Hello, 你好, Hola, こんにちは my fellow mortals!
This is the last time you will hear from me… until the gameplay trailer! Expect it coming hot to your living rooms/attic/workplace computer (shh…) in the next few days.
In the meantime, the Gods Unchained team is super excited to share something we’ve been working on behind the scenes: our brand new Mana System, and Balance Update no. 1 to the Genesis Set.
We just published an article from our Lead Balance Designer, ADWCTA, detailing clarity and changes to our mana system. ADWCTA crafted the algorithms that underlie HearthStone’s most popular drafter and most accurate valuation system. His expertise positions him as a leading authority on the mechanics of trading card games (TCGs). We believe these changes will push the genre forward and form a lasting contribution to the evolution of TCGs.
For those well-versed in card game strategy, I encourage you to read the article.
For those new to the genre (or short on time) we’ve provided a brief outline below:
In many TCGs, mana is the resource used to play cards. Each card has a cost, or mana requirement, that must be paid before it is cast. Power tends to scale with cost — with stronger cards typically demanding a higher price.
The mechanic by which players receive mana in TCGs is one of the most critical gameplay mechanics. In Magic: The Gathering players draw mana resources from their deck, while in HearthStone players receive it automatically at the start of each turn. We’ve studied our predecessors and formed our own unique system that optimizes deck variation, game length and (most importantly) fun.
In Gods Unchained, mana will be organized into locked gems. Once per turn, players will open 1 lock. When a gem becomes fully unchained, players can use it to play cards.
The number of locks per gem is as follows:
• 1 lock on gems 1–5.
• 2 locks on gems 6–7.
• 3 locks on gem 8.
• 4 locks on gem 9.
The result? Faster-paced gameplay which allows devastating power levels while maintaining balance for every card in our game.
Read about it all here.
Genesis Set Balance #1
We’re super excited to announce the first balance update to our Genesis Set. You’ll find many of the cards you know more flavourful, more unique, and some with interesting twists.
We’ve had 3 separate QA teams exhaustively testing the game, and we’ve made improvements to address: design space and balancing issues, functionality in the new mana system, balance among classes/tribes, cardpool support for archetypes, and general updates to refresh old designs with more interesting and fun aspects.
We think you’ll absolutely love these changes, and we look forward to seeing how they play an evolving role in your decks!
A note for developers — we’re also updating our text and image APIs to account for these changes and to make some other scaling improvements. Tag @ender in the dev channel for help!
New Wiki
We’re happy to say that our friends at Gamepedia just got done laying the framework for our new wiki. It’s essentially a blank canvas right now, but over time we aim for it to turn into a helpful aggregated resource for players to discover information on the game. We will be adding to it over the coming weeks, but if you have any insights, feel something is missing, or just think improvements can be made then we would really appreciate contributions (and we will reward some of the quality ones!). You can visit our wiki here.
By the way, if you get a little lonely, come join us in Discord and make some new friends — for those with more than 200 unique cards, you can claim your discord rank by following the instructions here.
Cheers,
Perks
P.S. I lost the game (sorry)
P.S.2. A few days might be sooner than you think…
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