Stickerssssssssssssssssssssss
Yes, we now have a major new feature in production to make the social experience within the Hive Grove community even richer! Stickers to use in Campfire or in the comments on Journal posts, posts about HG, or posts promoted by the community!
The first thing I want to say is that Stickers are completely optional. They are visual content, just like other features we already have in our ecosystem. There are no missions forcing you to buy or invest in them, so it's entirely up to you. Want something extra to have fun with your friends? Prefer to enjoy only the initial stickers? It's completely up to you!
Come along and I'll explain everything about them!
Starter Stickers
Everyone who joins Hive Grove after the update will receive these three starter Stickers completely free! They are common rarity with a matte finish. They may look simple, but they are cute and beautiful. :)
They're yours! Feel free to use them in your conversations! Ahh, how do you use them? It's very simple! In the text box where you type your messages, click the "+" and then Sticker.
Your Stickers will appear there. Just click on one and it will automatically be sent in the conversation! Everything is quick and easy!
But wait, there's more!
Shop
We'll have a new category in the Shop, featuring our first collection called the "Welcome Collection", a true welcome gift for everyone as part of this exciting new feature!
As mentioned, packs will initially be sold for 0.80 Hive. Part of this amount will go to @ravenmus1c for their contribution to creating them, and the other part will go into the weekly pool. This means some of the value will go back to players who qualify for the top 20 on the leaderboard.
When you hover over the information icon "i", you'll see the complete table showing the Sticker drop rates. Each pack contains 5 Stickers, with at least one Rare or better guaranteed!
I came up with these percentages by comparing several data points from other games like Splinterlands and Hearthstone, which are major sources of inspiration for me. I also looked at other games where you can purchase packs to get an idea of how their drop rates work, and then applied some of those ideas to better align everything with the Sticker mechanics.
One thing I wanted to implement is what I call a "hard cap". It isn't a fixed drop rate, but rather a kind of guarantee that you'll get "at most 10 packs without an Epic" and "at most 30 without a Legendary". This doesn't mean that "the 10th pack will always contain an Epic".
Let me explain in more detail:
Each player has two counters: consecutive packs without an Epic and consecutive packs without a Legendary.
If a player has gone 9 packs without an Epic, the 10th pack will contain an Epic or better in the last slot. If they've gone 29 packs without a Legendary, the 30th pack will contain a Legendary.
The counter resets whenever the item drops naturally. For example, getting an Epic in pack 3 resets the counter, meaning the next guarantee will be in pack 13 at the latest.
A Legendary also resets the Epic counter because it counts as "Epic or better".
When the Epic guarantee is triggered, the last slot only rolls between Epic (84%) and Legendary (16%).
The calculation is done per buyer and per collection. The roll happens when the pack is purchased, not when it is opened, so the order in which you open packs makes no difference. Buying 10 at once counts the same as buying 10 separately.
In practice, with the current odds and only one collection available:
Around 40% of packs already contain an Epic or better. Only 1% of players end up needing the Epic guarantee.
Around 8% of packs contain a Legendary. On average, one drops every 11 packs, and around 8.5% of players reach the 30-pack guarantee.
In other words, the Legendary guarantee is the one that really matters. The Epic guarantee is almost never triggered. Of course, these are probabilities, and anything can happen. Could you get several Legendaries in a row? Yes, that's possible. Could you also need many packs to get one? Yes, absolutely.
If anything seems strange or you feel something isn't working correctly, please don't hesitate to contact me!
Inventory > Stickers
To make things easier to manage, I decided to split the Inventory menu into two cards. The regular items and now the Stickers:
Stickers Page
When you click the Stickers menu, the following page will load. We have a few submenus, and the whole process is now better organized so that everything isn't concentrated in one place, making it too cluttered or confusing.
Packs
In this menu, you'll see the packs you've purchased, so you can either open them or hold on to them. The choice is yours.
Currently, holding on to packs doesn't provide any additional benefits, and I don't think it ever will. I don't plan to introduce anything like that, at least not for now.
For now, I also decided not to implement the Sticker pack gifting feature. However, it could be something for the future, since I want to create a way to help people who organize giveaways by providing them with a nice and easy-to-use interface to run their giveaways for the community.
When you hover over the information icon, you'll once again find all the information about drop rates, rarities, and finishes.
When you click Open, the following page will appear. Just click once and the pack will open automatically:
After the short pack-opening animation, you'll see your Stickers. I got lucky in the test environment and pulled a Matte Epic!
Great, now you have 5 new Stickers in your account, but you still can't use them! Let me explain the next step!
Sealed
This is the Sealed submenu. The Stickers you receive when opening a pack will be stored here in a state called "Sealed". While in this state, you still can't use the Sticker, as if it were still unopened.
Here, you have three actions:
Redeem: You "open" the Sticker and add it to your collection. From that moment on, you can use it from the Stickers menu in the text boxes in Campfire or the Journal. When you open a Sticker, we say that it has been added to your album!
Gift: You can send a Sticker as a gift to someone, and they will receive it in the redeemed state. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
The person who receives it cannot gift that Sticker to someone else. To clarify, you can only gift a sealed copy, meaning one that is still in the Sealed state. Once you redeem a Sticker to your account, you can no longer gift that Sticker.
The person who received the Sticker can still recycle it for fragments, but this depends on whether they have another identical copy. Your album progress is never lost, so a redeemed copy can only be recycled if you have another redeemed copy of the same artwork with the same finish.
So, if the gift is the only copy of that Sticker, it cannot be recycled. If the person already had an identical one (same artwork and finish, for example, both Matte), the gift becomes an extra copy and can be recycled.
Recycle: Here's a system that ensures nothing goes to waste. Each Sticker has a specific recycling value depending on its rarity and finish. So, as you recycle Stickers, you earn fragments, which you can then use to obtain other Stickers.
In the image below, you can see a warning message explaining that this is your only copy. If you recycle it, that's it! You'll receive the fragments, but you'll lose the Sticker!
If you have more than one copy, the recycling screen changes and won't even warn you that you could end up losing it. Either way, always be careful with what you do to avoid any problems.
Album
In the album, you'll find all the collections grouped together. In this case, we have the mini collection of three starter Stickers and our Welcome Collection:
When you click on any of them, the page will load and display the corresponding collection. In this case, the Stickers you've redeemed will appear filled in, while the ones you don't have will appear as silhouettes of their images:
We have filters by rarity and finish:
When you click on a Sticker, its information will appear on the right, showing, for example, how many copies you own and other details. There's also a shortcut to recycle your extra copies:
When you click on the large image on the right, you can also get a closer look at the Sticker:
Fragments
Here, let me explain the fragment system in more detail. Once you collect enough fragments, you can exchange them for a random Sticker of a certain rarity or choose a specific Sticker. However, all Stickers created this way will have a Matte finish, so Glossy and Holographic finishes will only be available through pack openings.
If you choose to craft a random Sticker, you might end up getting one you already own. So here, you'll need to think about whether you want to take a chance or save up more fragments.
The information icon explains everything you need to know about recycling and crafting values:
Here is the remaining information:
A few points:
Since we'll only have one collection for now, the crafting screen will look like this. However, my idea is to make crafting collection-based. So, if we had two collections, you would first choose which collection you want, and then the page would load the Stickers from that collection.
This makes things fairer and easier when choosing a specific Sticker or trying your luck within a collection, rather than across all existing Stickers.
I didn't want to include crafting for Glossy and Holographic Stickers because that makes them rarer, as they can only be obtained from packs. Of course, this could be reviewed in the future, but if I do implement it, those Stickers will obviously cost more fragments to craft depending on their finish.
The fragments are yours! My idea is that you'll be able to use them for crafting Stickers forever. So, even if we're still here 10 years from now and new collections have been released, you'll still be able to use these fragments to craft future Stickers.
When you choose to craft a random Sticker, the following screen will open, showing all the possibilities:
After making your choice, you'll see the Stickers and can select the new ones, meaning the ones you don't already own:
History
Finally, we have a history screen showing all information related to Stickers, including pack openings, crafting, recycling, gifts, and more. Everything is there so nobody is left in the dark:
Conclusion
Well, that's it! I've made a few other small improvements, but I focused this post on showcasing the major new Sticker feature. As mentioned, they don't provide any bonuses or anything like that, but they add another way to interact and engage with other people.
As usual, this is the implementation, and now I'm collecting feedback so I can evaluate potential improvements and changes. I hope everyone enjoys it overall and gives Stickers a chance.
A big hug to everyone!
Play Hive Grove: https://playhivegrove.com/?g=shiftrox
