Closing This Chapter on the Alt Experiment, with Thoughts on the Changes.
Lots of changes have been happening on Splinterlands over the last seasons and there will be more to come. Both the changes and proposed changes have sparked plenty of debate and likely some rage quitting. It was a recent debate in our guild server over a suggested change proposed to the Splinterlands team which prompted me to write now.
My focus in writing about Splinterlands is generally based on my alternative experimental account where I decided to see how far you could get without making any more than the initial $10 investment to purchase the Summoner's Spellbook. This will still be my main focus this time, but for balance I'll also refer to my experience on my main account which I have invested more into.
As a brief overview, when I first started my alt account it was fairly easy to get through to Silver league, earn and collect chests. I even started getting into Gold league. It didn't take me long to build up a collection of reward cards and I bought some other cards with my DEC winnings to improve my game. This was back when the starter cards were Beta and Untamed. Then the first changes came in quite soon after to implement a Collection Power rating to limit you to certain leagues if you didn't own enough cards. This actually had a huge effect on both of my accounts. Where I'd been reaching Championship league on my main, I was limited to Gold I and my alt was limited to Bronze II. I was actually lucky to have enough CP to get out of Bronze III where earning potential was even worse.
From that point on building my alt account slowed to a rather painful crawling speed. Well, getting enough CP for Bronze I wasn't too bad, but the step up to silver III was much bigger. In contrast, my main account continued to build steadily and Gold league matched my card levels fairly well. Admittedly, I continued to invest bits there too, but even if I hadn't, the growth would have continued quite well.
The reason behind these big changes was to try to stop the farming of multiple accounts on starter cards while not keeping any cards or DEC in the Splinterlands ecosystem, but just selling them as they got them instead. This is something that is detrimental to the longevity of the game. Unfortunately, it still wasn't working as well as hoped, so further changes needed to be made.
The next change made was only a minor one and it didn't affect the growth of my account at all. In fact it was rather helpful, because they took DEC rewards out of Bronze league chests and replaced them with credits. Credits have a set value, their only "drawback" is that they can only be spent in game and can't be removed from the game. This wasn't a problem for me because buying cards from the market was my priority for building the account anyway, so my alt account continued to tick along okay and a reward chest win of a legendary card finally pushed my CP up into silver league, which increased my end of season chest count.
Sadly this tactic still wasn't doing enough to get people buying or renting cards, so the next change was pretty drastic. You now can't earn anything playing just starter cards and rewards are reduced for each starter card in play. The more you use, the more drastically your earnings are reduced. The chest rewards system has completely changed, to encourage playing more, so if you are more of a sporadic player, like myself, then the chances of getting reward chests is reduced, but it's increased if you play regularly. A good news/bad news scenario. What's hitting me the hardest is the amount of starter cards I still rely on with this account. Some games will net me just a quarter of the season and focus points I would get if all the played cards were owned. I've been getting as many of the Chaos Legion cards as I can, but summoners and the Untamed ones I rely on are out of my reach from earnings alone and generally only keep getting further out of reach as I save up my DEC.
Knowing how hard it is for me on an account that I was lucky enough to build a bit when things were easier, I can only imagine how much harder it would be for someone starting out. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe a Summoner's Spellbook purchase also now comes with 3000 credits, which is just $3 worth of buying power. This will get you nowhere near to earning enough to dig you out of Bronze III any time in the foreseeable future. So how do you build an account with things as they stand now? There is even some discussion of reducing rewards for any card played in higher leagues which isn't levelled up fully for that league. That is something that would affect both my accounts.
My immediate reaction to the new changes and the suggested change is that it feels like if you don't have the cash to splash you're going to be punished for it. Perhaps it should be called a Pay to Earn instead of Play to Earn game. Someone said that's actually probably a better description, because every account starts with that initial investment of $10 after all and you don't get something for nothing in this world anyway. Yet it's still not a Pay to Play like many games and this is where I'm reminded to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
The only reason money can come out of the Splinterlands ecosystem is if money is also going into it and if you're someone who has put money into it, then it's only fair to expect more of a return from it than someone putting nothing into it. So a balance is needed. I also know that the team behind Splinterlands not only wants this game to last, they want it to be an opportunity to help people from all financial backgrounds invest and earn, which is why they still try to make it possible from that first investment into the game. Therefore, I believe there will always be a way to build your account even if you don't have the means to invest from outside of the Hive blockchain.
The reality is that you aren't going to be able to get far with just the initial $10 investment on Splinterlands alone and this is disappointing as when I started this experiment it was to see if it was a viable option for people in countries where even a small income from gaming could make a difference for them. What's really disappointing that it's the actions of a few abusers which have brought us to this point. From what I gather it's not people with a few accounts or a couple on bots that are the problem, it's people with lots of accounts farming on bots. Sadly it's the innocents who end up paying for it. I know you could say that if you're playing just for the money then you're playing for the wrong reasons, but there are those who may well be playing for the enjoyment, but can't justify the time spent if they need to provide for themselves.
For many the Hive ecosystem has been an ideology for its possibilities in providing for those in poorer countries and I believe that this still stands for many on Hive. I have noticed that the Splinterlands Hive team work hard to support good Splinterlands content. I finally realise that maybe posting on Hive shouldn't be discounted as an option for earning to build a Splinterlands account. After all, this is how I've invested in my main account. There are also lots of opportunities to win cards and get sponsored.
I'm feeling like I've reached a conclusion on my experiment with my alt account. Too much has changed for it to be valid now anyway. So I'm going to open the floor to my readers and ask what do you think I should do moving forwards with this account. It's @life-relearnt, if you want to take a nosy. This account on Hive has always been used to serve others as a kind of charity project, so I think the Splinterlands account should reflect that too.
I started my Splinterlands journey "from scratch" a year ago - but my from scratch was investing into DICE cards relatively more than most people could, so I didn't have to start from just a $10 spellbook - since then, I have invested in a lot more, so it is a completely different ballgame.
However, I think that there will be no longevity if the earnings are too high in the lower end, because there has to be that continual drive to keep investing, keep advancing, otherwise there is only the drive to pay the bare minimum to get the adequate maximum, just farming.
This is what the bot accounts were doing, but since it was possible, expecting them not to is never going to work - people are people, with many willing to exploit for gain, even if it is at a detriment to others and they are killing the golden goose. We have seen the behavior before on Hive, Steem and probably dating back 10k years.
I think that at the end of the day, not everything can be "free" to earn with only time input in, because the books just don't end up balancing. The other thing is, should everything be expected to be free to get into, especially if there is earning potential? Why does everything have to be inclusive and cater to the lowest denominator?
I was thinking about this a bit a couple months ago when my wife and I went to the movies. It cost us just under 50€ and all we bought was a bottle of water. Many of the seats were empty because of the daytime slot we took. Why not give them to people who can't afford to go to the movies? Well, how long will my wife and I keep paying to go to a packed cinema, knowing no one else is paying?
That isn't 1:1 related and I didn't explain it well, but from an investment perspective, they don't give shares in a company to people who can't afford shares, because at the first opportunity they can, they will sell them to people who will buy them. Then, those who can afford to buy, own it all again. It is a dilemma, but the long answer requires buying in - time in some cases might be enough, but it isn't enough for all kinds of investments.
It is late... I am rambling! :D
I love the Dice cards! Bought on both accounts when I could.
It's human nature, isn't it. There will always be those, because they can and I guess because nothing is certain for tomorrow anyway, so they've learn to exploit things while they can.
I do think there is still that validity of time is money and effort and skill put in to the game still gives more reward as well. I like that the Splinterlands team has a good ethos and a lot of what they do for the game doesn't necessarily benefit them directly monetarily, but as long as it's benefiting the players they'll put that effort in.
The cinema comparison is actually quite a good one. I think most people want to see a benefit and opportunity for all, but there's that point where you start to question how fair that is to those constantly putting in. Especially when you get people who'll take an unfair advantage of it. For people like us it will be a give when you can, take only if you need approach to these things, so that is still available for times when you do need it. Unfortunately not everyone works that way.
Lol! Story of my life! Sometimes I read back my late night comments and wonder how the readers manage to decipher them.
Love the perspective you have given. It provides a first person view of experiencing the changes.
My son only crept into Bronze because of me gifting him cards & sharing my chest rewards.
The reward issue seems to echo the struggle that Dota2 had in PC Gaming.
It is a FreeToPlay game, but you really do need to spend at some stage to get the most out of it.
There was a period where the Marketplace was very good value. I'd win an item that was worth a fair bit. I could play & earn enough $$$ to buy other Steam games.
But, there was some exploitation of the economy & they had to make some drastic changes, like non-tradable items, cool down period of items before you could sell them (several months) etc .. to try and stop abuse of the wonderful system.
Actual Human players invest alot of time into playing, thinking about playing, immersing themselves into the game.
That, in itself, is worth something.
I spent money joining the Dota2 Player Compendium which, for $10, was great value.
It also got you to watch live games, get to know the players, complete quests, and so on - resulting in mega prize money for the professional players.
Here is the rub for Splinterlands.
I didn't stop playing DOTA because of the Market shenanigans (because I loved playing) or some toxic people - I left because of Patch v7.0. They changed the game to be like competing products.
It destroyed all of the most important things I liked about the game.
Splinterlands needs to find non-bot ways of rewarding players on lower levels.
An example would be, to complete different Splinter quests in a series of tutorials & receive a common card reward, participate in things that Bots cannot do.
In that way, it immerses real players into the lore, the game, the fun
It is hard to write bots for that.
Sometimes entertainment products forget that we are also competing for people's time too.
I haven't heard of Dota2 before and it sounds like I'm a bit late learning about it anyway. I guess it demonstrates how hard it can be to keep players engaged long term. One bad change and people will lose interest. I currently play Genshin Impact with my daughter. That can start to get a bit boring when they don't have any new updates for a while. It stalled for a bit when Shanghai was in lockdown.
And a side dish from Steam (owned by Valve) is their employee handbook.. it is amazing (maybe a bit dated) but I.was inspired by it alot many years ago...
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/Valve_NewEmployeeHandbook.pdf
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Splinterlands is a disappointment for me. It certainly in pay to win and the pay amount is ever increasing. When I have a look on some discords and see the amount some people are throwing around on a nearly daily basis, I realise that I can never compete and make it in the leagues.
Now you mention that there is a penalty placed on starter cards so that rewards are reduced for each starter card in play too. Ouch.
It's just another money siphon. Kudos to the people who started it all though, it's the only half decent way to collect NFTs if that's what floats your boat.
It's a tough one, really. I don't think the creators wanted it to reach this point, but with the sheer volume of farming the game wouldn't last and no-one who's put time and effort into it wants to see it collapse. I gather some people have hundreds of accounts on bots.
Anything online is open to botting. Some of the parameters I can enter into some of mine are quite ludicrously specific. I don't use them on Hive but have experimented with some and can fake just about anything.
Steemit and Hive encourage bots by their very openness and easy access to code. If they didn't then so many other services wouldn't be possible. When everything is open, people take advantage, especially for money's sake. Automation is such a a tempting tool.
Very true. I'm taking advantage of it myself with my daughter's account... through a third party, though, because I have no skills in it myself.