Sorare — Season 2: New Players, Improved Gameplay & More Incredible Prizes!
In the blink of an eye, the European pre-season is over, (well it is in Belgium), and that means — it’s the start of Sorare season 2!
Over the last 8 weeks, we’ve been educated and entertained by a cleverly structured Media League Tournament that saw over 8 ETH in prize money won in addition to the final 2 highly coveted Unique player cards and 100+ Super Rare and Rare player cards of season 2018/19.
Having recently enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the upcoming season plans with the Sorare Co-Founders, I’m going to document in more detail the changes that have been announced for season 2 including;
- NEW 2019/20 Player Card designs *
- Seasonal and Fidelity Bonuses *
- Player Card ‘Power Indicator’ *
- Advanced Player & Team Experience (XP) Formulas
- Season 2 Tournaments and Prizes
- Public Launch details (Fall 2019)
* Covered in this article
Sorare Player Card Designs — 2019/20
If you’ve played the game for just a few days, you should be familiar with the different scarcities of card and know that Rare cards are Red, Super Rare cards are Blue and Unique cards are Black.
The other ways to identify the cards are by the serial numbers which are now printed under the players names on the left (last season they were on the right). Rare cards are always shown as X/100, Super Rare cards will always be X/10 and Uniques are marked with the word Unique.
The unanimous feedback from the community is that they love the new look — the blue of the Super Rare is now easier to differentiate from the Black Uniques. The bottom corners of the cards also give a feel that these can be picked up and played with despite the fact they remain digital NFT cards.
NEW: Unique — Dynamic Images
A very cool upgrade for 2019/20 Unique card owners will be that there will be a way to apply an action shot of the player on the front of the card. This option will only be available to the Unique cards and will give owners another way to customise and showcase the most powerful and scarce cards in the game.
Introduction of a 4th Card Scarcity
As the game continues to scale up, it has been confirmed that a new ‘Common’ card scarcity is likely to be introduced. This would allow for a much greater supply of cards to be created for each player and if in line with the existing numbers we could soon have new caps of 1 Unique, 10 Super Rare, 100 Rare and then 1,000 Common versions of each player (per season).
Seasonal & Fidelity Bonuses
With the database now containing players from 2 different seasons as well as players that have transferred teams in the summer, a couple of extra bonuses have been introduced that will be applied to player cards in SO5 Tournaments.
In-line with the Sorare philosophy that all cards should remain active in the game (with the exception of players that retire or move to a league where Opta don’t provide coverage), all cards will receive 100% of their SO5 score before applying their scarcity multiplier.
Seasonal Bonus — If your player card has been issued on the current SO5 season then they will receive a 10% bonus to their base score.
Fidelity Bonus — If your player is still playing for the club showing on their card, they will receive a 10% bonus to their base score.
Cumulative Bonus — Bonuses are cumulative so your card could achieve 120% of their SO5 player score by qualifying for both bonuses.
This has been viewed as great news by the current users as it ensures that cards continue to retain in-game playability and value even if they transfer clubs.
Rationale for 2019/20 formula revisions
Alongside the seasonal adjustments, a review and recalibration of Bonus Multipliers and XP was undertaken to:
- Further simplify the game
- Ensure greater competitiveness immediately after the point of sale of new Player Cards
- Make Player Cards that have been played more valuable compared to New Prints
- Create a clearer in-game progression curve that allows for entry level Rare card owners to move up to Super Rare Tournaments and then up to All-Star levels.
The culmination of the changes to the Bonus Multipliers and the way players now earn XP resulted in each card now being given a ‘Power Indicator’.
Introducing the Sorare ‘Power Indicator’
From 2019/20 a player’s multiplier and XP will be displayed as a ‘Power Indicator’ instead of just an XP Level.
The Power Indicator will allow you to compare the relative strength of player cards of different scarcities together which was previously not possible.
How to calculate your Player Cards ‘Power Indicator’
The ‘Power Indicator’ Formula is:
Power = 100* (base multiplier + level incremental multiplier)
The Power Range on Player Cards is from 100 to 1800 with New Print Rares starting at 100 up to Level 20 Uniques that can eventually obtain a Power of 1800.
Based on the games current cards, Rares range between 100–120 (old XP Levels 0–4), Super Rares range between 200–320 (old Levels 0–6) and Uniques 300–900 (old Levels 0–8)
Existing levels of XP will be retained and converted to the new formulas and so using my very own Super Rare, Mark Noble card from 2018/19:
The Super Rare base gives him a starting base multiplier of 2 and his old XP level gives him an extra 5 x 0.20 incremental multiplier = 1.
So, using the formula 100* (2+1) his Power Indicator is currently 300.
Better Players > Powerful Cards
To put this into perspective — a brand new Unique card will start with a Power Indicator of 300, and so the objective of creating more competitive gameplay between the different scarcities of cards is now more evident.
The new formulas now ensure that the highest scoring Super Rares will now outperform the lowest scoring Uniques and the highest scoring Rares will now outperform the lowest scoring Super Rares cards (which last season was very unlikely).
New Managerial Decisions
It is my belief that the recalibration of these base formulas will have a positive impact on both the long-term card valuations and we will see a wider variety of Tournament winners whose teams comprise of the better player cards (as opposed to just the most powerful player cards).
In my next article, I’ll outline in more detail the ‘Advanced Player & Team Experience (XP) Formulas’ which have been updated to reward better managerial decisions regarding youth and injured players.
—
Ready to compete for ETH & the games best player card prizes?
