What makes Beta Gwent worse/better than Gwent:HC

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As the headline states the topic, feel free to mention anything you want. You may contribute subjective impressions and pro/con arguments for both games.


:coolstory: Pros: Beta Gwent

1
- The third row. It just felt like having more possibilities of using this factor:
Certain cards needed a more strategic build-up in terms of row-handling
Should have been kept for Homecoming aswell, taking into aspect that moving cards is easier on only 2 rows and effects tend to need less build-up


2- Weather was more effective and appealing in many ways ( see 1 ), sadly nowadays not much purpose can be seen in comparison to most archetypes

3- Less dumbed down mechanics and generally more mechanics. An overview of Beta Gwent Keywords can be found in the Keyword List

4- Card pool had genuine variety (e.g. people coming up with more variable deck concepts), so it felt more individual
All thanks to Gold/Silver/Bronze categorisation and balanced category limits, possibility to have up to 3 copies of a bronze card


5- Graveyard had more relevance and was usable in many ways

6- Leaders worked a lot better, and were more counterable, since they were used as a card on their own

7- Cared more about gameplay, instead of increased focus on aesthetics and UI




:confused: Cons: Beta-Gwent

1
- Midwinter Update (kek)

2- Overwhelming value swings, in some cases comparable to current meta but outcome seemed to have more impact in value than nowadays.
(for this point I'm not taking "Scenarios" or sad netdecks which are played since 2 months into account, because of their power)
To set this argument clearer: I bet you stumbled more often into a draw or +1/-1 value wins/losses in comparison to Beta Gwent
Mainly one of the problems in the beginning was the transition from a singleplayer Gwent basis, which needed to be changed in a way to set the rules for balancing a multiplayer Gwent.


3- Coin-Flip issue, which was partially abused, before Homecoming expanded the game mechanics by an extra mulligan, the tactical advantage/stratagems and the drawing of up to 3 cards for round 2 (and 3)

4- There is more to achieve in Gwent:HC (e.g. there's much to complete in HC and the reward book feels good and entertaining to proceed through, although it does not have a big impact on your gameplay)




Feel free to contribute anything relatable, I will expand the list:beer:
 
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Beta Gwent was more complex and skill based (before midwinter). HC Gwent is (right now) too poin-slam based and boring. I hope devs will rethink this "dumbing-down" they did recently. Just look at the diference between beta and current Crew mechanic.
 
I miss Weather as a legit archetipe and Promotion, also silver cards and gold deck building restrictions.

Would be nice if we had the best of both words - provisions and limited number of gold cards, with silvers beeing the "filler/utility" cards.
 

Guest 4368268

Guest
A big pro of beta Gwent for me were the rows. Three rows instead of two meant two things:

1. Row based strategies such as weather/lacerate felt fun to execute and were a legitimate strategy rather than a combo package. Because it was easier to play around it meant you had to be more committal in terms of the cards you put in your deck and you had to build around the idea whereas in Homecoming all it took was Nivellen + Dragons Dream. This of course then got nerfed as did Zoltan as did commanders horn because all row based strategies were very cheesy because of the simplicity of getting them to work.

2. It enabled swarm decks and I mean proper swarm decks. The unit limit of 9 per row and so 18 a side just doesn't allow for a strategy based on a Triss Butterflies or a Yennefer of Vengerberg.

Another big pro for beta Gwent was the fact that the card pool had genuine variety (especially between different factions) as a result even In the middle of the six month 'drought' before Homecoming I still encountered people coming up with new deck concepts that were both fun to play and if piloted correctly could actually be good as well.
In Homecoming I hardly ever come across anyone trying something remotely creative. Largely because there's just so little room for it. In fact in the 2000-some games I've played in the past few months it happened precisely once (and that was in a seasonal mode)

Then there's the complexity of beta Gwent, now of course Gwent was never exactly 3d chess, but compare old consume vs. current consume as one example. Old consume looked easier than it was and though very rewarding could easily be misplayed. Current consume(/deathwish) on the contrary is literally an entry-level concept that only the beginners are really playing. Compare beta's reveal vs. homecomings reveal or beta spies vs. current spies and the list goes on and on.
Archetypes after over a year still aren't fleshed out whatsoever.

Where I'll give Homecoming credit is it in my opinion dealt with the coin-flip issue well. The extra mulligan, the tactical advantage/stratagems and the drawing of 3 cards for round 2 (and 3) helped Gwent a lot because the coinflip 'abuse' decks of beta were just the worst. In the same breath I can say removing CA-spies helped with this also.
Not drawing your spy (at the right moment) could at one point pretty much auto-lose you the game.

Another pro for beta Gwent was strengthening/weakening. These effects made the graveyard so much more relevant than it is now. I thought it was a healthy and fun way of putting points into future rounds, rather than just straightforward carryover/resilient cards. It made the graveyard relevant between all factions, not just SK and Monsters.

Leaders in beta Gwent in my opinion also just worked a lot better. Almost all of Homecomings' most loathed metas were directly a result of leaders. Detlaff, Dijkstra Townsfolk, Gernichora, Pincer Maneuver, Mystic Echo, Crach control and so forth. Leaders that were used as a card in its own turn just worked way better imo and didn't make for such exploitation and helped open up design space.

In virtually all gameplay elements beta outshines HC for me. HC obviously outdoes Beta by a landslide in terms of rewards/cosmetics. But that's just not all that important to me personally.
 
Beta Gwent was more complex and skill based (before midwinter). HC Gwent is (right now) too poin-slam based and boring. I hope devs will rethink this "dumbing-down" they did recently. Just look at the diference between beta and current Crew mechanic.

That's called cherry picking. Anyway i don't know why every time someone brings up beta it's always romanticized and detached from reality. Regarding point slam i remember a streamer (megamogway) made a video breaking down each faction based on what percentage of cards were point-slamy.
This was one of the main criticism of beta and apparently CDPR agreed cause this is probably why the "order" mechanic was implemented.
 
That's called cherry picking. Anyway i don't know why every time someone brings up beta it's always romanticized and detached from reality. Regarding point slam i remember a streamer (megamogway) made a video breaking down each faction based on what percentage of cards were point-slamy.
This was one of the main criticism of beta and apparently CDPR agreed cause this is probably why the "order" mechanic was implemented.
Was it before or after midwinter? Because after midwinter Gwent was just a joy-less trash, devs even had to admit that they F-ed it up beyond repair. Current meta reminds me of that A LOT.
 
Was it before or after midwinter? Because after midwinter Gwent was just a joy-less trash, devs even had to admit that they F-ed it up beyond repair. Current meta reminds me of that A LOT.

Yeah you remember how Emhyr could grab cards from opponents hand lol, and how you could endlessly chain slave drivers if opponent had slave drivers too. Midwinter was so dang stupid.

Of course i prefer beta overall. Pre-midwinter was best gwent. very little RNG, and best card/archetype design.

I wonder if someone made a beta gwent clone without witcher theme, would it be a copyright violation? Technically the game doesn't exist anymore, and its completely different to what we have now. Just something to think about.
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I prefer beta gwent to any iteration of HC Gwent, but i cant say im being objective, because comparing them is getting harder and harder.

First, since they were never available at the same time it's hard to compare them side-by-side. And the more i play Gwent HC the more i forget beta Gwent. However - and this is where im going really subjective - i remember i felt better playing in the beta, i was less angry at metas and netdecks and rageforfeited way less if at all, despite my winrates probably being similar.

Then there's a weird aspect: i really like the collecting aspect of the game, and in the betas i only had a full collection near the end, and when HC released and Gwent being so generous actually made me enjoy the game less, because i ve always had all cards. Even when a new expansion comes out, i try to not craft all new cards at once, but there is no joy in getting a new card later when i know i could have obtained it anytime i wanted.

On the other hand, the reward book and contracts was a addition i really like and one of the reasons i stuck with the game, since they call to my completionist side.

But i really dont like this recent trend of increase focus on vanities and aesthetics and UI and less about gameplay.
 
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