Splinterlands: To Max or Not To Max?

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(Edited)

Some players complain that there aren't sufficient incentives to max their cards and that there is a better ROI by keeping cards at lower levels.

Some players complain that the Splinterlands game economy is too top heavy and that the rewards are already too concentrated towards Diamond and Champion league.

Many of these issues have come to the forefront again with the latest SPS Proposal:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-split-ranked-battle-reward-pools-by-league

So this post is meant to do some analysis, as well as to provide some historical context for those who have not been following the changes over the years.

#1. It is true that in the original Alpha and Beta sets, the benefit to leveling up to max level was limited for some monsters who only got a single stat point.

Max Skeleton Assassin.png

Is it worth buying an extra 200 BCX (an additional 65.57% compared to the 305 BCX needed for Level 9) just to get +1 Speed?

#2. However, starting with the Untamed set (officially released November 30th, 2019), the cards were intentionally designed so that most monsters got a significantly powerful ability or stat increase at max level (instead of something minor like the +1 speed from the above Skeleton Assassin). As a result, a Level 10 monster was significantly better than a Level 9 version. This design principle has carried on even today, into Chaos Legion and Riftwatchers.

Max Shieldbearer.png

Max Khmer Princess.png

Those max level abilities turn a solid card into an amazing card!

#3. Another change that came with the Untamed set was a readjustment of the BCX required to level up cards, which largely benefited max level players and forced Bronze, Silver, and Gold league players to acquire a lot more cards. From Beta to Untamed (Chaos Legion uses the same BCX requirements as Untamed), the number of BCX to max Rare, Epic, and Legendary cards remained the same while the number of BCX cards to get Level 9 and Level 10 Commons actually decreased.

Meanwhile, for every Common level from 2 through 8 (including Bronze, Silver, and Gold league), the number of BCX required increased. For every Rare level from 2 through 7, the number of BCX required increased. For every Epic level from 2 through 5, the number of BCX required increased. And for Level 3 Legendaries (Gold league), the number of BCX required increased (it remained the same for Bronze and Silver league).

Thus max level players had a slight benefit (fewer cards needed to max their common cards) while Bronze, Silver, and Gold league players all had to acquire significantly more cards to level up.

Beta vs Untamed.png

#4. Originally, turn order in battle was determined by Speed and then Attack Type. Otherwise it would be random. So in a battle between a Level 9 Flesh Golem and a Level 10 Flesh Golem (both of who have 3 Speed), it would be random which monster would attack first.

On May 11th, 2020, there was a change to the attack order which added rarity and level as additional tie breakers:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/announcing-anytime-tournaments

So now the Level 10 Flesh Golem would always go before the Level 9 Flesh Golem under normal circumstances. Not only did max level monsters have a power boost (due to the design change starting with the Untamed set) but now there was a slight turn order advantage to leveling up your monsters.

#5. Early on, one benefit was that max level cards are worth an additional 5% if you burn them. That might have been occasionally useful for those who regularly burned cards but it wasn't so helpful to players who actually played and used those max level cards, at least until Collection Power was introduced.

Collection Power was announced in June 2020:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/splinterlands-league-updates

Phase 1 simply calculated Collection Power:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/splinterlands-updates-lzmlre-dice-and-more

while Phase 2, which required Collection Power thresholds for ranked leagues, was implemented in September 2020:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/new-reward-cards-and-collection-power-update

#6. In July 2021, the SPS airdrop started:

https://hive.blog/splinterlands/@splinterlands/splintershards-token-and-airdrop-launch-announcement

Airdrop points were based on a variety of factors, including collection power value (another use case for the 5% bonus for max level cards) and also Champion points (which also favored max level players).

#7. In October 2021, the Ranked rewards system was changed so that instead of being based on the SQUARE of your rating, it was now based on the CUBE of your rating:

https://hive.blog/splinterlands/@splinterlands/splinterlands-updates-october-2021

Max level (Diamond and Champion league) obviously benefited the most from this since they can more easily reach much higher ratings.

#8. And now we have the latest SPS Proposal:

https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-split-ranked-battle-reward-pools-by-league

While the numbers are not set in stone, it does allocate 25% to Diamond league and 30% to Champion league, so 55% overall is intended for max level.


It is understandable if Splinterlands wants to encourage players to level up their cards. It's just that people often forget all of the many incremental changes that have previously been adopted over the years.

Other advantages of max level cards:

  • You can play in lower leagues and lower league tournaments (though some lower league Splinterlands official tournaments have higher entry fees for higher league accounts).

  • In official Splinterlands tournaments, prizes/payouts are proportional to the collection power requirements. So higher league tournaments have much larger prizes.

  • At some points in time, there have been separate Diamond and Champion level tournaments, essentially allowing max level players to "double-dip" by having twice the number of available events. Right now, Splinterlands official tournaments only have a single category for max level tournaments (instead of two). Some sponsored tournament series (like the Brave tournaments back in March 2021) had separate Diamond and Champion events so that max level players had a tournament every week (one week Diamond, the next week Champion) while the Novice, Bronze, Silver, and Gold players only got one tournament every 2-3 weeks.

  • Many sponsored tournaments by third parties are disproportionately max level events.

As for the disadvantages for max level cards:

  • Investment cost is obviously the biggest hurdle. You need a lot more resources to be able to afford all of the BCX. For rarer cards, there may also be a limited supply on the market so it may get increasingly expensive with each additional copy that you buy.

  • When it comes to selling or renting your max level cards, there is a much smaller market since fewer people have the resources to be able to afford max level cards. As a result, it is harder to move the cards and it may take a longer time to sell them.

  • A lot of sellers and rental barons also find that they have to take a haircut (i.e. offer a discount) in order to sell or rent out their max level cards. As a result, the ROI per BCX is lower.

  • Renters have to carefully compare their costs versus their rewards to make sure they aren't losing money during a given season or for a given tournament. There is greater variability and risk for renters playing in higher leagues.


Did I miss anything? Feel free to post any additional advantages or disadvantages to max level cards!



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Added this to the list (inserted as #3). I thought of it while working on my next blog post - I had almost forgotten about this change:

Another change that came with the Untamed set was a readjustment of the BCX required to level up cards, which largely benefited max level players and forced Bronze, Silver, and Gold league players to acquire a lot more cards. From Beta to Untamed (Chaos Legion uses the same BCX requirements as Untamed), the number of BCX to max Rare, Epic, and Legendary cards remained the same while the number of BCX cards to get Level 9 and Level 10 Commons actually decreased.

Meanwhile, for every Common level from 2 through 8 (including Bronze, Silver, and Gold league), the number of BCX required increased. For every Rare level from 2 through 7, the number of BCX required increased. For every Epic level from 2 through 5, the number of BCX required increased. And for Level 3 Legendaries (Gold league), the number of BCX required increased (it remained the same for Bronze and Silver league).

Thus max level players had a slight benefit (fewer cards needed to max their common cards) while Bronze, Silver, and Gold league players all had to acquire significantly more cards to level up.

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(Edited)

TL:DR (Miss mystery potions, separate wild and modern ECR rates) Laugh at the end (from an old comment from 4 years ago)

Good post Byzantinist usually don't comment however you are right being an old hand as well we have been always been moving towards a pay-to-win and it has always been that way though and part of the reason we lose some of the community is we nerf stuff.

Even before airdrop around the steemit debates vs hive debates for splinterlands
The UI we used and even now in the present.

It's a lot more obvious to see stagnation in a bear market that said at least we are still alive unlike some other projects like Axie where inflation caused a collapse.

Like everyone else prices collapsed but the mechanisms we use to generate value are growing, casino, tower defense game, deleting sps through riftwatchers. A lot of potential is still being created even in crypto winter.

As it is right now the structure is disincentivizing to organic growth as it's tailoring to automation the real smoking gun is the development of an ecosystem that promotes growth and limits not stops bots who do provide cheap cards and liquidity.

Not an easy solution, another new factor that didn't help newbies was the starter card deduction after buying a spellbook they used to get credits not sure now the capture rate also limits their speed of rising as it is also harder to climb in the lower leagues as well.

This is where there is a fixed advantage to starting from a higher league is favorable to high rankers as it was not as big a deal before we changed the capture rates

However, a noticeable side effect of the 50% Capture rate is that it's harder to maintain higher tiers in modern and wild at the same time as people are forced into 1 or the other unless they want to nerf their own capture rate to balance them out.

Basically having 1/4 the Capture rate to balance two leagues with a strong disincentive to switch over for higher ranked players due to reward differences.

This sort of splits the pool in two, almost would rather have wild and modern each having a capture rate to balance out.

Classics :)
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@steemmonsters/rating-reset-adjustments-for-season-9

Historically we did do things to limit champions then reverted back
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/rb4jr-splinterlands-updates

Or change quest rewards
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/update-on-the-last-update

Or the old treasure chest and dailys system vs focus
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@steemmonsters/season-6-updates-and-balance-changes

That said we did make some things easier lol Diamond Hell
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@steemmonsters/upcoming-matchmaking-changes

Trip down memory lane I miss mystery potions finish a quest get a mystery 5 card reward, almost want to bring those back.
https://steemit.com/splinterlands/@steemmonsters/potion-quest-and-active-splinter-updates

Just for a good laugh at least we do appreciate in value
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@simplymike/re-steemmonsters-season-6-updates-and-balance-changes-20190112t145540539z#@simplymike/re-steemmonsters-season-6-updates-and-balance-changes-20190112t145540539z

2018
I assume you've taken gold cards into consideration when you calculated prices? Because a set of 5 reward cards with 2 vampires ($0.03) a genie ($0.02), a wood nymph ($0.07) and a Naga fire wizard ($0.11) is only worth $0.26... The chances of pulling an epic or legendary card are very low, definitely now all the new cards have come into play. Or maybe I'm just reading your stats wrong. In that case, would you mind explaining?

Vampire now .33 cents
Genie now .55 cents
Wood nymph 1.58
Naga Fire 1.53

Always nice to know that the reward cards will appreciate just give it time so even the newbies need to remember their is value to look forward to

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