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

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Exactly! That's why many players, including me, spent money: because we wanted, not because we had to. As people above already said a few times: CDPR took players' money for powder and effectively converted it to scraps. That's a bad move.
Maybe you have a strange concept of "have to". Try playing hearthstone, magic arena or artifact. You will starve for cards to play with.

Here you can get easily a full collection without spending a dime, and you complain they want to monetize premiums, a cosmetic? Please.

I call yours entitlement.
 
Here you can get easily a full collection without spending a dime, and you complain they want to monetize premiums, a cosmetic? Please.

I call yours entitlement.

How do you call when someone's reading only what he wants to read?

Here, let me help:


Yes, we all agree Gwent's too generous. Yes, it's ok if CDPR makes money on cosmetic stuff like many other companies. But cut the marketing crap and at least have the decency to accept why you are making the change. It's ok to make mistakes. It's not ok to lie.
 
I stopped reading here. Plain cheap demagogy. Nobody is making anybody pay, period.
Despite the fact that somebody is making me paying the double price of something I payed for already (regardless it being time or money).

Like I wrote before - I have no problem with this change if there was not the fact that they'd already milled MY collection for SCRAPS, without leaving me a choice - do I want scraps or do I want the actual scraps+MP value, than releasing a "set of cards" that is not full and half of the cards that I crafted with my time (and money!) is missing and now I must "pay" for it again.

Thank you for your contribution, Beta tester. [nope]
 
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Like I wrote before - I have no problem with this change if there was not the fact that they'd already milled MY collection for SCRAPS, without leaving me a choice

Like I have stated before, gaining full value for a surplus of duplicates was already a generous move by CDPR because they were under no obligation to give you a full refund for those to begin with. Furthermore, the powder for the premium cards was already "lost". Now, you can still recraft the premium cards and lose nothing. The impact is only noticeable with the coming expansions. However, that your whole collected has been milled for scraps is irrelevant. The only way your point would matter is when someone has converted all his/her powder to scraps during the auto-mill. But this also means that someone has gamed the system and wasn't very interested in the premiums cards to begin with.
 
Like I have stated before, gaining full value for a surplus of duplicates was already a generous move by CDPR because they were under no obligation to give you a full refund for those to begin with.

You still don't get it, do you? We are not talking about obligation, justice, economy and whatnot. We all know what the fine print reads, and I really doubt anyone (except pan Andrzej, haha) would sue CDPR over money.

We are talking about being honest with your community (well, at least I am).

All these beta players are still here only because we hope we are finally heard and the game moves in the right direction (hopefully away from RNG and removal/point spam meta).
 
C'mon, the only premium cards that beta players won't be able to get with scraps will be the expansion ones. It's not a big deal. You have 624 cards atm for a full set. Beta players were rewarded very generously during old Gwent with all the rewards for climbing up the rank.

Honestly, how much did a beta player need to invest for having a full set of premiums if they kept playing more or less often? Zero, it wasn't needed at all. How much Kegs, scraps and ore had all of you when Homecoming was released? Because I almost had enough for crafting a full set twice.
 
We are talking about being honest with your community (well, at least I am).

That's not the argument the others have used, or, at least, stated as clearly as you have (which you kinda already mentioned).

All these beta players are still here only because we hope we are finally heard and the game moves in the right direction [...]

Well, yeah, that's understandable. Anyhow, going back to the first point of being honest, I don't think CDPR has ever deceived their fans on purpose. For CDPR, an online collectible card game is new territory, which is the foremost reason they need more time and room to experiment, while in the process learning what works and what doesn't. As for the announced change in the OP, that might very well be the logical next step of said process. CDPR has announced this with enough of a time window to collect and craft the premium cards you want.
 
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How do you call when someone's reading only what he wants to read?

Here, let me help:
It's just marketing bs. Only an idiot would openly say "we want to make more money so we do x". Anyone know why they did this, they don't need to spell it out loud.

The only thing that matter is WHAT they did, not how they described it. What they did was completly fine and acceptable, thus anything else on the matter is quite irrelevant.

You feeling "cheated" because they "changed their direction", does come as entitlement. Especially after they still give you 2 weeks to get all the premiums you want.

This game is so generous that i have full premium collection with 650k scraps to spare for the future. In other games even if i grind for the rest of my life i'll never ever come close to a normal full collection (hi hearthstone/magic arena). So yeah, sorry if i disagree with you.
 
It's just marketing bs. Only an idiot would openly say "we want to make more money so we do x". Anyone know why they did this, they don't need to spell it out loud.

Yep, they don't need to do that. But they also don't need to come up with poor excuses like these:

- "our economy slowly shifting toward directions that are not favourable for the players";
- "overabundance of premium cards, which diminishes the sense of accomplishment that comes from getting ahold of an animated version of your favourite card";
- "We want premiums to feel special [...] and not give anyone the opportunity to gain an unfair advantage in card collection and vanity progression".

Just state the fact and be done with it.
 
Do you really think that forcing even the most loyal players to leave and making the ones that's left to pay is good for anyone? CDPR was one of the universally loved game companies thanks to their no DRM policy (another example of people paying when they don't have to) and listening to their community. The way they handled the whole Homecoming thing (half a year of silence, changing many things people liked, then 1.5 months with no balance patches, and now this change) shows they are no better than EA, Blizzard-Activision or Bethesda.

No, I don't. I'm not seeing how they're forcing the players they kept or new players they gained to pay though. Premium cards are cosmetic.

In regards to the rest of this paragraph.... I'll just clarify what I said earlier. There is risk associated with spending money on video games. If you're willing to risk more (spend more) because you believe the game producer is less risky (ethically or morally superior to the rest) and you find yourself getting screwed over it's clear where the blame goes.

What did CDPR do not in 1, but in 2 months since release? Fixed a few minor bugs, changed some numbers on a few cards and told us "Gwent is not dead" (without promising anything specific). And then amidst all this they announce another change explaining that'd be a good thing for the community. Yes, we all agree Gwent's too generous. Yes, it's ok if CDPR makes money on cosmetic stuff like many other companies. But cut the marketing crap and at least have the decency to accept why you are making the change. It's ok to make mistakes. It's not ok to lie.

What do you expect them to do? Come out and say, "Sorry guys, we decided we want to increase revenue so we're going to alter the game economy to do so.". Let's be realistic here :).

Lastly, how is any of this a surprise? Remember the HC "letter"?
 
The problem is that with all that money and a huge team they still released an unbalanced mess called Homecoming.
I believe they said before, that Gwent HC team wasn't that huge and contained literally couple of developers.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
OK. Let me tell my 2 cents as a 100% genuine Free2Play player. I had spent $0 on Gwent. Of course, I had spent 600 hours. I didn't have nearly half of premium gold or silver or bronze. I had around 0 Powder and around 3/4th of the gold premium of ST and not nearly half of gold premium of all other factions. But I stopped milling as soon as I heard the news about Full Mill On HC. And just before HC CDPR had a Legendary Card event, which was kind of unnecessary and extremely generous. So, as a result I got 350k Scraps after HC Full Mill. Now, I have the entire collection in premium. Gold, Bronze, and even starter deck cards all in premium (which is NO way closer to what I had pre-HC). And on top of that I converted the scraps to MP and I have around 9K MP after the full premium.

I can't understand people saying they lost their MP. After the mill, I don't believe anyone lost their MP (either bought or earned by playing). Also, I don't think converting scraps for MP was never intended. It is free to play and if you want cosmetics which are absolutely optional that is the only way to support the game and the sustenance of the game. And playing around the mechanics of the game to convert a free thing into a paid thing should never have been possible. Even though the announcement seemed like a marketing BS, every point of that is true and there is no better way to say that. Premium cards should feel worthy. Either you are long time player or someone who supported the game with actual money. IMHO people are just mad about HC and are taking it out on this announcement.
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I believe they said before, that Gwent HC team wasn't that huge and contained literally couple of developers.
Gwent is a huge team with more than 150 people. Burza mentioned that somewhere. 150 really smart people is a huge deal and should cost a hell lot to run that project.
 
I don't think CDPR has ever deceived their fans on purpose. For CDPR, an online collectible card game is new territory, which is the foremost reason they need more time and room to experiment, while in the process learning what works and what doesn't. As for the announced change in the OP, that might very well be the logical next step of said process. CDPR has announced this with enough of a time window to collect and craft the premium cards you want.

I will grant it probably wasn't on purpose, but I was led to believe economy would work as usual. There was major overhaul of the game and it didn't change, who could have thought it will receive this big of a change two months later.

Then there is infamous contract, spend 20k powder. I had over 21k left from beta more earned in HC and with reward points. I started transmuting to earn that contract and sunk all those powders. 3600 was spent on vanity packs something I would probably never do if I though powder will be only way to premiums in the future but I will take that on myself. Without it's still around 20k powder spent on cards.

I would never have done that if I knew scraps (i had over 700k) will be worthless for Premium cards after next patch. I would craft Premiums with scraps and left contract for after the change was implemented.

I effectively lost 20k powder which is 100 euros.

You can't tell it's OK, because players game the system, or it's OK refunds were generous (I'm fine with new refund policy), or that game is generous or that game is losing money or any other excuse defenders of this change tried to use. It isn't about the game it is about me (and other players in similar situation)

I was led to believe economy will work in a way it worked for two years, in closed and open beta and in HC 1.0 and it cost me 20k powder.

I spent 1350 hours in this game, gave so may suggestions and reported so many bugs I should be in the game credits, and now this happens, 100 euros of value is gone from my account. What is our oh so glorious, best, most generous and most community friendly developer going to do about ME?
 
Like I have stated before, gaining full value for a surplus of duplicates was already a generous move by CDPR because they were under no obligation to give you a full refund for those to begin with. Furthermore, the powder for the premium cards was already "lost". Now, you can still recraft the premium cards and lose nothing. The impact is only noticeable with the coming expansions. However, that your whole collected has been milled for scraps is irrelevant. The only way your point would matter is when someone has converted all his/her powder to scraps during the auto-mill. But this also means that someone has gamed the system and wasn't very interested in the premiums cards to begin with.

1) "Now, you can still recraft the premium cards and lose nothing."

Except the 3rd copy of bronze cards in meteorite powder + all the Redanian cards + the other removed ones. And there are people that paid for meteorite powder (enough to get full collection just pre-HC that will not get an equivalent (nr of premium cards of the same rarity) full HC premium collection. AND that is if they didn't take a break until the game is further changed since they might not be happy with some things and wake up in 2 weeks with scraps and zero currency for premiums (which is what they paid for).

2) "gaining full value for a surplus of duplicates was already a generous move by CDPR"

Not for everyone, the scraps we got from extra cards don't mean anything to a lot of people since they had enough for premiums and only care about premiums. AND the left over scraps now (you know, the extra that you claim will help with future expansions) are worth ZERO because you will get all 100 new cards every 4 months with 6 rounds a day (which ppl like that will continue to play).

So yes, it feels like some (quite a lot I'd think) people actually lose something based on decisions made on the word that economy won't change. The change is fine. Full mill for scraps was far from "generous" for some (exactly the old and/or regular and/or paying players).

Generosity stopping is fine (which isn't even what's happening). Blanket changes that "take" things away (promised or actual, that translate to money or time) is not. They should have capped meteor powder to the max nr of cards you canuse in decks. And full mill for the copies (maybe even to a limit of 10 or something) or...not because after that 6 month break ppl deserved something and the epic kege events don't count (especially for how they were announced) since they made money off that.
 
I would never have done that if I knew [...]

Just as a general note, the above applies to a lot of things in life. Back to Gwent, I don't think CDPR knew beforehand they were taking this route. Also, some of the things you've mentioned are (only) indirectly related, like fulfilling the contracts.

I effectively lost 20k powder which is 100 euros.

I do understand your point and it's indeed unfortunate. I cannot really present any arguments to soften the blow, except pointing out the generosity of CDPR, which has already been stated. Well, I guess I could mention one other thing, which doesn't really help per sé, but it kinda fits the topic.

Players have lost resources (scraps/powder) before. There are two "events" that have contributed to this. The first is the full refund period for nerfed cards (or the complete collection auto-mill). Every player who knew the "system", knew that it was best to not scrap any cards until a patch where you could freely scrap nerfed cards for full value. Going even further, you could convert powder to scraps, if you needed more scraps. However, those who didn't knew about this, lost a lot of scraps by milling cards at a "penalty".

The other event type are the various special weekends, which include premium and epic kegs. As with the above, players who knew the system were saving their kegs until a special weekend and then cracked open all kegs. Ironically, this semi-backfired, when CDPR had a legendary keg day (shortly after another special event), which had insane value. If I knew the legendary keg day was coming, I would have saved all my ore and kegs till that day. I would have become a Gwent millionaire. Alas, it was not meant to be and I have "lost" more than 20k powder in the process.

As a closing note, the impact on the economy of the two points mentioned above is unhealthy and changes needed to be made. I would not have gone as far as those in the OP, but, nonetheless, I can understand the logic behind it.
 
I do understand your point and it's indeed unfortunate. I cannot really present any arguments to soften the blow, except pointing out the generosity of CDPR, which has already been stated. Well, I guess I could mention one other thing, which doesn't really help per sé, but it kinda fits the topic.

Players have lost resources (scraps/powder) before. There are two "events" can contributed to this...

I know about those, I opened 100 kegs before that f...ing LEGENDARY keg weekend, and I certainly missed few refund periods. Never complained about it, didn't follow the news my fault.

But this time I did follow the news, did all I need to do, and got slammed in the face.

Still hoping they reverse course on this (powder stuff, not refund stuff) kinda hard to earn if no one plays the game.

As I said before, wrong move at the wrong time, not even fiddling while Rome burns more of a pouring pitch at Rome while it burns... and after TB being such a smash hit.

You can't be generous and then slide toward Blizzard type, it is way way worse than starting with Blizzard type.
 
1) "Now, you can still recraft the premium cards and lose nothing."
Except the 3rd copy of bronze cards in meteorite powder + all the Redanian cards + the other removed ones. [...]
2) "gaining full value for a surplus of duplicates was already a generous move by CDPR"
Not for everyone [...]

For further expansions, it will negatively impact the player, yes. However, for the current collection, the impact should be fairly minimal, unless you did some... "extreme" things, like converting powder to scraps. The lack of a third bronze copy actually doesn't matter because those resources were already lost. However, the removal of the Redanian cards does have an impact on the card total because those cards will return after the OP's change has been implemented.

I guess the impact depends on the size of the collection of the individual player. Those that do not have a full collection now have the choice to spent all their scraps to craft the premium cards. But the players that already have a full premium collection do not have that choice and they will be impacted the most. Then again, unless everything was bought with money, having a full premium collection is already an upside by itself and the impact for the aforementioned players shouldn't be as big.
 
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