I like the idea because it makes sure the bulk of the rewards cards goes to players and takes away from bots but I question how sustainable it is. I have allot of experience with running tournaments and leagues (Not SM) and some of the common complaints of league players being forced to play tournaments as rewards for winning in leagues are:
The biggest one is ..... allot of league players don't want to grind tournaments after grinding the leagues. They put their time in during the league play and feel as if they shouldn't need to play tournaments to be given their league rewards.
Time Zones ..... I know you mentioned 4/6 hour breaks between games but time zone problems will still be an issue.
If the freeroll rewards games are capped (16/32 every 4/6 hours) this will cause problems due to the fact more (allot more) then 16 players will want to play. Waiting to possibly join the next game in 6 hours will be a major pain and it also causes us to run into time zone conflicts. The 16 man model will only work if we had continuous games pop up (once one has completed/started another one will open for registration). The continuous games would also solve the time zone issue..
My suggestions
If your model gets used I would prefer we don't win a daily ticket but instead we win a ticket for playing X amount of days. For example 1 ticket for 3 days play, 3 tickets for five days, 7 tickets for 10 days play or some sorta variant to that.
Edit: With what you are suggesting I actually think continuous 16 man capped games would work since what is essentially happening is the 16 players are playing for the rewards they would have received in their daily and is likely the best way of going about your suggestion. IMO One game scheduled every 4/6 hours would not work.
Still lobbying for the ticket for x days idea I see :-P
Ideally I'd want the rewards tournaments every hour but we aren't big enough for that yet. Soon Moon.
And hey if people just want free cards then do we really want them? Plus you could make daily quests 4 matches and the 5th is played in the tournament, it's an easy fix.
It's the concept I'm promoting. The detail is negotiable. :-D
Everything is still on the table.
I am thinking more of a sit and go format not a tournament. Tournaments get canceled if the min players aren't reached. Sit and goes stay registering until the number of required players is met and then the game plays.
Daily quests are appealing because of the flexibility to play whenever your schedule allows. That dynamic makes people happy and keeps them playing. If you cared for the longevity of the game then why would you want to completely ax that aspect of it?
Wouldn't it seem to be a reasonable option to limit it across the board to 2 cards per day or something of that nature for everyone regardless of your ranking or level? The daily quests should not be a method for rewarding your ranking level, the daily quests should be considered an extra layer or perk of the game that keeps everyone happy. The daily quests shouldn't fluctuate for those rewards and should be consistent.
If you want to implement higher rewards for tournaments then that would be the place to do it. But trading daily quests for regular tournaments is still going to "bleed" reward cards too based on some of your distribution numbers in relation to frequency of these tournaments. It just shifts to benefiting the non-bots (which I don't think anyone would argue being a bad thing) and of course the more skilled players who consistently rank high enough to win those rewards.
Personally I think the implementation of the tournament style reward system should complement the daily quests and not replace it.
Also, this is just a person comment, I don't know what your relation is to Steem Monsters and whether or not you're part of the staff or on the team but from someone who has spent a lot of time in corporate environments and analyzing how to bring things to market or care for your customer base, I would caution you to be careful how you word comments like this above because all you're going to do is upset people and make them resent the game and the people involved. If people don't believe in the leadership, you'll find more problems on your hands then just "bleeding" rewards cards.
I think it would be really hard and frustrating to try to get by and/or make a whole heck of a lot of money just from free cards. You generally still need to spend some money to make it to those higher levels and win more. Besides, the structure of this game and the otherwordly number of cards you need to level up in some cases almost requires there to be some method of obtaining free cards for the players. It's not a realistic structure and becomes overly expensive to play in many cases. I would just suggest thinking about the messages you're delivering a little more and considering things from all angles before sharing your person feelings.
I'll try to not take it personally, and I am not affiliated with Steem Monsters. I am simply a player looking for solutions to the Elephant in the Room.
I have worked in corporate for over 20 years, and have dealt with the BS that goes on in there. But that is no longer the person I am.
If you cut the rewards to 2 cards across the board there will be a riot. But I suspect you know that having corporate experience yourself.
The daily quests would continue as before, but to claim the rewards, you'll at least have to win one more match in a rewards tournament format. Played when it's convenient for you.
Just another small hurdle, whilst at the same time introducing people to the idea of Tournaments.
Thanks for your input. I have actually given this considerable thought, and being an active member in the community for quite sometime it's possible I understand the feelings from the different segments more than you can imagine.
This idea won't please everyone but I feel we need to draw line in the sand and make substantial change to a more sustainable model.
I do not question your intentions for trying to make this a better game and for taking an active role in conceptualizing these enhancements. I meant only to cause this conversation to pause for a moment and consider other thought processes.
I had seen some people sharing the link already in various places with some not so great feedback/comments which is why I gave it a good read.
I do agree that tournaments need to become a focal point for the game, I do agree that bots are annoying and that people hate them but I also see that if they weren’t there then wait times could potentially increase quite a bit across different ranking levels and cause issues with the regular gameplay, and I also agree that the current reward structure is pumping out cards at a massive rate.
Changing rewards payouts for the daily quests would cause a riot up front, agreed, but in a system where you also implement reward based tournaments you’d then have tournament rewards, season rewards and daily quest rewards. That’s a lot of rewards.
The problem is that you need all these things now that they’ve been part of the game for a little while now and that people have grown to like them. I think people would adjust better if they still had the ability to get something out of the daily rewards, even if it was a flat rate across the board then if these were scrapped entirely.
The daily quests I still think shouldn’t be dependent on your ranking level and rather a just a standard reward for everyone. I think that was a mistake up front when this was rolled out and set unusually high expectations from
the players. There should be a significant different between daily quests and season long based rewards which would cause the player to want to continue to play even after they’ve completed their daily quest while also distributing less cards and protecting the value of the cards a bit more.
These are just all my thoughts obviously and again are just meant to make people take a step back and re-evaluate the big picture and what’s truly best for the game and everyone in it. No customer is too small and we should be trying to keep as many people around as we can.
I agree about the daily quest rewards paying the same for everyone but its likely to never be changed back to that model. The season end is what should be staggered not the daily. I have been saying it for a while now, Steem-Monsters biggest issue is its own generosity. It started with giving away way too much and are stuck in that loop although they are slowly crawling out of it.