Good morning Soulkeepers and Splinterlandians!
I am going to write a quick article here about the recent Soulkeep Updates and share with you my Tournament Results from yesterday ;)
Soulkeep is the Tower Defense style game based on Splinterlands and released by Double Coconut.
It was released in late June and there's been a few of us hammering away at it while they scramble fix all the bugs we catch.
Recently the "Spell Glitch" was fixed, which was highlighted in a previous post: @captaindingus/soulkeep-spell-glitch-on-display-p
Spells no longer "persist" past the round in which they were played/activated.
No more Machine Gun Speed Voodoo Sappers or ICBM Ranged Quad Killers lol
Another long standing issue recently revealed to be an issue and not just shitty rng as we are used to in Splinterlands was the update to the "Battle Modifiers" we see below:
Previously these modifiers CHANGED each game and for each player - sometimes monsters wouldn't spawn at all... other times it looked like Klendathu out here...
However the BIG update that came through was the elimination of the "Spawned Fiends" being worth Points/Mana... That really shook up the community as many strategies were created around it.
This resulted in many crashes, glitches, failures to launch, "black screens" and other issues... but it also resulted in MIND BOGGLING scores - some over 100,000 points!!!
Farewell my sweet "Spawn Lock" you were fun and will be missed 😢 (not really)
On a personal note, a smaller glitch was observed and reported by me :P
When a Fiend dies within the Soulful "Spell Ring" you get more of the souls than normal... this is a great way to farm Legendary Souls and advance quicker than other players.
However... apparently... the original coding was: "The FIRST Fiend to die in the Soulful spell ring will TRIGGER the Soulful... but not COUNT as bonus souls..."
That part of how the spell worked wasn't mentioned very clearly - heck, a lot of things still aren't and I am working on writing various pieces to help clarify issues we find as a community lol... but I reviewed a few of my replays and sent this clip in to Arhov and the gang at DC:
As you can see - Jacko, the Legendary Fiend died and triggered the Soulful Spell... but I was not credited for the bonus spells and ultimately had to spend a lot more tickets to move past that league.
I received a "Thank you" for submitting that issue from Arhov and they updated the coding... but declined to refund any tickets because "There wasn't a glitch"... and on my other replay from that day they said "it looked like it was inside the ring... but the actual location of the Fiend when he died was outside."
So basically: I know it LOOKS like the Fiend was in the Spell... but... and you can't prove this... we say it was OUTSIDE because reasons and even though you have been sending in a number of error and bug reports... we are declining to help you by sending you a few dollars worth of tickets for your efforts and issues.
This brings me back to the "Customer Service" post I wrote:
@captaindingus/surprise-price-increase-for-soulkeep-or-any-other-business-advice-from-a-professional
You will never lose a customer by making them HAPPY. Tickets aren't NFTs. Tickets aren't DEC. DC could issue Tickets to anyone for any reason...
But they don't... which is weird. Because why wouldn't you want to hype people up?
Why wouldn't you want to excite them by having random giveaways of THINGS YOU MAKE FOR FREE?!?
Why wouldn't you have Hive and other Social Media contests and reward people in digital swag - that's FREE MARKETING FOR YOU.
But apparently, their view is "Be ultra stingy with the refunds and tickets" 🤷♂
In my opinion, the only result that type of customer service will yield, is people like me will play my one game for free... MAYBE another game or two... spend a few hundred DEC a day - IF THAT... and earn our SPS for placing well on the Leaderboard.
Like this:
Notice the difference in the two Leaderboard pictures? Scroll up... Look at the one with 100k points... That was 3 weeks ago and EVERY PERSON on that Leaderboard had 5 Games... my buddy 
Look again at my Leaderboard from last night... 1-2 attempts down the board... except the lone 3 from Paleshelter.
That means out of our 8 Players in League 6:
4 Players spent ZERO Tickets and consequently ZERO $DEC
3 Players spent 126 Tickets or 126 x 4 x 3 DEC = 1,512 $DEC
1 Player spent 126 + 252 Tickets (378) x 4 = 1,512 $DEC
Total = 3,024 DEC
Total from previous photo 47k $DEC... and that's at the 2 $DEC/Ticket price...
Now... a final thought for you the reader, for Arhov and for the team at Double Coconut...
There is only ONE metric that has proven time and again to be the BEST indicator of whether or not a Player/Customer will spend their MONEY on your Game/Product...
If you are not aware of what that is... it is:
SCREEN TIME.
The more time spent with eyes on the screen... the more likely a player is to make a micro transaction... SUCH AS BUYING MORE TICKETS.
"Just one more game"... is how you MAKE MONEY!!
Currently... the business model, customer service model and game model DO NOT encourage MORE screen time... in fact... they kind of disincentivize screen time.
Why would I play a second or third or 10th time... if I crush the tournament Leaderboard in just a game or possibly two?
Why would I spend any extra DEC that I don't have to, when the times in the past where I have had 'errors'... the team says "yeah... sorry... we know that LOOKS like an error... but it isn't..." or "Oh... yeah, I can see how that would be an issue and doesn't make sense from a game point of view... and we changed it... BUT... that's how it WAS supposed to work... tough luck bub, no ticky for you!!"
I know I am not the only one who feels this way - the Discord Channel is full of these gripes... however, with that being said...
Overall, the game is fun. Many of us feel the need to work on a way to actually PLAY the game more, since the Tournaments require larger amounts of Tickets each daily attempt... and there's no "Free Play" option or "Story Mode" like in Clash of Clans and pretty much every other TD game... yet.
I have hope for the future here and from what I understand the team at DC is a small one. They have definitely fixed a number of complaints, bugs, issues and are working on refining the game! In addition, they have people who want to PLAY it... So I'll keep writing and all you have to do is make sure you follow me for more Soulkeep and Splinterlands related content!!
That's all I have for you today folks!! Thank you for reading and I would LOVE for you to join me in game!!
Naturally, after everything leading up to this moment, I do think Splinterlands and Soulkeep are some of the BEST web3 games out there!
They bring the #play2earn feature to the forefront of development as well as many opportunities for people to earn rewards - whether Player or Investor!!
If you're interested in the future of gaming, it's worth checking out!
You can sign up here: Splinterlands
Cheers 🍻,
- CaptainDingus
#Splinterlands #Soulkeep #play2earn #web3 #NFTGaming #Rebellion #Conflicts #TowerDefense