This game is so unfun. It used to be much better. Returning player rant.

+
It's hell for new players.
Lots of interesting things about this game and I really wanted to work on the
Journey's. Even spent some money for a premium journey, the Humble bundle, and a few barrel packs.
But I can't get further due to the uneven pairing and it makes a terrible slog to keep fighting against the same
decks that I don't yet have cards to counter; but also it takes so many fights to get a few wins to progress.

The "arena" sounds like what I need. They need someplace or something to take the edge off for new players or the game will sink.

I think I have had it.
 
Arena was never a good place for beginners. It demanded resources to play that beginners could scarcely afford; it threw a table full of unfamiliar cards at a person all at once; the randomness of its decks helped develop neither playing nor deck building skills.

You did not state how long you have been playing, nor what rank you are playing on. This makes it a little harder to offer concrete suggestions, but let me try.

First, if you are over rank twenty (players progress to lower ranks) and you are not playing standard ranked matches (the default play option when you restart the game), you probably should be. This is the setting where you are most likely to encounter other beginners with the same resources you have.

If you are within your first two or three months and are playing at ranks lower than 12, you have probably risen in rank beyond where your ability and card collection allows you to be competitive. Unfortunately, the ranked system almost always causes this for new players who play a lot. My suggestion then is to play training mode vs player, which still allows you to complete quests, advance journeys, win rewards, etc. On this setting you will encounters good cross section of decks and player — a mixture of hopeless, trivial, and well balanced matches.

Also, as a beginner, if you have not done so, you should be spending rewards on trees in the last tab (crown on a blue background). These trees grant cards that are generally better than starter deck cards. They are the quickest way to improve your card holdings.

Finally, the difficulty might not be your cards, it might be that you have not yet learned some fundamentals of good play. SPYROZA has some excellent teaching videos on YouTube — they are what I learned from. Some other streamers (e.g. Thea Beasty) also have good teaching videos, as do some of the e-sports team pages. Unfortunately, a lot of specific example quickly become obsolete as cards are changed and the meta changes. The principles will remain relevant and important, but some of the illustrations will be out of date. My forum thread, “Gwent Strategy Articles” also presents many fundamental strategy elements if you prefer a text based presentation.
 
Arena was never a good place for beginners. It demanded resources to play that beginners could scarcely afford; it threw a table full of unfamiliar cards at a person all at once; the randomness of its decks helped develop neither playing nor deck building skills.

You did not state how long you have been playing, nor what rank you are playing on. This makes it a little harder to offer concrete suggestions, but let me try.

First, if you are over rank twenty (players progress to lower ranks) and you are not playing standard ranked matches (the default play option when you restart the game), you probably should be. This is the setting where you are most likely to encounter other beginners with the same resources you have.

If you are within your first two or three months and are playing at ranks lower than 12, you have probably risen in rank beyond where your ability and card collection allows you to be competitive. Unfortunately, the ranked system almost always causes this for new players who play a lot. My suggestion then is to play training mode vs player, which still allows you to complete quests, advance journeys, win rewards, etc. On this setting you will encounters good cross section of decks and player — a mixture of hopeless, trivial, and well balanced matches.

Also, as a beginner, if you have not done so, you should be spending rewards on trees in the last tab (crown on a blue background). These trees grant cards that are generally better than starter deck cards. They are the quickest way to improve your card holdings.

Finally, the difficulty might not be your cards, it might be that you have not yet learned some fundamentals of good play. SPYROZA has some excellent teaching videos on YouTube — they are what I learned from. Some other streamers (e.g. Thea Beasty) also have good teaching videos, as do some of the e-sports team pages. Unfortunately, a lot of specific example quickly become obsolete as cards are changed and the meta changes. The principles will remain relevant and important, but some of the illustrations will be out of date. My forum thread, “Gwent Strategy Articles” also presents many fundamental strategy elements if you prefer a text based presentation.


Thanks for the advice, but you haven't read my very first post in this thread (granted it was a looong post and perhaps you lack the patience for such a lengthy read) in which I stated that I've been playing since the Closed Beta, quit the game a few months after the Homecoming Update, started playing again 2-3 months ago, I have all the cards, I have reached Rank 7 in 2018 and rank 3 last month, I understand all the mechanics, but the game is simply not fun because of the broken cards and NG, seriously screw NG. And Sihil. And Renfri. AND NG AGAIN. And I quit again a few days ago. I would like to return someday to a balanced Gwent game without all the cr@p present today, but I don't think it will ever happen. At most I could dream of a Singleplayer Game like Thronebreaker with a fantastic Story and good gameplay. (I've read the reviews for Rogue Mage and it's not my thing).
 
Thanks for the advice, but you haven't read my very first post in this thread.
Sorry, I was actually replying to Laska2. I guess I should have quoted that post.

I don’t really see a problem with NG, but I agree with you that imbalance (not so much between factions, but between cards) is a major problem, a problem that is becoming steadily worse, and one that I think is killing the game.
 
Too much point inflation makes MANY decks unplayable.

There are too many new cards that give too many points, while the "un-updated cards" are lost and forgotten.

A good game will have units(cards) that are HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD.
Gwent forgot about this basic rule. They just got lazy and made lots of units with LOW risk, High reward.

I am in proleague and I see the same old decks every time. It makes sense because they just hit too hard.
What gwent needs is some MAJOR nerfs so that people can start experimenting with decks and have fun, be creative, be risky.

It is sad to see them make AMAZING new cards, then just a few months later, create cards that are MUCH stronger than the "amazing new cards" and have the "amazing new cards" just get forgotten.... IT's quite a sad and self destructive method.

So please listen. Create cards and decks that are high risk, high reward, not ez decks that a 5 year old can play and get to prorank.

To do this,
STEP 1: Nerf the cards that are 4 provision points but hit for 12. Yes. This is a no brainer..
Nerf cards that require no set-up but hit like a truck for the provision it is required.
Seriously, develop a formula for this stuff before you create it. Like hire someone that knows math to do some type of point setup. It's not that hard...

STEP 2: create cards that ADD to the game not DEFINE the game.
Every patch is like adding a pound of ginger to a dish. The taste is so strong it ruins the dish....
Every patch is like having a Narccistic 5 year old in a band that plays the drums too loud, saying LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!
This... is not necessary.

[...]

STEP 4: It's ok to be bold with changes.
When enough people are complaining, or the game is becoming a bit too... dull due to the patch, it's ok to make a refreshing patch with lots of changes. No one will cry and complain if you start listening to the people. Have an open discussion and maybe take a new direction in doing things.

So please. Think of the players who love this game. Who spent hours on this game. Do us all a favor and [...] start to reflect and listen.

Thank you
 
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Too much point inflation makes MANY decks unplayable.

There are too many new cards that give too many points, while the "un-updated cards" are lost and forgotten.

A good game will have units(cards) that are HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD.
Gwent forgot about this basic rule. They just got lazy and made lots of units with LOW risk, High reward.

I am in proleague and I see the same old decks every time. It makes sense because they just hit too hard.
What gwent needs is some MAJOR nerfs so that people can start experimenting with decks and have fun, be creative, be risky.

It is sad to see them make AMAZING new cards, then just a few months later, create cards that are MUCH stronger than the "amazing new cards" and have the "amazing new cards" just get forgotten.... IT's quite a sad and self destructive method.

So please listen. Create cards and decks that are high risk, high reward, not ez decks that a 5 year old can play and get to prorank.

To do this,
STEP 1: Nerf the cards that are 4 provision points but hit for 12. Yes. This is a no brainer..
Nerf cards that require no set-up but hit like a truck for the provision it is required.
Seriously, develop a formula for this stuff before you create it. Like hire someone that knows math to do some type of point setup. It's not that hard...

STEP 2: create cards that ADD to the game not DEFINE the game.
Every patch is like adding a pound of ginger to a dish. The taste is so strong it ruins the dish....
Every patch is like having a Narccistic 5 year old in a band that plays the drums too loud, saying LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!
This... is not necessary.

[...]

STEP 4: It's ok to be bold with changes.
When enough people are complaining, or the game is becoming a bit too... dull due to the patch, it's ok to make a refreshing patch with lots of changes. No one will cry and complain if you start listening to the people. Have an open discussion and maybe take a new direction in doing things.

So please. Think of the players who love this game. Who spent hours on this game. Do us all a favor and [...] start to reflect and listen.

Thank you
While I agree with most of what you say, there are a couple of points that I want to nit-pick.

"A good game will have units(cards) that are HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD."
To me, this philosophy is the epitome of binary -- win if your opponent has no counter, lose if the opponent has a counter. In my opinion, higher potential cards should have multiple ways to limit that potential. For instance, Simlas (with Waylay and Elves) is high risk, high reward. If cards are not drawn at the correct time, this deck struggles. But when cards are drawn well, it scores massive points regardless of how the opponent responds. In only a minority of games is a match decided by how players react to one another's plays. On the other hand Villentretenmerth is a great example of a high potential, highly strategic card that admits numerous responses (which vary with the board state), and often counter-responses. Yet it is sufficiently restrained that no response does not guarantee a win for Villentretenmerth's player. I very much hate the former and love the latter card.

"Create cards and decks that are high risk, high reward, not ez decks that a 5 year old can play and get to prorank." I think the problem is not so much that any cards or decks are so OP that anyone will always win with them -- it is that many decks are so binary that they will win 40% of the time even when poorly played. Because the ranking system is based on peak rating, a lot of poor players make it to pro ranks based upon simply playing a lot, getting occasional lucky streaks, and winning on RNG. This is different than the decks being easy.

"Nerf the cards that are 4 provision points but hit for 12." To make match outcomes less dependent upon RNG, it is absolutely essential that the gap between low provision and high provision cards be significantly reduced. I think a far bigger problem than 4 provision cards playing for 12 points is 14 provision cards playing for 40. Moreover, I think you exaggerate about 4 provision cards playing for 12. Traveling Priestesses might do that or more, but only with substantial support from leader and other, much more expensive cards. Deranged Corsair is close, but is 5 provisions. And it is far from guaranteed 12 points. It can be played around by avoiding stacking weak units on full rows, a, purifies and/or boosts. It might be better at six provisions, but it is an interesting card I would not want killed.
 
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DRK3

Forum veteran
@Gwentsan @quintivarium
I agree with both of you, the best approach is probably somewhere in between, or a mix of both.

I too defend the 'high risk reward' philosophy. The game dove too deep into these amazing golds that provide insane value on deploy with no way to counter, or when it can be countered, it already provided enough value to still be decent.

On the other hand, binary matchmaking is awful, and there shouldn't exist many decks where if you don't counter a card with a specific counter, you are guaranteed to lose. That's where balance comes in, to tune each card so that its range of potential does not remove a ton of other card's viability right of the bat.
 
And then they added Cultists to Nifgaurd... NG was already the most played and versatile deck.
Now I see NG 50% of the time.

I just played against a deck that just copied 4 cultist scenarios and beat me with 500+ points. The set up is almost impossible to hard counter.
Play Operator.
Copy Imperial Practitioner
Play this card as many tiems as possible.
Have The Eternal Eclipse in hand.
Play Vilgefortz: Renegade and swap Eternal Eclipse.
Use order on Imperial Practitioner.
Then you will at least have 2+ copies of Scenarios next draw. AT LEAST.
-IF they kill every single imperial practiioner. Then you will still have the 1 copy of Eternal Eclipse in hand as well as Vilgefortz,
which are both good cards without any type of combo.

Btw I don't play Nifguard. But I was able to memorize their deck just by playing against it once, and I can already see how theoretically it's a very good deck.
Decks that hit for 500+ points should not be so easy to execute and easy to copy their strat...

They really need to bring some new people in who will do a better job with balancing... There are way too many issues with this patch.
I'll see you all in the future if they decide to actually do something.
Till then, have a good year everyone. I'm going to go play something else.
 
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Game is hot trash. It's laugh out loud funny to think that last time I played they decided to remove all counters to weather because stupid reasons. It's still not fixed. Monster Weather deck is the casual brain dead deck. It's so disappointing. It's still better than hearthstone that game is pay to win.

Edit: I hope a dev is reading this, all you need is weather cards in a monster deck and you'll stomp on a northern realms deck. This is a joke.
 
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Edit: I hope a dev is reading this, all you need is weather cards in a monster deck and you'll stomp on a northern realms deck. This is a joke.

:ROFLMAO: I assure you, they are not.
And in general, I agree, this game is no longer fun. More of a monkey feast. Not sure why deck builder exists there, as maybe just 5% of people know what's the purpose of it.
 
I agree. the introduction of these hyper-broken cards of which each can turn the tides of the game made the game increasingly less fun and more and more people simply copy paste the latest tier 1 deck from the web and as such you get barely any variety.

the game has become less diverse in gameplay even though they have many more cards in it than 2 years ago.
 
Yeah I was enjoying getting back into the game, grinded up to rank 1 and past pretty quick. Suddenly its just a wall of Renfri with an occasional tier 1 meta deck OP listed. Not even worth playing if its all this pointslam garbage, you just can't outplay these decks that get so much reward for so little risk.
 
Out of past 12 games,
8 were NG
3 were SK
1 was ST

And this is just a normal day.

1661412944827.png


If you are wondering how I won games?
I played meta deck and watched youtube at the same time. Barelly needed to think too much, cause some cards just hit for too many points and require very little setup or thinking.
 
I started playing Gwent towards the end of the Closed Beta, and then I played through the Open Beta up until they released the Homecoming update in 2018 I think, and then I quit because it wasn't fun. And because of artifacts, especially Sihil.

My GPU broke 3 months ago and while I was waiting for it to get fixed, I thought of passing the time by playing Gwent on my phone since I already had all the old cards, lots of resources to craft the new ones and some knowledge of the mechanics.

And it was pretty fun until I hit rank 15 or something like that, after said rank only meta decks were played. I thought ok, I'll just play Arena. But they removed it and replaced it with Draft which sucks big time unless you manage to build a Syndicate deck which mops the floor with everything else. And it still sucks because it's almost like constructed, hell you can get even better decks than constructed. It's damn boring. So back to ranked I went, I copied a few meta decks, found success with some Waylay Vernossiel deck and Armor Dwarves deck (don't remember names) and grinded slowly to rank 7 or something. But it wasn't an enjoyable grind, everyone was playing the same Waylay deck, or NR Siege deck, or NG Poison deck, and in rare cases the goddam awful Sihil deck (I hate this card with a passion). It was pretty bad and boring but in Training Mode vs Player I could get a decent match every once in a while.

But NO MORE! Since this new goddam Renfri patch, even Training mode is full of the same 3-4 broken decks over and over again. It's 80% NG Assimilate with double Renfri, like one wasn't OP enough, then it's the damned MO cat deck which plays 3 cats, and if it's not the damned cat, it's the damned Keltullis deck with 2 Keltullis so they can go 2:0 all the time. Then it's the SC Renfri Handbuff deck which you can do nothing about (but it's a bit better than the previous 3 decks). And on top of that, there are still some [...] that are STILL PLAYING SIHIL.

I was never a PRO player back in the day, highest rank reached was 20 and I think 21 was max. Now I'm rank 3 but I don't wanna climb any more. It's both boring and frustrating. The game used to be more fun. Sure there were broken decks back then like Greatswords and Viper Witchers and whatnot, but nothing like this bullsh!t Renfri and that damned Sir Scratch A Lot or Keltullis. NG was always unfun and antifun but now it's so much worse with assimilate, lots of locks and poison.

So my suggestions are to add Doomed from the start to these broken cards, make them cost more provisions and at the same time put fewer points on the board. AND REMOVE/REWORK SIHIL ENTIRELY.
For example, Renfri should cost 15 instead of 13, have 5 points instead of 7 and have Doomed. And maybe Immune too so they can't Purify the Doomed status and play it more than once anyway.

The Stratagems are too strong IMO, especially Crystall Skull which is used 90% of the time in every deck. If I use a meta deck and I go first I win the game 2:0 most of the time, and If not, I lose in the same 2:0 style. When facing most decks and going second I know from the start that I'll lose the game and I struggle to win the first round so I can get half a crown, because everyone ALWAYS pushes for 2:0, I don't remember it being like that, almost no one pushed for 2:0 back in the day. Nowadays they even manage to win on card disadvantage because of broken combos.

But I don't think CDPR even cares about fixing the game, making it playable and fun. And I'm gonna quit again, which is a shame, because the cards look so nice in this game and they're relatively easy to get. They should stick to good old Singleplayer Games with a story focus. I loved Thronebreaker and I'd gladly buy another game of similar quality, but I'm not wasting more money on this broken unbalanced mess.
I reached rank pro 3 times, and never played any meta decks all created by my own
It took time to build the perfect combo but it worthy what is cool to have ur own deck is that nobody expect u what are u going to do
 
Hello everyone,
I am new here but I would like to connect to this old conversation and see if nowadays people have the same feeling about this game as me.
I joined Gwent on September 2022, and since then played for 675 hours.
I had a lot of fun, always looked forward to gain experience, craft new cards and build strong decks as I progressed. Never cared about my rank. I reached Pro Rank once but never really mattered to me. I like playing, I like creative deck building, trying to think out of the box.
I won, I lost. Winning by 1 point with the last card gave me satisfaction, but as everyone I had my moments of frustration as well.
I don't like destroying other people strategies, so I prefer decks that can score lot of points for me, combining the abilities of several cards, rather than having lots of cards that can damage or destroy the opponent cards (Heatwave for example), if you know what I mean.
Now, after playing lots of games, I am getting tired of playing. I am losing motivation and the frustration is higher than the pleasure I get. The reasons are:
- there is no balance. Some decks are simply too strong, we don't have incentives to be creative with decks
- majority of players using cards to damage or destroy you, rather than creating their own strategies
I will give more details about my experience below.

I slowly built all the meta decks.
I remember winning a lot of games with the Harmony deck, for example. Playing Saskia in the first round, and the scenario on the next. Lots of points. At the beginning it was fun, but then I got tired of playing always the same strategies. And here is when the game is failing its players, I believe.
I started to experiment with original decks, different factions, neutral cards, but to my surprise I realised you do not have any incentive to do so in this game. The feeling is that, as soon as you stop using those 4-5 powerful meta decks, you simply lose all the games. But losing is not important to me, the point is I stopped having fun.
I have reached a point in which I created decks of only Witchers, and I play almost only with them. Lots of thinking behind it and big excitment because, in my opinion, having a deck of only Witchers is the pinnacle of this game. This is the Witcher game, and made me so proud to slowly and patienly build this kind of deck.
But 90% of the times, decks of Witchers have zero chances against anyone and, most importantly, are often destroyed with Tactic cards, locks, Heatwaves, etc etc. I would need perhaps 6 purifying cards or Ales removing locks.
I keep losing playing this kind of decks, but I don't care. I feel proud that I am trying something original.
But at the same time, I realise am getting sad and tired of seeing that all the players I face either use meta decks or decks full of "killer" cards, milling cards....
I don't give GG anymore. Most of times when a game starts and I see that my opponent has a Nilfgaard deck or Syndicate Bounty deck, I just forfeit before drawing the first 10 cards.
It's like this game is incentivating people to use destroying tactics rather that creative thinking and points scoring strategies.
Recently I played 3 games during my birthday. On the first two games, the opponent destroyed my first 3 cards with some Tactics, while on the third game he/she used lots of Kingslayers to just eliminate a good part of my deck.

I love Gwent, the medieval fantasy set up, the various characters and factions, the art style of the cards, but I am terribly afraid that I will go away soon. The direction the game is taking is not good in my opinion, and it should be reviewed. I cannot see how this game will continue to exist if developers will not make structural changes before stopping to support the game.

Big hugs to all the frustrated players out there, and to all the people who spent a lot of time to write down a constructive feedbacks for the developers.

Regards
 
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