finalfantasyland | Score Breakdown + Alliances

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{archive} alliances

Score Breakdown + Alliances

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

sunflower_mynah:

SORTING

CONTESTS

FANWORKS

MINIGAMES

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd love, love, love to see Black Mages and Soldiers team up!

Thief+WM+Monk vs. Soldier+BM+Dragoon plz.

Edited 2012-05-03 02:12 (UTC)

I forgot one additional chart:

http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z425/snarkycleric/chart_3.png

This one shows how much each section is worth in terms of points.

I'll leave this comment separately, so it doesn't get cluttered up with my opinions.

EDIT: Apparently the images are broken, so for anyone who wants a look-see:

http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z425/snarkycleric/chart_12.png (CC)
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z425/snarkycleric/chart_2.png (UA)
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z425/snarkycleric/chart_21.png (MWS)
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z425/snarkycleric/chart_31.png (FFMG)
http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z425/snarkycleric/chart_4.png (GF)

Edited 2012-05-03 03:05 (UTC)

I think the BMs are going to be a lot stronger than you're accounting for, Ari. Vanja and I were both pretty much completely gone last game, and we tend to be the backbone of our team's strong UA presence -- we both fic and icon, and tend to place well in those contests. And I am definitely back in the game, and Vanja seems to be around a bit more, as well. Not to mention the fact that the rest of team is definitely more than just social. We're still strong contenders. /staunch team loyalty!

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.

Edited 2012-05-06 21:40 (UTC)

Well, see, I mostly said it because the last time I said in JM that BMs were strong and there will be more minigames too, there were people jumping on me going NO WE'RE NOT WE JUST FEEL THAT WAY BUT WE'RE REALLY NOT. >.>;

I think the problem is that I don't feel like the description up there is completely accurate. Looking at previous games, most of our points came from two members specifically, and primarily from UA and MWS, not FFMG. We are strong in minigames, especially from our less-active members, but that's not all we do, though sometimes it seems like that's all people focus on.

It just seems like alliances are being proposed assuming our Game 3 strength, which was fairly anomalous as far as activity goes, especially from our most major point-earners.

Not trying to complain or anything, just clarifying how I feel my team has performed and will in the future. ^_^

No, but. Your scores aren't primarily from FFMG because FFMG doesn't make up the primary score-giving of the game, period. If you take a look, this game you guys have 1.5x as many MG points as the more active teams, and 3x as many as the less active ones. And that's with you being less active this time around. Checked game 2, and you had almost twice as much as the next highest minigames participants.

Again, like I said, I'm just saying all that up there because every time I tried to say you guys are strong, I got oodles of complaints about how you weren't. *shrugs*

"Art: One soldier, one black mage, now, since I'm out?"

Is...is it just

spoonybards and me then?

It's not; those are the UA scores.

From MWS:

Soldier:

spoonybards

rayiroth

Black Mage:

ireth_oronra
You, of course. EDIT: I apologise. I do have you listed. I'm not sure how I missed it. D:

chacusha, now she's joining us.

White Mage:

serah

Previously-thief-now-Neutral:

arivess

I... may have missed more.

Oh. I have.

EDIT:

Dragoons

the_cosmos_girl, who contributed one art piece.

Edited 2012-05-03 06:20 (UTC)

Oh man, I was like: "wait a second..."

Yeah. ^^; The thing is that MWS and UA participation doesn't really tally - just because someone draws and submits art for MWS doesn't necessarily mean they'll participate in a UA art contest, depending on time, inspiration, etc. And we only had one art contest, so that score is definitely not particularly representative of all the artists in the comm; it's purely contest-based.

In my point of view, there was never a question as to whether Team Black Mages were strong. I think their performance in Game 1, 2 and really Game 3 (in which they were missing some of their major front-runners and still ended up in 3rd place).
The problem here is that there is the perception that they are over-powered which they aren't. BMs may have the most number of active participants but there are still a couple that are the main point earners within the team. (As opposed to say, Thieves who have a few who are all high point earners). When these main point earners dropped off in Game 3, there was expectedly a big drop in their points, though this was buffered by their participation in GF and MG (both of which are dependent on numbers for point earning)

Yeah. As Mysti explained, I specifically said I'm counting regular UA entrants, because that's the only thing we need to balance teams for, because if it's MWS participation, it doesn't really make a difference what kind of fanwork you do as long as you do one at all, since they all earn points.

Haryan and Hillian both also entered one art contest so I assume they draw too, but they haven't entered any after that so I didn't count them for regular entry either, BTW.

They haven't posted any art pieces to MWS, either; I was counting art pieces specifically posted in MWS.

Mm, okay, yeah. I see what you mean now.

I know, I'm just saying that's why _I_ didn't list them even though they've entered before and noting I haven't forgotten them.

I... don't think I agree with the Thieves section either. We might only have one writer (me), but my FF participation will be high this time, since there's ff_exchange and me and Mysti have a drabble project planned (at least 10 each). Not to mention that I will be joining any UA contests that catch my eye, as well as the crack meme that we've got planned.

I really don't think it's fair to discount "just iconists", considering we have the H-twins as well as

katy_111 (and that's not counting me as well), all three of whom post large batches of icons at a time. Very large batches. And don't forget, all of us iconists entered and cleaned up last game. Completely cleaned up. Having one artist doesn't make up for all the points we get from the regular iconists, and with my writing as well? I just don't see how it's going to be as negative for us as you're predicting.

Not only that, but if the minigames are gonna go as you're saying (ie: with a lot less focus on logic/numbers games), then Thieves will be getting me back as a regular and consistent minigame participant (anomalous last game results, as people said: I physically cannot do logic/numbers puzzles, which is what most of them seemed to be, so I just didn't participate.)

Looking at the poll results right now, I question whether some of the votes are based on the alliance assessment made on the post, which IMO isn't very fair.
First off, that assessment is mainly based on

arivess's judgment and there hasn't been really discussed in full among the mod team. That doesn't sit right with me at all.
Plus, IIRC, this assessment was made before all of the points were tallyed and as such was based on our assumptions regarding team strength. I think it's pretty evident that even though WMs have been pretty consistent and steady in MWS-ing, they aren't always strong enough to compete with the top 2-3 teams? (I'm only saying this because imo, the Game 3 rankings for the WMs is a little lower than expected given their MWS-ing) I admit I may be biased towards WMs because of team loyalty, but I think it's fair to say, the assessment of team strength made in this alliance poll post isn't completely accurate.
It was always going to be a stretch to overspeculate everything but this assessment is made without the input from other members in the mod team. (Ari I know you haven't had the chance to take every aspect of the comm into consideration but it's very easy to misunderstand that this post has - taken everything in consideration I mean)
Right now, I'd prefer if we start with discussing the alliances proper before we go on to the polls. (If you'd like I can redo the poll since this is my request.

That to me is the only fair way of dealing with the situation right now. I think it's pretty evident in some of the comments here that a few of the mods don't exactly agree with the assessment of the teams X:

Yes, exactly. Thank you Xinn <3

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.)

I wasn't sure how to respond to this post. Yin and I voted together and...all I can really say is that I think the team assessments in this post are accurate as far as the results of Game 3 would lead one to believe. No one can really predict how the teams are truly going to be in future games, as I'm sure no one expected the results that actually happened in Game 3 in general. So, yes, while I can see why there might be some issues from the team mods with the team assessments here, I think the assessments themselves are accurate for the data that has been presented so far. Personally, I don't have an issue with the Alliance proposals, even knowing that things might not be totally accurate based off of Game 3 data, I agree with Ari: the most balanced alliances for 2v2 *are* the ones the post kind of says they are. Just in general, Yin and I both thought that the two proposals that it says are the "most balanced" here ARE the most balanced...so, I don't really feel like it needs to be open for even more mod discussion than it already has been? We've discussed the idea of alliances like this multiple times already in JM and team strengths/weaknesses...at this point, I'm not sure how much *more* discussion is going to be helpful when I don't think there's really anything more to add. All I can add here are our two mod opinions on what our two teams' strengths/weaknesses are, but I'm pretty sure it is things everyone already kind of knows, lolz. ♥

Yin's thoughts on White Mages: we are one of the bigger teams as far as numbers go, but we're very specialized in that writing seems to be our "thing." There are two people who occasionally do graphics, and one of those does fan art...and the rest of our active members are geared more towards writing. We submit a lot to MWS, but as Game 3 indicates: submitting a lot of written work to MWS doesn't instantly make a high placement in the game itself. As point-tallier, I can tell you WMs do post a lot there...and I know we submit a lot to writing challenges at UA, but considering the sheer amount of awesome writers in all of the teams, we're not guaranteed placement there (basically: we have as much of a chance of placing in UA as any of the other teams do, no more or no less...we don't tend to "sweep" the writing challenges as far as placement goes). So "writing as a strength" is true, but there's a big difference between that and being considered a "powerhouse" team...posting a lot of writing to MWS doesn't necessarily mean we're going to get high placement (it just means we like to write, lolz). The WMs are not minigame-oriented as well. Personally, I know I will apply more for minigames if they're not the logic-based kinds...but, I know that the WMs in general have never had super strong minigame participation (which kind of worries me, but I've mentioned that multiple times). I think, as far as the bigger teams go, we might actually be the weakest one simply because our members are very specialized. On the other side of that, we have more members than most of the other teams...so we do have the potential to be strong. I think, for us in Game 4, our "strength" will be on whether or not we have more participation overall.

I find it worrying that there is this thought that the smaller teams can make up a lot of points in MWS...to an extent, that could be true. But, there's also the "burn-out" factor and it isn't necessarily fair to expect other teams to participate in EXTRA activities to make up for the fact that their team isn't as big. As I saw in my point-tallying, Soldiers and Dragoons have been pretty consistent with submitting to MWS in all of the past games. It was only the same couple of people, but they were consistent. With the exception of Soldiers in Game 3 (which, who knows what Game 4 will bring), however, they never really have managed to have the points that that the other teams get in MWS simply because they just don't have as many members submitting to it. MWS relies on a member having free time and the like, so I guess I'm worried that members of the smaller teams might burn out in an attempt to "make up some extra points to stand against the bigger teams."

I think some teams are just going to be at a disadvantage and the biggest factor that is against *or* for the teams is number of active members. The reality is, the smaller teams are not going to do as well as the bigger teams (especially if the bigger teams have a lot more active members submitting to MWS, minigames, or even UA--> you have 4 Thieves or WMs submitting to a minigame for equal points, with only 1 or 2 Monks: the Monks still don't earn as much. That's just simple math). The numbers just aren't on their side. From that stance, I think the 2v2 alliances are a good idea: partnering smaller teams with the bigger teams will make them feel like they're on a more active team in general. I think 1v1 might hurt the teams more than help them, especially when there are teams where only one or two members are active...there's a sense of isolation when it is just your team alone, and I think competitions in general still need a sense of camaraderie (it happened with the WMs in Game 1 since we really weren't seeing any level of "team/alliance"-ness then...in Games 2 and 3, we had a very different alliance experience: we had fun getting to discuss things with our alliance partners, and it helped motivate us).

My thoughts on Soldiers: I admit I find it odd that we're considered one of the stronger teams now. As everyone has emphasized, a lot of the teams just had low activity/participation in Game 3. I think we Soldiers maybe took advantage of that, lolz (you know, because we're Soldiers and think strategically XD)! We didn't actually do ANYTHING different in Game 3. It was even the same people constantly submitting anything for points. That's what I love about my team: we're small, but we're diligent and we do try our best! However, I think once the other teams start getting more active as they are indicating they will, we'll be back towards the "not as strong" side of the spectrum...we just don't have the numbers to compete against the bigger teams *if* they do get really active. I think in Game 3 we showcased that if the teams were more balanced in terms of member size and activity levels, the smaller teams like Soldiers have the chance to get pretty high placement-wise. When that's not always the case, it becomes apparent. As the the team mod, I can tell you that we can't do MORE than we've been doing...because that's actually what we've always done in *all* of the games. All I can say is that the Soldiers will continue to do what we do, and I think that will be the case for the other smaller teams. I think the only TRUE weakness that the smaller teams have is that they're smaller, because statistically speaking the teams that only have two active members won't earn the same amount of points as the teams that have four or more of them...heck, it lowers even the chances of placing in UA, because the odds just aren't on your team's side at that point. O_O; That's actually why I'm more for a 2v2 alliance as well. It allows the smaller teams to feel like they have a shot at advancing if they work with the bigger ones, and it won't make any of the teams feel isolated.

~...So, uh, that's Breyzy and Yin's perspective? I'm sure that it doesn't really matter, but we felt like we should say something here too. ♥

Edited 2012-05-06 18:12 (UTC)

Um, to clarify, because I know I said that in my own comment as well, and I think I really should state this as the MWS mod: it's not that you guys should be expected to make the difference in MWS, it's that because MWS has no hard cap on numbers, it's pretty much the only community that actually has this kind of... hmm, leeway, so to speak. But it is definitely unfair to expect teams to make up the difference in MWS, and I am honestly personally against MWS being used as a crutch - yes, it will earn your teams points, yes, it's possible to keep your team afloat through MWS points, but any situation where a team feels forced to use MWS to remain on par with people is far from ideal. I really don't want to see Soldiers (because I'm really not sure what to say for WMs, as far as I can tell the WMs adore writing anyway? please correct me if I'm wrong) forced into this kind of situation, because as gil tallier for two games, I've only ever seen the same few people participating, but the participation has always been nothing short of amazing for those same few people.

Also, wait, with 2v2 do you mean 2 teams, or 3 teams? /suddenly confused Mysti

I think the WMs post in MWS just because they like writing as well (at least, I know that's the case for Yin, lolz!)...I'm definitely not saying that's what you're saying (I thought your comment was very accurate, actually ♥), but Yin and I have both seen comments where people *have* said "Small teams can post things to MWS to make up." and I, as a mod of one of the smaller teams, do have a problem with that mindset...because I personally think it ignores the reality that that's a lot of pressure to put on the few active members of a small team. I do know I submit a lot to MWS because I want to earn points for my team, but I never felt like I "made up" the points that we missed by just not having too many active members. The way things are set up in MWS, you'd have to submit something worth a lot of points to do that...I'm not an artist, and I can't write super long fics nor post super huge icon posts on a really regular basis. There is no way for me to make up those points...I feel like when I see comments like that, I'm personally letting my team down by NOT being able to make up those points. I think we just wanted people to realize how it might come across when people say stuff like that. :/

Looking at the WMs, they're fairly consistent and regular with MWS posting in terms of writing...and they placed fourth in Game 3. I definitely think saying you can "make up" points in MWS is not necessarily true...it does help teams earn *extra* points, but that is not the same thing.

The reality is, with how the sizes of the teams are in terms of active members, there's not going to be a way to make things even for the teams: MWS is not a crutch, nor is UA and minigames. When you have small teams with not very active members, you just have small teams with not very active members. Just as the BMs are saying that Game 3 was anomalous for them...Game 3 was anomalous for Soldiers. We didn't change our participation: the other teams did. I'm not downplaying my team: the few of us who are active participate AWESOMELY and I feel we really earned the place we got in Game 3...but, do I expect it again when the bigger teams start getting more active in general? Not really. We'll give it our best and try our hardest, but that's because that's what we've always done...to the point of possibly even burn out in some cases. We're a strong team despite our lack of members, but do I think we're as strong as the teams with more active members? Not really. I just wanted to get a "small team" perspective out there, since so far I've been seeing more of the representation of the big teams commenting here. ...Yin just wanted to mention some more about WMs so she tagged along, haha. And she felt like she needed to address the MWS thing also since we've kind of been talking about it before. XD

Also, wait, with 2v2 do you mean 2 teams, or 3 teams? /suddenly confused Mysti
~Lolz, we *meant* the "2 Alliance" idea. IDK why we typed it out that way other than lack of sleep. O_o

Looking at the WMs, they're fairly consistent and regular with MWS posting in terms of writing...and they placed fourth in Game 3. I definitely think saying you can "make up" points in MWS is not necessarily true...it does help teams earn *extra* points, but that is not the same thing.

/nod

I mean, looking at the pattern for MWS, usually when a team successfully keeps afloat via MWS, there's at least one extremely prolific person who tends to post a great deal of fanworks, and each post tends to be worth a lot. (For example, and although I represent the extreme end of the spectrum, I could post several fics in MWS and the total points earned by those fics would simply not match one post from someone else, you know?) So that may be why there's that perception - if you see someone earning a couple hundred points off each post, it's easy to say, woah, holy crap, they CAN make up via MWS - and this is partly true in that it's possible, but it's fallacious to apply it to everyone across the board, because some people just can't. I feel, generally speaking, that MWS does have this tendency to get either overrated or underrated - it's easy to forget someone's there if they only post in MWS and don't really do much else, but having seen the total scores? There are people in

ff_land who can claim more points from nothing but MWS than I have this entire game. And I don't participate in UA beyond voting (mostly), but I've participated in almost all the minigames, almost all of GF, and voted on everyone in classchange AND claimed reference bonuses... so that's what you can earn off one community versus near-max for three. At the same time, though, as in the case of the WMs, it's kind of unfair to expect people to do well purely FROM MWS alone, or expect people to be able to 'make up.' (I'm guilty of this, really. Not the making up, but I honestly really did overestimate the WM gain in MWS, mostly because I saw a lot of posts from them in general? I apologise for that.)

And of course MWS activity is the hardest to gauge - it has the possibility of fluctuating insanely. For example, I know

ff_exchange is going on right now, and we have people taking part... and it's eligible for points in MWS as well. So if people do decide to post their exchange fic here, that's a lot of points coming in, and that can change the MWS balance quite drastically.

tl;dr that's kind of my thoughts on where MWS stands as a point-giving comm, really.

I totally agree with what you've written here. ...I'd say more, but I feel like I'd just be repeating a lot of what you said (so, I apologize if this response is lame, lolz). As a point-giving comm, MWS might actually be the most unpredictable...so I never know how I feel about people equating MWS posting to a team's strengths/weaknesses. If anything, I think it might just help showcase an individual's strengths or activity/participation levels: one of our Soldiers really only ever posts in MWS, so that's actually the only reason I know they're still active here since I don't usually see them on any of the other

ff_land comms, lolz! XD

If anything, I think it might just help showcase an individual's strengths or activity/participation levels

Unfortunately, I think that's where the line blurs a bit: an individual's strengths or activity/participation levels are going to reflect back on the team's strengths or activity levels. Black Mages do well in minigames because most individuals in Black Mages happen to like and participate in minigames - and it's made even stronger because we have the numbers to support that kind of participation. It adds up. Similarly, if a team does have constant, regular posting in MWS I would consider it a strength of the team's because regularity is good and it is a constant contributor to the team's points overall. If that makes sense? Whether this is actually sufficient to make it on par with the other teams' activity is something else altogether.

I think one thing is, Mysti said you might have misread the "one writer (I think?)" as I'm not sure if you count as a writer or not. To clarify, I more meant I don't know whether or not any of the others write. Also, I do know you write very well (you're honestly one of my favourite writers from the comm), but while you may say you'll join any UA contests that catch your eye, but to date, you haven't joined that many, so I haven't counted it in my assessment.

I also know Thieves cleaned up the icon contests, but what I'm trying to say is, that's... the problem, kind of? Not that they do well at icons, but that most of the Thief points came thus far from icon wins, and if they don't win, then they'll be in a little bit of trouble. Plus, as V stated above, she and Vanja were largely inactive this time, and both of them give Thieves a fair bit of competition for icons usually.

I do agree that Thieves have generally good participation, though, and my trying to steer towards less logic puzzles for minigames will help. There'll still be some, but not as many.

By all means, I don't think Thieves are going to be weak without me. However, I think we're both disagreeing on my contribution. I don't want to wave numbers around and sound even more arrogant than I am, but Mysti said she'll go explain to you why I'm upset on that account.

I agree it's true that the assessment is mostly my own judgment, but let me explain.

I wrote the assessment because I'm concerned most members don't really know what's going on and will only be voting by the points, which will be a bit unfair for Thieves, Black Mages, and Soldiers, because the first two had somewhat special circumstances, and the third only had three active members scoring that many points.

This assessment is not the same one I made before all of the points were tallied. I wrote all of this up now, judging by the points we just got, and by what I know of who will be around next game and not. It's just that for the most part, my opinion hasn't really changed regarding the general strengths and weaknesses.

Plus, the mods disagreeing with me aren't most of them, just BMs and Sai. As far as BM assessment goes, it is not my idea, and I wrote down what I thought they were trying to tell me, I just happened to misunderstand, thus the frustration on both sides. And for Thief assessment, Sai and I very much disagree with each other. However, please note I was also Thief mod before, so I feel my opinion carries just as much weight. Plus I can see the score breakdowns where she can't.

I agree I don't think the WMs can compete with the other three teams as much, either, but on the other hand, they usually MWS more than they did this game, so... possibly? The thing is, though, WMs do have the numbers, unlike Soldiers, Monks, and Dragoons, just... most of the members are less active, so they can potentially score higher. But yeah, I do agree I don't think the last option would work that well either, as far as WM strength goes, but I felt it was a "valid" enough option that it should be presented in the poll to begin with, because otherwise someone is very likely to raise the possibility here?

If you'd like to redo the poll, I don't mind!

What you said makes sense, but I think "Whether this is actually sufficient to make it on par with the other teams' activity is something else altogether" is the main issue when it concerns MWS. I think the same can be said for *any* of the point-giving comms to a degree. Like you mentioned with minigames...having several members who like something and submit consistently will always reflect positively on a team's points. When you only have one or two members who consistently do something, you won't always be able to compete against the other teams regardless (which is basically why I say "size of active members" is probably the most significant factor when it comes to discerning a team's strengths: the more people you have submitting something, the more the points add up). Again, it goes to activity/participation levels to a degree. When it concerns teams like WMs, they obviously like submitting to MWS...especially when it comes to writing. It is a strength of theirs, but the points maybe don't add up to what teams that participate more on other point-giving comms might receive, especially if those other teams are also relatively active on MWS as well. For any of the point-giving comms, it really all depends on how many people you have entering or submitting things (obviously, even the bigger teams can drop in activity/points if their members become busy or don't feel like participating as much in certain point-giving comms). I think that's what you're saying, but correct me if I'm wrong? ♥

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.

*headdesks* Uh, meant the "2 Alliance" thing...not 2v2! O_O; IDK why we typed it out that way. :/ *FAILS FOREVER* 1v1 meant all single teams meant "Thief vs. Soldier vs. Black Mage vs. White Mage vs. Dragoon+Monk" option! So sorry for the confusion, but we can't edit the comment anymore. O_o

Yeah, one of the problems with WMs having writing as their main team strength is just that -- Thieves have most of the iconists, so they usually take at least two placement spots. But because there are so many writers from all the teams, WMs usually only get an average amount of wins from writing contests.

And also, yes, one of the main reasons I would still peg WMs as one of the stronger teams is because of sheer number of participants. A lot of them disappeared this time around, weirdly enough, but as far as end of game 2 / start of game 3 went, they had the largest number of actually-active people, so they have the highest potential, if members would get around to even just doing minigames.

And yes, I also agree that Soldiers... I guess are almost the exact oposite, when you think about it. Very very few numbers, but high levels of activity. That's partially why I tried to emphasize the size count up there, too? Because even though you guys got second, and got very very close to first (if Sel won the drawing contest instead of me, and we were very close, you would have won instead, I think), this is about the limit, because you only have this many people. You can't get more active because you don't have the manpower for it, and it's also kind of unfair to count your score expecting all three of you to pull activity levels equal to the MVPs from all the other teams, which... you guys pretty much did this time around.

Yeah, if anything, bigger teams should generally be expected to score more in MWS than smaller ones, simply because they have more people who can potentially post stuff. Plus, saying people can make up points in MWS is a bit... :\ I know my POV is a little off since I only very sporadically post fanworks, but it's the lowest points to effort ratio in the entire game, and by necessity. In the same amount of time, you get about twice as many points from UA for even just entering, much less winning, and about 3-4 times from MG. In a game with more people in general, then yeah, maybe it's fine to say smaller teams can make up the points with fanworks, but when you have some teams double the size of others, it's a bit misleading and unfair.

I think the WMs might be the "dark horse" of the comm: if our activity levels get to Game 2/early Game 3 level, we'd probably be really strong. I'm going to try to get us more pumped up for minigames! I promise! ♥

I think, unfortunately, the later Game 3 results are a reflection of people's RLs getting busier...which there isn't much one can do about that. Hopefully, all of the teams will have members who can participate more in Game 4, as I think that was probably the main issue for pretty much every team. :)

But, initially, Breyzy and I really just wanted to say that we rather liked the concept behind a 2 Alliance idea and we agreed with the alliance assessments you made on this post about what might be the most fair and/or balanced. ...Clearly, we just have a habit of writing more than we really need to. ~~It's probably a gift...or an annoyance, lolz.~~ ♥

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.

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

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.)

Edited 2012-05-07 03:33 (UTC)

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.

Yep, we're on the same page. I think also (seeming) frequency is an issue: I see the White Mages posting a lot, but because of the nature of MWS, they might not be earning as many points as they look like they are? Whereas if you were to see someone consistently participating in something like FFMG, you know they're probably going to earn around the same range of points each time they participate, or if you see someone voting in FFCC, you know they're going to earn 10 points each time they vote. Not disagreeing, just thinking maybe it's where a lot of misperception potential comes from.

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.)

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.

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.

Yes, my thoughts exactly! XD Lolz, I can never word things to make them sound so understandable. I should work on that (or let Yin comment more, since she's better at that kind of thing, haha!). ♥

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Score Breakdown + Alliances

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Part 2 (since we write too much O_O;)

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