2023 and GWENTfinity Part 1

[RyanSchou]

Hey everyone!


As 2022 comes to an end, we want to give our community as much knowledge about our future plans as possible. This will be a long article recapping our roadmap video, which you can watch below. In the near future, we will release another article, which will deliver a more detailed look at our planned community balancing system.
What happened in 2022:

• 4 card drops adding 86 new cards to the game
• All 8 Journeys re-released in the eternal format
• 88 reworks of old cards
• Around 30 different “game strategies” were targeted (Multigang SY decks, Selfwound and NR Knights are examples of such strategies)
• A new mechanic allowing us to further increase interactions - infusion
• We’ve introduced a sink for excess scraps in the form of a fast travel purchase option in Journeys as well as added the converter of Reward Points to other resources. There are more things on the way.
• As always, we had a bunch of fun seasonal events, including some new additions such as Shupe’s-themed one in September.
• This year seasonal modes got some love with unpopular or “solved” modes being rotated out, while a few brand new ones were added. A special mention here deserves “Trial by fire” - a seasonal mode in which players could play new cards without owning them.
• GWENT Masters S4 is in the books with a total number of 17 official events organized by CDPR, including the qualifiers done with the great help of our great community partners from Claymore and ESC Gaming.
• We were happy to share great conversations with our beloved community members at the CDPR 20th anniversary party in Warsaw and its follow-up in Lucca.

What did not happen in 2022:
Premium tokens. The truth is we were unable to move forward with our initial plan to premify every token in game and release them all as one happy package. Whenever we're facing the choice between making new premium cards or premifiying existing tokens, we are opting in for new cards. With no real progress on this topic in 2022, we’ve decided to wrap up the tokens that were ready or almost ready to be released and make them available ASAP. It means that over 20 previously static tokens will become premium in the few next upcoming patches, but we can’t really commit to premifying all of them.

Draft rework. It’s quite obvious that Draft mode got stuck in the past with packages no longer relevant after the reworks and we’re not happy with its current state. With the way the current iteration of Draft was developed, it’s extremely inefficient to keep it the same way it is and just try to keep up with the updates. Therefore, our design team put an effort to rework it significantly and solve some gameplay issues along with the maintenance issues. Even though we managed to create a working prototype of a new draft system, putting these final new design concepts into the game is not a simple and quick task. With the understanding that the most popular game mode (constructed ranked) should be our major focus, as of now, Draft isn’t fitting into our development plans for 2023. With that being said, we’re not abandoning the hope to finish other features earlier to be able to come back to draft, but this chance isn’t huge.

All archetypes are valid. While quite a lot of old archetypes and game strategies got a new life in 2022, it’s worth noting that we still see room for improving some of the existing archetypes including those that weren’t touched at all yet or those that didn’t get where we wanted them to be despite receiving some support earlier. Therefore, our work on this goal will be continued in full force in 2023 and we’re aspiring to completely finish this process by the end of the year.
What are our plans for 2023?

• We’re aiming to release a total of 72 cards between 3 card drops.

The period between the last drop to be released between 11.9 and the end of the year is reserved for the balancing and various “final touches” aimed at ensuring that new cards' impact on the meta is aligned with our ongoing mission of bringing more variety to GWENT.

• We will continue to provide monthly updates including balance changes.

Through targeted balance changes we will continue to manage the gap between the top competitive decks in each faction and its competitors, but our main efforts still will be aimed at expanding the pool of viable strategies.

• We are planning 2 major competitive events next year.

GWENT Masters will go into its last competitive season - Season 5 in 2023. The competitive structure will be changed to have a Mid-Season tournament and the World Masters (+qualifiers). For now, we’re only announcing the quantity and timing of these events, but in the upcoming weeks before the start of the new competitive season, we’d like to involve the top pro players in a discussion about the details of the format to agree on the best solutions.
What are our plans for 2024 and beyond?
Cards

There will be a significant change in the way we’re operating the game starting from the beginning of 2024: After releasing the last drop of new cards in 2023, we do not plan to add any more cards to GWENT. Big change, obviously, but it’s important to look at it in the grand scheme of things.

1. With the cards added to the game in 2023, we plan to complete the card pool with every idea/mechanic or archetype that we wanted to see in GWENT.
2. We don’t resign from updating the game in 2024, on the contrary - we want to do something special here and give power to the people. We will let you - the GWENT community - directly decide what balance changes are needed every month. We already started working on the feature that will allow players to vote for the desired changes in-game and thus steer the meta in the direction favored by the majority. While this functionality can’t be as robust as the tools available to the developers, we strongly believe it will have a positive impact on keeping the game fresh.
3. Obviously, only balance changes won’t be enough to keep things interesting for active players. That’s why we are also developing a new progression system that will encourage players to experiment more with their decks throughout the seasons to unlock special rewards and achievements. We see this system as a softer alternative to rotation which allows players to have their card collection always usable, but rewards following some deckbuilding restrictions to spice things up and get more goodies.

Events

We don’t plan to have CDPR-organized events after 2023, but we hope that it won’t be the end of the competition and players will be organizing tournaments of various sizes and formats on their own like it happens for many old multiplayer games already. Our tournament platform will continue to be available.

GWENTfinity

We call this set of initiatives aimed at ensuring that the game can exist without our active input - project GWENTfinity. The name reflects our intention to allow players to enjoy this game for years from now. We believe that it is the most player-focused solution to empower the community this way.

Still, in order to make GWENTfinity work, we need support from GWENT’s true fans. None of this will make sense without players who want to continue their GWENT journey and are willing to make the game better. I know that we do have such players and GWENTfinity is made with you in mind.

We’re making this announcement about our long-term plans now, because it’s the right thing to do and because we believe in transparent and honest communication. We came a long way together. There were ups and downs. We made memories, we saw friendships being forged, and even marriages being made over the years. You deserve to know what the future holds for our favorite game and how you can be a part of this future. With all that being said, let’s have another great year of GWENT together. The future of the game was always in players’ hands and it still is.


Thank you for reading and make sure to watch this space for Part 2 in which we will explain our current plans for the community-based balancing system.

 

[Qzman]

Kind of disappointed with the premium tokens decision. I feel like with so few new card drops during the past years, finishing all of the tokens could have been achieved... Although I understand the budget was probably tight. I just don't like the fact that the game is doomed to forever look like it's in beta, even if it has for so many years.
The other stuffs seems promising, all things considered...

 

[igor565]

If you abandon Draft, will you return Arena then??

 

[LeticiOrel]

@RyanSchou
Hello, thank you for all the effort you put into Gwent. I don't think the game is (or will be) "dead", as many players say. In fact, these changes and plans look promising and reasonable (I understand that you have more important plans to work on in the next years). I love the mechanics and style of this game, it's really unique and worth playing and I believe that Gwent is going to stay with us for a long time after 2023.

As a quite new player (playing since April 2022) I would love to see the arena mode, because I've never had the chance to try it. Do you consider bringing it back to life?

It would be also interesting to add some new mechanics in the next year - maybe, some "positive" or neutral row effects (giving vitality or purifying units for example) would be nice, or some "grace" tag for armor to work with (if you know what I mean - if the unit's armor is equal or higher than specified amount).

Best regards,
LeticiOrel

 

[Toxplosive]

Thank you so much for those years CDPR, Gwent had it's ups and downs, as you say, but no other card game ever made me return every single time like Gwent did. Here's to many more years of Gwent! Looking forward to hearing from the project int he future!

 

[jiffyb333]

This game has meant so much to me from closed beta to now, helping me through some really rough times, I'm so grateful for your transparency for future plans rather than a sudden announcement. I'm also thankful that you're working to make the game still feel lively after you stop active development. Thank you for all the wonderful memories and for taking a chance on Gwent. <3

 

[CarbonMaiden]

I have returned to Gwent this october after over 2 years of inactivity. The game feels fresh and I'm loving it. I hope to stay and play and support the game. Thank you devs, have a nice holiday season!

 

[Hamster_Zomb]

"The truth is the game was rigged from the start"

It's sad sometimes to be right, but when we got a completely new game after the beta-tests I already knew this won't end well. I hope we'll see some new CCG from CDPR once more alike the earlier Gwent versions.

 

[Barracuda88]

Unfortunately, when 30% of people consistently play NG, using community voting for balance seems like a great way to ensure a constant rolling NG-centric meta. We will NEED the ban faction/leader button more than ever. Otherwise, I personally don't see myself sticking around for long.

 

[ReaperTek]

Unfortunately, when 30% of people consistently play NG, using community voting for balance seems like a great way to ensure a constant rolling NG-centric meta. We will NEED the ban faction/leader button more than ever. Otherwise, I personally don't see myself sticking around for long.

Well i wouldn't really only blame it on those damn Nilfgaardiens seeing all of those complain posts over the years most players seem to see Balance through "Faction Glasses" (or a preferred Playstyle) and don't want the Cards they enjoy to play getting nerfed no matter how problematic they are.

But since this balance feature will probably be limited to Provision and Base Strength Nerfs/Buffs i don't expect much of it anyway especially considering their strange balance direction since the Leader Card Drop 21 (BoG Eist) with extreme Power Creep and one Broken Card after another i think we'll way past the point where they can "Hand it over to the Players in the best way possible" (Dev Stream Quote)

The Devs should had listened more to one of their already retired Top Players* and less to Reddit (where everything that isn't Top Tier or borderline broken is unplayable) because back than the weaker Archetypes weren't actually that far away from the Meta if they slightly nerfed down the Top Tier Decks.

*

At this point I would probably prefer they let it die even quicker without further support because this would at least allow the possibility to start new along with the next Witcher Game release where they could build a Game that combines the strength of the Beta and HC Version.

 

[Barracuda88]

Well i wouldn't really only blame it on those damn Nilfgaardiens seeing all of those complain posts over the years most players seem to see Balance through "Faction Glasses" (or a preferred Playstyle) and don't want the Cards they enjoy to play getting nerfed no matter how problematic they are.

Not sure where in my post you spotted me "blaming" those damn nilfgaardiens, and what it was I was blaming them for, but all I was actually doing is pointing out that in a "community" dominated (population-wise) by NG players, the "community" balancing is very likely to naturally lean towards benefitting said majority.

 

[MasterBlakes]

I am sad about the fact, that no new cards will be coming after 2023. New cards were the main reason for me to always come back to the game since closed beta.

On the other hand project gwentfinity sounds promising. I only have one big favor to ask:
Please, please give the community some kind of insight ability in the game statistics (like the devs have).
For example: How often was the card played I am about to nerf? How many games were won using that card? How many games did a certain leader ability / faction win?
Without that, I am afraid the masses will ruin the game in no time.

 

[C3bolla]

This makes me so sad. Gwent was genuinely the TCG that I enjoyed the most...

 

[iBakemono]

I don't know why but I never liked card games. Played some YU-Gi-OH back in the day like '07-'08 but din't stuck with me. And then in september this year I tried Gwent after years of putting it aside because it was a card game and my God I played this game afterwards. Got to pro rank peaking in first 300 in just 2 month. Spent like 400bucks on it buying everything because I got hooked on the game and then we got THIS. The only card game i ever liked it and they are killing it. Don't know why but this game had a huge pottential and huge pottential in pro tournaments. You could add a lot of stuff, A LOT. But no i get maintenace mode and 400 bucks short. And talk about trusting CDPR again.

 

[Jannay]

Without new content this game will obviously die. I love Gwent and I can survive without new journeys, but the majority of players, streamers and content-makers will leave Gwent very soon or in 2023. There will be no "community" by 2024.

 

[cardgame-respecter]

Without new content this game will obviously die. I love Gwent and I can survive without new journeys, but the majority of players, streamers and content-makers will leave Gwent very soon or in 2023. There will be no "community" by 2024.

Streamers are already on the lookout for the next thing to stream. I'm looking at Oceanmud right now as I write this hitting 1200 viewers on marvel snap. Marvel snap has the same momentum that gwent had in it's pre homecoming phase. The only community will be on reddit where the few that's left will discuss the gwentfinity nerfs and buffs to vote on when that system is implemented.

 

[igor565]

Oceanmud

Well, he left Gwent about 2 years ago, not quite good of an example of leaving streamer.

I would better keep an eye on Spyro, waiting for his last “worthy rival”

 

[deckard_kaine]

i get maintenace mode and 400 bucks short.

Didn't you buy Journeys and packs with this 400 bucks?

 

[Bodyshoter123]

Are there any plans to update existing Journeys(adding new cosmetics for achieving certain tasks)? Because Geralt's Journey and Ciri's Journey get you less cosmetics comapred to dandelion's journey for example. It would be a great refreshment for them.

 

[givven]

I am a young aspiring junior project manager from Poland.

Gwent is just a project same as every other IT project. Financing ends, so the whole project gets to an end. Nothing special, game could have been so much more entertaining in many aspects. IT became very complicated, so messy with all the cards available. People who started the game as alfa testers as myself could barely keep up with their collection. Others were missing base sets and they couldnt keep up with buying both new sets and the previous ones. An avarage human being is not so smart so counting cards every game must be really hard and tiring. Don't get me wrong the game was super smart but the mechanics could have been more entertaining. Competitive scene has trully never existed, no lobby tournaments means that content creators left the game for good. I still don't know how to play competitively. Look at HS franchise. The game itself got 40k viewers in its good days, it dropped dramatically bec the competitive scene got brutalized. Battlefy - the easiest way to enter the competitive HS scene was full (join the qual > win the qual > join the pro scene). Once it ended the viewership dropped to 5k total. Only Gwent has hidden competitive scene. LOR - lobby tourneys, Mtg Arena lobby tourneys. These games have their own VIBE, u can't tell Gwent had no fanbase, it had a lot of potential and money. Graphics and interactions were basically denyed. Everything is so small/minimalistic and bec there is no competitve scene the game itself is a bit pointless.

That is my harsh opinion on Gwent, if u want to save the game and bring back the financing, u should definitely ad the rotation system / lobby tournaments and maybe pray that old alfa testers, streamers , content creators come back to go pro in the game. U can also do something else to save the game, but it needs some financing and well though strategy.

+ PS. These netflix series don't help the witcher's reputation at all XD.
I laughed a lot when I saw poor f* infranty as a card in your game. That was my first contact with the Witcher's universe. Loved the Witcher's vibe. Then I saw a p* Geralt on a big screen. Maybe netflix producers of the show should have played the Gwent once...