Good morning Splinterfriends and Soulkeepers!
Apologies for my limited time to write these but working two jobs and trying to reopen my business is time consuming :(
However, this is important to me and I want to make time for it!
Last post, I wrote about the problems plaguing Soulkeep since release, the solutions and the ways things have been screwed up.
You can read all about that, here:
Personally... I hate going to someone with a bunch of complaints and no solutions. To me, that's just whining. Today, I will address some ongoing issues and present some of the simple solutions that will help:
The Players
Double Coconut
Splinterlands
Please keep in mind, these are my opinions - however, these opinions come from playing Soulkeep since launch (Day 3) and interacting with many of the consistent and high level players...
I want to be as concise as possible, so this won't have a bunch of silly extras like my usual assortment of GIFs and memes... let's get to it!
One of the MAJOR issues that has been brought up by the community, SPS DAO, myself and well... EVERYBODY...
Is that one player Alexandrp54321 played early and played a LOT to get ahead... and is earning a STUPID amount of SPS each day... how much is "STUPID"?
Now if this were under normal circumstances... I would say "THAT'S THE POINT"... Play your ass off, get ahead, reap the rewards... and for the rest of the people... I'd say "piss off"...
However... these are not "Normal Circumstances"... I will explain why and I will also explain this as if you've never played Soulkeep before.
First: In order to advance through the game, you need to collect Souls. You do this by killing Fiends. [I'll talk about Soulboxes later]
There are three types of Fiends:
Regular Fiends that just show up, run at your gate and try to take a heart...
Spawners... from the name, you probably guessed... these make more Regular Fiends... and that's exactly right!
Bosses... these are unique, super tough Fiends that will end your game if they pass through your Gate... they also tend to spawn high level Fiends.
Originally, when the game was first launched, you could earn points AND Souls from Spawned Fiends...
This was one of the earliest strategies: use the Towers that slowed/stunned monsters to "Spawn Lock" the Spawners... and kill the Spawned Fiends in hordes.
This was fun because it led to huge scores...but what no one foresaw... was that it allowed some early players to earn a TON of Souls...
The lower maps have Spawner Fiends of Epic Rarity and they produce Fiends of Rare Rarity.
Ok, so what... wellllllllllllll it turns out that after you get to League 5 and 6... there were Spawners that were Legendary and they spawned Epic Rarity Fiends... hmmmm
Finally... in the early days of League 7... there was a "Boss Fiend" who was not only Legendary... but SPAWNED Legendary Fiends...
Alexandrp54321 got to League 7 first... and was able to farm an INSANE amount of Legendary Souls...
Tanyboi, Megabloop and Thomaswrocks got to League 7 a little while after and Double Coconut noticed that due to the "Spawn Lock" strategy... a number of players had advanced faster than their projections... but here's where it gets a bit sketchy (imo)...
Nothing was done while Alexandr was running up the leagues... no changes being made and alex was being cool in discord...
Suddenly, after Alex is joined in L7 by these other players... DC makes some sudden and drastic changes:
A. Locked Leagues 8-10
B. Changed Rarity of Fiends
C. Spawned Fiends no longer awarded Points/Souls...
But there was a problem... Alex had been playing in these leagues without the others... and that allowed them to earn a STUPID amount of Legendary Souls... how many Souls I can't say for sure... but Megabloop has shared with us their screenshot of ONE DAY of playing in League 7 (interestingly the next day, the changes were implemented)...
Megabloops Souls from ONE GAME:
Erlendo also posted one of their scores:
The problem that was created was this: a very small amount of players were allowed to earn RIDICULOUS amounts of Epic + Legendary Souls... and the changes that Double Coconut implemented made it so that was NO LONGER POSSIBLE...
This created an insurmountable and unfair advantage to a very small percentage of players, with Alexandrp54321 being the one with the biggest advantage.
When this was brought up - Alex was a dick to everyone in the Discord and when Erlendo beat Alex into League 9... Alex whined incessantly until he managed to somehow get into L10 before Erlendo...
Let's take a moment to look at each Leagues "Soul Requirements" to better understand the issue:
To get into League 10 requires 17,640 Legendary Souls... which would take about 15 games based on the 659-2002 Legendary Souls we saw above... but after they changed the Fiends Soul Ratings and eliminated the Spawner Fiends Rewards... each game rewards maybe 20 Legendary Souls? 50 on certain maps. More if you use Soulful but you give up your shot at higher placement that day...
But let's say you earned 50 Souls per Play... 1st play is Free, the second play in League 9 is like 944 Tickets or something (I don't know 100%) but that is like 4k DEC!
So for 4k DEC you would earn 100 Legendary Souls in this example... per day.
That would mean you would have to spend 177 Days and 708k DEC to go from L9 to L10...
Whether malicious or not, what Double Coconut did by catching this issue and making these specific changes in this way... essentially allowed Alexandr to enter L10 ALONE... and earn ALL OF THE LEAGUES REWARDS until someone else manages to join them.
The other problem with this is... the other players: Tanyboi, Megabloop, Thomaswrocks and Erlendo were also able to farm Spawned Fiend Souls to get up to L9...
In fact almost everyone in L7+ was playing the game when this was part of Soulkeep... this is an issue because these players, myself included, are able to earn SPS Rewards in these higher leagues... but getting into these Leagues today is MUCH HARDER than it was at launch.
However, I don't think everyone should start over at League 0, that would be insane... If I were to propose what I believe a "Fair" reset would look like... it would be this:
A. Take whatever League someone is currently in and Restart us in a League at 50%, rounded up. With this, we would restart with precisely the amount of Souls needed for that League and no more - as in we would start in whichever league with 0 Common, 0 Rare, 0 Epic and 0 Legendary towards the next League.
L10 = Restart at L5
L9 = L4.5 = Restart at L5
L8 = Restart at L4
L7 = L3.5 = Restart at L4
L6 + L5 = Restart at L3
L4 + L3 = Restart at L2
L2 + L1 = Restart at L1
L0 = Restart at L0
Now... there are only like 10 Players in Leagues 8-10... TEN. I am pretty close to L8 myself and should be there within a week... maps permitting...
You might think these 10 players would HATE this proposal... but I am willing to wager most of them would be FOR IT.
My bets on how each player would vote:
L10 - Alexandrp54321: Against Reset
L9 - Thomaswrocks: For Reset
L9 - Megabloop: For Reset
L9 - Tanyboi: For Reset
L9 - Erlendo: For Reset
L8 - Cav0: For Reset
L8 - Momojuice: For Reset
L8 - Imperij4427: For Reset
L8 - Bakenbard: Against Reset
L8 - Hurnycucumber: For Reset
It should come as no surprise the ones I believe would be against this are Alex and Baken. They are in the same Guild and have been called out as one of the biggest abusers of every exploit to date... they multi account with many others in L5-7 including their "Bot Accounts".
Pros: Levels the playing field and temporarily curtails rewards in Leagues 6-10
Cons: "But Dingus! They PAID to get up to L10"...
This is true, they did pay... I paid... but we have also been earning 1k, 2k... 8k SPS PER DAY in these Leagues and have MORE THAN RECOUPED THEIR ENTRY FEES and any other expenses at this point.
In fact, as a great example... I stole first place at the last minute from @lincemarrom the other day (just like they did from me a few days before that 😜) and in League 7 I earned 1,463 $SPS for first place!
At the time of this writing that is... 1,463 x $.0082 = $11.99USD
By comparison... 8k $SPS is 8,000 x $.0083 = $65.60 😵
A League Reset would SOLVE the issue of "Unfair Advancement Due To LEGAL Game Rules".
Everyone would be back on a level playing field and SPS Rewards would be significantly reduced until players earned their way back up through the Leagues.
To me, this is the best solution because every player would be on level ground AND the SPS DAO would see a large reduction in SPS emissions... which many are saying came from "unfair advantages".
This is partly true but the biggest issue was the "closing of the door" behind Alex, which has essentially guaranteed them being alone L10 for quite some time - intentional or not, this needs to be rectified.
Regardless of whatever happens with the Reset - another thing that needs to be addressed is the concept of "Soulboxes"...
What is the issue: Soulboxes could allow a New Player to "Buy their way" into the upper Leagues.
...
Wait a minute... WHO FUCKING CARES? The only reason this matters is because players in the upper Leagues played our asses off to get here... and if someone could just "buy their way" in... that'd piss us off right???
Ok... so what did Double Coconut do: One purchase of Soulboxes per day, in random amounts...
Upon reflection this is just dumb... I mean even if you wanted to "buy your way" into League 10, starting from League 9... you would need about 15k Soulboxes and at current DC prices of 150 DEC each, that would be 2,250,000 DEC to buy your way into L10, starting from L9.
In my opinion, the only person this truly protects... is Alex, in L10... Otherwise, anyone could just buy a bunch of SB's and BOOM they'd be getting 4k SPS per day...
Again, I won't say this is intentional... but man... the more we dig into this, it seems more and more fishy...
Solution: MAKE SOULBOXES PURCHASEABLE AT 100 DEC EACH AND IN UNLIMITED QUANTITES.
Pros:
A. Paired with Reset - this allows ALL PLAYERS to have access to ANY LEAGUE and will allow for a FAIR DISTRIBUTION of SPS Rewards from the Leagues
If you want to advance quickly - you can... just pay up. It's no different than buying 11 Attempts each day, right???
B. Double Coconut will make a LOT OF MONEY... Like a LOT.
C. I believe the DAO gets money from DEC spent, right?
This is a WIN-WIN-WIN
I am open to hearing why this would be a bad thing as the only Con I can think of is...
Con: "I can't afford to buy them and advance, no fair!"
Rebuttal: You couldn't afford to buy the tickets to play 10 times per day either... and it's the same result.
This issue is so easy to solve, it's ridiculous... COPY THE COOLDOWN FROM SPLINTERLANDS.
If you PLAY a card... and then Delegate/Sell/Rent it - 24h Cooldown for Tournament Play
If you RENT a card, no Cooldown.
Card Energy goes back to being reset upon transfer.
This will SOLVE EVERYTHING.
A. Delegations - only one account can play, then cooldown triggers. Delegation Exploit Solved
B. Rentals - you could PLAY and then list your card for RENT... allowing for a SECOND use... but with a Cooldown Timer from the "Play" - that is solved too.
C. Zero Energy Rentals - I don't know the mechanics but Splinterlands has figured out how to make it so you can play a Rental after someone else is done renting it, without a Cooldown...
USE THIS EXACT METHOD...
It will prevent the exploits and with Energy being reset on each card upon "New Player Rental" - it will prevent the "Zero Energy Rental" which SUCKS.
Solution: JUST COPY THE SPLINTERLANDS SCRIPT FOR THIS EXACT ISSUE 😡 the code is clearly already written and used... just adapt it.
The major frustration with "Multi Accounters" is they can use a series of accounts in one league to play a free attempt... this allows them to figure out and refine the strategy best suited to the Map/Ruleset that day...
It ends up looking like this:
Notice almost all of the top spots that earned SPS are from the Guilds "Thallid", and "RU" and the difference from 1st-10th is only a 274 point spread?!?
Solution: BRING BACK THE RANDOM RULESETS
If each time you played a map, you had to contend with VARYING RULESETS... it would ELIMINATE THE MULTI ACCOUNTERS UNFAIR ADVANTAGE...
Again, from being there the whole time... I reflect upon the change FROM the "Random Rulesets" to the "Fixed Rulesets" and how Arhov and the team were like "oh, we didn't realize this was the case..." a few weeks in...
However, the only one it actually benefitted was Alexandrp and the gang from the Guilds "Splinterlands-RU [PRO]", "Thallid" and "Silver-RU"...
With the player Thallid being IN the Guild "Splinterlands-RU [PRO]" and a little digging it was easy to uncover these players are either all in collusion or more likely... just one or a few people taking advantage of a system.
To be fair anyone can do this and they aren't the only ones, just the most prolific.
By bringing back the "Random Ruleset Generation" each time you play a Map... this COMPLETELY ELIMINATES the Multi Account advantage AND makes the game more challenging - requiring SKILL to place highly on each map, rather than spamming attempts to figure out the "best" strategy for the day...
Solution 1: Reset the game, as soon as feasible, with League Level Resets as follows:
L9 + L10 = L5
L7 + L8 = L4
L5 + L6 = L3
L3 + L4 = L2
L1 + L2 = L1
L0 = L0
Solution 2: Soulboxes. Let Players purchase Soulboxes in any quantity, from 1-Infinity at 100 DEC per Soulbox. This is functionally no different than players dropping thousands of DEC on Tickets to play 10, 20 times per day.
Solution 3: Fix the Zero Energy Rental issue by implementing THE EXACT SAME COOLDOWN SYSTEM implemented by Splinterlands and their Rental System.
This will stop the Delegation Exploit and at the same time allow players to have full energy with every Rental.
Solution 4: Multi Account Advantage - GO BACK to the old way, with a twist... Each time you play a Map... it loads a RANDOM Ruleset with a RANDOM Percentage.
This eliminates any and all benefits from Multi-Accouting.
Final thoughts: I don't feel like anyone did anything "wrong" by utilizing the "Spawn Lock" and "Spawned Fiend Scores"... but with the recent changes... Double Coconut has effectively LOCKED EVERYONE ELSE out of the extreme upper leagues and this benefits exactly 1 Account...
There are 4 other Accounts in L9 that benefit as well... but I genuinely believe 4 out 5 of these accounts would agree with my suggestions... and on top of that... every single one of them is extremely simple to implement.
That's all I have for now but those EXTREMELY SIMPLE AND EASY TO IMPLEMENT Solutions would LITERALLY SOLVE EVERY "UNFAIR" ISSUE IN THE GAME.
Bonus: Next time we will take a look at how "Seasons" with League Resets could impact Soulkeep... 2 Weeks? 1 Month? 3 Months?
That and more to be covered on my next Soulkeep article!!!
That's all I have for you today folks!! Thank you for reading and I would LOVE for you to join me in game!!
Naturally, after everything leading up to this moment, I do think Splinterlands and Soulkeep are some of the BEST web3 games out there!
They bring the #play2earn feature to the forefront of development as well as many opportunities for people to earn rewards - whether Player or Investor!!
If you're interested in the future of gaming, it's worth checking out!
You can sign up here: Splinterlands
Cheers 🍻,
- CaptainDingus
#Splinterlands #Hive #Soulkeep #play2earn #web3 #NFTGaming #Rebellion #Conflicts #TowerDefense
I can't believe things have gotten to this point without the project manager dealing with it. Its truly mind blowing imo.
Thank you very much @captaindingus for bringing up the issues and showing us what should've been known by the manager of the project.
I know what I think, SPS payouts should stop until this is fixed. In addition, if management doesn't want to do it on their own, then I believe a public proposal should be incoming shortly.
Thank you again for caring, as always!
Yes sir!
I just happened to be active in both projects as a Player - but have invested a significant amount of time/money into both... which gave me perspective.
Fortunately, I also was able to explain it in a way people who didn't have the same perspective could understand :)
I only hope it helps 😊
You did a great job and got a lot of people's attention! I love how you told your fiancée about your credibility, its 100% the truth! Thanks again Captain! :)
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One player getting 1.4 million SPS for doing next to nothing before another player could even potentially compete is unacceptable. If they aren't going to fix this situation very soon, we have a major problem.
A proposal to stop all SPS rewards until shit is fixed? 🤔
I've been talking to them today. They're aware people want an immediate fix. My thoughts are that if it's not fixed by Friday, we run a proposal. Of course, I'm one opinion, if you or anyone else wants to run one now you can just message me and we'll figure it out.
That's not quite right - there are several players close to being in L10 but you are right enough to make the point.
I hope they do something though and I am willing to give up my League Rewards and take the Reset for the benefit of everyone ✌️
But if you say anything about it, you're just "crying" and unaware that this player is simply superior to every other player in the game.
haha exactly!
My man🥰
Thanks for sharing! - @azircon
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 40/50) Liquid rewards.
Thanks Liberty!
The game really has potential, and I truly appreciate you trying to come up with ways to save it. If they listened to you, I think it could be easily be saved. you-know-who would be livid, but that's okay. It's basically either piss him off or let the entire game die for everyone.
People are obviously pissed that he is going to get like a million SPS for exploiting a bug. And, sure, spending a bunch of DEC, but he really only did that because he knew the trick. How many attempts does he do now? Not even one, really. Just puts out one tower get a play in and collects 8k SPS. On top of that, he's so cocky about it. Insists he's just smarter and a better player than everyone else. That makes it easy to not be on his side.
I am glad to hear Clayboyn has been talking to the CEO. Hopefully, he can light a fire under his ass. If not, it sounds like a proposal will be coming soon, and I'm fairly certain a proposal to take the SPS rewards away would pass at this point.
Anyway, thanks again for spending so much time trying to spread awareness despite your insanely busy schedule!
I would hate to see a lot of Players punished for the actions of a few goons who are bad actors.
The solutions are simple and I believe they would solve the problem...
@olebulls had an excellent point that if they did a Reset like I proposed, we need to have set Reward %'s for each place... instead of "Winner take all"
For example, the L10 issue with Alexandrp54321 would be solved by something like this:
1st Place = 20% League Rewards
2nd Place = 10% League Rewards
3-5th Place = 5% League Rewards
etc, etc, etc...
That way, even if one person paid all the DEC to immediately jump to L10 after the Reset... they would only receive 20% of the League Rewards instead of 100%...
#ProblemSolved
Hmm, why did they not do this from the start😅
This is top notc captain😉
Yeah, that would make so much more sense! To be fair, I bet they didn't really picture leagues being occupied by only one person when they came up with the reward distribution. They probably had higher hopes and thought more than a couple dozen people would be playing the game. With all of the multi-accounting going on, I wonder sometimes how many people actually play it on a regular basis.
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