I would love for there to be something done about the bot accounts and farming season end rewards. A LOT of the accounts that are in the top ranks for all of the leaderboards are bot accounts. I think that's unacceptable, given that they are already farming thousands of DEC a day, now we are paying them anywhere between 2-100 packs in addition? I think they are an important piece of keeping the game operational but when I see lots of the opponents I have faced that are clearly a bot account (low DEC rewards per win, anywhere between 1-10 DEC when I am making 40-50 DEC per win) and knocking real human players out of the running for the packs, that's pretty ridiculous.
The season end leader rankings should take into account the persons DEC recharge rate. I have been thinking about an acceptable range but I think over 60% DEC recharge rate should be counted. Anything below 60% DEC rate would be exempt from receiving packs in the end bonus. I felt I was doing good on the rankings but then I saw that I wasn't even in the top 100 for my leaderboard because of the litany of bots littered all over the place. I don't know how that will work when writing a script to discover that information but it's getting out of hand, how we are being pushed lower as far as our ability to make rewards playing the game.
I get the necessary changes and the need for them but when a game favors bots and those that pay to win so heavily, you can definitely expect lots of people to not be excited at all about the game if they've invested in it. You need to help out the real, human players.
Another gripe I have with the lower rankings like bronze and silver is them getting almost no rewards for grinding an hour or more to complete a daily quest to be rewarded with a single potion. Bronze and silver league should be limited to either DEC as a reward (minimum of 50 DEC, maximum of 1000 since the chest quantity is so low) or a reward card. No potions at all. You need to make money, I get it but you also need to make it attractive for new players to want to play the game. I've recruited some new players in my guild and 3 of them have quit since the update because the rewards are utter trash and all they fight are really hard bots, struggle for an hour only to get an alchemy potion as a reward? I don't blame them at all for quitting.
I think for the lower leagues we should reduce the number of victories necessary to fulfill a quest (also - but not only - as compensation for the low rewards)!
Going by the numbers it is just not scalable to give low-level players high rewards. What they can get is a fun gaming experience and a much better sense of being rewarded. Grinding an hour to complete a daily quest just to get a potion is just brutal and only gives frustration without any sense of progression whatsoever.
I came up with a different reward system that could potentially solve this. If instead of loot chests including cards (especially the more valuable ones) they would give out specific tokens to collect which fill up different reward meters that when full unlock a bigger reward, it would give much more sense of progression and a lot more loot chests can be given out. I
Example:
Since there are multiple meters, there will always be some that are close to being completed which makes it hard for players to stop playing since they always are going to want to reach just one more.
This is an excellent suggestion! I love the idea, great point and intelligent solution!
Really cool idea! I think that we need to do something to help out the lower leagues. It’s bad that they get left out unless they fork over a bunch of money. Don’t get me wrong we need people to invest but I know that I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest more than the initial packs way back when I started. I actually quit for several months before I started it back up again. The way you have it here could really do well for player retention in the lower leagues.
These rewards would just apply to novice, bronze and silver right? Or more than that? As I’m in gold and diamond league, I would rather the chests personally, at that stage.
Amazing idea!
I like the idea of using the ECR rate to limit bonus pack rewards... you can do an average for the whole season (to penalize ridiculous number of games as you suggested). For instance, if you averaged an ECR rate below 70% for the whole season then you aren't qualified for the season packs. I have played since the beginning and don't know any human that averages below 70%.... of course people can dip at the end of the season but 70% ECR is running your account pretty hard. Good idea imo
Thanks for checking it out! I think I like your idea better as it can be more of a balanced approach to it all. I’m usually hovering between 80 and 100% since I don’t have a lot of time to play but that would average out to be well above 70%. I have had times where I will grind down to about 65% but that’s rare and I stop because the DEC isn’t that good and takes a long time to recharge.
I like that I’ve sparked some conversation around how we can make improvements for the long run!
@cmplxty you came up with the good suggestion, its an elegant and rather simple way to differentiate a bot from a human. If they think about it, while they want the bots playing to keep the matches readily available, the skill of winning in the season challenge should be relegated to humans (or at least based on a bot that plays as much as the humans would play). So kudos to you for the idea, I haven't seen it anywhere before, but I like the idea (and it should be easy to implement if they agree with the solution).
I often dip to 50% ECR and I always play manually.
I just picked out a number that I thought most would fit in. But it could be set lower of course. The idea I agree with is letting the humans earn the season pack ranking rewards while letting the bots play as much as they want. That differentiation is something that I think could be done easier than other ideas, so where the number is set is of course up for debate and analysis if they ever agreed to go this route.
Yay!
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I couldn't have written it better and I agree with you 100%
Thanks! I hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears. I enjoy the game and am positioned well to do well (>325k Collection Power and >200k collection power on my 2 accounts) but it's getting real hard to justify the 60-90 minutes I spend a day to play the game. It is fun but I could absolutely use that time to do something else. I don't want to, since I believe in Splinterlands but the current path is not going to benefit real, human players.
I think it will be listened to. They read and absorb. They might not commit just yet to a solution, but I've witnessed them change many things over time. ps... sometimes slower than I would like, but bottom line is they do listen.
I’ll take them listening, even if it takes a bit. It’s good to be cautious of changes and considerate to minimize issues so I get the slower pace for it.
Exactly how I feel as a silver league player
Well said!
I am not a fan of bots, but if they have cards they can use them. The thing is to not give them advantage over human players. That's why rating system was changed from old (winstreak, min +10 per win) to current one (no winstreak above league limist, min +3 per win). So right now playing a lot of battles does not give you an advantage. It's the winrate that matters. Last season Bronze, Silver and Gold leagues was not super competitive, so strong accounts actually was able to get a lot of points just by playing a lot, but it was because of really high winrate as a result of not too much strong opponents.
I think there will be more and more strong accounts in each league over time, people need a bit of time to adjust their strategy to the new system. Before there was no incentive (except tournaments) to have a strong non-champion account.
I don't think it's a good idea. What if someone plays 2000 battles in first 10 days, then let ECR recharge and then plays 20 battles last day? Still is above 60%. So maybe limiting amount of battles per season would be better? Like 500 battles per season? Well, then people that care only about packs would play most of their battles the last day, which is the most important and you gain points faster (because you opponents have more points than you).
If there is enough strong players in each league, playing more does not give any advantage. So .. we just need more players :)