Hello everyone! Today, I'm gonna talk about liquidity bots and what their role should be. I personally play in high Diamond and Champion, so I don't think I've faced any of these bots, but since they have been a recent topic of discussion, I want to talk about them.

When the team decided to remove level caps from leagues, some players left the game, and there were game liquidity issues. To help with that, the team introduced liquidity bots. These bots don't earn any rewards. But they still needed cards to play. The team bought some cheap Chaos Legion cards to provide those bots with the means to play.

Almost a year ago, there was a proposal that wanted to allow liquidity bots to use ghost cards. It was proposal 129, and it passed, but I don't think we had any news about it until very recently. I hadn't thought about it for a long time (with 85% votes in favor), but I believed it had already been implemented a long time ago. However, it appears it was implemented on the 29th of April, and they announced it on Discord. There are very good reasons to implement it now. We are a few days away from the Modern rotation. With the loss of Chaos Legion and the introduction of Conclave Arcana, these liquidity bots would have no cards to play. Furthermore, it becomes much easier to scale the number of liquidity bots as needed, without forcing the team to buy a lot of cards.

Ever since it got implemented, there have been complaints on Discord about those bots being too strong. It's true that changes usually lead to complaining, but in my opinion, these were justified. These bots were using legendary summoners like Eternal Tofu and destroying many players. They have since been toned down, but there are still complaints that they are too strong. The team has asked for patience as they tune these bots. I think that's a fair ask. It's not something easy to get right quickly and without trying. I believe we will continue to see adjustments, especially because we're about to get a new format and people are gonna lose access to the cheapest and most printed set ever. The average level of cards in Modern will go down and some players will quit or focus only on tournaments, brawls, and maybe Survival/Wild.

As the team further adjusts the power of these bots, we have to remember that not everyone has the same opinion about liquidity bots. If I'm not mistaken, what used to happen was that each bot had to be placed at a higher rating, each season, or maybe even in the middle of the season, because they were falling down too much. This means that they were somewhat weak for the rating they were given. Is this ideal? I don't think so. These bots shouldn't be free wins.

Everyone loves to win, so why are free wins bad? Free wins pay SPS, which is taken from the pool. If liquidity bots are giving a lot of free wins to players with lower investment, the players with higher investment are getting less, which makes investing in Splinterlands less appealing. It also creates artificial rating inflation, pushing players further than they should. It can even create a situation where some players are bouncing between very difficult games against much stronger collections and free wins against bots, with few middle ground battles. That's not fun. Most players want to win, but they want to feel a challenge. This happens even in single-player games. If all people wanted was easy wins, games would only have easy mode.

On the other hand, if they are too strong, they could become a sort of gatekeepers. While I believe there can be legitimate goals in having these types of gatekeepers in some games, I don't think Splinterlands should have them. In a freemium game like Pokemon TCG Pocket, which I also play, it could make sense. Since the company makes money with micro transactions and ranked play gives stuff for free, they could certainly choose to gatekeep players from reaching some tiers, in order to keep the balance and make spending more desirable. They don't do it as there is no reason to do so. The prizes aren't that significant; it could lead to backlash, and it wouldn't even be worth the work in its current form. But it is the type of game where I can see a justification for gatekeeping players. For Splinterlands, a game that is supposed to be driven by players' demand, keeping some players away from a certain point just because of artificial gatekeepers, when their skill and investment would put them higher, against the rest of the players, should not be the way.

Often, the middle ground is the way to go, but it's not always easy to define. In this situation, the team should try to achieve this middle ground with cards at a level comparable to the old league caps. For Silver, all cards would be at Silver level, at most. That doesn't mean they can't use lower-level cards. It can be fine to have a level 3 rare summoner in Silver 3. I would also go with a full core set with a few exceptions. I wouldn't include legendary summoners, since they are usually some of the most powerful cards in the game. I would also remove other very powerful cards. Venka, Mantaroth, Rage, and Grimbardun Smith are some of the most obvious examples. They don't have to be airdrop cards. Something like Kei would be fine. There's also the decision to give them only Rebellion or also include Conclave Arcana. I would wait before starting to give bots the new cards. In a way, that also mimics human behavior. Yes, everyone wants to try out the new cards, but many don't have the money to do so, at least right away. It also gives a chance to slowly introduce them and avoid some that might be too powerful. I would not give bots promo cards. These are supposed to be special and scarce. Having bots using them undermines that and puts real players at a disadvantage. I would also be careful with reward cards. Since players earn them slowly, I wouldn't give those to bots, at least not right away. However, this is just a starting point. It might turn out that this is too strong or too weak at some or all levels. That's why the team should keep paying attention and keep adjusting as necessary.

Liquidity bots can now use ghost cards, and that's not going to change, unless we pass another proposal. It just got implemented, so we need to be patient and trust that it will get better over time. We certainly should share our opinions, always respectfully. It's normal that we get into some turmoil as the format rotates, but it will eventually stabilize. It's better that the team starts the experiments before the new format.

What do you all think about liquidity bots and ghost cards? Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading!!