Shareholders System
Overview
In Harvest, players are rewarded shares of a crop's value based on their contributions. The more actions a player performs, the more shares they earn. Each action is assigned a point value, as shown in the table below:
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Buy Seed | 12 |
| Plant Seed | 2 |
| Fill Bucket | 2 |
| Water Plant | 2 |
| Feed Livestock | 3 |
| Add Ingredient (Cooking) | 3 |
| Collect Reward | 2 |
When a food item is harvested, the value of the crop is divided among the shareholders based on how many points they have earned. For example, if Player A has earned 20 points and Player B has earned 10 points, Player A will receive twice as many credits as Player B.
It's important to note that disconnected players at the time a crop is harvested will forfeit their share, and it will be divided evenly among the connected players.
An Example
| Player | Points Earned | Share | Share Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 12 | 38% | 5 |
| B | 10 | 31% | 4 |
| C | 10 | 31% | 4 |
| Total | 32 | 100% | 13 |
In this example, there are three players who contributed to a banana crop's growth and harvest. Player A bought the seed, earning 12 points. Player B planted the seed, earning 2 points. Players B and C each filled the bucket and watered the plant twice, earning 8 points each (4 for filling the bucket twice and 4 for watering the plant twice). Player C collected the reward, earning 2 points.
The total points earned by all three players is 30, and the total value of the banana crop is 12 credits. Each player's share is calculated by dividing their points earned by the total points earned (30), and multiplying that result by the total value of the crop (12).
Player A's share is 5 (12 * (12/32)), Player B's share is 4 (12 * (10/32)), and Player C's share is 4 (12 * (10/32)). The shares are rounded up to the nearest whole credit. Player A receives 5 credits, Player B receives 4 credits, and Player C receives 4 credits.
Why?
When playtesting Harvest, we realized that we were only rewarding the players who were able to collect the rewards for the crops. This created some nasty gameplay behavior where players would wait for others to do the work, and then swoop in at the last minute to collect the reward. We want to reward players for their contributions, not just for being the one to collect the reward. I hope this article creates some transparency around the system we've implemented, and helps you understand why we've done it this way.