It's been a very rough week playing splinterlands. Surprisingly 50% of the defeats I've suffered have come as a result of not having the cards that suit the ruleset I got and of course, this directly translates to the fact that I could have had these cards, or the level of cards my opponents played in if I had enough money to level up.
The other 50% of defeats have come as a result of being too predictive, too calculative, or letting the pressure of losing one precious ECR point to an unwarranted or preventable defeat. So basically, I can say I mostly lose 50% of time because of my fear of losing.
The competitive psychology of splinterlands these days makes everyone too careful
You cannot be caught off guard trying to experiment because trust me, when you enter a losing streak, the pain transcends into real life and you basically feel the agony in your chest. If you don't already know, splinterlands is an emotional game.
The pain or joy of losing and winning translates to us in real-time.
I got into a seven-game losing streak some days ago and I could feel some lumps in my throat, the agony was so intense, it ended up ruining my game. Two days before then, I tried battling to leave bronze in the wild format and just a game to cement myself in silver III, I lost five games on a bounce and the pain was too unbearable for me.
A Negative Streak Changes Everything
I lost over 25 ECR and I couldn't find that courage to battle, I always fear that I'll get beat again, and trying to go again scares me. The reality is that the new ECR system comes with the scarcity phenomenon so in a bid to prevent yourself from losing, you end up losing so badly.
Sometimes it's not really about losing, everyone is used to losing on splinterlands but going on a losing streak, or losing games we could have actually won makes us even sadder, precious ECR points are being lost, and the more losing streak we incur, the lesser game we can play.
So running out of ECR is not what anyone wants to experience and because it costs money to even get them, makes this scarcity phenomenon even scarier on splinterlands.
On the other hand, yesterday, I got a pack from one of my daily quests
.......and for four days, I got nothing reasonable and now getting a pack made me really happy. I knew that it was worth over $2 and the joy of owning that pack excited me a lot.
The joy translated into real life and I could find myself summoning the courage to actually do battle. In reality, when you win, the joy of winning brings an extra motivation to compete.
This is how failure works and brings a negative effect as well. Being emotionally vested in something might take away one's ability to stay clear-headed when it comes to choices and decisions making.
One of the reasons why we are sentimentally attached is because there are monetary incentives on the line as against the non-monetary inputs that we've vested in the game over time.
So because of the efforts, time, and money, sentiments automatically become a thing.
Splinterlands does not just draw you in financially, the game is created in a way to fully ensure 100% user retention, through selective addictiveness. This isn't a bad thing by the way. They make sure that having skin in the game is the biggest way to increase your chances of winning and if this in itself makes people part with their hard-earned money.
This is one of the reasons why I think that with the right finishing touches and constant improvements,
splinterlands can become one of the best in the whole gaming space and not just blockchain alone, and the prospect of this is just too exciting.
The Summoner's Goal
One of the goals I'm aiming for is to build level 3 and 4 Soulbound summoners. So far I've only gotten one soulbound summoner at level 2 and my goal still pends and I'm searching.
I have set a time frame of 7 seasons to achieve this feat and from the beginning of August, I want to have level 3 soul-bound cards across all elements.
I already have level 3 and 4 of so many soul-bound cards. Getting them to level 5 will mean I'll need level 3 summoners to be able to play some of them. So, I'll see what I can achieve at the end of these 3 months.
Interested in some more of my works?