Splinterlands | Solving the Choas Legion Expansion Trilemma!
These new card packs bring somewhat of a trilemma that is quite difficult to solve and I guess the reason why there are no details yet is because no optimal solution has been found yet. The 3 main requirements this next expansion needs to have are:
1. Scarcity
Each new set of card packs (each pack includes 5 cards) so far has seen an increase in the number of total packs indirectly based on the number of players that are in the game. The Alpha Set had 300k Packs / Beta 900k Packs / Untamed 1.5M Packs. For each of these cards sets, the number of cards that needed to be combined to reach higher levels also increased.
Basically, they can't print too many new cards packs since the scarcity factor of cards in the game needs to be maintained in order to keep up the value. The gap between level 1 cards and level 2 cards also already is massive needing to combine 5 cards to get it to level 2 giving it better stats.
2. Affordable Entry
The idea behind packs is that they provide an affordable entry for new players who want to buy some cards to start building their collection. The advantage of packs in the past always has been that you had a gambler's chance to hit something really good while the overall expectation of value from packs based on prices on the market was negative (otherwise you could just buy packs and instantly sell for a profit).
Right now for new players to build their own collection, it quickly becomes very expensive since demand is high while supply is low because existing players aren't selling since they are getting the generous SPS airdrop and they need their cards who all have their use in the game.
3. SPS Use-Case
One of the main differences between Chaos Legion and the previous Card sets is that there now is the SPS Token that needs to be given a proper use-case. I personally see SPS as a brilliant way to get eyes on Splinterlands in the general crypto Space in the short run which worked better than expected. In essence (as long as there is no direct profit share paid to SPS holders), everything works and could be done without the SPS Token though making it so that they need to force a proper use-case onto it so players want to actually buy and hold it keeping up the price.
From what it looks like right now, x amount of SPS stakes will allow players to get in on the pre-sale of Chaos Legion. Chaos Legion worked in a way where once x amount of packs were sold, an airdrop was done as a lottery with everyone that bought packs being in it giving those that were in from the start more of these airdrops to possibly get cards from.
The Chaos Legion Trilemma
So all 3 requirements of Scarcity, being an affordable entry, & SPS getting a proper use-case need to be fulfilled which is rather hard as each one comes at the cost of the other.
- Print too many cards creating an affordable entry and you screw up the scarcity possibly making the prices cards go for collapse completely while reducing the use-case of SPS.
- Make card Packs more scarce and they most likely will all be bought up quickly all at once by some whales after the pre-sale is over which only temporarily gave SPS a bigger use-case.
Possible Solution
So in the best-case scenario, packs and cards remain relatively scarce but still affordable and they also give SPS a use-case.
I don't think the old model of doing a pre-sale giving buyers the advantage of getting all the airdrop cards moving forward will work as it would create a pump&dump for SPS before and after the sale is over with an option for whales to buy all packs at once and less scarcity because many airdrop cards will get printed.
Instead what could be done to meet all 3 Factors:
- Drop the entire airdrop model, the reason it was put in place was to give players an incentive to buy packs in a time ware Supply > Demand which now has flipped. These airdrops also created some of the most overpowered cards (Yodin Zaku (600$+)/ Scarred Llama Mage (700$+) that are just not fun to play against.)
- Spread the supply of packs equally over 12 months so they are sure to enter in circulation gradually while whales aren't able to buy all of them at once. Possibly even burn the packs that aren't bought each month which makes the supply flexible based on supply and demand.
- Only allow players that have SPS staked to buy packs depending on how much SPS they have staked. Something like the Quest potion which instead of loot chests releases one or multiple card packs each day/week in a way that is affordable for new players also requiring them to have some SPS Staked.
- Create an in-game secondary market for packs where they can be sold to new players who don't have SPS staked likely at a small premium allowing those with SPS to flip with a small profit.
- Add time bonus benefits like a small discount for SPS that remains staked so there is an incentive for players to keep it staked for many years. Right now it feels like a setup where you can load up on SPS, get some advantages, and dump it all again.
- Keep Chaos Legion Packs on the side to be given out with a similar ~1% chance to get them from Loot Chests.
This is only a rough idea based on a quick brainstorm but it would give SPS a great use-case holding the price up, keep the cards scarce enough based on supply and demand while allowing all new players to get an affordable entry in the next 12 months. I would allow holders of SPS to pretty much mint the Chaos Legion Packs in a similar way how Land Owners will be able to mint Potions and Spells next year on the Land Expansion.
Regardless of what happens, I'm quite confident that the devs will figure out a good solution which they have nearly always done so far bringing the game to where it is today. I am looking forward to getting to know all the exact details and I will likely break them down sharing my view and the numbers once they are released...
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Like always a well thought-through analysis. The time-lock paired with SPS for packs was suggested by others as well. I am excited to see what they are ending up with doing.
Thanks!
I can't see an outcome without some kind of time-lock where either all packs will be bought up by whales or the market crashes because supply is bigger than demand also making SPS in a pump&dump.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out the coming months. I'm patiently waiting for all the details about Chaos Legion and am preparing to get in to finally use al the potions I collected from the rewards these past years.
Great article. I love thinking about this stuff too.
I was thinking they could do some type of a price swell as a person buys more packs. Start cheap and then build but then the problem of multiple accounts kicks in.
Personally, I don't think a big increase in the number of packs will be a problem as we literally have 9x the active players right now than 30 days ago and that could easily 10x again in the next year. I think they should take the burn value/power rating down by an equal amount though. If there are 5x more cards than untamed, the burn values need to drop to 2 for the average card and go up from there. If they stay at 10, problems will arise.
Multiple accounts always is a big factor that needs to be taken into consideration. SPS in that regard comes in as a great tool. It is really hard to put an exact number on the packs that should be printed and I like the idea of just having a variable supply based on supply and demand each month over the course of a year with packs that aren't sold being burned. The problem with DEC and the burn value is that there will be a crash at some point as everyone is just holding right now because of the SPS airdrop. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
It's quite a difficult math problem to get it all right which is probably why it's taking so long.
İ can't make a personal opinion about this as i am not that experienced, but for sure they should try one of your solutions up there. Dropping the whole model is perfect, it is even better if they followed a rule like this : every player can buy X packs per week depending on how much sps he had staked before, the unbought packs will be burnt.
At least it is a little fair
nice
It's an interesting dilemma - one other factor is land staking - that could be used to maintain the value of currently existing cards - only make some cards in the new packs able to stake to land along with all of the current ones, so you have more selective use-cases.
I like the idea of time-release and the selective burn is a great idea too.
I'm expecting 10 million minimum this time around. Maybe even more, what with land around the corner.
Such a delicate balancing act.
I also agree it is time to stop giving so many benefits to the whales - time to focus more on the game experience for everyone, that requires making the pre-sale NOT that appealing.
Maybe just titles and skins as perks this time around?!?
Thanks for sharing! - @ashikstd
Well thought.
giving access based on SPS stacked can also benefit only the bigt whales, i believe.
I think these are some great ideas, possible solutions to the trilemma! Thanks for this.
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Amazing post! I also see the release of chaos Legion as a kind process that could lead to a domino effect affecting the whole economy of Splinterlands. There are some good ideas that you pointed out. I believe that the release of chaos legion would also have a direct effect on the daily airdrop because all of a sudden there would be much more overall cards and the return per card point would drop sensibly. The challenge will be to be able to provide a cheap entry point for new users and at the same time not make prices collapse. I believe it would pass over a drip sale of packs as you proposed.
The number of packs that can be pre-purchased should not be scaled linearly based on SPS. I am thinking something like Number of packs = square root of SPS would be nice, so that you only need <10 to get a few packs, and those with thousands of SPS get more, but not 1000x more. Of course, then you need to deal w/ the multi-account problem.
Also, I am hoping they print an absolute ton of packs, so that the newbies can get playable cards for a reasonable price. 1.5mm at least. To avoid degrading value of the existing cards too much, the new cards should be slightly less powerful, or have some other disadvantage. Perhaps consumables from land could be used to boost them to the same power level as the existing cards, whereas existing cards don't need to use the consumables, or need fewer of them. Another idea could be having the new set of cards only be useable a certain number of times/day before becoming "exhausted" (which could also be cured w/ land consumables).
These are some sweet dilemmas when demand is high. Let's see how will it turn out.
Thank you for the infor sir. Keep grinding!