[UPDATED] Changes to GWENT’s economy and full mill value refund policy

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When designing GWENT’s economy, our principles were fairness and simplicity. We also always understood that generosity goes a long way. This will never change. However, we made some calls along the way which resulted in our economy slowly shifting toward directions that are not favourable for the players — most notably those who put a lot of time and effort into completing their collections of normal and (especially) premium cards.

There are three currencies in the game, two of which (scraps and meteorite powder) are used at aimed card creation. If you wish to craft a specific normal card, you use scraps. If you want this normal card to feature animated art, you use meteorite powder and convert it to premium. However, we also allowed for crafting animated cards with scraps, thus mixing vanity and game economies. The result is an overabundance of premium cards, which diminishes the sense of accomplishment that comes from getting ahold of an animated version of your favourite card. Additionally, mixing of vanity and game economies always results in loopholes coming into play sooner or later.

We want premiums to feel special, as was originally intended, and not give anyone the opportunity to gain an unfair advantage in card collection and vanity progression. That is why we decided to disconnect scrap and meteorite powder economies by switching off the option to craft premium cards with scraps. Moving forward, vanity economy will be based on meteorite powder. While small amounts of meteorite powder will still be retrievable from milling premium cards, we want it to stay as disconnected from the scraps economy as possible.

Another in-game economy related matter we’re revisiting is the full mill value refund system. The way the system operated back in beta made a lot of sense, as gamers were helping us test GWENT while playing and core mechanics were in a state of constant, significant flux. Now that GWENT has officially launched across all platforms, changes will be much more subtle, and the extent to which the full mill value refund system covers them needs to follow suit.

From here on out, minor tweaks to a card’s values, strength, or abilities will no longer qualify the card for full mill value refund. Regular balance and gameplay changes are typical for any online competitive game, and GWENT’s no different. We're committed to building on top of the foundations the core of the game offers, while constantly listening to the community and making adjustments when and where it's necessary. That said, fundamental changes or complete reworks of a card will still be considered for full mill value refund.

Starting today, crafting premium cards will only be possible using meteorite powder. Full mill value refund periods following future updates will no longer be a typical occurrence, the January update included. Leaders can still be crafted with scraps and will give scraps (50% less) once milled.


Original announcement from December 19th:

When designing GWENT’s economy, our principles were fairness and simplicity. We also always understood that generosity goes a long way. This will never change. However, we made some calls along the way which resulted in our economy slowly shifting toward directions that are not favourable for the players — most notably those who put a lot of time and effort into completing their collections of normal and (especially) premium cards.

There are three currencies in the game, two of which (scraps and meteorite powder) are used at aimed card creation. If you wish to craft a specific normal card, you use scraps. If you want this normal card to feature animated art, you use meteorite powder and convert it to premium. However, we also allowed for crafting animated cards with scraps, thus mixing vanity and game economies. The result is an overabundance of premium cards, which diminishes the sense of accomplishment that comes from getting ahold of an animated version of your favourite card. Additionally, mixing of vanity and game economies always results in loopholes coming into play sooner or later.

We want premiums to feel special, as was originally intended, and not give anyone the opportunity to gain an unfair advantage in card collection and vanity progression. That is why we decided to disconnect scrap and meteorite powder economies by switching off the option to craft premium cards with scraps. Moving forward, vanity economy will be based on meteorite powder. While small amounts of meteorite powder will still be retrievable from milling premium cards, we want it to stay as disconnected from the scraps economy as possible.

Another in-game economy related matter we’re revisiting is the full mill value refund system. The way the system operated back in beta made a lot of sense, as gamers were helping us test GWENT while playing and core mechanics were in a state of constant, significant flux. Now that GWENT has officially launched across all platforms, changes will be much more subtle, and the extent to which the full mill value refund system covers them needs to follow suit.

From here on out, minor tweaks to a card’s values, strength, or abilities will no longer qualify the card for full mill value refund. Regular balance and gameplay changes are typical for any online competitive game, and GWENT’s no different. We're committed to building on top of the foundations the core of the game offers, while constantly listening to the community and making adjustments when and where it's necessary. That said, fundamental changes or complete reworks of a card will still be considered for full mill value refund.

All above changes come into effect January 2nd, 2019. From then on, crafting premium cards will only be possible using meteorite powder. Full mill value refund periods following future updates will no longer be a typical occurrence, the January update included. Expect information on exact timing for changes going live here and on GWENT’s social media closer to January 2nd.
 
Understandable and even a wanted change for me. I played since closed beta, but only started to play daily after open beta. With 600 hours clocked in in the game I already have the full normal and premium collection and with a lot of scraps remaining. It was because of Homecoming having less cards, only 2 bronze copies and us getting full mill value for our beta collections in scraps (for me it was more than half a million scraps) I could create the whole normal and premium collection, and premium cards don't feel at all special to me right now. So I like this change and in future expansions a premium card will mean premium for real.
Gwent has been the most generous card game I have ever played by far.
 
Having a full premium deck used to be an achievement, but right now it really isn't due to so many players having hundreds of thousands of scraps after the automill. So, the meteorite powder change sounds good to me. Premiums really should be something special.

As for full mill value, personally I haven't been much into it in the first place, because the game is so generous anyway.
 
Makes sense I have nearly full Skellige premium cards from the Beta. I was thinking you guys were overly generous there ;) And seems I made the right call to spend my scraps on premiums after all \o/
 
Will there be other uses for surplus scraps in the future?

I feel these are both reasonable and sensible changes. The game is very generous, much more so than other TCGs, and I always wondered if its generosity may not be a bit of a double-edge blade. Cosmetics are a great way to incentivize supporting the game and it doesn't affect balance and gameplay at all.
 
Having a full premium deck used to be an achievement, but right now it really isn't due to so many players having hundreds of thousands of scraps after the automill. So, the meteorite powder change sounds good to me. Premiums really should be something special.

As for full mill value, personally I haven't been much into it in the first place, because the game is so generous anyway.
Sound so selfish. "I have everything, and even can have powder for a future cards".

Now you are really special, yeah.
 
At first glance doesn't look too bad of a change. It only affects the cosmetic of the game.
As long as the game remains f2p, it's fine with me.
 
Totally reasonable. People that put time into the beta have their reward of full premium collection, and going forward even footing for everyone :)
 
A lot of words to accept the fact that Gwent's been very generous and CDPR doesn't make enough money.

But instead of introducing new content available only for meteor powder/real money, they hide old content behind a paywall.

Anyway, thanks for announcing it beforehand so everyone has time to convert their scraps into premiums.
 
So what will happen with veteran players like myself, that have TONS of scraps but the game offers too few (RNG) options for getting MP? We're screwed, right? Cause I had full Premim collection, then YOU milled it FOR SCRAPS and now you are telling me I will not be allowed to craft the new cards with scraps, no matter that the cards YOU released with the launch of HOMECOMING(76) were LESS than the cards in GWENT (Beta) (considering Bronze copies were cut with 1/3 and some cards had currently disappeared from the game (DJ and Philippa, for example))?

That's BS and a slap to the faces of people that put so much time in this game during the last two years, and especially in the period when we had to wait for whatever to be released (the 6 months before HC76)!



Edit: I get your other points and they are fair, but the aforementioned is B S.
 
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Another in-game economy related matter we’re revisiting is the full mill value refund system. The way the system operated back in beta made a lot of sense, as gamers were helping us test GWENT while playing and core mechanics were in a state of constant, significant flux. Now that GWENT has officially launched across all platforms, changes will be much more subtle, and the extent to which the full mill value refund system covers them needs to follow suit.
From here on out, minor tweaks to a card’s values, strength, or abilities will no longer qualify the card for full mill value refund. Regular balance and gameplay changes are typical for any online competitive game, and GWENT’s no different. We're committed to building on top of the foundations the core of the game offers, while constantly listening to the community and making adjustments when and where it's necessary. That said, fundamental changes or complete reworks of a card will still be considered for full mill value refund.

Yeah, make sence. There was a beta, there we change cards a lot, not it's not. But it's really important to not give players refund NOW.
Anyway, forgot about "this is not a beta" sentence , couse we have another one — "this is online game" and we will change balance and gameplay. Regulary.
And, we are just can't let you decide, what is minor tweaks, couse we know better will card play, or not. But, we will not use our knowledge before release, just keep changing everything. Online games, you know...

P.S. Full mill value it just a fair, not more, not less. If you make something and fail it is bad, but i understood this. Everybody fail. But why i should pay for your mistakes? Maybe, instead of robbing, just put some effort to testing? And "minor tweaks" just stop being such a big deal?
Maybe, for old players it doesn't mean so much, but then you craft your first deck and it's nerfed you just became a bankrupt. Sometimes, you even have other synergy cards, so "full mill" can be not even a full compensation.
 
I understand that this has to be done for the game to keep going. CDPR have been very generous with the game's rewards, so no complaints from me on that front.

However, what's up with the corporate doublespeak nonsense.

"our economy slowly shifting toward directions that are not favourable for the players "
Yeah, because having a full set of pretty animated cards is bad for players. Just say that in order not to shut down or downsize the game, monetization has to increase. Nobody that stayed with Gwent this far is going to have trouble with that.
Or is this supposed to fool new players, which is kinda shady.

"which diminishes the sense of accomplishment"
Seriously? That's how you want to phrase it? Do you guys not have pride?

Whoever wrote this should take a page out of the Jason Slama communication book and just say it as it is, no need to BS coat it.
 
That's BS and a slap to the faces of people that put so much time in this game during the last two years, and especially in the period when we had to wait for whatever to be released (the 6 months before HC76)!

Come on, nothing CDPR ever does can top waiting for 6 months and getting HC.

Just spend your scraps to get full premium collection and accept the fact it's our only reward for supporting Gwent from the start.
 
Worth mentioning: Prestige 5 and 10 guarantee premium cards in kegs, and prestige 8 and 9 add Meteorite Powder to the daily quest rewards (link).
 
i dont need full premium colection, i think premiums should only be money only, because i havent spent a dime so far...
but ploughing hell nerf those vipers allready, banishing golds from my deck is atrocious. :mad:
 
Hello, separating Scraps and Meteorite Powder is very rational and I do not understand, why it was mixed in the first place. I am new player and do not have much knowledge about game, but I would intuitively expect any system like Gwent economics to have equal plus minus system. I mean, player spends some resources and if there is some reason for full "uncraft" value, that player would get same resources back. Crafting card with combination of scraps and meteorite powder and getting back double amount of scraps and no meteorite powder goes in wrong direction from the first glimpse of sight.

I personally find division of cards to normal and premium version to be impractical and distracting. Generally, when I create deck from my collection, having each card doubled is making it more troublesome for me to go through my collection and pick cards into deck. If I would have all cards in regular version and some of those same cards in premium version, I can just switch filter to show only regular cards and I can make deck easier way, then after deck is built, I could switch to see premium versions in my collection and replace regular ones if I would want to. But problem is, that I have some cards in premium and not in regular (thanks to premium week), so this process can not be really applied.

I would really appreciate, if it would have been possible to have filter during creating deck, which would show all cards in collection only once in form of some proxy, which would combine ownership of regular and premium cards. After deck would have been made and saved, all proxies in deck would have been replaced with their respective version in players collection.

I personally really see premium cards as more of burden rather than reward, exactly because of less comfort during deck building.
 
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