Potion, Quest, and Active Splinter Updates
In addition to all of the exciting new things that are part of the Untamed release (which you can read about here: Splinterlands: Untamed - Info & Release Date), we have a bunch of other smaller changes that we have been working on and plan to release together. The majority of these changes are ideas proposed by players or are a result of player feedback, so as always we want to thank you for your input and your help to make the game better!
The changes listed below are planned to go into effect along with the release of the Untamed edition on Saturday, November 30th, around 10 am - 12 pm EST (UTC-5).
Potions
The first set of changes are in regards to potions. The following updates have been requested by MANY players, so we hope they make things better and easier for everyone.
Purchasing Individual Charges & Removing Strength Levels
One issue that was brought to our attention is that players often purchase the Basic or Enhanced strength potions - thinking that they would stack - and it ends up just being wasted DEC since the player wants to always use the Brilliant strength potion.
Another is that many players would like to be able to purchase a smaller number of charges of each potion. For example, if you only have 5 packs to open, it would be great to be able to purchase 25 charges of the Brilliant Legendary and Alchemy potions for a manageable 2,250 DEC instead of having to amass a much more difficult 45,000 DEC for 500 charges of each.
We think that both of those things make a lot of sense, so we will be getting rid of Basic and Enhanced strength potions altogether, and at the same time allowing players to choose the number of charges of the Brilliant strength potions they would like to purchase at any time. There will also be bonus charges given out for large purchases, just like when buying booster packs!
For players who currently have charges of Basic or Enhanced strength potions in their inventory, they will be automatically converted to Brilliant strength charges when this change goes live at a rate of 4:1 for Basic and 2:1 for Ehanced (except for the Quest potions which will be 5:1 and 2.5:1).
Since you cannot have fractions of a charge, the conversions will be rounded up. For example, if you have 13 Basic Legendary Potion charges, they will be converted into 4 Brilliant Legendary Potion charges automatically when this change goes live.
Purchasing Potions with Crypto/USD
One of the most important goals of the Splinterlands project is that it should be accessible to people who have no experience with cryptocurrency. This is a big differentiator between Splinterlands and other blockchain-based games which typically require players to own crypto (for things like gas fees) and to know how to transact with it.
Potions are one area where we are failing in that goal. It is currently very difficult for people to get enough DEC for potions - they have to be able to first aquire cryptocurrency, then know how to trade it for STEEM or TRX, and then be able to trade that for DEC. This gives experienced cryptocurrency users a huge advantage over everyone else and that is a big deterrent for a lot of players. It also creates a lot of customer support issues and potential for players' funds to be lost or stolen.
Now that we are beginning to focus more on player growth and marketing to a wider audience, this is something that needs to be addressed. As a result, we are going to start selling potions for crypto and USD via PayPal just like we currently do for booster packs. The cost of the potions in DEC will remain the same, and the USD pricing will be based on a rate of $0.001 USD / DEC, or 1000 DEC / $1 USD.
In order to mitigate any potential negative effects on the market price of DEC - since people who previously were forced to purchase through the market to buy potions now have another option - we will also be setting the price of Untamed booster packs at a fixed rate of 2000 DEC / pack, regardless of the price for which DEC is trading on the markets.
This way, if the price of DEC ever drops too much below $0.001 USD on the markets, there will be an arbitrage opportunity that savvy players can take advantage of to get cheap booster packs and potions, or just to make a quick profit.
Option to Disable Potions for Reward Cards
A number of players have also asked about the ability to disable their potions when opening Reward Cards. We agree that players should be able to choose how to apply their hard-earned potions, so we have added a new setting in the settings screen that, when enabled, will disable all potions from being applied when Reward cards are opened.
Active Splinters & Daily Quests
The next set of changes involves active and inactive splinters for battles and daily quests. Again, these changes come as a result of feedback and input from the players - you!
Increased Chances of Inactive Splinters
One of the elements of skill in the game is around choosing which Splinter to play in a battle in order to best counter what you expect your opponent might play. With the majority of Splinters being active in all battles, that element of skill is significantly diminished. Additionally, we want to encourage players to get cards from a wide variety of Splinters rather just maxxing out one or two.
As a result, we will be changing the algorithm so that Splinters will be inactive in battles more often (except for Ranked battles between players under 300 rating, in which case all Splinters are always active). As mentioned above, we expect that this will add additional skill to team selection since you have a higher chance of accurately guessing which Splinter your opponent will choose, and it will encourage players to own or rent a more diverse set of cards.
It will even be possible, though rare, that only a single Splinter may be active for a battle! We think that these battles will provide an interesting twist as both players strive to make the best team using the same Splinter.
For those of you who are thinking that this will make daily quests much harder to complete, don't worry, because...
Daily Quest Splinters Always Active
With this change, the Splinters that are part of either player's daily quest will always be active in Ranked battles. We realize that, even before the changes above, it can be very frustrating when you're trying to complete your daily quest and your Splinter is repeatedly inactive.
We're happy to announce that those days will soon be over, and you will be able quest in peace...well, except for the fact that your opponent will still be trying to crush you...
New Daily Quests
We are also finally adding new quest goals for the first time since the release of the daily quests around a year ago! Many, many players have asked when there would be a Dragon splinter quest - and the answer is: now! We also have two other new quests which we hope will help to keep the game interesting and engaging. The new quests will be limited to players in the higher leagues as indicated since new / lower level players may not have the cards to complete them.
Without further ado, the new quests are (drum roll please):
- Win 5 Ranked battles using the Dragon Splinter (Gold league and up)
- Win 5 Tournament battles (Gold league and up)
- Win 3 Ranked battles without using any Neutral monsters (Silver league and up)
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
Website | Blog | Discord | Telegram | Shop
What about reducing cost of Delwyn Dragonscale ?
After reducing costs of Archmage Delwyn cost the same Mana as Archmage but has only disadvantages against Archmage.
I think a card who cost the same Mana like other cards but all stats are same or worse than other cards is in the end useless.
So give Delwyn a usecase and reduce his cost also.
Thank you in advance !
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me that Delwyn has a mana cost of 5 when Daria is only 4 and Selenia (which is the best of all of those) is only 3.
yes you are right !
In the end the system is that Summoner cost 2 Mana and every buff 1 Mana, so summoner with one buff cost 3 Mana, with three buffs 5 Mana (in the end The Peakrider has also three buff as the normal buff is +1 shield and he get to this +2 shield more and -1 opponent range attack).
From this Daria and Delwyn go away and one buff cost not one Mana but two (Daria) or three (Delwyn) - for me it's not logical ... ok you could say one Mana for the ability to use Dragons, but than is the question why Selenia Sky cost only 3 Mana.
Quiet right, hopefully it will be look into by yaba and aggy.
I hope so.
I think it should be their goal to have a usecase for every card and not to have useless cards.
Their would be also other possibilities like a ruleset "Rise of the Common" who really deserve this name, means only common monster (and not common and rare) - this ruleset would in my opinion bring new life in (nearly) useless cards like the Rusty Android.
Agreed.
Overall, nice set of updates. Questions and comments:
How do the Potion changes apply to Mystery Potions, where all have 5 charges and the Potion level determines % chance of getting a mystery prize? In particular, being able to choose how many potion charges to purchase may be problematic because everyone will just purchase 1 potion charge every other day.
It would be good if the Alchemy and Legendary Potions clearly provide examples of the % chances. (So for Reward cards, a 2% gold foil or 0.8% legendary becomes 4% and 1.6% respectively). Far too many people think that the Brilliant potions are 100% potions guaranteeing gold foil or legendaries, rather than being +100% potions.
I like that Potions will no longer be wasted on Reward cards. Maybe it would even be better to just have a on/off toggle so that people can choose when to activate Potions. That way, someone could decide to use Potions on Beta boosters but not Untamed boosters. Or vice versa. Etc.
I also like the changes to more inactive splinters.
For "Daily Quest Splinter always active," it should only apply when the player has not yet completed the 5 quests. Otherwise, they could intentionally avoid claiming the quest to ensure their splinter is always active. In fact, someone could give up dailies entirely and always keep the same Daily Quest unclaimed, to guarantee their one splinter is always active (which would essentially be a loophole around the "more inactive splinters" change).
Considering the flexibility and power level of the Dragon splinter, I was fine with there not being a quest for it. It's far easier to play Dragon than the other splinters, so maybe it should require more than 5 wins to compensate.
It also seems redundant to have a "no neutrals" quest especially when there is a Dragon quest splinter. You could essentially treat the "no neutrals" quest as "win 3 Dragon splinter battles," letting the Dragon monsters substitute for the Neutrals you would give up. I think "no neutrals or dragons" for 3 quests would be reasonable. Otherwise you don't need both a Dragon quest AND a no neutrals quest.
While I like the idea of a Tournament daily quest, 5 might too much, especially since you can get knocked out in the first round and there are a limited number of tournaments in a 24 hour period (for your daily quest). I would consider dropping the number to 3 wins or even 2 wins.
With Untamed Boosters being purchasable for DEC, will guild quest lodge discounts apply? (I would guess no). How about affiliate payments? (If so, would the referrer get paid in DEC or would the DEC amount be converted into STEEM?).
They will work just like the current Brilliant Mystery potion. Each charge gives you 100% chance of getting a mystery reward. It's a good point about the every other day thing - we may have to chance the special mystery card to have a 50% chance of being awarded every day.
The wording for the potions will be updated to say "double the chance" to avoid further percentage confusion, but it is also a good suggestion to publish the exact percentages.
My concern with the on/off toggle is that people will forget they turned it off and then open packs and be annoyed. Everyone requested being able to turn off potions for reward cards so that's why we went with this, but if this doesn't solve players' needs then we can always change it.
Great!
That's how it will work. It checks if the player has completed the quest, not if they have claimed the rewards.
I don't see this as a big deal. If every once in a while players get a quest that's easier then that's fine. The point of the quests are to encourage people to play every day.
I think the no neutrals quest is very different than the dragon splinter quest. The dragon splinter cards are very different than neutral cards.
There has been a considerable amount of feedback already about the tournament quest so we'll definitely reconsider that one.
Boosters have been purchasable with DEC for a long time, the only change here is that the price will be fixed and not based on the market. Quest lodge discounts do not apply to booster pack purchases and referral bonuses are paid in DEC.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
Great tweaks to minimize frustration and maximize the joy of battle.
An unrelated suggestion: automatically level down cards when higher levels activate an attribute that disqualifies the monster from a battle. For example, in the ruleset where melee monsters are forbidden, my chicken should level down to its pre-melee level. Taking this idea further, it should be possible to play a card at the level you own it or any lesser level. There should be an interface for leveling down cards when submitting to battle. This could be important for when speed is reversed or cases where level 10 is worse in health than level 9.
This is definitely something we are going to address, it's just a more involved change so we haven't been able to implement it yet.
Further to this, I'd like the team to consider the option to mute abilities or even attacks.
If I want to tell my Fallen Specter to not attack, risking death from Magic reflect, I should be able to do so. If I want my Goblin Sorceror to attack the enemy tank, I should be able to mute "sneak" for that battle.
I disagree. You shouldn't be able to change a card because it has an ability you dislike. Sometimes an ability helps you, sometimes it hurts you. That's part of the nuance of the game.
Of course, Fallen Spector would be better if it didn't attack at all. The fact that it attacks is a weakness that is crucial to balance out an otherwise extremely overpowered card.
That's certainly a valid viewpoint. Logistically I'd suggest since a lot of abilities only arrive at certain levels, keeping a secondary (gold foil maybe) card which hasn't yet achieved that ability or attack is going to be more of a common practice as the game develops.
I understand its also possible, although not through the official site, to play a given card at a lower level, particularly by bots.
We could avoid all this by giving players the option to mute abilities and attacks in the native interface. Just because I think something's a good idea though, doesn't mean it is :)
We're just throwing stuff at the wall here. If I make 100 suggestions and the devs reject 99, I'll be delighted to have contributed.
I'd like clarification on this point. Given my understanding of the blockchain mechanics behind the game, I don't think anyone currently has the ability to play down a specific card.
However, perhaps what you're saying is that the current official site only registers your highlest level card for a given moster and ignores the rest. Programattic users however have the ability to submit a card that is lower level than another card of the same monster for battle. @yabapmatt is this the case?
My proposal is different from the current behavior available to programmatic users because it would allow temporarily leveling down a card for a specific battle rather than require the user to possess a low and high level card of the same monster.
Well said!
Wondering out loud, if these tournament wins need to be racked up in Official Splinterlands tournaments, or if they can be acquired during User generated tournaments.
If the latter, I think its a fantastic inducement to get Guilds and other groups posting/hosting our own tournaments. They'd need to be public; and I'm not sure if paid entries would be a deal breaker.
I was thinking, too. If there were an ECR cost to enter tournaments, say 5%, we'd keep a lot of heavy hitters out of lower level ones.
That would be a way, but in the moment (and I think their is no desire to change) the creation of a tournament cost 2$ - I think this is a point who many people scare off from creating tournament.
You could it also say in another way: You should pay 2$ for every tournament for fullfilling of your daily quest.
Maybe it would be a way to take the 2$ from public tournaments but not from private tournaments.
"Splinters that are part of either player's daily quest will always be active in Ranked battles."
YES! Thank you. The rest of the stuff is cool, but the above just removes so much frustration.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
There's a lot to like here. Really appreciate the update.
I love the simplification of the potions. Could we also look at changing the wording to avoid the 'I thought I had a 100% chance of getting a legendary' confusion? With the other two options gone,
"Double the chance a card will be gold foil" leaves less room for misunderstanding.
Tournament wins is an interesting one. Scheduling might be a pain point until asynchronous tournaments roll out. Guess we'll see how it goes.
Thanks again, team. Love your work :)
The wording has already been changed, you can see it in the screenshot in the post.
Always one step ahead.
Really good update and great to see many improvements to the daily quests system.
I would just like to know if you are going to purchase DEC from the market when somebody pays the potions with USD or crypto. Or where do these funds go?
Awesome updates. I really like the fact that we will be able to buy potions in smaller batches than 500 at a time, and that we can disable them.
Great updates! The dragon splinter is a nice addition. Lots of great updates really. I like the addition of new quests, but winning five tournaments, yikes. It is achievable for a weekly quest but it is time consuming (for now at least, until asynchronous is out). The tourneys take forever. I can hardly find time to play in one anymore, but no complaints since I am fortunate to have another guild member play them when I can't myself.
Thanks for the updates!
You guys are listening, that is so nice and encouraging, great little updates, thanks.
Posted using Partiko Android