Three Heroes stand ready for adventure and battle in HeroFi, a new blockchain aRPG with unique powerful NFT Genesis Heroes available for purchase
Selling out their in-house token upon initial public sale release, HeroFi has potential as it targets a significant global market segment with a well-established game genre but in #play2earn and #free2play in #gamefi.
The article is the opinion of the author Daniel F Almon - a member of the RADA community.
1. Project Introduction
Brought to you by Bravestars (a Vietnamese start-up with 10 years of experience making games with more than 300M+ downloads worldwide), HeroFi is a blockchain-based mobile action role-playing game (aRPG). Heroes battle Heroes and you can earn tokens in both player vs player (PvP) and player vs environment (PvE) contests. With no initial investment barrier, HeroFi is #free2play and #play2earn.
Set in a fantasy world of Gods, players grow their army by collecting Heroes, all descendants of Titans. The Heroes (each NFTs) are unique with different skills and attributes, but the true innovation is the way in which Heroes can marry other Heroes then produce a child - a new NFT hero to add to your army! These NFTs can be traded on decentralized exchanges.
A key access point of any aRPG is the personalizing and equipping of your characters. Buff your Heroes by equipping them with various equipment and weapons (there are hundreds of items, and all are NFTs), which can be traded within the game.
Drawing on classical aRPG themes, all Heroes draw from familiar classes, have a fixed elemental class, and have star ratings which signify their power; everyone who signs up automatically receives a free 1-star hero. Of course, you have to start at the beginning, and are significantly less powerful than a 6-star hero - that’s the top.
But you can also invest in a Genesis Hero (HeroFi has a fixed number of 5200 of them - including such intriguing characters as the Dragon Knight, Phantom Slayer, or Golem - thus guaranteeing scarcity for these NFTs). These can be created when the player cracks an egg with 100,000 $HEROEGG - one of HeroFi’s in-house DeFi, which you can find out more about in the Product Review section of this article.
Considerably stronger than a Normal Hero, Genesis Heroes start out with a minimum of 3 stars and can be a maximum of 6. On top of that, reproduction requires a significantly shorter time duration and they never age resulting in your army growing more quickly and likely stronger than two Normal Heroes can achieve together.
With the gameplay, as mentioned, there are two game modes: PvP (the Arena) and PvE (the Campaign), both of which provide opportunities to earn $ROFI, another currency. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of depth with this game and vibrant animations as the Heroes battle it out!
For those looking for intense PvP action, in the Arena you battle other players in exciting yet challenging games. Who you match up with depends on your Heroes’ star level: you can participate in challenge pools equal to your Hero’s star rating, or if you want a challenge, you can go after pools with higher ratings. However, you can’t punch down and go into a lower-tier combat pool and pick on weaker players. That wouldn’t be fair!
With seasons lasting 3 days each, players receive rewards based on their leaderboard ranking with higher rankings receiving a greater portion of the $ROFI pot; that’s the other of the two tokens covered in the Product Review section.
The Campaign, on the other hand, follows a storyline of a quest for the Holy Grail, giving you the opportunity to level up your Heroes and acquire different equipment, items, and weapons. In addition to the search for the Holy Grail, there are daily quests that reward players based on the number of players completing the quest and that particular quest’s pool of $ROFI.
These $ROFI tokens can be traded on the HeroFi Marketplace for NFTs like new items, weapons, and even new Heroes.
2. Market Review
Action role-playing games have been around for decades as computer games and so they are well-established as a popular genre. Characters - from famous classes such as warriors, rangers, and mages - level up with experience usually achieved through combat. Recent popular examples in traditional gaming include the critically-acclaimed Diablo franchise as developed by Blizzard. Over three games (with a fourth in production), the games have been a global sensation with over 36.5 million sales and counting. Other popular examples include The Witcher series, Assassin’s Creed, and Dark Souls.
2.1 Global
Role-playing games (RPGs; aRPGs are a sub-genre of RPG) were valued at approximately $15.79 billion in 2019 and increased by 6.84% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2015, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.22% to nearly $22.47 billion by 2023 according to The Business Research Company.
This growth was attributed to such factors as:
- in-game purchases: using your personal bank account to purchase native currencies in the game or skins to alter appearance as can be seen in CounterStrike Go;
- freemiums: players can use the software for free but need to pay for extra features;
- cross-platform publishing and play: where elements from one game can be used in other games.
All of which are integral elements of HeroFi:
- in-game purchases: players can purchase Genesis Heroes for 100,000 $HEROEGG and purchase $ROFI.
- freemiums: while players can play HeroFi for free, they will not be able to access Star levels 4-6 without purchasing Genesis Heroes.
- cross-platform publishing and play: Bravestars has plans for more games that use $ROFI.
Factors that negatively affected growth in the historic period were stringent regulations mitigated by the NFT nature of the game.
The Business Research Company identified one of the top opportunities in the RPG market that will arise in the online microtransaction segment (catered to in the HeroFi Marketplace), which will gain $5.60 billion of global annual sales by 2023.
Created by Bravestars out of Vietnam, in the heart of the Asia Pacific which was the largest region in the global RPG market, accounting for 51.3% of the total in 2019 and identified as one of the fastest growing regions with an expected 9.9% growth.
In sum, HeroFi clearly targets a market segment with huge potential.
3. Product Review
HeroFi’s whitepaper pays attention to detail regarding the universe, gameplay and progression, as well as the ecosystem, NFTs, and a token economy which has purpose-built mechanics to counter inflation. There are clear plans for development and a roadmap, as well as biographies of each member, ranging from the creative teams to the advisory teams who support the project.
3.1 Core principals
The team behind HeroFi have designed the game with the following principles in mind:
“Ownership of in-game assets: Unlike regular games where the items and currencies are just mere collectibles, players can actually own the assets they get. The game offers features that allow players to craft new items and exchange them for real money. By trading, players can increase the value of their in-game assets.
Value of the item collection: HeroFi encourages the players to explore more content of the game while giving them the motivation to complete their collection of different items and equipment. Players can then build a stronger army to process further in the story and increase their in-game assets.
Social interaction: The PvP mode allows players to compete with each other in fun yet challenging games. This mode motivates players to collect and upgrade their items to build a stronger Hero squad, leading to more victories. Besides, the exchange of in-game assets also creates interactions, just like in a real-life economy.”
3.2 Gameplay
There are 3 clans that you can join:
- Heaven’s Forces
- The Midgard Heroes
- Hell’s Army
Which clan will you join from Heaven’s forces, The Midgard Heroes, or Hell’s Army? Develop your own specialized army with individual skillsets.
Players join the battle with a team of 3 Heroes and 4 Soldiers.
Individual Heroes have their unique set of skills, as previously mentioned, and you have the ability to switch between Heroes. Soldiers can be summoned to assist the attack, but they will consume a certain amount of mana to do so.
HeroFi puts you in the driver seat of how much control you want over how the characters attack in Auto-Battle mode (the battle plays out on its own) or you can get your hands dirty and combine the skills and abilities creatively through manual control of Heroes and Soldiers.
Players choose the degree of control they take in the vibrantly animated combat; let the play things out, or take over to creatively combine attacks.
As mentioned earlier, there are two main game modes PvE and PvP:
- PvE: the Campaign mode has the main storyline of the quest for the Holy Grail in addition to the daily quests.
- PvP: the Arena mode with different sub-genres such as Boss and Tower.
With two playing modes, HeroFi can appeal to a broad array of gamers. In both modes, players earn $ROFI through combat in either PvE or PvP
Heroes moving up in star level (one method is through sacrificing another Hero) access more challenging and rewarding opportunities with increasingly powerful enemies bestowing EXP, $ROFI, equipment, and other items to craft new Heroes.
Building on these successes to further buff your army and equipment requires you to fight on deeper into the game.
3.2.1 Characters
While everyone gets a free Normal Hero, Genesis Heroes have significant advantages over them in both power and productive value
Heroes are unique characters that players employ to fight in battles. Each Hero comes with different skills, combat stats and combat elements.
At sign-up, everyone receives a free Normal Hero with:
- a 1-star rating
- can grow to the highest star level of 6
- will age
These last criteria result in slower reproduction of new Heroes as the Normal Hero ages; this is achieved through combining two Heroes of different genders together. These offspring Heroes inherit:
- Elemental properties from one of the parents;
- Their skill sets are randomly selected from the parent's skill sets.
The new Hero’s star level is determined by the weaker of the parents; either the new hero will be equal to or lower than the weaker parent Hero.
Alternatively, in the HeroFi marketplace you can trade for new Heroes to grow your personal army.
Genesis Heroes
There are only a limited number of Genesis Heroes for purchase and collect, each with specialized powers and elemental skillsets
Purchased for 100,000 $HEROEGG, 5200 Genesis Heroes are available. Starting with a minimum of 3 stars (maximum is 6), reproduction requires a significantly shorter time duration and they never age (so they don’t slow down in reproduction) resulting in your army growing more quickly and likely stronger than two Normal Heroes can achieve together.
However, it should be noted that if you want to optimize the new Hero’s rating and take full advantage of Genesis Hero reproduction, you’ll need to have another Genesis Hero - also of a different gender, similar to the Normal Hero process.
Heroes can be classified with the following characteristics:
Each element is strong against another element, but also weak to a different one. Combine similar elemental skills and attributes to magnify effects
Naturally, each class has a special combat stat and a set of skills as you would expect for an aRPG. Customizing your squad with a combination of different classes of Heroes and Support Troops allows you to craft your own unique battle strategy.
The rarity of the Heroes determines the number of skills, ranging from 3 to 5. These skills can be a multitude of different abilities such as melee damage, area splash damage, or the ability to heal, the list of abilities is suitably exhaustive.
Each Hero has a class, a rarity level , and different elemental attributes. Combine NFT Heroes in differing combinations to specialize your attack
The Elements result in differing elemental effects on enemies. These attributes can stack on each other: if the Hero’s Element is the same element as the skill, they will magnify the effects.
3.2.2 Equipment
Hundreds of NFT items and weapons are waiting for you in the spoils of war and trade in the game. Each item has unique buffs to enhance your Heroes. The equipment system is designed according to different types and rarity:
Similar to Heroes, equipment can be of different rarity levels and types. Use these to buff your Heroes to give them an edge in battle
Although it should be noted that the above equipment does not change the Heroes’ appearance.
3.3 Trading market
Interact with other players in the HeroFi Marketplace where you can purchase various NFTs like Heroes and equipment for $ROFI
The HeroFi Marketplace is where players can trade Heroes and game items as NFTs. As you start the #free2play game with one normal Hero, in order to grow your army (and open up the option of Hero reproduction) you will need to purchase at least one hero of the opposite gender from the market with $ROFI tokens. Rare Heroes of higher star levels and special abilities are also available for purchase in the market.
4. Unique Selling Points
4.1 Easy and incentivized customer journey
#Pay2play limits the customer uptake, creating barriers to achieve critical mass in terms of online customers that are ready to play against others and it’s exactly there that the #free2play model takes off because the players don't need any investment to experience the game.
#free2play is an emerging concept in #gamefi. Clearly appealing to new players due to the elimination of any financial risk, it eases the customer journey; which makes sense: you can try before you buy to see if the game is the right fit for you. HeroFi delivers on this opportunity.
HeroFi leverages #free2play by giving all new Players a starting out Hero to play and can be used to earn in-game tokens ($ROFI). Gathering enough of these $ROFI can be traded to buy more Heroes.
4.2 #play2earn Tiers
The team at Bravestars cover their revenue-earning bases with two options for #play2earn:
- No Initial Investment:
For those who wish to test out the game and see if it’s the right fit for them, they can jump right in with the free Normal Hero provided to all who sign-up and start earning $ROFI immediately.
- Maximum efficiency and capacity:
Some know what they want from the onset, or users may decide to invest later after reaching caps in place which limit Normal Heroes. The good news is that players can purchase Genesis Heroes who can reach even higher levels of challenge and subsequently greater rewards. Although with a limit of 5200 Genesis Heroes, there is a cap at some point, guaranteeing scarcity. If you wait too long, you may miss out and be at the mercy of the marketplace valuation.
4.3 Normal Heroes vs. Genesis Heroes
The Normal Hero is limited in:
- Lower maximum star level (no higher than 3)
- Lower number of skills
- Reproductive rate - the older the Normal Hero gets, the longer it takes to reproduce a new Hero
But these Heroes are still mighty enough to battle in the arena and to gain rewards, and also be traded as NFTs on the HeroFi Marketplace.
Genesis Heroes are considerably more powerful than Normal Heroes but cost 100,000 $HEROEGG. They have:
- higher maximum star level (the highest is 6)
- a minimum level of 3 stars starting out
- a higher number of skills
- a higher frequency of reproduction rates and do not age
As previously mentioned, there is a limit of 5200 Genesis Heroes, although at the time of this writing, already 2000 have been sold.
4.4 Hero (NFT) Reproduction
Once two Heroes of differing genders are collected, the player can then make more Heroes. You can choose to grow your personal army or trade them as NFTs in the HeroFi Marketplace for $ROFI. Success very easily builds on itself in this game, especially with Genesis Heroes thrown in the mix.
4.5 Token Cross-Platform Potential
Another exciting aspect of the native token $ROFI are the plans to develop more products using it as a digital currency. Tokens hard-earned in HeroFi can one day be transferred to new platforms, giving players a head start in new arenas.
4.6 Digital asset holder
All Heroes, both Normal and Genesis, items, equipment and weapons are NFTs that are digital assets that earn rewards/income by actively battling in the Arena or advancing the Campaign.
You can make private arrangements with the other players, entering into direct peer-to-peer arrangements for trading of Heroes or in-game equipment as you build and equip your ideal army.
When a Player starts the game, the system will give the player a default character called Raidon. Players use this character to participate in completely free battles.
4.7 HeroFi Multiverse
The concept of the HeroFi Multiverse is a game ecosystem in which players can experience the gameplay of HeroFi, as well as many gameplay of other games in it.
The HeroFi Multiverse doesn’t just broaden your imagination and creativity but it opens up to a multitude of different Game Worlds, which makes HeroFi Multiverse unique.
The ultimate purpose of HeroFi Multiverse is to create a playground where users are free to explore different lands, experience not just one game concept but many at once and at the same time increase the opportunity of gaining $ROFI other than just in HeroFi.
5. Tokenomic
100,000 $HEROEGG tokens will "hatch" ONE character NFT that has a gender (either male or female) and a star rating (from three to six).
Since $HEROEGG is a BEP-20 token, it can be deliberately traded like any other BEP-20 token.
The token sale is held for $HEROEGG tokens. There is no vesting schedule.
Private Round Information
- Allocation: 400M $HEROEGG
- 1 $HEROEGG = $0.004
- Hard cap: $1,600,000
- 60% is released at TGE; the remaining 40% will be released at the rate of 10% per month for 4 months. Cliff for a month.
Public Round Information
- Allocation: 100M $HEROEGG
- 1 $HEROEGG = $0.005
- Hard cap: $500,000
- No vesting schedule
- Date: 06 Sep 2021
Bravestar has well laid out plans and connections to maintain momentum for HeroFi, with further cross-platform plans for the $ROFI
5.2 HEROEGG ($HEROEGG)
- The total supply: 520,000,000
- Spec: BEP-20
- Contract address:
- 0xcfBb1BfA710cb2ebA070CC3beC0C35226FeA4BAF
- 100,000 $HEROEGG will "hatch" a special character NFT called a Genesis Hero that has a gender (either male or female) and a star rating (from three to six).
Hatching percentage for Genesis Heroes
- 3-star: 65%
- 4-star: 25%
- 5-star: 8%
- 6-star: 2%
Genesis Heroes produced from $HEROEGG token will not have the offspring production time prolonged as time goes on like other characters. Token sale is held for $HEROEGG tokens. After the token sale, $100K and 20M $HEROEGG will be used to add liquidity for $HEROEGG at the price of 1 $HEROEGG = $0.005, 0% for the core team, 0% for marketing.
Allocation for private sale: 400M $HEROEGG
Allocation for public sale: 100M $HEROEGG
5.3 ROFI
$ROFI is emitted regularly at the rate of 10 $ROFI per block and allocated to all Heroes according to their star ratings and activities.
1 day, the system generates a fixed amount of 288,000 $ROFI.
Daily Quest activity is allocated 40% of the $ROFI total supply and PvP activity is allocated 60%.
Normal Heroes start at 1 Star while Genesis Heroes with at least 3 Stars, but both can grow in power and level; this determines gameplay difficulty
Therefore:
1: Total $ROFI divided by Daily Quest activity is: 288,000 * 40%
2: Total $ROFI divided by PvP activity is: 288,000 * 60%
For Example:
In only PVP mode, the reward pool of all 6-star PVP Hero in only 1 day = 288.000 * 60% * 35% = 60.480 $ROFI (60% is PVP allocation of total supply, 35% is the Reward of Star Rating 6* Pools).
Each Hero can only receive the maximum daily amount of $ROFI is 0,5% from Star Rating Pool Reward.
For example:
In only Daily Quest Star Rating 6 Pool in only 1 day = 288.000 * 40% * 35% = 40.320 $ROFI
One Hero 6 will receive maximum amount of $ROFI in only 1 day: 40.320 * 0.5% = 201.6 $ROFI.
There is no predetermined total token supply for $ROFI, but the circulating supply is strictly managed by token burns. Every time user uses $ROFI in the game (not in the NFT Marketplace) such as leveling up items, leveling up characters, etc., the token is divided as follows:
- 60% burned
- 18% sent to the development team
- 02% sent to advisors
- 10% used for development and marketing
- 10% used for adding liquidity
20% of total $ROFI tokens earned by users will be unlocked and available to use immediately. The other 80% will remain locked and require the application of liquidity to $ROFI/BUSD to unlock.
More games that use $ROFI as their native tokens will be developed later, increasing use cases of $ROFI.
6. Roadmap
Bravestar’s experience in game development is displayed with a clear Road Map for the future but ability to adapt to future market needs
7. Media
The following are our communication channels and communities. Subscribe now to follow the latest information. Don't miss out on the hottest match!
8. Partners & Investors
HeroFi is made possible from a multi-organization collaboration of 40 different partners and investors.
A truly joint venture that draws from multiple partners and investors, including being launched from LaunchZone, HeroFi has a strong support system.
9. Team
Bravestars is one of the top game development studios in Vietnam. Starting with 4 young gamers who dreamt of bringing local culture to the world of video games, Bravestars has grown into a team of 60. Throughout the journey, we published more than 70 games with a total of over 300 million downloads and a dozen of global feature nominations by Google Play and App Store.
LaunchZone is the first and best incubator on Binance Smart Chain. They currently have 70k holders, 150k followers on Twitter, and 47k members on Telegram. With an amazing community and excellent products, LaunchZone was titled Star Project by Binance Smart Chain. LZ Swap (formerly SwapX) ranks 4th on the list of Top Decentralized Exchanges and ranks 2nd in terms of users (Dapp Radar).
10. Summary
Similar in playing genre (aRPG) to massive hits like Diablo and Assassin’s Creed - HeroFi’s has clear room to grow, especially utilizing the traditional box-office classical gaming mechanisms as:
- In-game purchasing
- Freemium entry
- Cross-platform availability
- Role Playing based narrative to drive the customer experience
These factors, combined with growth opportunities from microtransactions and massive growth globally in #gamefi and utilization of #free2play and #play2earn together, could put HeroFi on a very interesting journey.
With vivid animations and various game modes (PvE and PvP), HeroFi has appeal to a broad cross-section of users, across gender, sex, nationality and race and equally provides a chance to interact with other players.
Bravestars, a very successful company whose portfolio has been built over a decade of successfully delivering games supported by multiple partners and investors, is putting every little attention to detail to all aspects of HeroFi, from game design, play experience, tokenomics, onboarding of new players globally to a story driven total MetaVerse experience.
HeroFi doubles down on #playforfree and #play2earn combines both and provides incentives for gamers of all sorts to jump in. Starting out with a free Hero, players can start playing and earning immediately. A key feature of this aRPG is that the Heroes can marry each other and make more Heroes (NFTs) which can be traded in the HeroFi Marketplace.
Grow your army to defeat your enemies, or purchase incredibly powerful Genesis Heroes to take you to the next level! For 100,000 $HEROEGG, players can buy game-changing unique NFTs with specialized skills and abilities to take on even greater challenges and resulting prizes. Vitally, these Genesis Heroes never age or slow down in birthing new children - more NFT Heroes players can use to more quickly build their armies or trade for $ROFI in the Marketplace.
Competing in either PvE or PvP game modes, players can win different prizes competing against each other, choose to let your army fight as it pleases, or take control to strategically coordinate your army’s assault and emerge victorious with the spoils of war.
---
Disclaimer: Information is gathered through research from the project's official Whitepaper and other official sources. The content in this article is the author's personal views for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment or financial advice. RADA and the author are not financial advisors and will not bear any responsibility in connection to any potential investments.
