Season 6 Updates and Balance Changes!
Season 6 is going to shake things up in the world of Steem Monsters! Between some balance changes, a new ability that will make some previously underplayed cards more useful, higher mana caps, and the new reward edition cards being released, it may seem like a whole new game!
Read on for more details about what's in store and start getting your collections ready!
Balance Changes
As we have mentioned numerous times in the past, keeping the game balanced and fun at all levels of play is of the utmost importance, and is ultimately what drives the value of the cards.
We do our best to get the balance right the first time, but with such a complex game and a constantly growing list of cards, there will always be some things that we don't catch and that need to be adjusted later.
The following are the list of card balance changes we plan to put into effect at the start of Season 6 in approximately three days. We will continue to evaluate the cards and gameplay to see if any future changes are necessary, and we always welcome your input as well!
- Rexxie - Mana cost reduced to 7 from 8. Rexxie is pretty much the poster child of the game, so we want to see him played more!
- Hydra - Reduced Health at lower levels. The high health plus the Heal ability is OP at lower levels of play.
- Sacred Unicorn - Reduced Health at lower levels. Same reasoning as for the Hydra above.
- Royal Dragon Archer - Reduced Ranged attack at lower levels. Three Ranged attack damage with Snipe at level 1 was too much, especially since he is typically paired with Selenia Sky.
- Vampire - Mana cost reduced to 5 from 6.
- Grumpy Dwarf, Minotaur Warrior, Giant Roc, Silvershield Warrior, Spineback Wolf - Each of these under-utilized cards will be gaining a new ability called "Reach" which allows them to use Melee attack from the second position on the team. Some of their other stats will be adjusted downwards to compensate for the new ability.
Minor Adjustments
- Serpentine Soldier - Adjusted stats so that there is an increase at each level.
- Spineback Turtle - Adjusted stats so that there is an increase at each level.
- Crustacean King - Adjusted stats so that there is an increase at each level.
- Gold Dragon - Reduced Magic attack to 3 from 4 at level 3. This was what was intended and was a typo on initial release.
Expanded Mana Caps
Many of the new Reward edition cards being released have relatively high mana caps. That is on purpose as we will be increasing the range of mana caps available for battles. For season 6 we will start by increasing the maximum mana cap to 32 from 27 starting at the Gold league.
In the future we may increase this even further, and also potentially decrease the minimum mana cap below 15. We hope that this will provide even more variety in the battles and allow a more diverse set of cards to be played in different situations. It should also make many of the legendary cards, which typically have a high mana cap, more playable.
Reward Updates
As we're sure most of you know, we're currently giving out a lot of reward cards. On one hand, this is great, because we like to be able to reward our players, but on the other hand it lowers the value and scarcity of the cards.
On top of that, due to the fact that we don't have a ton of players playing at all levels of play at any given time, it's currently too easy for automated bots with very low level cards to get into Silver league or higher, and farm the rewards.
As a result, we feel that it is necessary to reduce the number of Reward edition cards that can be earned for quests and at the end of each ranked play season, especially in the lower leagues.
The new rewards for each league and tier are as follows:
Before you start lodging your complaints, please take a look at this post which calculates the expected value of the daily quest rewards at each league based on current market prices: https://www.steeve.app/@cryptoeater/how-much-can-you-expect-to-earn-from-daily-quests
That is a LOT of value being returned to players right now on a daily basis, and it's real value that you can actually get on the market, not theoretical value. Additionally, we expect that the value of daily quests might ultimately rise as a result of these changes.
Even though players will be earning fewer cards on average, that means that the market price of the cards (especially the new ones being released daily) are likely to increase, making the overall value potentially even higher than it is right now.
Power Up Promotion Ending
The power up promotion we are currently running where 10% of the value of all card pack purchases are returned to the purchaser as Steem Power was initially scheduled to end at the end of 2018. We have obviously kept it running for longer than that, but we wanted to let everyone know that the promotion is scheduled to end on January 18th, approximately one week from today.
If you've been thinking about boosting your collection, now is the time to pull the trigger and take advantage of this great deal before it's too late!
Thank You for your continued support!
Steem Monsters Contact Info:
Ahhh too bad the power up is ending, I really liked the idea of 10% getting invested into the platform.....but I understand. Great job.
This story was recommended by Steeve to its users and upvoted by one or more of them.
Check @steeveapp to learn more about Steeve, an AI-powered Steem interface.
With all respect, but it looks to me like the lower level accounts and the people that can't afford to build high level decks are once again punished for that.
(I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record).
I agree with @palasatenea: I think it is more important to tackle the bots than to reduce the reward cards, because the way things are going now there won't be a lot of lower level players left to give reward cards to. Quite some people already told me that there's no more fun in the game because of all the bots. A considerable amount of those people were thinking about leaving, even before the announcement that they would receive less rewards for the same work.
And I'm not talking about the level 1 bots that make it to the gold league. They just make it easier for a player to complete the DQs. I'm talking about the level 2 and 3 life splinter bots that are blocking the way in the silver league. It is a huge problem and it is driving people away. I see it happen every day.
Taking away existing abilities on lower level cards will limit the chances of reaching a higher league with a low level deck... again. And will make the level 2 and 3 bot problem in the silver league even bigger, because many people won't be able to get passed them at all.
I understand the number of free cards that you are giving away has an influence on the price of cards. However, I'm still waiting for the betas to go up in price.
(I'm not following up on the prices daily, so maybe it could be useful to make some of the information on price fluctuation you have public)
@cryptoeater, I assume you've taken gold cards into consideration when you calculated prices? Because a set of 5 reward cards with 2 vampires ($0.03) a genie ($0.02), a wood nymph ($0.07) and a Naga fire wizard ($0.11) is only worth $0.26... The chances of pulling an epic or legendary card are very low, definitely now all the new cards have come into play. Or maybe I'm just reading your stats wrong. In that case, would you mind explaining?
I realize I always take the time to write down the negative things, and forget to say that everything I don't mention is a positive thing. I don't want you guys to have the impression that I have a negative attitude towards SM, because I have not. :0)
I couldn't agree more @simplymike. Why can't the accounts that use them be banned? Are they owned by the big spenders? They are easy to identify and it doesn't take much work to discover the bot network they are part of. Can't that be programmed in?
Not all of us want to work our way up to Champions League. Until this season I have really enjoyed playing in Silver and working my way to Gold by the end of the season.
That wasn't the case this season as the Level 2 and 3 bots have made it practically impossible to play a Life quest when they are around. My life cards won't beat theirs so there have been many times when I've had to walk away and wait until they've moved on.
When they aren't around I've had fun but I'll doubt I'll continue to play. I'll probably wait for delegation to be set up and then let others who are more skilled than I am play with my cards.
When I started it was said that we would be able to level our cards by playing them but that also was taken off the table.
It just seems so unbalanced towards the top players. I get that they have invested the money but I don't get why solving the bot problem has to penalise the genuine lower level players.
The bots and the value of the cards are two separate problems. Wouldn't it be better to find two different solutions to them?
I agree about the average prices too. It would be more representative to use the mean amount rather than the average.
The daily quests and season rewards have been great and I'm glad I started playing right at the beginning and was able to earn some.
It's been fun seeing how games such as these get developed as well.
They can't ban players due to this being on the blockchain. Its too bad that a team or possibly a person or two has to set up those bots and ruin the fun. Try using your sneak monsters in the back when against those bots. I can't exactly remember the combo I used but sneak was the key to me beating them.
I don't get what being on the blockchain has to do with it @rentmoney. This is a business. They set the rules about everything else to do with the game. What's the difference?
Were you able to beat a level 3 bot with a level 1 summoner when both are playing life? I can beat them at times but not in that scenario and so many of them play level 1 cards in the other splinters but up the level for the life one.
Anyway. I think my main point is the fact that there appear to be 2 problems and 1 solution given.
Maybe there isn't a better solution to the bot problem, I'm not a programmer, but if I can discover these nets by hand then surely it could be done automatically and they could be blocked.
I will be interested to see what the outcome of this solution will be at the end of next season. 😁
The majority are against banning people and nuking cards. I am not one of those people. The game being on the blockchain is the reason they give for being against it.
I understand your frustration. I was simply trying to help you find a way to beat the bots. Are all your summoners / monsters at level one ?
Thanks. I appreciate that @rentmoney. I didn't mean to sound ungrateful. 😂
Not all my summoners are level 1, in fact I have started levelling up my main account but I like playing at the lower levels.
I will be very happy if this solution gets rid of the bots but what's to stop the bot builders just building more bots?
Time will tell . . .
@rentmoney, Is it a coincidence that they are all owned by one player? I wonder if he acts alone, or it's just convenient for SM to have bots around to make up for the low number of players in the lower leagues? This guy has worked for them before, developing the marketbot and the trading bot. Ii'm not saying it is like that, but the deeper I dig, the more it looks like that
I think if SM wants bots around to keep games active then they should add some themselves. No users should be allowed to use bots to collect rewards. I don't even agree with allowing bots in the market-place.
Bots have a bad stigma. Even if a person doesn't agree with that bad stigma its still there and its not worth the headache they cause to have them around.
The founders did a great job with fighting bots when they added the changes of excluding a splinter and Mana changes so that shows they are attempting to tackle the situation.
By the way, according to matt they weren't aware that it was rondras who owned 20+ bots. I showed him and asked him if he was doing this as part of an agreement with them, because I agree that putting the bots there themselves would be a lot smarter than letting a user do it.
But he claimed they had nothing to do with it.
So I assume they are just gonna let him continue. While banning those and setting up their own would mean that a whole lot of reward cards shouldn't be distributed.
I can't even imagine how many reward cards 20 bots (level 1 to 7 ot 8) rake in in one season...
Wow ... I was unaware that someone had 20 + bots in the system.
I have to give some credit to the founders here. They have tried to fight bots and implemented great changes in the past such as Mana cap changes and splinter exclusions for battles. We have to keep in mind they are trying to fight them in ways that don't hurt their claim of SM is a decentralized game.
There is no use in mentioning the word ban as a large amount of players are against it so banning will likely never take place due to the, this is a decentralized game crowd. How-ever I think a great alternative option would be to exclude those caught using bots. So these players won't be banned but instead they can be excluded from site sponsored games and league play.
Maybe, but he's not just some player, so I don't think chances are big that there will be consequences...
I really hope you're right, @rentmoney. I really do.
Fingers crossed, the founders and team work hard so they more then anyone else want to see this game succeed.
I made a post yesterday detailing what I thought was a more fair cut back of rewards. Below is the graph ... what do you think of my suggestion ? I think 15 free cards daily is more then enough to give out to anyone and still might be on the high end. I agree with starting with 1 and I agree that some cutbacks are needed. I don't agree with how lop sided those changes are.
My system gives more to the little guy and takes away more from the top. Bringing the ratio of rewards down for the top players get from 20 - 1 to 15 - 1. Top players or champion league players also get a 30 - 1 ratio in league standings and get to fight for a top 10 league prize. With all these nice incentives for top players they don't need the daily swayed in their favor as much as it is. Something needs to be more geared towards the little guy or average player. Smaller accounts should get much less then the larger ones but not at the rate purposed.
I am of the opinion that Percentage wise lower level players should be getting more as to keep them active in the game and give them the feeling of winning. This creates positive moral and motivation for lower level players to move up the ranks and continue playing the game, which is very important for the over all health of any game and in the long run helps those of us that have invested.
I saw it yesterday, and I also saw the annoyed reactions that were posted (actually, I saw only one, because I passed by only quickly)
I'm glad to hear that at least some of the mavs are concerned about the fact that the game is way too top-heavy.
But you caught me at a wrong time. I just had a short conversation with Matt, and it became clear to me that the lower level players are the least of their concerns....
I'm going to give up the fight for equal rights or fair distribution. I'm done with it...
👍👍👍
👍👍👍
Top players (Champion III and Champion II) are also going down on this. I'm a player currently residing at the lower end of Champion III and I'm perfectly fine with earning 4 less reward cards per day. These changes, even if the bot-thing was excluded, make sense to me, because:
Bronze league is more like a starter-league/learning phase. Players who can't get to Silver are players who don't yet know how the game works. Or they are just really, really bad, but then that's a different problem.
Now it's much harder for players to sustain a position in Silver I than to sustain a position in Silver III, so a difference in quest rewards between those 2 makes perfect sense. Good players will rank higher and higher, going to silver I and maybe even Gold III with just level 1 cards. Then the player can use their reward cards to go even higher than that!
Now you may say "But pizza, the higher players get way more reward cards than the lower ones! How is that fair?"
Well, my dear Mike, that's fair, since the top players have:
-Invested more
-The players at the absolute top (Champion I) are generally really skilled players. Even if you have maxed cards, it's very difficult to get there and then we're not even talking about finishing a quest there. That's much easier at the lower leagues.
-Need more reward cards to keep their decks at a reasonable level. In the lower leagues, there's limits. People don't need to buy a ton of reward cards to stick to the top of their leagues. In silver, you only need 25 commons, 11 rares, 6 epics and 3 legendaries to use MAXED cards for that league! In Champion, you need to use MUCH more!
And with those maxed cards in silver, you can easily get into Gold and start earning even more rewards to grow your deck. The bronze players don't need skill. The Silver players need a bit of skill. The gold players need either leveled cards or a good amount of skill. Diamond needs both and Champion I needs both at a very high level.
So is it fair? I say yes.
Probably more fair than you downvoting my comment, only because you disagree...
People seem to upvote comments because they agree.
So why wouldn't I downvote because I disagree?
Because it would be a lot more interesting and valuable to exchange thoughts and discuss the matter, and in the end maybe agree to disagree.
Are you aware of the consequences a downvote can have? If you do the same to others whos reputation level is lower than yours, it can have a serious influence on their rep score. Do you think it would be fair to lower someone's rep score, just because you disagree?
Indeed, I find it quite interesting and valuable to exchange thoughts and discuss the matter, and in the end maybe agree to disagree. However, people constantly upvote the comments they agree upon and I do the same, but also downvote comments I disagree upon.
And as a downvote lowers the reputation, so does an upvote make the reputation score of a user higher. Besides, my vote is really not worth a lot.
The fact that it is not worth a lot is besides the matter. For someone with a rep of 48 it could have a lot of consequences.
Normally, one downvotes a comment because it is abusive or something like that. But there are no rules, so you can do as you please.
But be careful who you downvote. If you downvote someone with a much higher vote value than you, you need to take into consideration that some people have a short temper and could destroy your rep in no time.
Just sayin'
I think, that the reduction of rewards cards is an good idea, but I cannot understand why cutting off 40% of cards for all player in bronze 1 and all silver levels and nothing for players in champion 1 and only 4% for players in champion 2. If cut away 40% for bronze 1 and all silver levels, than please also cut the "champions" for 40%.
I completely agree with that. Once again, the bigger players are treated in another way that the smaller ones
Yes it seems to me, that want reward them for buying booster packs - think it's impossible to come to champions league without buying booster packs or get cards from somewhere else (f.e. market). I just think, that they for season 4 gave normal cards as rewards and for level 5 only rewards cards - if it would be so than this would be another way for selling, because you get through rewards cards only one summoner (I think chances to get him are quite low) and so in the end you can use all rewards cards only at level 1 or you are forced to buy summoner cards, isn't it in this way ?
If I understand correctly then this is indeed the case. Because the reward cards pile up, but you need a summoner to play them. If you only have level 1 summoners in your deck you can play only level 1 reward cards, even if you have 50 of them...
Yes that's it. It's not important how many cards you have and to what level you bring them because of the summoner you can use only at level 1. I think many players will think than to buy summoner cards or booster packs. In my opinion system is that player can reach without paying money only silver level. To reach gold level or higher you should invest something and to reach champions league I think you should invest some hundreds of dollars.
actually it is quite simple:
if steemmonsters creators would like to ban bots they could do this. period.
so short term it might be economical beneficial for the creators to allow bots..
.. in the long term it will definitely destroy some (or more) of the value of their enterprise...
I am sure that they will soon come up with a solution..
and hopefully also with this strategy game... ;-)
My best guess would be that the fact that they allow them (or even own them) is because the number of players is still limited - especially on the lower levels. But in that case, they shouldn't use the bots as an excuse to lower the number of reward cards, IMO
Especially when their changes are exactly the sort that'll keep new players away. This development team seems entirely focused on pleasing the mavs, and little else. Sadly.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels that way. Thanks
What happens if you can detect who is a bot and not allow them to use cards higher than level 2?
I feel like @gillianpearce, thank God I have letters that allowed me to face them, but it's too frustrating to be 5 points away from being gold and then just always get defeats for the same cards.
I'm afraid I don't get what you mean with this. Could you maybe try to explain?
I keep wondering if those bots that keep you from reaching gold ate put there by SM itself, or people related to SM, to make sure they can reduce the number of reward cards they need to send out, or maybe because there are just not enough players to kee the game going.
Or if they are placed there by people not related to SM, but then I can't think of a reason why...
I fear that you are all right.
And also I am in CL and have a pretty strong team I can understand your frustration being more or less hopelessly stuck on lower levels.. when they startet season 3 and everybody had to start at 0 all over again to get back to gold level was not a game.. it was hard work...
having said this and being frustrated about the bot situation I also have to say that I am still very very grateful towards the developers and this is still an amazing thing they built.
And I feel also that the balance changes are spot on...
And in regards to bots: I hate them nearly as much as I do with this disease called voting bots on the steem blockchain...
on the other hand there are reasons for a kind of automation for the battle system that could make sense... but as the developers have done first steps to stop bots I am sure they will solve the problem .. finally.. maybe with this google" I am not a robot" captcha or something similar... popping up randomly every 5 to 30 minutes...
I mean this would be the worst option but it would work.. I am sure they can access data where they can statistically see which account uses bots and which not...
but anyways.. I am confident they will value our feedback and think about changes..
actually looking at the traction this simple card game already has I am looking so much forward to the announced strategy game and other ideas.. and at the end this will all be financed by the selling the packs.. so seeing all the negatives and reasons for complains I am still very optimistic about steemmonsters in general.
And I also believe that our feedback will be a crucial part of the future steemmonsters success.. in hindsight...
@simplymike It would be too much work for SM to place custom bots for us hahahaha, in any case, it is better to reduce the amount of reward.
And, Yes, I'm gold, but it was just hard to get it.
I think they are people who want to have more cards to benefit later.
I was saying that, for example, suppose you are a robot, and SM detects it and, in the rules, you can not use cards that exceed level 2(only bots). Do you understand me? In this way, there will be bots to occupy the number of people missing in SM, but it will not affect you because your cards can win.
I think the idea of @solarwarrior is great, from time to time a catcha: I'm not a robot hahaha!
I love this game, it has given me different possibilities, I just want it to be very successful, even on my website I talk about them hahaha.
But let's be honest, we know that bots are necessary to have enough players, but it's not good to lose with false accounts, that is, bots with level +5,4,3 cards. It's very sad.
@simplymike @marisenpai
@davemccoy
the moment they introduce google captcha I will quit instantly. Do you understand, that bots can quess it better than most players do? And I am not playing games to solve stupid captchas. There are other ways that can detect bots without hurting normal players.
Hi! I understand the chances of pulling one is very low, but it does happen. What expected values means is as the amount of cards you earn approaches infinity, the average value of all the cards approaches the expected value. This is very different form the median which is what you're describing above.
The median is much lower than the expected value because card prices are very positively skewed.
For example, I have had 0 legendaries this whole season and I'm earning around 20 cards per day, but today I pulled two unicorns from 20 cards. This changes my average earnings per day by a LOT but barely changes my median earnings per day at all.
When it comes to ROI and investment, we should be looking at the mean return if we're in it for the long term!
Because you took a snapshot in time your figures are already out by quite a margin. When new cards are released on the market the price is inflated. You should do your calculations based on expected value not point in time market prices.
For instance, a unicorn is worth around $4 now whereas was probably around $7-8 when you did your calculations. (And expected to drop to around $3. And Lord A is under $2.
Just changes in these two cards alone affect your pricing chart.
I could go on but I think you get the point.
Maybe you should do your calculations again with real expected market values. And if you do the calculation again in a few days time it'll be lower still.
Point in time math doesn't work for an active market place.
I think need to only pick cards that are at least a week old. The early inflation is mostly offset by then.
very true
Yes, it takes at least a week to normalize.
Good thought process, but give it a season end and then you will get the real prices... if you get a whole season then you get the season dump at the end, then you will get the most accurate pricing.
Thanks for the explanation
Thanks for the downvote, @pizzachain. You could also have replied directly to my comment, telling me you don't agree. I'm fine with agreeing on disagreeing, but I actually see no use on downvoting a comment if you don't agree, definitely if you're not leaving a direct reply...
He's a teenager @simplymike, so take that into consideration when you put it into perspective. ;)
All their changes go in this direction, so it's not surprising you keep making the same complaint.
Also, the ratio of time spent to fun is already way too high (meaning, you spend too much time for how much fun/game there is), I need to spend 2 minutes for about 10 seconds' worth of thought, on each match.
And if you're going to bring up "But you earn money doing it!" Then at that point, we're no longer in "game-fun-time" mentality, and I must evaluate whether I get paid more doing this than I'd get paid spending an equivalent amount of time working. Lemme give you a hint: No. Even if you work at McDonald's in a second-world country, the answer is still no.
Who's earning money from SM? I'm not, that's for sure. I'm not good enough at either level to win tourneys, and I see no use in selling my 70 extra vampire cards for $0.02 a piece. That would earn me a little over 2 bucks. I'd rather give them away to the people who have been restricted from growing their deck because they can't afford it, now the free booster packs are gone.
If I use the time I spend on SM on writing posts for the platform, I would be earning a lot more...
And thanks... at least someone who thinks I'm not sounding like a broken record, lol.
To be honest, I'm actually thinking of selling part of my collection, because if they keep following this trend, I'm afraid the ship will start sinking soon. I'm not planning to go down with it...
My compliment and criticism:
First, I love the game and the gameplay... Brilliant. Matt and the team are doing a wonderful job of keeping us hopping with the challenges of keeping up with an ever-increasing game.
a) Second, you are losing your base. You are dead wrong on why people aren't playing and in fact leaving. The reason the prices have gone down is because you have intentionally stated a desire to overproduce them at 4x the rate of the betas (which themselves are only 1/2 sold out).
b) The fact that the Maverick insiders like @rondras and @wonsama are developing massive bots to game the system is very distasteful yes, but they don't control supply, you do. (NOTE: Many think these guys are linked to you as well and doing it with your permission) There is a saying in basic economics that supply should equal demand. You are not only breaking that axiom, but you are massively shattering it in this case. Love the game tons, HATE the overproduction equally in the opposite direction.
c) I would rather see no reward cards than see those assholes get tons of free cards with their bots. On top of that, you are making the rewards on the low end basically a farce, and at the same time rewarding the same assholes that have gamed the system by getting tons of free packs and cards at the high end. So until you can get a patch in place to stop the bots from playing every second of the day, then why not stop the reward cards?
SUGGESTIONS:
cut back the reward card supply to the level of beta at most (100k commons total and so forth)
stop play til you can figure out how to use a Captcha or other device that make human play necessary.
when you restore rewards, restore it back to where you ended season 5... There is no reason to cut back the little guy any further.
In conclusion, I love the technology, the idea, the implementation of the game. I don't like the solutions you have come up with to "solve" the bot problem, and I hate the fact that you are printing supply of roughly 8x more than CURRENT demand.
Trust is the most important aspect of building something like this. If you will overproduce now for whatever reason to solve whatever problem, what will stop you in the future from doing so? That is why this is such an important point and why I have tried repeatedly to let you know how people are feeling.
I trust you are trying and think you are both doing your best to deal with so many complex issues. But sometimes you have to break them down to the simplest issues and solve the solvable first. Overprinting of cards should NEVER be a solution, so take that out of the equation and go from there on your next step.
I recognize this is just my opinion and I have tons of respect for what you have done to this point. The only reason I'm writing this is to help you and I hope it is taken as so.
Very good comment. I agree
Thank you @dbooster!
I am not sure how this is going to stop bots or decreace their numbers. Bots will receive less reward cards just like everyone else. So as there are less cards, bots will earn almost the same in value as before. Even if bots earned only half of the value, it would still be worth it for them.
But I still think that decreasing the number of reward cards is a good thing to secure the value of the existing ones, as there are not enough players for the number of circulating cards at the moment.
I like the balancing changes!
I was thinking the same - less cards at higher price doesn't change the profit. The real problem are not the bots, but the fact that this game can be won by bots so easily.
The balance changes all seem good to me.
The reward changes keep slanting the rewards ever more in favour of the players at the top. Making sure the players below fall behind at an ever-accelerating rate. Terrible.
You use the "Not many players" as an explanation for some of these changes. These changes are exactly what keep new players away from joining.
Here are some example league changes. The numbers are how much the rewards are reduced relative to current ones, by league:
Silver
60-20% less rewards daily
40% less rewards at end of season.
Diamond
33-6.33% less rewards daily
25% less rewards at end of season.
Champion
20-0% less rewards daily
20-0% season less rewards at end of season..
Goal is to reduce rewards? Then why not reduce them for players at the top too?
Goal is to make the game more fair? Then why not reduce them for everyone equally?
Goal seems to be, as always, to make the players at the top feel special, and chase away everyone thinking of picking this game up, unless they're willing to put up a lot of cash upfront.
And if the goal is to deal with bots, then deal something with it, or accept it can't be done to the full effect, and if you're harming real players' experience overmuch while dealing with bots, you won't have any playerbase left either way.
This was the debate I brought up in SM chat. For some reason allot didn't see my point. Reduced rewards is ok imo but they need to be reduced equally across the board. If anything reduced more at the higher levels. Players don't need 20 free cards a day.
they become the king without his clothes in that environment... if the SM guys don't get out and talk to the regular folks, then this game will take way longer to prosper than it should have. Typical human nature, but they need to move past it if they are going to prosper.
You have to remember who the audience there is. It's either the ones who invested the most money, or the ones who dream they can make it big. They sound just like people in pyramid scheme meetups.
Or people who argue everything away with, "But it's in beta!" While not realizing many of the decisions currently made only make sense for a game out of beta, and don't make sense in the context of a beta game.
I've given up on that. I might make some posts on the topic this week, but I'm gonna aim them at the larger audience, not at people who already invested, and have their biases as a result.
And it just seems like all the devs care about is keeping the Mavs happy. Even if Mavs will be the ones to keep spending the most money (not guaranteed, since they already have everything), nobody likes to spend money on a dead game.
I happen to be a maverick myself. Lots of good people sharing their ideas to improve the game in that section but I do feel as some individual opinions are based on whats best for themselves when certain debates come up instead of whats best for the game as a whole.
You'll note I'm not condemning the mavs here, but the devs. The developers' job is to do what is good for the game, not necessarily what players are asking for.
And yes, since this is treated as an investment, many opinions are geared purely on what's good for the opinion-giver, and often short-term at that.
You could argue I do likewise. I mean, what low-level player will not argue against the current changes, right? Well, I end every season in Challenger. I already more than made out my money from this game. I just hate seeing the decisions going on.
And yes, obviously some mavs really are out there for others. Just like we have things like Curie on Steemit. But it's an exception (on Steemit, not gonna say one way or the other on SM), except for the devs' decisions all being the sort that are entirely top-of-pyramid focused.
Its hard to find a balance but I have faith the devs will do just that. They put in allot of work and are considerate of the opinions of the players when making changes. The concerns addressed in this topic won't go unnoticed by them.
Good luck in the battle field !
Bots generally farm at the lower levels. By keeping the rewards high at the higher ranks it gives real players incentive to move up.
Sounds to me like a better solution would be to deal with the bots.
What about weaker players? And you think players wouldn't climb if they couldn't? You're just punishing those who can't.
And here's a question, why are players in Champion 2 league getting hurt then? As mentioned, if the goal is to reduce goals, then everyone should be hit. If the goal is to fight bots, then fight bots.
Agree with you completely @geekorner! Very very very true
I agree with your points... You are spot on! Thank you for making them so clearly.
This update hones in on every one of my recent concerns, you guys are doing a great job! Reduced rewards are still more than generous in any case. And the new card changes are much needed.
I do wonder tho if stats will ever be "finalized" though since that is a potential issue that balancing can always affect value in a centralized game.
These seem like reasonable changes. I especially like the change in mana cost for Vampire. Mana cost 6 was too high a cost for the benefit. With reduced mana cost, I may be more willing to include him in more battles.
I also like the Reach ability for some the melee cards. That gives me extra incentive to include those cards in my line up. Some of the cards I mentioned I like but often don't use because other cards fit into my line up better. I look forward to playing around with my line up now to see if I can use those melee monsters more effectively.
Suggestion: Maybe on the rewards cards you can introduce newer cards more slowly. That would increase value, as well. And if you have them in limited edition like your Alpha and Beta cards, that would also increase value. Maybe not all of them. But some of the cards could have a distribution cap. And you may consider Special Edition Rewards cards that can be earned only during certain seasons or certain types of battles.
I don't think so. The less reward cards there are, the more we get of each card. Which leads to an influx of them to the market, which is the cause of their low prices. If anything, they need to try and increase the quantity of the higher rarity ones, so they'd be as rare, per card, as their non-reward versions.
The more reward cards exist at the same time as a reward, the higher the value of each individual card, and thus, of them all as a whole.
I'm not sure how more of something leads to more rarity. Can you explain that?
Let's say you get a legendary reward card.
There are 2 legendary cards currently out, the odds you'll get each is 50%. That means there'll be quite a lot of those two (and why the 1 that was out till now is so low-priced, it's much more common relative to the card pool than non-rewards legendary cards).
Now let's say there are 20 legendary reward cards. You only have 5% to get each one. Each legendary reward card is now 10 times as rare.
It works the same for common cards and all other rarities as well.
Don't hate me for saying this . . . but I feel this is gonna hurt small players a lot and only benefit ppl with higher level decks. Just a reminder not everyone can afford to buy a bunch of cards or packs, just my opinion. So less cards, may be very discouraging, especially less rewards for the season rewards. Just my feedback that is all.
I suppose reducing the rewards might make it less attractive to start new bots, but it's just going to make it easier for the bots that already exist, as there will be fewer humans playing against them.
The marginal cost of continuing to run a bot is very nearly zero, so it doesn't really matter if you're giving them ten cards or six.
that is a very good point... I think they don't realize the damage this will do on the low end... if they cut everyone to 1 card, then ok... or even 0... but keeping the highest levels and cutting the lower levels is going to have an impact.