After playing Splinterlands for several hours, I noticed a little icon next to my DEC earnings when I won a battle.
• Looks like the DEC you earn is based on several things.
• Timing when you play – during less busy periods, more DEC is awarded to encourage people to play.
• Capture Rate % - this decreases as you win battles and recovers over time. Good way to stop people playing for hours and hours (Sadly as you can see, did not discourage me)
• DEC reward Bonuses – basically if you have the fancy cards, you get a boost. Also being in a guild gives you a boost. I was not in one to start, so seeing that this function gave me more DEC, I went in hunt for one.
Guilds
Clicking into the guild icon on the top gave you a list of guilds available. Most of the high-level guilds are By Request, so I clicked on the “All Types” filter and chose “Open”.
First thing I do with most new games is I click on whatever button it allows me to click, so once I entered a guild that had a free spot, it was clicks galore to figure out what the guild is about.
There is not a lot of information available if you are not a member, but what was available was the members section which you could see how strong they were and the buildings they had.
There is the Hall which determines how many members the guild can have; the Arena which determines the size of the Brawl and the Lodge! Just what I was looking for. The Lodge shows you the DEC bonus and the shop discount and it increases as the Lodge gets upgraded. What’s also important here is that it shows the activity of the guild. The Lodge only gets stronger as more quests are completed, so you want to see quests being completed daily.
Splinterlands on the Go
Being an Android user, I was glad to see that there was an app for it on the Google Play Store. Quick download and setup with my Hive Account and I was good to go on the couch. Sadly where I am, we are stuck in a lockdown, so the furthest I could test this was on the Wifi in the living room.
I have to say I am fairly impressed with the quality of the app as I can do majority of the things I want to do. You just can’t go to the market to buy cards and the event icon does not really work as it tells you to go to the website.
Took me a few battles to get used to the card selection process before battles. On the website, all your filters are on the top, however in the app, they are all on the bottom which I found counter intuitive. I always seem to almost run out of time as I kept swiping up and down.
I did encounter a minor glitch when I click on the cards during battle whereby the screen freezes. However, clicking on the Options button at the top seems to clear it.
However, the best feature, at least to me is the ability to use your Google Play balance to buy credits!! For people who like to do the Google surveys, this is a great opportunity to use the rewards for in-game credits. The credits can be used to buy packs. I managed to score some cheap giftcards, so I got the $10 credit pack which were quickly spent on 5 Untamed card packs.
A tip for buying in-app purchases on Google. If you spend close to $10, never take the first offer that Google gives you. Always back out before paying as occasionally, Google will offer you a $1 discount to get you to complete the deal. Free $1 to spend on the next pack!
Also, before opening your Untamed card packs you buy, make sure to have 5 Alchemy & Legendary potions available. This will increase your chance to get a Gold Foil or Legendary card!
What’s next?
For the eagled-eyed readers, you would have noticed my Power is around 156k and you might be scratching your head as to how much I spent to get there in a week. The only thing I bought were the 5 Untamed packs, which I opened only 1 till I get more potions. The rest of my cards and power are from renting.
I think renting is a great feature of the game and yes, it does cost money, but it is not as expensive as you think. My next post will be about renting and I will try to be as detailed as I can as it is something I think more beginners should make use of.