Splinterlands | Thoughts On The New Ranked Rewards Update

costanza (69)in #crypto • 2 years ago

All the info on the new Ranked Rewards in Splinterlands were recently dropped in this post. These are some of my initial thoughts on it...

When it comes down to updates and new things being implemented into the game, the pattern is pretty much always the same in that they are all about helping and improving the economy while completely neglecting the aspect of actually making the game more fun. This is no different for the upcoming Ranked Rewards Updates.

Daily Quest --> Daily Focus

This is the main update that really dissapoints me and feels like a missed chance. I made a post before pointing out the main game design flaws in the Daily Quest system.

The switch from a Daily quest where players needed to win a 5 matches with a specific Splinter will switch to a specific Splinter having focus for a day meaning that winning matches with this splinter will count toward getting more reward chests. This pretty much leaves players forced to play that certain splinter forcing it upon certain game rules playing sub-optimally. This is a system that just creates frustration just because economically there needs to be an incentive for players not to have just 1 main Summoner.

While I get that this model works great for people that want to rent cards just for a day as they only need to focus on the splinter that has the daily focus, for players that just want to play the game optimally having a pretty complete collection spread over all 6 Splinters it's just pain bad.

Solution: Have some kind of trashold where a collection of a players is seens as balanced between the different splinters and as a reward for this, allow these players to just play the game more optimally not being retricted to playing 1 splinter during a day in order to reach the maximum amount of daily reward chests. Maybe unlock a default quest of winning x amount of matches with 4 different Splinters on the day could be a better solution as each of them has their usecase in the game under specific rules.

Improved Gameplay Changes

The introduction of the Reflection Shield for sure is something that could make the game more fun as crazy overpowered cards like Yodin Zaku kind of ruined the fun for those without crazy deep pockets. This partly will allow to counter this summoner which at least is a good step forward.

Economy Improving Changes

Pretty much all other changes should greatly benefit the game economy.

3000 Credits included in Spellbook: This allows new players to get going with 30% of the money that comes from Spellbooks flowing back to card purchases and rentals. It also allows new players to be a bit more competitive from the start which should make the initial experience a bit more fun.
Starter Card Reward Reduction: This is a great way to counter bots who just try to leech rewards using the starter cards and force players to get their own collection of owned cards going.
Reward Chests Update: It's also nice to see Reward chests having different power levels allowing players at lower levels to earn more chests also giving them a good incentive to get to a higher league where the chests have better rewards.
Reward Shared Model: This model feels like a major improvement making it harder for bots to get an edge over real players who are rewarded by factorls like Capture rate, Win Streak, Guild Membership, Gold Cards,

Conclusion
Overall, I really like nearly all chances that are made with the new Ranked Rewards Update aside from the new Daily Focus system which is bound to cause a crazy amount of frustration making players like me want to get it over with which will take a lot longer now. As someone with a pretty complete collection who wants to just play optimally based on the game rules using all my summoners it feels even worse than the old Daily Quest System. I hope they still manage to fix this going forward in a way that doesn't take away from creating a healthy game economy.