Splinterlands | Gladiator Card Burn Reward Nerf Coming ?

Since sustainability is of vital importance for Splinterlands, many chanes have been made over the years mainly nerfing the rewards. From the looks of it, a new one is coming where Gladiator Cards potentially won't be able to get burned for DEC anymore. Here are some Thoughts...

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Web 3 Game vs Investment Dilemma

The Web 3 Gaming space is quite tricky as it's easy to approach a game from the angle of it being an investment where you want/need to get a return on. This return is also the main reason many players are willing to throw money at it, but in the end, not everyone can win and it all only works as long as more new players come in exponentially over time. A healthier minsdet would be that you own your items in the game with the benefit that you can get part of what you put in back in case you ever move on. However, for this to work a game needs to be really good and even if this is the case, most players still will see it from the investment/return angle.

Splinterlands perfectly fits into this dilemma. While the game itself is actually fun, the rewards and the earnings in the end are what drive players to the game. These started out really high as it was easy to print rewards out of thin air (Reward Cards / DEC / SPS / Packs / ... ) but as more players and especially bots entered the ecosystem they started to collapse on themselves and they were lowered to the point now where not that much of them are actually left.

Reward Nerf History

From what I recall over the years, these reductions have been made to the rewards.

• Removing Cards from Spellbook: At the start, a level 1 copy of the summoners and the Common + Rare cards were actually part of the spellbook. However, they were being bought after a while just for those cards since the value was so high and they rightfully were removed and replaced by starter cards that no longer were owned by players
• Potion Introduction: Way back, every reward chest included a card that players then owned. This caused too much card inflation so DEC along with potions to incentivise players to buy packs were introduced.
• Introduction Soulbound Gladiator Cards: As a way to still reward cards to players, Card Packs were introduced as rewards for Brawls that included Overpowered Soulbound Gladiator cards that could be burned for the DEC Value. The good thing is that this had the potential to include a 50000 DEC golden Legendary.
• Replacing DEC with SPS: DEC worked in a way that more got printed as the price went above the peg which created crazy inflation and very hight rewards. This however backfired as the supply of DEC got so high that the system broke. This was replaced by another coins printed out of thin air with the Flywheel narrative which took a long time to eventually get in play.
• Intyroduction Soulbound Reward Cards: So all card inflation from Reward Chests was cut by making a full Soulbound Reward Card Set which aren't even able to be burned for DEC. This did increase the fun of collecting but likely will bring a new problem that soon all bots will just use those to milk rewards since they included Summoners.
• Removing Pack From Chests: So there was always a small chance to earn a pack from a reward chest which made things exciting as they potentially could include a golden legendary or Epic.
• Removing League Leaderboard DEC Prizes: This change further reducing the rewards (even though for just a small % of players) was introduced recently as Part of the ranked Changes.
• Remove Gladiator Card Burn Option: This is said to be implemented somewhere in the future as another way to reduce the DEC inflation.
• Moving SPS Rewards from Chests to Battle Win earned SPS: This is another change that is coming pretty much nerfing the 'jackpot chance' a chest had.

So there is a long history of printing rewards out of nowhere that got exploited by bots and a need to nerf them giving players less incentive to come in spending money to the point where mainly just rewards from SPS inflation are left.

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Gladiator Card Burn Removal ???

This was mentioned in the town hall and multiple players (including myself) started burning their cards now out of fear that from one day to another this change would be implemented making it impossible to afterward burn them. However, I haven't seen anyone actually state how crazy this would be if this was done. I kind of understand that the Burn Value adds up over time to a point where it would be problematic if everyone started to burn their cards.

I would have no problem whatsoever if it was said that new Gladiator cards from a certain date can no longer be burned, but I would be shocked if they no longer allowed existing earned Gladiator cards to be burned. That's like saying from one day to another that old earned reward cards from the time they were not soulbound all of a sudden become soulbound. Anyway, none of this is set in stone yet but it's going to be interesting to see what will be done.

Burn Gladiator Cards or Hold?

From a game point of view, these cards and the braws are actually quite fun. So far before this potential nerf, I always kept most of my Gladius cards burning 1 golden Legendary I once pulled. On my alt account I tend to play my gold cards helping the guild with the Gold Fray which honestly is the only real reason I still have that account. I did there burn all my Non-Gold Foil cards which combined were worth close to 60k DEC (60$) I still own my Gold Foils there who combined are worth 40$ extra.

The current Brawl Earnings are around 35 SPS every week or so ar roughly 1$ in Value. So throwing away 40$ (100$ all cards combined) to keep the Gladiator cards in case they no longer could be burned makes no sense and would lower the rewards from brawls by a lot actually since the burn value of packs over time does add up.

If this change is put through in a way where old earned cards can no longer be burned, it would break a lot of my confidence in the game and the team and if it is pushed in a way where future Gladius cards can no longer be burned without any reward compensation, it would likely make me close my alt account.

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All Value Flows in SPS & No Dopamine Reward Hits

Basically with the current reward structure money from people that invest into the game pretty much flows to SPS holders and earning from players need to come from SPS over time increasing in value. Also there no longer is going to be a feeling of being able to win a 50+ "jackpot" from opening rewards which now can come in the form of a Golden Legendary Gladius Card or a big SPS Chest in Gold or Diamond. So the best way for those who want to earn in Splinterlands is to have a big bag of SPS, get the staking rewards along with the upcoming airdrop while renting SPS to players who need it to get a rewards multiplier in the game.

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Conclusion

There has been a history of reward nerfs that were needed, but it has gotten to a point where what can be earned realistically with the game is so low compared to the needed investment that it's hard to see where new money is going to come from. I would also be shocked if the retroactively made it so that previously earned Gladiator Cards can no longer be burned. I'm not taking my chances and I started burning some of those cards that I rarely to never use and might burn more before it's potentially too late even though I would be highly surprised if they did it without a clear announcement first.

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