Survival Mode – Do We Need More Space to Refine?
This is a poll request submitted to allow the community to build consensus around running a potential proposal to give Survival Mode a longer rewards runway. The request stems from a Team Possible weekly call where many discussions related to the game, DAO and community happen on a weekly basis. Here is the requested poll:
On a recent call, something came up that we think is worth discussing more broadly with the community.
Survival Mode is still very new. We’re learning how people engage with it, how bots are interacting with it, and how rewards are flowing. Because of that, a question was raised:
Are we trying to refine the mode while it’s fully live — and is that the best way to do it?
This isn’t about saying something is wrong. It’s about recognizing that we’re still in a learning phase.
The Primary Consideration
Survival has a relatively small reward allocation. If we distribute rewards at full pace while we’re still experimenting with structure, we may reduce our flexibility to make meaningful adjustments later.
So the broader question becomes:
Should we intentionally create more space for testing and iteration?
There are a few possible approaches we'll explore below.
Other Important Considerations:
What Are We Optimizing For?
Before voting, it may help to step back and ask:
- What role do we want Survival to play long term?
- Is it primarily competitive? Strategic? Experimental?
- How important is reward intensity during this early phase?
- There may be options we haven’t considered yet.
Option 1 – Alternate Seasons (On / Off)
One idea suggested was running Survival every second season.
That would mean:
- One season live with rewards
- One season paused for review, discussion, and potential adjustments
This could give breathing room for:
- Reviewing data
- Gathering feedback
- Implementing changes more thoughtfully
At the same time, some players may prefer consistent access to the mode. The “on/off” rhythm may not suit everyone.
Option 2 – Keep It Live, Reduce SPS Temporarily
Another option is to keep Survival active each season but reduce SPS payouts for a defined tuning period.
This could:
- Stretch the allocation
- Reduce short-term pressure
- Allow refinement without fully pausing the mode
Since most engagement currently appears to be in automated brackets, lower SPS rewards may not dramatically change bot behavior. However, it could impact manual players more directly — which raises its own considerations.
Option 3 – Adjust the Reward Mix
Rather than simply reducing rewards, we could explore adjusting the mix:
- Lower SPS
- Add or increase Glint
- Consider stronger incentives for manual play
This might support progression while limiting extractive pressure during the tuning phase.
Option 4 - Alternate SPS/Glint Seasons
A different approach that could blend the other options would be to have "on/off" seasons for SPS rewards while keeping the game mode active every season.
This could:
Allow us to explore if players engage without SPS incentives.
Stretch the allocation.
- Reduce short-term pressure.
- Allow refinement without pausing the mode at all.
It may still encourage "on/off" behavior with renters while having owners maintain the same behaviors as there's no cost consideration. The data gathered could help shape future decisions about whether or not the mode is sustainable without SPS funding.
Option 5 - Change Nothing
Some may feel nothing needs to change at this time.
Option 6 - Other Suggestion (comment)
If you have a better or more productive idea, choose this option and comment below.
I like the idea of reducing the sps signficantly and adding in decent glint rewards.
I may need more glint, but I swear I'm not biased
My concern is that we will end up changing stuff with insufficient data. Splinterlanders are not known for their patience. 😁 I would like to know from the team how much data we could actually get in one season. And is it enough to be statistically significant, before we stop messing around with stuff.
I'd be fine with 3 or 4... I think I like 4 slightly more because I'd like to know if people would participate without SPS rewards, but either is fine with me I suppose.
Option 9. Remove survival mode reward pool permanently
Okay to allocate glint
That's why I think option 4 makes sense... see if people will even interact with it without SPS rewards.
On second thought; no not even glint after the trial period. People are doing tons of stuff with glint.
4 and 2 are the best.
I agree with this (although I voted #3 because I thought it fell under that umbrella).
We can have fun rewards without SPS. It can even go beyond glint.
Yeah, i prefer GLINT for sure
Hmm... I feel these aren't mutually exclusive.
Frankly 1-4 are all fine to me. I just don't like option 5.
Give us glint and remove all SPS. But I am fine with a mixed approach as well. Ultimately, Glint should become so valuable, that SPS is not required any longer. And I believe we are already there.
These are all strong solutions for us to improve the efficacy and value of survival mode as a format. I like 3 as the best idea and I think that survival might be able to exist solely as a Glint format without giving out additional SPS.
I also agree that we should try to incentivize human play over automated play by providing a hard split of resources among the two groups of brackets and then giving out rewards based on CP share of the two different survival modes.
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I don't think bots have any place in survival mode.
What's the point in playing if you just let bots run your account and battle other bots. Especially since you took away the best part by not actually cooling down cards that lose in survival mode.
That was the best part of it because you had to choose carefully what you were doing and how many games you played since it effected every other part of your game.
At least weight the non bot sections with a lot more rewards to encourage users to play it properly instead of having automated accounts adding no value to anything as it stands.
I honestly don't mind if rewards are sps/glint but the fun is gone from survival mode now that you don't need to do anything for it and nothing happens.
Here is what I dream survival become:
I think survival mode should require more thought and strategy.
I feel we need to have a card cap and maybe a max copy of a card cap. we submit our card list before the season. We can play multiple brackets, but a single card can only be used in a single bracket (a single card cant be in multiple brackets).
Only one account per bracket.
Once a card dies, it remains dead for the whole season (maybe make exceptions for summoners).
Rewards should be in a new currency, that is tradeable at a new DAO store for DAO packs.
*NOTE: I know this will go against the idea of giving massive collectors a place to park their cards. Maybe we can have both? But I think this would drive engagement and be extremely fun. I feel it would be a bit more fair and competitive and cause an excitement in Human mode.
This could work as a fun Guild mode too, could be the same but in a longer brawl format or maybe each member can to contribute cards.
*BLOCKER: Obviously would need coding and probably not easy or fast.
*THIS POLL: Think I will choose whatever give us the most time. I think we need survival to work, but in order to do so, it needs a lot more engagement.
*** I was thinking about taking some time, and writing up my own post about this, but no one really seems interested when I bring it up. My time is very limited. ***
I agree that it's been very disappointing playing from a manual standpoint. It's often taking over 2 minutes for a match up and then we're often matched with accounts really far ahead or behind us and the one further behind generally doesn't stand a chance. This leaves them out for the count with the cool down and then there are even less players available.
For context, the reason I play is to try and keep my hand in better in wild. My account is on a bot most of the time due to time constraints (I play another account in modern more), but I have a brawl fray in gold wild, so I want to try and keep up with what's in my deck for that. I don't often get to play when the bot is running, but when I do it's also not restricted so I'm playing some max level players and some of my own are maxed, so it's easy to forget that certain abilities aren't available at gold level. I'm not too worried about rewards, if I was I'd put it on the bot for survival and what's the point then?
So as a manual player it seems to me that at the moment having cards that are in cool down for pretty much the rest of the season will only mean even less players are playing as we move further into the season. This poll is here because you're wanting to find out the best way to make it enjoyable to get more playing manually (?), but if most accounts are in bot mode then it doesn't really matter whether it's enjoyable, does it? There are already multiple options available for those with excess cards to earn, we have land, wild can use bots and there is the rental market. Do we need an option for bots in survival? Isn't the idea to give a new strategy twist to the game here?
I've voted 3, but rewards aren't a concern for me. I realise they might be for others, though, so I think some small reward is probably a good idea to keep more engagement. My biggest concern is it changing to an on off event; I'd prefer it to be consistent.
Your poll journey is complete! Let's unpack the outcome and hear from your voters.
The top-voted choice is 3. Adjust the Reward Mix with 100266946.573 SPSP voting for it.