56723a37cddf15865f7a6fd562ec9a4548da79f1
Summary
The ability to earn rewards indefinitely and at scale, without ongoing additional investment into the ecosystem (i.e. bot farms in Wild format) causes significant issues for the game, namely:
- Bot farms play in Wild and earn rewards indefinitely without needing to ever purchase/rent more cards or otherwise put money into the ecosystem
- This creates a large drain on all assets and restricts the types of rewards that can be provided in the game due to them being exploited by these bot farms
- This also causes Wild format to be "easy" because players are matched up against the large number of bots with low level cards which allows them to easily get to higher ratings and earn higher rewards than they would be able to normally
- This encourages more players to switch to Wild from Modern to get the easier rewards which makes Modern even more difficult and causes a negative spiral
The community accurately identified the issue in this recently passed proposal, however its reliance on Collection Power as the solution leads to issues which are described in detail in the full description below.
Instead I propose that we both increase the staked SPS requirements for Wild format and introduce a cost for playing in Wild format every season. By requiring an ongoing cost on a per-account basis in order to keep playing in Wild we:
- Reduce the number of bot accounts considerably
- That will allow more types of rewards to be added without fear of being exploited
- That also means that players will no longer be able to constantly battle against bot accounts with low level cards in Wild format and get to high ratings and earn high rewards easily
- Which will encourage players to move back to Modern (also to avoid the new cost)
- That will make Modern easier and have more match liquidity by having more players with primarily lower level decks playing
Full Description
I believe the recently passed proposal to try to address "bot farms" in Wild format has accurately identified probably the number one issue in the game currently that should be addressed ASAP, but its use of Collection Power makes it quite difficult to implement. Instead, I would like to propose an alternate solution to try first that will be much easier to implement and simpler for players to understand while hopefully still addressing the primary issue.
Please note that if this proposal gets implemented and still fails to adequately address the problem, then the original proposal linked above can still be implemented instead of, or in addition to this one in the future. They are not mutually exclusive.
My main concern about the previous proposal is the use of Collection Power as the metric. Collection Power is very resource intensive to calculate and requires a good bit of work to prevent exploits. Every time a card is minted, transferred, sold, delegated, rented, etc. the Collection power has to be updated for both players. With the large number of those transactions it takes a lot of processing power and has been the cause of server issues and latency in the past, and will likely cause problems again if the game grows.
Additionally, the above proposal uses a different version of Collection Power that excludes soulbound cards, which would require us to either start calculating two versions of collection power for every relevant transaction or to change our existing collection power calculation which would require us to re-calculate the collection power of every account from scratch.
As if that wasn't enough, Collection Power can be easily manipulated by transferring/delegating cards around to different accounts, so the proposal includes another stipulation that a cooldown needs to be implemented for cards that are transferred, delegated, or rented. That is also going to be quite difficult to implement and make sure it works properly and I think these types of cooldowns have been historically very confusing for players and cause a lot of unnecessary support tickets.
As a result of all of this, my very strong preference is to remove collection power from the game entirely and to handle the issue of bot farms in a different way, which is described below.
Alternate Approach
First, I propose we adjust the SPS staking reward multiplier for Wild format so that roughly double the amount of staked SPS is required at each rating level to maintain the same reward multiplier as before. This aims to address the idea that in order to be able to earn indefinite rewards in Wild format players need to at least have more stake in the ecosystem for each account.
I believe that staked SPS requirements are a much better way of doing this than Collection Power requirements, which is why the CP requirements were switched out for staked SPS requirements originally in the first place. It is better for two main reasons:
- It is significantly easier to implement and maintain going forward as described at length above; and
- the entire system is set up such that value is supposed to go to the SPS token and from there it filters down into all of the other assets. For example, more demand for cards does not lead to more demand for SPS, but more demand for SPS will lead to more demand for cards (as cards are one of the primary ways to earn SPS in the game)
For those of you that are thinking that simply doubling the staked SPS requirements will not be enough to really solve this issue - I agree - which is why I also propose that players be required to purchase a Wild Season Permit in order to be able to play in Wild format at all every ranked play season.
I propose that the permit will cost 2000 DEC/DEC-B or 40 VOUCHER tokens (all burned) and will be required to be purchased for each account before they can participate in Wild format battles each ranked play season.
While I expect that some people will have a knee-jerk reaction to this, I encourage everyone to spend some time and really consider the implications. I believe this has the potential to create a massively positive change across the entire ecosystem that will finally address an issue that has been holding us back for years now.
For players who have only one, or a small number of accounts that play in Wild, this should be a small amount to pay that in most cases will be covered by the rewards earned, and they will always have the option to switch to Modern format where there is no permit required. For operators of bot farms with thousands of accounts, however, this will likely be an unworkable expense every season which would make them stop running large numbers of bot accounts and possibly even consolidate into fewer accounts with more assets.
Additionally, a significant reduction in the number of accounts playing in Wild format will cause the SPS rewards for those that remain in Wild to increase dramatically (helping to offset the new permit cost). Wild format will also become more competitive as the average level of the remaining decks will be higher, which will hopefully encourage players to work to obtain more assets to compete and/or switch to Modern which will help with match liquidity there.
Some Numbers
There are currently around 75k unique accounts that battle in Wild format every season, with about 30k of them playing more than 50 battles during the season. This compares to about 3k unique accounts that battle in Modern format every season with about 2k of them playing more than 50 battles during the season.
At current market prices, the total value of the SPS reward pool in Wild format each season is about $20,000. Based on the proposed cost of the permit, you can see how this will drastically reduce the number of purely economically motivated accounts that currently play in Wild format. Additionally, if even a relatively small percentage of Wild format players move over to Modern then that can drastically increase the number of players there, most of which will have lower level decks which are sorely needed there.
It is important to also consider that if even 20% of the current accounts that currently play in Wild stay in Wild and purchase the season permit, that would lead to roughly 30M DEC (or 600k Vouchers) being burned every season.
SPS Governance Vote
Some people have asked whether or not this is something that even actually requires a governance vote. Since this proposal relates to the Splinterlands game and not the SPS or Voucher token mechanics, it does not require a governance vote, and is ultimately completely up to the Splinterlands team whether or not to implement it and how.
By putting it up as a governance proposal it allows us to get additional feedback from the community, both stake-weighted via the voting, and otherwise via the comments, before making a final decision. I also look forward to discussing this on the Town Hall call tomorrow evening at 7:00 PM ET / 23:00 UTC and I will also do my best to answer questions about this and other topics submitted in the #town-hall channel in the Splinterlands Discord Server.
@yabapmatt.sps I will be real honest here. I usually do not comment on these posts because whales are gonna whale. People will go on discord message and call campaigns to sway votes. So what I say literally means jack. I agree changes need to be made to wild to deal with bot farms. But I think that the term bot farm has gotten out of control. I have ONE account with 57k sps staked. I also rent another large amount. Due to being on disability this is literally my max smount of money I can spend on this game. I have a max chaos deck which I overpayed for 80% of so I literly have not funds to put in. So am I a bot farm? I am not aloud to use a bot for one accoutn in wild? My one account is what led this game to its current state? You wanna charge some dec to play in wild go for it. Even vouchers because unlike true bot farms I do have staked sps and I do eanr vouchers. Do to my health reasons who are you to tell me how I can play. I love my guild and most days entering brawls is all I can do because I physically feel like trash. And before you say you arent telling me how to play you actually are. You are lumping me in with people who have 100s or even 1000s of accounts who only take. You wanna know what I have sold in splinterlands? Some sps to get dec or when the airdrop was a thing and sps was at a decent price cards. Why card oh yea so I could have a better deck.
So because I have limitations and because actual bot farms where let to run rampamt for far to long a person like me is treated like trash because I cant afford rebellion right now. This also goes against the SPL ethos aggy pushed changing lives in 3rd world countries. You may ask how? well some would actually play wild due to low rent. But then you want to require 2x the sps so that is even more money. I am not saying people should get a free pass but 2x sps is to far. There are many other things talked about that could be done. Put the card penalty back in. Use CP but only owned. I know this would take dev time and most likely why we jumped right to 2x sps.
If you want to say that 2x sps will increase the price I think you sadly underestimate how many people will just walk away from this game. As they are already worn out from fatigue of things being promised and not delivered among other things.
I know nothing I said here matters and I will be mocked and drug through the dirt by a majority of the comments. But when is enough enough
Thanks for commenting. I know it isn't easy to voice dissent, but community comments from both sides of the fence are what will help this game move forward. I appreciate you taking the time to write this out.
I do love this game and want a brigth future for it. It is just hard an a hairline budget to get where you want to be. That isn't anyone's fault. However some of the changes that are good for the game and slow down the massive bot farms do sometimes hurt the small player. I am very thankful for this game. It has given me our guild which I love dearly and you. Who I consider to be a close friend of mine.
I agree, I have the same feelings, so I used your words. Hope you like it.
That is why I do love this community. People from different walks of life able to come together and share their thoughts. Even if our thoughts and opinions are on different sides of the fence. I wish I had 10% of the knowledge you do when it comes to Hive and Splinterlands. I appreciate your continued effort to keep a game many of us love alive and to again thrive!!!
It’s not that our views are different; what’s different is time horizon and perception of risk. At least that’s the way I feel. I don’t agree with Matt regarding the removal of league level caps. I have made my thinking visible too but it’s his game and his perception of economy. So you see, even whales don’t get their way all the time:)
Definately agree about the league level caps!!! I have truly have enjoyed this conversation. @ducecrypto is a close friend of mine and without this game I would have never met him. And after our chat here I would love to have further discussions with you in the future!!
I didn't see anything in his reply that mentioned you.
Indeed, the governance chooses its voters instead of the voters choosing the governance.
You read my mind about the whales issue and Splinterland does not care about us... I have had DEC-B sitting in my account collecting dust and how long has it been since this "GREAT IDEA OF DEC-B BEING IMPLEMENTED" has led to it having some value... I can't even sell it and there has been absolutely no updates on what's going on with DEC-B.. I am just disgusted how much $ I put into this game only to see that greed has taken over.. If it was not for players, Splinterlands would not exist but they are ungrateful individuals.
You and I and many others have been scammed out of thousands of dollars by deliberately dishonest manipulative lying conmen. That's the cold hard truth. These people deserve a class action lawsuit. This proposal was passed probably by multiple whale accounts owned by / connected with the team. The only other people who would vote for this are about as naive and stupid as could possibly be. And that goes for pretty much every other "stop the bots" nonsense proposals; everyone of which has wrecked the value of our assets more and more and none of which have solved the bot issue without also taking all value off the table for ordinary players who originally invested in cards under very different circumstances.
I get what you're trying to say here but as a krill in this ocean I feel even we will benefit by these changes, with fewer bots in wild the quality of the game will improve and more real players will be encouraged to join which will give room for cards and sps value will appreciate. Not to mention as the players running 100s of bot accounts will drop which will also help increasing the value of SPS token.
Omg! The people ...
@squirrelacus I think what you say matters. I hope you are doing well and glad you are here. On your thoughts, I would say that I'm sure Matt will analyze the data after this change and see if it meets his expectations. Therefore, I think one of 2 things will happen: 1) he is right and many botnets moved away and thus you will be earning more than you were earning - even with the fee or 2) he is only partially right and partially wrong, and the botnets move out, but you are still paying more than makes sense to pay.
Obviously is the first is the case, then you will be happy to pay the fee. If the second is the case, then I'm sure Matt will adjust things so that it does makes sense for you to pay.
NOTE: there are various ways to do this. But in order for him to know, he has to start somewhere. I would ask that you be patient, because you are the type of player that is certainly welcome to the game and someone we want around forever!!!
Dear @davemccoy and @yabapmatt, I value all ideas, which are discussed during the last month in order to get splinterlands on track.
In my opinion for every bot, that we get rid of with such meassueres we loose at least one or even two players.
I have a similar situation as @squirrelacus.
As the first staking requirements have been introduced, I had around 40k SPS. I rented 50k SPS per week and further increased my stake, but I had to step back from champion to diamond league in order to get any more rewards.
I increased my SPS stake now to nearly 100k. In addition I am renting between 50 and 75k depending on the price per week.
I invested around 4.000 $ in Rebellion. This may not sound much, but it was for me.
But the last changes to rewards, which led to further players leave made even me think of asset sales, which I did in the last days, when I sold cards, I seldomly play and my XBOT never plays.
I have lots of real life stuff ongoing. For gods sake I am not sick and its just my job and my family. I play my Brawls on Tier 5.
But if now the SPS requirements for Wild get doubled, this will kill my ranked play all over. I am not going to rent around 200k of SPS per week. This is just no affordable and I do not have the chance to stay lower in ranking, since leagues have vanished.
For me this maybe the final cut, to leave Splinterlands all over. How must this be for people, with less income and less stake than me.
In your hunt for bots, you are completely killing the userbase. Sorry to say, but thats my feeling right now.
Dude im sorry to say but you gotta be crazy spend 4000k on a dead game with sinking value of assets and token, rather get HBD and stake them
Lets say it this way. As I planned to do this and put the money aside was spring 2023, when it did not look that grim. The Rebellion cards are not the problem by they way. They hold their value quite good and the Promos and airdrops weight the loss quite well.
Problem is the rest and the small patches which are applied to the game dismantling it step by step.
It feels more to be in the GDR ( Germany Democratic Republic) with 5 year plans than beeing in an open market economy.
If rebellion cards are holding price, it's good, I'm not checking those, I seen all others sinking hard, my collection lost 80% of the value already
But yeah they are destroying the game step by step, if everything collapses so will rebellion cards, this proposal will just cut off all players who don't make 200 SPS per season which is impossible under gold or diamond with full SPS requirements met, can you see new players coming with this implemented?
No I cant and that is the problem.
For me it seems, the exisiting whales are changing everything to get as much out of the remains as possible as long as it goes. If this is the case, they know, that their assets will be not anything in a few month as well.
But I do not want to think that way and hope, its still done with the best intentions for the company and therefore for alle players.
There are better fixes for the Bot problematic than this one. At least there are better ones without that much coleteral damage for new players, which the company and the game need to stay afloat.
Focus now should be to implement a modus for new players. Maybe even with a battlepass, so the company earns some money and make it as easy as possible for new players to join and to have fun with the game.
This is exactly the problem. There's a saying ""Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."
We are literally killing the game in order to stop people from using bots. I've just looked at my last 25 games and have only come across 2 match which there was definitely a botnet involved - of which I one exactly one game.
I'm getting so sick of this toxic community.
@kheldar1982 I appreciate the message.
However, I think you are making some assumptions that will not be true. I'm happy to discuss this with you if you want to have a direct message on discord.
I'll give you a brief outline so I don't take up too much of your time.
the number of bots that this will force to stop won't be anywhere near what you think. This is likely to mean more than 60K botnet accounts will stop playing.
the rewards for the remaining players will therefore go up, ie the ones like you that invest. I would imagine given your story that you will easily cover your extra cost of playing wild with just increased SPS rewards.
the way that your payout works is you don't HAVE to have a certain amount of SPS, in fact you can play at your same rating just fine with the amount of SPS you have now for sure. Obviously if they raise the staked needs, all that will do is lower the payout % across the board, but in reality EVERYONE is in the same boat as you. So the only people that will come out ahead of you versus where you were will be those that stake more than they were staking. The bottom line is you don't have to stake any more SPS to earn what you are earning now, and most likely you will be earning more because of the 60k bots leaving the system.
Finally I will say that I sympathize with your concern, and I don't want to see someone in your position leave over this. I think this will be a fantastic thing for the game, but also for YOU. The people that will get hurt will be the large botnets. Everyone else might have to adjust a little, but within a few seasons I think you will be earning more.
ps... if they can finally kill off the leaching from the botnets, then they can add back value and earnings. So not only will this be good for you in the short run, it also sets up a lot of potential in the future.
pps... If I am wrong, then please direct message me and I will pay the following season for you so you can play it for free. Like I said I don't think you or any "real" players are going to be upset when its had a chance to be live, but I'm happy to buy you another season permit if the first season doesn't work out.
I do not have any issues with 2k DEC or 40 Vouchers per Season. Its the doubling of SPS needs in combination with leagues gone that trouble me.
Maybe all must be worse first before it can become better like often in medicine.
All what I see is, that the changes made over the last month for sure hurt botnets, but they adapted somehow and are still there, while the true playerbase is dwindling.
Asset prices are in full downswing.
These meassueres are not helping. What is needed is more fun at gameplay or other incentives to buy assets.
We need a smooth start for new players.
But we do nothing in this direction. The new player experience is the worst since more than 2.5 years (the time I can tell).
By the way, why should I answer per DM to you? Here is an open conversation on our beloved blockchain so everyone can see it.
As long as it stays in a friendly manner I have no issues, discussing things here.
You don't have to discuss in Discord, I was just offering you that as an alternative means of communication as I'm not here that often.
Time will tell if this was a positive move or not. I say it is, you think it isn't. That's ok, we both will see together how it unfolds.
Have a nice day and thank you for the civil discussion.
How about you explain why players are still waiting on Nightmare packs as are they going to just sit on this??? Also, what was a the use of DEC-B? To steal the $ we put into it and now, there is absolutely no way of touching DEC-B let alone any updates on what will happen. However, let us continue bringing in new packs that just destroy any value of previous packs.
How the "payout for the real players that stay" is going to be up with "increased SPS rewards" while at the same time I'm asked to pay 2000 DEC I read that our daily grit rewards are slashed?
Nothing makes sense.
Oh, and another example: I have a RL friend that started playing with me at the same time. He only has vintage cards, only a few modern ones. He has saved 3000 SPS so far, so really few vouchers.
He just abandoned the game, unable to play with HIS cards. OWNED by them. Now he needs to pay a fee to play a game in which his assets are owned by him.
Nevermind. I don't even have the energy or patience to extend myself.
@davemccoy,
Can we just acknowledge some of the slew other things that will happen?
Currently, the only way for a single (player) account to compete with bots is through the multiplier- cut that by half and the bots do better.
I do agree- there a dozens of simpler and more effective ways to achieve the stated goals but this.... well this proposal will have the opposite effect. Selling pressure on assets, preventing new engagement, forcing out current players, rewarding bots.
Obviously there are a lot of people that think your way, but there are also many people that think differently, including me.
To answer your questions:
new players are going to be incentivized to play Modern, that is the intent. The hellscape you refer to is currently being addressed by liquidity bot solution, and if they need more tools then they can change the +/- ratio, and also fix the reset. So this is a false argument imo, simply because they will figure out how to attract and retain NEW players in Modern and Wild format is irrelevant to that issue.
If we have such players that only want to play such a few amount of matches each season, then they are certainly in the minority. There are plenty of places where they can get a "few matches" without paying this fee, primarily Brawls or Tournaments. In addition, they can play Modern for FREE. So this argument is silly if you ask me.
The reward multiplier is not getting reduced, the amount of SPS required to be staked is rising. Those are 2 different things. So I definitely do not agree with your conclusion, the opposite would be true.
This will get rid of at least 60k of the 75k botted accounts. In fact I could see it getting rid of up to 65k. So this is wrong to say that botted accounts will benefit. The people that will benefit will be the ones that 1) have a lot of good cards an 2) stake more SPS than those that are left after all the botnets leave.
I realize some people don't want this to happen so they have created in their minds all the negative reasons why it will be bad. But in reality, that doesn't make those arguments true.
There's a reason why a lot of players support this too, and those players have old cards, SPS, new cards, invest in current sets, rent cards, play land, etc... If people just want to win an argument, or they want to talk themselves into this being bad, then its up to them. But if they want to see the truth an look a bit into the future, then they will see that all those players that support this were not crazy, greedy, stupid, or evil. We have a view that the leaching of the reward system was a drain on the economy that was unstainable and long overdue to stop. This will do that, and the game will be on solid footing after this is over.
I hope you come along for the ride, but I understand if you or others don't want to as well.
Ahhh, Dave. So simple, so naive.
While the other proposal (put bots back in Modern) does exist and while it may mitigate some of the nightmarishness of that format- it has it's own issues, so let's not engage in magical thinking but instead concentrate on this proposal.
I did not 'create in my mind' these reasons why it will be bad- these are real, actual reasons this will not achieve the stated goals. In fact, I never said it would be bad- in fact I believe it will be beneficial, for many. Accounts that don't own/rent cards or SPS but play many games, for example, will do really, really well.
talking to you on Discord, we are very far apart on quite a few things :)
I am more then willing to see how this plays out. Its just really sad that a good number of the changes that are made to combat bots do have adverse affects on the smaller player. I am hopeful we will see a turn around and I will be able to use my sps earnings from staking to again buy cards and grow my collection like I was able to in 2021. As always I love to hear your thoughts and inputs.
Years ago, when I first learned about Splinterlands, I loved the idea that I could buy NFT cards for a game that was not only fun, but had the potential to earn money. I decided that it was worth investing in strong monster and summoner cards, because - unlike with assets in traditional Web 2 games - I truly owned these assets on a decentralized blockchain, and they could serve me forever, or at least for as long as Splinterlands existed as a game.
I'll bet that a lot of people who are attracted to P2E NFT games have a similar wealth-preservation mindset. That is why I always want to buy a house, instead of paying a landlord every month for an apartment that I will never own. That is why I always prefer owning a car, rather than leasing one. That is why I opt to purchase my own living room furniture for my home, rather than pay a monthly fee for the privilege of borrowing one from Rent-A-Center.
Here's the funny thing though - no one tries to make me feel bad or selfish because I choose to buy and not rent my home, car, or furniture. And yet, when it comes to Splinterlands, I am met with a non-stop barrage of proposals and rule changes aimed at making Wild players feel like they are parasites who don't contribute to the game. Aimed at making my hard-earned card collection worthless if I am unwilling - or unable - to pay an endless stream of money for the latest cards on a perpetual basis.
Sure,these proposals use the term "bot farms" to make it sounds we're fighting some evil, soulless enemy that must be defeated. But if you think about it, it is all about keeping players - whether they own bots or not - from getting any kind of value from old cards, so that we are forced to continuously spend money on new ones.
The pattern here has been clear and relentless. I think it is naive to think that this $2 fee to play in Wild will be the end of the war on older cards. If this proposal passes, get ready to see even more proposals aimed at further devaluing our card collections. How about a tax for anyone using Wild cards for land staking? Too far fetched? I don't think so.
One by one, proposal by proposal, every remaining benefit of owning Wild cards will be systematically eliminated. I don't even really blame the Splinterlands team - their actions are completely rational. They want and need your money, and your old card collection - that you already paid for - is a huge hinderance to that goal, as long as it holds any kind of income generating potential for you. Their only lever is to destroy the value of your existing collection, which is exactly what they have been, and will continue to try to do.
Hello and first of all thanks to @sodom-lv for participating in this discussion. That's how I found out about it, as we are buddies in an awesome guild. Anyway, I'm not in it for the amount of money in the game, but for the sheer existence of the markets. It's just like you say, if I own the cards, I can trade them for more cards that I enjoy.
Asking people to do this in a professional way to make it pay for their car, apartment, or home maintenance is not what I'm here for, but knowing you guys are out there makes it even more appealing to me. (I would never buy a house to live in if I could rent it out).
One thing I would like to add to the discussion: Please don't overestimate rationality. Centralized fees will kill any organization that isn't already too big to fail. This is getting political.
So I wonder, why not liberate the league mechanics? Let people start their own leagues and set their own incentives and rewards. Collect licence fees like you do with tourneys. That way I could attend "Friday Nights" with my cards where I want to pay the fees it costs. Including advertising from the organizers. Some love pets, some love plushies, some love bots, I love socializing using my cards. I'll pay for that as long as it's affordable.
!invest_vote
Really cool idea! Probably very hard to implement. Devs have bigger priorities now.
I write this as the owner of 278 Wild cards that have lost most of their value.
If there was only one league, with proper promotion and relegation, you would need to buy new cards to remain competitive and avoiud being overtaken by newer players with awesome new cards like Venka.
The pattern here is towards a better game that supports players and against those who simply extract.
This is a really honest commentary from an experienced player that has expressed so many thoughts and feelings on how the patterns of game modernization and mechanics are hostile to card owners or investors but still finds a sympathetic spot for the guardians of the game. I don't think anyone wants to see the project fail.
As players get tired of mouse clicking some will look to AI to continue extracting whatever rewards are on offer. Others will dump their cards on the market and leave the game. There will reach a time that most people will need to take a break or move on. It is interesting how these paid up players that continue with AI get categorized as bots and enemies of the game. Sometimes these players have invested thousands into the game but just the same get bundled together with bot farmers who are an entirely different category.
Sometimes I wonder from a purely business perspective if once players stop buying packs or cards they are viewed no longer as extractable by SPL and not as investors and as such expendable. If they did have this view then I can see some synergy between the anti-bot movement and SPL management.
I really am interested to see the expanded plans on building the player base because the future of the game lies in being able to expand the number of real players much faster than the attrition rate. If we had a thriving growing community there would be much less fighting over the ever diminishing rewards and less focus on bots as the economy would be so much more healthy.
I know your feeling because I also invested in old cards.
My deck value dropped unstoppable from nearly $2k to $250 after a lot of changes from Splinterlands.
Seriously old cards which we bought there values going down day by day. You just want people but new packs you have to find other better solution. You can't just raise concern each time on wild players.
@anjanida denkt du hast ein Vote durch @investinthefutur verdient!
@anjanida thinks you have earned a vote of @investinthefutur !
Yeah i get it that your against, but this is probably a really good idea. Bit like our council rates in Australia, the more your property is worth the more tax you pay. i'd certainly be for it if it helped the overall game economy.
Hello! Yet isn't that a downwards spiral? See my other comment for more.
!invest_vote
@anjanida denkt du hast ein Vote durch @investinthefutur verdient!
@anjanida thinks you have earned a vote of @investinthefutur !
Definitely respect your opinion and I know some others think the same way. I obviously disagree with your conclusions as to the effects of this change. I believe they will help to add value to all assets, including older cards, in the long run.
There are also some things you said that I wanted to address specifically:
I want to be clear that this is not about the Splinterlands team at all - that's why I published it from my account and not the company account. This change will not generate any money for the team at all.
This is about the long term value of all assets, for the benefit of the players, which will indirectly also help the team. The ecosystem as a whole does need new money to come in for it to be successful. Allowing users to continually earn rewards without needing to put more in hurts everyone and is not in the best interest of anyone who is interested in the long term success of this product.
It's easy to make the argument you're making, and I'm not surprised to see it. I just think it's incorrect, and I believe that anyone who really thinks through the change in detail with a view of the entire ecosystem in mind will come to the same conclusion. I would be happy to discuss more on the TH later today or even on a voice chat at some point, which I believe will be much easier than writing.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, and apologies for attributing this proposal to the Splinterlands team (though I suspect as CEO, your personal opinions and proposals must overlap with the team's best interests to some degree... but I digress).
Edit: Then why not focus on attracting new players to the game? Imagine what you could accomplish if all of the time and energy spent marginalizing and taxing Wild players in the name of fighting "bot farms" was spent instead on expanding the user base!
Edit: I care about the long term success of this product, but with every new rule change that chips away at any benefit I can derive from owning old cards, I am less and less convinced that this product cares about me.
The problem for me is that as an investment-minded individual, I would have never started playing Splinterlands years ago, if I knew that it would require me to constantly pump money into new cards, while my older cards were all but guaranteed to lose value due to a Modern / Wild system that didn't exist when I made those initial card investment decisions.
I don't blame you for trying to ensure that the game economy has a constant influx of money. If I were in your shoes, I might be doing the same thing. The issue is that this goal is in direct opposition to my best interests as a rational player. I have no problem with paying thousands of dollars to build up a strong card collection, but I have a very big problem with that collection systematically being devalued so that I continuously feel pressured to buy new cards.
When I started playing this game, I (maybe naively) thought that it was possible for both Splinterlands and myself to prosper financially. But it seems that the reality is more of a zero-sum game, where in order for the Splinterlands ecosystem to prosper, the vast majority of current players must not be allowed to prosper (and this is perhaps a sobering reality of any long-running P2E game ecosystem that I have only recently begun to realize).
The fact that Matt, a large decision maker in this ecosystem/game/company believes this will be beneficial. Is a prime example of why this company has continued to fail with bad leadership for years.
"Repeating the same actions expecting different results"...sounds crazy to me
I believe it would be more beneficial for the team to receive the funds rather than burning them. Alternatively, a 50% burn and 50% allocation to the team could be a balanced approach. Burning all the value seems counterproductive when the team could utilize these resources to ensure the long-term survival and success of the project.
Instead of yet another attempt to tweak tokenomics and add more expenses to fix the bot problem, what if we just changed wild league to be vastly different from modern? Like with some or all of these changes.
If these changes were made, it would make wild and modern completely different games, since none of the same cards could be played in both leagues.
This would stop bots in their tracks since the glint and SB cards earned from battling in wild would not be usable to continue building their wild deck. They would have to actually buy or rent every single card they want to use in wild.
It would kill off low level card bots that play up into higher leagues than they belong.
It actually adds value to old cards because they would have an exclusive league where they can be used to earn.
I love the idea of making the formats truly different! I really liked your points and would vote for this change.
I'll vote for that, encourage true wild players with old cards not just free soulbounded entries.
a fantastic idea that I would like to see in a proposal.
I don't like the thought of "charging" people to play when they have old cards and supported the game from the start or most likely paid much higher for those cards to be able to play in that format in the first place.
Either
This doesn't only apply to you old whales, it applies to everyone that wants to play Wild.
I have been boycotting it since the bot ban in Modern, but am considering returning to it if this proposal is implemented.
The amount you pay should be less than the additional amount you earn, since a large amount of bots will stop playing and thus they will stop extracting. All the SPS they stop earning will now be earned by other players in wild. Overall, this should be a huge upgrade to the quality of wild and serve as a good source of DEC/voucher burn.
It doesn't work like that.
There is a certain reward pool in Wild and next to that, there is the card supply with a certain combined value that can be used to earn part of this reward pool. Introducing a tax pretty much equals reducing the reward pool. What will happen is that card values equally will go down. This makes the card value drop from Modern to Wild even bigger and nobody in their right mind is ever going to want to pay for packs knowing this.
Low Old Card Prices = Nobody buys new cards/packs = No Money to Support SPS Price = Lower Earnings = Card Prices drop more = Dead Spiral/Negative Feedback Loop
High Card Prices = Willingness for new players to buy new cards/packs = More Money to Support SPS Price = Higher Earnings = Card Prices Increase More = Positive Feedback Loop
Fair points but just the mentality of having to pay to play now I think is going to have a negative impact over all on new players etc. I could very well be wrong but that's just my two cents on the topic.
Correct, it will be negative for new players but the whole point is that new players will begin in modern, no new player should be starting in wild. If new players become old players over time, they may transition to wild and buy more wild cards then, but by that stage they are no longer a new player.
I personally think this idea is genius and should have been implemented long ago. I personally can't think of a single downside for the game (and as a wild only player/botter).
When CL rotates out of modern, it is still going to be the cheapest way to get into the game by far. And you can currently buy maxed untamed cards for as little as $6 (and dropping quickly). That won't be the case with rebellion or the next set until they rotate to Wild. So, new players are going to be attracted to wild and they will be confronted with a choice. Either they can buy a bunch of powerful and inexpensive cards and start playing in Wild (and have to pay to play-yuck!) or they can dump a bucket of money on modern cards but skip the pay to play. Both options have an element of feeling bad and that means most players will not stick around.
That was kind of where my head was at @imno I mean it makes ok sense now I guess but next year when the new pack drops I don't see it being a good option but I guess we burn that bridge when we get there again?
Hey Cryptoeater! I agree there are benefits to this idea, but to say there aren't downsides isn't true. Like anything in life, there will be trade offs.
For one, this earlier comment you made elsewhere :
While more of the pool will be available for the remaining players, this statement will not be true for all players. The immediate effect will effectively chop off the bottom of the distribution and reallocate the reward pool across the player base that is paying the fee. But some of those players will not recover their season pass fee. This is simply logic... because if every player could recover, then profit-seeking bots will scale back in until the bottom is unprofitable again.
A second notable downside is it will reduce the demand and utility of low bcx wild cards. Low BCX cards have limited value on land and will probably be at the bottom end of value in wild ranked due to competitive forces. So the floor prices could be quite unstable. I suppose we will see there, markets are gonna market anyways.
Finally, the third downside I've thought about is that the ranked playerbase in wild is likely to erode from the bottom, just like we saw in Modern. If lower value accounts drop from wild, and fewer bots are profitable, then maxed wild decks will start to reset lower and lower, creating a similar chokepoint in ranked leagues like we see in modern currently.
All in all, there are some clear benefits to this proposal, and I don't want to be all doom and gloom.
But I'd also urge you to temper your enthusiasm and remember that nothing comes without tradeoffs.
Players that have bought bronze and silver wild decks may not be able to sell them economically to rotate to modern and may feel abandoned. I wanted to give them a voice so I've encouraged them to tell their stories here.
It's around 3 vouchers a day. Otherwise, there are plenty of ways to get a return on older cards. Land, rentals etc.
Sure, there are a few ways to get some kind of income from older cards today. But do you really think that after this proposal passes, that we won't see even more proposals that continue to erode the earning potential of Wild cards?
This proposal is just one part of an concerted and ongoing campaign to eliminate the value of older cards. The goal is to pressure players into continuously pumping money into the ecosystem, and older cards hinder that from happening as long as they have any financial utility.
Each time one of these proposals passes, we can excuse it by saying, "But you can still earn with old cards by doing X"... until that is no longer true.
I don't.
I think you have a point of view, but there are many people with a lot of wild cards that are voting for this proposal. Obviously they have a different point of view on the importance of this proposal and the long term benefit to the wild cards.
I am one of them. Sure the prices may go down in the short run, but I own my cards for as long as 6 years. I constantly am adding to my collection and have even been buying the recent sets. So I would say that my actions speak louder than my words for the impact of this proposal on the long term health of the game.
Having said that, people will say I'm wrong and that's ok. Everyone should always have an opinion and try to learn from each experience to improve their position in life.
I wish I had your optimism, Dave. After they relegated older cards to a lower-payout league, I never dreamed that they'd keep going after Wild players. I was wrong, and here we are, looking at the latest in a long line of proposals designed to hurt the earning potential of older cards. What reason would anyone have to think this will be the last one?
The irony is that, despite my unhappiness with the direction of this game, I am also still always adding to my collection (I recently obtained Venka, and I play her every day - she is awesome). But you and I are have been with this game for a while, and we've "drunk the Koolaid", as they say.
Why would any new player look at Splinterlands and want to collect cards in this ecosystem? People who collect NFTs and trading cards do so because they have hope that their assets will grow in value over time.
Splinterlands has a built-in mechananism to guarantee that the card you buy today will plummet in value and utility once it inevitably rotates out of Modern. And if this wasn't enough, with seemingly every passing week, we get a new proposal or rule change to erode that value even more. This is not normal. Baseball card collectors don't have to worry that their cards will spontaneously degrade after 2 years, or that Topps will introduce a $4 fee per month to keep older cards that they've already bought.
I don't know you Dave, but I read your comments in these proposals, and you seem like a genuinely good person who always treats people with respect, even when you disagree with them.
I wish that Splinterlands treated their OG players with a similar level of respect. These are people who've spent thousands of dollars on cards - sometimes their life savings - supporting Splinterlands from the start, because they believed in the game, despite the untold risks (I'm not even counting myself among them, as I only started during Untamed).
Without these folks, we wouldn't have Splinterlands today. But what do they get in return? Not only has their initial card investment shrunk to a fraction of its original value, but now they get treated like dirt. Now we put them in the same category as "Bot farms". We accuse them of only "taking from the game without giving anything back", even though the vast majority have paid in far more than they will ever get back. I guess we live in a "what have you done for me lately" world, but I had hoped for better from this game that has meant so much to me.
Thank you for the compliment @catotune. That is a very nice thing to say.
I realize we have a different opinions about what this will do for both the players and the game. I hope you stick around and find out, but if you didn't then I also understand.
As you said, I am optimistic in general. And of course I hope I'm right so we can all benefit. Thank you for the respectful conversation!
I wish the plenty of ways to get a return on old cards was true. With the exception of a few that most people don't own like a maxed kitty (which currently rents for 30% of what it did a few months ago), there's no money in the rental market and land is pretty stagnant. The cheapest maxed dice and untamed cards are currently under $7. If DEC were at peg, some untamed cards would actually be below burn value right now. Wouldn't be that way if there was a return to be had.
How is this not going to make things even worse?
The problem is not that bots can earn in Wild without continued investment, it's that they can do it easily without a significant initial investment. All that a tax each season to play in Wild will do is lower the overall rewards/returns.
There are a certain number of cards that can be used in Wild and against that there is a certain reward pool. Lowering the reward pool means that the values of all those cards combined will go down.
Right now the economic gameplay loop in Splinterlands is roughly that you need to spend 5000$+ each year to keep up in modern and be somewhat competitive to see a slow decline of the card values over time which is bigger compared to the rewards that can be earned. This along with requirements of owning a lot of Staked SPS to get the reward multiplier to finally see the card values drop off a cliff the moment they get dumped into Wild where all the utility is stripped away. On top of this, you will now need to double the SPS staked and pay a tax each season to keep playing ?
The reason most people aren't willing to buy packs is because they are a sure way to get absolutely wrecked. One of the reasons many players in the past were willing to buy packs/cards is because there was a sense that they eventually would become more scarce and valuable.
The concept should be that Modern is an affordable entry point for new players while Wild is a more expensive league where you need older and more expensive cards.
Wild should be a place where players get rewarded for holding the prices of older assets up in value which gives newer players confidence to buy into the new set and start playing in modern. This proposal doesn't do this in any way or form and even makes it worse I would say.
I still think (heavy) Collection Power Requirements in Wild is a better solution and there must be ways that it can be done without making it resource-intensive to calculate. Anyone human or bot that wants to continue earning just needs to be invested in cards (non-soulbound) while there must be mechanisms to get the oversupply down and there need to be more game modes that give continued utility.
Without card values somewhat holding up, Splinterlands will continue to be in a never-ending death spiral. The problem is that so many different assets were created out of thin air (Cards, DEC, SPS, Vouchers, Land, Totems, Titles, Runis, SPT...) and utility needs to be invented for each while there isn't any money inflow to keep any of them up.
Some Ideas
Exactly.
Yup. They should implement the CP proposal that was passed by the player base.
Your ideas are what needs to be done, this proposal will just nuke the wild league completely and older cards.
But this hurts the value of older cards once again ?
My problem with this is, that why should people buy new cards, if they look at Alpha & Beta cards and see that they are being left to dust and realize that the same could happen to Rebellion.
100% agree. I miss the old days. I don't know why Splinterlands don't keep the same strategy as they did for Alpha & Beta cards. Same stats but more incentive for Alpha and need more cards to level up. It keeps the game simple to play as it should be, keep the price of the older version, less operating cost for creating new artwork or new abilities, ...
I agree that bot farms need to be restricted. However, I'm not in favor of having to pay to play in the Wild format. This could devalue the lower leagues in the Wild format, which is undesirable. After all, who wants to play if it results in financial losses? With this approach, we might as well remove the bronze and silver leagues from the Wild format.
I believe a better approach would be to modify the SPS requirements for the Wild Format:
Option: Change the SPS requirements so that only owned SPS counts in this format, excluding delegations or rentals. This would ensure that all players in the Wild Format are genuinely invested in the token and, by extension, in the game. The current issue is that all assets are rentable, eliminating the need for bots to invest in the game. However, this could potentially be exploited by staking a minimal amount of SPS across numerous accounts which are only owing ghost cards.
Option: Introduce a requirement for a fixed number of owned (not rented or delegated) SPS to play in the Wild Format, for example, 20,000 SPS. Without these staked SPS, an account would be ineligible to participate in the Wild Format. Although SPS can still be rented or delegated for additional boosts, this would compel bot owners to invest in the SPS token without adversely affecting players who are already invested in the system.
I prefer this approach, as the idea of pay to play leaves a sour taste.
Also, this change would directly influence how many players will be able to play in Wild.
I see this mostly as a zero-sum setup, where most of the SPS rewards that are earned in Wild will be burnt as the seasonal fee.
With 20k $ SPS rewards distributed each season in Wild, with current DEC prices, this would only result in roughly 13k players for the Wild format (if the SPS rewards were distributed evenly).
If DEC were at peg, only 10k players.
With better accounts earning more than the weaker accounts, the actual number of players that could be supported by these rewards is even lower.
What this will lead to:
Of course, we have Land for older cards. But with Chaos Legion cards setting the floor of PP/$, any new set that eventually rotates to Wild would probably go near the same prices (because there is no real other demand anymore).
So while this fix would probably help short-term, I see really big problems in the future. I mean, who wants to buy packs if they know that after two years they go to nearly zero?
Of course, this is a bit exaggerated, but overall I see this as really problematic.
I would really prefer one of the options above.
So overall, I'm pretty sure this change would hurt the price of all current Wild cards drastically and will make the price decline of sets rotating out of Modern even more drastic.
A lot of what you're saying mimics my feelings. Why am I going to buy packs when they are doing everything in their power to make them worthless when they rotate out of modern? And Matt freely admits that land in its current iteration is boring and doesn't have much value. He also said they are relying on a huge influx of players and money in order to hire the devs to build land. So the idea that land will save us is pretty pie in the sky right now.
One thing to note though is $20k in SPS is based on the current price. If we did get a bunch more players I can assume it would push the price up which would increase the USD value of wild rewards.
that's the point I just made. If the price of SPS goes higher, then the number of actual players we could support comfortably would be much higher.
Yes, a higher SPS price would also enable more players to participate in Wild.
However, if we have to rely on the token price increasing to prevent Wild assets from decreasing in value, then something is seriously wrong.
Given the current state of this ecosystem, this will further devalue wild assets and in my option also modern assets.
The reason I disagree with what you are saying about old cards going down in value long term is that so little of land has been released right now. Look at how much impact the grain LP has had in such a short time. Look at the staked DEC on land, it's constantly going up now. We are already at $35k liquidity in the grain LP and it's only been about a week. Next is going to be the research leaderboards titles which means people will be fighting over those rolling titles which will require grain.
I just don't understand how you read the white papers for land and don't get it, how this will not make old cards valuable.
Every tiny thing they release for land is going to act like a leverage of stimulus to the economy as long as they make it somewhat relevant to ranked.
Example A
Lets say next month or the month after that, they release the salt system. Players that own at least 2 surveyed land plots will now earn SB desalinization crystals in ranked. Now we can start desalinating our land to reduce our trading fees, our taxes and boost our production. On top of that, on the other end, we will earn salt tokens. Salt tokens in the white paper can be combined with potions to create something called "enhanced potions" but what if they let players use their salt tokens in the 2 week run up to a promo event. "The company is letting you use our alchemy lab temporarily during this promo event to create enhanced potions" and you can apply those to the promo cards and also to jackpot chests.
Now all the old players with thousands of potions will start making these enhanced potions that can be sold on the market.
Example B
None of the magic plots have been released/enabled yet. What if they release/enable the next 2 magic plots and they match the same elements of the next legendary summoner airdrop?
And they make it a requirement that you produce and burn on the wagon a specific number of those same magic resources in order to qualify to get the special skin of that summoner. How much do you think that special skin is going to be worth? And this will drive up the price of grain.
I think the problem with the land white papers is too many people went to sleep trying to read it because of all the details. All they have to do is start releasing/implementing little parts of it and make it relevant to ranked.
OK so its currently midway through 2024. Land was supposed to be fully released in 2021 and currently the company doesn't have the money or human capital to work on land in any major way and won't unless we get a massive influx of players, which is far from guaranteed.
So why does the land whitepaper not excite me? For the reasons above but also because the distribution of land is so concentrated that almost none of these people will ever be able to utilize it all. The thing about land, and almost all Splinterlands systems is its not based on what you have, its based on the percentage of the active whole. The same SPS rewards are being given out whether 5 plots are running or 150k plots. Its also why raising the SPS staking requirements in this proposal is pointless (but that's another topic.)
And as far as the DEC being staked on land, about a month ago we were higher than we are today. We got up to 1.522 billion. It dropped to 1.509 billion and we are currently back to 1.514 billion. It has gone back up some since the grain LP but we're still lower than we were a month before the LP came out. Losing players.
Now for example A. Having yet another thing to buy and sell doesn't bring money in. It shuffles value around and dilutes the value of existing assets. As existing assets drop in value, players run away because their assets are dropping again and that sends asset prices down even further. We've been in this spiral for a few years now.
For example B. First I'll say that this is a long shot. Second I'll say that it shouldn't ever happen because it will again lead to players leaving. They bought thousands of dollars in cards but now they can't even get their airdrop unless they also do something else? Moving the goal posts repeatedly sends people packing.
I want land to be amazing and bring value to the cards but its not even close to ready yet, there's no gaurantee it will ever be ready, and it has a lot of hurdles even if it gets ready.
Don't forget the affect the first part of the proposal will have on SPS value/prices!
If, as you say, the # of accounts playing in Wild drops from 75K to 13K- the amount of SPS rented should also drop by ~80%, as long as the multiplier remains the same. By halving the value of staked SPS while reducing the demand- I would expect a drop in the volume of rented of ~90% with a corresponding drop in prices for renting SPS.
On the bright side- with zero incentive to hold any staked SPS, all the accounts in Wild should start unstaking and dumping their SPS immediately.
(I could quibble with the 13K number but in general, I agree- only 10-15K accounts could continue playing in Wild and they would all be bots/botted accounts that spend 0 on rentals and 0 on SPS)
This analysis assumes that SPS will never go up in price. If that's your base case, then you would be right to think these things. On the other hand, if you assume a much higher price and do your same analysis, then you will get much different numbers.
Of course, we can hope and pray that the SPS price rises so that the Wild Format can support more players, but I won't just sit around and hope for the best. With the current SPS prices, it's nearly guaranteed that the value of Wild cards will implode.
well if that's the case, then none of this matters. I would disagree with your premise, but only time will tell which of us was right.
The first part of this proposal (halving the SPS multiplier) would, by itself, crush SPS value and increase the % of rewards given to bots in Wild.
The second part of the proposal (blocking out new/casual players from the game) would just exacerbate the effects of the first- crush SPS prices and increase the % of bots in Wild.
I, currently, don't see any basis to think that SPS or asset prices could rise- this proposal like most of the moves made by the company just seemed designed to push the game faster and further in it's current trajectory.
you've messaged me in multiple places and I gave you an indepth reply here. If you want to talk in more depth, then feel free to message me on discord and I will be happy to discuss with you and show you why I think you are looking at the wrong things.
Lmao this is another joke proposal right?! There are just so many @ss backward things here that I couldn’t list them all.
So you’re saying I need to pay $10 to buy a Spellbook, then spend thousand of dollars on Sps the stake and earn glint for cards I don’t really own. Then I need to spend money buying cards to actually be competitive and win games. Then I also need to pay each season to play? The only economics I can get behind is charging people more for playing beyond the 24 games per day.
Seriously read the amount of friction in this process. Then add on another layer that you’re going to lose money. Your card values will tank, Sps is in the drain. Someone, honestly, please tell me if you’ve “earned” money playing this game. Tell me how much Sps would need to spike to just break even. Double? Triple? 10x? Heck even if Sps went up 10x I would still have a loss for all I put into this game.
Why would anyone in their right mind do this? Let’s face the facts. Splinterlands blew through all there money and they’re asking you the user to bail out their poor decisions. This isn’t good for the game it is just a bandaid for poor management.
Don't forget that before you could play unlimited games per day, then they added the crap limited number and pay to play more and now pay to play at all, this is so ridiculous
They take players as cows to milk
Here are some numbers for you.
Just played a couple games in gold 2 wild. Earned just under 0.4sps per win. Assuming you play the 24 games/day and you win 50% of your games. Thats 12 wins and I’ll round up to say 5sps earned. At Sps current value that’s $0.06 of “earnings” now let’s say I wanted to play more. Each additional energy costs $0.13! Just by purchasing that one extra energy I’m negative for the day! The value is Sps would need to increase 25x to make this even somewhat economical. Idk who the crazy people are who are shoveling in more beyond the free 24 you get a day but those people are just throwing away money.
Instead of requiring a DEC payment, require a burnt power payment, for example 500 power per season, can be tied to the soul or market, which would help destroy the excess cards, and please stop printing new cards, take out items, skings, new potions, NO MORE CARDS,
Good thinking! if this passes, I'm gonna burn a max pelacor each season to pay for my Wild season permit
I think that a lot of people have missed the point of this proposal. This isn't about devaluing old cards, it is about devaluing spellbooks. This view might be easier to swallow for non-botters, but in my opinion, it does not make it better ethically as an investment into spellbooks is still a fair investment, and purchasing spellbooks and botting was never explicitly forbidden.
I propose another solution that would fix the issue of low-level card bots and also indirectly devalue spellbooks, but maybe in a less painful way.
Larger collections and higher-level cards should convert to a higher win rate, which should convert to a higher rating, which should convert to more rewards.
I think that it would be beneficial for everyone if the reward system was set up so that it wouldn't make sense economically for botters to run thousands of accounts, but rather to collect assets in one account and bot on that one, in an attempt to get as high rating and as many rewards as possible.
This would motivate everyone, including large botters, to buy many cards and combine them to higher levels. For this to happen, we would need to shift the distribution reward to the tail of people with the highest rating, which is fair in my opinion, as these people have made significant investments into owning the game assets, including SPS.
I would love to get more opinions on this.
I don't understand how you would implement this, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. If you want to message me and explain on discord, I'd love to hear what you are thinking.
Hi, thank you for your interest in my thoughts.
Currently, earnings scale directly with rating to the power of 3. If we compare two accounts with different ratings, for example 3k and 4.5k, the account with 4.5k rating is going to earn (4500/3000)**3 = 3.375 times more rshares per battle.
This may sound like a lot but it's not if you consider the investment in cards required to reach these ratings. To reach 3k rating, you may need to have something like 20$ worth of cards, but to reach a higher rating, you need to start using rare, expensive cards like Yodin at a high level. When we look at the values of collections of people with 4.5k rating, for example QPRFDB, ryan6000 and ESQUORET, they have total card values of 4.6k$, 25k$ and 8.6k$. We could argue that a more efficient collection could be made to reach a rating of 4.5k, but it is still hard to imagine that it would be possible to reach this rating with a collection that costs less than 20 * 3.375 = 67.5$.
So far, I was talking only about earned rshares. What makes things even worse is that the SPS amount required to reach a certain multiplier scales with rating to the power 3.5, which is higher than the scaling of rshares. The following graph shows earnings in USD per month of accounts at different ratnigs, assuming you rent the optimal number of SPS, with rent price of 0.004DEC/SPS/day, which is the current market price. You can clearly see the diminishing returns of reaching a higher rating because of the increasing amounts of SPS required.
This system economically motivates people to create a lot of accounts, and in turn, because it would be very time consuming to play on more accounts, to use bots to automate their gameplay. It is similar to how the economy of axie infinite worked and why people hired scholars to play on their many accounts, instead of focusing on developing a single account.
My proposed solution would be to increase the exponent of rshares earned to a higher number. I don't know the optimal number but we could start with something like 4, or even more, but there certainly is a number at which it starts to be more beneficial to gather all assets in just 1 account. With rating to the power of 4, an account with 4.5k rating would earn 5 times more than an account with 3k rating, which may not be enough, but it would be a good start. This would move more rewards to the tail of the distribution of players with the highest ratings and would reduce the economical incentive to create many low value accounts instead.
TLDR: Just increase the exponent of rating in the rshares calculation formula, bot farms are no longer economically incentivized.
Very interesting idea. I think this is something that @royaleagle and @yabapmatt will probably want to consider in the future. I realize there's a balance between all the variables to get the desired results, so considering all tools in the future is a good idea.
I also think the rank has to be monitored and make sure we aren't making it too hard or too easy to attain a particular rank. That will also affect the distribution.
Thanks for explaining what you meant in an understandable way. I think the goal you have is the same that we all have (including the team itself), and how we get there is a learning process and all levers that can be pulled should be considered as we continue to refine the process.
I think this would completely undermine any potential NPE retention.
**New players need to feel progress or they will have no reason to stay. **
The issue I'm seeing is that a single Rshares factor is used for both SPS and also for Soulbound tokens and it is already very top heavy. Increasing the exponential factor will only compound this problem and progress will seem impossible for players without existing skills, soulbounds, strong decks, or sufficient SPS to feel like progress is possible and they will simply move on before they get hooked.
I think it's fine to have SPS distribution weighted towards higher ranking players. But the glint rewards need to be disassociated from the high exponential rating of rshares.
We can already see - the high rating players are getting too many rshares that they are bored with the shop and need jackpots.... while lower league players are still screaming about how many cards they are missing and yet unable to get to their needed level. If the intention is to scale monetary rewards with in game assets, then perhaps lower ratings are about getting glint, and higher ratings still get glint but they also have the monetary prizes (SPS)
I'd actually suggest keep rshares calc the same.
Then slowly reduce the incidence of sellable glint rewards.
This would allow lower rating players to grow their soulbound collection at a reasonable speed and experience progress that way. Meanwhile, higher rating players will still get more glint than lower rating (since glint factor is still rating^2) but get a higher share of SPS (and lets be honest, they need it for staking multipliers anyways)
Hi, thank you for taking the time to read my comment and respond. I think that you raise a valid point and I agree with you. Adjustments like this would need to be made to keep the new player experience in mind.
I mostly wanted to raise the point that the formula used to distribute rewards is inherently flawed and unfair in the current state of the game (at least in wild) and encourages creating many accounts, therefore botting, and that we can address the bot issue by making a very simple change to a formula, without having to introduce complex new systems like CP requirements, minimal card levels, or having to buy a license to play in wild that make the player experience worse in my opinion (e.g. having to balance creating the best team and rewards due to card levels when creating teams). Note that all of these solutions were removed in the end because they did not end up solving the problem. They are an inconvenience for everyone, including botters, but do not address the fact that to optimize your earnings, you have to create many accounts.
I think if this is implemented, then most likely some of the players will go to other games. Instead of increasing the number of players, in this case you will reduce the number of players.
Good Morning @yabapmatt.sps
Thank you for this post explaining the situation on Splinterlands.
I have had an account for years, I started during Steem Monster years before the cards were even NFTs LOL on Steemit, so I am an old player.
I must admit I play irregularly as I have two jobs and increased responsibilities.
So often find my self playing in Bronze League.
But lately I have dedicated a small time slot to playing a few games daily and I was surprised at how fast I progressed in the ranks.
I thought that I had improved my game and knowledge, but now I realize that it is probably just the situation you describe.
I do play a few matches a day against one card teams, so I assume they are bots. But I was not aware the majority could be Bots. Hmmm deflating a bit, but realistic.
But as I have risen in the ranks to Gold and now Diamond I think it's just player accounts now, as the teams are full and they seem to deploy strategies.
In any event, I hope these changes don't go into effect before I can make it to Champion! LOL
After all these years, it would be great to screen shot that achievement screen and live as a Champion Steem Monster player for a short while. Kind of a lifetime achievement award for me. :)
I hope you have a good day. I know it's very hard for creators during a bear market, and I am sure expectations are very high in this community, which must mean intense pressure for you two.
But thanks for making this game, and making history, and putting Hive on the map of relevent blockchains.
@shortsegments
I just entered Champion and waiting for you :)
WOW!
CHAMPION SEEMS LIKE A DREAM...
but so was diamond...
Great comment. I hope you make it to champion and make sure to take a screenshot @shortsegments !!!
Thanks!
So it is now Pay to play?
LOL. I am having one account with ~175k collection power. Overpaid most of my cards, as I joined in October 2021 or so. So playing in Wild - which is the majority of my cards - will cost now? Yeah, no. No way.
I am telling you since 3 years that bots are killing the game. And the countermeasurements you introduced where just sloppy, half thought through, and now you gonna kill Wild?
How about make some real bot-farm-countermeasurements?
How about we start that only KYC approved accounts are allowed to vote. And 1 vote = 1 vote and not this stupid vote-weighting based on SPS - so that a handfull of whales are out-voting hundred or even thousands of players.
How about just get rid of bots in the first place?
No, lets continue to go into strange directions...
R.I.P. Splinterlands
Very well said.
Thinking the same... Whales Will make this pass to cut off majority of players and get Better rewards
to be honest, wales will soon be the only ones playing. small players will just leave.
Was thinking the same, they Will Be Happy then with worthless tokens and assets
Hello @yabapmatt.sps, looks like there has been some change implemented that feels like ransom. Now I have cards that was fun to play and the fun is gone. No play without pay. I'd not expected something like that could happen to a creative team. Just wanted to let you know, so that you don't think I like it. Withing all the best for Splinterlands.
I'm so tired of all of the constant changes. Everything about the game is just exhausting. This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I feel like it's gotten worse since the introduction of these proposals. Voting is just a fustercluck in real life, and it seems like it is here as well. It's similar in that the biggest stakeholders are the ones that actually make the decisions, and the rest of the people just pretend they're making a difference.
I like your comment. It's so true.
I see a lot of people who commented on this post are against this proposal.
But I think somehow this proposal will pass the vote and implement in the game.
It definitely looks like it will pass.
It Will pass cause whales want to
I am asking for an overhaul of the proposal and voting mechanism for atleast a year. To make it simple and a real voting procedure, only KYC verified accounts should be allowed to vote - and 1 vote means 1 vote. And not this whale-driven voting where your SPS define how strong or weak your voting power is.
But it seems that noone gives a shit. Just like people start to give a damn about the game.
More and more players will leave this game until nothing is left but whales.. :)
"For players who have only one, or a small number of accounts that play in Wild, this should be a small amount to pay that in most cases will be covered by the rewards earned, and they will always have the option to switch to Modern format where there is no permit required. For operators of bot farms with thousands of accounts, however, this will likely be an unworkable expense every season which would make them stop running large numbers of bot accounts and possibly even consolidate into fewer accounts with more assets."
I can't believe how naive and stupid this is. If there are any profits to be made, at all, bot farms will remain. If there isn't, they won't, but then it isn't a play to earn game anymore, it's just a pay to play one, and probably the most expensive one in the world. You actually passed this ridiculous dumbf*** proposal. Way to go whales / idiots. And Matt: Go fck yourself. fcking 8 grand down on this scam game mostly because of your repeated refusal to deal with the bot problem in an effective way, and now you expect me to pay to play with my damn cards. fck you until your ass bleeds. You literally must be a corrupt scammer because you can't be this damn stupid to believe this proposal is in any way fair or effective. ONE ACCOUNT PER PERSON MUST BE ENFORCED TO EARN REWARDS. But no, you just take all the rewards away and then expect us to pay to play. Yay everyone let's spend thousands of dollars on rebellion just to then have to race to sell them all just before they rotate into wild. That's a good look isn't it? How many of your whale bot accounts that horde staked SPS did you use to pass this idiocy? What percentage of actual individual players voted for this bs? You should sell 10 packs for 40 cents moving forwards because there aren't any rewards to earn in wild anymore and who wants to risk holding hot potato modern cards that everyone will race to sell just before they rotate into modern? Go fck yourself.
^100% this
I am asking for years that the proposal system is overhauled and that only KYC approved accounts can vote. Each account = 1 vote.
But no, we stick to this braindead proposal system.
Take a look on SPS price. More and more people are quitting and liquidating their assets. GOOD MOVE EVERYONE, WELL VOTED!
Enjoy your dead game.
for the love of God,,,
Please consider an account as an investment of x amount of $... not a bot or a human...
And consider what you want to do to that investment of $ (disregarding how it is managed)...
If you want to destroy the earnings potential of an account of x amount of $, then okay...
But you cannot - ultimately - differentiate between an account run by a bot vs a human (eternal arms race).
The only "element" truly subtracting value from the "universe" is the game developer (salaries). Not necessarily a bad thing, but...
I do love the vision of Yabapmatt, I have 20+ tUSD involved over three years. I align my investment with his. If he increases the value of his investment, so do I...
But please try to understand that any change needs to address a sustainable economy, long time... not just a focus on getting rid of someone or something.
If a macroeconomic study is needed, let's ask for some... not just some half-assed opinionated attempt at getting rid of bots (in this case), it will just lower the price of cards (used by bots), both rental and sell market.
My two cents, being slightly drunk on a friday night ;-)
/miko67
Pay to play, the new RIDICULOUS and game killing idea, not enough damage has been made? After I pay the spell book, pay the cards, now pay to play? This is just madness, who plays bronze can never recover from 2000dec
Me too, I'm a player with 11k sps bet, I got into the game 2 years ago firmly and made a Chaos deck, since then I've lost 80% of the value of my cards, and we're still here.
There is no reward available today that would pay for such losses in the values of my SplinterLands assets.
The narrative to end so-called "bot farms" is discarding old investors as they increasingly treat us as marginalized and impose new costs on us.
Each time this happens, more investors put their cards up for sale and the more prices fall.
Every time prices fall, new investors also leave out of fear of devaluation. This generates a cycle of devaluation like the one we see, while there is an upward trend in the crypto market, we are sinking more and more.
And more and more people only focus on so-called "BotFarm".
An official bot registration along with a penalty for burning part of the rewards earned would be ideal.
It is a robust banning program for any and all bots that are not registered.
With the registration of bots we would know more clearly how to maneuver the shares so as not to lead a large number of investors to dump SPS and cards on the market in order to exit quickly.
We would know how many SPS and SplinterLands assets registered bots have and their real impact on the game economy.
Their willingness to collaborate has already proven true in the prohibition of the modern format, where bots migrated to the wild almost immediately after the proposal was promulgated.
Hello @yabapmatt.sps It's a pleasure to greet you, and I hope that you really get to obtain a consensual solution that satisfies all those who have believed in this great project, and that regardless of whether they are nano or large investors, they feel that they have been valued.
I am against this proposal for multiple reasons, but the most important of all, and it is the only one I want to mention to you at this time, is that this new patch, as well as almost all previous proposals, are an attack on the Splinterlands ecosystem:
The goal is clearly to reduce the number of accounts (players) by imposing more and more obstacles, this time in the form of a fee.
However, you must take into account that in your CEO version of Splinterlands, this type of proposal is extremely harmful and counterproductive, because the objective in any case must be the opposite, and dramatically increase the number of active accounts in Splinterlands. Any type of reduction, no matter how small, is detrimental to the project.
I think you need a fresh perspective and a different way of attacking the problems that have arisen. But, the most important thing I think needs to be ensured is that the people who have invested in Splinterlands, whether it be money, time or emotional attachments, are more than rewarded for that investment. In my opinion, the bots are not the problem, but rather the way Splinterlands' economy is structured. Splinterlands is in need of simple changes that dramatically affect the game's economy.
Perhaps, this post that I published several weeks ago can give you a different perspective on how to deal with all the current problems in Splinterlands.
SPLINTERLANDS IS BROKEN: A SIMPLE PROPOSAL TO FIX EVERYTHING
After reading this post, I immediately switch to Wild because I can get more Glint to update my deck :)
I'm no longer a player at splinterlands, however it does have a special place in my heart as one of the first crypto games I played and enjoyed...
This bot situation has been ongoing for far too long with splinterlands and in all honesty it's easy enough to block these botnets as there's only a few of them (as in bot scripts being used) and there's many options to help block bots, especially today with advancements in machine learning and ai.
So, my day job is front end web developer and many times throughout my day job we are tasked with blocking bots from accessing a website / api. It's really not that difficult to do and even with the most advanced bots you can still block them. Cloudflare even has a membership the splinterlands team could join today and I guarantee the botnets running would be stopped tomorrow... @yabapmatt.sps take a look at https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/bots/what-is-bot-traffic/ and consider buying a plan... it'd be very cost effective and would take a lot of the work out for you. Another good tool to stop bots would be data dome: https://datadome.co/products/bot-protection/ again all managed for you and stops even the most advanced bots.
Here's a few simple methods you can use to block bots, if you don't want to pay for added cloudflare protection:
If anyone from the splinterlands team wants to chat about this then let me know and we'll get this bot problem resolved easy peasey.
@everyone please get this seen by the right people... literally as soon as they buy the bot protection plan the game is saved from bots... and if they don't want to pay for protection then the above list should still be some good basic starting points and I can list more if necessary.
uso bot, mais francamente, suas proposta parecem menos agrssivas e assimilaveis, o quetsante me parece muito custoso
Wild has two values right now, the faction of this solution is that wild is to be devalued and worth less than modern.
The alternative is wild is where legacy and investment should be and a reward for playing the game over longer periods of time like an investor and dedicated player to the game.
Given the current formats of modern and wild. I would prefer wild be treated as a investment and reward for playing the game than a penalty, with a focus on long term growth not short term spurts.
At this point a third format is needed, one for soulbounds and chaos moderns and a classic format for older editions with cards and rewards only earned through natural ownership.
I think this will help the overall game economy but the proposal is a minor inconvenience for me. It's not worth 2000 dec since I only play in wild when I don't want to risk losing my leaderboard position in modern. I could easily go an entire season with no wild battles.
That's the purpose of the proposal :)
2k DEC for a Wild Season Permit will make many players who don't even earn that much stop playing. As a result, they will stop renting SPS and cards, causing the price of cards and SPS to drop. Since many use bots, they probably won't switch to Modern.
The correct approach would be, for example:
Wild Season Bronze Permit: 100 DEC
Wild Season Silver Permit: 250 DEC
Wild Season Gold Permit: 600 DEC
...
And slightly increase the fee for renting cards and SPS. Use the revenue collected from the Season Permits and the extra fee to fund the reward pool for the Wild format. Take the amount that was for the Wild format pool and double the reward pool for the Modern league or not.
Sounds better :)
usually, i do not really spent the time and effort to comment on those proposals, but as this is beyond retarded, i will make an exception this time...
am i the only one realizing that the baseline argument here is just not true for the current state of the game?
the following claim is made, just to make clear what we are all talking about here:
"Bot farms play in Wild and earn rewards indefinitely without needing to ever purchase/rent more cards or otherwise put money into the ecosystem"
how exactly does this work in reality? i mean, if i take into account what can be earned through ranked games currently, there is (almost) no way to earn (or even extract) actual value out of the game; or am i missing something here? sure, there is a sps-reward for ranked wins, but the big chunk of rewards for winning is awarded in glint (which is soulbound and cannot be traded, rented or delegated), which provides the opportunity to either trade them in for card-picks (which are currently also soulbound, cannot be traded, rented out or delegated), loot chests (which may contain either portions, merits, aforementioned soulbound reward cards, extra energy - whoohoo! - or a chance of up to 0,1% chance to get the "jackpot"), purchase the also aforementioned portions, merits or energy-boosts directly or (wait for it...) grab one of the (at the time of writing) slightly more that 500 remaining titles in the glint-shop; those titles currently represent the only really extractable asset that can be earned by playing ranked games besides the miniscule amount of sps per win...
regarding the nubers provided: as one might know, you should not believe in statistics unless you faked them yourself, 20000$ in sps with an "active player base" of 30000 accounts amkes an average "earn per season per account" of 0,67 usd per season - a little over 30 cents per week. i know that is not really "statistics 101", but that's the whole point here.
and the proposed "solution" to the "problem" is to make people pay one dollar a week (yes, with the current price for 1k dec, that is somewhat of a stretch, i know...) to play the game? seriously?
it's like "season pass 2.0": recurring fee, but no skins as a reward; amazing!
if i take another current proposal into account (https://peakd.com/@warrentrx/sps-governance-proposal-ghost-card-liquidity-bots), i am sure this will work out just fiiiiine...
some free advice to close this out: the economocs in the game are not working properly because the ecosystem is flawed - namely, there is leak in the circle of faucets and sinks within splinterlands, because the 2 main currencies (dec and later on, also sps) are not really mandatory bottlenecks anymore. this has not been the case since paypal was introduced as a payment option, ultimately creating "credits" and the ability to purchase the only necessary long-term asset needed to play the game: boosters...
as of now, there is no real reason to keep your dec and sps, as both of them can be easily circumvented with credits. this creates supply (awarding sps for gameplay, the "faucet") without the necessary demand (the requirement to get dec to purchase boosters to keep up with the constant power-progression inherent to trading-card-games) and splinterlands is feeling the "invisible hand" here.
if the ability to buy boosters (and ultimately, cards on the market) with credits is removed from the game (and say "fuck you paypal and your bullshit terms of service), the ecosystem will start to recover, increasing the values of the respective assets and stabilize splinterlands in the long run - but what do i know, right?
p.s.: if you want to protect your crypto from market-volatilty, just get a stablecoin (hbd?) like any other "normal crypto person" would do.
(well, that turned out to be quite a wall of text, after all)
I just wanted to let you know- you're not the only one who "realizes that the baseline argument here is just not true"
The economics in the game are not working properly- because the incentives and the mechanics are flawed. Rewards in staked SPS reduces the "K" value for the system. First by instituting a 4wk waiting period for funds to be 'released', second by forcing players to convert currencies to buy/rent anything in the game. Battle Rewards being awarded 100% based on "# wins" simply incentivizes playing more to win more- bots.
This proposal does nothing but worsen the current situation.
actually happy to hear (read?) that there are more people realizing the shit-talking regarding splinterlands recently; you earned a follower 😜
This Proposal is SO pro-bot, it's actually both pro-bot and anti-player at the same time!
First, the proposal we adjust the SPS staking reward multiplier for Wild format so that the amount of staked SPS at each rating level gives roughly half of the reward multiplier as before. This aims to address the idea that in order to be able to earn rewards in Wild format players need to have a stake in the ecosystem.
By reducing the reward multiplier for staked SPS- we would be increasing the rewards earned by those accounts with little/no staked SPS.
Secondly, the proposal that
playersaccounts be required to purchase a Wild Season Permit in order to be able to play in Wild format at all every ranked play season. This aims to discourage new/casual players from even trying Wild Format at all. We will be able to not only create a barrier for new players trying to play but also discourage casual players from playing at all.Some Numbers
There are currently around 75k unique accounts that battle in Wild format every season, with about 45k of them playing < 50 battles during the season. Instituting the "Wild Season Permit" will immediately stop all 45K of those accounts from playing any games, at all.
Based on the two proposals, you can see how this will drastically increase the profits of the purely economically motivated accounts that currently play in Wild format. By keeping out both new players and casuals, while reducing the effectiveness of staked SPS- the more accounts you have and the more they play, the more you make.
I see a lot of similarities from the Bot License concept I outlined on the Bot License Model from my blog post here.
Main differences:
Matt's estimating 30 Million DEC burn: I think maybe he saw my graphic :D
To Bronze and Silver Players: Share your story here:
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@oaaguy/wanted-non-botting-bronze-and-silver-wild-players
I am finally speaking up. I built a gold deck and enjoyed playing modern. Removing leagues forced me down into silver 3. The rewards were not worth playing the game at this level and frankly I was disgusted that I was thrown under the bus and basically forced out of modern. I had been acquiring rebellion cards, but since I'm now a wild player I stopped and sold any card that wasn't on a battle wagon.
So now I'm going to be punished even further for playing in wild? If this proposal passes and goes into effect I'm leaving the game. I almost left when reward cards became soulbound. I wasn't happy that rebellion packs were not included in reward chests. I was absolutely furious that leagues were dismantled, it felt like a slap in the face. This will be the last straw. Sorry, but I'm angry because I like the game, but if I have to pay to play and stake more sps for less rewards, or fight max decks in modern silver and earn terrible rewards, then I'm done. My 2 cents.
Got your same feelings and idea, will be impossible to rapay the 2000 Dec fee, even if rewards increase, you will have double SPS requirements which means rewards cut half already for an "unknown" supposed increase which is not guaranteed
I'm with you, if this passes, I sell everything and leave the game.
There are plenty of reasons why this proposal would actually hurt the game and real players, while boosting bots even further.
Seems like people who creates the proposals have no clue at all. But w/e, the voting system is the first and most major flaw in the whole game. A handful of whales can just outvote hundred or thousands of playeres.
What we first of need is a voting system based on KYC status, and 1 vote = 1 vote instead of votings based on staked SPS amount.
Can someone explain to me why bots in Wild cannot simply be banned like in Modern?
The dance around bots/alts has been going on for years and does more harm than good.
Occam's razor is needed.
They need to milk players with dumb restrictions every now and then, make game sink
Thats the easiest way, yet noone has balls to do so.
Sad but thats how it is.
I am a fan of simplicity. If the the target is to reduce Botfarms, as that is how I read the post, then we have that solution already in Modern.
Lets just copy that standard and apply to both lanes. We should have same rules across both leagues to promote balance and lower confusion for new players.
Yes, if bots leave we will have less game liquidity short term, but this will also increase rewards and we will find that the rewards available will drive the game to find its own level of sustainable real active player base.
We have been discussing bots for years yet still we live in a cloudy yes they are, no they are not allowed game. Just draw the line and make it clear. No bots.
I would rather have people using their income to buy cards and other assets than league entry fees. Keep it free to play, but make it fair to play.
For transparency, I have 5 accounts. 1 plays Modern, 1 is semi-auto in Wild, the other 3 are dormant. I would be happy to actively play 2 accounts, any more would be, and should be, too much.
Company is just milking players, what you propose is too simple and not money grab for them
A quick catchup here. The problem is that modern is dying - applying the solution in wild will just make the problem in both leagues.
May I Suggest the following alternative @yabapmatt.sps @yabapmatt
WILD FORMAT ONLY should require accounts to have owned and staked SPS (example 5,000 sps per account). In this way we can prevent bot farms to run thousands of accounts with the ability to earn rewards indefinitely and at scale, without ongoing additional investment into the ecosystem (i.e. bot farms in Wild format) causes significant issues for the game. In this way, we can be able to maintain sps to be staked and not flooding in the market.
I WOULD LIKE TO SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING
or
from all those comments I love the idea" to make the WILD format for players who own their cards" If anyone wants to participate in WILD by renting or with delegating cards(and of course the same rules for SPS), he has to pay certain fee. The players have to be incentivized to own their assets in the game!
Well damn, I jumped online this weekend trying to decide how I wanted to split up like $500-$700 between more sps, dec and cards and now I'm wondering if there is a safe & secure way of selling my entire account and just calling it good. I'm not happy with my glint earnings and I'm considering increasing my stake, but if they are about to cut my earnings in half I'm not paying more to get right back where I am right now.
There is no demand for accounts, so good luck selling it. That's the problem. I am furious at the idea of this change passing, I think the rewards I am able to get are already laughably bad without having to pay to play, but I don't want to sell because I'm down like 90% and no one is buying even at those prices. You'd have to undercut that already rock-bottom market to sell anything quickly. I'll hang on for now, I suppose, but I think it's very probable that every day is another missed opportunity to get out with any value at all.
I suppose I should be happy I didn't allocate the money I was going to before seeing this proposal. I would have been really ticked off if I doubled my holdings right before they doubled the requirements. There are a number of wild cards I was eyeballing that seem like great deals to me atm but I can't justify buying them yet/at all till I see if I'll be paying for more than 1-2 seasons to test the changes.
This proposal is set to pass in 3 days and my initial post wasn't actually constructive so let me add my thoughts a bit more for the dev's to add to their data.
For the record I only own 1 account. I have 23k SPS staked. I bought and staked the first 1500 units for a little more than $800 @ just over $0.50 per. Currently that 23k I have built up is 15x my initial buy in years ago now and worth about 1/3 so forgive me if I'm salty for being told I have to buy more. If the price of SPS continues to drop overall for another year or 2, while we wait for the NPE stuff and things like Soulkeep to potentially start to generate more demand for SPS, are wild players going to be told to buy more SPS again?
I do mostly bot run the account in wild diamond/champ. I started botting in wild before bots were outlawed in modern because while most of my deck is CL I do have a few Beta and Untamed era cards as well & some of them where not cheap when I bought them compared to now so I like to use them and prefer wild for more card options. I swapped to botting when the energy system changed. I only have time to play on the weekends. That use to work out ok for me previously since I could play at peak efficiency for the first 2 days then burn out to 0% the last day with the week to refill. Now I'm limited to about 100-125 potential matches a weekend or about 200ish total matches a season out of the 360ish total available without buying more. I averaged over a 50% win rate myself, but the bot at a 50% win rate gets roughly 180 wins a season. That would require me to win 90% of my matches!
Right now I'm making .7 SPS and 185 Glint per win in diamond 1 before gold card bonuses etc. My pure SPS earnings a season don't equal $2 right now even if they didn't come to me staked and I could sell them for the season pass. If they double the staking requirements I'm down to less than a dollar a season in SPS and less than 100 Glint a win. I'm not happy with my earnings as they are and I do want to grab some more wild cards while they are so cheap, but there just isn't any point buying more SPS or cards if the game costs me more to play it each season than I make or could potentially make by spending what I can afford. I could put that same moneys into Rebellion cards and play modern but I'd still be making less than I am now since I just don't have the play time. For me this is a lose-lose situation.
This is yet another proposal that, if passed, will only result in another small portion of players quitting the game while also failing to add any new players. It has been going on long enough now, with no one in the meaningful positions of power/influence seeming to care, that I am beginning to have almost no hope anything will ever get better.
If you want not will not play, you can do kYC for wild players for splinterlands.
Why not just ban bots in Wild? Why impose a tax on players that want to use all of the card sets they purchased?
I can't believe this game killer is going to pass. Really. Why?
Whales are gonna make it happen to kill small players and get more SPS, they will be happy to have more worthless token in a dead game after
Spliterlands debe de tener jugadores activos! Los BOT solo generan recursos pasivamente. Mientra menos bot alla en Spliterlands sera un juego mas visual donde realmente haya una compentencia, y no simplemente miles de usuarios fantasmas que no generan nada a la economia. Es hora de darle un gran valor al token de gobernancia SPS, al precio que tiene al dia de hoy de tan solo 0.0122 es insignificante el duplicado para optener recompensas, a los que realmente combiene que el SPS este asi de bajo son aquellos usuarios que tiene miles y miles de cuentas bot, ya que pueden quedarse con la mayoria de recompensa con un costo minimo!!! BASTA YA!!
In my opinion, there are much smarter ways to combat bots.
You guys are much smarter than me.
Create some type of artificial intelligence to combat this. Have it adapt constantly to make their lives miserable.
But please don't make the lives miserable for the players that have been here the longest and like to play in wild format. We are the senior players. We have seen the investment in older cards go nothing but down. We know the new cards will have the same thing happen to them over time, so why on earth would we want to buy new packs of cards?
Fix the botting problem, eliminate the modern league experiment all together. Encourage people to buy and collect cards for the long term. Cards should gain value over time due to them being rarer and rarer.
I get new packs need to be sold, but there has to be a way to reward players to want to buy and collect cards.
thanks for your time.
Thank you for participating in SPS DAO Governance @yabapmatt.sps!
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Link to this Pre-Proposal
Updated At: 2024-05-29 14:11 UTC
Thanks for sharing! - @clove71
What is the purpose in increasing the SPS staking requirements other than just making Wild feel bad? The multiplier doesn't matter if everyone's is cut in half at the same time. I guess it helps those few whales who had so much SPS that they had diminishing returns? Is there anything more to this than a gift to the SPS millionaires?
While the whole "reduce bot farms"-initiative might be of value, I don't think that the current proposals really get to the point. I myself play wild because I find it more interesting to have a wider range of cards and apply a variety of strategies - but I have silver-level cards, and I'm not playing for money but for fun. I bought several sought out wild cards, as well for the brawls. In order to get at least some of the soulbounds and rewards, I recently had to buy more SPS again, for the third time, and I'm getting tired of having to do so. When I don't have time to play, I use a bot to do it for me. This as context.
Until now, I really haven't seen a proposal that could solve the bot farm problem without crippling the "just for fun" players. Everything that was done since I started took the fun out of the game step by step, at least for me. I took many breaks from playing because it became so hard to play without spending (and yes, in the direction the game is taking it's spending and not investing) a lot of money, and more money every time. I finally did so to build a deck and it's a lot more fun now, but it was expensive - if I was a new player, I'd never do that. And I guess a lot newbies see it that way, since there aren't many :-D
It is already a very hard game for newbies. Every pay wall and CP wall and whatever wall implemented will make it hard for new players. I don't think that creating an elite playground for older players is the solution, either. In my eyes, the strenght of Splinterlands is the diversity in the cards existing, and the many strategies that are possible when being able to use all the cards. Recently, the changes made seem to be made mainly to correct negative effects of changes previously made - the Meta Inc. principle, just pump out a new update, and if there's a bug, fix that bug with a new update that will have more bugs that will be fixed and so on - but never re-evaluate, never roll back.
So, my suggestion is - re-evaluate the changes made, see what worked out and what didn't, what helped against botfarms and what pushed them. It's not a bad thing to take a step back if something isn't working out, and it's usually better than just pressing forward with brute force.
thanks so much for putting up this new proposal. it sounds very good to me and will have my vote. just a few things:
"permit" sounds beaurocratic and exclusive. maybe the good old "season pass" is better and a more familar term?
players will want to test the wild format to see how competitive their decks are. requiring a payment for this purpose might be concieved as an unaccepptable hurdle by some. instead of excluding non "permit" owners from performing battles it might be better just to exclude them from earning any kind of rewards while still allowing to play?
conditions do change. the proposal text should reflect this. instead of "I propose that the permit will cost 2000 DEC/DEC-B or 40 VOUCHER tokens..." i suggest:"I propose that the permit will cost a certain amount of DEC/DEC-B or VOUCHER tokens starting with 2000 DEC/DEC -B or 40 VOUCHER tokens...".