Splinterlands: Suggested Improvements to the Tournament System
I am writing this opinion piece as a player, not as an official Splinterlands Team Member.
Originally these suggested improvements were part of another post on analyzing the latest tournament structure. Since that post was getting long (it will be published soon) I thought it would be better to separate it out.
Table of Contents
Improvements Within the Current System
#1. League Access to Cheaper Fees
Proposals 1A, 1B, and 1C
#2. Adjust Season End Rating Resets
Proposals 2A, 2B, and 2C
#3. Tournament Payouts
Proposals 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D
#4. Tournament Fees
Proposals 4A & 4B
#5. Restructure Gold Alpha
Proposal 5A
#6. Paired Scheduling
Proposal 6A
Improvements Requiring New Mechanisms
#7. Competitiveness Score
#8. Tournament Rating
#9. League Exclusive Tournaments
#10. Mutually Exclusive Tournaments
#11. Kobold Tournaments Only for New Accounts
#12. Choosing Your Tournament Leagues
Improvements Within the Current System
#1. League Access to Cheaper Fees
Right now in terms of cheaper entry fees we have:
Bronze: Cheap access to Novice and Bronze tournaments
Silver: Cheap access to Novice, Bronze, and Silver tournaments
Gold: Cheap access to Silver and Gold tournaments
Diamond: Cheap access to Gold and Diamond tournaments
Champion: Cheap access to Gold, Diamond, and Champion tournaments
Also note that for Gold Foil events, lower league players have to pay very high entry fees to enter higher leagues but high league players do NOT have to pay extra entry fees to enter lower events (like Bronze or Silver).
Proposal 1A
For symmetry and balance reasons, I think there should be adjustments for Silver and Champion leagues.
I would suggest that Silver league only gets cheap access to Bronze and Silver tournaments (not Novice events. Only Novice and Bronze league would have cheap access to Novice tournaments).
And since Champion gets cheap access to Diamond and Champion events, I think it should NOT get cheap access to Gold league events.
This way, each league gets cheap access to exactly two league categories of tournaments.
Proposal 1B
Alternatively, we can separate out Diamond vs Champion events. So Diamond players have cheap access to Gold and Diamond events (but not Champion) while Champion players have cheap access to Gold and Champion events (but not Diamond events, with the exception of Diamond Alpha and Gold Alpha Diamond).
Proposal 1C
For Gold Foil events, Diamond league accounts should pay extra to enter Bronze league events. Champion league accounts should pay extra to enter Bronze and Silver league events.
#2. Adjust Season End Rating Resets
Although this is technically in the area of Ranked play, it does intersect with tournaments when it comes to cheaper tournament fees.
Right now, the rating reset scheme is as follows:
Bronze III (100-399) resets to Novice (0)
Bronze II (400-699) resets to Bronze III (200)
Bronze I (700-999) resets to Bronze II (400)
Silver III (1000-1299) resets to Bronze II (600)
Silver II (1300-1599) resets to Bronze I (800)
Silver I (1600-1899) resets to Silver III (1000)
Gold III (1900-2199) resets to Silver III (1200)
Gold II (2200-2499) resets to Silver II (1400)
Gold I (2500-2799) resets to Silver I (1600)
Diamond III (2800-3099) resets to Gold III (1900)
Diamond II (3100-3399) resets to Gold II (2200)
Diamond I (3400-3699) resets to Gold I (2500)
Champion III (3700-4199) resets to Diamond III (2800)
Champion II (4200-4699) resets to Diamond II (3100)
Champion I (4700+ resets to Diamond I (3400)
This system was created before multiple leaderboards and allowing players to not advance to the next league was implemented. There is also currently a quirk in that it is hard to drop down to Bronze league since Silver I resets to Silver III and not to Bronze I.
Two current loopholes/exploits are:
Using the season reset and drop in league to sign up for cheap tournaments before advancing next season. So Diamond players who drop to Gold I can sign up for cheap Silver tournaments and then advance back to Diamond.
According to @cryptomancer, cheaper tournament fees are currently based on "current league" and not leaderboard. So a Champion account can delegate away all its power to drop leagues, sign up for Novice and Bronze tournaments, then cancel the delegations to rebound back to Champion.
Proposal 2A
Accounts that are above the max for that league (who no longer get the win streak and choose not to advance) are reset to the bottom of that league category instead of dropping to a lower league.
So:
Bronze I with 1000+ rating doesn't technically need a change but you could reset it it to 600 (instead of 400).
Silver I with 1900+ rating resets to Silver III (1000).
Gold I with 2800+ rating resets to Gold III (1900).
Diamond I with 3700+ rating resets to Diamond III (2800).
Either the Top 50 of Champ I (or just set it to rating 4800+) resets to Champion III (3700).
Proposal 2B
I would change Silver I (1600-1899) to reset to Bronze III (900 or 999) since people in the past have complained about how hard it is to drop to Bronze from Silver.
Proposal 2C
Instead of cheaper tournaments being based on "current league" it is instead based on the leaderboard of the account. That addresses the "delegate away all my power to drop leagues for cheaper fees" exploit.
#3. Tournament Payouts
There have been lots of complaints about the lower tournament prize payouts by players such as @cornavirus, @thekillingqueen, @jacekw, @jemmarti, @blackheart1, @cyberblock, among many others. I'll save most of my complaints for my other post and go straight to the proposals but a lot of the issues relate to @aggroed's latest policy of tying tournament prize payouts to the collection power of that tournament category:
Proposal 3A
Decouple tournament prize payouts from collection power entirely.
Proposal 3B
Since this new policy makes Untamed only and Untamed + Dice only formats much less appealing, reduce the amount of them and replace them with more All Edition tournaments. Right now 50% of the tournaments are Untamed + Dice only (for Gold, Diamond, and Champion league) and 50% are Untamed only (for Silver and Bronze leagues).
For this proposal, I'd suggest eliminating all Untamed + Dice for Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Champion leagues and instead have only All Edition tournaments (with has higher total collection power and thus better payouts). We can keep it to 50% Untamed only for Bronze league and 100% for Novice league.
Proposal 3C
Alternatively, instead of eliminating Untamed only and Untamed + Dice only entirely, we can just reduce the amount.
Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Champion leagues are reduced to 25% Untamed + Dice only (every two weeks will have 1 U+D and 3 All Edition). We can keep it to 50% Untamed only for Bronze league and 100% for Novice league.
Proposal 3D
As a compromise, hybrid solution: Let collection power of the league set a baseline but don't penalize tournaments with Untamed only, Untamed + Dice only, NLS, or NL formats.
Gold Foil and Alpha tournaments, should probably be calculated separately though.
So Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Champion will have a baseline payout based on collection power. But the Untamed or Untamed + Dice events won't have lower payouts. We can reduce their frequency in accordance with Proposal 3C if desired.
#4. Tournament Fees
I'll save most of my complaints about tournament fees for my other post.
Proposal 4A
Decouple tournament fees from tournament prize payouts (and thereby collection power) entirely. 5K and 10K entry fees are ridiculous!
Proposal 4B
Instead of trying to use tournament fees to regulate player behavior, instead replace tournament fees and use either: a competitiveness score (#7), a new tournament rating that better reflects actual skill (#8), league exclusive tournaments (#9), or mutually exclusive tournaments (#10).
#5. Restructure Gold Alpha
Four Gold Alpha events every two weeks is excessive, especially when the collection power requirements have been jacked up and there is no Bronze league category.
Proposal 5A
Instead, there will be 1 Gold Alpha tournament each week and it will alternate between 1 Bronze, 1 Silver, 1 Gold, and 1 Diamond (for each 4 week cycle).
#6. Paired Scheduling
The current scheduling seems a bit haphazard. Some days you might have 0 or 1 tournaments to play. Other days you have 3-4 events to play.
On a given day, why have both Bronze and Silver events? Or both Gold league and Diamond events? It's likely that there will be lots of accounts that are playing both. Instead, the schedule should be rearranged to even out the distribution of events.
Proposal 6A
For example if we pair:
Novice events + Gold league events
Bronze events + Diamond events
Silver events + Champion events
This would reduce the tournament load for most accounts on any given day. We could also spread out the Gold Foil events too.
Improvements Requiring New Mechanisms
#7. Competitiveness Score
Players keep misunderstanding Collection Power. Collection Power is a reasonable reflection of overall investment / stake, is easy to calculate, and makes sense given the Steem/Hive background of the game and the staking mechanism used on those blockchains.
But Collection Power is a very poor reflection of the competitiveness of an account and which league it belongs in. That is because Collection Power factors in:
Duplicate copies of cards. An account with 15 million power might just have 1 million Level 1 Rusty Androids.
Gold Foil multiplier. A single Gold Foil card has 50 times the collection power of a regular version of that card. If you look at overall accounts, it tends to be about an x11 or x12 power multiplier.
Higher level BCX than is allowed in the league. A max level card contributes full power even in a Novice or Bronze tournament.
Instead, a Competitiveness Score calculates how competitive an account is for each league category. This can then be used as the threshold to advance leagues. And it can be used as the requirement for tournament entry (instead of using Tournament Fees + Collection Power).
Collection Power can either be sidelined entirely, or it can be used only to cap rewards. So Competitiveness Score is needed to advance leagues, but rewards are still based on Collection Power.
#8. Tournament Rating
League and rating are very poor indicators of skill due to rating inflation. Also, a player who does well with max cards isn't necessarily good at lower leagues.
There should be separate tournament ratings for each league category. Possibly even for different edition categories and foil categories. This is something that @marianaemilia has advocated for.
Tournament ratings could be used just for informational purposes (like Champion points), or they could be used instead of tournament fees and collection power, or they could also theoretically be used for seeding (instead of having random groups).
Doing well in silver tournaments earns you silver rating points which lets you enter silver tournaments for cheap. (Doing well in bronze tournaments or gold league tournaments would NOT let you enter silver tournaments for cheap).
#9. League Exclusive Tournaments
A certain portion of tournaments (25% or 50%) should be specifically for players in that league.
Some Bronze tournaments are only for Bronze league players.
Some Silver tournaments are only for Silver league players.
Some Gold league tournaments are only for Gold league players.
Some Diamond tournaments are only for Diamond league players.
Some Champion tournaments are only for Champion league players.
Right now you can kind of simulate this with tournament entry fees but there are enough loopholes and exploits to get around the entry fee system.
#10. Mutually Exclusive Tournaments
Have linked tournaments such that a given account can only enter one of them.
Have a Novice, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Champion tournament all at the same time but each account can only enter one of them.
If you really want to enter the Bronze tournament with your Champion account you can but that means foregoing the opportunity to play in the Champion event.
#11. Kobold Tournaments Only for New Accounts
Novice Kobold tournaments should only be open to new accounts that bought their Summoner's Spellbook in the past 3-4 months. After that point, you aren't really a novice any more. This also means bots can't farm the Kobold tournaments endlessly unless they want to constantly create new accounts (and buy new spellbooks every few months).
#12. Choosing Your Tournament Leagues
Instead of having predetermined "League X has cheaper entry fees for these specific categories" simply allow players flexibility and choice.
Each season, every account can choose two league categories of tournaments to play in. If your Champion account wants to choose Bronze and Silver they can do so, but it means you won't be playing in any Diamond or Champion tournaments.
You would still want some thresholds (using Competitiveness Score or Collection Power) so that Level 1 accounts aren't choosing to enter Diamond + Champion events.
You can also sub-divide the choices based on Edition and Foil type. So maybe for your account you want to play in Diamond/Champion All Edition tournaments, Bronze/Silver Alpha tournaments, Silver/Gold gold foil tournaments, and Gold/Diamond Untamed+Dice tournaments.
Please Comment and Vote!
Please respond with any comments and feedback. But also please vote in favor or against any particular items or proposals by noting your votes in your comments. So maybe you are in favor of 1A and 1B but are against 1C. Or you like all of ideas #7-#11 but don't like #12.