Preseason Update: mBLAST, Quests, Rentals & More!
Preseason Update: mBLAST, Quests, Rentals & More!
That's a LOT of gold! Yarr!
Avast, ye scurvy scallywags! We’ve got some seriously exciting news on the horizon with the upcoming launch of Season 2, and, before we set sail, we wanted to get a few really important system changes in place.
Note that all of these systems are brand new, experimental, and subject to change — please continually submit feedback and bugs you find!
Read on for details around the next Blast Gold distribution via the mBLAST points system, rental updates, new additions of in-game quests, a new dashboard & more!
Quests
Quest objectives have been introduced! You can find them on your new kap.gg/profile page. Read the QoL Changes section below to learn more about the new profile page, which comes with a load of other nifty gadgets.
Quests are divided into both Captain and Company categories, and currently grant mBLAST upon completion. Later, when Season 2 launches, quests will also be the source of additional seasonal points & currency rewards. While this first set of quests is relatively small and straightforward, we’ll be dramatically expanding the quest system throughout Season 2 into more colorful and adventurous varieties of objectives.
Note that there are both quests specifically for Captains and specifically for Company. To be eligible for a Captain quest, you must have either been holding a ship NFT for 24 hours or have redeemed a Captain Access Code.
Quests are also eligible for multipliers based on your staked assets and your unlisted NFT owned assets. With this set of changes, we’ve merged concepts from the pre-existing “Pirate Pass” and “Pirate Tier” systems into one consolidated framework for seasonal rewards. Our objective is to merge this system in seamlessly with our upcoming Season 2 points system so that players do not need to rearrange again. Read the below mBLAST section for specifics!
New mBLAST System
Riding the huge wave of momentum in the Blast ecosystem, we’ve been carefully tuning our mBLAST points program to more carefully meet the guidelines of the Blast team while still blending seamlessly with the rewards model we’ll be implementing in Season 2.
To begin, note that from a user perspective the set of actions you’ll need to complete to earn mBLAST is still roughly the same. It’s still all about playing the game, owning some NFTs, and participating in the staking pools. Changes here!
Links: 🥩 Staking | ⛵ Ships | 💀 Skellies
mBLAST System Changes
Instead of earning mBLAST for dealing damage directly, you now earn mBLAST for completing daily quest objectives; these quest objectives largely require you to collect Doubloons, which you now earn for dealing damage directly
Instead of ships, PFPs, and other NFTs passively emitting mBLAST rewards, they’ll now grant you a multiplier (up to +5.0x) that will apply to certain mBLAST quest rewards
Instead of staking KAP-WETH, USDB, ETH, or KAP to earn passive mBLAST rewards, your staked value will now grant you a multiplier (up to +5.0x) that will apply to certain mBLAST quest rewards
These multipliers are additive with respect to each other, making the maximum multiplier +10.0x
The multiplier tiers are based on a “value weighted” system, where each tier is pegged to some $ amount of value, and so long as you have that amount of $ value in the respective bin (i.e. staking or NFT holding), you qualify for the multiplier for that bin
The $ value associated with each multiplier tier is dynamically set in relation to the actual price of ships, as determined by the moving average of the assets in open markets
The asset holding multiplier tiers are pegged to the value of 1x ship per tier; that is, to achieve the 2x tier, you’ll need to be holding 2 ships worth of value, and to reach the 4x tier you’ll generally need to be holding 4 ships of value
Holding a Wraith Brig will automatically qualify you for the maximum asset holding multiplier (+5.0x) (note that this may not go live until later in the week after the patch)
Note that because the moving average used to both calculate tier requirements and asset values is a historical average, you may occasionally fall off or into multiplier tiers if prices of various assets are volatile
Assets and staked positions only count for the multiplier after 24hr, to prevent users from rapidly moving assets between accounts to farm easy multiplier quests
Staking multiplier tiers are set in relation to the value required for each asset matching asset holding multiplier tier
In terms of KAP-WETH, a user will need twice the $ amount of value staked in the staking bin as they would require in NFTs held in the asset holding bin to achieve the same multiplier tier level
KAP-WETH receives a 10x bonus to its value when counted for “points” in the staking pool versus USDB or ETH; meaning that if you were to stake USDB or ETH to reach the staking multiplier required, you would need to stake 10x as much versus just staking KAP-WETH
Note that the mBLAST system will be tuned on a weekly basis, and potentially on a daily basis if we detect player earnings are not commensurate with our forecasts or other exploits are discovered. Additionally, note that Doubloons will reset to 0 when Season 2 formally launches, and they are simply an “in-game points” system until then.
After the first week, we’ll be making these two experimental changes:
All quests will qualify for multipliers and their mBLAST values will be tweaked
The KAP/WETH value bonus on LPing may be increased, and, if so, so will the number of value points needed to reach multiplier tiers
Rentals
The rental system has been updated to now support only 7-day or 30-day rentals, instead of the per-match quickrent option that was previously available.
This will enable users to rent for extended periods of time without having to worry about per-match deaths, which should lead to more adventurous gameplay. The Captains (as in, ship NFT holders) also voted on a new pricing minimum for the 7-day / 30-day regime here.
While the in-game quickrent was a powerful mechanic for getting users quickly into matches, it led to a number of buggy game states and difficult user experience chokepoints for web2-type users. We’ll be reintroducing quickrent again in the future when the nuggies payment flow is cleaner & more obvious.
Note that while repairs are not currently implemented in the game, they will be added at some point either mid-Season 2 or in Season 3, and the user who is paying to rent the asset will be responsible for repairs. Note also that rentals have not quite migrated into the new kap.gg portal, so they’re still located over at the Shipyard for now — we’ll be moving them shortly.
Referrals Updates
The referral system has been updated to grant 5% of all mBLAST, doubloons, and nuggies (that are withdrawn) to the referring user when their referral earns (or withdraws) an asset. As detailed in the QoL updates below, you also now have a new dashboard with which to view your referral earnings more granularly. A few additional important notes:
All existing referrals remain in place.
While we currently do not support “cascading bonuses” (e.g. Person A refers Person B who refers Person C, and Person A gets 5% of the 5% Person B receives), we may do so in the medium-term future.
We’ll be doing additional work on this system in the future to make it more seamless for the users you refer to understand they’ve been referred.
The referral system is very important to us. Because we have a complex in-game economy planned, it’s possible (and likely) that more adjustments will be made to the referral system, and certain qualifying assets will be either added or removed in the future. Bring all yer mateys!
Guilds (Soft Launch)
Guilds, or, as we pirates call them, “Flags,” are an incredibly important element of a burgeoning multiplayer social gameplay experience like Captain & Company. We know that players have been loosely assembling into guilds and alliances for some time, so we’re very excited to be teaming up with Shards to roll out on-chain fractionalized guilds.
From a player perspective, we’re planning to eventually integrate these into the in-game UI in exactly the same way you’d expect guild membership to be displayed in any other MMO UI. However, for now, as we wanted to get the functionality to you immediately, they’ll only be available to be accessed within your new kap.gg/profile settings page and on the Shards site.
Shards uniquely allows players to create guilds by minting them & then having other players mint or purchase seats to enter. Then, other players (or speculators) can mint or purchase “fractions” of that guild. When the guild participates in esports-like contests (which we or Shards will sponsor), the prize pool is split amongst all participants.
As we’ll be implementing Shards as our actual in-game guild functionality, this will dovetail as a “normal” social guild feature in addition to permitting the on-chain fractionalization and ownership elements of the Shards platform.
We’re calling this the “soft launch” because we’ll be truly launching & advertising guilds (& the Shards functionality) in tandem with our Season 2 launch. More contests & rewards will be advertised at that time. For now, we wanted to give our earliest supporters the chance to get their guilds set up today & help us troubleshoot the very advanced functionality behind Shards.
QoL Changes
As our studio & broader publisher brand KAP Games evolves, we’re making a number of huge behind-the-scenes updates to dramatically modernize our platform and get ahead of the industry in a few key areas, each of which are largely related to either (1) making the web3 experience more seamless for web2 users or (2) providing more unique digital ownership opportunities to our web3 audience.
The following updates are included in this preseason patch:
New profile settings pages at kap.gg/profile
New EVM wallet syncing methodology, no longer per-network
Force log out of all devices button
More data filters & tables
More “History” tabs with exportable CSVs
More clear earnings attribution from referrals
Cleaner code redemption flow & error messages
Note that as the entire kap.gg is undergoing a much more extensive overhaul, it’s likely you’ll experience some bugs while moving between legacy screens and new screens. Please make sure to fully log out, CTRL+F5 to hard refresh your cache, then log back in and migrate to your kap.gg/profile page directly via this URL.
Concluding Remarks
Finally, we’re hugely thankful to all of you pirates, the scallywags up at Blast HQ, and the collectors & traders across all platforms that have made the Goldcoves so much fun! We’ve got so much more in store for you when Season 2 launches (and even more when Season 3 lands later this year), so get yer mates together & climb aboard for yet another round of fantastical pirating! 🏴☠️
Make sure you join our Discord and claim your NFT roles! You’ll have access to private channels only shared with other holders and the devs o’ Captain & Company themselves. Plus, if you have 25 or more ships, there’s a set of channels rumored to be hidden to all except the greatest of Admirals… conquer on, pirate!