Greetings, Ethgard Legends Adventurers!
We are excited to announce a new update targeting our website and infrastructure. This update introduces a few new features, redesigns certain aspects of the website, and paves the way for an even better game-loop. Read on for the full details of what's new in this version.
Redesigned Inventory
Initially, each item, such as packs and tokens, within the inventory had its own page. In preparation for an even better game-loop, we redesigned the items sections within the inventory so it now consists of a table instead of separate item pages.
New Items
As you might have seen in the image above, we have added a few new items to the inventory section. We'll share more information about these further down in this post.
- Ethershards (Ingame)
- Ingame Currency
- Presale Promo Pack (Onchain)
- Claimable Promo Pack earned by those who participated in the presale
- Lucky Potion (Onchain)
- Consumable to double the chance of receiving a gold or diamond foil card within a pack. Purchasable in the shop for 150 CREDITS.
Redesigned Cards Section & New Concept
We redesigned our concept of cards/units within Ethgard Legends. Rather than just increasing a "combination level", combining cards of a unit (such as Heroes) will result in a higher unit rarity. The rarity will be important later on when Ethershards can be earned. (more about this further in this post)
There are 7 different rarities. When a player joins the game and doesn't own any card yet, they have a "Basic" rarity. Once they own at least 1 card of said unit, it will be upgraded to "Common". The goal is to have this combination mechanism onchain later on. As of now, however, just "owning" the cards is enough to upgrade the rarity.
Here are a few examples:
For Rare, a player needs to own 10 cards of said unit in total, which can be any foil, but at least 1 of them has to be gold foil.
For Legendary, the player needs to own 250 cards and 12 of them have to be gold foil OR 1 diamond foil. The current chances of getting a gold/diamond foil are 1%/0.1% or 2%/0.2% with a Lucky Potion.
Please note that the rarity requirements are still subject to change as we figure out the optimal way forward.
While the rarity is currently being displayed on the card as text, once we have finished the redesign of the card border and backgrounds, the background will be coloured based on the rarity. The same goes for the diamond card foil, which will be added once the design is finished.
Improved Sign-In Code Flow
We have also added the option to switch accounts (results in a logout for now) when signing into the mobile or desktop app. Previously, if the player was already logged in, it would just auto-redirect back to the app, without the player being able to switch accounts.
Lite (Guest) Account Login
To improve the onboarding experience, we have added the lite (guest) account creation to the website login modal as well. Users are now able to try out the game within the browser via a 1-click mechanism. Doing anything else, such as purchasing Credits or claiming assets, still requires a full account.
Pre-Sale Rewards
The Pre-Sale has recently concluded. We are grateful for everyone who has supported us by purchasing packs, especially the top 5 leaderboard spots, who are now eligible to design a hero with us. Each one will also receive 10 gold foil cards of their designed hero.
Everyone who participated in the pre-sale, depending on their purchased packs & points, also received special promo packs, which contain 1 random foil card of our promo hero, Woda. The pack can be minted onchain (on the testnet) via the inventory.
Next: Improved Outer Gameloop
The above should summarise the most important changes & updates quite well. However, that's not all we've done these past few weeks. We've been thinking about what the most important next steps for Ethgard Legends should be.
Currently, the game has a fun and exciting core game-loop, the part of the game that consists of playing the game within the Unity client - battling against other players. We've had over 700 games this past month of real human players, even though there are no rewards to be earned besides the sweet dopamine kick of crushing other players and collecting the W's.
When looking at other games, however, there are usually more game-loops involved. Collecting resources, upgrading units, completing quests, opening loot-boxes, etc. Loops that keep the players engaged. Most of them do not contain Web3 elements though, such as ownable assets. This means in-game rewards and items cannot be sold, transferred, or even owned by the players. Converting Web2 game concepts 1:1 to Web3 won't work because it would create an unsustainable game economy, and that's not what we want Ethgard Legends to be.
So, what does this mean for Ethgard Legends?
We want to focus on our outer game-loop next. Our primary goal is to have a game that is fun and sustainable and keeps the players engaged. To improve our outer game-loop:
- We are planning to have 2 earnable ingame currencies: Crowns (CROWNS) and Ethershards (ETHSHARD). Crowns can be earned by playing the game, with no difference between someone who plays the game for free and someone who spends money. Ethershards can also be earned by playing the game, but will scale with different factors, such as Unit rarity & foil, Titles, etc.
- Rewards within the game can be "purchased" with Crowns and Ethershards. In order to be able to mint them onchain, they need to be further unlocked with Ethershards. This mechanism allows players to gradually get into the game and unlock their previously earned rewards if they so choose.
- At this point, we are not planning to have either Crowns or Ethershards be tradable or transferable. We understand that many Web3 Gamers seek the thrill of earning, but as we said before, our primary goal is for the game to be sustainable, which also means being mindful of the rewards given out (inflation) and what expectations to set for the players.
- We are also working on finalising the smart contracts. Until then, all rewards will exist within our database and be cloned onchain to the testnet.
- Another important aspect we want to focus on is a redesign of the ladder system. We're looking into creating multiple ranks similar to TFT (Iron II, Iron I, Bronze IV, Bronze III, etc.) and other similar games.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback. We hope you'll enjoy the update of Ethgard Legends.
See you on the battlefield!