The Incoherent Ravings of a Mad Man
Hello Splinterland,
For the people who do not know me, I'm one of the members of the th12 (Lambo/m00n) team. The thoughts expressed do not necessarily reflect or come from the other two team leaders. Also I'm speaking from a position of modest ignorance. I know nothing more about the newest land expansion than what has been posted so if anything this is just plain wrong you understand why.
That being said I feel that we are going hard in the wrong direction with the game. I have been disappointed with “phone app”, the low level bots, the pull back on rewards, and the lack of meaningful attempts to get new players but this newest things is just too far.
I can not see selling lands as anything other than a pay to win money grab that does not help the game in anyway. The way I understand it, is if we give splinterlands money, they will lets us have the ability to make things that are used to help us win. It is implied that it will be significant, or there would be no value in buying the land. Why pay for the land after all, if you can't get an edge to win?
Allowing us to craft and farm is just busy work to hid the fact that it is just selling pay to win spells. Also what is good at farming and crafting in games? Low level bots... No one is going to want to do daily busy work crafting and farming just so they can play the card game competitively. I'm sure there will be many guys who make bots for this, so please hit me up and I will let you farm my land for a percentage. Failing that we can make our own bots. Also to the people who want to buy land to make money, you will need to compete with farming bots. Do you enjoy hours of daily grind work for a fraction of minimum wage? If yes, this is the investment of a life time for you!
Adding a spell to the end of the game, or really in any part is not going to make high level bots less effective. If anything it will make them more powerful. People who are thinking this is anti bot are mistaken. The new land helps rich people who know how to bot well. Sadly our target new play is not on average rich people who know how to bot well.
I'm not sure if the spells are one time use, or if they are use as many as you want at that level.
If they are one time use th12 guild is willing to work with any other guild who would like to not take part in this limited resource arms race. Meaning we will agree to use the lowest level free spells on you, if you do the same to us. It will have the safe effectiveness as us wasting the spells on each other. This way we can save the spells and we can use them on guilds that do not want to take part in our logical alliance. This should help both of our guilds get higher rankings.
If the spells are not one time use, then you all should expect to pay whatever you need to, and grind as much as you need to, to get up to the highest level to match our team. I will not let anyone have an unfair advantage to our team and I can spend silly money making sure that at best you all are right where you started before the expansion. There is no advantage to game play here, nothing adding to the fun, just the joy of paying money so we can spend time and effort crafting crap that in the end is not meaningful. It will slow down the game making each game take two turns. Tournaments will get much longer. A bot that can do 100,000 simulations is not going to be hurt by a few combos of spell, it makes it much better for bots. When a budget for a team of bots is higher than being spent on the game, it is really silly to make it so bots get an advantage over humans.
Is land a 100% fail idea? No, maybe use champion points to buy land for the guild. Use the land to get access to guild only tournaments. Maybe access to season only p vs e challenges or the like. There is so much potential here that it is just being used as a must have pay to win add on that it is literally sickening. Why pay them so we can get more busy work? Why not make something that people want to play?
The amount of long time people who have contracted me trying to sell their decks for under 50% value on first ask is amazing. I understand, your point of view and desire to flee but at this time I'm not going to be a buyer unless we are talking crazy low like 25% of market at most and even then it will depend on the cards in the deck. I'm not looking to put more money into the game at this time. I also understand some people like the idea of the land. I kinda think many of you just want change, just want to see progress. Some cool things like art and what not that will be added to the game will be cool for some but many of us just want to play a game. I play the game like I used to play chess. I bot like I used to bot chess. There is fun in that for me, art is okay but not why most people are here. When people play chess do they really care about the style of the board? To they play chess to show off their pieces? I'm sure a few do but a game can't be based on that.
I have been patient on just about everything, I was told the next big thing would be getting new users. This land thing will not help that at all. People are going to see how much it takes to level up. Paying to win, by letting everyone have access to the same cards is one thing, but forcing people to now buy land and craft is just going to force more people away. Who wants to start out as a landless peasant? No one is going to drop the type of money it will take to get to a decent level especially with rewards being significantly shifted downwards. People are leaving faster than they are joining. I understand that with out money Aggy and Matt can't feed their kids but this is highly short sighted and doomed to fail. It is so bad of an idea we are speculating that the goal might be self sabotage. After they sell land, what will they do to get more money? Why would they ever stop selling pay to win things if it works? I as a game player like the card game, all this other BS is going to turn me off to the game despite me being in the best position to take advantage of it. I have enough money to be highly competitive in any pay to win situation and I have the ability to have bots to farm and take advantage of busy work (for all players). I'm not here to win at all cost, or even make money, I'm here to have fun. I bought into this game willing to take a 100% loss that being said, I'd rather this turn into something great and get even greater returns.
One of the biggest problems with the game is the reward system and the lower level bots taking more than their fair share in rewards. I have an account called th12-toy and the highest level card that it has is level 1. This account can get into Diamond and play in Diamond tournaments. Is that reasonable? Is it reasonable for botted accounts who have bought no cards at all to get to gold? I understand the dislike for some of the higher level bots, they are very clearly seen and they do win a good amount. However the reason for the rewards going to fail is not because someone who spent $35,000 on a maxed deck, its because someone spent $5,000 on 500 bot accounts with almost no cards added. What makes more rewards, 500 accounts at Gold or one at Champion? It is clear that low level botting has the highest pay out by far...
The whole system needs to be reworked. We need to move apart the rating/matching system from the reward system.
The rating system that we are using now is fine for matching. People want to play people at their own skill level despite what cards they might have in their deck. This is good and works so don't break it.
However the reward system needs to be highly reworked. The classes (silver/gold/champion) that people get access to should not be based on rating but rather the value of their accounts. There would be many ways to sort this out but I'd guess the easiest would be based on DEC. I have no idea what the levels should be so I will pull numbers out of my ass and such for example 100 DEC gets you to the 1st reward level, 500 DEC gets you to the 2nd level and so on until we get to the highest level of 69th or whatever at 100,000 DEC.
The amount in your account based on DEC only unlocks how high you can go on the reward system. You still need to play rated game to get a rating to be able to claim the rewards at these levels. If a 100,000 DEC accounts plays 3 games a season, they will get level 1 rewards. A 100,000 DEC account however is going to be normally at the top and should be. So to get Gold rewards one must have a Gold valued account based on DEC and play to the rating required for Gold rewards.
Now what this will do is stop all the bot account that never bought a card. Their rewards are now level 1 or even 0. They need to either quit or buy cards. Buying cards clearly helps push up the price of cards. Them quitting stops the BS rating inflation. It is a win win (unless you are a low level bot farmer). Plus the reward cards that are being sucked up by the bots can now go back to real accounts. Rewards were being printed too quickly, and that was an issue. But it is better to just limit the rewards to real customers than low level bots. You guys wan't playable reward cards back, not silly potions and DEC correct? I know I do...
This also will let new players have a much better deck to experiment with. Give them phantom cards of the normal betas, the normal untaimed and a hand full of rewards. All level 1, but with out any DEC value. Let them play but don't let them get rewards (maybe 1 box a season or so). Also make the accounts FREE! No one want to pay $10 just to get some untaimed level 1 crap cards and fail vs all the bots playing the beta phantom cards. New players if they come here at all are running away so damn fast it is not even funny. It is absolutely demoralizing. And absolutely unnecessary.
This also solves tournament issues. The reward unlocking system based on DEC should also give access to tournaments. Lets say an account is level 16 at 50,000 DEC. He should be able to play in all tournaments 16 and lower. This will stop all the spam bot accounts from messing up tournaments. And also, if we wanted to do so, we could make tournaments like only level 10 to 15 or level 2 to 5 to keep out top accounts from killing n00bs. The rewards should be much much lower but it would be nice to let the n00bs only fight n00bs from time to time. No one like signing up for a tournament on silver and getting killed by a master of the game.
In this type of game bots can not be stopped and also since it is a pay to win game, we might as well restrict the winning ability to accounts that have paid. If something like this does not get implemented quickly I'd wonder who is really doing all the low level botting.
There can also be season rewards with in a class. For example right now the top accounts split a few hundred untaimed packs. Each class based on DEC could also have prizes for 1st 2nd 3rd and so on. Clearly the top levels need to be very highly prized. The lowest levels could be just a few DEC, or a single reward card. The point is people who have to be at a lower levels can still fight after their reward are done. I'd honestly like to see how high of a rating I could get at level 5 for example even if the pay off is not huge. I want to keep th12-toy and see what he can do, but I should not get diamond level rewards for that account.
A different idea that I personally like is a reward card that is limited to 1 or 2 seasons. Does not matter how many get handed out, (but it should standardized) but that they are limited to only one or two seasons. They can be passed out in normal rewards (but more heavy than normal reward cards) and as a bonus to that seasons tournament prizes or tops places in classes. Maybe pop up in a mystery potion rarely. It would get humans to play each season (bot will play no matter what) so it helps get things active.
A limited number of Th12 accounts will be for rent as soon as we get the ability to change our names. This has been a many month long wait. Just FYI our accounts that we control can be 100% bot, mixed human/bot or all human. It really depends on what is at stake and how much free time we have. Bots can be good but so far we can not get bots to out play grand masters like bji1203 and JaceW. Also I personally like to play the game when I have time. I have staff that also can at times play.
The two other co leaders are not me. They are very real people who do not work for me, and I do not pay them. We have a profit sharing agreement and they can leave the team at any time or do anything they want at any time. I do not control then in anyway and their thoughts are their own. I know there has been some speculation about this. I'm crazy, but not three people crazy:)
I hope these ravings of a mad man are clear enough for you all to understand most of my ideas so that we can save the game and make it something great for the ages. In the end there will only be one great blockchain card game and I hope it is splinterlands. I might be a bipolar high functioning alcoholic asshole with delusions of grandeur but I'm on the side of the community and I just want a fun game to play. Let us not destroy the good that we have, don't make me leave and go out on my own.
All feedback is welcome, thank you.
I appreciate the passion; but I absolutely disagree.
This doesn't give bots an advantage; it massively increases the number of variables.
We humans have a two stage decision making process, so we don't have to handle the mental load of choosing everything at once; at the same time, bots are coded to check the ruleset and mana cap, and add in the team which has previously performed the best under those parameters.
I actually suggested a different, two step process a while back; but as usual, the devs have gone one step better.
Why do you think a bot would not be unable to understand a 2 part process? The 2nd part being much simpler than the 1st part? This might trip up the bots that only play a set hand on a rule, but what about bots that can run 100,000 simulations on part 1? With the limited inputs the simulations will get into the insane numbers, like high millions. The bot will always be able to make the best move.
A bot also can see what spells and items you have access to, and can see your history of play. Something humans can not do. This is a huge advantage when running simulations over millions of times.
"This doesn't give bots an advantage; it massively increases the number of variables." -- Simply increasing the number of variables to combat bots totally lacks understand of the full capability of bots. This will actually improve the higher level bots. Yes, it will retard the pick-from-a-list bots, but increase the advantage of the higher-level bots using machine learning + simulation testing. You can literally run simulations in the millions in just a mere 30 seconds scaling out in cloud functions to factually find the highest chance of winning. Proceed that by machine learning selecting which of the potential best 100,000+ item/spell combos to test... not even bji can come close to that. Also, the spell system as described actually provides a lot more data for bots than before, not less, due to surveying the selected teams prior to the second step of the application of items or spells. Pre-spells, you have 0 information past a user's collection and history. Post-spells, you are given 50% of the final information to work with prior to the final submission. That is a massive boon for bots. If you really want to beat bots, just purely make the game nothing but random luck with no maximizing the odds, lol. Just don't be fooled into thinking things will get better for humans with this change, they will get worse. FYI, there are already AI/Machine Learning frameworks for multi-process/step games. Pushing a total blind one step surprise to a more information-rich process is actually far better for the competent bots. A slight aside, if you do manage to make the game so complex to the point it actually starts to slow down a good bot, you will have made the game much less interesting for the average player. You will push the game more and more niche pushing out more and more potential players shrinking the community. It would be better to invest resources into more alternate game modes to actually attract new players and keep existing ones interested. Funny thing about doing that is that the more game modes there are, the more hindered bots would be as they then have multiple models to deal and split up their time and resources on. The only thing this newly suggested system does is improve higher-level bots and compound the pay-to-win shittyness of the game. People will now have paid for better cards AND for better items. (High level bots with best p2w items, lol, joke game) Good luck, have fun new players that are sure to stick around...
OK I read, thanks for asking me nicely to so.
I'm not too certain I'd be able to comment on the current metagame for ranked and tournaments as I've gone back to playing #splinterlands on the weekend only, whereas I used to play almost every day.
But I have played it a fair bit today. Same problems exist and I don't particular get any enjoyment at all from the matches anymore, just click "finish" and see what the result is. I do love the game, i love the whole ecosystem with it's dapps and markets and wide array of analytical tools but well, there's no uptake from what i've seen this weekend.
It's quiet, the same old purple and green names in the discord making the same wisecracks about some several hundred dollar card which is daily decreasing... I miss people who would engage the community like @johndoer123 and I'm trying to do the same as he did with gifting commons to new players.
Basically i feel ya drunken bipolar raving madman shit, (let's have a drink sometime) but whatever the game needs next, I've stated a lot of times before. A lot of people has. I know it's not easy for @aggroed and I can appreciate how messy the whole #STEEM future is right now but maybe we can try to do something together? I derno?
Not having any option to play outside of tournament or ranked (pracitce isn't played..) does attract a lot of bots.
I still support the hunting, reporting, capture and execution of bots so their cards and rewards can be distributed amongst the existing playerbase (with a great % going to newer players).
WOuldn't that be fun? Turn the whole game into a bounty hunter MMORPG and we hunt bots!!!!
We can call them Tronjans!
IT means alot to me that you would think of me and want to do as i did...but be careful. i learned that handing out cards is also gamed. i was used by more then one person who made new discord names and preteneded to be new players just to get my cards.it broke my heart when i realized this was happening...but in my thoughts afterwards, i was no longer surprised...for the game and its ecosystem feed this type of mentality. and unfortunately, @j6969, is correct in his assumptions concerning a lot of things...including the new players not being here...and new crypto players bringing bots...and the fact new players dont want to pay 10 dollars to get cards they dont own and have to grind for next to no rewards...let alone now have to grind to do the land stuff.and if paying for land is how it goes, say goodbye to even more players.ME INCLUDED, as this step(if its true) will be a determining factor in me selling my last couple thousand dollars worth of cards. i still really want the game to succeed, but given the recent changes and the new ones coming, i dont see that as a likely scenario.
Yeah i hear you loud and clear. I do give sporadically and without warning or prompting these days. :-)
It would be hard to take cards from people as that would be theft. It is also hard to know who for sure 100% is a bot. Also what exactly is a bot? Someone who lets a computer do everything? Someone who enters the moves himself but lets the computer tell him what to play? Someone that uses a cheat sheet on excel, someone like Bji1203 who is not a bot but is so good I can get many people to think he is a bot? Taking property away is not every good. Also this game has always been open to accepting and having bots buy cards and play. They can't ban bots now even if they wanted to do so.
That being said I agree as a community we should find something better to do.
I agree, paying $10 for phantom untamed card (at least, give real cards) is too much when they are good for nothing. Player join for $10 find it require much more than $10 to be competitive will surely leave.
I also agree that adding more variable will only help the bots.
But I think adding more dynamics to game will attract more player and keep current one interested.
I agree, new accounts should be free. They should have enough cards to make a reasonable hand, just don't give them rewards until they buy enough of their own cards.
Good points. Hopefully, your voice will be heard.
I have proposed some improvements over a year ago, that still would IMO make the game better, but the team never responded.
Granted I'm not super active in the discords and maybe I should take a look at the splinterlands blog more often - this is the first I'm hearing about the 'land' idea and it just sounds really, really bad and totally a cash grab like you said. I like the DEC ranking system you spoke about to get rid of some of the low-level bot farming with no investment. Thanks for the "incoherent ramblings of a madman" hopefully it gets considered.
I agree completely with adding a minimum level of DEC in your account to qualify is an awesome solution.
I also agree that the bot issue will only get worse with this expansion set if they keep everything else the same.
I have said many times that the solution to Player vs. Player tournaments is the Players need to "PICK Their Splinter" BEFORE the tourney starts and then there will be some luck involved as well as some splinters do better than others depending on each new ruleset. If the player had to stay within a given splinter (chosen pre-tourney) it would encourage people to have to think how to counteract his opponent based on what both players have in their hands. On top of this it would necessitate people having more cards within the splinters they want to play, as they would need every available card in that splinter based on having to play all rulesets (and not picking the chosen "best" splinter combo like a robot). Then we have a game of chess that would be enjoyable.
Part of my problem is that they are not fixing the issues that are killing the game, before doing more presales.
Also any time the change a working thing people will not be happy and leave. And with no way to get more users it is just going to be fail.
I hope this is a wake up call.
I believe your points are well taken. I'm glad you made them and I think they will listen. I (and I'm sure others too) have already chimed in directly in support. I think the game is great, but you are right in that they have to take care of the issues are keeping it from retaining the user base. You can't grow very easily if you churn through existing members too much. (defeating the great things they do)
And block new member, with this plan accounts would be free and people get access to good cards from the start.
Thanks for the reply.
I really appreciate you taking the time to put all of this down someplace where there are paragraphs. I find this easier to follow than I usually do this length on Discord, and a lot of it makes sense at least as things I hope they're thinking about in development.
I worry that your DEC-based leagues thing basically kills delegation and rentals, though. Those seem like important things to keep. I wonder if it might be reasonable to do something based on staking DEC instead, and add delegating staked DEC, so that people could have the same opportunity to rent their way up leagues as they have to rent cards. (And also it would keep a fair amount of DEC locked up in league eligibility.)
Hi, thanks for reading. Yes this on discord is not really the best place for it.
I see no reason why delegated and rented cards would not count for the DEC value of the account that it was delegated to.
I think this could be solved without much issue at all. Is there a technical reason I'm missing why this can't be counted?
The point of the system, and it does not have to be based on DEC, is to make sure that accounts that are getting rewards, have real cards. And have an investment in the game.
A huge amount of the rewards go to the 1000s of low lever bots and this is making the mid level and top level humans run away and sell accounts.
I'm looking forward to any feedback you have on my ideas. I think they are pretty good but I might be missing something.
Thanks
Good points, I'm disapointed about marketing. Simple adwords campaign driven to games forums would bring some users, and cpc is very low on thiese games ads. We heard about marketing year ago or more and I feel like nothing is done in this matter. Sure, guys promote game to crypto world but it is bad idea because crypto guys bring more bots than players. We need players who do not care about crypto but care about playing from time to time on mobile on their route to work or school.
Does not matter, who is going to pay $10 to try the game? And then when they do they get some free low level untaimed that do nothing. There will not ever be any real new users on this system. Making accounts free and giving them a good deck to try out at least we have a fighting change. But if we do that then we have to ban the 1000's of low level bots... I'm told that can't happen. :(
I'm a new "real" player. I really like the aspect of a crypto "decentralized" game that can also be a source of revenue if done correctly. However, I cannot complete against bots, and did not realize that it was so prevalent in the game until now, after "investing" a couple thousand dollars. Guess I'm the sucker! :-(
It honestly takes a few thousand dollars to get someone to stick around. I'm sorry you feel like the investment was a mistake but that is pretty much what most people are thinking right now.
Can you however explain more on how you cannot compete against bots? Forreward share or first place or what? I would have thought someone mid range would have been okay as mostly I hear complaints at the lowest and highest levels.
Thanks
Sure, Average bots, yes. I am sure I can compete and I have. TBH, I haven't tried the higher levels, but, if they are dominated by high dollar bots as it is suggested then there is now way that I will when I get there. The whole point of a journey is to make it to the end of that journey, not 50 miles before the end of the journey. If your destination is to see the ocean, you cannot from that distance.
I am mid-range now, it took me 2 weeks and about $2K + to get there. Why pour more money in to the game and not be able to get much further past the point I am at now. It just takes some of the fun out of the game TBH. And, from what I understand, you run a high dollar bot, so you have a financial interest in the game. So, anyway, my 2 cents, enjoy!
Said it before, the quality of the game itself and how it is able to be played should not predicate who is targeted as a potential market.
The more crypto grinding and bot-loaded the game environment becomes, the less playable the game is. This game has an identity now and did before, it can't decide how to be a good game on its own or be a carrot on a stick for the cryptodonkey to chase - in the end it will do neither.
If the land change is much like what @j6969 described it as, then it will just turn into a shitty flash-in-the-pan #TRON-based game of which i've seen so many, and seen the end of many more.
great post man !
Very good post that tackle many of the problem the game has and I agree with the most.
I used to play in top of the Champions, but it's sooo boring that I'm doing just daily quests and that's it (I prefer to play on my lover accounts). Playing against bots and the same teams over and over again it's not for me. I was really looking forward for the Untamed to change things, and it did - for a short moment when playing was fun. Then they nerfed redemption together with the Prince (I don't have one) in worst possible way, so basically they removed it from the game as it has no use anymore. And today we are back to Excel play, where for some rulesets and mana almost everybody plays same color/team.
I also was wondering how new players would ever get on top if they like to? Is it possible with only Untamed cards? I doubt that, so they have to buy Betas anyway? How many betas will be ever on the market? If we want to grow playerbase, new players will never be able to get on top as there won't be enough of betas, and Untamed alone are useless.
I know they saying a lot about new features and plans, but IMO they should step back and fix what is broken in the first place. For example: if for the next year or more (1,107,858 Packs Remaining) the only new cards are Untamed that they need to be fixed somehow and rebalanced.
The mentioned above things are not my problem, as I have full decs - this is problem for the new players that would like to be competitive on higher levels and even if they start buying betas (and rise the prices of them - which seems to be a only goal for most of the hoarders/owners here) - how many full betas would it be possible to buy? Are we limited to just a few new players in the Champion 1 because the lack of useful cards?
I agree that they made Prince Julian card very under powered for what it is. Since this was part of my bonus for investing $80,000 I was highly disappointed. That being said whatever, not the end of the game and I'm not going to cry about it despite feeling I might have been somewhat cheated. I'll post more about all this later one day maybe.
We have wanted to get rid of our names for a while now. People think they play the same bot or the same person all the time when that is untrue. We use to rent out accounts and have humans play many of the accounts. Now however we mostly bot until we can change the names on the accounts. Something we have been waiting for almost half a year now.
About the new players in the top levels that is a tricky issue. But we cant even get them to buy the $10 accounts and if they do that they don't normally last their first daily quest. And then if they do that and get 7 DEC reward from a chest they are not about to spend $ on untaimed let alone betas.
This game has so much broken right now I understand their desire to break it more rather than deal with the issues they have.