I remember a time when provisions generally points to how much points you would expect from the card. a 4 prov would net you around 5 points, a 6 would net you 6, while a 12 would net you 10 points. Its through synergy where you can get creative and squeeze more points instead of just relying on the strength of the card itself.
This! It seems they understood the rules for balance and then, probably because of some changes in the composition of the team, they totally forgot those rules
Now SK Raid decks and Bleed decks set the standard for HUGE point plays for very little risk and brain power. Oh. I forgot about the NG knight boost deck that goes for 1000 points if uncontested. Oh wait. I forgot about Cultists that infuse each other like 3 times like crazy. Oh wait. I forgot about NG. OH wait. Monster decks have deathwish cards that are 5 provision, 5 power, (Death deal 5 damage to a random enemy). Oh wait...... sigh Basically as Spyro has said. Any card that can't keep up with it, is just.. useless trash cards. And trust me. THere are, as SPyro said.. about 70% that are trash and unusable.
Thank you for making this video and addressing such an important topic. Last year, after CDPR released the roadmap for gwent, I felt like lack of new content was alarming. Not just cards but Journeys as well. Definitely limited resources are a problem as you say, but it goes far beyond than that. Another problem is lack of balance. In fact it feels like the balance team (or Jean should I say because I think it's not a team at all, it's just him :) is incompetent or do not understand their own game. I like how you mention deathwish archetype. Instead of nerfing viy, they nerfed deathwish and since then, it has never been the same despite dozens of buffs to individual DW cards. Why not admit that deathwish leader was not the problem and reverse the nerf? This is just one example but there are hundreds like this. Another thing is the binary nature of gwent. Draw golds = win, miss cards = loss. Where is skill? Instead of minimizing the power of luck by not making gold cards play for 20+ points (because if you missed it, you are done), they keep adding more broken golds and the game becomes more luck dependent every expansion. Nerfing consistency cards instead of op golds... Hopefully the community and other content creators will follow your footsteps and voice their own concerns to somehow reach CDPR, because I know they will not listen to just you. Anyways, thank you again for covering a critical problem like this.
@@monkeybunny89 And the frustrating thing is, it's so easy to actually make good changes to the game. The devs are getting suggestion from the community but still choose to ignore it.
@@nickgibra1861 BLeed and current SK decks are great examples how they have cards that hit so hard for ABSOLUTELY no setup or risk. Look at Fleder. It's a 6 provision card that hit for 30 points without almost ANY setup. BLEED itself set the standard SOOOOO high that anyone that wants to beat BLeed MUST play meta cards. Just spam bleed and hope opponent plays a deck that isn't meta.. That is GWent ATM. Just play cards that hit insanely hard. TOo many cards in Gwent are right now 'kill this card or lose round.' No wonder people play either pointslam or NG.
Amazing work, I admire you that you still got strength for streaming gwent and trying to notice the CDPR's attention to gwent's problems. Unfortunately they probably doesn't care about the game, even Vlad stopped be active on gwent subreddit. Thank you for this video
he still streams because he makes great money doing it, that's literally the only reason, if you watch his streams you can tell he does not like playing and there are probably 100 other things hed rather be ding lol.
This guy, like it or not is literally doing CDPR job, he's giving constant feedback on balance every single day, and yes, he can be annoying sometime, expecially in some moments he loses some composure. But overall i strongly believe that Gwent community and CDPR itself own this guy a ton of respect for the hard work he does. Man he's like giving you free and competent advice, should be listened
All in all, this is what should be done to rectify the ordeal we're in: - printing of unconditional midrange pointslam cards needs to stop. - Gwent needs more cards that rely on board conditions rather than deckbuilding conditions. This is what will make it harder for midrange decks to steal cards from other archetypes; - establish a stat standard and stick to it, without going over - e.g.. conditional 7-for-4, 8-for-5 and so on; - establish the very simple formula G=2X, which means the strongest pointslam card in the game should NOT surpass the pointslam of the weakest card. So if 4p plays for 7 pts, then golds' deploy value should NOT surpass 14 pts. Currently, G=3X and this huge gap causes a big problem; - all neutral cards should be one tad weaker than their in-faction counterparts, except for techs (e.g. Squirrel). - tier 1 decks should always be the hardest to pilot, and tier 3 decks the easiest, NOT the other way around (Imprisonment Renfri). Design/balance cards with this in mind. - big point swings should always be board-conditional, so that the opponent has a chance to fight back and hinder your plans. Basically, big risk, big reward.
Agree. And it’s funny because the things you mentioned were exactly what’s in the game before. I remember playing like every single point difference will matter, because they did. You’re all fighting for 1-2 points difference at the end. Now you just don’t care because you have a TON of points per card.
It's definitely frustrating not being able to use more than half the beautiful cards this game has to offer. So many beloved characters and feared creatures, all outclassed by the newer broken cards. 😔
yo no conectaba hace algunos meses por lo mismo y al jugar de nuevo da pena que tan buen juego este tan desbalanceado muchas muchos nerf a nifgard y las otras facciones no pueden estar mas rotas
The manner in which Spyro is able to spontaneously highlight the facts while choosing all the right words to dismiss any objective counterpoint is akin to some of the wisest speakers of our time. CDPR, you have a gem out there, don't let your "beliefs" take over your reason.
I feel you spyro, I've been a player since beta with around 2k hours (I'm usually at pro ladder, I was part of the first tournament they did) and I've decided to take a break from gwent. It feels AWFUL trying different archetypes and it really makes me sad; gwent is full of fun archetypes yet they are so behind these new powercreeped cards it feels impossible to play with anything other than the busted new cards. It really blows my mind how they just leave some cards destroy the game for so long (renfri, kekker-aerod). The neutral op cards have really been a game killer for me.
Good video Spyro, I agree with a lot of that. I hope the devs will listen to it. Also I hope that more people make more elaborate videos to share their thoughts and opinions about the game, create some conversation. We need these.
I left Gwent few weeks ago and started playing Marvel Snap. Each game is different, but the perfect thing about Marvel Snap is that the locations/board in each game is always random ! no games are look a like The problem i faced in Gwent was adding cards like crazy instead of focusing on reworking or focusing on old cards and categories
Some great points. I’ve noticed this ‘package stealing’ trend for a while now and really don’t like that it’s so prevalent in Gwent now. As a player who really likes the idea of archetypes being very distinct and separate from each other, I constantly feel at a disadvantage against all the midrange decks when building and playing decks with a more ‘all-in archetype’ approach (of which I try to incorporate in most my decks, even if I know certain OP cards from other archetypes would make the deck even better). The last patch atleast somewhat acknowledged the issue with midrange decks in the game and hit a couple of the popular leaders for those decks, so hopefully CDPR will continue that trend in upcoming patches.
I haven´t played gwent for almost a year now, (been playing the game since closed) and you hit the nail on the head, i enjoyed the fact that i could experiment with decks and meme cards and get wins against meta decks by outplaying them, now i check gwent content creators every now and then to see the state of the game and the new cards just look so insane and unfair, guess i´m not coming back anytime soon,
Solid analysis. I've been playing since open beta as well, and totally agree with everything you said here. I think it's pretty damning that shinmiri and yourself are really the only long standing content creators left. Most everyone who has been playing for any length of time has just had enough of the total lack of balance consideration over the last year, and the continual march towards more and more draw dependency.
Thank you Spyro! I've been sticking to devotion and play the mechanics I enjoy with the cards that are synergistic by design and power creep is very very apparent.
I consider myself a new player (playing for couple weeks for about an hour a day though I’m quite experienced with other card games). When I first saw Ivor I was so blown off. I just couldn’t believe that such unbelievably strong card which requires basically no synergy can even exist in a game like Gwent. Glad to know it’s not just me being a noobie😅
Essentially what we in Gwent is what they say in one of their loading screens: Smart deck building is key to victory. Because now, luck is more important than strategy.
Veteran player here. Since powercreep is such a damage to variety and deck building fun, maybe the solution is to nerf a lot of the stronger cards. Do a power down patch. Either that or buff cars in a weak archetype as well as adding new cards to that, then be careful with balance moving on. One thing i wanna say is i like when cards don't give those big numbers, like it was in homecoming. Would be happy to get lower numbers. Hope they talk more with the community, create a talking arena with the players. The potential for Gwent is big. The package of the completeness of the music, visuals, voice lines makes it great. The cards are so beautiful, never seen more alive cards. Realistic animation and detail. Hope most cards become viable at a later patch.
I truly hope someone from CDPR will watch this. I really want the game to do well, yet lessons from Open Beta have still not been learned: Strong neutrals will always be problematic: Aerondight, Golden Nekker, Renfri. Please CDPR hire someone with Trading Card Game design experience: someone who worked on Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone, someone who has got actual card game design and balance experience. Even 1 person will make all the difference.
@Kruk _7 Magic the Gathering has many formats and cards are banned. My point is, MTG does have solutions for power creep, and troublesome cards are addressed.
The crazy thing is I only started at the end of last year. It was sooo much better even in December last year than it is now. By the time I learned resource management it was becoming more and more irrelevant, so I had no more than two or three seasons where I felt my skill had a significant impact on the games outcome. Since the first expansion with the many strong neutrals hit I hated every meta.
I totally agree !! I played a meme Crow Messengers deck for years and it was able to beat meta decks. But it slowly sinked with each expansion and powercreeps. I tweaked it with a new strategy : bluff and all-in, in each round. It lived a little longer but, powercreep after powercreep, it simply ended not having enough points to work (and also, a key card was modified). In the beginning, the Crow Combo was quite strong and it needed a careful set up. Now it would be ordinary big points you slam with 2 cards (those you'll find in every deck), almost no set up, and without notable commitment.
Good vid Spyro. It is important to stay vocal about your concerns, and i think some portion of the community share them, what's left of it anyways. To throw my two cents into the discussion, to be frank, i think gwent is a goner. Been around not as much as you, obviously, but at 2k hours since CBT, this past 5 months were the saddest state i've ever seen this game in. And gwent always have some ridiculous meta problems, CBT card drawing silver spy's, Wolfsbane, and NR in general, Artefacts on the start of homecoming, pre-nerf Portal, Double Masquerade, Viy decks, Kolgrim's bonanza fest for several patches, but hell, Alumni meta draw me off from playing game on regular to once a week, and Reinfri sealed the deal. With this decks, you feel like you cant do nothing. Can't homebrew around them, cant outplay them, just watch them play solitaire and pump those point up. Same decks, over and over again. Same plays. Gwent need somethin way more drastic than anything CDPR is willing to do. Restrict cards to Leader Abilities, rework most of the cards in the game, as well as ad seasonally restrictions for card pools, game has almost 500 cards ffs. I doubt something less will spice the game up, to its previous heights, and its pretty sad honestly. Cant imagine something like sick Bork proc in current gwent, or working Mourntart cheese, or even whipping out some ale of the ancestors in it's current state. Thanks for content thou, there is not much of it these days.
I think the problem is basically what you said, that to force archetypes into the meta, they make 4 cards totally OP, instead of reinforcing synergies or buffing the archetype as a whole. Ironically I think that buffing certain leader abilities in provisions would do more for the decks like Harmony or Nature's Gift, than buffing a couple of cards. But in the end they do the opposite, they buff cards and nerf leaders
Playing a synergistic archetype is why I play the game. I haven’t even touched that Imprionment Midrange Renfri NG. I rather play Soldier NG with Imperial Formation, and NG Knights with the new leader. If it were up to me, I would to stay in the rank 10- 15 area because those players make homebrew decks based on a archetype.
I quit the game right after hitting pro ladder, within a month or so. For pretty much the exact reasons you pointed out, I used to beat people with off-meta value control elves with random traps before elves were viable, I beat people with off-meta svalblood decks when sk warriors was the #1. It became clear that power creep was ramping up and my playstyles were being pushed out of the game. Haven't even watched gwent content in a long time now but I always really enjoyed you as a creator and I hope the future holds more fulfilling work for you wherever it is.
I really wish they just release the open beta verison again. That's the game I fell in love with, not whatever this version of Gwent has been turned into.
I have been complaining about the same stuff for years - not enough content, loss of archetipe identity,... I can see that devs are trying to improve it, but for every 5 steps forward they make 4 steps back.
I also feel the same, no need to look far. let's take the example of the bronze card: reaver scout and hunters from NR. - Broken, enemies just copy and paste it in melee row, suddenly you have 3 to 8 points per turn. It so freakin easy to swarm reaver hunters in melee row, like reaver scout, boholt, garrison, megascope, queen adalia, iddaran, mushy truffle ,reinforcement, even teleportation and elissa henson! - you will have hard time to win if you don't have an answer card, that is 'surrender'. Making all players in gwent suddenly need this card. Everytime I play with other player who don't play NR, they akwardly play surrender eventho Im not a swarm or reaver deck. - and when you need to have the surrender card cuz its a neutral card, you wont be a devotion deck, so if you have a devotion or just a synergy deck that dont have surrender, well.. you get punished. Whats the point to have devo and synergy deck if your enemy just spamming reavers? - and after a few days? every NR will put this card in their deck like spyro said. They just pick this pakcage of broken card and dump into their deck, like siege deck or even i had play with a player playing foltest copy soldier deck. - and for the last, like spyro said.. CDPR only buff or nerf the point and the provisions, not by the problem or find a way to make it synergies and balance. So in the latest 10.11 patches they just nerf each reavers for 1 prov. its a lazy nerf for my opinion. it make me dont wanna play gwent anytime soon
It's hilarious how the narrative around reavers changed so much after they released. Before release everyone was bitching about how weak they were compared to NG soldiers now they are a plague upon the game.
Could not have said it better. Got into this game for about a year and in that time it went from being able to play ALMOST anything (I could build a mediocre deck and it would still play okay), to just one deck and everyone I played against had the same deck. Had to quit because it wasn't even fun anymore, just a grind for skins. I feel like every deck is a meme deck now, idk how that happened.
I've stopped playing Gwent a few times now, because I felt I couldn't create competitive, creative decks anymore. I now hover around rank 4-5 with my own deck builds, and I don't play as often. It's as you say, the fun is turning into frustration against the almost unbeatable new decks. Gwent has so much potential and it's a real shame that a high percentage of cards just cannot be used.
This is me also. It's become a grudging acceptance that to play the game on my terms (not playing meta decks) is to climb generally to around rank 2 or maybe 1 every season
Similar thing happened recently in Legends of Runeterra. There isn't a single meta deck that doesn't play equipment. Even without synergy equipment cards are so much better than most others that there's no reason not to put them in the deck. The only decks that can get away with not using it are heavy control decks. Otherwise you simply can't compete in the ladder.
In my opinion the key issue is the approach to balancing chosen by devs. They don't tune individual cards and small combinations, they try to balance whole decks and archetypes. They want to control the game and its meta, because it's just easier and less risky. Lately one of the devs posted an article (or said on a stream, don't remember exactly) where he said that they won't change or buff a single unplayable card unless they decide what archetype it belongs to, or something like that. They should just let players decide what archetypes to create and what decks to make out of carefully designed cards! As a result instead of a beautiful and wild forest of roughly equal decks we have a boring and stale garden with pre-decided decks using pre-decided leader abilities withing pre-decided archetypes. Maybe it's great fun for devs to shape archetypes, but their main task is to create interesting and balanced cards. And players should use these cards to build the meta. Maybe it sounds somewhat idealistic and unrealistic but I think it's a right way to run a card game like Gwent. Also beta was much more wild and interesting in my opinion despite there was less amount of cards.
Also, the main problem which develops from their approach, is that the devs really can't forecast how meta actually turns out (even when it's glaringly obvious) or how certain cards are ripe to be abused. This is always evident in how they react to community feedback (they never take criticism of their most recent work well and will often make it seem like an overreaction). I also feel they hide too much behind data which is further evidence that their hands-on grasp of the game is well below what we need it to be.
To be fair I don't envy the game balance devs. I feel like that would be a very difficult task but I do agree with this constructive criticism. I love gwent but you have made some really good points here. People just take the best cards of small 3/4 card packages and then just have several in their deck. I like to play decks with a strong theme (like vampires only) but those decks are almost never as good as meta decks
Power creep has been present for years and years, and after a while I just stopped getting disappointed by patch notes when I kept seeing that more wasn't being done. Glad you're talking about power creep now, though. Hopefully it gets a meaningful discussion going.
This video breakdown was incredible and makes a TONNE of sense! I feel like we'd just love to play with a load of cards, they don't need to be polished and have the animated premiums. Just test a bunch of cards on the community with a tonne of mechanical variety. Do monthly card development competitions with the community and pick the top voted one's.
I love playing synergy decks but can barely do any setup because everything gets locked or removed. My biggest issue with gwent other than what you pointed out is how many decks become useless vs no interaction, it blows my mind. If the opponent has no target so many cards lose most of their value its insane and anti fun imo
Also I think Spyros shear knowledge of the game and play time is a clear sign that cdpr really should be listening to his words. Like he said, fun is good, but it's not fun if it's not balanced. Finding the delicious line between fun cards and balanced gameplay is important.
''decks build themselves'' that is exactly what happened with hearthstone. It got to a point where I didn't have to check any website for decklists, I could hear about a deck for the first time, and be like alright all I know is that it's centered around this 3 card combo, I guess these 5 cards synergyse with it, these 12 cards have to be in every deck, these 3 cards are the only removal cards worth a damn and so on, anyway the deck I ended up building always turned up to be almost identical to the netdeck. That process took me 2 minutes then I'd just stare at it for 2 hours to try to personalize it in vain. I feel for you, this is inevitable if the devs make every expansion be the strongest expansion ever.
I stated that Ivar was very unbalanced from its release. I'm surprised the problem is manifesting only now. At the time people keep complaining on Philippa (usually without realizing that you have to subtract the 9 coins from its value) for seizing a card up to 9. And then they thought pratically do the same thing without a cap and without a condition, apart from adrenaline, wasn't a problem
Ivar is meta dependent, when the value of cards get up, Ivar gets better. I saw Ivar rarely when he dropped with WotW. Same with Yrden, but now Yrden was a "problem" and needed a nerf, just shows how much power creep there is.
You are a hero If i could. I want to give you a 1000 likes. You've said exactly what I've said in gwent community website for months. They've not listened, but instead banned me. If you look at gwent community website almost no one comments. Cause they know no devs read it. I hope your video gets them fired. And no.. i don't think I'm being harsh. I think we all know they've not been doing their job for months. Reasons: They don't balance. They actually create anti balance. They react SLOW. Takes months for obvious nerfs. They don't listen to community. I think these are enough.
I'd like them to work on the experience of them game and not crazy cards that just numbs the mind. My pitch for convincing my friends to play is that its a strategic tactical game like chess, but recently thats not so
I was still playing hearthstone, runeterra and gwent 4 months ago. but i have totally stop playing gwent for the past 4 months. Unfortunately, because gwent release so little cards in each expansion, they simply need to power creep the cards so that people will fork out money to purchase them to keep playing meta games. And we all know that the biggest problem with card games, power creep. Every power creep pushes a whole chunk of cards into "unplayable" status. Hence in general power level increase over the years. i just feel that its unsustainable and that is why i have stop playing gwent.
I feel like Spyro just spoke for must of us. This video could benefit the game quite a lot, if CD still wants to keep the community for the long term coming.
Was an avid player starting at iOS release. Haven’t played since Golden Nekker and Aerondight because it homogenized nearly every deck in the game. Sucks to see that not much has changed-at least it’s not just the same neutrals in every deck but more faction-specific? Lol
I think we wouldn't even need more new content/cards if the patch notes would be longer on average. Monsters for example didn't receive anything this patch, but if CDPR would change at least 5 weak cards that already exist but are not designed well, it would be like a new card drop at this point, since we are never using them anyway.
I have an idea how to fix it. Cards like for example Cyrus should be assigned to leader ability.And then people won't be use him in "off the books" And Cdpr should do the same with other important golds. What do you think ?
Noticed they added way more golden cards in later expansions, my last 40k scrap was used to craft the latest two expansions :D. I did enjoy Gwent the most during the golden age before the winter update. I have been playing a little now and then, but it's hard to get back to the game. Will hit end of life next year, and maybe community can balance the cards to at least have a healthy and fun game.
"You can't have fun without balance". Couldn't agree more, neatly encapsulates the main problems with gwent in one sentence. I initially stopped paying for journeys, and have now stopped playing the game. The huge new cards like Renfri are just tedious. I hope the devs learn and are willing to admit their mistakes and change their ways, so I can come back to the game.
Yap, sadly as you I dedicated years to this game and I am astonished at how much this “polarization” of power is killing the fun. This game had the potential of giving life to real factions logics, synergies and spectacular combos. Devotion is still underway such as the rework of an enormous amount of 4/5 provision cost cards. The example that I always think about is Scout or the Caravan. Witchers are still waiting to find their own dimension, following a more detailed and accurate description of their real power as in the story. You are 100% right on the logics behind lack of content and card releases. The potential is big, but at the moment the game looks frustrating from many points of view.
i played gwent after a 1 month break and, for some reason, i tried NR witchers and i got some wins but generally got destroyed. However, i do think that this situation is much less of a problem on lower ranks. Still, a problem that I understand
Great points and as an open beta player who quit a month after homegarbagecoming and with the recent news about cdpr pulling the plug on this trash I’m incredibly happy I didn’t waste my time on it. This only means that homegarbagecoming was eventually a failure, a failure they refused to Acknowledge for idk how long. The sad part is the actual better Gwent got to live for about a year max while this homegrabagecoming edition was on life support for 5 years. Truely sad for the open beta and pre garbagecoming edition of Gwent.
I 100% agree, the game is now a grind to complete seasons & journeys for me, I've loved this game for 4 years & now playing against yet another reaper deck or Renfri or both is dull, in extreme, I've given up trying to compete, just bare minimum seasons to complete daily's & Journey quests then back to draft; it needs proper change so any decent player can have a chance to win, not just cookie-cutter decks hoping for good draws.
I fully agree with you about Gwent. In-game must be more balance patches and expansions need to have more cards for all abilities or archetypes. For example, I played along in hearthstone and the good thing is that they had more balance patches for the game if someone's archetype is very weak or a very strong card is too strong for the meta (of course it's not perfect but at least is something). Maybe the next thing that the Gwent must also make is a division into standard and wild something like "Gwent archives" etc. Regarding power level (with my experience with hearthstone) they have the same problem. 30-40% of cards are playable, the rest is trash or maybe will play in the next expansions. I hope some people in cdpr will listen your opinion and have some cool ideas to make gwent great again :D :)
Thanks for speaking up. Playing for a year now and I think Gwent is only playable every two seasons at the moment. ONly playable after they nerfed the op cards from the expansions.
Я думаю, главная проблема гвинта сейчас в том, что разработчики гонятся в первую очередь за количеством и популярностью, выпуская раз в пол года - год безумное количество новых карт, и это при том, что 80% старых карт неиграбельны. Новые карты выходят поломанными, чтобы привлечь к себе внимание и чтобы ими играли, потом постепенно выходят патчи, исправляющие эти поломанные карты, и вот когда почти все новые карты более-менее исправили, выходит очередное дополнение с ещё 100+ новыми картами... и всё по новой... это замкнутый круг. При том, что 80% старых карт как были не играбельны, так ими и остаются. На самом деле я вижу только одну более-менее адекватную стратегию по развитию игры - это концентрация в первую очередь на исправлении старых карт , а что касается новых, то их добавлять стоит очень точечно, буквально поштучно, внимательно и бережно следя за балансом, иначе, наваливая каждый раз новые карты камазами мы так ни к чему и не придём, всё будет по тому же сценарию, что и сейчас.
Spot on Spyro! Gwent becomes more and more a "What-cards-you-have-drawn-in-round-one-gamble". Because there are so much games you lose without final say or you are just lucky your opponent did't draw his cards. This has nothing to to with skill anymore
Thanks for addressing the topic Spyro, u explain it pretty well. Just one thing I disagree with u: When u were talking bout Symbiosis weakness, the first one u said is "lack of controls". What confuse me is.. "..why WOULD we need a control, in this wholesome, engine + pointslams deck???" By saying the deck need more controls, u r saying that this deck need to be more "Midrange"-y. But why, right? Why every deck need to be Midrange? And later u talk about in content drop that we need to put more focus on synergies rather than buff/nerf points.. thats I solely agree with u. Nature's rebuke is good enough for its own, that small control in this wholesome deck is expected. So, if u talk about synergies, that means we dont need more control in symbiosis, since we dont want it to be a Midrange deck (otherwise other ST could pick a small package from Symbiosis like u said). Meanwhile, the overswarm is a real thing for symbiosis, so a way to clear board space is absolutely needed (hence u talk about throwing suicidal treant to opponent board, which is kinda good, but it could clog opponent board, so we need to be careful, but if u said it could damage and "suicide", that would be broken too (hence u said its not a well thought plan)). The fact that the only "Developer" in the team is Jean only.. its not surprising that the balancing feels pretty weak! They didnt heard enough from us, the player! 😓
as a new player in gwent still... i agree with your points but power creep is a problem but resources seems like a problem for me also but keep it up the great content
Nerfing 20% of the cards is much easier tho. Just rework some of the completely unfunctional garbage from the bottom, the middle-ground cards should be automaticaly much better after the top is weaker. Changing 80% of the cards is not a good idea, it will be a mess
@@LuzikArbuzik77 facts, balancing 20% of cards seems impossible for this pea brained dev team, if you make them rebalance 80% the company might implode
The thing about Symbiosis, Pond Keeper would actually be better if it destroyed the Wandering Treant rather than reset it. I'd actually consider putting Offering of all thing into the deck just to destroy the Wandering Treants left by pond keeper or whatever to create some board space and actually do something - of course, this would be pretty terrible still and Devotion also rules this out. But, some effects that use Wandering Treants as resources would absolutely be awesome. Even if it's not used for control - or maybe if it is control, there could be a some condition. I believe, the best idea would be to treat Wandering Treants as their own coin pouches, and have other cards interact with them in certain ways. Let's say, a card would have a condition, a new keyword with a value, and it could target a Wandering Treant, destroying it, to then trigger some effect described on the card if the Wandering Treant had at lest that much power. Basically, the opposite of Symbiosis. While that is the generator, this new keyword would be the spender. If you take Syndicate Coins for comparison, Symbiosis would correspond to Profit (while not on Deploy ofc) and this new keyword could act like a Fee or Tribute (whether it's tied to Deploy and/or Order). You could do all sorts of things with this, and you could also balance each card to itself, so you won't necessarily have to pin yourself into the corner by tying the same effect and thus value to each Wandering Treant.
Another banger of a video that is absolutely spot on. I stopped playing the game right after Price of Power was released. I knew it was wrong for CDPR to switch their expansion format for exactly these reasons. I was fine getting 40ish cards every 6 months with so much variety and different power levels available in comparison to 4 cards per faction every 3 months that are just insanely busted. The Master Mirror expansion did a great job of introducing a wide variety of cards that could blend into different archetypes with new keywords and abilities. It kept in line with Gwent's unique row/round point system while also maintaining simplicity that used to be at Gwent's core. It wasn't a very difficult game to understand or pick up; I feel that's changed now with the way CDPR is reworking old cards and printing new ones. I tried scrolling through the deckbuilder a couple of weeks ago for the first time in over a year, and I have no idea where to start now. The paragraphs of convoluted abilities on some of these newer and more recently reworked cards is just insane. Reading through Renfri's abilities is just a mindfuck. What the hell was going on there? It's impossible to keep track of at this point. I miss the simpler times of keeping track of passive engines, movement, melee-to-ranged priority etc. The game just looks so unappealing to attempt to learn again. It's really sad, I put ~500 hours into the game on mobile and PC, and felt good investing a couple hundred bucks over my 2 years of playing. Now I just have no spark or interest in seeing what Gwent has to offer anymore.
Thank you for the video!, sure does open your eyes about how broken the game is, it's impossible to create your own deck or be original in the game, just wound not be viable hope CDPR watch this and actually listen to the community for once hopefully changes will happen.
Hey i started gwent today and i win 50/50 in standard prolly more with starter decks. Just some information for you, i didn't realize how amazing this game was and to hear this makes me sad cause i've just picked it up. To be honest I believe the game needs some marketing or something cause I was afraid to pick up after infinity wars, duelyst, heroes might and magic card game, battleforge, the endless amount of f2p shutdowns just makes it hard to pick up for someone like me.
Hey, I'm playing this game as much as you played, I've started the game when closed beta, but because of that time the game was really complicated, I really started the game when open beta releases. I'm seeing same topic about Gwent over and over again, the situation of the game becomes like the Midwinter Update times, which is death for old Gwent. I'm not a competitive player, I play the card games because of fun. They're the new way to play games like chess I think, we can't compare them for sure but this is the most similar to them I think. This is why I want to play Gwent in new ways, I want to play Deathwish deck, I want to play Harmony Deck, maybe I want to play Self-Harm deck. In this meta, you can't. You have to play the decks which CDPR wants us to play, because of the hidden nerfs like to be said. They're creating some cards which is insanely powerful then others, this is why you can't play the other cards. For example, when we have the Scoia'tael's old ressurect a spell leader ability, Harmony was insane while the girls was 3 points. Right now you can make the same interaction like before with Francesca, even for the girls are 5 points, they're weak. They didn't nerfed that card, instead they buffed but it's unplayable. The game needs a total balance patch, not only for meta cards nerf, the whole set needs to be fixed. They did this before, and that time game was good, except scenerios but at least they did something. The game is at least playable because of that balance patch. That time was increasing the 4-prov cards to 6-7 power, old ones not close as it is. Actually, my opinion about the Gwent is, they're not getting enough money from Gwent. Also, because of the disaster of CP77 and announcements of many games, they shifted the Gwent team to other projects, I'm not sure how many people really focusing the Gwent, if you ask me, no one. We should've seen this when last year's roadmap is announced. Only the times when Gwent needs an update, team looking for the game when they have time, we can't explain this bad changes with anything except this one. Next year also will be the same if you ask me, we will get very limited new cards and same things over and over again. I'm also thinking they might close or stop active development on Gwent after Iwinski's retirement from CEO position, he was supporting the game, you'll remember he wrote a message all the players for project homecoming. If you read this, you can see his passion for the Gwent. I'm not sure about the future of the Gwent but probably game is not in a good condition, and if they don't anything, for a realistic perspective they can't because of the other projects, anything can happen for Gwent in future. If they find an easy solution to fix the game, for example, restrictions some cards for leader abilities or giving some extra card buffs for that leaders, game can live some, but I can't say any good thing for future for Gwent if any miracle happens.
I have played gwent for years, I left the game and came back dozens of time. Even I am not a very high rank high skilled player, everything you said made lots of sense. I have always sensed a problem when I looked at meta decks (Like including soldiers ramon package inside a Ball deck back in the day). CDPR should hire people like you or at least consult.
Doing more old card reworks would help a lot. I really wouldn't mind if they just updates cards in some patches and haven't actually released anything new new. Of course, there would be nothing to sell then, so there might be an issue there.. but I guess if they can figure out a way to also create some revenue with a solely update/rework patch like this, that'd be great for the game. Maybe more easy to make but sought after cosmetics that are themed to some of the reworked cards their supported archetype?
This needs to get to Jean and Burza ASAP I hope this game doesn't die as it's by far the best card game I have ever played with those beautiful artworks and premiums but with these imbalances the hope for success gradually withers so please CDPR address this
Once cdpr released renfri ive lost interest. It was a desperate move which will be hard to undo. Completely undermines the value and integration of the leader ability, which should be a fundamental part of the game and deck building.
I really think the biggest problem with gwent are the neutral cards, they just need to be nerfed like a whole, and devotion needs to be buffed to the sky, in every single faction
They need to eliminate most of the tutor cards as well as the cards (especially neutral cards) that enable you to either duplicate or replay cards. With things as they are it makes most people make decks that revolve around 2-3 round winning gold cards and the tutors/deck thinners needed to ensure you get those cards in hand. Then you add in all the duplicating cards to make a million copies of the 2-3 bronze cards that crank out points. I play monsters and every time i try to build a deck i have to ignore the fact that my deck would be 20x stronger if i used AQ, Caranthir, and witches' sabbath etc to make a bunch of copies of the one card I'm trying to build around. It's out of hand.
I played the game since the release of crimson curse until after golden necker was released (pro rank was my standard), and it makes me really sad that the game lost all of the fun it had. Having to squeeze points and play your cards better was the thing making the game fun and special. The provison system was a blessing for the game. Now I am afraid only a big reset can make the game fun again, and I lost all hope that it will ever happen. I logged in for 3 games last patch, and even thou I would really like to enjoy the game it's impossible with the very things said in this video. It also feels like CDPR just lost interest in Gwent, hope I'm wrong, but my hopes for the game to become good again are gone
sincerly i had the same feeling and tried multiple times to give the game and devs a chance but every new expansion there was this BS every time... a big chunk of cool mechanics is worthless because the devs try to introduce new cards.... for few new cards a pretty big number of cards are simple not competitive.
![[Gwent] Advanced Strategies EP.1 (Advanced Bleeding)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IFrZQa1yCww/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Gwent] Advanced Strategies EP.1 (Advanced Bleeding)](/img/tr.png)
This game should be a million times more popular than it is. I would love to see this community grow even wider
Yes!
Exactly
extraordinary potantial became an ordinary game.. sadge
i agree gwent can get as big as league of legends nothing wrong reaching higher goals would love to see this
@@twentysevenfour4901 still has potential if they do the right thing
I remember a time when provisions generally points to how much points you would expect from the card. a 4 prov would net you around 5 points, a 6 would net you 6, while a 12 would net you 10 points. Its through synergy where you can get creative and squeeze more points instead of just relying on the strength of the card itself.
This! It seems they understood the rules for balance and then, probably because of some changes in the composition of the team, they totally forgot those rules
Now SK Raid decks and Bleed decks set the standard for HUGE point plays for very little risk and brain power.
Oh. I forgot about the NG knight boost deck that goes for 1000 points if uncontested. Oh wait. I forgot about Cultists that infuse each other like 3 times like crazy. Oh wait. I forgot about NG. OH wait. Monster decks have deathwish cards that are 5 provision, 5 power, (Death deal 5 damage to a random enemy). Oh wait...... sigh
Basically as Spyro has said. Any card that can't keep up with it, is just.. useless trash cards. And trust me. THere are, as SPyro said.. about 70% that are trash and unusable.
Thank you for making this video and addressing such an important topic.
Last year, after CDPR released the roadmap for gwent, I felt like lack of new content was alarming. Not just cards but Journeys as well. Definitely limited resources are a problem as you say, but it goes far beyond than that.
Another problem is lack of balance. In fact it feels like the balance team (or Jean should I say because I think it's not a team at all, it's just him :) is incompetent or do not understand their own game. I like how you mention deathwish archetype. Instead of nerfing viy, they nerfed deathwish and since then, it has never been the same despite dozens of buffs to individual DW cards. Why not admit that deathwish leader was not the problem and reverse the nerf? This is just one example but there are hundreds like this.
Another thing is the binary nature of gwent. Draw golds = win, miss cards = loss. Where is skill? Instead of minimizing the power of luck by not making gold cards play for 20+ points (because if you missed it, you are done), they keep adding more broken golds and the game becomes more luck dependent every expansion. Nerfing consistency cards instead of op golds...
Hopefully the community and other content creators will follow your footsteps and voice their own concerns to somehow reach CDPR, because I know they will not listen to just you.
Anyways, thank you again for covering a critical problem like this.
Incompetent is an understatement. The devs don't play the game or are just really really lazy. Prob spends 1 hour a month to actually work on it.
“More fun” he said… I doubt Jean plays the game at all.
@@monkeybunny89 And the frustrating thing is, it's so easy to actually make good changes to the game. The devs are getting suggestion from the community but still choose to ignore it.
@@alexanderpopov3587 Yeah, I ask myself the same question. It's like an inexperienced player is making decisions about balance.
@@nickgibra1861 BLeed and current SK decks are great examples how they have cards that hit so hard for ABSOLUTELY no setup or risk. Look at Fleder. It's a 6 provision card that hit for 30 points without almost ANY setup. BLEED itself set the standard SOOOOO high that anyone that wants to beat BLeed MUST play meta cards. Just spam bleed and hope opponent plays a deck that isn't meta.. That is GWent ATM. Just play cards that hit insanely hard.
TOo many cards in Gwent are right now 'kill this card or lose round.'
No wonder people play either pointslam or NG.
Amazing work, I admire you that you still got strength for streaming gwent and trying to notice the CDPR's attention to gwent's problems. Unfortunately they probably doesn't care about the game, even Vlad stopped be active on gwent subreddit. Thank you for this video
Will they even watch this video? Now that'll be really suprising seeing how little they listen
he still streams because he makes great money doing it, that's literally the only reason, if you watch his streams you can tell he does not like playing and there are probably 100 other things hed rather be ding lol.
This guy, like it or not is literally doing CDPR job, he's giving constant feedback on balance every single day, and yes, he can be annoying sometime, expecially in some moments he loses some composure. But overall i strongly believe that Gwent community and CDPR itself own this guy a ton of respect for the hard work he does. Man he's like giving you free and competent advice, should be listened
All in all, this is what should be done to rectify the ordeal we're in:
- printing of unconditional midrange pointslam cards needs to stop.
- Gwent needs more cards that rely on board conditions rather than deckbuilding conditions. This is what will make it harder for midrange decks to steal cards from other archetypes;
- establish a stat standard and stick to it, without going over - e.g.. conditional 7-for-4, 8-for-5 and so on;
- establish the very simple formula G=2X, which means the strongest pointslam card in the game should NOT surpass the pointslam of the weakest card. So if 4p plays for 7 pts, then golds' deploy value should NOT surpass 14 pts. Currently, G=3X and this huge gap causes a big problem;
- all neutral cards should be one tad weaker than their in-faction counterparts, except for techs (e.g. Squirrel).
- tier 1 decks should always be the hardest to pilot, and tier 3 decks the easiest, NOT the other way around (Imprisonment Renfri). Design/balance cards with this in mind.
- big point swings should always be board-conditional, so that the opponent has a chance to fight back and hinder your plans. Basically, big risk, big reward.
Agree. And it’s funny because the things you mentioned were exactly what’s in the game before. I remember playing like every single point difference will matter, because they did. You’re all fighting for 1-2 points difference at the end. Now you just don’t care because you have a TON of points per card.
@@andreluissoriano exactly the devs have gone bonkers with balancing it's like they just don't care.
It's definitely frustrating not being able to use more than half the beautiful cards this game has to offer. So many beloved characters and feared creatures, all outclassed by the newer broken cards. 😔
yo no conectaba hace algunos meses por lo mismo y al jugar de nuevo da pena que tan buen juego este tan desbalanceado muchas muchos nerf a nifgard y las otras facciones no pueden estar mas rotas
The manner in which Spyro is able to spontaneously highlight the facts while choosing all the right words to dismiss any objective counterpoint is akin to some of the wisest speakers of our time. CDPR, you have a gem out there, don't let your "beliefs" take over your reason.
Alright he's making a lot of sense here but wisest speakers of our time is a bit much lol
I feel you spyro, I've been a player since beta with around 2k hours (I'm usually at pro ladder, I was part of the first tournament they did) and I've decided to take a break from gwent. It feels AWFUL trying different archetypes and it really makes me sad; gwent is full of fun archetypes yet they are so behind these new powercreeped cards it feels impossible to play with anything other than the busted new cards.
It really blows my mind how they just leave some cards destroy the game for so long (renfri, kekker-aerod). The neutral op cards have really been a game killer for me.
I wish they’d just revert gwent to Before homecoming.
Good video Spyro, I agree with a lot of that. I hope the devs will listen to it. Also I hope that more people make more elaborate videos to share their thoughts and opinions about the game, create some conversation. We need these.
I left Gwent few weeks ago and started playing Marvel Snap.
Each game is different, but the perfect thing about Marvel Snap is that the locations/board in each game is always random ! no games are look a like
The problem i faced in Gwent was adding cards like crazy instead of focusing on reworking or focusing on old cards and categories
Some great points. I’ve noticed this ‘package stealing’ trend for a while now and really don’t like that it’s so prevalent in Gwent now. As a player who really likes the idea of archetypes being very distinct and separate from each other, I constantly feel at a disadvantage against all the midrange decks when building and playing decks with a more ‘all-in archetype’ approach (of which I try to incorporate in most my decks, even if I know certain OP cards from other archetypes would make the deck even better).
The last patch atleast somewhat acknowledged the issue with midrange decks in the game and hit a couple of the popular leaders for those decks, so hopefully CDPR will continue that trend in upcoming patches.
I haven´t played gwent for almost a year now, (been playing the game since closed) and you hit the nail on the head, i enjoyed the fact that i could experiment with decks and meme cards and get wins against meta decks by outplaying them, now i check gwent content creators every now and then to see the state of the game and the new cards just look so insane and unfair, guess i´m not coming back anytime soon,
Solid analysis. I've been playing since open beta as well, and totally agree with everything you said here. I think it's pretty damning that shinmiri and yourself are really the only long standing content creators left. Most everyone who has been playing for any length of time has just had enough of the total lack of balance consideration over the last year, and the continual march towards more and more draw dependency.
Thank you Spyro! I've been sticking to devotion and play the mechanics I enjoy with the cards that are synergistic by design and power creep is very very apparent.
I consider myself a new player (playing for couple weeks for about an hour a day though I’m quite experienced with other card games). When I first saw Ivor I was so blown off. I just couldn’t believe that such unbelievably strong card which requires basically no synergy can even exist in a game like Gwent. Glad to know it’s not just me being a noobie😅
The Year of the Toad is the worst year in gwent due to renfri and
golden nacker
They have put chemicals into Brokilons waters, and made the frogs gay XD
Essentially what we in Gwent is what they say in one of their loading screens:
Smart deck building is key to victory.
Because now, luck is more important than strategy.
Absolutely nailed everything. Not a single thing you said was incorrect. I pray CDPR takes notes, because they're killing their own game :(
You nailed it Spyro, you articulated all problems quite precisely. In this state gwent cant survive, we need changes or its gonna be over
As a regular viewer of the streams, I really enjoy when you speak about the game without chat. I do love chat though
Veteran player here. Since powercreep is such a damage to variety and deck building fun, maybe the solution is to nerf a lot of the stronger cards. Do a power down patch. Either that or buff cars in a weak archetype as well as adding new cards to that, then be careful with balance moving on.
One thing i wanna say is i like when cards don't give those big numbers, like it was in homecoming. Would be happy to get lower numbers. Hope they talk more with the community, create a talking arena with the players.
The potential for Gwent is big. The package of the completeness of the music, visuals, voice lines makes it great. The cards are so beautiful, never seen more alive cards. Realistic animation and detail. Hope most cards become viable at a later patch.
I truly hope someone from CDPR will watch this. I really want the game to do well, yet lessons from Open Beta have still not been learned: Strong neutrals will always be problematic: Aerondight, Golden Nekker, Renfri. Please CDPR hire someone with Trading Card Game design experience: someone who worked on Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone, someone who has got actual card game design and balance experience. Even 1 person will make all the difference.
Ohh, so MtG and Hearthstone doesn't have these problems?! This is standard route for card games, power creep is inevitable.
@Kruk _7 Magic the Gathering has many formats and cards are banned. My point is, MTG does have solutions for power creep, and troublesome cards are addressed.
The crazy thing is I only started at the end of last year. It was sooo much better even in December last year than it is now. By the time I learned resource management it was becoming more and more irrelevant, so I had no more than two or three seasons where I felt my skill had a significant impact on the games outcome. Since the first expansion with the many strong neutrals hit I hated every meta.
I totally agree !!
I played a meme Crow Messengers deck for years and it was able to beat meta decks. But it slowly sinked with each expansion and powercreeps.
I tweaked it with a new strategy : bluff and all-in, in each round. It lived a little longer but, powercreep after powercreep, it simply ended not having enough points to work (and also, a key card was modified).
In the beginning, the Crow Combo was quite strong and it needed a careful set up. Now it would be ordinary big points you slam with 2 cards (those you'll find in every deck), almost no set up, and without notable commitment.
Good vid Spyro. It is important to stay vocal about your concerns, and i think some portion of the community share them, what's left of it anyways. To throw my two cents into the discussion, to be frank, i think gwent is a goner. Been around not as much as you, obviously, but at 2k hours since CBT, this past 5 months were the saddest state i've ever seen this game in. And gwent always have some ridiculous meta problems, CBT card drawing silver spy's, Wolfsbane, and NR in general, Artefacts on the start of homecoming, pre-nerf Portal, Double Masquerade, Viy decks, Kolgrim's bonanza fest for several patches, but hell, Alumni meta draw me off from playing game on regular to once a week, and Reinfri sealed the deal. With this decks, you feel like you cant do nothing. Can't homebrew around them, cant outplay them, just watch them play solitaire and pump those point up. Same decks, over and over again. Same plays. Gwent need somethin way more drastic than anything CDPR is willing to do. Restrict cards to Leader Abilities, rework most of the cards in the game, as well as ad seasonally restrictions for card pools, game has almost 500 cards ffs. I doubt something less will spice the game up, to its previous heights, and its pretty sad honestly. Cant imagine something like sick Bork proc in current gwent, or working Mourntart cheese, or even whipping out some ale of the ancestors in it's current state. Thanks for content thou, there is not much of it these days.
I think the problem is basically what you said, that to force archetypes into the meta, they make 4 cards totally OP, instead of reinforcing synergies or buffing the archetype as a whole. Ironically I think that buffing certain leader abilities in provisions would do more for the decks like Harmony or Nature's Gift, than buffing a couple of cards. But in the end they do the opposite, they buff cards and nerf leaders
The yrden nerf made no sense to me, unless the devs are trying to protect the nilfgard boost decks to help sell their new card pack.
Playing a synergistic archetype is why I play the game. I haven’t even touched that Imprionment Midrange Renfri NG. I rather play Soldier NG with Imperial Formation, and NG Knights with the new leader.
If it were up to me, I would to stay in the rank 10- 15 area because those players make homebrew decks based on a archetype.
I quit the game right after hitting pro ladder, within a month or so. For pretty much the exact reasons you pointed out, I used to beat people with off-meta value control elves with random traps before elves were viable, I beat people with off-meta svalblood decks when sk warriors was the #1. It became clear that power creep was ramping up and my playstyles were being pushed out of the game. Haven't even watched gwent content in a long time now but I always really enjoyed you as a creator and I hope the future holds more fulfilling work for you wherever it is.
I really wish they just release the open beta verison again. That's the game I fell in love with, not whatever this version of Gwent has been turned into.
I have been complaining about the same stuff for years - not enough content, loss of archetipe identity,... I can see that devs are trying to improve it, but for every 5 steps forward they make 4 steps back.
I also feel the same, no need to look far. let's take the example of the bronze card: reaver scout and hunters from NR.
- Broken, enemies just copy and paste it in melee row, suddenly you have 3 to 8 points per turn. It so freakin easy to swarm reaver hunters in melee row, like reaver scout, boholt, garrison, megascope, queen adalia, iddaran, mushy truffle ,reinforcement, even teleportation and elissa henson!
- you will have hard time to win if you don't have an answer card, that is 'surrender'. Making all players in gwent suddenly need this card. Everytime I play with other player who don't play NR, they akwardly play surrender eventho Im not a swarm or reaver deck.
- and when you need to have the surrender card cuz its a neutral card, you wont be a devotion deck, so if you have a devotion or just a synergy deck that dont have surrender, well.. you get punished. Whats the point to have devo and synergy deck if your enemy just spamming reavers?
- and after a few days? every NR will put this card in their deck like spyro said. They just pick this pakcage of broken card and dump into their deck, like siege deck or even i had play with a player playing foltest copy soldier deck.
- and for the last, like spyro said.. CDPR only buff or nerf the point and the provisions, not by the problem or find a way to make it synergies and balance. So in the latest 10.11 patches they just nerf each reavers for 1 prov. its a lazy nerf for my opinion. it make me dont wanna play gwent anytime soon
It's hilarious how the narrative around reavers changed so much after they released. Before release everyone was bitching about how weak they were compared to NG soldiers now they are a plague upon the game.
Could not have said it better. Got into this game for about a year and in that time it went from being able to play ALMOST anything (I could build a mediocre deck and it would still play okay), to just one deck and everyone I played against had the same deck. Had to quit because it wasn't even fun anymore, just a grind for skins. I feel like every deck is a meme deck now, idk how that happened.
I've stopped playing Gwent a few times now, because I felt I couldn't create competitive, creative decks anymore. I now hover around rank 4-5 with my own deck builds, and I don't play as often. It's as you say, the fun is turning into frustration against the almost unbeatable new decks. Gwent has so much potential and it's a real shame that a high percentage of cards just cannot be used.
This is me also. It's become a grudging acceptance that to play the game on my terms (not playing meta decks) is to climb generally to around rank 2 or maybe 1 every season
Similar thing happened recently in Legends of Runeterra. There isn't a single meta deck that doesn't play equipment. Even without synergy equipment cards are so much better than most others that there's no reason not to put them in the deck. The only decks that can get away with not using it are heavy control decks. Otherwise you simply can't compete in the ladder.
In my opinion the key issue is the approach to balancing chosen by devs. They don't tune individual cards and small combinations, they try to balance whole decks and archetypes. They want to control the game and its meta, because it's just easier and less risky. Lately one of the devs posted an article (or said on a stream, don't remember exactly) where he said that they won't change or buff a single unplayable card unless they decide what archetype it belongs to, or something like that. They should just let players decide what archetypes to create and what decks to make out of carefully designed cards! As a result instead of a beautiful and wild forest of roughly equal decks we have a boring and stale garden with pre-decided decks using pre-decided leader abilities withing pre-decided archetypes. Maybe it's great fun for devs to shape archetypes, but their main task is to create interesting and balanced cards. And players should use these cards to build the meta. Maybe it sounds somewhat idealistic and unrealistic but I think it's a right way to run a card game like Gwent. Also beta was much more wild and interesting in my opinion despite there was less amount of cards.
Also, the main problem which develops from their approach, is that the devs really can't forecast how meta actually turns out (even when it's glaringly obvious) or how certain cards are ripe to be abused. This is always evident in how they react to community feedback (they never take criticism of their most recent work well and will often make it seem like an overreaction). I also feel they hide too much behind data which is further evidence that their hands-on grasp of the game is well below what we need it to be.
To be fair I don't envy the game balance devs. I feel like that would be a very difficult task but I do agree with this constructive criticism. I love gwent but you have made some really good points here. People just take the best cards of small 3/4 card packages and then just have several in their deck.
I like to play decks with a strong theme (like vampires only) but those decks are almost never as good as meta decks
Honestly you hit the nail on the head, love gwent and i want to see it flourish
Great video! Very succinct and clear analysis. Just hope that somebody from SDPR will take notice of what was said here.
Power creep has been present for years and years, and after a while I just stopped getting disappointed by patch notes when I kept seeing that more wasn't being done. Glad you're talking about power creep now, though. Hopefully it gets a meaningful discussion going.
This video breakdown was incredible and makes a TONNE of sense! I feel like we'd just love to play with a load of cards, they don't need to be polished and have the animated premiums. Just test a bunch of cards on the community with a tonne of mechanical variety. Do monthly card development competitions with the community and pick the top voted one's.
I love playing synergy decks but can barely do any setup because everything gets locked or removed. My biggest issue with gwent other than what you pointed out is how many decks become useless vs no interaction, it blows my mind. If the opponent has no target so many cards lose most of their value its insane and anti fun imo
Every time I mention stuff like this in reddit, it gets downvoted. 🙄
I really hope people wake up and take action.
Hearing all those problems really reminds me about good old "widwinter" patch/expansion from open beta...
Also I think Spyros shear knowledge of the game and play time is a clear sign that cdpr really should be listening to his words. Like he said, fun is good, but it's not fun if it's not balanced. Finding the delicious line between fun cards and balanced gameplay is important.
''decks build themselves'' that is exactly what happened with hearthstone. It got to a point where I didn't have to check any website for decklists, I could hear about a deck for the first time, and be like alright all I know is that it's centered around this 3 card combo, I guess these 5 cards synergyse with it, these 12 cards have to be in every deck, these 3 cards are the only removal cards worth a damn and so on, anyway the deck I ended up building always turned up to be almost identical to the netdeck. That process took me 2 minutes then I'd just stare at it for 2 hours to try to personalize it in vain. I feel for you, this is inevitable if the devs make every expansion be the strongest expansion ever.
I stated that Ivar was very unbalanced from its release. I'm surprised the problem is manifesting only now. At the time people keep complaining on Philippa (usually without realizing that you have to subtract the 9 coins from its value) for seizing a card up to 9. And then they thought pratically do the same thing without a cap and without a condition, apart from adrenaline, wasn't a problem
Ivar is meta dependent, when the value of cards get up, Ivar gets better. I saw Ivar rarely when he dropped with WotW. Same with Yrden, but now Yrden was a "problem" and needed a nerf, just shows how much power creep there is.
Bro I'm so glad you changed your intro, it had a broken ear killing sound ever since I started watching your channel maaaan
ggwp
Nice vid too
You are a hero
If i could. I want to give you a 1000 likes. You've said exactly what I've said in gwent community website for months. They've not listened, but instead banned me.
If you look at gwent community website almost no one comments. Cause they know no devs read it. I hope your video gets them fired. And no.. i don't think I'm being harsh. I think we all know they've not been doing their job for months.
Reasons: They don't balance. They actually create anti balance. They react SLOW. Takes months for obvious nerfs. They don't listen to community. I think these are enough.
I'd like them to work on the experience of them game and not crazy cards that just numbs the mind. My pitch for convincing my friends to play is that its a strategic tactical game like chess, but recently thats not so
Awesome video, great points all around.
I was still playing hearthstone, runeterra and gwent 4 months ago. but i have totally stop playing gwent for the past 4 months. Unfortunately, because gwent release so little cards in each expansion, they simply need to power creep the cards so that people will fork out money to purchase them to keep playing meta games. And we all know that the biggest problem with card games, power creep. Every power creep pushes a whole chunk of cards into "unplayable" status. Hence in general power level increase over the years. i just feel that its unsustainable and that is why i have stop playing gwent.
I love gwent and I agree almost 80% of this video, thank u spyro. I hope CDPR takes notes from the community and the game we love.
I feel like Spyro just spoke for must of us. This video could benefit the game quite a lot, if CD still wants to keep the community for the long term coming.
15:50 Every swarm deck needs a card like Lonely Champion. Consumes tokens on order for clearing rows, but runs into tall punish
Absolutely true, i hope CDPR will do something with that, they should focus on Gwent more. I feel sometimes that they are kinda abandoning Gwent.
Some of the new cards in the latest card drop where so strong it already powercreeped a lot of the new scenarios
Absolutely agree. Playing for 2+ years I see these tendentions. And I'm upset.
Was an avid player starting at iOS release. Haven’t played since Golden Nekker and Aerondight because it homogenized nearly every deck in the game. Sucks to see that not much has changed-at least it’s not just the same neutrals in every deck but more faction-specific? Lol
the leader ability argument is very eye-opening!
I think we wouldn't even need more new content/cards if the patch notes would be longer on average. Monsters for example didn't receive anything this patch, but if CDPR would change at least 5 weak cards that already exist but are not designed well, it would be like a new card drop at this point, since we are never using them anyway.
I have an idea how to fix it. Cards like for example Cyrus should be assigned to leader ability.And then people won't be use him in "off the books" And Cdpr should do the same with other important golds. What do you think ?
Noticed they added way more golden cards in later expansions, my last 40k scrap was used to craft the latest two expansions :D. I did enjoy Gwent the most during the golden age before the winter update. I have been playing a little now and then, but it's hard to get back to the game. Will hit end of life next year, and maybe community can balance the cards to at least have a healthy and fun game.
I agree. I'm still pretty new to it and enjoy variety in the game, but it seems like I have to lean to certain cards to win a match.
"You can't have fun without balance". Couldn't agree more, neatly encapsulates the main problems with gwent in one sentence. I initially stopped paying for journeys, and have now stopped playing the game. The huge new cards like Renfri are just tedious. I hope the devs learn and are willing to admit their mistakes and change their ways, so I can come back to the game.
Yap, sadly as you I dedicated years to this game and I am astonished at how much this “polarization” of power is killing the fun. This game had the potential of giving life to real factions logics, synergies and spectacular combos. Devotion is still underway such as the rework of an enormous amount of 4/5 provision cost cards. The example that I always think about is Scout or the Caravan. Witchers are still waiting to find their own dimension, following a more detailed and accurate description of their real power as in the story. You are 100% right on the logics behind lack of content and card releases. The potential is big, but at the moment the game looks frustrating from many points of view.
i played gwent after a 1 month break and, for some reason, i tried NR witchers and i got some wins but generally got destroyed. However, i do think that this situation is much less of a problem on lower ranks. Still, a problem that I understand
Weirdly lower rank is the closest thing to original Gwent, as many many decks are viable
Great points and as an open beta player who quit a month after homegarbagecoming and with the recent news about cdpr pulling the plug on this trash I’m incredibly happy I didn’t waste my time on it. This only means that homegarbagecoming was eventually a failure, a failure they refused to Acknowledge for idk how long. The sad part is the actual better Gwent got to live for about a year max while this homegrabagecoming edition was on life support for 5 years. Truely sad for the open beta and pre garbagecoming edition of Gwent.
I 100% agree, the game is now a grind to complete seasons & journeys for me, I've loved this game for 4 years & now playing against yet another reaper deck or Renfri or both is dull, in extreme, I've given up trying to compete, just bare minimum seasons to complete daily's & Journey quests then back to draft; it needs proper change so any decent player can have a chance to win, not just cookie-cutter decks hoping for good draws.
I fully agree with you about Gwent. In-game must be more balance patches and expansions need to have more cards for all abilities or archetypes. For example, I played along in hearthstone and the good thing is that they had more balance patches for the game if someone's archetype is very weak or a very strong card is too strong for the meta (of course it's not perfect but at least is something). Maybe the next thing that the Gwent must also make is a division into standard and wild something like "Gwent archives" etc. Regarding power level (with my experience with hearthstone) they have the same problem. 30-40% of cards are playable, the rest is trash or maybe will play in the next expansions. I hope some people in cdpr will listen your opinion and have some cool ideas to make gwent great again :D :)
I think we need to fix the content that we got rather than add more stuff. Making more cards playable.
Thanks for speaking up. Playing for a year now and I think Gwent is only playable every two seasons at the moment. ONly playable after they nerfed the op cards from the expansions.
Я думаю, главная проблема гвинта сейчас в том, что разработчики гонятся в первую очередь за количеством и популярностью, выпуская раз в пол года - год безумное количество новых карт, и это при том, что 80% старых карт неиграбельны. Новые карты выходят поломанными, чтобы привлечь к себе внимание и чтобы ими играли, потом постепенно выходят патчи, исправляющие эти поломанные карты, и вот когда почти все новые карты более-менее исправили, выходит очередное дополнение с ещё 100+ новыми картами... и всё по новой... это замкнутый круг. При том, что 80% старых карт как были не играбельны, так ими и остаются.
На самом деле я вижу только одну более-менее адекватную стратегию по развитию игры - это концентрация в первую очередь на исправлении старых карт , а что касается новых, то их добавлять стоит очень точечно, буквально поштучно, внимательно и бережно следя за балансом, иначе, наваливая каждый раз новые карты камазами мы так ни к чему и не придём, всё будет по тому же сценарию, что и сейчас.
Spot on Spyro! Gwent becomes more and more a "What-cards-you-have-drawn-in-round-one-gamble". Because there are so much games you lose without final say or you are just lucky your opponent did't draw his cards. This has nothing to to with skill anymore
Thanks for addressing the topic Spyro, u explain it pretty well. Just one thing I disagree with u:
When u were talking bout Symbiosis weakness, the first one u said is "lack of controls". What confuse me is..
"..why WOULD we need a control, in this wholesome, engine + pointslams deck???"
By saying the deck need more controls, u r saying that this deck need to be more "Midrange"-y. But why, right? Why every deck need to be Midrange? And later u talk about in content drop that we need to put more focus on synergies rather than buff/nerf points.. thats I solely agree with u. Nature's rebuke is good enough for its own, that small control in this wholesome deck is expected. So, if u talk about synergies, that means we dont need more control in symbiosis, since we dont want it to be a Midrange deck (otherwise other ST could pick a small package from Symbiosis like u said). Meanwhile, the overswarm is a real thing for symbiosis, so a way to clear board space is absolutely needed (hence u talk about throwing suicidal treant to opponent board, which is kinda good, but it could clog opponent board, so we need to be careful, but if u said it could damage and "suicide", that would be broken too (hence u said its not a well thought plan)).
The fact that the only "Developer" in the team is Jean only.. its not surprising that the balancing feels pretty weak! They didnt heard enough from us, the player! 😓
Man I wish I could use Draig bon dhu one of my favorite character as a musician😞 so many dead cards.
Great vid, could not agree more with your points. I also think they need to be faster and more agressive with nerfs
Please, forgive me this comment, but you're looking quite dashing lately. Well done.
why ru gae?
@@bittersteel7922 Why aren't YOU gae? Spyro's right here, looking like THIS...
as a new player in gwent still... i agree with your points but power creep is a problem but resources seems like a problem for me also but keep it up the great content
You are right. Devs need to adress this otherwise they Will kill the Game and The they Will wonder why nobody wants to play anymore.
very strong points, but what is better i wonder, buffing 80 % of the unused cards or nerfing the top 20 %? i would like to say buffing the 80 %
Nerfing 20% of the cards is much easier tho. Just rework some of the completely unfunctional garbage from the bottom, the middle-ground cards should be automaticaly much better after the top is weaker. Changing 80% of the cards is not a good idea, it will be a mess
@@LuzikArbuzik77 facts, balancing 20% of cards seems impossible for this pea brained dev team, if you make them rebalance 80% the company might implode
The thing about Symbiosis, Pond Keeper would actually be better if it destroyed the Wandering Treant rather than reset it. I'd actually consider putting Offering of all thing into the deck just to destroy the Wandering Treants left by pond keeper or whatever to create some board space and actually do something - of course, this would be pretty terrible still and Devotion also rules this out. But, some effects that use Wandering Treants as resources would absolutely be awesome. Even if it's not used for control - or maybe if it is control, there could be a some condition.
I believe, the best idea would be to treat Wandering Treants as their own coin pouches, and have other cards interact with them in certain ways. Let's say, a card would have a condition, a new keyword with a value, and it could target a Wandering Treant, destroying it, to then trigger some effect described on the card if the Wandering Treant had at lest that much power. Basically, the opposite of Symbiosis. While that is the generator, this new keyword would be the spender. If you take Syndicate Coins for comparison, Symbiosis would correspond to Profit (while not on Deploy ofc) and this new keyword could act like a Fee or Tribute (whether it's tied to Deploy and/or Order). You could do all sorts of things with this, and you could also balance each card to itself, so you won't necessarily have to pin yourself into the corner by tying the same effect and thus value to each Wandering Treant.
Another banger of a video that is absolutely spot on.
I stopped playing the game right after Price of Power was released. I knew it was wrong for CDPR to switch their expansion format for exactly these reasons. I was fine getting 40ish cards every 6 months with so much variety and different power levels available in comparison to 4 cards per faction every 3 months that are just insanely busted.
The Master Mirror expansion did a great job of introducing a wide variety of cards that could blend into different archetypes with new keywords and abilities. It kept in line with Gwent's unique row/round point system while also maintaining simplicity that used to be at Gwent's core. It wasn't a very difficult game to understand or pick up; I feel that's changed now with the way CDPR is reworking old cards and printing new ones.
I tried scrolling through the deckbuilder a couple of weeks ago for the first time in over a year, and I have no idea where to start now. The paragraphs of convoluted abilities on some of these newer and more recently reworked cards is just insane. Reading through Renfri's abilities is just a mindfuck. What the hell was going on there? It's impossible to keep track of at this point. I miss the simpler times of keeping track of passive engines, movement, melee-to-ranged priority etc. The game just looks so unappealing to attempt to learn again.
It's really sad, I put ~500 hours into the game on mobile and PC, and felt good investing a couple hundred bucks over my 2 years of playing. Now I just have no spark or interest in seeing what Gwent has to offer anymore.
Thank you for the video!, sure does open your eyes about how broken the game is, it's impossible to create your own deck or be original in the game, just wound not be viable hope CDPR watch this and actually listen to the community for once hopefully changes will happen.
Hey i started gwent today and i win 50/50 in standard prolly more with starter decks. Just some information for you, i didn't realize how amazing this game was and to hear this makes me sad cause i've just picked it up. To be honest I believe the game needs some marketing or something cause I was afraid to pick up after infinity wars, duelyst, heroes might and magic card game, battleforge, the endless amount of f2p shutdowns just makes it hard to pick up for someone like me.
Hey, I'm playing this game as much as you played, I've started the game when closed beta, but because of that time the game was really complicated, I really started the game when open beta releases.
I'm seeing same topic about Gwent over and over again, the situation of the game becomes like the Midwinter Update times, which is death for old Gwent.
I'm not a competitive player, I play the card games because of fun. They're the new way to play games like chess I think, we can't compare them for sure but this is the most similar to them I think. This is why I want to play Gwent in new ways, I want to play Deathwish deck, I want to play Harmony Deck, maybe I want to play Self-Harm deck. In this meta, you can't. You have to play the decks which CDPR wants us to play, because of the hidden nerfs like to be said. They're creating some cards which is insanely powerful then others, this is why you can't play the other cards. For example, when we have the Scoia'tael's old ressurect a spell leader ability, Harmony was insane while the girls was 3 points. Right now you can make the same interaction like before with Francesca, even for the girls are 5 points, they're weak. They didn't nerfed that card, instead they buffed but it's unplayable.
The game needs a total balance patch, not only for meta cards nerf, the whole set needs to be fixed. They did this before, and that time game was good, except scenerios but at least they did something. The game is at least playable because of that balance patch. That time was increasing the 4-prov cards to 6-7 power, old ones not close as it is.
Actually, my opinion about the Gwent is, they're not getting enough money from Gwent. Also, because of the disaster of CP77 and announcements of many games, they shifted the Gwent team to other projects, I'm not sure how many people really focusing the Gwent, if you ask me, no one. We should've seen this when last year's roadmap is announced. Only the times when Gwent needs an update, team looking for the game when they have time, we can't explain this bad changes with anything except this one. Next year also will be the same if you ask me, we will get very limited new cards and same things over and over again.
I'm also thinking they might close or stop active development on Gwent after Iwinski's retirement from CEO position, he was supporting the game, you'll remember he wrote a message all the players for project homecoming. If you read this, you can see his passion for the Gwent.
I'm not sure about the future of the Gwent but probably game is not in a good condition, and if they don't anything, for a realistic perspective they can't because of the other projects, anything can happen for Gwent in future. If they find an easy solution to fix the game, for example, restrictions some cards for leader abilities or giving some extra card buffs for that leaders, game can live some, but I can't say any good thing for future for Gwent if any miracle happens.
I have played gwent for years, I left the game and came back dozens of time. Even I am not a very high rank high skilled player, everything you said made lots of sense. I have always sensed a problem when I looked at meta decks (Like including soldiers ramon package inside a Ball deck back in the day). CDPR should hire people like you or at least consult.
i would like a card like the Lonely Champion in st for the treant board space issue
I wish they'd just take time to rework a lot of the dead cards to make them competitive.
Doing more old card reworks would help a lot. I really wouldn't mind if they just updates cards in some patches and haven't actually released anything new new. Of course, there would be nothing to sell then, so there might be an issue there.. but I guess if they can figure out a way to also create some revenue with a solely update/rework patch like this, that'd be great for the game. Maybe more easy to make but sought after cosmetics that are themed to some of the reworked cards their supported archetype?
This needs to get to Jean and Burza ASAP
I hope this game doesn't die as it's by far the best card game I have ever played with those beautiful artworks and premiums but with these imbalances the hope for success gradually withers so please CDPR address this
Amen. True to the last word
Once cdpr released renfri ive lost interest. It was a desperate move which will be hard to undo. Completely undermines the value and integration of the leader ability, which should be a fundamental part of the game and deck building.
what an analysis spyro! great content man. more of this
I really think the biggest problem with gwent are the neutral cards, they just need to be nerfed like a whole, and devotion needs to be buffed to the sky, in every single faction
They need to eliminate most of the tutor cards as well as the cards (especially neutral cards) that enable you to either duplicate or replay cards. With things as they are it makes most people make decks that revolve around 2-3 round winning gold cards and the tutors/deck thinners needed to ensure you get those cards in hand. Then you add in all the duplicating cards to make a million copies of the 2-3 bronze cards that crank out points. I play monsters and every time i try to build a deck i have to ignore the fact that my deck would be 20x stronger if i used AQ, Caranthir, and witches' sabbath etc to make a bunch of copies of the one card I'm trying to build around. It's out of hand.
I played the game since the release of crimson curse until after golden necker was released (pro rank was my standard), and it makes me really sad that the game lost all of the fun it had. Having to squeeze points and play your cards better was the thing making the game fun and special. The provison system was a blessing for the game. Now I am afraid only a big reset can make the game fun again, and I lost all hope that it will ever happen. I logged in for 3 games last patch, and even thou I would really like to enjoy the game it's impossible with the very things said in this video. It also feels like CDPR just lost interest in Gwent, hope I'm wrong, but my hopes for the game to become good again are gone
sincerly i had the same feeling and tried multiple times to give the game and devs a chance but every new expansion there was this BS every time... a big chunk of cool mechanics is worthless because the devs try to introduce new cards.... for few new cards a pretty big number of cards are simple not competitive.
Every update is nerfing one faction and buffing another. It's frustrating. I'm playing Snap for the time being. New patch has lost all my interest