Hello again everyone; I am back to the grind after my Lunar New Year hiatus. There have been some changes since my last post about Splinterlands. We are in the three battle rules era now, with battles becoming more varied than ever. Soulbound card is another implementation that I would love to talk about.

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_{Image from this recent Splinterlands blog}

Battle Ruleset Updates

First off, let's discuss the battle ruleset changes. The most significant change is the possibilities of three rulesets. As explained in this official blog post, this only affects players who are at the gold leagues and above. I like the idea of keeping things easier to learn for newbies, but I also feel like the silver league should have some chance to get three rulesets. There are multiple reasons as to why I think this is essential.

Firstly, it helps people get comfortable before the gold league. Practice makes perfect, and it sucks that there is no way to practice three rulesets for silver and below. Having at least some chance to get them in battles would allow newcomers to get accustomed to it. By the chance these players get to the gold league for the first time, they would at least have some experience and not be forced to adapt right on the get-go when they first step up into the gold league. It's just like acclimating fishes to a new tank; we don't just drop them in immediately and let them figure everything out independently.

Secondly, these three rulesets get generated in brawls and tournaments regardless of league level. In that case, how do we practice for these higher stake competitions if we cannot get them in regular battles? We have no way to test, and trial runs the bronze and silver three rulesets lineup outside these events, which I think is an anti-gaming design. We should have some means to practice and get comfortable with these rulesets outside those competitions.

Overall, I think the current implementation is okay, but there are improvements to be had. The silver leagues are still a botfest at the moment. I certainly hope they can make the silver league more complicated for bots to perform so we can regulate them down to bronze. I don't have strong hate feeling against botting, especially as they are legal in this game. However, there are some rental and scholarship setups going on in this game right now and I would prefer these setups to success over botters. The idea of "scholarship" stems from Axie, in which players lend assets to other actual human players to play and they split the loot. This encourages game activity more than the bots, so I don't mind botting being hard in this game right now.

I also don't want to go off-topic, so let's focus on battle rulesets. The other change is less noticeable -- a change in the ruleset generation methodology. You can find a thorough explanation on the blog I linked above, so I will not do a quote of those whole paragraphs here. Essentially, there are more ruleset combinations now than before, and there are far more variables even without taking three rulesets into account. This is a less impactful adjustment but I love it. I don't know that we used to have "primary" and "secondary" rulesets. Still, I can certainly see some patterns after playing for so long. After a while, you pretty much have seen everything. This change will hopefully provide some new life to the one and two rulesets battles.

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_{Image from this recent Splinterlands blog}

Soulbound Reward Cards

The biggest recent implementation is definitely the soulbound cards. One important aspect of a blockchain game is that we can earn assets from it and somehow this idea goes against it?! What in the world are we doing with this anti-blockchain idea? I am sure some players have doubts like these as one of the biggest cons of this update is that our daily earning is reduced. It might not be good money for most, but one hook of this game is that we can earn something every day and that includes these reward cards. With tradable reward cards out of the loot table, the items that have direct monetary value we can get from chests are just the SPS, and a lucky pack once in a while. All these were my initial reactions too, until I read: "...until the cards go out of print".

Okay, that changed many of the initial cons I can think of. Soulbound cards without having them be eventually tradeable have a lot of serious issues that will come up in the future. One issue is that this gives old players way too much of an advantage as they will have cards that new players have no way of getting. If you join this game in 2024, then you are already missing some cards right away. This kind of advantage is inexcusable in any competitive PvP game. I understand that early bird benefit is an excellent incentive in blockchain games, but there are a lot of reasons why all those games out there make all these early gifts tradable or strictly cosmetic.

Delaying them from becoming tradable solves all my worries and I am in love with this concept. It serves as like an early access to cards for active players and investors can still buy them afterward if there are good cards among them. This way, it does help encourage the serious players to grind and I am all for it.

Another thing I find fascinating is that all previous reward cards are immediately out of print. The lower amount of them will increase their value and I am personally happy about that as a grinder who has far more reward cards than cards from packs.

I also love the loot chest change, in which we can use our potions to increase the odds of getting shiny cards and legendary cards. As a renting grinder, the potions are meaningless to me. They might as well be "null" when I open them in chests. It's as disappointing as it gets. I mean, look at this:

This is how many potions I have in my inventory right now, with no way to use them previously. From my personal standpoint, I simply cannot hate any update that helps out a budget player.

Another thing that I absolutely adore, and a pro-grinder adjustment, is that a single loot chest may now contain multiple of the same reward card. Previously, getting cards out of the chests was a fine gain - it's at least better than merits or potions - but it doesn't feel very rewarding either. Now, the idea of getting multiple cards makes it so that we can really earn more when all these cards are available for sale later. This is a huge incentive to a grinder like me, knowing that playing every day is more rewarding than ever.

I am a bit saddened by the reduced drop rate of packs in the silver chests though. I understand that they want to make gold level the new "entrance to the real deal" and have bronze and silver be like playing grounds for the lesser enthusiasts. I am always pondering whether to go for gold every time I see these announcements, but I simply don't have the budget for it, sadly. My current plan is to move to gold in the later part of the season when the competition is easier, and pray that I hit them big.

The three new abilities are all exciting but I don't have much to say about them before testing them all. The one that has me uncertain about as of now is the Conscript ability. I am no problem seeing guild cards in regular battles -- this part I will try it out before I say whether I like it or not. I just dislike the idea that everyone is sort of forced into guild gameplay with this new ability.

First off, I understand that guild plays a key part in this game and more so in the future when the land gameplay is out and running. I just hate the idea of being forced into or risk missing out on too many rewards. I think players should be free to choose how they play a game. They can skip the modes they dislike and not forfeit too many rewards, especially those that cannot be found anywhere else.

For instance, the SPS reward for brawl is fine because SPS can be earned in many different ways. Players are encouraged to take part in brawls, but it is not "play or you miss out". Brawls give out far more merits than the meager amount one can find in chests. Hence, it's almost a need, not want, to join a guild and play brawl now just so you can then get these gladius cards for the Conscript ruleset. One counterargument is that we don't need gladius cards to play in this ruleset and we can just play a regular team. Sure, that is true, but these gladius cards are widely regarded as great cards because they are just great, duh. It's a disadvantage by default to not have them when this ruleset comes up.

That is the biggest concern or dislike I have for Conscript. The other abilities I have no nitpick to go against.

There is also a card set update but I have no strong opinion on this one besides "great job, nice update" so I will skip it.

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Conclusion

Overall, I think January 2023 is one of the best months for Splinterlands update. Serious amount of work was done by the team (that just went through a staff cut, mind you) and this game is off to a great start in the year 2023.

If you are not yet a warrior of the Splinterlands, grab your ticket and join us!

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