Splinterlands: Community Proposals for Tournament Changes
Last month, I posted an article critiquing the latest round of Splinterlands tournaments (that we had for January and February 2021):
This initiated a dialogue where @aggroed said he would be open to proposals that the community (especially Mavericks) voted on and resulted in the creation of the public tournament-planning channel on the Splinterlands Discord server. After about a month of discussion, many members of the community voted on a variety of proposals and these are the results, which will need to be implemented by aggroed and @yabapmatt.
Note that none of these are necessarily permanent changes. Fine tuning tournaments is going to be an iterative process with some trial and error. Also note that due to small sample size, the votes that were cast mainly reflect those most passionate or most vocal about the tournament system.
Special thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion and helped in the process, especially @davemccoy.
The first three proposals passed by large margins. The last two proposals passed by narrow margins so we'll try them on a trial basis for one month and definitely re-evaluate and re-vote for the next cycle.
1. Entry Fees for Regular Tournaments
A. Novice tournaments are only cheap for Novice and Bronze league (not Silver league).
B. Diamond tournaments are only cheap for Diamond league (not Champion league).
2. Entry Fees for Gold Foil Tournaments
Cheap entry fees (10 DEC) for all Gold Foil tournaments regardless of the player's league. Collection Power is the only requirement for entering Gold Foil tournaments, not league status.
3. Gold Alpha Tournaments
A. Are once a week.
B. Rotate between Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond leagues.
4. Season End Rating Reset
Adjust the season end reset so accounts above the maximum for their league get reset to the bottom of their league:
Silver 1 with 1900+ rating gets reset to 1000 (Silver 3)
Gold 1 with 2800+ rating gets reset to 1900 (Gold 3)
Diamond 1 with 3700+ rating gets reset to 2800 (Diamond 3)
All Champion 1 (4700+ rating) gets reset to 3700 (Champion 3)
This was the proposal as originally voted by the community. But @yabapmatt has suggested an alternative system change that addresses the tournament fee exploit without changing the season resets. He has mentioned that it may be possible to have tournaments check your league at the start of the event and if your current league would pay a higher entry fee than when you signed up, you would have to pay the difference or get booted out of the tournament.
5. Untamed/Dice Tournaments
A. Bronze and Silver Gold Foil events and Regular Silver league events should be Untamed/Dice (not Untamed only).
B. For Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Champion leagues, have 25% Untamed/Dice and 75% All Edition events. Right now it is 1 Untamed/Dice + 1 All Edition event every week (so 2 Untamed/Dice + 2 All Edition events for every two week block). For the next month, every two week block will instead have 1 Untamed/Dice + 3 All Edition tournaments.
C. Novice and Bronze leagues retain their current Untamed only tournament structure and ratios.
Explanations
1. Entry Fees for Regular Tournaments
A. This is to try to keep Novice tournaments for newer players.
B. Diamond league is positioned awkwardly since it has the same summoner level limits as Champion. Aggroed said that one of the intentions of Diamond league is to provide a safer refuge for players to build up their decks until they reach maximum level. Since Diamond tournaments are dominated by Champion players, they don't seem to achieve that objective. Diamond tournaments are still new so we can tweak them. Also note that this change just affects cheaper entry fees. Champion league players can still enter Diamond tournaments if they pay the higher entry fee.
2. Entry Fees for Gold Foil Tournaments
An alternative option would be to keep the system of higher entry fees and then charge higher fees for Diamond and Champion accounts entering Bronze Gold Foil events and charge higher fees for Champion accounts entering Silver Gold Foil events. But it might be worthwhile seeing if doing away with the league-based entry fees is preferable.
3. Gold Alpha Tournaments
Right now the status quo is two Gold Alpha tournaments every week which rotate between Silver, Gold, and Diamond leagues (but no Bronze league event).
4. Season End Rating Reset
This is one of the more controversial proposals.
With the proposed change, every account in Champion 1 (4700+) will be reset to 3700 (Champion 3). For future iterations, we could change the threshold to 3750+ or 3800+.
We should collect feedback and re-vote on this for the next cycle. Important data points to collect include:
I. How many people actually wanted to drop down to a lower league and stay there for the duration of the season.
II. Whether the Champion league players have longer or shorter wait times to get Ranked matches.
After discussing the issue with Yabapmatt, he has mentioned a possible system change to tournaments where it checks your current league at the start of the tournament. This could very well be a better implementation since the main purpose of this is to address the exploit whereby players use the season end rating reset to get access to cheaper tournaments from lower leagues.
5. Untamed/Dice Tournaments
This is the other controversial proposal.
For the next month of tournaments, for each league, 2 Untamed/Dice events will instead be All Edition formats.
We should collect feedback and re-vote on this for the next cycle. We can also break this up into smaller sub-proposals since some people might agree that Bronze and Silver Gold Foil and Regular Silver events should be Untamed/Dice (rather than Untamed only) but be opposed to a 25%/75% split of Untamed/Dice vs All Edition and prefer 50%/50%.
Good job on pulling this together Byz... While every vote didn't go my way, I am very happy to see the process yield some results. This is just the very first one, but its a great start and a good template for future changes. The important thing is the devs are listening and while everyone will never get everything, its nice to know there's a format to make your thoughts known (and heard). Again, excellent work Byz! Thank you for taking your time to put it all together :)
So apparently the solution is, more band aids on top of more band aids on top of more band aids. Wow, so greatness! Let's not bother focussing on the root cause and issues. Just leave the obvious flaws and bad actors/manipulators, entirely out of the conversation.
This is all completely useless bullshit that won't do a single fucking thing to fix anything, which is really the responsibility of the devs who deliberately fucked it up in the first place. Why did they fuck it up deliberately? It's fucking obvious why, as they and their "friends/largest investors" benefitted from it immensely in an unfair manner, and will forever based on earning from what they took from the player pool, that does not belong to them - and you damn well know it. Remember the reward pool rape days, and how it was a personal crusade of the biggest hypocrites in this game now? You just prefer to shut your fucking mouth now, and eat from the same trough as the pigs, cheats and two-faced thieves and scamming/cheating two-faced liars who are now virtue signalling with solutions, of which were already proposed long ago by others.
The result at the time, was mocking those people and calling them names because of their "peasant" standing in the controlled discord server they call a "community". What a wonderful and controlled circle-jerk we have here. Approved members accepted only. And by approved members, we all know that means the biggest wallets, with the biggest self-interest and most importantly "access". It's all a load of complete and utter crap that is going to end up helping the same dipshits in the end. The solutions have to come from "approved members only". It's a nice club, congratulations for having exclusive access.
Besides, you would never call out some of those bad actors, because you are now way too "invested" to say it like it is, and those bad actors are some of your bested "friends" and @bestpartnerever. They seem to do a lot better than most around here, especially as they have a perfect 3rd world slave who has both manipulated matches/results and cheats with absolute impunity at any opportunity they get, with the full knowledge and planning/encouragemnt of their master @bestpartnerever, for a very long time now. You are fully aware of this fact too, but deliberately defend, cover up and shield them from any criticism at every possible opportunity, even when it goes against the "principles" you apply in public to everyone else. It really helps that they are also great "friends" with the co-founder and lead developer of the game, especially when you get airdropped the rarest $10,000 gold card in the game "randomly". There was totally nothing devious about that. They seem to get a lot of "random" favours that go their way. They have this special ability to openly lie compulsively about their "business" and get away with it...I wonder why that is? Of course, they have a special gang with personal protection and bodyguards to protect them from anyone who dares speak of their fraudulent actions.
That pathetic and protected/shielded hypocrite cried openly in the that shithole discord server, because they didn't like some of the "competition", that was doing the same. I guess they are much more attracted to the idea of having a monopoly in that situation. Which is extremely hilarious considering you all first campaigned fiercely in favour of j6969 initially (even when it was obvious what the result of that would be - you were in total denial at the time even when someone pointed that out to you), but then turned on them as soon at the competition got too tough to handle. That is the ultimate hypocrisy that permeated through the zombie brains in that server at the time.
It's very true that some people can't see past the nose on their own face, and will constantly be in denial of certain facts, even when they are presented to them in a way that they cannot be denied. But votes and money for the "special" ones. All their so-called principles go out the window, when it comes to their own self-interest.
If this solution was already available and able to be implemented, then what was the fuck was the hold up all this time? Were they waiting for their insiders and friends to accumulate as much "free shit", as possible before anything was done about it? Of course. The insider thieves, are now going to fix it all, after stealing everything with dishonest "play", and their "code" advantage and manipulations, that totally screwed the same people you now think you are going to help.
Get you heads out of the sand, and stop pretending that this is going to do anything other than line the pockets of the same cheats, thieves and manipulators, who have accumulated an immense amount of player funds and assets, though dishonesty and fraudulent means. Too bad this game is not truly decentralised, as we now can't go back and extract democratised and old data/information as it is lost in a place where nobody can access it. So much for "decentralisation for the people".
But as is always the case, the messenger of this comment will be attacked (as always is the case in a group think herded mentality) by the hordes of morons, and biggest interests in this game. The virtuous "crumb feeders".
Quoted comment from the official wax integration post. Enjoy some reality, instead of the fantasy stories you all prefer.
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/splinterlands-wax-integration-announcement
Not surprisingly, there is no response at this point. I doubt there will ever be one which speaks volumes in itself.
Fucking PUSSY @d-zero. Show your face and comment with a reason for the flag you coward sniper. Faggots with no balls only know how to flag the weak like a bunch of third grade bullies.
Thanks for proving my point, with your loser flag - without refuting anything I said. Are you one of those thieves and cheats yourself, or are you just a fucking pig with your nose in the same trough?
I know which one it is for sure, considering your gutless actions. This is where all the fucking ass-licking rats are going to show who they really are. The so-called dipshits from the "freedom/freedom of speech" movement, who also believe in doing no harm to others, go around flagging comments "they don't like".
Did I hurt your feelings? You fucking rat.
Of course, you have the BIGGEST botnet circle-jerk in the game that has completely raped, pillaged and stolen players money from day one, which explains it all. I know exactly who you are, you coward thieving rat.
let's bring more "insider" scum, out in the open. All of you, please show you faces here.
Man, so many words that most of all emotions,
I wanna know the facts and clear understanding explanation what are you talking about:
Here, where you put the ellipsis, the explanation is just missing. So what did it become known and what happened?
Great to see the engagement on this topic. It's a passionate, clever group we have here. Well done everyone.
Well said, lard brother! Except that it's only 3 years too late and many of these types of ideas and proposals have already been made and were dismissed/marginalised when they came from others. But it's not going to do shit, because this is just more band aid bullshit on top of more band aid bullshit, and is only a tiny part of the real problem. However, band aid bullshit, is much preferred to real solutions that can only be made by addressing the root cause at the developer level, of which are completely obvious and known to them. But you know how it works.
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great job, byz.
Although I agree with dave and some of the changes didn't go the way I would liked them to go , it's good to see that the community cares enough to set up a think-tank like this, and that the devs are open for suggestions.
Now I'm gonna sit in my corner and cry because of some of these changes 😉
Only just hearing about this, a pop up in game might help spread the word, I don't always use the discord.
Was there anything about limiting the total tournaments someone can enter? And then maybe increasing the total number of tournaments on offer? So that the prizes can be distributed to more people?