The Casino.
Arguably, one of the more controversial additions to TU. Some people are glad for the consistent draw of players, others despise it for that exact reason. I’m here to try and give a comprehensive, thoughtful analysis of what problem Casino objectively has, however.
Farming.
In order to make a consistent, sensible argument, I’m going to divide the problem into multiple parts, which I will tackle individually. At the end, I will present possible solutions. Please, feel free to criticize, suggest, and refine upon everything I say.
Part 1: The Death of Design Space.
Simply put, the Casino kills off almost any long term incentives there are for playing, because of just how much money one can earn from farming Blackjack, or any Casino game. Why would you spend fifty hours playing Virus, or Minigolf, or anything else to purchase some upgrade or furniture when you can just farm Casino for a relative fraction of the time? Why learn the ins and out of each course when you can just slam 2, 3, and space a bunch? This means any possible unlocks that Pixeltail might want to implement that are targeted towards experienced players simply will not work if said unlocks can be gained via Units. On the flip side, they will not work if they’re based on time spent in a gamemode, or experience, or what have you, as since almost everything in the game uses Units, and condo design and furniture, a major draw of the game, is based around units. Why spend time unlocking a new skill or a new map pack or even just play harder maps if, once again, you can earn more money and progress faster on your dream house, or a silly costume, or so on, by playing the slots? The argument “Some people want to have fun,” isn’t sufficient. Studies in game design have shown numerous times that a significant number of players will take the most efficient route to whatever their goal is, no matter how boring. If you need a specific example, take a look at Bloodborne versus Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, hiding behind your shield is the safest and most efficient way of dealing with an enemy, thereby promoting a cautious, slow, and methodical combat style. Bloodborne promotes it’s more frantic, fast paced, and brutal combat style by getting rid of shields for the most part, thereby taking away the player’s safe, efficient way of observing enemy patterns, and also restoring health for dealing damage after being hit. This leads to high level play of Bloodborne looking significantly different to high level play of Dark Souls, simply by changing what the most effective method of dealing with a situation is. No Dark Souls player is going to rush in, sword swinging, and willingly get hit so they can keep up aggression, because the game does not encourage it. Meanwhile, No Bloodborne player is going to sit around, waiting patiently behind a shield wall for their opponent to strike, and run away at the first few scratches they take. Returning to TU, as far as I can tell, the devs at Pixeltail want players to play the lobby minigames, or the main games, and have fun in a competitive multiplayer environment. However, anyone who simply wants in game money (AKA: everyone who cares even vaguely about unlocking new content) will soon discover how much more efficient just spamming away at the casino is, and spend hours grinding money in the most efficient, and the (arguably) most boring way.
2: Botting.
Botting is highly prevalent in Casino, as it is one of the easiest to bot in. In order to macro your way through Blackjack, all you need is something that will press 2, then 3, then space, and then loop as many times as you want. Even with the update that added the random key press check, that’s still possible to get past with some clever programming. This allows players to completely destroy the economy, effectively by letting them print money. Even if the devs keep patching out exploits used to avoid being detected, they’ll still have to deal with bots, as there’s always a vulnerability or workaround somewhere. This, in turn, discourages legitimate players, as they’ll spend significantly more time than those who just bot their way to wealth.
3: Economic Issues.
The Casino kills off any ability for the devs to put in reasonable high tier items in the game, and any possibility of player trading facilitated by Units. This is because the time it takes to gain 10,000 Units via Minigolf and the time it takes to gain 10,000 units via Blackjack are significantly different, and thus, to the farming player versus the playing player, the value of one Unit is significantly different. If an item is expensive for someone earning money via play, its trivially priced for a farmer. Vice versa, if something is expensive for a farmer, it is borderline impossible to purchase as a player. Following that, player to player trade cannot use Units, as they have little value to some. If a playing player wished to trade for a rare item to a farming player, they would either have to fork over an exorbitant amount of units that they almost certainly wouldn’t have, or give up a rare item themselves. Vice versa, a farming player wouldn’t ever even have to do anything to gain rare items, as they can just farm their way directly to enough money to trade for it. This ruins any possible player to player economy the game could have.
However! Not all is lost. This problem is not unsolvable, and there are more solutions than just taking out the Casino.
1: Chips.
This is a fairly simple and common tactic to avoid economic trouble from farming: alternate currencies. If one had to buy chips, or tokens, or what have you in order to play the slots, and they paid out in the same currency, this would completely avoid the disparity between farming Units, and playing for Units, as you could no longer farm for Units. Of course, this alternate currency would have to have it’s own rules and uses. Either it cannot be traded back for Units, or it would have to be at an unfavorable rate. Possibly there would be a Casino unique store that traded in Chips, that sold unique items, thereby not only making the casino still a worthwhile expenditure of time, but also giving players who simply want to play the main games a valid reason to play the casino on occasion as well. This means that the devs can balance Units around playtime, while not worrying about players who farm casino slots for hours on end.
2: Real Casino Policies.
One simple rule Casinos follow: If it doesn’t earn them money, they wouldn’t allow it. Why farming is so lucrative right now is due in part to how easy it is to win. Even if the payouts are relatively low, over time you make a net gain, and due to how quick it is to go through a hand of Blackjack, or one set of slots, this creates quick profit. Real Casinos, however, are rigged. It doesn’t matter much to them if one player wins twenty million in one spin, but it sure as hell does if they win their spin cost back and one cent extra every single time. High payouts abound, but they have low success rates. You may win a lot in a couple of spins, but the more you play, the more you lose. TU’s Casino works in the opposite direction. The individual payouts are relatively low, but are reliable enough that the more you play, the more you win. In other words, winning a huge spin should be extremely rare, but significant, while winning just barely more than you paid to spin shouldn’t happen half the time or more. The more you play, the more you should lose.
3: Earnings Limit.
This one, to be fair, isn’t my favorite, but would work. Simply put, you can only earn so much in a single day from the Casino. With careful balancing, this would turn the Casino from a gold mine to a supplement to the cash flow from actual gameplay, for when you need just two to three thousand more Units. The exact value of the cap needs to be carefully adjusted such that it isn’t so high that people remain on it all the time, but not too low either, so people still play it.
Conclusion:
Thank you for reading this post! If you have any comments, counter-arguments, additions, criticism, or other things to say, please do! I’m still new to TU, although I did put 40 hours or so into GMT, and it would help a lot to see how you all feel about the Casino. Is it a problem? Is it actually a blessing in disguise? Is there any solutions that I didn’t think of, or problems with my proposed ones? Is there a flaw in my reasoning? All these questions should be answered, and there are those with different sets of skills and expertise than me, and also those with far more TU knowledge who can provide a different perspective. So please, don’t feel shy!
Thank you all for reading, and I’m looking forward to see what discussions come from this.