I'm Starting to Really Dislike Soulbound Reward Cards

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Funny... when soulbound reward cards were introduced, I thought this is a great idea because it incentivized people to hold on to their reward cards and level them up, instead of dumping them on the market or renting out level 1 cards.

After seeing the route things have turned, to say I'm less enthusiastic is to downplay how I feel right now about them.

I understand the argument that offering free cards as rewards that can immediately be dumped on the market can affect the prices of the overall cards market. But that happens with all cards while they can still be found in packs or, for reward cards, while they are in print. Many of the reward cards became very valuable once out of print as they got older.

There is also the argument that bot farms can easier juggle with reward cards between accounts if they are free to move. Ok, this argument makes sense. Although we still ended up invoking bot farms to add a sizeable fee to unlock soulbound reward cards for land. The fight is ongoing and will never end.


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The question is: where is the line between fighting bot farms and overtaxing regular players/investors?

At least these recent taxes (fees) are burned and don't go to anyone's pocket. While I am not a fan of burning, it is an emergency tool that can be used to temporarily reduce the impact of the lack of demand and growth.

I know this is a tough battle to be involved in, and that sometimes you feel like winning while other times you feel like losing, that's why I hate bring up this subject.

In last week's town hall - which I listened to yesterday - Matt said the fee for fully unlocking a soulbound reward card will likely be higher than the one for unlocking them for land.

Ok... I wanted to see what we are talking about. First, talk about a fee to fully unlock soulbound reward cards is not new. The one for land was unexpected. But let's see what the fee amount would mean. We don't know this fee yet, what Matt said was that it is likely to be higher than the one for unlocking cards for land.

I checked the prices of reward cards on the market, particularly those from Chaos Legion which haven't had time to age and increase in value. Yes, they are very cheap right now, but this is a cycle and has happened with all reward cards over time, particularly in a bear market.

Even if the fee remains the same as the one for unlocking soulbound reward cards for land or slightly higher, the prices at which these unlocked soulbound reward cards would need to sell on the market to make it a good deal for the seller has to be significantly higher than the fee. As long as soulbound reward cards can be earned through gameplay, nobody will pay an arm and a leg for them (maybe with a few exceptions).

And the fee needs to be burned first. This means it doesn't matter if you are able to sell your card or not or at what price or when, you (the seller) pay the fixed unlocking fee first. Doesn't look like there's going to be much of a market for these cards...

As to unlocking your soulbound reward cards to rent them out, this seems like a dead end unless you are aiming at the very long term, and who knows what surprises expect us by then?

Looks like most soulbound reward cards are stuck in gameplay, or, for those who want to play the land fee, on land. It doesn't matter if you have doubles, regular and gold foils, you either pay for the extra use case or don't, and don't use them.

At least add staking to guilds and make it free to use for soulbound reward cards.

Where's SoulKeep? It was advertised with card staking too. Hopefully, without a fee for using soulbound reward cards.

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16 comments
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At somepoint, it makes sense to ban the bots and make this a human player game.

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(Edited)

It's a battle for the history books that will continue. It starts with the definition of a bot. Is an automated bot the same, worse, or better than a human bot? By human bot we can mean:

  • someone who prioritizes farming rewards instead of progressing in the game (although they can farm rewards in order to progress in the game, so it's a fine line)
  • someone who uses real-time helper tools to have an unfair advantage compared to a human who doesn't use them in PvP games; there is no automated gameplay, so they may be very difficult to detect without the risk of making serious mistakes.

Then, what do you call those who use exploits found in the game?

And the larger category, what are humans who use metas in order to win? Gamers will often find the optimized path to their goal, may that be victory, finishing the game, being on top of the leaderboard, or the financial incentive.

My impression is that automated bots and their successors AIs will end up being widely accepted in games (and society), if for no other reason than because they are better and cannot be stopped effectively. That doesn't mean I like this outcome.

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I know what you mean Adrian, but the main thing is, if someone plays, they need to invest their time to play, use a helper etc but not the current method where a bot does everything and they dont even need to log in anymore. This is the main thing that needs to be stopped or it is just a farming game, and then it is appropriate they have new land for that purpose.

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Yeah, we'll see how this goes. Matt didn't sound very optimistic and I am not either. They are going to make an attempt for modern, use a third party to detect bots, and add that to terms of service. But if bots avoid the measures, they won't pursue it any further.

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I like them as it is with the good stats and abilities, but if day to day keep seeing more and common cards, it is really little boring and disappointing to players.

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Ah, that's a different story. I like their stats and abilities too, in many cases. But what do you do if you have both gold and regular versions leveling up with the one that you don't use? What will you do with them once you max them out? Pay a bunch of DEC to unlock them for every additional use case?

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If only there can be no bots in the game

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I don't know... Times change, we have to keep up, I guess.

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The way we've seen before is that many people quit playing because the bots was getting ahead of them and it was too hard to win, and they're still doing it that way.

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I agree. Bots have become better than most human players.

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I am not really happy with how they are charging people for the unlocking of soulbound cards. It just seems like they want to force people to burn DEC but that doesn't do anything about the SPS supply. I don't think I will bother selling those cards anyways and I don't even know if it would be worth it.

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but that doesn't do anything about the SPS supply

Well... that's why they keep pushing to reach that "flywheel" effect. Because that would burn SPS to create DEC. I still think this will be a temporary momentum based on market conditions (bull market) and not perpetuum mobile. In the next bear market, DEC will fall back below the peg again.

I don't think I will bother selling those cards anyways and I don't even know if it would be worth it.

Yes, the market for these cards will be really thin, I imagine. Paying up the fee first without even knowing if you can sell the card or at what price will be a major problem. And making a system to pay the fee when the sale occurs is not easy because that defeats one of the purposes of their addition of the fee: to stop bot farms from freely moving them within their network.

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