Sprunki third-quarter 2024 update (version 3.7.0) introduces the “Quantum Explosion” gameplay, with 12 SSR characters (the critical hit rate limit raised to 15.8%). Of these, the draw probability of the SSR character “Dark Star Lord” is only 0.07% (the card pool guarantee mechanism requires a total draw of 300 times). The size of the AR map has been increased to 47 new places such as the Arctic Circle, and the frequency of refreshing virtual resources has been boosted to 2.3 times per hour (earlier 1.1 times). Nevertheless, the GPS accuracy requirement has been reduced from ±3 meters to ±1.5 meters, so that the mid-range Android device failure rate (such as Redmi Note 12) for operations goes up to 41%. Technical optimization has improved the loading speed of iOS devices by 37% (iPhone 15 Pro’s cold start time has been reduced from 4.2 seconds to 2.7 seconds), and cross-platform online latency has been reduced to 89ms (using the WireGuard protocol to improve data transmission efficiency).
At the commercial level, the “Star Merchant” NFT trading system (on the Avalanche chain) was launched. The first week’s transaction volume exceeded 18 million US dollars. The rare skin “Black Hole Phantom” sold at 14.2 ETH (approximately 43,000 US dollars), and the platform’s commission rate declined from 7.5% to 6.8%. The short-term event “Neon Invasion” in collaboration with “Cyberpunk 2077” attracted 5.3 million players to participate. The accuracy of the AR model was as high as 0.1 millimeters (the sampling rate for iPhone 15 Pro LiDAR was 1000Hz), but the server’s peak load during the event was 4.2 times more than that of the baseline (the Tokyo node latency increased up to 920ms). Based on Sensor Tower’s data, the first-week revenue following the update grew quarter-on-quarter by 23% (to 27 million US dollars), including 73% from season-ticket sales (39.99 US dollars per quarter) and combo NFT package sales.
Legals compliance enhancement: Due to the Digital Markets Act mandated by the EU, the frequency of user data collection declined from 0.7 events per second to 0.3 events per second (positioning accuracy reduced to ±5 meters), while the daily mean rate of uploads of user data through German users reduced by 62% (i.e., 18MB downgraded to 6.8MB). However, the change in the privacy agreement has led 23,000 Brazilian players to sue in a class-action lawsuit accusing the developer of violating rules in storing biometric data (with a margin of error in facial scans of ±0.08mm), and the developer might be fined up to 8.7 million euros. The technical log reports that the anti-cheating system “QuantumGuard” banned a record 12,000 accounts in one day (with a false ban rate of 0.04%), and the reaction time for detecting cheats has been reduced to 0.3 seconds (originally 0.8 seconds).
User experience enhancements include the addition of 54 adjustable bone nodes for personalized characters (raising precision by 0.1 degree), but the high freedom of model makes the peak of GPU load of Snapdragon 8 Gen2 devices increase to 92% (the temperature rising to 48℃). Free players are entitled to 1,200 quantum coins ($1.44) daily via the “Quantum Resonance” mission, provided that they do AR sign-in for 7 consecutive days (with a tolerance of ±8 minutes). Player statistics show that the satisfaction rate rose from 78% to 85% after the update but 23% of players complained that the balance of “Dark Star Lord” was too high (PVP win rate 68.7% compared to average 45.2%). The developer has promised releasing a balance patch within 14 days (decreasing SSR critical hit rate to 12.5%).