So Survival Mode Finally Released in Splinterlands Yesterday and I did give it a go. These are my initial Thoughts.
IMPORTANT: All of this is just an initial reaction in a week where Crypto crashed hard so it is somewhat of a rant. It is possible that I still adjust my opinion later down the line
1st Survival Mode Reaction = Dissapointment
My 1st match, I played on my Alt account where I only play sometimes manually in Modern and a Gold Fray in the brawls while I have enough Older cards on there. However, I did not want to have cards that I otherwise use on cooldown so it was a struggle to know what I needed to play so it turned out in a rather random match where I selected mainly Magic Attack cards and I won it losing only my tank.
However, this win won me 0 SPS making me go 'what's the point of risking cards with zero rewards' even though I kind of understand the idea that you need to climb the rank a bit first. Still it overall just was not a fun experience.
Custon Set Creation Hassle
So I went over to my main account trying to figure out how to easily separate all my Higher Level Wild cards so they are not at risk of getting cooled down which took quite a while as it's not most intuitive. Basically, you need to create a Custom Set and after that select that set in the cards menu and the Survival Mode Enabled option after which you need to click the Disable all Cards button
None of this really is instantly intuitive and the Custom Set also is way too complicated. If I now want to level up one of the reward cards, I first need to put it out of the custom set as it won't combine in it. Then I need to put it back in the set which caused me to remove all other cards as I selected 'Rebellion only' to easier fiend them. Afterward it turned out that only the reward cards were in the Custom set anymore and when adding everything again it seemed that reward cards only were in it at the lowest level so I had to manually select each one to get it right. All of this is just 5 steps too far as I want an easy enjoyable experience.
Main account Survival Mode Experience
So ready with my custom set which was disabled for Survival mode, I was ready to try it out with the 5000+ cards I had to play with. However, it was also difficult to choose what to play
Basically, I got matched up with Max Level players and stood no chance whatsoever in my 1st 3 battles. It also feels like you need to look at your opponents Collection Power and based on that either submit a team or just surrender which is just stupid.
That's also how I won my first match getting matched with a player I saw had 75k collection power. I played a couple more games but I pretty much conceded on those as I know I was going to be up against max level players. So it was not a fun experience at all and on top the match that I did win didn't even earn me anything.
Same Game Design Mistakes Over and Over Again!
It's so frustrating the see that none of the potential of Splinterlands is tapped into as the same basic mistakes when it comes down to good game design are made just every single time.
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES ALWAYS COME AT THE COST OF FUN & GAMEPLAY!!!!!
It's just with everything in Splinterlands that everything is designed around the economy and every time it just comes at the cost of the fun of the game and totally kills it. The only reason that Survival Mode was made is to give Chaos Legion Cards a new use case as they soon will be dumped into Wild. The entire mode is also just a copy-paste of what we already had with a gimmick of card cooldowns done in an extreme way making sure there is a lot of scarcity. There also will be more SPS inflation and now 2/3 of the game modes are designed for bots instead of human players which is just frustrating. So far it hasn't really made card values go up.
Where To Go From Here?
Honestly, this Survival mode so far pushed me away from Splinterlands even more and I don't want to play it. It also doesn't do anything whatsoever to bring in new players and from one ones that own cards like me, I would not be surprised if it made them want to sell the leftovers instead of using them in Survival. Splinterlands really feels like a dead game and from what I'm hearing, few are actually going to be willing to buy the new set. I also have very little confidence left in the development as the only deadlines that are met are the ones that include sales to bring in revenue to pay the salaries. That said, I do hope that I'm wrong and Survival mode will turn out more fun and profitable than it looks right now.
Conclusion!
Survival Mode at first try just feels like the next deception in many that is pushing me further away from Splinterlands and I might start selling off my leftover cards as I don't really feel like wasting a lot of time on Survival mode even though I certainly will give it a 2nd chance in a couple of days.
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