How Can we Stop Steem Monsters From Dying?
Yeah, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time now and this State of The DAPPS user activity shows a constant decline over the last 30 days.
Yes, we are bleeding and the wound hasn't been hemorrhaged.
And the last 6 months developing automated tournaments, has barely made a bump on the graph. In fact, that last major bump on the chart is the normal one we see at the end of every season, but even this bump is smaller than we've ever seen.
The fact, is we are bleeding out, and nobody wants to face the facts.
So how can we stop Steem Monsters from dying?
Well, there is talk about introducing an in-game currency called Dark Energy Crystals (DEC) that'll let you do all sorts of amazing things (apparently).
Then there are promises of card delegation (finally).
And of course the lure of greater Tournament Prize pools (when the sponsors discover us).
But I can't see how this changes anything.
People have stopped playing and chatting about Steem Monsters like they use to do.
Just check out the discord.
There was a time where it was so busy you could barely keep up with the chat. And now you can leave it for hours and still not miss anything by scrolling up one page.
So what will change this momentum?
We'll if we turn back the clock you'll see Steem Monsters was pumping when you could earn boosters as rewards for seasons and quests.
And sure a few boosters are being dangled for end of season rewards now, but I've tried to reach the Top 50 and it's a goal that seems unreachable with a reasonable amount of game play. So I don't bother and suspect many others won't either.
But it was a step in the right direction, and finding a way to reward people with Beta Packs again could be the momentum shift we require.
After all we still have around 400K packs remaining, and at the rate they are selling it'll be next year before they are all gone.
So the simple solution is to bring back Beta Booster Rewards for Quests, but not for the lowest levels where the bots operate, maybe for Gold, Diamond, Champion as a start and see how that goes.
The word on the street is the DEC will enable you to buy Boosters with DEC you've earned but how long will we have to wait for this to be implemented?
It makes more sense to stem the blood flow now, create a bit more of a buzz around the game. Get people playing again, and then make the transition to DEC with some serious momentum.
And giving away Beta Booster Packs is one way to do this.
Oh, and for the people in the community that suggest giving away Beta Boosters is a bad idea because it'll reduce the card value, they just haven't tried to sell cards on the market lately. It's almost dead too.
Plus, card delegations is totally going to kill the marketplace too. I'm just hoping we find some momentum again before it's implemented.
Anyway, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Pretty unfair, don't you think, since the lower leveled accounts are the ones that need it most? Bots are pretty easy to indentify, so why punish the users who don't have a full deck yet and don't have the money to invest a truckload of money?
Weeks ago, I came with the idea to not reward booster packs for each DQ, but only - for example - when someone completes a DQ 5 times in a row. It would encourage people to play each day, while the not-so-rich people still have a chance to grow and level their deck...
Yeah, I'd agree too, but the maker of the game want to encourage, people to level up and Gold League is reachable with Silver Level teams anyway.
I'd expect lower levels would just continue to get Reward Cards.
And I did say for a start.
Your idea for rewarding a Quest win streak is a great idea too. Win 5 and get a bonus beta pack. I love it.
Sadly, still gameable by bot farms though.
Still a lot of Steem Monsters posts showing up in my feed and I don't play myself.
Have plenty of gaming experience though. I would suggest pushing the community/social aspects along. What about creation of teams/clans/tribes and then tournaments that are multi-player where teams face off. You could use this to push along (and even reward) new recruitment. You could even have community decided awards like "best and fairest" or "best new player" etc that not only are consensus based (hello blockchain DApp??) but will help to eliminate any bot influence and get the community buzzing again.
Good luck.
Great ideas. But management seem to be focused on other things. Building the player base doesn't appear to be one of them.
Everything is 'coming' (apparently)
PS: The community use to be buzzing, but now not so much.
I think there is room for the tournament aspect to bring back the hype, if it's done right.
The increasing frequency of tournaments is a good start, particularly the freerolls, or very low entry fee events. Diversity of prizes is also good, I've seen some with booster packs, some with cards, others with random tokens (personally these ones don't really interest me as I can't put a value on something I am unfamiliar with) and the list goes on.
Inevitably, however, these tournaments seem to be won by the same group of people. I'm currently doing some research into the stats on this and expect t do up a post in the next day or so.
What I think will help, is tournaments that run deep with prizes, if more people feel like they have a chance to win something, then they are more likely to play.
I totally agree with everything you've said. I tried to push for deep prizes. But get no traction. And yes same players are winning most of the prizes.
Having free roll games where you play an hour and might win a few 1-2 STEEM (because we aren't good enough to win the big prizes) isn't an attractive game in my opinion.
Automated tournaments are just an easier way to play. Nothing amazing, unfortunately.
Yep. And when we have one player, who has won of 16.3% of all Tournaments played so far (and of placed in the Top 3 for 24%), it points to the need to have some depth to prevent dominant players demotivating others.
Wow, Top 3 for a quarter of all tournaments is big news. I bet there are less than 4 of them that have placed Top 4 for over 50% too. It's that bad. Especially, given most of the prize money is handed out to the top 4 placings.
I literally discount the first 4 places prize money to determine if a Tournament is worth my time.
Usually they are not.
And that's across all tournaments in total. You can pretty much guarantee, he (or she) didn't compete in every tournament, therefore would have an even higher success rate. They probably finished outside the top 3, but still within the prizewinners on many more occasions too.
Posted using Partiko Android
Personally I don't know, but it seems Drugwars is the more popular game as we speak. We can see that as an improvement of Steem IT. Maybe bring a huge update for Steem Monsters in order to get players back.
I've heard people say they like Drug Wars because it requires a low investment in time. Whereas Steem Monsters is taking more and more time for a similar reward.
I've only played SM, having been in since the beginning. What is Drug Wars?
It's a ponzi scheme game .lol
You might be too late to see a ROI now.
Let's just say the owners only put 80% back into the prize pool, so there is the red flag right there, so unless you were one of the early ones don't bother.
I play SM almost ever day. I don't frequent Discord much anymore. SM needs marketing. I personally know few people who know anything much about digital currencies so trying to discuss SM with them is a non_starter. I think SM can be challenging and it literally pays to evaluate your cards, abilities, and which teams work best with the different battle rules
Yeah, I use to play everyday, but now just a few days at the end of a season. Lack of marketing is definitely a problem and the game isn't 'Amazing' enough to promote itself.
They certainly had the right idea, creating a Paypal entry point into the game, but after buying a starter pack, you have to figure out crypto to buy on the second hand marketplace.
Which is too hard for many.
As I've mentioned, my cards aren't high level at all... so I'm still very much-mid silver. What I found last night was that the quest was for the fire splinter which I don't have good cards on. It took ages to get a single win and collected 5 wins over maybe an hour and a half (I was doing other things, but I was primarily playing) and then my rewards were two Silver archer cards which are worth virtually nothing.
I do enjoy playing the game, but the quests can be really tiresome.
I've played maybe 3 or 4 tournaments now, mostly at a bronze or noob level, but even there I just can't compete because the new summoners trump everything else. I've played tournaments at very varying times, and it's literally all the same people everytime... has SM tournaments become people's full time occupations?
Wow, I think that sums up a lot of experiences. Quests at low levels are almost pointless because as you say you can spend an hour and make just a few cents in cards.
It's certainly a lot easier when you have maxed cards, though. But you could spend $2000 just to make 50 cents an hour instead :-P
The Tournaments are dominated by a handful of Korean players who seem to play during their waking hours.
And yes there is a problem with maxed players feeling entitled to play at every level. It's not good for the growth of the game.
The other problem is the low end tournaments are only worth a few STEEM unless you WIN. Again, not enough to get me out of bed.
I guess my point is handing out Beta Booster makes it more interesting and people will continue to grind up in levels.
Maybe Dark Energy Crystals will change everything, but I'm not holding my breath ;-)
Yeah, there's currently no way to build up my deck. I can't win steem in tournaments because everyone else has more expensive cards (even if they're restricted at Level 1), I can win reward cards, but they're not worth anything... so I'm not making Steem to even spend on new cards unless I'm making it through other means.
Yeah, this game was supposed to allow you to earn xp through gameplay. And because they couldn't figure that out, they gave booster packs instead. Then they gave too many away so created new rewards cards, and then gave more cards away anyway. lol
The core cards you need are still in Beta Boosters.
DEC needs to be prioritised over delegation. There's not a real market for card sales now, so I doubt we would see one over delegation.
Posted using Partiko Android
Last I heard delegations were a few weeks away, while the DEC is at least a few months. I'm trying to imagine a couple of thousand idle accounts with SM cards suddenly getting access to delegations.
Of course, I'm also thinking it'll be a great way to earn some regular STEEM without having to spend any time playing.
Either way it's going to be interesting to see what it does to the marketplace.
It'll be an immediate race to the bottom. There's still a massive card over supply, imo.
Posted using Partiko Android
On the flip side those holding maxed cards might finally start to see a ROI opportunity. Because if I was to lease cards I'd just go all in and lease maxed ones.
If that was the crowd behavior then people/investors might actually buy more cards on the marketplace to level up and lease maxed cards themselves.
It's hard to say how this will play out.
What if they added a new reward "card" that was a beta booster pack voucher. That way it could potentially drop for any player doing quests but as you climb the ladder and are rewarded with more cards you would have more chances to get one. Having some beta cards be rewarded from daily play might help keep the market alive while still keeping the rewards cards as the most common quest rewards as to not negatively impact beta card prices.
Another great idea! So it's similar to a Legendary drop, not common but possible. And as you say more possible as you get more rewards in higher leagues.
I just wish these ideas would be considered and debated rather than just being 'another great idea' the community has that never see the light of day.
🎁 Dear @mjo,
SteemBet Seed round SPT sale is about to start in 2 days!
When our started the development of SteemBet Dice game, we couldn’t imagine that our game would go so viral and that SteemBet would become one of the pioneers in this field.
In order to give back to our beloved community, we’ll distribute 4000 STEEM to SPT holders immediately after Seed sale. Plus, investors in this earliest round will be given 60% more tokens as reward and overall Return on Investment is estimated at 300%!
Join the whitelist on SteemBet webiste now and start investing! Feel free to ask us anything on Discord https://discord.gg/tNWJEAD
Hi @just2random!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.446 which ranks you at #6992 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 10 places in the last three days (old rank 6982).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 239 contributions, your post is ranked at #118.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server