The recent rise of Splinterlands asset prices on third-party markets has caused a situation in which players are able to earn a significant amount of rewards with only the purchase of the Summoner's Spellbook, and without ever needing to acquire or even rent any in-game assets. While this may benefit the Splinterlands company in the short term (due to increased Spellbook sales), it is unsustainable for the overall game economy and therefore also bad for the company and the community in the long term.
It is very important to the overall game economy that players are always incentivized to get to higher leagues and obtain more cards, so when a situation like this arises it is critical that it gets addressed as quickly as possible.
For a healthy, long-term game economy, the earning opportunities must be proportional to the amount of in-game assets held.
In order to address this issue, we plan to implement the following changes on Thursday, September 30th, 2021, after the end of the current ranked play season, and they will apply immediately after they have been released.
DEC Ranked Battle Reward Update
The first area that needs to be addressed in which rewards given out are not proportional to in-game assets held is the DEC rewards for ranked battles.
Starting shortly after the end of the current ranked play season on Thursday, September 30th, 2021, the DEC rewards given out for a ranked battle win will be based on the minimum of the winning player's current rating and the maximum rating for their current league within the game.
For example, if a player's ranked battle rating is currently 2,500 and they are in the Silver I league, then when they win a ranked battle their DEC reward will be based on a rating of 1,899 (the maximum rating for the Silver I league).
This change will go a long way to properly aligning incentives for players to increase their collection power and move up into higher leagues.
Please note that in the near future SPS rewards will also be added for ranked battle wins in addition to the current DEC rewards, and this change will apply to the calculation of SPS rewards as well.
Loot Chests Rewards for Bronze/Novice League
The second area that needs to be addressed is the rewards given out in loot chests in Bronze/Novice league specifically. Starting shortly after the end of the current ranked play season on Thursday, September 30th, 2021, loot chests earned in Bronze league will give out Credits instead of DEC tokens, and will also have a lower chance of containing reward cards as compared to loot chests in Silver league and above.
The new percentage breakdown of receiving the different types of rewards based on league are shown in the table below:
| League | Card | DEC | Credits | Potion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze III / Novice | 10% | 0% | 45% | 45% |
| Bronze II | 20% | 0% | 40% | 40% |
| Bronze I | 30% | 0% | 35% | 35% |
| Silver III + | 50% | 25% | 0% | 25% |
The change from DEC to Credits is necessary to prevent a similar restructuring from happening in the future if the external market price of DEC tokens significantly rises again, and the reduction in the chance of receiving a card is necessary to reduce the rate at which the new reward cards are being "farmed" by accounts with little to no in-game assets being held.
As always, we will closely monitor these changes and the overall game economy and will adjust if/when necessary in the future. Our goal is always to ensure that we build a sustainable system to the benefit of everyone in the ecosystem over the long term.
Comments
We expect that there will be some players who are not happy with these changes, and will say that this hurts "new players" and makes it hard for them to get into the game and move up. In reality though, it has nothing to do with whether players are new or old and has everything to do with whether or not players have acquired and held assets in the game.
It is important to understand that Splinterlands is NOT a free-to-play game. It is a play-to-earn game in which all of the in-game assets are scarce and limited in quantity. It is much more similar to Magic the Gathering (the physical playing card version) than Hearthstone, and in MtG no one expects to get the physical playing cards for free, but they do expect that they own the cards they purchase and can trade or sell them whenever and wherever they wish.
If you are looking for a free-to-play game where you can earn unlimited-quantity in-game assets that cannot be transferred or sold without having to purchase anything (or very little), there are thousands of fantastic such games in the various app stores that you can try.
On the other hand, if you want the ability to earn limited-quantity collectibles that can be freely transferred and sold, Splinterlands is the place for you, but it's important to note that, just like MtG cards, Splinterlands cards and the ability to earn the scarce in-game assets cannot be given away for free and, once again, the earning opportunities must be proportional to the amount of in-game assets acquired and held.
Additionally, figuring out the best way to maximize earnings in Splinterlands is a huge part of the fun and challenge of the game - it's not just about the battles. The best players aren't just the ones who can choose the best teams for the given ruleset and mana cap, but they are the ones who can most efficiently use the card market, rental system, SPS airdrop, liquidity pools, etc. to push their in-game earnings to the absolute max while spending less on in-game assets at the same time.
So while new players who are looking for the familiar "free-to-play" game experience may very well not be interested in Splinterlands and leave, we hope that the players (new or old) who want to be able to earn through playing and who are interested and excited to learn about the game economy and how to most efficiently deploy their funds to maximize their earnings will have a great and extremely rewarding experience in the Splinterlands for a long time to come!
Season End Reminder
We also want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the season end changes implemented for the end of the last ranked play season are still in effect and are expected to continue indefinitely.
Mainly, the season end loot chest rewards are based on each player's league at the end of the season - not the highest league achieved during the season.
Additionally, ranked battles will not be able to started within 5 minutes of the season end. The ranked season timer will also be updated to end 5 minutes before the season end processing takes place so that it will hopefully be clear to players when ranked battles will no longer be able to be submitted for the current season.
Any ranked battles which have already been started before that time (i.e. the "find_match" transaction has been submitted) will still be able to be played out and completed, however any new "find_match" transactions for ranked battles will return an error and will not be matched with an opponent starting at 9:55 AM ET / 13:55 UTC on the 30th. Ranked battles are expected to resume 15 minutes after the new season starts.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be burned.
I am bronze 3 and thinking why should i leave bronze 3. Now u gave me a reason thanks for making it more competitive
Awesome job @yabapmatt and @aggroed ... I love that you take the time to focus on fixing exploits. I also appreciate you making tough decisions that need to be made when not everyone will always agree. Respect to you both and love the new changes!
Agreed! These are bitter pills that must be taken! Well done! Though these might be a step back, but it is for the sustainability of the game in the long run! Well Done!
I totally agree!
Yaba and Aggy have done everything so well so far and I am sure they will keep up the good work :)
It seems to me like your dislike of bots has got you tunnel-visioned into this concept of "the earning opportunities must be proportional to the amount of in-game assets acquired and held", and you're ignoring or de-prioritizing the core values of this game. What are you ultimately trying to do? At this stage of the game's lifetime, you're trying to grow and reach new people. The game should incentivize new players to join and stay. Opening cards from reward boxes has been proven time and time again, by so many games, to be successful at keeping players engaged and motivated to keep playing. Your average NEW player isn't going to check out the market with their handful of credits because they won't know what to buy. And they will look at the outrageous prices of some cards, and look at the credits they accumulated so far, and be demoralized and quit.
You compare this game to Magic: The Gathering but to put it bluntly, Splinterlands is not as fun. I'm not saying it won't ever be as fun, but right now it is not as fun for most people. People have less of an incentive to buy cards because there is no concept of a "deck" in this game, so people won't go out and buy specific cards to complete their deck, or to build a new deck around. And honestly, the concept of owning digital assets is still new and hard for your average new player to wrap their head around. Your average new player is much less likely to fall in love with the game or with specific cards, which would drive them to be more invested and to start collecting. People will not play the game just because it is free. It's just too early in this game's lifetime to be making a change like this.
Not at the expense of the game's economy. Axie infinity, plant vs undead, cryptoblades, etc. etc... all those games got a huge popularity increase in a very short amount of time and all those economies crashed.. splinterlands is a great game, and they have a good economy going. I only own a couple of cards and I'm at bronze but I rent to reach to silver, so I don't see the big deal. New players with zero owned nfts can reach to silver 3 rating and rent for the end of season, thats how I started.
It's no fun if you don't actually try to win by strategy. All the work is done after the Line-Up and there's a lot of room for improvement all the time.
You can watch the replays of absolute top matches to see how there's just A LOT going on.
@draicor why do you think splinterlands economy is not going to crash?
Yes, splinterlands is hot right now but that wont last for ever. All those games had a surge in players and the stopped, well, the same is going to happened here, you cant expect to grow exponentially all the time
This is the HIVE, none ever leaves.
I don't know if its going to crash or not, but I believe the splinterlands economy seems better designed.. lets take for example, axie infinity. SLP which is the token people farm, its only used for breeding axies. Thats the only way to burn that token. When the popularity tones down, people stop buying axies, the SLP becomes useless and the price drops, because a lot of people are still farming SLP. You can't combine axies either, so they drop in value over time, since more and more axies show up in the market.
In other games like, PVU, or cryptoblade's SKILL, the coin is only useful to buy in the market other plants or other characters or weapons. Where is PVU token sink? people just sell it on pancakeswap or use it to buy other plants, which cannot get combined or burned either, so the plants drop in value over time. Same with cryptoblade's characters.
At least in splinterlands, you can use the DEC for more than just selling it for profit. Haven't you noticed how in splinterlands if you get a good card, you tend not to get rid of it asap? either because its a good card than can help you win and climb the ranks, or a card that gives you power and you can advance to better leagues? You see how you end up combining cards (burning the cards) to get better at the game?
I believe the splinterlands team makes good decisions when it comes to the game's economy, at least, better decisions that the rest of the NFTs games out there, that is why I believe in this project.
Sure and let alone that you get emotionally attached as collectors usually do.
I beg to differ. Why would a new player not check out cheap cards on the market?
Yes there is, each Splinter works as a separate deck of cards, except Dragon which has the ability to merge with another deck.
I understand that this decision is frustrating but I feel like this is better in the long run. The last players you want to alienate are those who have actually invested a lot of money in the game. But I understand that this comes at a price and that some feel frustrated by the move. However, the ability to play with cards that you do not own takes care of making sure new players can have fun and earn.
good job ❤️
awesome, I think this will deal with the "shity" bots in bronze just playing all day and hope to win a few and farm rewards.
As someone who is always on the new player side of the debates here I think these changes are reasonable. In fact I think the switch to credits being earned in lower leagues is genius. The overall market will benefit from the change (which means the players benefit). The person earning the credits will get to stack credits to purchase a card they want instead of one that was randomly dropped. Anyone farming rewards at the lower levels for the purpose of dumping cards for profit will now have to buy a card with their earned credits (5% fee) and then sell the card (5% fee) to get the credit profits. There's many positives to this change.
That MEME xE
I'll add that you still get the chance of the random card drops too, plus the end of season rewards. That's usually where I usually get the main card drops to build my collection power.
this is exactly the kind of update I was waiting and hoping for, this will benefit us all, everyone of us who want to keep or put in something to the game, the only losers with this update long term, is the ones , players or bots, who only want to suck out the life from the game!!!!!!!
Excellent changes guys, sound reasoning at least.
Hope it brings the expected results.
Well thought out and way to tackle the exploitation.
I think you should stress that Splinterlands is not a free to play game more often. It does help put things into perspective. I'm glad you put it that way. I'm not sure I totally agree with some of the changes that have occurred still, but at least I understand why you are trying to do some things more now.
Panicking over people making like $0.50 a day in bronze league feels a bit like an overreaction though. Maybe rewards in higher leagues should be increased, not lower leagues decreased. The market can work itself out from there. It is hardly an incentive to buy/rent thousands of dollars of cards to get a few dollars more a day. From an investor standpoint, just holding DEC and SPS is the smarter move right now. As a player I want to buy cards and move up, but spending my DEC on cards at the prices they currently are, feels like burning money.
Totally agree on your latter point!
in essence this changes are mostly because of bots and if bots get less all players will benefit from it.
Yeah, that is what people like to think. But when they support the use of bots openly, it is no longer a good excuse for doing things that affect players negatively in my opinion. The bots are still going to just farm credits and then buy cards and sell them for DEC.
This specific change really is not all that bad. Depending on the credit reward amounts, a bronze player's earnings probably aren't going to change too much.
i would not say support, more like not actively trying to stop them. they will farm credits but will have to go to the market and buy cards (more hassle, some fees for that). Also depending on the amount of credits, new players will be able to pick cards they want to buy not just reward cards. Less opportunity to get a legendary in draw but more opportunity to get a card that you need.
we will see what will happen.
When I say they openly support bots, it is because they have literally said as much. Anytime they are asked about it, they say bots are good and defend their use. Also, any time they make a change like this, they purposely do not mention bots, people just assume it is bots. They don't mention bots because they support the use of bots. What they are actively trying to stop is people with multiple accounts making a lot in bronze. That is it. Not bots. They're okay with bots. Granted people are using bots on a lot of accounts to take advantage, but this is still my point. If they openly allow the use of bots, it is no longer a good excuse for degrading the new user experience, in my opinion.
So sad free money can't be given away to everyone but for some reason because it's digital people don't grasp the concept. I'm glad for the stronger distinction between free to play and play to earn so our assets remain valuable. This is a long term game people so if you're here for a quick and easy profit you're only wasting time here, but as it was said this is a great earning opportunity if you're inclined to invest and try it out.
Thanks Aggroed, Matt and the many team members working out how to keep order during this chaotic growth!!!
You're literally talking about Bronze players who make max 50 DEC a day which is equivalent to $0.39 at current prices and call it 'free money'. That's still a 1 month ROI for most players.
If anything, the team should've banned bots the moment player numbers started multiplying instead of reducing rewards for Bronze.
I personally play in Gold, but I understand the new player frustration as they won't even be able to withdraw their Credits to 'cash out' since there's no way to utilize Credits except purchasing cards/potions/etc.
"1 month ROI" implies doubling 12 times in a year even with only compounding once per month which is like 4096x or potential 400000% return per year without ever buying a single card from another player. If that doesn't count as "free money" then I don't know what does.
Also, people shouldn't be looking for "ROI" on their $10 spellbook... that's the entire problem.
Again, I agree, even with that insane 'ROI', the scale of that gain is minuscule even if it is 'free money'.
Why do you think so many new players joined up in the first place? For some, even a 39 cent gain per day is better than nothing, which is what those honest players are getting now.
I think the problem is that you can have more than 1 bot, and drain resources = the number of bots that you run. If there was a way to ban bots, then I agree, keep the rewards as they are as you're only giving them to real humans. But with bots encouraged (not banning them means that you encourage them imho), and some people possibly having 100's of them, suddenly this "exploit" compounds and requires attention before the bots/owners suck all the liquidity out of the game. There is a reason dec rewards are so small right now; everyone is drinking out of the same pool, and some of us are taking more than we're giving (because they're not actually giving anything).
On an above post someone was saying it wasn't a big deal to let a bronze player earn $0.50/d... but what if there were a few bot owners who we'll say are running 100x accounts a day? That's $50/d -> $18250/y sucked out of the economy at a cost of only 10x100 = $1000 that never needs to renew or pay a membership fee etc. These accounts can all then transfer the DEC from the bots to an account that earns SPS and further pull from all the reward pools. Without a way to disincentivize bots, why wouldn't you just drop 1K and earn 18? Why not 10K and earn 180? 100K and become a millionaire in a year and still earn returns forever after?
Playing the game should be how you earn rewards, not just running a script that just sucks $ out of the economy. This was a good short term solution, but still just allows account consolidations of the bronze bots into fewer silverbots who will still mine rewards. It will be interesting to see if this will actually cause a larger or smaller resource drain since they'll theoretically be receiving the larger rewards associated with the silver rank. In the end, it probably just raised the cost of "bot entry" from $10, to whatever will earn the minimum power to enter silver. This will then raise the price of cards as the bots will be buying whatever has the best power to $ ratio increasing the floor on everything. This was a good start though, and seeing the new data will at least give them more resources to decide if there needs to be another step taken or not.
My 0.02 not having read comments past yours lol.
I'm pretty new to the game; had my fair share in playing TCGs and a long time MTG player, so I understand that you DON'T get cards for free. And now this? Here are some of the issues, I have on how Splinterlands handle card collection.
Now that the card drop rates for the season rewards got nerfed to the ground, I badly need suggestions how to get out of the bronze league without spending an arm and a leg.
If you wish to use MTG as an example, at least have something like MTG has in place to help build a players collection. Í'm really so annoyed right now, I was so excited when I learned about Splinterlands. I love TCGs, but these changes are starting to drive me away from this wonderful game. :(
PS. For those wondering, yes, I did buy a few cards off the market and that only took me to Power - 90. LOL.
you can get to 1000 power with like ... $15
if $15 is "an insane amount of money" then just wait until you see the tournament prizes, lol
I'd appreciate if you can point me how this can be done with just $15 without renting. As I said, I badly need suggestions.
reference this against the things you buy and it'll help
1000 power could be from a single untamed legendary,
or 1000 from a couple untamed gold foils
(epics also have a high collection power)
there's a ratio between cost:CP and a balancing act between what you really want for playing and what will give the most collection power. Once you have power covered, you can start to ignore that a little more, but early on it's good to learn this detail to get an edge.
Hey mate,
Sure for example right now there is a "Gold Foil" Chain Spinner in the market for 14.99 that will give you 1000 CP.
Personally i would not recommend to spend it on this card but if your only goal is getting CP this is a quite good deal =)
Agree with this. You can't sustain success only via exclusivity. It's clear from reading the comments and posts in this thread that people's opinions of the "average new player" are completely off the mark. The average new player is going to feel demoralized from poor quest and season rewards, and they're not going to head over to the blog to read why things are the way they are. They're just going to quit. Or maybe they will check out the market first, and then feel even better about quitting.
Welcome to hive and welcome to splinterlands friend. I feel your pain, I've been playing splinterlands for 40 days and I only own enough cards to stay in bronze 2. You need to get used to the idea that in splinterlands you need to dedicate a lot of time to improve, unless you pay a huge amount of money to get to higher leagues really fast or pay and arm and a leg every week in a lot of rentals too.
You can play around, get good (lol) with the starter deck, even if you only gain credits from now on, it doesn't matter, you can rent cards with those credits, to reach to silver league. And you won't be affected by this.
This measures affect bots more than new players.
Starter decks may not be for sale, but you are able to use some cards you don't own from the sets. They provide everyone with those for free.
I see you what you mean, but my main point is selling starter packs would help build that 'power' requirement you need to get to a higher tier.
Question is, do you want all your assets In-Game to appreciate in value over the next years? There won't be a floodgates open moment, you can buy or sell at bad timing, but if you prepare yourself with some playable cards of value - they will retain or increase their value.
And let me add, nice to have you around, welcome to the #Hive !
I'm also a long time MTG player, hi! The cost for 1000 power is less than that of a new commander deck so cheap in comparison to many games including MTG. Sometimes I don't have anyone to play MTG with IRL, and I'd rather play Splinterlands than MTG Arena because SL is play to earn and Arena is a $ sink. I like the fact that with SL I get to build my collection and buy / sell at whatever price I want all in one easy program, saves me more time than stalking deals on TCGplayer haha.
You sort of "get a starter deck" in the fact that they give you those phantom cards. I believe I also read that come Chaos Legion you'll have access to every common and rare from CL in that same way. Easiest way to get out of bronze would probably be to rent a few cards that will boost your power. There are some for rent that I don't even understand why they're there they're so cheap.
Anyways, as 1 magic player to another have fun! It's rewarding to see your collection grow just like in mtg.
Side note: In Splinterlands you can't get turn 3 Prossh Food Chain combo or Jace / Tainted Pact win, but the closest you'll get would be to own a Yodin Zaku. I HATE that guy lol!! ;)
Sounds fair.
One thing that I don't believe was covered in this post:
With the release of Chaos Legion, a 1% chance of a pack drop will be added to reward chests, replacing a 1% chance of a potion drop. Will that be reduced/eliminated in the lower leagues as well?
I think that is probably best, to avoid spellbook botfarms from getting thousands of chaos legion packs
Great move. Players that only put in $10 should have reduced earnings. They need to have cards in there accounts to earn more rewards.
Well done
that kinda makes it go from play to earn to pay to earn
And?
well-thought out moves to address the problem that has tanked so many other games
Yikes. All low league players are screwed :D Buy cards for $500 or leave.
I guess the 3 Hive burn fee for account creation is starting to hurt a little :D
But on the postive side this will hurt the bots ALOT. And in the discord everyone is mainly complaining about bots :D So they got what they wanted (less bots), but not in the way they wanted it :D:D:D
There's a huge difference between becoming a big DApp and staying one, a lot of reward balancing has to happen all the time now.
Bots are easy to beat. People should love them.
Damn.. Im fucked, and need to get alot better at playing the game. ive never been outside of bronze.. Now I need to do my damndest to be in bronze for as little time as possible.
well invested myself and have thought about this alot... way to tackle it yall! should take a good bite out of the farming. Everytime I get a little bit frusterated about a situation in the game yins seem to figure it out!!! can't wait for chaos!!!
The developers of this game never fail to impress. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication to Splinterlands. Also, I'll be surprised if someone doesn't come up with a chicken design for the presale custom cards. 😄
This was to help deal with bots, which is a good thing. Hopefully bronze and novice players get enough credits to start building out teams.
The game may not be free 2 play, but it is starting to feel more like pay 2 win than play 2 earn. You compare it to MTG, which is not a play 2 earn game. It is a TCG. If Splinterlands is going to be a play 2 earn game, you need to consider people's time as well their monetary investment. Play 2 earn implies you put time in (play) and get money out (earn.) NOT you put money in (invest) and get more money out (earn.)
Maybe instead of hurting new players (no matter how you justify it, that is what is happening) try increasing the incentive to get to higher ranks (as opposed to getting out of lower ranks) or make the path not entirely based on money. As it is, getting to higher ranks is really just pay walls. Maybe you should change the advancement to some kind of formula that considers both collection power and win rating together, not separate. (i.e. As a person wins more in a season the required collection power for the next rank declines.)
With all that said... the change is really not that big of a deal. A bronze player's rewards do not seem like they're going to change all that much. I really don't see this being some kind of saving grace for the economy in any way.
Maybe worrying about these little things could be put on hold for a while and the team could spend more time actually fixing bugs and developing new sets. If you announce something like this alongside the release of a new set (i.e. something to get new players excited while beating them down at the same time!) hardly anyone would give this a seconds thought.
Is the new percentage breakdown including the end-of-season rewards?
Yeah I was thinking that myself, but I guess it's for all chests now. All season and end of season rewards.
It really feels like the refusal to stem the rampant bot accounts is resulting in punishment to the lower income / more casual players. I don't have all the answers and by all means, this isn't my game to run, but if you are seriously concerned about the amount of effortless money being made off your game why not do more to combat the actual source of these issues you are reportedly addressing with these changes? It hurts the players between pack drops and new comers the most. This will do almost nothing to the bots accounts except drive them to innovate their methods to achieve the means they're after. It feels like the goal is to make the casual and new players cannon fodder in the mix to maximize your end of the gains, here.
I love the game and try to not react impulsively to changes made, I'm just not seeing where these changes are ever in the interest of the average player...
The average player should recognize this is exactly what is needed. Credits can't be transferred and this will make it incredibly more frustrating for bot operators.
The level of patience required for a bot to keep botting is much, much lower than the level of patience required for a real new player to continue playing a game that is not very rewarding.
This game is insanely rewarding. You just have to spend time and money and not expect it overnight.
Have you considered card delegations as rewards for lower leagues.
For a team that is so intent on letting the market dictate itself, they seem equally intent on preventing less invested players benefit from that. The amount these guys want someone to have invested in cards to make even cents daily is absurd.
Want to compete in silver tiers ? Check this out!
$1300 Yodin Zaku - lvl 2
$1350 Scarred Llama - lvl 2
$970 Bizantine Kitty - lvl 2
$650 Kron - lvl 2
$420 Ruler of the Seas - lvl 2
$588 Chain Golem - lvl 2
$300+ Mimosa; Chanseus; Deepswimmer; Dragonjumper; Arianthus; Kraken...
$200+ Cthulu; Magnor; Behemoth; Dark Ha'on; Poseidon; Vigilator...
Ok, I understood, $10,000 bucks and we can compete in silver.
Axie doesn't seem like such an expensive game to me now.
You can play in Silver leagues without having a maxxed set of Silver level cards. You'll have a hard time competing for the leaderboard, but there's a ton of accounts in there now with mostly level 1 cards - so doing the dailies is still pretty reasonable.
I've been playing this game for a month, spent about $600 on it. I am now competing in Silver 2 but my rating is almost Gold rank. You don't need to spend that much money, you can also rent. There are many useful cards that are below $100, especially right now. Also, I don't meet Yodin/Llama/Kron cards that often, people build really powerful decks with other cards. Use your head!
None of these legendaries is needed for silver, how about contessa lament with a undead rex? seriously you can get by with a much cheaper set of cards, avoid legendaries all together to start bro.
I just got over guys. I'm the guy buying some cards with DEC to improve my power inchmeal instead just selling all earning and it just pissed me off. But I still can't understand why make it harder to newcomers than make it easy to all and become a competitive game like an e-sports, but money is king, and I'm very naive. That's it.
You don't need any of those cards to play on silver, I stay in the silver top and I don't have any legendary summoners or super OP cards.
its funny how people say "you dont need those cards to compete" but you do. Just check the leaderboard of silver at the end of the season, theres nobody without at least some of those cards.
Ofc you can lurk in silver or bronze without those cards but forget about competing
Current season
2 season ago
You are invited to review my cards and you will see that I don't have any super OP cards.
I can easily stay at the top without having legendary summoners or OP cards, but I prefer to move up to Gold to try my luck with chests.
real {mic drop} energy coming from this reply lmao
All very reasonable suggestions except that as other have pointed out, until such time as it is possible to obtain the amount of cards required to be eligible to get into Silver at sensible prices, the power levels need also to be adjusted. At this time 5,000 power should get you into silver would be a more appropriate figure. They can then be adjusted every season based on the state of the game, economy and card availability.
The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer.
The poor will actually get richer by sticking around rather than trying to sell off every penny earned rather than investing it.
The poor won't stick around if they're not opening cards from chests.
but they will get credits and with that they can buy cards. so people that want to build their deck and play will be able but bots will have to spend credits to buy cards from people and then sell it.
people were complaining about bots, this is a elegant solution to get less bots.
Don't you think the best solution is to "IDENTIFY THE BOTS" for everyone's sake?
So is it about education? 😅
Much of life seems to be. 😄
With any venture in life, the learning curve is the scale that determines success in the many or the few. What separates the few from the many is the determination to learn how to better succede at the thing.
#Live2Learn
If you just keep playing and acquiring the cards you need this shouldn't be a big issue. Any cards you get rent them out instead of selling them. There are so many giveaways that you can join as well. Even just asking for a good deal in the Discord isnt a bad idea. Im sure there are people trading cards somewhere.
that's not even close to being true... you can state it of course, but I welcome you to do the math if you really think these changes have a bearing at all on rich vs poor.
Dear Splinterlands team,
You not really get it what We mean as a new players.
I wanted buy 2000 packs but with this voucher system there is no way, there is a lots of good crypto project nowdays on the fild and I don't think there is to many pepole who want to invest up to 50k at the same time into a game. I fell it is a short term strategy beacuse the old palyers have advantege with the season ending rewards and every day quest, up to that they have old cards which mean more power and more airdrop.
I think it is fine because they are the old investors.
But you have to know that as well if you want to keep moving the game need new players too, whit the voucher system you cut the only sance to get closer to the top players and make a better deck to enjoy the game as a new player.
So tell me why the new play stay with the game after the airdrop? I think it is a bad desion and a lots of people gonna leave the game when the airdrop ends.
If you wanted to buy 2000 packs then you just have to buy vouchers and packs (don't forget vouchers are tradable !), you'll maybe have less packs with the same amount of money but it's not supposed to be a problem because the voucher system will virtually increase the value of what you'll get in the pack anyway.
Or just be a little patient and wait it out for 2-3 months once the pre-sale hype is over. Pretty sure you can buy 2000 packs once they stop the voucher system maybe once 2-3m packs are sold and the market has stabilised.
Or drop the 8k on SPS now and stake them for vouchers?
Yes I can buy but without the best cards, I mean limit editions and airdrop cards, which mean the gap getting bigger between me and the older players, so how can I competitive with then?
For me with this syteam just make no sens to invest into the game, I can buy the rest of the cards cheap on the market...
Stake your 8K (2000 packs) into SPS and you'll earn quite a few vouchers, I think around 5x per day. Over 30 days you'll get over 100 vouchers and you can at least get the 100 pack special that guarantees you a promo. SPS is at 0.48 right now so you'll get 16666, and at 84% APR that the pools at right now you'll get approx 1166 bonus SPS ($559) that will cover the $400 (-10%? I forget) you'll need to buy your 100 packs and leave you with marketplace money. Don't worry, you're in a better position than most :)
Yes, I agree with that and finnaly someone understand the problame not just writing.... I love this project but I have to calcuate as well and if I sell all of my SPS on 18 of October that is the best for me with this system.
For the splinterlands team need new players to invest but if they cut the opportunity it is not a good thing for long term... So I can do the same thing with 300$ on the market, of wihitout the special cards.
And if past is any indication, the packs will sell for way less than $4 in the open market. I bought most of my Untamed packs for $1 on Hive-Engine when they weren't sold out.
That person who sold it that lowly must be spewing right now....lol
well yeah but what he meant is that he doesnt want to pay 20$ per pack when all the previous expansions packs were sold at 2$ or less
A needed nurf I wonder how the DEC pools will grow for silver iii up after this modification to format great job. Also Credits nice :) not a bad alterative
Regarding the Season End mechanic... I'm sure you guys have looked at it but consider something to avoid the spikes in rental prices during the last few days of the season? It's been happening again this season with last-minute cancellations of rentals and mass increases in price as card owners take advantage of the Season End mechanic.
Honestly, I'm not too sure what CAN be done, but it is something that's been bothering me (and other players) over the past few seasons.
Regardless, the sustainability aspect of the changes should be well-received. I think most players understand that to really play to earn, one has to grind their way through Bronze before seeing real earnings (in the form of DEC).
Thanks a bunch guys.
Rental contracts are 24 hours. If a rental gets canceled after payment the payee still gets their contracted 24 hours. After paying, nothing over 24 hours is gntd. Personally I would like to see this changed to be more renter friendly. Add an option to lock a rental in for 3 days and another options for 7 days. Let the person who owns the card decide if they want to offer such options.
Nice, love the idea of a rental lock where both parties agree to remain for the duration.
god, yes. we need this. so people don't abuse the rent cancel at the last day to charge extra.
Hmm, maybe some sort of penalty for cancelling a rental early towards the end of the season?
I rent out a few cards myself. I don't adjust the prices because I'm inherently lazy, but honestly, the demand for rentals in the last couple of days of a season seems insatiable... it's so high that, yeah, as you said, I'm not sure much can be done that doesn't accidentally affect the rest of the season (ie, people might keep their rental prices super high just to cash in for end of season).
no they dont, they are more than happy about how the rental market works
Says the guy who owns about $2.6K worth of cards and is only renting out 3 of them 🤣
You're out of touch if you think players are happy that their expected Season rewards don't get fulfilled because card owners decide to cancel their rentals. And if they do want to keep those rewards, be prepared to pay 2-3X more in rental per card even for a level 1.
It's literally taking advantage of new players.
emm, I own more than 2.6k worth of cards and I also rent more than 3 cards dude!! and btw by "they" I meant splinterlands devs and maveriks not the new players!!
New players are getting screwed constantly because aggro´s philosophy is that new players have to pay to old players to be able to play the same game, and to him thats totally fair
This clearly helps the game on long term and prevents the bot users on grinding many DEC on bronze but as a poor player, I cannot afford much things on silver league because many players have better rented cards than I could afford on my DEC. That is my problem at least. Overall the next season is going be fire🔥 because of the cards that will come out on october!
What about leaderboard rewards? Are those changing in bronze league?
Sustainability needs to prime before farming DEC and cards with little or no investment and I think that this should make the game stronger in the long play. I know that users growth is the driving force for expansion, but that also implies some risks if you don't manage and plan for the future. Let's see how this plays out...
u print out new card with low power dec, but your system league need 250k power
at least can go to diamond, sure? mean old player get benefit because they have high power card , me invest 250usd and my power 8,795 DEC, mean i get shttt stay at bronze league only. please repair league power, this game very fun to play but this system is overprice. i dont care with my broken English, please read
Agrred with this. But I dont know if this fair for those who open account just for this purpose. Maybe a refund option is required for them.
Just seem bit unfair... But overall i agree with yours method...
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This is a pretty smart update in my eyes. Really till about bronze 1 or silver 3 you should Stack more cards
The changes aren't horrible if you've been playing awhile and have accumulated some power. This could have waited until after the new set released though. Buying power in singles is cost prohibitive and drives away new players. This will work fine once there are actually packs to purchase and we have a chance to increase power. Now if someone would please address the issue of leased cards being yanked just before the end of the season that would be great.
Some harsh changes but I understand they are necessary. Unfortunately for me I'm currently stuck in bronze 1. The issue is, last season I ran into a problem. Renting cards. My cards ran out a few hours before season ended and I lost that power.
So I ended up getting rewards for bronze. I've talked with other players who were renting and their cards got canceled. So the sellers could increase the prices. If this is a possibility, then in my eyes there's no incentive to rent cards if they can just be canceled or if they run out just before season ends, I'll get stuck back in the area that matches my power.
How will you combat these concerns for new and old players?
Rent my cards. I never cancel.
Seems to be a good fix.
Changes make sense honestly but one thing I'm confused on is this in an effort to return DEC price to $0.001 peg? If so wouldn't that mean there will be a large print of new DEC next season in rewards?
With the chaos packs announcement it looks to me like they have abandoned the peg for good.
This is quite good for the longetivity of the game. This is the reason why I'm long term bullish for Splinterlands.
I consider myself a new player, I hated the voucher system and everything you released for CL presale and so on.
That being said, im not against this changes, I think both changes (cap raiting and chest rewards for bronze and below) are good for the economy
Maybe fair maybe not.
Wah kasihan yang bikin akun banyak² untuk main di bronze pakai bot. Hampir aja aku gak bikin akun banyakk.
Nice to see that the reward right now is balanced. Kudos to the dev team ❤️
i'm fine with these changes but the rental prices at the end of season are crazy. bring back highest rank achieved and it's all good. you say it has nothing to do with a player being old or new, but so far everything really favors old players. yes I know it's not a free to play game. I've bought DEC, and i've bought cards. all those cards will get me nowhere near the 100k power I need to the season rewards for my current rating. and I bet all those people who have the cards for that will raise their prices ridiculously high come last day of the season. so yeah, it has nothing to do with a player being old or new..
how about season rewards = highest rank achieved. daily quests = current rank? at least us new players can start saving up on assets because of season rewards, and we'll have incentive to not stay in bronze
the "highest rank achieved" system was massively exploitable with multiple accounts, in multiple ways (some more obvious that others) and with lowered cooldowns, it would be even easier to exploit it. I think the current system could be greatly improved, but the old system allowed for such extreme abuse that it simply had to be fixed. The end of season rentals are much higher now, but the mid-season rentals are much lower - take advantage of that.
while that's true, owners just cancel rentals before the end of the season so power is lost, and rank drops down massively. I'm all for removing exploits and fixing things that can be abused, and hopefully, that includes owners jacking up rent prices. that in itself is abuse too.
that's just renters following market demand, it isn't really abuse any more than someone paying a lot is abuse to the people that wanted to pay less. Owners cant set parameters for how long you're allowed to rent something at dirt cheap mid-season pricing, so they might have only wanted to let you use it for that one day, and they could cancel for any number of reasons (including wanting the CP themselves)
I recommend renting just after the 24hr marks on season timer, so that rentals arent dropping an hour before season end, you will have more notice and be in the best position to react to any cancellations. Until improvements are made to make this easier, people have to compete for the best rental strategies as much as they compete for the best battle strategies. Knowing the CP values of various cards may help a lot in that regard.
by the way, appreciate the feedback guys. thanks for being constructive. this is more of me just ranting because I don't have enough power nor the dec to rent hahaha. I'm still in this for the long haul. this is what I like about the hive community. most everybody's trying to help in their own ways. sorry for the rant.
Well I have officially missed out on the ability to play this game since these changes nailed the coffin. My question remains how this stops bot accounts from investing $x in cards to play in silver before farming for even better rewards (more DEC and more packs) and earning even more value. It makes zero sense to me as it will take away more cards bots are using and will artificially raise prices, hurting human players in more ways than one. Inb4 "bots dont want to spend upfront investment" lol not true in the slightest.
Increasing the amount of money someone that bots have to invest in the game per account reduces the botting problem, specially if they get banned and lose those assets..
That is simply false. Botting happens in every single game that requires upfront cost. This game in particular allows them to farm income directly instead of "selling in-game assets for gold to sell to players in a 3rd party market." This argument make no sense at all. The return on investment is worth the upfront cost.
Edit: One example is WoW. Its plagued with bots while requiring to buy the game full retail plus paying a sub fee every month. Thousands do so gladly and are profitable.
Ok, lets talk about wow. they pay how much, $50 for a leveled up account boost? $15 in subscription every month? lets say $70 in investment. and you have the possibility, albeit low, to get banned by blizzard. blizzard has a policy that avoids banning users if possible.
The bots here in bronze, they invested how much? $10? per account? and they can multi account even with the same IP? botting in here is way easier than wow.
This actually helps the economy. The bots in bronze will get less cards, no dec, only potions and credits, credits which they will use to rent/buy power from other users, raising the market prices.
The less appealing the returns are for the bots, the less bots we'll see..
How would you would have tried to solve the bot problem?
You're missing my point. Yes, bronze league bots will make less profit. My point is that bots will simply invest to play in a higher rank league. They can even rent cards for more profit. When the bots have to rent/buy up all the decent cards to play in higher tiers that takes those cards out of real players hands and raises prices - as opposed to just letting them farm rewards in bronze with starter cards and selling all rewards off to players. This hurts the economy and minting cards is not bad its good (there's a cap so it literally cannot hurt the economy minting more cards). My theory is devs probably just want to slow down minting because they can't keep up with new ideas for future expansions.
A verification system would be a better solution. One account per IP and doing a captcha or something to verify you are human every x number of games. They aleady added deminishing returns for DEC. Add more DEC sinks and remove potion drops for low ranks. Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
The goal is making players human, and stripping rewards make more humans quit playing alongside some bots. More brainstorming is required.
I'm pretty sure this is the best-case scenario, so It's a little comical that it was presented as a negative that "hurts the economy" even with qualifiers that it'll raise the value of cards and slow down the bots farming all the reward cards and dumping them (farming all the DEC too btw). Sure, the cheap reward cards are cool... until an actual player wants to sell one.
If bots need to rent cards then card owners get a share of all the rewards they are draining from the pool, which makes owning cards that much better instead of everyone just buying 20 spellbooks, so I don't think "hurts the economy" means what you think it means.
Also, "one account per IP" is nonsense because a lot of hardcore players run multiple accounts using cards they own, and being able to do that makes ownership even more valuable. Someone could have entire max collection and still want to buy your cards for their other accounts that need them - that is a good thing, not a bad thing. Just like bot army renting/buying is a good thing, not a bad thing. We want bots to actually participate in the economy rather than just draining rewards 24/7 with the spellbook.
P.S. captcha/verification/etc are cancer and tech-savvy bot operators could bypass them anyway. alien worlds had captcha on cloud wallets and it stopped my brother's automation of their
faucet"game" for like... 1 day.I can see how renting more cards is good for players in general, but I disagree that it is good economy that cards are artificially scarce from bots scooping them up, leaving less for real players to have available. A lot of the "big picture think" is nice in a perfect world but isn't practical in a real setting through the lense of a bot owner who thinks like a hacker. No matter how much you nerf rewards, bots WILL be there and WILL profit. It only hurts real players.
In general I personally am not a fan of multiple accounts in principle. I would prefer devs to force one account per IP. Players will be mad but it's for the better, transfer your wealth to one account quit gaming the system like a bot. (Once again artificial scarcity and hoarding is not "good economy," having more real players playing your game is.)
I agree captchas are aids. There has to be a clever and not annoying way to verify humans that hasn't been thought of yet that. Smart people assemble!
There are counters to what you propose. Captchas are a horrible idea. They tried it in alien worlds and it sucked, it didn't stop the bots and it got so annoying for the players that they removed it. You don't want to do a captcha every time you try to duel someone, trust me..
The one account per IP sounds like a better idea, something like a 24 hours time period where you can't login with a different account on the same IP but the devs said they don't want to do that.
There should be a limit though, something like, 2 accounts per IP max.
Maybe the idea is to limit the bronze bots for this season while they brainstorm for a better solution, idk.. better than doing nothing I guess.