DeFi Kingdoms Questing Guide

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Victor Espinosa

Victor is a Gaming enthusiast who has seen his love shift from traditional Survival Horror to the promising world of Blockchain gaming. Victor is always looking into new crypto projects, reviewing blockchain games, and curating a portfolio that any crypto-fanatic would be proud of!

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What Is DeFi Kingdoms?

DeFi Kingdoms is not your average web3 video game. It’s not your average video game, period. It’s more like a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that’s been gamified. Think of a traditional brokerage or stock trading website, with its boring graphs and ever-scrolling tickers of prices, prices, and more prices. 

But now, make it a game. 

Instead of a boring page where you trade stocks, now you enter the Marketplace and sell your goods. Instead of apathetic graphs showing price data, now you see a garden, and each plant represents a stock you own.

That’s DeFi Kingdoms.

What game there is was built around a decentralized exchange in the Marketplace. Their liquidity pools are actually Gardens, their staking option is a Jeweler who runs a Bank, and their token bridge is a smuggler who brings your tokens to a different ‘world’, aka chain.

It’s all rather clever when you get into it.

One of the only actual game parts of DeFi Kingdoms so far is quests. Also known as Professions, quests are how players use their Heroes to gather resources that can be used to make potions or sold to make gold.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s break down some DFK basics.

Serendale vs. Crystalvale

There are two locations in DFK, and each exists on its own blockchain. The first city, the main setting of DFK, is Serendale. It’s the place where new players start. 

Serendale exists on the Harmony blockchain, which means to do anything in Serendale you’ll need some ONE tokens to pay for gas fees. Serendale has everything an adventurer could need as they begin their journey to glory. But for this guide, I’ll only focus on the Tavern and Professions. Professions are where you put your Heroes to work. But where does one obtain Heroes? The Tavern.

Crystalvale is the second setting to be opened in DFK, and it exists on the DFK Chain. That’s right, DeFi Kingdoms built their own blockchain just to host Crystalvale. Crystalvale now has just about everything Serendale does, with the exception of duels, virtual land, and one Profession. 

So what’s the difference between the two cities?

Serendale, aside from needing ONE to cover gas fees, rewards players mostly in Jewel, their native token. Crystalvale uses Jewel to pay for gas fees, rewarding players mostly in Crystal, its native token.

Aside from those major differences, the rest are smaller details. Harmony has gone through many controversies this year, and their gas prices are crazy high, whereas DFK chain has tiny gas fees. But the rewards from Serendale’s Gardens are better and give more options than the Gardens in Crystalvale. There’s virtual land and dueling in Serendale, there isn’t in Crystalvale.

The ultimate goal of the DFK team is to have each setting almost identical, just existing on different blockchains, so players shouldn’t feel like they need to spread themselves around.

But if you want my advice?

Spread yourself around.

Why Quest In DeFi Kingdoms?

Let’s take a step back for a moment. Why should you even want to quest in DFK? They have liquidity pools and staking options, along with virtual real estate. That alone is more than most games. Hell, that’s more than some decentralized exchanges. So why even bother going to the Tavern, purchasing Heroes, questing, and getting weighed down with random items?

I thought we were gamers here? Are we not gamers?

Listen, if you just want to invest and watch your Gardens grow, you won’t get any heat from me. But why not put that bountiful harvest to use? Why not play the game, such as it is?

It’s true, you could occupy yourself with merely investing and arbitrage trading in DFK, but that’s not playing a game.

Let me sweeten the deal a bit more.

When you quest in DFK, you come back with items. Items specific to that quest and area. And every single item you bring back is worth something. At this stage in DFK’s development, the whole game hasn’t been released, but developers have continuously hinted that those quest items will become more important as more game is released. For now, those items can only be used to make potions or sold in the Marketplace.

So, why should you quest? It’s lucrative, and if you start stockpiling your resources now, you’ll be sitting pretty when the game fully releases and all those resources are highly valuable.

Before Your First Quest

Before you quest, you need at least one Hero. Before you get that first Hero, there is a ton of information you need to know.

Some people in DFK don’t play the game, nor do they invest in the Gardens. All they do is trade Heroes in the Tavern. Buying and selling Heroes in the Tavern can be a wild ride, and if you don’t know what you’re looking at you could end up with a Hero that doesn’t bring back any items when they quest. Here’s some essential knowledge before you buy your first Hero.

Quests In DFK

There are two kinds of quests in DFK: main quests and training quests. Let’s focus just on the main quests for now.

There are four main quests in DFK:

• Foraging
• Mining
• Fishing
• Gardening

Each quest rewards players with different items. And each quest requires different stats to master. To be proficient at Fishing you’ll want a Hero with high agility and luck, but if you’re looking at Foraging you’ll want a Hero with high dexterity and intelligence.

Heroes, Stats, Proficiency

Each Hero comes with a standard quest proficiency. If you’re looking at a standard Hero card in the Tavern, flip the card over to look at its stats on the back. At the bottom, the Hero’s proficiency will appear in green.

Do not just go into the Tavern and buy any Hero you think looks cool. Go in with a goal in mind. Do you want to purchase a single Hero, or are you looking to get set up in each Profession? If you’re going for only a single Hero, what Profession are you looking for? If you know the Profession you’re aiming at, then you should look for a Hero that has high stats for that Profession.

Heroes also come in classes. While this isn’t a Hero guide, here’s a quick breakdown of Hero classes.

Basic

• Knight
• Berserker
• Warrior
• Pirate
• Archer
• Monk
• Thief
• Priest
• Seer
• Wizard

Uncommon

• Shapeshifter
• Paladin
• Darkknight
• Summoner
• Ninja

Rare

• Dragoon
• Sage

Exalted

• Dreadknight

When building your first team of Heroes, consider yourself lucky if you get an uncommon. Otherwise, keep it to basic classes.

Heroes also need stamina to quest. Each Hero has a set amount of stamina, and each quest takes a certain amount of time per stamina to complete. This is where your Hero’s quest proficiency comes in. If your Hero is proficient in Gardening, they will consume less stamina while on a Gardening quest and return quicker. You can still send that Hero on a Foraging quest, but it will take longer and they’ll consume way more energy. Plus, your Hero will earn more proficiency for each successful quest they go on. So if you want a good Forager, find a Hero with stats for Foraging (dex or int), make sure they have proficiency in Foraging, and get to questing. As they quest, they’ll grow stronger in that Profession and bring back more and more items.

Main Quests

Foraging

Foraging is when you send your Heroes out to scour the forest floor for whatever goods they might find. The main stats for Foraging are dexterity and intelligence. You earn items from this quest.

Gardening

Gardening is tied to how many tokens you have locked up in your Garden. Like Mining, Gardening allows players to earn a little extra from their passive Garden income by tending the Garden with their Heroes. You’ll earn some Jewel (or Crystal if you’re in Crystalvale) plus Gardening specific items. Vitality and wisdom are the best stats for Gardening.

Mining

Similar to Gardening, Mining is tied to how many tokens you have locked up in DFK. But with Mining, it comes down to how much claimed locked Jewel you have. You can grow your claimed locked Jewel from the Garden or the Jeweler. With Mining, players can either mine Jewel or gold. The amount of Jewel they mind is tied to claimed locked Jewel, the amount of gold is determined by Hero strength and endurance.

Fishing

Fishing is like Foraging, it’s just a basic quest with outcomes based on your Hero’s stats and proficiency. You don’t need tokens in the Gardens or locked Jewel to benefit. Just send your Heroes out, and inspect their fishy haul. Agility and luck determine a Hero’s fishing prowess.

Training Quests

So let’s say you’ve got yourself a solid team of Heroes. You’ve got two for each Profession in DFK. But you bought most of them at a bargain and their stats aren’t the best. You’re sending them on quest after quest, but they’re only coming back with paltry items; they never return with a rune, egg, or rare item.

What do you do?

• Do you sell them, try to recoup some losses, and purchase better Heroes? You could. But you’d have to convince someone that your crappy Hero is worth more than you bought it for, despite its bad stats. And even after selling it, you might not have enough for a good Hero.
• Do you quest harder? Focus on leveling them up as quickly as possible since you can buff their stats with each new level? You could. You might grab some stamina potions and focus on grinding, ensuring you upgrade the vital stats with each new level. But that’s not just a few days of grinding, that’d take weeks. And since you can’t guarantee how much stronger they’ll be after each new level, you may grind for four levels and still have a crappy Hero. That’s a lot of wasted time.

How about you send those crappy Heroes over to some training quests? They won’t earn any items, but they will have a chance to obtain crystals that guarantee specific stat boosts upon reaching a new level. You’ll still need to level your Hero up and spend stamina on training quests, but if your goal is to have the strongest Berserker there is, then you’ll want to train them.

Might

The might training quest improves the strength ability and it’s taught by Ice Reaver Zaine. You can find Ice Reaver Zaine in the Tavern. You’ll have to arm wrestle him to get the rewards.

Swiftness

The swiftness training quest improves agility. It’s taught by none other than Street Kid Carlin, that little rascal. You can find him in the Eastern Marketplace and see who’s better at a game of ball.

Fortitude

The fortitude training quest improves endurance, and it’s taught by a dancer. You’ll find Isabella in the Central Marketplace where you can challenge her to a dance-off.

Insight

The insight training quest improves wisdom and it’s the only training quest found in the Castle. Head over to the Castle and look along the left wall for General Orvin. He’ll have some puzzles for you to complete.

Finesse

Back to the Tavern for the finesse training quest, which improves dexterity. You’ll be playing darts against the master thief, Layla.

Vigor

The vigor training quest improves your Heroes’ vitality. You can train in vigor at the Garden with Farmer Quill.

Wit

Wit translates to intelligence, and it’s taught by the Alchemist’s Apprentice, Arnold. 

Fortune

Back once again to the Tavern to train in fortune, aka luck. You’ll have to stare down Lucky Moe in a game of cards.

Questing Strategies

There aren’t many strategies to maximize questing efficiency in DFK. The best approach is to merely throw more money at the problem. The more Heroes you have, the more you’ll earn. Simple. However, if you’re on a budget like me, you can take a few steps to make your questing more synergistic.

1. Don’t box yourself into one Profession. Don’t think, “I’m going to be the best Forager in all of DFK, so I’ll just own nothing but Foragers and be the Forager King!” In order to make potions in DFK, you need ingredients from every Profession. It doesn’t matter if you own 100 Heroes with Foraging proficiency, you’ll never make a single potion and won’t get very far. Diversify.
2. Ensure that you have enough tokens in the Gardens. If your Garden pools are too low, you won’t earn anything significant from your Gardening quests. Nor will you be claiming locked Jewel, which increases your Mining rewards. So make sure you’re investing enough in your Garden.
3. Foraging and Fishing quests are the easiest. They aren’t tied to anything. If you want to stack Heroes, stack Foragers and Fishers. You need rare fish to incubate your eggs, and some of the items from Foraging and Fishing are the most expensive in the game, should you choose to sell them for gold.
4. Once you have enough Heroes, you should be designating roles for them. Have Heroes that succeed at training quests grind those and earn stat crystals while your other Heroes earn items. Have Heroes set aside just for summoning. Have Heroes set aside for flipping.
5. Explore the absolutely overwhelming amount of documents, graphics, and infographics on DFK’s Discord, Medium, and White Papers. There are extremely helpful posts pinned to most channels in their Discord, their Medium articles often sum up Town Hall meetings, and their White Papers are updated and edited constantly. 
6. Stamina potions, baby. Try to buy Heroes and quest them in a way that allows you to produce as many stamina potions as possible. More stam pots mean your Heroes can quest more, which means they’ll earn more experience, which means they’ll level up faster, which means you’ll be kicking people’s asses in dueling all day long.

The Costs & Rewards For Questing in DeFi Kingdoms

How much does a Hero cost, anyways? And what’s the worth of quest items? 

Now is an excellent time to purchase Heroes as Jewel and Crystal are trading around $.23 and $.19, respectively. Heroes go for about 30-40 Jewel or Crystal, depending on the market and the Hero. For more specific, upgraded, or strong Heroes, you’re closer to 60 Jewel or more. Since Jewel and Crystal are trading so low, now is a great time to stock up on more Heroes.

For context, I bought some of my Heroes back when the larger crypto markets were bullish and green and Jewel was worth around $5. Heroes were still 30-40 Jewel, but Jewel was trading at $5, which means those are some expensive Heroes. At the time, DFK was squarely out of reach for many web3 gamers. Now that market conditions have fallen so much, it’s a great opportunity to get invested.

The items you get can all be sold for gold, which can be converted to any cryptocurrency you like. You’ll only get good items if your Heroes have good stats and are proficient in their quest, otherwise you’ll get the most worthless crap you can think of. But even if you are drowning in useless crap, you can always sell it for a profit.

When it comes to your return on investment, that depends heavily on how much you’re willing to work–I mean play.

Rewards Per Quest

These are the items you have a chance to obtain every time you go out questing. Your chances will increase based on your Heroes’ stats and proficiency. All quests give a chance to find an egg, Gaia’s Tears, or runes. Every other item is specific to the quest and location.

Serendale Quests

Foraging

• Ragweed – 23%
• Rockroot – 9.015%
• Red Leaf – 6.015%
• Darkweed – 6.015%
• Ambertaffy – 4.015%
• Goldvein – 1.015%
• Swift Thistle – 0.0915%
• Grey Egg – 0.01%
• Gaia’s Tears – 5-7.5%
• Shvas Rune – 0.02-1%

Fishing

• Bloater – 23%
• Ironscale – 9.015%
• Lantern Eye – 9.015%
• Red Gill – 6.015%
• Silverfin – 1.015%
• Sail Fish – 1.015%
• Shimmerskin – 0.915%
• Blue Egg – 0.01%
• Gaia’s Tears – 5-7.5%
• Shvas Rune – 0.02-1%

Gardening

• Jewel – 10% to get 0.1 J
• Bluestem – 9.015%
• Spiderfruit – 6.015%
• Milkweed – 4.015%
• Green Egg – 0.02%
• Gaia’s Tears – 7-10.75%
• Shvas Rune – 0.3-1.5%

Mining

• Gold – % not released
• Jewel – based on locked J, 10% for Jackpot
• Yellow Egg – 0.02%
• Gaia’s Tears – 7-10.75%
• Shvas Rune – 0.3-1.5%

Crystalvale Quests

Alas, there are no data on the rewards from Crystalvale yet, such is its newness. However, many items are obtained in both places, like Ambertaffy, Darkweed, and Ironscales. This means the percentages for both are the same. Where DFK has introduced new items in Crystalvale, they’re actually just renamed items from Serrendale. Like the Frost Bloater and Speckle Tail, which again means their percentages are likely the same.

How I Casually Play DFK

I hop on to DFK twice a day–in the morning and the evening. I set up all my Heroes to quest in the morning, it takes less than five minutes, then I go about my day. In the evening, I collect Heroes from their quests and check out their items. Since they’ve replenished their stamina by the evening, I send them back on quests.

The following morning I check the Heroes and what they’ve earned, then start the process over again.

Once a week, I harvest rewards from my Gardens and decide where I want to put them. I also sell any items I’ve collected that I can’t use for potions or the devs haven’t hinted will be important later. With more gold and Jewel/Crystal, that’s when I choose how to invest further into DFK–buy another Hero, summon a Hero, buy seeds for the Gardens, purchase a pet, or arbitrage trade on the Marketplace.

I’m generating enough Jewel/Crystal from the Gardens that I shouldn’t need to put more money into DFK ever again. Once a week, when I collect my rewards, I put some towards gas fees, some towards the Gardens, and some towards a savings account of sorts.

I can only do that because I put enough into the Gardens. If you want to generate enough passive income to keep playing DFK and never have to funnel more crypto in from an exchange, build up your Gardens.

You may look at that routine–logging in twice a day, investing once a week–as far more than casual. I suppose it’s all relative. There are some people with enough tokens in the Gardens to purchase a new Hero every single day. Some people generate enough Jewel/Crystal to summon several new Heroes daily. Some people set an alarm for when their Heroes’ stamina is full so they can maximize quest time. Heck, some players have multiple wallets, sending Heroes bouncing back and forth between them to crank out the peak amount of rewards.

Spending ten minutes a day clicking some buttons and having fun is rather casual comparatively.

FAQs

Conclusion

Because there isn’t much to do with your Heroes in DeFi Kingdoms currently, there isn’t much hype around using them. The DeFi Kingdoms team only recently dropped their dueling mini-game, which does open up more options for players to use their Heroes. But spend enough time in the Tavern for one duel and you’ll quickly realize the high-level players dominate that mini-game. DeFi Kingdoms plans to add PvP and PvE mechanics and enhance their quests to level up with your Heroes.

For now, plenty of DeFi Kingdoms players see questing as a chore, and I can’t blame them. There is little utility in it aside from gathering potion ingredients. But if you believe the DFK wave is coming, now is literally the best time to get into the game. You’ll pay less than at any point in the game’s past or future, and you’ll set yourself up for a passive crypto income stream for potentially years to come.

Looking for more interesting readings? Check out:

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