Hello! If you're reading this it means you're interested in knowing how to make the leaderboard and you're interested in winning a car. I hope this article helps you achieve that!
Firstly, here's the competition details: People who compete each week to capture as many sprites as possible can get on the Sprite Leaderboard. The Top 10 sprite capturers will win a prize - a car! The top 1 person will get a Legendary vehicle and the other 9 will get an Epic vehicle.
As of writing this, the vehicles have not been revealed or distributed to the winners.
Each week a new leaderboard starts at Monday 00:00 GMT to Sunday 23:59 GMT. The winners are usually announced midweek on TCG World's Twitter Account, around Tuesday or Wednesday.
Eventually this leaderboard will go live in TCG World at the starter hubs so everyone can see live or daily status updates on everyone who's playing.
Go here for the Leaderboard History: https://www.thespritereport.com/post/sprite-capture-leaderboard-history
So while it's simple to go out and find sprites, here's some tips on how to do so a little more efficiently. You have to make the most out of your time!
Sprite Capture Tips.
General:
- There's roughly a 1/1 sprite to ring spawn ratio.
- Sprites spawn with a bright flash of light. Easily seen from far away.
- Sprites can be captured with any ring. Color doesn't matter at this point.
- Sprites will run if you get close. Try to avoid making them run.
- There's no need to wait for the blue capture ring annimation to disappear.
- Study and learn sprite movement. Learn how fast they walk. Very useful.
- You can run faster than a sprite.
- Pay attention to 10th place on the leaderboard to estimate an average that you can achieve for yourself to get on the board. Then catch 100 or 200 more to make sure you're on it : )
Rings:
- You start out with zero rings. You'll have to find rings in order to capture sprites.
- Rings are spread out around the world and are easy to find. You can't miss them.
- I recommend if you're just starting out to spend 2-3 hours finding rings only. Once you do this you should be good for a long while. You most likely will only have to do this once. While it's hard to pass up sprites.. you'll thank me later when you're not struggling with running out of rings.
- I also recommend using blue and purple ring stacks as much as possible. Once you run out of one color, go to the other color.
- Only use Green rings when you are getting extremely low on blue/purple. You'll be collecting more rings along the way. The point of using green sparingly is to refill up on the others and continue the cycle. This might make more sense when you're actually practicing it.
- Having around 40-ish blue or purple rings is a good amount and should last you a while before having to change. Of course more would be optimal.. I like to have at least one ring type at around 100 or so.
- Be aware of the ring capture size - each ring has a different capture area from 2 to 6 meters wide. Green rings are easy mode basically.
Aim:
- You don't have to hit the sprite in order to capture it.
- Aim your rings in front or slightly above the sprite.
- All 3 ring types allow a pretty generous space to miss the sprite and still capture it.
- Don't aim behind the sprite. More often than not you'll be unsuccessful.
- Wait until the sprite is standing still to throw. If just starting out, I do not recommended trying to capture one when it's moving.
- But you can throw rings when they're walking. Throw a little bit ahead of it and you should be good.
- When a sprite is actually running from you, don't waste rings. Just wait for it to "calm down" and start walking again, or wait for it to stop.
- Alternatively you can run up to a sprite, get right next to it, and throw a ring directly down to the ground and you'll catch it.
- The faster you can target and launch, the faster you can get to your next sprite.
What I personally do:
- I'm always running / going fast.
- Use the dragon while you can in Alpha. Most cars are slower than the dragon and you can't be as precise as a dragon. Dragons can fly over anything, have no restrictions basically.
- Fly semi low to the ground, but not too too low. This seems to make things spawn correctly.
- Become an expert at mounting and dismounting your dragon. Mount and Start Flying as fast as possible. Get so good that it's one motion with no delay.
- Stick to open and clear areas. Avoid areas with lots of trees where you cannot see the sprites as easily, especially the brown ones.
- Avoid areas with other people in them. Less sprites for you.
- The quickest way to the ground is ejecting.
- Fly above the sprite and eject near it. Not on top of it. Throw your ring fast before the dragon drops on you. You should be able to drop from the dragon, land, throw the ring to capture, have to wait for the dragon to land, and then immediately mount again.
- Basically: Drop, Throw, Mount up again. Fast as possible, move on to the next one.
- Drop down on top of rings, so you don't have to go far to get them.
- Section off your area into a grid. Fly back and forth until you've covered the whole area.
- Always look where you've already been. Just a quick camera check to see if any sprites have spawned behind you. Don't look much to where you'll eventually be, as you'll get to those sprites soon enough.
- Basically what I'm saying is, stay on program. Only deviate when sprites are behind you (where you won't be going forward). And once you've got that rogue ring or sprite, go back to where you were and continue your route.
- Pay attention to your coordinates and learn your lines. Maybe even say the X or Y coordinate outloud so you know where you've left off. So when you have to go backwards to find a sprite that spawned behind you, you'll know what line you were last on. Go back to your original line and continue.
- Be aware of where North is at all times. Use it to figure out your lines and to not go off your pathing.
Stuff that will slow you down:
- Having to switch rings. When you are constantly running out of rings, you'll be spending time switching rings. Don't do this.
- Running far for sprites or rings. Fly or drive as close to them as possible.
- The Radar. My tip on the radar is to LOOK, but DON'T ACT. Look in the direction, if you see a sprite go after it. If you don't see a sprite.. IGNORE the radar. The radar is practically pointless. Use your eyeballs to find sprites instead.
- Dropping down from a dragon too close to a sprite, and the dragon lands on top of the bubble. You can try to jump and mount the dragon, but it doesn't work all the itme.
- Not knowing your directions.
- Straying from your lines on accident.
How to get #1 on the board:
- You need 7 full days and to be up every waking hour capturing sprites to get 5000+ sprites. And likely every waking hour won't be enough.
- Miss sleep. Sleep is for the weak.
- Get meals delivered. Eat in front of your computer. No time to fix a meal or eat at a table, you crazy?
- Don't get distracted by "real life", Social Media, or by others in the game.
- Know and follow all that I'm saying in this article.
- Always assume you haven't caught enough. You'll always need more.
The most ANNOYING things about capturing Sprites:
- Dragon blocking your shot. Even if you think you've thrown over or around the dragon, the dragon has a bigger footprint than what it actually visually shows. You'll throw a ring and hit the sprite perfectly, but you won't capture if there's a wing tip anywhere near the path.
- Backwards Discovery - that's the term I call it when a sprite or ring spawns behind you. Having to ping-pong around, going backwards constantly to get a sprite that spawned behind you is the single most annoying and frustrating thing about sprite hunting. I much rather it be forward discovery for sprites and rings, as most games are like that.
- Dragons landing on the sprite bubble, which is somehow solid and you cannot walk into. (but you can walk out of it just fine). You have to wait for the bubble to disappear to get on your dragon again. Takes time.
- It's rather hard to keep track of the amount of sprites you've caught after you've caught a huge amount of them. TCG doesn't have a counter. You have to count the stacks of them in your inventory. When you're like me and have 20k of them, it's hard counting them up.
The things I dislike about the competition: - Not knowing where you are on the leaderboard. They plan to add a live leaderboard eventually to fix this, thankfully.
- The competition itself. I'd rather see set goals where everyone has the same goal to reach at their leisure and are rewarded. For being the first gamification to come to TCG World, to get the top prize is an insane amount of work unseen in most games.
- You aren't able to keep any of the sprites. All of your sprites you've collected are expected to be wiped when Alpha 4.0 comes. That's when you'll be able to capture and eventually mint sprites. Hopefully even evolve and battle!
- It's pretty reputitive and boring. Hey, let's be real, this is not exciting stuff at all. The most exciting thing that happens is bumping into someone else or finding a new material you haven't ran into yet. What I do to kinda break this up is visit new places on the map every now and then. A nice change of scenery. And I listen to fast paced music. Or a documentary on Egypt.
So yep, that's how I've come #1 or #2 in the past few weeks on a constant basis. I hope some of this will help you. I'll edit and add to this if and when I think of more! Have fun catching those sprites!
Please follow The Sprite Report on Social media!
Telegram: https://t.me/TheSpriteReport
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSpriteReport
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSpriteReport