Usually I have more nuanced polls. I intend to make a difference here for the sake of making good decisions for the future of @splinterlands development. The current system solves several problems.
- Rewarding Pack purchases and long term investment.
- Investors buying up Packs and dumping them after getting entries.
- Narrative engagement and marketing material.
- Resources sinks and a use case for Praetoria (Land).
- Playing with probabilities (for smaller investors).
I find Conflicts to be the best Airdrop mechanism I have seen in cryptosphere. I have been a part of HIVE since 2017 and I have been with Splinterlands through every step of its development. I have seen the problems of initial Airdrop systems (which were already superior to the industry average) get fixed with each iteration. I have only had one complain about Conflicts as a Dolphin sized player.
This was another Conflict that ended with no Cards Airdropped to me. The difficulty of getting a Card comes from the rarity. There were lower rarity Cards during previous iterations of the Airdrop mechanism. Although I have only gained a Zyrx the Emberglace from Conflicts I think the current system is perfect enough to be continued indefinitely. The reason will appear when looked at the game holistically as a part of a larger ecosystem.
Exclusive Cards, Loot Chests and Weekly Fortune Draw
As you can see, everyone gets to participate in some Draw where they can try out their luck while having minimum guaranteed rewards if they have enough entries. This brings variety to the ecosystem without overcrowding one system of distributing new Cards. This is why I think we should not try to fix what is not broken. I'm making this poll to see the community opinion. If you don't mind Conflicts be a regular unchanged system throughout the future releases, vote Yes. Vote No if you suggestions to improve the system.
I really like conflicts, but I think they are far from "as perfect as can be."
One of the biggest flaws IMO is the significant upfront cost for these wagons, especially for those who use regular foil and/or lower level cards. The number of wagons needed to generate a single card can be extremely high.
The entire setup is designed around whales and land holders. The low to mid level spender is more likely to lose money on these, even though they see them essentially promoted as extra value for their cards.
For example, imagine if you need to setup 20 wagons to get a single airdropped card. At current prices that is about $130. After you repair each time, you might be looking at $5-$10 in net profit for each airdrop. And that's assuming you make a profit, because multiple airdropped cards have been worth less than the current wagon cost. This means it would take multiple sets to even get to a break even point for using wagons. Most players would end up leaving the game before actually getting there.
If wagon costs are going to be paid up front instead of after generating a card successfully then we really need the ability to resell these wagons when we are done with them. Otherwise players will almost always end up with wasted costs in the end.
Thank you for the feedback.
This is very true. The silver lining is that players are encouraged to Level Up their Cards. The Wagon Kits are little too expensive for my taste. There are other ways small players can try out their luck. That is why I said the current Conflicts system is good enough to be continued indefinitely. Exclusive Cards, Loot Chests and Weekly Fortune Draws balance things out when looked at holistically. We do have to cater to Whales to some extent as they are the biggest investors that have the highest skin in the game.
The results are in! Your poll has closed, but the conversation is just getting started.
The top-voted choice is No with 3786465.786 SPSP voting for it.