The real true problem behind Homecoming

[Gemueseknolle]

I see a lot of people who discuss details and problems for special cards and decks and factions why homecoming is less fun.

Most of those posts have a good point, but almost anyone seems to oversee the MAIN general reason why homecoming feels so much more empty and less enjoyable as beta-gwent:
"positive attitude"-decks don't pay off!

explanation:
* under "positive attitude" i understand decks that are not mainly focused on controlling the other deck but instead of getting a higher number by positive means (e.g. buffing, cloning, summoning,...)
* currently almost all decks focus on damaging your opponent and the reason is simple:
** the costs for damaging are the same as for buffing, but damaging brings more benefit.

for example:
* i could buy a "mastercrafted spear" to damage my opponent by 1 and i could buy a "Wyvern Scale Shield" that boosts my cards +1 for the same costs.
* but of course people choose the spear, cause the chance is given that then the opponent's unit doesn't trigger its abilities if i destroy it faster than it can trigger.

due to the high increase therefore of control-decks this not only limits the variety of playable decks, but it of course makes people frustrated if they are always wiped before they can even evolve their positive deck ideas. in beta-gwent, it was possible to play both ways, destructive and constructive (e.g. you could swarm, copy, clone, shuffle etc). basically new gwent has the same possibilities, but it is impossible to play them, since you will be on the ground before you even started.

this could be solved in two ways:
1) decrease costs for beneficial units compared to destructive units
2) or make boost higher than damage (eg. if a similar unit would damage by -2, its counterpart should heal by +3)

this analysis was done by a player with currently 2470h in gwent. - oh god, please help me, i play way more than i should

 

[Esmer]

It's a big problem indeed, but it's only one of the problems with HC.

 

[Khreygond]

Except this particular problem was there forever, way before HC, it's just been amplified since.

That's why damage shouldn't be this prevalent and Locks needed to come back.

In fact I've been thinking that control needs a complete change, from the bottom up, instead of the binary clear weather/destroy a card something that gives you points while passive abilities are triggered. A form of control card would not be "damage an enemy by 9" but more like "while in your hand deck or the battlefield, boost self by 1 when an enemy unit that does not have a deploy ability has its ability triggered" In fact control could be tailored in the same way engines are, to be a different type of control for swarm engines, buff engines and damaging engines.

All late to the party I know, but it could satisfy both the need for control and those (me included) that think it's really unfun and frustrating to have your cards destroyed at every turn. You can still execute your gameplan this way at least.

 

[Forestry]

The usual terminology is called "point spamming", and its actually a viable strategy since Eithne got nerfed; please inform yourself before misinforming others. Before Eithne got nerfed, control was the problem, nothing would stick to the board, everything would die to Scorch, Epidemic and artifacts, Regis, etc.

But now? Have you run into Woodland Spirit? They play Weavess:I to eat Spearhead from hand, then they eat Spearhead from graveyard with Ozzrel... thats 16+15=31 points in two turns, its stupid and ridiculous... and thats not even taking into account Goliath, the other Speartip and the Ghouls.

Game is unplayable if you dont run Xavier Lemmens AND Scorch, inform yourself.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

But now? Have you run into Woodland Spirit? They play Weavess:I to eat Spearhead from hand, then they eat Spearhead from graveyard with Ozzrel... thats 16+15=31 points in two turns, its stupid and ridiculous... and thats not even taking into account Goliath, the other Speartip and the Ghouls.

this is maybe the only exception. as i said, i talk general, not about one specific deck

 

[StrykerxS77x]

The usual terminology is called "point spamming", and its actually a viable strategy since Eithne got nerfed; please inform yourself before misinforming others. Before Eithne got nerfed, control was the problem, nothing would stick to the board, everything would die to Scorch, Epidemic and artifacts, Regis, etc.

But now? Have you run into Woodland Spirit? They play Weavess:I to eat Spearhead from hand, then they eat Spearhead from graveyard with Ozzrel... thats 16+15=31 points in two turns, its stupid and ridiculous... and thats not even taking into account Goliath, the other Speartip and the Ghouls.

Game is unplayable if you dont run Xavier Lemmens AND Scorch, inform yourself.

I don't agree. I have more faith in control eating that deck up than it dominating. Too many cards can mess up your big units.

Post automatically merged: Dec 13, 2018

I see a lot of people who discuss details and problems for special cards and decks and factions why homecoming is less fun.

Most of those posts have a good point, but almost anyone seems to oversee the MAIN general reason why homecoming feels so much more empty and less enjoyable as beta-gwent:
"positive attitude"-decks don't pay off!

explanation:
* under "positive attitude" i understand decks that are not mainly focused on controlling the other deck but instead of getting a higher number by positive means (e.g. buffing, cloning, summoning,...)
* currently almost all decks focus on damaging your opponent and the reason is simple:
** the costs for damaging are the same as for buffing, but damaging brings more benefit.

for example:
* i could buy a "mastercrafted spear" to damage my opponent by 1 and i could buy a "Wyvern Scale Shield" that boosts my cards +1 for the same costs.
* but of course people choose the spear, cause the chance is given that then the opponent's unit doesn't trigger its abilities if i destroy it faster than it can trigger.

due to the high increase therefore of control-decks this not only limits the variety of playable decks, but it of course makes people frustrated if they are always wiped before they can even evolve their positive deck ideas. in beta-gwent, it was possible to play both ways, destructive and constructive (e.g. you could swarm, copy, clone, shuffle etc). basically new gwent has the same possibilities, but it is impossible to play them, since you will be on the ground before you even started.

this could be solved in two ways:
1) decrease costs for beneficial units compared to destructive units
2) or make boost higher than damage (eg. if a similar unit would damage by -2, its counterpart should heal by +3)

this analysis was done by a player with currently 2470h in gwent. - oh god, please help me, i play way more than i should

I really expected homecoming to be more focused on engines as that was something the community talked about a lot. Unfortunately the devs had their own plans.

 

[DankTemplar]

Except this particular problem was there forever, way before HC, it's just been amplified since.

That's why damage shouldn't be this prevalent and Locks needed to come back.

In fact I've been thinking that control needs a complete change, from the bottom up, instead of the binary clear weather/destroy a card something that gives you points while passive abilities are triggered. A form of control card would not be "damage an enemy by 9" but more like "while in your hand deck or the battlefield, boost self by 1 when an enemy unit that does not have a deploy ability has its ability triggered" In fact control could be tailored in the same way engines are, to be a different type of control for swarm engines, buff engines and damaging engines.

All late to the party I know, but it could satisfy both the need for control and those (me included) that think it's really unfun and frustrating to have your cards destroyed at every turn. You can still execute your gameplan this way at least.

Locks did come "back". Almost every game has them in it, hell, I personally run 5-6 locks, depending if Auckles triggers with Serrit in hand.

Damage might need a slight toning down in some cases but more often than not, I find damage to be adequately balanced.

Artifacts themselves are imo the problem.

They're like old weather cards but due to a massively slower tempo, they're more busted.

Part of why is because there's bot enough dual purpose, reasonable provision cost removal for Artifacts, part of it is because most Artifacts have built in zeal and part of it is just bad design.

Personally, I'd make shield give 2 armor per turn, take away it's zeal.

And all Artifacts would have somewhere between 3 to 6 armor, once their armor is destroyed, the Artifact goes to the graveyard. The exception being traps, ehich woukd work as they currently work.

 

[nedders]

As has been said, the OP comments are just part of a very wide series of problems with this game. With the creation of Artefact and the continued success of older card games, I think this game is dead. It's officially Gwent76.

The announced changes aren't particularly relevant or interesting, and certainly don't solve any of the deep-rooted issues. The gameplay is a mess, there's bugs everywhere and I noticed Thronebreaker is already at 20% discount! It's clear that the wider community has tanked.

Maybe in reality it was never that good in the first place, have we considered that for a second? It was probably due to the resounding success of Witcher 3 we all felt a connection to this game and the characters within. Nostalgia could well have been the main reason for any success, certainly iteration of it have resulted in increased derision (Mid-Winter got some grief, Gwent76 is just tanking).

In terms of an online card game, Gwent Beta had its' fun - there were of course far too many netdeckers (i.e. Greatswords) but it at least offered some fairness and you were always playing against an actual person, which helps. There was always the sense that you could maneouver, be proactive and reactive, use movement, traps, reveal, tutors - have a say in what you were doing in EVERY match.

This unbalanced, unfair, luck/algorithm driven, deal-dependent RNG game is awful. Yes, removal is a problem, but so is uber buffing. However the underlying issue is that we can all pick cards counters - it's ALL about counters which is part of the issue - though getting them in our hand is out of anyone's control. Oh no, a big monster. Is Geralt/Scorch/Leo/Regis in my hand? Nope. Can I get it in my hand? Nope. Game over. Oh look, an Eithne artefact removal deck. Did I get my sapper/heaver/Iris? Nope. Game over. I know, let's build a Monster deck around Arachas Queen. Opponent: Usurper. Game Over.

Personally I think CDPR should sell the license to someone who could go back to what it was and make Gwent Beta most of us paid/played to see improved. Oh, and they should offer a whopping great apology at the same time.

 

[VladAtheris]

Game seems pretty balanced to me. Which is proven by the fact that you can get all 5 factions to relatively the same MMR. The one which is a bit too powerful and will be nerfed is NR.
Gemueseknolle, I don't know how you reach 2164 fMMR on NR, which is objectively the easiest faction to climb with, and at the same time claim to have a deep understanding of the game and its mechanics.
Your win rate must be at around 30%. I'm not saying this to be mean or to insult you but simply to point out that maybe the game is fine and you just don't understand it all that well. Or, at least, not at a Rank 0 level. Next season when you drop to Rank 5 you might find it a lot more enjoyable if you are matched with players of similar skill.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

Gemueseknolle, I don't know how you reach 2164 fMMR on NR, which is objectively the easiest faction to climb with, and at the same time claim to have a deep understanding of the game and its mechanics.

currently i am losing more than about 70% actually. the reason is, i am trying some totally weird, unique boards. my goal is to use cards that no-one else uses and still make them competitive in ranked. (the general rate about finding such decks takes looooot of time, cause you need to try out what noone else does, and usually of course it will not work or needs a lot of fine tuning. but sometimes, very, very seldomly you find such a deck that has some unexpected synergies and can make it work, which is very gratifying and brings me more joy than having a high rank, which i got so many times before already)
=> so consider this quite a personal challenge. with my amount of game time playing the same decks like everyone else has no meaning to me and is not what i am doing. i got so much scraps, barrals that i could draft me all the cards that exists, i even got 88% of all achievements. so winning is not the point for me any longer. it is to finds unique and special decks.

 

[DankTemplar]

Its not THAT bad, lol.

Other than a few things, like busted leader combos and, as you pointed out, Artifacts (due to not having enough generic outs with dual purpose) I'd say Gwent post HC is in a decent spot for what's essentially a fresh start.

It's going to take a few seasons and probably a pro tourney before things get balanced adequately.

 

[VladAtheris]

Fair enough. But if your goal is to find unique and special combos then you should not be upset when they don't work out and blame it on the game not being balanced.
Every faction has one archtype that is the best. By definition the best means better than all other so only one can be the best. And if you play the best deck possible against the field you will find that each faction's best is good enough to do battle with 80% of the opposition. Of course they will be countered every once in a while because that's the nature of all games, not only CCGs.
My point is that although it is not perfectly balanced, Gwent HC is balanced to the point where there is no OP faction that just stomps everything and that you have to play if you want to win. Like CA abuse ST used to be. Or machines NR. Do you remember greatswords? When you had to tech removal and lock up the ass or you would be screwed. Going into round 3 with 3 cards up and still losing.

 

[Gemueseknolle]

Fair enough. But if your goal is to find unique and special combos then you should not be upset when they don't work out and blame it on the game not being balanced.

i am not upset. i am just analysing other people's decks i face and decks i try to make up my own. (Since i dont care about winning, my approach is a rather analytic one and the things mentioned above is just something which i figured out after so much playtime to be the true problem currently)

 

[Forestry]

...
My point is that although it is not perfectly balanced, Gwent HC is balanced to the point where there is no OP faction that just stomps everything and that you have to play if you want to win. Like CA abuse ST used to be. Or machines NR. Do you remember greatswords? When you had to tech removal and lock up the ass or you would be screwed. Going into round 3 with 3 cards up and still losing.

OMG i got ptsd flashbacks to old Henselt and Scoia Brouver/Cleaver/Wardancer

 

[StrykerxS77x]

Its not THAT bad, lol.

Other than a few things, like busted leader combos and, as you pointed out, Artifacts (due to not having enough generic outs with dual purpose) I'd say Gwent post HC is in a decent spot for what's essentially a fresh start.

It's going to take a few seasons and probably a pro tourney before things get balanced adequately.

Today I decided that pre homecoming was probably the better game. I don't see much progress in homecoming. After the redesign they created more problems than they had before. The hand limit, mulligans, card abilities, new cards (artifacts), bad mechanics and redesigns.

They took like two steps forward and then 5 big steps backwards.

 

[VladAtheris]

Well, the game was more complex before that's why it was more fun. But don't forget that they had a year and a half of development on that one. At the start of open beta it was more shit than HC was at release.
So maybe a year from now it will be better than what beta gwent was when they shut it down.
One thing is for sure, the balancing is a lot easier to do now than it was before. In beta the balancing was almost impossible that's why they fucked it up so horribly so many times with midwinter patch and whatever else.

 

[MagyarGeralt91]

Omg I remember some of the 100s of points at once on board using Foltest way back, copying, summoning, resurrecting, Baron, Shani, Yen buffs haha. I don't even remember the exact builds anymore but the old meta decks were crazy...and ST was OP. Streamers would only play ST to climb to top ladders lol

 

[Pruny]

I see a lot of people who discuss details and problems for special cards and decks and factions why homecoming is less fun.

Most of those posts have a good point, but almost anyone seems to oversee the MAIN general reason why homecoming feels so much more empty and less enjoyable as beta-gwent:
"positive attitude"-decks don't pay off!

explanation:
* under "positive attitude" i understand decks that are not mainly focused on controlling the other deck but instead of getting a higher number by positive means (e.g. buffing, cloning, summoning,...)
* currently almost all decks focus on damaging your opponent and the reason is simple:
** the costs for damaging are the same as for buffing, but damaging brings more benefit.

for example:
* i could buy a "mastercrafted spear" to damage my opponent by 1 and i could buy a "Wyvern Scale Shield" that boosts my cards +1 for the same costs.
* but of course people choose the spear, cause the chance is given that then the opponent's unit doesn't trigger its abilities if i destroy it faster than it can trigger.

due to the high increase therefore of control-decks this not only limits the variety of playable decks, but it of course makes people frustrated if they are always wiped before they can even evolve their positive deck ideas. in beta-gwent, it was possible to play both ways, destructive and constructive (e.g. you could swarm, copy, clone, shuffle etc). basically new gwent has the same possibilities, but it is impossible to play them, since you will be on the ground before you even started.

this could be solved in two ways:
1) decrease costs for beneficial units compared to destructive units
2) or make boost higher than damage (eg. if a similar unit would damage by -2, its counterpart should heal by +3)

this analysis was done by a player with currently 2470h in gwent. - oh god, please help me, i play way more than i should

spears are atrocious, rework them and give sihil their ability.

 

[Hybridizati0nn]

But now? Have you run into Woodland Spirit? They play Weavess:I to eat Spearhead from hand, then they eat Spearhead from graveyard with Ozzrel... thats 16+15=31 points in two turns, its stupid and ridiculous... and thats not even taking into account Goliath, the other Speartip and the Ghouls.

This is exactly due to excess control in the game. These huge point slam units are more than removal can do, so they stick to the board and beat removal. Only if engines would stick to the board and people would thus use them, the engines would beat these point spam decks.

I'd consider healthiest a meta where engines and removal by engines is the dominant tactic, which is only achieved by increasing deploy removal units' provision cost.

EDIT: It is not to say that speartips are broken too. Adding a doomed tag should do the trick for those, as the problem is more the huge bodies than the graveyard consuming units' provision cost, because on most other cases it is quite well balanced.

 

[DankTemplar]

As has been said, the OP comments are just part of a very wide series of problems with this game. With the creation of Artefact and the continued success of older card games, I think this game is dead. It's officially Gwent76.

The announced changes aren't particularly relevant or interesting, and certainly don't solve any of the deep-rooted issues. The gameplay is a mess, there's bugs everywhere and I noticed Thronebreaker is already at 20% discount! It's clear that the wider community has tanked.

Maybe in reality it was never that good in the first place, have we considered that for a second? It was probably due to the resounding success of Witcher 3 we all felt a connection to this game and the characters within. Nostalgia could well have been the main reason for any success, certainly iteration of it have resulted in increased derision (Mid-Winter got some grief, Gwent76 is just tanking).

In terms of an online card game, Gwent Beta had its' fun - there were of course far too many netdeckers (i.e. Greatswords) but it at least offered some fairness and you were always playing against an actual person, which helps. There was always the sense that you could maneouver, be proactive and reactive, use movement, traps, reveal, tutors - have a say in what you were doing in EVERY match.

This unbalanced, unfair, luck/algorithm driven, deal-dependent RNG game is awful. Yes, removal is a problem, but so is uber buffing. However the underlying issue is that we can all pick cards counters - it's ALL about counters which is part of the issue - though getting them in our hand is out of anyone's control. Oh no, a big monster. Is Geralt/Scorch/Leo/Regis in my hand? Nope. Can I get it in my hand? Nope. Game over. Oh look, an Eithne artefact removal deck. Did I get my sapper/heaver/Iris? Nope. Game over. I know, let's build a Monster deck around Arachas Queen. Opponent: Usurper. Game Over.

Personally I think CDPR should sell the license to someone who could go back to what it was and make Gwent Beta most of us paid/played to see improved. Oh, and they should offer a whopping great apology at the same time.

I definitely agree that beta was better. Finishers weren't as strong, card advantage was a major variable and not drawing a hard counter didn't mean auto losing.

HC has some good ideas but overall, the implementation was sloppier than virgin on prom night.

At rank 18, I find the game completely frustrating, binary and pointless.