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

[fromherashes.livejournal.com]

Been talking about this with various people, but hadn't really posted-- but it seems like a good time to.

I am weird about contests.

I just want to get that out of the way-- I do not think in ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM that anything I'm about to say represents ANYONE'S opinion but my own, which is why I haven't really expressed it, but I feel like transparency and discussion seems to be the name of the game, here, and I wanted to get this out there.

Personally, I couldn't possibly care less if the teams are balanced or not, and here's why:

It's a competition. I am a fairly competitive person. I like competitions, and I like to do my best at them. I like strong team unities and working together to overcome obstacles. I like winning, sure, but I also just like the feeling of playing the game. I like the feeling of struggle and the sense of accomplishment, and I don't like handicaps-- being given a handicap takes away from the work that I did to get where I am and being a handicap is insulting. (NOTE: I am not actually angry or insulted, I'm just speaking in general, here) It really doesn't matter to me if my alliance is balanced or not-- you want to put Monks and Dragoons together against Soldiers and Thieves (or BM) in the next game? Fine, let's do it. I will rock your fucking socks off. We might not win, but we'll give you a run for your money. :D

I'm really against the whole "only two alliances" thing, though-- because while I like competition, I prefer to be ranked, rather than to have a single winner and loser. I like to win, but I'm a big softie-- I don't like to see other people lose in order for me to win. With a ranked system, someone comes out on top, sure, and someone comes out on the bottom, but it's less... black and white, I guess. I'm just not as excited by a binary win/loss. (And yes, I know individual teams have rankings, but those are considered lesser, here, it seems.)

I feel like all of these struggles and discussions over how to make teams even is diluting the actual issues here-- namely being that we need to increase participation of the members who are here and need to get new members in. The members that do participate are incredibly loyal and have great output when life allows them to do so. If we had, say, 5 more of them on each team, team balance wouldn't be as much of an issue.


tl;dr - It is hard for me to participate in a discussion about team balance, because the very concept of being this concerned about team balance is sort of anathema to me. I'd rather just be put with someone randomly and then have us try our best! (I am such a fucking MONK.)

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I think you have a valid point of view, but it works better both in an individual challenge and in a larger group.

I didn't like the two alliances thing either at the start for the same reason, to be honest, but decided to do it because it was the one with the least amount of disagreement in previous alliance discussions on JM, and because with 4 relatively strong teams and 2 relatively weak ones, it was almost impossible to balance them.

I know you say you don't care about balance, and you like competition, but not everyone is going to see it the same way. Some people will like overcoming obstacles, like you, but some other people might just get discouraged and wonder why they should bother trying.

The problem is, it's also unfair to the stronger alliances/teams if it's not balanced. Because then, if they win, it doesn't really mean as much if they were kind of bound to win from the start. You can say you gave them a run for their money, but they'll just know all they did was beat a significantly weaker team. And if the weaker team happens to win, it makes it even worse for them.

But yeah, I do agree if we can increase participation and get new members, we can largely forgo the team balance issue, because then everyone has a fighting chance anyway.

[fromherashes.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's my opinion and that I'm a weird one.

But I do challenge the notion that it's any MORE fair to each individual team to balance teams based on how good they do in the previous game/games.

It doesn't honestly bother me much personally, it's just a bit of logic that makes me tilt my head sideways. No one likes to be punished for doing well at something. And equally, most people don't want to feel like they're bringing someone else down.

Again, I may be strange, but I would prefer to play without a handicap, either up or down.

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but have we considered matching teams based on number of active members, rather than points? I feel like that pretty well levels the playing field for everyone-- because then every team has a theoretically equal chance of victory, because they have an even(ish) number of active members. Whether they choose to rise to the call or not is then a matter of dedication, not a numbers game.

It also has the benefit of being a LOT easier to figure out and implement, I would think.

Just some thoughts. It really isn't a huge crazy issue for me-- I have a Sabin icon and a modship. Monks are winning no matter what! ;D

[glacialphoenix]

I feel like that pretty well levels the playing field for everyone-- because then every team has a theoretically equal chance of victory, because they have an even(ish) number of active members.

Ari can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the issues isn't just "the number of active members" but also the fact that many of our competitions are fanworks-based, and the kind of fanworks people do isn't actually spread evenly across the teams. This might actually be a bigger concern than points (dear god. I mean points. The number of people in a team is obviously a factor in the ability to get that many participants in the first place), because it ups the potential for one alliance to sweep a particular contest simply by virtue of having most of the people who participate. (Example: last icon contest in Game 3? I think almost everyone who participated was a Thief. I'm not saying the winners didn't deserve it, but the sheer numbers mean they can sweep the contest in the first place, where a bigger team with fewer iconists simply wouldn't have that opportunity.)

[fromherashes.livejournal.com]

Not saying I don't agree with you, but wouldn't that just show a need for making sure there are a lot of different types of contests? A contest being swept by one team isn't actually going to be helped or changed by who they're allied with-- if a huge number of iconists are Thieves, they are always going to do well in icon contests, regardless of who they are or aren't paired up with.

But I do see what you're saying in terms of numbers not being the only factor here. I was just bringing up an option I hadn't even seen addressed anywhere-- that being sorting the teams less on their participation points in last game (which everyone says has been an anomaly) and more on how many people there are actually participating.

[glacialphoenix]

A contest being swept by one team isn't actually going to be helped or changed by who they're allied with-- if a huge number of iconists are Thieves, they are always going to do well in icon contests, regardless of who they are or aren't paired up with.

Yep, and that's why in any alliance, you'd preferably pair them up with a team which doesn't generally have as many iconists, to balance the scales. (We can't do anything about the individual teams; we don't really know if someone's an iconist while we're stamping! It just so happened that Thieves keep getting all the iconists. Although it seems the other fanworks don't quite have it as badly, especially writing, because writing's more evenly spread.)

[fromherashes.livejournal.com]

I feel like this is getting off my original point/question which was simply that I don't think it's inherently more fair to base alliances on points in the last game than it is to base it on simple participating member numbers. And I was just curious if it had even been seriously considered doing it the other way.

It seems like it has been and this was done this way for a reason. It still seems needlessly complicated vs. it's output to me, but then again, I'm also not the one who has to do it, and I don't have a strong opinion about the end result.

I personally would rather be "forced" to learn new skills in order to win-- like making icons or solving certain kinds of puzzles or whatever-- than play with a handicap. But I'm just one person and this is a community and I get that. I'm not looking for a justification of WHY things are done the way they are and (as a low participation person from a low participation team this past game) I don't feel as though I'm owed one, honestly.

Just wanted to bring something up in case it hadn't been considered.