Splinterlands - Quo Vadis?

Hiya Splinterlanders :)

Today's post will be totally different than others. Usually, I try to focus on the strategic and tactical parts of the game. We try to analyze some battles, line-ups, and rulesets in Strategy Corner article, and summarize the brawls, and tournaments, or just check how I'm going on the End of Season summary posts.

Recently in most of my articles, besides the usual stuff, I try to touch on a few problems, which in my opinion Splinterlands game struggles with for a long time already. We have even got some discussions on my Splinterlands.tv stream about current situations and what changes could be implemented to improve the overall game experience.

I try to summarize my point of view and analyze the reasons for players quitting. And to avoid to be only so much pessimistic I will give my opinion on what could be done to improve the situation. Of course, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't whine a little, I hope you'll forgive me :).

I thought that people were always complaining, but our (game) situation was not so bad. On my guild chats, I have read that a lot of people think to stop playing, but still haven't decided. Unfortunately, I found out that more and more people resigning from the game and trying to sell all their assets. And those aren't just random players, who are bored. Those people usually invested a lot of time in growing the community: Jim Morgan, Holoz0r, Luthien, Schnapoon. Some of them are OG whales, and some are one of the best players in the game, usually, they own plenty of thousand dollars assets in the game. Why they are quitting and why now when the market situation is not so perfect to sell assets? We can find some answers directly from their explanation, Schnapoon writes about bot problems and small or lack of profitability, Holoz0r, one of the players who are almost from the beginning is just bored with current development, constant delays, DAO voting system problems, and overall lack of any progress in the game.

As we can see both players have different reasons, others mentioned some other things like:

More Negative interactions within the game's community, such as toxic behavior, harassment, or a lack of a supportive and inclusive environment. Maverick-house become so toxic recently, that now it's usually a good idea to stop reading it ;)
Inadequate Progress or Frustration: If players feel they're not making enough progress in the game or continually face challenges they can't overcome, it can become frustrating. Frustration with gameplay mechanics, balance issues, or perceived unfairness can also contribute to players quitting.
Financial Considerations - we all notice that the price of all assets has dropped drastically. As Schnapoon mentioned game is just not profitable anymore. If more players find themselves unable to keep up with the financial investment required to compete or feel that their investments aren't yielding satisfactory returns, they may choose to quit.

For sure we could find many other reasons, but maybe it's better to stop concentrating on the negative aspects of the current situation and try to find a solution.

I mentioned several times: on the streams, and in the articles about @weirdbeard's ideas. I think about half a year weirdbeard was a guest on almost all content creator channels, he was talking about at least 10-12 very interesting ideas, usually some gameplay improvement, new modes, and new guild features. Some of them maybe weren't the most innovative, but it was something. Unfortunately, times go on, and now not only do we have nothing implemented, but any narrative associated with these ideas has disappeared completely.

Ok, stop about the past, so how do I see the perfect future of the Splinterlands ? Most of that ideas could easily solve the major problems which were mentioned above:

General: Most important stop focusing on tokenomics and economics aspect of the game, this is crypto world, you can try to use the most sophisticated method to stabilize everything and during a bull market madness and irrationality could still destroy everything
New games mode: limited, limited, limited. I'm quite an old-school Magic the Gathering player, and limited games such as drafts and sealed are the main reason I love so much any card game. And trust me I'm not the only one. It changes completely the gaming experience and most important it's so great for all economic problems. Players just love to play limited format and to play it you usually need to buy some products like packs etc. Well-designed limited play could just solve all problems with an oversupply of Chaos Legions packs, people wouldn't care about the price of the card, they will just buy packs to have the option to play tournaments and win more packs :). We don't need SPS/DEC flywheel, we need a limited game flywheel :)
Improve Tournaments: now tournaments are just boring, same players, the same collections, and the same SPS prizes. We need a more dynamic system with greater rewards, which aren't taken from the air (like now SPS), but mainly from fees, where only some of top winners of the tournaments can get any rewards. And of course more variety of systems: swiss, ladder etc.
New players experience: there are plenty of ideas, one of the easiest ones which is already implemented is the open tournament with every card available. An easy and satisfying way to get more interesting new players' experience than fighting with the bots in low leagues with low or none card collection
Gameplay feature: another wide topic, shortly: game pass, achievements, cosmetics. All players love to see some progress in the game, but now we have no such feature in Splinterlands, besides some rewards cards.

So despite all those problems I still have some faith in the project. Splinterlands offers a unique and immersive gameplay experience. As a digital card game, it combines elements of strategy, deck building, and collectability, providing a multifaceted gaming experience. The game mechanics are intuitive yet complex enough to keep me challenged and engaged. There is no other game in the crypto space that could offer even close experience.

As long as the game continues to evolve and we can see some gameplay development, I can confidently say that I will remain a dedicated player. And if not? I hope I won't have to develop a scenario for this eventuality :).

I'm very curious about your opinion about the current situation and the ideas I present today. Please let me know in the comments.

Today we got no strategy information, but of course, my main focus is still on this aspect of the game. So for more strategy analysis, discussion, and prediction games, you can find them on my Wednesday Splinterlands.tv stream. You can check the schedule here

If you have any comments, please do not hesitate. Do you think I could improve anything just tell me :)