What's Your Opinion of the Syndicate Faction? [Poll]

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What's your opinion of the Syndicate faction?


  • Total voters
    172
@StrykerxS77x Then that part of Monsters faction characters, which may be capable of understanding moral principles, are they really intentionally evil?
Are Cyclops evil or are they just defending their territory? Are ghouls evil or are they just acting on their instincts (lower neural activity) rather than thinking (higher neural activity). Moral principles are definitely related to higher neural activity.

Interesting questions.

Are criminals evil or are they just trying to survive? Perhaps their bad upbringing is to blame for their current attitudes.
 
Interesting questions.

Are criminals evil or are they just trying to survive? Perhaps their bad upbringing is to blame for their current attitudes.
Sorry, but you are mixing it up. If we should get anywhere, it is useful to make at least partial conclusions before trying to proceed forward. Like when you are going to get result of mathematical operation "power", you need to first have clear idea about operation of "multiply" and for that you need to deal first with "adding".

Do you agree, that acting on instincts (which is related to lower neural activity) is not related to intentional evil? That reflexes are not affected by will? That ghouls, if they act on their instincts, are not doing anything evil, because evil acting is related to higher neural activity?
 
Sorry, but you are mixing it up. If we should get anywhere, it is useful to make at least partial conclusions before trying to proceed forward. Like when you are going to get result of mathematical operation "power", you need to first have clear idea about operation of "multiply" and for that you need to deal first with "adding".

Do you agree, that acting on instincts (which is related to lower neural activity) is not related to intentional evil? That reflexes are not affected by will? That ghouls, if they act on their instincts, are not doing anything evil, because evil acting is related to higher neural activity?

Depends on the lore. Monsters can be cognitively evil or acting on instincts. Just depends on how they are written.

I would think monsters such as Eredin and Detlaff are cognitively evil. So some of the monsters they command probably are as well.
 
Posts deleted. Do not ignore or publicly discuss moderation; it is against the rules. And now, please do get back on topic.
 

rrc

Forum veteran
Dear @Riven-Twain, before I vote, I want to make sure I understand the poll/thread. IIUC, this thread is not about whether we like the mechanism of this faction, but rather, we like to play a faction based on criminal underworld. Am I correct?
 
Dear @Riven-Twain, before I vote, I want to make sure I understand the poll/thread. IIUC, this thread is not about whether we like the mechanism of this faction, but rather, we like to play a faction based on criminal underworld. Am I correct?

I think he's asking us if we like the general feel of the Syndicate faction (game mechanics, theme, aesthetics, card art, that sort of thing). I don't think we're supposed to turn this thread into a debate on the morality of a criminal lifestyle.
 
I'm not sold on the idea of a criminal underworld faction. I was hoping for a full-fledge Eternal Fire faction.

That being said, I like the game mechanics and the card art. The bounty keyword makes even full removal more interesting. I'm on a terrrible losing streak, experimenting with the fisstech / poison cards, but enjoying the game...
 
The topic of this thread is the game mechanics introduced, how effective the actual cards are, whether it adds anything new and interesting to the gameplay, etc.

The Witcher universe is a mature one, focused on a dark and gritty fantasy world, full of violence, intrigue, politics, sexuality, grey morality, and yes, crime.

The Gangs of Novigrad being included does not suddenly open up a new doorway into "questionable" themes. Nothing is included here that did not exist in the novels or the The Witcher 1, 2, and 3 game series. It is being handled in accordance with the Pegi 16 rating system, and the content introduces nothing that has not been seen in any number of games that share the rating.

Trying to bring up arguments that the Syndicate Faction introduces ethical considerations that are suddenly new or scary is both in fallacy and getting into real-world politics. No, please.
 
I voted "Not terribly impressed". Although I like the cards, I'm not sure about the "fit". Monsters, soldiers, warriors and fighters: yes, that is a battlefield with (some sort of) armies. Shady characters, criminals and addicts? Not really. But it's not bad and variation is needed.

I really dislike the coin mechanic. Instead of point hoarding through the binary artifact mechanic, we now have point hoarding through an uninteractable coin mechanic.

I also don't like that this is called the Novigrad expansion. That's just ridiculous. Novigrad is a beautiful city, but instead we only get to see the scum that lives there. Idea: Rename this expansion to Novigrad: Syndicate and create a new expansion Novigrad: Guilds. In that new expansion, we will then see all the beautiful stuff that Novigrad has to offer. A few examples I can think of: shipyards, woodworkers, markets and merchants, hospital, smithies, all kinds of shops and other guilds, brothels :smart:
 
I'm rather on the side of "they need to be somewhat rebalanced". Because, frankly, having a system that no other faction can even access makes stealing/revival builds rather pointless against them to the point where you're better off not playing at that point. Really annoying trying to get my required Nilfgard wins and "Oh boy another Syndicate better just hit forfeit because I can't even use most all of their cards".
 
I find it strongly imbalanced per se.
The problem is that most counters and combos that works on every other factions doesnt work against it, IE you steal enemy card that is based on crown mechanics but you dont use crowns in your deck. Hm sounds not so smart. You can use monsters faction cards against it easily, you can use traps against scoia'tael etc, but using any crowns based card obtained from enemy hand if you dont play syndicate is just very poor play, specially if you have no luck and rng gets you some special card that boost your crowns, hooray.

Possible solution : Add crowns mechanic for all faction and cards based on it, or some additional mechanic like exchanging crowns for something different even if you dont play syndicate, like 1 crown every 2 turns for non-syndicate players and some artefacts to buy from it or something like that. Deleting syndicate and crowns would be fine too I guess.
 
IIUC, this thread is not about whether we like the mechanism of this faction, but rather, we like to play a faction based on criminal underworld. Am I correct?
I think he's asking us if we like the general feel of the Syndicate faction (game mechanics, theme, aesthetics, card art, that sort of thing). I don't think we're supposed to turn this thread into a debate on the morality of a criminal lifestyle.
@DoubleDealer has it right. This thread is for general opinions of the new faction and its place in Gwent. The specifics of the criminal theme and moral questions can be discussed elsewhere.
 
The faction seems interesting to me to play, the new mechanics add an entertaining refreshment to the game. Regarding his style "graphic" or "history" is not my favorite but at the same time in W3 the plot to investigate and see how things happened in a Novigrad outside the law was nice.

As for the mixture of things like pirates, monsters, prostitutes, gangsters, clowns, gangster clowns, murderous gangster clowns and sadistic killer gangster clowns I see it right, in my idea the faction is not only a specific part of the city but everything its low world, or everything you can find if you go into it (like the monster of the sewers).

I played very little yesterday, a bit with SY and another with Svalblod to test how the VS was in power, among them it looked pretty even, but we already know how is the SK theme.

I would say that it is a very stable faction in itself, it depends very little on the neutral set of cards.:beer:

Now I just hope they do not nerf hard, what we need is improvements in the factions that are below in performance and make them more cohesive with themselves (ST is ironically the most racist faction in terms of game approach).
 

DRK3

Forum veteran
I would say its not as imbalanced as i had expected, but like someone else said (sorry, cant remember who it was) - it has a points/ provisions ratio way better than other factions - and some cards and strategies are pratically broken and need changes quickly:

1. Whoreson's freakshow. It's 6pts/6prov. but the real problem is it doesnt have a cooldown, so its basically a much better SK longship, you can use to remove dangerous engines. But it gets worse... combined with apothecary, which is a cheap bronze heal unit, much better than the ones in SC and SK, you can get ridiculous removal value, without coins.

2. Menge and Bounty Mechanics. When i used it, right at the beginning, i just used it to destroy big units, didnt realize it can be used to basically obliterate the opponent's board, combo'ed with Witch Hunter Executioner or that Borsodi bro (the Borsodis probably deserve a nerf too)
 
Played with it some, played against it a lot, and I found it fun in every match. I wouldn't quite say I love it, though, so I picked the 'I like it' option.

It's got a lot going on with the coins and keywords and gangs; it's complicated and takes some getting used to. But that's a good thing, in my opinion.
I agree that Syndicate has a clear identity and, in my opinion, it stands out partially due to that.

There are some really cool synergies and combos to be built, but from what I saw the faction also has a major weakness. A weakness that worked in my favour several times.

Some of the Syndicate cards feel rather strong but I didn't run into anything I considered unconditionally overpowered. Maybe I was lucky, maybe I'll change my mind after I play more. Time will tell.

All in all, I do like the new faction even when playing against it. It's by no means unstoppable (especially when played by someone as inexperienced as I was) but it does need to be taken seriously when facing it. Never know what those shady characters decide to do...
 
Im having so much fun with new faction. So far Ive really enjoyed an Insanity deck Ive made and an eternal fire deck.
 
Unbalanced.
It seems coins system is like artifacts system, but cheap.
Syndicate faction needs a strong revision.
 
Playing against SY deck is like playing against Demawend. Except all his engines has zeal. And near unlimited source of charges. And your cards are on fire. And your side of the board is on fire. And you´re in hell. :D But I seriously love it! :)
 
Chiming in after playing yesterday a bit, and I think this is the move that will make me quit gwent until they balance it properly. From the excitement of new expansion coming to boringness after three matches played, that is kinda hard to do.
This didn't feel like expansion more like something to shrink the game experience, not to expand it.

P.S. I love the mechanics of the faction. I don't know why they made it OP and am wondering do they even test stuff.
 
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