SlothsMiningWar - A beginners guide - Your feedback shapes the game!
Sloths Mining War - A beginner's guide
Good afternoon, buzzers. This post covers a couple of things: a quick 'how-to' for beginners and a few questions for the players testing and trialling the game! So far, we've received a lot of feedback, ideas, and suggestions. The dev and I have even more ideas and concepts to test out. But what matters most is that players enjoy the game and can see a version they will play over a longer period!
So, let's jump right into the basics of Sloths Mining War, a guide to playing your first round, and finish with questions on how we can change/grow and improve!
Sloths Mining War - What is it?
Sloths Mining War is an 'idle miner' type of game, based on the Hive blockchain, run through a game server, utilising the 0-sum principle of gaming. That is, the funds players earn come from other players. Using Hive, we've incorporated daily threads and Hive-engine token burns/sells, which provide a small amount of funds to support the game's ecosystem, but for the vast majority, funds come from other players! With this in mind, never 'game' with more Hive than you're willing to lose!
The game is simple but challenging. The goal is to have fun, of course, but in most cases this comes with a smidge of wanting to earn money! Who could have guessed Crypto users wanted to earn a little something!
With that in mind. Your main goal in Sloths Mining War is to increase your Honey Mining Rate; this affects your leaderboard position and ultimately determines how well you do in a round. Although there are other ways to earn, the leaderboard is your bragging rights to show you're the 'best' Sloths Mining War player!
Can you earn with Sloths Mining War?
Yes, maybe; crypto games offer no guarantees. It all comes down to how well you play! The main way to earn through Sloths Mining War is simply to 'win' a round. Leaderboard positions are currently paid out to the top 10 users (which may increase as user numbers grow).
There is also the 'burn em honey' pot. This is a staking pool which allows you to burn honey for a retrospective share of the pot's payout pool.
There is also the boss pool, given to all users who participate in damaging and ultimately killing the boss (our killer hornet!). Currently, the boss increases by 50% max health on every defeat, making it harder as the weeks progress and balancing for players with more damage! Currently, the boss increases after every defeat and only declines at the start of a new round in max health if the boss goes undefeated in a full round.
How to play - The basics
Join the round,
Claim your honey pot,
Buy Bee miners.
Keep upgrading them until you 'max' out!
Simple, easy to follow, some 'idle' mining and repetition!
Of course, if you want to win a round or challenge the top 10, you also need to think about strategy: what upgrades to buy, whether to use boosters, and eventually how sloths and slothshards come into play.
How to play - After the first 24 hours
So, you've got the basics, grabbed a few bees, maybe you're even up to level 4 or 5 of Bee Miners. Reminder: Maxing out the base levels doesn't make sense; their cost increases with each purchase, so save up and aim for higher-level miners!
Try to save, compound and grow; as a new player, you will have the minimum amount of Sloths possible, meaning you can send your SlothShards to the boss every 2 hours and NEVER be attacked!
There is beginner protection. Any player with less than 12 Slothshards cannot be attacked. If you go above this and are attacked, you get a 15 min cooldown window where you cannot be attacked again.
How to play - Day 3 - 7
You've now got a few Bees under your belt, you've realised the improtance of activity even within a 'Idle' game. You're thinking about buying your first Sloth to earn more Sloth shards! Sloth Shards are your Attack AND defence! Lose all your Sloth Shards, and you are vulnerable to attack! Having less than 12 equals 'safe'; no attacks can be sent. 12 or more slothshards, you are the prey! Watch out for those other Sloths attacking you and stealing your honey!
So, remember, the higher your slothshard mining rate, the quicker you run out of 'beginner protection'.
I'll say that again for those in the back: buying sloths is fun, but it comes with its dangers! More sloths = less beginner protection!
Grabbing one or two of the low-level sloths severely lowers your 'safe' time. Buying 5-10 of even the first level makes you a prime target every 15mins for the middle-of-the-leaderboard players! So choose wisely: should you try to max out your bees in the first week, then grab the 'biggest' sloths? Or take two or three rounds with no sloths to keep your 'beginner protection' for longer?
That is where your strategy comes into play: are you more of an idle player, or more PvP-oriented? Maybe you're just a whale who wants to go 'all in'. Is this strategy even enough? No matter what route you choose, your progress needs to be slow and steady! It's a Sloth Mining war after all, not a race!
How to play - your second round!
Congratulations! You've completed a round; you went hard and won the leaderboard? Or more likely, you finished just within the top 10 or fell slightly short at the last hurdle. Did you at least manage to grab a couple of higher-level sloths so you are ready to go harder in your Sloths Mining War adventure?
With a little extra Sloth power behind you, you earn more Slothshards and can take advantage of PvP, even early in the round. Steal, level, grow, repeat! Or focus on the boss and get a higher share of his payout %.
Finally, it might be time to consider using Torpor and other Attack perks! Double your damage, increase your steals, or poison your opponents! Every attack has a strategy! Don't forget you can use some Slothbuzz tokens to buy a Torpor, giving you 8 hours of peaceful rest! No attacks can be made on you; your honey and slothshards are safe!
Keep the momentum, grab more sloths at the end of the round and repeat forevermore! Consider burning sloths for Slothium, which you can use for entry fees, personal boosters, and skipping Perk production!
This was meant to be a quick guide to playing the game, but we skipped over a couple of major features! The boosters and Sponsor roll. Buying either of these enters you into a game of 'hot potato'!
Hot Potato Boosters!
Boosters are shared between all players. The first player to purchase pays the 'floor' price. The price doubles for the next 'snipe'. If you then purchase the booster, the previous owner gets 55% of your purchase price back. So, every flip actually pays the previous owner. Here's the hot potato catch: after 12 hours, the price rolls back one level (halves). So you'll still get 55% of the price back, but it's 55% of your paid price.
For example:
If you pay 2 Hive for the booster, the price flips to 4 Hive with a 12-hour cooldown.
Player 2 snipes it for 4 Hive; you get 2.2 Hive sent directly to your wallet but lose the booster.
The new price is 8 Hive with a 12-hour cooldown.
No one buys the booster; after 12 hours, the price returns to 4 Hive. Still, no one buys it, so it returns to the floor price of 2 Hive after another 12 hours.
You buy the booster again; the price goes back to 4 Hive, and player 2 receives 2.2 Hive.
So either you 'flip' the booster quickly for a profit, or you hold it longer-term for an in-game advantage! Win-win!
Sloths Mining War - Game sponsor
You can also sponsor a round with a similar mechanic! Buy the sponsor position, the price increases by 1.5x, if another player buys it, you earn 55% of their paid price! This has no cooldown; it resets at the end of a round. There is no 'in-game advantage', but you earn 2.5% of all funds the game takes while holding the sponsor role!
Not only that, you will be visible on the main page throughout the round and get a shoutout in the Daily post summary created by the game account and shared to Hive daily!
A great opportunity for another Hive project/user to get some more visibility, sometimes for a super small price! So check out the daily rounds and consider if it's worth sponsoring the game! Heck, if you're a big Hive whale and you've read this far, consider sponsoring just to show you care!
TLDR - Sloths Mining War Game guide for beginners
Join the game (costs 1 Hive)
Claim honey pot (top of the screen)
Buy Bee miners (reminder: bee prices increase; consider the best bees to buy; don't just max out the first level!)
Play the round - eventually hire some sloths
Battle PvP and the Boss
Flip boosters/sponsor for quick profits (or slothlier losses!)
Most important: HAVE FUN! (Oh, and give us some feedback so we can improve for future rounds!
Questions or feedback for us?
We're looking to keep growing and developing the game. We have ideas ranging from small changes like mining rates/boosters to creating guild wars, mini-games, and more built-in Hive features; who knows, maybe we can even look into NFTs and long-term security.
For now, the game is built on Hive but managed through a server. Everything is 'in-game' and open to resetting (we will reset everything before testing finishes, so please ensure you are not spending more than you're willing to lose. Although most funds taken in per round are paid back out each round, we don't want to hold your funds; we want to distribute them!)
How would you like to see the game change and grow, would you burn sloths after every round, decrease mining rates, increase bonus/booster chances. Add cooldowns to certain aspects, or reduce cooldowns! Your views help us shape the game. Every player who has provided feedback so far has helped a lot, and we hope to keep pushing the game forward so more players can enjoy it! Can this become a longer-term game instead of weekly rounds, or do rounds fit players' schedules better, coming and going as you please? All info and feedback is appreciated!
If you have played, are considering playing, or don't care about playing at all, drop us a comment, share your thoughts, and help us buzz into the next level of Sloths Mining War!
Until next time,
Sloth out!