My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined

As someone who started playing Splinterlands in December 2021, and then took a break only to return a few days ago, I can only say that my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.😕

Oh boy, where do I start, I guess I can start with how my first days went. I started by playing modern ranked, normally I would fly through bronze, pass silver and sometimes enter gold league. Yet for some reason I kept losing and couldn't go past bronze 2.

"I must have gotten rusty after such I long break, I will get better" I thought, spoiler alert! I didn't. As I scratched my head on why I was hard stuck on bronze I started paying more attention to my opponents cards, and then I noticed.

WTF is going on here?!

WTF!
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_f832643fb0bfb8fd91369b6e70a682a5&ref=zen607

WHY ARE HIS CARDS HIGHER LEVELS THAN ME, IT'S BRONZE LEAGUE!

Is what I was thinking, why TF was I fighting against opponents with much higher level cards, normally those cards level would be capped depending on the league, sometimes I would even fight against max level cards, what the hell was going on.

I did some digging, and discovered that this was a recent change, and I just kept thinking WTF were the devs thinking, of course I did know why this change happened. If you played any mobile or free to play game, you would know why, it was to please the whales/big spenders. Now they could easily crush players with their high level decks without any limits.

I had many other WTF moments like suddenly fighting against gladiator cards, and another WTF moment, when I couldn't find out why I couldn't find the cards I faced against in the marketplace, that's when I discovered "Soul bound" cards, aka. untradeable cards.

At this point I was thinking that I might as well quit again, but the glint update was a few days away, and I decided to wait and see. Surprise, it's another disappointment.

Another disappointment

It's disappointing that I can no longer earn DEC or tradable cards.

I managed to claw my way up to Gold in the Wild format, somehow high level cards are more rare there, so I could actually compete there, no wonder it is much more popular than modern 😂.

Yet despite that, my glint earnings were sad, only around 35 glint per win. So around 5 wins for the cheapest draw. If there wasn't an energy limit of 24 per day, it wouldn't be that bad, but since the amount you can play is greatly limited, the rewards are negligible.

I really like how I have to keep spending DEC to buy or rent cards, yet can't earn any by playing or trading my new cards🙃.

And no, I am not going to buy 200k Sps to boost my glint earn rate to 10x, for cards I can't even resell to recoup my investment, F*ck off. I brought some in 2021, and we all know how that turned up😭.

Hell I haven't even talked about how much value my existing cards have dropped in value or how much SPS has dropped.

What is my opinion and why is this happening?

What is my take on all these recent changes?

Well for one, they suck. Second of all it is pretty obvious what the devs are doing.

For one, the league level removal was a last ditch effort to get more money out of the whales, the other changes, like giving untradeable cards or the glint shop is just a sad and obvious attempt at slowing down the draining of the game's capital.

It is pretty clear that more money is getting pulled out than in. And of course it is, why wouldn't it?

Lack of appeal to the ordinary gamer

Is this game really appealing to a new player? Do you really think a new player is going to stick around after getting destroyed in bronze by a player using the same cards, but at a higher level?

Of course they won't, Splinterlands does not appeal to the ordinary gamer, it is mostly being played for profit, and that means that the avearge player is going to try to take more money out than in, which obviously can't last.

Splinterlands might survive long enough to see the high of the current bullrun that is going on in the crypto space, and get a boost, but it will not survive the next bearmarket without drastic changes.

The recent changes by the devs do not fix the core issues. If Splinterlands is to survive it most appeal to the ordinary gamer, who won't play to earn, but play for fun, someone who puts money in, and not out. There is a market for casual card games, and Splinterlands could do well if they could capture that audience, so far they haven't really tried, all their marketing(what little there is) has been about the earn aspect, which means they attract people who wants to take more money out than in, and then the devs have to scramble to reduce the rewards for everyone.

I will at least applaud Splinterlands for having survived for this long, since crypto games tend to have a very low lifespan. I will watch the game and see how it does for the current bullrun, but atm there isn't much hope.

My recommendation is this, bring back league level caps, bring back chest or make the glint shop give worthwhile rewards, and start advertising the game to players who don't give a f*ck about crypto.

Quick side note about the community

And on a side note, my interaction with this games community has been downright atrocious. Pretty much every complaint I have voiced has been met with "Just spend more money bro", getting destroyed by high-max level cards in bronze? "Just buy or rent a max deck", not earning enough glint? "Just buy more SPS" etc. etc. I could go on.

First of all I have spent more money on this game than I have on any other single game that I've ever played in my entire life, but you wouldn't be able to tell, because pretty much all my assets have been down by 90% or more, whether that be SPS, card packs and so on, I would be stupid to put more money into this game at this point, you can only keep betting on the same crippled horse so many times before realizing how dumb it is.

Second of all, it just shows how many of you guys are completely out of touch with the average gamer or the gaming space in general. I am a gamer first, crypto enthusiast second, so I see things many of you don't, so many of you come off as boomers who have never played a video game before in your life, or that you are used to spending 1000$ on shitty mobile games like candy crush. Ask the avearge gamer to put 3000$ on an currency that could be worth 30$ tomorrow, so that they can earn max rewards in a game, and they would tell you to f*ck off.

Conclusion

I could go on but this little rant has gone on for too long. Overall my opinion is that Splinterlands is clearly dying, and this will be the last bullrun it will be around for.