Win a Battle, accumulate some 'claimable' SPS (YAY! P2E, baby!)
Go to 'claim' it, because it's not showing up in your balance.
Realize, you have to have 1 SPS in order to 'claim' your Earnings/Rewards.
I didn't even know you had to claim it. I thought it was automatically added to your staked SPS. 🤦♀️
There are some great proposals here and they would indeed help those of us smaller players invest and build in the game. I'm finding I'm investing much less in cards now, whereas I used to put DEC back in buying the odd card whenever I could. Now my mindset has changed much more to ROI than building to improve my game because I'm not enjoying the game play as much and it's harder to get the funds to liquid. I don't want to be unstaking, so I'm just converting the liquid SPS I earn from staking and that is looking like it won't do much more than go to the good.
There seems to be a bit of an "if you can't beat them join them" theme happening of late, so whenever I go on to play I'm coming up against team after team of fully levelled up legendary laden teams, who would normally have long moved on. There are multiple reasons why I don't want to rent, one is the time and planning required. I can't plan to have enough time to sit and do that and guarantee I won't get dragged away by other things and never end up using them. So my approach has always been to buy and gradually build, which is how I like gaming anyway. I don't feel like I can do that any more. More than once I've considered just renting all my cards out and stopping play. I don't know how to use bots, so I wouldn't even bother don't that. The only reason I haven't done this is because I've made a commitment to the guild and that's where my main enjoyment now lies; more with the guild members than the game.
It feels a bit like the changes have actually exacerbated the original problem of bots and farming, because the only ones now playing are bots and those who need to grind for an income.
Some thoughts on the playing side are that there are all different types of gamers who will add to the game at all different levels. Most games will cater for this, from small investments of a few dollars for a month subscription that gives you an in game gacha currency for each day you log in, to more direct purchases where you can invest hundreds and even thousands to improve your game characters and weapons. At the moment it feels like the Splinterlands game is only catering towards a certain type of gamer, namely ones who can buy or rent high end decks.
My biggest plea to the devs is not to lose sight of the game by focusing too much on the investment side of things, because if the game is lost, then there will be no investment any more anyway. I got the feeling from the latest announcement that investment is becoming more the focus than the game.
That! That, right there, is a premium example of EXACTLY what I was talking about- TBH
"I didn't even know you had to claim it. I thought it was automatically added to your staked SPS. 🤦♀️"
Additionally, I agree- "It feels a bit like the changes have actually exacerbated the original problem of bots and farming..."
In my opinion, most (if not all) of the recent 'updates' to the game have been 'bot-centric' not 'player-centric'.
Daily Focus vs Quests- 'reward' constant, consistent, grinding- which is the bots' forte. As opposed to playing for a while each day, which would more cater to players' playing patterns.
Two day rentals- better for Cardlords and bots, terrible for (most) players.
Then there's the Earnings/Rewards from the game- the whole process to claiming them... SUPER easy to code and have bots repeat it endlessly. OTOH, as you demonstrated, if players don't KNOW about it- impossible. Each step requires learning something new/different- Claiming (only >1, only 1/24hrs), Unstaking, Exchanging...
I, personally, don't have any issue with bots in the game. My problem is when bots have a distinct advantage over players:
Constant grinding > daily play sessions
25 Novice accounts > 5 Bronze accounts > one Silver account, etc
Delayed, and complicated, Earnings/Rewards
Etc.