The WAX land sale on AtomicHub over the weekend was a huge success with over 7,000 plots worth of land sold over a 24-hour period. One of the primary goals behind the sale and the WAX integration in general was to attract new players to the game, and from that perspective it was an even bigger success with over 670 new players signing up since the sale started, over 20% of which have purchased the Summoner's Spellbook at the time of writing.
Overall, between the recent Brave announcement and the WAX integration the month of March has seen a significant increase in the number of new players coming into the game, and we hope to keep that momentum going through the remainder of the year and beyond. While getting new sign-ups is great, we also need to work on getting those players to stick around and realize the enormous potential that Splinterlands has to offer.
With that in mind, we have a bunch of smaller updates to announce which are planned to be released on Monday, March 15th, shortly after the end of the current ranked play season, unless otherwise specified. The majority of these items are a direct result of player feedback and many of them are also specifically targeted to helping improve the new player experience which we plan to focus on more heavily going forward.
Before jumping into the changes, we want to take a moment to welcome anyone who is new, and thank our existing player community who have been incredibly helpful and supportive in Telegram, Discord, and other social channels. Our awesome community is definitely Splinterlands' best and most valuable asset and we never take that for granted!
Updates to "Starter" Cards
Starting on March 15th, we are going to expand the set of "starter" cards to include the level 1 versions of all of the common and rare cards in BOTH the Untamed and Beta editions, regardless of when the player joined the game.
The "starter" cards are the cards that all players are able to use a level 1 version of in battles even if they do not own an actual copy of that card. This allows new players to try out the game without having to purchase cards first. These are also sometimes referred to as "Proxy", "Phantom", or "Ghost" cards.
Many players have commented that the current "starter" cards (which only include the common and rare cards from the Untamed edition) is too limiting and does not provide a good first impression of the game, so we hope that allowing new players to also use level 1 versions of the common and rare Beta edition cards in addition to the Untamed cards will help with new player engagement and retention.
The plan is that the "starter" set will include level 1 versions of the common and rare cards from the two most recent core editions, so that means that when the next edition of cards is released - currently known as Chaos Legion - after Untamed sells out, the "starter" set will include cards from Untamed and Chaos Legion instead of Untamed and Beta.
Please note that we will be looking very closely at the data and player feedback to gauge the results of this change and we may roll it back or adjust it if we find it to be causing problems in any way.
Finally, we will also be updating the UI to make the "starter" cards very clearly distinguishable from actual cards, as well as including a tooltip with additional information about them, which should hopefully alleviate the confusion that many new players have about these cards.
Limits for Accounts That Do Not Submit Teams
Another major issue affecting the new player experience is that there are a number of presumably broken bots that constantly queue up for battles but then never submit a team. Since these accounts lose all of their battles, they are all in Novice league and get paired up against new players, which obviously leads to a poor game experience for those players.
In order to address this, we will be making the following change: If an account does not submit a team for a Ranked battle three times in a row then they will not be able to queue up for another Ranked battle for one hour. This will continue to increase by an additional hour each time they do not submit a team. As soon as they play a battle and submit a team the restriction will be removed and they can enter the Ranked battle queue as normal.
This change is planned to be released right away instead of waiting until the 15th, and, as always, we will keep a close eye on the results of this change to ensure that it is having the intended effect without any unintended consequences, and will adjust if necessary.
New Daily Quests
Many of you have requested that we add some new daily quests into the mix, so here they are! The following two new quests are planned to be added with the March 15th update:
- Stealth Mission - Win 5 battles with at least one monster with the Sneak ability on your team.
- High Priority Targets - Win 5 battles with at least one monster with the Snipe ability on your team.
We hope that these new quests add a little more variety to your daily play, and we also hope to continue adding new quests in the future. Player suggestions for new daily quest ideas are always welcome!
New Rulesets
In addition to the new quests, we will also be adding the following three new rulesets to help shake things up and keep you on your toes:
- Explosive Weaponry - All Monsters get the Blast ability
- Holy Protection - All Monsters get the Divine Shield ability
- Spreading Fury - All Monsters get the Enrage ability
These type of ability rulesets are relatively simple to add and can make for some very interesting battles, especially when combined with some of the other, existing rulesets, so we hope to add more of them in the near future as well.
Limit Rating to League Maximum When Advancing
This change is meant to address a particular exploit where a player can accumulate a very high rating in a lower league and then advance to the next league at the end of the season and jump right into the leaderboard for that league. It will not affect the vast majority of players.
The change will make it so that when you advance from one league to the next, your rating will be limited to the max for the league to which you are advancing. For example, if a player with a rating of over 1899 points advances from Bronze to Silver league, their rating will be reset to 1899 (the max for Silver league), so that they will still have to compete in Silver league for leaderboard spots at the end of the season.
Last Call for Claiming Raffle Prizes
Finally, the Raffle tab will be removed from the Shop page as it has been well over a month since the drawing occurred and the vast majority of winners have claimed their prizes. Anyone who has not claimed their prizes will need to do so before the option is removed from the website on Monday, March 15th.
Roadmap Update
The following is the latest high-level overview of the Splinterlands development roadmap. Please keep in mind that the dates listed are estimates and are subject to change, as are the items in the roadmap themselves.
- Land Presale Raffle Drawing - Jan 2021 (COMPLETED)
- Mobile App Tutorial - Q1 2021 (COMPLETED)
- WAX Integration - Q1 2021 (COMPLETED)
- iTunes Store Mobile App Submission - Q1 2021
- Guild Brawls (v1) - Q1 2021 (v2 - Q2 2021)
- New Card Delegation & Rental System - Q2 2021
- Praetoria Map Release & Land Claims Redemption - Q2 2021
- Major new thing we haven't announced yet - Q2/Q3 2021
- Land Expansion Release - Q4 2021
- Boss Fights - TBD
- Achievements - TBD
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be burned.
Incredible to see player feedback rolled into the game like this. Love it.
Ambush - Win 5 battles in the first 5 rounds.
Bought some plots!
So much going on right now, what an exciting time for the game.
3 games on the ranked play cooldowns is too little.
I sometimes click "Battle" and then forget that I clicked the "Battle" button (usually 2-4 times in a row)
I feel like this could intervene with real players, so maybe instead of 3 games, the limit could be set at 5 games.
lol tsnaks... you "forget" 3x in a row? As an older person, that's something I should be saying, not you :D
I sometimes complete my daily quests on the side of doing my school studies.
So I frequently find myself in a situation where I click BATTLE and then start doing some long math equations so I just forget to enter my team. After I see that I have Fled the battlefield I click BATTLE again and repeat the process :D
But tbh it might just be me.
Stoner here. It's not just you.
These all seem like good updates. I can only see them adding to the user experience so nicely done.
"so that means that when the next edition of cards is released - currently known as Chaos Legion"
When you get excited about the little things ^_^
Also nice new quests!
Seems like a promising set of changes.
It would be cool if the Starter cards had, let's say like 50 free uses.
So you could use a "Phantom card" 50 times for free in a battle, but after that you would have to actually buy it.
In 50 battles a person should easily get the feel for the game, and this would give more incentive to actually buy cards, rather than just stay with these phantom cards forever.
I feel that would cause much more harm than good. Unless there was a corresponding reward increase that'll just drive newbies away.
There is no denying that the game is great, but the new/low spender experience is not. We don't need another money siphon from poor to rich players, there's already more than enough they want/need to buy on the market!
Well said!
Agreed. However, I'd go a bit farther and include epic and legendary cards on the basis of random appearance. At least one/no more than 2 splinters have 2 epic and one legendary card for 24 hours.
On that point, League of legends does a thing where they offer all player a few random characters for free for a week. That but with like 5 random epic/legendary cards (maybe even from reward edition) would be nice I think. It could be for all players, starter pack or not
Great update! is there any news on the Q1 aim of iTunes Mobile App submission?
Bruhhhh the new ruleset is gonna nerf yodin zaku.
Great update tho :)
Fantastic news. Progress over perfection. Love to read about new features. Hopefully there won't be too many grumbles from folks that see this differently. I for one am a fan. I think newer players will also love the new quests. They seem a bit easier for people starting out.
I think the team is working hard to bring us the experience we love and to constantly being improvements. Striking that balance is much harder than it sounds so thank you Splinterlands team, your community loves you right back!
Still haven't figured out the last new rule sets. All good, love it :)
Great update!
Thanks for keeping us posted
I like the new DQs and rulesets. A little variety helps!
What could that be? :)
Hey guys I bought 2 cards from the Atomichub and I can not gild them in battle.it keeps sticking. please fix it :(
You need to send atomic hub cards to your in game wallet first - there might have been an issue at the time. If you have any issues ask in the discord https://discord.gg/CAFJRjY you will get a really fast answer
New ruleset puts Yodin Zaku in the mud. I love it 😆
The anti botting measure around not submitting teams seems like a useful change. I've certainly noticed that happening where a match wouldn't be started but didn't realize it was bots.
Will there be more types of quests added beyond daily, such as weekly?
Nice to see how the suggestions of @khazrakh have been added at the speed of light. This is a great step to improve the game for newbies.
i had a similar feeling, but i think it might be more that he said what everyone had been thinking already. he just said it very well.
this is huge for new players (me)! you're doubling my playable cards, unlocking some powerful strategies...what's not to love?
I think increasing the available cards in the "starter" cards to the two most recent releases is an excellent addition. I know it has been frustrating trying to win games with the current starter cards. There are several Beta cards that I would like to be able to add to my battles.
Hello guys, I believe that the esplinterlands team would need to think of a way to limit that accounts with "very high" power are playing rankings well below their potential, as they are always the same ones that win the best prizes at the top of the ranking. It is necessary to give everyone an opportunity, I believe that there would have to be a limit of performance in ranking for its "Power".
@splinterlands
I do think that something wasn't implemented right. I do have currently the snipe quest. In the description it says that I do need to win 5 battles with at least one monster with the snipe ability, but if I do win a battle with at least one sniper in my team, no progress is made in the daily quest.
Secondly, while it says in the description that I do need to win 5 battles to complete the snipe quest, only 3 boxes are present in the progress of the daily quest.
Could you look into this?
Or do I need all monster with the snipe ability?
Update: looks like the progress of the daily quest is different. On purpose or bug that is something I don't know. While playing the Snipe quest, the daily progress boxes weren't filled in, but after each won battle which complied to the quest, a progress box did disappear. That why I only did see 3 in the example above, because 2 battles were already won.
Hope this makes it a little bit clearer.
First, great great job on getting 670 people to participate in the land aspect.
This is just the beginning and that was a fantastic marketing program. As I watched it, I felt this is just the beginning! :)
Also on the other issues, those are welcome changes. Thanks for listening to the feedback. I think many will have more ideas of things you can do, but what's most important is that you continue to listen and adjust to the concerns of the community! Thank you and good job...ps like the new rulesets, those look like fun!!!