Famous Foxes on a new mission
One of my favorite Solana NFT projects, Famous Fox Federation (FFF), just launched a huge new overhaul of Missions, their gamified holder reward system that allows holders to lock their foxes for a week to earn FAME (experience points that allow foxes to level up and acquire cosmetic enhancements) and treasure chests (which have a wide range of random rewards).
In this post I will cover the major changes to Missions and share a few high level thoughts about the new system and how it may impact the project as a whole. Hope you enjoy!
What’s new in Missions 2.0?
The new mission structure brings four huge changes to missions:
Improved accessibility
Missions are now open to every single holder of Famous Fox Federation (FFF) or Transdimensional Fox Federation (TFF) NFTs. In the original setup, only foxes who met specific mission requirements (usually related to fox level, traits, or multi-NFT holders) were eligible for missions. The old system worked well for very dedicated holders that were able to accumulate a diverse range of foxes and diligently level their crew each week, but it posed significant barriers for new holders who were often unable to participate.
Improved user experience for the average holder
Missions are now very simple, at least from an accessibility standpoint. Every fox can go on a mission, and there’s no penalty to sending a fox. Holders can simply select all of the foxes they want to send on a mission and click “Send”. It takes less than 30 seconds once a week. The original setup typically had 6 different trait-based missions per week. This posed a logistical hurdle for people who held multiple foxes since you would have to make a plan for how to allocate all of your foxes and then send them in individual transactions. This probably took me 20–30 minutes per week with 25–30 foxes; can’t image how long it took for the big holders.
Chance-based rewards (non-guaranteed)
Mission-goers are no longer guaranteed to get treasure chests. Instead, each fox has a power score that is equal to level multiplied by rarity score (rarity score is the sum of the four primary traits on your foxes, with common = 1, uncommon = 2, rare = 3, and epic = 4). The higher the power score, the higher the chance of being rewarded with treasure during the weekly mission.
Foxes lucky enough to win treasure are awarded treasure chests at the same rate as previous missions: 1 chest for TFFs, 4 chests for FFFs, and 1 additional chest for each full tier upgrade (both outfit and head). It’s all or nothing; you either get all of your chest allocation or none each week.
The system does not disclose the actual % chance each fox has on its mission, so we are left to speculate at this moment on how power corresponds with % chance to earn a chest. EDIT: We now know that the chance is influenced by the fox’s power, the total number of foxes on the mission, and the average power of foxes on the mission. The higher the number and power of foxes on the mission, the lower your odds will be to get treasure.
Elevated importance of rarity
Missions success is now 50% determined by rarity. This is a big change, since the previous mission setup rewarded holders who accumulated a wide range of traits across the rarity spectrum (and, for reasons I don’t understand, the trait-gated setup was favorable for many common traits and hostile to some of the epic traits).
How are missions working?
We know how missions work in theory, but how is the first week going? The biggest thing that stands out so far is the simplicity. I was able to send all of my foxes on the weekly mission in a single transaction! It was incredible, honestly, compared to the previous setup that required some pre-planning and then an individual transaction for each mission.
I also think the team did a great job (as they always do) with the user interface. It’s very clean on desktop and mobile, organizes your “squads” by power score, and shows which squads have a den assigned to increase its power level.
In terms of participation, it looks like 7,372 foxes are participating in the first new mission, which is 43% of the collection. The average power of those 7,372 foxes is 440, which means the average fox on a mission is level 63 with a rarity score of 7. I’ll comment more on this below.
What we don’t know is how power relates to the chance of getting chests, other than higher power = high chance. I have my theories on what the % chances are for each power level, but I’ll need more data before I can share anything meaningful. More to come on that front. EDIT: We know more about this now thanks to additional information from the team that I covered in the section above.
I am also curious to see how the mission claim activity looks. There’s an opportunity here to make that experience fun and engaging (like the chest opening experience is currently). Will post more when I get to experience later this week. EDIT: The claim experience is very smooth and simple. The rewards are clearly listed all at once on the mission screen so you can easily see which of your squads hit and which didn’t.
Strategy and Thoughts
So what does this all mean? I’ve always tried to dig deep on the FFF ecosystem, so I’ll summarize some big picture strategies and questions below.
High level, Tier 1 TFFs are still the alpha
They may be tough to find on secondary, but if you can find a Tier 1 TFF above level 50 I think those will continue to be the best bang for your buck in the new mission setup, just as they were in the previous mission setup. Why? Because they can often be sniped on secondary for below 2 SOL and offer 2 chests per mission win. That’s half the chest output as an FFF for less than half the price. Simple math. They will level 4x slower than FFFs (no longer true!), and FAME transfer has been made more costly, so it’s possible FFFs will offer more value long-term as their level outpaces TFFs. EDIT: We also learned that TFFs get the same FAME per mission as FFFs, which is a HUGE improvement.
Pay attention to rarity
Rarity is 50% of the power score, yet is somewhat difficult to assess when buying on secondary. Unless you memorize traits, I recommend shopping for foxes on the FFF Hall of Fame site, which makes it easy to spot rarity by color for each fox. For example, I just found this Tier 1 TFF for 1.7 SOL that has a rarity score of 6 (3 common traits that are listed in orange font and 1 rare trait that is listed in blue font). I didn’t even know “blank” eyes were rare, so this is a sneaky good find that I would have passed up just browsing on secondary.
Dens are not very useful (right now, anyway)… or are they?
Dens used to be required to participate in 3 of the 6 weekly missions, so they were very important for maximizing reward value. In the new system a den can be paired with a fox to add a power boost that is equal to the den score divided by 10. The main problem here is that, outside of the 7 unique dens, the highest den score is 1100 for a den equipped with 5 unique rooms (very expensive). That super rare den is only adding 110 power to the fox it is paired with. If your goal is accumulating as many chests as possible for the least amount invested, you’d be much better off accumulating more foxes at current prices than adding dens, at least in the current setup. EDIT: I’m a bit grumpy about this one. The team failed to disclose that dens also add 50% FAME bonus on top of the power boost. I’m not sure this makes it more valuable to add a new fox vs. a den, but it definitely adds to their utility. It also makes it so 100% of dens are useful (unlike foxes, which may be subpar if all common trait and low level).
Low level low rarity foxes have a tough path to value
I commend the team for opening the doors for all holders to enjoy missions. But it’s still going to be very tough sledding for Level 1 foxes, especially if they are also low rarity score. My estimation is that a Level 1, Rarity 4 (all common traits) fox has below a 1% chance of landing treasure chests on a weekly mission. If you level that fox up to level 40 over 1–2 months? I estimate that it will only improve your chance at rewards to 10%. That’s certainly better than nothing, but I don’t imagine getting a reward once every 2.5 months is going to keep newer holders engaged. I hope the team explores other enticing things to make the grind more enjoyable than an all-or-nothing bid for treasure chests (i.e. ways to make the level process itself more fun and addicting, or introducing items that add layers of strategy).
Missions aren’t reaching disengaged holders
It’s still very early, so I’m hoping this changes. But this first week of missions seems to be catering primarily to folks who were already doing missions. How do we know this?
First, only 7,372 foxes are on the mission this week. That’s pretty low considering that 6,530 foxes are at least level 55, meaning they have been actively going on missions for some time. So new missions are engaging maybe 500–700 new foxes (and many of those could be held by fox whales who just never bothered to level their whole collection). EDIT: This week’s mission did slightly better, attracting 7,488 foxes, though the average power level remained very high at 457.
Second, the average power level of 440 on this week’s mission is crazy high. Consider that the average rarity score in the collection is ~7, meaning 1 rare trait, 1 uncommon trait, and 2 common traits. A fox with a rarity score of 7 needs to be level 63 to reach a power score of 440! This tells me that not many of the 5,125 foxes under Level 10 are participating in missions and bringing that average power level down.
The FFF team has never been strong with marketing (partly because I think they like to avoid ginning up FOMO that tends to lead to angry holders with unrealistic expectations), so hopefully we will see a gradual uptick in foxes participating in missions as news of the mission update spreads via word of mouth and ongoing outreach efforts.
Wen items?
The team has not mentioned this in any official capacity, but many community members have speculated that missions may eventually have “items” that could have utility in the new mission experience. Maybe they boost your FAME for one week or boost your chances of getting treasure, for example. Items have also been teased on the FFF roadmap for quite some time.
I really hope the team experiments with this for a few reasons.
- Games are more fun when there are multiple paths to take each week. I think the team made a good choice simplifying the entry point for missions, but I think items could offer a way to add optional strategy and complexity to the gamification.
- Items could be added to treasure chests, which further spices up the “rewards” you can earn in the ecosystem. Since every item in the FFF ecosystem is an SPL token that can be bought/sold/traded, items have historically helped increase the value of treasure chests on the open market. This is a win/win, in my opinion. The team wins by earning more fees on token marketplace transactions and better engaging holders (at no additional cost) and holders have more opportunities to enjoy missions and buy/sell/trade items on the token market.
I think most people would agree that foxes were having a lot of fun when runes could be obtained in treasure chests that were used to mint new Summoned Foxes.
Putting it all together
Fox missions are awesome. They offer a great opportunity to engage with your NFTs each week. They allow you to unlock art upgrades by the legendary zen0m. And they yield treasure chests that have significant and sustainable rewards. This isn’t a Ponzi scheme where rewards are denominated in a shitcoin that early holders dump onto new holders. Rewards are generated by the many revenue-generating products in the Famous Fox ecosystem that the team generously funnels into treasure chests each week. Over the last 12 months, the FFF team has distributed nearly 10,000 $SOL through missions, on top of $FOXY rewards, merchandise, and runes that were used to mint new Summoned foxes.
There’s a reason FFF is a top NFT project on Solana, and the new mission structure offers a big new way for less engaged holders to onramp into this fun and rewarding ecosystem. I hope this was helpful for new and old holders alike, and I look forward to missioning with y’all down the road.
