Rentals 2.0

As most of you likely know, Splinterlands rolled out Rentals 2.0 last week. The new system not only adds rental capabilities to the Splinterlands website (previously rentals were only accessible using Peakmonsters.com), but also adds significant functionality to the rental system, allowing for bulk listings and bulk rentals. www.peakmonsters.com has integrated with the new system to provide even more functionality. Check out all the posts from @peakmonsters for more information about how the system works.

I also recommend this post from @khazrakh showing how he was able to go from a basic spellbook to gold league in one afternoon - no money invested (other than the spellbook), using earnings from the game to rent cards to continue moving up the ranks. It seems like it would be possible for a skilled player to bootstrap all the way to diamond (at least) fairly quickly without investing any funds. A great way to lower the investment needed to play Splinterlands at a high level!

From the card owner's point of view, the news system provides a way to make some income from unused cards - to be invested into either more cards or taken out of the game as profit. My silver-level deck is pretty lean; I use most of the cards I own. Nonetheless, I've been able to put a few extra cards on the market, and am making enough DEC to be equivalent to another 2-3 battle wins/day. Not going to move the needle too much, but adds up over time!

The new system is a huge step forward for the game - great work to the @splinterlands @peakmonsters teams for creating this system which has both increased the value of everyone's assets while simultaneously making the game more accessible for new players.

Using Rentals for Tournaments

Now that rentals 2.0 have been introduced, there are many potential ways that they system can be used to further increase functionality. One perennial critique about Splinterlands is that it can be somewhat "play to win", especially in the tournament scene.
Many of the entrants in tournaments do not have most of the eligible cards for that tournament maxed out, and so are at a severe disadvantage in the tournament. See Splinterlands Improvement Suggestion - Skill-Based Tournaments from @costanza for more information.

I definitely agree that a Splinterlands mode that puts all players on a level playing field would be a great addition to the game, and would be very fun to play. I don't, however, agree with Costanza that a mode where more "ghost" cards are created for tournament play is a good idea. In my view, this risks devaluing the actual cards, since all of the sudden players could gain the value of playing with high level cards without having to actually pay for them. Costanza's proposed solution to require a minimum level of power in order to access the various tournaments helps, but it is not enough - it would be relatively easy to buy or rent a number of less-useful cards to hit power thresholds, and could potentially compress the value between the useful and less useful cards - and players have invested a lot of money into the higher use cards.

Proposed Rental for Tournaments Features - Phase 1

The rental 2.0 system helps with the pay-to-win problem already, because players can more easily rent eligible cards needed to be more competitive in tournaments. However, I believe that the system could be improved to make tournaments even more accessible.

The first step could, in theory, be completed through an addition to the www.peakmonsters.com interface, without any more updates the Splinterlands itself. Imagine if the peakmonsters website had a list of upcoming tournaments, as well as a 1-click button to rent the required cards to hit max level for that tournament, as well as how much it would cost? The cards would only need to be rented for a few days (minimum of 2 + days until tournament starts, so that player has the cards for both rounds).

The peakmonsters interface would need to look at all the cards needed to hit max level, then subtract the cards that the player already owns or is renting. The remaining cards could be rented quickly and easily. A player could, in theory, rent the needed cards within a minute or two, and would then know that they are ideally positioned to place highly within the tournament.

More advanced features could include selecting only specific splinters to max out, or allowing exclusion of certain highest-priced cards to get the cost down.

This same feature could be used to easily max out certain splinters for various pack types (e.g. Untamed) separate from any tournament.

Proposed Rental for Tournaments Feature - Phase 2

Another more advanced level of this same concept could be applied with some updates from Splinterlands as well. Splinterlands could in theory create a tournament mode that required all entrants to have maxed cards in order to enter. This would ensure that the tournament is entirely "fair" in that everyone is on a level playing field. The winner would know that they are the most skilled player.

This would risk pricing out some players who don't have the DEC to max out all the cards. This could be alleviated, by the tournament creator, if Splinterlands also added some more granularity to the tournament rules creation screen. At its extreme, the tournament creator could select the max level for each card individually, and would be able to see an "estimated price" for their tournament that a player with no cards of their own would need to pay to rent the needed cards for 2-3 days. By selectively excluding certain high priced cards (or reducing their level), the tournament creator could work to reduce the rental cost to make their tournament more accessible - if they wanted to. This feature would be similar to how tournaments can have level limits based on leagues, and can exclude legendary monsters or legendary summoners.

Conclusion

Both of the features above would help create a "levelized" mode for tournaments that would appeal to gamers used to E-sports where players battle with no advantages based on their account strength - think MOBA's, shooters, and sports games. It could also have the effect of increasing usage of the rental system, and ultimately the costs of renting cards. Both aspects could be a big win for the Splinterlands eco-system.

Also, I'm sure that the features proposed are much easier for me to write about than for @splinterlands and @peakmonsters to implement! I have tried to keep the proposals to things that I hope are at least possible to implement. That being said, I am not a developer, and there may be aspects of the proposals, especially the Phase 2 proposals, that are difficult, time consuming, or potentially impossible to implement. If so, I'd be interested in hearing suggestions of how to refine or limit the proposals to make it more achievable.

And again, great job to the teams for implementing Rentals 2.0 in its current form - it's a huge step forward, and will surely be the basis for lots of innovative features moving forwards.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and I'll see you on the battlefield!