Score Breakdown + Alliances

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Hello everyone~! I hope you enjoyed the results. Here are the score breakdowns courtesy of sunflower_mynah:

SORTING



CONTESTS



FANWORKS



MINIGAMES



GF








SORTING

BLACK MAGES: 22.1% [1st]
DRAGOONS: 11.1% [5th]
MONKS: 9.8% [6th]
SOLDIERS: 16.1% [4th]
THIEVES: 20.9% [2nd]
WHITE MAGES: 20.1% [3rd]

CONTEST (UA)

BLACK MAGES: 20% [2nd]
DRAGOONS: 10.8% [5th]
MONKS: 4.1% [6th]
SOLDIERS: 18.7% [3rd]
THIEVES: 33.8% [1st]
WHITE MAGES: 12.7% [4th]

FANWORKS (MWS)

BLACK MAGES: 8.2% [5th]
DRAGOONS: 6.1% [6th]
MONKS: 12.4% [4th]
SOLDIERS: 28% [1st]
THIEVES: 23.9% [2nd]
WHITE MAGES: 21.5% [3rd]

MINIGAMES (FFMG)

BLACK MAGES: 27.1% [1st]
DRAGOONS: 8.7% [6th]
MONKS: 9.4% [5th]
SOLDIERS: 18.5% [3rd]
THIEVES: 19.4% [2nd]
WHITE MAGES: 16.8% [4th]

GARDEN FESTIVAL (FFES)

BLACK MAGES: 43% [1st]
DRAGOONS: 4.7% [6th]
MONKS: 10.2% [4th]
SOLDIERS: 19.5% [2nd]
THIEVES: 9.3% [5th]
WHITE MAGES: 13.4% [2nd]

And that brings us to our second topic -- alliances. We need to decide them before Game 4 can start, of course. I'll list the strengths and weaknesses of each team (as far as I know them), and a short description of the proposed alliances, and you guys can have a vote.

We're going to do something different this time around. Since we have 4 really strong teams, we've decided it's nearly impossible to have 3 alliances of 2 teams, because one of the alliances will automatically be way stronger than the other two, which kind of makes having a competition pointless. So for this game at least, most of the proposed alliances will be two alliances of 3 competing against each other. Like a final boss fight, I think someone told me.

BLACK MAGES
Strengths: High level of participation in everything (except fanworks this time, it seems), one of the teams with the highest active/semi-active members count
Weaknesses: Not as strong as everyone keeps thinking, as most of their presence is social and just... presence. They're still mainly big in minigames and sorting, although they do win a decent number of contests.

DRAGOONS
Strengths: The few members there are still fairly steady and participate in most things
Weaknesses: There are very few members, and their previously most active member is going to be too busy

MONKS
Strengths: Similar to dragoons, participation, though low, is fairly steady and well-rounded. May have more active members than dragoons, though they didn't answer the feedback poll.
Weaknesses: Again, similarly, there are very few members, and some previously active members will be too busy

SOLDIERS
Strengths: Amazing levels of participation in everything. Their non-MVPs scored about as much as the other teams' MVPs.
Weaknesses: The absolute smallest team. They got to 2nd place through an enormous amount of effort, which would be unfair to force them to uphold, although they probably still will. Problem is, however, while a bigger team can potentially score more, they can't really do too much more than they already have.

THIEVES
Strengths: Generally strong and active team, with mid/high participation from a fair amount of members.
Weaknesses: I am leaving the team, which, if it had happened in game 3, would have put thieves in 3rd place, so... uh. Plus, thieves have mainly iconists. My leaving does leave them with only one writer (I think?), and no artists.

WHITE MAGES
Strengths: A lot of MWS-ing, which isn't restricted by the activities going on.
Weaknesses: Aside from the two MVPs, most other members only participate occasionally, although there are a lot of them. Also, has no really strong iconists to compete in graphics challenges; whole team is mostly writers.

Also, a small analysis of which teams make which types of fanworks. Note that I'm going by regular UA entries here, not MWS, because for MWS, as long as you're making some kind of fanwork, you'd get points, but in UA, if all the people for one type of fanwork goes on one alliance, there isn't much to compete for.

Graphics: Mainly thieves, with a couple black mages and one soldier.
Art: One soldier, one black mage, now, since I'm out?
Writing: Mainly white mages, but with a couple from each team, still.

And with that, the alliance options:

Thief+Soldier+Monk vs. BM+WM+Dragoon: A Thief+Soldier combo might be too strong, plus monks will likely have more active members than dragoons
Thief+Soldier+Dragoon vs. BM+WM+Monk: Slightly more balanced, but Thief+Soldier might still be too strong?
Thief+BM+Monk vs. Soldier+WM+Dragoon: Might actually be fairly balanced. If you take out my score, these three would have been about even for game 3, with S/W/D having slightly more. Problem with this is, Thieves and BMs have almost all the iconists.
Thief+BM+Dragoon vs. Soldier+WM+Monk: Same as previous
Thief+WM+Monk vs. Soldier+BM+Dragoon: Possibly the most balanced? This largely depends on how active the WMs who didn't vote in the poll are, though.
Thief+WM+Dragoon vs. Soldier+BM+Monk: Similar to previous, but I think S/B would have more activity than T/W, so giving Thief/WM the Monks might be a little more balancing
Thief vs. Soldier vs. Black Mage vs. White Mage vs. Dragoon+Monk: I'm most worried about White Mages for this one... The other bigger teams can probably perform about the same, and putting Dragoons and Monks together this game would have given them about the same as White Mages.

And the poll! Which... I hope... posts from here... haha...

[Poll #1837853]

I just tried to post two polls in one post, and it really Did Not Work, so, uh, please see following post regarding stamping question changes.

Comments

[glacialphoenix]

I think the problem, in general, in using this game as a gauge is that it's an anomaly as far as activity is concerned: it's been quieter than expected and we know that it was, in general, fairly bad timing for most people - school obligations, family obligations, etc. Anyway, my thoughts on the whole affair:

BMs:

The thing is this. We were an insanely strong team prior to Game 3, but a large portion of that was V and Vanja - and you can see how much they did by the fact that our points are much lower without them around. Both of them participated heavily in minigames, UA and MWS - and UA and MWS make up most of the points. Add to that the fact that minigames and GF were a lot smaller in Game 3 than they were in Game 2, and we also had fewer new members to sort - our strongest players were out of the game, and our strongest activities were, in effect, crippled.

We're still third.

So no, I don't think we're that strong - a lot of it comes from V and Vanja, as I said, but V's already said she'll be more active so... I think that should be taken into account. Also, we're getting Tako, though I've no idea how active Tako will be.

It's also part of the reason why I'm very strongly against any combination which involves a 1v1 at this particular point, the other one being Soldiers:

I would like to say in advance that I think they're amazing and that each member who has contributed has done a spectacular job, but as already pointed out, they have very strong number limitations. This can be partially - but not wholly - compensated for by MWS - but it does mean they have a limited ability to participate in UA, MG, GF and CC - you can only participate once (maybe a few times more, depending) in each activity. My point is, there's a hard cap, and looking at the gil - they've participated very, very strongly already, so when people from other teams turn back up next game, they're going to have a severe numbers disadvantage. And the thing is - through three games, I've always seen, more or less, the same three or four participants, and we can't count on new members turning up to suddenly bolster their numbers. (If they do turn up, good. Soldiers need them.) In short, if you make them 1v1, I think that's highly unfair to them.

As for my alliance choices:

Counting in MWS - because with high participation from the team, and depending on how prolific the person is and their style, it has the potential to outstrip UA; I don't know what Tako and Xinn are planning for UA but it seems the schedule is likely to remain. However, MWS-wise - I'm planning another exchange (probably around mid-June), and I believe ff_exchange is ongoing now? Any fanwork produced for that is viable for points in MWS as well, and we've quite a few ff_landers taking part, I believe. ETA: Also, longer than usual break means we might have a larger fanworks backlog in MWS, and that amounts to more MWS points in Game 4. (All this is just hypothesising, of course.)

To clarify: MWS alone cannot offset all of the game, nor should it be able to, but it can, at least, help a small team to hold its own against larger teams and lack of UA participation, since it's almost on par with UA currently. But it's not fair to make a low-numbers team stand on its own just because MWS is a chance for them to catch up, because a chance is all it is and that doesn't fully compensate for the limits necessarily present in the other comms.

I honestly feel that Soldiers should go with a team which can offset their numerical disadvantage - so that's either BMs or Thieves. (I'm loath to put them with White Mages again since they just had that alliance, but this is honestly their choice and not mine - White Mages would work well, too.) In the interests of keeping teams as mixed up as possible... Black Mages + White Mages were technically allianced in the first game, but we didn't get alliance communities, so in terms of keeping things fresh, I'm definitely okay with re-alliancing with White Mages. (Again, that's partly up to White Mages.)

...as for the rest. I think it depends on what the others say, first. I may yet change my mind (as more opinions come in), but as it stands, that's basically what I'm okay with.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to base it off of what I know of earlier games, but one problem is, I don't have actual score breakdowns, so I can only really see the general end results that everyone else got.

BMs: I think I addressed it a little bit down there too now, and to you personally, but I guess it's better for everyone else to see the summary too. I think I kind of just didn't get what you meant until you guys explained it here? So I was kind of frustrated because I wrote down what I thought you guys said, which is actually fairly opposite to what I thought, and then you and V pulled a "but that's wrong", so it was kinda like... uh, guys, make up your mind, then.

I think some of what I put up there is true, though. In this game at least, nearly all the BMs had mid-range scores, but no one did spectacularly. I do know a lot of your previous points were from V and Vanja, but please understand that since I don't have individual scores for past games, I've really no idea how much, and didn't actually think about it at all this time around because they had average scores, though still fairly high.

I also agree the 1v1 dealie is probably not the fairest, but as I explained to Xinn too, I think it's at least a somewhat plausible idea that someone else would raise the possibility anyway, so we might as well put it up to vote.

The problem with MWS is what Breyzy and Yin brought up that I think we're both answering down there. It is seeing a lot more use, and it does have the potential to be stronger than UA simply because it doesn't have an activity cap, but it's also the most effort-requiring points-earning activity here, because UA is kind of balanced against MWS, and I mainly balance MG against UA and partially MWS.

Plus, while you can say some teams like posting to MWS more than others, it has pretty much no restrictions whatsoever, because... basically as long as you have the will to make fanworks, you can? Ish. It doesn't matter what you're proficient at, because anything earns points. And you technically don't even have to be that familiar with FFs if you're doing something other than writing.

Umm. I guess I'm not sure what point I'm making except MWS is very much a team size thing too.

[glacialphoenix]

Everything's really a team-size thing in the end, it's just that it so happens that MWS is a little more flexible on that point. As I already addressed down there, I think MWS is likely to fluctuate far too much to get a proper gauge on it. I think what it is good for is being used as a benchmark of which teams have the potential to enter which contests - that is, teams with a lot of regular iconists are more likely to be represented in an icontest, and so on. (None of this really makes any kind of indicator as to who participates in one of the more 'random' contests, though.)

but it's also the most effort-requiring points-earning activity here

/nod

And teams who have stayed afloat via MWS are usually teams who have people who naturally gravitate towards styles/works that result in a lot of point-earning in MWS. It's actually not that easy to increase participation in MWS to earn points, it's just that some people lean towards things that would've earned a lot of points in the first place.