One of the reasons why it is possible to do crazy well with Play2Earn Gaming (if you are able to spot the Solid teams and games before they get really popular) is because they tend to give way too much early both in order to lure in new players and because they can still get away with it. As a game gets more popular there is a need for the economy to be airtight and sustainable because there are just too many players with the intention to extract as much money out of the game which would break it if it wasn't for nerfs being applied. It is almost impossible to find a good balance for a game to be both play2earn-friendly on new players and sustainable.
Splinterlands Nerf History
I've been playing Splinterlands since the early days when it still was named steemmonsters and there have been so many nerfs along the way mostly on the economy side that I lost count. I would say that right now, it's overall in a pretty fair balanced state which unfortunately has made it nearly impossible for new players to organically build their account without any kind of investment after paying 10$ for the Spellbook to unlock earnings. The good thing is that it's still possible now to do well without a big investment for smart players that don't shy away to make the needed time and effort investment.
Looking back at the past, some of how things were working in the game were actually really crazy and they all go nerfed only after too many players started to take advantage.
- 10$ Starter Set (Now Spellbook) used to include the actual cards
Back in the day when you paid 10$ for the Starter Set, you would actually get I think all common and summoner cards included that you were able to sell. Just looking at the value of single summoners now, it adds up to 150$. Many players started to buy the starter set just to get the cards and many also started to create bot farms with these accounts. This was Nerfed with Starter Cards being introduced which players that buy the spellbook get leased without the ability to sell them.
All Chest Rewards used to be Cards!
In the past, every single reward chest used to include a card which was not sustainable as they were printing out so fast as the number of players / bots who also reached higher levels with small accounts. This became an issue when the player base started growing as there would be a need for too many new reward cards to be created reducing the requirement to buy packs. This was fixed by introducing potions and a DEC equivalent instead of cards and packs in a 33%-33%-33%-1% ratio between them. Later this was changed and now it is at 50%-25%-24%-1% in Card-DEC-Potion-PackThere was No Collection Power Requirement!
The introduction of Collection Power was one of the major controversial nerfs but it needed to be done as it was just way too easy to reach higher leagues with a cheap collection of cards. I remember the time when it was possible to reach Champion League just with just Level 3 Summoners getting a ton of chests each day that all included cards that are now really rare. Even after the introduction of The collection power, it was still better to play multiple low-level accounts compared to 1 bigger account in terms of value that your were able to get.
- Quest Potions Nerf
Pack Price Increase / Card Reduced Collection Power
This is an indirect nerf as prices of packs Doubled from 2$ to 4$ also requiring Vouchers in order to get bonus packs for Bulk Buys. At the same time the DEC burn Value (or collection power) attached to the cards were reduced quite a bit. This is mostly done because the player base exploded with the demand increasing so they are easily able to get away with it. It's also not a bad thing that there are still a lot of packs available compared to when they were sold out as it allows new players to get in relatively affordable even though the game is still quite expensive in order to get to a point where you start earning quite a bit from playing.Bronze league Total Nerf
Since there were so many bot accounts with the only intention to milk rewards not aiming to grow their account, the rewards in Bronze league were completely nuked giving a very small 10-30% chance for a chest to include a cards and giving out credits which are with a lot less than DEC which on top can only be used to buy things in the shop. This is the necessary evil every Play2Earn will have to do making it nearly impossible for players that are not willing to initially pump some investments into the ecosystem to earn and grow. Play2earn pretty much starts at Silver level which requires 15k Collection power. Right now just by buying some cheap reward cards it only requires around 100$ to get there and renting also has gotten a lot cheaper.
- Reward Balance giving more to Whales.
Smaller players tend to see things absolute where the whales get all the rewards while whales tend to look at things relative where smaller players get a lot more Rewards in relation to their investment. I understand and agree that the relative argument is the stronger one as it just makes no sense to get much higher returns for creating a bunch of low-level accounts instead of just properly playing 1 account with the intention to accumulate and hold a lot of in-game assets. Recently the DEC payouts have increased for higher leagues and also the odds to get Chaos Legion packs from chests is bigger for higher leagues giving a proper incentive for players to grow their account.
Overall I think the Development team is doing an excellent job implementing nerfs to incentivize players to reach higher levels keeping the economy healthy. My main worry remains that the priority of the economy comes at the cost of fun as Splinterlands is just too extreme Pay2Win aspect. I hope at some point they will start to implement changes to level the playing field more in a way that doesn't take away fair rewards for whale accounts.
Clash Of Streamers Nerf History & Future Nerfs
Clash Of Streamers is still very early in its life cycle which makes it possible to take advantage of all the things that are yet to get nerfed. All the things from the past that used to be crazy for Splinterlands where you which you could go back in time for are now pretty much available still in Clash Of Streamers. It is exactly the same story that right now it is just way too easy to earn without intentions to invest or grow your account which eventually will come at the frustration of those that do play properly once it really starts hurting the economy.
Formula To Crush Clash Of Streamers
- Step 1: Create an initial account (Link) on mobile or Buestack.
- Step 2: Play The Tutorial Unlocking all buildings
- Step 3: Put initial time reading guides on how everything works
(You can find all articles I wrote on www.1up.zone/@costanza) - Step 4: Get Golden Boost 7$ on G4G store & use that to forever renew it for free.
- Step 5: Get Cheap Sale Points 12.25$ will get you 25 of them.
- Step 6: Reach level 25 and buy 5 Insanity Deals for 25 Sale Points
(This will take 1-3 months of daily 10-minute playtime) - Step 7: Freeroll selling Pets and using 25 Sale points to get 100$ Deals each 5 levels cashing in on that.
- Step 8: Create 20-100+ such accounts sending all earnings to main account
- Step 9: Each time you reach 10000 Crypton, cash out 10$ earning hundreds of dollars each month quickly recovering the small initial investment.
The only thing that is keeping players from milking the system like this is a lack of knowledge as not too many are aware of this method and the fact that it takes quite some dedication. They have made it quite hard to profit from this short-term as the tutorial fully needs to be played on each account and for the first 150 Sale points that were spent you don't get any Crypton. The devs also have the ability to in a centralized way put players on rare trust account level pretty much individually nerfing accounts. They stated that they don't mind so much multi-accounts now but they will nerf players that try to run automated bot farms.
From my own experience, there are too many players that players will gladly go out of their way to milk the system even though it will take them some time to reach a level where they can leech good money from the game. Eventually, there will be more and more nerfs in order to keep this under control
Recent Nerfs
There have been multiple nerfs already in the game since it was released mostly aimed to make it a bit harder for players to create alt accounts.
- Golden Boost Price Increase: It used to cost 5$ for the golden boost which gives 25 sale points each month which has been increased to 10$ on top, there used to be a yearly subscription that cost 60$-70$ which gives 65 Sale points each month. The subscription was removed since those who were spamming alt accounts bought them like crazy. I also got that one for my main account.
- Crypton Deal Nerf: There used to be 100$ deals (that can be bought with 25 Sale points) that include up to 8000 Crypton (8$) and the 0.49$ deals included 80 Crypton. Since they will be replacing Gubi by PRPS which will cost them a lot more, they could not keep these amounts up as they can be exploited too much by players who maximize the Sale Points game. In order to not have everyone affected by this change who was hoarding Sale Points for upcoming Legendary Deals like this, they are now having a Pre-Nerf Boost that gives +1000 VIP EXP | 50 Million Gems | 8000 Crypton which will last until the next reset next week.
- First 150 Sale Points Nerf: Players can use Sale points from the start but no longer are allowed to buy exclusive pets or get Crypton from the first 150 Sale Points they use and they also don't count toward community earnings. This was another measure to make it harder for alt accounts but it is only a temporary fix as they eventually will be able to get too much.
Future Needed Nerfs
The way I look at it, Clash Of Streamers in the state it is right now is still way too Free2Play Friendly and it has a way to go in order to prevent players who only play with the intention to get as much out of it as possible to hurt the economy. These are Nerfs I think will be needed one way or another to seriously counter alt accounts and bot farms.
Nerf Insanity Deals: Giving players 5 free Sale Points each level they progress (there are 1000 Levels in total) is just way too generous as these Insanity deals can be bought extremely cheaply for players that reach Level 25. Either dropping the sale points from these deals or introduce a 6th Insanity deal that gives just 1 Sale point every Level would be way more realistic.
Nerf Pet odds & Give Boost for Spenders: There are certain odds a starting account has to get a certain rarity in pets which can be increased by completing pet achievements (collecting them or buying in the auction house). You also have an increased chance to get colored pets depending on how many Shiny / Colored pets you have. The problem here is that if you play long enough you can get the odds up permanently getting pets each day which can be dumped on the Auction House without any spending required. They should nerf the default odds and have some kind of system where spending regularly increases your odds like in the weekly VIP Event rewards.
- Don't allow Every 1st Unique Pet Skin to be Sold or give a penalty for it: So alt accounts can freely sell Pets Skins they get each day without much of a penalty. If every unique pet an account earns from the game is locked with only duplicates or Pet Skins that were bought could be traded, it would make it a whole lot harder for alt accounts to start milking the system right from the get-go.
Conclusion
When it comes down to Play2Earn Crypto Games, if there are ways for people to earn money without any intention to invest or grow their account, you can be sure it will get exploited to the max. This forces the games to introduce nerfs making them less and less friendly toward new smaller players. At the same time it is a great way for the ones who are in early and understand all the dynamics to get a big edge. Splinterlands mostly has gone through this entire process already making it hard but not unfair for new Players to get something out of it without investment. Clash Of Streamers on the other hand still very much is in a situation where it is way too easy to create a ton of free accounts with the only intention to earn.
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