First of all, I just wanna say that I really like this game and I think that Gods Unchained team (Immutable) is doing a great job so far and it is incredible what they are trying to accomplish while also being pioneers in the Digital Card Games space integrated with wonders of blockchain technology. The dev team has mostly been really transparent with what they are doing and are providing us with their roadmaps almost every week so that we can understand better what awaits us in the future.

Let's just take a brief look at the last Weekly Dev Update we got from the team. If you want to check the full report here is their official post on the Gods Unchained subreddit.

I'll just lay out the main points here:

1 Hot Minute Away

• Lore and card reveals for Season One
• Genesis Raffle prize trinkets
• Genesis Boards
• Balance patches, stability bundles & hotfixes as needed.

2 Hot Minutes Away

• In-Game CryptoKitties
• Website Upgrades.
• The launch of Season One: Trial of the Gods!

3 Hot Minutes Away

• 1v1
• Evolution
• Localization

4+ Hot Minutes Away

• Mobile App

Expansion is on the way which is nice. Genesis items are being distributed to the early investors and beta testers, also nice. Website upgrades aren't really necessary as players won't be using it more than a couple of times until they are ready to play and it looks good as it is. They didn't clarify what they mean by upgrades so I guess we'll see.

1v1s, in my opinion, the most crucial thing they need to implement, it's kinda sad it is that far down the list as this is something that will encourage communities to involve more outsiders by creating events (public or private). Friends will be able to play with one another without the need of trying to meet in the queues for the ladder.

Evolution and Localization are needed but not as big of a priority so I agree (like anyone cares) with its placement on the list.

Mobile App is another crucial thing since card games are more popular on mobile devices than PCs but it's reasonable that it is so far down the line as this won't be the easiest task for the developers.

This is all cool and I can't wait to see what will be next on the roadmap but isn't something missing? Like something really important at least for a specific type of gamers. Not only that but without it, the game just doesn't feel whole if that makes sense, so get ready for the rant. This is what I'm talking about...

Immersive Experience

First Encounter Is Really Important

Let's first start with the game client. This is one of the most boring clients I've seen. There are like 3 colors and it's kind of dull to look at. Nothing is animated so the client doesn't give you any sort of feeling like you are entering the world that's supposed to be alive, with its story and character. No background music, as if I'm playing a browser game. One cool thing in the client is the temple and it showcases how other parts of the client should be, especially the home screen where you start each time.

TUTORIALS!?

Also, as a new player, when you enter the client for the first time. You won't be impressed by any means. Not only that but you won't be welcomed in any way. Seriously, newcomer tutorials are much needed. There needs to be something that can show you around and teach you the basics of the game. Learn page shouldn't replace that, it should just act as a backup for those that didn't get something from the tutorial so they need a recap.

Basic Game Information

So let's say now that you found a way to pick a deck to start a game and of course ran into someone 5 ranks higher than totally demolishes you and you didn't even have time to make total sense of what some of the cards were doing. You've seen this tab called inventory before the game so you might think that's the place to look at the cards, and you'd be right. Oh, this card has an afterlife effect, what is that? Ummm, sorry you won't find that out here, gotta go to that Learn page. You open this up and you see a couple of posts and you start with the basics. You watch the video and you get a lot of wrong info and you might even be confused the next time you play because that video is totally outdated. After the video, you remember that I wanted to find out what the afterlife is and you open up Terminology & Rules and after reading it for at least 15 minutes you are now overloaded with info and you didn't remember the half of it. Instead, it would be much easier if it was possible to see what a specific keyword does by hovering over or selecting the card just like it shows in-game.

Cards Need Personality

Cards are Booooring. It doesn't have anything to with the mechanics of the cards but with their part of the player's experience. Cards have no voice lines, no flavor, nothing to let you know that these cards are a part of the story or that they have personality. None of them have their animations other than those mandatory ones from keywords (hidden, ward, deadly, etc.), at least legendary cards deserve something more, though this is not that big of an issue. God's voice lines save this a bit, but after a couple of turns, they aren't that interesting anymore, but at least it's something.

Please, We Need This!

All of these things that I think are missing aren't really something I personally "need" because my personal interest is mechanics, how the game works, how do I "beat the system", and that sort of things. But let's face it, it is something many players would like to experience and give them a feeling like they are a part of something and give them a whole new world to come back to over and over again. For me, it would be enough if they just introduce daily quests, you know that thing which is in like 99% of online games right now. Yeah, I don't need much :P

Bring Back Draft/Sealed

This is just an extension of my rant but I need to mention this. Currently, we can only play ranked and casual constructed ladders so basically if you get bored with those you don't have anything else to do but to go play some other games. Ranked is mostly the mode that is played to earn rewards on the weekend events and isn't that interesting to higher ranked players during the week. I would suggest that ranked gets disabled if there is no event currently running and gets replaced with Draft or Sealed or really anything different from constructed.

I don't know what else to say so I think the rant is over. Yeah, basically what this game lacks, and it lacks it BIG time is welcoming new players, giving them satisfactory experience and giving them a reason to stay/come back. Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone as many card game "veterans" that play this game don't mind this too much but it's still a shame it doesn't exist in some shape or form. I'm glad that we are getting lore as part of the new expansion and I hope they will apply that directly in the game, rather than just on a blog outside of the game.

I have faith in the GU team to make this a reality at a certain point in the future because I've seen them making many good decisions so far.

Useful tools for Gods Unchained statistics, meta, deckbuilding, leaderboards, etc. :
https://unchainedstats.com/
https://gudecks.com/

Markets:
https://gu.cards/
https://tokentrove.io/GodsUnchainedCards
https://opensea.io/assets/gods-unchained

Custom cards generator tool:
https://www.gucustom.cards/

Gods Unchained discord channel:
https://discord.gg/G8YAWcX

Thank you for reading!

,z3ll