Thought about the Nidhoggr proposal a ton and here's where I landed:
- Card changes should be up to the company. The community can/should give feedback, but a DAO proposal feels we're forcing their hand.
- I prefer balancing to be done by adjusting mechanics (e.g. changing how abilities or rulesets work or adding new ones) or introducing new cards (e.g. for Nid there could be more Dragon Blast cards that synergize with Execute, or new cards that have a direct synergy similar to Rik's Kindred Will), or even via other systems (e.g. Glamour).
I'm ok with the company tweaking actual stats/abilities when they think it's absolutely necessary, but I think it needs to be done slowly (e.g. 1 thing at a time), only in exceptional situations (i.e. it needs to be rare), and without a "forcing hand" (they should take feedback of course, but it's ultimately up to them to decide and it's driven by them).
Furthermore, I think we need a clearer system for pre-testing and for balancing cards, which includes key players from the community. A well-informed and small team of experts would likely do a better job in making balance changes than a public democratic process.
Also, just for context, I personally own 4 GF BCX and 89 RF BCX of Nidhoggr. So if I were being selfish then yeah I'd like him to get a boost, but I'm trying to vote based on the bigger picture.
Normally I think that the proposal system is used for too big of changes that are driven by the community. In this case, the reverse is true, this is a minor change that the community can inform the company about, without it making a major impact on the mechanics or economy - just a few odd games here and there.
Edit: And the fact that the team made a bit of a mess with this card - it is worth correcting considering what went in to get it produced.
Mechanics changes are far more risky, because there is a lot of complication and unintended consequences occur that impact everything.
I agree.
I think that the bigger picture is important here and I reckon that should be that the community can make an impact on the gameplay in some way, but ultimately, larger decisions should be up to the company and team. The reason is that most people have very little understanding of what needs to happen, will look to benefit themselves, but also bear little responsibility and exposure. The entire ecosystem can suffer, but an individual only pays a fraction of the cost.
Stake gives a voice, but that doesn't mean the voice is correct.
(This isn't aimed at you in particular) :)
Good explanation! I think the company needs to stop hiding behind the DAO sometimes. "Make a proposal" is what they say whenever someone asks them about something and they don't want to give an answer.
Unfortunately, when the team does not do it's job properly with important things like this, it's the responsibility of the DAO to be the safety net and correct the problem.
Same goes for Tofu, that card needs to be made the same as the other L summoners. Who the HELL thought just giving tofu an extra ability above all the other 7 mana L summoners was a balanced move?? It's SO broken it's not even funny.
We've talked about this for a bit now and I fully appreciate you doing what you feel is best Brave. I know people think that there's a "conspiracy" or agenda where those huge whales are working to fill their own pockets. Well, here we are and the 2 biggest whales opposed each other, and a 3rd one sat the vote out.
In my opinion this shows clearly that all 3 of you vote based on your own minds and with the full community in mind. There are great reasons to vote for this and great reasons to vote against it, so whichever way anyone votes I think its going to be ok.
I know you went back and forth and spent a lot of time thinking through this, I just want to say "thank you" and glad you are such a big part of the community!
ps. For the record I voted for this, but I did so only because I have been a card design winner myself and I know what it feels like to think you got a "bad card" (even though it turned out great and I was initially wrong). I feel bad for the creators, but at the same time I also hate making changes too, so I can empathize with this line of logic as well. Hopefully in the future we won't have to ever have this come up again, as I think the testing process will be even more dynamic as they are beefing up their testing crew!
Thanks as always for the thoughtful reply Dave.
I don't think the whales are trying to manipulate things for their own benefit. However, it sets a bad precedent. SPS is cheap, although not cheap enough that anyone can aquire enough to make a difference. Even at its cheapest, getting 1M SPS would cost over $4k (that's about 3 months of my net salary), which I feel is the bare minimum to get a decent voice in the game. That's for regular people though. Even at current prices, there's plenty of people who can aquire 10M SPS or more. About 1 BTC gets you that. If someone with bad intentions and a lot of money comes here and decides to do this type of manipulation, there should be ways to stop it. The best way is to have the team not accept proposals for changing printed cards.
I agree with the principal the team should be the one that makes changes to the cards. There are multiple issues and I acknowledge them, that's why I said there were good reasons for voting in both cases. I don't think anyone was doing anything out of greed, but instead placed higher priorities.
I definitely commend people that don't want the DAO to make changes like this, I fully support that position and wished it never came up for a vote too.
I don't even think the team should be changing cards after being released. I know it happened in the past (before I was here) but I am against it. It would be very unfair for anyone who paid a lot for a card and it turns out to be nerfed later and lose value because of that. Many of the affected players would never spend money on Splinterlands again.
We never nerfed Kitty, which is still the best card in the game. Tofu is legal in Modern while Kitty isn't but Kitty had a long time when there was no split and, after that, more than a year in Modern. To me, if Kitty was untouched, we should only nerf cards that are even stronger. There's even less reasons to nerf Nidhoggr. There are many weak cards in Splinterlands and all TCGs. It happens in high and low rarities. Nidhoggr isn't special.
What we certainly need is better testing before the cards come out and that applies to everything. Core sets, mini sets, reward cards and promo cards.
100% agree