What's the best option for Soul Keep SPS rewards?
I've had a lot of requests from people with many different opinions on how to handle SPS rewards in Soul Keep. After hosting multiple AMAs with their CEO and doing my best to try to work towards finding amicable solutions that should ultimately benefit the ecosystem, such as the DEC burns and asking their team to implement SPS staking requirements, I'm still getting nearly daily complaints.
At this point, I think the best option is to just run a stake-weighted poll and let the community determine how it wants to proceed. I would like to remind everyone to keep the comments respectful and the arguments focused on the issue and not the individuals. Thanks for participating!
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thanks clay 🙏🏾
The more you stake SPS, the more rewards you will share, which is better.
They should definitely implement SPS staking. If they want to get non-crypto people into it, they should have a version that earns no rewards, for people to try it out and see if they like it. I don't think people who aren't into crypto are going to even want to bother with the SPS rewards at all, let alone SPS staking. Let them try out the game without worrying about any of that. They could still even sell soul boxes in that free versions. People spend money on games with no crypto rewards all the time.
what are some other types of options. Adding SPS staking requirement is really the only change we can think of?
Well they already added the one that I thought made the most sense for the web2/3 hybrid approach they're going for, which we had a proposal for and passed with like 95% positive support, which is to burn DEC equivalent to 50% of sales.
From the amount of persistent complaints I get about this issue and people wanting to either add staking requirements or kill the rewards entirely, it seems like these are the options people want. I haven't had any other recommendations, but if you can think of something that they may agree to, let me know.
Yeah, since that already passed, that's a potential issue here. It seems like that was passed as an alternative to SPS staking requirements. If they have to implement SPS staking and burn half of the DEC they get in sales, that might be too crippling. It's worth a conversation, though. It's a little broken the way it is now.
The DEC burn helps DEC, but it doesn't do much to deter people from exploiting the game by running multiple accounts in the same league that can get more leaderboard spots with fewer attempts. In some cases, the alts don't need to use any tickets, so they're getting that SPS without spending any DEC.
Can we get some clarity on what the specific problem(s) is/are this poll is supposedly trying to fix? I'm seeing different people with different issues and staking doesn't necessarily fix any much less all of them.
How about polling on what the primary issues are and we work on ideas for them individually.
The issues are SPS inflation and having a handful of guys running a ton of accounts and swapping cards that more or less own nothing and drain the majority of the rewards. SPS staking is the suggested fix to combat the multi-accounting abuse... just shutting down the rewards is what some people have been asking for most of the last year. The problems are very well known and have been complained about for literally months in the Discord. I've hosted multiple AMAs with their team that you can listen to on the SPS DAO youtube channel. At this point it's likely SPS staking or nothing.
Thanks for getting back to me. See those are separate issues imo and maybe not fixed with just staking.
With enough players buying tickets and boxes, you were right earlier that the 50% burn could work well. I think many people don't understand how much the replay costs ramp up. We need to increase players for it to all to work though and stake requirements will not do anything for that. I kinda like costanza's idea below to increase the payouts to more people. If more people win, the individual payouts will be less and not look so bloated and should drive more players to play. That does require fixing your next issue...
Multi accounts is a different issue. If Splinterlands can run official tournaments with KYC in place to be sure it is fair, why can't we just do that for Soulkeep tournaments. Also are there not limits in place to prevent swapping the same cards all around. I thought Splinterlands had something for this and Soulkeep should too.
Staking requirements are simply unfair and hamper growth potential imo. I own 30x as much sps now as I initially bought, and it is worth less than 25% my initial investment. Depending on the going rate of the staked token some people will get to play and earn for way less than others all depending on when you buy in. During a bull run you risk that new players will look at staking costs and just opt out entirely.
Edit: Also I have seen the DAO hall AMAs. Thank you for doing those. The CEO laid out a game plan in the last one I think has real potential. Releasing the mobile non-crypto version and trying to onboard from there. This could have some real potential and spill over to Splinterlands but once again I don't think stake requirements will be helpful and can actively lower retention rates.
I'd be open to any solution that fixes the basic issue.
As it stands right now, a few individuals can drain a lot of the rewards without any stake in the ecosystem and that needs to be stopped.
Staking rewards is the way we did it in Splinterlands, so this was the obvious route to go for me. But if there's a better solution I'm all for it.
Thanks for sharing! - @azircon
Of these 3 I went with Change Nothing. I've been playing it since launch and I play 1 account currently in League 5.
First off Soul Boxes just went live. Nobody can possibly know yet if that is going to be enough of a sink coupled with ticket sales. Some of the people complaining don't know how much ticket costs ramp up as you progress. In league 5 it costs 59 tickets(236 DEC) for your first replay.
Stake requirements will not change some of the complaints I'm seeing like multi-accounting in 1 league, especially lower level leagues since they'll have lower SPS stake requirements. Maybe KYC options could be considered but I know people have issues with that.
The CEO already told everyone complaining how if the pay out is to much SPS to to few people what is needed to change it...more people need to play the game. The more people on the leaderboards the less the payouts will be for any single player. More players also equals more ticket/box sales which is more DEC burning. I just added up the last tournament's total account count... 248 accounts made attempts with 132 receiving a payout. Less than 150 people shared the reward pool for all 10 Leagues. When the reward pool is meant to be payed out across thousands of players not a hundred of course the rewards are going to be higher.
Edit: I'd be interested in seeing how many people having some of these issues or suggesting how the game needs to be changed are actually playing it.
It's a mix... the ones that are just like "kill rewards entirely" I'd say mostly don't play or care at all about it. A lot of the ones that are asking for staking do play and see the abuse and the people calling for shutting off rewards entirely and are suggesting adding staking to fix the situation before things go the other way.
clayboyn could you take a look at the following suggestions I just posted and give your thoughts?
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@ocoma/soulkeep-pay-more-not-less-a-counter-suggestion-to-staking
I can take a look at it. Worth understanding that this whole situation is a bit beyond me at this point and I'm just mostly looking for how the DAO wants to proceed as it seems like there are two camps at the moment: kill all rewards and force staking requirements.
Originally I pitched the idea to burn DEC to David to get ahead of this issue, but it seems SPS stakeholders are still not happy, so I'm gathering feedback to share with him and help illustrate the current situation. At this point I don't know what to expect, they could just decide to go their own way and leave Splinterlands behind entirely I guess.
I'm for adding staking requirements but I don't think it should start with Level 2 without seeing what DC feels about it. For that reason, I voted to Change Nothing. If the third option were to add SPS staking requirements but consult with DC to figure out what level it should start at and to determine the amount needed, then I would have voted for that option. We need to make sure the game can retain as many players as possible, which is needed for the game to be sustainable. The reason SPS wasn't put in, to begin with, was because DC thought that would hinder retaining new players.
I just made the poll based on the feedback I was getting at the time... I think as long as the lion's share of rewards are gated behind SPS staking requirements that it would be fine... maybe top 75% of rewards or something (since they're going to add more).
I think a discussion about this should be had with DC. We shouldn't be deciding how many levels and how much SPS needs to be staked on our own. We should do that with DC to figure out the best way to do it. A small group of the most die-hard SK players could be selected to work on it with DC, or something like that.
Yea... I've already had that discussion (publicly). People don't seem to care. Ultimately it isn't up to DC either.
My hope is we can find some kind of reasonable solution that adds value to the ecosystem and doesn't just kill the rewards as that's going to burn all the people that bought the packs/cards and play, but it's a DAO... the DAO is going to vote however it wants to vote.
I suggest check this one out guys www.minepi.com/zdigital huge airdrops. Going live in early 2025.
To start, I enjoy Soulkeep but feel there is no chance whatsoever for it ever to get some adoption unless some basic flaws are fixed.
The reward payouts are extremely top-heavy to the point where only a few players end up getting all the rewards each day while there is no need for this to be like that. That should be evened out way more and I would also take half of the reward pool for each league and guarantee a payout partly to players who manage to beat the first level and some extra to those who beat the bonus level. It makes no sense to move up in leagues even if you get the cards and get stuck outside of the 50%.
The 150$+ Pay2Win Hero is also a massive issue. If you don't own it you stand no chance in the game and it totally breaks the motivation as without it feels the best you can get is just inside of the lowest paid spots especially since it is free to use in the game. No new players will come in because of this extreme pay2win dynamic.
As for changes to make Soulkeep actually valuable for Splinterlands. Maybe giving players a free test run each day and if they want to actually play for the leaderboard they have to pay the ticket price which would help to secure future rewards also once they run out of SPS. Some kind of SPS staking requirement also would be nice.
I kinda like your first idea and think maybe something could be done there. As much as 50% of each league's rewards get shared evenly between everyone who beats the first map. The remaining rewards are then payed out as currently is setup by total score. This I think would encourage more players to at least do the daily free shot.
I kinda disagree with your 2nd point though. I have 1 yes and it can make a huge difference yes, but it is not an I win button. I've stupidly placed it more than once and watched it get blitzed. I've also replayed some days 3-4 times and scored higher in later matches when the hero was on cooldown.
I don't own the hero and never used it, so I'm kind of going off the assumption that it makes a huge difference also seeing the price it goes for. It might not be as bad as I think, but the fact remains that new players have the same reaction. I guess in a way it's similar to the Quad Killer for those who don't own it.
I wouldn't mind the pay2win aspect if the rewards weren't so top-heavy and if there was something like a guaranteed reward for being able to complete a tournament.
It has less hit points than an equal level Slime Trooper while doing slightly more damage at range than the trooper does up close. Up close the hero does about 1/3 as much damage per swing. If more than 1 mob gets on her she can go down fast. Some mobs can 1v1 her.
I think the game could use at least another hero maybe 2 or 3. It has that big hero slot in the center and everyone should get to use it. We have a legendary now maybe a common, rare and epic. A decent tank hero might be good, a ton of hp and defense but almost no damage output. Something to stand at a chokepoint so towers can do their thing. Some other ideas could be floated. If everyone could play some kind of hero I don't think the current one would be such a big deal.
Indeed, it would be nice for there to be more heroes and affordable ones. However, this will devalue the current heroes an upset the ones who own them.
I just posted 2 suggested changes and credited you one of them. See what you think.
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@ocoma/soulkeep-pay-more-not-less-a-counter-suggestion-to-staking
Money for nothing and your chicks for free.
I don't play SoulKeep, I don't have any assets, and I'm generally not interested in the game at all. Therefore, I voted to remove SPS rewards. Have some Glint instead!
At least you're honest, I guess?
It seems that it is for the best to be straightforward. I have no problem with people who do hold SoulKeep assets to vote for the proposal, but either way I don't feel too strongly about it. Whatever...
I think the rewards for each league should go to all players. Even if it's a small amount. It makes trying worth something. You can get 3 SPS for 10th out of 20. Why not make the last half get somehting
All of you voting - read this comment. The whole thing. Because voting blind is just ignorant and stupid.
I've been actively playing Soulkeep since it started and here's what I have observed:
The game is barely developed but changes do happen and the team... sorta listens... it has improved quite a bit and many bugs have been fixed... but there's still issues. Splinterlands has issues too but they are also fixed when brought up.
There WAS a "Delegation Exploit" due to card mechanics.
Each card has a set amount of Energy and that regens over time. This limits a cards use per day. In turn this was supposed to encourage Owning/Renting more assets and leveling them up.
The exploit was this:
A card could be used by Player A down to 0 energy. This card could then be Delegated to Player B... where it would have FULL ENERGY. This caused a lot of issues and allowed Multi-Accounting to be CHEAP and caused the Multi Accounting issue we have now...
PLEASE NOTE: This problem has been SOLVED and guess who was a BIG part of solving it... Yup. Me.
Now, even if you Delegate a card, the Energy does NOT reset as it did before.
Problem. Solved... although it led to a new problem 🤦♂
However... DC's solution also worked... but caused a problem where you run the risk of renting a card with 0 energy on it since the cards energy remains the same regardless of who owns/delegates the card - womp womp
Trust and believe spending 200 DEC to rent a Celene... only to find it has 0 energy and you have to rent another... so you can play your attempt... SUCKS.
So while the Multi-Account farming is still a thing, especially in the lower leagues... it was solved a bit by the Delegation fix. The higher leagues have very few leveled cards available for those leagues so that has helped tremendously!
Now with that clarified for everyone... let me suggest a solution to this problem based on my experience over the past several months...
Just like the thought of Web2/Web3 onboarding for the Mobile... WE DO NOT HAVE A FREEPLAY OPTION IN THIS GAME.
We get ONE. SINGLE. ATTEMPT. Per day... (per account)...
After that... we have to PAY to play this game!!!
The SPS Rewards are great for TOURNAMENTS... Which is what they are... BUT... That is our ONLY game mode...
Solution:
Make a "FREE MODE" - Just let us play the damn game!! Maybe they can make a Glint-like "in-game" Reward Currency to spend on "Web2 cards" or whatever...
Make the Tournaments... TOURNAMENTS. We currently get a FREE Tournament pass each day and then it costs Tickets to play... Each ticket is FOUR DEC (4).
If the free attempt was removed without a way to actually PLAY THE GAME... that would suck a lot... so there must be a way to play first - even if it is limited by energy too, just like in Splinterlands... or similar.
But... here's the crux of the problem... THERE AREN'T MANY PLAYERS. (just like in Splinterlands)
So it's easy to whine about "it's not fair these guys are earning so much SPS"... Ok... well... where are you?? It's not like this is a secret...
"Oh but I don't like that game" - well... I don't like Tournaments in Splinterlands... but you don't see me trying to rug the SPS Rewards for them???
Circling back to my previous point:
More players = more reward dilution + more DEC burn... solves some of the problem... and actually HELPS the "Flywheel" (y'all remember that right?)
Just in case you don't... Flywheel = Burn SPS, get DEC (but only works if DEC is at/near PEG)
Burn DEC = Good then??? Right? This game is a great sink for "Burn DEC on Tickets, for a chance to earn SPS"... which would then, in theory, be burnt for DEC... once it's at peg... which burning DEC helps... and causes the demand and price of SPS to rise, along with all other assets.
Now... here's the kicker... the Cost to Play is VERY HIGH in the upper leagues. I am in League 7, for example.
If I WIN in League 7... I get a LOT of SPS... If I place poorly... like last night... I don't actually get many... let's compare with actual data.
I won 1st place in League 7 a few days ago: 1,767 SPS prize
I won 9th place in League 7 yesterday: 91 SPS prize
1st... 1,767... 9th 91...
HUGE difference in the Prize Payout!! So why bring this up?
Here's how much it COSTS ME TO PLAY:
1st Attempt: - (Zero)
That's my free attempt! So I could technically win 1,767 SPS... FOR NOTHING!
However... let us be reasonable here... I am a fairly good player... I sometimes win the Tournament... However... ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE IN MY LEAGUE IS ALSO A GOOD PLAYER...
Which means... 1 Attempt usually doesn't cut it and if I want to ADVANCE up in Leagues... I will need to collect a lot of SOULS (earned by killing the in-game Fiends).
So 1 Attempt is typically only if something in my life prevents me from playing at least one more...
Attempt 2 in League 7 costs 236 Tickets.
Looking back, each ticket costs 4 DEC... so that's 944 DEC - still not a bad exchange: 944 DEC for 1,767 SPS!
However... this is only a CHANCE because the other good players are trying to do the same thing!
The free attempt lets us see what Maps are being played and what Rulesets are in play - both of these things change each day. (This is why multi accounters have an advantage)
The first attempt is "Ok, what strategy do I use to get maximum score" and the subsequent attempts are "Refine said strategy to get 1st place"...
RNG is still a thing here with Rulesets like "Tower Lock", "Spell Lock" etc and of course Dmg RNG comes into play... one round you might get unlucky and lowball the dmg so a Fiend gets through and guess what...
ONE FIEND GETTING THROUGH IS ENOUGH TO MAKE OR BREAK FIRST PLACE... and 2nd place is about 760 SPS in League 7, which is 1,000 SPS less!
Should you choose to play again... you're now looking at 472 Tickets or 1,888 DEC to play... but there's a problem... Do your cards have enough energy to play????
I hope so... because renting cards for League 7 (or higher) IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE... There just aren't many of them and those that do exist... ARE BEING USED.
But let's assume we play again... 944 DEC + 1,888 DEC = 2,832 DEC... which is STILL a great investment for 1,761 SPS!!!
But... what if you lose... what if you get screwed by RNG... or make a human mistake... or forget to place/move your hero (I hate when I do this)...
Keep in mind... we are talking about only THREE PLAYS PER DAY at this point... and these cards aren't CHEAP at this level...
2,832 DEC for 9th Place = 91 SPS
Does that seem like an unfair reward? Not to me...
But what about 11th place?? Or lower How many rewards for 11th place in League 7...
Yeah... that's right... ZERO REWARDS... It is a Tournament, after all... but 2,832 DEC for THREE chances to play for a game... where I could possibly earn NOTHING...
Remember... this is a game that I and others, have spent a LOT OF DEC AND $$$ to purchase the assets to play it on Peakmonsters... so we could have a chance to EARN these Rewards...
How much money??? Well... Just purchasing ONE single BCX of Celene cost me $160 back when it first launched... and they are about $145 now... per BCX (a max copy needs TEN btw)...
With all that being said...
The concept of "Removing SPS Rewards Entirely"... PISSES ME OFF.
Because it's coming from people who AREN'T ACTIVE IN THE GAME... or if they are... they aren't winning and are now complaining about it.
EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. US... was told "Play Soulkeep, earn SPS Rewards!"
Guess what, I thought that was cool! I liked the game! I played the game! I spent lots of DEC and TIME to win my way up to League 7 (of 10)...
Now you can BUY your way up the Leagues with Soulboxes though (more on that in a second).
But people who haven't even PLAYED THE GAME... who DIDN'T TAKE THAT OPPORTUNITY... are trying to take away these Rewards entirely...?
Excuse me... but that's fucking bullshit.
In fact - that's been almost my ENTIRE EXPERIENCE IN SPLINTERLANDS...
Buy CP!!! buys CP... CP cards are now worthless amd sit in my collection -95%
Play Spl and earn DEC + Web3 Cards!! plays Spl... Here's your Glint. Spend DEC if you want to make your cards Web3.
Buy Land!! buys a plot on 2nd market... -97% investment
Buy SPS!! buys SPS... -95% investment
Buy GLG!! nope... -95%...
Buy Arcade Colony!!! NO WAY... No idea what it's at...
Buy Soulkeep stuff... I SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING 😡
To all of you who are voting to remove SPS Rewards from this game entirely... let's just go ahead and remove Soulkeep from Peakmonsters too because there would be no point in even listing it there. I'll sell my Soulkeep assets for a loss and move on.
But now... for a brief moment... I can do what I joined Splinterlands to do in the first place... "Play to Earn"... and I don't mind paying to do so.
Have you forgotten that? Have you forgotten why we are here?
You didn't want to play this game that is sort of affiliated with Splinterlands somehow... hey that's fine.
But for those of us who DID... who bought the assets... who've been helping shape the game with feedback to the devs... who have written articles helping people PLAY THE GAME...
WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE FROM US WHAT WE WERE PROMISED??????
It would be one thing if we didn't spend the $$$ because we were TOLD here's the SPS you can win... and the only reason a few players are winning a lot of SPS... IS BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T PLAY... and now... the people who didn't join up... are pissed off at the people WHO DID... who took a CHANCE... and that chance is paying off... SO THE "PLAY-NOTS" are whining and trying to take away the Rewards for those of us who took YET ANOTHER CHANCE in this increasingly stupid ecosystem.
Don't be salty you aren't earning... Here, let me channel my inner Gank... "Stop whining and get gud bro - then you'll earn that SPS"
I understand you guys are frustrated with a lot of things about this game and ecosystem... I am too... but at the end of the day... Soulkeep Rewards aren't the CAUSE.
The SPS was already set aside for this.
YOU didn't play. That's on YOU. Don't punish US... Oh and if you're thinking "but Dingus... you're high up and we couldn't catch you..."
Yes you can: you can now BUY a set amount of Soulboxes per day and advance rather quickly... But they aren't cheap...
How much are they? Well again, in the lower leagues, not so much... But for us in the upper leagues... here's the numbers:
I purchased my maximum daily amount a few days ago for 9,263 DEC... for 63 Soulboxes... so I could get a little bump in Legendary Souls to advance to League 8...
You need 2,000 Legendary Souls to advance from League 7 to League 8.
Each box has 1 or 2 Legendary Souls. I opened 63 Boxes and got... 67 Legendary Souls oof...
I did also get a lot of Common/Rare/Epic Souls which you ALSO need... but the Legendary ones are harder to get. Obviously.
So for ~10k DEC I got 67/2000 Legendary Souls or 3.35%... which means to "Buy" my way into League 8... it would cost about 305k DEC 🙃
WHY DO YOU THINK THE PRIZES ARE UNREASONABLE?!?! THAT'S EXPENSIVE!! It's just like buying a Max Level Rare Reward Card from SPS!!! 😑
My point is - the majority of us earned the right to EARN these Rewards 😤 and you want to TAKE THEM from us?!?
Tl;Dr:
Change Nothing = meh
Remove SPS Rewards Entire = a big "fuck you" to players who spent a lot of time and money on this game because we were told about the opportunity to "Play to Earn" SPS. Don't rug us because YOU didn't take the chance and play.
Stake SPS = a good compromise
A Freeplay Mode AND Tournaments like we have now with DEC entry fees and Staking Requirements = a GREAT compromise.
VOTE FOR THE STAKING REQUIREMENTS, DO NOT RUG US - a lot of us EARNED THESE REWARDS...
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your feedback.
That is exactly my thoughts
my vote to remove rewards is... until they fix what ever needs to be fixed.
I wish we knew what it was - is that data available somewhere 🤔
I agree with most of what you said. Also thank you for clearing up the exploit and that it was fixed.
I just posted 2 suggestions instead of staking if you wouldn't might looking and commenting on as a higher league player.
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@ocoma/soulkeep-pay-more-not-less-a-counter-suggestion-to-staking
Just to be clear I think. If SPS rewards are removed I will probably never play this game again. I believe this sentiment will be 90% of those who play. I wouldn't really play Splinterlands if there was no reward for playing.