In the past, guilds paid construction costs to the Order of the Scale, who employed architects to oversee the construction of—and upgrades to—all buildings. Soon, members will instead purchase “Guild Power,” which will determine a building’s limitations and bonuses based on a standard menu of upgrades and improvements. And if a member chooses to leave the guild for whatever reason, they can take their Guild Power with them... save for a small amount paid to the Order of the Scale for construction and maintenance fees.
The Splinterlands team is excited to introduce the concept of Guild Power, the first of a planned series of big updates & new features for the guilds system!
The following changes described below are planned to be released on June 13 EDT during our normally scheduled Tuesday maintenance window:
- Guild Power
- 7 day new guild member probationary period
- Option to purchase Blood Stones and Power Stones using DEC-B
There's a lot to unpack here, so let's dive right in!
A new way to level up guild buildings
Instead of directly contributing Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) or DEC Batteries (DEC-B) to guild buildings, going forward you will contribute Guild Power (GP).
Otherwise, the process of leveling up buildings remains unchanged. Guild Leaders will still need to use Crowns for the Brawl buildings, and level up requirements remain the same.
To get GP, players will need to burn an equal amount of either DEC or DEC-B, which can be done by clicking the GET GP button on the building screen. It is possible to have the DEC or DEC-B burned by one account, and the GP issued to either the same or a different account, which allows some flexibility for how building contributions can be organized. Note that once issued, GP is non-transferable (i.e. SoulBound to your account) and can only be used to upgrade guild buildings.
When a player leaves or is kicked out of a guild, 90% of their contributed GP goes with them and can be applied again to another guild unless they have specifically chosen to donate it to the guild (more on that below). The other 10% remains as a permanent donation to the guild.
This is the only way that GP can ever leave a building. Once contributed, you cannot "un-contribute" whenever you want; your GP contributions will remain locked in the buildings for as long as you remain a member of your guild.
Woah, does that mean buildings can potentially level down!?
Yes! When a player leaves or is kicked out of a guild, if enough GP is removed from buildings, one or more buildings may drop down in level. At that point the benefits from those buildings to guild members drop to the lower level until more GP is added to level it back up.
Example: let's say a guild member has contributed a total of 100,000 GP to the Arena and 50,000 GP to the Guild Hall. Upon leaving the guild, this player will get back a total of 135,000 GP (90,000 GP from the Arena and 45,000 GP from the Guild Hall). Either the Guild Hall, or the Arena, or both, may level down if the reduction in GP drops them below the threshold required for their current level.
Permanent (donated) vs. undonated GP
When you contribute GP to a building, you have the choice of making the contribution a permanent donation to the guild (or not). This is done by checking the "Donate to guild" checkbox.
GP that is donated to the guild will always stay in the guild even if the player leaves or is kicked out. This is meant for players who want to set up a guild for other people, like a larger organization that may want to set up many member guilds.
So when a guild member leaves, 90% of only the undonated building contributions will be returned.
You can see a breakdown of how much GP is permanently donated vs. undonated by hovering your mouse over contribution details on both the building screen and member list screen.
Treatment of existing buildings
At the time of release, all existing guild buildings will switch from requiring DEC or DEC-B to level up to requiring Guild Power instead. DEC / DEC-B that has already been contributed to existing guild buildings will get converted to permanently donated Guild Power.
This means that all existing buildings will remain at their current level and the GP in them cannot be removed.
7 day new guild member probationary period
In order to promote guild loyalty and discourage players from "guild hopping" too frequently, the Guild Power release also introduces a 7 day probationary period for new guild members. This means:
- You cannot make any building contributions until 7 days after joining a guild. This includes daily focus contributions to the Focus Lodge.
- You cannot receive any benefits from the Focus Lodge and Guild Store until 7 days after joining a guild.
The ramifications of not receiving building benefits are as follows:
- Ranked Battle bonuses from the Focus Lodge do not apply.
- Shop discounts from the Focus Lodge do not apply.
- You cannot buy items from the Guild Store.
- It is possible to earn Merits and SPS from Brawls, but the Merit bonus from the Guild Store does not apply.
- The Merit bonus from the Guild Store also does not apply to Merits earned in daily focus & season reward chests.
We plan to add several new guild buildings in the future, the benefits of which may also be withheld from guild members during the probationary period.
There will be a countdown timer shown on the guild buildings page, so you know how much time remains until the 7 day probationary period is over.
But wait, there's more!
Included in the Guild Power release, we will be adding an option to purchase Blood Stones and Power Stones using DEC-B. The cost of the Stones will remain the same, but now you can choose to acquire them with either DEC or DEC-B.
We hope Guild Power will encourage further growth in guilds and provide added flexibility for long-term planning. As we mentioned, this is only the first piece of a series of planned updates to the guilds system. Consider it as laying the foundation for what's to follow.
Stay tuned for more updates from the guilds, and as always, we'll see you on the battlefield!
FAQ
Below we look at some details of how specific situations are handled.
I got Guild Power from participating in the Splinterlands 5 Year Anniversary Event. When can I use it?
GP will be added to your account balance right away when you burn DEC or DEC-B in the event, at a rate of 1 GP for every 1 DEC or DEC-B burned. Once the updates described in this post are released, then you will be able to use your GP.
Do I need to contribute all my GP to guild buildings immediately?
No, Guild Power is just another type of balance in your account, and is listed on the Item Inventory screen. You can choose to hold it in your account until such time as you wish to use it for a building contribution. If you leave your current guild, you will not lose any un-used GP, and it is possible to have a balance of GP without belonging to any guild at all.
Do Crowns have to be contributed again if a building levels down?
No, Crowns remain permanently contributed. If a Brawl building levels down, no further Crowns need to be contributed to level it back up. Only more GP.
Can I turn Guild Power back into DEC or DEC-B?
No, it's a one way conversion process. Once you have acquired GP, you can only use it to contribute to guild buildings. It cannot be transferred, sold, delegated, traded / swapped for other resources, etc.
Even if your guild has already maxed out all buildings, we are planning to add a number of new guild buildings in the future with lots of great new rewards, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to apply any extra Guild Power to those.
Is it possible to change my mind later about making a permanently donated vs. undonated building contribution?
No, this decision must be made at the time of the building contribution and is final. If you don't check the “Donate to guild” checkbox, you cannot change your mind later on & switch that particular contribution to a permanent donation.
Note that it is perfectly fine to have a mix of donated & undonated contributions. Sometimes you may want to click that checkbox, and sometimes you may not.
What happens if the Guild Hall levels down?
Nothing, really. If your guild has reached its maximum member limit, and the Hall levels down, nobody will get kicked out or anything. You simply won't be able to add any more new guild members until more GP is contributed to level the Hall back up.
Normally it's true that the level of other buildings cannot exceed the Hall level, but in this case there will be no adverse consequences. Consider, for example, what happens if your guild has a level 6 Hall and level 5 Arena. If the Hall levels down to level 4, your Arena can stay at level 5 and you'll continue to enjoy level 5 Arena benefits. You just won't be able to level up the Arena any further until your Hall is restored to its previous higher level.
How can I tell exactly what the effect is on buildings when guild members leave?
It will be possible to see a history of building contributions even from players who have left the guild. When a guild member leaves or is kicked out, a red "leaving" contribution record will be added for any buildings that have GP removed:
In this example, a guild member had contributed 150,000 total GP to a building, of which 10,000 GP was permanently donated and 140,000 GP was undonated. Then the player left the guild. The player got back 126,000 GP (90% of the 140,000 undonated amount).
The remaining 14,000 GP (10% of the undonated amount) was left in the building and is now permanent. You can see this GP flow represented in the tooltip of the first screenshot above.
Note that this information is available for anyone to see, for any guild, regardless of whether you are a guild member or not.
I'm a new guild member participating in a Brawl at the time of release. Will my Merit earnings be affected?
If a Brawl Cycle is in progress at the time Guild Power is released and you have already entered a Fray, then the 7 day probationary period restriction on the Merit bonus for Brawl earnings will go into effect starting with the first complete Brawl Cycle that follows the release (not the one still in progress).
If you have not yet entered a Fray, or if you leave your current Fray, then the restriction will take effect when you next enter a Fray.
I'm a community app developer and my app relies on guild APIs. How will I be affected?
There are no new APIs being added for Guild Power, and the way you use existing APIs will not be changing.
However, some new fields will be added to the data returned by APIs, to distinguish between permanently donated and undonated GP contributions. And the meaning of some existing fields will change; any fields that refer to DEC contribution values will be re-interpreted to mean permanently donated GP values going forward.
Keep an eye on the developers-3rd-party channel in Discord. More specific information will be made available there as we get closer to the release date.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be sent to @sps.dao.