The Splinterlands team is working on a number of upcoming changes to improve matchmaking liquidity in Modern format and to clarify and more actively enforce the Terms of Service around bots and battle helper usage in Modern format, Tournament, and Guild Brawl battles.
Fair Play Policy
Splinterlands will be adding a "Fair Play Policy" to our Terms of Service in order to provide more clarity on the rules for Modern format, Tournament, and Guild Brawl battles. The new policy is currently planned to be put in place as part of the upcoming release on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024.
The Fair Play Policy will specify, among other things, that both providing or using any tools or services that provide help to players during active battles in Modern format, Tournaments, or Guild Brawls is strictly prohibited. We will be working with the community/DAO to implement a clear process for enforcing the Fair Play Policy and for handling voilations going forward.
We are also excited to welcome @Sylar to the Splinterlands team. Many of you know him from the community and as the creator and operator of the XBOT service. As a team member, @Sylar will be specifically focused on working to enforce the new policy both for players and for operators of third-party tools and services. As the creator and operator of one of the most popular third-party Splinterlands services, we believe that he is highly qualified for this position, and we look forward to working with him and with the community to ensure fair play in Splinterlands.
@Sylar also wanted to share the following message with the community:
I understand and appreciate the importance of having a competitive game and acknowledge that many bot and battle helper tools, including XBOT, have had a detrimental effect on the competitive integrity of the game. Going forward, I'm confident that I can leverage my knowledge and experience with these tools to develop a robust, accurate and effective solution to enforce fair-play.
Modern Format Rewards & Match Liquidity
When the new ranked reward system is released (currently also scheduled for Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024), winners of Modern format battles will earn 50% more of the new Glint token than winners of Wild format battles would with the same rating and modifiers. The Glint token will be able to be used in the new reward shop to purchase the soulbound reward cards and many other items. More details about the new reward system and the Glint token will be published shortly.
We hope that this will encourage more players to participate in Modern format at all levels and help to ensure that players can more easily find suitable matches at all times.
Additionally, the Splinterlands team is planning to begin running automated accounts in Modern format that will not earn any rewards in order to help further ensure that players can always find a suitable match at all levels of play and at any time of day. These accounts will have Hive wallets but no Summoner's Spellbook, meaning that they are able to own assets and play, but they cannot earn any rewards at all in the game. These accounts will be no different than any other account, and will need to own or rent cards and will be subject to the same Energy usage and other restrictions as everyone else. Therefore, we expect that these accounts will be mostly indistinguishable from regular players.
We look forward to these changes creating a much better player experience and bringing significantly more players into Modern format over time. In the future, as we make more progress toward improving the player experience throughout the game and begin our marketing and promotional efforts, we expect that we will no longer need to run these non-earning, automated accounts, however we feel that they provide a good solution to ensuring quick and fair matches to Modern format players in the interim.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be sent to @sps.dao
Some valuable reactions on Discord:
In my opinion this is dividing the community as is a quite polemic decision, the team is rewarding the bad behavior of a dev breaking the TOS (or this is the accusations that have rounded the Discord lately), while they could hire other honest and skilled devs as Iproto who has been loyal to the game.
On the other hand I understand the decision as a way to effectively stop some of the BH users as probably Sylar will have enough data to expose those breaking the TOS either with his service or with others.
My main concern is the terms of the contract with him, I really hope that the team included clauses to prevent the clear conflict of interests and to punish this employee if his loyalty is broke in any point.
I'm not eager to judge a person's work beforehand so will be looking what the outcome of all this process is, this being said and has been warned by some other users as well, if the team fails with this decision, it's very likely that many users will loose all their trust in it. If they haven't lost it yet, as we can see in some comments on the Mav chat.
Sylar came to us and expressed genuine interest in helping to solve these issues and to generally help make Splinterlands a better product, and we felt (after a number of discussions) that this would be a good opportunity to finally tackle a difficult and longstanding problem.
I wasn't aware the Iproto was interested in possibly joining the Splinterlands team, but if that is the case I would be happy to have a discussion with him and/or any other talented community members to see if there is a fit either now or in the future.
I think this is true of pretty much everything that we do. We always try to make the best decisions that we can toward the long term success of the product, but we will inevitably make mistakes along the way. We are attempting to move quickly with decisions but also to identify mistakes quickly and change course when needed. We'll see how it all works out.
I'd be interested in joining the team as a mobile user representative. I'm a Certified Scrum Master if that means anything. Y'all could pay me in packs or DEC. 😆 Seriously though...I would.
I know I have no legs to stand on since I'm just at the bottom of the barrel but hear me out. I do think this hiring is a good opportunity and I think it's also good to test his capabilities for a few weeks or months before spouting negative criticisms on the guy.
The reason I said this is because:
https://peakd.com/hive-124452/@konaqua/apparently-there-s-still-bots
https://peakd.com/hive-124452/@konaqua/apparently-there-s-still-bots-83126278c6518
... after Splinterlands did the "No bot rule in Modern Format, I would say that they are successful but not quite. So, having an expert WHO KNOWS how to make bots, is essential to regulate bots, right?
Yep, as we were talking in the Discord most of players agreed on this point, Sylar could be the most indicate person to look after the ones breaking the rules. I haven't any problem with the decision regarding the capacities of Sylar, I think he is a good dev, it's the moral aspect what it's a bit disappointing but this is a business and Yabapmatt does well looking for the practical aspects of it, letting aside the sentiments.
Hi @yabapmat I like this updates but I would love to get a response from you on this comment of mine because there is an aspect that disadvantages real players a lot and in my opinion will be very frustrating for all real players in the future and I hope that this aspect will be taken into consideration.
Bot farms can use all cards from all editions while a real player every time a set comes out of modern format will be forced to not be able to use his cards and will only have three options for cards out of modern format:
This is a short circuit/paradox if you want to incentivize real players to join Splinterlands.
Real players are the pillars of any web 2 p web 3 game
Splinterlands is my favorite blockchain game and I have been playing on Splinterlands for four years regularly every day and have never used bots and battle helpers.
Let me give you a practical example: I have longed for Byzantine Kitty and the moment she is out of modern I can no longer use her unless I decide to play against boring and unfun bots.
In my opinion the real solution to restore value to the beautiful game that is Splinterlands is to create a league just for bots and allow real players to have fun with all the cards which would be a logical thing in any game!
I like the direction and the policy that Splinterlands is following against bots and battle helpers but it's still not enough in my opinion!
totally agree, you can't expect normal players to keep investing hundreds of dollars because a new set launches and they lost their privilege to play in modern just because they use an older set, they paid a good amount of money for it!
@yabapmatt Would it be possible to further clarify the level of access Sylar will have to Splinterlands resources. If the level of access includes repository access or access to UAT/QA environments this could provide a distinct advantage to XBot compared to other automation providers.
I don't believe the position should require any type of access like that. It is important to us that no one has any advantages over anyone else in any area of the product. If anything, I believe that being an employee adds more restrictions around offering third party tools rather than providing an advantage. In any case - if you feel this is causing issues or disadvantaging you now or in the future feel free to reach out to me.
Can XBOT continue to provide service while Sylar is employed by SL, won't there be a conflict of interest?
What, specifically, is the conflict of interest?
You already answered with your previous comment. Sylar won’t have access to tools specific to battle mechanics that will gain him any undue advantage.
Do these actions solve the challenges of Splinterlands game now? I feel the team didn't dig to the rootcause of the problem, just going around and find the short term solution. That's one issue fixed, another issue happened.
Congratulations, Sylar :)
You either die a villain, or live long enough to see yourself become a hero.
These are awesome news and hope that the TOS are actually (finally) enforced; the only bad thing here, is more punishing of the wild league human players, like me. Please keep in mind there are ACTUAL HUMAN PLAYERS in wild league, that keep getting rewards slashed either by bot abuse, and now by deprecation against playing in modern format. It's also the only format where old cards retain some value (and for me more fun to play, given all the different strategies one can use). I know npe is the focus, would love to see it extending to Existing Player Experience, and finally have a game EVERYONE can play... on an even playing field, instead of having to choose one format because the other one is a bot heaven with slashed rewards.
I have a theory about what they are doing and why they are doing this. Is it possible that the devs are ironing out the bots in Modern format so that once Modern Format is 100% non-bot, they can now let the cards be released?
By that, I mean, they would make Modern format in a way like in wild format that you can use all cards ONCE they solve of the bot problems in modern?
Imagine it as playing League of Legends and has both Solo Queue and Flex Queue. Both format, you can play any champions you own and yet, they are different queus. You can still play solo while doing the Flex queue and it won't affect your solo queue standing.
So, in Splinterlands, maybe once they fix that there are no bots in Modern, they can now release the restriction and you can now use ALL of the cards in that ranked format.
Just a theory.
It would be very good news... but since they don't seem interested at all in a full bot ban, don't see it happen on the near future. Would love to be proven wrong.
Fully agree. Ever since Wild became the home of bots it feels more and more like we're punished for wanting to play in a league where we can actually use our cards. I hope we can find a way through this soon.
Indeed. We're seeing a lot of good decisions lately, let's hope the trend continues and the overlooked problems for ages are finally dealt with.
+1
As probably one of the biggest proponents of a fair playing field for humans to battle one another, I am happy that these additional steps have been taken to mitigate the impact illegal automated play has had on Modern. I know @Sylar was probably the most notorious developer in terms of suspicions of him breaking ToS by providing a private BH to select users in Modern, however, I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he can show integrity and a change of heart, so we can play and enjoy the game as it is meant to be enjoyed.
This is all very good news and I am especially delighted that @Sylar has joined the rebellion 😀
Finally! I have been fighting this war with myself since shortly after bots came out if I should quit or stay and the "just quit, it's not a game anymore" part of me was slowly winning. This issue was #1 for me.
I now have full confidence that we are headed in the right direction.
The changes sound promising, however, I must ask, will the "Wild Format" be affected with respect to rewards. The older collections instead of having more value, are diminishing, I understand the point of fair play for better competition, I like that, but, for those of us who have older collections, it all lags behind.
A third format should be created just for BOTS, and add more value to the "Wild Format", cards from older editions are more valuable due to their supply and age, but they lose value, this should be addressed in my opinion.
Are there no plans to revalue and also make the Wild Format BOTS free?
Also, I hope they start to implement an errata system like in Yugioh. The power creep in this game is insane each pack and this gives a huge power gap on old card vs the new cards.
I hope they would implement balancing system or errata system where the old cards will be increased in stats or change in abilities to be able to compete with modern cards.
Thank you for this update
I believe that the entire community will benefit from this new changes
Peace
I believe this is a good solution that addresses the problems we have now, and of course creates more tools for the future. I definitely believe that BH's were a problem that needed to be fixed and they were a systemic issue for the game. Our terms of service are very important to be followed, its what gives the game legitimacy and long term value.
This will give us the tools to 1) detect and 2) deter.
I very much love how the community will be part of the process for enforcement. I'm comfortable that we have a strong community that will work for fairness and also have no tolerance for cheating.
I accept this will give everyone a fresh slate to start over, and I'm looking forward to participating as a community member in any way I can to make this game cutting edge on issues such as this.
And since Sylar was able to do the feat of using bots in Modern Format, which was actually illegal per TOS, isn't he also the best person to prevent that since he already know how to do it?
It's like, "If this person know how to bypass the system, then he can also make a prevention for others to do it." Same as how white hackers work, they hack the website, then tell the companies how they hack their websites so they can put security on it so no one will be able to do the same trick.
Nice work. I live the ability of this team to try new things and pivot when needed.
I love this. Especially the part about using more cards to create match liquidity.
Two questions:
Will the non-earning bots be tuned for the level of play they should be at or will their limitation just be the cards they have? If we see bots with silver level cards smashing their way through diamond, that could turn more players off.
Where will the cards used be sourced from? Can the team sweep the floor on some of these dirt cheap cards to build some good decks? Rentals? Do you already have the cards? My vote is for rentals.
Rentals would be good since every time you rent, a part of the rental fee is burned. Therefore, not only the bots will be used to fill the player gap so people always has someone to play with, but also burn DEC in the process which would increase the value of DEC over time due to scarcity.
👍
This is really great way to progress I have been really enjoying the battles on modern, there is some delay in battles but not massively annoying, I hope he can improve the player only in modern and block more of bots. I would rather have the wait than play bots but if really needed they need to be a low level and easy to beat to save fun of winning for real players
Yea im sick of people cheating with xbot!
well i for one am positive with these changes i mean if there wasnt any bot farms to begin with then the currency wouldnt have tanked so hard i remember the times when its just honest grinding with the occasional chaos of having to rent last minute just to earn your keep now that guys was fun in its own way cause you were thinking with your brain at a life threatening situation .....well not really life threatening per se more like yer gonna be late in passing your homework type of situation hehe
Good news! Looking forward to all the new changes coming on 2.April!
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Wow, good news! Keep up - what a smart team behind SPL 😎
very good news
thanks
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For a average player like me, collection and game play wise. Its pretty much easier to stop playing for a while with this decision. The surprising reality is that no one is punished for abusing BH in ranked modern and tournaments. crazy, pretty crazy. So long folks.
Sylar, the developer of XBOT, will manage the Terms of Service (TOS) for banning bot users? I hope Sylar will utilize his/her expertise for the benefit of the game.
Nothing better than the wolf looking after the hen house!
I like the idea that now there will be real players and not boots but it won't do much good if all players with low purchasing power or newbies can find the best players with the best cards since according to the new rules everything is free no beginner will want to play like this and will give up in a short time, I still prefer to divide the players according to their cards or strength so that it is fairer.
about the championships this is interesting as now it is free but the prizes are only for the top 64 and due to the number of people who participate (400-500) it is much more difficult to win anything before I was happy to win 2 or 3 sps now I can win several and still If you do not receive anything, I suggest reducing the prizes for the first placed and re-distributing even lower amounts to lower positions
I totally agree with you on the tournaments issue... I stopped tournaments because even if I did pretty well, most of the times I wouldn't earn anything. (of course this is only for the DAO sponsored tournaments)
Can you convert glint to sps? Otherwise its an other cut to players earnings
No, you cannot convert Glint to SPS, however the portion of SPS rewards that are currently going towards loot chests will be moved to the battle rewards when the reward update is implemented so there will be no loss of earnings for players.
Thanks for clarify
Glint essentially replaces Reward Points, so no, you can only use Glint in the rewards shop, and there won't be any SPS chests there.