A Season in Splinterlands lasts half a month. During that time I can improve my rating by winning battles and climb the league if I have the power. Every win can earn me Dark Energy Crystals (DEC), the ingame crypto currency.
Until recently there were a fixed number of reward chests at the end of season depending on the league I finish in. With daily quests (e.g. win five battles with a certain splinter) I can also win reward chests, again, the number (and quality) depending on my current league.
The Change brought with it Focus Points (FP) and Season Points (SP). So now besides the DEC I can earn Points (SP and FP) with a win. Every Win brings me SP. Instead of a daily quest there is a daily focus now which gives me a splinter to focus on. There are two counters adding up those points, one for SP and one for FP. If I get enough points together I unlock a chest, but beware the next chest needs a little bit more points than the last one and as with DEC my points depend on my Energy Capture Rate (ECR). As the name suggests, the daily FP chests get reset after 24 hours and the earned chests can be opened.
However, the quality of the chests and the number of points needed for one depend on the league I finished in last season. The points I earn are determined by the league I currently am in.
I start the game with 100% Energy Capture Rate (ECR). Each ranked battle decreases my ECR by ~1% (in my experience a little less) while it gradually restores itself ~1% (in my experience a little more) each hour. Additionally the usage of starter cards (i.e. cards I do not own but may use anyway) reduces the rewards (both DEC and SP/FP) by the proportion of starter cards to my overall lineup for that battle. The usual bonus percentages like gold foil cards, win streaks, etc. still apply and increase my rewards.
Yes, I was one of those. At the end of season (EOS) I had enough rating points and power to jump from silver-I to gold-I to increase the number and quality of season reward chests. Now I do not do that anymore. My deck is a good competition on silver-I but the higher levels of the cards in gold would crush me at a certain rating and my win ratio would take a huge hit. I would need ~4x more points to unlock a chest for gold than for silver level. But the quality improvement is not worth it. By not jumping the league at EOS I get silver level point structure and quality the next season. And as we will see: It pays out.
Instead of finishing a daily quest and getting the instant reward by opening the chests no matter how well I do, the counter keeps on ticking until the 24 hours for the daily focus are up. Then I open the chests I earned so far and start a new 24 hours countdown and focus. So instead of waiting for the new daily quest and battling until it is done only to stop playing from that point on it now makes sense to stretch my playing. That way I keep my ECR at a decent level and take a break when the win ratio takes a hit. Give the competition time to move on (i.e. get better rating) and come back in a few hours. The higher my ECR and win ratio, the more points I can get in the 24 hours period which result in more reward chests.
With the old System I got 4 chests for a daily quest. Now, with the new system I managed to get enough FP for 10 chests and a few minutes before the time ran out I went "What the heck" and fought a few more battles to get enough points for yet another chest. Here are the results:
The second day I went straight for 11, would I be able to recreate this run? After all, every win increases my rating hence I face tougher opponents. I managed to get 12 chests while playing my ECR down to ~64% with 12 hours left in the daily focus. Here are the results:
The third (current) day I managed to get 12 chests so far while decreasing ECR down to 68%. There are still a few hours left to improve, maybe I will squeeze in a battle or two? My ECR is currently back to ~80% which is a healthy value for tonight.
In the meantime I accumulated enough SP for 39 season reward chests and we still have 12 days to go. The points needed for the next chest get higher and higher so the average of currently 13 season chests per day will definitely drop some more but it is already an improvement over the old system. If I manage to get it to three digits at EOS I will be a very happy player.
In my case the change is a huge improvement over the old system. I suspect my win ratio will take a hit in the next few days but as long as I can manage to get more than 4 chests per day it is still a huge plus. Managing ECR has become more meaningful and because the quest is never complete (getting 30 is still a long way to go and when the 24 hours are up it seamlessly transitions into a new focus) steady playing gets more meaning to it. Squeezing in a battle or two every now and then when I normally wouldn't bother is more rewarding. Overall the game became much more fun to play.
A lot of games have a lot of problems. And a lot of developers either ignore them or take no/inappropriate action. But watching this game develop and change made me realize: Splinterlands is different. There never is a perfect solution and as the saying goes perfect is the enemy of good. This was a drastic change. Was it the right one? Will it solve the problems? I do not know. But at least there are actions taken.
Thank you for that @Splinterlands
Also, I want to point out that instead of trying to ban bots (like many other games do) this action is aimed at rewarding human players and also aims to limit or negate the profit from running a bot. It is the hive way of dealing with problems: Do not ban them but take away the incentive.
