A proposal is being put forth to a vote of all staked SPS token holders to adjust the amount of reward shares awarded in ranked battles based on the level of cards used by the winning player in the battle.
The goal of this change is to encourage players to own and/or rent higher level cards and encourage combining cards by reducing the amount of reward shares earned by cards used in battles that are below the intended levels for each league.
Initially the concept of collection power was introduced in an attempt to ensure that players would need the appropriate level cards in order to participate in higher leagues; however, that system was relatively easy to work around and we are still seeing many players that are able to earn full rewards in higher leagues using low level cards.
With the recent changes to the ranked reward system, we now have the tools to better achieve this goal by limiting rewards based on the cards actually used in the battles rather than cards simply sitting in players' collections.
The table below details the proposed minimum level of cards of each rarity required to earn full rewards at each league.
| League | Common | Rare | Epic | Legendary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Silver | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Gold | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| Diamond | 8 | 6 | 5 | 3 |
| Champion | MAX | MAX | MAX | MAX |
With this change, the reward shares calculation for each ranked battle win will be adjusted by the average of the level of each card used by the winning team in the battle compared to the minimum reward level for that card and for the player's current league as indicated in the table above.
There are a few important things to note about this proposed change:
- Any level of card is still able to be played in all leagues, it's just that cards played below the minimum level for the rarity and league will reduce the number of reward shares earned for that battle
- Cards played above the minimum level for the rarity and league will not increase the rewards that can be earned, nor will they be able to "make up" for reductions from other cards that are below the minimum level
- The level of card used will be for the actual card and not based on summoner level. For example, if a player is using a level 1 Obsidian and a level 5 Goblin Psychic then the Goblin Psychic will still be counted as a level 5 card for the reward shares calculation
- Starter cards will count as level 0
The following examples illustrate how the proposed change would affect reward shares earned under different scenarios:
Example 1
A player in Silver league wins a ranked battle with the following cards:
- Level 5 Common
- Level 1 Common
- Level 1 Rare
- Level 1 Legendary
The reward shares earned by this player will be roughly 70% of the total that they could have earned had they used higher level cards which is calculated as follows:
Example 2
A player in Gold league wins a ranked battle with the following cards:
- Starter Common
- Level 1 Common
- Level 1 Rare
- Level 1 Rare
- Level 1 Epic
The reward shares earned by this player will be roughly 20% of the total that they could have earned had they used higher level cards which is calculated as follows:
Ultimately, the Splinterlands team believes that this change will go a long way towards preventing some of the workarounds that some players are using in order to earn large amounts of rewards with cheap, low-level cards and should help encourage more card combining and provide more value to owning and renting higher level cards going forward.
I think that if a player (or should we nowadays say "the bot of a player"?) is skillful enough to succeed in a certain league, they should also be able to earn the rewards promised by this league. Actually, if someone with cards of a lower level reaches the same rating like a player with cards of higher levels that is an indicator that they play the game rather well. I see no reason to punish good players.
Yes, I see a huge problem caused by bots, but in my opinion to 'punish' skillful players is not the solution of that problem.
Furthermore, some cards are simply not much better on higher than on lower levels (think at the chicken), and therefore I see no reason to put artificial pressure on uplevelling every single card.
The thing is that the reality has nothing to do with skill. It's just accounts with level 1 cards playing against other accounts with level 1 cards over and over and slowly but surely moving up the leagues.
Rewards need to be based on a combination of skill and assets. Skill will lead to a higher win rate which is one of the biggest factors in the amount of rewards, but for the assets part all we really had was collection power which is too easily manipulatable.
This aims to fix the asset part of things. If you want to earn the rewards, you have to have the cards. This will be a huge benefit to the entire ecosystem and everyone who owns assets in it.
I disagree, I've always played games where I "fight up hill" I can put money in a game but no where near what others can. I've always made up for this with skill, learning the game and counters. I don't consider myself the best player but above average. I have a lot of max bronze cards, some max silver cards for water and 3 max silver summoners. I fight my way into gold and the frustration of playing against maxed out deck because of the last proposal which said my $1000 deck isn't good enough to earn rewards. I don't rent, overall I feel renting stagnates your account and stops growth.
So I break into gold and can beat players in gold with max out decks who aren't skilled and then get crushed by some that are skilled and some that just have max cards for gold.
I put 7 grand into this game this year after I found it in Feb but I made the decision to get set a baseline passive income so most of that went into 2 nodes. I bought 181 RW packs I'm still trying to open.
I've put money into this game but as I play I'm still contently told the skill I have isn't good enough because you haven't spent enough.
This proposal I understand what it is trying to accomplish and do, I actually somewhat support the idea before the massive shift of SPS rewards to the top end. There has to be a way for yes skilled players to earn without having to drop 5 - 10 thousand dollars ever 6 months. Most of the long term players haven't put that money in (yes there are some if not plenty who have) but overall most of them are where they are because of when they found the game.
Aggy keep saying he wants to fix spawn point in-equality but splinterlands lands keeps making it's own spawn point in-equality overall if you weren't here pre-airdrop or I'd say even alpha / beta the amount of money you have is massive more than what "top" level players have had to put in.
The tournament during splinterfest showed when a bronze player was able to compete in the tournament there is a difference between skill and having enough money to buy the cards.
THIS!
I get so tired of hearing about/reading people being told things like this.
The value of a person's collection can vary immensely. Just because someone's name isn't purple in Discord, doesn't mean they haven't invested a substantial amount of money.
People need to stop assuming that every Silver collection is worth $47 and understand that a good collection can easily be worth 5 figures $$$$$.
!BEER
View or trade
BEER.Hey @cimmeron, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @torran for you. Enjoy it!Do you want to win SOME BEER together with your friends and draw the
BEERKING.Never said you didn't but I had a plan that keep getting nerfed from when I entered the game. When I entered SPS was over .12 so I've lost 1/2 my value there but I've manage to invest right to still be able to get 2 node. I don't have 15 - 30 grand to get a max untamed deck so I'll never be able to complete one for modern. My plan was to set up passive income and work toward CL and Rebellion when it comes out but even 181 RW packs doesn't touch what I need for silver let a lone gold and that is around $750. I have some skill in the game and still learning so I'm "okay" with the struggle fight up hill against maxed out decks in each league which they are there and most of what I fight anymore since the last proposal. While I try to build because I wasn't here in the beginning. Prior to the last proposal this one was needed now... most of the decks I fight in silver and gold are maxed for silver at least and a lot for gold.
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'.
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.
Then the point system is borked.
If a League of Legends player with a "true" ability of Silver 1 is on Silver 1, he can play literally unlimited matches but he will stay at Silver 1, as he'll win 50% of the matches and lose 50% of the matches. Small swings obviously happens, but this hypotetical player will end up in the same place as his teoretical, true ability. That's what a MMR system is meant to do.
If in Splinterlands, bot accounts full of lvl 1 cards can just climb through the leagues by beating other bot accounts running the same bot software, something's not right. If they're at the same ability level (eg same bot software) and using the same (or really similar) cards, they should just keep wasting their time against each other, without climbing the leagues.
Back to the LoL example: if you take 1000 "true" Silver 1 players and put them against each other, after thousands of matches they'll all still be at Silver 1, as that's their correct ranking. They can't climb if they're not actually playing better.
In general it is simple, make the game more complex + add random factors.
For now it is a bot game, and i see no reason why this would change.
The most simple thing would be to "disvalue" low-effort bots with an additional layer of complexity.
With this change in place, it could also remove the general MMR system and use the cards for access.
Why wasting time in lower leagues with higher level cards?
You match the cards, you can join the league.
I totally agree, but if thats the case maybe bring back guaranteed elements for every match or something. Cuz now its just really expensive to play Splinterlands at the level that you want to play at, compared to the past (or you just get a lower ROI, which doesn't matter, except it does a little bit).
That's not true in my case. Nonetheless, what about this? Each game has a pot based on the total level of cards played. So level cards would essentially lower the pot. The winner takes the whole pot. It encourages players to level up because 1. It's easier to win with leveled up cards. 2. A player with leveled up cards will earn more over time.
This rewards good play which will make the game more fun and allows a mechanism to reward purchases.
hello sir @yabapmatt .
Can't we just remove the rewards and rating increase from, for example a gold-league battle between 1bcx vs 1bcx?
Sometimes I cannot find an appropriate level summoner to rent because there's nothing available to rent or the ones available are grossly overpriced.
So if I'm in Gold, and have to use a level 1 legendary summoner, I can still win (of course not always) but then my rewards would be significantly lower with this proposal.
I know there are many 1bcx bots in gold (I have some too), so I'm okay with losing my reward/rating if I manually win against fellow low level decks (bot or not) in Gold. But if I beat a high level (gold-capped) deck, then I feel it's unfair to get punished.
It's been a while you haven't played if you think that it's still the case.
Competition has be increasing every season for the past like 4 seasons.
I spent thousands in SPL and it takes me half the season to get out of silver sometimes.
I used to be able to get to gold with low level cards, now you have to have a maxed deck to be able to be competitive in gold because everybody is playing maxed decks.
Decks might not be maxed in silver but rewards are so low that doesn't even makes sense to punish players that don't have a great silver deck. It's a tax on a tax.
We're not even talking about rewards in bronze.
Sincerely, do be able to make that game any profitable (with still a bit of luck) is to play in diamonds at least.
Some cards are in some rulesets even worser at higher level, take the Gelatinous Cube, if you use Mimosa Nightshade or the Ruleset is "No Magic" the Gelatinous Cube level 9 is better than the level 10 version, simple because he has one livepoint more and Void is already added from the summoner or is not neccessary if no magic monster can be on the battlefield.
I think it is better if your monster has one lifepoint more without any disadvantages for this or not ?
in a game, punish players with skill, such an idea can only come from someone who has no idea about gaming and only thinks about his money, sorry but we should not destroy the balance between game and investors even more!
One question: Do you have contact with other people in real life?
i ask because your texts come across as if you are quite anti-social and have zero sense of empathy
I think the idea of this proposal is honorable, but this idea I very much dislike. It seems to me that especially gold players will be punished here, who are like the middle class of the Splinterlands ecosystem.
I OWN a lot of cards at lvl 1 that I frequently use, just because they are still good even at lvl 1. Phantom of the Abyss, Halving Alchemist, Kron the Undying, Oaken Behemoth are some examples.
These cards cost me a lot of money. Their combined worth is hundreds of dollars even right now, and I bought them at a much higher price. Kron alone was at least 300$ back then.
I feels really unfair knowing I will then be punished for paying this price and now wanting to play them like I always did.
I strongly hope this one will not pass.
I'm in the same boat. I've got most of the Untamed/Dice Legendaries, but only BCX 1 because they were super expensive when I got them. Some of them work well enough in higher leagues, some of them don't. It is, what it is, but if this passes, none of those cards are going to be much use to me anymore if I'm losing a percentage of my FP every time I use one.
The more I thought about it, the more cards came to my mind that were strategically of high value to purchase at a certain lvl just because they are having/getting one good ability or can act as a meatshield. I bought them all for a reason and now that reason is invalid and the decision does not make a lot of sense anymore.
Just to give you guys an idea:
most untamed/dice legendaries, all Fiends lvl 1 (meatshield), Kobold Miner lvl 3 (+1 attack), Sabre Shark lvl 2 (+1 attack), GF Chicken lvl 3 (meatshield + gf bonus), GF Ooze lvl 3 (slow + gf bonus), Medusa lvl 3 (stun), Ice Pixie lvl 1 (flying for earthquake), Coral Wraith lvl 1 (sneak and magic attack), Kelp Initiate lvl 1 (meatshield), The Kraken lvl 1 (big tank), Flesh Golem lvl 3 (self healing tank), Wood Nymph lvl 1 (front heal), Mushroom Seer lvl 1 (silence), Brownie lvl 1 (+1 speed), Mitica Headhunter lvl 1 (4 dmg, 5 speed), Divine Healer lvl 3 (from 0 to 1 magic damage), Crystal Werewolf (silence + meatshield), truthspeaker lvl 1 (protect + starter card, bought her only to not gain a minus...), Light Elemental lvl 1 (flying and solid 2 magic dmg), Undead Priest lvl 3 (from 0 to 1 magic dmg), Bone Golem lvl 1 (starter card, void and 1 speed for reversed speed), Octopider lvl 3 (demoralize), Phantom Soldier lvl 1 (flying + solid stats), Enchanted Pixie lvl 1(neutral flying for earthquake), Prismatic Energy lvl 1 (magic reflect, great with Mycelia and Obsidian), Halfing Alchemist lvl 1 (unique halving effect).
You see, these are not just one or two random cards. Especcially the wild cards are expensive and I even bought some in the alpha version to GAIN a bonus, not to lose something.
Yesterday I even managed to showcase a win with some of these cards who ALL would give a minus if the proposal passes.
I also heard that many people said we would still get more in the end if all the bots are pushed out of gold league. If that is the case, the proposal is fine on paper. It still feels very wrong to me, and as others pointed out this and other things lead to the feeling that devs dont care for the smaller guys (even though I know for sure they do!) and that humans are always collateral damage when bots are targeted. If that is done time and time again, people will feel let down.
In the end, I still love and trust the team and their game. I know everything will work out over time, but this proposal I think is not the way to do it, but of course I could be wrong and this proposal will do only good in the end.
I appreciate all of your effort and the SL team members discussing with us about this.
I agree. The impact should be more substantial at the highest levels and least impactful at the lowest levels. For example give room at bronze level with a free bonus of say 20% so a player doesn't get completely hammered. Maybe a free bonus of 5% in silver, then it runs as explained in this proposal.
Since every league has it's own pool, your absolute reward shares aren't important. What is more important is the number or reward shares you earn relative to all other players in gold.
If everyone in gold feels the same as you (it's not worth it to buy more copies of those cards, then your rewards won't be affected.
The question becomes, do you have a more leveled up deck than most people in your league? If yes, then this may lower your reward shares but increase your earnings.
I don't really understand why all the rules ends up reducing the rewards of skillful players that, through good usage of strategy, can achieve high rankings, while increasing the rewards of players that just bash through everything with ultra-expensive, high-leveled cards.
It's a game, after all: bad players should receive less rewards than good players. This rule will just increase the rewards of bad players that just bulldozer their way through the rankings with old, high-leveled expensive cards; and punish good players that can outsmart the opponents.
Well said, I feel the same way. Accounts shouldn't be punished for having more skill than another.
This sounds like a proposal written by a Mav that's tired of losing to lower level collections that are not fully maxed or are playing above their league.
My biggest problem with this is I have a LOT of Untamed cards that are only max Bronze league and too expensive to level any higher. Some of those cards still work well in Silver and Gold.
Also, some cards are better in certain rulesets as a lower level card and some cards might have stats at the next level you don't really care for.
I find it crazy that I could be penalized for playing in Gold with my mostly max Silver collection. The fact that this proposal is being announced and nothing has been done about Diamond and Champion players smurfing Bronze/Silver tournaments shows where the team's mindset really is. Didn't we just increase their reward pool by a ton?
Maybe if we stopped stripping the rewards from the lower leagues, people wouldn't be clamoring into higher leagues with half-assed decks just so they can have another shot at earning $0.02.
Leveling my Untamed cards would cost thousands of dollars and renting all of those cards is a poor financial decision. Leveling everything else is still $1-2k additional investment.
To be honest... Maybe I should've skipped Tower Defense and GLS and Runi and Riftwatchers and everything else I keep buying into to support you and focused solely on Chaos Legion. I mean.. I can't wait for my Dr. Blight promo card to penalize me for playing it.
This comment! I couldn't put it better myself.
We are rewarding big investors in the game, but we should also reward skillful players. This is a game to begin with -- gameplay, competitiveness, and most of all enjoyment should be the utmost priorities if we want this game to grow much bigger and to increase userbase.
Rewarding skilled players sounds much better and more attractive than penalizing them.
Yes exactly.
If you use a high level deck but get beaten by a low level or 1 BCX deck, then the the winner should actually be rewarded more instead of getting deductions for using low level deck.
Or maybe the loser would forfeit a random high level card from his deck and transfer it to the winner, because the loser is just wasting the high level card if he still loses to low level.
Well said. But can we be surprised that once again new changes and reward proposals will punish the very people this game needs to nurture...
That's probably debatable but I do ok lol
!BEER
I'm not a mav but I've likely invested more than some of them. That still doesn't mean I intend on sticking around though. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I'm not very happy with a lot of the changes over the past few months and also the lack of Quality of Life fixes that people have been asking for over the past year.
This seems a bit off for me.
So this update seems to punish skilled players who can get more done with lower level cards.
I find myself using quite often some level 3-4 (common & rare) Chaos legion cards in my Diamond league gameplay.
This to me just dicourages people from taking a chance at higher leagues. It's incredibly expensive to bring all your cards up to the next level. I had almost all my cards at silver level recently and diecided to try my hand at gold. Since I've been there I've probably spent $1500 bring a few cards up to gold. But for what if now I'm going to make silver level rewards if I don't spend another $50k to get them all there immediately.
This constant moving of the goal posts makes me want to go back to just renting out my cards instead of playing.
Dangle the carrot, wiggle the stick..
Agreed.. I started the game last summer so I got here just in time to buy a bunch of expensive cards before prices tanked and also catch all the reward nerfs.
With every nerf, I'd have to spend more to keep earning. Now I'm at a point where it's like $1-2k for the next league and for what? The same thing to happen again in a season or two? I'm not supporting them enough through the market, Dice, CL, TD, Runi, and RW that I have to either keep spending magnitudes more or else give up more and more rewards too?
Yep.
I don't think anybody is trying to cut you out. We just don't believe it's right for you to get richer through taxing us smaller accounts more. You have already made yourself a profitable business with your investment. I'm happy for you. I really am. I just don't think it's right to employ market manipulation to further inflate your earnings. You're doing well enough. No need to fleece new players.
I have to add that there are some cards that are better at level 1 than at max level in certain situations (or at a lower level). How many people have upgraded their fiends, for example? Not saying maxed-out fiends cannot be powerful - just how often a maxed-out fiend is used in-game currently. Level 1 fiends are used so often. Same for the Furious Chicken. How many own/use it at max level?
While I understand why the proposal was made, and generally I like it because I'm one of the players who use upgraded cards (many maxed out), there are situations where the gameplay logic favors non-upgraded cards.
Therefore, this proposal may need some revising for the final form, I believe.
I echo the above, as soon as I read this, I kept thinking '0 man fiend. 1 mana fillers'. They're tactical cards and used as shields, and dumb to upgrade. This proposal has its flaws.
Yep I would not want to play a lv 5 Furious Chicken in Champion vs a Level 6 and get a penalty
Same stats same abilities just one would be penalized the other would not due to it being level 6 lol.
If a player with all lvl 1 cards has the skill to defeat a player with max lvl cards I think they should get more rewards not less.
So based on what's being said in the Mav chat, I get the feeling that they consider me an "exploit" because I'm able to advance beyond what they think my cards should allow me to. I don't consider that an exploit. I consider it an incentive to play. If you consider players being good enough to be competitive beyond their decks, just gate keep the league. Don't let us play there.
I'm not exploiting anything. I'm just competing. I thought that is what this is all about. It's not my fault that your bots are too stupid to beat me more often then they already do.
Dude I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Nobody ever said anything about punishing you. In fact, these MFers are basically trying to suck you off while punishing me for what you do. When it comes to folks extracting value from the system, it's you, not me.
But I'm not mad at you. Hell that's the way they designed the game. You pay, you win. And that's fine. I don't care about that at all. I also don't care that you and players like you extract the vast majority of the value from the game as was proven by analyzing the data. That's the way the game is made. I just don't want to be blamed for doing it, especially when I pay into the system. Splinterlands isn't a money making venture to me. I lose money playing this game which means I actually add value into the economy! These motherfuckers don't understand that so they want to try to squeeze me more. That's what I'm arguing against.
I don't know. To me it just seems like yet another market manipulation in favor of early adopters at the expense of new players. I can't see how this trend will lead to anything but a closed silo of faithful players, inaccessible and unattractive to anybody not currently well invested.
That's ONLY if you are thinking of wild format... once Untamed gets bumped out of modern int0 wild, any new player will be able to cycle in using current edition cards. This has nothing to do with early adaptors vs. new players.
This has EVERYTHING to do with early adopters vs new players.
Every rule that's changed ends up benefiting early adopters who, by sheer luck, purchased lots of 0.01$ cards that are now worth 250$ each. They can bulldoze their way by purchasing everything that's released and leveling everything to max just by selling 2 or 3 Llamas that they're hiding under their sleeves for the last 2 years.
While new players have to either bring 10k USD to the game, or be relegated to bronze rewards even if they're actually playing the game better (eg with more skill) than old players.
Oh cool. Then just make this apply only to modern.
I think you can't build a system that incentivizes increased ownership, leveling, etc... without also rewarding early adopters.
The modern/wild format goes a long way to help even the playing field for new players though. Each new edition release gives players a new shot to have the exact same change/buying power as long as they stay invested (which is the behavior we want to encourage).
The issue isn't so much about rewarding early adopters but hurting new players. A system such as this raises the stakes for new players forcing them to pay more in order to play. The end result is that they won't play.
It doesn't force them to pay more to play - it forces them to pay more to earn more.
That would be fine if the game wasn't still widely promoted as #playtoearn. The beginning levels are really competitive already. The easy way out is to rent. There is already a market manipulation in place which requires a new player to rent or buy in order to earn anything. There is another market manipulation in place that requires a player to rent for 2 days in order to rent any card. The end result is that this is a PAY-to-earn system and we're asking new players to pay a lot.
Play to Earn doesn't mean Play for Free, or Earn the same regardless of what you pay.
We're asking new players to Pay a Lot to Earn a Lot - that seems fine to me.
This game has always said that they want to be a blend of Invest more to earn more + More skill to earn more - not one or the other.
Yeah, it seems to be 90-10 split in favor of paying more vs skill.
ETA: this change seems to be more of an admonishment of skill rather than a reward for investment. That's just my perception.
Don't you see the mistake? You recommend a bot, but the game should be so much fun that you want to play it yourself. a game that isn't worth playing will die! the balance between play and investment is completely out of whack. would you buy stock in a game developer who only makes crap games that no one wants to play?
Yes early adopters should be rewarded but they should be rewarded through success of the product not through market manipulation.
I think if your bot can't beat a real player using lower level cards, you're not being penalized, you're just losing. And honestly, you kind of deserve it.
this does nothing to address a more serious issue: the inability to play your way to a higher level card ownership
It's my contention that players who don't have 50 bucks a week to dump into video games are not going to be able to take advantage of this in any meaningful way and this will further consolidate the rewards into a smaller group of hands. Reward amounts should allow a player who has put in a game console worth of money into Splinterlands to be able to EARN the ability to level up their cards. Currently the value of rewards don't even come close to providing enough value for silver1/gold3 players to move up without spending more money. I have almost 2 years in this game and at least 400 dollars invested (likely more) on top of reinvesting every little bit I make back into the game. I bought packs, individual cards, flipped cards for profit, opened a second grind account that I now use to rent out cards that are not valuable enough to sell but are useless to me because they are outside the modern ruleset. I have a career record of 53.3% on my primary account. I play nearly every day with 18000+ battles total. I believe someone who has put that much into the game should have been able to earn enough to climb to the next rung of the ladder but I still can't even come close to competing in gold let alone beat any of the top 100 silver players. Perhaps this is because I am terrible at this game or perhaps it's because I can't afford to level up every card. But this proposal really creates more problems than it solves and punishes the small time human players.
I 100% agree to what you say and it reflects my own journey. I have roughly 30k in CP and I consistently finish around 2000 in rating and stay in Silver 1. I have also bought old packs, new packs, strategic cards (hello Sand worm) etc.
I don't play more than what makes sense from a ECR perspective since I am conscious about the time (there is an alternative cost...) but still probably rakes in 50-60 chests in the new system per season (Daily focus included). The Ranked Rewards change was a huge improvement for me; it made it so much more rewarding (pun intended) to play and get to open a lot of chests. But the thing is, even with this type of reward the actual USD equivalent value is not even close to being able to re-invest in better decks. I think I got like 40 SPS or something last season. That is not even enough to by ONE (1) Riftwatcher pack. If I constantly need to inject real US$ in order to keep "earning" (40 SPS is like 3 USD) I dilute the return on my investment (excluding my time which also has value). That is not Play-to-earn, that is a ponzi scheme.
I am very disappointed in these types of suggestions because it ultimately points to a centralized system, a Rentier society if you will, where the "Rich" owns the assets and the players can rent or are encouraged into "scholarships"; i.e. employed by the asset owners to work/battle. As always things in life are fractal; so what you see here is the same as countless other societies. There are haves and there are have-nots. I started my Splinterlands journey thinking that you could in honesty earn in-game currency which could be re-invested without the cynical approach that you should perpetually be required to invest real-world money over and over again. I have happily committed some 500-1000 USD (including Land) to this because I liked the vision. Now, not so much anymore.
Some people have the equivalent of a late model used Honda or a new Hyundai invested and are still barely earning anything lol
and that's the problem- I don't want to earn a bunch of money but I do want the chance to earn my way up the ladder and that's not possible for anything less than buying in at the gold level and even then it's tough
my guild doesn't charge anything and they are relatively ok with donating when you can. We have 2 whales that have really pushed us up the ranks, but we all manage our own decks and coordinate delegations with in the team - it works for me I don't have a lot time for the social side of guild participation
If your goal is to shrink your player base by spitting on anyone who isn't in a position to afford max levels for a league; then this is a very good way to go about it!
doesn't seem right to me.
This is the worst proposal that I've seen so far.
SPL teams keeps "acknowledging" that they need to focus on attracting new players and keep them but all the decisions that are being made are going towards the opposite.
Keep them coming that way and this game will be dead even before the next expansion.
Most of rewards are already going to old players and every update keeps amplifying that.
Can't believe that this option is even considered.
That's the problem with DAO's, Proposals are made by Mav's to benefit themselves. Then other's at the same level with high voting power agree as it benefits them also, and if you don't have the other 80%+ of the community voting against it, then you have no chance.
Flawed design in my opinion, because if you give everyone with staked sps the same voting power, then you will have the 10k bot accounts swaying the votes instead. I see the need for decentralization in crypto to get around government regulations (especially for US companies) but there needs to be a better way to make/vote on proposals to get a better idea of what the 'COMMUNITY' wants.
Yes it's a good one. In my opinion everyone's voting power should should be in a certain range. Like for example, it'll start with 1 and end at 10. It'll still depend on staked sps but for a certain amount of sps staked, it'll be capped. One can make it like 2000-3000 sps staked will give 1 voting power and even if anyone staking 1m sps, they are still at 10 voting power only. This will make the average individual players vote more valuable. Making it negligible for bots to make an impact on voting and on opposite end, suppressing the voting with huge amount of sps staked by biggies
Decentralized governance is such a joke! Especially when they keep shifting all of the rewards up to the top 0.01% of players.
Good luck getting your vote to count earning .83 SPS/day while the top is earning and compounding exponentially.
!BEER
I think it's crap. For example, I use extra sandworm level 1 with slug rule. I think tactical finesse and skill should not be punished. if i am so good that i beat diamond players with my silver deck, i should be rewarded if anything and not punished! let people live the freedom and skill as they want!
i personally won't have any disadvantage from this change. but as a passionate gamer, i don't like the idea of penalizing skills just because you don't want to ban bots. somewhere it's an incentive to climb up despite worse cards and defeat people with better decks
it's hard enough for play to earn games to keep the balance between fair play and pay to win. to destroy it so wantonly is really grandiose!
just ban bots, that would save us a lot!
Agreed.. If I can beat your higher level deck with my lower level deck, why am I being penalized for playing better?
Also funny how they don't want us to play up a league without being penalized but yet it's still ok for Diamond/Champ players to come down and crush Bronze/Silver tournaments on the regular.
Agree with you bro, if they remove bots, lots of problem will be solve.
That wont happen because they top 1% own 90% of the bots...
yes unfortunately I know that too :(
100% against this. Absolutely not necessary and bad for the game. Punishing skilled players for winning with weaker cards is not the way to do it.
The ghost card punishment is already doing what this does but much better.
On top of that, some cards are better at a lower level, on certain rule sets, especially reverse speed. I only have a level 1 Sand Worm and I get to use it in Gold when it's reverse speed.
Seems like more and more proposals are with the intention of securing the games for the truly rich and less for newer players.
Exactly
Anyone who started playing this game after Untamed was sold out, like i did, please vote this down.
This means if you cannot afford to level up your 1 bcx Untamed cards you will be forced to sell them to the whales.
I plan to remove my meager holdings from all LPs convert to SPS and probably sell some 1 bcx Untamed cards just to stake and vote against this well meaning but misguided proposal. This will still not be alot. Please join that is the beauty of a DAO.
e.g. I literally just bought 2 1 bcx Untamed cards for 5 bucks a pop in order to "move up to diamond even tho my deck is barely gold worthy. If this passes i have to go back to bronze or just sell some of my best cards which would mean going to at least silver.
Am i missing something? Feels like the Lords are Disarming the peasants no?
in the same way ecr spanks you if you like to play the game this will stop players from buying single bcx copies to play with and force them to rent maxed copies only.
i play in gold/diamond modern and don't wish to spend $39000 on maxed copies of untamed and $9000 on dice or put money into the game every 2 days to rent them. for this reason i buy at least 1 bcx of all monsters and level key abilities . this will just add to the barrier of entry for new players
This proposal makes cards more demanding, but removes one important strategy.
Using low-level cards is kind of strategy to win. Low-level cards are stronger in some different rule-sets, especially Reverse Speed.
Sometimes we also want to see the underdog's win and their proper reward.
How about removing 50% (or proper percent) of Liquidity Pool DEC rewards and giving them to Splinterlands Cards holders?
Splinterlands used to give SPS to card holders for a year.
Currently, selling cards and putting coins into LPs is much more profitable than playing with their own cards.
Players who own their cards should be rewarded but not much, so they have to play for more profit.
Winning Ranked battles with their own cards should be rewarded more than just putting coins into Liquidity Pools.
Because SPS is fixed and planned to be rewarded, DEC rewards to card holders can be a good solution.
This makes players to have more cards and doesn't destroy low-level cards' potential power.
The way I see it when land gets here the bots are not going to be able to keep up anyway. Really hate seeing my chicken nerfed though. Wen land :)
Will absolutely be voting against this one. If someone can win with lower level cards than they deserve to win. Those that cant should get better cards. Its as simple as that.
This proposal is a direct attack on newer players and those that don't have a lot of money to spend on the game. Right now, as one of those players, I can use skill with my lower level cards to beat higher level players/cards and people botting with higher level cards. That is the one single advantage I have (my intelligence and skill). The advantage people with money and early adopters have is that they have higher level cards. By increasing that advantage (giving them more rewards for using those cards), it absolutely decreases my ability to compete. I hope it is perfectly clear to everyone that this proposal is very much anti-new players and anti-krill (to borrow a term from Luke). Anyone who hopes to grow the player base by incentivizing new players to join should vote no for this. I sincerely believe that it will not encourage players to level up their cards. It will incentivize them to leave the game.
I have voted against this proposal.
In my opinion, it will create a cliff edge at every league boundary, causing players to decide to stay down a league until they upgrade all their cards to the correct level for the next league.
The cost of moving from Bronze to Silver will be achievable for a small $ investment, from Silver to Gold the cost will be exponentially higher and I cannot see me ever achieving moving into Diamond after this update.
I don't have the financial resources to instantly level my Common and Rare Chaos Legion cards to max for Gold League, let alone the Untamed ones. As a Wild player, I would also need to level cards from all sets.
So after this proposal is implemented it is Silver I for me and I have never had a pack drop in a Silver chest.
SPS for land has only just been rolled out, and yet the Land release date is consistently pushed back in favour of Projects that generate new revenue for Splinterlands.
The rental market of lvl 3 Common and lvl 2 Rare Chaos Legion cards has collapsed already, after this update I can see a further impact, destroying my income stream that assisted me in upgrading my collection. The first nail in the rental coffin was implementing enforced 2 day rentals in my opinion.
I am already re-evaluating this game and where it is going, so far it looks like anyone with a collection that doesn't meet the level requirements for Diamond League might as well throw in the towel now.
Hay que pensar en los nuevos jugadores y esta propuesta no les viene bien, queremos que entren nuevos jugadores y que sea mas fácil jugar y ganar recompensas para ellos. además el pollo y las demás criaturas de coste cero noson necesarios subirles de nivel, y al usarlos perdemos recompensas.
¡ YO VOTO NO !
How about we make proposals that will encourage new players, not make it harder for new players?
What is the percentage of accounts in silver or gold that are playing with level 1 cards? How many extra SPS are rewarded for level 1 cards, comparing with and without this change? Splinterlands should reveal the data like this if they want to get more support from the community.
I think there should be a video for a proposal like this explaining the change. I'm sure some people don't realize that "you can play with no penalty in gold with a max silver deck. you can play with no penalty in silver with a max bronze deck. You start to get penalized when you play in gold with max bronze deck."
I heard that there's going to be a change where you can pick the level of cards you can use. If that is announced, that changes things as well.
I see a lack of information and communication here.
In my opinion the main issue that plagues Splinterlands players in the lower leagues are the bot accounts. It is very easy to create an AI that plays Splinterlands way better than any real player could. The game has simple set rules and the AI developers can calculate exactly which chance to win one set of cards has against another. Especially beginners who are just getting their feet wet in the game stand no chance against all the mathematically optimized AI opponents.
When I went on holiday a few weeks ago, I decided to rent out almost my complete collection and only kept low level cards that weren't worth renting out.
The weather was bad, so I decided to play some SL on bronze just for fun.
(I can only encourage anyone to repeat this experiment, it will open your eyes)
TLDR: It was NOT fun at all! Extremely frustrating!
I usually end the season in higher gold / lower diamond. This time, I began the season in lower bronze and even descended into novice for a short time until I slowly managed to climb into silver with the help of some stronger cards (a single Kron in your deck works wonders btw.).
But even in silver all I face are still lv1 summoners with lv1 monsters. Most of the time not even a single lv2 monster.
After going through all this trouble I opened my 10 daily hard earned bronze chests: Not a single card inside. This is going to kill SL in the long run. New players need to have fun and get a reward, especially when they have to fight hard to achieve something.
Personally I'd rather vote for this proposal:
-> Only allow bot accounts for a limited period of time when players need to wait more than 30 sec to find an opponent in their current league. If ranks are full, they are full.
Bots may have been necessary in the early days of SL when there were not enough players for match making but now they became just leeches draining money from new players.
Just my 2 cent.
Ya 50 credits for a 2-day rental of Kron would help a lot we're playing in Gimp mode imagine it as a nub with 3K credits total assuming they cannot recharge at all unless they earn SPS or DEC.
The minimum purchase is 1000 Credit blocks so they are quite a distance from that and then push it up to a Silver
Once they run out of starter credits they hopefully have a few cards otherwise they just lost their real chance at the game.
I understand how this could be thought as an improvement, I would probably get a lot more share rewards but I think this will completely demotivate new players.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, do we not want new players coming in?
Just ban bots already or implement new player rewards instead of just pushing these kind of changes that might just hurt more in the long term.
Would you mind sharing your project?
I guess the result of this proposal is the majority of players will get less daily and season reward chests... As not many players will have every card in their deck at the required level for their league. For example: I may only see a 20% reduction in reward shares, as I have quite a few cards at the right level, but someone with lower level cards in my league will see a bigger reduction in r shares, maybe >50%. The result may be that sps chests are worth more as less are given out?! but there will also be less reward cards etc... will be interesting to see how it works out.
Полный шлак. То есть игра ничего не дает, только ожидает донаты. Умение играть нивелируется, главное побольше карт арендовать. Какой тогда стимул играть? Я против!
This is really bad! we need to see the player base growing not decreaseing!
I HOPE the whales see that and change their vote, WE ARE HERE FOR THE LONG RUN! Doesnt matter if you will earn alot sps or cards if no one is intrested in play the game...
And why should i lvl cards that i dont want to see them leveled?! like FIENDS, CHICKEN, STONEFISH, and even some good cards are great without leveling them, this is just not a solution to deal with the bots... and doesnt matter if they can just rent lvled cards from the market, ya becouse they will be cheap for sure if the player base doesnt grow!!!!
Actually this goes aganist the fun and essence of the game.
This tottaly says "doesnt matter if you are good in the game, you need to have the cards levelled or you will be penalize, and ya we did that couse we cant do nothing aganist bots..." are you sure you wanna play this game?
I feel like this will have a minimal impact on anyone as most play in bronze and silver. It doesn't really start to have much effect until gold and I feel like it impacts/punishes the better players the most. We have a guild mate who can push into diamond with a silver level deck but he also usually takes a top ranking in silver leaderboards or places high in tourneys and brawls etc. This will impact him the most. I think the problems lay in the matchmaker system and rating systems and this is a lazy attempt to address those issues without addressing those issues.
Against this proposal, it limits to many cards that would not be used often but are used as clutch monsters in certain situations such as exploding dwarf and exploding rat.
For some, it may not be worth the level-up of an exploding rat or dwarf for the extra abilities if they only use it in an opportunity+ equalizer game
That said having a level one sitting around for those particular rulesets would be handy and shouldn't be penalized as part of regular gameplay.
It may also cause card concentration as new cards would need to be maxed to a certain point to earn rewards and disincentize rentals.
For Example, A GF Legendary Alpha under this proposal would be penalized unless you merged it with another card. Such as a GF Gold Dragon with a second GF Dragon.
I would not support penalizing Alpha Pack Holders of rare cards to upgrade those units.
Going to be selling everything if this one passes. What a horrible proposal. Literally no upside at all, just potential downside for players. Get your head straight SPL
i really dont like this proposal.
I'm a reasonably new player and I dont have all the cards at the right levels. despite that i slog my way through an army of bots, all the way to silver 3. This would literally f*** me over. Why should i get punished for reaching silver with my skill?
I'm trying to build up my deck, ive invested a bit (some 50ish $) and I have some cards but i dont like getting penalized for not having lvl 2 epics/rares and im sure others don't like having to level epics/legendaries that dont need it.
I fail to see how this benefits lower level players or makes the game attractive to new players in any way, shape, or form.
even though the change would probably have an advantage for me reward-wise. i don't like the basic idea, limiting skill/freedom is a nogo for a game in my opinion. maybe i'm looking at it wrong. but i think the game is more successful when it's primarily a game and you can earn from it. but i have the feeling that the priority changes and it becomes primarily an investment where you can play a bit on the side. i don't believe this is a success model to follow!
Im not sure this really solve the problem of bots in bronze and silver sucking out all the rewards for those tiers. Its hard enough for lower league non bot players to rent older cards to rank up (llama, kron, mylor, abyss) and earn back renting cost from the rewards at that tier. And now we're punishing Silver-Gold players too who rents 1 bcx "great cards" that makes them competitive at that tier. Second, this still does not change the fact that 55% of the rewards goes to Diamond and Champion tier players which is about 1-3% of actual non-bot players. Im not saying they dont deserve to get that much, but this only buffs up their rewards as they're the ones who have MAX LEVELED decks and the only ones not affected by this change which in turn actually benefits them. How? Gold players (majority of the crowd) dont necessarily have max level everything hence they get less SPS rewards and drains the pool much slower. Which means the max level deck players gets more sustained HIGH rewards all through out the season.
So move away from any skill needed?
Make the game more complex and it will find a balance.
I think level 1 cards always need value and need to be playable.
To be honest, a diamond or gold deck sells super bad.
The highest accessibility to new players is level 1 cards. I dont think many new player say "let's spend 300k on that game".
A test league with skill only and all cards have same stats from level 1 to max and only rewards change could be a thing.
If it sucks, remove it.
If its cool, why not?
I mean at this point rewards are fixed + everyone could be champion, only the rewards are different. I mean that would be a real play to earn or not?
And maybe remove ghost cards to a minimum possible.
If the rental market works " perfect". That would mean easy to use for new people.
Then the changes could make a lot of sense.
Like "top 20" decks for rent or something like that.
If rental market should drop massive, card prices will drop massive short after it, means yields will drop after it too.
I love my rental account too.
But if the yield is "-card value" because of less new players, I'm in favor of a more sustainable model :D
If panic should hit in and we end up in PVP market, it will become dirty.
That's why more players and more hands are better in a more accessible game.
I have no problem holding in a "bera market",but the game needs in the meanwhile the ability to grow in users IMO.
sure it needs a free market balance.
Another idea would be to let the proposal work and add for a "skill variant" a change of season rewards in the league for top players.
So skill really matter, and even a player with lower $ invested could have a "top player experience".
I maybe look at things a bit differently, because I played a lot of competitive games like starcraft.
Boooo! This is another push to give yet more rewards to those with the most money. Higher level cards already get extra rewards just from the fact that it's easier to win when your cards are maxed out. You're penalizing players who can't afford to max out their decks, and also penalizing those who are able to rise up the ranks despite not having a maxed out deck.
We all know yes is going to win, whales with maxed cards are those with more sps staked to direct the vote, they of course will vote yes to earn the max and reduce others earnings...just release that change and don't waste time with the vote, again punish little players to punish bots
I no longer vote in proposals, as it has become completely pointless. This is just a means for people to think they have a voice. YOU HAVE NO VOICE MR KRILL, NO VOICE. I am from a developing country and you constantly make decisions that hamper my growth in the game. Seems like SPL is following the Axie route on exploiting people from developing countries, to do the grinding while the true earnings stay with those who have.
I expect my rant to be dismissed like so many other Krill comments. I love the game but my trust in the team is broken. I really believed in Spawn Point Economy, but this is just capitalism, nothing new. Exploit the poor & middle class & make the rich richer, all the while saying "We create equal opportunity"
This isn't capitalism, it's textbook market manipulation.
Im all for this if it incentivizes card ownership. I personally would like reward shares cut in half for rented cards, the bot armies that only rent cards would be most effected and it would lower the amount of value they are able to extract. People that rent a few cards to fill out their decks will still do so because what would they be without their crutches, jk jk DR Blight renters :)
So the starter card penalty would be lifted as it's already included in that level calculation?
double penalty :)