Hey lads,
Leo here, got some post-launch insights & improvement plan to share with you.
TLDR: we’ve read all of the feedbacks & we’re going to rebalance the game to make it more accessible to the mass.
After the launch of the game, we’ve received a lot of feedbacks from players. So I would like to summarize the point of concerns here & provide extra information so that everyone can get the full picture.
First of all, let’s talk about the core game theory of City of Greed, since it would be very important before we discuss further:
The game is balanced so that players can earn $ASG with the combination of luck & skill. So with a bit of understanding of how the combos & tax progression work, it’s definitely possible to earn from the game. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win, this also means sometimes you win big, but sometimes you’ll need Enrich Potion to continue. This is the core game theory behind the game. Testnet players when playing with the same balancing also made profits over the course of their entire Testnet gameplay (take into accounts their overall winnings & spending on enrich potion), this is a fact & you can see the Testnet leaderboard results as proof.
The cost of enriching potion in the unit of $ASG is balanced relative to the possible earnings from the game. So no matter what price $ASG is at, the relative rewards/cost ratio is still the same.
The Richness system is designed so that the game is not a constant emission game. By that I mean the player just buys one time and continuously farms the game for tokens. We’ve all been in the space long enough to know that this constant emission P2E model doesn’t work & the emissions will eventually outpace the growth of players which makes the token worthless. So to ensure there’s inflow from retained players to maintain the reward pool, the Richness system is very crucial.
So with that as the base theory, let’s discuss the concerns when the game actually hits the market:
Barrier to entry: With $ASG currently hovering around $0.005 - $0.007 in price, the original cost of minting a land (20,000 $ASG) is around $100-$150, although we’ve reduced the cost of minting to 10,000 ASG which is $50 and is likely to stay this way; the cost of enriching (7k,12k & 20k for small, medium, and large enrich potion) is $35-$50 for a small potion, $100-$140 for the large potion. So barrier to entry & play is pretty high at the moment.
High learning curve: The land level is designed so that with each upgrade, you’ll face higher challenges but at the same time have more valuable resources & items to work with and create stronger combos for higher payout. With that said, we’ve received feedbacks that the game difficulty is quite high right from the start (level 1 land), which makes the learning curve pretty high right from the start and might prevent players from wanting to experience higher challenges & rewards.
First I would like to acknowledge these concerns. Secondly, I would like to explain how this affects the profitability of players: with current balancing, the game rewards/cost when taking into account $ASG price essentially becomes a high-risk/high-reward game. Let’s say you mint a land at 10,000 $ASG & purchase a full potion with 20k $ASG. So the cost is around $150. Let’s take the winning range of Testnet players (50k-200k, depending on the skills of the players), they can earn from $250-$1000. So potential profit is $100-$850, pretty handsome for playing a game. The risk here is that if you lose too many times, purchasing potions also becomes expensive.
Here’s our perspective & our action items:
Although the state of the game economy right now objectively speaking is pretty attractive for high rollers, we want to lower the barrier to entry so that it’s easier to scale the user base.
Therefore, in the upcoming 1-2 weeks maximum, we are going to rebalance the game with this approach: we’re going to keep the land mint cost at 10,000 $ASG, lower the cost of enriching & lower the base payout & cost to purchase of resources.
This balancing approach will lower the barrier to entry to the game while at the same time maintaining the core reward/costs ratio, the absolute dollar value from winnings are reduced but the costs are also reduced proportionately to appeal to the mass.
With regards to the high learning curve:
Immediate action: We have released guide content to educate players to fasten the learning curve. Every player is also encouraged to read our wiki, which is available at https://docs.cityofgreed.com/maindocs/city-of-greed-game-wiki/resources
Immediate action: We’ll open the Testnet link to the public so that they can play the game for free and experiment with the strategy in the game
Extra development: To further allow more room for players to experiment & get familiar with the game, we can develop the free-to-play game mode in which you can play the game for free. Of course, there will be no earnings from this mode.
”Disclaimer: we’ll have to check the technical aspect of the mode to avoid conflicts with the current P2E system, and this will take time since it’s a large feature so we’ll have to plan a bit to balance it with the current workload in the current roadmap. Official announcement will be made regarding this feature once we’ve finished planning.”
With those actions item, it should address the majority of the concerns. Meanwhile, if there are high rollers here, enjoy the game and take this chance to make huge profits while we’re working on the balancing haha :))
P.s:* There will always be people that want to get in for free/dirt cheap & exploit the game for maximum money. Me or the team won’t respond to unreasonable demands, we have a vision for the game economy and so far the core theory still checks out, and we’ve been transparent about how the game works, it takes money to make money, otherwise we’ll just pay you directly. If it’s not your kind of game then it’s just not. For our community & holders, strap in since we’re just getting started. You can already observe small buys from players joining in. This will accumulate over time as we’re playing the long game here. It will take time to continuously reiterate & improve & scale, like any other game & product, and we’ve only hit the market for 1 day haha.*