Splinterlands | Freewrite About The State Of The Game

There are many small things that I like the write about when it comes down to Splinterlands, so I'm adding all of them in one freewrite-post just rambling about different aspects of the current state of the game.

1000 SPS+ Gold Chest & Other Reward Earnings

I got lucky on my alt account with the season rewards opening a pack that includes 1058.417 SPS which at current price equals around 68$ based on the current price. I'm not in a state of cashing out right now at current prices and I'm still working my way up to having 100k SPS staked. Aside from this I also recall getting a pack that included a legendary Dragon Summoner worth 21$ and an epic Gold Tusk The Wild worth 9$. So overall when you just grind it out and get enough chest you eventually are bound to get some great rewards among the many potions, 0.01$ common cards, and Merrits. Off course cards and SPS need to have buyers to actually be able to capitalize on it and right now it feels like prices are in an overall downtrend.

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Splinterfest

I enjoyed following Splinterfest and overall liked what Splinterfest brought and I'm also looking forward to the Tournaments with Ghost cards which finally will make at least a tiny part of Splinterlands 100% into a Skill game. The tournament held in Splinterlest more than anything felt like a test case with lots of improvement in it. I was impressed by how well Aftersound did the commentating but the battles themselves were nearly impossible to follow even as an experienced player. They should have mentioned the game rules first, theorized about possible lineups, watch what the players came up with commentating on that, and making predictions and watch the game play out afterward.

Battles v2.0

I guess this was my favorite clip from Splinterfest (Link) where they showed the new visuals and sounds of Battles v2.0 which the game really needs as right now it just doesn't look like an AAA+ Game. I hope that the battles themselves will also get a big revamp.

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Geneisis League Goals (GLG) copy-paste.

When it comes down to Genesis League Goals I very much get the sense that it will be 90% a copy-paste of Splinterlands. Basically, they found a way to make money with Splinterlands that kind of works and they now try to replicate this with more or less a different skin to it. In a way it's similar to what bot owners do in that they find a way to make a bit of profit and just replicate this 10000 times to scale up the earnings. It's just very striking how Card Packs with monsters & Summoners become players and coaches which need to be combined to level them up making it another Pay2Win fest, Packs also have smart pre-sale incentives, land becomes stadiums, SPS becomes GLX, DEC becomes GLUSD, Potions become drinks, Vouchers are GLG, ...

The way I look at it, it will mostly be the existing Splinterlands player base that gets into it initially which indirectly will take money that would come into Splinterlands away and into that ecosystem. Personally, I will most likely just try it out with rentals as the cost of these games to be an owner has gotten too extreme and I don't want to get into another extreme pay2win system while the MLS also just doesn't capture my interest.

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Splinterlands Card Inflation

Right now it very much feels like there are nowhere near enough new players coming in to absorb the inflation of cards which in my view are printed way too easily. Chaos Legion is only 66% sold out and going rather slowly now, Riftwatchers packs were released coming at a highly increased cost, The Runis will soon be minted, the Splinterfest Promo card will be printed, ...

Looking at the charts right now it pretty much means that every new card that is put into circulation lowers the value of the existing cards. Despite this they are already talking about the next Reballion expansion. Basically, there are just too many cards in the game right now and a serious sink will be needed which I guess will come with the land expansion.

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Land Expansion

I guess land is now in a delay of 2+ years now and it doesn't look like it will come anytime soon. This to me is a classic case where the team getting all the money upfront right at the start of the previous bull run just made it less of a priority. There really should be some kind of vote that no more new card sets or promo cards can be printed (aside from reward cards) until the point that a certain value in Potions/spells from the Land Expansions have been sold.

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Chaos Legion Packs

The way it looks now, they will have to burn Chaos Legion cards as simply too many were printed based on estimations for the game to have 1 Million players by the end of last year. What they should do is set a fixed release schedule for the Legendary Summoners and take all the packs that are not sold up to that summoner and put them in the reward pool so chests will longer contain chests giving good value to players of the game.

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Archmage Bot

While I enjoyed the archmage bot so far which gives some relief from having to grind at least an hour each and every day, it looks like they are going to implement a fee system that feels like a total ripoff and I'm not sure how I will continue. While I didn't really do the needed research when buying it, it looks like there will be a 35% fee on all battles played. So if you play manually most day and use the bot as a complementary tool to make sure you get the most out of your capture rate you will get totally screwed by it. The system will also work with some kind of delegation that directly allows them to earn a part of your earnings which I don't like. It should be a system where you pay a fixed and reasonable fee for every battle played in a way similar to the rental invoices.

The communication from archmage also has been horrible and I don't think half of the users even know about these upcoming fees.

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High Cost, Time Requirement & Pay2Win

While the game felt quite fresh with the Chaos Legion expansion which brought about some fun to collect more cards, right now it is just too much, too fast and too expensive and it's impossible to keep up. All this makes Splinterlands feel like an extreme play2win experience again that requires a crazy amount of time each day when playing manually. Archmage has been playing 98% of my battles on my main account these past months and I mostly just stick to the Brawls and selected tournaments.

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Conclusion

I have switched my overall sentiment around Splinterlands multiple times over the course of the years since I have been playing and I guess I'm starting to become a bit more negative again since I can't keep up with the pay2win model to stay competitive as there is just too much being released without the time to properly accumulate. That being said, the rewards are still absolutely great and I see a bright future for the game especially if the Battles v2.0 interface gets implemented along with the Ghost Card Tournaments. The hardest thing right now seems to be to get fresh blood into the ecosystem which is the factor that allows to keep the prices up and the economy going. In that regard, Splinterlands isn't really escaping the bear market while I'm sure there will be really good times again for asset holders once the next supply shock comes likely when land is finally introduced.

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Posted using Splintertalk