Hey, thanks for the response, and the warm welcome! I don't doubt at all that I've been playing against bots. I've noticed the weird usernames that seem unlikely to be humans, but honestly, at my level of inexperience, I can learn as much by losing to a bot, as I can from losing to a human. 😂
I am a business person, and I agree that that approach sounds a bit wonky. However, every business has to make decisions, and given the crappy crypto market we're in right now, I'm sure the choices on Splinterlands are harder than most. I just hope that they manage to get the economy bit squared away soon, as new customers are the lifeblood of ANY business. As I pointed out to sinistry early on, if the onboarding experience continues to be this awful, the business will die out naturally, no matter how many hardcore oldtimers it has.
I really, REALLY like your idea of onboarding ambassadors. I don't know what you'd have to do to run that up the flagpole, but it sounds like an excellent idea whose time can't come soon enough!