I was quite sceptical about the initial information before the Beta collection was released and I was not sparing any criticism. In hindsight, I have to say that the expansion is quite fun - an effort to unify production with manufacturing. Creating the most productive foodchain. Timing sales for $shares at events. If two different players get the same portfolio, a year from now everyone will be somewhere else. I'm Shandalar, I've been playing dCrops for over 3 years and have a relatively strong account. Not the strongest, but I would definitely characterize it as above average. The following lines are directed at the discrod server, specifically the suggestions room. But it's a bit more extensive than that, so I figured I'd publish it here so it wouldn't get lost. It's an effort to provide constructive criticism and suggest solutions.
The problem with the Beta collection is that it is unbalanced. Players who have opened hundreds and thousands of packs are missing a few legendary cards as a rule. Everyone needs two of them.
Trinity Land, as it is a legendary land that is suitable for construction of blueprints.
Windmill because you can grind flour and sugar there, which is the gateway to the world of cooking. Sugar or flour is needed in about 1/3 of the recipes. Some need both and some need 2-3 pieces of one.
Cask, because it is the most variable design where different harvests can be processed without the need for other more complex inputs (sugar, oil, pepper, salt etc.)
For players trying to place in the ladderboard, Windmill in particular is a problem. According to the discord bot, 68,783 packs have been sold. According to Hive-engine, 17,845 are in circulation.
Thus, 50 928 packs were opened. I'll be basing a lot of my future considerations on this number. Windmills is in circulation 103. I don't know how many blueprints because no one is selling it. The built Windmill is for sale 1pc for 690 Hive. Casks is in circulation 95pcs and 37pcs blueprints. So 137 total. Trinity lands is only 76pcs in circulation. A lot of them got burned for fences and building. The legendary card counts will be similar, though. If I take into account legendary beta seeds, there are 113 - 139pcs.
Unless I want Windmill or Trinity lands, which are almost impossible to buy... or I'd be very interested in Cask. So Cask comes out 1x drop at 372 packs. The other legendary cards are similar. It's kind of average. You might get lucky, but you might not. For example, I opened a single Windmill at around 500 packs and bought the others in the beginning, during price-discovery, for 120-160Hive. I wouldn't want to buy them now.
Windmill problem
But the players need Windmill. A promo card or an NFT event can help. Something like "Wattermill" or "Hountedmill" for Halloween event. Or mechanics along the lines of unlocking one accound-bound Windmill on a rare plot, while holding 100k Crop power, would help. Adding an easily obtainable promo card or NFT event into play at this stage could hurt a lot of people. Plus, anyone who joins the game later loses access to this meta card.
Sunflower problem
Because of the droprate, the Olive-tree promo card was added, as there was the same problem with Sunflower seeds and almost no one was producing and processing oil. Now there is a huge surplus of oil and it has almost no value.
Sunflower seeds could use some cooking recipes. Every legendary beta seed is needed in some recipe, some in crafting. Sunflower is only needed in game for the oil and everyone is currently producing it from Olive. So Sunflower has no use...
Bigest problem
Each Beta packs contains only 3 cards. The most likely is that a recipe will be matched. Slightly less likely to drop seeds. Even less is a blueprint. The lowest probability is to drop a tree or Trinity land.
But for new players and those with stronger accounts like me, it's all about seeds. The production of one building on legendary plot will consume the harvest from 120 seeds easily. If it has a much higher chance of dropping a blueprint recipe, that's wrong.
Players with large accounts have a lot of unbuilt blueprints because they don't have enough seeds, and smaller accounts don't even build crafting/cooking constructs because it's not worth it. Nobody needs recipes either. The strong accounts have recipes already leveled and the weaker ones don't cook because they have nothing. For new users, the lands alone are already a big barrier.
I propose an update in which recipes that can be obtained by the card-burning principle are completely excluded from the newly opened beta packs. Burn 1x common random card - you get 1 common random recipe, burn 10x rare random card - you get 1x epic random recipe etc.
Betapacks will be more lucrative for new and existing players and it will solve another problem. When opening packs you have a 5% chance to drop epic cards. So it's not great %. If I was a new player and dropped an epic card I didn't need, I'd probably be just as happy and try to trade it for more common, different cards that fit my portfolio. But there are plenty of blueprints and recipes in circulation that no one needs, nor will anyone ever need. Like the 701x Toaster blueprint. The cheapest one sells for 1 Hive. 676x Microwave from 1.5Hive. The most expensive Epic blueprint is House, which has no utility yet and costs 7.89Hive. The most expensive Epic blueprint is Green Wrap at 2.69Hive. Epic beta seeds are then 13.89Hive - 28.5Hive for one. Many times more therefore. In fact, Epic seeds are only 4, Epic recipes are 9 and Epic blueprints are 5. If you're already lucky enough to drop an Epic card, you're unlikely to encounter seeds.
So this burn mechanism will remove unnecessary recipes and blueprints and allow you to trade them for more lucrative recipes that will be more marketable. It will be easier to distribute to players what they need. It will also allow a whole new set of recipes to be added to the game that will only be available this way.
Preserve Barell problem
A legendary recipe (event NFT) has been implemented that adds a fridge utility. It was not a bad move. It may not have been the legendary recipe that made the carrot value shoot up nonsensically.
Some cooking recipe, more recipes would be good for Preserve Barell. The reason is simple. Half the crafting products require sugar and the other half Hot Pepper. And there are only 728 Hot Peppers in circulation. That's 1 Hot Pepper for 70 opened packs. If you needed to cover Preserve Barrel production for all 4 seasons, you'd need dozens of Hot Peppers. These are also needed in a lot of other recipes. The other thing is that all these hard to find ingredients (Sugar and Hot Pepper) are much better used in cooking, in which we get a bigger Crop bonus. So Preserve Barell seems completely unnecessary.
You could add, for example, cooking recipes for "organic jams". I mean, any dork can make (crafting) jam with sugar. But good jam, just fruit-based and sugar-free? But jam with just a fruit component is a bit of an art. Refined sugar is no good, see our breakfast post on Hive ;)
Land problem
So far they are not a problem. They're relatively cheap. Both in dollars and in Hive. But all it takes is for one stronger one to want to get involved and their prices can double from one day to the next. A few more accounts and before the Beta edition sells out their price can be extreme.
This could be fixed with a mini-edition that would only sell for Crop tokens. There would be a new batch of recipes, a new edition of lands with new abilities and less plots than Alphalands... and maybe even new seeds and blueprints.
I'm not saying all this is necessary, but I think it would make the game more attractive. It might not be easy, maybe they'll come up with better ideas. These are just my humble opinions and I'll be glad for feedback ;)
See you on the field... #easypeasantlife
Shandalar
