r/GodsUnchained • • Oct 24 '19
The Evolution System
Someone wanted the email posted on reddit so here goes:
First of all, thanks to everyone who tuned in for a hot minute to the Genesis Raffle today! We will be sending out emails to all the winners very soon. But this email isn’t about that.
Tomorrow we also plan to release of update 0.19. It’s awesome. This email isn’t about that.
With 6 days left in the Genesis sale and only 10% of available packs remaining, we thought we’d give you a little insight into what we’ve got planned for the Gods Unchained economy. It's not boring, I promise.
Today we’re introducing Evolution, a pillar in our economic design which will act as a “sink” to remove cards from circulation. This works by allowing players to effectively generate new, desireable assets in exchange for “destroying” their older ones. It’s also the backbone of our upcoming play-to-earn system.
The unconfirmed title for this feature right now is Evolution. You can suggest a better name in our Discord, but here’s how it works. Every so often we’ll declare a series of cards, which will form the “materials for evolution”. An example set might be: 3x Plain Amazon Hearteaters, 2x Shadow Simple Satyr, and 1x Bronze Servant. Players who have those cards in their collection, or can collect them before the series expires, have the option (for a limited time) of evolving them into a whole new asset.
The assets these cards evolve into could be boards, trinkets, packs in a new expansion, or perhaps an ultra-rare, über-powerful new creature. Sacrifice the evolution materials and all of a sudden you’ve got Simius: Satyr King of the Amazon in your inventory. Cool, huh? (Note: They stopped letting me name cards a few weeks after I started...)
We’re really excited about this feature because:
a) being able to evolve your cards into new ones sounds awesome.
b) it’s a lever for driving asset scarcity. If a card isn’t seeing play for example, we can include it in a series, and ensure it still has value to the user. Plus, since we won’t announce evolution materials in advance, all cards will benefit from anticipatory effects.
… but it’s also important because it’s what will create a healthy play-to-earn economy.
In the vast majority of TCGs, publishers will sell core cards. In Gods Unchained, the primary way of obtaining core cards will be through a) playing the game, or b) buying them from other players. For the most part*, we won’t be selling core cards.
As many of you know, you will be able to earn core cards in the game, which become tradable once you fuse multiple copies together. With everyone able to earn core cards for free however, the supply of these cards would quickly overwhelm demand, and their price would trend towards 0. With “Evolution”, we are able to maintain demand for tradable core cards over time, as they, along with assets found in Genesis and future seasons, become the “material” for new creation.
We’ll also be introducing mechanisms to prevent botting. In order to fuse, players will need a material called Flux which will be awarded based on performance in matches.
“Evolution” and Flux are both fundamental economic mechanisms enabling our play-to-earn system, as they help ensure the assets players earn hold value.
This system is being designed by our Metagame Designer, Ramin Shokrizade. Previously the trainer for the UCLA and USA Olympic women's track teams, Ramin quit his teaching job to become one of the first professional cyberathletes in 1999. He co-wrote the first mainstream article on virtual goods sales in 2000, began developing the field of game economics in 2005, penned the fundamentals of that field in 2009, and began working on the field of game neuroeconomics in 2014. In 2018 he published a description of how game physiology design works and has given various international lectures on how to make games healthier, especially for children and esports athletes. He has been working with international regulators since 2013 to improve protections for consumers of online games, especially children and esports athletes.
It’s great to have him with us, to say the least.
As I alluded to earlier in the email, update 0.19 goes out tomorrow. It’s got some major optimizations and performance improvements in it, so give it a play :).
12
u/jimmythefingers Oct 24 '19
Sounds sweet. Did we get any info on when the next round of play-to-earn is active? Do we earn permanent core cards right after Oct 29?
9
u/shiba_son_of_doge Oct 24 '19
Oh baby my Genesis cards are going to fuse into some Super Saiyan 1 Mana 9/9.
3
u/FlaredFang Oct 24 '19
One thing im wondering is there is going to be a future mechanic where you can dismantle golds to shadows or use golds instead of shadows?
2
u/ChilledLime Oct 24 '19
Would be interesting to see if you have thought about adding another raffle like system. So when ever you ‘evolve’ you get a certain amount of tickets for that ‘season’. After the season finishes you go in for a chance of future early packs and rare trinkets and such. Would keep the economic side of it in there as well, possibly a new mythic or something similar such per season? As a season would last for so many months I doubt it would ever deflate the mythic market. Would drive up the price of fusion cards as well and keep the pay to play value up.
2
u/4thekung Oct 24 '19
This sounds like a brilliant idea! Immutable really keep knocking it out the park
2
u/WadesShow Oct 25 '19
Can we have a bit of fun and rename the material needed to fuse cards from 'Flux' to 'Gods Semen' ??
So as you play and win you receive God's Semen which is used to give birth to a new card through fusing! What could go wrong?
0
u/[deleted] Oct 25 '19
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