The Meaning of Rows

[4RM3D]

This is not a debate of three rows vs two rows, but about what a row means and how it impacts the gameplay. My suggestion would work for both two and three rows.

Intro
CDPR wanted Homecoming to feel like you're playing on a battlefield (some players wanted a tavern feeling, though). You deploy units on the field and use their ability to damage an enemy. Furthermore, leaders stand on the field and give orders. Going with this theme, there is still one thing lacking: the weight of the rows. What I mean is that currently there is almost no difference between the melee and ranged row, except for a few units with reach. Normally, on the battlefield, the front (melee row) is often the most dangerous. Homecoming does not have that feeling. The melee row is still safe.

Suggestion
My suggestion is to make the melee row feel more dangerous (and the ranged row more safe) by giving it a high risk, high reward play. For example, when playing a unit on the melee row it will do four damage instead of two. Similar, when playing a unit on the ranged row, it will get +1 armor to protect itself. You play your engines on the ranged row to protect them, while sending in the cavalry on the melee row to attack. This is just one simple example. The result should be that the melee and ranged row have a different weight to them. Incidentally, units like Triss: Telekinesis are a poor implementation of the row system because you always want to use their deploy ability.

 

[Fimbulthrym]

A few steps:
1. Give at least all damaging and buffing units a reach-tag
2. Reach means how many filled rows away the target could be
3. Reach 1 could be common, more Reach should be more rare.
4. Implement support units which can add/take Reach away (Like Scout: Improve the Reach of neighboring units by 1)

I think Step 1 is the most important. If you a vast majority of Reach-Units, it would rise the meaning of rows signifiantly

For example, when playing a unit on the melee row it will do four damage instead of two. Similar, when playing a unit on the ranged row, it will get +1 armor to protect itself.

I dont really see how it would be more dangerous to play in melee row. You just get 2 extra damagepoints. Thats not dangerous at all, because you can get hit in range as well.

I know it isnt wanted here, but i think you need more than 2 rows to get this mechanic working well.

 

[FG15-ISH7EG]

A few steps:
1. Give at least all damaging and buffing units a reach-tag
2. Reach means how many filled rows away the target could be
3. Reach 1 could be common, more Reach should be more rare.
4. Implement support units which can add/take Reach away (Like Scout: Improve the Reach of neighboring units by 1)

I think Step 1 is the most important. If you a vast majority of Reach-Units, it would rise the meaning of rows signifiantly

I dont really see how it would be more dangerous to play in melee row. You just get 2 extra damagepoints. Thats not dangerous at all, because you can get hit in range as well.

I pretty much agree on that, except 2. Skipping empty rows should be a special ability of some units, and I would even prefer it to become a keyword, such that it could be triggered by certain conditions.

I dont really see how it would be more dangerous to play in melee row. You just get 2 extra damagepoints. Thats not dangerous at all, because you can get hit in range as well.

If there are enough units, who only have Reach 1 (and can't skip empty rows), but have stronger removal effects, the melee row would automatically be less safe and thus more risky.

 

[4RM3D]

I dont really see how it would be more dangerous to play in melee row. You just get 2 extra damagepoints. Thats not dangerous at all, because you can get hit in range as well..

Not all units will be able to hit ranged (swordmen and such). Also, if you line up the melee row, the opponent can also do more damage to it. Regardless, it was just an example. When the game has enough units that can punish the melee row, you can add cards that give extra bonuses when on the melee row. Example:

The Defender
6 strength
8 provisions (might need tweaks, it's just an example)
Melee: Taunt: The opponent cannot target other units on this side. When the opponent hits The Defender, this unit takes double damage.

 

[sfruzz]

Actually, your idea is in line with what is stated in the Open Letter from Marcin Iwiński

"[...] As an example, we would like to introduce a preferred row for some cards that would grant them additional benefits when put on that row. Also, rows in the front and back would always grant a different buff when a unit is placed there."

A similar change would make me a happier Gwent player.

An additional change that I'd like to see, would be to have all units that do damage gain a Reach tag, and have weather Reach modifier (e.g. Fog) or units Reach modifier (like a sort of Siege engineer +1 Reach for nearby units).

 

[B4K4M1]

how about treating your hand as the siege row?

all hand interaction (buffing etc) would be seen as interaction with your siege row (ergo more immersion regarding battlefield scenario)
this would lend itself towards the implementation of new possibilities, like choosing to reveal your own cards in your hand to make them enter the battlefield via your siege row for different effects und strategies - in turn help reinvision reveal archetype for NG

you could even put in a timer which adds armor to your revealed siege row cards every 2 turns for example - so there is a balance between engine playability and reactivity for your oppenent via prior knowledge of what is coming
set rules in place like "only reveal up to 1 card per turn", this could even come in play during your opponents turn
I think my few examples are only just scratching the surface of this concept
there could even be cards who want to stay in your hand "forever" - with some boons or other powerful effects to make up for the downside of not playing the card in the melee or ranged row for points

the new layer for strategies revolving around carryover (positive and negative) could be brought back into the game and in this way influence not only tactical confrontation in the active round, but the whole match and by doing so also keep rampant "tempo metas" in check

pls discuss this idea further and let me know your thoughts - sry I hope this still matches the intent of this thread : )

 

[Fimbulthrym]

how about treating your hand as the siege row?

How should this work? What you discribe is most likely the old reveal mechanic, which was cut out. And if you can play in this row, this is still your hand, but renamed. It wont achieve anything in this regard.
But mabe i only need sme more detailed examples

 

[Ataxiate]

A few steps:
1. Give at least all damaging and buffing units a reach-tag
2. Reach means how many filled rows away the target could be
3. Reach 1 could be common, more Reach should be more rare.
4. Implement support units which can add/take Reach away (Like Scout: Improve the Reach of neighboring units by 1)

I think Step 1 is the most important. If you a vast majority of Reach-Units, it would rise the meaning of rows signifiantly

I dont really see how it would be more dangerous to play in melee row. You just get 2 extra damagepoints. Thats not dangerous at all, because you can get hit in range as well.

I know it isnt wanted here, but i think you need more than 2 rows to get this mechanic working well.

The problem with reach 1 is that many decks will be built to play the majority of their cards on the ranged row, nullifying this ability. Therefore, in order to make this work, I think you would have to return gwent to having row locked cards instead of choosing.

 

[sfruzz]

The problem with reach 1 is that many decks will be built to play the majority of their cards on the ranged row, nullifying this ability. Therefore, in order to make this work, I think you would have to return gwent to having row locked cards instead of choosing.

You would first play Scout, +1 Reach to adjacent unit, to help your melee 1 Reach unit to damage the cards that your opponent has deployed on the ranged row.
You could even come up with a 0 Reach card, that needs this kind of buffs to attack the enemy.
You could print an artifact, let's say a telescope, to increase your Reach or cast a Fog (-1 Reach on the row) to hide your unit from the enemy...

 

[Restlessdingo32]

You would first play Scout, +1 Reach to adjacent unit, to help your melee 1 Reach unit to damage the cards that your opponent has deployed on the ranged row.
You could even come up with a 0 Reach card, that needs this kind of buffs to attack the enemy.
You could print an artifact, let's say a telescope, to increase your Reach or cast a Fog (-1 Reach on the row) to hide your unit from the enemy...

Units buffing the reach of other units, please no. You would then need to carry and draw those cards together for it to be reliable. There are already enough instances of this right now. Plus, as soon as the +1 reach card hits the board it's going to get clobbered. The opponent will know you are using it to extend unit reach. They will know you may be relying upon it. They will also know to put their units toward the back row.

I do think the weather idea is pretty cool though. It would give weather a rather large benefit. Quite frankly, it needs the help. Bronze weathers are already quite expensive and arguably not worth it.

I'm not particularly fond of 1 reach units to begin with. It'd make far more sense to just row lock them. A Dwarven Skirmisher, for instance, can only be played in the melee row and hit stuff in the melee row anyway. You cannot put it on the range row or hit range units. What is the point? Furthermore, there are some decent units nobody uses because reach holds them back. Wyverns come to mind. 2 body, 4 damage at 4 provisions is pretty good. Until you realize it can only hit stuff from the melee row to the melee row, and has the adjacent beast condition.... too conditional (if it wasn't 1 reach it would probably see play).

A better way to handle row abilities, IMO, is to do what is done with units like DB Bowmen or Archers. Bowmen are a 3 damage, 3 body unit if hitting from range to range. You can build specifically to create a situation where that happens (Dragoons or Ciaran, gold weather the front row, etc.). Archers have either a single 2 ping or two 1 pings, depending on where you play them. This type of design gives you realistic options. Either by letting you maximize the unit in the deck builder or based on the board state.

 

[sfruzz]

I do think the weather idea is pretty cool though. It would give weather a rather large benefit. Quite frankly, it needs the help. Bronze weathers are already quite expensive and arguably not worth it.

Yes, I like the idea of weather modifiers that are not just damage ticking!

Units buffing the reach of other units, please no. You would then need to carry and draw those cards together for it to be reliable. There are already enough instances of this right now. Plus, as soon as the +1 reach card hits the board it's going to get clobbered.

Some 4 provisions cards are just there to be clobbered!
Anyway, you could make the card stick to the board giving it old Ronvid ability: coming back as 1 point unit with the Crewman tag. For Nilfgaard you could print a spy that allows you to easily target the other units on the row it is placed.

 

[kAiSeR007]

Uff, if the game is already hard to balance as it is right now for CDPR, imagine if they add something like this. While your idea is worth considering or debatable, there are more urgent issues to attend to.

Before, having three rows was meaningless, there was no iteraction between them, nor units with effects bounded to them, just weather. Now, even with two rows, they added dedicated effects for units if standing in one or other row. For me it's enough, for the moment. There are many balance issues that should be addressed first, many other bugs that need to be fixed.

 

[Shabman]

Before, having three rows was meaningless.

They were meaningless to those who did not understand how to use them. There were countless cards that were based on row interaction, and you can see how many of those mechanics have disappeared or have become a joke.

Why do you think the infamous Dimun Longship - An Craite Greatsword combo disappeared? Because people complained about it? Guess again. Because there was no way this could be balanced for 2 rows. Not enough space to move around those pesky buggers and break their combo. And that is even considering the 2 bronze limit.

Why do you think weather was nerfed so bad? Why do you think horizontal buffs are so powerful and same for horizontal damage? (I was initially wrong about this, lacerate and pit trap can be absolutely devastating, same for Regis)

Because two rows. That's why.

This initial decision to cut one row, for MARKETING REASONS (1), and despite its unpopularity(2) (I strongly recommend you do your research into these two very important points) was bound to morph the game and change plenty of things in terms of gameplay, which will lead to certain effects being nerfed into being unplayable, which will force them to play with new ideas every single time so people don't notice there's less mechanics and archetypes, which will keep this game from ever being anywhere close to a balance-ish state.

Cutting out one row opened Pandora's Box. You will see in time that I am right about this.

 

[4RM3D]

Why do you think the infamous Dimun Longship - An Craite Greatsword combo disappeared? [...] Because there was no way this could be balanced for 2 rows. Not enough space to move around those pesky buggers and break their combo.

That's not the reason why the Craiteswords were changed. All units have had their strength reduced. Because of this, Craiteswords would have become too strong. Besides, there are still row-locked abilities that can be countered by moving the corresponding units. And it's not like everyone was running movement to counter Craiteswords to begin with. Nah, that was just a bonus.

Why do you think weather was nerfed so bad?

Good question. Not sure if it was because of the two rows, though.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

I hate to rehash the rows argument but they stopped having any significant role when the agility patch hit. Every single unit gained agility. In CB many units were row locked. Agility was mainly an ST ability. At some point, unless I'm remembering wrong, they expanded it to include more units. Then the next thing you know, bam, everything is agile.

It actually kind of irritated me because they were on the right track with agility beforehand, IMO. It felt like a half-assed way to simplify the card design to slap agile on everything. It would have been better to expand agility and have a mix of agile and row locked units. That way you get the pros of agility (expanded options, both in card placement and the deck builder) and mitigate some of the cons of row locked units. Fast forward to now and it's effectively what HC has done. Irony....

 

[B4K4M1]

How should this work? What you discribe is most likely the old reveal mechanic, which was cut out. And if you can play in this row, this is still your hand, but renamed. It wont achieve anything in this regard.
But mabe i only need sme more detailed examples

I didn't directly state, that you still could then only play for points in melee and range row, so there you go. The point about renaming is somewhat true, but that doesn't make it worthless - immersion and stuff like faction identity, card plausibility have their own value, so does treating your hand as a siege row imo. It is somewhat similiar to the old reveal mechanic, but it has a lot more player agency I think.

I am not investing a lot of time in this idea so I can't give you fleshed out and spicy examples, i was kinda hoping for your own imagination and wanted to bounce this idea between multiple brains.

Let me try and give you one more example:

Turn1you: 10 cards - play 1 and "reveal" up to 1 of your cards in hand - which results in it being put into "siege row" (it just flips in your hand)

implications:
-which card to reveal/if any?
-any cards that would benefit from getting armor? (don't forget the fact that you would delay playing the card and maybe lose some of its value)
-any "siege" row specific/targeting effects? (think of whatever you would like)

Turn1opponent: 10 cards - same option that you had + if you didn't reveal on your turn, you could now choose to do exactly that (some restrictions like "before your enemy has played a card" should be in place because sequencing issues)
.
.
.
Turn7you: 6 cards - you revealed a card turn1 which now has gotten 4 armor (1 every turn in this example), your opponent is well aware of that fact, because so that it could get said armor it had to be "put" into siege row (think of it as entrenchment) and thus revealed.
Up to this point your opponent may have saved a card as sort of an answer to your revealed card, maybe it was a capable engine card or had some strong order effect, whatever.. BUT as it turns out you never planned on playing it this turn anyway, so you play a card with average points for its provision cost (just as an example), which removes all the armor and boosts the card in your siege row by the removed amount and also locks it (balance). You end up with carryover points in form of future tempo and maybe influenced your opponents line of play to be suboptimal. Now Imagine everything else that could have happened between turn 1 and 7 ; )
___

I hope this more detailed example gave some insight into what I imagined, regarding timing and strategy aspects. Of course it all would depend on the actual cards and effects involved with this mechanic. Now if anybody feels like it, come up with some interesting possibilities/effects for "my" siege row proposal or just tell me why you think this sucks.

One more thing, the "Range" keyword could be one way to deliver effects from melee/ranged to opposing siege row (revealed cards).

 

[Fimbulthrym]

So you play a second card in the siege row, if you play reveal? Is this card played then? Or can i play it again in another row? Will his deploy ability trigger? Wouldnt it mean you loose CA very fast, if playing two cards in a turn? Can you force reveal opponents cards?
I dont really like the idea to have a reveal-ability for cards which works in this way. Because of my questions above.
On the other side, i like the idea of just "reveal" you card, if you play it in the third row.
Obviously, because it will bring back a third row .

 

[B4K4M1]

So you play a second card in the siege row, if you play reveal? Is this card played then? Or can i play it again in another row? Will his deploy ability trigger? Wouldnt it mean you loose CA very fast, if playing two cards in a turn? Can you force reveal opponents cards?
I dont really like the idea to have a reveal-ability for cards which works in this way. Because of my questions above.
On the other side, i like the idea of just "reveal" you card, if you play it in the third row.
Obviously, because it will bring back a third row .

No, I differentiated between playing a card for points (melee/ranged) and putting it in siege row (0 Points - but can be played from siege to get its normal value).
This means no deploy abilities are triggered, every effect you get from a card being "placed" in siege should be stated on the card with "Siege:". The current reveal archetype for NG would then become somewhat siege row centered, I guess, and maybe bend the rules around this concept somewhat - like being able to reveal or affect Cards in your opponents hand/siege row, which also makes sense contextual - you reveal your opponents backline and expose them or stuff.

It will never impact CA in the way that you are able to play 2 Cards in a turn. You always have to play a card per turn and then get to decide if you want to put a different card into siege.