In this week of Community Engagement Challenge, we will explore a feature of Splinterlands that is not used a lot of times but has some cool options that you can play around with. You will feel my reaction before and after entering this experience and my opinions about it. For the first time, you will see the Splinterlands feature....
The Challenge Tool
What is a Splinterlands Challenge?
Splinterlands challenge is a way to create a custom game with your friends and other people. This allows you to act as a game master for that battle and set the rules of combat, mana cap, allowed cards and Summoner level cap for that battle.
This is a fun way to test both you and your opponent's knowledge of the game by fully customizing the battle you will be in.
How to start a challenge?
On the upper right, beside "Practice" and "How to play", there is a Challenge button that you can click. Upon clicking this, you get greeted by this screen:
With the help of another player, @sprstoner, I was able to try out this challenge feature. There are many customizations that you can do with this.
I just went with random (aka, I didn't change anything) in order to see the full experience since this is the first time I will be doing it.
So, with that, let's see go in pants down and see what would happen.
As you can see on the result, this was a pubstomp in favor of @sprstoner winning. I didn't know it will be in Wild format and the ones I rented are all Life Splinter so I wasn't able to use any of it.
I was also expecting a lot different which I will be putting towards the end of this article.
The record of your challenges will be put under Wild Ranked Format - Battle Logs if you want to review it.
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_9b9c3736e8c8430145d8b61453fa2eb0?ref=konaqua122
Challenge Options
So, going back, before the game, there are multiple options you can choose from for the custom challenge.
- Allowed Cards
You can choose what set you want to play with. We have a few options of Gold Cards Only, Alpha cards Only, Gladiator Cards, Modern Format, Ghost Cards and Ghost Modern.
Ghost Cards are the same as the Starter cards. These are level 1 cards loaned to you when you have the specific cards. These have "S" on the upper right of the card and cannot be delegated, rented or sold.
- Summoner Level Caps
The summoner level caps is quite confusing but let me level it with you. Here's how it goes:
- Novice = All level 1
- Adept = Bronze League Cap
- Intermediate = Silver League Cap
- Advanced = Gold League Cap
- Expert = All level max cap
- More Options
On the right, there's a button for More Options. There is a 10 DEC fee but it would allow you to customize the battle rules of combat, elements and mana cap.
For the Rules of combat, you can choose up to 6 rules of combat that you can do in one battle. That can be ridiculous if doing 6 at a time but it's fun and challenging if you have access to majority of the cards in the game.
Broken Expectations Behind the Scene
This game mode was interesting, I'll be honest. However, I was expecting a lot higher before I started to try it. Some of the expectations were:
I did not expect to play and I was expecting can use a custom team.
I thought the idea was challenging another player and be challenged alongside them. I thought I would be setting the rules and then create a custom team that the "challenger" needs to win against. I didn't know or realize that I will be competing as well which defeats the purpose of challenging them because Practice is technically the same concept except for setting the rules.I did not expect I needed to wait for the opponent to accept the challenge.
I was expecting that it would be something like Brawl where you enter your team and then the opponent can just accept or deny it anytime or for a specific time. I was not expecting I need to queue up and the opponents I challenged also needs to be online at the same time.
Suggestions for Improving Challenge
Challenge should be more like Brawl.
I think the one needs to be addressed immediately is the queue situation. I really was expecting I just throw a challenge and they can do it whenever like in Brawls. I don't understand why the need for me to queue or wait until my opponent accept or finish setting up just like when you queue in a Ranked Battle.Simplify the terms.
I know that it sounds cooler to call it "Ghost Cards" instead of "Starter Cards" but it's confusing. The terms should be not what's cool but what the players are used to. If this is just a "me" problem, then I rescind this suggestion.Add a gift function on the challenge.
By this, I meant that you can attach a number of DEC or SPS or Credits that the challenger "can win" if they were able to win on the challenge. This can be a good incentive to use the Challenge tool like indirectly saying "Hey, if you beat this team, you can get this 200 DEC". Of course, if they can't, the staked prize will go back to you.
That was a fun idea but the devs really need to improve on it if they want players to use this feature of the game. Challenge can be a good concept to start with but I wish they don't stop improving this feature because as it is now, it's just a better Practice tool with additional requirement that you and your opponent needs to be online at the same time.
On another note, the Practice Tool, I think is bugged. I just did one in order to compare the Practice Tool and the Challenge Tool and for some reason, the Practice Tool only allowed me to use level 2 Rares which is Bronze Level. There's no indicator why I can only use level 2 but I know my cards and that's what happened. This was the battle:
https://splinterlands.com/battle/sl_58aeabbe1aef0f558fb72175c2765f8c?ref=konaqua122
My Helios Matriarch is level 4 Gold and only allowed me to use a level 2. This is a very weird experience.
That is my reaction and experience on using the Challenge Tool (and Practice Tool, I guess) and I hope they improve them more until the next time they want players to promote the feature in the next Community Engagement Challenge. Bye for now!
- This post is an entry for Splinterlands Social Media Contest.
- Animated Banners and Dividers are edited in Canva Pro.
- Other sources that I do not own are cited under their respective photos.
- Some of the fonts used are from instafonts.io
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