The Splinterlands team is excited to announce the second piece of the ranked battle overhaul - a completely revamped ranked reward system! The new system is currently planned to be released on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024, during the normal maintenance window shortly after the end of the current ranked play season.
The Glint Token
Under the new system, instead of earning Reward Points for each ranked battle win, players will earn a new token called Glint.
The Glint token will be non-transferrable, and the formula for earning Glint tokens from ranked battle wins will be very similar to the current formula for earning Reward Points, which is primarily based on the player's current rating and then adjusted based on various modifiers and bonuses such as the type of cards used in the battle, guild building level, and staked SPS balance, among other things.
Additionally, as mentioned in this post, winners of Modern format battles will receive 50% more Glint than winners of Wild format battles (assuming the same rating and other modifiers) in order to encourage more players to play in that format.
Players will also no longer earn loot chests containing random rewards. Instead, the Glint token can be used to purchase a selection of different items in a new Reward Shop, which will give players much more choice and control around the rewards they receive from gameplay. At the end of each ranked play season, instead of loot chests, players will earn a significant Glint bonus based on their final rating at the end of the season.
Please note that the daily focus system will be removed as part of this update, as we would prefer that players focus on selecting the best cards for winning the match and not have to choose between that and cards that match their daily focus. We plan to implement a new system in the future that better achieves the goals of encouraging players to play more often, try new cards, and explore new areas of the product.
The Reward Shop
A new section will be added to the shop within the Splinterlands website where players can spend their Glint tokens to purchase all manner of rewards. The initial set of items that are planned to appear in the reward shop are listed below, however we plan to continually add new items to the shop over time to provide players with new and interesting options on which to spend their rewards.
Please note that spending Glint in the Reward Shop will require the Posting key as it part of the normal course of play and does not allow any assets to be removed from the account.
Soulbound Reward Card "Draws"
The primary items available in the reward shop will be five different levels of what we are calling "draws" that will grant the purchaser a random card from the current soulbound reward card set. These will be very similar to the old loot chests, except that they will only have reward cards and no other types of rewards.
The more expensive draws will have higher chances of receiving higher rarity and gold foil cards, as well as higher chances of receiving more copies of the card, just as the different loot chest tiers have in the past.
One major difference between the reward shop "Draws" and the previous loot chests, is that now players can choose which level of draw they want to purchase. Lower rated players can save up their Glint in order to purchase the more expensive Draws to get higher chances of Legendary, Epic, and Gold Foil cards, and higher rated players can purchase larger quantities of the cheaper Draws if they prefer to get more Common and Rare cards.
Additionally, the cost in Glint of each tier of Draw will increase by 50% for each 10 that are purchased by an individual player during a ranked play season. This helps to limit the total amount of reward cards that are awarded each season and also allows the lower tier Draws to be reasonably priced without allowing high ranked players to buy ridiculous amounts of them.
Keep in mind that in addition to saving up Glint to purchase more expensive Draws, players may also choose to save up their Glint until the next set of soulbound reward cards is released (currently expected this summer) in order to get a head start on collecting them!
The full details of each Draw, including pricing and chances of different card rarities, foils, and quantities, will be available on the reward shop page when it is released; however, players can expect them to be very similar to the five different tiers of loot chests available currently.
Please note that players will still be able to claim reward chests from previous seasons / focuses for a time after this update goes live, however that ability will eventually be phased out and any unclaimed chests will be lost.
Merits
Players will also be able to use Glint to purchase Merits in the Reward Shop which can be used to purchase Guild items like Gladius packs. Merits will be offered in batches of 200, and like with the Reward Card Draws, the price will increase by 50% for each 10 batches of Merits purchased with Glint during a ranked play season.
Energy & Potions
Glint will now be able to be used to purchase Energy and Potions as well. The cost for Energy will be determined by the player's current rating (as is already the case when purchasing Energy with other tokens), and will increase for every 25 Energy purchased each day like normal. Potions (both Legendary and Alchemy) are planned to have a fixed cost in Glint which is not planned to increase.
Limited Edition Titles
Finally, we plan to offer three limited-edition in-game titles as part of the initial Reward Shop that are geared towards high rated players who may already have the reward cards that they need and want to save up their Glint for a larger purchase.
Initially, these titles will be the only transferrable items that will be available to purchase with Glint. There is planned to be one Rare title, one Epic title, and one Legendary title available, each with a limited quantity. Each account may only purchase one copy of each Title from the Reward Shop using Glint, and once they are all purchased then those titles will no longer be available except through the peer-to-peer market.
The full details, including the titles themselves, the cost, and the available quantity, will be shown in the Reward Shop when it is released.
Future Items
As mentioned above, we hope to continually add new and interesting items to the Reward Shop over time to give players more options on how they would like to spend their Glint. These might include the option to purchase specific soulbound reward cards, special promo cards, skins and cosmetics, mystery chests, or even items and resources that can be used in later phases of the Secret of Praetoria expansion - so be sure to check back in the Reward Shop regularly to see what's new!
SPS Reward Changes
Some players may have noticed that one thing that was previously available in loot chests which is not part of the new Reward Shop is the SPS token. One of the main considerations when designing the Reward Shop was that players would only be able to use Glint to purchase soulbound items that allow them to improve their account in-game rather than to purchase transferrable items that can be sold to extract value from the ecosystem (with a few exceptions such as the very expensive, limited-edition titles).
Therefore, as part of this update, the SPS token reward pools that were previously allocated to season and daily focus loot chests will be moved into the ranked battle reward pools for Wild and Modern format. This means that the amount of SPS received from each ranked battle win should increase significantly starting in the next ranked play season.
Burning Soulbound Cards
Last, but not least, as part of this update Soulbound Reward Cards will now be able to be burned for Glint at a rate of 5x the card's Collection Power, and Gladiator Cards will no longer be able to be burned for DEC, but instead for Merits, at a 1:1 rate.
This effectively creates a "dust" system, similar to those present in other trading card games, where players can burn unwanted soulbound cards in order to purchase more soulbound cards to try to get the cards they want, or to purchase other items in the Reward or Guild shops.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
Website | Blog | Discord | Telegram | Shop
NOTE: All rewards from this post will be sent to @sps.dao