The Problems & Exploits in Survival Mode
These are some of the problems that I personally experience in Survival Mode.
Frustrating Cooldown Periods: As someone who mainly plays max level cards, it's just a frustrating experience that Common max Level cards have a 5-day cooldown while Legendaries have a 2-day Cooldown, and Golden ones have half the cooldown period. All of this feels more like an artificial attempt to give more value to Legendary and Gold cards while in reality it feels unfair as you need 400 Common cards to get a Max Level copy instead of just 11 legendaries and I assume there isn't that much of a difference in maximum supply of max level copies. Gold cards already get an % increase in rewards and this now all of a sudden went x2 which feels like overkipp. Most of all, doing it this way just suck as your common and rare cards will be on cooldown too often making it hard to play consistent strategies. It's also not realistic to demand players to get more limited & rare copies of a single cards compared to Legendaries.
Surrender Gamification: If it looks like you are likely to lose the matchup based on the collection of your opponent, you are much better off just playing 2 blank level 1 cards as the small chance that you would win the match simply is not worth risking good cards to get on cooldown for. It doesn't matter is you kill 90% of your opponents team still when it comes down to rewards as you earn nothing and you on top also lose your cards. This surrender mechanic while most optimal mainly feels like a waste of time. This season so far, out of 216 battle,s I had to surrender 62 and probably should have surrendered a couple more.
Collusion exploit: The most optimal thing right now, especially at the higher ranks where most SPS can be earned, it would be smartest if the top players just made an agreement when playing each other that 1 of them surrenders splitting the profit so both players earn nice rewards without having to risk a single Max Level Card allowing them to play more battles. While it by no means is the ethical thing to do, the reality always turns out that if there is a way to 'game the system' it will be done one way or another. I also don't think anyone is doing it already right now.
End of Season Reset All-Or-Nothing: As a way to fix the possible cooldown issues for Season Rentals, the choice was made to do a card cooldown reset across the board for all cards at the start of the new season, which more or less forces players to grind down their entire account at the end of the season. While it is kind of nice to see a reset, it also feels beyond the point of Survival mode and it forces everyone who wants to get the most out of it to play in a way and at times when the game optimizes things instead of at times when they actually want to play.
Possible Solutions !
Rewards Based on Cards You Kill!!
What instead of giving all the rewards based on the player that wins the match, rewards were given based on the Cards of an opponent that a player managed to put into cooldown. This with the rule that each BCX has a certain Reward Share value attached to it depending on the rarity (and you possibly can only earn up to the reward share or double of the card that landed the kill. So it's impossible for a Level 1 player to play a specific deck to kill a single max-level card and win 400x the rewards for that.) This also limited the rewards that can be earned from someone who surrenders and at the same time should also lower the number of matches where players surrender as they always have some SPS to win even if they lose the match. It also fully solves the Collusion exploit as it's not possible to earn much without being willing to risk any higher-level cards.Unify Cooldown Periods!!
With a system where rewards are given based on the cards that someone is able to put on cooldown, it should be possible to just use a single Cooldown for all cards no matter if it's a common Level 1 or a Legendary Max Level cards. I would put it at 3 days and 2 days for Gold Cards. This makes Splinterlands a game where people at low level can play a lot of matches with low rewards and the higher you go in Card Levels, the more efficient and rewarding it becomes to play as putting a max level Common card to rest earns 400x the reward compared to a single BCX card. A 3-Day universal cooldown timing also makes it less of a rush at the end of the season and it's just much more enjoyable to have full decks that were killed to be revived at the same time.What This Would Do...
- Make Survival Mode New Player Friendly: Right now, with lower-level cards, it's just not fun as most of the time, you just get matched up with higher level players leaving you with no chance. Opening the playing field by giving rewards based on cards you kill and similar cooldown periods for everyone feels like a more fair to do it. New players can come in with level 1 cards which also could create a much bigger player field at the bottom without rewards getting drained.
- Losing is Less Frustrating: as you still manage to get some rewards if you manage to kill at least 1 monster of your opponent.
- More Incetives to Go For it: In battles now where you are in doubt to either go for it or to surrender, you are most of the time better off surrendering while with the new rule you would have more of an incentive to go for it.
- Avoid Free Wins & Big Rewards for it: Right now, the number of battles where it actually matters in Survival mode is limited. You either surrender or win easily instead of actually battling it out and earning the rewards that you get. There is no free lunch if rewards are given based on cards you kill which should make it so that the average earnings should go up.
- Revival Potions can be done with this in a way that is fair based on BCX and rarity. So 1 potion is needed for a single BCX card and 400 potions are needed for a Max Level card. These potions should also be done in a way that for each individual card it becomes increasingly expensive each time it is revived in the same season as otherwise the meta cards will just always be all over the place.
- Playing Becomes More Enjoyable: The cooldown time difference between common and legendary cards right now just is frustrating and feels unfair since the difference in value already is there in the amount of cards needed. Having everything go out of cooldown at the same time
Conclusion!
Right now, the most fun thing about Survival Mode are the rewards as there are only a small part of the matches that actually are on the cutting edge. While I by no means have thought this through deeply, at first look, it feels like a system where cooldowns are unified and rewards are given based on the actual cards that you kill feels like a possible enjoyable alternative compared to what it is now. At the same time it probably still isn't a perfect solution
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