Thanks for opening this thread! After crunching some numbers and having several brainstorming sessions with @JG1 and @Machete, I would like to share some of our main conclusions as well as suggestions with the DAO community. Let’s start from the beginning:
Is the BRS leaderboard unbalanced?
Rarity Farming has been one of the pillars supporting the value of the overall Aavegotchi ecosystem. The BRS category is the star of the show since it captures 70% of the total rewards. There have been claims that it is an unbalanced system, but… is it? Looking at the rewards perceived per BRS, we clearly see a pretty consistent trend. Both axes are plotted in log scale since both the price of the wearable as well as their scarcity change (sort-of) exponentially.
Evaluating the BRS of the entire population (snapshot taken on 18/02/2023), we can see a few gotchis standing above the rest (hinting a considerably higher investment), and especially after the rank #150, the trend is again really clear, smooth progression even beyond the top 7500 ranks.
Looking at the data from a different angle, we can even see the cut-off of rewards in the range of 525-530. Gotchis below that threshold are not encouraged to dress up, so the overall trend follows pretty much a normal distribution.
So what’s the problem?
Although the reward distribution is consistent and well balanced, the reality is that there is no room for vertical growth without investing heavily into a high BRS gotchi and some rare wearables. This can be discouraging for newcomers who often describe the system as a “pay-to-win” designed to reward OGs (often disregarding that the current price of wearables and gotchis is very close to its all-time low, but that’s another story…)
A proposal to boost vertical mobility: a trait-based leaderboard
Besides the traditional BRS competition, we would like to propose an additional leaderboard that is dedicated to gotchi traits. In principle, we could assign a different trait for each of the 4 rounds of a regular rarity season. And since we want to spice things up, we could add a bit of randomness into the mix. For example, we could make a VRF call after the snapshot is taken to decide whether to reward gotchis really high or really low. Although some people may feel REKT if Sergey doesn’t play in their favor, that leaves room for increasing the rewards for gotchis with at least one extremely rare trait, allowing to flow funds towards certain people that otherwise would be completely disregarded. The main points of this proposal can be described as follows:
- 70% of the rarity rewards that go to BRS could be divided into 50% (traditional system) + a new 20% trait-based leaderboard.
- Each round is defined by a different trait, the first week is NRG, then AGG, SPK, and finally BRN. This allows for strategy, buying specific sets, and even activates the need for reset potions, adding additional sinks for the GLTR+alchemica economy.
- At the time of the snapshot, a call is made to the VRF, and it is determined whether the ranking of that trait is ordered ascendingly (traits+) or descendingly, introducing the luck factor, giving good opportunities to Gotchis that would not normally compete for anything, indirectly boosting the wearables market.
- The number of rewarded Gotchis can be reduced to maximize their prizes. Further effort is required to do some balancing calculations and distribution progression, but perhaps considering the top 1000 would be sufficient.
To sum up, what is this proposal trying to achieve?
Introducing a new way to compete, activating the market for clothing and sets, activating the market for gotchis that currently are ignored due to low overall BRS, and even creating a sink for GLTR+alchemica when creating reset potions. The added factor of luck plays a key role and can lead to last-minute excitement and a movement of funds toward new people, hopefully increasing the value of owning a gotchi. Indirectly, this change could increase the demand for clothing to dress more gotchis, and even forge clothing between rounds that can help to rank higher, acting in a deflationary manner.
So what do you think frens?
We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions