Time to Sharpen and Consolidate The Splinterlands Season

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(Edited)

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The Splinterlands has been a home run up to this point, absolute literal game-changer for the Steem blockchain, that is undeniable. To be quite honest were it not for this game I would we looking at coinmarketcap and in a chat room talking and following other cryptos. I was on the way out, the friends on here of course were a major staying factor, can't forget that, but you know what I mean.

So when I recommend things on here I want to make it clear I am discussing slight details that I think can be an improvement and hopefully open up some dialog on the points made. The game's market has its start and stop points quite often, which of course is to be totally expected, and it has actually settled in nicely with no real cratering of card values, which is excellent. A major first step has been accomplished in my opinion, and that is building a reliable tightly knit base that can support the "bare bones" of the enterprise. Growth of course is always on the mind of the central authorities of the game and they are of course working on that.

There has been a major sector of these cards though that have been passed by in importance and has really limited the ceiling of card values as a whole... As well as drastically under-utilized a major asset to the game and the cards themselves. I am talking about the gold foil cards. This is a phenomena I cannot preach its importance to the holders of cards in this game in direct relation to the ceiling value of many of the cards have hinged on this point for quite some time.

I am not talking about even about massive prize "Gold Only Games," like some of us may have once dreamed of, but a real, and practical chance to give these cards real value on a daily basis for many of the people that play this game daily. On the last post I mentioned that reward pools for the daily quest need to be changed to more so award the daily player, versus having hiked rewards for "season" accomplishments, when very many of those that reach Champion levels or even Diamond levels are playing the last 1-2 days of the season. Not illegal, not immoral, I am not here to cast judgement on that one bit. Just a minor detail that can be tweaked by giving people more reward cards on a daily basis and get rid of the season rewards. There are definite pluses to that but that is the point in this instance.

Having a "Gold Only" rule set on a ratio based on level you as a player are playing. Even if there is a small ratio starting at even the silver levels, of say 5% of the time where you play as normal, but the match is gold only. I know heads are exploding right now, thinking to yourself "I can't afford a maxed out gold deck too (expletive)," and so on. But actually, in this simple and move to consolidate decks into the usual, even greatly more heavily weighted regular vs gold only options, even if it's 5,10, or 15% say hypothetically, then active players would be forced to hold at least some gold cards to be able to compete in all of their matches, or otherwise forfeit these matches. It would make for more dynamic game play, especially at the top, where I have to make sure my computer screen has not burned in the same users the last several seasons being top 20 or so players. Not that I have a problem with them finishing that high. They follow the rules and "milk the system" to the best of their ability to gain an advantage. Last I checked that's a pretty decent definition for the word competition.

But if you had this dynamic people wouldn't have separate decks near as much, or if they did they would have to buy or rent more gold cards in tandem with their regular cards. If this were implemented, I would recommend a 5% ratio starting in the silver level, continuing with 5% up until the top Gold 1 level, then at that point go 10% up until Diamond 1, then it's 12.5% the rest of the way through Champion 1.

This would have a massive effect on card values. This is also a gradual shift, not like it's 50/50 gold foil only ratios or anything massive like that. My thinking in the benefit to the game is that the rarest cards become even rarer through leveling up, surely less burning but more leveling up nonetheless. People would also not be forced to go buy anything, just the ratio of matches they do not have any gold cards that can play in that rule set are deemed playable.

I think this would be a sea change in the game validating already great decks, increasing pack sales in the hunt for gold cards, increasing potion usage, driving up the value of DEC, and making the game all around much more complete with a more proper utilization of the gold foil cards that were once coveted but are now dumped on the market due to lack of practical use day to day.

As a reminder to anyone that rents any of my cards through the entire term of their agreed upon period--message me when it completes and get your Neoxian delegation. I am giving this away for (at minimum) the period of time that you rented the card at 1 neoxag power delegation /$0.10 spent throughout the entire rental period, of course when successfully completed.

Please let me know your thoughts, this is probably a pretty controversial take for some of you I am sure, but of course feel free to comment agree or disagree I would love to have a chat with you on this.



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I'm not really a fan of that idea, @cryptkeeper17
I mean... up until 2 months ago, I only had been able to build my deck up to max with a lot of patience, a lot of grinding. During the last two months, I've invested quite a bit, so now i have a decent gold foil account at silver level. Maybe I could max a couple of cards... but for sure not enough to compete at the higher levels.
People who are loaded can simply afford a maxed set of gold foil cards. The game is already too much pay-2-win ... this would make it even worse (unless I'm missing something)

I do agree gold foils have been devaluated a lot, and there should be a way to make them more valuable again.

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(Edited)

Sounds good, in the meantime the game goes nowhere and we wait for everyone to max out their decks to play so we have the exact same glut of the exact same people at the top, always. Believe it or not there are a lot of people that finish pretty highly due to their not really caring about quests and just continually playing the game with the same few power cards and yet they finish highly. Yes this game is a pay to play, it's a business. They do have options for people to play for free, but yes you do have to buy some things at least to compete at the highest points of the game. The game if done right at all is not meant for the same 200+ people to always own every single and have it virtually maxed, otherwise they failed as an economic model within the game. Last I checked gold cards rent dirt cheap on the market too-believe me, I have a near maxed gold deck in a few splinters and they are not leasing for 2X a card that is (at least if not more than) 50X more common than the same card in gold that I own, like a sucker right now quite frankly. In a nutshell I am saying the misdirectional ploy of gold foil cards are being seen directly through by the players that the central authorities of the game are currently employing their usage as in the game due to their role in season play. Everyone by now knows the gold tournaments are a crock and not worth "jack," and surely not enough to spend any real money on gold cards, the only reason they are rented at all is the tiny bonus they receive for being played in season.

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Thanks for your kind words and support @cryptkeeper17! You can also feel free to message me on Discord when you have ideas like this for the game since I definitely don't see everything that players post about the game.

I'm on board with your overall goal of giving more value to the gold foil cards, but I think your proposal is a bit too extreme. It has got me thinking though, and maybe we could do something like add a ruleset where gold foil cards get some type of advantage over regular foil cards. This way you don't have to have gold foil cards to play, but you'll be at a distinct disadvantage if you don't and your opponent does.

Also I would like to note that in all other similar games i've played, gold/foil/shine cards all have zero benefit and are purely cosmetic. Hearthstone and Gods Unchained are examples that come to mind. So I think we've done a decent job of giving added value to gold foil cards without giving them a direct advantage in battles.

I also agree that the gold foil only tournaments aren't very exciting. It has always been our goal to get more tournament sponsors and have some tournaments with really large prize pools but that hasn't happened yet. We're doing a lot of work behind the scenes with things like our mobile app to try to significantly increase our player base, which will then really help us attract some bigger tournament sponsors, but it's going to take some time.

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Thanks very much for the read, that means a lot. You guys never cease to amaze the level of interaction you have with your user base and how well you keep your 'ear to the ground' when it comes to thoughts of the users, I cannot praise you enough for the savvy and upside potential of not only being boxed in to what your own thoughts are but being open-minded to the possibility of something positive coming out of it. Again, I don't write these to blast the game, certainly not the purpose, these suggestions are details that I think the game could use a boost either now, or at some point in the future. I hear you on the other games seeing these parallel inserts as a more of a collectible novelty. But I think there is a chance to capitalize on it at some point as a competitive advantage at some point as well-should the correct format arise for you to have reason to make any changes in that direction. The tournaments are fine, you do have plenty of participation and will of course grow over time, especially as DEC becomes more and more the force as an internal crypto that it already is. I don't think, but I have a very strong feeling and know that this game is going to have success, at a surprising level in fact, it's a matter of time. It has already surpassed my expectations (and I had some pretty decent expectations from the start) that is wildly surpassed my expectations and continues to chug along growing at a very nice pace. The base foundation I think is finishing its first stage and I eagerly await what will be coming down the road, keep up the excellent work you and the whole team.

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Hey Matt, I like the idea of adding a ruleset where the gold foil gets a slight advantage.... It might be worth a try since we are still in beta and you can state it is for 1 season only to see how it goes.... Just my 2 cents.

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What do you think of the league structure I posed less then two weeks back? Its been discussed numerous times in discord in the past.

https://steemit.com/palnet/@rentmoney/steem-monsters-it-s-time-for-a-change-suggestion

I think the Steem-Monsters game would benefit greatly from my below suggestion. I would like to see different league standings for each level as structured below.
League 1: Novice/Bronze
League 2: Silver
League 3: Gold
League 4: Diamond/Champion

Each league would have its own top 10 and rewards awarded accordingly (Novice league with small rewards / Champion league with the highest rewards). Each player has to pick what league they want to join prior to the start of the league so no one account can win multiple top 10 spots. We would still have the problem of multi-accounting but at least it keeps everyone's main account in one specific league thus helping to fight reward farming abuse.

One of the benefits of the above system is more winners and winners tell their friend about this awesome game we are playing. They also spend more on the game because they're " good at it ".

Being the best Novice/Bronze/Silver/Gold player would be a nice bragging right and will give incentive to lower level players to Buy/Level up cards so they can be the best in the league they choose to play in.

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Hey Crypt... I agree with your premise that the gold's have a lot more potential than they are showing right now... I think the value of the gold's are important as they do drive many things, including not trivially pack sales. But I also think that we need more players for the gold's to take off. Without more players buying a lot more packs, they will not be able to afford the type of prize pools that will attract super limited high prestige "gold only" games.

I do think your suggestion is interesting, and I also like how Matt modified it to maybe making a ruleset that preferences golds a bit and see how that goes.

I personally am willing to wait for the game to get bigger, so I'm in no rush, but I do see that many aren't so patient and thus discard their golds like they are hot potatoes! :D

ps... its ok with me, I remember when there was a time in the "old days" when we both made out pretty well by scooping up some golds when the same thing was happening. (hint hint: 7c gold rustys???)

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Right on as virtually always @davemccoy. I don't mind picking up dirt cheap discarded golds either in fact, lol, I would not at all mind being just about the only person in this game buying golds leveling them up and leasing them out. Luckily the game developers are sharp enough and do eventually make adjustments as we have seen several times when the resources or dynamics of the game are being improperly valued by the public-lol-yes dumpers of virtually anything in this game have visited the "House of Pain", myself included a few times. So I have learned the lesson...finally.... haha.

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Just a minor detail that can be tweaked by giving people more reward cards on a daily basis and get rid of the season rewards.

I think both need to be reduced.

I don't think having a gold only format mixed with regular league play is a good idea although I do agree that something needs to be done to bring them more value. Doing something as drastic as that will likely turn many away from playing the game.

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