I never made the Pro league, but I was rank 2 and my peak and I played GWENT until last summer. What absolutely killed it for me was their policy of not fixing broken decks during a season. A season would launch with a spectacularly broken card and everyone either jumped on that meta or tried to build a counter deck. It became no fun at higher ranks. It was only worth checking in monthly as a result.
My guy rank 2 is not “higher rank” Hell even pro rank isn’t “higher rank” One can always spam games to get into pro rank given how broken the rank system is
@@DCapps1994 it's kinda a Ben Brode thing, Marvel Snap rn has the same too slow balancing issues; Hearthstone has now a really great pace of changing cards
I never thought there would be a Death of a Game on a game I actually played, feels weird I've been with the game for so long, easily the most hours I've put into a multiplayer game
I had the opposite but equally sad experience. Just started playing Gwent 3 days ago (2024), great game, completed all 6 factions' intro reward books with keys, made 6 custom decks (starting decks are bad) to get a feel for each faction (fav: Nilfgaard :D) and played up until I reached rank 23 with the faction I decided to specialize on. The free to play is rather good, and then I looked online and saw that the game is in maintenance mode for 2 years, so yeah, no going pro/competitive in this one. It became a game that is fun to play occasionally, just like Gwent was intended to play in the first place. It didn't become Yu-Gi-Oh where 70% of duels are won in turn 1. I like the slow pace and that the combos are not exaggerated.
This one will hurt, I played so much before the homecoming, up to the pro ranks, there still isn't a ccg that scratches that tactical itch between a poker game and a card game with so much freedom to set up baits and misplay. It was just never the same after Homecoming though
It's quite a bit less complex, but I find Marvel Snap does a decent job of delivering tactical mind games in card form. Really easy to get cards without spending money also
fun fact: Gwent as described in Sapkowski's book was basically just a variation of bridge, the cards used were different than a standard deck in real life, but the gameplay seemed to be extremely similiar
@@Bigwigrah07 it's called "Gwint" in Polish version (my native language), which is also Polish name of the tgc. Maybe something was lost in translation.
I remember playing Hearthstone during my dad's stay at the hospital and wanted to find other games to keep the stress away and Gwent and Elder Scrolls Legends were my favourite substitutes. I moved on after my dad recovered from his surgery. It's sad to see both Legends and Gwent die like this when they had potential.
I and all my fellow friends bought something off the Gwent shop. Not because we felt like we needed to, nor did we truly want to. It was just a way to thank the developers. I still remember a conversation with my brother where we both said that we're going to buy something from the next expansion only because we want to help the devs. Talking about small loyal fan base lol
Yeah the prices of most of the stuff were to high tbf... I always wanted to buy one or two journeys but paying 40 zł for a couple cosmetics when I could get TW3 with expansions for the exact same price or a battle pass in Fortnite for less than half of that (plus it's a one time purchase assuming you do play the game to retrieve the premium currency) just didn't seem right to me. But I did get the starter pack at least.
People like you who think they're "helping the devs" by buying microtransactions are honestly the worst kind of idiot. Do you think they're running a fucking Twitch stream? Are they a charity to you? That money doesn't go to hard working little mister programmer who cleaned up the sound file for your favorite card. He's already got his pittance of a salary. That money goes to the publishers and the shareholders. God I actually despise morons like you.
God I DESPISE morons like you who think that spending money on microtransactions somehow "helps the devs". What, do you think they're running a fucking Twitch stream or something? Are you braindead? The programmers don't get a bonus if you buy the cosmetic shit, you fool. They've already got their pittance of a salary. The money you just spent went to the publishers and the shareholders. God, you are so stupid.
@Khánh Bảo Đoàn Some ab-libbed lore, mostly shit no one cares about. Alzur is there, there is no coherent plot, cards are randomly played without a faction.
I would love to see a game similar to Thronebreaker than takes place during book saga timeline. Imagine similar to Meve’s perspective but this time with Geralt’s Hanza 🔥
Play thronebreaker, rogue mague was unfinished game they released just before killing gwent. its bare bones, thronebreaker on the other hand is very good
Burza, Slama, Ryan, Vlad, Jean and so many content creators... This game's downfall was really abrupt and unexpected to me. I just wish the Gwent team all the best and thank you very much for your great work!
The game has fair monetization, great art, a good season pass and good gameplay. This is one of the very few games that I have gotten a season pass in and have not regretted it. Overall it's a shame.
yeah but it was never mtg ; and it was doomed to failure. the only game that can even come close is elder scrolls legends; but even though its not being worked on anymore; the client always keeps getting updates. so that tells you something.
@Nexo I agree and I played since closed beta. It was a good game post-rework, a bad game after the first big rework, but a truly excellent game in the early days.
Then we didn't play the same game. Thronebreaker was filled with game breaking bugs and an annoying gwent compared to the awesome version in witcher 3.
I find this extremely amusing because I got into Gwent like a week ago and am in the stage of absolutely loving it. It's really fun because I have just 0 expectations and only play because I want to understand various mechanics and I laugh my ass off when someone pulls something at least seemingly unbalanced. But imagine the absolute comedic timing; I never cared for Gwent in TW3, no matter how many times I tried to find an appetite for it. But as a visual artist I wanted to check out the artworks in the standalone, so I downloaded on a whim. And I realized I actually enjoyed the experience! And no chat with the opponent? Great! Makes losing/winning literally not the point (somehow the process is far more fun than the result, little fun game of making the most of what you're dealt, relaxing). Found myself genuinely wanting to congratulate my opponents for outsmarting my little plots. So, sure, maybe the joy will fall off once I figure enough out- as it does with any online pvp game. But no game really made me experience what Gwent:TWCG does. In this context of what the community feels about it? Brilliantly amusing timing. Gosh! Anyway! Hi!! I'm new!:Dd!!
Great stuff, I liked that they lampshaded the situation with one NPC saying something along the lines of ‘You want to play Now?!’ He still does though.
I miss the pre homecoming gwent so much, I was a casual who liked the minigame a lot and the standalone was a dream come true. Then it got more and more "pro" and it wasn't fun anymore.
i used to love gwent when it came out, such a breath of fresh air for poor hearthstone loving highschool me. It had clean simplistic looks, and really fun gameplay, It was probably my favourite ranked experience out of all games. But CDP decided to completly change the game with homecoming and it was just diffrent, they changed the design and in my opinion it started to look a lot more muddy and also the game became more complex needing a lot more commitment, so i just dropped it becouse it wasnt the gwent i fell in love with when it was in beta
Same here, I'd been playing it since the beta and when they re-launched with Homecoming it felt like a different game and my small brain couldn't keep up with all the changes and additions. I always found myself googling optimal deck builds because I didn't feel like I could build to my liking, as I'd always get hammered by people with more optimal decks.
If I may, there's an entire community of people who've remade the open beta game from scratch and keep updating it, you can search for r/DIYGwent if you're interested.
I loved Gwent and had a blast with it during early beta. However, the changes and "revamps" they made progressively turned the game upside down and changed the things I got used to and enjoyed. I loved weather and they killed that, then I got used to the lanes and they changed that too. After a certain point, even if I was getting refunded all my currency, I just didn't have the energy anymore. Was a real shame, the game had a great concept
If I may, there's an entire community of people who've remade the open beta game from scratch and keep updating it, you can search for r/DIYGwent if you're interested.
@@Nathan_Coley Yep, that's one of the arguments I don't agree with him on. Speaking mostly about pre-homecoming since I didn't like the game very much after it there were all the archetypes in there that fulfil the same power fantasies and gameplay fantasies as they do in other CCGs. Like there are engine decks which are basically ramp decks (cards that gain a lot of value over time and are weak to disruption - consume monsters, self-harm skellige sword bois, forgot the name), pointslam (beatstick mid-range type decks), aggro (swarm decks with lots of small units which would generate a lot of value unless controlled early), control (skillge boats, trap decks, kinda alchemy niilfgaard?, early spies). The best thing about Gwent imo is that there were super weird decks that also kinda broke that midrange-control-aggro trinity which is what made it special. Even though the game was balanced around archtypes (control kinda beating big monsters, but losing to swarms unless you run specific control decks like boats, midrange out valuing control in many cases etc) , you would always have insane deck variety in pre-homecoming gwent where people would cook up incredibly meta countering and meta defining decks that you would just never see if the game wasn't based on a 3-round system. Like decks made to bleed someone round 1 with huge finishers to close it out in round 3 (since Homecoming gave people way more cards in later rounds, it killed these decks), decks that would sacrifice value in order to have carry-over to make your opponent have to over-commit on round 2 if they lost round-1 and then still have a strong unit in game 3 cause of adrenaline rushed ciri:nova or bear master etc. Alchemy nilfgaard or scoia spells which had almost no units and were all about huge swings and making sure your opponent also can't run any sort of a gameplan while still being flexible to adapt to different matchups. I don't think we'll get another game as complex and fun as pre-homecoming Gwent was soon.
@@AcencialAMV I 100% agree with all that you said buddy. Even though I still occasionally play the game (a few times a week) pre-homecoming was some of the best CCG/TCG experiences I've ever had. Gwent to this day is still my MTG replacement because I don't like the way WoTC has gone in the last ~10 years.
the slow paced rounds are integral to the game. it's the core of experience. the round system is a mind game battle that's all about reading the pace and commitment of your opponent and capitalizing on it. this way each card is tense and important and it doesn't feel slow. for people who don't play gwent or only do so casually, allow me to give (too many) examples as to how deep the round system runs. if you fall behind pace with your opponent even a little bit you lose card advantage in following rounds (assuming they know what they're doing). often an automatic loss. as such you have the weigh the risk and value of engines and tempo. you may pressure your opponent to miss out on combos or setting up their board in fear of falling behind. you can surprise them with sudden tempo near the draw threshold after feigning a slow deck archetype. it's a constant mindgame. if you read your opponent correctly and capitalize on their mistakes games can be won after the first 3 cards. the consequences of the first round feed into the mind game of the next. if you win the first round you can play low commitment and force the opponent to match it. this way you can bleed your opponent of good cards. an especially effective mindgame when you had a short round 1 as many opponents expect you to dry pass and therefore fill their hand with good cards in preparation for the final round. knowing this some players keep mid commitment cards on hand for the second round as to mitigate the potential loss of your opponent bleeding your deck. but then you risk your opponent going all-in and being unable to match it. losing the game 2-0. it's all about reading your opponents intention, calling their bluffs and punishing them for it. however a clever loser can read their opponents read. i have regained card advantage many times doing this. the bluff is all the more convincing if you had a long, devastating first round. the more you lost it by the better. this means you're keeping power in reserve and keeping your opponent confident and cocky. you can try and bait your opponent into trying to 2-0 you. keep a few lower commitment cards to get the bluff rolling, making it seem like you were expecting your opponent to bleed your deck. they'll recognize your weakness and commit. a few cards in (the later the better, maintaining the bluff but risking defeat) surprise them by switching to your best, most high value card combos. you were just pretending to expect bleeding. you got your opponent to commit to a full round 2 that you were secretly guaranteed to win as you retained your full power from R1 unlike them. just so the playing field is evened (or even advantageous to you!). this way losing the first round is a good thing, most opponents expect you to play it safe after the first round, you can punish this expectation. again. mind games.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss yea it's not for everyone. in fact i can see how most people would find it boring (so it makes complete sense why you would include it in the video as a contributer to the game's death) ty for reading my comment. i'm impressed, it's kinda long and boring. you're a cool dude
"The black faction in MTG has like 9 commanders to choose from." Massive understatement, there's currently 100, not including multicolored black commanders.
Since I don't have any sponsors on this video, sans yours truly. I will focus on making a point I think some people are missing since it happens so quickly. Pre-Homecoming Gwent was not what Gwent was in Witcher, but it was clearly not as competitive as it became. Original Gwent was never meant to be competitive, so once the shifting starts happening when leads to Homecoming, a massive switch, the writing was already on the wall. They literally brought a developer in to do this exactly. This completely changed the course of the game, and the identity of the game itself. You might see some comments wishing I focused more on this pre-homecoming Gwent, but that game was in constant flux with balance updates and new mechanics. The focus is what it led to, which was Homecoming. But people feel that way because pre-Homecoming is seen as a positive period of time of play for most players, which makes sense. But the point of the series, as always, is to focus on what kills a game. This led to Gwent being both a commercial casual failure, AND an eSport failure. Anyway, some more connectivity between that timeline section and my point concerning lack of proper balance (including frequency) would have also made my argument better. Edit: Mistake: I said they removed leader abilities, I meant faction abilities my mistake.
I always knew this video would come out, and it still breaks my heart. I just don't have the words to describe how much I loved the beta of Gwent and how much Witcher vibes it gave off, it was the only card game I've played (and I've played quite a lot of them) that rewarded skill and strategy over luck, and I managed to beat the most meta decks with my own customized decks and strategies, which always felt so rewarding. It also had the most unique mechanics, for example the Morvran Voorhis Nilfgaard deck and its "reveal" mechanic. Then the Homecoming came out in 2018, and they completely changed Gwent. I tried, I really really tried to love it, but it didn't feel like Gwent to me, it wasn't the game I fell in love with, and it had almost nothing to do with the Witcher 3 Gwent mini-game, which is absurd because that's where most players came from. It felt more like "Thronebreaker : The Online Game" than Gwent. I just want the old Gwent back man...
I loved Gwent. It was the best CCG that I could find, it had fair monetization, and was fun and challenging to build and play different decks. I even streamed it on Twitch for a while. I struggled to make the transition to homecoming, so I dropped off from playing it, but it's still sad to see it die
I got into Gwent during 2020 and had a lot of fun with it. I learnt the different decks, abilities, techniques, hell I even watched people play on Twitch and RUclips so I could learn how to play better. But at the end of the year I took a break and with all of them updates and new cards and new metas I could not get back into it. I was already struggling with playing the same unimaginative “meta decks” over and over and over and that only got more boring with each update. I was playing intuitively, picking cards to fit my strategies and if felt like everyone else was playing some sweaty EZ WIN deck they copied off of Reddit. Sad to see Gwent go but it was too convoluted and didn’t reward intuitive play so of course it was inevitable. Also I’m one of those people that played Gwent because I needed more Witcher content and unfortunately, like you said, they dropped the ball on that so it wasn’t even worth it to bite the bullet and get back into Gwent
I like to make thematic decks, like for example a Syndicate deck that nearly only exclusively has Witch hunter cards. They can work surprisingly well, especially since off meta decks can catch those players off guard who only copy meta decks without understanding them. I just play casually with decks I made myself and in my experience it's 40% losing to a deck that counters mine, 40% winning to a deck because mine counters them perfectly and 20% of hard fought wins/losses/draws which are the most fun. The only thing that really annoys me are meta players who abandon a match quickly after realising their copy paste deck can't win. Even worse when they just quit without at least pressing the forfeit button.
Gwent was at its best in 2017 when Lifeocach did his tournaments in his house. But then they did that weird update with removing the third row and he lost interest and switched to Artifact (lol) and the rest is history.
I really loved the game played it from the close beta and put in it more than 3k hours over the years but 2022 was really tough balance wise and get me completely burn out, yet it still break my heart.
I loved this game so much. I played it so much when I was 15-19. I was ranked #1 a few times. From beta to post homecoming, where I lost some interest but still played regularly. I remember frost monsters being unbeatable in the beta. NG spies after that (my favourite deck), the awful scoiatael dwarves (Dorfs) that dominated for too long. Northern realms machines net deck meta. When everyone used scorch. When Olgierd and Morkvarg were in every game. As you said, I think a big problem this game had was it could never decide if it wanted a casual or competitive fan base. It was balanced and attracted a competitive base which curtailed numbers. CDPR then tried to 180 to a casual base, losing many competitive players and failing to bring in a casual audience all the while. It’s such a shame what happened to this great game. I wouldn’t even mind if it became p2w if it means keeping support (or maybe it’s better to let it die a peaceful death)?? This game is so nostalgic for me and holds a special place in my heart. It’s close to be being dead forever but I’ve just re-downloaded with the intent of becoming number 1 once again for old times sake.
Also, what you mentioned about "Lack of archetypes" explains A LOT about balancing issues. In card games decks balance oftentimes against eachother, because Aggro beats combo, combo beats control and control beats aggro, altough the circle might get reversed in certain CCGs. It both makes the meta more fresh and allows the game to have more resiliance against busted strats.
Been watching NSS for a while. This is the first video that actually hurts. Such a great opportunity for GWENT, just wasted on bad decissions and inaction.
Personally I played a lot before the Homecoming update. It was fun to learn the different cards while acquiring them. I am not saying that Homecoming is worse, because the problem was I felt burnt out to relearn all the cards again. Especially since it also required for me to completely forget what I had been learning beforehand. It's one thing to learn a card game but this is made more complicated if your brain always goes back to what the cards originally were. Thronebreaker was great though. After a few patches, the fights on the hardest difficulty were really captivating and you had to really make sure to not do a mistake. Of course there were still some extremely strong strategies, but those were only available close to the finish of the game. Especially the whole swamp area was more difficult than I had imagined.
For me the game died when they released the Homecoming patch. The gameplay and board change were so bad, the game felt unplayable - before that it felt like a fun lil battlefield simulation game.
I still have many wonderful memories and look back fondly on the game and community during the beta era. There were a lot of missteps, but for a time it was unmatched in terms of raw fun in the ccg market. Thank you for covering this one; Gwent will definitely be missed.
Gonna push-back on the archetype criticism as this is what made this game different from other mainstream CGs in the best way. I remember the earlier feeling of each turn feeling like a poker-game, and that you could bluff board setups to your opponent who could then over-commit to the board only to win 1 of the 3 rounds. Gwent was immaculate in this sense and the reason I knew many to play it for.
They really messed up, because Thronebreaker is a great sub genre that could work with a lot of franchises like teltale games. Marvel Power Rangers Transformers
I'm just glad they made Thronebreaker at all. Games as a service tend to evaporate with time and bad updates. You can only hold a healthy population for so long. I'm eager to check your take on GunZ ! Loved that game, at least I loved it until people began to follow the boring keyboard smashing meta instead of just dodging and aiming.
I'm still a gwent player and the game is a lot more stable now, but what really makes me sad is how cdpr had such huge plans for these witcher tales like thronebreaker but because they kinda tied them to gwent it spooked a lot of the people away, if only they just kept as a single player experience telling us great tales from that universe it would be amazing to have and we wouldn't have to wait 10+ years for a new witcher game or anything from that universe
I have played this game since the beta and have put 600 hours into it. After two years I have returned to see what is happening and I totally understand why I have stopped playing it two years ago. In my opinion the cards's complexity and the mountain of different key words are a lot even for a returning player, let alone for a new one. It is not appealing for a player to jumo into a game and then have to spend a week or more to learn all the key word and cars just to start enjoying the game. Well most card games are like that, but gwent used to be simple and that is what made it so enjoyable
Man I've played this game for so long, I remember before the big patch when it was a three row card game. Got my entire deck put in the shredder, and still came back and played for multiple years. Can't believe this game is coming to an end.
Played this since Alpha and got the Pioneer tag when open Beta rolled out (OG's will know what I'm talking about). Lost interest when they decided to change the wooden board into a battlefield for no reason. I liked it when it looked like a card game. I didn't like seeing character avatars moving around. Unnecessary and visually overstimulating. Also didn't like them nuking the Gold immunity. With that move, half of the gold cards became useless since only the ones with Deploy ability could garner value. Beta had the best archetypes and was the most fun. Too bad the devs destroyed all of that by creating an absolutely new game marketed as Gwent which wasn't the same. I didn't feel like re-learning so much anymore. Oh well. We'll always have the summer off 2017 😭.
2 words - Power Creep. GWENT promised to always have all cards used, so you don't have to rebuild your collection every time they release new cards. However in reality every expansion would have a new archetype or new cards to support an old archetype, and buffs to old cards from said archetype which have now lost their place in a deck. So all cards you have do technically still have a place... All you have to do is wait for that particular archetype to be re-introduced so old cards get buffed and you stand a chance. The provision to points ratio has been creeping up and up...
Yup, exactly. And don't forget when they would remove novelty mechanics from older cards because they could potentially counter the new cards they were introducing. In doing so broke existing decks and took colour out of the game.
Man I fell in love with Gwent, was voraciously looking for any early playtest videos, signed up for the free beta. Then it all changed. Depressing as hell.
I’m still playing Gwent. Never made the pro ranks. I ONLY play the nelfgard faction. Since day one. I’ve mixed and matched so many decks with JUST that faction. I still love it
Before homecoming, this game was a masterpiece I played it every day and loved it. After the 3rd row was gone so was the magic for me. i played only to check out new releases but yeah to me Gwent is awsome and would love to see a 3 row game do what it did pre-homecoming. This one hurts I loved this game.
Still remember playing the skellige deck that could like bounce my graveyard units back into the fight. And then you lose to a last turn weather effect
I played it A LOT in the early days. The Homecoming update pushed me away. It just didn't feel like Gwent anymore so I never really got back into it despite having put quite a bit of money into it.
I also have a lot of hours, will probably never stop playing some Gwent games here and there with my favorite decks, even when they stop releasing new cards.
Oh yeah I remember two friends of mine and I spending afternoons in the witcher just scouring the map for gwent games completely ignoring the story or other gameplay because this cardgame was so addictive, deep and strategical!
Regarding the console shutdowns - if the reason was because those versions didn't bring enough money compared to other platforms, then nobody saw that. Instead a lot of people saw this decision as a sign that Gwent as a whole was crashing and burning. As soon as it happened it became a warning sign to stay the heck away.
The point of these big events is to advertise the game and sell advertisements. This is true of all sports. But, when you attempt to inflate numbers, that's when you start having more issues. Triple Triad > Tetra Master. I kind of understand what they were trying to do with Gwent. With archetypes and serial escalation, you get the power creep problem that comes with Magic the Gathering and Yugioh. It has really gotten out of hand in those games. I do agree that archetypes are important, but it also means restricting deck building or risk things getting out of hand there as well like in Yugioh. In Gwent's case, it seemed like they played it too safe while in Mtg and YGO, they're letting it get too out of control. There needs to be some kind of middle ground, but it feels like the people in charge are always prioritizing power and sales of new cards other than game balance.
there is not a lot of footage from old gwent. closed beta gwent. it was one of the most beautiful games ive ever played they killed it with homecoming. they deleted my favorite game for a RNG clown fiesta with simplified mechanics im still sad
a real shame this died. very fair rewards and monetisation, i loved how you could choose faction packs of cards, and it was genuinely strategic and skill focused. the rounds added a lot a tactical depth, each faction played differently and the scenario cards and synergy interactions between cards were flexible and more complex compared to other ccgs. honestly one of my favourite ccg’s, and i’ve played a lot, but for some reason it just didn’t hold my interest long term. i felt like the games weren’t varied enough and i don’t really know why. such a shame to see it died so quickly …
I used to be top 1000 in the world in this game and I probably would have kept playing if they hadn't changed the fundamental structure of the game every few updates...
I remember playing Gwent with my brothers when it first came out. I was terrible at it but it was still fun; things were more or less straightforward. Fast forward to when Homecoming came out (I had no idea what went on behind the scenes with the whole esports thing) and I was kinda like "wha wha what are you trying to be, Gwent?" Losing the playing board and the siege row in favor of a battlefield (and the release of more powerful cards at the same time) really killed the vibe for me. I couldn't keep up after a while cause I never went into it with the "I gotta make the deck that all the pros are using" mentality. Very sad to hear where it's at today
One thing I am really interested in is the balance council. The game is on maintenance mode, sure, but with top players in the community being able to make small shifts in balance to the existing cards through a voting process, I think there is some potential for the game to have some degree of longevity. I've recently picked it back up and I've laddered for like 70 or so games, and I've never had a long queue time or anything like that. It will be interesting to see how far Gwent can survive on the passion of the fans alone.
As a person who plays all CCGs to unhealthy levels, Gwent was a treat in beta. I played it to the last rank just for tactical it was. The first thing that broke the came was the addition of cards that had random effects, mostly adding new cards to hand. (there were some random effects before, but they were mostly irrelevant and usually had an effect in a range of possibilities). The addition of random card adders made the game from feeling like chess to feeling like Hearthstone, a game vastly less interesting from a skill perspective. Before you were playing the commons you needed, after you were playing the 1 power card adder hoping to hit the common you wanted. The game was still fun and engaging, but the random aspects really took a toll on how many games in a row you could play. The thing that killed the game for most players was the Homecoming update. While it added a breath of new mechanics that were more easily expanded than what the game had to offer before, the addition of the effects you can proc on your turn just killed the vibe. Gwent was fun because you could play one card per turn and that was basically it. It felt fast paced and strategic. On board effects slowed the game down way too much and added so much complexity to an already complex game that nobody was really playing it for fun. It required way too much brain power just to move from turn to turn. It really didn't help that most effects were inconsequential in a turn like dealing one damage or similar instead of the big splashy effects of the version before homecoming. There's a reason Snap has the success it has basically on the same formula as Gwent and it's the lack of complexity from turn to turn. I can think of the best play easily. Gwent after homecoming was the first game I ran out of time for my turns because I couldn't think fast enough what was the best course of action. And I was someone who played the game for at least 200 hundred hours and a veteran of other card games. The new player experience was basically awful.
Funnily enough, Gwent is probably at its most diverse with deck types and archetypes presently. There's really a lot of different things you can try out and play and be successful with right now. Gwent is also weird in the fact that the current version of the game is likely the much better version of the game overall, but the version that pushed away players since it feels less authentic to the Witcher 3 version, which was just a mini game made for Witcher 3, and wasn't very balanced. Leader abilities were never removed in Homecoming, as a point of reference. There is also a seasonal mode that has things like a blitz mode and such, like you brought up in the video. Lastly, and I can't entirely blame you for using Steam numbers, since they are really the only thing available, but that has traditionally been the smallest player base In Gwent. As someone who has played Gwent since the closed beta, thanks for the video. Not sure I agree with all of the points here, and the played-based balance in the future will go a long way towards the 'death' of the game (which I do guess depends on definition). That being said, some spotlight on the game, even in the twilight era of it, it always interesting to see.
I was with you until at the very end when I saw you mental gymnastics. The fact that they put the game in maintenance mode which is as dead as it gets. Leader abilities were removed prior to homecoming so your point doesn't make any difference. Good to note about the Blitz mode. Your whole opening premise doesn't make any logical sense either. It's clearly coming from a rabid fan who can't look outside of their own game and even apparently watch the rest of the video that I made. Because you saying the game is in its best right now and then hand waving the reasons that the game got to the state that it is right now is just delusional. Sorry. I hope the game sticks around maintenance mode and all. And saying the single player game wasn't as balanced as for example, a multiplayer game is literally 100% incorrect and doesn't make any logical sense. You might have felt like this single player game wasn't balanced but to act or compare its balance to a multiplayer game is literally insane.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss It was faction abilities that were removed pre-homecoming, which were only in the game for a very short while during early beta days. Leader abilities are still in the game to this day.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss But there are currently leader abilities in the game, and have always been in homecoming? Not sure what you mean by the removal of leader abilities, so trying to understand. Each faction has around 6 leader abilities now that you can choose from, they are just not related to the actual leader model, which they did decouple in Homecoming. The game will be in a mode where no new cards will be added, but the players will be able to continue to enact balance changes each month through voting. So it will continue one, but if that meets the definition of 'dead', then so be it! No worries there. Apologies if you thought I was trying to be combative or argumentative, wasn't my intention here, so if anything came off that way, sorry! As I said before, the video was interesting overall, it was very nice to get a retrospective in a way of a game that is certainly in the twilight.
@@kylejc8869 ah, faction abilities, yes. they have been gone so long, i did forget about them! but yes, they were removed i believe, in the closed to open beta phase? might have been around then. thanks for the clarification!
The biggest reason for the death of Gwent was that you can't whack your opponent over the head with a stick when playing online and that was supposedto he a crucial part of the game in the lore. Simple as
It's interesting that the focus here is on the eSports, and there's no mention of the disastrous midwinter update of 2017. THAT'S what caused Homecoming (not the desire to be more competitive). The devs realize they screwed up with that update, and it's been downhill from there. Before Dec 2017 the eSports seen was at its height.
So you're trying to actually argue that eSports was working? That's quite the bizarre argument. And you can't just hand wave my entire argument. When it's based on the literal person they put in power to do exactly what I described.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss I'm not arguing that eSports was working for Gwent, it was losing them money from the start. But Homecoming (and all the gameplay changes it introduced that players largely hated at the time) would never have happened if not for the midwinter update. Basically, there was an update in Dec 2017 where rethaz (the lead at the time) wanted to make Gwent more "accessible." This resulted in simplifying the game, removing card effects, and even changing names to be less flavorful ("Clan Tuirsech Warrior" to "Clan Warrior", etc). These changes were HATED. Where Gwent had previously been only loved by its community and was steadily growing, this moment represented a huge drop-off in players and in player faith. So, after trying for a few months to fix all these problems the update caused, the Gwent team decided they needed to do something bigger. So they announced in April 2018 that they would, in six months, revamp the entire game from the ground up and this would mark the end of beta. This was Homecoming, and as I said above, it wasn't liked that much more than midwinter Gwent... Many of us at the time saw this as CDPR's "last chance" to revitalize interest in the game, but the systems they created ended up flopping for most people. Shortly after, they changed several things (like a terrible mulligan system) that made the game better overall, but the damage was done. It's hard to come back from a flop of a launch that was itself an attempt to recover from an extremely hated update that killed many people's interest in the game. With the exception of Crimson Curse (the first expansion) interest in Gwent has been flatly declining since Dec 2017. I think the midwinter update is what killed Gwent, and the rest is history.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss and just to add on briefly, when I said that eSports was working before then, what I meant was that there was a larger eSports scene before Homecoming than after (which you yourself acknowledged). People were way more excited about old Gwent (3 rows) than new Gwent (2).
That's interesting analysis, thank you for sharing. You focused a lot on CDPR and the thought behind major development decisions - there's so much to talk about that you could probably make another video just focusing on the changes in card design alone. As a Gwent partner who has played thousands of hours of Gwent over the past few years and been one of the people making the decks that other people play, I'd love to share some additional thoughts: You touched on "powercreep" of the cards, and there are some interesting ways in which that took place. As people probably would assume, there were cards that were simply way stronger than everything else. However, some of the bigger issues with those cards has been not just their existence, but how regularly they get created and how long it takes to rebalance them. All of the most recent expansions have had a couple of cards that were substantially stronger than everything else. That alone wouldn't have been the end of the world, but because balance patches only happen once a month, the same length of a competitive season, those cards would dominate for an entire season, with many players copy-pasting whatever deck capitalized most on these overwhelming cards. Then, in the next patch, when players hoped for those cards to get nerfed significantly, the cards' power would often only get reduced by 1 point, which fairly often meant that those cards remained dominant, albeit only slightly less so than before getting nerfed, so the underlying issues would never fully get addressed. Sometimes, instead of nerfing these overpowered cards directly, other complimentary cards that players used to support the overpowered cards would get nerfed instead, serving as an indirect nerf. But in this case, the underlying problem still remained - the overpowered cards were still overpowered, so much so that players would still dominate with decks that didn't synergize as well with the key cards just because those cards were so strong that they could win games almost single-handedly. In this way, it wasn't just that new cards kept getting stronger, but the combination of that powercreep with the slow pace and seeming reluctance to balance these overbearing cards in patches. However, the effects of card powercreep go further than limiting deck variety, including some things that are frequently overlooked. In the past, Gwent (at least the standalone version) was known as a particularly complex CCG in which the many layers of card interactions and strategic possibilities would more consistently reward skilled play over random luck. This was the one of the main aspects that kept devoted Gwent players engaged in the game - experienced players could execute higher risk, higher-reward plays that would pay off against inferior opponents. However, card powercreep changed this dynamic significantly. A few years ago, most of the strongest cards came with considerable risk - if you successfully combined cards' abilities, you would be greatly rewarded, but if you made misplays or your opponent was able to stop your setup, you could still lose, even with your strong cards. Now, the overpowered cards are worth more points when set up correctly, it's easier to set them up, and it's less punishing if players play these cards suboptimally. Because there is now far less reason to engage in high-risk, high-reward plays, the game has shifted from being about strategy-centric planning to mindlessly spamming the most powerful cards as often as possible. In other words, a reversal from the skill-rewarding game that made people like Gwent in the first place. I think this is one of the main reasons why even the most devoted of Gwent players who gritted their teeth through previous bumps and bruises have recently been leaving the game, as this change is most noticeable to them. However, as the seasoned players who helped create and promote those powerful decks leave, less experienced players are stranded with neither a source for the powerful decks that they used to borrow, or the experience to create decks of equal effectiveness on their own, making the less serious players more likely to leave as well. Gwent is still fun, especially for new and more casual players. I encourage people who like CCGs to try it if they haven't already because using the new, overpowered cards can be fun for a little while (there will still be a few more expansions this year). It is mostly in large doses, after having spent a long time mastering the game (and seeing similar decks pop up so regularly) that its issues start to surface. Even then, when played in moderation, Gwent can still be enjoyable. There's even a game mode with an alternate ruleset that switches each week, to keep things exciting.
I joined Gwent just after release (or while it was in open beta, I am not sure). It was awesome. Had so much fun in it. Then it got overhauled into some pure nonsense. Leaders or whatever they are now got changed. Card effects got changed. My favorite cards got nerfed. I tried to get into new version, but it was utter crap and I dropped it. I am 100% sure that majority of people also dropped it because of that initial overhaul. Developers couldn't stop themselves from destroying their own product.
Btw I strongly disagree with the concept that games need dlc content to keep things fresh and interesting. Chess didn’t need dlc poker doesn’t need dlc. With classic games they created alternate rulesets but still allowed everyone to play the game they fell in love with. DLC, tweaks, free add ons etc have polluted more games than I can count. I have stopped playing almost every multiplayer game released over the last 10 years because of additional content adding things that I don’t agree with or removing things I did whilst simultaneously not allowing me to play past iterations of said game that I actually enjoyed playing.
This one hurt too. It was a hell of a ride and the Master Mirror hype and expansion got me through Covid and a shit job. You’ll be sorely missed my beloved.
It's funny, I actually made Pro League in Gwent during college, and the reason I played because the game was swingy and unbalanced. It made for crazy obscene swings of games and made combos that nobody had even thought of possible (I made Pro League with a deck I never saw replicated on ladder or even on YT!) But then Homecoming came and kinda... homogenized the gameplay experience. No more Gold Henselt spam, no more Kambi "OTK" decks, just playing a "curve" of cards knowing by Turn 1 whether your deck beat theirs or not. Just didn't do it for me anymore :\
I was one of that tiny console portion of players, really enjoyed the game, bought some packs, played quite a bit and was looking forward to what was coming...but what came was "Bye bye, oh and if you don't have a pc account to transfer your stuff too you're just gonna lose it...turn the lights off on your way out".
Oh crap, I remember that. I was moving from Playstation to PC and it was a nightmare. Things went wrong and basically had to start again but they are least game me the Throne breaker cards
Midwinter update was what killed it for me or started the process at least. I did play here and there after that and the game was still solid but it just didnt resonate with me like it did before. It wasnt the same but I still have some fond memories of my time playing Gwent.
Homecoming killed Gwent for me, for one simple reason: The game became incredibly slow. Before the update every ability was triggered automatically. You play one card. That's you turn. This made games incredibly fast and fun, and players rarely had to ponder too long what their next move would be. That was what made Gwent fun. It was fast. Homecoming completely obliterated that one trait that made Gwent stand above other card games in any regard, making it inferior in practically every way. Perhaps they feared that games that were to quick wouldn't make for long events, and thus decided to destroy their game to pander to something nobody playing the game cared about.
it is not that we're annoyed at you mentioning being ill. I hope the best for you and wish you well. It's just a shame you can't just lay down for 2-3 weeks and get healthy again, before pumping out one of your vids. I know bills are billing and tummies need tummying but no one should be forced to work while sick. I lay down myself for the past 2 weeks (enjoying your videos) and it helps a lot to have your expenses covered... so double sorry for you, and I'd say get well soon, but tbh, I lately prefer 'get well for real' to avoid the 'so you can go back to work' undertones of a time sensitive statement. :)
Scy, thank you so much for your genuine concern. That was for snarky people complaining about me mentioning it. You are absolutely right and I can't disagree with you :(. But COVID was also really hard for me as I got no help from the government etc.
I played a lot of Gwent (around 800hrs in Steam, previously on console as well), and to be fair it's the card game with the best mechanic in my opinion. In other card games like Marvel Snap or Magic, you have the energy/mana concept, so usually you have to sequence your turns in the same way in almost every game (depends on draws as well). Gwent, however, with the provision system and the 3 rounds, makes it a lot more dynamic, more strategic and entertaining for me. However, as you mentioned in the video, for me the lack of balance just killed it. I would get pissed once they release the uttermost broken cards and have everyone abuse the same few new cards on ladder, sometimes with very toxic mechanics (Saskia, Milva, Arachas Queen, Priestess) or so grossly overpowered (Renfri), so I would stop playing for months until they properly re-balance said cards.
Oh man, i saw this game come to life (Checking my email every day for that closed beta key) and i saw it die, all this time playing it daily. I am gonna miss it so much.
For some reason i think that if they had left gwent as a spin off game instead of forcing the pro scene, it might have actually become a esports title considering how popular it was at the time
![State of Play | September 24, 2024 [ENGLISH]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fVs0suPHAX8/mqdefault.jpg)
I never made the Pro league, but I was rank 2 and my peak and I played GWENT until last summer. What absolutely killed it for me was their policy of not fixing broken decks during a season. A season would launch with a spectacularly broken card and everyone either jumped on that meta or tried to build a counter deck. It became no fun at higher ranks. It was only worth checking in monthly as a result.
I'll never forget for how Long Mysterious Challenger Secret Paladin was broken in Hearthstone, and Blizzard just completely ignored it.
My guy rank 2 is not “higher rank”
Hell even pro rank isn’t “higher rank”
One can always spam games to get into pro rank given how broken the rank system is
@@DCapps1994 it's kinda a Ben Brode thing, Marvel Snap rn has the same too slow balancing issues; Hearthstone has now a really great pace of changing cards
The most fun I had was the low ranks. Youd get the occasional munchkin deck but mostly its was pretty varied.
I played for 2 years as my TCG of choice, and never even realized there was a pro league. TBF I also would not have watched it.
I never thought there would be a Death of a Game on a game I actually played, feels weird I've been with the game for so long, easily the most hours I've put into a multiplayer game
I had the opposite but equally sad experience. Just started playing Gwent 3 days ago (2024), great game, completed all 6 factions' intro reward books with keys, made 6 custom decks (starting decks are bad) to get a feel for each faction (fav: Nilfgaard :D) and played up until I reached rank 23 with the faction I decided to specialize on. The free to play is rather good, and then I looked online and saw that the game is in maintenance mode for 2 years, so yeah, no going pro/competitive in this one. It became a game that is fun to play occasionally, just like Gwent was intended to play in the first place. It didn't become Yu-Gi-Oh where 70% of duels are won in turn 1. I like the slow pace and that the combos are not exaggerated.
This one will hurt, I played so much before the homecoming, up to the pro ranks, there still isn't a ccg that scratches that tactical itch between a poker game and a card game with so much freedom to set up baits and misplay. It was just never the same after Homecoming though
It's quite a bit less complex, but I find Marvel Snap does a decent job of delivering tactical mind games in card form. Really easy to get cards without spending money also
@Cristo Alba its so pay2win though
It's not to the level of Gwent but Legenda of Runeterra, it's a lot more f2p friendly than Snap.
Legends of runeterra was a nice reppacement for me maybe it will work for you as well?
@@cristoalba5781the definition of p2w is that you gain advantage by spending money, so by definition marvel snap is p2w, period.
fun fact: Gwent as described in Sapkowski's book was basically just a variation of bridge, the cards used were different than a standard deck in real life, but the gameplay seemed to be extremely similiar
what i remember from reading the books is Gwent was basically a dwarves screaming at each other competition lol
No it wasn’t. Gwent is NEVER referenced in the books. The Dwarves do have a card game that is referenced in the books, but it’s not called Gwent.
@@Bigwigrah07 it's called "Gwint" in Polish version (my native language), which is also Polish name of the tgc. Maybe something was lost in translation.
@@jakubpuawski3875 oh shit, you are correct. Dang I had no idea that was translated poorly 😵💫
I remember playing Hearthstone during my dad's stay at the hospital and wanted to find other games to keep the stress away and Gwent and Elder Scrolls Legends were my favourite substitutes. I moved on after my dad recovered from his surgery.
It's sad to see both Legends and Gwent die like this when they had potential.
I and all my fellow friends bought something off the Gwent shop. Not because we felt like we needed to, nor did we truly want to. It was just a way to thank the developers. I still remember a conversation with my brother where we both said that we're going to buy something from the next expansion only because we want to help the devs.
Talking about small loyal fan base lol
Yeah the prices of most of the stuff were to high tbf... I always wanted to buy one or two journeys but paying 40 zł for a couple cosmetics when I could get TW3 with expansions for the exact same price or a battle pass in Fortnite for less than half of that (plus it's a one time purchase assuming you do play the game to retrieve the premium currency) just didn't seem right to me. But I did get the starter pack at least.
So did I my friend
People like you who think they're "helping the devs" by buying microtransactions are honestly the worst kind of idiot. Do you think they're running a fucking Twitch stream? Are they a charity to you? That money doesn't go to hard working little mister programmer who cleaned up the sound file for your favorite card. He's already got his pittance of a salary. That money goes to the publishers and the shareholders.
God I actually despise morons like you.
God I DESPISE morons like you who think that spending money on microtransactions somehow "helps the devs". What, do you think they're running a fucking Twitch stream or something? Are you braindead? The programmers don't get a bonus if you buy the cosmetic shit, you fool. They've already got their pittance of a salary. The money you just spent went to the publishers and the shareholders.
God, you are so stupid.
Damn, it's finally time for one of my favorite games to be on this channel. RIP gwent
Happy and sad mate
We deserved a second Witcher Tales game
I heard about Rogue Mage. What's that game about though? Is it not the same as Thronebreaker?
@Khánh Bảo Đoàn Some ab-libbed lore, mostly shit no one cares about. Alzur is there, there is no coherent plot, cards are randomly played without a faction.
@@thegrayyernaut rogue mage sucks don't bother can't compared to thronebreaker
I would love to see a game similar to Thronebreaker than takes place during book saga timeline.
Imagine similar to Meve’s perspective but this time with Geralt’s Hanza 🔥
Play thronebreaker, rogue mague was unfinished game they released just before killing gwent. its bare bones, thronebreaker on the other hand is very good
Burza, Slama, Ryan, Vlad, Jean and so many content creators... This game's downfall was really abrupt and unexpected to me. I just wish the Gwent team all the best and thank you very much for your great work!
The game has fair monetization, great art, a good season pass and good gameplay. This is one of the very few games that I have gotten a season pass in and have not regretted it. Overall it's a shame.
yeah but it was never mtg ; and it was doomed to failure. the only game that can even come close is elder scrolls legends; but even though its not being worked on anymore; the client always keeps getting updates. so that tells you something.
@Nexo Probably someone though he knew better and money.
@Nexo I agree and I played since closed beta. It was a good game post-rework, a bad game after the first big rework, but a truly excellent game in the early days.
so why didi it die?
You would also never regret gettint an event pass in lor
Thronebreaker was such an amazing game tbh, the story is incredible and the puzzles are pretty crazy
Fr, such an underrated game
Then we didn't play the same game. Thronebreaker was filled with game breaking bugs and an annoying gwent compared to the awesome version in witcher 3.
Great soundtrack, too. Holds its own against the other Witcher games.
Agreed. Thronebreaker was soooooo goood
Hopefully this means the new golden nekker game is still in production
I find this extremely amusing because I got into Gwent like a week ago and am in the stage of absolutely loving it. It's really fun because I have just 0 expectations and only play because I want to understand various mechanics and I laugh my ass off when someone pulls something at least seemingly unbalanced.
But imagine the absolute comedic timing; I never cared for Gwent in TW3, no matter how many times I tried to find an appetite for it. But as a visual artist I wanted to check out the artworks in the standalone, so I downloaded on a whim. And I realized I actually enjoyed the experience! And no chat with the opponent? Great! Makes losing/winning literally not the point (somehow the process is far more fun than the result, little fun game of making the most of what you're dealt, relaxing). Found myself genuinely wanting to congratulate my opponents for outsmarting my little plots.
So, sure, maybe the joy will fall off once I figure enough out- as it does with any online pvp game. But no game really made me experience what Gwent:TWCG does. In this context of what the community feels about it? Brilliantly amusing timing. Gosh! Anyway! Hi!! I'm new!:Dd!!
The playing during the main quests reminds me how you can play triple triad as Rinoa is actively getting possessed and wreaking havoc on a ship in ff8
lmao great scene,
Good times. Save the world? Nah, a game of triple triad is more like it.
Great stuff, I liked that they lampshaded the situation with one NPC saying something along the lines of ‘You want to play Now?!’
He still does though.
"oh my god! The world is ending we're all gonna die! What's that? You wanna play triple triad? Hell yeah, let's go!"
Or play triple triad while escaping an high sec prison about to self-destroy XD
I miss the pre homecoming gwent so much, I was a casual who liked the minigame a lot and the standalone was a dream come true. Then it got more and more "pro" and it wasn't fun anymore.
i used to love gwent when it came out, such a breath of fresh air for poor hearthstone loving highschool me. It had clean simplistic looks, and really fun gameplay, It was probably my favourite ranked experience out of all games. But CDP decided to completly change the game with homecoming and it was just diffrent, they changed the design and in my opinion it started to look a lot more muddy and also the game became more complex needing a lot more commitment, so i just dropped it becouse it wasnt the gwent i fell in love with when it was in beta
Same here, I'd been playing it since the beta and when they re-launched with Homecoming it felt like a different game and my small brain couldn't keep up with all the changes and additions. I always found myself googling optimal deck builds because I didn't feel like I could build to my liking, as I'd always get hammered by people with more optimal decks.
I felt the same - Homecoming as a stand alone game was ok, but revamped Gwent instantly turned me off. I really enjoyed beta version.
It didn't become more complex I feel like, OBT had more complex cards and mechanics.
I really miss the OBT too
If I may, there's an entire community of people who've remade the open beta game from scratch and keep updating it, you can search for r/DIYGwent if you're interested.
I loved Gwent and had a blast with it during early beta. However, the changes and "revamps" they made progressively turned the game upside down and changed the things I got used to and enjoyed. I loved weather and they killed that, then I got used to the lanes and they changed that too. After a certain point, even if I was getting refunded all my currency, I just didn't have the energy anymore. Was a real shame, the game had a great concept
If I may, there's an entire community of people who've remade the open beta game from scratch and keep updating it, you can search for r/DIYGwent if you're interested.
I knew it was coming! This one breaks my heart! 😭💔 Been playing since the tail end of closed beta.
Thank you for doing this one!
Respectfully I've played all of the typical CCG/TCG archetypes in Gwent. Yes different they are all there.
@@Nathan_Coley Yep, that's one of the arguments I don't agree with him on. Speaking mostly about pre-homecoming since I didn't like the game very much after it there were all the archetypes in there that fulfil the same power fantasies and gameplay fantasies as they do in other CCGs.
Like there are engine decks which are basically ramp decks (cards that gain a lot of value over time and are weak to disruption - consume monsters, self-harm skellige sword bois, forgot the name), pointslam (beatstick mid-range type decks), aggro (swarm decks with lots of small units which would generate a lot of value unless controlled early), control (skillge boats, trap decks, kinda alchemy niilfgaard?, early spies).
The best thing about Gwent imo is that there were super weird decks that also kinda broke that midrange-control-aggro trinity which is what made it special. Even though the game was balanced around archtypes (control kinda beating big monsters, but losing to swarms unless you run specific control decks like boats, midrange out valuing control in many cases etc) , you would always have insane deck variety in pre-homecoming gwent where people would cook up incredibly meta countering and meta defining decks that you would just never see if the game wasn't based on a 3-round system.
Like decks made to bleed someone round 1 with huge finishers to close it out in round 3 (since Homecoming gave people way more cards in later rounds, it killed these decks), decks that would sacrifice value in order to have carry-over to make your opponent have to over-commit on round 2 if they lost round-1 and then still have a strong unit in game 3 cause of adrenaline rushed ciri:nova or bear master etc. Alchemy nilfgaard or scoia spells which had almost no units and were all about huge swings and making sure your opponent also can't run any sort of a gameplan while still being flexible to adapt to different matchups. I don't think we'll get another game as complex and fun as pre-homecoming Gwent was soon.
@@AcencialAMV I 100% agree with all that you said buddy. Even though I still occasionally play the game (a few times a week) pre-homecoming was some of the best CCG/TCG experiences I've ever had. Gwent to this day is still my MTG replacement because I don't like the way WoTC has gone in the last ~10 years.
Open beta was the best. The game is so bloated now. It's so obnoxious. I just want a simple card game, no animations.
I miss this intro. Im glad you brought it back
the slow paced rounds are integral to the game. it's the core of experience.
the round system is a mind game battle that's all about reading the pace and commitment of your opponent and capitalizing on it. this way each card is tense and important and it doesn't feel slow.
for people who don't play gwent or only do so casually, allow me to give (too many) examples as to how deep the round system runs.
if you fall behind pace with your opponent even a little bit you lose card advantage in following rounds (assuming they know what they're doing). often an automatic loss. as such you have the weigh the risk and value of engines and tempo. you may pressure your opponent to miss out on combos or setting up their board in fear of falling behind. you can surprise them with sudden tempo near the draw threshold after feigning a slow deck archetype. it's a constant mindgame. if you read your opponent correctly and capitalize on their mistakes games can be won after the first 3 cards.
the consequences of the first round feed into the mind game of the next. if you win the first round you can play low commitment and force the opponent to match it. this way you can bleed your opponent of good cards. an especially effective mindgame when you had a short round 1 as many opponents expect you to dry pass and therefore fill their hand with good cards in preparation for the final round.
knowing this some players keep mid commitment cards on hand for the second round as to mitigate the potential loss of your opponent bleeding your deck. but then you risk your opponent going all-in and being unable to match it. losing the game 2-0. it's all about reading your opponents intention, calling their bluffs and punishing them for it.
however a clever loser can read their opponents read. i have regained card advantage many times doing this. the bluff is all the more convincing if you had a long, devastating first round. the more you lost it by the better. this means you're keeping power in reserve and keeping your opponent confident and cocky. you can try and bait your opponent into trying to 2-0 you. keep a few lower commitment cards to get the bluff rolling, making it seem like you were expecting your opponent to bleed your deck. they'll recognize your weakness and commit. a few cards in (the later the better, maintaining the bluff but risking defeat) surprise them by switching to your best, most high value card combos. you were just pretending to expect bleeding. you got your opponent to commit to a full round 2 that you were secretly guaranteed to win as you retained your full power from R1 unlike them. just so the playing field is evened (or even advantageous to you!). this way losing the first round is a good thing, most opponents expect you to play it safe after the first round, you can punish this expectation. again. mind games.
Thanks for explaining, sounds really boring to me however.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss yea it's not for everyone. in fact i can see how most people would find it boring (so it makes complete sense why you would include it in the video as a contributer to the game's death)
ty for reading my comment. i'm impressed, it's kinda long and boring. you're a cool dude
"The black faction in MTG has like 9 commanders to choose from."
Massive understatement, there's currently 100, not including multicolored black commanders.
Since I don't have any sponsors on this video, sans yours truly. I will focus on making a point I think some people are missing since it happens so quickly. Pre-Homecoming Gwent was not what Gwent was in Witcher, but it was clearly not as competitive as it became. Original Gwent was never meant to be competitive, so once the shifting starts happening when leads to Homecoming, a massive switch, the writing was already on the wall. They literally brought a developer in to do this exactly. This completely changed the course of the game, and the identity of the game itself. You might see some comments wishing I focused more on this pre-homecoming Gwent, but that game was in constant flux with balance updates and new mechanics. The focus is what it led to, which was Homecoming. But people feel that way because pre-Homecoming is seen as a positive period of time of play for most players, which makes sense. But the point of the series, as always, is to focus on what kills a game. This led to Gwent being both a commercial casual failure, AND an eSport failure. Anyway, some more connectivity between that timeline section and my point concerning lack of proper balance (including frequency) would have also made my argument better.
Edit: Mistake: I said they removed leader abilities, I meant faction abilities my mistake.
This is the only CCG I’ve ever played that actually had fair prices on their monetization. Truly one of a kind
I always knew this video would come out, and it still breaks my heart. I just don't have the words to describe how much I loved the beta of Gwent and how much Witcher vibes it gave off, it was the only card game I've played (and I've played quite a lot of them) that rewarded skill and strategy over luck, and I managed to beat the most meta decks with my own customized decks and strategies, which always felt so rewarding. It also had the most unique mechanics, for example the Morvran Voorhis Nilfgaard deck and its "reveal" mechanic.
Then the Homecoming came out in 2018, and they completely changed Gwent. I tried, I really really tried to love it, but it didn't feel like Gwent to me, it wasn't the game I fell in love with, and it had almost nothing to do with the Witcher 3 Gwent mini-game, which is absurd because that's where most players came from. It felt more like "Thronebreaker : The Online Game" than Gwent.
I just want the old Gwent back man...
Once they killed the siege lane that was when I dropped gwent. The interplay between the three lanes was what kept the game unique and fun for me.
I loved Gwent. It was the best CCG that I could find, it had fair monetization, and was fun and challenging to build and play different decks. I even streamed it on Twitch for a while. I struggled to make the transition to homecoming, so I dropped off from playing it, but it's still sad to see it die
I got into Gwent during 2020 and had a lot of fun with it. I learnt the different decks, abilities, techniques, hell I even watched people play on Twitch and RUclips so I could learn how to play better. But at the end of the year I took a break and with all of them updates and new cards and new metas I could not get back into it. I was already struggling with playing the same unimaginative “meta decks” over and over and over and that only got more boring with each update. I was playing intuitively, picking cards to fit my strategies and if felt like everyone else was playing some sweaty EZ WIN deck they copied off of Reddit. Sad to see Gwent go but it was too convoluted and didn’t reward intuitive play so of course it was inevitable. Also I’m one of those people that played Gwent because I needed more Witcher content and unfortunately, like you said, they dropped the ball on that so it wasn’t even worth it to bite the bullet and get back into Gwent
Well put
Every card game goes this way. I gave up on them years ago. If everyone plays sweaty, it puts new players off, then the game dies. Rinse and repeat.
I like to make thematic decks, like for example a Syndicate deck that nearly only exclusively has Witch hunter cards. They can work surprisingly well, especially since off meta decks can catch those players off guard who only copy meta decks without understanding them. I just play casually with decks I made myself and in my experience it's 40% losing to a deck that counters mine, 40% winning to a deck because mine counters them perfectly and 20% of hard fought wins/losses/draws which are the most fun.
The only thing that really annoys me are meta players who abandon a match quickly after realising their copy paste deck can't win.
Even worse when they just quit without at least pressing the forfeit button.
Gwent was at its best in 2017 when Lifeocach did his tournaments in his house. But then they did that weird update with removing the third row and he lost interest and switched to Artifact (lol) and the rest is history.
I really loved the game played it from the close beta and put in it more than 3k hours over the years but 2022 was really tough balance wise and get me completely burn out, yet it still break my heart.
I loved this game so much. I played it so much when I was 15-19. I was ranked #1 a few times. From beta to post homecoming, where I lost some interest but still played regularly.
I remember frost monsters being unbeatable in the beta. NG spies after that (my favourite deck), the awful scoiatael dwarves (Dorfs) that dominated for too long. Northern realms machines net deck meta. When everyone used scorch. When Olgierd and Morkvarg were in every game.
As you said, I think a big problem this game had was it could never decide if it wanted a casual or competitive fan base. It was balanced and attracted a competitive base which curtailed numbers. CDPR then tried to 180 to a casual base, losing many competitive players and failing to bring in a casual audience all the while. It’s such a shame what happened to this great game. I wouldn’t even mind if it became p2w if it means keeping support (or maybe it’s better to let it die a peaceful death)??
This game is so nostalgic for me and holds a special place in my heart. It’s close to be being dead forever but I’ve just re-downloaded with the intent of becoming number 1 once again for old times sake.
I picked it up again yesterday on Steam, couldn't even find a match. I had 1300 hours on GOG but abandoned it in 2021
I played about 500h of this game, but could never come back after homecoming
Also, what you mentioned about "Lack of archetypes" explains A LOT about balancing issues. In card games decks balance oftentimes against eachother, because Aggro beats combo, combo beats control and control beats aggro, altough the circle might get reversed in certain CCGs. It both makes the meta more fresh and allows the game to have more resiliance against busted strats.
Been watching NSS for a while. This is the first video that actually hurts. Such a great opportunity for GWENT, just wasted on bad decissions and inaction.
Personally I played a lot before the Homecoming update. It was fun to learn the different cards while acquiring them. I am not saying that Homecoming is worse, because the problem was I felt burnt out to relearn all the cards again. Especially since it also required for me to completely forget what I had been learning beforehand. It's one thing to learn a card game but this is made more complicated if your brain always goes back to what the cards originally were.
Thronebreaker was great though. After a few patches, the fights on the hardest difficulty were really captivating and you had to really make sure to not do a mistake. Of course there were still some extremely strong strategies, but those were only available close to the finish of the game. Especially the whole swamp area was more difficult than I had imagined.
For me the game died when they released the Homecoming patch. The gameplay and board change were so bad, the game felt unplayable - before that it felt like a fun lil battlefield simulation game.
I still have many wonderful memories and look back fondly on the game and community during the beta era. There were a lot of missteps, but for a time it was unmatched in terms of raw fun in the ccg market. Thank you for covering this one; Gwent will definitely be missed.
I was ranked top 500 Pro Rank for 5 Seasons straight.. sad to see my main game die
I like how you don't hint the next case anymore. Just straight up tell us what it is. Really makes me look forward to the next video.
I didn't even notice your voice was scratchy but now I can't unhear it. Glad you brought the old intro back.
Gonna push-back on the archetype criticism as this is what made this game different from other mainstream CGs in the best way. I remember the earlier feeling of each turn feeling like a poker-game, and that you could bluff board setups to your opponent who could then over-commit to the board only to win 1 of the 3 rounds. Gwent was immaculate in this sense and the reason I knew many to play it for.
They really messed up, because Thronebreaker is a great sub genre that could work with a lot of franchises like teltale games. Marvel Power Rangers Transformers
This one's gonna hurt
i love how Thronebreaker is the Shandalar of Gwent
I'm just glad they made Thronebreaker at all.
Games as a service tend to evaporate with time and bad updates. You can only hold a healthy population for so long.
I'm eager to check your take on GunZ ! Loved that game, at least I loved it until people began to follow the boring keyboard smashing meta instead of just dodging and aiming.
9:33 Faeria did a card battlefield game really really good
Loved the game until the infamous mid-winter patch. After that it lost a lot of originality.
Mid-winter patch was wild and not in a good way.
i am still amazed that it didn't kill the game back then.
I'm still a gwent player and the game is a lot more stable now, but what really makes me sad is how cdpr had such huge plans for these witcher tales like thronebreaker but because they kinda tied them to gwent it spooked a lot of the people away, if only they just kept as a single player experience telling us great tales from that universe it would be amazing to have and we wouldn't have to wait 10+ years for a new witcher game or anything from that universe
The reveal of the next game, got hit with a wave of Nostalgia. I had so many hours on Gunz. It was so fun
I have played this game since the beta and have put 600 hours into it. After two years I have returned to see what is happening and I totally understand why I have stopped playing it two years ago. In my opinion the cards's complexity and the mountain of different key words are a lot even for a returning player, let alone for a new one. It is not appealing for a player to jumo into a game and then have to spend a week or more to learn all the key word and cars just to start enjoying the game. Well most card games are like that, but gwent used to be simple and that is what made it so enjoyable
Man I've played this game for so long, I remember before the big patch when it was a three row card game. Got my entire deck put in the shredder, and still came back and played for multiple years. Can't believe this game is coming to an end.
Played this since Alpha and got the Pioneer tag when open Beta rolled out (OG's will know what I'm talking about). Lost interest when they decided to change the wooden board into a battlefield for no reason. I liked it when it looked like a card game. I didn't like seeing character avatars moving around. Unnecessary and visually overstimulating.
Also didn't like them nuking the Gold immunity. With that move, half of the gold cards became useless since only the ones with Deploy ability could garner value.
Beta had the best archetypes and was the most fun. Too bad the devs destroyed all of that by creating an absolutely new game marketed as Gwent which wasn't the same. I didn't feel like re-learning so much anymore. Oh well. We'll always have the summer off 2017 😭.
2 words - Power Creep.
GWENT promised to always have all cards used, so you don't have to rebuild your collection every time they release new cards.
However in reality every expansion would have a new archetype or new cards to support an old archetype, and buffs to old cards from said archetype which have now lost their place in a deck.
So all cards you have do technically still have a place... All you have to do is wait for that particular archetype to be re-introduced so old cards get buffed and you stand a chance.
The provision to points ratio has been creeping up and up...
Yup, exactly.
And don't forget when they would remove novelty mechanics from older cards because they could potentially counter the new cards they were introducing. In doing so broke existing decks and took colour out of the game.
Man I fell in love with Gwent, was voraciously looking for any early playtest videos, signed up for the free beta. Then it all changed. Depressing as hell.
I’m still playing Gwent. Never made the pro ranks. I ONLY play the nelfgard faction. Since day one. I’ve mixed and matched so many decks with JUST that faction. I still love it
Before homecoming, this game was a masterpiece I played it every day and loved it. After the 3rd row was gone so was the magic for me. i played only to check out new releases but yeah to me Gwent is awsome and would love to see a 3 row game do what it did pre-homecoming. This one hurts I loved this game.
Still remember playing the skellige deck that could like bounce my graveyard units back into the fight. And then you lose to a last turn weather effect
I played it A LOT in the early days. The Homecoming update pushed me away. It just didn't feel like Gwent anymore so I never really got back into it despite having put quite a bit of money into it.
Changing it from being inspired by Witcher 3 Gwent into a Hearthstone clone killed it
It was so good in closed beta
Homecoming was a deal breaker.
goddamn the 1250 hours i have put into this game now hurts
What can i say with over 3k hours...
Roughly 2k hrs here. It was my go to "watching youtube on the side" game.
I just had a hankering for some gwent..
I also have a lot of hours, will probably never stop playing some Gwent games here and there with my favorite decks, even when they stop releasing new cards.
Oh yeah I remember two friends of mine and I spending afternoons in the witcher just scouring the map for gwent games completely ignoring the story or other gameplay because this cardgame was so addictive, deep and strategical!
Regarding the console shutdowns - if the reason was because those versions didn't bring enough money compared to other platforms, then nobody saw that. Instead a lot of people saw this decision as a sign that Gwent as a whole was crashing and burning. As soon as it happened it became a warning sign to stay the heck away.
It was the best CCG, but apparently people don't like nice things so we can't have them.
The point of these big events is to advertise the game and sell advertisements. This is true of all sports. But, when you attempt to inflate numbers, that's when you start having more issues. Triple Triad > Tetra Master.
I kind of understand what they were trying to do with Gwent. With archetypes and serial escalation, you get the power creep problem that comes with Magic the Gathering and Yugioh. It has really gotten out of hand in those games. I do agree that archetypes are important, but it also means restricting deck building or risk things getting out of hand there as well like in Yugioh. In Gwent's case, it seemed like they played it too safe while in Mtg and YGO, they're letting it get too out of control. There needs to be some kind of middle ground, but it feels like the people in charge are always prioritizing power and sales of new cards other than game balance.
Here's a simple way to fix Yugioh (I'm sorry. I know I'm beating a dead horse but still)
TAKE THE LICENSE AWAY FROM KONAMI!
@@GatorRay At this point, that wouldn't be enough. Hand Traps and Link Monsters have forced an accelerated escalation of the game.
there is not a lot of footage from old gwent. closed beta gwent. it was one of the most beautiful games ive ever played
they killed it with homecoming. they deleted my favorite game for a RNG clown fiesta with simplified mechanics
im still sad
I love Gwent in the Witcher 3 but when it launched on PS4 I was disappointed in the changes made, it didn't feel anything like in the witcher
a real shame this died. very fair rewards and monetisation, i loved how you could choose faction packs of cards, and it was genuinely strategic and skill focused. the rounds added a lot a tactical depth, each faction played differently and the scenario cards and synergy interactions between cards were flexible and more complex compared to other ccgs. honestly one of my favourite ccg’s, and i’ve played a lot, but for some reason it just didn’t hold my interest long term. i felt like the games weren’t varied enough and i don’t really know why. such a shame to see it died so quickly …
Got thronebreaker on the switch years ago. Great art style, story, and creative puzzles.
I used to be top 1000 in the world in this game and I probably would have kept playing if they hadn't changed the fundamental structure of the game every few updates...
joined during iron judgement, never expected gwent to end like it's being dying to the white frost, only spring equinox or ard gaeth can save gwent
I remember playing Gwent with my brothers when it first came out. I was terrible at it but it was still fun; things were more or less straightforward. Fast forward to when Homecoming came out (I had no idea what went on behind the scenes with the whole esports thing) and I was kinda like "wha wha what are you trying to be, Gwent?" Losing the playing board and the siege row in favor of a battlefield (and the release of more powerful cards at the same time) really killed the vibe for me. I couldn't keep up after a while cause I never went into it with the "I gotta make the deck that all the pros are using" mentality. Very sad to hear where it's at today
One thing I am really interested in is the balance council. The game is on maintenance mode, sure, but with top players in the community being able to make small shifts in balance to the existing cards through a voting process, I think there is some potential for the game to have some degree of longevity. I've recently picked it back up and I've laddered for like 70 or so games, and I've never had a long queue time or anything like that. It will be interesting to see how far Gwent can survive on the passion of the fans alone.
I always wanted an actual gwent game. Then it came out. Found it boring. Removing the 3rd row was a horrible idea. I still play gwent on the witcher 3
As a person who plays all CCGs to unhealthy levels, Gwent was a treat in beta. I played it to the last rank just for tactical it was.
The first thing that broke the came was the addition of cards that had random effects, mostly adding new cards to hand. (there were some random effects before, but they were mostly irrelevant and usually had an effect in a range of possibilities). The addition of random card adders made the game from feeling like chess to feeling like Hearthstone, a game vastly less interesting from a skill perspective. Before you were playing the commons you needed, after you were playing the 1 power card adder hoping to hit the common you wanted. The game was still fun and engaging, but the random aspects really took a toll on how many games in a row you could play.
The thing that killed the game for most players was the Homecoming update. While it added a breath of new mechanics that were more easily expanded than what the game had to offer before, the addition of the effects you can proc on your turn just killed the vibe. Gwent was fun because you could play one card per turn and that was basically it. It felt fast paced and strategic. On board effects slowed the game down way too much and added so much complexity to an already complex game that nobody was really playing it for fun. It required way too much brain power just to move from turn to turn. It really didn't help that most effects were inconsequential in a turn like dealing one damage or similar instead of the big splashy effects of the version before homecoming.
There's a reason Snap has the success it has basically on the same formula as Gwent and it's the lack of complexity from turn to turn. I can think of the best play easily. Gwent after homecoming was the first game I ran out of time for my turns because I couldn't think fast enough what was the best course of action. And I was someone who played the game for at least 200 hundred hours and a veteran of other card games. The new player experience was basically awful.
Funnily enough, Gwent is probably at its most diverse with deck types and archetypes presently. There's really a lot of different things you can try out and play and be successful with right now.
Gwent is also weird in the fact that the current version of the game is likely the much better version of the game overall, but the version that pushed away players since it feels less authentic to the Witcher 3 version, which was just a mini game made for Witcher 3, and wasn't very balanced.
Leader abilities were never removed in Homecoming, as a point of reference. There is also a seasonal mode that has things like a blitz mode and such, like you brought up in the video.
Lastly, and I can't entirely blame you for using Steam numbers, since they are really the only thing available, but that has traditionally been the smallest player base In Gwent.
As someone who has played Gwent since the closed beta, thanks for the video. Not sure I agree with all of the points here, and the played-based balance in the future will go a long way towards the 'death' of the game (which I do guess depends on definition). That being said, some spotlight on the game, even in the twilight era of it, it always interesting to see.
I was with you until at the very end when I saw you mental gymnastics. The fact that they put the game in maintenance mode which is as dead as it gets. Leader abilities were removed prior to homecoming so your point doesn't make any difference. Good to note about the Blitz mode.
Your whole opening premise doesn't make any logical sense either. It's clearly coming from a rabid fan who can't look outside of their own game and even apparently watch the rest of the video that I made. Because you saying the game is in its best right now and then hand waving the reasons that the game got to the state that it is right now is just delusional. Sorry. I hope the game sticks around maintenance mode and all.
And saying the single player game wasn't as balanced as for example, a multiplayer game is literally 100% incorrect and doesn't make any logical sense. You might have felt like this single player game wasn't balanced but to act or compare its balance to a multiplayer game is literally insane.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss It was faction abilities that were removed pre-homecoming, which were only in the game for a very short while during early beta days. Leader abilities are still in the game to this day.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss But there are currently leader abilities in the game, and have always been in homecoming? Not sure what you mean by the removal of leader abilities, so trying to understand. Each faction has around 6 leader abilities now that you can choose from, they are just not related to the actual leader model, which they did decouple in Homecoming.
The game will be in a mode where no new cards will be added, but the players will be able to continue to enact balance changes each month through voting. So it will continue one, but if that meets the definition of 'dead', then so be it! No worries there.
Apologies if you thought I was trying to be combative or argumentative, wasn't my intention here, so if anything came off that way, sorry! As I said before, the video was interesting overall, it was very nice to get a retrospective in a way of a game that is certainly in the twilight.
@@kylejc8869 ah, faction abilities, yes. they have been gone so long, i did forget about them! but yes, they were removed i believe, in the closed to open beta phase? might have been around then.
thanks for the clarification!
Ah, sorry I misspoke then.
"you need to save my daughter Anna!"
"Play Gwent..?"
"Ay...Lets do a few rounds first.."
The biggest reason for the death of Gwent was that you can't whack your opponent over the head with a stick when playing online and that was supposedto he a crucial part of the game in the lore. Simple as
It's interesting that the focus here is on the eSports, and there's no mention of the disastrous midwinter update of 2017. THAT'S what caused Homecoming (not the desire to be more competitive). The devs realize they screwed up with that update, and it's been downhill from there. Before Dec 2017 the eSports seen was at its height.
So you're trying to actually argue that eSports was working? That's quite the bizarre argument. And you can't just hand wave my entire argument. When it's based on the literal person they put in power to do exactly what I described.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss I'm not arguing that eSports was working for Gwent, it was losing them money from the start. But Homecoming (and all the gameplay changes it introduced that players largely hated at the time) would never have happened if not for the midwinter update. Basically, there was an update in Dec 2017 where rethaz (the lead at the time) wanted to make Gwent more "accessible." This resulted in simplifying the game, removing card effects, and even changing names to be less flavorful ("Clan Tuirsech Warrior" to "Clan Warrior", etc). These changes were HATED. Where Gwent had previously been only loved by its community and was steadily growing, this moment represented a huge drop-off in players and in player faith. So, after trying for a few months to fix all these problems the update caused, the Gwent team decided they needed to do something bigger. So they announced in April 2018 that they would, in six months, revamp the entire game from the ground up and this would mark the end of beta.
This was Homecoming, and as I said above, it wasn't liked that much more than midwinter Gwent... Many of us at the time saw this as CDPR's "last chance" to revitalize interest in the game, but the systems they created ended up flopping for most people. Shortly after, they changed several things (like a terrible mulligan system) that made the game better overall, but the damage was done. It's hard to come back from a flop of a launch that was itself an attempt to recover from an extremely hated update that killed many people's interest in the game. With the exception of Crimson Curse (the first expansion) interest in Gwent has been flatly declining since Dec 2017. I think the midwinter update is what killed Gwent, and the rest is history.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss and just to add on briefly, when I said that eSports was working before then, what I meant was that there was a larger eSports scene before Homecoming than after (which you yourself acknowledged). People were way more excited about old Gwent (3 rows) than new Gwent (2).
That's interesting analysis, thank you for sharing. You focused a lot on CDPR and the thought behind major development decisions - there's so much to talk about that you could probably make another video just focusing on the changes in card design alone. As a Gwent partner who has played thousands of hours of Gwent over the past few years and been one of the people making the decks that other people play, I'd love to share some additional thoughts:
You touched on "powercreep" of the cards, and there are some interesting ways in which that took place. As people probably would assume, there were cards that were simply way stronger than everything else. However, some of the bigger issues with those cards has been not just their existence, but how regularly they get created and how long it takes to rebalance them. All of the most recent expansions have had a couple of cards that were substantially stronger than everything else. That alone wouldn't have been the end of the world, but because balance patches only happen once a month, the same length of a competitive season, those cards would dominate for an entire season, with many players copy-pasting whatever deck capitalized most on these overwhelming cards. Then, in the next patch, when players hoped for those cards to get nerfed significantly, the cards' power would often only get reduced by 1 point, which fairly often meant that those cards remained dominant, albeit only slightly less so than before getting nerfed, so the underlying issues would never fully get addressed. Sometimes, instead of nerfing these overpowered cards directly, other complimentary cards that players used to support the overpowered cards would get nerfed instead, serving as an indirect nerf. But in this case, the underlying problem still remained - the overpowered cards were still overpowered, so much so that players would still dominate with decks that didn't synergize as well with the key cards just because those cards were so strong that they could win games almost single-handedly. In this way, it wasn't just that new cards kept getting stronger, but the combination of that powercreep with the slow pace and seeming reluctance to balance these overbearing cards in patches.
However, the effects of card powercreep go further than limiting deck variety, including some things that are frequently overlooked. In the past, Gwent (at least the standalone version) was known as a particularly complex CCG in which the many layers of card interactions and strategic possibilities would more consistently reward skilled play over random luck. This was the one of the main aspects that kept devoted Gwent players engaged in the game - experienced players could execute higher risk, higher-reward plays that would pay off against inferior opponents. However, card powercreep changed this dynamic significantly. A few years ago, most of the strongest cards came with considerable risk - if you successfully combined cards' abilities, you would be greatly rewarded, but if you made misplays or your opponent was able to stop your setup, you could still lose, even with your strong cards. Now, the overpowered cards are worth more points when set up correctly, it's easier to set them up, and it's less punishing if players play these cards suboptimally. Because there is now far less reason to engage in high-risk, high-reward plays, the game has shifted from being about strategy-centric planning to mindlessly spamming the most powerful cards as often as possible. In other words, a reversal from the skill-rewarding game that made people like Gwent in the first place. I think this is one of the main reasons why even the most devoted of Gwent players who gritted their teeth through previous bumps and bruises have recently been leaving the game, as this change is most noticeable to them. However, as the seasoned players who helped create and promote those powerful decks leave, less experienced players are stranded with neither a source for the powerful decks that they used to borrow, or the experience to create decks of equal effectiveness on their own, making the less serious players more likely to leave as well.
Gwent is still fun, especially for new and more casual players. I encourage people who like CCGs to try it if they haven't already because using the new, overpowered cards can be fun for a little while (there will still be a few more expansions this year). It is mostly in large doses, after having spent a long time mastering the game (and seeing similar decks pop up so regularly) that its issues start to surface. Even then, when played in moderation, Gwent can still be enjoyable. There's even a game mode with an alternate ruleset that switches each week, to keep things exciting.
I joined Gwent just after release (or while it was in open beta, I am not sure).
It was awesome. Had so much fun in it.
Then it got overhauled into some pure nonsense. Leaders or whatever they are now got changed. Card effects got changed. My favorite cards got nerfed. I tried to get into new version, but it was utter crap and I dropped it.
I am 100% sure that majority of people also dropped it because of that initial overhaul.
Developers couldn't stop themselves from destroying their own product.
Mistake: I said they removed leader abilities, I meant faction abilities my mistake.
Except, faction abilities were removed in early 2017, at the start of open beta, so mentioning it in context of Homecoming is pointless.
Doesn't make really any significant point, sorry you are mad I shit on your other post though.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss You seem mad that someone might not like your poorly made video.
I never got into it, but for some reason I'm sad to see it go. This and secret world are two things I'll miss.
a fellow witcher 2 enjoyer. It was the game that got me into PC gaming
Btw I strongly disagree with the concept that games need dlc content to keep things fresh and interesting. Chess didn’t need dlc poker doesn’t need dlc. With classic games they created alternate rulesets but still allowed everyone to play the game they fell in love with. DLC, tweaks, free add ons etc have polluted more games than I can count. I have stopped playing almost every multiplayer game released over the last 10 years because of additional content adding things that I don’t agree with or removing things I did whilst simultaneously not allowing me to play past iterations of said game that I actually enjoyed playing.
This one hurt too. It was a hell of a ride and the Master Mirror hype and expansion got me through Covid and a shit job. You’ll be sorely missed my beloved.
It's funny, I actually made Pro League in Gwent during college, and the reason I played because the game was swingy and unbalanced. It made for crazy obscene swings of games and made combos that nobody had even thought of possible (I made Pro League with a deck I never saw replicated on ladder or even on YT!)
But then Homecoming came and kinda... homogenized the gameplay experience. No more Gold Henselt spam, no more Kambi "OTK" decks, just playing a "curve" of cards knowing by Turn 1 whether your deck beat theirs or not. Just didn't do it for me anymore :\
I actually played this one!
I just wanted the same Gwent from the Witcher 3. I hated how different the standalone game was which turned me off of it entirely.
Clickbaity title. A game is alive as long as you can't find a game. All of you need to calm down.
What happened. Renfri happened. She broke the camel's back
I was one of that tiny console portion of players, really enjoyed the game, bought some packs, played quite a bit and was looking forward to what was coming...but what came was "Bye bye, oh and if you don't have a pc account to transfer your stuff too you're just gonna lose it...turn the lights off on your way out".
Oh crap, I remember that. I was moving from Playstation to PC and it was a nightmare. Things went wrong and basically had to start again but they are least game me the Throne breaker cards
Midwinter update was what killed it for me or started the process at least. I did play here and there after that and the game was still solid but it just didnt resonate with me like it did before. It wasnt the same but I still have some fond memories of my time playing Gwent.
Homecoming killed Gwent for me, for one simple reason: The game became incredibly slow. Before the update every ability was triggered automatically. You play one card. That's you turn. This made games incredibly fast and fun, and players rarely had to ponder too long what their next move would be. That was what made Gwent fun. It was fast.
Homecoming completely obliterated that one trait that made Gwent stand above other card games in any regard, making it inferior in practically every way.
Perhaps they feared that games that were to quick wouldn't make for long events, and thus decided to destroy their game to pander to something nobody playing the game cared about.
This one hurts a lot. I have never hated an 'update' more in any game ever than the 'midwinter patch'.
Yeah, interesting that it wasn't mentioned in the video at all....from my perspective that was the turning point for Gwent.
gwent died with homecoming. Best period of gwent was closed beta and shortly after release.
crokeyz in shambles
I flinch everytime I hear the word Midwinter. Thought nerdslayer would talk about it. Homecoming was the worst thing to ever happen to this game.
it is not that we're annoyed at you mentioning being ill. I hope the best for you and wish you well. It's just a shame you can't just lay down for 2-3 weeks and get healthy again, before pumping out one of your vids. I know bills are billing and tummies need tummying but no one should be forced to work while sick. I lay down myself for the past 2 weeks (enjoying your videos) and it helps a lot to have your expenses covered... so double sorry for you, and I'd say get well soon, but tbh, I lately prefer 'get well for real' to avoid the 'so you can go back to work' undertones of a time sensitive statement. :)
Scy, thank you so much for your genuine concern. That was for snarky people complaining about me mentioning it. You are absolutely right and I can't disagree with you :(. But COVID was also really hard for me as I got no help from the government etc.
I played a lot of Gwent (around 800hrs in Steam, previously on console as well), and to be fair it's the card game with the best mechanic in my opinion. In other card games like Marvel Snap or Magic, you have the energy/mana concept, so usually you have to sequence your turns in the same way in almost every game (depends on draws as well). Gwent, however, with the provision system and the 3 rounds, makes it a lot more dynamic, more strategic and entertaining for me.
However, as you mentioned in the video, for me the lack of balance just killed it. I would get pissed once they release the uttermost broken cards and have everyone abuse the same few new cards on ladder, sometimes with very toxic mechanics (Saskia, Milva, Arachas Queen, Priestess) or so grossly overpowered (Renfri), so I would stop playing for months until they properly re-balance said cards.
Oh man, i saw this game come to life (Checking my email every day for that closed beta key) and i saw it die, all this time playing it daily.
I am gonna miss it so much.
For some reason i think that if they had left gwent as a spin off game instead of forcing the pro scene, it might have actually become a esports title considering how popular it was at the time