In the original proposal, alloys were going to be the limiting factor in wearable production, but since Frames were introduced it seems like alloys have become less important. I even recall Dr Wagmi saying that maybe alloys could be purchased with Alchemica?
If that’s the case, is there a possibility that Alchemica could be used in place of Alloys? The player is already spending Alchemica during the forging process. If Alchemica replaces alloys, then the forger would need to acquire 1) Alchemica for forging 2) Frame for rarity and slot 3) Wearable schematic. Having collected all of those, they could then attempt a forging.
In the original proposal, Alloys would be minted when a wearable was melted down, but maybe that is unnecessary? What if melting a wearable down just produced its Frame and Schematic?
The value of the specifically modified traits will be captured by the schematic. This underscores the need for some ongoing level of curation. We already have Godlike items for +6 NRG and +6 BRN, we should prioritize schematic release that fits different gotchis. This will also help the holders of those already valuable item retain their value. This can be centralized by Pixelcraft or more decentralized using a system similar to the FGC queue where we approve schematics before their release. This would help avoid trait redundancy and provide a necessary level of artistic curation.
I’ve thought about this a lot. It’s a difficult decision with big tradeoffs. Here are the major cons to using alchemica instead of Aalloy:
The Distribution Ratio decisions comes with a defined cost to ecosystem participants. We will have to choose between Item Cap, FRENS, Maall, or a Hybrid ratio which has enormous financial impact. As an example, if we use Item Cap Ratios, Godlikes would require 200x more alchemica than Commons. If we use the Maall ratio, Godlikes require 2000x more alchemica than commons.
Alchemica is volatile making pricing incredibly difficult and likely quickly outdated. It will be difficult and arbitrary to set prices vs using Alloy, an asset completely within the value loop of protocol assets. These frequent adjustments would be difficult to make given current DAO infrastructure.
This provides much less composability for our DAO moving forward. With the Aalloy model, The DAO will collect a significant sum of Aalloy (10% of all forging costs). This sum can be used in various ways. We could partner with the gotchiverse (see Refinery installation below) or other NFT projects and use Alloy as a single intermediary token to move between Metaverses. This is not feasible or logical using an asset outside the value loop, let alone 4 volatile tokens.
This decision adds value to non-protocol assets at the expense of protocol assets by not keeping Alloy in the value loop. It removes the deflationary mechanic on protocol assets - one of the intentions of the proposal. It leaves the DAO with nothing in exchange for trying to provide utility to non-protocol assets.
As alluded to above, I have a few modular additions that I hope to propose after the Forge is established. One for consideration is the Refinery, an installation to turn alchemica into Alloy. This would allow a partnership between the DAO and the Gotchiverse by defining an available amount of Alloy. The Aalloy would come from the DAO pool (taken from fees) and allow granular control of Aalloy injection into the gotchiverse while serving as an alchemica sink. This can be adjusted, turned off, or modified more easily under an Aalloy model than an Alchemica model. Think “the refinery is open for 2 months for a total of 3000 Aalloy”, get it while it’s hot.
Understanding the goals of the proposal are important. It is not a primary goal to add value to alchemica. It’s a possible secondary benefit outlined through a potential Refinery process above. I don’t think we should sacrifice the primary goals of the project (composability, abstracting wearable value, creating healthy protocol value loops) by integrating Alchemica .
More and more things are released, more and more complex compositions. In the end, only you OG can understand it. Design should be simple for fools. Otherwise, no new players will come in to synthesize equipment.Just use 4 kinds of alchemy to synthesize it directly.
"primary goals of the project (composability, abstracting wearable value, creating healthy protocol value loops).
This is a staggeringly good inaugural Aavegotchi DAO initiative and community engagement. OG brilliant minds are like a musicians’ (expansive), they need someone (the DAO community! ric rubin?) to focus on the core benefit with occam’s thrift. How can we simplify at every turn rather than complexicate.
If the core principles are:
Composability = aatomization/dissolution and reconfiguration in a gaamagotchi way
Abstracting Wearable Value = essentially to monetize ala divest/reinvest
Creating healthy protocol value loops = creating opportunity to reconfigure/reinvest your wearable equity, but not necessarily extract it directly from the ecosystem.
It seems to me that using Alchemica in place of alloy opens the door for extraction.
I think the original alloy concept is great, but have a feeling that the alloys should represent a newly unfolded aspect of something already existing in our gotchispace.
Why not - for example (and there may be obvious reasons I’m not considering) - have the alloys be 1-1 with the gotchi traits (4 in total). Then at the meltdown all commons (C) = 100 of each alloy (4 traits: AGG, NRG, SPK, BRN) +100 in the augmented quality alloys, uncommons = W of each alloy + X of the augmented quality alloys, rare = Y of each + Z augmented trait alloys, etc.
… the math would need to worked out according to the core BRS v Augmented Trait boost ratio (CBRSvATBR)…but rather than introducing a new set of alloy tokens why not have them be the tokenized version of the core gotchi traits.
Alloy is a critical aspect of the whole formula. It is essentially what tokenizes the global wearable supply, what allows us to have levers on the availability of different stat modifications without dilution while also being deflationary on the overall supply. As others mentioned, using alchemica instead of alloys creates a whole host of issues.
Extremely well said Doc! Ever since last DAO call I had become disillusioned with how the spirit of the forge had been completely missed by key participants, and interpreted to be a way to further devalue original protocol assets by tying them now to alchemica. The idea of using alloys and frames is to instill an intrinsic sense and mechanism of awareness towards dilution in our process of minting wearables.
Instead of heading to forums and DAO to argue that others need to be diluted because you want a specific werable (current process), you could just craft it and pay your “dilution dues” through the smol alloy burn.
Usually debates on whether to dilute or not come down to those with financial interest in dilution arguing against those who will be diluted without clear benefits. A deflationary alloy allows those in favor of dilution to print as many wearables as they want, but the alloy burn will make THEM conscious and responsible of the inflation/debasement that is happening (perfectly abstracted into the alloy burn). This instead of the current model where we dilute to create profits and entertainment for “Peter” at the expense of “Paul”. I’ll probably get a response that dilution is offset by RF, yet you can simply head over to the current debate on season 5 or look at the runaway raffle inflation (with no deposits to RF pool) that’s happened, to realize RF hasn’t been sufficiently or properly implemented to counteract inflation. Another common argument is “why protect OGs/whales?” its not about that and it has never been about that- to be competitive, we need to offer a product that is A) reliable and B) attractive. Our wearables have not been either of those things for a very long time, because we deal with nerf culture, lack of utility, constant economic modifications, and a dilutionary spirit- the end result can be seen in the languishing bazaar any given day.
Another argument/response might be that if we control inflation via frames, there is no need for alloy. While this could be true, doing it only via frames poses a few challenges, such as making the whole process of the forge pointless, if supply of frames is too tightly guarded because of current market conditions, the dilution debate will just be the same thing, with or without the Forge. The beauty of abstracting the different reasons to dilute into 3 parts, is the real gem of this initiative, because we can tackle specific problems without debasing the entire economy. Example: We determine that more GL face items are needed as well as legendary and common pets. In the current paradigm, this smol/specific need leads us to do massive raffles and sales of all kinds of wearables, diluting and devaluing the entire ecosystem because a single slot needed more items. This could have been addressed instead by simply introducing a few new schematics.
Moving forward, alloy would be a lever for price/affordability, whereas frames would address specific slot/utility supply, and finally schematics would address marketing needs and stat coverage. Any of these 3 ingredients could be released (together with full/pre-crafted wearables) when there is real and actual demand for them. Looking back, most the times we have diluted in the project’s history, has been out of the need for just one of the elements (like more schematics for different stats) while supply has already been saturated.
If implemented properly, the Forge+ Framework would allow people to buy or craft wearables with a better sense of lasting value, instead of the current paradigm of clear & relentless downward path in valuations of the assets.
To keep everyone up to date see the following attachments:
The Forge Litepaper: The Forge Litepaper - Economics - Google Docs
The technical paper will be published within the next week after a meeting with Pixelcraft
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about the Forge from the direction of the artwork and I have come to the conclusion it’s best to rename Frames.
Why?
Frames don’t exactly make sense from a logical or design perspective.
Logic: How would a frame be inserted into an item to then be returned upon smelting? If it’s a mould, then that would mean it’s more of a cast which exists outside of the item and would either be destroyed or reusable for mass production.
Design: There is no one-size-fits-all frame design. This became especially apparent when looking at the hand category.
I also don’t believe the term Frame embodies strongly enough what it really is: the scarcity driver. At first glance, it feels more auxiliary.
I would propose to change the name Frame to Core. You infuse the schematic with the core with the alloy in a nice trifecta to get the final item. Logically, the Core is infused into the item but never destroyed. It is also the “soul” of the item. Something scarce and powerful.
Design-wise, it makes much more sense as well. Not only does it make more sense, but it also allows for cooler design
I haven’t been up too much with the economics, but it’s my understanding that you get 90% yield when breaking things down. If that’s the case, I would recommend increasing all alloys x10 that way you never get a decimal number, even when breaking down a common (you’d get 9 alloys?)
Yup. We have decided to use a base 100 system. Regardless of the distribution ratio, commons will cost 100 alloy to forge and return 90 when smelted. This will allow for more options in fee management as well (5 to DAO 5 to burn wallet).
Yes! All names are up for debate. I am planning to finalize names at the DAO meetings over the next two weeks. We will make sure Core is up for consideration over Frame. Bonus points if you leak a cool design for Cores to convince the masses!
When you buy large car parts, you need to return the old one to them, so they can recondition it into one for the next person, as there were only so many of that part ever made. They call that returning the core.
The core could be a wireframe representation of the location it goes in in the appropriate color. This explains what’s going on visually in the simplest way possible.
The Schematic/Plans can just be the picture of the thing and the stats. One of the stats is “require [frametype]”
Noone will be confused by that
If you want to be fancy, put a place in the screen you get when you view the schematic, that just accepts a frame. You put the frame in the schematic, and then feed the schematic to the forge.
Great conversation with Dr. Wagmi about the outlook of the Forge. I will admit I was skeptical at first and was super worried about the original proposed model of Aalloy. I can tell a massive amount of work has gone in to this proposal already and I am now super bullish on the Forge.
ERC 1155 for Aalloy is perfect
I love the plan for essence
I now agree that keeping the forge separate from protocol tokens is a good move for now
A few ideas following this conversation:
I would love to see releases of schematics (and others) be completely blind. Be it raffle, GBM, whatever, you shouldn’t know what you’re going to get. I think this is already the plan but there is nothing that would make me happier than to see one of our own community members pull a massive item and potentially have their life changed. The large purchases should be between community members, not from the protocol.
An idea for RNG with the forge. I feel the biggest cause to our current alchemica situation was GLTR. It was too easy to get a day one max aaltar then not make another purchase for the rest of eternity. It was all reward with no risk, sure they took market risk but no in-game risk. I propose that when a forge fails the player gets their items returned except for any GLTR used to speed it up, which should be burned. The more GLTR injected, the higher risk of failure (modified down by the gotchis crafting skill). If a player is going to ‘skip’ the game and buy their way to the top it should be A.) massively expensive and B.) impossible to estimate exactly what it will cost due to a little RNG.
@notorious_BTC is writing a blog post for blog.aavegotchi.com that will explain the forge, introduce some lore, and be accessible for the lay-person vs the tech heavy white paper.
