It has been over a month since my first post introducing the game and my then-early, first month, experiences with it. The project has survived another month+, I am having fun with it, so time for an update!
The good
Let's start with my ROI, since I am sure you are curious about it.
The game, now in its third month, seems to be rather profitable. I have invested in few days before the launch, buying the minimum but still an expensive set of 4 NFTs (3xS, 1xA), and even though it was at close to ATH (my DCA was a bit over 6$, and the token is now about 1$), I estimate my initial investment of ~2,5k$ has 4x-ed since (if I was to cash out entirely right now). If the price of the token was to stabilize at the current value, I'd also be looking at the daily income of ~150$. So I am quite happy with the ROI for now, the big question is can it be sustainable? And obviously, nobody knows. There are folks who are in it for the long term, including the devs, whose in-token bonuses are locked in 2+ years roadmap, but there are obviously profit-takers who are driving the token price right now. Time will tell who was right; I, for one, decided to take the long-term approach and I am not taking profits, reinvesting my gains into the more/better cards.
I will also note that my "luck" is quite average. Since the game started, I opened 21 boxes and got a very expected distribution of cards: 1 SSS (~2% odds), 1 SS (~10% odds), and the rest are roughly half S and As (which have a roughly 40% odds of dropping). I will not deny that opening the SS and SSS didn't help - they are valuable on the secondary market (right now SS is ~700 FINA and SSS, ~4k) and they did triple my daily income. But the point is - I started the game with 3 S and 1 A characters, and in 2+ months I build myself up to 20 heroes, including the SS and SSS, without investing a cent. Oh, and time commitment? 1-2h a day, I'd say.
Here is my average daily income by gaming mode:
- 1 SSS mine: 25 FINA/day
- 1 SS mine: 15 FINA/day
- 3 S mines: 3x10 FINA/day
- VT 1.0 mode: 40 FINA/day
- VT 2.0 mode: 55 FINA/day
- other (Adventure, Arena, dailies): ~5 FINA/day
So 170 FINA/day
and expenses:
- 5 stamina potions: 1 FINA/day
- other consumables: 4 FINA/day
- 5 discounted mystic chests: 25 FINA/day
- VT 2.0 merchant purchases: vary, but likely 10-40 FINA/day
So my average net saved FINA averages ~100/day. That's right now ~100$, with the other ~50$ I mentioned coming from in-game NFT generation I'll discuss below.
About the game changes:
A very big - and good - change - relates to the sales of NFTs. Effectively, most NFT minting is now being done by players in-game, outside rare collab/marketing events. This means no more annoying jumping through the hoops for whitelists. If you want Defina NFTs, you can either buy them on the secondary market (here) or generate them through playing the game. How, exactly? Well, there's an in-game chest (not to be confused with the mystery box). It has a chance to drop NFTs. And it works: right now I have 23 NFTs, and 16 of them I acquired for free, just by playing the game (and they represent ~2/3 of the worth of my in-game assets). Anyway, the chests can be either bought for FINA token in the in-game store or acquired from longer-term in-game FINA staking (which you can do for periods ranging from one month to three years). So, keeping in mind this NFT generation for me is "free" (I am not investing any outside resources into the game), right now I estimate that it gives me about, let's see - one NFT every $5 days, and the average value of an NFT is ~300$, so that's another ~60$ if the prices hold.
In addition to hero NFTs, the chests also contain some in-game consumables as well as "IOUs" for future NFTs (land NFTs) that will be introduced in a few months and whose value is hard to estimate. I don't have any of these, as they are more of a "whale" territory - I am farming mostly "low-level" chests which don't drop the land NFT fragments. But that may change in a few months if I keep reinvesting my resources in the game and increase my holdings - we will see.
You can read more about this system in the official guides here and here.
As for other game changes, let's see. Mining income is being steadily nerfed, with the rewards reallocated to the Vrykos Tower mode. This is good, as mining is easy to script/bot, but the VT mode, is much less so. Also, mining is time-consuming (as in, looking for new mines) and not particularly fun, so moving away from that game mode is very good in my book. Oh, and last time when the VT mode was new, I wasn't fully sure how to estimate the profits from it. I was mostly right - it does scale a lot with better NFTs (as in, it rewards having SS+ units, and leveling them up).
The Vrykos Tower mode got expanded with the "2.0" new style missions (see guide here). This also reduces the incentives for multi-account play, as the VT 2.0 mode gives you one mission for each 4 character in your account, and I estimate the value of a VT 2.0 mission at ~12.5 FINA a day right now.
The bad
The FINA token has continued its slide. When I wrote about the game a month or so so ago, it was at ~2.5$, now it's at 0.9$. Granted, the market has crashed a lot, so there's that. There are also concerns about botters/scripters taking unfair profits, but the devs are aware of this (what blockchain game isn't hurt by those low lives?) and are promising some recourse (see image for part of their Discord announcement from mid January).
Undeniably there is the usual FUD, and hopefully next month I'll be able to report that the coin has stabilized at the levels that are not SLP-like. As I already said, I am taking a long-term holdin approach, and heck, even if the token crashes more, I am hoping it will eventually recover together with the entire crypto market, as all things crypto gain further popularity and moon.
For the record, pre-sales for investors and such were at 0.2$ and 0.4$ (and investor vesting that got delayed a bit is scheduled in about a month or two...). ATH was around 10$. It happened once, why not again, eh? The game is still in beta, and the devs are saying their main marketing push is "yet to come".
As far as bad things go, I'll also mention I am not impressed by the current system of discount chests sales for staked in-game FINA. I think 500 boxes are released at half-price at 0000 and 12000 UTC, and they sell out in seconds. You need to spam the buy button for a minute or so, and if you work or sleep or whatever, no discounts chests for you. This is kind of annoying. (Note: you can still buy an unlimited number of chests at no discount).
The rest
iOS update is planned within a few days, as is a new partnership meaning a rare opportunity to buy boxes (NFTs) outside the game, including a limited run new skin character. New gaming modes ("squid game-like survival" and "land") are planned for later this year, as are weapon NFTs.
Conclusion
The game is getting more fun (less stress on exploitable and boring mining, more on other, more fun, and less abusable game modes). I have achieved my ROI and I am generating solid token value each day. As long as the game doesn't see a token crash that FUDs out of existence, all is good. And that's a big IF that colors everything else, so please bear that in mind, folks.
Should you give it a try? DYOR, of course. Sure, I got my 4x return now (which would be 24x if the token didn't crash since) and I am gambling and inhaling hopium that more good things are there in the long term (good things being token going up again). I would love for this game to provide me with a stable secondary income. But maybe it's too good to be true, and the short-term profit takers will run this into the ground in a few weeks, and my 4x will become 0x. Time will tell, but so far, I am having fun, and at the very least, that's something that can't be taken away.
In case you'd like to give it a try, let me end by answering the obvious question: what's the cost of getting into the game right now and your expected ROI? The average prices for NFTs right now are A at ~100$, S at ~150$, SS at ~700$, and SSS at 4k$. The Minimum recommended set is 3xA and 1xS. What's the ROI? Assuming FINA at $1, 1xS and 3xA (~450$) would mean ~maybe ~20$ return per day (~10$ from the mine, ~10$ from VT and dailies), so a bit under 25 days, less than a month. Actually, 1xSS +3xA has a very similar ROI, as you'd generate an income of ~15$ (from mining), ~15$ (from VT 1.0), ~12..5$ (from VT 2.0), which with dailies and such would mean ~45 days. So an investment of ~1k$ and a return in 25 days or so. Going with the SSS is more tricky, I'd estimate maybe ~60$ daily income, but that's ~4,3k$ cost to offset, so we are looking at 2+ months here. Of course, the more you pay, the more daily income you are looking at, so it's your call whether you care about ROI speed or long-term gains.
And yes, it did feel good to gacha a 4k$ waifu NFT :)
Ok, that's it for Part 2 of my Defina adventures! If you think I should discuss some other aspects of the game, please say so in the comments. I'd like to do a Part 3 update in a month or two, assuming this one is received well (so, errr, click like etc. , you know the drill folks:D).