Dev Blog #33
Dev Blog Summary
a) Game and Web 3 Development
- The previous build released 2 weeks ago patched a lot of the real issues we had (UI, energy etc), and over the last two weeks we have collected more feedback on how we can improve the player experience from the community. We have been working on these areas and will continue to do so in the next 2 weeks.
- From a statistical standpoint the numbers we are seeing is encouraging, we have had over 25K downloads and 10K+ MAU so far, with the daily numbers hovering the same and even increasing despite the highly restricted rewards, we believe as we work out the kinks and improve rewards/progression these numbers will continue to rise
- First on our list is optimising game balance by pulling on 3 different levers1) weapons 2) bots 3) match-making algorithm, understand that this on a spectrum and we have been adjusting it based on community feedback. For example we made weapons stronger because there were a lot of complaints on top tier weapons being too weak, and now we are seeing complaints that they are too strong after adjustment, getting it just right is not an easy task
- Secondly we are also going to make adjustments to the P2E ecosystem through two levers of 1) shard drop rate 2) lowered/tiered forging/training/key opening prices; once these two areas of the game is optimised then we will introduce other features to make it more interesting such as achievements, increased level rewards, armour integration, Battle Royale mode etc
- Costs of forging/training/key opening has already been lowered accordingly
Loot box: 200 GCOIN -> 140 GCOIN
Forge: 750 GCOIN -> 500 GCOIN
Gen 2 Train: 1200 GCOIN -> 800 GCOIN
- While focusing on the above areas, the game team continues to add double digit number of new partners onboard in preparation for the cross-IP championship which is discussed more below in the marketing section
- On the web3/blockchain side of things, the team is focused on revamping the entire dashboard to provide a better and more secure experience when it comes to claiming GCOIN, redeeming key fragments and beyond
b) Business Development & Marketing
- One of the biggest and most unique advantages GFC has is our focus on interoperability, we also want to provide a fun game/platform for everyone in the web3 space who is bored from the market conditions and is looking for something fun to do
- This brings us onto our next marketing focus which is the cross-IP championship. As per our previous Dev Blog, we have signed up over 20 projects to participate in the tournament
- In the run up to this event we will be running a series of custom events with each partner to optimise user onboarding from these different communities — 1) AMAs with each partner 2) exclusive trophy run for each partner with prizes 3) qualifying tournament for each partner 4) then finally the cross-IP tournament
- You can actively support us by engaging with our latest announcement (https://twitter.com/GalaxyFight_NFT/status/1571657537618939904) or getting involved in our NFTimpact here — https://nftimpact.ai/s/galaxy-fight-club
- We have also decided to work more on some other essential elements such as increasing the amount of content released on YouTube, as well as specific improvements to our SEO strategy
c) Community
- With the launch of P2E and the changes it brought to the game there were always going to be teething issues, since we added our ticketing support system we have resolved over 400 tickets (in fact we spend 50%+ of our time chatting and looking into each of these problems, thanks for being patient with us!)
- Our next GCC tournament will involve reward characters and weapons only for a truly F2P experience, a GFC hoodie will be up for grabs!
A: Game and Web 3 Development
GAME
For the last 2 weeks the game studio has been focusing on optimising game balance by pulling on 3 different levers 1) weapons 2) bots 3) match-making, understand that this on a spectrum and we have been adjusting it based on community feedback. For example we made weapons stronger because there were a lot of complaints on top tier weapons being too weak, and now we are seeing complaints that they are too strong, getting it just right is not an easy task.
Secondly we are also going to make adjustments to the P2E ecosystem through two levers of 1) shard drop rate 2) lowered/tiered forging/training/key opening prices; once these two areas of the game is optimised then we will introduce other features to make it more interesting such as achievements, level rewards, armour integration, Battle Royale mode etc.
While focusing on the above areas, the game team continues to add double digit number of new partners onboard in preparation for the cross-IP championship which is discussed more below.
Below are some of the other changes we have made to the rest of the game for game system, bugs as well as new characters added.
Game system updates:
- Made changes to bots so that they are less overpowered and more balanced
- The team looked into having one single server as a possibility but unfortunately this will create significant lag issues for players in certain geographies, we have only removed the South American region for now in order to deliver a better match-making experience
- Added a new system for ranking teams into different subdivisions, this should improve the matchmaking balance
- New function to prevent AFKs, if a player afks for over 30 seconds, a bot will enable and take control so the rest of the team can continue their game while the player who afks will not receive a reward
Fixed bugs:
- Fixed Gen2-Saiko Komon bug where they did not show up in the game
- Fixed Death Robots only showing eligibility for silver key whereas they should be allowing access for gold keys
- Fixed cooldown error when using BYOpills
- Fix error where the player cannot use the dash ability while using the BYOpills
- Fix BYOpill invisibility logic error
- Fix errors relating to the hidden bushes in the solo map
- Fix OG Boxing Gloves ultimate attack bug
- Sci-Fi map now loads on custom games
- Disabled Shield FX when character is dead
P2E
We have also made a couple of other changes across the P2E ecosystem to improve the user experience overall.
- Updated confusing pop-up message on P2E rewards page
Status: Fixed and live
We have had a few feedback claim that they “successfully” crafted a key with 3 fragments, but did not get a key NFT minted to their wallet. In reality, the pop up message only referred to the transaction being completed successfully instead of a key successfully being crafted. A new message has now been added to make this clear.
2. Tweaking drop rate and max cap
Status: live
We have had reports from players grinding for many games without getting any key fragment drops, we understand that can be frustrating and as a result decided to slowly phase out the max cap limit we put on key fragments distributed day over the next 2 weeks. The number of fragments that could be won at any one time was also increased, it is now much easier to win a fragment drop than when P2E was released.
We want to make the players feel rewarded when playing and not having to grind for hours everyday. This will be an ongoing process, we are also going to be introducing a dynamic drop rate system with the drop % self-adjusting to how long the player has played without winning a shard.
3. Reducing the price of forging/training and opening lootboxes
Status: live
We have reduced the prices on various game mechanisms (loot box, forge and Gen 2 train) with the eventual aim of making them dynamic, for example costing less if you are forging with a lower tier of weapons. The changes are as follow:
Loot box: 200 GCOIN -> 140 GCOIN
Forge: 750 GCOIN -> 500 GCOIN
Gen 2 Train: 1200 GCOIN -> 800 GCOIN
All the prices in GCOIN have been reduced by 30%, we would like to encourage newcomers to use the mechanisms and be able to experience the full extent of the GFC ecosystem even more than before.
4. P2E weapons metadata update
Status: live
We have updated some of the names for P2E weapons to fit the lore better, as well as removed the “Forged” tag under Series and changed them to “Genesis”. It was put in place originally to indicate which Genesis Weapon can only be obtained via forging, but it is not as relevant now.
DASHBOARD REVAMP
Another big task we have been working on is revamping our entire dashboard, so that we can get rid of any GCOIN claiming and related issues once and for all. The revamp has been going quite well and the frontend is close to completion, and we have moved onto reworking the backend endpoints. Restructuring the code base to make it fail-safe as well as strengthening the security on the endpoints.
Subtask 1: Dashboard Frontend Update
Status: In Progress
ETA: 23rd of Sep
We are going to rework the layout of the dashboard to make it more user friendly instead of just having a spreadsheet that calculates your expected GCOIN generation per day. The new inventory KPIs will support new collections such as GFC collab and the new P2E weapons.
Subtask 2: Landing Page Mobile Compatibility Issues
Status: In Progress
ETA: TBA
We have added extra links to the landing page navigation bar straight to the build file which introduced some mobile compatibility issues, such as not being able to scroll down on the nav bar and landing page not sized correctly on mobile.
We are aware of these issues and are working to fix them
Subtask 3: Backend restructure and strengthen security
Status: In Progress
ETA: 28th of Sep
Security has always been an essential part of any blockchain project and we are well aware of that, with P2E system going live, security has become even more important for us. With P2E stabilizing and the dev team having more capacity, we are going to take the opportunity to restructure and rewrite the backend logic for the dashboard.
This would mean quicker response time on endpoints, less issues with the dashboard and GCOIN claim, and also better onboarding experience for newcomers. Having a restructured codebase will increase the expandability, meaning adding new features will be less time consuming and less prone to error. While doing that, we will also take the opportunity to scout out any technical debt that was leftover since the beginning of the project.
PARTNER COLLECTION INTEGRATIONS (Web3/Blockchain side)
In preparation for P2E, we have stopped integrating any new partners into our game. Now that P2E is live and stabilizing, we are back to integrating new partners, especially in preparation for the cross-IP tournament which we discuss below.
Subtask 1: Gathering partner NFT images and metadata
Status: In Progress
ETA: TBA
For each collection that we integrate, we host a copy of all their NFT images and metadata on our server to ensure a reliable way of getting those assets to be used in-game when we need them. In order to achieve that, we reach out to our partners and ask for the assets. Some of them already have them ready and are able to provide them for us, but most of them only host their assets on IPFS, and for those we have to write a script to grab all the images and this process can take a couple of hours for each of the collections.
We are currently in talks with a new list of partners, trying to get assets from them. If they don’t have them ready, we will proceed to fetch all their assets from IPFS.
Subtask 2: Energy system Ingestion
Status: To Begin
ETA: TBA
With the energy system in place for P2E, we have to keep track of all the transfer events that ever happened for all our partner NFT collections in order to know their movement and to reset their energy if they are transferred.
Each of the collections takes around 12–18hours to ingest, we go through all the transactions from when the collection minted up until the current block, filter out all the transaction events and log them in our database, and continue to listen to any new transfer events.
Subtask 3: NFT Auth API update
Status: To Begin
ETA: TBA
Any new collections will have to be added to the NFT auth API, this API checks which supported partnering collection NFTs that player owns and returns the collection it belongs to and the tokenId of it for the game to read off.
Subtask 4: Creating game model for characters and weapons
Status: In Progress
ETA: TBA
In-game models will have to be created for each of the new characters and weapons, these are tailor-made with the assistance of our partners, aiming to reflect the characteristics of their project as much as possible.
Subtask 5: In-game stats balancing
Status: To Begin
ETA: TBA
Characters and weapons are attached with stats that reflect their collection’s essence, which are then play tested by our testers and tweaked to ensure their stats isn’t too over or underpowered, so that the overall gaming experience is fair and fun.
OTHER ONGOING TASKS
Stabilizing game build and debugging
Our web3 development team and game studio have both been very active with resolving any issues raised via the ticketing system. It has been extremely helpful to be able to speak to players directly when they are facing issues and debugging for them has helped us find issues that wouldn’t have been easily replicated in testing. It allows us to pinpoint problems much fast and fix them quickly, creating a better overall experience in the GFC ecosystem.
All team members, Dave especially have been spending a significant amount of time each day looking into each ticket and diving deeper into each bug/issue to resolve them.
B: Business Development & Marketing
So far, during the month of September, we have primarily focused on revisiting our marketing channels and carefully revised, evaluated, and planned our next steps.
One primary phase & milestone that we are about to enter is that of the cross-IP championship. As per our previous Dev Blog, we have signed up over 20 projects to participate in the tournament.
One of the biggest and most unique advantages GFC has is our focus on interoperability, we also want to provide a fun game/platform for everyone who is bored and looking for something fun to do during this market crypto downturn. This event fits perfectly into our cross-marketing strategy.
To be precise, we have 28 projects from across the NFT space participating in our cross-IP championship.
We have designed the participation as follows:
- AMA with each of the partners
- This step is crucial to align all parties for what’s to come and educate the respective community on what to expect, how to get access to GFC & our ecosystem and to get everyone excited about what we have to offer.
2. Exclusive Trophy Run for each partner
- Running a Trophy Run as an introductory event will allow us to onboard as many community members as possible, help resolve any technical difficulties that may arise and get people playing in their free time, get used to using their assets and enjoy the game.
- This time frame will also allow their communities to start forming the required and necessary teams in order to compete for entering the championship.
3. Exclusive Qualifying Tournament for each partner
- Before entering the cross-IP championship, every partner has to run a qualifier, similar to the ones we have hosted for the GFC community. The winning team(s) will then proceed to participate in the actual championship.
4. The Cross-IP Championship
As you might have noticed in the graphic above, we want the participating partners to remain more or less a secret for now. They include some of our largest and longest partners but also some new faces — so stay tuned for some new partnership announcements, too!
In order for the championship to have a large impact on the NFT space, we have continued working on our Twitter Impact Program.
We are seeing a steady increase in active participation and engagement with our Twitter account and have seen an increase of around 30% since our last DevBlog.
We highly encourage everyone to help us spread the word on our Twitter Impact Program and the reward structure both through GlowLabs & NFTimpact, as these fall under community-driven marketing activities.
Regarding NFTimpact — the campaign is running for approximately another 2 weeks. You can check the leaderboard & rewards using the following link — https://nftimpact.ai/s/galaxy-fight-club
You can actively support us by going to our latest announcement, showcasing a teaser trailer for the upcoming championship using the following link -
Additionally, we have wrapped up our latest gleam campaign. The winners were announced on Twitter and can be found using the following link — https://twitter.com/GalaxyFight_NFT/status/1570775663329816577?s=20&t=ApQYbAysyotpsT25hJ3MKg
Moving forward, we are looking to consistently continue building out our reach and impact on Twitter. Furthermore, we decided to work on some other essential elements such as increasing the amount of content released on YouTube, as well as specific improvements to our SEO. We are convinced that for the time being, we should focus most of our efforts on onboarding as many web3 / NFT native users as possible.
C: Community
Tickets upon tickets upon tickets!
With the launch of P2E and the changes it brought to the game there were always going to be teething issues, so we came prepared and added a ticketing system to our discord. Well, you sure all have been making good use of it! Today we broke the #400 mark!
Getting a perfect answer to all your questions and a quick fix to your issues is obviously not possible, but the team has been working non-stop to get rid of those pesky bugs and cleansing the game of those trying to game the system!
The tickets have been a great way for making sure everyone’s problems are being heard and nothing is getting lost in chat. We very much appreciate everyone in our community and thank you for your constant bug reporting, feeder reporting and just plainly letting us know what you think. It’s not always a fun thing to do, but we are very happy with the level of engagement we are getting from you! Together we are headed above and beyond!
But don’t worry, more fun to come soon! Starting with our next GCC tournament, reward characters and weapons only! No matter your budget, these assets are only obtainable by playing over and over, rewarding those putting lots of their time in GFC! We even have a GFC hoodie up for grabs!
Stay turned for much more tournament action in the following weeks!
