Splinterlands Development Update

in #splinterlands5 years ago (edited)

Shaking Things Up

One of the goals of the game since the beginning was to make it so that players have to really think when creating their team for each and every match. We wanted to ensure that it doesn't become boring or repetitive and that more skilled players who really understand all of the different cards and abilities will have the advantage while also keeping the battles quick and fairly simple to play.

That's why we've implemented the system of randomized battle parameters for each match - mana cap, ruleset, and inactive splinters. But even though we try to release new and interesting rulesets on a regular basis, we feel that active players still become familiar with the different variations pretty quickly.

Well, it won't stay that way for long! We want to keep you on your toes. We want you thinking hard. We want you to be racing the clock to try to figure out how to make the best team in a situation you've never seen before. How do we plan to do that, you ask? Like this:

Notice anything in that screenshot? Starting soon, in the Gold League and up, battles can now have two different rulesets active at the same time!

We've split all of the existing rulesets into two different categories:

  1. Rulesets that affect what types of Monsters and Summoners can be played; and
  2. Rulesets that affect stats, abilities, or other things on the battlefield.

Now rulesets from the first category will be combined with rulesets from the second category to instantly provide nearly 100 new and unique situations you will have to deal with, all in under 2 minutes!

We still plan to keep adding new rulesets from time to time, and now each single new ruleset we add will instantly create 10+ new combinations!

Require Active Authority Setting

This one has been on the to-do list for as long as I can remember, but it is becoming increasingly important as the value of the cards and now also DEC in players' accounts increases. The posting key is not meant to secure valuable assets, which Splinterlands cards have definitely become, so now players can secure their cards and other assets using the active key as was originally intended.

If this new setting is enabled, then any transactions that affect any items of monetary value in the game will need to be signed with the Active key instead of the Posting key for your account. This includes, transferring cards, transferring packs, opening packs, combining cards, selling cards, burning cards, and purchasing items with DEC.

When you attempt to perform one of these actions through the website, either Steem Keychain or Steem Connect will pop up asking you to sign and broadcast the transaction with your active key. You can turn this setting on or off at any time in the "settings" tab under your player name in the top right-hand corner of the site.

DEC Prize Pool

We are going to take 5% of all DEC spent in the game to date, and going forward, and put it towards a general prize pool to use for rewarding players. This prize pool may be used to fund various different things such as tournaments, guild battle rewards, in-game achievements, and anything else for which we would like to reward our players!

Italian Translation

Some of you may have noticed that there is a new language option available for the Splinterlands website - Italian! The Italian translations were contributed by avid player and valuable community member: @bafi, who did a fantastic job translating the over 15,000 words currently in the site!

Guilds Update

The much anticipated first version of the guilds feature is currently undergoing testing on the Splinterlands test site. While it is mostly ready to release, we have listened to the early feedback from some of the testers and players and we are taking some extra time to change a few things around to incorporate that feedback. We still expect it to be released by the end of the month, however.

P.S. if you're planning to create or be part of a guild you might want to stock up on some DEC now while they're cheap!

Mobile App Update

We are super excited to report that the third party development company we've engaged to build our mobile app and mobile web site have finally begun work earlier this month! We now have an additional small team hard at work implementing the awesome designs created by @nateaguila into a mobile app. We expect the mobile app to be released by the end of the year, if not sooner, but with such a large project it's hard to give a more exact date at this point.

Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!

Steem Monsters / Splinterlands Contact Info:

Steem Monsters / Splinterlands Blog

Steem Monsters / Splinterlands Website

Steem Monsters / Splinterlands Discord

Steem Monsters / Splinterlands Telegram

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Amazing stuff!!! Somehow i missed this post! The muting of sound is super helpful to me!

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It is natural that there are adjustments in the rules and conditions of the game to make it more interesting. What I do not agree with is to reduce the time to prepare the game strategy to less than two minutes and even more taking into account that there will be two rules at the same time for each battle. I think it is insufficient time and there will be many plays that will be lost because the battle team could not be formed on time in a strategic way according to the rules. Otherwise I agree on everything. Greetings.

It really was a lot of stuff to translate, but I'm happy I got the opportunity to do it!
Thanks for it @aggroed and @yabapmatt, I'm happy to have done a contribution to the best blockchain cardgame out there!

Awesome! That active key update is going to make a lot of people very happy! :D

I caught your interview with exyle, yabapmatt, good stuff. Me personally, I think guilds should be 8 minimum and 12 maximum, and each user on locked rosters that are also based on season settings for card status so there is no more card swapping as there is in tournaments at times. Great work as always thanks for the updates!

I was thinking at least 25 maybe even 50 in a guild. Gives more leniency for guild members to take a break or go on vacation or to rotate amount of activity. Plus with upcoming non-live tournaments it will be easy to match up 20v20 guild tournaments.
Also some guilds are already that large.

Perhaps small guilds and large guilds. Like major league and minor leagues.
Less expensive to start a minor guild and there may be lots of those. Then higher stakes more prestigious system of major guilds. The minor guilds can be a group of friends. The major guilds can be more expensive large gatherings.

Then again i didn't get to hear the interview with exyle.

Long story short if you don't get to catch it yaba mentioned that they wanted guilds with lesser people to more or less "spread the pool" of players due to this being new and not having tens or hundreds of thousands of players yet. I would be on board with that, and the thought I put above was if there were hypothetically 6-8 active guild members for the match, you would have 4-6 reserve or alternate members in the event they can't play. But they are also talking about having the ability to have these matches be the non-instant match variety (the term they use escapes me at the moment) so that we have something like matches set, we pick our lineups say 24-48 hours before and the rest is automated so that people aren't stuck sitting and waiting while it's all going on. In the same respect they started talking about having a very big, they called it "Swedish Match Play" of having say 20 matches that you get the day before for that, set the lineups and then the pool play type of matches are played the following day, so again you don't have to sit through so matches loading and all of that.

Yeah playing 20 matches is great. 20 matches x 2 minutes with ZERO waiting time is only 40 minutes. Now if you're talking 8 guild members playing against the other guild that's kinda weak sauce in my opinion... 16 minutes isn't really all that substantial unless you're playing 2 games against each player. I'd rather see something like 20 which to me means the guild should have like 25 maybe 30 people. But i don't see why they don't just allow more and people can decide if they want to join a guild with that many seeing that they may not get as much playing time... or perhaps they want to be in a guild with tons more because of exactly that reason.

As sinistry said above they would be asynchronous matches I think is what they are going for. So you have let's say it is 20 matches pre-loaded to set lineups, you set the lineups then the matches are played at a later time so that everyone in the matches are not wrapped up for time. 20 I would assume being against each member once or against 10 members 2 times each. I interpreted that as the hypothetical that was thrown out by yaba and the direction they are aiming for. They are pros and cons of each side having lesser numbers and larger numbers in guilds that is for sure. I think they are looking at having separate divisions for numbers of players and expertise levels. There could surely be 8-10 "Mega Guilds" that is for sure, but I think they are going for a higher quantity for more inclusion and to curb the chance of one guild having 20 of the top 40 ranked players, or a scenario like that which I also see the wisdom in curbing. What about a gold guild, lol? Now that would be intriguing. More of a "Royal/Noble Clan" than guild though as I would call it.

Well seems like that wish of mine may be granted. Looks like 30 may be possible. Obviously they're still developing but it's looking promising.
image.png

You mean asynchronous tournaments?

Yeah that's the term they are trying to push ... it kinda sucks to be honest. No one even knows how to spell it without spell check. They can do better... I won't be calling it that.

Another thought for guild play would be to have say two players in diamond/champion, two in gold level, two in silver and two in bronze level matches, equaling a team of eight with the players playing at all levels in guild play, theoretically spreading the talent out of the gate. But having the different levels of major and minor league guilds is also very cool and practical.

Thanks for more new features. I can’t wait to try the new rule sets.

I am curious, why is it recommended to stock up on DEC for guilds?

The thinking is that if the cost for guild play is high enough there will be a run on DEC, making it much more expensive to buy then versus now. Plus if there were to be additional DEC rewarded in guild play the given days those games are played are really going to water down distribution making it even harder to accumulate through league play.

I was saving up for orbs, but I will hold my DECs now until the release of Guilds. Good luck/skills this season.

The mobile app will be nice, hope all goes well in development.

This is so cool. I keep thinking about how a given card would be handy where two rulesets meet; and now it's happening.
Weak Magic and Little League, it's your time to shine, buddy.

I love that guy! He's bordering on becoming my go to for Melee Mayhem and Super Sneak.

Whenever a card's scorned I like to take a closer look.

Damn, I've never seen that card so far. What is that? :D

Enchanted Defender. Heaps of armour, but only 1 life.
Cheap to play if you find a way to keep him alive.
Up close and personal for example. Means he'll only face melee cards; which will have to hack through his armour, getting thorns for their efforts.

Hey thanks for the info,
I just bought one and gonna try him out :)
Do you have any tactic for keeping him alive?

Look at which splinters are available, your opponent is just as limited as you are.
If Earth and Death are unavailable for example, then put him up the back as sneak insurance.
Very unlikely your opponent has Shin Lo.
Otherwise it's all about the rulesets.
Weak Magic and Up Close and Personal mean he's only vulnerable to poison.
Supersneak and Melee Mayhem mean you can bury him in the middle of your lineup and he can attack from anywhere without being easily targeted by magic dealers.
His armour means he can survive retaliation and thorns from doing so. (although again, check which splinters are available. Death and Fire each have poison retaliators.
That said, they only have a 50% chance to retaliate, and an additional 50% chance to poison, so maybe roll the dice anyway)

I love this card too! And if you use him in the Life Splinter with the Angel of Light's resurrect, all his Armor points will be resurrected with him. So it's like getting two Enchanted Defenders in a match. Of course, that's not possible under Little League rules and he has to be the first to die to get resurrected, but if that happens, he can get rid of your sneak melees easily.

Armorsmith helps, even Defender of Truth, with some extra starting armour.
Just gotta think through the possibilities :)

LOL. So true

Greetings, @steemmonsters

Excelent notice. Please, tell me a thing, what will happen when a person join some guild??? What will have on guilds???

thank you and have a nice day

#palnet #sct #battle #spt #weedcash #steemleo #aaa #zzan #steemace #sportstalk #jahm #int #stem #creativecoin #neoxian

✨Mobile App will be EPIC!✨

The 2x Rule changes is great, this will be good fun. being able to choose from all of your splinter Teams would be nice tho, especially now that 2x rule sets will make things super challenging.

kudos on shifting 5% of DEC revenue to rewarding players, this is kick ass! 💖

Thanks for the updates and keep up the awesome work!!

Thanks for the update, we have a lot to look forward to

#battle

Gosh, you guys are making us think here! I enjoy casual play and hopefully with this new shakedown, can still keep up with the other gaming enthusiasts. It is a cool update to the game though and very nice with the active key addition.

It'll be simpler than it sounds. Rulesets which restrict playable cards will automatically remove them from the screen; as they do now, so you just need to pick your team based on what you can see.

It does add an extra layer on how to play against your opponent, so some strategizing is involved. It is a great addition, don't get me wrong. I like to play as I'm unwinding for the day, and now just have to put that brain to use a little. Darn! :)

Yeah, I'm usually first to submit my team. He looks good... he'll go nicely....just enough left for.....he'll do.
If I win, I win. Usually I don't :)

Lol, I understand that all too well!

Double ruleset Is genial so crazy

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Waiting for mobile app.
Just reached in Gold league so curious to see the new combine two rules.

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Delightful news that should significantly increase the value of summoners for 2 mana. #spt

Because the ruleset that summonsers loose their powers is gonna rotate into the mix more often?

Cool beans!

All are amazing updates or enhancements which are in progress. All are absolutely spot on and necessary. I love the way you keep things interesting.

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@steemmonsters, These updates are awesome and definitely nothing should remain constant, changes adds interesting aspects. Specially we are waiting for the "Mobile Application. Keep up team and good wishes from my side.

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I am willing to install the mobile app!

Awesome work as always! Splinterlands is my favorite game and actually, I love the community here as just as much as the game itself!
065 - Efreet (701px, 12fps).gif

Awesome stuff, thanks guys!

I can't wait for the app release, that's going to be a game-changer!

The new game-play will add an interesting touch.
You guys keep finding ways to make it more challenging to reach higher season levels... I like it!

Yes! Can't wait for this.

At the moment it seems I'm glued to the PC more than I should be.

Will be a big relieve once the app is out and you can comfortably play tourneys from the phone!

Great, can't wait for mobile app.

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I just started playing a week or so ago and honestly love the game..

Excited to see where you go with it.

Only caveat would be if you change settings so we have to use active key for so many actions. Honestly. Adding those 3 to 5 annoying steps for everything is well.... super annoying

I get the need for security on assets. But still. Staking tokens requires those same steps and it's annoying enough I wait forever to do it..

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Will there always be two rule sets in play or will there still be one at a time in the mix?

Awesome update @steemmnsters , upped and resteemed to spread the news!😎👍👾👹👿

Un sentito grazie a Luca (@bafi) per la traduzione!

@asgarth will soon start integrating the ability to handle the active key feature. It is not currently available on Peakmonsters.com but will be soon.

Very good news :) Can't wait to play at a guild with my friends :)

Awesome updates. This game just keeps getting better.

Thank you for the update

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Great that is inspiring. We appreciate suck thinking Team always looking for innovation and creativity. Hats off to the Team!

Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaa Dude! 2 rule sets!

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You guys rock! Thanks for keeping everything interesting!

"any items of monetary value in the game will need to be signed with the Active key instead of the Posting key"

===> This is a great change !

When developing Splinterwars, even if I was using Steemconnect so as not to store any password, people were really worried about using their posting key. They were afraid that third parties may access and transfer their cards.

This update means that people will feel even more secured and will not be in doubt. This is great!

The double arena is a major update and great in the strategy part, but I wanted to point out that the security option that Splinterlands now provides is a good addition.

Loving this.
One question. In this match I had two rulesets I would assume belong in category 2, since neither prevent selection of any specific card.
image.png
Did you decide to open it up further for even more combinations?