[Part 10] - The journey through Splinterlands: Bots - A necessary evil or the downfall of the game

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(Edited)

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If you play Splinterlands, sooner or later you encounter a bot to play against. You might not realize it right away, but if you encounter players with similar names (or the same name and a different number) then you can be certain that it's a bot. There has been on and off discussions in the Splinterlands discord if bots are ruining or saving the game. So let's have a look at the pros and cons of botting in Spinterlands:

The Pro

There is really only one aspect as to why bots bring some benefit to the game and it's actually a pretty important one: Queue Time
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Splinterlands has currently a player base of around 12,000, which in itself is not a small number. But since every game only takes about 3 minutes, you don't want to spend a lot of time searching for an opponent. Depending on daytime there can be immense fluctuation in player activity. So without bots it might be that you have to wait a couple of minutes to play a game (which sometimes even is the case for high Diamond or Champion player).
This would frustrate a lot of players, especially in lower leagues, because ideally you want to jump into a game instantly (as it is currently the case for most leagues) and that is because bots can play 24/7.

The Con

One issue that was currently addressed by the Splinterlands team was the leader board abuse by bots. Because bots can play 24/7 they can get much more games in a season than a normal player. Therefore it is easier for them to take the top seats (at least in the lower leagues) and thus frustrating real players who try to go for the top spots in those league.
The frustration losing against bots is another huge issue. Losing in itself sucks, but losing against a bot is even worse. Especially if it happens multiple times against the same kind of bot (just with a different number). Understandably you can start to hate bots and deem them unfair, because they don't involve the same skill a real player needs.

Why do people use bots?

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The answer is quite simple: To earn the rewards. You don't necessarily have to treat Splinterlands as a game, you can also treat it as an investment opportunity. You earn cards through daily and end-of-season rewards, as well as DEC for won games. If you don't want to play (or don't have the time to) using a bot is a good alternative, because it will earn you these rewards automatically.
But nothing comes without cost. If you play to earn your rewards, you need to invest money. If you let a bot play, you either need to pay someone that created a working bot or develop it yourself.

Is using a bot worth it?

That differs from person to person. Some are fine paying for a bot others start developing one their selves as a challenge. The payoff might be consistent when you use a bot, but the essence of the game gets lost. You're not playing for fun anymore, you're just playing for the rewards. Everyone needs to decide for themselves if that's worth it.

In my opinion...

... bots will stay with us for a long time and I consider them a necessity. They are not even a necessary evil in my eyes, because of the following reasons:

  • They make the user experience better:
    I don't want to wait 5 minutes for a game or get matched with players far above (or below) my skill level, just because I play at weird times

  • Creating a bot takes a lot of effort (if you want a decent one)
    There is no fast and easy way to develop a bot. There might be some help from other developers, but you will still need to put a lot of time into it yourself. So if you get to develop a decent bot, then congratulations you should be able to use it.

  • Paying someone to use a bot for your account:
    This is no different than delegating your account to let someone else play. People will only use the services they like. So if a bot does a good job when you delegate your account to it, it's developer should get a fair share of the earnings.

  • Bots need to buy/earn/rent their cards as well:
    Even if you have the best bot out there, you will still need to provide it with a good collection. Otherwise it will just lose games because other players have better cards. So you have to invest even more into a bot than into a "real" players account. (At least up front)

  • The Splinterlands team does a good job in addressing issues with bots:
    They introduced to Capture Rate to decrease the earning you get from excessive playing and they reworked their point system a bit to make it more difficult to climb the ladder just by playing a lot of games. Additionally they already hinted that the land expansion will have some additional barriers for bots.

  • Winning against a bot is the best kind of winning
    Winning alone is awesome. Winning against a bot gives me even more satisfaction, because I outplayed an algorithm specifically designed to win the game.

Overall I am quite happy with the state of the game, but I'd love to get your opinions.

  • Do you hate bots?
  • Do you like them?
  • Do you not care at all?

Let me know in the comments.

Though I will never post links that I am not convinced are legitimate and useful, you should always do your own research before signing up on a site. I will benefit if you sign up through one of the below links:

Splinterlands - The next generation of collectible card games
Muterra Discord - Join for NFT airdrops
Astral Entities Discord - Join for NFT airdrops
Pipeflare - Games, Technology, Blockchain
Presearch - Get payed searching the web decentralized



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6 comments
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I've been pretty hardcore against bots for a very long time. Got into a lot of fights over it on discord.
I do realize they are needed to provide game liquidity, but I would prefer that the devs would provide the bots for that, bots that wouldn't be taking away from the reward pool.

But they don't. So now me and some others are running botted starter deck accounts to provide liquidity in novice and bronze 3 and 2. We don't keep the rewards ourselves. They are collected in special savings accounts and are used to help newbies.
Last month, all rewards from those bots were sent to the NewBoost initiative, so they could be handed out to new players.
Unfortunately, it's not sure untiqm will continue the Newboost initiative, so we'll have to find another way to distribute the rewards of those bots to new players.

For my personal accounts, I must admit I turned over to the dark side myself a couple of months ago.
I now have 3 accounts botted. 2 are only temporary. After 3 months of very bad experiences with 5 different delegatees while I wasn't feeling well, I simply had enough of it, so I decided to bot them until

  1. I could find players that would at least put in an effort
  2. I would be feeling well enough to put in the time to follow up and distribute rewards at the end of the season.

I'll probably start looking for players again after the next season.

1 is permanent, since it's a level 1 account, and these days, players looking for delegated decks are aiming higher. Back in the days, players were thankful if they could play a delegated level 1 account, but those days are over. Now they all want at least a bronze or silver level account. 😂

The account had been gathering dust for over a year, so at one point, a couple of months ago, I said f*** it and started botting it. It's not like I can use my alpha level 1 cards for anything else - there aren't even any alpha novice tournaments (never have been, afaik.)

I still feel bad about doing it myself, and I hope I'll be able to delegate out those 2 decks to real, serious players again soon.

I gave up on the fight against bots, it's a losing battle. It's too easy and too cheap to bot your account, and the rewards are better if you do it than if you would find a delegated player, because then you have to split the rewards and you get only half or so.
So I can't blame people for choosing to get the best ROI.

imo, the big bot nets are the real problem. There's still a difference between people using a bot and reinvest the rewards into the game to build their deck, and people running 50 or more bots, only to sell off the rewards and take them out instead of reinvesting into the game - these last ones are bad for the ecosystem.

But hey, there's nothing to do against it if it's allowed. And since the devs want this game to be as decentralized as possible, they can't ban bots, because they'll be taking away the freedom of being able to do what you want with your cards.

I agree they have taken some measurements to keep bots from draining the entire reward pool, but I still doubt the patches are/will be sufficient.

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I agree. Botting in general is fine. Bot nets are the real issue. I just hope the player base (and not the bots) increase further for an overall more pleasant player experience.

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Thanks for sharing! - @marianaemilia

I totally agree with your point of view, but what about the future, what will it be like when the bots improve to the point of always winning?

This is a process without return. In chess, for example, computers easily beat a world champion, and no supercomputer is needed.

I think that when the Splinterlands bots reach this level, something will have to be done, but for now it's okay!

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The Pro
There is really only one aspect as to why bots bring some benefit to the game and it's actually a pretty important one: Queue Time

To me that is a cop out. Splinterlands can easily enter as many of their own non-profit bots as they wanted. This would cut back on wait times and keep rewards to those who actually play the game instead of giving rewards to those who game the system.

This is no different than delegating your account to let someone else play. People will only use the services they like. So if a bot does a good job when you delegate your account to it, it's developer should get a fair share of the earnings.

I disagree with the above statement. Allowing someone to use your extra cards can and will introduce new playes to the game. Usually someone who bots isn't a new player but an existing player trying to maximize rewards.

The Bot vs. No Bot debate has been going on a long time. There once was a very large group in the no bot section of this debate but some took the stance of, "if you can't beat them, join them". Personally I haven't and don't plan on using any bots.

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