In a very open and honest statement, the developers of GWENT today I apologize for the problems of the past weeks. At the same time, they explain the reasons behind the decisions and how things should work better in the future.

As we reported, it didn't work that way after the midwinter update, just before Christmas correct round in GWENT. The update brought over 100 new maps and other features, but unfortunately also a number of bugs and a considerable imbalance in the ranked games.

Due to the Christmas break, these were not tackled until the new year. Until then, the players had to live with the problems or expressed their displeasure in great detail on social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit.

GWENT - Midwinter update was rushed

One of the main problems of the GWENT team was the desire to have the update available Christmas bring out. So that the players have an almost complete basic set of cards to play with during the holidays. As a result, there was no extensive test phase on the PTR.

The size of the update with new cards and new technology was just too much all at once and the developers underestimated that.

For the future, significantly more time should be invested and a release date should be pushed back instead of a hasty patch on the live server. At the moment we are still balancing the Midwinter updates worked, with the focus on the (poor) Dwarfs. The last two hotfixes only addressed the worst bugs. From February onwards, the focus will generally be more on balancing, also in order to ensure more stability in matters of eSports.

You can find the complete message from the team below:

Open letter from the GWENT team

Hey

Thank you for your extensive feedback over the past few weeks. You let us know that some things still need to be improved (understatement ...), and we hear you. We've released a patch and hotfix that addresses some of the biggest issues you've brought us up to such as spies spawning from creation, Emhyr's interactions with the opposing hand, and double interactions (double damage to Alzur's thunder). That's just the beginning, we'll also look at the card names and their descriptions, as well as the general balance.  

We also believe that we owe you an explanation as to why we wanted to release this patch before the Christmas break. It's a mix of different factors - good and bad on our part.

Let's start with the technical and visual changes. We worked on them for a long time. These changes are the foundation for future updates that will define GWENT, and we wanted to make sure everything worked. Then there was new content (over 120 new cards) and the fact that we hadn't introduced any new cards in a while. We have wanted to close down the basic set of GWENT cards for some time (so that we could shift focus to larger expansions) and these cards kind of burned a hole in our servers. We wanted them to finally be in the wild, in your hands - ideally before the end of the year so that you can play with new combinations in your free time.

The lesson we learned from it? Don't bite off more than you can swallow, and don't mix new technology with big content updates. The truth is: we should have taken more time to test everything properly (e.g. problems with the full grind of the cards are a result of this) instead of rushing to publish everything. That we want to give you more to play with - that's one thing. But that we also break certain things by doing this - is another matter.

We really apologize from you for all the problems that have arisen lately - it was / is a tough lesson and there will be no actions like this in the future.

For the future we will continue to work on balancing the last update (dwarfs!). The last hotfix only addressed some of the worst bugs, you can expect more adjustments soon. In addition, from the beginning of February, we will only work on balancing as soon as the season is over. That will provide more stability and predictability. The only exceptions are major bug fixes.

We'd like to thank you again for sharing so diligently - it means that you care about GWENT and that really means everything to us!

Best regards,
Your GWENT team