So, Gwent. My first experience of the game was in The Witcher 3 and it was a fantastic game within a game that was a refreshing change from the bland dice poker of the previous two games. I was excited to hear that they were making a standalone version and joined the Closed Beta. The premise was similar to original Gwent but extra cards and effects etc had increased its depth and levels of strategy. When the Open Beta came out I stopped playing, partly because initially I didn't like the changes they'd brought in. After a few months I decided to give it a try and realised that the changes made in no way detracted from the game, some of them improved it further and it was still brilliant. I liked the new ranked mode and seasons and I was steadily building a collection of cards with a number of different decks with one standout highly competitive deck that I used for ranked play. When I originally read the post on Homecoming, I was worried. I couldn't see why they wanted to make any of the changes that they were talking about, and now that it's been released by views are only further confirmed. My main issues with the game are: They said they wanted the game to feel like an epic battle. I never wanted this, it was always brilliant as a simulated tabletop card game. The game is simplified both by reducing the number of rows and dulling down card effects. Games are much slower (manual end turn is so annoying). The end of beta rewards were ridiculous, I can probably get every card available now. Max 10 cards in hand is incredibly annoying. Provisions system makes deck building a grind. Tutorial is a pointless time sink. Lack of mulligans in later rounds means you're stuck with whatever you've got. Having to actively use cards which worked passively before (like Yennefer) seems entirely unnecessary. Massive point swings seem to have disappeared, its now a slow attrition of your opponents points. And in the end they've done this just to push Thronebreaker.
