Hello fellows of the Splinterverse,
In this post I intend to identify the issue with the disparity between SPS rewards in End of Season (EoS) chests / Focus Chests between the Modern and Wild leagues, as well as a proposed solution to the "problem".
The Problem:
Currently SPS rewards are split 50/50 for battle rewards, but not for EoS chests nor Focus chests. Since they both use the same Focus Point (FP) and Seasonal Point (SP) tracker every time a battle is won, there is no distinction to where the Reward Points (RP) came from between the formats, therefore no way to distinguish if the FP/SP was generated in Wild, or Modern. This causes a problem as it allows the Wild format (which consists primarily of bots) to drain more than their share of an SPS pool that should be split evenly between Modern and Wild. As a consequence, the SPS rewards for Modern Focus / EoS chests are much lower than they should be, since the Wild format accounts for 20x more games played due to automation.
A Solution:
The easiest solution (to me at least) would be to split the RP earned into two separate trackers: one for Wild, and one for Modern. RP generated in Wild would increase the Wild FP/SP, and RP generated in Modern would increase the Modern FP/SP. Since we would now have a clear distinction between where the RP were earned, we would be able to better split the SPS rewards between the leagues as was intended!
Since the code already exists, it would be a matter of creating separate claim screens for each of the Wild / Modern formats for both Focus chests as well as EoS rewards. Perhaps since the Modern / Wild toggle already exists, the claims would just exist within each of those pages instead of being one “combined” claim that is shared between both screens?
CONSIDERATION 1:
Would the FP/SP difficulty requirements increase to earn chests between each league in a continual fashion as it is now, or would the FP/SP requirements stay separate between leagues since now the RP required is separate? To rephrase: would the RP requirements start at zero and move up for each league, or would they continue to share the same FP and SP totals for purposes of Focus / EoS chests?
There are benefits to each view.
If they were to continually increase in difficulty as they do now, Reward Card distribution would remain static, as the same amount of chests would be given out since the difficulty to earn each chest gets progressively higher under the current system. This may not incentivise playing in BOTH formats, however, as there is no additional benefit to doing so.
If they were to have separate trackers, you could earn more chests because you would have a lower difficulty in each league as you start. That would mean each chest would have less overall SPS, but there would be more Reward Card inflation since more chests are opened. This would, however, encourage playing in BOTH formats, since more chests would be earned by doing so.
To make an example of this consideration: If you could presently earn 10 Focus Chests playing “just Modern”, but could earn 12 by earning 6 in Modern and 6 in Wild because of the difficulties increasing slower, that would be the difference between examples A and B.
I lean towards option A since that retains the status quo and results in less Reward card inflation, less additional coding, and more SPS on a per chest basis.The side effect is that less Modern players would venture into Wild, therefore would not invest in Wild cards to earn those (possible) additional chests. Conversely, Wild players would not buy as many modern cards as there would be no benefit to play in both formats since the same amount of chests could be earned playing solely in Wild.
The play / economic benefits to each side are not as clear cut as they may appear!
CONSIDERATION 2:
How would the daily chest limits be impacted?
We would not want to negatively impact the play experience of those who would prefer to stay in only 1 league, even though the FP/SP would now be split. That leads to the consideration of how to deal with the daily chest limit, would we:
Have a 30 chest limit in each League?
This would allow up to 60 chests a day and would encourage a lot more play between both leagues. The trade off is that It would impact Reward cards inflation, as well as dilute the SPS rewards in each chest since more chests could be opened.
Restrict maximum chests to 15 in each League? (Still 30 total)
This would not impact players who earn under 15 chests daily, but those who play in only 1 league and buy energy to max out 30 chests a day would now not be able to do so and would have to play both formats to continue to earn their previous chest amounts.
Have a 30 chests limit combined between BOTH Leagues?
This would continue the status quo of a 30 chest limit, regardless of in which league they are earned, and the difficulty required to earn them.
If we needed to implement a separate tracker that said solely: “Total number of chests earned today” or “Chest earned today in Modern / Chests earned today in Wild” that would also be a consideration.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
One way or another, the SP should be divided evenly between the leagues for purposes of Focus / EoS Chests, not combined. This was always the intention in creating the anti-bot measures outlined here: @theukm/create-a-temporary-ranked-mode-with-anti-bot-measures
The emphasis can be placed on the following quote:
"Instead of creating an entirely new play mode (which would be a pretty big project), what if we instead tried implementing anti-bot measures in Modern format only? This would be much, much easier to actually implement and try out and bots would still have a format with 50% of the rewards that they can participate in (Wild)." - Yabapmatt
Since right now that objective has not been achieved due to the mismatched proportions of SPS distribution between Focus / EoS chests in Modern vs Wild, we need to come up with a solution for implementation. This post is just a possible solution to that problem, with considerations that need to be taken into effect. Since the rewards will be impacted, whatever we decide will come down to a DAO proposal / vote, but I hope this post has at least elicited discussion on a possible solution, or at least highlighted the problem for further discussion.
Thank you for reading!
IGN: Psilence
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I talk about things like this on my weekly stream every Thursday from 9pm-11pm EST on Twitch @ thepsilence (won't let me input address for some reason) and you can also follow the videos I make on these subjects and others on YouTube @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCON3AOPVQNf-3Hx7N8PkzrQ