Problem
Scripted gotchis can detect alchemica laying on the ground and pick them up without being have to play the game. Causing two major issues:
- Mindless bots running around in the gotchiverse.
- Alchemica prices plummeting as a result of constant selling of picked up alchemica, essentially being treated as free money on the ground.
My View on Current Status
I think it was the right call to halt spillover for the time being. I also think hot zone was a great step towards solving the issue and I personally enjoy the mechanic a lot. I’m optimistic that with other potential measures like an invite system and so on, we will be able beat the botters eventually. To help the cause I suggest the following
Proposed Solution
I suggest that we revamp the alchemica ‘pick up’ for the alchemica laying outside of hot zone in the spillover radius. The idea is introducing other means of gameplay to prevent automation while it being also fun for players.
Instead of alchemica showing up after spillover event, upon impact to the ground after traveling the relative greater distance to hot zone, alchemica gets buried. The buried alchemica likes to clamp together somewhere in the spillover radius(a phenomenon that has been making the gotchi scientists scratch their heads for a while).
Now to detect the clamped alchemica in the radius, gotchis can use two input, a sound that plays indicating gotchi gets closer towards the alchemica source and a pulse of glow under the ground indicating the location which then fades away. The range of hearing this sound and seeing the glow more often or brighter would scale with how experienced the gotchi is, rewarding higher xp gotchis with better chance of detection and convenience.
Once the excavation site is located, then the process starts which the additional gameplay mechanic is introduced looking something similar to following image as an example:
Idea is to hit a button while the indicator moves across the bar. A similar mechanic is also found as minigames in different games like fishing in stardew valley which is much more complex and fun but the idea is similar. The efficiency of hitting the right timing can be again scaled with gotchi’s traits like xp. So, more experienced the gotchi better the chances of excavating the full site.
Based on the success rate in this quick minigame, alchemica is then spilled over in the same fashion as hot zone. The remaining alchemica, because the user didn’t have a perfect score in the minigame, would go to DAO alchemica treasury(open to discussion ofc, could go to Great Portal or PC etc.).
Potential Benefits to Bot Prevention
-By having alchemica hidden and using other inputs like sound, automation would become much more complex if not impossible.
-Playing a minigame is another complexity for automation, especially playing perfectly.
-In the end there will be still alchemica on the ground but the real person who does the excavation will have the best chance to collect most of alchemica, additionally other human players who recognizes excavation in progress will be attracted while leaving very little alchemica for scipted gotchis.
Other Potential Benefits
-When done right, these kind minigames are really fun and engages user more.
-Would include some level of skill for collecting spillover alchemica.
-It’s stimulating for scholars since an action they do has feedback in the game instead of just running around, just like an asset owner who channels or empties reservoirs.
-How easy the excavation or size of excavation spillover radius could be even a ‘occupation’ in the gotchiverse as an in game skill that builds up over time, the excavatooor. Similar to other future potential occupations like fishing, tailoring etc.
TLDR
Bunch and hide spillover alchemica that spills outside of hot zone to a location in spillover radius, have a minigame to play for a second hot zone spillover.
Lemme know what you guys think, thanks for reading!
Zerk