Introduction
Well met, adventurer — welcome to The Hero’s Hold! In this series, we track the details about heroes in DeFi Kingdoms, with game news, statistics, metrics, and more!
The snapshot for all of this week’s data was taken on Monday, 4/11 at 8am ET.
In this Issue:
- Heroic Happenings (Game News)
- The Summoner’s Circle (Hero Stats)
- The Adventurer’s Guild (Hero Wallets)
So, let’s dig in!
Heroic Happenings
It’s been a couple weeks since the last issue due to everything that’s been going on, so there’s plenty to catch up on here.
Crystalvale Launch
It’s hard to believe that Crystalvale — and the brand new DFK Chain — launched a full two weeks ago!
I hope that in between CRYSTAL farming, everybody takes a moment to click on the many, many NPCs and critters, and admire all of the artwork along with the amazing new soundtrack by composer Sam Shandley.
These NPCs aren’t just there for lore. Many of them hint at incoming mini-games or quest lines. These also all seem to be associated with particular stats, and may serve as a “warm up” of sorts for the incoming stat-based land tournaments. They may also be associated with the training quests mentioned in this week’s Game Mechanics AMA.
Pet and Combat Teasers
Last week’s Design Team AMA (links below) brought the teasers as always! We also learned a little more during this week’s Game Mechanics AMA.
Pets & Hatching
The biggest news here was a teaser for the launch of Pets, which coincided with the addition of Hatcher Jerek in the Serendale Marketplace.
A few reminders about Pets:
- Each color Pet egg will hatch a specific set of Pets
- Pets come in a variety of rarities, just like Heroes
- Pets will provide bonuses both to combat and professions (mostly to individual Heroes, but some bonuses may be for groups)
- Hatching will begin with Blue and Grey Eggs
- Hatching will require use of some of the lesser used crafting reagents rather than a significant amount of JEWEL
Combat
Alongside the amazing art teaser below, we learned officially this week that game combat will be modeled after Final Fantasy XII’s gambit system.
If you’re not familiar — I wasn’t — the gambit system allows players to set up what essentially amounts to a series of AI rules for how your characters will behave in combat: when to attack, when to heal, what abilities or spells to use under various circumstances, etc. Given the limitations of the blockchain and the team’s goal of keeping all combat logic on-chain, this places the strategy in the set-up of combat rather than the play itself, and allows combat to play out according to the rules inputted beforehand.
For a discussion of both the pros and cons of the gambit system in FFXII, take a look at this lengthy Reddit thread.
Genes and Gen0s
The past two weeks have also seen quite a bit of discussion around Hero genetics, focusing on two issues which, I will stress, are not related, though they are easily conflated.
Crystalvale Gen0 Genes
The issue of CV Gen0 genetics has been bubbling for a little while now. For a full view of what’s at stake here, watch this excellent video by Mettez:
But in short, these new Gen0s present a balancing dilemma in terms of how to distribute their recessive class genes as well as both dominant and recessive genes for subclass and appearance. Either all CV Gen0s end up with only CV genes (Seer/Berserker and related appearance genes), or they are diluted by the Serendale genes.
In response, the team announced at yesterday’s AMA that they are looking at allowing Gen0 holders the chance to re-roll some of their Heroes’ genes in order to distribute these genes across the entire Gen0 pool, rather than just the CV Gen0 pool. This would also need to happen during every expansion. Ensuring a full balance would require all Gen0s to re-roll every time, so we can likely expect an announcement of incentives to do so.
Re-rollable genes would likely include:
- Main Class recessive genes
- Sub Class dominant and recessive genes
- Relevant appearance genes — assume Head Appendage and Back Appendage, but potentially some of the colors as well
Expect much more detail on this in the weeks to come.
Team Gen0 Genes
The other Gen0 issue is a longstanding one involving the genes of Heroes #1–19, which were custom designed for the team. As is well-known at this point, and discussed in previous AMAs, those initial Heroes were inadvertently seeded with Advanced, Elite, and Transcendent Active/Passive genes in (mostly) recessive slots — genes that have now been passed down to (potentially) some 2,400 Heroes.
For a full overview of these genes, as well as the issue with the Team’s Heroes, take a look at the article that I wrote back in February:
But to the news — Hubert clarified at yesterday’s AMA that when combat is released, in order to participate, all affected Heroes will need to undergo a process to re-roll only those specifically affected genes. This includes both the genes for Heroes #1–19 as well as all of their descendants that may have inherited them. And while genes that mutated from affected genes are included here (i.e. Transcendent from an affected Elite gene), genes whose origin is indeterminate (and there are less than 50 of these genes in total), will be treated as legitimate.
In the meantime, I’ll reiterate the warning that I wrote two months ago about speculating on Advanced+ Hero genes:
The bottom line, then, is that if you have Heroes with these skills or are looking to buy and speculate on these Heroes, you should be absolutely certain of their lineage and of whether these genes are newly mutated or inherited from Heroes #1–19. — MrZipper
Hero of the Week
This week we welcome a new first in the realm of Hero genetics — Sraritte Direkeep, summoned from the Inner Grove with tentacles growing out of her back! Congratulations to summoner Ben Fren!
For those of you keeping track, this is a transcendent tier Back Appendage, created from a mutation between the orbs and the portal (take a look at her parents in the Tavern Catalog). Like a DreadKnight, there is only a base 7% chance of this mutation occurring with the correct parent dominant genes.
Since then, two more Hero tentacled Heroes have been summoned, both by Ben Fren aka Tenty Huntooooor: #168049 and #169178.
In Smaller News…
Some other news, announcements, and content from the past two weeks:
Community AMAs
- Crystalvale Launch AMA — March 28 (Video | Writeup)
- Design Team AMA — April 4 (Video | Writeup)
- Game Mechanics Team AMA — April 11 (Video | Writeup)
Official Content
- DeFi Kingdoms Gardens (Liquidity Pools) (Medium)
- Trezor Hardware Wallet — Setup and Usage (Medium)
- Chaos Cast: Crystalvale Launch Party 1 (YouTube)
- Chaos Cast: Crystalvale Launch Party 2 (YouTube)
- Chaos Cast, Episode 3 — Barcelona (YouTube)
From the Community
- Adventures in DeFi Kingdoms Podcast, Episode 25 — feat. Bolon Soron & Rissen
- DeFi Kingdoms: Tips and Tools for New AVAX Players (The Inner Grove)
- The Inner Grove, Episode 15 — feat. Taiki Maeda
- The Jewelers Podcast, Episode 4
- Bogside Chats, Episode 7
- SummOnyoning — feat. Enok, Kujo, and Malience (Purple Onyon)
The Summoner’s Circle
Let’s take a look at some statistics for all of the heroes that have been summoned so far.
- Total Heroes: 169,217 (+4,144 / 2.49%)
- Living Heroes: 146,581
Hero Growth
Hero summoning has continued at a very slow pace, as the recent drop in Hero prices has made even Gen0 summoning less profitable. It did, however, pick up toward the end of this week. The total number of heroes increased by 4,144 (2.49%), while Living Heroes is now matching in growth as only 34 Heroes remain unclaimed from the Perilous Journey.
Total Heroes (Weekly Change / % Change)
• Apr. 11: 169,217 (+4,144 / 2.49%)
• Apr. 4: 165,103 (+2,070 / 1.27%)
• Mar. 28: 163,033 (+3,776 / 2.37%)
• Mar. 21: 159,257 (+4,499 / 2.9%)
Tavern Volume
Tavern sales have been slow for the past two weeks, pushing prices even further down, initially as everybody scrambled for Crystalvale liquidity. The average number of sales this week was 678, with a total weekly volume of 450k JEWEL — up 125k from last week’s lows. The average sale price this week was 94 JEWEL vs. 72 last week.
Note: As with the other data, the daily numbers represent the 24 hours prior to 8am ET on the listed day.
Hero Stat Breakdowns
As a reminder, this section now contains data for living Heroes only — i.e. those not held by the Graveyard wallet.
With fewer new Heroes being summoned, Hero levels have continued to shift upwards, with both Level 1 & 2 falling below Level 6. Additionally, the launch of the daily Leaderboard contests seems to have reinvigorated the use of Stamina Vials, as we now have two Level 12s & one Level 14 Hero!
Highest Profession Skills
The highest profession skill numbers continue to trickle up, but I can’t help but notice that the top Gardener in the game right now is a Level 1 Common. Please level your Heroes!
- Foraging: 21.4 (#1976 / Legendary Archer, Level 11)
- Fishing: 21.3 (#38676 / Rare Knight, Level 10)
- Gardening: 19.8 (#37848 / Common Pirate, Level 1)
- Mining: 18.5 (#106567 / Legendary DreadKnight, Level 7)
The Adventurer’s Guild
In this section, we track heroes as they’re held in various Harmony wallets.
Total Hero Wallets: 20,571* (+478 / 2.38%)
Note: As of this morning, 4,248 Heroes were held in custodial wallets (including the PJ Contract), and are not included in this data. The Graveyard wallet is excluded from this data.
Hero Wallet Growth
Hero wallet growth numbers ticked up slightly after weeks of record lows. In some ways this isn’t surprising — many players may have sold off their only Heroes for CV liquidity, and new players may not be looking for Heroes just yet. In addition, a significant number of Heroes are being held outside of game profiles, and could be reducing this total.
Total Hero Wallets (Weekly Change / % Change)
• Apr. 11: 20,571 (+478 / 2.38%)
• Apr. 4: 20,093 (+185 / 0.54%)
• Mar. 28: 19,985 (+432 / 2.21%)
• Mar. 21: 19,553 (+521 / 2.74%) (3-week interval)
In terms of overall DFK profile stats — recall that these are the number of profiles created in the game, not necessarily all wallets that have interacted with it — we saw a wallet growth of 1.19% this week.
Important Note: Since Crystalvale does not yet have in-game profiles set up, any new players who headed directly to Crystalvale would not be included in these numbers.
Hero Wallet Stats
Over the past two weeks, the average number of heroes held per wallet decreased slightly to 6.92 heroes, while the median wallet held steady at 3.
The number of Heroes held by the Top 50 wallets continued to increase over the past two weeks— by 3.1% this week on top of 3.2% last week, perhaps from scooping up cheap deals in the Tavern.
On the lower end of the spectrum, wallets holding only one hero has increased for the past three weeks — by 2.5% last week and 1.5% this week. The overall share of one-hero wallets also increased by 1.9% last week, but declined by -.8% this week.
Wallet Rankings
Please note the logarithmic y-axis scales of the charts below, and that this first chart groups wallets holding 125–149, 150–199, 200–249, 250–299, and 300+ heroes. If you have better ideas for how to display this data, please let me know!
Gen0 Wallet Stats
We’re also checking in on Gen0 wallets, in order to keep an eye on potential consolidation.
Total Gen0 Wallets: 843 (-8)
Over the past two weeks, Gen0s have indicated some increasing consolidation as the number of single Gen0 holders declined again (by 8). However, given the slight decline among Top 50 wallets as well as 10+ holders, that consolidation doesn’t appear to be happening at the top. The median held steady this week at 2.
Among wallet movement of Gen0s, there appears to have been a decent bit of shuffling around. Beyond the obvious +5/-5 movement, just a few stand out this week: Almost (-4), Ogre Abroad (-2), Zenith (-2), and yojimbo (-2).
Hero Whale Watch
And finally, let’s check in on our Hero whales. A few big changes in Hero numbers here, especially at the top by Chi. Two new names this week as well, as Whynn and Michael3388 make it onto the leaderboard. They’ve both been among top Hero holders in the past — #16 and #18 last week, respectively.
Account Name / Hero Count (Change) / Gen0s
- Chi / 315 (+27) / 0
- Pikul / 300 / 6
- Highness Royal / 282 / 0
- leon / 281 (-9) / 8
- Whynn / 273 (+73) / 0
- Michael3388 / 261 (+71) / 4
- holmes / 245 / 12
- Natahala3 / 241 (-1) / 3
- DarkSaga / 240 (+17) / 1
- Chichowski / 240 (+8) / 0
Total heroes held by Top 10: 2,546 (+132 / 5.2%)
Thank you Hero Whales for your support of DeFi Kingdoms!
That’s it for today! Thanks for reading, and please subscribe and stick around for future editions of The Hero’s Hold. If you like what you’re reading here, I’m happy to accept tips at: 0xf543311360d1072873D627B06ffe85587e8fc41a.
Questions, comments, suggestions? Send them to me at MrZipper#7564 on Discord or @MrZipper7 on Twitter.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely my own, and do not reflect those of the DeFi Kingdoms team. Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, or should be taken as such.
Recent Issues
- The Hero’s Hold #20 — March 28, 2022
- The Hero’s Hold #19 — March 21, 2022
- The Hero’s Hold #18 — March 14, 2022
- The Perilous Journey Begins — March 11, 2022
- The Hero’s Hold #17 — March 7, 2022
- The Hero’s Hold #16 — February 28, 2022
- Deep Dive: Active & Passive Genes — February 9, 2022
- Deep Dive: Hero Genetics — January 5, 2022
- Deep Dive on Advanced+ Class Summoning — November 27, 2021
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