In case you're out of the loop, there's a new proposal seeking to change Splinterlands Terms of Service and prohibit the use of Battle Helper.
In this post we'll go over risks and downsides of this proposal, and steel-man the case against it.
Please note that we provide a battle helper service and may have a bias. We try to maintain objectivity and impartiality in this post.
Enforcement is not feasible
Battle helpers can be built in a way that is undetectable because they only provide data and don't perform actions. They also don't need to communicate with APIs.
Since the tool doesn't interact with the game directly, it's not directly detectable. Indirect detection with behavioural analysis and other statistical methods could work in theory, but it's not realistic.
In the world of Chess and "solvers" (their equivalent of battle helper), Chess.com employs 20 fair-play team members.
Levelling the playing field
It's well known that some individuals and guilds have private battle helpers. Until very recently, they dominated tournaments and brawls.
Public battle helper services give the advantage back to the community and level the playing field.
This proposal is only affecting public services because there's no enforcement - and it's giving the advantage to private battle helper users.
Public vs Private
ToS change without enforcement will only change who is providing the service.
As a public service, XBOT has cooperated with the community many times and maintained a good reputation.
For example:
- We voluntarily added the [NH] tag, which can be added to tournaments and stops our battle helper from running.
- We accommodated a request from a community member who didn't want battle helper used in challenge mode for a period of time.
- We informed the Splinterlands team about a game mechanic that gives battle helper an unfair advantage
If the proposal goes through, public services will be replaced by private ones that have no incentive to cooperate.
Demand for gameplay assistance
Whether it's a Champion leaderboard player looking for an edge, or a casual Gold league player who wants to play decent teams, Battle Helper is continuously getting used for a reason.
Both groups are using the tool because that's how they enjoy playing the game.
One of Splinterlands core values has always been decentralisation and inclusivity. We strongly believe that everyone should be allowed to play the game how they want to.
The role of skill in Splinterlands
How important should skill be in Splinterlands?
How much more should a skilled player earn compared to a casual player?
Are casual players (and investors) going to be interested in Splinterlands if they can only earn a tiny fraction of what skilled players can earn?
A competitive player should definitely earn more than a casual one, and the human-only modern ranked league might have achieved this already. The problem with prohibiting gameplay assistance is that it skews the incentives too much in favour of skilled players and pushes casual players (and investors) out.
Many casual players are casual players for practical reasons. Their lifestyle doesn't allow them to invest hundreds of hours into gameplay strategy. While a battle helper ban might encourage some to learn the game, the majority won't.
This proposal is forcing casual player to either invest a lot more time into the game or quit.
We think that battle helper is offering a necessary middle-ground for this part of the community.
There's other problems with the proposal, such as definitions being too broad, the timing being too close to another major change, and not mentioning Pro's/Con's/Risks and implementation details, but we decided to keep the post (relatively) short.
If you agree with our position, please consider voting NO on proposal #8470
These are the comments I previously posted on @davemccoy 's initial proposals:
These are my personal thoughts as a player (not as a team member).
The two proposals (“SPS Governance Proposal: Update Terms Of Service To Prohibit Use Of Battle Helpers in Modern Ranked, Tourneys, and Brawls” and “SPS Governance Proposal - Update Terms of Service To Prohibit Bot Use In Tourneys, & Brawls”) are the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES that have come up before the Dao, even amongst all of the 39 completed and 1 active proposals.
In my opinion, these proposals are crucial to the future and survival of Splinterlands the game. Although the company started off with a bot agnostic position, over the past few years and especially the past few months, we as a community have seen the consequences of what happens when bot and battle helper use ramp up to such high levels. The reality is that while Splinterlands has always strived to ensure that bots do not have an unfair advantage over human players, it has become clear that over this entire time period the bots have maintained an advantage and that advantage has steadily grown over time.
The competitive aspect of the game disappears and skill becomes marginalized when everyone is using a bot or battle helper. Win trading within a botnet jeopardizes the integrity of the system. We have seen many human players give up and either leave the game or turn to botting (“if you can’t beat them, join them”) resulting in a cascading snowball effect.
Before I started playing Splinterlands in 2019, I spent a year playing CryptoKitties which I enjoyed. But the dominant and optimized bots in CryptoKitties pushed out the human players like me, and now I worry that I am seeing the same thing happen in Splinterlands. We’ve already seen what happens to games that become primarily bot-driven - do we want Splinterlands to follow the path of Alien Worlds?
How is Splinterlands going to attract and retain new players if the ecosystem is full of bots and most of the human players have already left? What is the player experience going to be like when you are constantly beaten down by over-optimized bots and battle helpers? How are we going to be taken seriously in the Esports community and get corporate sponsors for tournaments if botting and battle helpers are the norm in tournaments?
I do think there can be a space for bots in the Splinterlands ecosystem. At the moment it is Wild Ranked and maybe in the future there can be specific formats (botting league? bot vs human challenge?) that are specially targeted for bots. But I definitely do not think that bots and battle helpers belong in tournaments and brawls. And before the human-only Modern proposal was passed, a large number of community members agreed with that, even going so far as to informally agree to @davemccoy 's pledge to not bot tournaments and brawls.
The recently passed and implemented proposal “Splinterlands will try to implement anti-bot measures in Modern format” is a step in the right direction but by itself its impact will be very limited. It’s only a half-measure because battle helpers are not covered in the scope for Modern ranked. Furthermore, the impact of battle helpers is greatest in tournaments and brawls which are supposed to be about competition and skill.
I realize that many of the human players who have since resorted to botting or using battle helpers might now like the extra time that has freed up. But if you ever enjoyed playing the game, if you ever prefer playing against a human player, or if you want Splinterlands to grow and be able to attract new human players instead of just being a massive botting simulation, then I encourage you to vote in favor of both of these proposals. Even if you have more free time or earn higher profits from botting or using battle helpers, I hope you agree that these two proposals are what is best for the future and survivability of the game.
I am confident that the Splinterlands Dev team can identify the use of bots or battle helpers to a high degree of accuracy and that they can implement measures to significantly reduce and deter such use.
I'm going to address this part of your reply:
*In my opinion, these proposals are crucial to the future and survival of Splinterlands the game. Although the company started off with a bot agnostic position, over the past few years and especially the past few months, we as a community have seen the consequences of what happens when bot and battle helper use ramp up to such high levels. The reality is that while Splinterlands has always strived to ensure that bots do not have an unfair advantage over human players, it has become clear that over this entire time period the bots have maintained an advantage and that advantage has steadily grown over time.
The competitive aspect of the game disappears and skill becomes marginalized when everyone is using a bot or battle helper. Win trading within a botnet jeopardizes the integrity of the system. We have seen many human players give up and either leave the game or turn to botting (“if you can’t beat them, join them”) resulting in a cascading snowball effect.*
You say the company started bot agnostic and in the past few months we have seen the consequences of bots and Battle helpers. The damage was done by bot farms with 1000s of accounts farming DEC when it was over 10x peg. Even some team members were mass botting, at the time. Now that several individual players have decided to bot their 1 (or few) account(s) is when we have a problem? Now that regular players have access to public battle helpers we have a problem? Was it better when only a few had access to their own private battle helpers? This is my biggest issue with the whole anti bot and anti battle helpers stance: for many whales it only became a problem when the small fish got access to them. It wasn't the bots advantage that grew, it was the number of players with access to them.
You talk about win trading but that happens with those huge bot farms. Doesn't happen with regular players using a bot. It has been a problem for a long time and should have been addressed with bans. It isn't even necessarily a bot issue. Human players win trading should be punished too.
Another big problem is the definition and it being impossible to enforce. The current definition that went to vote doesn't allow for any help. So, a streamer taking hints from viewers is breaking the rules. The problem with those rules, taken from MTG, is that they are impossible to apply to online play.
Maybe you could address the arguments made in this post?
@splinterbank Sure, I would be happy to.
First off, I strongly disagree with "the problem with prohibiting gameplay assistance is that it skews the incentives too much in favour of skilled players and pushes casual players (and investors) out." As my prior statement makes clear, I feel that bots and battle helpers significantly erode the role of skill. Normal ranked is one thing but when it comes to ranked leaderboard, tournaments, and brawls it is supposed to be about competition and skill. Removing the skill factor defeats the purpose of having competition. Imagine people complaining that they can't win Olympic medals because "their lifestyle doesn't allow them to invest hundreds of hours into training and practice." Complaining they can't win world chess tournaments because "their lifestyle doesn't allow them to invest hundreds of hours into gameplay strategy." Complaining they can't ace standardized tests, school exams, or professional exams because "their lifestyle doesn't allow them to invest hundreds of hours into studying and memorization." In a competition, if you don't have the innate skill or the time to build up your skill, then no you shouldn't be winning the top prizes. And no, I don't think the human-only modern ranked change has significantly allowed a competitive player to definitely earn more than a casual one if the casual one is using a battle helper all the time.
I disagree with your logic on both "Enforcement is not feasible" and "Public vs Private." Using your line of thinking, the Olympics and any world sports organizations should never have any rules against performance enhancing substances or any other advantages (sharkskin suits, blade runner prosthetics, high altitude training) because the Russians (or other groups) are going to find a way to cheat anyway. When you have the entire Russian government backing cheating efforts (like we saw with doping in Sochi), it's going to be largely undetectable and even if it is detected it will largely be unenforceable (and any such punishment is just a slap on the wrist). So a rule against doping only hurts the people who follow the rules, doesn't do enough to catch those who are willing to break the rules, and just forces doping efforts to go underground to stay hidden.
Due to cognitive dissonance, most people are the hero of their own story and very few are willing to concede (publicly or to themselves) that they are anything but the protagonist. You claim that you care about reputation and a TOS addition would cause you to be "replaced by a private individual who doesn't care about reputation." Well, in Bubke's mind, he has always botted responsibly. (Which is ironic when most of the demand for Xbot tournament/brawl battle helpers was because people wanted to keep up specifically against Bubke's advantage). Even j6969 thought he was doing good, and kept trying to differentiate his botnet from other botfarms. Way too many people always say "everyone else is botting recklessly but I am botting in a responsible manner."
And as for your arguments in "Demand for gameplay assistance," of course there's demand for it because it's an easy shortcut that bypasses the need for skill or time. There will also always be demand for performance enhancing drugs and other forms of unfair assistance (butt plugs in a chess match?). These forms of additional assistance are "continuously getting used for a reason." Imagine for a moment if there was a chess "battle helper" that gave you strategic chess options, letting you choose between a Garry Kasparov strategy, a Magnus Carlsen strategy, a Bobby Fischer, and a Jose Raul Capablanca strategy (based on data from all the chess matches each of those legends played). Then chess players who don't have time or interest to learn strategy, could still have a decent performance because that's how they enjoy playing the game. In a competition, it's not about letting players play the game how they want. Competitions and tournaments have rules and standards for a reason. Otherwise, why prohibit athletes from using performance enhancing drugs if that's how they want to compete? Why should there be academic rules against plagiarism or AI assistance if that's how students want to learn?
Thanks for replying.
You say "Removing the skill factor defeats the purpose of having competition" and compare Splinterlands to the Olympics.
I think this is silly and misses the point. Splinterlands is an AUTO-BATTLER, which is probably one of the most casual game genres there is.
Splinterlands is not a competitive game for the most part - otherwise we would not have had bots and battle helpers until now.
I think you're trying to push the competition narrative to support your argument, but it just doesn't apply here.
"..if you don't have the innate skill or the time to build up your skill, then no you shouldn't be winning the top prizes"
I agree with that, but it's not about the top prizes here. It's about earning at all
My point is about how much we should value skill. It seems to me that you think a player without skill in the game should not be earning at all.
I completely disagree with that. As I mentioned above, skilled players should earn more than casual players, but the difference can't be too big.
Removing battle helper from tournaments, brawls and modern ranked is an overreach. You would be only leaving wild ranked for casual players, which has much fewer rewards.
This is why I'm arguing that the proposal gives skill too much value.
About enforcement, again you compare to the Olympics, which is strange.
Drug testing in the olympics may be ineffective, but it does work in some cases.
My point is that Battle Helper is FUNDAMENTALLY not detectable. Not difficult or unlikely, just NOT POSSIBLE.
If there was no chance of detecting cheaters in the olympics, they wouldn't be bothering with it either.
Even if it's unreliable - can you come up with any methods of detecting battle helper?
Splinterlands is a game, like traditional CCG's/TCG's or traditional computer games, only with a web3 component. Other card games (whether it be Magic or Pokemon), chess, and esports (whether it be League of Legends, Dota 2, Fortnite, Apex Legends, etc.) also have significant skill components.
Tournaments are about competition of skill between players.
Brawls are about competition of skill between guilds.
Ranked Leaderboards are also about competition of skill between players.
So no, I don't think battle helpers or bots belong in those areas.
Speaking just for myself, I'm not necessarily opposed to bots and battle helpers having a space within Wild and/or Modern, I just don't think they should be eligible for any leaderboard prizes. And there should either be a separate space for bots or a separate space only for humans.
The reason I bring up the Olympics and world chess is because both of those groups have had to deal with various forms of rule-breaking.
Also, I disagree with trying to differentiate between a bot and an automated battle helper. The way people are defining a battle helper is essentially that the bot is still playing for you but you have to be there in person to monitor it and press enter (though one can hypothetically create an actual robot to physically click and press enter, so systems that allow battle helpers would still have trouble identifying a robot using an automated battle helper).
And yes, there are many methods that can help identify the use of a battle helper. Most are not conclusive just by themselves, but I believe that using a combination of them can identify the use to a high degree of certainty. And yes, I have forwarded all those methods to our Data team, who have a lot of relevant expertise in this area. If this proposal passes, I am confident that our Data and Development teams can implement a system that will identify the majority of cases and over time it can be improved to steadily identify more and more instances.
Furthermore, even if something is difficult or impossible to achieve, having something enshrined in the TOS is a statement of principle/values/ideals. It is an indicator of what the company and community are striving to achieve even if it may not be reachable (like freedom or complete decentralization or world peace). It influences the attitude of the community and potential players factor that in when deciding whether or not to join.
Can you name and describe one method?
It's been 3 days, so I assume you don't know any detection methods?
People trust your opinion because you're a team member. It's not a good look to make things up..
Yes I CAN.
I forgot to add:
If you agree with any of my positions, please consider voting YES on proposal #8470
I'm voting no for this even though I have barely used the battle helper. Some of the people pushing harder for this have their own private helper and their only concern is that they don't have an advantage anymore. I'd rather have everyone be able to use a battle helper than just 5% of the people.
Can you please tell us who has their own Battle Helper that is pushing for it? I am unaware of anyone that is voting for this that runs a private battle helper. The only ones that I know that run their own battle helper are voting against it. But I would love to know and I will call them out if its true.
I don't know for sure but it's not a crazy guess that some people are doing it. I'm not saying it's you or even anyone that vocally pushed for it. A smarter way is to participate in the discussion without being the first one to talk about it or talk too much.
Well if you do know of someone that is running a private bot, please let me know. My goal in these proposals is definitely NOT to enable private bots to replace the public bot services.
I'm not mad at you or anything like that, and thanks for clarifying your thoughts @olaf.gui
Exactly. The Top money bags will have their own whereas the little people will not. No matter how you angle things with proposals, your only going to hurt the company's creating these kinds of services and give way to the individual creators to make their own private bots/BH. I feel this proposal is just shooting oneself in the foot
Even Yabapmatt is voting no against this which says a lot. New players will be at a disadvantage. As a new player myself, I have learned a great amount from the suggested line ups provided by BH. I don't always use what it recommends as I like to make my own adjustments and form my own strategies but it is nice having it when I don't know what to do for the given rule set. I don't have many assets in the game as a new player and it is very expensive to compete for the higher tiers especially against players whom have been playing for a long time. I love splinterlands but honestly if this gets removed then this discourages me from continuing to invest into the game. It's one thing to remove bots, which goes against what splinterlands team stood by keeping, now your taking away peoples ability to learn and or play how they want to play the game themselves. I work multiple jobs so I don't have time to put many hours into the game on a daily basis. Maybe an hour or two tops every other day. I have less than 1k of sps which means very little in terms of voting. I don't really like where the game is heading with the whales taking charge, leaving the little people to just take it as it comes. I am taking the little free time I have to write this up as I truly do believe in this project. Enough to invest what little money I have to spare, but I don't believe banning BH is a step in the right direction.
In my eyes this passing will return us to the archaic days of splinterlands where its run by personal bots and parties that represent breaking the rules in favor of personal gain. In my eyes Battle Helper is a legitimate sheriff in a lawless land, who plays by the rules and sets an example and a president, on how it is appropriate to do such things in game. If we vote for the banning of helper we are voting for a cartel of rule breaking opportunists to come forth and fill their places and that u cannon detect, like well trained assassins who care more about filling their goals then caring abt the integrity of SPL. The X-Bot (BH) dev will gladly work with rulesets and help integrate all all related and aforementioned services and automated provisions, instead of banning "HELPERS" like the latest spreading of covid, reach out to him and lets get a solution that can become part of SPLINTERLANDS for the long term and represent a solid and healthy progression towards stability and inclusion. In this AGE on earth inclusion and making space are the values we must be cultivating, banning and other forms of justifiable segregation are a shadow we need to be working out by this time in our human existence, for the real test here is how we represent ourselves as a COMMUNITY and tho we may not represent the other members of our COMMUNITY they are still part of it and part of us and learning how to find that space with in us to make space for them, is our challenge on earth at this time, so lets face that challenge and INCLUDE while following the rules we have made together.Make space for it don't ban it
ALAYA SOURCE ETERNAL
ETERNA
X-Bot and BH is our friend work with them they represent the positive change
BLESS
The main flaw in your argument is you are siding with the people you are afraid of returning to power. Have you even looked at the vote and seen who is voting for and against it before making such a statement?
I'm not sure you realize this, but you can use XBOT for Wild play. That reward pool is 50% of the game's total distribution. So battle helpers and bots are free to play in half of the ways to play ranked with no problem.
I hope you aren't suggesting that your way of playing is the only mode of play that is acceptable and thus requires 100% of the pool. But if so, then that's fine. Everyone has their own eyes to see the world how they want.
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There is a reason why chess engines are not allowed in competitions. Competition is not about cheating. What would be the point if everyone could become chess grandmaster by using Stockfish or other chess engine? Yes, they are people who still try to use them either online (on chess.com, lichess.org etc) or in official competition, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed.
Splinterlands needs human only areas because otherwise it's not really a game. If you remove skill and time/engagement aspect and keep pretending it's still a game, maybe we should remove assets too to make it easier for new players. And then we can remove gameplay mechanics because it's not really needed. It will be just RNG simulator and one player gets 1 and the other gets 0. But some people will argue it is still the game.
And no, battle helpers are not leveling the playing field, they are destroying it. The same way chess engines would destroy it in official chess competition.
I understand that you, as part of xbot team, want your product to earn money. But if your product is destroying some aspect of Splinterlands, it's not a good thing.
Thanks for the comment.
I don't think Splinterlands is a very competitive game. It's an auto-battle after all.
There definitely should be a place for competition, which is tournaments. But we shouldn't be pretending that the average ranked or brawl player is a "competitive" player.
I think most players just want to field half decent teams and move on with their lives. Battle helper lets you do that.
It's mostly there for casual players so they can play the game at a decent level without investing too much time into strategy.
I would support a battle helper ban from tournaments - that's the reason I added the [NH] tag so that it can be disallowed if the tournament sponsor wants to have a competitive playing field.
this degrading attitude actually already shows everything....
Degrading? It's the truth. This game is an auto-battler. Once cards are in place there is a determined outcome based off of RNG. Can it still have a competitive element? Yes of course but its more of a fun competitive. We can make Candy Land competitive but still a numbers game so skill is out of the equation. Splinterlands has a bit of skill at the highest level but if 2 players play same cards there is still a chance that only one person wins due to RNG. That is the opposite of competitiveness and skill. I love this game and Aggy and Matts vision, and why I'm still here. I'm also a College Esports Coach who Coaches players playing League of Legends and other various genre of top competitive games. Lots of skill involved but even all of them have some form of a meta helper that is allowed even in tournament play. Some of our players use these at times as a quick update on the meta if they have been away from the game for a couple weeks or more. We also have a training program for new recruits that uses a form of a meta helper companion to learn the game through 100s of hours of gameplay while using the tool provided until they are knowledgeable and skilled enough to start competing for a spot on the team.
When you have a common meta even in an auto battler, players at a high level know the common meta and are constantly countering and introducing new metas, then these "battle helpers" have data for a new common meta and it is constantly evolving by the minute. It does indeed take competitiveness to a whole new level. It makes it a bit harder for the casual player if they don't use a companion unless they put in a lot of hours and if you want a successful game that appeals to a broader audience you can't expect everyone to put in 100s and 1000s of hours. You have to give them a bit of a foundation to start with to give them a fighting chance. With these tools maybe eventually they no longer require those tools.
Speaking from a high competitive level in this genre and similar games I really hope people broaden their lens a bit and educate themselves. Refer back to competitive games with how "Metas" are formed and constantly countered by good players. Any real competitor understands this and would not have concern for an average player using a battle helper. This does not hurt the true competitive player at a high level. It does hurt a casual for fun player who doesn't wish to spend the time required to beat the meta. We ban "Meta Helpers" and I believe we stay a little niche game in the web 3 space. Again it all boils down to education on the subject and understanding what type of game this is and stop comparing it to chess and mtg.
I'm against automation but I'm not against a tool providing meta information. And that's what this is at its core is a meta provider. If it becomes not beatable by the best players in the game then yes it would need to be addressed but if we have a enough cards and gameplay mechanics that should never be the case. A high level player that studies the game will always be able to counter what is predictable.
Good Fortune to all those traversing the "lands" of Praetoria in the near future.
Matr1x
your comparison is wrong, splinterlands is about the tactics of which card is placed where, so the tool takes over the entire game. not like leage of legends where a tool tells you the meta but you still have to play the game yourself....
and yes it is degrading, if it is as easy as it is presented why does he need a battle helper to keep up?
so is chess not competitive either because you just place the piece correctly and then miraculously the opponent's piece is defeated and flies off the chessboard?
Sorry your description of the tactics explains nothing to dispute the fact that this is an auto battler so skill plays a way smaller part than it does in a game like chess or mtg. Yes placement can be critical which leads back to the battle helper only gives you best placement of said cards under said ruleset based off your deck and past game history. Team Fight Tactics(Another game I coach) have all sorts of helpers that give you basic placement for your lineup based off of the data of played battles. Now, it can't take into account a player that constantly changes their board to counter other boards during gameplay which is where a bit more skill is involved because that would be cheating. But it lays the foundation for someone who doesn't study the meta to have info to understand the how and whys.
And yes League requires way more skill but it still spoon feeds you meta data for every little facet of the game. It's up to you and your time and skill to determine how good you want or can be.
So if placement is the problem that the helper proves unfair would it then be fine if it just gave you the top cards to play for that ruleset? Because we just saw splinterlands showcase Splintercoach on the townhall which is another form of a "battle helper". You can break down win percentages by focus/ruleset with specific cards. That is critical data that if used correctly could be just as if not more powerful than the current popular battle helper.
I'll touch back on the competitive nature of games in this genre. It is all about up to date information and how to counter said data. It is constantly evolving and requires much skill and intelligence to keep up with and conquer. This is what the causual gamer fails to understand about this at a very high level. A casual gamer has the same info and can have some success but will hit a skill wall. If we have enough gamers playing our ranked modes the skill will rise to the top regardless of battle helpers. I've stated before, the only way the battle helper would be a complete no for me is if it were to counter a submitted lineup by the other player. That would be an exit for me but to my knowledge that is not possible.
I really hope that we find some kind of common ground and balance with the companion helpers. But just to come out and say yup their bad because chess or mtg is very sad. This is an online auto battler(RNG) If you want to have organic one on ones head back to friday night Magic. Or look forward to when we have more in person events in splinterlands. Let's not put up walls that can't be taken down until its too late. Instead look to the recipes of the most successful online tcg/autobattler games out there. Again I will point you towards Riot Games. Will we ever be that big? No probably not but even if we can be a 100th of what they are everyone will be extremely happy in this space.