I feel like this entire botting/extraction discussion is taking up much more time & resources than initially anticipated, and I’m not sure if we’re really focusing on the right thing. Yes, over 50% of the players in the Gotchiverse are probably bots right now. Yes, a lot of them are probably selling their Alchemica. No, that doesn’t mean it’s the #1 issue we have to solve in the next couple of months.
Let’s think this through from the ground up. What can players currently do in the Gotchiverse? They can:
- Channel their parcels once to 24 times a day. Assuming most people don’t upgrade further than lvl 4 that’s roughly 3-4 minutes spent inside the game everyday (per parcel).
- Collect spillover, in other words mindlessly wander around the map and run towards shiny crystals.
Number 2 is the only activity you can do consistently for longer than a few minutes everyday, and is currently taking up a big part of the distributed Alchemica. However, this is a) super boring b) very unrewarding (unless you’re doing it as a job) and c) easily bottable as it’s an extremely simple mechanic. With the current numbers this results in a huge chunk of all distributed Alchemica going into the hands of bots, while we’re just playing catch-up and annoying people who want to play normally.
So are bots our biggest problem right now? No, I don’t think so. They are just the logical consequence of what the Gotchiverse currently is. The thing we really need are activities that are complicated to automate and/or worthwhile for real players. The harvesting release with Harvesters, Reservoirs & Guild Lodges will definitely help with that (so it should be top priority), but we should make it a theme for all mechanics inside of the Gotchiverse.
And I’m going to be honest here, but I’m not really a fan of the spillover mechanic as it’s implemented right now. It was a decent method to fairly distribute some tokens during the Playdrop, but I personally don’t think almost 50% of all Alchemica should be allocated towards this dull, low-skill mechanic. It’s simply not feasible to expect people to go collect their own spillover as the radius for channeling is way too high and there’s really no gamified component to it - it’s more like an airdrop than a game mechanic.
So one actionable improvement the DAO could think about (since getting the Harvesting Release out mainly lies in the hands of PC) is reducing spillover rate & radius. Remember the spillover clip in the OG Gotchiverse Teaser? That looked fun and would 100% encourage a closer relationship between borrowers & lenders, while shrinking the advantage bots currently have.
