Scaling BRS into Gotchiverse

Game Mechanics
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gm gotchigang,

I know a lot of the gotchigang members are excited and keen on brain storming gameplay mechanics of gotchiverse. So I’m happy to kick off some chatter tied to recent curve discussions as well, involving making BRS more relevant in gotchiverse. It’s a long post so if you just want to read the suggested gameplay mechanic idea(s) go to My Proposed Path to Forward with regards to scaling BRS into gotchiverse.

Snapshot of Current Situation
I’m gladly reading through the discussions happening around post-curve era of Aavegotchi. One of the current investor concerns stems from illiquid assets like gotchis and what holding aavegotchi assets brings for future in comparison to just holding $GHST token.

Obviously an improved and dynamic RF for several seasons is one way to go that I’m in favor of as well. But another issue I’m seeing having an aavegotchi and equipping it with fancy wearables have currently no clear projection of return in gotchiverse besides RF as it is being discussed. Simply the question, why should I want to grind my path towards better wearables/higher BRS gotchi besides a potentially improved RF?

Having tournaments and leaderboards in arena would be an attraction, via the gameplay in a skill based, fairly balanced environment. But besides the challenge of finding the ‘not too pay to win’ of a balance one thing we had in our mind so far was, ‘No Gotchi left behind’. Meaning all gotchis should be fun to play. And I have been in favor of the idea as well, as gotchis are assets several hundreds of dollars they need to be fun to play with regardless of BRS.

So how do we make sure high BRS is desired? How do we want people with liquidity to consider getting a high BRS gotchi or rare wearables instead of being convinced at they’re better off with just holding $GHST? What will be the gameplay loop that will keep bring people back?

I believe this can be done via protocol and a stronger gotchiverse gameplay rewards. As RF rewards are considered stimmies, a revamped RF with its rewards can be a nice injection of liquidity that people could use to boost their positions with gotchis and wearables, if there’s an attractive and strong incentive to do so via gotchiverse gameplay.

With alchemica assisted gameplay, this can fuel the land economy and farming as well, if the owner is to benefit in gotchiverse via farmed tokens for a potential of winning a better spot in leaderboard(s). And it’s about having a shot at it, nothing granted like a leaderboard based on sheer numbers like BRS, Kinship and XP. The idea is for player to have the opportunity to make up for lack of rank via gameplay and skill to climb ladders. Ultimately leads to question, how could BRS play a more effective role in gotchiverse without breaking the gameplay?

My Proposed Path to Forward
First off, we need to make higher BRS relevant in gotchiverse. For that initially we need to activate eyes as traits. If we are to limit eyes to utility only(sacrificing 33% of BRS) than a gotchi with common eye(s) could compete with a much higher BRS gotchi if the 4 traits are aligned accordingly. This I think would be an absolute disaster for wearables and a lazy way to balance things. Every gotchi can be a bit unique via the small bonuses they could get via eyes as 4 main traits are already established. This would be acting as boosts and they may not align perfectly in the first place.

As an example, a gotchi with tanky stats might get a boost via eye shape to critical damage. Which again is fair as it is randomized via VRF roll in first place. I suggest the pool of gameplay bonuses, eyeshapes and eye colors to be randomly matched for a fair chance at good synergies for everyone. Double myths additionally can get an optional flex visual as a bonus result of community appreciation we have seen so far, like a different color aura that doesn’t exist otherwise.

Secondly, at the moment BRS is tied to carrying capacity. I see two issues:
-It scales linearly and it’s too much.
-It just scales for higher carrying capacity for alchemica and that’s it.

On the first point, I believe current carrying capacities should be reduced significantly as it is almost impossible to fill them in first place. It’s a significant advantage to have larger storage in any game and comes at big convenience and shouldn’t be given away freely. Many games make its players work towards convenience and this should be no different. About the scaling, as rarity farming rewards are scaling exponentially, carrying capacity should as well. A high BRS gotchi is rare and should have rare benefits in gotchiverse accordingly.

On the second point, at the moment there’s no reason to keep the alchemica in your gotchi pocket in arena. Once you can cash out, user signs off the withdraw the alchemica. Imo, we need to incorporate a risk reward system to holding tokens in gotchis pockets.

My suggestion is to have gotchis gaining bonuses depending on the alchemica their holding with a cap based on max. carrying capacity. Typically in MMORPG games synergy related bonuses can give a benefit up to 15%, which would be for one type of alchemica based on global carrying capacity number. I.e. based on the BRS, this bonuses can scale up to 15% for max BRS and respective carrying capacity. Even with 350 BRS, if the tied carrying capacity gives a max 2-3% bonus on the respective stat, there’s a reason of accumulating and staying in the game while carrying alchemica.

I got inspired with this idea by remembering Dan mentioning 4 alchemica being tied to elements of the universe. Essentially the alchemica related bonuses scaling with capacity/BRS would be:

  • FUD → Speed Bonus
  • FOMO → Damage Bonus
  • ALPHA → Regeneration Bonus
  • KEK → Defense bonus

With this model I see two potential benefits, one being the underdog gotchi potentially gaining an edge by having accumulated alchemica. Second one is, this makes higher BRS gotchis more desirable as in competitive MMORPG games, even for 0.1% of a bonus people are willing to pay thousands to max out their outputs. It ultimately puts a target for people to obtain higher BRS yielding assets and compete in the game for alchemica standing around and accumulate. I believe this helps with competitive edge without feeling unfair or breaking anything.

I think having a clear path forward in terms of gotchiverse, its mechanics helps and contributes the discussions around the curve, so I’m eager to hear your opinions.

Zerk

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This is the bible implementation.

CC will affect more than just alchemica.

This is a new thought. Good idea, too.

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Yeah the original bible idea was neat already I think and was presumably randomized so I think sticking to that is a good idea.

I may have missed carrying capacity affecting more than just alchemica, how do you mean?

Thanks, idea came to be from hearing FUD being linked to wind, FOMO to fire, ALPHA to water and KEK being this ground element that can be molded and processed. They may empower the carrier gotchis as they accumulate

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fren @Zerkben I support your idea, and warmly thank you for thinking of asset holders, BRS, reasons to own assets instead of just GHST, etc. Much props for that fren.

From a technical or programming stand-point it might be something others balk at, but I believe it was @stedari who floated this same issue in Discord: we want to stimulate people to stack alch in the gotchi pocket vs. rushing to meet minimum requirements to log out/ cash out.

One issue I brought up then, is that currently people want their gotchi and wearable stats to count as much as possible. Since many of these assets have been traditionally expensive, they want their “money’s worth” so to speak. Others on the other hand are very concerned with stats/BRS/wearables being too powerful- i.e. the game becoming a pay2win scenario.
So this dilemma becomes a bit stronger with the introduction of alchemica-carry buffs, lets consider this example: The game is designed so that a gotchi in all godlikes is very powerful but not one-shot kills other gotchis. This makes sense. But if he fills his pockets with alchemica, turns out that suddenly he is indeed one-shotting players. Leading to complaints and calls for nerfs. So you end up having to balance the game assuming he will be full of alchemica. Do we imagine such a an individual, to be willing to gather for a few hours before seeing the abilities of their supposedly elite items? What happens then when he is not loaded with alchemica? is he gimp? Will he be targetted /camped by groups of 3-4 people because they know he is probably carrying loads of alch? And if he is not he is weak and an easy target for griefing? You could end up with certain gotchis acting as big bullseye targets for all others to prioritize killing. maybe we want that? I dont know.
This example seems a little niche/extreme/etc, but these are precisely the type of questions/scenarios you have think about in game balancing.

So don’t get me wrong. I actually love and support this idea, but believe it introduces some tough questions around balancing these alchemica buffs that we would need to think about at the ideation stage.

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What if the buffs peak out… they dont help godlike gotchis, but they give scrubgotchis a reason to run around like a pinata.

You dont incentivize the hunter, you incentivize the prey :wink: The prey is the incentive for the hunter.

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yeah this sounds very smart fren.

so an already strong gotchi can load up to the brim with alch to kind of “red-line” it or push towards that extreme, with diminishing returns so to speak.

All this while a naked and average gotchi, would see relatively huge benefit to load themselves up with alch. The alch helps them catch up to the equipped gotchi so to speak. I love this because p2e players and maybe even bots (if we see them) will field this type of gotchi, and the buffs would disencourage constant withdrawals. It would be a constant gamified tradeoff whether to cash out or keep buffing up lol.

I do like where this idea is going!

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Thanks for the feedback Fantasma!

In my opinion with regards to balancing, if a naked low brs gotchi sees another gotchi wielding two katanas it better hide to avoid getting two shoted if not one. This kind of somewhat harsh teaching of knowing one’s place is part of any RPG/MMORPG experience. Of course with cooldowns and so on, low brs gotchi can actually survive it without being automatically completely destroyed at every single counter of a very high BRS gotchi.

I indulge you to think about the opposite scenario, instead of requiring 5-6 gotchis 3-4 might be enough to take a GL equipped gotchi down which require coordination and holding of the collected alchemica. Which there can always be an opposite party targeting alchemica of a certain group that intends to gang up on one gotchi, so I think as you said there will be many possible scenarios and will vary a lot.

In the high BRS carrying alchemica scenario, there would be undoubtedly targeting of the GL equipped gotchi(s) as they will be sitting on a large war chest, which giving the respective gotchi significant bonuses to climb the ladder of leaderboard. I think about it as like a PvP raid, as that gotchi becomes this big fish and wouldn’t care that much about cashing out alchemica as opposed to leaderboard prize it would return with buff advantages. Against alchemica buffs which are to be picked up by anyone on the ground, there will be counters such as potions, so I think it has the potential to spice things up incentivize potion usage etc.

And I agree, there will be lots of balancing needed over time on arena with or without alchemica buffs and appreciate the tinkering around the idea!

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Good idea…must going on

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