The SPS governance proposal system provides a good way to conduct a stake-weighted poll to see where the Splinterlands player community stands on certain topics. This proposal aims to collect stake-weighted feedback from the community that the Splinterlands team can take into account in its decisions regarding different aspects of the game.
For this poll, we are looking for feedback on whether or not the community would prefer to reinstate the card level limits for each ranked play league as they existed in the past with separate leaderboards for each league.
- Please upvote this proposal if you would prefer to reinstate the card level limits for each ranked play league as they existed in the past with separate leaderboards for each league
- Please downvote this proposal if you would prefer to keep the current system where there are no limits on card level in ranked play
Once again, please keep in mind that this is just a poll utilizing the SPS governance proposal system to get stake-weighted feedback from the Splinterlands player community to provide to the Splinterlands team. Nothing in this proposal or the results will be considered binding.
The game doesnt work without leagues. Thats just a fact. Theres no onboarding without leagues, theres no new players.
Without leagues the game will just die.
Leaderboards should be removed, all we need is leagues back to start building again.
What this guy said
Matt changed this system for a reason not sure why we are looking to go backward. the current system balances itself out over time, lets go forward not backwards !!!
When it started I also thought it balanced itself out. It doesn't. We would need at least 10x the current player base, likely more. We're looking to go backward because the affected players (I'm not one of them) are very unhappy.
@yabapmatt I've heard a lot of arguments about this topic and I'm going to share my thoughts here for posterity.
I think giving people a somewhat level playing field based on their card levels is a good idea, so I can support the idea of bring back league level caps. However, I think most people aren't even concerned with the " as they existed in the past with separate leaderboards for each league" part and I think that is actually a turn off for many that could consider supporting this idea.
From the comments/questions/concerns I get regarding this topic, most people just don't like playing against higher level cards they can't afford or beat and feel it makes the game unfun. This is where I think Brawls and Tournaments really shine. Hopefully this information can help you make a decision on how to proceed.
need to reinstate the leagues but without LB as there should be no incentive to intentionally stick to a particular rating
There is always incentive to stick with your league if you want fair battles against cards of your level.
i was referring to LB rewards in particular. Give less glint and less sps to lower leagues so that they get motivated to higher leagues.
to have a stake-weighted vote in this matter is a terrible idea.
as of now i have counted roughly 70m sps votes by the top 20 participants.
70m out of 95m total.
the issue is, these few guys are most likely playing in high diamond-champ where league locks have zero impact.
league locks are about game experience in bronze-gold where the masses play with little voting power.
please make a discord poll or google.
one soul, one vote!
Matt can see the numbers of people voting on each side as well as the stake and I'm sure he can read all of the comments too.
I'm saying this since literally YEARS.
1 vote = 1 vote
And only KYC confirmed accounts can vote.
And not this SPS weighted bullcrap. But noone gives a damn. They just continue to drive this game into the wall because they are too stupid or illusional to see whats goign on.
Sad...
I support the return of leagues. I think we should do away with leaderboards other than champion. I don't think there should be an option to stay in a given league. If you are good enough to make it to the next league, you should play there. If you get beat, your rating will go down and you'll be back in the league you are comfortable in, if this bothers you, then upgrade your deck until you can compete in a higher league. Also, I like the idea of having leagues in modern only. Wild is and should be a free for all.
Yes, please! Thank you for putting this up :-)
I liked the idea of setting the leagues up a little more like the tournaments - one can choose in which league to play. For example: I want to play Silver League, so I rent or buy the necessary cards (a min. of CP will be required), and enter Silver League for the Season. There I stay for the Season, having fun with all the other Silver League players.
Next season, I want to go bigger and rent a maxed out set of cards, and go into Diamond League - and have fun with all the other players with maxed out cards.
Only exception - Champions. There you have to qualify going through Diamond first.
That way, even new players can decide where to compete. They can dip their toes in Bronze, and then decide wether to rent/buy and choose another league next time - always without getting beat up by way higher cards.
There might be a few counter arguments to this, but even considering the ones I was presented so far I think it's the best way to get more gameplay-balance back in the game.
Having the leagues again would be wonderful.
Some recommendations:
+:
With this, it once again makes sense for bronze, silver and gold players to buy RB packs and future editions.
-:
It's been a long time and I don't know if the people who left the game due to the unification of the leagues will return to play.
Everyone seems to agree that this is a good idea but I'll go ahead and put my 2 cents in as well.
YES
Having capped leagues is vital to the NPE. When you start off playing, learning the game, it is critical to play/learn against similarly constructed decks. Being used as a 'stepping-stone' by a OP account is not constructive nor is it a positive experience for anyone just starting the game.
As for League Leader Boards- The less Rewards offered for those, the better. In my opinion SPS, DEC, and Glint would all be too valuable as LB Rewards. There are a few alternatives which could split the difference between, say, 1K Glint and no Reward:
Your view is valid in my opinion but for me I would be considering voting NO for this proposal after now getting used to the current system. With the league system players that play by the rules and do nothing wrong get labeled as a min/maxing smurf by some of those who have over spent and lost most of their skin in it.
With the current system I can rent just a few cheap max level cards that give me an easy competitive advantage and see my rank rise way higher than I used to be able. Never before have I been able to mindlessly exploit the system as much but the biggest advantage is that nobody even thinks that it is an exploit.
Because I move higher up the ranks faster I need more SPS and I just rent that inflationary junk real cheap also. Whatever SPS is earned I just dump on the market just like a scholar. While the inflation rate is around 30% its best to get rid of it as fast as you can but its ok next year it may only be 20% and when it gets to 5% maybe I will not want to dump it so fast.
So you see axrho I didn't mind the old system but that doesn't mean I can't adapt to the new one.
I have a caveat on my vote - I chose to vote for this as I believe if I vote against it, my actual opinion will not be seen.
I do NOT want separate leaderboards or even a leaderboard at all for lower leagues - I also believe, if possible, this is only really something to consider for Bronze/Silver, as it would go a long way to providing a safe haven for the 500k marketing campaign we may or may not be doing soon to onboard players.
I currently play in Diamond modern, so this does not affect me personally in anyway:
I think we should be treating Bronze/Silver as a more casual experience to the game and tailoring their respective leagues to be a place where these smaller, casual players exist - I believe this will make it easier to onboard a wider variety of players in the future, and make the 500k marketing campaign more effective, should it come to fruition. I would also argue that this change should be Modern Only as if it is in Wild, bots will be able to anchor to a lower league and optimize their SPS stake
This is different from a modern player doing that - as a modern player will consistently need to engage with the current set and purchase it, creating yearly revenue for the team, regardless of what league they play.
That being said - if I vote against it, it will be seen as no to league limits as a whole, so my vote is for.
Mostly agree with you except in two parts:
gold league is a significant mid-level investment, I don't think it should be ignored or grouped with diamond. If modern is going to need constant investment, then silver-> gold is a significant upsize. as is gold -> diamond. Silver -> diamond may seem impossible. Giving smaller goals makes progression feel possible.
IMO there's no need to completely remove the leaderboard itself at lower leagues - people still want to feel competitive. But rewarding with glint instead of DEC or SPS will limit the economic incentive to camp.
Yes please, bring the league back, its essential for NPE.
But don't bring the leaderboard per league, we want an incentive for people to move up and level up theyr decks.
My proposal is, that the league returns, but without leaderboard and that the league advancement or dropping happens automatically just like it is right now.
YES PLS BRING BACK THE PAST SEPARATE LEAGUE. THIS WILL ATTRACT MORE NEW PLAYERS
reinstate leagues with only Champion LB. There should be no incentive to smurf in lower leagues.
i support bringing back the leagues.
it will give players a much more tournament like experience in which they can only face a certain deck of cards with certain abilities within their league limits.
the game would be more skill based in the middle leagues compared as it is now where it is pure pity or luck if u encounter with ur silver deck a diamond or single bcx deck.
on the downside, back when we had this system we had the problem that league advancement was "guarded" by players with maxed out decks. that was especially frustrating for new players that were dealing with cards they couldnt aquire the needed cards easily (quora).
there could be a workaround by allowing players once per season to jump a certain amount of ranking points when they sacrifice some glint or energy.
edit:
we need new players. we need to hold them in the game and make them want to invest.
put in the shoes of a new player running with my half completed bronce deck into diamond decks while barely understanding the rules and abilities this game would give me bad feelings.
every other good game i know slowly introduces new players to more challanging content. SPL should do too with the league system.
I am voting for this to reinstate leagues because I think leagues are the best way to onboard players and to allow natural development, as well as allow for more diversity in the use of the game assets (4 leagues create 4 different meta strategies)
However, it's not a vote to "return to exactly the way it was".
There were issues with the old leagues that the current system was attempting to solve:
Moving everything to champ league was too blunt of a tool for the job, and damaged the community and player experience in the process.
So my vote is that "leagues are beneficial to the player experience and superior to a single no-limit league".
However, I think we should commit to exploring several potential solutions to improve the 4 weaknesses above, while incorporating the benefits of a multi-league system. There are a number of viable solutions out there, I won't clutter this proposal with specifics, mostly I would like to see the community work together with the team to create the best version possible.
Neither is really good. Now it is just mayhem and before it was limiting to where you should play and penalizing you for playing in higher leagues than your cards should allow.
But if the split is again on the table I guess this includes the option to split the reward pools per card level segment, so why not split modern (and wild respectively) into modern-bronze, modern-silver, etc.? That way you create a competitive environment for every spending level and keep them strictly separate? With energy being a thing players would be kind of forced to choose a league, at least if they are trying to climb the leaderboard. Is the worry lack of match-liquidity?
If leagues are reinstated, cards levels should not be capped on the upside, but require minimun card levels for each league.
We aren't even earning $10 a month, while you’re making $5,000 USD every month by doing nothing.
The only reason the level caps were removed was to drive more sales by increasing the Pay2win allowing players who want at the lower level to buy their way up and giving players who play according to their budget a bad time hitting a wall as they quickly just face higher level cards.
The game is at its most fun when everyone is on a level playing field, it's tricky though as both have a good and a bad side. Something out of the box might be needed to really fix the ranked play.
Why not have a system where all cards both players in a battle own are available to both. when a player picks a card that only the opponent owns, part of the earnings in case he gets a win will go to the opponent. This way there is always a fun level playing field on each battle and fair earnings based on assets held even when a player loses. No level limits would be needed that way even though the idea would likely need some serious tweaking still.
Have three formats:
and onboarding up to Diamond.)
Why this works?
If you want to always be able to use your max level cards, play Champions.
If you want some controls on card levels, play leagues.
Then wild, could be something interesting. Add quests or some unique challenge to this format. Some quests could need certain abilities from old cards. Earn badges for completing quests, so new players will eventually wants to try it and acquire those old cards to complete the quests. For example, in wild it is not player vs player, but player vs specific obstacles or monster bosses with storyline.
This one has no shot. By definition the people with all the stake also have maxed cards and don't have to face the issues.
I think this should be reinstated but without LB prizes, everyone should strive to compete in the highest leagues however at their own pace.
This is a bad idea. The only thing that kept me from leaving and selling everything was when Matt removed the League card caps.
If you bring them back to modern I will stop buying cards completely and have to make a hard decision.
The league card caps incentivizes cheating with bots, battle helpers and spreadsheets. It allows cheaters to suppress honest players from advancing AND from getting reward cards and the cheaters earn more SPS and rewards cards that way and always stay ahead of non cheaters.
It also incentivizes scholars that play for whales to make multiple accounts with their profits and camp the lower leagues.
This is a big hard no from me.
I don't trust that we have "solved the cheating problem in modern."
It's gotten a lot better, especially with this latest round of bans as now I was finally able to get to diamond last season for the first time in like a year and I have a modern diamond deck.
CL 100% max with all reward cards max
RW 90+% max
RB about 67% max and still buying
SB all over the place because of cheaters keeping me back and league card caps before the glint system
If you bring back league card caps we are going to go backwards and the bot and battle helper creators and users are going to try even harder in modern because it gives them leverage to suppress honest players.
If you want to make a new Free to Play format for new players called modern SB that is gated by account age that has league card caps and that DOES NOT EARN SPS but only earns soulbound rewards. Then I am OK with that. Maybe give them an account age or number of battles limit until they are auto thrown into modern format. Then give them the temporary 100 SPS staked from the DAO as was approved before and start the modern format tutorial at that point which at that point won't be a big learning curve.
How does the new system have anything to do with cheaters, scholars and w/e else you're talking about? If it happens in one system it happens in both. Actually, with the 20 flat rating gain/loss, scholars are a bigger (or more noticeable) problem now.
You have maxed cards (as do I) so it doesn't affect us. I imagine you are playing in Diamond or Champion. Why does it matter to you if we go back? You'll stay where you are playing with max cards against max cards.
Returning to the old system is as unhelpful a plan as what we have now.
I am trying to build consensus around my suggestion for a new, better league structure.
I think the league structure is vitally important and we should embrace it, but not as it was or is.
If we had a "normal" system of promotion and relegation, it would only occur at the end of each season, not during. This is important as it provides players with opponents at a similar level to them, and prevents smurfing.
It would also mean that every two weeks, we would have divisional champions, sixteen of them, to celebrate and promote in the media. These champions would also be bragging of their achievements, so we get a constant stream of free publicity.
At eos, a percentage of players are promoted or relegated from each division, not two divisions as per the current system, which has always struck me as absurd, leaving as it does our top two divisions with zero players in them at the start of each season...
We could also introduce a Splinterlands Hall of Fame that featured all our divisional champions each season, which would give those players cachet and bragging rights, as Season X, Diamond League Division 3 Champion, for example.
Everybody would naturally find their own level, with those players not getting promoted or relegated remaining in the division they are in, which allows players to play at silver level or whatever level they see themselves as.
We can separate this proper league and divisional structure from the question of rewards, although it does seem natural that the champions and runners up, however many we defined that as, should get rewards for their achievements, like packs or glint rather than dec or sps maybe?
I am confident this will make the game more fun, resolve level issues, and reinforce and reward the competitive spirit.
I hope I have explained this approach clearly enough but please feel free to ask any questions anyone may have.
While I do think the game is better with separately defined league levels, I don't think it makes sense to keep the leaderboard prizes as they were under the old system. A new system should be developed to meet the new needs of our player base and league levels.
Yes, just do it.
I am against bringing leagues back.
As of writing this the vote is 80% (stake weighted) against.
It is also 59% against in individual votes (389 against and 271 for)
There is a massive disconnect between the most vocal about this issue and their collective skin in the game regarding staked SPS.
That is a big reason I am against bringing leagues back.
**Leagues did not attract players who believe in the entire concept of this ecosystem, it just attracted people who wanted to min/max the entire system. **
The top 20 votes have a collective 87,000,000 SPS staked.
All of the bronze and silver players should collectively have at least as much staked, but they don't, because in the bronze and silver culture being a part of the process and the entire part of the ecosystem was not deemed as beneficial from a min/max perspective.
If 5,000 Bronze and Silver players bought $100 worth of SPS (20,000 SPS) and staked it today, they would have 100,000,000 SPS staked for voting and could make waves with and conversation regarding DAO decisions.
The response to this post from those players will be predictable:
"It won't make a difference"
"The whales will always have more voting power"
"There is no point"
And that is my point, if you are not willing to sacrifice the optimal min/max for the short term, to contribute and be a part of the long-term process, then don't be surprised when the game evolves in a way that makes complaining and crying not optimal from a min/max perspective either.
There are several issues with your argument.
First, the highest stakers voting is a very flawed system but it is what we have. Honestly, it's not that different from web2 games when the company listens to the big spenders over the f2p or small spenders. Just because someone has more SPS doesn't mean they are right and many times they vote for their own interest over the interest of the whole community.
Second, this issue is not a DAO matter which means SPS stake is irrelevant. The team may choose to listen to us of these matters but this isn't an actual proposal. This is a way to see how the community feels to show Matt and team so that they make a decision which may or may not influence it.
Third, in this specific situation, not only SPS stake doesn't matter, it's quite the opposite: anyone who's playing with mostly maxed cards and is/was already playing in Diamond/Champion is unaffected. Why are we listening to those players? I am one of them. I didn't feel any difference from this change (only from the 20 flat rating per win/loss). We need to listen to the affected players.
Fourth, you say that there is disconnect between the vocal minority and their stake. Ignoring the stake part, it's true that sometimes vocal minorities make a lot of noise because the people who are happy or somewhat neutral won't write about it as much and people who are unhappy. However, changes are usually taken badly at first and the complaining tends to go down over time as people adapt. It has been the opposite. There are some voices raised at the time but many people gave it time. Matt said that it should take 1 or 2 seasons for things to find an equilibrium. I don't know how many seasons it has been but it's much more than 2 and no equilibrium was found and disagreement voices have only increased. Not only that but there have been many players who have left the game recently, many because of the removal of the leagues, at least partly.
Fifth, this doesn't affect only bronze and silver players. Gold players are probably even more affected. Gold level cards are usually a bit over half the BCX of a max card. That means gold players are about half as invested as diamond players in terms of cards. That's pretty significant. However, to be "forced" to make the sudden change, it's not easy. They will need to buy cards either 1 by 1 (more expensive), find good deals on lower than gold level cards (will probably take time), bite the bullet and buy a max card and try to sell the gold level card, or combine 2 gold level cards going over the max bcx. All of these are not ideal. It's one thing to be able to do it slowly and eventually move up. I didn't start as a max level player. I played with level 1 cards and mostly ghost cards for a long time. I only started leveling up when CL was released and it was a slow process. I played in all the leagues. If there weren't those steps I probably would have never gotten past level 1 and ghost cards.
Sixth, there aren't even 5000 total players.
With all this in mind, even just looking at number of votes, you have to take into account that many (you included) are voting this was because it is Matt's vision. Blind support doesn't mean anything. Any leader wants real feedback not someone who will repeat whatever they say. That has no value. Also, many who would have voted to bring back leagues have left the game because of this change.
I think more important than the votes is looking at the comments. Most of them are from affected people who are commenting respectfully and without anger that they want leagues back without leaderboards.
Problem is people already combined cards to MAX that they never would have done if not for the removal of card level limits by league. Trust will be lost by those people I think if this proposal passes.
What about the trust that was broken with this change when leagues were removed? A gold level deck of CL, RW and Rebellion is much more expensive than a max deck of CL. This change hurt the trust of those players. They were happy investing "wide" instead of "deep". Same for people playing in lower leagues but with GF decks.
Many other changes also "broke trust". So that can't be an argument. Changes are sometimes necessary. This was tried and it's not working.
Well this is just a poll to gauge sentiment and gather feedback, but looking at the votes I don't imagine anything is going to change at this point.
I wish the two aspects were not lumped together in this one poll. Don't need lower level leaderboards but I do like to play and stay in my preferred league.
i cant even understand why that was pulled in first..
there is literally no point of having leagues now.
no new player will come like this, and even players with a moderate investment in the game can't compete against the heavy wallets.
last 2 months, the changes were enough for me to drop playing daily; I feel that is the same for many.
one of the worst updates was this league thing. of course, the other is the Battle Pass of the wild. SPS price is in ATL and basically rn it is only play to have moderate fun since some heavy wallets will come against me in a gold league :/
Less than 24 hours remain to vote.
Currently 58% of voters are against bringing back leagues.
Currently 79% of stake-weighted votes are against bring back leagues.
Been asking for the number of voters info for a while. Where do you see this info please? Thanks.
In game, go to the proposal page
and then go to the proposal you want to view.
Then click on the total vote for or against and they will bring you to the same screen.
click on this:
And it will take you to this screen:
I absolutely vote Yes to this Proposal! Having league locks creates the ability to play within a Meta and is vital to the new player experience.
When I first joined Splinterlands I adopted a horizontal approach to buying cards. I bought as many level 1 cards as I could to give myself a well rounded novice deck. I enjoyed the game and then upgraded my cards to bronze. Later I upgraded to silver. Then the league locks were removed and upgrading to gold became pointless.
A word to the whales... If you want a market to sell your cards into, you need to have a large base of smaller account holders to make the cards valuable.
Try to think in terms of a new player and vote yes to this poll!