Survival Mode On Hold!
Pretty much out of nowhere, the news came that Survival mode v1.0 ended just days before with the explanation that v1.0 was a test and changes were going to be made for v2.0. This kind of sucked as I didn't see it coming and it will be gone for at least 1 more season. At the same time, I'm really enjoying my off-time from Splinterlands as having to play daily after a while really starts feeling like a job or when I skip it's annoying to miss out on needed rewards to offset the ever dropping asset prices.
What Survival Mode V1.0 Was!
One of my main critisisms when it comes down to Splinterlands is that there is a clear pattern where decisions about the game always are made with an eye on the economy but they always come at the cost of fun and gameplay. Survival Mode is a prime example of this as there are too many old cards that have become near useless and worthless which makes the price gap between Modern and Wild cards too big for new and existing players to be willing to get in the new set.
So, as a fix, Wild Mode was copy-pasted with the only difference that the card cooldowns replaced the energy system, pushing the bar and requirements from having 1 Max Level card to Multiple Max Level cards. All while just like that, increasing the SPS reward pool by 33% and only really players that have huge collections at max level are able to actually play and benefit from it.
This created a game mode where the nice earnings were the main fun part while the actual gameplay only on rare occasions provided really fun matches. Most of the time it was a grind that wasted way too much time as in many matches it was just better to surrender fielding a couple level 1 cards.
The Game Mode Splinterlands Needs!
For me, it is very clear what Splinterlands needs which is a game mode where
- Players can play at time that they want without missing out on rewards
- Playing doesn't require a massive investment or complicated rental process
- Everyone plays on a Level Playing Field (No Pay2Win)
- A single Session (game mode run) takes around 20 Minutes to 1 Hour max
- Rewards are sustainable and Fair
- Bots don't get an advantage or are matches against each other
- Investors and inactive players have an easy 1-click returns option
It however needs a completely different game mode to make this happen and survival mode only can do so much even with changes made.
Survival Mode v2.0 Needed Changes!
Less Is More: Survival mode was made into another grindfest that either takes hours each day or is fully automated. The Level 1 Surrender exploit needs to be fixed but it can't come at the cost of a very frustrating experience to lose you cards against players who have crazy expensive collections and are on another level.
Win Streaks are needed: So far it felt almost impossible to climb to higher leagues because there is no win streak. This made SPS holdings useless as you don't need that much to get a high multiplier.
Cooldown Times Need To Be Changed: Cooldown periods were set in a way where they wanted Gold cards and Legendaries to have more value while this already is part of the number of cards needed to have them on Max Level. It sucked that 400-copy common card had a 5 Day cooldown and an 11-copy Legendary card a 2-Day Cooldown. This Screws up the flow and it would be better is cooldowns were done base on card level and not on Rarity. Legendary cards also should not get half the coooldown but 33% less or so. I would tabe by default a 3-day cooldown (or even 4 days) and 2 days (or 3) for Golden Foil cards.
More Sustainable Rewards: The rewards for Survival mode just came from the bags of the Devs with the idea that over time they would come from the Dao. This just isn't sustainable and increased the outflow of SPS through rewards by 33% without creating much extra. I also don't have a real solution aside from a game mode that works completely different and has an entry fee for each run like draft mode. One thing that could be done is include SPS delegations as part of the rewards which also would help new players but this doesn't match well with the already high requirements of Survival Mode.
Conclusion!
The team really needs to understand that they need to start making decisions with an eye on fun an gameplay instead of always choosing for the economy which goes at the cost of fun. Survival Mode was another example of this and ideally I would like to see it scrapped with an entirely new game mode created which actually fix all of the issues and also allows new players to come in without the need to break the bank and make Splinterlands a full time job.
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