Gwent: The Witcher Cardgame, developed by CD Projekt Red, has changed a lot since its launch. Over time many interesting additions have made the game more strategic and fun, as well as adding eye-popping cosmetic items. In addition, a solid competitive scenario is forming, especially with the new Tournament Platform.
Among the big names behind The Witcher card game is Jason Slama, game developer and Director of our beloved Gwent. Check out an interview that Megascópio did with Slama in which we addressed points such as game changes, cosmetic items, a little behind the scenes of development, and of course, a competitive scenario.
[Megascópio]: First of all I would like to thank you for the interview opportunity. Starting with Master Mirror, it marked the fifth expansion after Homecoming. Among the expansions already released, which is your favorite? Which one would you consider the most impactful?
[Jason Slama]: I think Master Mirror simply because it’s the most recent, had some of the best art yet and the one where we had the most extensive reveal campaign. I’ll probably change my answer whenever a new expansion is released haha. That being said, I have special memories of all of them as each presented unique challenges. I like to believe each and every one of them were impactful in some manner, but I think Crimson Curse is the winner. The reason why I think this is it’s the one that added in the newest mechanics and really kicked off our transformation process from the more straightforward version of GWENT that was Homecoming to what we have today. I like to think each expansion added to this complexity in its own way, but Crimson Curse brought the most contrast by virtue of being first.
[Megascópio]: When an expansion is released, it is possible to notice that the skills, keywords and themes match quite well. Within the process of developing a new set of cards, which of these characteristics, if any, are a priority?
[Jason Slama]: I think the first priority with an expansion is figuring out what kind of cards we want to add for each faction and finding the unique theme / mechanics that answer the simple question: “What makes this expansion special”. For Crimson Curse it was Dettlaff and adding more depth via new mechanics. For Novigrad it was adding a new faction. For Iron Judgment it was bringing back Rady Daddy and armor. For Merchants of Ofir it was exploring a bit the Ofir theme and Stratagems (Scenarios as a concept came super late in the process near release). And finally, Master Mirror was about exploring the Witcher Timeline with Mischievous Gaunter and Evolving cards.
[Megascópio]: When new keywords are added, how much work does it take to balance them with the cards already present in the game?
[Jason Slama]: It’s hard to measure the amount of work that goes into balancing keywords as they can vary greatly. Ultimately we go through the stages you might expect. First the idea phase where its discussed and potential issues / implications are hashed out verbally. During this stage it sits as text in a spreadsheet. Then we move on to implementation, sometimes requiring programming support so that our engine can support such a keyword. Then the design team plays, tests it among themselves to debug it and try to gauge its power value. Ultimately though, keywords get balanced overtime after release based on how you guys perform with them.
More importantly I think how we decide what gets to become a keyword is much more important. Scenarios for example were added because the original tooltips were just too clunky to read. We also felt it added a lot of flavor to brand them that way. We also try to avoid making things keywords when it doesn’t really add to the game in a meaningful way.
[Megascópio]: Journey Mode was an excellent addition to the game. Cosmetic items are a strong attraction and the options make personalization very interesting. How do you see players’ engagement with the addition of the Journey Mode?
[Jason Slama]: Though the initial reaction was a bit shaky, the vibe we are getting is that the majority of people enjoy engaging with our Journey system. It’s hard to say exactly how players engage on a day to day basis, especially since I was denied in my mad scheme to turn on people’s cameras to watch them play (joking…). We’re still looking at ways to improve it (because that’s how we roll) but I can’t find myself picturing playing GWENT in a Journeyless world now myself.
[Megascópio]: Still about Journey, how do you choose the characters that will become customizable? And are many people needed to elaborate on all cosmetic items that will be included?
[Jason Slama]: Well the two characters we’ve chosen so far have been easy choices if you really think about it. Generally I am always open for the team to come up with ideas but right now the characters are chosen on a Director level with Cosmetics also being chosen in that way (though brainstorms for those can go to crazy fun places haha). I will say that no one has guessed our next character and I doubt anyone will. That being said I hope people really appreciate the direction we chose to go moving forward.
[Megascópio]: In addition to cosmetic items, Journey also brings Reward Points. How do you balance the free and premium modes with these resources?
[Jason Slama]: I think given all the systems in GWENT and the wide variety of players with an even wider variety of play history, balancing is more of an art than a science. I mean, you might have seen my Journey post where I show a bunch of calculations, well that’s an example of the kind of math we do to figure out how much we’re giving and at which rhythm. There’s definitely been an internal struggle where the question gets sometimes asked, “aren’t we too generous?”. And it’s a tough question to answer if you think about it, and I think right now we are shifting focus and saying “Hey, that’s the wrong question!” The right questions are: “Is the game progressing at a rhythm that feels good and rewarding?” and “Are we offering something that you feel like it worth your hard-earned moolah?”. Our amazing community has historically shown us that if they are happy with the game, they will eventually spend money to support us and we love you for doing that, sincerely. I would say that sometimes reactions can be negative, like the value isn’t there for a particular person. So we are driven to try and make sure that there’s at least one product that you feel good about spending on to support us and we feel Journey is a great example of that.
[Megascópio]: In the Novigrad expansion, Gudrum was added like a character created specifically for GWENT. How do you add characters that aren’t present in the lore of The Witcher? Can we expect more additions like this in the future? Or maybe seeing other locations that the game didn’t explore yet?
[Jason Slama]: Adding characters or exploring lesser-known characters in the Witcher lore is tricky and scary. But we feel like it will be hard to sustain GWENT and allow it to reach its full potential if we don’t embrace such exploration. You can definitely expect us to keep exploring new locations and characters previously unseen!
[Megascópio]: How is balancing made at the end of the seasons? Are there any specific ways to change the cards?
[Jason Slama]: We don’t really have one person dedicated to the monthly balances so it sometimes happens that we go lighter in a month simply because we have more important things to focus on. The month before Master Mirror for example was quite light and there was concern we weren’t addressing some of the issues in the meta that people were identifying. But as hopefully you guys noticed, Master Mirror was a huge paradigm shift and honestly took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get ready for release. It was really hard to find meaningful changes for that particular update especially since we knew the meta would shift super drastically. Generally, however, we usually give one or two designers the task of proposing some changes with an open door for others to throw their suggestions in. Then at some point, the design team all gathers around and discusses the proposed changes and final decisions are made.
[Megascópio]: About the changes in card abilities, how much do the players’ opinions impact the card changes during the development of the game?
[Jason Slama]: We certainly take that into consideration though with a grain of salt. It feels to us that players are great at identifying problems but rarely able to offer us solutions we agree with. There’s also simply too many ideas thrown around to meaningful interact and go “hey that does seem like an interesting idea, but…” and, you know, explain why we ultimately don’t like it. There’s definitely an internal struggle between doing the balance changes we believe in and doing what people are currently targeting as public enemy #1.
[Megascópio]: In 2020, we saw a restructuring in GWENT competitive scenario. What is your perception of the players’ reception for this change? Do you think that it made the scenario more agitated?
[Jason Slama]: I think we were looking into taking GWENT ESports in a way that was both satisfying for players and our internal capabilities. Season 2 brought many cool impactful changes for GWENT ESports and we’ll definitely keep looking for more improvements for future seasons.
[Megascópio]: What was the biggest challenge in adapting the GWENT Open Tournament from a live format to digital?
[Jason Slama]: So many things can go wrong in such an environment that are completely out of our control.
[Megascópio]: Finally, I would like to ask about the recently released Tournament Platform. What are your expectations for it? What goal would you like to achieve in the competitive scenario?
[Jason Slama]: Gwent Tournament platform was an initiative I was trying to get off the ground from the start of my role in December 2018. I knew it was never going to reach the top in priority so we aimed to get some external partner to help us develop it. It’s been a long road to get to its release a year and a half later but I am happy it has finally seen the light of day. Alas I doubt its launch will rocket it to the top of our priority list though I hope we can keep finding time to improve it, even if those bigger improvements will take longer than most people would hope for.
Gwent: The Witcher Cardgame can be played on PC (Steam and GOG) and mobile devices (Android and IOs).
