Axie Infinity Update Caps SLP Token Earning for Low-Level Players

Axie Infinity, perhaps the most well-known blockchain-based game in the world, has unveiled a major update that directly impacts players' ability to earn in-game currency. The developer of the game, Sky Mavis, is implementing a cap that prevents users with a matchmaking ranking (MMR) below 800 from earning Small Love Potion (SLP) tokens in the adventure, arena, or daily quest mode — a move that's aimed at preventing players from abusing the MMR system to score easy wins, but not all players are happy with this development.

The game's developers dropped its version 1.1.0a update on Twitter recently noting changes that include tweaks like resetting 'Axies' to level one each time they change owners and reintroducing the option to challenge your friends. These two tweaks were the most noteworthy of the lot, apart from, of course, the MMR cap on earning easy in-game currency. The change was set to take effect after a recently announced maintenance downtime, but it was delayed for a few days due to deployment issues.

Sky Mavis' decision to prevent players below 800 MMR from earning SLP, has the games' userbase divided. The developers of the game state that their objective is to ensure that players hop onto the Arena for the competition and not for the rewards alone. The new system also is meant to keep SLP rewards only for those who spend more time grinding results in the game.

While some players have welcomed the move for eliminating bots from the game and encouraging competition, others argue that it thrusts aside lower-ranked players.

It isn't surprising that a game like Axie Infinity has a sizable play-to-earn community, and with a growing base of players in emerging economies, any change to in-game earning mechanics are bound to prove divisive. NG Vow, Axie Infinity has two in-game currencies, both based on the Ethereum blockchain in SLP and Axie Infinity Shard (AXS).

While SPL is used for trading between Axies and can be converted into real-life money, AXS is a governance token that lets owners have a say in the development of the game.

AXS and SLP both witnessed an immediate slip in values following the announcement of the update, but reacted well overall, with both the governance token and the in-game token trading close to the 20 Exponential Moving Average (EMA) mark since October 4.