RE: If You Expect Splinterlands To Go Higher This Year... Don't Count On It
I agree completely with most of what you state.
Bots are a real problem. Botnets of 20, 50 or even more accounts are raping the reward pools. They play Gold level tourneys with level 1 cards, and still - in spite of the recent changes - manage to make it to the prize rounds by being matched with each other, while real players are facing other real players with a decent deck in the early rounds.
I get that bots have a purpose. The player base is so small, we need bots to make sure players can find a matching opponent. That was already a discussion more than a year ago. What I don't get it why the devs don't create their own bots for that purpose. Bots that don't earn DEC or reward cards.
I just hope the new DEC floor will at least improve things a bit.
One thing, though:
There is nothing wrong with running on Steem
Here, my opinion is different. I just got kicked out of a tourney because I went straight from the 'seeking enemy' timer ro 'you fled the battlefield'. When I'm trying to open packs, I get one error after another. Blocks are being rejected, nodes are unstable. I know how to switch nodes, but we can't expect a newcomer knows how to do that.
I'm not a fan of moving to Hive - there won't be enough new players to make up for the old players that will leave, but something needs to be done. That's the 5th tourney in a week I get kicked out because the Steem blockchain isn't working properly. I've really had it!
I want them to take action and move away from Steem. Unfortunately, I think Hive is the only alternative if we want transactions to be fast and free. If there is another blockchain that can provide those, i'd much rather see them move to that one. All I know is that Steem isn't an option at the moment.
@davemccoy the issues @simplymike is having with tournaments could be resolved by splinterlands running their own rpc node and not letting anyone else connect to it(minimize cost of bandwidth). RPC nodes have been problems on the steem style chains since I showed up in 2018 and I am surprised no one made it mandatory for a witness to run one in order to get a reward.
On the bots, I have given a suggestion that they license them. If they did that, then they could at least control the payouts, the amounts of games played, make sure they play against humans, keep them in the proper leagues, etc... They could even encourage great bot makers by making good prizes and even special "bot only" cards that would be cool to play against. Unfortunately, they don't seek information from outside their inner circle and since I'm not in it, this won't go anywhere.
On the game moving to HIVE and away from Steem, I hear your points and agree that its a pain in the ass right now. Something in my gut tells me that HIVE might not even exist a year from now, so I still think its a super risky move for SPL to make. In my opinion, it would be better for them to do their own hardfork of steem and run the nodes of that chain themselves. At least until such time as they know they aren't jumping from the frying pan to the fire. That's my 2cents, but I know I'm in the minority on it. Your thoughts and suggestions are definitely more in line with what advice they are getting from the crowd, and frankly I think that's going to happen. We are going to move to HIVE.
I don't like it, but I will stick with the game. Despite the problems and the mistakes, I still think they have a true chance at being a great game. I just think it will be a setback, but heck we've been there before too ;) ... :)
Thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts @simplymike! As always I value your thoughts and insight :D