Splinterlands: Untamed - Info & Release Date
Release Date
The planned release date for Splinterlands: Untamed will be shortly after the end of the current ranked play season on November 30th, 2019 around 10 am - 12 pm EST.
At that time, Untamed edition booster packs will be able to be opened and the cards will be able to be played in the game and bought and sold on the market. We expect that all of the Untamed booster pack rewards will be sent out to the backers of the crowdfunding campaign before the release date as well.
Chain Golem & Air Drops
The crowdfunding exclusive Chain Golem card and the first Untamed airdrop for the Diamond Dragon card will be available within 1-2 weeks after the release of Untamed. We will need some time after the release to get the Chain Golem card promo codes out to backers, set up the airdrop, and potentially address any issues that may come up from the initial release.
The second airdrop for the Gloridax Guardian card will occur approximately one week after the Diamond Dragon airdrop.
Unlike previous exclusive cards, The Chain Golem will be part of the Untamed edition instead of the Promo edition, which means it will be subject to the same combine rates and DEC burn rates as the rest of the Untamed edition cards (details on that below). It will not be available in Untamed booster packs, however, since it is an exclusive card from this recent crowdfunding campaign.
Combine & Burn Info
The number of Untamed edition cards required to combine together to reach each level will be similar to the Beta edition but with a few key differences.
One difference is that it will only take 400 regular foil common cards to reach max level instead of the 505 required for Beta. The regular foil common rarity Beta cards are overly difficult to max out and this is something we wanted to adjust for Untamed.
Second, with the Beta cards it takes relatively few cards to get to the earlier levels and then a LOT of cards to get to the last few levels, and often the reward at the final levels was not really worth it for the amount of cards required. With Untamed, the number of cards needed to reach each level will be more evened out, and most cards will get a significant stat or ability boost at max level.
The exact numbers are below for your reference (regular on the left and gold foil on the right):
| LVL | C | R | E | L | LVL | GFC | GFR | GFE | GFL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | |
| 2 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | -- | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 3 | 15 | 14 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | |
| 4 | 30 | 25 | 20 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | |
| 5 | 60 | 40 | 32 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 7 | |||
| 6 | 100 | 60 | 46 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 10 | |||
| 7 | 150 | 85 | 7 | 14 | 16 | |||||
| 8 | 220 | 115 | 8 | 20 | 22 | |||||
| 9 | 300 | 9 | 27 | |||||||
| 10 | 400 | 10 | 38 |
The Dark Energy Crystal (DEC) burn rates for Untamed edition cards will be two thirds of the burn rates for Beta edition cards. This is in line with the fact that there will be more Untamed edition cards available than Beta edition cards (1.5M packs vs 900k packs). The burn rates will be as follows:
- Common - 10 DEC
- Rare - 40 DEC
- Epic - 200 DEC
- Legendary - 1000 DEC
Gold foil Untamed edition cards will still give 50 times more DEC than the standard foil versions when burned, and there will still be a 5% DEC bonus for burning max level cards.
Card Design Goals
The Untamed edition marks the first time in the game's history where an entire, full set of new cards is being added to the game. We have three goals in mind when designing the new set of Untamed cards:
They should be strong and desired cards in the game so that both new and existing players will be motivated to purchase packs and to buy them on the market.
They should be sufficient for new players, meaning that they will provide everything needed for new players to participate in the game and be competitive.
They should be different and/or complimentary to the existing sets of cards, meaning that it will be necessary to have a wide array of cards from both the Alpha/Beta and Untamed editions in order to be able to construct the best team for all ruleset and mana cap combinations and compete at the highest levels of play.
Card Balance Updates
The Splinterlands team will be doing play testing of the new cards in the next couple weeks up until the official launch; however, we can never fully predict what types of card combinations our thousands of very creative players will come up with.
As we have said repeatedly in the past, we will adjust the stats and abilities on certain cards when we feel it is necessary to maintain a fun and balanced game for all players. We understand that this can affect the market prices of the affected cards, and so we try to keep these changes to an absolute minimum, however we will always prioritize a fun and balanced game over any individual card.
Maintaining the Value of Beta Cards
Some players have expressed concern about the market values of the Beta edition cards after the release of Untamed. In the short term it's possible that market prices may fall as a lot of the money shifts to purchasing the newer cards; however, it is always one of our primary goals to maintain and increase the value of the cards over time.
One way we plan to do that is through the 3rd design goal listed above. We expect that new players to the game who want to compete at the highest levels of ranked play and tournaments will need to acquire a good variety of the Alpha or Beta edition cards. Since these cards are in low and decreasing supply, it should not take too much demand to maintain or increase prices.
Additionally, once the majority of players in the game have Untamed cards rather than Beta cards, which we expect to take around 6 months, we plan to add DEC bonuses for using Beta edition cards in ranked battles, as we currently do for Alpha cards. This should provide additional incentive to acquire and use Beta edition cards as it has for the Alpha edition.
Finally, we plan to introduce tournament formats that only allow Alpha/Beta edition cards (with the option to allow Reward & Essence Orb cards too) so new players will need these cards if they want to compete in these tournaments.
Mobile and Marketing
Although not directly related to the Untamed release, we wanted to add a quick note about our progress on the mobile app and marketing of the game.
Splinterlands is on pace to launch a mobile app in the December/January timeframe. Our plan is prioritize new user acquisition in the near future, but we see the mobile app as a critical component. 70% of some of our target markets are primarily on mobile devices. Additionally, the quick nature of the gameplay is well suited towards a mobile / on-the-go environment.
When the mobile app is released we'll begin running advertisements on social media, increase the number of social media influencers we contract with, explore more business partnerships, and market the game at more crypto and gaming events.
Crowdfunding Updates
Please stay tuned for the Kickstarter / Fundition surveys which should go out later today or tomorrow. We hope to then get promo codes for the starter set, booster packs, and potions out to all backers later this week or early next week so that everyone will be able to open their packs right away when Untamed is released!
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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I guess in the long run the opposite could be the case: as Untamed cards 'contain' less DEC, and in addition there will be a higher DEC bonus for using Beta cards in battles, I wonder how the market values of the Untamed cards will look like ...
OK I think that the most player will set their team with cards they think that they have the best chances to win the battle and not with the cards who offer the highest DEC-bonus.
So in my opinion the worth of the cards depends more how usefull a card is and not so much what DEC-bonus they offer.
Lets hope, but one method to increase the value of the cards was to burn them, which will be less attractive in future. Furthermore packs contain the same amount of cards (and there will be even more packs than there were beta packs), but at the same time you need less cards to reach the max level of a common card ...
So it all depends on getting more players into the game, who need the big amount of new cards, and on attractive prices, so that it is worth to do everything for winning tournaments or being on top of the ranking list.
Yes and i will even be more cards than just the difference between the editions because of the airdrops who bring also additional cards in the game.
So a single Gold Foil Legendary is the same level (Level 1) is a Regular Legendary? I have concerns that this will disproportionately affect smaller players. A max GFL is still 4 copies, like before. But now a single copy is only marginally useful and it requires 2 copies to get a Silver league level card (whereas before it only took 1 BCX). It also takes away some of the excitement of opening a GFL.
This is a very good point - I am agree with you.
Honestly this should have been communicated before people made their pledge. Chain golem not being part of promo reduces its value significantly. All cards from kickstarter have been promo so far so there was no reason for anyone to suspect otherwise.
We screwed up with the Chain Golem in that we gave away WAY too much value for too little money. As it stands, a max level standard foil Chain Golem will be worth about $10 and a 1 BCX Gold Foil Chain Golem about $40 - $50 just in DEC value, which you get as a bonus for the $200 contribution level which already contains over $200 worth of value to begin with. So it's really a crazy good deal for the backers, and we won't be making that mistake again in the future.
If we left it at promo card burn rates, then they would be worth nearly as much as the package price itself which we just absolutely cannot do.
We definitely should have thought this through more before adding the reward, and given away fewer cards at each contribution tier, but we did not so we will have to deal with the fact that we're giving away much more value than we planned to.
If you would like to cancel your contribution just let us know and we will issue a full refund.
Byz brought this up in Discord, but in case you don't see it there, you actually promised a level 2 gold Chain Golem at $200, which is 2 bcx now. So moving it to Untamed doesn't actually solve a whole lot.
Thanks for your reply. I don't intent to cancel my pledge. I stick to my commitments. I was just looking forward to promo card ranked battle bonus. Don't care about the monetary value that much instead battle value.
This is everything I wanted to read and more! Lots of great decisions being made to not only support gameplay but the complex card economy as well. I agree with some of the other comments that DEC burn rates should be adjusted a little further between alpha/beta but that could be an easy fix based on how the market reacts.
Has there been any serious thought given (other than discord banter) of doing larger scale tournaments and/or flattening out the payout structure? I think some large monthly tournaments with a substantial prize pool could really generate some buzz. Take a page from some of the larger online poker tournament structures… I can see a 1 million DEC prize pool generating tons of interest, even with a nominal entry fee.
Bring on the untamed pack openings… I am ready! Great job for the continued execution from this stellar team.
Given the new combine rates, I strongly suggest that any level up should remove cooldown.
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Lots of awesome stuff in that up date but I was extremely happy to read the above quoted part of the update. Its been a main concern of mine for some time and I'm happy to see that the Splinterlands team has taken the right direction with the planned DEC boost Beta will get in ranked play.
Have yous considered upping the DEC burn value of BETA cards as well? There's a very large gap between ALPHA and BETA burn rates. Both are officially sold out so I think it makes sense to close that gap a little.
Ditto.
I share the concern of some others about how this leveling system affects the smaller players in a negative way, while it is positive for the big players.
14 cards to get a rare to level 3 (as opposed to 5 for beta), while packs have the same cost... it's gonna be a lot more expensive for bronze and silver league players to get their decks built....
I suspect the UNTAMED cards themselves to be allot cheaper than any previous edition. If the cheaper card cost will offset the amount needed to level is another question. I suspect its new design is on purpose as some think the ROI of smaller decks compared to invested amount is too large.
Thing is: cards are not cheaper. It's still $2 for 5 cards until a new players learns how to jump through all the needed hoops to get Steem/SBD and buy cards on the market. Even then... what the market prices will be is still a wild guess.
Just because new players may not know how to crypto properly it doesn't mean cards aren't/won't be cheaper. Boosters have stayed the same price but its very very likely individual UNTAMED cards will be significantly cheaper than Alpha or Beta. Boosters are the same as they always have been ..... Just a scratch ticket to try and hit the more expensive cards.
Plus one of the methods of payment is DEC/SBD/STEEM which can be earned in game or on the many Dapps this blockchain has. So new players will be spending less of their earned DEC/SBD/STEEM to attain UNTAMED cards when compared to Alpha/Beta.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cheaper entry levels but to say cards aren't cheaper isn't a correct statement imo.
Awesome update @steemmonsters ! Love that the cards will be more evened out and that the cards will have better or more abilities at Max levels!! Cant wait for the release on November 30th, its going to be Legendary!! Upped 100% and resteemed 👹👍💪
