This post is meant for discussion and as a framework to try to find a solution. IT IS NOT A PRE-PROPOSAL. All proceeds from the post will go to the @sps.dao.
Finding a solution to Soulbound rewards is very important. Right now we've approved the unlocking for "land use" only. I've listened to many arguments on this and realize that it will take a compromise to pass a "full unlocking". I'm attempting to find that compromise solution.
"Permanent Soulbound": vs "Unlocking"
There are people on both sides of this issue, but whatever we do, we need to make sure that new players can obtain these cards. Failure to do so will be a great hindrance for any new player and kill our new player experience.
Choices:
A) keep the cards permanently soulbound, but give future players the right to buy them from the game in some way.
B) unlock them for a fee so they can be traded, bought/sold, and rented.
Concerns:
A) costs to the players vs. ability for players to monetize the cards
B) economic impact to the whole ecosystem
C) ability to attract future players
D) extra soulbound cards have no value above Max unless they are unlocked
E) a limit on the time to act so that the cards have collector value in the future
What we know:
A) it cost 2x DEC burn value to unlock for land. 1/2 of the cost can use vouchers at the rate of 200 DEC/voucher. There's no agreement for full unlocking.
B) @yabapmatt has said that 4x DEC burn (with 1/2 in vouchers) is the "minimum cost to make sense economically".
C) a high % of the people want them unlocked (vs. soulbound forever), but disagree widely on the cost. The range is primarily between 2x DEC burn vs 5x DEC burn - with 1/2 in vouchers for both.
D) the proponents of "soulbound forever" largely want to make sure that they can do something with their extras, and others also want to make sure the new players can get access to these cards somehow in the future (if we don't unlock at all).
My compromise solution is taking into account all the arguments I've heard. Of course not everyone is going to get what they want, but our failure to act will create a scenario where all sides will be unhappy and future players will get discouraged because they lack the ability to compete against these strong cards.
My "Compromise Solution"
Part 1 - The cost to fully unlock is the 4x DEC burn with 1/2 in vouchers at the rate of 200 DEC per voucher.
Reason: this is the minimum of what @yabapmatt would charge if he didn't see our opinions.
Part 2 - We use a time window to give a "pre-print run ending" discount to those seeking lower costs to unlock. For 30 days prior to the set finishing printing, each player can prepare and pay a discounted 3x DEC burn (1/2 in vouchers).
Reason: this is a fair concession to those that wanted cards cheaper and gives them 30 days and ample notification to prepare. Also by limiting the time to 30 days, it will also limit the number of cheaper cards released, and thus be less of a drag on the economy.
Part 3 - On the day the print run is finished, then the cards will be able to be unlocked at the regular 4x rate (see part 1) for 1 full year. After this time has passed, NO further soulbound cards can be unlocked in any way for any reason.
Reason: This will give surety to the process and enable everyone to make choices within a reasonable time frame.
Part 4 - Suggested by @yapabmatt, SPL creates a special benefit for burning any regular foil or gold foil cards beyond max level. This process would only apply to cards above full max, and would only be available until the the cards go out of print. The benefit would be left up to the SPL team to decide and implement, and would be subject to the Dev capability to program and release.
Reason: This will create a fun template for not only this set, but for future soulbound sets to handle the excess amounts printed for each account. Players would still be incentivized to earn cards above the max level.
Summation:
I ask everyone to recognize that no one is going to get what they want. Both large and small players alike.
We are not going to get a 2x solution.
We are not going to get a pure 5x solution either.
So if you dig in and throw salt, all you are doing is creating an environment where nothing happens and the cards stay soulbound forever.
We need to be responsible. We need to consider the impact to the future of our game. New players will need to get these cards, so that has to be our number one goal. If we fail to deliver a "deal", then we - the community - will be responsible for contributing even further to a horrible new player experience.
In order to grow we need new players, so lets do our part and work towards solutions we can control. And this is a big issue to solve.
Please let me know in the comment section if you can support this compromise (or not). If you want to give input and be part of the process of negotiating, let me know that too. I want a solution, I think we all should. So lets work together and find something that will pass with 2/3rds majority.
I can accept all of these compromise positions except the 4th, it doesn't consider bronze silver or gold players who have more bcx than they need for their level of play.
Either all cards should be burnable or no cards should be burnable.
thanks F4F! On the 4th section, I definitely am taking feedback on it. Most people that have argued for this are tired of getting more than the max so that's why I think they are the ones most vocal about it.
Exactly: thousands of completely useless cards ... Since weeks I am waiting to recieve any card which is of any use. And in our family we are using exactly two accounts to play, so the huge number of cards has nothing to do with using many accounts to farm reward cards.
Yes it really sucks and I don't understand why Splinterlands don't solve this problem. I done this suggestion already but in general you can write where you want, in their suggestion site, in discord, in hive they just don't care.
They have this site: https://feedback.splinterlands.com/
But since more than three monthes their is completely no reaction from splinterlands, to the suggestion 1551 to 1565 they didn't reacted in any way - It just seems for me that they aren't interested anymore in player feedback.
I done their 14 days ago the suggestion:
"Once a soulbound-reward-card is maxed, it will be removed from the pool of cards this player can get (can still get gold foil version if not maxed) . If all regular-foil-reward-cards are maxed the player should get only goldfoil-reward-cards and if all regular-foil & gold-foil-reward-cards are maxed out he should get another soulbound ressource (f.e. merrits, blood or power stones, potions, dec-b)."
But nobody care, nobody react, nobody seems to be interested at all !!!
I can support this - thanks for putting it together!
My unpopular opinion has not changed:
I really would prefer to let players unlock every card they get AFTER their cards are already maxed for free.
At least by maxing their cards they have already reduced the number of single cards significantly, and also farming with many accounts is not rewarded as long as they don't max their cards.
(If anybody has maxed their GF cards they should again be able to unlock their RF cards for free.)
All that means that I like part 4 of your compromise suggestion! :)
I understand your point of view and that's why part 4 is in there. Its not easy to please everyone, but my goal is to find a way to give everyone a little of what they want, but at the same time recognize that there's a middle ground on everything.
I know you don't care about selling, trading, or renting out your cards Jaki, but there are a lot of people that do. My hope is that this would solve your issue and at the same time take care of the needs of the others that do want the cards unlocked for various reasons. Trying to find balance isn't easy :)
Sorry to say this - but what doesn't want go into my mind is that somebody give me a gift but want later bring me to pay for this gift - than it is no gift at all.
Or call it a reward - how it is possible to give out a reward and ask afterwards for additional payment for this reward ?
I mean I want have this cards to play, so in general I am fine if they are soulbound as I can play with them and this is what I want, BUT: I don't want receive than hundreds of additional copies from this card without any usecase before I don't pay for this cards - this is what I understand, than they should allow me to exchange this useless reward cards above max-level at least in some other soulbound stuff like merrits, potions, dec-b, maybe even power-core for land or whatever.
Or revive the mystery potions again and let me exchange them against mystery potions - I liked this moment very much when you open this potion and luck if you get something great and if not at least you got a small reward who was really a reward.
I added in part 4 to specifically address the point of having extra cards. I realize there are players that have this issue and its addressed.
Just remember SCH that other people have other issues with things they want to see as well. There isn't one person that is getting all they want in this.
I've tried to listen to everyone's issues and try to find a way to solve the problem. Its not a perfect solution of course, but in my opinion its better than the alternative of "no policy and no change" at all. And the reason is with no movement by anyone and no compromise, then the new players would not be able to get these cards and thus they would be at a tremendous disadvantage in the future.
Yes I understand this and I am absolutely fine if this cards has no burn-value at all. I have never burned a card in production (on the test-server I have) and don't plan to do it.
If a card is sold it add already value to the ecosystem as (mostly) splinterlands receive 4% commission and 2% get burned.
At this point I could live with a change, for example to increase the fees for cards without burn-value.
That this card (at least as single-BCX) will be sold too cheap prevent also the 1 DEC listing fee for every card.
I personally could even live with the solution that this cards cannot be sold at all as I told you I want have this card for playing not for selling - I have really sold very few cards and normally I don't sell cards - now with land out I haven't sold any card and don't plan to sell cards as I can put cards to land, but even this is not interesting with this soulbound-reward cards as I can buy cheaper Chaos-Legion cards in the market than I have to pay for unlocking my soulbound-reward-cards.
Thanks for the feedback here SCH. I don't know if we get consensus for unlock or if we get consensus for remaining soulbound forever. But every person's view matters and we will try to find the answer!
About Point 4 - Do you know any details.
This sounds in every case interesting and I would like to take part in this event if their are attractive prices.
I don't know more than the general idea I shared. But I think its interesting too.
IIRC.. wasn't that the original plan back when they first came out? Soulbound until max level and then free unlock?
I don't know, but that's what looks logical to me ...
In every case they should have any plan.
I really cannot imagine that their plan was to flood the accounts with such a large number of useless cards above max-level.
Where they are now in this discussion ?
I am not sure that they was even thinking about this.
When they was calculating with this why they have not planned something but let the things just run ?
Yes this is exactly the point !
If somebody has maxed out a regular-foil-common card he has burned 399 cards and reduced the supply of cards by 99,75% - Why he should get punished for this by beeing annoyed with hundreds of useless copies of this cards and why splinterlands is not able to offer something for him ?
I done already a suggestion but obvisiouly splinterlands doesn't care at all:
"Once a soulbound-reward-card is maxed, it will be removed from the pool of cards this player can get (can still get gold foil version if not maxed) . If all regular-foil-reward-cards are maxed the player should get only goldfoil-reward-cards and if all regular-foil & gold-foil-reward-cards are maxed out he should get another soulbound ressource (f.e. merrits, blood or power stones, potions, dec-b)."
https://feedback.splinterlands.com/1565
No reaction from splinterlands at all, same as for the suggestions 1551 to 1564 - why they start such a site when they obvisiouly aren't interested at all in feedback ?
I disagree with the compromise part. There are some things we shouldn't compromise. Soulbound cards are NOT free. I had to invest a lot in both cards and SPS to order to earn them. None were given to me for free. It doesn't matter what yapabmatt thinks. He and the rest of the team have been wrong many times before. No one is gonna be unlocking these cards at those costs. We need the costs to be as low as possible. Even 2x is already too much. With the unlock fee plus the selling and market fees it's gonna be hard to even sell any of those cards at a profit. We also need to have players have access to these cards in the future.
With such high costs I'd rather have them stay soulbound forever but introduce a points system where players can convert soulbound cards into points and points into soulbound cards. That way, no card is forever locked from anyone no matter when they join and there are no absurd costs and risk in trying to sell some to buy others.
That's a fair position @olaf.gui and if we can't get a compromise solution, then we would keep them soulbound forever. It takes a 2/3rds majority to get anything like this passed.
We can disagree on the importance of any one particular issue or on the final conclusions too. I definitely appreciate you taking the time to voice your thoughts and opinions so others can see too!
I agree with you. It should be an oppurtunity to exchange this soulbound-cards against other soulbound-stuff without unlocking them for a fee, at least for the cards above max-level.
If this are point for other cards or already exsiting soulbound stuff like merrits, bloodstones, powerstones, dec-b, power-sources or potions (don't sure if I not forget something) can be discussed.
We have so many soulbound-stuff that it should really be no need to pay a fee for this cost.
As far as I know this cards has no print-limit, so after print-out splinterlands could even make a pack from this cards and sell them for newcomer to a price like the Rebellion-set.
I'd support this.
Thanks Matt!
Happy to vote YES to this.
Will vote yes to the other parts (2,3 and 4) also. If 2,3 and 4 are varied slightly or deleted, i'm also cool with that.
Hope that helps.
Yes definitely! Thank you Micheal!
now that I have read the Post as a complete proposal and not, as before, erroneously in various individual options about which we should argue. i would vote for it. i especially like point 4. because then even if the activation is too expensive for someone he still has something of it and does not have to keep the useless duplicate copies forever. but i hope i only need one version goldfoil or regularfoil on max so that you can then burn both versions that go beyond the one max card. because it would be weird if i had to keep both versions in my account^^
Cool Bronk! And that makes sense to me and while its Matt's idea, I think he would understand and accommodate that.
Well done Dave this looks well thought out. Personally I think 4x DEC burn cost with vouchers is too low a price, but in the interests of moving forward I would compromise. I'm concerned about the discount window, people and bots would have time to prepare and 30 days is a long time for those who are organised. I hope this doesn't result in bots flooding the market who may want a last hurrah if further anti-bots measures are taken. The 1 year release period seems reasonable. I'm not sure what to make of overcombining. I'm not thrilled with this, but I would agree to it.
If these bots that you're worried about were to "take advantage" of the 3x window, they would need to burn a lot of DEC. If they overdo it and unlock more than the market can absorb, then they are screwed and we benefit from the massive DEC burn.
Remember that even if there are "too many" of the cards unlocked they will still be very unlikely to be selling for less than what the unlocker paid, at least not unless we have another major bear market.
Potential different option:
The only unlocking allowed for Soulbound Reward cards should be for Land. They should not be allowed to be burned for DEC, or unlocked to be sold. The incentive to accumulate these cards for the Ranked play bonuses, advantage in Brawls & Tournaments, and ability to stake on Land is more than enough to keep players engaged in my mind.
I don't think any perma-soulbound solution solves any of the concerns Dave mentioned except for concern B), and having perma ghost cards just introduces new B) problems... How long would these ghost cards exist? We would need to permanently design all future gameplay around having these cards permanently available and maxed for league...
And if a player owns fewer BCX than they have been given Ghost Credit for, do they then get to choose whether to play the ghost card or their underlevelled owned card?
The ghost cards would work exactly like they do know where they are tied to a core set. When that core set exits Modern, for example, the ghost cards for that set exit as well. Everything is already programmed this way so not additional work in that area.
The system would also assume the highest level between player owned and ghost card, again like it already does. Until they make the card selecting more universal to allow for picking certain levels if you have them available, I don't see why this would change until then.
I think its an interesting solution @brybro27 ... My hunch is that a lot of people want them unlocked, so I don't know if there'd be enough interest to pass this idea.
Having said that if we do remain soulbound forever because we can't find a compromise, then I think your idea is would solve the MAJOR problem we face with competition. So I'm thrilled to see the suggestion as it alleviates my biggest worry. Thank you for sharing it and lets see what others have to say.
I kinda like this and I kinda don't. Even though they wouldn't be earning rewards from the ghost cards, I'm not really a fan of new players just being given the same cards maxed for their league that we had to work to obtain. I'd be ok with giving them ghost cards consistent with the under leveled card cutoff though. Meaning.. if they're playing in Silver, they're given max Bronze ghost cards. Playing in Gold, they're given max Silver ghost cards.
As someone who's put a decent amount of thought into this issue and listened to both sides, I think this is a reasonable compromise so thanks for putting this up Dave!
I'm not sure if it's just super obvious or what but I'm surprised how little is talked about how much DEC we would get to burn from something like this passing. Personally that gets me excited as burning DEC helps our eco system so much and would put even more demand on SPS with the fly wheel already engaged!
It would be a shame if these ended up staying soul bound forever.
great points Mondroid! Thank you
I would be onboard with this!
Great suggestions Dave. I would gladly support the first 3 as a healthy compromise. The 4th I can understand, but I agree with @fighter4-freedom - an arbitrary benefit only for cards above max level will have the appearance of appealing mainly to the top established players at the expense of the newer (or "still building my deck") playerbase.
If the max level issue is to address a concern is that too many bot accounts will print and dilute, perhaps the future TBD burning benefit should be for another soulbound, but spendable perk (like guild power, Power cores, DEC-B, or any asset that helps players advance but doesn't impede "ability to play competitively").
e.g. If bot accounts have thousands of soulbound cards and they want to burn them for power cores, they will still be soulbound and would still need to unlock cards to work them.
This way any burned card bonuses are merely substituting one soulbound asset for another and there is still burn/play value to those accounts actually collecting or building their account, at all leagues and levels.
Thank you Oaaguy! I appreciate your time reading and for the suggestion and feedback. Finding compromise isn't easy, but hopefully we can find one and move forward.
The benefit could be in airdrop cards that are not soulbound, for the reward cards that we burn.
Part 1.. I feel like 4x is still too expensive but I'll concede this is the lesser of 4 evils.
Part 2.. I don't agree with a short time limit to unlock. A lot of people just aren't going to have the funds available to unlock all of their cards. I feel as though forcing people to spend a chunk of money whenever the team dictates is a bad look.
Part 3.. While still time limited, 1 year would give everyone ample time to unlock their cards, however I still feel 4x is too much. If I had to pick a second choice, this is the one I would go with.
Part 4.. I'm not a fan of this because it limits the benefits to people with max level cards. What are those of us without max level cards supposed to do with all of our extras?
Thanks for your feedback, it seems like you prefer permanent soulbound Torran. If you have any suggestions that you feel would push it to something you would vote for, then let me know. I'm trying to find a compromise solution and this is already a big concession for all sides to accept.
No problem Dave. Thanks for taking the initiative to reopen this discussion. That said, I definitely don't support permanent soulbound. There's just way too many cards I still need for me to support that option.
Out of the options you listed, even though I think 4x is too much, I'd still support 4x with no time limit or else 4x with a 1 year time limit. 4x would be a lot easier for a lot of people to swallow if it weren't all at once.
as ajpl said, they are one package together. And from what you said this does what you suggest Torran. You will have 1 full year at 4x (with 1/2 in vouchers), and on top of that you can save up for a 3x price for 30 days before the end of the printing. I realize people need time to gather funds and this is a way to do that in a fair way and gives everyone plenty of advance notice.
for some reason even though i read it as "parts" i still saw it as 4 different options. i do like the sound of it as a whole
These aren't "options", they are a full package in four parts. All of them would apply if this solution were proposed and then passed/implemented.
Unless I'm missing something here @davemccoy?
yes you have it right.
ah.. that makes a little more sense now
In response: Point 2, this date is many months in the future, people should have ample time to prepare.
Point 4. They can either sell their extras or buy additional cards to level up their cards, so as usual any extra bcx reduces that cost. I will likely have a few not maxed too
It makes sense now
Thanks for sharing! - @azircon
......................................
I don't know what happened to Gala Whale or their token, but I can assure you that I'm just trying to find a solution. I think no matter what you think of the "other side" or they think of you, you always have a responsibility to do your best.
At the end of the day I don't believe anyone has a sinister motive, at least none that will be voting pro or against this issue. The bottom line is we ALL should consider the implications if nothing passes.
And ps I personally don't want to leave this to Yaba alone. If he just makes the decision NOW on his own then he will draw arrows from everyone that's unhappy. My attitude is lets help him and the community to find a solution that causes the least amount of frustration (since no one will be happy totally).
..................................
If you make such a claim, you should be more specific about what it is about and not simply withdraw from the discussion. Thanks !
okay apparently i misunderstood the post. this is basically the whole proposal? i thought this was supposed to be a roundtable discussion and you were pointing out different options
Who is Gala Whale ?
If you make such a claim, you should be more specific about what it is about and not simply withdraw from the discussion. Thanks !
Who wanted to have 1000 DEC as a gift for unlocking cards and who is Gala Whale ?
kann es sein das du dumm bist?
Du solltest nicht von Dir auf andere schließen !
warum spamst du dann hier rum und stellst so merkwürdige fragen
Wie bereits gesagt - Schließe nicht von Dir auf Andere !!!
Ich denke es sind durchaus berechtigte Fragen, Deine Antworten hier zeigen klar das Du weder einer sachlichen Diskussion noch an Beantwortung offener Fragen irgendein Interesse hast.
Beantworte entweder meine Fragen oder lasse das Kommentieren meiner Kommentare ganz - Vielen Dank !
hättest du den text komplett gelesen hättest du diese fragen nicht gestellt.....
can we seperate out each unlocking phase making each one 2x?
So it would be 2x to unlock for land, 2x to unlock for sale/trading , 2x to unlock for rent/delegate.
if bought and used to level up a locked soulbound then the resulting card would be locked soulbound and need to be unlocked.
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