Lost Annals of Gaia — Vol. 1 (Forgotten Knowledge for People Wanting to Play DeFi Kingdoms)
Hi DFK Fam — I created this article because I noticed a huge misunderstanding about several core mechanics of the game aspect of DeFi Kingdoms. Part of this is the result of the developers wanting us to figure aspects of the game out ourselves without providing a golden map to what will be Meta, but then disclosing very key tips in discord, which end up getting buried under walls of text and lost to the general public with only a few people benefiting from reading it.
So here it is — my compendium of lost tips that YOU NEED TO KNOW if you plan on playing DeFi Kingdoms.
I will try and keep this updated from time to time and to organize it by various topics. Hope people find this helpful until this information can be assimilated into docs.defikingdoms.com.
Note about all the source: there’s so much misinformation so I try to post the source of where I’m getting this from via screenshots and direct links to the discord messages — hopefully its helpful and not obnoxious. I may convert it into some sort of FN and citation index format at some point if it becomes too clunky.
Other Volumes: Check out my Index of Samichpunch DeFi Kingdoms Articles for a the other volumes of the Annals of Gaia as well as all of my other articles. You should definitely bookmark this index.
Sources:
- Frisky Fox: Solidity and React Developer God — lord ruler of DFK
- Hubert Cumberdale: Game Mechanics Specialist
Table of Contents
HERO MECHANICS
Stat Leveling
Won’t get into the weeds on this as we already have official docs on this here in the DFK Docs. Long story short — every time you level, the system will run through each stat twice (once for main class and once for subclass) and try to roll for a +1 to such stat. Successful roll? You get +1 to that stat. Unsuccessful roll? Move to the next. Theoretically it is possible (but extremely unlikely) to successfully roll +2 to each stat on a level up (in addition to your other stat modifiers upon level up) but just go read the docs on this.
How does rarity impact stat leveling?
DeFi Kingdoms’ official medium page posted a great article on this in great detail, so I’ll just link to that here: https://defikingdoms.medium.com/breaking-down-advanced-hero-classes-stats-and-rarities-ce745dc5024
Stat Genes
This is the big one that causes a lot of confusion. Lots of misunderstanding on how these work so hopefully we can break this down clearly. Every hero has two different stat genes. These will show as green stats or if both stat genes are on the same stat, the stat will show as purple.
Type 1 Stat Gene: +2 ONE TIME bonus to the stat AT THE TIME OF SUMMONING.
Type 2 Stat Gene: Increased chance to successfully roll for a particular stat when you level up (i.e. it increases the change to successfully roll from the base chance shown in this spreadsheet made by Freya).
Source:
How do you know which gene is which?
Hubert Cumberdale said that eventually they hope to make a UI change to make it clear which stat is which:
In the meantime though, we have to use the poor man’s method, but its still quite effective and should be able to get us there 99% of the time. So how do we do it? We compare the green stats to the standard starting stats for a common hero of that class (i.e. warrior, archer, wizard..). For example, a common archer almost always (maybe always) starts with 12 Dex. So if an Archer has green 12 dex, then its not the +2 bonus, because Archer’s don’t summon with just 10 dex, so it must be Stat type 2, the one that increased the chance to successfully roll.
Here is another example, you have a green stat with 6. You know that that one will be the Stat type 2 with the increased % chance because no heroes summon with only 4 to a gene so it can’t be the +2 Type 1 gene.
Here is a helpful chart showing the starting stats for a common hero of each class (obviously rarity impacts this and doing boosted summoning with extra Gaia’s tears will also impact this, but this chart at least helps show which stat is most likely Type 1 (one time +2 bonus) or Type 2 (increased chance to successfully roll).
TLDR: look at this chart, compare your green stat to this chart, if its 2 higher than the normal number, then its type 1 +2 stat, if its the same as this, then its the % roll. Make adjustments as needed for rarity (which can cause the hero to have higher starting stats).
Profession Genes
This is which of the professions are green on the card. Here is an example of a hero with a Gardening profession gene:
What does the profession gene do?
It’s a bonus when doing that profession’s quest (~10% bonus):
Common Misunderstandings:
Many often think that the profession gene is one of the most important factors in making a good miner, fisher, forager, or gardener. But in reality its a % bonus on top of what you would get based on your profession level and relevant stats for that profession. Based on Hubert’s message above, it’s ~10% (in a very hand wavy simplification of things). The vast majority of what determines your rewards will be 2/3 from your profession level and 1/3 from your stats. Profession gene will be a bonus that just provides “a bit more benefit.”
Will you get a bonus for doing your profession? Of course — but its not the end all be all. Will you need the profession gene in order to min/max? Yes, obviously.
Even Hubert himself said he doesn’t plan to only do the profession for which they have a profession gene:
Do you have to have the profession gene to be a good miner, fisher, forager or gardener? NO. Repasting this same post from Hubert that I did above. The most important factor in your rewards from profession quests will be by far the level of the profession (YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE THE GREEN PROFESION GENE TO LEVEL UP A PROFESSION). Profession level accounts for 2/3. Stat’s account for 1/3 and the profession gene is only an ~10% bonus.
Some might think that profession gene will help you level up a profession faster, leading to a higher profession skill level (which is 2/3 of the outcome for your profession quests). This is not correct. Profession skill increases will not be impacted by genes, rarity or class.
LAND
There is a LOT unknown about land and its still in development on the Dev’s side so we will just need to wait for official updates on what exactly its use case will be (there have been little tid bits, shared below, but they’ve also said on AMA’s that its fluid).
Number of Plots:
There will be 1,000 plots:
Additional Land on New Worlds (Blockchains):
In their October 11, 2021 AMA they announced that they have a lot of ideas in the works such as new lands/quests/items in different blockchains.
DFK has even announced plans to expand onto Fantom — youtube AMA with FTM Alerts (link to question about crosschain gaming).
Land Airdrop: Just like the 51 Gen0 heroes given away for free, there will be land given away via airdrops. The docs are currently not current on how the airdrop and snapshots will work, so I’ll detail those below.
First 25 Airdropped Land will be the 25 plots closest to the capital!
Snapshot Mechanics:
There are actually going to be 4 snapshots taken. If you did not have 5,000 xJewel staked in the bank for the first snapshot on October 15, 2021, you are not eligible for snapshots 2–4. After the last snapshot in the first week of November, they will live stream the 25 winners being selected by wheel of names. See above discord screenshot for source. So there will be a 2nd snapshot/airdrop process for 25 more plots as well.
Not an auction.
You’ll have to do in-game quests to qualify and have heroes with a minimum level.
QUESTS:
Stamina:
Based on this information, community members have shared the following details of how many heroes you’d need to keep quests running 24/7, which frankly would be exhausting but some of might be interested:
UPDATE 11/24/21: Stamina regen was modified when wishing well was released this month. Stamina now takes around 8 hours to regenerate rather than the approximately 2 hour.
Rewards:
Quests and Leveling
Quest Releases
Quests are part of Phase 2 and hero releases. However in order to deliver a refined and flawless product, the devs are rolling it out in multiple releases. Most recently we have heard that even the profession quests may be released in phases:
Gardening
Mining
SUMMONING
General
Summoning Rarity
Here are some details on how rarity of the SUMMONING heroes impacts rarity of the SUMMONED hero.
Summoning Cap Costs for Gen0
On an AMA the team announced that the time cap summon for a Gen0 will be 72 hours.
Last updated 10/23/21
Other Volumes: Check out my Index of Samichpunch DeFi Kingdoms Articles for a the other volumes of the Annals of Gaia as well as all of my other articles. You should definitely bookmark this index.
