I'm playing Gwent since Opened Beta and was a witness of it's both ups and downs. I really enjoyed it in Opened Beta and was afraid that the launch after 6 years of Homecoming preparation will be too fast or too much game-changing. In fact, I cannot imagine going back to then!
It's clearly seen that CDPR works really hard to keep the game balanced and patched. Right now, after the last patch, the game is really diverse and strategic, with bigger player's agency than before. My only complaint right now is lack of my time to play ;)
Find myself becoming frustrated by game mechanics, limited pve mode, and challenge curve of available computer components. While the concept seems interesting the playing of the game seems like an uninspred mess.
I was beta testing this game for 2 years. Final version that came live is very different game.
They've added ton of features that does nothing for complexity of the game. Game is slow, tedious and solution for that are animations so fast, you can barely tell what is going on when special card is played. Gold limit got removed and now all the strategy you need is to draw full hand of gold cards in Round 3. In Beta Gwent there was insane ammount of synergies between the cards, and bronze cards mattered. Now bronze cards are garbage you throw away in Round 1, and only reason you adding them to the deck is provision system that forces you to fit into specific points limit.
Every time when there's new expansion I'm giving new Gwent a chance, and I'm edning up uninstalling it after few games becouse my jaw hurts from all the yawns.
2 stars just for the art and Witcher universe. This is awful game.
This is, obviously, my personal opinion.
Homecoming was the worst thing for Gwent. Nobody asked for it. Literally. All of the feedback was always about balancing, make the game more interesting etc. Gwent was an idea, a suggestion from The Witcher gamers that liked the in-game Gwent concept. The board game. The looks of it, the feels of it. Homecoming changed everything that people playing Gwent liked.
There was a time before Gwent when the game was bacoming more and more popular because anything was possible. Because visually it was easy to understand and play and aesthetically appealing. Homecoming brought thins no one asked for and on top of that the gameplay is visually confusing. No matter how many QoL you do for HC, it'll never get better to a standard appealling for the masses. The mechanics of HC are also too complicated, unnecessarily complex and the more they add the worst it feels.
I would start playing the game again only if they would release the before HC version. As is, the game is predictable and boring as hell for me. HC made it uninteresting and visually ugly. Remember that before HC people were swarming in, there was something there. HC made the majority of people leave and you still didn't get it. Why?! Aknowledge your mistakes if you wanna get better. Simple.
_(1).gif)
