Well it has been roughly 2 and a half months now since DC decided to go all in on randomization in SK to help deal with the issues of multi-account players and "perfected map knowledge".
We are currently still waiting to see or hear about what DC's longer term solution ideas are. In my last post, after trying out the changes for 2 weeks, I wrote about why I was not a fan of the random rules changes myself and don't believe they actually help either stated goal. I've personally taken a break from SK and it has been about a month and a half now since my last run. As of this post I'm considering jumping back in soon maybe, but for now just not playing is my way of casting a vote against the current setup.
There are currently rumors floating around Discord that some kind of news might but forthcoming soon but nothing for sure yet. For this post I want to put forth some ideas for changes and suggestions I think could work better.
First off I think DC should revert the random rules per player per attempt idea. Everyone should play each tournament under the same set of rules. Most of the obvious multi-accounts are now gone from most leagues so we don't have players with 3-5+ accounts working out the perfect strategy for the day's rules. These changes instead do stop normal players from building their own strategies however since they can't replay the map again immediately and try something different after seeing what worked or didn't. Also random rules do nothing for the issue of "perfected map knowledge" if players can just buy attempts until they get a ruleset their existing knowledge works with.
If not reversed entirely, maybe discussion can be had about changing it to random rules per day per player but not per attempt. You get your rules for the day and can retry the map but the rules stay the same. This at least would mean if a player is stuck with a set of rules that don't lend itself to the existing "perfected knowledge" they can't buy better rules. This isn't my first choice but still a more fair option I believe than the current rules in play.
Next up are some suggestions for changes to the Battle Rules themselves.
Here are the rules listed on the Whitepaper. I'd like to note a typo at the bottom of the list. Spell Freezer is listed twice, when in fact the first version is actually Tower Freezer. I don't think I've ever seen Combative or Mana Stinginess can anyone confirm those from in game? What does Combative even do? More mob damage to the hero?
I'd suggest getting rid of the Tower Freezer and Spell Freezer rulesets entirely. These are possibly the most complained about rules. Instead I'd replace them with 4 new rules that would better accomplish the same effect in a more fair and balanced manner.
- Lost Legendries - No legendary towers or spells may be selected.
- Epic Fail - No epic towers or spells may be selected.
- Anti-magic - No towers or spells may be selected that deal magic damage.
- Anti-physical - No towers or spells may be selected that deal physical damage.
These don't feel like they are punishing the player in the same way since they block access for everyone evenly. It also adds 2 Rules overall which means more potential Rule combos and variety.
I'd like to see some changes to the maps themselves for the tournaments as well where either the mobs reverse direction for the day or maybe 25%-33% of a map's tower slots are disabled for the day. Maybe apply this instead of having a third Battle Rule for the Bonus Map so each day players play one regular map and 1 altered map. I'd also be down to discuss/test having the mobs on the Bonus Map be a level or 2 higher than on the regular map so everything is less effective. Coupled with the above additional Battle Rules, only having 2 Battle Rules per day instead of the 3 we currently use would help draw the rules out so we don't see the same things as often.
The next one I expect many people to be against, however I feel DC should drop the league staking requirements. I think they are detrimental to the goal of onboarding and keeping new players, especially those outside of the current Splinterlands base. SPL players have to decide SPL or SK since their SPS doesn't count for both. For new players you are saying they have to buy or rent more and more cards each league but they can't sell any of their earnings and maybe even have to buy more SPS to be able to play more/new maps. It also decreases the chance of new players jumping into SPL and getting into that if they found SK first. If DC releases SK as a mobile game, I believe it is going to be a huge turn off for players who are newer to crypto when they can play the entire game on mobile but have to effectively continually buy/stake/earn more and more SPS for expensive "map packs" that are maps they play for free. Also the current setup means DC will have to constantly change the stake requirements for each league if they wanna add more leagues/maps beyond 10.
I'd be agreeable to making it the same as Splinterlands, in that if you don't have enough staked SPS it reduces a player's earnings proportionally but they can still advance and play. This would help avoid burnout for players stuck on the same few maps because they just don't have and will not have enough SPS to advance. Ideally though I'd like to see the staking just gotten rid of.
Finally I'd like to talk about Gold Foils for a moment.
Here is the section on Gold Foils from the Whitepaper. Can anyone tell me if the middle section there is currently a bug or was dropped and the Whitepaper isn't current? It says that Gold Foil cards should have more energy than the regular versions. However when comparing a gold and regular card each have the same energy and the same energy recharge rate. Something isn't right there.
I have a small suggestion here that I think would make Gold Foils more valuable without being OP. Currently as part of the overall embrace of all that is random DC has set things so that towers/spells/heroes have some slight variation in the damage they do. I'd like to suggest GF's have no variation, they always hit for max damage before resists. If a regular tower hits for between 95-100 points of damage per shot the GF does 100 each time. GF's wouldn't then be doing any EXTRA damage compared to a RF while still having "buffed damage" compared to the RF versions.
I make no claims as to how easy or hard any/all this may be to implement.
Discussion?