Why I'm voting against the Proposal to adjust rewards based on card level and why you should do the same.
I know this idea isn't new. The team has talked about this when they were making changes to the rewards. This always looked very bad and I'm not happy to see that they still want this.
This is the link to the proposal's post: https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@sps.dao/sps-governance-proposal-adjust-rewards-based-on-card-level
They talk about their reasons here: https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@yabapmatt/thoughts-on-the-latest-sps-governance-proposal
I do agree that steps need to be taken to make leveling up cards more desirable. This is not the answer.
I'll also say that this doesn't affect me much, personally. I play in Gold League, Modern format. I have most Chaos Legion cards maxed out for it or close, as well as the Chaos Legion Rewards cards. I don't have many Riftwatchers cards but, the ones I have, are maxed or close. I own very few Dice and Untamed cards and I don't use them because they are very low level. I have just a couple of older Rewards cards that I do use. The most relevant one for this discussion is Sand Worm. I have a level 1 card that I tend to use in Reverse Speed. I could have it at level 8 and use it very often but it's not worth spending 200$ on. At 90 cents, however, it's a very good investment for anyone playing in any League, for Reverse Speed games.
This is just to show that, I own 1 card that I use often that would be affected by this. I would personally benefit from this change. I still think it's a bad idea and I'm still voting against it.
There are several problems with this idea and I'm against it in any form. If a player has a few underleveled cards and still manages to win, it just means they played better. Or maybe, they used cards that are still very powerful, even at a lower level. And it's not like someone is gonna win with level 1 cards against maxed cards in Silver. I'm not counting things like Llama + Kron because those do get wins, even at level 1. Punishing someone for using a few underleveled cards and winning doesn't make any sense.
Most players aren't gonna splash hundreds or thousands of dollars into a game. Anyone with a limited budget, is gonna have to make choices. Some cards get very marginal benefits with 1, 2, or even more levels, some are the same between 2 levels and some get an ability but lose a stat point, which might actually make them worse. One example: when I played in Silver, I had River Nymph at level 3 because the Amplify ability didn't matter, and having 1 more health was important, especially because it often saw play in Noxious Fumes and if the opponent was playing Thaddius Brood, the level 3 one would survive the first turn. Being selective and smart with the cards you upgrade is also an important skill for anyone with a limited budget.
One paragraph I'd like to highlight from the post:
We are still working on pulling the battle data, but anyone who has played at all in Silver league knows that you'll be hard-pressed to find a card being played above level 1 except for the accounts going for the leaderboard. And why would there be? Why would someone combine 14 common cards into 1, or pay a little more for a level 3 rental, when they can do just fine with the level 1 versions and spread the 14 common cards they have over 14 different accounts?
I don't agree with this, at least in Modern. For a long time, I was playing in Silver with level 1 cards. I used Alric and some OP Magic cards and it was enough for most games. After the Modern/Wild split, that's not possible anymore, at least in Silver 1, even if you're not going for the Leaderboard. I'm not playing in Silver anymore, but my brother still plays there, mostly with cards I delegate to him. He mostly faces people with cards at more than level 1.
Even if this is true in Silver 3, it just goes back to the same problem in every situation: bots. Sure, maybe having 14 accounts playing those 14 level 1 cards is more profitable than playing just one account with a level 3 card, but humans can't do that. I think it's about time the team takes an official stance and assumes that mass botting is a problem. Every time some small change that only happens because of bot behavior but ends up hurting real players instead, it just hurts the game. Bots adapt and it always goes back to normal, for them.
About making higher level cards more valuable, a good first step is allowing players to select any level of the card to play in the current match, that is equal to or below the level of the card that own/rent. This alone helps but I know it's not enough. More needs to be done. But not this.
With this in mind, I urge you to vote against this proposal. I love Splinterlands and I want to see it grow and become an even better game. That's why I care about this. Thank you for reading and taking this into consideration.
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The real issue behind the proposal is botting. Everytime a new proposal comes out it is to try to bandaid the real problem and it hurts players in the low leagues but more broadly human players in general. I have said from the start since I began playing this game in mid 2021 that if botting isn't fixed we would see new player retention drop, bots will increase and this will effect every human player with the need to constantly limit bots ability to milk rewards. The introduction of ECR, nerfing rewards, changing the quest system, increasing pack prices and mint, owning cards and RP and now this. It all served with good intentions but in doing so has now hurt the organic growth of the economy and in many cases forced many human players to join the botting community and add to the issues. I don't doubt we will see massive changes with the land system that will effectively inhibit bots ability to milk the system but ultimately new player retention has suffered the most in the interim which is the bigger imapct on the success of Splinterlands and where it could be as of today. I believe without bots Splinterlands would have a million players driving the economy to the moon paving way for even more people joining and in turn investing money into the system to the benefit of all.
At the end of the day, I don't doubt Devs want all to succeed in this space but with bot farmers milking all this will do is ask bot owners to level up cards (of which they will do the bare minimum) in order to continue milking the system and while this may be seen as a way to encourage burning of cards, I don't think it will impair the bots as much as the proposal aims but will effect new players, players who have spent time honing their skills with lower level cards and/or players with limited budget who are potential long term investors to the economy. It may even drive more players out of the game which is bad for everybody.
I will also vote against the proposal even as a Gold player who will be not affected by the changes. There needs to be a serious debate over the future of botting in Splinterlands because the only advocates of botting are those with vested interest in the ability to milk the system of rewards that led to changes that wont hurt their ability to do so. Yet in the same breath attack any opponent of botting for even daring to complain that their investment is not getting a viable return by saying things like 'You should just play the game for fun and put more money in if you want to make more money.' Yet here they are themselves protecting the very fact that they are ultimately draining the economy through botting to get returns for their investment not realising that if bots were nuked their Splinterlands Porfolios would sit at 10x the current value or even more without bots and they would be able to sell their assets at a premium on what they purchased them for to make back investment as opposed to botting. 130k active accounts is alot less than before but I doubt we have even 30k people still playing this game. I remember a time when we were seeing 400k a day in purchases on the open market. Now it's 40k. This is a clear indication that as it stands we are at 10% of the ATH human interaction and it shows in card prices from their ATH's....
The reality is, the vast majority of the community wants to see their investment bloom, the vast majority are not in favour of botting and the vast majority I believe would happily sacrifice their bots if they truly understood that their investment could be 10+ fold without them.
Thanks for sharing! - @marianaemilia
You brought up nice topics/arguments about this proposal. Thanks for sharing!