A-drop Season2 Structure

[modest ember]

The 🌬️ drop is one of our strongest assets right now, and we have everything to gain by using it in the most effective way possible.

There have been many discussions around the 🌬️ drop structure recently. I know what we have now was simply the first test net iteration, and we couldn't finalize it in time for the launch, but now it's time to prepare for Season 2.

I'm certain the team is already working on it, but I believe the community can help here.

I will keep this short. The goal is to provide key points and general guidelines. I hope that we can all expand and contribute in the comment section to create a good framework for the team to build upon.

What do we need for our missions and milestones?

• Can't be abused by bots and multi-accounts
• Give a sense of advancement (good daily/weekly quests)
• Incentivize people to participate in the paid ecosystem
• Incentivize people to play instead of farming (rewarding competition in the arena, collecting illuvials)
• Give us dopamine (find HOLO/DH/S3)

Arena:

• Ascendant wins/games are completely unachievable right now. To get 1 million points, even if you win 100% of your matches, get 0 queue time, and play 24/7, it would take you 42 days to complete this.

• Wins is a good, unexploitable metric and it pushes people to participate in the game ecosystem, but it needs to be lowered significantly.

• Ascendant rank is an excellent way to reward people while incentivizing participation in the ecosystem. I would propose making this one substantial while being more detailed, such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 100th, 500th, and 1000th. To encourage active participation, I propose that rewards be given only at the final leaderboard of the month instead of on a daily basis.

• Survival wave achievement has been a hot topic. The structure will change for Season 2, which will hopefully eliminate the problem of copying screenshots/videos. Still, as a free mode, the reward should be limited or given as a multiplier in my opinion. It was too much work to give a multiplier for the achievements in Season 1, but since it was already implemented in the test net 🌬️ drop phase, I think it's possible to bring it back.

• Survival number of games is not a good metric, in my opinion. Not only is it impossible with the current numbers, but it is also exploitable as you can go to wave 2 and restart.

• Ranking in survival is the best metric and should be rewarded the most as it incentivizes play instead of farming. Still, this is a free-to-play mode that can easily be done on infinite alt accounts, so the reward has to be limited or given out as a multiplier ideally.

• We currently don't have anything for Gauntlet, but I hope to see it implemented in Season 2. Just like Ascendant, it would be great to see the competition incentivized through this mode, especially if we can get Gauntlet modes with ownership out on time.

Overworld:

• Capturing illuvials is great. Stage3 are pretty impossible, but it would be odd not to include them, so it's perfectly fine.

• Forging suits and materials is good as it incentivizes active participation in the ecosystem. I would propose lowering the free ones though because someone can print 1 million per day doing the T0 suit one on alt accounts, which is a massive problem.

• Illuvial experience is my favorite because it gives a sense of advancement, is achievable, and incentivizes real play.

• For Overworld, I would suggest adding something about capturing special illuvials such as single Stage3 (getting whole lines of Stage3 isn't really possible) and HOLO/DH. This would give an additional reason to continue spending in your runs and reward you in an unexpected way (dopamine/casino).

• Another idea would be to have one for fusing up illuvials, as this would give a sense of advancement in the Overworld.

Zero:

I hope to see Zero implemented for next season too. We have everything to gain from including the full ecosystem experience through the 🌬️ drop.

Even if Zero has free land, this is not easily exploitable, and I'm sure the team will know what missions and milestones fit best for this game mode.

---

Sorry wasnt short after all

PS: i saying the real word for 🌬️ drop will get you muted for a week, hence all the "🌬️ drop"

[zinc moat]

This is fantastic wow. I think the one piece you missed is the massive points allocated to the free survival wave challenges basically makes it financially irresponsible to NOT play multiple accounts. Meaning, 1 person in 1 day could get 10 million points easily if the wave 40 is easy. I see it talked about that being reworked, but the reason why it's really bad is what I'm saying above, not the fact ppl can copy (as much)

[zinc moat]

Having zero excluded is honestly comical. The team gotta be implementing in some way... These are rhe ppl who spent astronomically more $$ on the game (collectively)

[modest ember]

Yes that's a good point. I do say that free modes should be quite less incentivized or incentivized through multiplier to solve this

Even with the simple crafting or T0 suits, which takes an hour, you can farm 1 million+ per day

[modest ember]

Im sure they intend to, really its just that there were so much to do before launch date that 🌬️ drop structure hasnt been reworked on time

[zinc moat]

1000% agree. It's making it illogical not to use multiple accounts, which obviously is not actually good for the economy or community

[modest ember]

Another thing to consider is to add repeatable milestones such as the test net 🌬️drop part that made us able to collect T5S3 over and over again

If alt accounts are potential way to abuse some milestones why not put everyone on the same footing

[desert needle]

I think we should Add daily points for arena wins (if you win you Will get 1, 5 or 10 points depending on your rank) and week points for leaderboard rank (monthly is too long for a game that is not at its peak AT the moment )

But in general I agree that Arena milestones right now are 1000x harder than OW, which is not right (as arena drives the marketplace value)

[modest ember]

Thats a very good point mLLL, i initially thought about weekly as it was a very fun structure in previous arena reward system but then figured seasons are monthly so lets go monthly. If possible though i 100% support the weekly structure, makes it much more competitive and exciting!

[azure bough]

It would be great if this time the team put out the structure prior to the season starting. Allowing enough time for community feedback could have avoided all the massive dramas we've had with all the airdrops so far

[ember holly]

I disagree we should include luck based rewards like holo and dark holo, they should be rewards for themself.

We should give away points for time and money included. It should be fairly easy to calculate how much time and efford you need for a task and get number of points for that.

Then we have a question of what is worth more? Time playing the game or money invested?

For argument sake if we imagine that one hour of gameplay is worth 100 points and $10 is worth 100 points. Than task that needs 2 hours to complete and $5 spent should be around 250 points.

Or something similar. But I think that would be much more fair than random numbers we have now (pretty sure they aren’t random but still).

We do have a question of skill and how that comes into play but yeah… Just an idea about a direction we can go in…

[slender halo]

I really like the idea of rewarding Survival/ascendant games with a monthly leaderboard, only one thing i see who might happens close to the end of month will be alliance players who dump points to each other to rank higher (seen on pro tournament like in hearstone). When money is involded expect everything.
So need to go tight with total reward points to not make player fall for it.

This + daily mission can be enought reward for thoses games. Nb of games/wins make much
less sense and thats the abusable part.

Limited multi millestones to capture x Holo tier was a great one too (maybe it will come back at some point 👀) even attractive if you had all tiers available so all paying player can participate depending on there budget.

Definitly more fun to attract with those Holo fishing run. Thanks for you post lot of usefull point inside.

[modest ember]

They are a reward themselves for sure but i think the casino like effect of extra intermitent reward could be good for airdrop. Every corner you turn you can pop a jackpot of X points. It would help to incentivize continue to do runs

What you say is a good way to approach the balancing across different missions and milestones 💯

[sage bough]

When you say "jackpot of X points" i thought on a crate that you could be found on paid run that would give 1/3 of the fuel so people would be inclined to buy the rest of it get the runs to keep playing. Could be 50 fuel, idk, just a small amount for people that have strike 5/10/15 runs on single/straight shot.

[atomic flax]

guys

idk if u know
u can only get points once from milestones that u completed in a season

so milestones like the 1000 win can be completed in a few months

[slender halo]

oh i see, didnt knew. make more sense then

[modest ember]

@atomic flax really? That highly incentivize multi accounts, what do you think about this?

Right now i did a lot of milestones, im 7th place this means for the next 5 seasons i cant do much

[atomic flax]

im surely gonna start a new account every season

[modest ember]

Thats not the way. We are a DAO, if we believe its wrong we can change it

Would you be in favor of seasonal milestones?

[atomic flax]

i was hoping the points carry over

similar to beyond leaderboard?

[modest ember]

Milestones are quite easy to achieve for the most part. If it carries over we are very highly incentivized to farm alt accounts, i really dont like this

[atomic flax]

thats why milestones should be strictly P2E while f2p milestones give multiplier.
and keep F2P missions.
F2P players can farm missions

if milestones dont carry over, that means we have to re forge the weapons and suits

re capture illuvials
re farm xp

[modest ember]

Well if they dont reset you will still recraft, re capture and re farm xp. Just on another account..

If milestones dont reset/change players will be highly penalized to keep playing on their real account

[atomic flax]

but u gonna need to spend again to farm ores and capture illuvials

you'll prob just continue with the account.
unless the intention is to make people spend again every season

if thats the case then we need to treat beyond leaderboard the same, reset the leaderboard every wave

[modest ember]

I dont know what beyond as to do with this. Its compltetely different imo, its a collection game, wouldnt make sense to reset

[atomic flax]

illuvials and suit/weapons are collections

[modest ember]

One of the intention of the airdrop should indeed be to incentivize continuing participation and spending in the ecosystem

[ember holly]

Milestones should for sure be reseted or changed. No point in forcing people to use multiple accounts.

Also, I don’t entirely agree that f2p missions can’t reward any points. We just have to be smart about it. If you invest time, you get points. But if you invest time and money you get far more points.

[modest ember]

Totally agree on this man. Points for F2P should be harder to get or lower because otherwise people can farm million(s) per day

[hardy mist]

Where did you get this info? I've never seen this officially mentioned anywhere. It would also not make sense that someone collects all the xp milestones in season 1 and then gets nothing for the next 5 seasons.

[atomic flax]

team

[hardy mist]

Then why is it that we were not told this and have to hear it from someone on the inside? I don't think it's fair to keep the community in the dark about this when some people get access to this info.

[atomic flax]

we were just told about this yesterday

thats one of the function of council to pass questions from the community and relay it back

[hardy mist]

Well, I think this could be started from season 2, with a properly created quest/mission structure instead of the current nonsense one. It would be a clean start where the quests/milestones are fixed and everyone knows what to expect moving forward.

But if it will happen as you say, we will be forced to start new accounts for sure

[atomic flax]

reworking missions and milestones is their next objective, rn team is focusing on fixing other issues

[hardy mist]

That's ok, fixing bugs is the most important task and they have 4 more weeks to create a good structure for the next season. But we would probably expect to see a decision on the 1.1 million points for wave 40 sometime soon. Do you have any info on that?

[modest ember]

I was going to do another post for this as i think it its a very bad idea to not reset milestones, at least in their current form

Its fine if its only in the discussion here though, better to not spread to thin

As the whole thing have to be restructured for season 2 the milestones could also be reworked to incentivize people to stay on their real accounts

[atomic flax]

afaik kieran want to deal with wave 40 asap.
we just have to wait for the IMC to decide which proposal they want to approve

[hardy mist]

cool, thanks

[modest ember]

I think they will go with paz one, i presume they did it together as both viper and blickter insta thumbed up the proposal when he posted it

[atomic flax]

so far, the multipler is what would make people want to keep using their account

[modest ember]

100% but i think its been clear thats not possible for season 1. Hopefully its a feature reintegrated for season 2

[atomic flax]

not possible to change the survival points to multiplier asap, but they still can do special events

[surreal osprey]

what if all milestones would be multiplier? then you are incentivized to play on one account, we just need better and more daily and weekly missions, not collect 3 dragon eggs for 2 points. maybe you choose 5 missions from 10 offered, so you dont get mega screwed by rng?

[hot pumice]

I’d really like to see fusing more important going forward. This would create more use for stage 1 and 2 illuvial. Fusing would reduce numbers and create more of a purpose to buy them on marketplace which would help with prices

This could create a supply issue with stage 3. But really they are hard to get and with the 57k exp needed, it would take a while before this is an issue. Plus I think you could give utility to stage 3 illuvial. Many have discussed reroll options or other things to reduce their numbers. If you included that as part of the airdrop points as well it would reduce the ability of multi accounts. Much harder to multi account if you have to fuse and then use stage 3

[modest ember]

I would really like to add fusing in there, i fused a lot of big stage 3 in the first days

Focusing on fusing requires skill as you gotta be able to win the encounters with your basic core team of 4-6 + the shitty 2-4 illuvials

It gives a sense of advancement and true experience of the game