The Watch #2: The Number One Problem with Splinterlands

Want to thank @fireking for posting a comment on my last blog revealing that he runs 10,000 bots. You can see on his explorer page the constant flow of cards coming in https://peakmonsters.com/@fireking/explorer.

Gives me a smooth transition to this blog. What's the number one problem with Splinterlands?

Splinterlands Gameplay is a Perfect Match for Botting

As I've explored other NFT games, I've realized that Splinterlands is the most bottable game of them all. Because the gameplay is just based on setting up a lineup based on a ruleset, the best bots can just scrape the entire Hive blockchain and have the perfect lineups. This game is literally the perfect match for bots.

A top Silver player & Splinterlands employee admitted to me that the top Silver bots are much stronger than them. Apparently this advantage gets less strong at the higher levels as card complexity rises and there's less of a data sample.

Regardless, this is still a huge problem. Why? Because Bots are much more efficient than humans. You have people like fireking openly admitting to operating TEN THOUSAND Bots.

Normally the tradeoff with a Bot is that they are less skilled than a human. It's a big problem when you can run thousands of Bots that all crush humans at most levels of the game.

As a noted truth teller of the community. You would be shocked at the variety of DMs I get telling me about the problems with Splinterlands botting and just how widespread it is.

WHALE WATCH Update

In the Whale Watch, I track the movements of Splinterlands finest including members and founders on the team, the top guild leaders, and the top pros.

• Top players jace/bubke are very quiet.
• Top company whale has made a few purchases but not very active. 1 purchase of an Alpha gold foil.
• Founder 1 is buying a lot of cards on the market recently. Some of it is quite rare/expensive. Looks like a top whale geppone is getting rid of some rare stuff (Alpha GFs, promos). Founder 2 is inactive.
• GMs/employees are very quiet.

It's a bit odd that 2 people in the company purchased Alpha GF from a whale who was moving product cheaply. I wonder if they're trying to keep the prices up or something in case the floor prices get too low.

Market Update

It was a rough week for Crypto but SPL assets didn't drop too hard. They've hit rock bottom so hard already that big Crypto movements don't see to affect them much. Voucher prices are down to $2.00 and DEC has dropped below $4.

All eyes on the General Sale starting in a few days. And if you're wondering, I would recommend Skyweaver and Gods Unchained as very good strategy games. Skyweaver is new, dirt cheap/free to get into, and painfully undermonetized.