Yes, in lower leagues that might be correct.
In higher leagues I can talk for myself: as I am using a pure gold foil account I cannot max all cards because that is simply too expensive (maybe for non GF accounts that's somewhat easier). However, I can use some near max level cards quite effective (also some cards like the chicken or the albatross don't even require high levels at all to be very helpful) and normally always reach Champion II. In that case (at least if played manually) I call that skills.
I wouldn't consider that change to be "terrible" but I am not convinced it to have an overall positive effect (I might think about it again, though).
Yes you're right that it's different in higher leagues vs lower leagues. In higher leagues it's much more skill-based and this particular issue is mostly found in the lower leagues.
Overall though, the general concept here is to require more assets to earn the max potential rewards. So the fact that some cards like the chicken don't require high levels is a bad thing in my opinion - there should always be benefits for leveling up cards, so this mechanism helps to provide that. Now there will be more reason to level up those cards.
For gold foil cards, I think typically the GF card bonus will outweigh the reduction from this change, so they will still be a net positive in most cases, and also hopefully this will provide more incentive for them to be purchased/rented even at the high prices.
Nice to see that you take the time to answer to questions and concerns so thoroughly!
As you are 'here' I take the opportunity to let you know what is my only real worry concerning the future of Splinterlands (I think all other problems should be anyhow solvable). I fear that bots will completely dominate the game sooner or later (and to a certain degree already do, even in the highest leagues - you might ask @jacekw for confirmation).
I wrote about that topic here, but since then the problem even increased.
I understand that the philosophy of blockchain and decentralization makes it difficult to take any effective measures against bot dominance.
I also know the view point of the Splinterlands team to be 'bot agnostic'.
Nevertheless, I would really apreciate you to read my bot post in case your time allows it.
(Of course then you could also answer in Discord instead of on chain if you prefer that.)
I read your post and I agree with you about bots. If they can beat chess and go they can beat Splinterlands (which is currently much simpler than chess or go). I have two comments on that:
The plan is to make the game more and more involved with more player input over time. I know it's still a while out, but the item and spell cards that are part of the land expansion are a good example of that. That type of thing will increase the complexity for bots by many orders of magnitude and hopefully give human players a big advantage, at least for a while, by which time hopefully we can add even more things to the game. The advantage we have over chess or go is that chess and go don't change and add new features, but Splinterlands does (it's just been very slow, but will be getting faster).
I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing if bots are ultimately better than human players. Many people will still just enjoy playing the game and they will be matched up against opponents at a similar skill level - especially as the game grows and there are more players at all levels. So at the highest levels people may use bots and compete on the best bot software (which is also kind of cool), and then at other levels human players can compete against other players (whether bot or human) at their skill level so they can enjoy the game and work on improving. So I'm not sure that it's necessarily bad or good - it's just different and has its own pros and cons.
Nice reply!
The first part sounds promising.
Concerning the second part:
Yes, actually, I am also fascinated by some chess programs, 'masterpieces' of software and (partly) AI.
And I also respect people who will write better and better Splinterlands bots in future (yes, that's indeed also "cool"). :)
A pure bot championship would be actually fascinating, too: who is able to write the best, most sophisticated Splinterlands bot? In chess there are competitions only for software ...
Especially in chess, bots are great tools to practice one's skills, analysing games and learning to understand chess better.
(Interesting also for Splinterlands could be the idea that some chess programs are having certain modes in which they intentionally don't always play the best possible move to make the games against human opponents more exciting and variable.)
However, one difference is that in chess (or GO) in (human) tournaments and public servers bots are strictly forbidden. That means human players are never forced to play against a bot if they don't want. They can intentionally challenge a chess program (if they really think they would be able to beat 'God') :-) or just practice with it, but in human tournaments they can be sure to face human opponents only.
Concerning Splinterlands that could mean, there could be different kinds of competitions in future, for example "bot only", "human only" and "mixed". Then at least everybody would have a choice. And I know very well that even if 'we' would try to implement these different kinds of tournaments it would be very difficult to verify that a 'human' is really a 'human'.
Why should anybody play themselves, if bots do the same without wasting time and energy? In the end with this vision Splinterlands might become an inhabited ghost town where bots play against bots. A pure staking mechanism but no game anymore.
If the daily games are too many for a human, just make them less.
You also don't tell a soccer player like Lionel Messi to play 5 soccer games per day. :)
Create conditions within the game which humans can fulfil.
I wrote a longer post about it some time ago.
On point 1 and 2
Would it make more sense to wait for land to implement then propose this change?
Depending on how far land is from implementation it could be factored in then.
On the first point, would it be a good idea to commit to something like 1 new ruleset per month? And maybe deprecate some older ones in favor of newer ones after a while to not make it super complicated for the human players after a while.
That should give bots a hard time keeping up. The question is, would we tolerate the rapid changes better, as humans?
But doesn't it really just punish you for not having a leveled up card rather than rewarding you for having it? Meaning will the rewards for a given league increase from where it is now?
Punishing vs rewarding in these cases are really just a matter of perspective. Yes, players using lower level cards will get less than they received previously if this change goes into effect, but really they were getting more than is sustainable for their cards in the past and it's just being "fixed" now.
But from the general perspective - not comparing it to a flawed previous system - the higher level your cards, the more rewards you earn - so you are rewarded for getting higher level cards.
Thanks for the reply. What aspect is unsustainable? Is it the rewards paid out or is it fluctuations in the card market?
I thought the fixed pool of rewards ensured sustainability, but I'm interested in learning why that is not the case, meaning we need to implement something like this. I love learning, so thanks for your insightful responses!
In general a good idea.
What if:
All cards have the same starts from Level 1 to Max,
Skill becomes more skillbased,
Only rewards change.
Level 1 no rewards,
level Max = max rewards.
That would be a very drastic change, but would remove bots, special if the curve would be right.
Now the question would be, are investors sad or happy with it?
I mean on the other hand "delegate cards" would be for example for the best to earn.
What would be the reason to earn?
Yeah here everything becomes difficult :D
Was a spontan idea, but maybe something like this ( less drastic) could be a thing.
play with high level cards could access the rewards chests,
i mean at some point the walls are to high for new players and the game will die.
The game has not the "fun factor" of a high class game. So it needs to be a competitive game.
If this becomes impossible to be,
what game is it at the end?
Pay to play to earn?
In higher leagues it is part of the fun in the game and skill of the player to craft your deck in a cost effective way. This proposal will remove that. May I suggest to remove the champ limit or make it less impactful by for example giving 1 or 2 cards per match that are exempt at diamond / champ because in the current system we see no low level farming at champ so there is no reason to solve anything. To put this proposal as a blanket over all leagues will take away a fun element of the game, and reduce the influence of skill/knowledge of the player.