Splinterlands Q&A - Answering Newbie Questions on Discord for 1 hour

handtalk5 (55)in #steemmonsters • 3 years ago (edited)

It is no secret that the Splinterlands team, while having anticipated growth in their player base, were totally overwhelmed by how sudden and how massive it came over the past few days.

Discord is full of new players needing some help starting on their Splinterjourney. But the team are having their hands full with scaling issues and providing tech support. Basic questions about gameplay and how things work are in the danger of getting lost.

Luckily we got one of the best communities in the space and players have been supporting each other continuously over the past three years. Now that the official team is overloaded with tech-support, the Mavericks come to the rescue and assist in onboarding new players.

While my own time is limited, being torn between my job and my family, I am still trying to support newcomers who are interested this game in which I easily invested far more than 2000 hours.

So, like the other Mavericks I recently spent some spare timeslots in the #general Discord trying to help whoever stuck their head in.

@Jarvie 's recent post gave me the idea of documenting what I was doing there. However, I did not create a recording like he did, because I suck at creating videos. Instead, I decided to copy and paste dump the questions here. Nice bonus is that this makes it easier to skim through or search with CTRL+F.

If you are a newcomer yourself, have a read through the list. Most of these questions have been asked several times already, so this already leans towards an FAQ. Let's go:

Q: guys, can you level up your cards by playing ? or all the different levels are aquired from packs ?
A: no, you level up by getting additional copies of that card an merging them

Q: i think its time to have scripts to detect bots or?
A: bots are explicitly not forbidden
Q: why though? it doesnt give any advantage for the normal players nor the ecosystem in overall
A: because amount of active players a couple of days ago was a fraction of what it is now and without bots it'd been hard to get a battle match each time

Q: Is anyone else getting a loss every now and then when waiting for the other player? I finish the deck, wait, then it sais i surrendered
A: this is usually a problem of the hive network being overloaded. your submit transaction didn't get through

Q: How many cards do I need to upgrade a card?
A: View the card in your inventory it will say 0/3 or something like that. in that case you need 3 more for the next level. on the stats page you will see how many total for reaching a certain level

Q: why does the sps amount i recieve daily lower and lower?
A: It depends on how much percentage of total Splinterlands assets you are holding. New DEC and reward cards are generated every day, so if you only receive little or none of that your comparative holdings will drop and your airdrop entitlement with it

Q: Hello, I have a question. How can you convert SPS to DEC, then transfer it to Splinterland?
A: Transfer SPS out to Hive-Engine, sell it for SWAP.HIVE, buy DEC with SWAP.HIVE and transfer in again

Q: what's worth more for the airdrop my collection power or DEC?
A: 1 collection power point gives one airdrop point. So does 1 dec. But selling a card will give you more DEC than its collection power is worth, if that was your question

Q: Hello, how can i submit a support ticket?
A: Go to #tech-support (keep in mind that they are heavily overloaded right now - but very supportive!)

Q: any advantage to buying sps over dec esp since its so cheap now. Im getitng airdrops but supply is low i feel like price could bounce plus better chance at getting cards
A: DEC gives airdrop points, SPS can earn staking rewards from August 2nd. The choice is yours - hard to predict short term. Long term I'd go with SPS as DEC should go back to its peg eventually
Q: why do u think dec will go back to peg? people r buying it for airdrops
A: because of forced inflation. When DEC is trading above the peg, more DEC is generated. Also, I said long-term, airdrop ends in 362 days

Q: do you have to use the potions buy pushing a button or is it automatic when u buy pack
A: its automatic when you have them in your inventory upon opening the pack

Q: anyone wanna sell me some pcks on the cheap
A: Honestly, I'd just buy the individual cards of the market. Packs never paid off for me

Q: don't rented cards still count as your collection power?
A: they do count for the owner for the airdrop but not for playing (unlocking leagues)

Q: Should I just save for a dice pack?
A: Dice packs are ridiculously expensive right now due to the high DEC price. Better buy the cards with those DEC

Q: im a liquidity pool noob. what's the easiest way for me to deposit my DEC in a LP?
may as well get double airdrop points, not using the DEC for anything
A: only worth it if you have another crypto lying around as well. you have to match the worth of the DEC you put in with the same worth of the other currency in the pool. so if you don't have that you'd have to sell half the DEC first resulting in the same amout of airdrop points in the end.
Also google "impermanent loss" before putting stuff into LPs

Q: what is the difference between the two?

A: The left one is alpha. less printed, also earlier. went out of print before the right one was released. no difference in-game but the left one gives a DEC bonus when winning a match

Q: How do you get power?
A: Power is the burn value of the cards in your collection. Click a card you own to view its details and the DEC amount to the far right on the detail page is its power
Q: I ain't got a budget I'm not even 18
A: after earning some dec you can rent cards. that will also increase power while renting at a much lower cost than buying.

Q: What is the best time to buy (in context of cards to advance in the leagues)
A: If you're looking for a bargain probably when the next edition releases but that is not until fall

Q: Where do I buy that (gold foil cards)
A: Click the golden card on the top of the market page to view the gold foils

Q: If I want to play with my brother on the same PC, can we create 2 accounts?
A: yes, no prob. Use hive keychain addOn to switch accounts more easily or use two different browsers

Q: Can I use exchange such as binance to purchase spellbook?
A: The spellbook can only be purchased on Splinterlands website. You can pay with different crypto, though, if you'd like to fund that from binance. Check the shop for the payment options

Q: We're can I rent from ?
A: Renting is available through the market page on the official website. Just look for the option where you would buy cards. If you intend to rent several cards peakmonsters.com has a better interface

Q: How do i get 1000 power as fast as possible ?
A: Check peakmonsters.com for which gold foil cards are the cheapest to rent. Gold foil gives way more power than regular

Are you a new player yourself? Was this helpful to you? Let me know if you would like to see more Q&A sessions like this and be sure to check out the Splinterlands Discord if you have any questions to get you started!

Promo offer for new players/investors: Use my ref link and contact me here or on discord (handtalk5#6665). I will get a $0.50 referrer bonus if you buy the summoner’s spellbook to unlock the Play2Earn features. If I can confirm you as a referral who made the purchase, I will return that to you in form of Splinterlands cards. Just message me the card(s) you want for up to $0.50 and I will get them off the market for you.