Greeting Splinterlands community, I have found a severe problem when playing in Bronze league although I already playing for 1 year. Why I am playing in Bronze league? Because I wanted to do an experiment where is it better to have End of Season reward for Silver league or Gold league. So I finish in Silver 1 last season so end up in Bronze 1 at season reset so that why I end up in Bronze league.
Severe bot issue in Bronze league
I know it is not a new thing to encounter with bot problem, but I found out bot in the lower league is really good and does not make mistake at all most of the time. This is why most human player have trouble with it because human have limit and we can not analyze data of the game style or strategy most of the player we encounter. Because of that, human have big disadvantage when they encounter with bot player. I only won 8 of 20 matches. It might sound decent but to put into perspective I have played this game for over a year by now and I still struggle when against bot. Also I have to rent a lot of card in order to just get out of Bronze. So what if I am a new player that does not know a lot of strategy or big bankroll to put into the game? That something to think about.
My stats in Gold league
My stats in Silver league
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 1 to 4 show my recent results in Bronze league making my win loss ratio fall significantly from higher league to lower league. It should be vice versa but unfortunately not for this current situation.
How to stop bot from becoming to good?
I have notice that bot become less effective when encounter ruleset on the higher league. For an example, bot tend to struggle when the game have big mana and 2 ruleset instead of 1 ruleset. When there are a lot more variable, the bot start to struggle a bit more and player have more advantage compare to bot. Why? Because of human intelligence we able to adapt to various situation much better to bot because bot in Splinterlands does not program to have an Artificial Intelligence (AI) or it just need more work to improve its AI programming who knows how advance the bot in Splinterlands actually is. [1]Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The term may also be applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind such as learning and problem-solving.
Impact of bot to game
For those who love to enjoy video know that bot issue also emerge on other game also. [2]The most notorious examples of online gaming bots in this category are aimbots and trigger bots, which rely on incoming data about other players to automatically aim at and shoot enemies as soon as they appear in the bot user’s field of view. Such problem usually found in First Person Shooter (FPS) game. But, in the era of Play to earn world bot now are being used to make profit by leeching the game and draining the game reward.
Play to earn or Leech to earn?
Talking about the Play to earn for me it is a great concept for player perspective since we actually owned in game item and able to sell or buy item whenever we wanted to. Unfortunately, human are greed so some player use various ways to cheat in order to took advantage of the game whenever there are loop hole in the game. As a player I understand, the developer have constantly encountered with such issue all the time and kudos to
@Splinterlands team because I have seen a lot of improvement over the course of 1 year. Bot earn less now (probably) but somehow they still have incentive to continue harassing newcomer in Bronze league making it very tough for new player. In order to make this game bigger and better, we need new fanbase that consist of actual people and not bot base that leeching the game all the time till the maximum.
Final conclusion
I hope my concern will reach the community and the developer side. I wanted the bot era of Splinterlands will be gone someday so that we able to invite more new player to join our great community. I have high hope for this game that why I care about it. I wanted to enjoy it as game at the same time earn great reward along the way. We should enjoy it as a game first then we earn because that what make the Play to earn concept fun and out of the ordinary.
References
[1] Jake Frankenfield, July 6 2022, Artificial Intelligence (AI) - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/artificial-intelligence-ai.asp#:~:text=Artificial%20intelligence%20
[2] Alec McConnell, August 5 2021, HOW BOTS ARE RUINING ONLINE GAMING FOR PLAYERS AND PUBLISHERS - https://www.netacea.com/blog/how-bots-are-ruining-online-gaming-for-players-and-publishers/