Scoring Goals in P2E
With so many play-to-earn (P2E) games coming out as of late, it isn’t uncommon to find projects that are themed around overused tropes like mythological creatures or magically imbued deities. So when I first heard about CyBall, I was intrigued by its futuristic connotations.
After not too much digging online, it became instantly clear that CyBall was rising in popularity — and fast. Headline after headline, CyBall seemed to be the next big P2E title to stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Axie Infinity. “The New Axie Infinity Killer’’ some would call it. “The Next Best Play-to-Earn Game.”
So does CyBall deserve the hype it’s getting right now? And is this game a truly worthwhile opportunity for the earning player?
Cyblocs
CyBall, upon first impression, delivers a wickedly satisfying visual experience for any gamer familiar with triple-A titles like Deus Ex and CyberPunk 2077. Visually inspired by a combination of cyberpunk aesthetics and the style of real-life superstar football players, CyBlocs, short for “Cyborgs on the blockchain,” are the main NFT asset and in-game characters of the CyBall metaverse.
What sets these CyBlocs apart from the assets of some other P2E games is their level of aesthetic diversity. In addition to the CyBlocs minted on the CyBall in-house marketplace, other assets will be available in the future, including CyBloc body parts and wearables, which further promotes the level of customization and individuality a player can impart in his or her CyBlocs. Certainly, it’s a feast for the eyes of sci-fi gamers, football fans, and metaverse enthusiasts alike.
While the design of the game’s visual assets are second to none, this should be expected of any new title in the GameFi industry that strives to compete with the likes of Axie Infinity, or any other well-executed game. What CyBall must accomplish in order to grow its player base and increase the adoption of the game is to make it incredibly easy for new gamers to start playing, and CyBall does this through its in-house scholarship feature CyLoans.
Putting On Your Cleats
For players eager to step into the world of CyBall and play for zero cost up-front, they can apply for a scholarship through CyLoans, the automated scholarship-university portal that allows CyBloc owners to loan out their inactive CyBlocs to users who cannot or decide not to purchase their own lineup of CyBlocs.
Unlike other external scholarship systems used by other P2E games, CyLoans offers the following benefits.
- Lenders can set their own terms
- New players can become scholars and split in-game rewards with their lenders for zero up-front cost
- Promotes better scholarship security by keeping all lending and borrowing in-house, as opposed to third-party scholarships which are vulnerable to the withholding of promised funds on the part of lenders and fraudulent scholarship earnings on the part of borrowers who make multiple, bogus accounts.
Of course, for players who decide that CyBall is their bread and butter, purchasing CyBlocs to build their own dream team is the best way to maximize earnings. These owners will be able to:
- Reap 100% of the earnings from their matches
- Loan inactive CyBlocs out using the CyLoans system according to their lending terms
- Most excitingly, mentor Junior Cyblocs, which will be freshly minted NFTs on the blockchain
Mentoring a new Cybloc is akin to breeding new NFTs in games like Axie Infinity or Pegaxy; a seasoned Cybloc NFT can be used to create a new Junior Cybloc and potentially pass on its Classes and Traits, which refer to the CyBlocs rarity (of which there are 5 tiers) and special skills, which can be stacked up to 3 simultaneously.
How CyBall executes its mentoring (breeding) system differently is by implementing a limitation on the mentoring count and a significant lock period. Each Cybloc can only become eligible to mentor after 5 days, and each mentorship process also takes 5 days. In total, a Cybloc can only mentor up to 3 new Cyblocs and only one every 5 days. Compared to other P2E titles like Axie Infinity which allows each Axie to be bred up to 7 times, CyBall promotes better NFT scarcity, and thus a better system to avoid significant inflation.
On top of this, players will have a better chance of receiving a Junior CyBloc of a better class if they choose to use two mentors of the same class, instead of just one mentor. This Dual Mentorship works incredibly well to not only grant players a better chance of acquiring a more rare Junior CyBloc but also promote CyBloc scarcity even further by depleting the limited mentorship capacity from two CyBlocs instead of one.
Like Watching Football, Not Playing Football
Players can choose 3 CyBlocs with which they’d like to play with for any match. Given the fact that players can have a large quantity of CyBlocs within their roster, there are countless ways to vary your playstyle and maximize your chances of winning across a single sitting. Upon choosing your Cyblocs, you’re transported right onto the field, a vibrant environment in which your Cyblocs are ready to battle it out against the opposing team.
The gameplay itself is fast-paced and requires players to make strategic decisions under time constraints. Before the first and second half of the match, both players will select a strategy, ranging from Ultra Offensive to Ultra Defensive; this will increase the odds of a Cybloc scoring a goal against the opponent’s goalie and increase the odds of a goalie blocking the opposing Cybloc’s shot, respectively.
Throughout a match, six Key Events occur, which can involve 1 or 2 Cyblocs simultaneously. It is up to the player to select their Cyblocs according to their strengths for each Key Event. Players can also select from a random collection of Tactic Cards, which cost 1 unit of Tactic Power (with four available per match), to boost the chances of scoring a goal during any given Key Event.
Beyond these strategic decisions, however, the “gameplay” itself amounts to just watching your Cyblocs going through predetermined actions and waiting to see the outcome of them, which are based on a Random Number Generator — a matter of probability and, frankly, sheer luck.
The presence of — or lack of — any skill-based game mechanics may or may not be integral to the success of CyBall in the future. It has certainly amassed tons of hype and has presented a substantial earning potential for players who are eager to try out the newest P2E titles. However, will it stand the test of time? It’s worth comparing the game to a similar title and analyzing its proposed roadmap to assess its potential.
Entering a Bigger League
Compared to Axie Infinity
The team at CyBall openly considers Axie Infinity to be its primary inspiration, so it stands to reason that CyBall attempts to surpass Axie Infinity in a variety of ways. However, given its massive success since 2020, Axie Infinity certainly poses a significant hurdle to overcome. So what does CyBall do differently to give it a competitive edge? And does CyBall accomplish those things well?
Well, in short, they’re on the right track, but they’re far from the “next” Axie Infinity.
Upon its launch, CyBall made some notable ecosystem improvements over Axie Infinity that indicated its potential to foster a more scalable and sustainable P2E experience. In addition to some crucial prerequisite developments, such as a transparent and timely game launch, a strong diversification of in-game NFTs, and a sustainable in-game life cycle, a couple of other key changes could give CyBall the edge it needs to take over Axie Infinity.
The first of these, as mentioned prior, is the presence of the CyLoans in-game scholarship system. With fewer steps to complete, players can more easily and safely borrow and lend CyBlocs to begin earning $CBT, the game’s primary and unlimited P2E reward and utility token, and $CYB, the native governance and special P2E reward token granted from staking and competing in League and Tournament modes. Compared to Axie Infinity, the scholarship process is far more streamlined. Over the long term, CyLoans will likely lower the barrier of entry for new players, in turn increasing CyBall’s chances of mainstream adoption.
Second, CyBall exists on the BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Smart Chain (BSC). This blockchain network, which provides significantly faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum does, has a greater ability to scale. In the future, CyBall also intends to become multi-chain by integrating Solana. This multi-chain integration is purportedly to allow users on both BNB Chain and Solana to play against one another freely on CyBall’s game server and provide a suite of other benefits, such as faster transactions, lower gas fees, and a larger user base.
Compared to Axie Infinity, which relies on Ethereum and the Ronin sidechain to handle scalability issues, CyBall demonstrates its intention to prioritize the scalability of the CyBall universe by keeping gas fees low and transaction speeds high. The team behind CyBall has also indicated that it is exploring a variety of other options as well, including Layer 2 NFT solutions like the Immutable X protocol.
Post-Game Plans
CyBall is certainly showing a promising start. Moving forward, CyBall is ambitious to take its stand-alone title and scale it to impressive proportions.
- Phase 1: Genesis CyBloc NFTs Drop, NFT Marketplace, CyLoans, Mentoring, Exhibition Mode 3v3, and CBT Launch
- Phase 2: CyDex (native Automated Market Maker-based Decentralized Exchange), Exhibition Mode 5v5, Training Modes, P2E Economics Optimizations
- Phase 3: Blockchain scaling solution update, porting to mobile hardware platforms, league and tournament modes, pep talks, stadium manager, CYB launch (TBC), Community Treasury, DAO and Staking
Closing Thoughts
While the game is still in its infancy, CyBall has kicked off to a fantastic start, captivating an admirably large, active player base within its first few weeks, thanks to its appealing earning mechanism, engaging gameplay, and superbly executed, futuristic atmosphere. And according to its team, CyBall is just the start of a much larger CyBloc metaverse comprising multiple projects.
Such an ambitious plan begs certain questions, though. Where are the tokenomics? Will the project fall to the hyperinflation of its token, like so many other P2E games have in the past? And how will CyBall effectively combat that?
A more in-depth look at the economic design of CyBall will be revealed in the second part of this edition of “The Fi in GameFi’’.
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The “Fi” in Gamefi is M3TA’s opinion series on the economic design of a variety of blockchain games. M3TA team provides reviews of our first-hand experience as a player in the games. We believe this enables other players to have better understanding of the economy, and empowers their choice to participate in the fast-growing Gamefi world.
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