Ben Notes: S3 Issues

hey all!

quick update covering some of the major issues that we've run into since launch of Season 3, how we're classifying them, and what we're doing to mitigate their impact.

[1.0] current unresolved issues

• Day 1 & 2 Balancing Issues (Drop EV, Combat Triangle) created imbalances

• T3 / Energy Orb Stacking as a strategy relied on info that was miscommunicated and conflicted with Combat XP design

• A minority of Guilds were unable to set up their Guilds on Day 1 due to bugs, setting them back

• Orb Burning at the Altar did not have the Pity mechanic, as promised on the docs

[2.0] resolution tl;dr

• (Day 1 & 2 Balancing Issues)

  • No Action

• (T3 / Energy Orb Stacking)

  • All affected players will have free access to Prestige (no Scroll needed), and x2 on their current Boosted Combat XP (for Prestige, etc)

• (T3 / Energy Orb Stacking)

  • We will be using all T3/T4 charter revenue to buyback Cambria NFTs

• (Orb Burning / Pity)

  • Luck Multiplier Pity Index will be retroactively calculated - anyone falling under Pity unlucky score will be boosted up to the Pity minimum

• (All)

  • We will be giving all affected players a 1:1 "RUGGED BY S3!" sticker ingame

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for more context...

[3.0] our policy on issue resolution

as the design evolves and new mechanics get layered in, there will be times where we screw things up - that's the reality of building such a high stakes / experimental game in real time, and why (from a airdrop incentive standpoint) early seasons are even incentivized. we also understand that given the stakes and competitive outcomes involved, these issues are not ones to take lightly.

moving forward, here's how we plan to classify the severity of how bad the issue is, and what actions as the Cambria team we might take to resolve them.

• TYPE A (SOFT) - design mistakes, bugs, or balance issues → No Resolution, or Indirect Resolution


seasons will always have tuning problems. we’ll address major ones, but not every imbalance is something that we will retroactively try to fix. depending on the severity of the unfairness created, we will attempt to compensate in "soft" ways that don't also result in the broader pool of players being disadvantaged.

• TYPE B (HARD) - incorrect docs, public messaging, or other communication that misleads players → Direct Resolution

if we miscommunicate something in the docs, announcements, or public messaging that has significant effects on the economics of gameplay, that’s on us. In these cases, we’ll put real effort into finding a direct, concrete resolution that compensates players for the impact.

[4.0] key learnings

one of the biggest shifts this season has been starting to monetize multiple aspects of Gold Rush. our upcoming token will hinge heavily on our ability to drive real, sustainable (not primarily token-incentivized) revenue, which necessitates that we start actively experimenting with monetization levers that work for Gold Rush.

however, XP for Energy Balance / T3 was definitely a design miss. T3 charters were originally intended as a way for whales to flex, skip the grind, and a way to fuck around in game and just have fun. but because we tied it into the XP Multiplier from Energy mechanic and the competitive leveling race, it ended up offering ROI advantage that was directly monetized by us - a bad combo. to correct this, we're using this revenue to buyback back into the ecosystem.

in the future, taking % fees on Cash-ins is looking like the best model going forward - when revenue scales with expedition volume and players increasing their risk, the cambria team is incentivized to attract more players, retain existing players, balance ROI correctly (make the game fair), and improve the addictiveness and "fun" of the gameplay loop so people will play more often. more volume = larger prize pools, more revenue -> buybacks, higher EV for top players, etc. this also matches the design of similarly successful real-money games, which take 2-3% from RTP.

[5.0] server performance

one of the questions we've been getting is surrounding the server performance in s3. there's a lot of technical detail that goes into this one, but the easiest way I can simplify is that we ended up having to rewrite major parts of our networking stack to solve cheating / maphacking issues that we barely survived S2 with. although this new system properly manages server-enforced vision radius, it also involves significantly higher processing load. this, combined with other changes to improve the traceability of every single item transaction for audit / analytics purposes, created major issues in real heavy load conditions. this is currently our top priority - we're actively improving our ability to scale and are on track to have this fully resolved by the end of the season.

[6.0] fin

appreciate your patience and continued support and apologize for any gap in communication. it's always a bit stressful mid season - excited to continue shipping more updates.