's still a strategical game (and usually a tight "race").

When you have the same deck go vs the same deck most of the time (with 2-3 decks being played the most on top of the ladder), naturally you will get a 50-60% win rate based on the luck of the draw. This has nothing to do with balance.

You assume that only 3 decks are being played, while that's simply not true. Dijkstra and Foltest are popular, but many more decks are being used. The 60% win rate principle is very much based on diverse match-ups.

This guy should be 14-15 provisions, not 8.

This is not a realistic suggestion and you fail to see the bigger picture. Borsodi is not the problem here. The issue is the hoarding of coins, most noticeable with Dijkstra.