The Splinterlands team is planning to replace the current Energy Capture Rate (ECR) system in the game with a new Energy system which we feel is far simpler, will be easier to use and more familiar for players, and will help address some of the remaining advantages that bots may have in the current ECR system. The new system is currently planned to be released during the maintenance window on Tuesday, March 21st, 2023.
The way it is currently planned to work is that each account will have a maximum pool of 50 "Energy". Each ranked battle played will use up exactly 1 Energy and if a player does not have any Energy left then they will not be able to play ranked battles until they get more. Energy will automatically regenerate over time at the rate of 1 Energy per hour, and there will also be an option for players to purchase more Energy if they would like to continue playing without waiting for their Energy to regenerate.
Another important change is that the amount of Energy a player has will no longer factor into the Reward Points or SPS rewards calculations for winning battles, so players will be able to earn the same amount of rewards whether they have 50 out of 50 Energy or 1 out of 50 Energy remaining.
The game UI will also be updated to clearly show how much Energy is available right near the "Battle" button, so players can easily see it before they battle and access the options to read more information about the Energy system or purchase more Energy if desired.
Please note that when this change is released, players' Energy meter will be filled proportionally to the amount of ECR they had at the time of the update. For example, a player with 50% ECR at the time of the update will have 25 Energy (since that is 50% of the max of 50 Energy).
Purchasing Energy
Players will have the option to purchase up to 50 additional Energy per day. This means that, at most, each account will be able to play 100 battles in a single day (50 starting Energy plus up to 50 purchased Energy). The cost to purchase more Energy will vary based on the maximum league between the player's current league, their season chest tier, and their daily focus chest tier, across both Modern and Wild play formats. This is due to the fact that winning battles is far more valuable in the higher leagues than in the lower leagues.
Energy can be purchased using DEC/DEC-B tokens, which will be burned, or with Credits, in which case Splinterlands will burn the equivalent amount of DEC on behalf of the player (this is similar to how market purchases currently work when using Credits). The current planned costs to purchase Energy at each league are shown in the table below:
| League | Cost per 1 Energy (DEC) |
|---|---|
| Bronze | 1 |
| Silver | 10 |
| Gold | 50 |
| Diamond | 150 |
| Champion | 500 |
Keeping it Simple
The concept of this new system was suggested by a few different players over recent months as being a much easier and simpler design, while also solving some problems with the current ECR system - and we agree. It should also be more familiar to new players as it is a similar mechanic to that of many "free-to-play" games on the market.
Under the new Energy system, players will be able to play 24 battles per day before needing more Energy, or, if a player expects to miss a day of battles, they can binge 50 battles the day before and then have about two days before it fully regenerates. Players who would like to play more than that may purchase more Energy by burning DEC tokens which benefits the entire ecosystem.
We look forward to there being no more confusion about how ECR reduces by a percentage rather than a flat amount, about how ECR will affect your rewards, or about how to best space out your battles to maximize rewards (which is much easier for bots than humans), and we want to thank the players who make constructive suggestions like this one that ultimately help improve the game experience for everyone.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be sent to @sps.dao.