Exhausted from battle, you realize one more foe stands between you and victory. Do you take the chance and fight, risking defeat? YES. You decide to take the opportunity and defeat your final adversary. Costs be damned, or perhaps, the cost of battle is too much to bear financially.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on Investment (ROI) is a measure of an investment's profitability. Products that have a high ROI over a short time frame will likely be more desirable than, let's say, something with a low ROI over the short term. Similarly, investments that take longer to gain a profit may be equally desirable if the ROI is high despite the time you wait for it.
We see plenty of coins in the Hive universe that purports some benefit to the investor. From LeoFinance to the BRO community, plenty of knowledgeable investors utilize the financial system here to their advantage. For instance, there are legends about those investors that HODL throughout Splinterlands development emerged rich and with no need for lifelong conventional employment.
On Hive, however, a new group established itself: the @psyberX community. Led by @jboss and his team of merry Hivians, they've developed the Psyber X FPS game that grows and evolves as we speak. Additionally, they have also created the Serfdom & Sorcery game available now, for free, to all users that join their Discord community:
Farms
In the Serfdom lands, farms are unique. You can purchase your very own farm while supplies last. Every 24 hours, these farms will produce 500 DBLN for you. The more farms you own, the more money you'll receive daily.
- (1) Farm: 50,000 DBLN
- 500 DBLN Daily
- ROI: 500 DBLN Daily after 100 days
There are those people, however, that really like farms. Some have purchased upwards of 50 farms:
- (50) Farms: 2,500,060 DBLN
- 25,000 DBLN Daily
- ROI: 25,000 DBLN Daily after 100 days
So, in the above case, after 100 days, you'll receive your original investment of 2,500,060 DBLN and continue receiving 25,000 DBLN daily. Considering investors could then swap DBLN for LVL, it isn't a bad deal in the long run.
Bestiary
No, wolves aren't available yet. Or are they @bobthebuilder2? Currently, the only animals you can purchase are ravens and cows.
Ravens
- Ravens build experience each time you send them out. They'll return with health potions, other trinkets, and some DBLN. The more you !sendraven, the more they will bring to your feet.
Raven ROI
- This is difficult to determine based on the randomness of what the raven could bring you.
- When utilizing !sendraven, the raven returns with a number of tokens and health potions where applicable. You could receive any amount of small, medium, or large health potions.
- Ravens gain experience the more you use them. The higher the experience, the more loot the raven brings.
- Eventually, you will make up the 46,000 DBLN it costs to purchase a raven. The costs of health potions alone during combat grinding could make up the difference in short order.
Cows
- Cows produce milk that magically turns into DBLN. Every 6 hours, you can milk your cow and receive 250 DBLN. However, "buyer beware," the probability exists that the cows can get sick. If they get sick, you must bring them to a shaman. The shaman doesn't come cheap.
COW ROI
- (1) Cow costs 7,500 DBLN
- (1) Milking one cow gives 250 DBLN (1 milk run every 6 hours)
- Milk (1) cow every 6 hours gives 1,000 DBLN (unrealistic)
- Milk (1) cow every 12 hours gives 500 DBLN (realistic)
- COW ROI (1) Cow: 15 days (assuming milking cow every 12 hours)
The Reality
- Cows can get sick
- Heal sick cows with the shaman
- Shaman charges 750 DBLN (as of this morning) to heal a cow
You run a risk when purchasing a cow. The purchase sounds excellent on paper until some or all cows get sick during a milk run. Here's an example from the cows I've purchased:
- Purchased (6) cows: 45,000 DBLN
- Milking every 12 hours: 3,000 DBLN
- ROI Cow (no illness): Still 15 days, then 3,000 DBLN/daily
- ROI Cow (illness): Who knows!
It's a mixed bag. During my first two milk runs today, four of my cows were sick:
- (2) Milk runs for (6) cows: 3,000 DBLN
- (4) Cows required healing: 4,000 DBLN (Shaman cost approx. 1000 yesterday morning)
- Net Loss: (-) 1,000 DBLN
No cows were sick on my third milk run today (it's been a long day).
- Total Net Loss (Today): (-) 500 DBLN
This is a more realistic investment because the cows can get sick. And healthcare costs in the game are significantly cheaper than in real life. Don't go getting any funny ideas, @jboss!
As of this morning, it appears that the cost of using a Shaman was reduced to 750 DBLN. In my opinion, this raises the probability of a good milk run where illnesses are less likely to negate my entire run.
Mining
The rules allow players to purchase upgrades for their pickaxes, provided they purchase a forge and upgrade it. In our last article, the prices of forges were explained as follows:
- Level 1 Forge: DBLN 1000
- Level 2 Forge: DBLN 20,000
- Level 3 Forge: DBLN 40,000
- Level 4 Forge: DBLN 100,000
Costs for both upgrading AND purchasing pickaxes were as follows:
You'll spend AT LEAST:
- DBLN 170,000 to fully upgrade the forge
- DBLN 193,000 to fully upgrade pickaxe to diamond
- DBLN 6,000 to buy a diamond axe
- DBLN Total 369,000
Reality
Sometimes pickaxes break. However, the better the pickaxe, the less likely your pickaxe will suffer any damage.
- People with diamond pickaxes, for instance, have had multiple breaks.
- In my mining activities, I've only had a pickaxe break once.
The probability of breakage gets you in the end. It's similar to my experiences with those darn cows getting sick. One player's comments spoke of how his cows seldom get sick. In mining, I've only had one break in the game.
Mining ROI
- My guess is that the investment of upgrading the forge and your axe is that it's worth it in the long run.
- It's challenging to determine an ROI in this case here because of the randomness of your success. In a swing, people with diamond axes have gotten as low as 26 DBLN to at least +200 DBLN.
- They're also less likely to get a break than anyone else.
Combat Stats
The Serfdom and Sorcery game is still in its alpha phase. Even with the new database, they started using today, there are bound to be issues.
One weak area concerns upgrading attack/defense. Looking at the top spaces in the leaderboard and through the Discord logs, there appears to be an issue with the cost of upgrading attack or defense:
- Each time you pay to upgrade your attack or defense, the routine is that your next purchase will be more significant.
- For example, if you purchase (1) attack upgrade for 1000 DBLN, your next purchase of (1) point will cost 2000 DBLN.
- Evaluating one player shows that this cost sometimes went down as the player advanced in level. In a separate player's review, costs for upgrading never went down. In fact, it went up and stayed astronomically high to the hundreds of millions of DBLN for one point.
Balancing combat and player stats is a work continually in progress. The problem is data.
- The game is still new and in the alpha phase.
- The Psyber X team is monitoring play time and adjusting the requirements as they are able to analyze the data.
- Just this morning, I noticed my upgrade-attack costs dropped significantly from +200 million DBN per point to +300K DBLN. Is this still high? Yes. Is it disproportionately high compared to other players? Maybe.
- We just don't know if it's fair until the team has enough time to look at everything. Also, there are only (3) players on the leaderboard above level 35. The more people at or above these levels, the more effective efforts at balancing stats become.
Be patient, fair, and communicate your concerns to the PsyberX team. They'll dial everything in eventually.
The Psyber X Multiverse
The Serfdom & Sorcery world of the Psyber X multiverse continues to grow at an impressive rate. @bobthebuilder2 recently authored a new article regarding the progress of the game.
Bob states that message traffic, from this week alone, reached well over 100,000 messages. Clearly, people are playing the game and love the grind. It will be exciting and interesting to see how the gameplay improves over time!
Join the @psyberx community today! Invest in their development or hop on to their discord to learn more about the initiative!
In Closing
Nothing in this article should be construed as financial advice. I was more interested in getting a deeper look at the financial workings of the game. Please perform your own research before investing in the game.
Thank you for reading and following on throughout my Hive journey. If you like this article, please consider reblogging, upvoting, and following @scholaris!
