Hello there.
The team has decreased the frequency of Town Halls, so if you rely on the summary posted in Hive, you might miss a few updates that has been released. The last Town Hall summary was 21 days ago. The update I want to talk about is the recent and upcoming changes to the Wild format.
For those playing in the Modern format, things might not be much different from how it has been. If you are playing in the lower leagues [Bronze or Silver], you might have encountered more Diamond or Champ players from Wild than usual. This is because they doubled the SPS staking requirements in Wild. A lot of players were blindsided by this because it was implemented during the ongoing season. Many were expecting it to take effect after EOS.
I have been playing in Wild for a while now, and I usually get 120+ Earn/Win before the changes. I did add a few SPS, but going down to just x1.04 and 70 Earn/Win after the change really hurts. This was part of the changes included in the recently passed proposal. You can check it out here: @yabapmatt.sps/sps-governance-proposal-alternate-solution-to-address-bot-farms-and-wildmodern-format-discrepancies. So one of the reasons that people are moving to Modern from Wild is the lower rewards being earned in Wild, especially by those with lower stake SPS.
Another update that is part of the proposal, and will be applied after EOS is that they will be implementing a Wild Season Pass. Gamers that have played popular online games like LOL, Dota2, MTGA, and Valorant will be familiar with game passes. It is usually an add-on when playing where there are levels, additional content, or skins that players can get as they continue to play. Unfortunately, the Wild Season Pass is not like this. It is like a key/gate/pass that enables a player to play in Wild. Without it, they can't play Wild games.
Personally, paying for a pass, just to be able to play Wild feels painful. Paying for something that was free before, without getting anything additional is not something I'm looking forward to. The team said that this, together with the increase in staking requirements are done to combat bot farms in Wild. The pass costs 40 vouchers, or 2,000 DEC/DEC-B/Credits.
The pass can't be bought before a season starts, and it expires at the end of the current season. So if you bought the pass in the middle of the season, it won't roll over to the next season. For those playing in Wild and want to know more about the Wild Pass, you can check out the support article here: https://support.splinterlands.com/hc/en-us/articles/27296621961876-Wild-Pass-FAQ.
Initially I thought the change was only going to be the pass, since that was the one most talked about. I was willing to try it out and see how the rewards are. A lot were saying that since a lot of bots will stop operation the rewards should also be higher. But when I saw that the SPS staking requirements were also doubled, I don't think I'll be playing in Wild anymore.
Because of this, I have gone back to Modern. I was Bronze 2 when I last played there, and I was able to climb back up to Silver 3 1100 rating on my first day back [using 20 energy]. Getting out of Bronze was faster now because the team added liquidity bots [these don't earn anything]. I faced a few Gold to Champ players along the way. Other Wild players seem to be doing the same thing and are moving to Modern. As soon as I reached 1300 rating though, I noticed that I am constantly facing Gold and higher level cards.
1300 or Silver 2 feels like the gatekeeper. This is actually one of the biggest reason why I moved to Wild. I have mostly Bronze level cards, with a few Silver soulbound reward cards, and facing Gold+ level cards in Silver 3 just feels bad. Looking at the Earn/Win, I am still earning less than what I was in Wild, even with the Modern Bonus and the double SPS staking.
If Wild rewards does increase because of these changes, I'm hoping some or a lot of Modern players move back there. This in turn should also increase the rewards in Modern. I'll probably keep on increasing my staked SPS before I go back to Wild.
That is it for my thoughts on the Wild changes. For those of you playing in Wild, what are your plans and thoughts on these. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think, and if you have suggestions for improvement.
And as always, these are Not Financial Advice, and Do Your Own Research.
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