[POLL] Rule Changes

[chacusha]

Here are some proposed rule changes for Game 3. First there's a detailed overview of all the changes and then a poll at the bottom.


[ITEM 1] Alliances in Game 3
Under the alliance system, the six teams here at ff_land get divided into pairs (alliances). The point values of allied teams are added together and the alliance with the highest total is declared the winner. Last game it was the Black Mage/Dragoon alliance. Under the alliance system, the individual team comms would all be combined as well, meaning that, for example, all White Mages would be invited to their ally comm as members without posting access and vice versa.

The new alliances for Game 3 have not been decided yet. I'm currently trying to figure out what is the fairest way of pairing up the teams that ideally gets every team a new partner. (That's the next item.)

• Rationale: Creates larger "teams" and allows uneven teams to be balanced.
• Arguments Against: I'm not sure if anyone brought up arguments but I can see it being more motivating to compete if you don't have to worry about the performance of your allied team. It also may interfere with building up individual team identity.


[ITEM 2] Deciding on Alliances
Different people may find different things important or less important but I'm thinking the three main deciding factors would be (1) power balance (having alliances that pair strong teams with weak teams, and middle teams with each other), (2) new partners (giving each team an ally they've not had before), and (3) having a neutral mod on each alliance (zerrat, arivess, and xinnk are a Monk, Thief, and White Mage). Some stats from Game 2 may be helpful in estimating the strength of each team.

Option 2A:
Black Mage + Monk
Dragoon + Thief
Soldier + White Mage
• Positives: A neutral mod in each alliance, each team gets a new partner
• Negatives: Dragoon/Thief team seems significantly underpowered while Black Mage/Monk is maybe overpowered

Option 2B:
Black Mage + Soldier
Dragoon + White Mage
Monk + Thief
• Positives: Possibly the most balanced setup, and new partners for 2 of 3 teams
• Negatives: Monk/Thief already had an alliance; neutral mods are clustered

Option 2C:
Black Mage + Thief
Dragoon + White Mage
Monk + Soldier
• Positives: Moderately balanced, one neutral mod in each alliance, all-new partners
• Negatives: Monk/Soldier might be an underpowered and understaffed alliance (those teams are the only ones of the six with one team mod)

Option 2D:
Black Mage + Soldier
Dragoon + Monk
Thief + White Mage
• Positives: Nicely balanced, all-new partners
• Negatives: Clustered neutral mods; Dragoon/Monk might be just a bit underpowered

I'm okay with any of these so it's really up to what YOU guys want as members. Would you be disappointed if you had a same alliance as in a previous game? Is power-balancing the most important factor for you? Would you be okay with not having a neutral mod on your alliance? Which setup sounds the most exciting for you? Etc.


[ITEM 3] Masculine/Feminine Dichotomy
Proposing to remove or at the very least change the masculine/feminine dichotomy. Currently, answers to the masculine/feminine dichotomy question have more to do with style/habits than personality, and some people are reluctant to identify any personality types are masculine or feminine because they don't want to feed into stereotypes/generalizations/antiquated notions of male and female and such, or may feel put on the spot because gender is a personal topic for them. There are two options for this one:

Option 3A: Keep the masculine/feminine dichotomy but clarify on the app that it's whether you think traditionally "masculine" or traditionally "feminine" personality traits apply to you more (these traits up to the interpretation of the applicant).
• Rationale: Masculinity and femininity are less narrow/tight than the other dichotomies, so more room for interpretation or complex answers.

Option 3B: Remove the masculine/feminine dichotomy entirely, and then add one (or, I suppose, possibly more) new dichotomy to take its place. One proposed dichotomy is Stoic/Thinking vs. Emotional/Feeling. (If you have a different dichotomy you'd like to see, please comment.)
• Rationale: Gender-neutral language still allows people to talk about their personality along a particular dimension.


[ITEM 4] Soldier Reworking*
Proposing to remove Ashe from the list of Soldiers and add Cecil, Ramza, and Zack.

• Rationale: Ashe is officially a Time Mage; Cecil, Ramza, and Zack are used in vote reasonings by members every so often.
• Arguments Against: People might think of Ashe as a Soldier personality. Ramza may be redundant with Marche; Cecil as a Dark Knight/Paladin might not strictly fit into the Soldier category.


[ITEM 5] Dragoon Reworking*
Proposing to expand the Dragoon class to include some Knight-like characters to give it some more dimension/character examples and also place some popular characters that are currently in an unassigned limbo.

Option 5A: Dragoon = Dragoon + Samurai
For this, Dragoons would get Samurai characters like Auron (FFX) and Cyan (FFVI).

Option 5B: Dragoon = Dragoon + Knight
For this, Dragoons would get all Knight characters, which would include Agrias (FFT), Auron, Cyan, and Steiner (FFIX). Maybe characters like Basch as well, but he's a Paladin so that might be confusing with Cecil as a Soldier...

Option 5C: No change.
Keep the Dragoon class the same.


[ITEM 6] Contest Banner Points
This past game, noticed a problem with large banner sets being worth disproportionately more than small banner sets considering the amount of work that went into each set (once a template is settled on, it becomes less work to do each additional banner). Lots of possible solutions for this one.

Option 6A: Limit the number of banners someone can make to 10 per contest (100 point max) and split the banners amongst multiple volunteers as needed. If there aren't enough volunteers to cover banners for a contest entirely, then allow volunteers to make more than 10 banners.

Option 6B: Limit the number of points someone can get for using a single template to be 10 banners' worth (= 100 points). This means that one volunteer can offer to make more than 10 banners, and will get points for all of them if more than one template is used, or will get points for 10 of them if they all use the same template.

Option 6C: Set a base amount for making banners at all (like say 20 points). Each banner with a new template would be worth 10 points and a banner reusing a template would be worth 5 points. So if someone were to make a set of three banners and they all look vastly different from each other => 50 points. A person making a set of six banners off the same template would get 55 points.


[ITEM 7] Perfect Sorting Bonuses
Okay so this is an idea I just came up with yesterday. I was reminded that The Other Comm (westerosorting) does this thing where you can get bonus points for sorting all the apps within a game. I think it might work to do something like that here -- if you vote on ALL ff_classchange applications within a game, you get maybe an extra 25% bonus? For example, if there were 22 apps in Game 3 and you voted on all of them, at the end of the game you'd earn an extra 55 points for your team. If you joined during Game 3 and there were only four apps after you joined but you voted on all of them, you'd get a bonus 10 points. It might be a nice reward for our members who take care to vote on each and every app (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). Would people like this?

Rationale: 10 points per vote seems like an appropriate amount but ff_classchange points are still relatively low. This would give people more incentive to stamp people without changing point values.
Arguments Against: Added complexity of needing to track when people joined and what apps they've sorted since then, etc.


[ITEM 8] Scaling Down Ultima Arena
For this one, people generally said UA was still overpowered, so I'm going to scale back a bit. I was wondering what people would like to see.

• Lower participation points -- set lower point values for submitting entries **
• Lower prizes for winning -- scale down the amount of points first/second/third/etc. are worth
• Smaller-scale contests -- contests with lower wordcount caps, fewer icons to submit, etc. so that the entry point scales are the same but the amount of work involved/required by the contest is less
• Fewer placings -- keep the amount of placings to three where possible, even with large voting sets
• Fewer contests -- most likely would keep to the schedule but maybe skip a half-month contest every so often, especially if there's other events going on at the same time
• Other
• Various combinations of the above!

Let me know if I've missed anything.

* Note: Any change in the lists will not affect people's personal sigtags -- you're allowed to use whatever character you like on your tag banners regardless of whether they officially belong to your class.
** Note: In order to achieve lower participation points, this means the rule that you can't get more points by submitting the same entry to moogle_workshop instead of ultima_arena would need to be broken in many cases. By this, I mean that the participation points may dip below what you'd get if you submitted it to moogle_workshop instead. For example, a writing contest may have a word count range of 1000-2500 words but only be worth 75 points as opposed to 100. In this case, crossposting your entry in moogle_workshop after the contest ends would earn you the difference, provided you didn't place in the contest.



[Poll #1782700]

Voting form:
[ITEM 1] Would you like alliances in Game 3? ( ) Yes, I would like alliances ( ) No, I would prefer separate teams ( ) No opinion either way [ITEM 2] If we do alliances, which one(s) would be okay with you? [ ] A. Black Mage+Monk; Dragoon+Thief; Soldier+White Mage [ ] B. Black Mage+Soldier; Dragoon+White Mage; Monk+Thief [ ] C. Black Mage+Thief; Dragoon+White Mage; Monk+Soldier [ ] D. Black Mage+Soldier; Dragoon+Monk; Thief+White Mage [ ] E. None of the above [ITEM 3] What action should be taken regarding the masculine/feminine dichotomy? [ ] Alter the language to make it about traditionally masculine/feminine personality traits [ ] Remove it and add a new Stoic/Thinking vs. Emotional/Feeling dichotomy [ ] Remove it and add a different dichotomy other than the one above [ ] No opinion either way [ITEM 4] Should Ashe be removed from the Soldier list, and Cecil, Ramza, and Zack added instead? [ ] Yes, both changes should be made [ ] No, do not remove Ashe [ ] No, do not add Cecil [ ] No, do not add Ramza [ ] No, do not add Zack [ ] No opinion either way [ITEM 5] Should the Dragoon class be expanded and given a secondary class? ( ) Yes, give them Samurai (Auron and Cyan) ( ) Yes, give them Knight (Agrias, Auron, Cyan, Steiner) ( ) No, keep the Dragoon class as it is ( ) No opinion either way [ITEM 6] Which new system would be good to adopt for contest winner banners? [ ] For a contest, put a limit of 10 banners per bannermaker and split large sets up amongst multiple people; banners remain at 10 points per banner [ ] Give 10 points per banner for the first 10 banners in a template; afterwards they get 0 [ ] Award a base amount of points and 10 points for the first banner in a template and 5 points for each banner thereafter that reuses the same template [ ] None of the above [ ] No opinion either way [ITEM 7] Would you like bonuses for perfect sorting? ( ) Yes, I would like them as proposed above ( ) Yes, but not with a 25% bonus (please comment) ( ) No, there should not be perfect sorting bonuses ( ) No opinion either way [ITEM 8] How should the points given out in <lj site="livejournal.com" user="ultima_arena"> be toned down? [ ] Lower participation points [ ] Lower prizes for winning [ ] Smaller-scale contests [ ] Fewer placings [ ] Fewer contests [ ] Other [ ] None of the above


Feel free to comment with questions, comments, reasonings, etc. Anonymous commenting is allowed.

Comments

[chacusha]

but that might end up being unfair to the older members since someone who joins midway through might only have to vote on 10 applications, compared to the 20 an older member might have to vote on to qualify.

Yeah I thought about this but I figured that giving a new person a break on their first game might actually be a good thing, since they're a newbie and the lower difficulty only applies to their first game -- the next game they would be on the same playing ground as everyone else. On their first game it would be easier to earn the bonus but they get less points for it. An older member would have more work cut out for them but for a larger bonus at the end.

I'm okay with lowering the percentage, if you like.

[glacialphoenix]

Yeah, I thought that too, but then it occurred to me that the newbie would be getting 125 points to the older member's 100 points, which is a significant difference (assuming 25%.)

Anyway - I'm not sure about what percentage to drop it to; I copypasted this at Vanja since she's classchange mod and I think she wants to check some stuff first before implementing anything? Not sure. Besides, I think there's no way of working out how many new members we might get next game, since ff_press is on indefinite hiatus and that was one of our main ways of promoting...

[chacusha]

But still, all older members in that case would have the opportunity to sort 20 apps = 250 points total. It's a perfect sorting bonus because it's rewarding dedication to sorting all apps, not just half...

Edit: and again, this bonus of being able to get 125 points for sorting 10 apps where a normal member would get only 100 only applies to their first game. So only people who are really into app-sorting straight off the bat would get this, and only once. I do agree that the points might be a bit high in general. I would be willing to bump it down to 20% but 10% strikes me as really low (a 20-app game would only get you 20 points at the end...) and anywhere between 10 and 20 seems random and hard to mentally check.

[glacialphoenix]

Yeah, I do see your point. I'm not against sorting bonuses per se; what I'm worried about is this: I feel it's good to reward dedication, and certainly older members who sort 20+ apps should be rewarded more than a newbie who sorted 10+ apps. And I do think that if there's a reward it should be for all apps and not, as you said, just half - since I personally find it a time-consuming and rather draining process.

The thing is this, for me: we reward people for voting, regardless of the length of their vote. It doesn't matter if they write two paragraphs or two lines, they're going to get the 10 points and 100 gil anyway. I suppose my main concern is that if the bonus is too high, we're opening the system to a great deal of abuse and/or unintentionally breaking it. That being said, we do run very much on a trust system when it comes to a lot of things, and I do believe that anyone and everyone who's voted does put time and effort into their vote, so - should this go through, since it's currently up in the air right now - I won't actually have major objections.

(I swear I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing or something (since I just said I wouldn't object), because I actually do agree with you on most counts; these were mostly my concerns with the sorting bonus since I feel members should be rewarded for effort and sorting does take time, but I don't want to accidentally open a system to abuse since we'll have to wait one whole game to stop up the gap regardless of how early in the game we find it. So, uh, I'd rather express them now. I hope that makes sense?)

[chacusha]

Yeah I can see how this would up the motivation to just put down SOMETHING/BS a vote even if you can't decide. But like you said, we already give people 10 points for voting on one app, so there's already that much motivation there, available immediately if someone really wants to just sheep or write nonsense for points. I can see that this bonus might make someone who normally refrains from voting when they're unsure vote anyway because they're going for the bonus but I really don't see this causing a person who is at this moment too lazy to vote properly to suddenly start making bad votes just to get the bonus at the end of the game?

[glacialphoenix]

Oh, and er - unrelated to classchange, but related to admin: I think the change in poetry scale is going through, yes? But I can't edit the point system post because you made it... would you like to edit it, or should I start a new one so I can edit any future changes in?

[chacusha]

I can edit it this weekend (traveling at the moment).

Edit: actually, a mixture of both -- I edited it just now but maybe you should post a new one whenever you feel would be good. If you want the code for the old posts, I added them at the bottom of here and here

[glacialphoenix]

Ah, okay, thanks! I'll create a new one a few days before game start, so people can take a look all over again, then.

[the-404-error.livejournal.com]

This may not be the most coherent post as I meant to reply here when I was more awake (I got two hours of sleep last night and have been averaging 4 all week, so... yeah. D:), but since the topic was is being discussed now: I came up with several alternatives while crunching numbers earlier:

1. If less than 10 (perhaps lower it to 5) applications are released and/or the member is new and has sorted all applications since their joining (which equals out to less than 10), they get a 15% bonus rather than 25. This is still a +15 bonus if they sort 10 applications, equivalent to some of the smaller submissions in the other applications. All applications beyond 10 get the 25% bonus.

--> On the topic of new members, would the counting start only after they're officially sorted or the moment they release their application, since they can also vote on applications before joining?

2.Don't go by % or "voting on all applications" but award a fixed amount per number voted on. (An extra 20 if you vote on 10, +50 if you vote on 20-- which stacks with the previous 20... The first one is slightly less than with the 25% method yet slightly more than #1 (+/- 5), but it gives room in case someone missed just one or decided to no vote someone that others voted in. Alternatively, it could just be "a bonus 20 every 10 applications," since 20 is the normal amount given per one application vote...

3. I uh... damnit. I had another idea earlier, but now I can't remember what it was. D: I'll, er, come back when my brain is actually working.

[Edit: ... and I remembered just after submitting it! Since it's no longer part of the Golden Chocobo Awards, perhaps have a poll at the end for the best voters (among those who voted at least 75% of the time?), and the 3 (maybe 4?) winners of that poll just be given bonuses. It'll eliminate the concern about people spamming votes that are just a couple of sentences along for more points.]

I don't really have a problem with the 25% method (unless we end up having a ton of applications, which seems unlikely... or someone only votes on a few applications because they joined late, as that would give them an usually high bonus for that), but since that one is only slightly above 50%, I thought I'd offer some alternatives.

(I don't really have a problem with any number between 10 and 20... XD It can be changed if someone else helps, though.)

[chacusha]

1. I'm okay with this but I think making a special case is unnecessary for the reason I said above i.e. it's only a one-time thing and since they're a newbie I figure we should just give it to them.

I was thinking that the record would start only after the person is officially sorted and made a member, so they'd only need to sort people in the batch AFTER theirs and onward, but that if they sort apps prior to their becoming a member (e.g. in their application's batch) those would count toward the total that the bonus gets applied to.

2. Wouldn't really like this option as much because it removes the element of accomplishment/perfectionism.

3. I wouldn't like this either because this means some people's hard work goes unrecognized.