"Splinterlands" Power Strategy Tips #65

As I have now been playing "Splinterlands" for over a year, I've wanted to contribute something of ACTIONABLE value to my fellow players (and FUTURE players) - but NOT just fill my #Hive feed with daily images of quest reward - or battle - SPAM (no offense to those doing so). Ultimately, Hive is about ADDING VALUE to the social experience - that is the magic of blockchain social media technology. So, after some serious pondering, I decided that a weekly ""Splinterlands" player strategy diary"" type series, with CONCISE and ACTIONABLE tips, would be of most value to my audience. Please let me know your thoughts (good and/or bad), and I hope that readers (now and into the future) will benefit from this series. If you gain a better understanding of blockchain, gaming, "blockchain gaming", marketing, psychology, forensics, philosophy, ethics, investing, law, and/or any other area(s) of knowledge I end up exploring (voluntarily or involuntarily) as this series naturally progresses, then I will have done my "good deed" (of providing value) for the week - and have a little extra Hive to buy some more Splinterlands cards. Also, feel free to hit me up on the battlefield.

@transcript-junky

1 ) Okay folks. I'm going to put this as the first issue, because I am ROYALLY pissed off right now. I've spent the past month-plus being inundated with info about the 1st presale of land, and following all of the AMAs and posts on the topic, and setting aside 850,000 DEC to buy one tract. But after waiting at the computer for the countdown to hit zero at 11 pm on November 7th, 2020, pushing the buy button within 5 seconds, and prompty being told that there was no more land available, I have basically given up on being pro-active with #Splinterlands. When I look back, retrospectively, at some of the other issues which have arisen in the Splinterlands game in the past year - for instance, switching the tournaments from the more engaging "real-time" format (where you sign up, get a notification a few minuutes before the tournament begins, check-in, and play a REAL tournament) to the "anytime" format (where it doesn't even feel like you're playing a tournament, it takes TWO DAYS to complete, and I hardly ever win anymore - when I used to win OFTEN with the real-time format (PLUS they didn't even have the decency to KEEP the real-time tournaments along side the new "anytime"" format), plus several other issues that show that Splinterlands admin really DOES NOT put the desires of loyal players as priority, I have now decided to WITHDRAW any of my additional support for the game - aside from my daily gameplay and DEC earnings, my 80 DEC contributiong to my guild, and continuing to upgrade my cards so that I can remain competitive, continue deriving enjoyment from the game play, maximize my daily DEC earnings, and gradually convert some of that DEC back to Hive and back to Bitcoin (and then very possibly sell my entire collection at a gain at some point in the future). I will NO LONGER put any additional investment into the game aside from my daily gameplay activity. This recent debacle has shown me that Splinterlands admin doesn't really have my interest (as a loyal player) at heart, and so I will use the core features of the game, as intended, and begin exporing OTHER blockchain gaming options which I can begin to divert some of my DEC earnings into. Regardless if no one cares about my personal decision to disengage, this is MY decision. I have heard this same kind of sentiment from other players in the past, but now it has become crystal clear to me that there is some substance to these claims. There is nothing wrong with simply deciding to become "less proactive" in the game. I'm not going to unnecessarily huff and puff about it, unless absoutely necessary, and I will discontinue browsing the #Discord channel, and other more in-depth engagement with the game. I will do my daily battles, earn my DEC, and work on increasing the power of my cards and directing that value into other cryptos. There is nothing wrong with that.

[ DISLAIMER: I wrote #2 (below) BEFORE #1 (above), so please read it with this understanding. That is, in line with the recent chaos I will no longer be using the income from these posts to buy BTC, but instead I will be using a portion of my daily gameplay DEC earnings (more on that below) for that, and using the income from these posts to buy/upgrade cards [ / DISCLAIMER ]

2 ) Now that I have the momentum going on buying up weekly installments of swap.btc with a portion of the earnings from my posts I have been picking the brains of some of those Homos (sapiens) over in the Splinterlands #Discord channel, and although my original goal has been to work towards getting my BTC holdings up to the magic quantity of 0.28 BTC (which would take YEARS at the current rate), through various discussions I've realized that Bitcoin is just not as important as it was in the initial phase of cryptocurrency. In other words, there is NO RUSH or PRESSURE to get my BTC up to 0.28 BTC in a set amount of time. And since, without the current weekly power-down of 20 Hive, I will UNLIKELY be able to make regular weekly buys of the original goal of $5.00 USD of BTC per week, I am now more content to settle for even $2.00 USD - $3.00 USD of BTC purchase per week with the Hive earnings from all of my weekly series posts. I will now EXCLUDE the 20 Hive per week power-down Hive from the calculation of the weekly Hive income from posting, and work on deciding on a comfortable "sweet spot" amount of BTC to buy with my ACTUAL posting earnings. I will also use the 20 Hive power-down to buy more cards.

The current posting earnings, this week, at the time of publishing this post are:

converted 0.190 HBD to 2.040 Hive
payout from post : https://hive.blog/socialmedia/@transcript-junky/trending-blockchain-social-media-news-51-october-28th-2020

converted 1.216 HBD to 10.201 Hive (with 10.731 HP locked in to wallet until future power-down)
payout from post : https://hive.blog/splinterlands/@transcript-junky/splinterlands-power-strategy-tips-63

Hive subtotal 12.241 Hive (22.972 Hive - when the locked-in HP is accounted for)

The main issue is that the second half of the payout of each of the post in this specific series (which tends to be ~ 10 - 12 HP) is locked in my wallet until such time as I choose to power-down. And so I need to figure out the most "accurate enough" amount of Hive income (converted from the HBD portion of the payouts) to be able to settle on a weekly swap.btc buy amount. Last week I used the 20 Hive (power-down Hive) to replace the HP locked in the wallet, but after the power down that extra 20 weekly Hive WON'T be available, so it is best to calculate things based on the amount of Hive which is ACTUALLY available from the post payouts (the HBD part of the payouts). This will help me decide on the most doable amount of swap.btc to purchase each week. I should have a more concrete figure to share with you in the next post of this series.

3 ) Following on from #1 (as I have written this section AFTER not being able to obtain my one tract of land within 5 seconds of the countdown running out on Nov 7th, 2020) I have also decided that, since the bulk of the Hive income I am using to make my weekly #Bitcoin purchase has been coming from the posting activity of this series, and since I have now withdrawn my general support for the game (and will be focusing solely on gameplay (just another player)) I think it would BEHOOVE me to start analyzing the amount of daily DEC income (in Hive value equivalent) I am earning, and use THAT income instead of the income from these posts (which get their main upvote from the official @splinterlands / @steemmonsters account). This would take my reliance off of the official upvotes - especially since I am now primarily a "disgruntled player". Those accounts are still free to upvote these posts, if they so desire, but I will use that upvote income to buy cards, instead of for the weekly BTC purchase. I would say that, on average, I am earning 1,500 DEC per day from my gameplay, plus quest and season rewards, etc. So if I took 500 DEC of that ( ~ 4.00 Hive at the time of writing this sentence) and multiplied that by 7 (days) that becomes 4.0 x 7 = 28 Hive. My previous purchase of swap.btc (using Hive) last week was ~ 32.45 Hive. I could potentially use 600 DEC earnings per day, and that would give me 4.8 Hive x 7 = 33.6 Hive (minus conversion fee in Hive-engine), which would be right around the previous amount of 32.45 Hive. I could then use any amount of daily DEC earnings OVER the 500 or 600 DEC to buy cards, and also use the income from all of my posts to buy cards. In this way, I am NOT dependent on the upvotes from Splinterlands, and any swap.btc I buy will be done "fair and square", from my daily DEC honestly-earned through battling. This week I will work on monitoring and deciding on a reasonable amount of daily DEC to use, going forward, as I continue using my gameplay income from Splinterlands to buy back up some Bitcoin. I can't control what Splinterlands admin does. I can only control MY OWN actions, based on my judgement of a situation. I can only work on the assumption that the core game mechanics are honest and make decisions based on that assumption. If at any point in the future admin decides to go "scorched earth" then I will decide, at that point, whether to just sell my entire card collection and put that value back into Bitcoin.

No more of these going forward:

4 ) In light of the recent land presale I have also decided to focus my tournament efforts on using the tournament battling PRIMARILY as a way to enable my capture rate to recover more efficiently (by alternating tournament and non-tournament battles - a strategy I have described in detail in previous posts of this series), as well as providing a opportunity to experiment with cards I use less often, and/or ones which are at lower levels (as lower-level tournaments make that more feasible without losing capture rate and/or DEC). This past week I placed in one tournament (something I am RARELY able to do since admin replaced the more REALISTIC real-time tournaments with the anytime tournaments earlier in the year). That was a real shame because i used to really get enjoyment from the tournaments. So, if admin is going to take away my (as a player) enjoyment of the tournaments then I will use them in other ways to achieve my larger goals. It's becoming clearer to me over time that admin is acting in their ow self interest, and since I invested a significant amount of my crypto in this game under assumptions which have now shown to be incorrect I will take advantage of whatever features of the game will enable me to achieve my new main goals of gradually extracting earnings out of the game, while enjoying those aspects of the game which I have control over.

5 ) Okay. As I did in the last post in this series, the highly-detailed "diary" of my daily #splinterlands activity is laid out in the last part of this post, for those of you who are inclined to follow, more closely, what I am doing. It occurred to me that this "diary" section is JUST THAT - a highly detailed record of my daily activity in the game, with some JUICY "play-by-play" analysis notes, and commentary, on what works, what doesn't, and some suggestions for further tweaking and experimentation. So, with this in mind, I hope some/any of you will enjoy this information. If not, you are under no pressure to read it fully, and are free to SKIM, or even IGNORE, any parts, or ALL parts, completely - at your discretion. I lay this out because it also HELPS ME to document my progress in the game over time, and may help some people NOW, and into the perpetual future...

October 30th, 2020

Starting DEC : 1,176,958 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 76.32%
Ending DEC - 1,177,696 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 75.45%
Balance = DEC Earning = 738 DEC = -> 6.328 HIVE x ~ $00.116 USD/Hive = ~ $0.73 USD

Spent:

1 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $0.66 USD - 692 DEC -- three (3) cards remaining to Level 7)

Daily Quest (today's "dragon" quest) -- [ Notes: wasn't able to finish this "dragon" quest today ]
keepers -
(+) 0 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 0 DEC
potions - 0 legendary potions, 0 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 0 DEC

October 31st, 2020

Starting DEC : 1,177,004 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ xx.xx%
Ending DEC - 1,178,989 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 79.32%
Balance = DEC Earning = 1,985 DEC = -> 17.429 HIVE x ~ $00.117 USD/Hive = ~ $2.04 USD

Spent:

3 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $1.95 USD - 2,042 DEC -- bumped up to Level 7 (to increase "speed" from "+6" to "+7")

Season Rewards ( "Champion II" season level --> 120 loot chests )
keepers -
(+) 1280
nonkeepers -
(+) 310 DEC
potions - 30 legendary potions, 8 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 1 packs
DEC - 773 DEC

Untamed (free pack in season rewards dump)
keepers -
(+) 00 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 110 DEC (total DEC = 110 DEC)

Dice ("Diamond II" season milestone pack ( + 50 season loot chests )
keepers -
(+) 130 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 10 DEC (total DEC = 140 DEC)

Daily Quest (today's "dragon" quest)
keepers -
1 x "Silvershield Sheriff" (Gold - Level 2 - $2.30 USD - 2,000 -- put up for sale on market for $2.25 USD)
(+) 90 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 50 DEC
potions - 1 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 172 DEC

converted 2,854 SPT to 3.6 HIve
payout from previous series post - 12.615

November 1st, 2020

Starting DEC : 1,176,947 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 85.95%
Ending DEC - 1,181,276 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 70.00%
Balance = DEC Earning = 4,329 DEC = -> 35.813 HIVE x ~ $00.115 USD/Hive = ~ $4.12 USD

Spent:

6 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $4.17 USD - 4,329 DEC -- bumped up to Level 8 (to increase "health" from "+8" to "+9")

Daily Quest (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
NOtes: Took the "Silvershield Sheriff I got in season rewards yesterday off of the market (because it wasn't selling) and burned it for 2,000 DEC)
(+) 00 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 45 DEC
potions - 7 legendary potions, 3 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 0 packs
DEC - 248 DEC

Untamed Airdrop
2 x "Scarred Llama Mage" (non-gold - Level 1 - $9.50 USD (x2 = $19.00 USD))

November 2nd, 2020

Starting DEC : 1,176,708 DEC
Starting Capture Rate : ~ 77.83%
Ending DEC - 1,179,081 DEC
Ending Capture rate : ~ 63.95%
Balance = DEC Earning = 2,373 DEC = -> 19.757 HIVE x ~ $00.113 USD/Hive = ~ $2.23 USD

Spent:

4 x "Phantasm" (Gold - Level 3 - $2.39 USD - 2,525 DEC -

converted 0.307 HDB to 2.442 Hive (from previous " blockchain news" series post : https://hive.blog/splinterlands/@transcript-junky/trending-blockchain-gaming-news-35-october-26th-2020)

payout from previous series of this post : https://hive.blog/splinterlands/@transcript-junky/splinterlands-power-strategy-tips-62
12.340 HP + 1.431 HBD (converted to : 11.21 Hive
total HIve = 26.267 (deposited to Hive-engine)
5.455 Hive already in Hive engine
31.459 in Hive-engine

Daily Quest (today's "earth" quest)
keepers -
(+) 210 DEC
nonkeepers -
(+) 25 DEC
potions - 4 legendary potions, 5 alchemy/gold potions
Untamed - 1 packs
DEC - 939 DEC

Untamed (free pack in season rewards dump)
keepers -
(+) 00 DEC
non-keepers -
(+) 110 DEC (total DEC = 110 DEC)

Whew! These posts are growing dense - but that's okay. Take what resonates with you,and leave the rest. I hope you find some/any of these tips useful in increasing your understanding and/or skill level in the Splinterlands and/or any other game(s) - and the " blockchain gaming " industry as whole - which I end up exploring as this series evolves. More JUICY tips to come with each weekly update, as I dig deeper into this whole REVOLUTIONARY PHENOMENON, and become more experienced and successful in the game(s).

See you on the battlefield...

@transcript-junky