Hearthpwn

registered for the closed beta key , still waiting

i played witcher 3 (probably my favourite game of all time ) ( also enjoyed 1 and 2 aloot)

the main game was actually overshadowed by the mini card game they introduced in it GWENT , i actually ignored the main quests and went finishing all the other quests that reward gwent cards

was so happy that the expansion added new gwent cards and a new faction to play, even happier when they announced at e3 they are making it into a full fledged card game standalone

i've seen the videos and was blown away by the art and animation and the style of the game, any one tried it ? how good is it ?

i know it so much diffrent from hs and es legends since there's no minion compat and such , really looking forward to get into the closed beta

please share your experiences with the game (the standalone or even the mini version inside witcher 3)

Hmm just signed up for the beta too, looks really nice. 

Quote from rrReyn >>

Well, the worst thing about Gwent is overall quality of the game. It looks cheap and it's not fun to play after an hour. Monsters faction is stupidly random, other factions are kinda fun. Balance of cards is questionable, so we have cards with almost infinite potential, and we have cards that gives you strictly +7. Why the hell i would even use this last one? Gona give the game a second chance in a few months though

I got my beta key and tried it today - probably will play it for some time. From my point of view HS is going nowhere, I really enjoyed Gwent much more then I did  at several last weeks in Hearthstone.

Obtaining collection could be not very fast, but still faster then in HS - Legendary card costs 800 dust and Epics only 200. And you always get something after the match - I don't know about daily limits (like 100g in HS) - may be I just didn't reach them yet.

And game is pretty relaxing. May be it's because it's something fresh and the game doesn't decided by who drew Patches and who drew Reno. So some thinking involved and I like it.

And it's easier then TES:L imo. But I'm on low ranks, so probably later it should be more difficult.

Is it the same card set from The Witcher?  I loved it in the game, but whoever drew the most spies and golden cards pretty much always won.

Quote from EdGreyfox >>

Is it the same card set from The Witcher?  I loved it in the game, but whoever drew the most spies and golden cards pretty much always won.

Quote from DMaster2 >>

The game is kind of fun, it's actually nice to have to manage resources to win 2 rounds out of 3. You can still win even if you give up round 1, if you manage your resources (cards) well enough.

What i don't like much (balancing aside but it's still closed beta so...) is that gold cards really push you over the edge. They are basically invulnerable to anything your opponent may do (i've not checked all the cards available but i've yet to see a card affecting gold cards). One game i've lost despite getting a few 2-per-1 because he played ciri (hate her) in round 2 (after winning the first) and geralt round 3. I only have 1 gold card (geralt you get for free in your starter deck) and didn't drawed him. So yeah...

I have played it more and I have to say it's really awesome! There is my thought about the game in comparison with Hearthstone.

Good

1. Daily Rewards System. No stupid quests!

In Gwent you have 4 tiers for daily rewards. Winning 3 games will give you like half of maximum obtainable rewards amount, winning 6 will give you like 75%. The more you play the less you get, but it's great for casual players who want to stay competitive, but not able to play a lot. And that rewards are very generous! For full 4 tiers completed you'll get 250 gold + 12 random rewards (which could be in 40% of the cases 15 gold, 40% - 15 dust, 20% - random card). And unlimited bonus gold/dust for GG rewards. Simply amazing! And you don't need to waste a ton of your time for playing 75 murlocs because you're too greedy to reroll that 100-gold quest. FeelsGoodMan

2. Pack opening system.

In Gwent your pack contains of 5 cards, same as in Hearthstone. First 4 are completely random, fifth card are guaranterely rare at least and you're able to choose it from 3 options! No more infamous Hearthstone anger when you're opening 3 Patient Assasins and Zero Preps!

3. Card balance / Deck balance / Diverse meta

Cards in Gwent are cool. They are useful. There is no situation when 75% of cards are simply unplayable due to low power level. In my first days I saw almost every Legendary card to be played against me. There are no Millhouse of The Beast-like cards in Gwent, everything is usable. There is pretty interesting system of cards being Golden, Silver and Bronze (btw, Golden doesn't mean animated, animated cards are called Premium) which corresponds power level of cards. And you can have only 4 Golden and 6 Silver cards in your deck and max-1 each. It leads to very diverse meta with a lot of options and tech choices. And everyone has a chance, there are a lot of easy available Goldens/Silvers, no more frustration when you just started to play and your opponent played Dr. Boom and you doesn't even have dust for BGH yet. Very cool.

4. Interactive gameplay. Bluff as an option. Strategical depth.

Yes, it's fun and interactive boys, finally! Due to less tempo-driven mechanic there are a lot of options in playing your hand. In Hearthstone if your opponent plays 7/7 you have to Hex it immediately. Because otherwise it's bad for your face. In Gwent you can pretend not having removal, allow opponent to buff it a lot and then make him cry. But sometimes you can be too greedy and he could play some sort of removal-protection, and you will cry. And it's always question of balance. You have to play as less as you can to win the round and force opponent to play as much as you can to force him to spend all resources too early. Very interesting and sometimes really deep. Reading your opponent is much more important skill then in HS as well. That's fantastic!

5. More skill-oriented.

There are no 'summon/convert to random X-mana minion' keyword in Gwent. Your lucky opponent will not able to Devolve whole your board and roll Doomsayer. There are still random effects, but they are better controllable and much less powerful then in Hearthstone. For competitive gameplay it's essential.

6. ELO ladder with public leaderboard.

The technology was there all the time! The developers were able to find place for this list, because they are not fixed on obsession of box-like UI. For every competitive player it's so great! And ELO is good too, why not? And it's public, open ELO, which in Hearthstone is unavailable to see even in Legend ladder. Great.

7. Friendly community / GG system

Players are really calm. Everyone is sending GG after match and gives you randomly 5 gold or 5 dust with it. Daily rewards are based on rounds won rather then games, and even losing you feel like you earn something and the game was close. And due to nature of the game winning one round is possible against any deck if you throw all your resources in. It's not very smart, but still. It's never hopeless I want to say. Even if you got 0-2ed, there is GG reward, nothing to complain. In comparison with Hearthstone salt/rage/anger... no, it's not even comparable.

8. Visual appearance

Art, visual style, sounds, music - everything is pretty good. No flashy effects or interactive boards... but it's gameplay focused after all. And turn time is lesser. There is no time to click boots and so on, you focus on the board state.

Bad

1. Network code is somewhat not polished

No reconnect feature yet. Sometimes you or your opponent could be dropped at match start due to server connectivity issues. Nothing critical, and it's only closed beta yet.

2. UI is not very good

UI is console-oriented. There are no last actions list for example, like in Hearthstone. You are unable to see buffs applied to minion, that's also very bad and need to be fixed. Second problem is that cards sometimes lagging on play, some sort of graphical performance lag it seems. But in Hearthstone they are still unable to fix rearranging cards issue which lost me several games!

Overall

10/10 Great. Absolutely amazing! Fresh, deep, player-friendly. Already more then 50k players in closed beta. I only could recommend to everyone start looking for key giveaway right now.

For me the game is really excelent. Main things I like are: good balance, insanse graphics, high impact of strategy, good reward and card packs opening. You gotta try it ! And another thing is that HS will rival with Gwent so players will come out the best.

It's a very very good game. It isn't all that random, as someone stated above, you just need to be VERY careful in deckbuilding, which is great in itself, since you get rewarded for careful thinking and skillful choices. 

Generally you have limits for silver and gold cards, most of the cards have cool effects that promote macro strategies (for example in Monsters - you have a lot of cards that pull other copies from your deck, so mulligan choices are key). You have event cards (sort of spells) like weather, aoe dmg.

There is no trading between minions, hero power can be used only once (unless you use a specific card). All in all it's both faster and more tactical than Hearthstone. Plus, getting packs (kegs) is much faster. Getting 2-3 in one day doesn't require hard grinding. If you click "send good game" after a match, your opponent gets some small rewards, so everyone is doing it (some gold, some scraps - Gwent's dust equivalent).

It does feel hard when facing refined decks, but after you open enough kegs you can make really cool decks. I have one Northern Realms deck with two silver cards that either pull ordinary bronze minions (Ves), or spawn tokens (Margaritta Laux-Antille) when gold cards are being played, and a weather-based Monsters deck.

Definitely you should try it our, as it's something new. Also, it feels almost completely different from HS, so you'll need a brief adaptation process ;)

wow, thanks for the detailed review man, i played it to death in the witcher 3 so i know it's going to be at least above average, but after hearing this and some stuff on gwent/reddit i was pleasntly surprised, and it looks like even in closed beta the game has the third most playerbase in online ccg market. (behined shadowverse and hearhstone)

Gwent rule#1 who collect solitare first - gets auto win EleGiggle

I got a beta key today, and I like what I have seen of Gwent so far! I have a lot to learn about the game, and I hope it's a keeper long term

Like I said before, the more I play Gwent the more I like it! Also, I see threads about how the netdecks are an issue already lol. Different game same issue as HS it seems ;)

That or people love to bitch to bitch. They are saying the same decks are showing up over, and over again. Oh well, at least I enjoy playing Gwent :)

Quote from Shissan >>

Like I said before, the more I play Gwent the more I like it! Also, I see threads about how the netdecks are an issue already lol. Different game same issue as HS it seems ;)

That or people love to bitch to bitch. They are saying the same decks are showing up over, and over again. Oh well, at least I enjoy playing Gwent :)

after playing like 2 hours and a half i can say this game is pretty boring 

I only see people with poker addiction can love this game it doesn't feel anything behind it a them a world nothing unlike hearthstone,shadowverse etc..

Quote from EdGreyfox >>

Is it the same card set from The Witcher?  I loved it in the game, but whoever drew the most spies and golden cards pretty much always won.

How will they expand their cardpool? Seems like a game that's very limited by lore.