First, a little rant alert. I'm here to share my recent experience with Gwent, and it's not a very positive experience, unfortunately. After the initial fascination with the game's outstanding art, music and the setting in the Witcher universe, I realized that from the point of view of CCG gameplay, Gwent is not a very good game... After some time spent on the more competitive side of Gwent, I realized that it's quite a torture and requires nerves of steel and major frustration resistance. It's not easy to quit because of the time and money investment (luckily not so much of the latter) but I don't think it is okay to keep torturing oneself with a game that plays badly.
Number one issue is the ratio of player agency to good ol' luck. It is only maybe 1 in 4 or 5 of my losses where I can clearly pinpoint my misplays and know it's the misplays that cost me the game. About 75-80% of my losses seem like there was nothing I could do. Those games seem like the player has no agency in them whatsoever. You just draw for the win or you don't. Playing such a game where you are bound to lose from the start - it's like to watch your own doom, in the face of which you are totally powerless, slowly unfold in front of you. This is extremely frustrating. Especially when it's the Sisiphean task of MMR climbing.
But the realization of how unsatisfied with the game I really was came when I took a closer look at my wins. It was exactly the same. Very few wins felt like I got them "fairly." Majority of my wins, I was either crushing my opponents silly with draw and/or matchup advantage, or would have lost if they drew this or that. And in either case, how those games were actually played by the players was of no consequence.
What makes things worse, meta is swarming with decks that abuse RNG by fishing for unconditional R1 wins in order to abuse round control and last say. An example is the Ciris-Lippy deck. Or the MO decks that pointslam R1 with Haunt and Dethlaff and can't lose if they draw them, and then abuse R3 last say with some Glusties, Rats, no-unit strategies or other degeneracies. When those decks draw to win R1, it's already game over. If the game is over before it even started, it's not really a game, is it? And the problem is that regular meta decks aren't so much different from these fringe RNG abusers. Get the better draw for R1, get round control/last say while the oppo can do nothing about it, win the game. This is basically the essence of Gwent.
Another thing is that the game is MEGABINARY. Many games are like just flip your Heatwave coin and get done with it. Top-end card abilities are so ridiculously strong that it makes many games like "Get your removal A for the target X, removal B for the target Y and removal C for the target Z, mess one thing up on either side and it's game over."
Third thing is the "balancing." (Talking about Heatwave, devs will probably provision-nerf it "because it's too popular" and call it a day... I could bet a small sum on it ) This "balancing" without much insight into how the game plays in practice is really really tiresome for someone who follows it. Every patch seems like 30% ok changes and 70% total fails. The weakest archetypes, factions and decks get nerfs. The strongest, most oppressive interactions are rarely changed or remodeled but usually just get the lazy provision nerfs that change little or leave room to be replaced by other broken alternatives. Or sometimes, the most broken stuff gets additions that break it even more. It seems like no playtesting is ever done for the balancing purposes. Bad balancing only magnifies the core problems with the game.
Fourth, many obvious problems are never being addressed. Like the total dumpstering of the casual mode by mock quest decks. Again, why can't people do their quests in the training mode? I can guess devs wanted people to craft interesting decks and get them to match against each other in diverse and interesting games. Well, if that was the mission then here's a newsflash: MISSION FAILED. Casual is a dumpster for people who just slap weird cards together at random and spam them to get the quests done, never actually trying to "play Gwent" or caring for the win.
In conclusion, it's been fun. CDPR is best game devs ever (in general). Witcher universe is best. But I think it's time to quit. I'll stick around till next patch, see what's up (probably nothing) and then quit. Gwent seriously deserves better then what it's getting.
Number one issue is the ratio of player agency to good ol' luck. It is only maybe 1 in 4 or 5 of my losses where I can clearly pinpoint my misplays and know it's the misplays that cost me the game. About 75-80% of my losses seem like there was nothing I could do. Those games seem like the player has no agency in them whatsoever. You just draw for the win or you don't. Playing such a game where you are bound to lose from the start - it's like to watch your own doom, in the face of which you are totally powerless, slowly unfold in front of you. This is extremely frustrating. Especially when it's the Sisiphean task of MMR climbing.
But the realization of how unsatisfied with the game I really was came when I took a closer look at my wins. It was exactly the same. Very few wins felt like I got them "fairly." Majority of my wins, I was either crushing my opponents silly with draw and/or matchup advantage, or would have lost if they drew this or that. And in either case, how those games were actually played by the players was of no consequence.
What makes things worse, meta is swarming with decks that abuse RNG by fishing for unconditional R1 wins in order to abuse round control and last say. An example is the Ciris-Lippy deck. Or the MO decks that pointslam R1 with Haunt and Dethlaff and can't lose if they draw them, and then abuse R3 last say with some Glusties, Rats, no-unit strategies or other degeneracies. When those decks draw to win R1, it's already game over. If the game is over before it even started, it's not really a game, is it? And the problem is that regular meta decks aren't so much different from these fringe RNG abusers. Get the better draw for R1, get round control/last say while the oppo can do nothing about it, win the game. This is basically the essence of Gwent.
Another thing is that the game is MEGABINARY. Many games are like just flip your Heatwave coin and get done with it. Top-end card abilities are so ridiculously strong that it makes many games like "Get your removal A for the target X, removal B for the target Y and removal C for the target Z, mess one thing up on either side and it's game over."
Third thing is the "balancing." (Talking about Heatwave, devs will probably provision-nerf it "because it's too popular" and call it a day... I could bet a small sum on it ) This "balancing" without much insight into how the game plays in practice is really really tiresome for someone who follows it. Every patch seems like 30% ok changes and 70% total fails. The weakest archetypes, factions and decks get nerfs. The strongest, most oppressive interactions are rarely changed or remodeled but usually just get the lazy provision nerfs that change little or leave room to be replaced by other broken alternatives. Or sometimes, the most broken stuff gets additions that break it even more. It seems like no playtesting is ever done for the balancing purposes. Bad balancing only magnifies the core problems with the game.
Fourth, many obvious problems are never being addressed. Like the total dumpstering of the casual mode by mock quest decks. Again, why can't people do their quests in the training mode? I can guess devs wanted people to craft interesting decks and get them to match against each other in diverse and interesting games. Well, if that was the mission then here's a newsflash: MISSION FAILED. Casual is a dumpster for people who just slap weird cards together at random and spam them to get the quests done, never actually trying to "play Gwent" or caring for the win.
In conclusion, it's been fun. CDPR is best game devs ever (in general). Witcher universe is best. But I think it's time to quit. I'll stick around till next patch, see what's up (probably nothing) and then quit. Gwent seriously deserves better then what it's getting.
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