Splinterlands | Improving Daily Quest Dynamics

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While things are going great for Splinterlands and everyone is making great returns because a lot of new players came into the system, it does still have some major flaws still that could be improved. One of them is the daily quest system.


One of the weak points of the entire play2earn concept is that creating a healthy economy pretty much always will come at the cost of gameplay and fun. While the part where you have to collect cards and optimize your way of going about it in Splinterlands is really fun, playing the game most of the time feels like an obligatory daily grind just to complete the daily quests and get the rewards while playing some extra matches not to leave my capture rate at 100%. I personally don't join tournaments because of the extreme pay2win they have. All the game design feels like it's focused first with the economic aspect in mind.


Purpose of The Daily Quests

So there are some reasons why the Daily Quests are in place and none of them really have anything to do with fun or gameplay and I would argue they make the game much less of a fun experience.

  • Building Activity: As a game, you want to have a lot of games being played daily both to show that people are playing it and to give everyone an opponent to play against at any given time. The daily quest facilitates this as players who want the Reward Chests need to put in at least a certain number of matches each and every day which otherwise would be returns they miss out on.

  • Collection Balancing Incentives: The game doesn't want players to buy just 1 strong splinter or deck and play that all the time allowing them to climb the ranks. The daily Quest system counters that because when you are used to playing games with one strong deck having reached a higher league and you get stuck with a Quest having to win 5 games with a much weaker deck at that point against much stronger opponents it's just a crazy frustrating experience.

  • Reducing Outgoing Rewards: If there was no obligatory daily quest system and everyone could just get daily reward chests based on how high they are in the rankings, a lot more players would get these rewards making them unsustainable.

While I get that the daily quests are there in their current form, at the same time it makes the game so much less enjoyable to play as you basically want to get over with the quest each day as quickly as possible. Even if you have a balanced collection you tend to force the quest onto the rules playing sub-optimally.


Potential Changes for Improved dynamics

1.) New Type Of Quests

3 Daily Quests I can think of that will allow players to play more optimally instead of forcing the quest upon the rules are...

  • Win 3 Matches in a Row: it basically incentivizes to have a balanced collection as it's hard to win 3 games in a row with just 1 specific formation.
  • Win 4 Matches with different Splinters: this one will be harder to complete for those that aim to rent for a day but again incentivizes having a wide collection and it can easily be completed just playing optimally as if there is no quest to complete.
  • Gain 100 Ranking Points: Whenever this quest is generated, the player needs to reach a point where they increase their rating in ranked games by 100 points which gives a nice incentive also to play optimally

All 3 of these quests I personally would enjoy a lot more compared to the 'win 5 games with this splinter'

2.) Burn DEC for Different Quest

Right now you get 1 opportunity for another quest if the original quest is one you don't really like. Why not add a system where you need to burn some DEC in order to get another quest in a way where the required burn amount increases each time. This allows those who get a quest They don't like to get another one while it adds another Burn Mechanism. 10 DEC for the first quest switch, 20 DEC for the 2nd, 40 DEC for the 3rd, 80 for the 4th, ... Maybe the amount can be different for each league as it will be too expensive for lower-ranked players and too cheap for High ranked players.

3.) Account balance bonus System

Since one of the reasons the daily quests are in place is to incentivize players to have a more complete balanced collection, why not make the quests easier or give some kind of bonus to players that actually do have this regardless the level of cards they have. The game makes it too tempting just to get 1 strong summoner which also makes for a frustrating experience both for those that play it and are not able to use that specific splinter while opponents that get matches with players that are unable to put a competitive deck also don't really have fun even though they take an easy win without competition.

4.) Dynamic Game Rules Based on The Dominating Meta

There are certain decks that are highly overpowered (like Magic Water at lower levels now). Why not have some kind of AI track the win rates and give a higher chance of game rules to pop up that somewhat counter these overpowered decks to balance things out. Even though it doesn't have much to do directly with the daily quests, it could give more incentive for players to have a balanced collection


Conclusion

I think most would agree that the current setup of the Daily Quests in Splinterlands most of the time just add a lot of frustration to players and something should be done to improve them in a way where they still fully serve their purpose. The game would be so much more enjoyable if having a balanced collection while playing optimally all the time just completes the daily quest by themselves without being required to jump through all kinds of hoops forcing cards and specific summoners upon game rules that aren't designed for them. Adding a couple different quest types or a way to get another quest by burning some DEC would already do a lot. Getting a full redesign of the system with some more original improved ways would also be nice.

As for now, Playing Splinterlands and completing the Daily Quest remains somewhat an obligatory grind each day just to get the rewards instead of a game that is addictive and highly enjoyable with the rewards as a nice bonus.


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7 comments
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I really like the suggestion for more quests, as I feel they are a little limited at lower ranks.
And of course, insanely thorough and articulated as usual. Well done.

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Great post @costanza! While I was reading your article, I even thought that there's a lot of potential with the lore built around the game. I used to play an open source MMO in the old days, and the quests were pretty fun because they are many to choose from, if you are a grind-oriented player. As this game is a a grinding one, it could be a great idea to do something around a character or a story and win something according to it. I'm not saying to win a summoner or something spectacular like that. But something special. For example, if you complete 100 quests, you could win a badge or something similar. Thank you for sharing it!

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Personally, I don't care so much about lore honestly. I do like the idea of having some kind of longer-term goal to aim for that have some rewards linked to it and the 100 Quest complete example is a good one. Right now there are little to no progress bars to complete in the game and I made suggestions on this in the past.

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İ think there is some sort of dynamic game rules or it's just me who is cursed... Like yesterday i had death quest so i rented 4 legendary cards just to make it easier, and when i started my battles they was all "only common and rare", i mean what an annoying coincidence.

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It might be the case but I haven't noticed it specifically, making the game more fun is a real challenge and I honestly feel that the devs are completely neglecting it now. Completing the daily quest should be possible by just playing optimally based on the game rules all the time instead of having to bend your way. Slight adjustments already would make a difference but it's always going to be hard to combine fun with play2earn.

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I really like the suggestions here!

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