What To DO About Bots: A Possible Solution

avatar

Screen Shot 20220420 at 12.29.26 AM.png

I just listened to the latest AMA. @yabapmatt was on talking about the Splinterlands economy and the validator licenses.

One of the things that was talked about was the new rewards system roll out.

If you've been here a few months you know that the last time he adjusted the rewards systems it was to eliminate DEC rewards from bronze. This almost single handedly destroyed the upward trajectory of the game.

The reason it was done was because bots had figured out how to use the free ghost cards to farm the game of dec rewards and chests. The idea they had then was bots aren't a problem but the fact that they weren't spending money in the economy beyond the spell book, which went straight to the company as opposed to the economy, was a problem.

Removing DEC rewards and lowering instances in cards from chests in lower leagues was to force bots and players to have higher CP in order to get rewards. Since free ghost cards don't give CP, this guaranteed some level of card ownership or regular card rentals in order to farm the game.

Well, now they are recognizing that they destroyed the value in the game by doing that and they want to re-spark it by giving bronze rewards again and even upping the rewards throughout the game.

This time they've decided to give the use of free cards a penalty in both dec rewards and chest rewards. As long as you use owned or rented cards, you get more credit and that leads to more rewards.

There is a lot that is smart about this new set up. With their seeming need to just keep printing more cards, it makes no sense to have free cards anymore at all. But they decided getting rid of them will deter new players and they've learned their lesson about deterring new players.

I could think of better ways to do this that add more value to the game but removing rewards for using these free cards is probably easier to implement and it's good enough to cause some positive change in the game for now.

But will it fix the game?

No.

It won't fix the game because they are still operating on the idea that the problem with bots is that they don't invest enough.

That is not the problem with bots.

The problems with bots is that their whole purpose in existing is to farm the game for rewards more efficiently than humans can.

Yabapmatt said in the most recent AMA that as long as the bots are investing some in buying or renting cards, it's great to have bots because they are adding value by spending money.

But that makes it sound like bots are a net positive to the economy. That they add more money to the economy and therefore we should get more of them.

And he'd be absolutely right. If bots were coming in and just spending a bunch of money into the economy and taking out less than they spend, we should have all the bots in the world. Let them come in and make us all rich!

But that's not what bots do. Bots are only here as long at they can pull more out of the economy than they have to put in. A successful bot is ALWAYS a net negative in terms of economic value because their whole purpose is to syphon off whatever they can.

If a bot has to put in $10 to take out $10.01, they will do it every time.

And if they can't pull out an extra little on their investment, its because they've already depleted the game to nothing and it's time to move on and vacuum up the value in a different game. They don't care which game or thing is next. As long as what they pull out can be sold for a predictable profit reliably, it's good enough.

See, the argument against "bots drain the economy" is that people are also in it for the profit. People want to pull out of the game more than they put in just like bots do so it's not different.

And this is very true that people are trying to profit. But people aren't just calculated profit/value sucks.

People are passionate and irrational and inefficient. People collect cards because we love them. We play the game because we enjoy it. We'll spend too much on a card just for bragging rights when we beat our buddies with it. We bring our social networks and create conversation and community which make us want to invest even more.

Community adds to demand and creates more value than it takes out. People allow for more interest in new assets and game plays. Bots don't care about anything but the math and predictable and repeatable profit.

Bots farm. They will farm the slimmest of margins because they can replicate their efforts and work around the clock at peak efficiency.

Bots do use assets but they have also been the primary reason the Devs have had to continue creating so many more assets. DO you think the new rewards cards would have needed millions of copies if bots weren't farming them at such a high rate?

The economy and card mints have now been built around these bot farms and to remove them would collapse everything instantaneously. There are simply too many cards on the market for them to be absorbed and used by people. Quite frankly there's too much out there to even be used by the bots that are currently out there.

So getting rid of the bots at this point is not an option if we don't want to see the game go to zero overnight. At the same time, bots are only going to keep farming this game down until the soil no longer grows anything and it just more slowly goes to zero.

So what's the answer?

Here's what I'm thinking.

No New Bots

We can't get rid of the bots but that doesn't mean we need to bring in more.

Step 1: Ban all new bots. The bots that are here are grandfathered in. They didn't break any rules by entering and they bought the spell book. Plus right now they are holding the economy up from complete collapse so the ones that are here stay.

Step 2: There's a one month period for all bot accounts to register themselves. THere's no need to identify anyone. Just if a bot is running on the account, it needs to mark that it's a bot.

Step 3: The team mints each bot account an NFT license that is owned and able to be sold in the market. These are given out to the bot owners for free and they allow the account holding the NFT to run a bot.

Step 4: The NFT license is free but to activate it requires the account to stake an amount of Dec or CP. While staked, it cannot be used. The amount of the stake required is small but goes up over time at the rate consistent with the asset growth in the game. The amount of the increase, if any, could also be voted on by the DAO periodically.

Step 5: If the NFT owner decides they don't want to run a bot anymore, they can sell the NFT to another buyer who will have the same staking requirements but will also have to pay an amount of SPS to the DAO or burn some DEC/cards in order to activate the NFT so they can run the bot.

Step 6: Any account caught running a bot without an active NFT is immediately banned and will have to buy a new spell book in dec to be reinstated. DEC for reinstates will be burned.

The goal is over time for players to keep coming in and changing the player:bot ratio. As more players come in and bring actual value, they will eventually outnumber the bots. At this rate that would probably take years but just knowing no new bots would be coming in would probably speed that process up as asset values would begin to rise because almost everyone would see it as a positive for the future of Splinterlands.

And as we know, rising asset prices bring in new interest.

Hey, if any of you who know @yabapmatt and you think this is a good idea, bring it up to him. Take credit for the idea if you want. I don't care. Let's just get this game going in the right direction because I'm tired of seeing my assets drop by $1000 dollars per week while I rent them out for $20 per day to bots who were smart enough not to buy.

Screen Shot 20220420 at 12.13.22 AM.png

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta



0
0
0.000
32 comments
avatar

Licensed bots... i think this is interesting.
This could also prevent bots playing each other.

Posted using Splintertalk

0
0
0.000
avatar

Good point. I didn't even consider the bot against bot farming that could be better controlled.

!PGM
!LOLZ

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

Sent 0.1 PGM/LVL/1 STARBITS tokens to @imno, @groentje

remaining commands 2

Buy and stake 10 PGM token to send 0.1 PGM per day,
100 PGM token to send 0.1 PGM three times per day
500 to send and receive 0.1 PGM five times per day
1000 to send and receive 0.1 PGM ten times per day

image.png
Discord image.png

Support the curation account @ pgm-curator with a delegation 10 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP - 500 HP - 1000 HP

Get votes from @ pgm-curator by paying in PGM, here is a guide

Create a HIVE account with PGM from our discord server, here is a guide

I'm a bot, if you want a hand ask @ zottone444

0
0
0.000
avatar

That is an interesting idea but I don't really think it will happen. At least from my view, I think the match making process would be a lot more difficult without bots so the team would have to create something to replace it as well.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

That's one of the reasons I said they shouldn't get rid of bots. Bots currently serve two roles. They create quick match pairs and they soak up some of the card inventory.

No need to replace them if you don't get rid of them. You know? !LOLZ

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

0
0
0.000
avatar

I agree with your analysis - you go to the point: bots cannot bring more value to the economy than they put into it, because that's basically not their purpose. If they are loss making, their owners will stop using them. The maximum they do is to redistribute income generated (to big owners, maybe?). Anyway, licensing bots is an interesting option to address the issue. The fundamental thing is to attract real players, and that means improving their experience when they start playing (which is frustrated by playing strong bots). Let's see how things will unfold with those changes...

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

I've heard so many novice players say now that they can't win against the bots. It really is a big problem. I used to play in gold but I stopped playing for the past few seasons so I'm back in Novice.

A coupled ays ago I decided I'd make a run for silver so I grabbed a few of my legendary and epic cards and made a go of it.

I've probably played 35 games. One person played a chicken against me. Literally every other card played against me has been either freely available as a ghost card or is a current rewards card. Nothing above lvl 1 and not a single epic or legendary card. Of my last 20 matches, I've lost 10 of them.

I feel for all these new players right now trying to make a go of it.

!LOLZ
!PGM

0
0
0.000
avatar

Sent 0.1 PGM/LVL/1 STARBITS tokens to @imno, @lordflu

remaining commands 8

Buy and stake 10 PGM token to send 0.1 PGM per day,
100 PGM token to send 0.1 PGM three times per day
500 to send and receive 0.1 PGM five times per day
1000 to send and receive 0.1 PGM ten times per day

image.png
Discord image.png

Support the curation account @ pgm-curator with a delegation 10 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP - 500 HP - 1000 HP

Get votes from @ pgm-curator by paying in PGM, here is a guide

Create a HIVE account with PGM from our discord server, here is a guide

I'm a bot, if you want a hand ask @ zottone444

0
0
0.000
avatar

Indeed, there hours of the day when all I play are level 1 bots - and that's silver 1! These pesky robots are a plague

0
0
0.000
avatar

Interesting points and discrussion bro. I didnt know there were recent talks, but glad to hear they are trying to help things get a little better.

!PIZZA
!LOL

0
0
0.000
avatar

They've always done a weekly townhall/AMA that lasts a few hours. I usually just read the cliff notes but I decided to listen to this one. If you understand economics, they'll have you screaming at your screen the whole time in frustration and then suddenly they'll say something brilliant. Wild ride always !LOLZ

0
0
0.000
avatar

you have explained the problems of splinterlands in such an easy way that everybody who read this will understand well !1UP

0
0
0.000
avatar
Don-1UP-Cheers-Cartel-250px.png

You have received a 1UP from @mango-juice!

The following @oneup-cartel family members will soon upvote your post:
@monster-curator, @oneup-curator, @leo-curator, @meme-curator, @thg-curator, @vyb-curator, @pob-curator
And they will bring !PIZZA 🍕

Learn more about our delegation service to earn daily rewards. Join the family on Discord.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

I agree with your point that bots are always a net negative because they will only be run while they are being a net negative. And I don't think it can be stressed enough. There is no "love of the game" for a bot.

I like your ideas. Additionally, In my own mind I have kicked around the idea of differentiating the reward cards given to humans and those given to bots. They could be the same cards with artistic differences, or a different series of cards altogether, although that clearly takes more work than a minor cosmetic tweak. But if the rewards are different, then the economy has a chance to price them differently so over-botting depresses the assets the bots earn but not necessarily the ones that humans earn.

But at the end of the day, there is truly no escaping that bots are a net negative or they are simply botting elsewhere.

!hivebits

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Interesting. Maybe something like an alpha vs beta card. Same card but different border, CP, and circulation numbers maybe?

!LOLZ
!PGM

0
0
0.000
avatar

Sent 0.1 PGM/LVL/1 STARBITS tokens to @imno, @tinyputerboy

remaining commands 3

Buy and stake 10 PGM token to send 0.1 PGM per day,
100 PGM token to send 0.1 PGM three times per day
500 to send and receive 0.1 PGM five times per day
1000 to send and receive 0.1 PGM ten times per day

image.png
Discord image.png

Support the curation account @ pgm-curator with a delegation 10 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP - 500 HP - 1000 HP

Get votes from @ pgm-curator by paying in PGM, here is a guide

Create a HIVE account with PGM from our discord server, here is a guide

I'm a bot, if you want a hand ask @ zottone444

0
0
0.000
avatar

Exactly. But the rabbit hole always goes as deep as you want to go yourself. Different CP could certainly be done. I am assuming the bot reward cards would be in higher supply and thus cheaper. So, you could have different number of cards needed to level. You could have bot cards only playable in certain leagues. Someone could buy a bunch of bot reward cards to cheaply get to play silver, but then need human cards to play in gold. Who knows? But what appeals to me about the idea most is that the difference in supplies, with bots minting way more, makes the human rewards rarer and that gives the economy a chance to organically deal with the problem. Ultimately, the less rules changing that is done to deal with the problem, the better. Especially since it is always the new players who get get caught in the crossfire, and it is the new players who are needed most, but discouraged most easily.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Ultimately, the less rules changing that is done to deal with the problem, the better.

I agree with that completely. And with that in mind and the fact that multiple cards can be confusing, especially to new players, it seems like the best answer might just be to lower the instances of reward cards going to bot accounts. Especially since they've already coded that for different leagues and could just expand it to be account specific.

That would probably be a better answer than the staking requirement I was thinking of too. That way you don't have someone take all those staked cards and dec and flood the market when they want to sell out.

!LOLZ
!HBIT

0
0
0.000
avatar

Congratulations @imno! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):

You got more than 1750 replies.
Your next target is to reach 2000 replies.

You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)
0
0
0.000
avatar

!LOLZ

0
0
0.000
avatar

Did you hear about the Irish guy who was assasinated at the antique store?
It was a knick knack paddywhack!

Credit: reddit
@memehive, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of @imno
Use the !LOL or !LOLZ command to share a joke and an $LOLZ.
Delegate Hive Tokens to Farm $LOLZ and earn 110% Rewards. Learn more.
(3/10)

0
0
0.000