Staff member

[Dominika]

Watch the official gameplay trailer for a brand new tale set in the brutal and twisted universe of witcher Geralt of Rivia!

Pre-orders of the game are live on witchertales.com!

Thronebreaker is a single player role-playing game set in the world of The Witcher that combines narrative-driven exploration with unique puzzles and card battle mechanics. The game spins a truly regal tale of Meve, a war-veteran queen of two Northern Realms — Lyria and Rivia. Facing an imminent Nilfgaardian invasion, Meve is forced to once again enter the warpath, and set out on a dark journey of destruction and revenge.

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales will release on October 23rd on PC via GOG.COM. A console release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will follow on December 4th. Make sure to visit game's official website to find additional information about the setting, characters, and gameplay!

 

[Dominika]

Dear GWENT players,

Open #7 is now concluded. With it, all of the GWENT Masters events we have planned for this year. As we’re approaching the launch of GWENT: The Witcher Card Game, big changes are on the horizon for GWENT Masters. In this post, we’d like to touch upon some of them. Interested? Read on!

The Future of Pro Ladder

Pro Ladder was designed to promote versatility and faction diversity at the top level of play. Since its introduction in 2017, it was a connecting link between the best Ranked players and professional gamers. With the conclusion of GWENT Masters events for this year, we decided to modify some of the aspects of Pro Ladder. These community-suggested modifications include a changed number of matches required to rise to the top, as well as address situations where a player would reach rank 21, qualifying for the next season of Pro Ladder, yet still had to wait another month before joining it.

Starting October 23rd, as soon as the Homecoming update goes live, Pro Ladder as we know it will cease to exist. It will be replaced by “Pro Rank” — the pinnacle of new Ranked in GWENT. Matchmaking in Pro Rank will still be based on fMRR and, just as before, players will need to perform well with multiple factions. However, the number of “placement” matches was significantly decreased — instead of completing 100 matches per faction to unlock 100% fMMR, players will just need to play 40 matches with each faction.

This change goes hand in hand with the decreased length of Pro season. The new system is synchronized with Ranked, with Pro Rank being its natural extension, so each season will last for 1 month and reset at the end. The top 500 Pro Rank players will retain their top positions, while other players will be demoted by one rank, but will still be able to climb back next season and join the race immediately. That’s right! Players reaching the top Rank during a season in progress will now able to play Pro Rank immediately (with their fMMR set at the default value of 2400).

Another positive effect of these changes is the fact that all Ranked players will be eligible for seasonal rewards, meaning pros will no longer have to balance different game modes.

Crown Points for top 200 Pro Rank placements will be distributed monthly, and end-season values will be adjusted accordingly. For the purpose of qualifying for GWENT Masters, tournament cumulative CP scores of 2 (for Opens) and 4 (for Challengers) seasons will be used.

Schedule

Pro Rank becomes active immediately after the Homecoming update goes live. All GOG players eligible to play in Pro Ladder will be automatically transferred to Pro Rank on October 23rd. However, until all eligible PS4/Xbox One players join Pro Rank on December 4th, playing Pro Rank in October and November won’t get players any Crown Points. Cut-offs won’t be applied at the end of seasons before the beginning of the December season.

Starting December 4th, GWENT Masters will make its big return. Based on cumulative performance in 2 seasons prior to the tournament, top players will qualify for Open #8 and Open Online qualifier tournament. The first Open tournament after the off-season break will take place in March 2019. It will be followed by Challenger #5 and the grand finale of the inaugural season of the series — World Masters — later the same year!

We’re excited to bring these changes to competitive GWENT and sincerely hope that a new system will be more rewarding for existing pros, and give aspiring players more incentives to get to the top. Please let us know what you think about the new format and ask any questions you may have!

Sincerely yours,

GWENT Masters Team

 

[Dominika]

Tune in to our Twitch channel today at 7PM CEST for a live stream with Paweł Burza and Jason Slama (Director of Live Operations) – we'll be talking about GWENT's new rank and progression system!

 

[Burza46]

Hi Pawel.

I can imagine you guys really worked/working hard on HC and you guys definitely deserve a break. With that in mind I have one question. With the full release of HC (including consoles) can we expect regular updates to the game like in the old days of Gwent?

Yes, we'll go back to doing updates and balance tweaks

 

[Burza46]

Dear Burza,

HC artworks are fantastic but Gwent should be a card game first, so I think maybe the UI should make important information (especially the status) more clear:

1) will the current lock status effect be back when HC is online?
The lock and chains looks cool and iconic. The lock icon in PTR is too small.

2) will immune status get more conspicuous?
For example, you may use the Quen shield effect to indicated “this one is untouchable”.

3) will the power numbers on the right be larger?

4) will the end turn button be remade?
The face on that coin is meaningless. It's also too small and hard to distinguish who is playing.

5) will units with raw abilities get special icons for quick reference?

We're not planning major changes to UI, sorry!

 

[Burza46]

Quickie: Will Korean audio be ready on release?

That's the plan!

 

[Burza46]

Hi Burza !

HC is gonna be amazing, thank you and the team for the hard work !

I'll just have two little questions for you:
- Can we expect avatar + border to make it into the battlefield someday, even without emotes ? It's been our only cosmetics since the beginning and it'd feel nice to be able to show them again for more than a second.
- Can we expect something spooky for Halloween ? Or for later this year ?

Thank you and good day !

Both are a no for now

 

[Burza46]

Hi Burza!

I know everybody at CDPR are focusing now to the HC and TR launch. I am so hyped too!
I am one of admin from Hungarian Gwent site, and I am a curious man. Can you tell us, what will be the next big update after HC?
Maybe a new faction, or vampires?
Good luck for your work and greetings from Budapest!

To soon to say, our main focus right now is on HC and TB

 

[Burza46]

hi there! i have some more questions !
1) i saw pictures with blood on screen taken in game and pictures of the same scene without blood. is the game gone trough some censorship process?
2) will there be any dlc, paid or free for thronebraker?

3) regarding converstaion between cards (characters) i saw on your earlier comment here that this feature will not be present at homecoming launch. but will it be added eventaully or the team decided to scrap the idea?
4) when will we be able to get our hands on the shupe doll?

5) i know you have alredy answerd this, but gwent is still rate pegi 12 and t esrb as well as thronebreaker. is this truly final rating?

1) Not that I know of
2) Nope
3) Not planned for now
4) Merch will come, just need a bit more time

 

[Burza46]

Dear Burza,
I saw your first ever narration and it was awesome to see 37 mins of gameplay and especially the last conversation about 'Bounds Of Reason's! I have some valid questions and concerns, please try to reply:

1) In which difficulty you played the game?
2) All the battles seemed very easy with the kind of cards you had and Mulligan's you had. How does the difficulty setting affect the battles? Experience we get? Loot we get? Improved AI in battles? Less Mulligan's/provision in battle?
3) Will there be any choice that will be equally good or equally bad? The choices we saw in the videos were all very easy. Give gold for the villagers, Help the Knight, Take Skellige help.. all were kind of obvious choices we will take. I am asking about choices like Ally with X or Ally with Y and each will have its own permenant impact in future battles. Things like that.

Thanks in advance for your reply Bruza.

Have a great day!!

1. I was playing the old build journalists played on so it only had the two difficulties, I was on story mode.
2. Improved AI and tweaked power of cards
3. Oh yes, I just didn't want to spoil anything

 

[Burza46]

Hello Pawel!

Will it be a PS4 ladder only? No PC players. I play on PS4 and PC, but I think that PC players have an advantage. Therefore, I want to play separately.

The PS4 ladder is part of the global ladder only, sorry.

 

[Burza46]

Will strengthen/weakening return in a future expansion or is the concept completely scraped?
Can we get a new hint about the faction that has been in the making?

Nothing I can share regarding both at this time, sorry!

 

[Burza46]

Do we see some special arena mode before HC? Like all golds? You plan some special arena Mode with HC realse?

Not planned, we're in full production mode trying to make it on time

 

[Burza46]

I know it's too early to ask but will Homecoming support 4K on consoles ?

Still to early to confirm

 

[Burza46]

Ahoy Burza,
Can we expect a pre-download for Thronebreake.Although 15 is not much.
Ty for your answer.

Not planned

 

[Burza46]

Hi again,

Hope you have a nice Monday morning, when you read this.
Let me try to ask my question from last week again, as it seems first time it was a confusing mess.

What do you think of the random aspect of the new Reveal mechanic?

A significant part of the community doesn't seem to like it and think that it doesn't really fit of what was communicated about randomness in Homecoming announcement.
I think it would help a great deal if you could share your and card design team's perspective on this as it seems that either your vision about randomness or the Reveal mechanic itself is misunderstood. Most people understand that some kind of randomness is good for the game, question really is whether you think Reveal is such a "good kind of randomness" and if yes why?

Wish you and the team all the best!

Once again I feel it's totally fine and I don't see a large community outcry regarding the new reveal mechanic.

 

[Burza46]

Hello Pawel!
You said that there will be a video about the new ranking system and player progression. Do you still plan to record it? If yes, when should we expect it?

Expect a stream regarding that

 

[Burza46]

Any HC stream during gwent opens?
Any chance we will get some pros playing HC during the open?

Nope and nope, as you probably saw

 

[Burza46]

Will you change order abilities with multiple charges so that you lose "focus" after 1 order. For example when i use foltest to give zeal to ballista i need to right-click to deselect Foltest and then click on the ballista and it's feel clunky.

That works better now

 

[Dominika]

Make sure to send us your creations by Friday, 12 PM (noon) CEST – awesome prizes from CDPROJEKTRED and Wacom are waiting for the winners! 🎁

thewitcher.com/contest