So... I have been thinking
We have recently been given a glimpse into LAND 2.0 and I have to say that for the first time I am getting some doubts about this whole adventure. Yes, this is a bit of a FUD post after we have sene a lot of FOMO with SPS. First, the good news: players are actually investing into LAND 1.5 and everything is going (better) than expected. SPS is being burned, DEC staked, prices are going up and everyone seems to be quite happy. So far so good.
But looking at LAND 2.0 gives me some mixed feelings. It's already insane how expensive LAND 1.5 is: I have just $600 staked for working my mere 12 plots and 60 cards. Not even mentioning the $ it cost me to get some grain, time crystals and cores etc. It's no wonder that LAND utilization currently is still under 20%. Nevertheless, even with these numbers we have seen the positive effects on the economy overall. But LAND 2.0 is another beast. My biggest fear atm is that the flywheel could actually reverse; what would happen if people saw/thought that it wasn't worth it to utilize LAND? What if the amount of resources needed to use LAND would actually outweigh the income/benefits? If this were to happen, it could be the beginning of the end. I am hoping here that I am wrong and that @yabapmatt knows what he is doing. But so far I am getting some doubts...
Problem #1
LAND 1.5 is fairly simple: you have plots and worker cards and have 3 options. Sure, there are some terrain bonuses/nerfs that are important to consider, but essentially it's not too difficult to figure things out. One thing I realized relatively late was just how much grain would be needed overall. You essentially need to have half of your plots producing grain, if you do not want to buy it from the market (and it's not really cheap too). But that's also something that can one can adopt to. One problem arises when one realized that there will only be 4 terrains suitable for producing grain in 2.0, namely Plains, River, Bog, Lake plots. That means that only around 29% of all plots will be able to produce grain. I can guarantee you that many players will now realize that they do not have any or just a couple of plots that will be able to produce grain. This means that players will be forced to buy grain/food on the market as it is in udersupply (we'd need 50% of plots to produce grain). The first thought one might have is "oh, okay, so players that need grain/food can simply sell the stuff they produce to get more of it". But that would entail that other resources would have to be more valuable than grain/food. But how can that be the case, if everyone will need grain/food? Logic suggests that the resource that everyone needs will be more valuable than another resource that not everyone needs (e.g. stone). So we run into a problem: could maintaining plots be more expensive than claiming their resources?! Again, this seems like an obvious problem and I hope that the dev team has it covered, but I don't really see atm how it couldn't be one.
While producing elemental foods will be far more efficient in feeding workers, I have high doubts that these would be very cheap. They require grain, wood and (magical) essences... If anything they will be incredibly expensive.
Problem #2
Why should I invest in LAND which is incredibly complex and time consuming (and expensive), if I can simply buy SPS? I think not many have actually thought about this because the longer one thinks about it the more obvious the answer is: I probably shouldn't.
The reasons are straightforward:
It takes years to make back what one invests into LAND. I'll give you my example: I bought around $3000 worth of cards that are "not bad" for PPs. I am now making around 91 SPS/day (down from 120!) which at current market value will make me around $1000/year. So, it will take 3 years to get my money back (of course I can also sell my assets for another $3k if they should still hold that value). That doesn't sound too bad at first glance. But a caveat to that is that LAND 2.0 will probably not have SPS, so I would have to hope to sell resources that are equally valuable.
Also, if I'd sell all of the cards/plots now and buy SPS I could get over 100k SPS! That is a much better decision, since I also get around 10-15% APR on SPS (with LAND it is around 30%) and also it is easy to imagine SPS at least doubling in value in a year (which is very conservative). It seems quite obvious that selling LAND assets makes much more sense. The thing that I am not considering ofc is RESEARCH. But I won't go into that, since we do not know what the rewards for that will be.
Conclusion
We don't really know yet how LAND 2.0 will work. I am fairly certain that the game would break if Problem #1 would actually turn out to be a problem. So I am probably not considering something. For Problem #2 I guess I am not considering the gamification of this. People actually enjoy playing games like this. The economy wouldn't work overall, if people just tried to maximize their profits. Anyway, what do you think?
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