Interview with GWENT Game Director Jason Slama

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This interview is missing one, very important for me, question:

27. What's the current state of game code? Why does every monthly update introduce so many never-existed-before bugs? I do not know how it was before HC (I did not play Gwent back then) but since HC release there was no single free-from-bugs monthly update. It is so irritating that after that we still need to wait weeks/months to fix some important bugs which, in the meantime, make cards harder (or impossible) to play. Some of the cards were/are not fixed for several months!

Actually, our codebase has been getting cleaner and cleaner over last year. Often these bugs are related to these specific issues being rather tricky and incredibly difficult to reproduce internally in a non-live environment. We basically cannot reliably verify fixes due to their complexity and have attempted several times to fix them. This is actually more common in game development than you might expect (at least from my experience). The next update should have another fix attempt (hopefully we are correct regarding cause and solution) and they will finally be closed.

For example, Harald and Barnabas's bugs are likely related to behavior that only happens on saturated servers. While client logs give us hints, unless we deploy the fix live (not always trivial to do, especially internal development time-wise, as often requires client update).
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Thanks for asking the 15. question. Unfortunately, Slama completely dodged it with a really long answer in which he didn't answer the question at all. It's funny if he thinks SY will bring those players back because at least for me I can't stand those SY bronzes whereas beta NG spies and NR machines, for example, were what I enjoyed about the game.

Also, I didn't leave the game because of the provision system - I actually think it's pretty cool (even though I liked the beta deck building too) I left it because I miss the fast-paced gameplay where you didn't have to do all kinds of stuff regarding Orders and what not and Syndicate just made that part even worse.
I still hope for a "classic" version even though it probably won't happen - it's not like there is a market for it like there is for WoW Classic for example but one can only hope...

FWIW, Jason seems like a nice guy and I have nothing against the dude. Nice job on the interview, by the way!

I feel like "completely dodged" is a bit unfair of a statement but let's not focus on that. The issue with such a question as it's so open-ended and assumes there is a simple easy to discuss reason why some players decided to leave after Homecoming. For example, the mulligan update fixed the issue for many players and the speedup of turns (not waiting for animations as much, auto turn ending), made the game feel much better opening the door for more players to return.

Others might have left due to the aesthetic change but if you really think about it, many people, including myself, prefer the new aesthetic so there is no win-win to solving that issue. We are iteratively trying to improve the game and its visuals which considering how our large scale reworks to fix things have resulted in the past seems like a reasonable approach.

I decided to focus my answer on one of the issues players have discussed in the past which is the feeling of bronzes. The reason provisions are such a large part of the discussion, is we feel that the way bronzes were balanced with provisions was a key contributor that loss of feeling and we are making a large step towards rectifying that soon so I felt it appropriate to discuss it.

Also, note that faction identity and mechanics was another complaint that I get the feeling you can relate to this one. Again it's not something we will fix in one update, but I suggest you check out Northern Realms after the next update. Our hopes are this will be another large step forward to getting what you are missing back.

All and all, thank you for sharing your point of view and I can only hope that one day we get to the point where you can enjoy GWENT in a newly evolved form.
 
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Thank you M. Slama for your answers, giving really interesting insights into the development process . Special mention to point 13

13. What is it like having to react to gameplay trends in the community in order to ensure balance within the game? How often (and to what extent) does community feedback influence the direction you will take with GWENT, in terms of (re)balancing cards and releasing new content?

This can be an incredibly complex subject to manage, as members of the community can really land all over the spectrum when it comes to opinions. Sometimes we feel like a card is fine overall, but the overall sentiment is so negative that we feel we have no other choice than to change it for the health of the community. I can count on the fingers of my hand the number of cards that we changed solely based on this, so it's always amusing when people say we’re making decisions because of the outcry of the masses. Sometimes though, like with “F@!# Sihil”, the decision is easy to make. :D

It gets really challenging when there is a call to arms to remove or heavily change a card that is an issue only because of how people have flocked to a specific deck. In reality, the higher you go in terms of rank, especially if you aim for Pro Rank, the diversity fades and we are often finding ourselves wondering how to shift the meta to a more varied deck diversity. I get the feeling that the pressure to min/max in order to climb results in a flocking to highest-consistency decks despite there being a much wider variety of decks with over 50% win rate.

There is a particularly difficult phenomenon within the community to flock to the most popular decks despite their superiority being marginal, sometimes an illusion, even, according to actual statistical results. Let's call this meta momentum. Meta momentum can easily lead to players often seeing the same decks over and over again. We want to try and introduce monthly balance changes to help keep the meta momentum moving. However, figuring out exactly how to do that is a constant challenge, as calling out a different deck as being awesome risks just having the masses shift to a different deck, which doesn’t actually improve anything.

which kind of answer to the netdeckers, and to those complaining about netdecking as well !

I would like to thank you and your whole team for the work done so far. I've discovered Gwent at HC release and the game is better and better every month. I enjoyed every hour spent on the game!
 
Thanks for the interview, really astounding job and you hit the nail right in the coffin, not a single filler question, and you acknowledge the fact that there are 2 sides of the coin and you want to find the sweet spot! I have praised this game to everyone I know and I think you lay on a golden egg here. I am glad you have even more passion for the game and you strive towards improving it for the better. Really inspiring interview.
Big thanks to the whole Gwent team, for the inspiring stories/lore, for the fun mechanics and gameplay they provide, the amazing recreation of the whole Witcher universe in the cards through the best art I have ever seen in a card game!
Keep up the incredible work and we will cheer and support you!
 
awesome interview, a lot of realy interessting questions and answers. nice to see slama steering in the direction I'd love gwent to go and I am realy excited to see whats comming up next.

Thanks to the three of you and thanks slama for taking your time! I think this kind of community interaction and transparancy is realy healthy and well recieved.
 
When it comes to Gwent, the more I learn how the sausage is made, the more I like it. Even were nothing else to be accomplished, 2019 has already been a great year. I'm glad to hear the team is proud of its accomplishments. You should be! Cheers to the future folks.
 
Thank you, everyone, for your kind words! I'm gratified that you've all enjoyed the interview. And, thank you, @SlamaTwoFlags , for taking those follow-up questions!
I certainly wouldn't mind reading a short essay on the subject of lore vs. balance.
As would I! I find it fascinating, and would very much enjoy exploring the subject in greater depth.
the more I learn how the sausage is made, the more I like it.

Woof!
 
Actually, our codebase has been getting cleaner and cleaner over last year. Often these bugs are related to these specific issues being rather tricky and incredibly difficult to reproduce internally in a non-live environment. We basically cannot reliably verify fixes due to their complexity and have attempted several times to fix them. This is actually more common in game development than you might expect (at least from my experience). The next update should have another fix attempt (hopefully we are correct regarding cause and solution) and they will finally be closed.

For example, Harald and Barnabas's bugs are likely related to behavior that only happens on saturated servers. While client logs give us hints, unless we deploy the fix live (not always trivial to do, especially internal development time-wise, as often requires client update).

I have no personal experience in two things: I've never coded in a team and I've never coded any web servers, but I've coded a few advanced projects all by myself and it was always my point of honor to release bug-less code so it's kind of beyond my imagination that "next update" can make new bugs in the part of code that was working ok so far.
 
That woof woof answer at the end was distrurbing. I don't want to use other words to describe it.

I don't like it that the gwent team don't have plans for single player experience. Any single player would be appreciated. I played Thronebreaker and liked it (although dissapointed that the cards from it are totally different in the multi version).
I'm thinking about repeatable challanges like the ones in the beta.
Practice match should include more decks also (at least the starter decks) not just the currently existing 1.

I don't like the seasonal trees mission rewards. It based around a type or faction and if you are not into that you don't have a reason to play the seasonal games at all.

Purchasable cosmetic items should be exclusive! I didn't buy the Crimson Curse preorder but it was unfair to make that card back available with a minor color change. Don't forget people worked hard for the avatars too in the beta and you now giving those out too easily!

I like it how he admits that the factions are unbalanced (again->Homecoming wasn't about sorting out that?) and looking forward to the rebalancing of the weaker ones.
Knowing that the factions are currently unbalanced is it not unfair to pit them against each other in faction challange events? Northern realms for example don't have a high value faction card. The highest is 9 it doesn't have any sinergy with other cards. Our engines are low value low damaging engines dieing fast even with the shield system. You started to bring back 12 value cards can increase even more. Homecoming supposed to eliminate high value cards like that. You stepping on the same route again and making the same mistake.

I don't agree that the Sindicate and Skellige factions are balanced. It has OP cards like the one that can kill all the artifacts one after another. No other faction has a reusable ability like that. Swarming cards are a problem again after nerfing Gimpy.
Skelliges engines are too poweful. You can kill or disable some but it's very difficult to have so many locks resets and still put enough value on the board to win especially if you play NR low value cards. NR only have zero value (special) reseting cards. NR have a reusable lock card but it needs 3 charges. That is 3 engines usually killed right after played. So we might actually reuse that ability but loose on the value of that 3 turns. Crach an Craite leader ability would be ok but combined with the engines they have are too powerful. Don't forget the instant healer cards NR don't have. We can't instant heal our damaged engines. Most other factions can. Skellige and Scoia'tael can heal them all at once on the same row. Nilfgard can transform them. NR can transform too but keeping the original value so it's not a heal.

I don't like beeing penelized for playing only 1 faction.

I miss some of the cards I expected coming back with the new faction. Shani, Radovid, Redanian knights. Redania deserve a new facion more tha the "free city".

After all those beta experiments and all those rebalacing patches the team still not thinking over new cards and the game is still very unbalanced. I'm very dissapointed and playing with the weakest faction or the weakest factions weakest leader decks is very unrewarding. With some of teh nerfs and new cards many older cards became obsolate. I just don't want to include cards in my deck just because they are more powerful. You should think about players who want to use weaker cards because the character on that card is close to them! Major heros from the witcher universe shouldn't be weak at all!

Rant over. I don't want to argue about these. It's just my opinion. I can only hope this game will be better.
 
Really nice interview! Would appreciate seeing things like this more often!

Something that is dear to me, question 12:
"GWENT is a game with strategic depth, where how you play your resources has a greater influence than the randomness of your card draw."

I don't see how the last part of that statement is true. R3 is often decided by card draw: the player who draws the best cards wins. In an unlucky moment, randomness of card draw can decide that you will not draw your five best cards even once in an entire game. No matter how you play your resources then, you will most likely lose.
 
Redania deserve a new facion more tha the "free city".
Except the Redanian faction would be just a recolored NR. Syndicate, while Nordling as well, is sort-of crime-merchant faction which has potential to be expanded with Salamandra, dwarven banks, Koviris etc. Redania would do better in NR.
 
You said some players feel "nostalgic" about Beta Gwent and thus don't play the current version. I think this is a poor choice of words. I loved Beta Gwent from start to finish. I never stopped playing it for more than 2 weeks and I could see myself playing it regularly for years and years to come, even if only a few games per day. The content drought period was actually when I had the most fun with the game, because I had a lot of time to really learn the meta. When HC was announced I never protested because I had no idea it would feel so different than beta gwent. Now I feel kind of guilty that I didn't voice my support for beta gwent while I had the chance. If I knew what you guys had in mind for HC, I'd have been on reddit every day, telling you: "Relax, the game is great as it is, you just have to change some cards for balance and faction identity."
 
1. I don't like this photo. It is an aggressive stance. When I open Gwent game and after game I don't want to see someone is touching his finger into my face.
2. That was one game at Beta version and comes another game after. Is it good or is it bad everybody have their opinion but this is a fact.
3. This story with the Meteorite Powder "smells bad". Game developer takes Meteorite Powder from collections of
gamers. Why? For what reason? This people make Gwent alive! Why Take rather then Give? Why not make some present for people who support your game, even when game was changed?
4. Game balance is ... the game itself. Please look more at this part of the game. Public Relations make Game Known.
Game structure make Game Played.
And main thing. Listen to you Heart more then Marketing Department.

P.S. I've rewritten my post. Im sorry for my game slang. I hope this message will be better and more understandable for all (no slang and no smiles). All I want is to make this game better and make it be and not go in history because of someone is too greedy. (Say halo to Novingrad)

Take care.
 
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rrc

Forum veteran
1. I don't like this photo. It is an aggressive stance. When I open Gwent game and after game I don't want to see someone is touching his finger into my face.
I believe it is a reference to the "You are breathtaking" phenomenon. I liked it and I thought it was cute that Jason tells me "You are breathtaking" all day every day.
 
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