I wanted to take a minute to share some thoughts on the most recent SPS governance proposal around limiting rewards based on card level used in battles. You can find the proposal post here for reference: https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-adjust-rewards-based-on-card-level
Evaluating the Problem
First and foremost, it's important to always start by clearly identifying and defining the problem that we are aiming to address with any change to the system. The problem in this case which we have identified, along with many members of the community, is that there is not enough incentive to combine or otherwise obtain cards above level 1 in the game.
Once the problem is identified, we then have to look at whether it is accurate (i.e. is there actually not enough incentive to combine/obtain cards above level 1?), and whether it is really a problem (i.e. is that actually a bad thing for the ecosystem and community?).
Regarding the accuracy of the issue, I feel that it is quite obvious from a quick glance at the system. The most glaring indicator is the rental market, where over 85% of all cards actively being rented are level 1 and over 95% of all cards listed for rent are level 1. This is fine on the regular market, where it gives more flexibility to buyers to purchase multiple level 1 cards and combine to the level they need, but the rental market shows what types of cards players are actually using in battle.
We are still working on pulling the battle data, but anyone who has played at all in Silver league knows that you'll be hard pressed to find a card being played above level 1 except for the accounts going for the leaderboard. And why would there be? Why would someone combine 14 common cards into 1, or pay a little more for a level 3 rental, when they can do just fine with the level 1 versions and spread the 14 common cards they have over 14 different accounts?
To me, as well as many in the community, it is clear that there is little incentive currently (perhaps even disincentive) to combine cards at the lower levels, which then brings us to the second part of the question - is that a bad thing for the ecosystem?
This should be a much simpler question to answer with a resounding "yes". This entire ecosystem and economy functions on scarcity. The combine function is the key element to the scarcity of the cards. For some context - if all 15M Chaos Legion packs are opened, there would be approximately 1.85 million of each level 1 common card available in the game. This is an unbelievably high amount and would make the cards nearly worthless. However - if all of those were combined only to level 3, it would reduce the total number of each CL common card to about 130k - which is less than the current number of daily active accounts.
Think about that for a second - if all of the CL common cards were combined to level 3, there wouldn't be enough of them even just for the accounts that are playing the game right now. Not even counting any future growth. Obviously if cards are combined to higher levels, it would be even less, and the same concept applies to the higher rarity cards as well.
Combining cards is essential to create scarcity, and scarcity is essential to a healthy and growing economy, so therefore a lack of incentive or worse - disincentive - to combine cards is a major problem that everyone who is part of this ecosystem should be concerned with.
Assessing the Proposed Solution
Now that we have identified and evaluated the problem, we can start assessing the proposed solution - as well as any other potential solution.
Ultimately, Splinterlands requires two things in order to move up through the ranks and increase rewards: Assets and Skill. Many people have commented that the proposed change is lessening the skill factor of the game, but it is not doing that at all. More skilled players can still move up in the ranks and have a higher win rate than less skilled players, and with fewer assets, and therefore they can earn more rewards just as before.
This part of the system is actually working quite well, in my opinion, since the recent ranked rewards changes, and nothing about that will be changing with this proposal. Players who are more skilled will still be able to earn more rewards with fewer or equal assets than less skilled players, as it should be.
What is proposed to change is the assets side of the equation. For that, all we have really had in the game is the collection power system, which is woefully inadequate for many reasons. For one thing, the collection power system completely blocks players from moving up in leagues if they don't have the required assets, so no matter how skilled the player is, they simply cannot move up to higher leagues with higher rewards until they acquire the necessary assets.
On top of that, the collection power system can be and often is easily manipulated by simply having a small number of relatively cheap, high CP cards in an account while all of the cards actually used in battles are low level. We have explored a number of potential changes and fixes to the CP system to address the issues discussed above, but none of them are that great and ultimately we feel that it would be much better to replace CP completely with a better system. This proposed change to how card levels used in battles affect rewards would be a big first step in the direction of removing CP requirements for ranked leagues altogether.
The proposed change addresses both of these items in a much better and cleaner way than collection power ever could. It does not prevent players from moving up to higher leagues and earning higher tier rewards in any way - players can still play at any level with any cards. The difference is that rather than just taking into account cards in the players' collections, it uses the actual cards used in battles which will go a long way towards encouraging players to combine their cards and/or to rent higher level cards, which, as we discussed above, is absolutely vital to this ecosystem.
Team Creation UI Updates
One other thing I wanted to address quickly is the situation where sometimes it is better to play a card at lower levels than at higher levels in certain rulesets. That is something we plan to address with some UI updates to the team creation screen as soon as we can reasonably put dev resources on it. Ideally, players would have the option to choose to play a higher level card at a lower level, so the card would count as the level it actually is for rewards, but in the battle it can have the lower level stats.
Long Term Thinking
A lot of the feedback that I have heard about the proposal is something along the lines of - "I am a skilled player who can do well in higher leagues with lower level cards and so I will get fewer rewards as a result of this change / I am being penalized and therefore I am against it".
Splinterlands - like many things in life - is a long term game. If you want to be successful at it, and if you want it to be successful overall, you need to also think long term. In the short term you may earn fewer rewards compared to the previous system, but that is well worth it to create a better system which is likely to increase the value of those rewards significantly over time.
The current system has many flaws, which we are working with the community on identifying and fixing, so when evaluating this proposal or any others, it's important that we don't compare it to how things were previously - i.e. will I be getting more or less than before - but instead we should think about how it will increase the scarcity and utility of the assets over the longer term, which will ultimately benefit everyone who participates.
If you are a skilled player and can win in higher leagues with lower level cards, then you will still be earning more rewards than a less skilled player with the same or even better cards, which is as it should be. But skill by itself should not allow you to fully maximize rewards. Increasing the level of your cards should always allow you to increase your rewards, and it should be more obvious, direct, and not easily manipulable like collection power.
I strongly feel - in addition to many people on the team - that this change will be a huge net positive to the Splinterlands ecosystem over the long term by strongly encouraging the combining and renting of cards at higher levels. I also think it will bring us closer to being able to remove the collection power requirements which would be another big win as they cause all sorts of issues (both technically and economically) themselves.
It is important to also keep in mind that this change will not fix everything, and we still have a lot of work to do to build a fun, engaging, and sustainable blockchain-based game and economy which will allow players to build up significant account value over time. That also includes a lot of work on the new player experience, which we in no way have forgotten about, but it is prioritized behind getting the core reward system figured out.
In any case, the goal of this post is not to try to get anyone to vote a certain way on this proposal, but rather to provide more context into the thought process behind this proposal and the issues it was meant to address as well as to provide players with a framework by which to evaluate future proposals going forward. Hope it was helpful!
One point that doesn't seem to be being addressed by anyone is how this will affect bots. This change will make bots MUCH less attractive. When a ton of bots drop, rewards will go back up (somewhat) so that players not playing maxed cards won't be punished as much as it initially appears (and, of course, players playing maxed cards will make more).
I am definitely voting for this proposal even though my alt plays well above its card level and will (initially, at least) take a bit of a hit.
Keep in mind though, depending on the league you and others play, those bots are crucial parts of the game that keep battles going 24/7. Diamond league doesn’t have many bots, or at least many of the shitty ones any longer, and sometimes I wait 30-45 seconds for a battle where in the past I waited max 10 seconds.
I’m not saying that bots are great however they are needed and important because we don’t have the number of real human players in each league to bring about battles in less than 10 seconds. I remember as a brand new player years ago, I waited 60-90 seconds sometimes for a match and that wasn’t fun at all!
Well maybe it will encourage the bot accounts to simply level those cards up as well too. A lot of players use bots on really good accounts. I assume most people that are running bots will spend the money to level up just to get better rewards as well. Especially if you account for people that use this as a small source of income.
Negative, Ghostrider- this change will effectively, do nothing to the bots. 5BCX cards earn 2x the Rewards? Why would I combine? Botlords will continue to run 5 1BCX accounts in Bronze and Silver instead of 1 Bronze level account, which will continue to push the Bronze Accounts up into Gold.
The only thing this proposal will do is, effectively, 'cast in stone' the current state of the meta- Novice accounts soaking up all the Rewards in Bronze and Silver, Bronze accounts soaking up all the Rewards in Gold, with Silver and Gold level accounts stuck in the upper levels of Gold League and trying to eke out an existence from the scraps left over after the Bronze accounts have pulled out their share.
I'm not opposed to this new change if leagues below diamond had anything to fight for. But its birdseed at the bottom now that you're making people jump through hoops for. If you're saying there's not enough cards to get for everyone to have a level three card, why are you trying to push everyone to champion? Make gold and silver the bread and butter. Get outside endorsements for diamond and champion level players to sweeten the pot up there but put the bulk of the rewards in silver and gold and push players up there. THEN enact this so people actually have real incentive to combine to level 3 or 4 and we get scarcity.
Champion players will never be how you get all these cards combined. They will never be the way to absorb 75 million cards. It's going to be the players in the middle. Build up your middle class by making it rewarding to be in the middle class. The 1% will be 1% regardless. Yes reward them but someone who is driven to be champion level will be there regardless of the incentive you give them to a large degree.
FInally, I understand why you want to perfect the rewards system before you work on the new player experience but the reward system is a big part of the new player experience. The reward system should be built to reward new players. It should take them by the hand and show them that while this is profitable and fun, moving up just a little bit (which takes time) is even more profitable and fun. Once you hit gold, there is really no need to heavily incentivize people further. If a lot of people make it to gold and silver with the appropriote cards, the system worked. Those ultra competiive deep pocket people who really want to get to the top because they want to play at the highest levels will do so even if the rewards aren't SO much higher. Especailly as esports becomes bigger for Splinterlands.
Gold should be the end of the journey for middle class players. Diamond is the proving grounds for the ultra motivated who eventually want to make a name for themselves at the highest levles but need experience with the cards. Champ is Esports and endorsements.
Build up the middle class?!? You mean a handful of billionaires shouldn't control the vast majority of the wealth?!? What are you, some sort of godless communist/socialist/Antifa hybrid sent here to destroy the USA?
Good thoughts here! I don't agree with all of them but I like the passion behind them.
These are some very good ideas. Going back to my Civilization days...you can build your empire tall or wide. I think if the ultimate goal is to have as many human players as possible then building wide should definitely be a big part of the plan, and to do that you need to incentivize the "middle class" as you so aptly describe it. I like your idea of the Champions League getting rewarded from outside sources. Of course, those sources need to be found and developed. Easier said than done. But if this truly is a game for the long haul, then that should already be a part of the thinking.
In the meantime, on the face of it, this proposal does seem like it will incentivize people to combine cards. How much? Who knows. But as @yabatmatt said, even combining to Level 2 or 3 could make a huge difference on both the rental market and the regular market. Hopefully the law of unintended consequences doesn't rear it's ugly head and cause any major problems.
As a final thought, do you think making cards rent for a 1 DEC minimum would do anything to get people/bots to buy more cards rather than rent? Just wondering...
I feel like you guys have good intentions at heart but you're failing to apply SEVERAL key aspects of GAME design. If we want this game to be successful it's not about managing a perfect investment model but instead about creating a fun and attractive GAME that creates its own value by creating demand for the game itself NOT the money you can make. We have seen countless games where people were willing to spend 100,000 dollars for virtual items that had no investment value. WHY do you CONTINUE to avoid using established PROVEN models of game economy design that have worked for 10,000's games when they are known? I don't BUY the "well this is a crypto game it's Different". I agree we can't offer free stuff at lower levels but that does not distract from the fact that the formulas to build stable and adjustable models for this economy exist and are not only being IGNORED but done 100% the wrong way in an attempt to supply HIGHER ROI's to Champions and WHALES in the short term while those should be the players must invest for the long term. It's not about this specific proposal *Which is BAD because you are changing the reward structure payout AGAIN * it's about a continued failure to understand how to balance a game economy and help players advance. The previous attempt to get more players to Champion Failed horribly as we can see how the number of players it championed failed to advance due to the fact people just don't have the spare money to advance through those league
What suggestions do you have to make the game more fun? :-)
Haha you beat me too it that's my question!
I think if the major match making factor was cards rather than rating, that would be much more fun. Like matching based off of effective CP instead of rating. It would create much more parody.
Effective CP would count the CP of only the highest leveled version of a given deck. Example: I have a level 5 venari whatever and 5 more at level 1. Effective CP would only count the level 5 card.
New players experience starter cards that allow them to play but, not as good as a set of 4 mana summoners with no abilities that can be unlocked as part of new player experiences and leveled up to maybe common level 5 as unlocking missions (Like a version of Gladius cars ie this would replace the 3 dollars of credits they get for buying a spell book ). Swiss Tourneys ,,, E-Sports Pro Circuit with qualifiers that award quarterly titles. A Tourney mode that shows one card at a time. for broadcasting tourneys. ..... A PROPER BELL CURVE / CARROT Economy that encourages players to advanced.
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@axrho/spl-to-the-moon
One of the short comings of the argument here is the ignoring of reality that in order for any business to be successful or last long, it needs investors. If you destroy your investors to appease people who pay fractions or even nothing, compared to an investor your product is not going to last long at all.
I’ve personally spent a few thousand dollars on the game, which isn’t as much as some people for sure but if you aren’t willing to invest that money, or others aren’t willing, how do you deserve a better shot than someone who has paid into it?
What are some of your ideas for how it could work better or be less detrimental to the group of players you have in mind? Criticism is the best when you provide potential solutions, instead of listing faults. It’s also much more likely to get your point heard if you can say “here’s what I think is wrong, and how I also think it could look better”
I think your criticism is warranted because everything in life should be debated in an open forum so different sides can see what the other is thinking and coming from. I think it falls a bit short in a few areas but I’m also glad that you took the time to voice the opinion! Dialogue is great!
I’m not trying to treat you poorly but get you to think a little more about what you could offer for your criticisms.
As an investor of this game I vote "NO" for this PROPOSAL. You have to remind yourself that this is an NFT GAME. If you are a Whale or investor of this game you have to think twice, it looks positive and favorable to investors at first glance but there is a big negative effect in a long run.
Without more PLAYERS, there is NO DEMAND! PERIOD . It is easy to say that that the value of cards will increase if everyone upgrade because the supply will decrease but the Question is... Are there any new/old players that will play and buy your max cards? That is why I don't max out my cards because only few players can afford it. What's the point of having max cards if players can't afford it. All of us investors will just end up being a bag holders of cards and tokens. Players will just gonna quit and find other NFT games that has a better rules than Splinterlands. And all of us investors will gonna end up playing with the BOTS that we don't want to ban.
Let's face the reality, majority of the players cannot afford max cards. Roughly around 80%( or more)
cannot afford it. That is why they rent the cards instead of buying it. You also need to know where is your market(the location of your players)? Are they 3rd world countries or not?
If you want enormous growth in this game, protect the players at the same time protect the investors. We need a balance economy.
If you really want not to exploit the reward system then ban the BOTS.
We have to learn from the past NFT games that failed because investors and players quit because of GREED.
Matt, thank you for taking the time to explain clearly why you suggest this change. I think its important for people to know "why" they are voting for this (or not voting for it).
I also appreciate you taking the time to explain that there will be more FUTURE changes in order to:
I think that is important for people to know its on your radar as well. All players matter and its good to hear you say it (again).
I've done extremely well financially (and had fun too) since the beginning by following your advice based on your thought process. In fact everyone I know (big and small) has done extremely well over time. If you say "I strongly feel" something, then I will pay attention and follow your advice.
Again thank you for giving more color on the reasons for the proposal and for also committing to make FUTURE changes too!
I like this Matt guy. He has good opinions on important stuff for Splinterlands. I fully support this position.
This way of thinking is strange and evil.
We should use reward mechanism to motivate users, not punishment system to govern customers, although sometimes the difference between the two is not significant.
The problem you mentioned can be solved by greatly increasing the power of the combined card. It is a strange thing that there is no reward for the combined card.
You will be rewarded if you merge, not punished if you don't merge.
It does reward and motivate users. It motivates them to both level up and to combine and hold on to their cards in order to reach higher rewards. You have to understand that any game like this including hearth stone etc all require continued investments to build your decks. Look at Pokémon players and other card game players they constantly are buying. If no one is buying and there's no demand and everyone just gets everything for free then value just gets sucked out and never replenished. People need to stop thinking crypto and money is printed and handed out. That's not a sustainable system.
yeah he's pretty alright lol
Instead of penalizing 1bcx cards why not do rewards according to collection power?
By using CP you get rewarded according to the skin you have in the game and a bot account wont have near the CP as someone who is putting time and money in into building up their deck and trying to reach the higher leagues.
Thanks for the laugh.
This way of thinking is strange and evil.
We should use reward mechanism to motivate users, not punishment system to govern customers, although sometimes the difference between the two is not significant.
The problem you mentioned can be solved by greatly increasing the power of the combined card. It is a strange thing that there is no reward for the combined card.
You will be rewarded if you merge, not punished if you don't merge.
How exactly are you planning to do that? Having cards that have 1 attack on level 1 and 10 attack on level 10? Some cards are not really worth to upgrade to max for a single live, I understand that, but you can't just boost the power you get for upgrading cards without completely disrupting the whole system.
It's also difficult to introduce drastic changes like this now, as many cards have already been released and prices have been established.
This is an excellent idea, the "Team Creation UI Updates" section.
Leveled-up cards will be able to be used as the same level or lower level.
If you combine 14 level 1 common cards to get one level 3 common card, you also get level 1 and level 2 cards because you can choose which level you want to use in Silver league without any reward reduction.
Players won't hesitate to combine cards because they don't lose any useful lower level stats.
Why not calculate the winner's reward based on the cards from both teams?
That way, if a low CP skilled player takes down a whale they are rewarded for their skill.
Great creativity but . . . this will punish the max-level player who sees a sea of 1 bcx players.
The intent of implementing Matt's proposal is to make it less profitable for people who run 1000 account 1 BCX bot farms. If that is successful, there shouldn't be a sea of 1 BCX players. Only genuine 1 BCX players who want to advance in the game and hopefully bring new investment.
This just makes it possible for skilled players to advance and build a collection.
Thank you for the response though, it is good to discuss the proposal and try and see it from other peoples perspective.
If a Max level player loses to all level 1s they deserved it. As someone who plays a full level 1 deck, it's not easy to beat a maxed level deck with all level 1s and doing so should be rewarded. Over time the max level player will still earn more. Unless they are of very low skill.
I started with very little at a time when CL wasn't released and Untamed was sold out.
There weren't even pack drops in chests.
The only way to upgrade was to buy individual cards on the secondary market.
I am now lucky enough to have enough CP for Gold II, but I had to invest.
I've experienced the tiddler and minnow side of the game, but doubt I will ever be a whale - although it won't stop me from trying.
10,000 packs is around $40,000 on the primary market for Chaos Legion packs and then there are the vouchers required for the additional free packs and the potions would be 5 per pack. So 50,000 of each potion for higher Legendary and Gold Foil drop rate.
That's a big investment, more than just a grand or two.
If you want to run 50-100 guilds, say 10 accounts per guild, that's 500 accounts minimum, to divide the 50,000 cards into.
Then there is the cost of setting up so many accounts at $10 each for the spellbook, or buying them from other botters who'll sell for $1 - $2. Then there is the risk that the sellers can recover their accounts within the first month or so after the accounts are transferred and you change the private keys changed.
I wish you luck in your venture.
Unfortunately I don't have the capital to make such a large investment, and there are some risks.
if a max-level loses on a lvl 1...then i think he deserves to be punished bro
Or at least make it so that if you defeat someone with max cards and crazy decks, you get a little reward boost. Not sure how that would be calculated or work out but a decent thought!
nice point of view
In Matt We Trust.
I agree
While I don't disagree with the premise of the this and the proposal. I was actually for this before the last proposal that already pushed a lot of the reward to the top end. You say people who play in silver see all the accounts with lv 1 cards and I do play in silver after the rest and depending days before I am stable in gold. I see more max level cards for silver than I do lv 1 anymore though the lv 1 are still there.
I only joined in Feb and already gave up on level untamed cards because it's 15 - 30K for silver / gold level. As you say even if people combine cards to level 3 which isn't even a max silver deck for the most part, how do we stop the cost of entry moving forward where isn't 50 - 100K just for lv 3 cards? I know the first thing people will say is renting and scholar but people want to own their own stuff.
You say it good for the future of the economy but when people can't afford to join the economy we're left with just people that are here and burn out will happen... which may allow new players to get in cheaper but not by much.
lol
I’m very interested to see how this will work, as I have been playing hard for about 18 months to get my collection power to over 150,000 so that I can play up to Gold II without renting, so an equivalent system that rewards players for their investment both financially and in time, would be most welcome.
⚔️💀
From what I've read from the proposal and also your feedback here and others (Which holds tons of value for better understanding of why changes are being introduced) this one has my vote. It does feel like a lot of low end cards and pushing a bunch of accounts is still in play. However account value comes from the combination of those cards and we might actully start seeing values of top level cards start increasing even more in value as supplies are reduced and higher end cards are more sought after. This one sounds like a promising option to try and see how it does. In theory it seems like a net positive across the board.
Thank you for taking the time to jot down your own feelings on the matter as different viewpoints I think are critical and important for these Proposal votes.
The issue is simple, why pay 14 times as much for a card that is marginally better? Some cards don't even gain any stats as they level, why?
Higher level cards should feel OP compared to lower level. Currently level 1 cards are almost as good as level 3 cards, some are actually BETTER in certain rulesets.
Buffing higher level cards or nerfing lower levels would be the conventional fix. Every new addition brought in with this fundamental flaw makes the situation worse.
To me this is a work around for the much bigger issue that leveling cards doesn't give you as much game play advantage as it should.
Let's say cards would be buffed (which in my opinion at this point would be pretty much card-price manipulation, since cards have established prices, but let's just go with it). This would result in players wanting to level up their cards, correct? So basically, the same outcome for players wanting to combine cards for higher rewards. What exactly is the difference?
Really what I am try to say is its not balanced at the moment and introducing complicated reward algorithms might not be the best approach to fix a balance issue. Most games rebalance cards to fix balance issues. This 'simple game' is already extremely hard to explain to new comers.
Your point on price, higher level card would become more worth while but universal rewards are the same and all cards should be buffed proportionally so the only market shift I can see is combined cards not trading at as big of a discount.
Thank you Yabapmatt for co-founding this incredible DeFi game we come to enjoy and love on a daily basis. A game that continues to define how a DeFi and DAO experience and experiment can potentially be evolved over time. As a big supporter and fan of DeFi game I don't believe this change will meet my personal test for the best possible way to evolve and sustain a DeFi economy. I am writing this super late and have not fully thought this out as DeFi is brand new, complicated and may need more intellectual capital than I have available right now. I feel if I don't provide this response now I may forget. So...
I believe there are 5 or more elements to consider for this important change:
Proof of Stake (SPS). I believe once SPS staking is implemented it will resolve some of these concerns.
Proof of Time (bots and humans both deserve their time as well -- which is the best part of Splinterlands scaling economy). Implementing this proposal may decrease the lower deck players' proof of time. We should design changes to either maintain or increase a bot/player's proof of time. I believe Splinterlands should reward proof time with an annual soul-bound card given out as part of each season end reward for players to combine and max. For conversation purposes only and not intended to be used this way: we can have regular max foil for those that combine 13 cards and it's converted to max gold foil when 18 cards are combined. This will be special each year along it's larger deck like Chaos Legion and smaller deck like Riftwatchers. Players and bots should receive other benefits and merits for proof of time like extra stuff and goodies that will reward their gaming experience and loyalty. Yes, even bots. We can appreciate bots more as world's population declines or as Henry Ford's employment model adopts to DeFi.
Proof of skill -- implementing this proposal discourages of the one of the best aspect for why we play games to begin with: beating a stronger player with a weaker deck and ability to flex this, sharing this win within the community, guild, friends and possibly that opponent who tried to outspend us. This is one of the purpose of ghost card tournaments and creating a level playing field. Rank play has even a better experience. In fact, I'd argue we should reward a weaker deck beating a stronger deck by rewarding those players/bots more! This is the dream for millions of players around the world to accomplish this feat. We should reconsider other features like perhaps the tiering should be modified or expanded. For example the jump from Gold to Diamond is the largest and possibly most expense as a percentage money spent. Maybe we can expand to add a Platinum tier to help ease this economic jump. We can dive more into which player league will benefit most with this proposal and how fair that is, e.g. Diamond and Champion at a later time. I believe there are better changes within the Splinterlands framework that the developer team can tweak compared to diminishing the proof of skill.
Proof of entertainment (fun value). All games need to provide some form or level of entertain value even for idle clickers. I believe our mobile and Web2 peers have evolved and proven this over time. Players of all genre and generation will continue to define and evolve what constitutes entertainment. And this may change with new generation of gamers. We can look at the history and pick elements we all would love to add to Splinterlands as either quality of life improvements, distractions or serious thinking like picking the best cards for deck based on give rule set. I don't believe Splinterlands will appeal to all genre and player base but bots can be embraced as an economic model for success. Other new aspects of the Splinterlands family of gaming experience will continue to be added and may appeal to those that feel left out, e.g. Tower Defense, GLS, land play, Runi and more as they're announced.
Proof of DeFi (intrinsic and deflationary nature). Deflation is important in the card market and DeFi economy. It's why so many care about BTC and now Eth post merge. Ability to combine cards in Splinterlands is important to the game's success and fundamental to its origin. From my perspective it's also the least valued and most controversial when it comes to DeFi gaming as only a small percentage will benefit as the game and economy grows over time -- just like our real world. Yes, everyone will "benefit" with their share of the return. The rich will get richer -- one of the fundamental laws of money. Unlike previous monetary models and theories like keynesian economics, Alexander Hamilton's treasury management or current SWIFT banking system, DeFi has the potential to change the bankless and un-bank population at a macro level. This is where a game like Splinterlands shines and why I buy into Aggro and Yabapmatt's long term thesis. But not at the expense of the above 4 elements. The priority should be focused on the top 4 as DeFi will continue to evolve as it matures with growing pains - like tying algorithmic stablecoin (e.g. DEC) to products. Land and other new features may resolve this. Sometimes patience is the better approach or strategy with more unknowns as a risk consideration. I believe this will have a larger benefit compared to diminishing proof of skill.
I hope my lack of sleep response helps to move this conversation in a meaningful way and not distract from Yabapmatt's genius and vision for Splinterlands.
You're absolutely right. Ultimately I believe in Matt long-term -- that he will do right by the players and those that made significant investment within the Splinterlands family of games and products. I wish the team would enumerate the proposal with data based on a diversified deck and focused deck perspective. Which model is the team incentivizing and rationale for this steerage. I believe majority of players have limited investment and have their own preference how to spend their gaming budget.
I personally don't see 85% of rentals being 1bcx as a glaring indicator of accuracy. It could also be a glaring indicator that the marketing team is doing an incredible job of bringing on new players. Or it could be that 85% of players at this moment haven't worked their way up into higher level cards yet.
It took me awhile to move to higher level cards. I was still learning all the level 1 cards. That's probably less of an issue in modern though.
I don't have insight into all the numbers yall have though and ultimately I do think this is a good idea and will be voting for it with my 11k staked sps.
Opinion of a gold level player that owns max silver level summoners and meta cards. Personal goal is to get on the modern silver leaderboard once untamed is gone. The investment required to go higher now or do it faster doesn't seem reasonable to me
Magic exists! This post changed my opinion on the proposal
I feel like this is a counterproductive way to deal with a handful of disconnected symptoms of other unrelated issues.
In the case of a player with unlimited resources, of course you want them to level their cards instead of hoarding bcx 1. What about those who are grinding though? Maybe they play in gold, but they're happy with level 4 on that common for now because they're clever and pay attention to the stats. They'd rather devote those resources elsewhere and get more cards that will again take them months to level. If they can win, why wouldn't they be entitled to full rewards? Why does a reward pool need to be unnecessarily complicated?
This potentially limits the way players can play without being punished by the system, so I'm against it. I think it unlikely it'll be allowed to fail though, so idk why we are doing this.
Grinding without investing is what they are trying to disincentivize. I don’t know you from a fly on the wall but if you’re serious about the game, investing a bit of money in one way or the other besides the starter deck is a good way to go through things.
If you don’t have the money in fiat dollars to do it, spend more time on hive and earn it through commenting, posting and interacting with the community. Thousands of dollars of hive every single day are given out through votes and you could spend time earning some to help bolster your SL account. Just some thoughts for you, and ways that many others have done it.
Ultimately the game is one that requires you invest money into it every so often. Not every day or week but every few weeks or months, if you want to excel, you need to invest for its success.
if you read the actual proposal you will see that it sets a minimum...which for silver would be lvl 3 for a common. so you would only be penalized if you used a level 2 or 1 common in the battle. I'm not saying your wrong or right, i'm simply saying your basing your opinions on faulty information
It has its merits to try to reward users with leveled up cards, but it simultaneously makes zero sense to punish players with lvl 1 cards. Take Riftwatchers for instance; I was stoked when they were released because they are NEW cards, with new cool ways to play opening up for me. IF you nerf players with lvl 1 cards you will also basically reduce the joy and excitement of getting new cards, since they will earn less if you don't buy like 14 copies...
Why not just get rid of the starter cards (as mentioned above after an introductory period) and then let the best player (or bot) win? Increase payouts to card holders based on bcx if that is of interest, but don't punish the skilled players who can beat higher-leveled cards.
Your comment do not take into account that we talk about injecting new money into the account, when it should be a PLAY-to-EARN game. If I could earn some 10-20 USD equivalent in SPS each season in Silver I would simply reinvest that into my deck and have 0 issues with this. IF I should upgrade all my cards I currently play with, including new Riftwatchers, to the required Silver level it would not cost "almost nothing mostly".
I have seen your comments and understand your point of view, however it is not exactly encouraging for new players to join.
Agree with many of the others here. I feel like there is good sentiment at heart but I don't think this is a good way to go about addressing the economy. From my perspective, if a player is able to win with lower level cards, thats good for them. Player rank 'should' be enough to put players into a place where they belong. Since player rank is already the most significant contributor to rshares it sounds like maybe your issue was reducing the amount of CP it took to get into the various leagues. Reverse that change instead of trying to artificially mess with the market via punishing lower level cards.
Sadly the issue here is that you and I as real human players shouldn’t really be penalized. It’s the massive amounts of bots that are ruining this system and there’s no easy or good way to squeeze out the rewards from bots so they have to do it across the board. It’s a tricky predicament to be in but in life there will always be those that take advantage of a good thing.
As well, bots are crucial to the games success and playability right now. You are guaranteed a battle in every league except diamond because of bots. There aren’t enough human players to sustain battles every 10 seconds or less across all leagues and factor in the randomness that is built into it with an algorithm.
There is already a reduction for using a ghost card which is really the only ones that would be used to 'leach' without buying cards.
CP to even play in the league is already a requirement which means players already have to be buying a minimum number of cards. That type of system still forces 'investment' but lets players diversify their buys into having a wider deck instead of forcing all of their purchases into few but higher level cards.
End of the day, this is a change to impact the market at the cost of skill play.
Hello Yabapmatt, have you rented max lvl cards for Gold or Diamond leagues ever? I'm mostly playing with rented cards which is max level, because my card collection bought before Chaos legion launch was cheap and not competitive anymore. I want to play in Gold level, because in my opinion is not worth to play in lower level. There is days that lot of cards are not available in the market (or the price is not adequate) and I should rent lower lvl cards, why I should be penalized about it, that you can't secure your ecosystem and can't fight against bot farms.
I understand that you think only about your pocket, pretending that everything is good for ecosystem and community. If you want to fight against bots, good for you, I don't care about them this in not my problem. With this proposal you fighting against me and lot of human players who have only one account and this is not good for community.
From my perspective, this is the most expensive game which I have bought in my life, since Oct 2021 when I entered game, my assets (SPS and cards) was only decreased, about 3-4 times.
If I look from game perspective this game is not even in Playstation 1 level,this is like Sega (if you remember console like this) level. My asset value (SPS and cards) is still 3 times lower than I entered game.
I really enjoy the game and hope my assets someday will be in my entered value, but this game without appropriate rewards doesn't make sense at all. This game play doesn't cost thousands of USD.
Cheaper is to purchase newest Playstation and lot of best games.
If you will penalize small players as bots, they probably will leave this game and in the end here will be only big players, investors and bots. You know what will happen next if there will be less players who need rented or owned cards, big players, investors and bots will stay here with their NFT's which will cost less and less until everything will die.
You can't think only about rich players.
Could be I am wrong from other person perspective, but we must respect all opinions.
I respect your thoughts about the proposal but also think about how you can attract new players/investors, not the problem with the cards. You make the whales even richer and the small players in the lower leagues are the ones who suffer. that is the biggest obstacles in all nft games. not all players can invest a lot, I hope you understand that too. Im against with that proposal.
Maybe people would care less about giving up even more of their rewards if you guys would actually take the time to start addressing Quality of Life issues and all the other annoying things in-game that have been piling up over the past year, instead of constantly hitting us with delays and pushing all these side projects.
I find sad how intelligent people can make such serious errors of appreciation and considerations so far from reality. I am not going to expand, it is useless since even the founders have taken sides. But this proposal, punishing the player base so severely can be a deathblow to the game. it is obvious that the aim of the proposal is to make players who have invested less than $1000 put even more on the table. It is not an antibot measure, make no mistake, there were better options if this had been the real objective. If you want to increase the scarcity of cards, increase the number of players. Do your job.
you are a bit arrogant. are you aware that splinterlands has done most of its advertising in countries where many people have 1000 dollars a year to live on? so please reconsider your statements next time before you publish them.....
haha you crack me up
The affordability equation on this is off significantly for anyone that started after the SPS air drop. This change could be done after Rebellion launched and then a modern league would exist that's somewhat affordable to be competitive in.
Alternatively it could be phased in and applied to Bronze and Silver to start and then assess the impact. There aren't enough players at Diamond and Champion right now to get a consistent on level game and making that more difficult is only going to hurt the underlying game.
i will be voting /NO .no point in taking away new players desire to own an affordable deck like ecr takes away players that likes to plays desire to play. wish they would just choose players over bots, no matter how many bandages they apply bots will find another way to exploit
I can understand where you're coming from with this proposal. My biggest question is in regards to summoners. You could have 6 maxed out splinters to play, but if your summoner isn't at the league max, you could potentially get punished up to 7 times (once for the summoner and 6 more times for the reduced level splinters). Am I understanding this correctly? I really just want to clarify if this is the case, because if true, I think you'll see the most immediate and most profound effect on the summoner's market should this proposal pass.
you need a silver deck for gold, if your deck is lower you will be penalized per card
No. From what I understand the card level gets counted even if it can't be played at that level. So if I have a level 1 summoner but play a maxed out rare card, I'd get full credit for the maxed out rare even though it plays at a lower level.
Let's see what will happen I know you are working hard for the economy to grow.
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If card ownership/rental is taken less seriously (removing collection power-at least as is) from the formula to advance, then there will definitely be some problems in game if it's not based on card ownership (or rental). I do like the idea for completely reconstructing the card bonuses based on the card set, foil and bcx level, without question-fantastic idea.
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BEER.There's 2 conflicting aspect. SL is a limited resource game. For a given budget (we don't have infinite money), you can either
1- Pack it into a best global deck and spam it (remember that lovely rent your focus splinter meta)
2- Spread across multiple spliters/strategy to fit to multiple ruleset and hope for the best.
And now you're proposing to cut my rewards for spreading... ? you want the "spam a deck" meta back ?
There's a reason why we don't lvl our low mana cards : the stats increases are insignificant. Hardy Stonefish. Why would I bother putting 60 BCX in when the on only stats increases I'd get is 1 spd (probably still the slowest on the board) and 1 HP (probably still getting 1-shot by anything). I'd rather use my money to improve my overall collection. You should really consider changing the scale of the stats on everything to give you more granularity. 1ATk/1HP become 10Atk/10HP.. that way you can at least give stats buff EVERY level 12Atk/13HP at lvl 2 for Hardy Stonefish for instance
I agree, Hardy Stonefish is cheap example , I do no find any reason to level up 0 mana legendary "fiend" cards too unless they go for max.
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Explaining that this is part of phasing out CP requirements helps me understand it better, but I still wouldn’t vote Yes unless that was part of the proposal as well.
A couple of pieces of feedback and thoughts of impacts on the economy.
Overall supportive, but thought it's worth thinking about the following
Also another point is stability of the rewards system. In general in the investment world the less changes and certainty the more likely people will invest. The recent run of tweaks to the reward system have impacts to different cards and therefore increases the risk that a future change may impact the card value perhaps negatively. This means the price paid today in theory should be lower to adjust for this risk. Thus the frequency of the changes is probably something to be on watch for too because overall it increases the perception of risk which reduces value.
i will vote yes. the section
Team Creation UI Updates.
has appeased my recent counter-arguments!
but this section here
(Think about that for a second - if all of the CL common cards were combined to level 3, there wouldn't be enough of them even just for the accounts that are playing the game right now. Not even counting any future growth. Obviously if cards are combined to higher levels, it would be even less, and the same concept applies to the higher rarity cards as well.)
has a nasty taste, when i think that with the last change they pretended that everyone could level up in diamond!
How do you come to that conclusion?
I admit that I come at this mostly from a gameplay aspect. I'm not really here to get rich. Yeah I'm holding cards long term, but I'm more focused on playing the game. I don't have a bot play for me. If my ECR goes to 100 I miss out on those opportunities. So while I appreciate that this manipulates the market to increase scarcity which would be better $ value in the long run, I feel that it does it at the expense of game play which I currently value more. (I consider rewards a part of gameplay)
Question: what is a reasonable amount you would be expecting a new player to invest in order to earn on this game?
you can earn in bronze but with lvl 1 cards
Oh I see. But then still it's "Players who are more skilled will still be able to earn more rewards with fewer or equal assets than less skilled players, (in the same league according to their cards)as it should be.
If the point of the game is to reward investments, then we shouldn't even play the game. It should just be based off of market value of the cards played. Whomever plays the most expensive hand wins automatically. Maybe put an RNG in there so that they lose like 5% of the time or something. Investors would be happy and that's all that really matters.
This was very helpful! Thank you, Matt!
Is this change going to roll back the SPS reward by league pool that just went into effect a season ago? It seems we are changing thing so rapidly that we don't even let the change settle before changing again.
I think the best solution would be to calculate the winners reward based of the HIGHEST teams score. That way if a lower level beats a higher level, its gets rewarded, while getting no additional reward for beating a lower level. It still rewards the skilled players.
I'm saying I'd a level 2 summoner cards beats a level 4 reward them for it. It helps adjust the argument that players who can over play their cards are now penalized. It's an extra reward for beating higher cards.
Good plan 👍
Why not create an average card score based on a player's collection. If they have a handful of cards that are max level that they use to bypass power requirements then play lvl 1 cards, punish THAT instead. Averaging out the level of a player's cards would create a more balanced playing field.
There are lots of players with big collections that contain allot of low level cards but still have the required cards for higher leagues. Using a players full collection to determine an average card level would hurt those players. Plus cards are easily transfered, meaning one could transfer out level one cards to help bring up ones overall card level average.
I fail to see how that is detrimental to those players. They can combine their cards to increase their level or sell/transfer their lower level cards. This is not an undue burden.
Depends on how you look at it. Sure transferring cards isn't that taxing but that would mean at the very least one would need a second account. For someone who might be holding level one cards for resale combining them isn't an option. For someone who already has maxed cards and possibly other various level cards, they may want to keep the level ones they have at level one. There is allot to consider.
I guess i'm kinda curious about all the research and feedback received from the "community" on this issue. I've been a pretty active part of the Splinterlands Discord for over a year now and i'm confident that this issue has never really been a huge overriding concern there. That makes me think that the "community" you were referring to is Mav chat or some other circle that i'm not a part of. and THAT leads me to thinking that this post is really just a PR scheme meant to sooth the masses in preparation for a change that has already been decided on...and that makes me want to check out...clearly SPS isn't even close to decentralized enough to allow any real governance.
having said that...I personally would never attempt my Diamond grind with severely under leveled cards and think that with the exception of Legendary cards it's fine. I personally think it's a lazy solution...but you guys seem to be about that so...
I cant wait for Collection Power to be gone! This is the best thing I have ever heard, full send!
I say that you absolutely must not listen to those who say that he is a skilled player and is penalized by this system.I was a skilled player and a long time ago I also reached the Champions III league. then the rules changed and I was able to reach the Diamond III league. now with the latest updates I can reach the Gold II league. but not for this I complain ... The real Splinterlands player only cares that Splinterlands continues to expand the audience of new users and does not have to be focused on the fact that he is no longer able to achieve the results he used to be. Thank you for this post.
I think that this is a flawed argument to base choices on. I agree that increasing your level of cards should give you a better chance of increasing your rewards but it should not guarantee it.
If that's the case it's not a game anymore. It's just an investment system where skill is taken out of the equation.
Collection power doesn't add anything to the game and could be removed. It would make much more sense to get rid of the old league system and bring in something better. It's so hard to get up to diamond now and the reward every time is to drop back to gold every time and start the fight again. You can win so many matches and lose one to drop all the way back again. We would need a better way to determine league points going forward but i'm sure that the team can come up with something better than we have right now.
I would rather a better league system based on numbers or percentages. Top 500 play in champion leagues. Next 5000 play in Diamond. Next 10000 play in gold. Next 20000 play in silver, next 50000 play in bronze and the rest play in a starter league. Have promotion and relegation at the end of every season. Split reward pools accordingly. More people to match against at the top levels.
Use ECR to bring in a fair points system for these leagues to determine position as the old one isn't fit for purpose and watch the fun unfold as people scramble to gain promotion or avoid relegation at the end of every season.
Or something to this effect. The only way to get to the higher tiers will be through playing well for multiple seasons. Make it fun to play again and don't nerf the lower leagues yet again. They can only take it so many times before the player base falls away.
It would also give more people a shot at better rewards in the higher leagues and a better distribution of prizes which is a better motivation to combine cards IMO. More people in the top leagues and less in the middle leagues.
Not a fully though out idea but something to be looked at.
We appreciate the hard work that is going into the game. Hopefully it remains fun to play and doesn't turn into apay to play game with a small userbase.
ON the plus side, ghost tournaments should be a great success and encourage a lot more people to take part. Looking forward to those and maybe a pokerstars feel to the tournament section soon where we can host sit and goes by ourselves with all of the cards for skill based battles.
always with much of respect to the dev team and the hard work you put in order to make this game better and better through time i will say that scarcity is a great thing but maybe you could consider scarcity by not minting so many many packs instead of trying to drive the community in combining the existing cards
definitely i cannot understand or see what is coming in the long run, this is something you know better and from my point of view i'm very much grateful to all of you for building this game and community from scratch but i also do believe if scarcity is an important factor then do not mint so many packs....instead of 15.000.000! packs and flooding the market with so many copies of every card you could keep the numbers down...as the community grows and the numbers of cards are low ,there you have scarcity..in this way even the old cards would get more value
what if in the next series, you flood the market with 25.000.000 packs....then what?....even combing would not be enough to keep scarcity
in my point of view you don't keep scarcity by proposing rules to force combining...if scarcity is important there are other ways to keep a product scarce
One of the funny parts to me is how much bigger the bot problem was pre-CL and how they were constantly denying the number of bots or that it was even an issue, and then using our almost 500k Daily Active "Users" to justify CL's supply increase. Then, not too long after that, they finally admit we have a bot problem so they change some things and our DAU instantly drops to like 160-180k
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I think it would be a good idea if GFs cards are the exception to this rule.
GF are generally more expensive than regular cards and more scarce. Also with the latests bonus for ranked rewards gf cards are kind of losing value and utility (nowadays tournaments is the best use of them).
Overall I agree with the proposal even though it will hurt me (bye bye chicken, ooze, lv 1 fiends etc). I think it will be good for the ecosystem.
Numbers please, we need the numbers. All of this is speculation without numbers
Matt shared numbers. 95% of cards rented out are level 1. Most of the rewards cards are being farmed by bots using these level 1 cards.
if most of them are in bronze most of the time, the change won't change that, so you would need to know, for example, how many of them are in gold and for how long, etc.
if e.g. only 5% are 2 days in gold3 with a winrate of 30%. i would consider the intervention too blatant for the effect!
Based on how the ranking system works, as the season progresses and players climb up the ladder, it should be normal that bronze players move into silver. Most real players climb to the top, while bots stay below but still drain the league pool.