Better Late Than Never: The Much-Anticipated Results of the Modern Bot Ban Guessing Game!
A Quick Recap of Our Game
A few months ago, we launched a riveting guessing game to celebrate the Bot Ban in Modern League on Splinterlands.
Participants were invited to predict the Average Daily Battles for the Modern and Wild Leagues over a seven-day period, beginning on July 25, 2023.
The stakes were high, with a CL Pack on the line for each league. Entrants had 24 hours to submit their single, unedited guess directly in the comments section of the original post.
The winner for each league would be the one who guessed closest to the actual average without exceeding it.
If you happened to miss it or need a quick refresher, you can view the original post here.
Firstly, my apologies for the delay in announcing the winners of the Modern Bot Ban Guessing Game. Time has a funny way of slipping through our fingers, doesn't it? Life got incredibly busy on my end, but let's get back to business.
Participants and Their Guesses
We had a stellar turnout for the contest, and I'd like to give a shout-out to everyone who took part. Here were your educated guesses:
| Participant | Modern Guess | Wild Guess |
|---|---|---|
| @olaf.gui | 50,069 | 420,000 |
| @tradyscho | 30,000 | 400,000 |
| @orrkis | 20,000 | 500,000 |
| @thepeoplesguild | 45,000 | 445,000 |
| @emeraldtiger | 60,000 | 430,000 |
| @dtam | 46,000 | 422,000 |
Thank you all for participating in the Modern Bot Ban Guessing Game!
The Actual 7-Day Averages
For those who are dying to know how close they were, here are the official 7-day averages from the period starting July 25, 2023:
- Modern League: 37,390
- Wild League: 472,944
And the Winners Are...
With those numbers in mind, the closest guesses without going over for each league are:
- For Modern League: @tradyscho came the closest with a guess of 30,000!
- For Wild League: @thepeoplesguild was just a hair off with 445,000!
Congratulations to @tradyscho and @thepeoplesguild - I have already sent your CL packs via Hive-Engine as of posting this.
Unveiling the Data: What We've Learned Together!
Your Guesses Unpacked: Expectation Meets Reality
Your guesses offer a compelling glimpse into community perceptions. A noteworthy pattern emerged in the Modern League guesses: a majority seemed to overestimate the battle counts. Did the Bot Ban hype inflate our expectations?
Conversely, for the Wild League, your guesses were impressively accurate—only one person overestimated. It appears the Wild League's dynamics are better grasped by our community.
Zooming Out: The Bot Ban's Three-Month Impact
Statistical Snapshot: Pre and Post Bot Ban
| Metric | Before Bot Ban | After Bot Ban | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. Daily Total Battles | 647,197 | 523,327 | Overall decline in battles |
| Avg. Daily Modern League | 326,394 | 28,768 | Significant drop |
| Avg. Daily Wild League | 308,738 | 483,942 | Significant increase |
- Modern's Downslide: The average battles in Modern have further dwindled, averaging around 25,000 recently. The trend chart below corroborates this decline post-Ban.
- The Wild Surge: In contrast, the Wild League is flourishing, with increasing battle counts as seen in the trend charts.
Implications for the Player Base
The Bot Ban has been well-received by many existing players in the Modern League, who appreciate competing solely against humans. Despite this positive reception, we haven't observed any noticeable growth in the player base or any improvement in player retention.
In essence, while current players enjoy a bot-free environment in the Modern League, this change has not attracted new players. Additionally, there has been a noticeable decrease in match liquidity in the Modern League, directly attributable to the Bot Ban.
It's also worth noting that card values across the entire Splinterlands ecosystem have declined. While it's difficult to attribute this solely to the Bot Ban, other factors such as broader market conditions or recent updates from Splinterlands could also be influencing this trend.
Conclusion: A Mixed Bag of Results
The Bot Ban offers a tale of two leagues—while it has purified the gaming experience in Modern, it hasn't been a game-changer in attracting and retaining new players. On the other hand, Wild continues to flourish, continuing to create a place where Splinterlands assets are put to work and hopefully helping to maintain their value and keep them from flooding the market.
As we continue to analyze and adapt, one thing is for sure: the ever-changing dynamics of Splinterlands continue to keep us on our toes.
While AI models were utilized to clean and polish the grammar and formatting of this article, please note that all ideas, insights, and analyses are the original contributions of the author.
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o.o what about the bots still playing in modern hmmm
Not sure - what about them?
Even with any bots playing the overall battles in modern are still dropping.
o.o ya many are preparing for land or happy with the reward cards they have maxed already or they dont want to earn these soulbound rewards anymore o.o. it makes sense plus we nearing the end of the year a lot of people will be vacation and taking time off good time to bot the account.
nothing about them they still there hiding probably TOS does nothing to them people will find ways to cheat the system as usual TT
@shawnnft the trend has been consistently dropping for the past 3 months - I don't think that's all related to seasonal drops based on holidays and such.
In regards to not wanting to earn soulbound... I'm in consistent conversations with people who are consistently at the top of the champion leaderboard who still don't have their entire SB collection maxed - I'm not sure if many people have fully maxed what they need on CL SB rewards at this point, so I'm not sure why that'd be a drop off point.
In regards to bots in modern - you could be right, but I haven't really seen any clear evidence either, so I don't have much of an opinion.
well ya of course there won't be clear evidence its all private now :P. and having evidence would just lead to a ban where they would need to create a new account to continue
well theres a lot of selling too. theres prob a lot that were scared after hearing the news and taking their exit
Ya they are at the top of champion but im not saying them of course they will stay there cuz of the leaderboard rewards. im saying those that have what they want already or just not interested in earning them
Thanks for aggregating and sharing this data. This sure paints a stark picture about the number of human players we have. If we have around 24000 modern battles per day and assuming nobody is buying any fresh energy, we can roughly estimate that there are 1000 people playing in the human modern format daily.
That’s the way I read the math as well
Ironically, the number of human players is probably low because of all of the anti-bot measures that were put in place. I mean the ones before the actual modern bot ban. The limit on the number of battles per day, the card level limits, the SoulBound rewards cards, etc. They continually nerfed the rewards and ability to play and earn and, in a bear market, that's just not going to be worth it for most people.
The focus on ROI makes me sick. I would be playing this game for fun even without play2earn tokens. The fact that people left just because they couldn't profit as easily is lame. Good riddance to the extractors.
So you think that people who have invested tens of thousands of dollars (or more) should just stick around for fun?
@sharkmonsters - To ensure Splinterlands stands strong, rather than facing huge market fluctuations, it's indeed preferable. If players join for the joy and thrill of the game, rather than just financial returns, it's a win for everyone.
If you've invested a significant amount, it's reassuring to understand that having more people play for fun can positively impact your investment. For context, here's an article comparing the costs of a similar pastime, Magic the Gathering: https://cardboardkeeper.com/is-magic-the-gathering-an-expensive-hobby/
As a 30-year Magic player, that is exactly the comparison I made as well. There are plenty of ways to make decent ROI without trying to get it from a TCG which is firstly a game to enjoy.
I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I've happily invested 5-digit sums into Splinterlands to be able to play and collect the cards. Regardless of the play2earn aspect of the game, the cards have strategic and collectible value.
I did the same over my 30-year career playing Magic the Gathering. It is also not a true play2earn game, but there are ways to earn prizes through tournaments as well as the natural card appreciation value as they become more and more rare.
While Splinterlands cards in general are inflationary, the individual cards themselves are deflationary since they are often combined to make more powerful cards to be played at higher levels.
If people bought into Splinterlands solely for the ROI, well then it sucks for them. For me, Splinterlands is so much more than just a way to make money. This supports my original point, that I feel sorry for people who bought into Splinterlands solely for the ROI. While asset prices are down across the board during this brutal bear market and the unfortunate overprinting of Chaos Legion, this too shall pass.
It reminds me of when Magic the Gathering was very early on in its life cycle. It had finally broken through to the masses with its Revised base set and then came Fallen Empires. That expansion nearly killed the game it was so badly done and overprinted. But Wizards of the Coast (who makes magic) learned its lesson and over the years the product became so much better and grew into the behemoth TCG that it is today.
While I don't know what the future holds for Splinterlands, I still love the gameplay, I love the tokenomics, I love the ecosystem, and I love the community of decentralized gamers who value what we are building on Hive.
Of course, people can pout about their diminishing collection value, but I would say that the value of my cards has held up better than a bunch of the alt-coins I held in my portfolio after taking profits. I hope this helps you better understand my point.
Cheers @ducecrypto well said. Great points.
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Nice data and insight. Thanks for putting it together
Thanks for the kind words!
Hope it was useful for you :)
Thanks for sharing! - @azircon
Thanks for the upvote @azircon hope it was useful info.
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Oh wow thanks Max. Forgot about doing that to be honest 😅