There are more and more failure in the game industry recent years. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Starfield, Forspoken... or the termination of a big MMORPG: MU Legend. There are so many reason of their failing, but money always on the list. In consequence, in touch of money, an extra careful plan and strong management term is required if anyone want to sucess in this gaming industry. This zone is no longer gold mine like old year of 2000 as player are more caution against publisher trick. Accordingly, Infinium has implementd new mechanism to keep the balance in the game and assertion of Play-2-Win which will be explained in this article.

We known many people don't like to read. So here is short summary to let them have some basic understanding of Infinium calculation:

• First feature is Daily free crystal features. A straight forward to let player acquire everything without any charge-in at all.
• The third is Ingame Crystal Exchange. It is a place where player buy or sell crystal. In Infinium It serve a flood basin to slow down the flood on incoming recharge or delepting of trading operation. It also of a sensor to let administrator observe about current community demand.
• The second, and the most important to make the game Truly-Free, is Potential Point mechanism. This heavy engine is designated to be counter weight against recharging system by creating additional bonus point everytime someone charging some Crystal, up to 3x of original amount. The bonus point not given directly those recharge but instead distrubted randomly. With this, server can maintain its dynamic balance without too many effort of management.

Possible pay-2-win item like Emblem of the Brutal Wizard and other item increase stats, ruby... are all moved to the Guild Shop and will not avaible in Item Mall. Don't even find it there.

The Crystal Exchange is the way make game become Pay-2-Win, we aware of that. That's also why the Potential Point generate so big, easy reach 100% of original amount with only 10 avatar population. The flow between this two engine is expected to reduce tension against big impact and keep everything flow smoothly. Anyway, Potential Point is newly thing, even to Gaming Industry. There is more to be tuning overtime. The road is long, but Infinium has confident.

Before go to the heavy mechanism, let's have some understand of each other about the term of Truly-Free, which defined as:

• Truly Free mean equal chance between all player. Regardless they charge in or not.
• Truly-Free also mean to running with revenue and complex machination to keep game state balance and enjoyable.
• The game eco-system must have maintained, bug fixed, and community dispute taking care of.
• The advantage offer for those recharge the system must be reasonable. The life quality for those are not must keep at enjoyable level. The ingame reward are must stay mandatory and irreplaceable.
• All item and service must be accessible for free player. The requirement is time and it must be properly.

Truly Free not mean Absolute Free for everyone. There must be some input for server running and new features implementation. Main concern is keep everything balance and reasonable, not overly drain.

This heavy engine contains multiple part and complex machination. Namely:

• Guild Point
• Crystal Inbound trigger
• Global Potential Reservoir
• Daily Redistribution
• Guild Quest
• Guild Shop

The process simplified as:

1. Guild Point and Guild Potential are two shared resource across all member of the guild. Only guild authority member can used it to buy item, buff, or trigger special effect to designated guild member.
2. Potential Point triggered daily at 18:00, calculated by total amount of Crystal input that day.
3. After Potential Point triggered and poured into Global Potential Reservoir, half of Reservoir will be taking for Daily Redistribution.
4. Daily Redistribution is the process calculate Guild ranking to redistribute Potential Point for that day. The ranking is random, not the combat power, but sometimes is which guild kill most mob, sometimes which guild escort more, or even which guild has been killed most. The point later will be distribute by the rank.
5. Potential Point cannot be consumed directly, it must be convert to Guild Point to be use. This process currently only operating by Guild Quest. The quest is random generated and given to entire guild. The amount is so tiring to finish alone.
6. After Potential Point has been converted to Guild Point, Guild authority member like Treasurer can spend to buy item for guild member. Crystal Chip, lottery item included. Service item like bag expansion, pet loot is not included.

Remark:

• Guild Point and Guild Potential only generated if someone recharge the system. If none, there will be no bonus. But isn't that the balance everyone wish?
• Those point not only random but has great delay. This confer advantage to those recharge the system as Crystal Inbound is immediately, while Potential trigger at 18:00 everyday, not to mention it require convertion to Guild Point.
• Potential generation is calculated by how many player online last 3 days. It easily reach 1x at 10 avatar population and slowly reach 3x at 5000 avatar population.
• There are minor part of generated Potential stay within the Guild of input avatar, up to 75% of original amount. But guild with low population cannot reach this percentage.
• The ranking process is highly complex to keep the balance and avoid exploit and meaningless grinding:
  • It is random multiplier between guild activity. From killing mob, finish quest, astral trading, PvP... or being killed. The multiplier random range so big from 100 - 1000 times. Therefore, strongest guild doesn't mean always on top 1, but their chance is highest.
  • It's faction balance. If Empire take the first position, then League must has the second, even when the second of Empire greater than League. This also apply into all other rank.
  • The rank has total maximum 7 level. Each level has certain amount of ranked Guild and gain certain percent from drained Reservoir. Default:

    	Amount	Share
    Top 1	1 Guild	20%
    Top level 2	1 Guild	16%
    Top level 3	2 Guild	10%
    Top level 4	3 Guild	5%
    Top level 5	3 Guild	3%
    Top level 6	20 Guild	1%
    Top level 7	Other Guild	No Share

  • If total guild less than the amount, the point later split between guild base on their rank.
  • If two guild has equal value, dice.
• While all ranking parameter can be change as community demand, the default is adjusted to keep large guild and strong bond between guild.
• All guild quest target is on open world map, making possible collide with other guild. Consider it as legitimate progress of community against guild progress. Infinium doesn't decline Guild to have relationship with other Guild. Regardless it is rival or defensive, hostile or friendly, even two guild in opposite faction, it's all part of in-game life and create possibility of emotion, not the meaningless grinding.
• The Guild Quest is meaning to be slow and require help of everyone in the guild. It's where recharge input must deal with free player to gain their help. Either directly agree with them a share of converted Guild Point, or help them later with Replica Service or Guild Experience Pool... The aim of questing progress is to create great bond between everone in the Guild, as well as others in the community, regardless their recharge input.
• The Guild Shop not only let Guild Authority member to spend Guild Point but also let other member demand it, as well as record the history.
• Many item has been moved to Guild Shop, making Pay-2-Win impossible. The Zro Shard, which is required to acquire combat power item like Emblem of the Brutal Wizard, only found on Guild Shop. The only thing possible increase combat power left in Item Mall is Crystal Chip. While Crystal Chip also sell at Guild Shop, it still considered as potential threat, but player require some motivation to recharge the system for Potential Point generation so we let it stay there. Also, the server progress do limit maximum rune level which can hinder the demand of Crystal Chip. In the final, if Crystal Chip cause trouble, it can be removed from Item Mall, or added another acquisition like daily quest, Anniversary Coin, Astral Nugget.

Before the release of main document, the "Infinium Piercing Gaze", it somewhat hard to explain all of Infinium configuration and calculation. But to reach undestanding with player, we have to share some knowledge in common.

To start, we want to discuss about money, the one and the only motivation of gaming industry. There are two type of game which can consider as playable free: The first is those focus on selling cosmetic and servicing item, the second is those which created by the whim of it owner.

The first type is more reasonable and already known by most of players: they sell a lot of cosmetic item or DLC. Some of them sell service like respec, teleportation, bag expansion, pet loot... There is nothing wrong with this style. The only drawback is player need to spend some money on them if they want to acquire some of those microtransaction as it is untradable by any mean. And only advantage Infinium offer against this style is all item in Infinium are obtainable, as some of them tradable, or player can trade Crystal for Gold and vice versa in Crystal Exchange.

The second type actually not really worth to play. You really want to live in the house someone give you by their whim? Especially, it is possible that after all your chore to decorate the new house, they simply want to destroy it by single word? The lack of motivation can cause a lot of problem. In game server, no motivation mean no maintain, no bug fix, no new features, no new players... Too many unstable element. And even if they are commit that everything will be good, it's not recommended, as people said: “The only free cheese is in the mousetrap”. Thoughtly, in the world, there only two thing absolutely free: first is Ignorance, second, is Death. Infinium has complex machination and clearly term, not simply say: it's all free, come and play.

But that's the basic. A game should not only runable, not only playable, but enjoyable. In term of money, the game must have a smooth economic flow where player earn what they should, not chasing dream, regardless they recharge the system or not. That's why we force player cooperate in Guild Quest as well as let Guild have relationship with each others. Even if they found the way to trade already bound Guild Point, it is acceptable unless it hit community toleration. In deep, while we said: nothing absolute free, in other hand, game player has their cost. The matter is they generate so little output compare to other input. But as they still generate resource, they should have some way to exchange that resource to earn something for them, even that earn limmited in game only. For this reason, Infinium create plenty way to share and trading, direct or indirect. Direct like Gold trade in game not have tax and never have. Indirect like Replica Service which allow player slowly boost their guild member with what they archived, or instantly with Guild Experience Pool.

To keep the game balanced, some features is not enough, management is required. When economy demand raising in local part, it is important to normalize it. The normalize method is various, from offer additional way to acquire demand, to pour some of its requirement material to the market, or even partial make it free. For example, player can respec their character talent for free in 13th day of the month as well as their stats on 14th. This will reduce the demand of Water of Death while still allow Item Mall selling it with decent price. The item later has it meaning in existence, not entirely some trash can acquire at will.

A small notice, is about Miraculous Ark, it is an box allow avatar reach maximum instantly, and it is being hidden away. While sound like some hinder at first, but think carefully, what is the meaning of playing game? Certainly it neither the end-game gear nor the archivement, because they are both virtual number. It is the progress, the emotion, and the friend in the game. But that progress rarely giving anything to publisher because player haven't ready for the endgame, they did not want to pay. In player side, many one even pay for that kind of item to quickly reach the end-game. In Infinium, that kind of item only has one purpose: a fix for low population, as leveling without friend is so boring, we will offer the Ark in case most of server population reach end game and only too little player running slowly in low level. The ark will not avaiable if game state still crowded and most player still running in the leveling map. By hide the Ark, Infinium expect player have their joyful progress, as well as make new friend. Also, through this example of hiding the Ark, Infinium hope player understand more about the meaning of our Truly-Free term.

All above is the short explaination of our complex calculation for building Truly-Free environment. The detail and parameter of each function can be found on Features detail. It's really feasible and stable plan. We do hope this can be integrated into more MMORPG later. By now, it require more tunning and there are a lot of work ahead. Your playing progress and enjoyment are its biggest archivement. Surely player can complain and give some feed back on our development group.