Prologue
There's always a lot going on in Splinterlands. It seems like we get a lot of news every day, something exciting going on. There are a few topics that I'd like to discuss, and please feel free to join the discussion in the comments with whatever opinion you have about them!
- Conflicts
- Frontiers
- Battle log design
- Land Cards
Conflicts
This one gets a negative from me. I was excited at first, having seen the great impact that the Conflict cards from Rebellion had. So, I bought enough in the Pre-Sale to secure me a Gold (Advanced) League Gramel and Skinwalker, thinking that logically that should bring be the same level drop cards (Level 3 Legends), maybe by re-adjusting my cards a little and spending a little more.
Big surprise. Conflict airdrop is only 25% of what it was in Rebellion. I had to spent quite a bit extra to even get enough guaranteed cards to level 2. And on top of that, I have to pay $5 for the wagons.
The team went too far on this one. They did not communicate that well at all. If I had known that it would be like that, I wouldn't have spent as much on the pre-sale. But they kept up the expectation, and that does not feel right to me. I feel deceived by the way this was handled.
Conflicts: Rational Expectations?
I get why they reduced it, card value and blablabla. But logically, if I spent enough to get Level 3 cards in the pre-sale, why is that not even closely enough to getting Level 3 cards in conflicts?
If they had reduced the guaranteed cards to 50% (meaning, a GC every 400 points), it would've been much fairer in my point of view, an actual improvement in comparison to the Rebellion Conflicts and a good compromise.
Where my expectations too high? Maybe. But there was a precedent. Not communicating a drastic change like that beforehand and the right way is not excusable.
Conclusion on Conflicts
Before conflicts, I wanted to have a max deck of modern cards to play. Now, I'm aiming for a Gold Deck, mostly using the new and awesome rare summoners. Considering the difference in CC needed to get from Gold to maxed, that is a lot less money spent.
Gold is 60% CC of max level.
Yes, it would've taken a while to get there, but those 40% less money are probably not going into the ecosystem at all. Maybe a little of it will go into Land. As I'm not able to comprehend the magnitude of reduction, and it does not seem rational and well calculated to me at all, but rather random, I can't trust in the decision making as much as I did before.
Overall, it made me reconsider my enthusiasm about Splinterlands. I still love playing, but my motivation to stay involved as much is somewhat gone. I do hope that the next changes and updates to other parts of the game can bring some of that back.
Frontiers
I love that one. As soon as it's up, I will start sharing the game with friends. I didn't until now as the cost to enter was quite high for where I live, but with a free to play like that, and have a lot of the fun coming from winning cards and such? I'm in!
It turns Splinterlands in what Browser-Games were a long time ago, where you could have a lot of fun playing, and spending money gave you certain advantages - but wasn't necessary to have a lot of fun. I do think that a lot of new player will eventually convert into paying players, probably as soon as the engage in the community and see all the possibilities there are.
The name is not decided yet, but last time I checked, Frontiers was winning before Academy. I voted for Frontiers, it's a lot more engaging, more mysterious and inspiring curiosity. And every game has an Academy, anyway, so does the Campaign.
You can cast your vote here: Click me!
Invisible battles
Okay, yes, I really, really dislike the new Ranked-Page. A lot. It's so frustrating. The old page was intuitive and full of information, I loved to review old battles before starting a new one. Yes, there are some perks like the "Battle" again in both tournaments and ranked, that's a great feature, as is being able to see up to 100 of the last battles. And I'm sure that they'll keep working on improving that part, but the question remains - why does it have to be on a separate page?
If they keep it that way and separated or not, it would be great to have different categories. Being able to choose between only seeing tournament battles, only brawl battles, only ranked battles etc. That could make the new layout a little less worse. Though it would be a lot better if it was like before, all on one page and the selection as a bonus.
Land Cards
I'm undecided on that one. I really like land, as it allows to a lot of strategy, but I'd rather see the development of land-produced items for the in-game experience, like the Survival-Potions that were mentioned a few times. Everything else is event-related for now, and that does not bring long term value in my eyes.
The cards are temporal, too, as there is a saturation (hopefully far in the future). Also, if you can produce your own cards on land, the legacy-cards will drop in value yet again, reducing utility for those. As Azircon states in one of his comments:
We want more utilization of land. However, at also means more production. To balance that we need more resource sinks. In fact we need more sinks to begin with because we have a lot of surplus.
Find his very informative article here!
I would say sinks first, then production booster cards. Just making production boosters feels like chasing its own tail. As long as there is no constant utility in the game-play, Land will stay in the twilight-zone. But I still trust the team to get it done eventually.
Conclusion
Conflicts is affecting my motivation. But in the end, it's also a relief, a coming back to the ground from my enthusiasm. I hope the team finds ways to improve the communication about the decision-making process. Until now, there is a lot of learning from mistakes, and mistakes are necessary to learn.
Yet, there are more exciting things on the horizon. There's a lot of real innovation coming from within Splinterlands, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be motivated again soon enough.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!
If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)