Image from this recent Splinterlands blog
Hello everyone, it really seems that great things happen every week in Splinterlands and we just have the latest information of the upcoming, refined energy system. It's only been posted for 7 hours and the comments had already been swarmed with different opinions. I am here to share my takes and some of the biggest issues this new system might create.
My Initial Feeling
When I first read the blog, I really liked the changes. I am not a player who plays like 50 matches per day so the new energy system is not going to affect my play time at all. In fact, it is much better than the current system for players who play like 20-30 games a day because the rewards per match are equalized now instead of depending on the player's ECR value. Not only is this thing confusing for newer players, but it also has made energy planning an unenjoyable part of a player's routine.
An example of "energy planning" is this: I am a modern bronze and a wild silver. I currently have 100% ECR. To maximize my reward points and SPS earning, I cannot just play any format I want as I was feeling it. The optimum way to play is to do a lot of wild silver matches until my ECR is lower, and then I work to climb my modern rank. This is not fun at all. Sometimes I just want to play whatever format I want to play. The new system allows me to do that without any punishment to my reward gain . This is great news for me, personally.
As a whole, my play style and play time are not affected negatively by this new update at all and I am 100% happy with this new update. This is the rare update where I am not impacted negatively. However, I'd have concerns for other types of players out there. Reading all the comments gave me different perspectives as to how this system affects the whole landscape.
Concerns
Leaderboard is Likely Pay-to-Win
One player archetype in Splinterlands is the leaderboard grinders. They play a lot and might still play after they have depleted their whole ECR bar because they are shooting for a spot in the leaderboard. A fair amount of players do this every season as the leaderboard contains a boatload of rewards for the skillful players who are happy to dedicate their time to this game.
We generate 24 energies for free a day and can buy up to 50 energies per day. In a system like this, I expect the grinders will have to fork up money on a daily basis to compete in the leaderboards. Is this a good DEC sink? Maybe. Does this make some players unhappy? I am certainly getting that vibe too.
I am sure some leaderboard grinders are budget players. They play a lot for free in the hope to score big rewards in the end to make their time worth it. Now, they can't really play like this. If they want to grind, they have to fork up money. That DEC amount might not be a lot per energy, but it adds up eventually. As a budget player myself, every DEC counts. We are frugal like this and this might feel like just another "oh great, I have to pay more to play" update for them. I did feel like that on every renting update because it affects me that way so I can totally understand the unpleasant feeling they would have.
Sucks to Be a Free Player Who Just Wants to Play a Lot
By reading the comments, I also see some players who expressed their dislike of this change because it limits their play time. Like the tournament grinders, this update makes them unable to play at all after they have used up their energies.
There are also people talking about the streamers. Streamers might be streaming for a few hours and there's a chance they have to play more than the allowed amount of matches in a longer stream. Now, they can't do that. They probably have to talk more or "play slower". This update is not helping the streaming scene.
I can see the long session streamers making multiple accounts just so they can stream gameplay with ease. It's extra, unnecessary work and this update sounds like it could make their job more tedious than it should be.
Nowadays, a lot of games are implementing streaming modes and other things to make a game easier to stream and this is like the opposite of it.
Of course, there is a way to sort of play more without paying: play tournaments and guild brawls. Most tournaments have a very low entry fee and they are always not filled up at this time -- you are guaranteed to at least get back your entry fee until we see a high increase in tournament entries. I'd suggest all the very active players to give the tournaments a try for extra play time.
Spotty Players Cannot Save Up A Lot of Energies
There are players with a busy lifestyles and they can only jump in once a few days to play. With the current system, they can hold up to 100 energies as each battle takes away 1% of the 100% bar. The new system only allows saving up to 50 max energies. This hurts the spotty players for sure as they cannot enjoy their big session once a few days without paying money for more energy.
It really seems like this new system can hurt some players with a non-daily schedule. You either play every 2 days and empty your energies or you are losing out some value.
Verdict
I still think the update is fine for me, but I can also see how it might be a negative for a lot of players out there. Do I have a better solution? Not really as of now. We will only know how things will unfold after it's running for a while. We cannot predict the future with our current data in this "we can play any amount of matches we want" era.
From a personal perspective, I am looking forward to this update that doesn't hurt me at all.
That's all from me today. If you are not yet a warrior of the Splinterlands, grab your ticket and join us!
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