Splinterlands Social Media Challenge! New Rewards System: The beginning of the End.

Hello Everyone.
I started playing Splinterlands about a month ago and got hooked right away. I entered the game like I would go for a swim in a cold lake or the ocean. I never dive in. I dip my toe first, test the waters and then slowly go deeper and deeper until I'm all in and sweeming.

I started playing the game using the free set of cards, and playing in the Novice and Bronze 3 Leagues. I played a few battles and found the game fun and interesting enough to go a bit deeper and play the Daily Quests. For that I needed to purchase a Summoner's spell book for 10 dollars. I must admit that the play to earn Idea seamed attractive but not the main reason I joined. The game seams fun so If I get some rewards while playing it's the cherry on the cake!

I Started playing in the Bronze III League and played the Daily Quests. It was a bit difficult to start with but little by little I familiarized myself with the cards, earned lineup strategies and it would take me a bout an hour of fun to complete the 5 wins to earn a Loot Chest. Although the rewards in Bronze league are not great (a few credits, a potion and every once in a while a common card) It felt good to be accomplishing something and kept going.

I was delegated a card collection and played on Bronze III for a week, rewards got a bit better and started earning DEC for the first time. My strategy is to reinvest all my winnings (DEC, Daily drops, Hive Rewards etc) into purchasing Chaos Packs and Cards in the market place to build power little by little.
In Two Seasons I was able to increase my card power to 1040 and able to Play Bronze II

I've also spent a bit of time on the HIVE and enjoyed reading Splinterlands related

posts to learn more battle strategies etc. I read a lot about the new rewards system and like everybody else I was quite excited and worried at the same time not knowing how it would play out for newbies like me.

I've been playing with the new system for a couple of days now and So far It is quite a disaster! The new daily Focus Quests are out of reach. In Bronze III and II with only a limited selection of owned cards every battle you win brings you between 0 and 6 FP (Focus Points) and you need 300 Points in less than 24h to win a Chest. If you only use the free starter kit cards you don't win any points.
The more battles you play the more your Capture rate decreases, the less points you win on your next
victories.

After being hammered in my battles I've completely given up the Focus Quests which are unreachable and focus only on the best card strategy for each battle considering the Mana Rank and the Opponent Stats. I believe the amount of points increases considerably if you're able to have long winning streaks but after a 6th winning Streak I was only able to score 16 SP.

After playing with the new system for two days, I reached Bronze II again, Ive been able to accumulate 139 SP so, unless things improve drastically I'm forecasting on getting 3 Loot Chests. Quite a drop from the 21 Chests I got during the past two Seasons (14 Daily Quest Chests + 7 Seasons chests for Bronze II) It's such a disappointment!!!

With the new system the more SP you win the more chests you can get and it seems unlimited. On the old system each league had a set amount of chests (5 For Bronze III and 7 For Bronze II) The new system seems interesting on paper but with limited CP (Card Power) it's really hard to get more than 3 or 4 chests per season.

I've been reading a few posts about the new rewards system and different players experiences and everybody seems quite excited but then I realized that everybody else posting is in higher leagues and own a large amount of CP.

So unless you're able and willing to invest a lot on playable cards since the very start, Splinterlands can't be considered a Play 2 Win game anymore, at least not for newbies like me. We are condemned to grind for less than crumbs for a very long time.

I will be sticking around for a bit longer and enjoying the game for what it is without focusing on the rewards, it's still a very fun game to play but I feel that most new players will be discouraged with this new system and quit en masse.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

If you haven't played Splinterlands yet and wish to give it a try just for fun click on the link below:
https://splinterlands.com?ref=parmengo