Soulkeep | 3 Weeks Later ...

It's been nearly a month since Soulkeep was released and I continue to play daily but without any intentions to actually invest more. Here are some thoughts...

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Daily Tournament Grind

At this point I'm in League 2 with nothing more to play for and a fighting chance to end in the money each day but at best earnings the 2nd lowest prize which is ~11SPS while most days it's closer to ~2-3 SPS and this amount is also going down as more players get their share of the pool. So on average, I would say that it equals 0.02$ of earnings a day with a total investment of ~80$.

I also pretty much always play a similar strategy as there is very little room to actually experiment and improve without throwing away DEC.

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Most Used Towers/Spells & Nerf

The Quad Killer (7.38$) was overpowered and got nerfed not so much in the stats (from what I can tell) but in the number of towers that one can use which went from 3 to 1. The value went from 12$+ to 8$- because of this and it remains a tricky thing as likely many people like me were forced to buy it in order to somewhat have a chance while now it was made less valuable. This is one of the issues with these games and why it's a speculation as changes can be made that out of nowhere makes meta assets mediocre or cheap assets much more valuable. I still use the Quad killer as the first tower I place using the Cheapo ( Level 2 / 1.4$ ) to reduce the price.

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Other Towers that I systematically use are the Knife Tosser (level 2 / 2.5$) which is cheap and for 70 mana can get a nice attack upgrade which makes a difference. The Tarantula Loom (Level 2 / 0.75$) which is used to slow down enemies. The Fountain of Terror (Level 2 / 1$) which is nice because it has a very big range, & the Card Sharp (Level 2 / 2$) which has ok magic attack. I'm also experimenting a bit with the Voodoo Sapper (1.45$) as it gives extra mana for the next round, The Gloom Owl (Level 2 / 0.75$- and the Jack's Joke (Level 2 / 1.15$) are alternate options if the game rules are favorable.

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In terms of Spells, I pretty much always opt first for the Hearthgiver (1.61$) as it gives extra hearths which is needed to get higher scores in the tournament. The Stew Of Doom (Level 2 / 0.5$) & the Venus Flytrap (Level 2 0.47$) help for an ultimate savior in case some fiends come through in the end. The Buildmaster (0.23$) helps to get cheaper upgrades and the Mana Mania (2.75$) is an alternative for that possibly more optimal given how much more expensive it is.

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So basically for 25$ worth of cards, it is possible to reach a top 50% spot nearly every day in League 2.

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Upgrade To League 3 ?

Right now, it's just cheap to play this game but at the same time the return expectation is also very low. I'm not yet in a position where I'm able to get to level 3 and it would require some upgrades of my common towers and spells which probably is going to be low enough for me to take the jump when I eventually can. The fact that Rare, Epic, & Legendary items don't need to be upgraded at these levels does help to pull the trigger.

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Monetization / Asset Value / Rewards / Fun Questions.

I still have many questions on how things will go forward for Soulkeep as it pretty much uses the Splinterlands model which has shown to have major Flaws.

Monetization: Right now, Soulkeep is earning some DEC based on the multiple attempts but most who do pay maixum go to 2 attempts with the majority including myself sticking to just the 1 free attempt. I would not be surprised is going forward the somehow scrapped the free attempt leaving the only way to play is to own the assets and to pay for each an every match leaving even less room for experimentation. They likely also are going to print more Heroes as only the ones who went heavy on the overpriced pre-sale got them. I'm not sure how many new towers or spells can be printed as it will make all the others more useless.

Asset Values: With just the SPS reward Pool (which eventually will come to an end) and a very top heavy payout scheme while there is little to no chance to realistically earn packs, the price of cards and packs are adjusted to the potential ROI so they have already come down a lot to 1.26$ for a pack while the pre-sale (which should have been a good deal) was if I recall correctly around 5$. So the exact same issue as splinterlands in the players are who buy something directly from the team are near sure to lose money while it's the hope and the anticipation to see assets increase in value which is driving sales.

Rewards: Right now, SPS that was granted by the DAO is used to give out rewards pretty much causing more sell pressure on it while Soulkeep itself offers very limited real value of SPS. So the question remains in where future rewards will come from as the money that comes in mostly goes toward paying heavy salaries of the devs. I don't see a direct valid solution to this problem.

Fun: One of the major issues of Play2Earn games for me is that the Earning aspect actually goes at the cost of the of the game as things would be way more enjoyable just as a game without any of the extreme Pay2Win aspects. This is also the case for Soulkeep clearly as it's not even possible to properly play the game without having the idea to wasting money having that aspect in mind.

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Conclusion!

I still enjoy the 1 Free Tournament Gameplay in Soulkeep each day but that's pretty much where it ends as the game could be a lot more fun without any of the Play2Earn features and just like Splinterlands there is no solution to have assets hold their value let alone go up. So at this point for me it's hard to see it go anywhere and get more mainstream adoption.

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