Changes to the Balance Council

[RyanSchou]

Hello everyone!

Not so long ago, we concluded our first Balance Council cycle. Voting is open for the second one, but we would like to apply some changes.

Choosing the number of changes for this system is a challenge. More changes mean their impact will be bigger, but also the spread of votes can be higher, which can result in overnerfing/overbuffing certain archetypes. Less changes mean the game is more stable - the spread of the votes is lower, which means that only a handful of deserving cards are affected, but as a consequence, the impact can be less noticeable.

Since, for technical reasons, we need to decide on one number for maximum changes for all brackets, we would like to try an approach opposite to the one we tried at first, so in the current cycle, the maximum number of changes per bracket will be 5. We will need your feedback to decide whether or not that is enough to have an impactful update, and based on that, we will decide what that number should become in future cycles.

Moreover, starting from the next cycle (the current one will be unaffected), we will increase the minimum number of wins for non-pro rank players to 50. Keep in mind that the regular length of the cycle is 1 month, so there will be more time to get there.

Happy voting!

 

[WhiteWolf4207]

Just yesterday I was telling my friend for non pro players minimum requirement should be 50 ranked wins minimum and maybe Prestige 3. And look here we are part of my thought actually got implemented. LOL

Post automatically merged: Nov 10, 2023

Also, I think Power +1 /-1 should be 10 and Provision +1 should be 5 and Provision -1 should 10. I believe only Provision +1 section should be low.

 

[Barracuda88]

I think 10 per bracket is going to be the best option, but I guess we'll see how this 5 works this time.

Another way to tweak the system might be to set a small buffer (say 5 per month) outside of the "official" count for correcting mistakes from the previous vote, such as the Compass for example, without wasting the overall limit. So, in other words, if a reversal of the previous change gets one of the top votes, it's effectively "removed" from the official top 10 or top 15 or whatever, and changed without wasting the "vote space." That way we can actually still have new changes without spending half the votes every season on correcting nonsense from the previous one.

 

[sir_Patton]

If changes from last balance council will not change then 5 per basked would be fine. I would even say that cards which was changed in previous patch shouldn't be possible to vote to revert changes but there should be some policy to protect against killing card like it was done with reavers hunters strength.

Regarding condition I would say it should be higher prestige then higher ranking wins but this condition is also fine.

I see you already mentioned compass - instead of moving compass to 10 better move golden nekker to 10 and in future further even to 12-13. Compass themselves for 9 is ok, the issue here is golden nekker. Regarding SK nekker - ok this is still strong deck but now have much more weak matchups so it's not so strong at it was in past.

 

[ShinAkira00]

5 seems like a good middle ground, I did feel like it should be higher but 10 feels like it would be anarchy. Let's see how this plays out

 

[CorvoBiancoBound]

Sounds like a great move to me.

 

[Red.Tool]

I'd rather see 20 buffs and 10 nerfs instead of 10 buffs and 10 nerfs. Nerfs rarely have enough impact, while buffs do. Voting can stay the same.

The 50 wins per season is a whole lot. I'd rather see a minimum of 100 games than wins in particular. 100 games played and 25 wins, feels more affordable and comes close to the same requirement, while keeping the meta sane. As the first 2 weeks of this season was horrible and made people choose oppressive decks instead of fun or semi-fun decks.

Some cards that can Create cards that are unavailable to Golden Nekker decks should however be locked to a minimum of 10 provision. With Land of a Thousand Fables as the only exeption.

Plus cards like Reaver Hunters or Selfeaters should be locked out of power nerfs below 2 instead of 1.

 

[Easha]

To disappoint some of the earlier posters: The system's general working are set in stone as confirmed by the Reds.
You will not be able to vote on any effect changes, nor armour values, nor power of evolved cards beyond the first form. You will always have the same number of changes in each category. It is not possible to lock cards from being changed again. (Which is an awful idea by the way, as the current Compass issue sufficiently proves.)
Kindly get used to the thought, there is not point in suggesting change X or Y to the system. Even if it were objectively better it will not be implemented anymore. They likely do not have the manpower anymore, but regardless of the reason: They stated it will simply not happen.
The only thing that still can be tweaked is the number of changes and this is being done right now.

With that out of the way, let's discuss the number of changes:
First of all the more sensible way to do this would have been starting with a small number of changes and then increasing it.
If anything the first vote showed that people's ideas of balance can differ greatly. And now after years of GWENT players can finally influence the balance for the first time... whoever did not expect some votes because of perceived unfairness or out of sheer spite was very naive: Cultists barely seeing play after the Affan change yet getting two nerfs anyway because people still were traumatised. Reaver Hunters being the card with the worst win rate by far in pro rank of any card with 5 play are or more, yet they were made outright unplayable by their very effect.

So in the first vote we had some outright mistakes (Compass), some pretty senseless votes (Rever Hunters,Cultist), some for cards that did not need any change (Siege, compared to Scenarios you never see like Haunt outside of Viy, buffing Virgo and Braathens), overkilling archetypes (NG Soldiers)...
But Reaver Hunters and Compass aside probably nothing actively hurting the gam, depsite... it being quite messy. if we had only five changes back then, most of this could have been avoided. Then when the community got used to their new voting powers, the number could be increased.

But no, we started with 15 changes and 25 required wins and now with the third vote come to 5/50. So now players might be actively discouraged to vote. You have to work twice as hard for half of an impactful patch which is the best way to kill motivation - worst case for future votes with more changes again when said players are not longer around to vote.
The general consensus seems to be that we need more buffs than nerfs in the long run given how many cards do not see play at all compared to the number of strong cards that could use a small nerf. However as the system cannot handle this as elaborated above, we need to look at the amount of buff votes required
Why?
You can choose to not use any nerf votes, but you cannot conjur up more buff votes you are not being given in the first place. Five buffs per category is not it, it will take years to make even part of the cards that need buffs playable. Even worse for the ones that would need several buffs like Dragon's Dream.

And that does not even cover the issue that is already visible in the second vote: Not an unsignificant number of votes is on outright reverting changes made in the previous cycle. So if you substract those votes from the already far too small five changes, you end up with even less actual changes and will just have another stale meta with decks you are already used to see for anothe rmonths. No new archetypes, no new creative combos with cards you did not expect.

Five votes is an awful idea.
Five votes after starting with 15 and 10 even more.
Especially worse if you double the requirements. The requirements in itself seem a tad too high for me, too. 35-ish as a middle ground seem more approachable.

Please do not consider such a small amount of buffs ever again.

 

[LeticiOrel]

Just yesterday I was telling my friend for non pro players minimum requirement should be 50 ranked wins minimum and maybe Prestige 3. And look here we are part of my thought actually got implemented. LOL

I was thinking about Prestige 2-3 as well. When I look back at myself achieving Prestige 1 - I was still a newbie who didn't know half of the archetypes in the game, was unaware of some basic mechanics (SY coin management for example), and was unfamiliar with half of the factions in general. And what's the most important thing - I didn't have experience with all the cards in the game, because I simply didn't own them. Currently I'm almost prestige 5 (4, lvl 59) and still don't have all the cards and my whole experience with SY goes down to 8 wins . So, back then (and maybe even now) I was certainly NOT eligible to vote objectively. Prestige 3 seems like adequate requirement imho, and 50 ladder wins seem okay as well.

 

[NeroIII]

I think it was a great change, to choose only 5 cards per bracket. 60 cards a month seemed very messy, a lot of decks would need to adapt and it would be hard to keep up with all the changes. You guys have been doing a great job at balancing the game and ajusting this counsil.
As far as the 50 wins go, i also think it is a great improvement, preventing new players from voting and killing certain archetypes is a safe way to prevent the game from killing itself.

 

[GlobZOsiris]

RyanSchou, why not allowing :

• 5 cards per 4 brackets for GOLD CARDS = 20 gold cards for each month
• 5 cards per 4 brackets for BRONZE CARDS = 20 bronze cards for each month

Because most people will vote for cards that will have impact, and most of them are Gold one, the other are overpowered Bronze cards with exponential engine (copying cards for instance or linked to it). This will push people to think about Bronze cards in the 6+1 Factions. For the 1st Balancing Council, among 61 cards changed, 47 were Gold, 14 were Bronze, 7 of them linked to Copy directly or indirectly).

This way, votes will be more representative to players votes (because the most requested cards will be selected) and to be well distributed. But above all we can even create

1. Low Conditions to Vote for Bronze cards (such as Prestige 1 or Rank 14 minimum + 25 Ranked Victories during the current season)
2. High Conditions to Vote for Gold cards (such as Prestige 2 or Rank 7 minimum + 50 Ranked Victories during the current season).

Think about it, if the goal is to Balance, the Voting system has to ENSURE people to focus on all type of cards (a balance distribution will lead to a more wide study by voters). Keeping in mind that according to the Deck Builder, they are

• 513 Bronze units/specials/artefacts
• 715 Gold units/specials/artefacts/stratagems
• 42 Leader Abilities.

PS : And maybe the sweet spot would be (after the last tournament), 8 cards changed per 4 brackets for Gold and 4 brackets for Bronze = 8x8 = 64 changes, but well distributed (32 for Gold, 32 for Bronze, and not almost 60 for Gold for each cycle as the first cycle test has shown).

• 8x8=64 changes / 1228 main cards = 5,2% of changes over the total number of main cards (2,6% for Bronze, and 2,6 for Gold)
• 5x8=40 changes / 1228 main cards = 3,2% of changes over ... (1,6% for Bronze and 1,6% for Gold)
• 5x4=20 changes / 1228 main cards = 1,6% of changes (for both Bronze and Gold)

 

[thormation]

Sixty changes a month were a good number. Why? Two reasons.

First, artificial scarcity motivates people to be very selfish with their votes.

With 60 votes, it is possible to get card changed with a smaller group of people. With sixty, people could look at an underused or underpowered card and think, "Hey, why don't we buff this card?" Then they would discuss it with the community, have a back-and-forth about the merits and detriments of changing the card, and if it still a worthy idea, they could gather a small group that agrees to give the card a chance in the spotlight. This would not stop the high-level machinations of streamers and pros and their followers, but they are going to do what they are going to do anyhow, so how about trying out this little pet project with your votes?

But with fewer votes, what the streamer and pro cohorts are doing becomes a lot more important. You *know* that your little flight of fancy is never going to get the critical mass to fill one of those very scarce slots, so the only thing that makes sense to do is to join in the high-level meta-gaming shenanigans and struggle to keep this card nerfed or that card buffed, until there is nothing left of the monthly changes than a constant metronome of the same handful of cards being repeatedly buffed and nerfed, again and again. And while the meta technically "changes" every month, everything starts getting stale fast. If you go with fewer changes, that leaves room for fewer non-mainstream changes--the changes that are actually needed to keep things interesting and alive.

Second, this is the only tool we have to keep the game fun and different, so we *need* a freer use of the tool. The devs were always pretty strict with the changes, but they also had knowledge of the real statistics involving all aspects of play and foreknowledge of what kind of new content was coming. We have none of that. No new content. No peeking under the hood. All we have is the ability to move certain numbers up and down. And if we are going to have just this one tool, we need to have as much free use of it as we need.

50 wins per month and Prestige 1? That's reasonable. I'd even bump it up to Prestige 2. According to the Trendy Gwentleman level calculator, a player can hit Prestige 2 after around 800 games. That should be enough time for a person to have started to grasp the more subtle interactions between cards that someone trying to do honest balancing would need. If you raise the Prestige *along with* a raising of the number of changes, sufficiently reasonable alterations should occur most of the time. And for the rest of the time? Well, we've all lived through a wacky imbalanced meta or two, and we can live through one again if that happens now and then.

And finally, let me say my hopeless wish, just to get it off my chest: It would be very healthy for the game if half of the cards each person voted on *had* to be Bronzes. Many Bronzes need brought up to standard, but everyone is fixated on the flashy Golds. It's almost a pity that you didn't nerf *all* the cards by one provision, just to give some room at the bottom so that every card could be buffed once if necessary.

 

[GlobZOsiris]

Second, this is the only tool we have to keep the game fun and different, so we *need* a freer use of the tool. The devs were always pretty strict with the changes, but they also had knowledge of the real statistics involving all aspects of play and foreknowledge of what kind of new content was coming. We have none of that. No new content. No peeking under the hood. All we have is the ability to move certain numbers up and down. And if we are going to have just this one tool, we need to have as much free use of it as we need.

Absolutly, the fundamental aim has to be the FUN, more than before, because the driving force of Tournaments (money, glory, competition) will end. (This is why it is sad nothing has been prepared to unlock more the Seasonal Modes, for instance to be able to get 2 or 3 Modes per week, or to vote for the Mode players want to play. Because Mode trully change the way to play cards, you can not cristallize yourself by playing the same few meta overpowered decks).

And finally, let me say my hopeless wish, just to get it off my chest: It would be very healthy for the game if half of the cards each person voted on *had* to be Bronzes. Many Bronzes need brought up to standard, but everyone is fixated on the flashy Golds. It's almost a pity that you didn't nerf *all* the cards by one provision, just to give some room at the bottom so that every card could be buffed once if necessary.

You are on the same wavelenght than me. The voting system has to divide votes by Gold and Bronze (this is what I have explained above). So the best is to add 4 brackets (Power + & -, Provision + & -) for the Bronze cards. With a tiny set of cards selected (between 5 to 8 per the 8 brackets each cycle).

 

[quintivarium]

I want to push a different perspective -- that the eligibility requirements for non-pro players to vote should be reduced -- and certainly not raised. Why? There are several reasons.

1. There is no evidence that the stated goal of the voting restrictions was not already met by the prestige 1 and 25 wins in the current season conditions, and, even if it is not satisfied, there is no evidence that increasing wins requirement to 50 will make any difference. Before folks point to the changes in the last balance patch as evidence that uninformed people are making bad votes, I suggest that they look long and hard at their assumptions. I submit that Reaver Hunters were nerfed to one power not because players didn't know that one power Hunters are unplayable -- it's because they wanted them unplayable. Nilfgaard was heavily nerfed not because one (incorrectly) perceived as OP deck had nerfs fall upon multiple cards, but because people were sick of playing two out of every three matches against NG and because a lot of NG cards are seen as either OP or annoying whether the faction is strong or not. And consider this: players will want to change what they encounter as unpleasant -- for low rank players, this is not meta-level gold cards, it's bronzes, base set cards, and cards given by reward trees. If voting is so "messed-up" by inexperienced, uninformed players, why aren't we seeing more changes to these cards?
2. The 50 win standard is not reasonable. If we assume that 50% of games are wins (it is actually slightly less due to draws), non-pro players will need 100 ranked wins to achieve this. If each game takes approximately 15 minutes that is 25 hours of playing time to meet the eligibility requirement. That's not counting time spent in other modes, in the deck builder, watching streams or videos, reading about Gwent, time in balance council, etc. I think an estimate of 1 of hour play a day for players who meet this expectation is reasonable. That is a huge time investment -- arguably an unhealthy investment -- for a game.
3. More experienced players already have a disproportionate say in the balance council. It is experienced players who are streamers, forum and social media regulars, members of e-sports teams, etc. It is experienced players who have contacts and groups through which they communicate about the game. With so many potential cards to change, it is difficult to overcome a coalition of voters by other players "random hits" coinciding on the same card. Experienced players will have more access to and influence on organized voting.
4. Input of less experienced players is also important. Because I have no desire to play competitive Gwent, I am deliberately playing (and remaining) on rank 25. And I can say there is a "meta" here, too. It is not the same as the meta of pro-players (most rank 25 players have limited card-pools, and those that don't either don't stay there long or deliberately play weak decks), but it is present. How many pro-players are familiar with that meta? I recall when I when I was a beginner complaining about the old Cahir (who boosted whenever an opponent's unit boosted). I was basically told to get over it -- Cahir had a zillion counters. But every one that people listed were cards I did not own. As a beginner, I did not have resources to craft counters to every OP card I encountered -- I needed those resources to advance my own decks. If sufficient beginning players think a card like Cahir needs a nerf, it needs a nerf -- regardless of professionals who think otherwise. Moreover, it is new (and returning) players who bring new eyes and insights into Gwent; their input should be valued. As final evidence, I submit proposed changes of Lerio (found here). He claims they closely follow changes recommended by the Gwent Pro Players Balance Council. While I respect Lerio as a player and commentator, and while I would not disagree with any individual assessments made, I observe every card listed is either in current meta decks or very close to being in meta decks. Unless we want to consistently see the same limited cardpool cycling through slightly varied metas, we need out-of-the-box changes -- and I don't think those will come from the pro-ranks.
5. If we want a healthy community, we need to welcome ALL players. A two-tiered system where "elites" who spend more time have authority and others fall in line does not do so. Standards like prestige 1 and even 25 wins that serve a purpose and are reasonable targets most players can expect to meet are one thing. Arbitrary, "hard" standards (which to me serve only the purpose of preserving the status quo by excluding "undesirable" influences) are quite another.

 

[GlobZOsiris]

I want to push a different perspective -- that the eligibility requirements for non-pro players to vote should be reduced -- and certainly not raised. Why? There are several reasons.

1) Absolutly true. It is even a famous Pro player streamer that has pushed the Compass to come back at 9 Provisions. From what I have seen,

• Fake Pro Players copying abusive decks (that they call "meta" to persuade themselves they are superiors) try to spread their frustration on easy targets, mostly belonging to the silent majority, and the minority are individuals who are not in a group/pack. Brilliant courage !
• These Reals toxic people aggress users on forums, and it is really painful to read threads without seeing all the time their same twisted arguments based on authority : "I am a Pro, I follow a Pro, I repeat blindly what a Pro has said, I twist speachs of Real Pros Players for my interest"... in order to confiscate the freedom of speech of so called "non Pro Players", preventing any argument, and prohibiting their vote.
• At the same time, they form small groups to ensure that their votes take precedence, through fairly aggressive internal and external campaigns (it is "democraty" of course). They are Pros for this, to exploit breachs. They are not here to Play / to Have Fun, they work for a selfish interest. And above all, they do not represent anyone.

2) Even for someone playing well a faction, sometimes you rediscover an archetype, you create by yourself your deck... so you spend more time to end your turn. But let's assume a game takes 15 minutes as you said (including preparation before, waiting the opponent, the result of the match).

• If you win 25 games over 25 matches = it takes 375 minutes = 6 h 15 m = 12,5 min per day, 1 h 27 min 30 s per week
• if you win 25 games over 50 matches = it takes 750 minutes = 12 h 30 m = 25 min per day, 2 h 55 per week
• if you win 25 games over 75 matches = it takes 1125 minutes = 18 h 45 m = 37,5 min per day, 4 h 22 min 30 s per week
• if you win 25 games over 100 matches = it takes 1500 minutes = 25 hours = 50 min each day, 5 h 50 min per week

Thanks to you, I realise that 50 ranked victories per months for Fun Players is too high.

• Keeping in mind, to reach Rank 0 sometimes you suffer against silly cloned deck (most people just give up and start playing the same copied-and-pasted deck).
• And you can not play Seasonal Modes under this time !
• And too generous for addict players/workers who already reach this goal by consuming rather than by playing.

3) True again.

4) Well, I have reach Rank 0 to this what is behind this wall and... it not fun at all. So I have played Seasonal Modes, but some weeks it is not an interesting Modes, or a Mode you have already play and which is very limited in his replayability (Bearly Balanced for instace). So tired to wait an interesting Mode, I have stopped during 3 months until the last release of cards + the Balance Council, because curious to see the tool annd the first results. So I was like Rank 6 7 8, and I have reached Rank 4, but it was boring as hell. Wheras in Mode you can create a unic Deck, no one will play, and you can have a 90% 95% winrate ! If you are not disconnected by the server.

5) Finally, it is pretty clear that a bridge of reconciliation can be build by healthy people from the lower Ranks to the higher Ranks. The solution woulb be to vote for Bronze Cards when you reach lower conditions, and to be able to also vote for Gold cards with higher conditions. It will also become harder for mindhackers to erase the vote of people who are not bounded into pirahna packs. Because be sure that after few weeks and cycles, they will have build a process to steal the freedom of vote. Worse, they will fight between differents communities (mainly from languages/countries), and blaming all the time low rank players or fun players.

 

[duracell1955]

I view the change to the voting requirements with dismay. I do not believe that it will result in a 'better' distribution of votes, only that it will exclude players who have a legitimate interest in the game being able to vote.

It's my opinion that the person who creates their own decks and plays all the factions is more likely to have an informed view on the state of the game than another person who downloads the top net deck each month and plays it until they have reached the requisite number of wins or Pro Rank. The latter player is also likely to have a better win rate and so will attain the voting qualification with less effort. This is surely not what we want.

Personally I have never attained Pro Rank but went from Rank 30 to Rank 1 without ever using a net deck. I build my own decks daily, and although I don't win as often as I'd like, I get more satisfaction when I do than if I use someone elses deck. The increased number of required wins to 50 will either exclude me or push me down the path of using net decks to increase my win rate, and that surely can't be right.

 

[chris_88]

I want to push a different perspective -- that the eligibility requirements for non-pro players to vote should be reduced -- and certainly not raised. Why? There are several reasons.

Very well written!

I think 50 wins is too much as well. That is a huge time investment and just because some players don't want to play that much doesn't mean they aren't capable of making "qualified" votes.

 

[duracell1955]

Would it be possible to see the level of participation in the Balance Council and how the changes to voting qualification will affect it? Apologies if this information is already in the public domain but I feel that it's important that the player base feels able to contribute to the game going forward. Useful information would be:

1. Size of the player base before the first round of voting
2. Numbers of players qualifying to vote in the first round
3. Number of players who actually voted in the first round
4. Number of players who would have been qualified to vote in the first round had the increased wins (50) requirement been applied

Thank you.

 

[Pjovejas]

What do you plan to do with such votings like for Reaver hunters? When card was made to contradict inself basically? Don't you plan to add some restrictions? Like for provision minimum?

 

[Trevorzan]

Hello everyone!

Not so long ago, we concluded our first Balance Council cycle. Voting is open for the second one, but we would like to apply some changes.

Choosing the number of changes for this system is a challenge. More changes mean their impact will be bigger, but also the spread of votes can be higher, which can result in overnerfing/overbuffing certain archetypes. Less changes mean the game is more stable - the spread of the votes is lower, which means that only a handful of deserving cards are affected, but as a consequence, the impact can be less noticeable.

Since, for technical reasons, we need to decide on one number for maximum changes for all brackets, we would like to try an approach opposite to the one we tried at first, so in the current cycle, the maximum number of changes per bracket will be 5. We will need your feedback to decide whether or not that is enough to have an impactful update, and based on that, we will decide what that number should become in future cycles.

Moreover, starting from the next cycle (the current one will be unaffected), we will increase the minimum number of wins for non-pro rank players to 50. Keep in mind that the regular length of the cycle is 1 month, so there will be more time to get there.

Happy voting!

5 card changes per braket seems fine to me. 50 victories is a very high number can it be 30 wins? or even 35, please??