We had to slightly modify our Wonderland Critter rewards, due to the significant price increase of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has gone up double, but we have not cut our rewards in half. The rewards are still very hearty compared to most faucets, and I hope you'll understand!
It is understable to have to modify rewards, if BTC changes its value so much (in both ways, I guess).
Yet, why are you keeping the withdraw fee? If I read right, from some previous posts, you were considering or a withdraw fee, or changing rewards amounts... but not both :S
besides, 5000 satoshi fee is just "low" if considering to withdraw amounts of at least 100,000 satoshi (so that it keeps being a fee of 5% or less).
Adding to that, now minimum withdrawal amount is 20,000 satoshi, and that any withdrawal amount over 100,000 satoshi will just be processed manually (right now I have a pending withdrawal of 678,513 satoshis )... ummm not sure if I am happy with all these changes, at least to consider the faucet on the top of the niche.
Hopefully, you will not increase minimum withdrawal to, say, 50,000 satoshi (like some other dubious faucets have done in the past - a progressive increment of the minimum withdrawal, to block users withdrawals ...), but wait and see.
Do you think it would be better if I just redo Wonderland to be exactly like Monster/Robot Coin? I don't see many users of Wonderland Coin and am wondering if the gameplay is even good enough (critters level up/buy feed)
I like Wonderland as it is!
Taking in count that MonsterCoin and RobotCoin are very similar to each other, I like that Wonderland is different concept, and great IMO!
I like the gameplay, that allows using the feed whenever I want, day by day. Sometimes I am able to use all the feed, other times I don't, depending how much time I have to play. Also, the concept of levelling critters is good too.
I wouldnt change anything from game as it is, though I will write some notes below, about the economy in the game:
1) buy feed cost
2) lure cost
3) each critter base reward
4) level bonus reward
1) IMO, buy feed cost should raise more progressively: raising from 15 feed/day to 30 (or 35) feed/day should follow some slow progression in the cost, but after that, the cost raise should be heavier, since using 40 or 50 feed per day requires A LOT of playtime.
If attending to the game with little/no delays, it can be used 10/11 feeds per hour, so that means 40 or 50 feed usage will require
4 or 5 hours of game playtime!!
Bigger amounts of feed (70,80, ... feed per day) will just be fully played by those who use bots. BTW, the only way I see to fight against the use of bots, I think it would be to set a big cost when trying to raise the total daily feed amount over 60 feed.
So, I would define 3 ranges for the buy feed cost:
a) 15-35 feed daily: a slight curve of the math function which calculates the cost of raising the total daily feed
b) 35-60 feed daily : a math function with a heavier curve in progression, so that it gets harder to reach such daily feed amounts
c) > 60 (or 70) feed daily : in practice, only bots will be actually able to use such amounts of feed day by day,therefore, to make their activity harder, make those accounts pay big for each increase they do in the total daily feed. That way they would compensate some way the harm they do into the advertisement impression stats, site traffic stats etc.
2) Lure cost: the way it is now, it is good IMO, though my suggestion would be to set some variation when Bitcoin price raises/decreases. For example, that lure cost range is between 8% - 12%, depending how Bitcoin price varies.
3) Critter base reward: as it is currently, I mean variable reward, so it increases/decreases according to Bitcoin price. The idea is to keep site alive and healthy for long !
4) Level bonus reward: as it is currently, but there is a small "error" to fix here. The idea is that there must be a progression in the rewards and that is not followed between hog and fox. I mean, a level 10 hog gives more satoshi per feed used, than a level 10 fox! It should be otherwise to keep progression. Lets analyze it:
a) Hog consumes 25 Feed; its base reward is 15000 satoshi (at level 1), and the bonus reward per level is 500 satoshi. So, from level 1 to level 10 we upgrade 9 times, therefore the reward increases up to a max of 19500 satoshi. This means that every feed used on hog will provide a min of 600 satoshi (at level 1 hog) and a max of 780 satoshi (level 10 hog).
b)Fox consumes 40 feed; its base reward is 25000 satoshi (at level 1), and the bonus per level is 600 satoshi. So the fox reward increases up to 30400 satoshi at level 10 fox. The problem here is that despite the level 1 fox provides more satoshi than the level 1 hog ( 625 satoshi > 600 satoshi ), the level 10 fox provides less satoshi than level 10 hog: 30400/40 = 760 satoshi, that is 20 satoshi lower!
To fix this, I would suggest raising the bonus level reward for the fox, from 600 to 800 satoshi, since that would raise the satoshi/feed for level 10 fox up to 805 satoshi: higher than level 10 hog (780 satoshi), but yet lower than level 10 Moose's satoshi/feed, which is 818.33 satoshi per feed used, therefore keeping the rewards progression (780 < 805 < 818.33 for level 10 hog, fox and moose)
