Community Feedback/Suggestions Part I

[chacusha]

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK PART I
(ff_classchange & ff_land)

Here's how this is going to work:

- There's going to be two phases to this whole community feedback process. During the first phase, I'll have you fill out general polls asking you to rate various aspects of the comm and make suggestions. During the second phase, I will collect all reasonable/feasible ideas that were suggested and put them to a vote.

- This series of posts are part of the first phase. The polls here are to help give me a general idea of how the comm is going, but mostly they're here to to jog your memory on various aspects of the comm that might need improvement. You're encouraged to make suggestions in the comments as you think of them and to respond to other people's suggestions.

- Comments are unscreened. However, anonymous commenting is allowed in case you're uncomfortable voicing your opinions with your name attached.

- Not all suggestions will go on to be voted on in the second phase. Some suggestions will be rejected without vote and some suggestions will be accepted without vote, at mod discretion.

- The mods have already put some thought into community improvement. Here's a list of things we've come up with so far:

Suggestions that will be voted on in Phase 2:

• [GENERAL] Add Vagrant Story to the list of accepted FF games
• [GENERAL] Add original Kingdom Hearts characters (e.g. Sora, Terra, Organization XIII, etc.) to the list of accepted FF games
• [GENERAL] Use (different) alliances again in Game 2, or switch to individual teams

Suggestions that will be implemented without vote:

• [GENERAL] Track & reward member participation with a fanworks incentive system
• [FANWORKS] Allow people to set up "shops" as part of the above
• [FANWORKS] Rework the moogle_workshop fanart scale
• [SORTING] Remove the leader/supporter dichotomy from the app as it's made redundant by question 4

If you have concerns that would be fixed by any of the above, you do not have to mention them here.


- All suggestions (here and in the comments) are open to debate, so if you want to make an argument for or against an idea, you are encouraged to do so.

Onto the polls!


[Poll #1737741]


Polls/suggestion box will be open until Saturday May 21
If you need to change your vote, click on the "Poll #______" link at the top of the poll, then [ Fill out Poll ], then change your answers and resubmit.

Comments

[zerrat.livejournal.com]

On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with the current class setup (Soldier, White Mage, Black Mage, Thief, Monk, Dragoon)? (If you're not happy with the class system, comment with classes you would add or remove.)

I ranked this as 7, because admittedly we do have imbalanced teams. I love the system, generally, but there's severe participation issues within the Dragoons and Soldiers (Breyzy pretty much WAS the team for a good long time) while other teams, such as Thieves and Black Mages, tend to participate a lot.

I don't know if this is because by grouping more subdued personalities, you're going to exacerbate existing problems (White Mages with shyness and reservedness etc).

Additionally, and I hate to say this, there's not a huge amount of distinction between the monks and the thieves during voting - we're basically boiling it down to the same essential traits, but with more impulsiveness and bluntness.

I don't know, I guess I feel that many of the monks could easy work as thieves or something else, and I'm not sure that the class is distinct enough to gain many members.

I feel like a traitor for saying this.

In general, what aspects of ff_land did you enjoy?

Pretty much everything listed, but the raging_fists is usually very quiet. I'll be trying to enact more discussion/team-building between this game and into the next.

Are there any communities you consider particularly over- or under-powered? (Please comment with details)

Hm. Well. As much as I hate to cripple the monk's major ways of gaining points, I worry that there is too much loading on fanfiction when compared to fanart. I mean, that's been the major way the monks have stayed afloat for so long. Without that, we're fairly low-powered in terms of participation. Half the time, it's just me and Eilia voting (Frei's got a lot of exams and such at the moment, so she's been busy) and if it's in ff_minigames, it's usually just me, and occassionally B (who has been doing great btw).

Anyhow, while I appreciate the ability to keep the team in the runnings, I'm still a little dubious about it. I mean, on a good week, I can post upwards of 25000 words (recently I've been stuck with writer's block, so it's been lower or even zero) so is this fair?

But then I look at Yin who posts fanfic too, and Breyzy with her icons, and I think that the Monks aren't the only team that benefits greatly from MWS.

What did you think about the alliance system this game?

Loved it, the thieves were fantastic allies. Perhaps the next alliances will be a little less unbalanced. The soldiers and dragoons certainly need to be split, perhaps the least active one going with the thieves and the remaining one with the monks. The mages seem to work well together, though.

[chacusha]

You have a good point about the Monks. They do seem to either be the same as Thieves or a variation on the White Mage type. It's hard, may need to think about this some more.

And yeah I'm okay with taking the fanworks points down a bit in general. But being able to get an insane amount of points in MWS by being insanely prolific seems to make sense to me. XD Seriously 25000 words in a week??!

[glacialphoenix]

I worry that there is too much loading on fanfiction when compared to fanart.

Part of this, I have to admit, is the reason for the overhaul of fanart points. I compared how long it takes me to write fic versus how long it takes Ari to draw a something that snags her an equivalent amount of points... and the discrepancy is huge.

I personally feel that if you really are that prolific (25000 words, Z, seriously? I am in awe) then, eh, we should let you have the points.

[virago-queen.livejournal.com]

Have to agree with Z on the unbalanced nature of the teams. I think that Dragoons could be easily merged into Soldiers, to the benefit of everyone there. Monks also pose the problem of not being differentiated enough. Personally, if it comes down to a major overhaul of the system (which I don't see happening) I would cut the classes down to the four "core" FF classes - White Mage, Black Mage, Soldier, and Thief. Re-establish the Soldier class with a mixture of Soldier and Dragoon traits, and resort all the Monks into other classes (I know there were quite a few who had White Mage leanings, and the WMs could benefit from an infusion of Monk-style awesomeness). Not ideal, and obviously a huge undertaking, but just my two cents. =/

firaga_casters is typically pretty quiet, but we've been brainstorming some ideas, so hopefully that'll change soon. It seems like this is sort of a comm-wide team comm problem, though.

MWS does seem a touch overpowered, but I think that's just because of the INCREDIBLE prolific nature of our resident fic-goddess, Z (*bows*), and hillian and haryan's crazy icon posts. The other teams just don't have anyone that awesome posting. I think the current wordcount fic system works, but I might suggest an overhaul for shorter works, like poetry or drabbles. Maybe make all fanworks have a minimum point worth, like 10 or something? I know my husband, zydoxis, was kinda put off by the wordcount system when he posted those two extra limericks, since he'd only be getting like 5 points for the pair.

The alliances were fun, and I think having them next game would be beneficial, since there's such a gap between the three top teams and the three bottom ones. I'm just sad that the Black Mages probably won't get to team up with the Monks or Thieves. There are some awesome people over there that I'd love to work with! And I would definitely make comm-linking required next time. I think the Mage team suffered a bit for being the only unlinked alliance.

And I would just like to say that this place? Awesome. ^_^ I'm so happy to be a part of such a fantastic community! You're the best, chacusha. *bows*

[chacusha]

I think the current wordcount fic system works, but I might suggest an overhaul for shorter works, like poetry or drabbles. Maybe make all fanworks have a minimum point worth, like 10 or something? I know my husband, [info]zydoxis, was kinda put off by the wordcount system when he posted those two extra limericks, since he'd only be getting like 5 points for the pair.

sunflower_mynah suggested the same thing to me at the beginning of the game... and I didn't listen to her. orz But yeah, now I agree -- it sounds like having a separate poetry scale and some kind of boost for short fics would be a good idea.

And I would definitely make comm-linking required next time. I think the Mage team suffered a bit for being the only unlinked alliance.

Yeah, it was hard to predict how the comm-linking would turn out. Now we have a better idea!

And thanks! :D

[zerrat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I could see soldiers and dragoons merging (perhaps calling this class the 'warrior' class) without major hiccoughs. Thing is, it should be up to the members of those classes.

The Monk class members doing reapps... I myself would be fine with this scenario, though I cannot speak for the other members of this class.

As for drabble/shortfic/poetry ratings, they definitely need more weight. I'd even say true drabbles and poems get 20 points as a base, and shortfic (500-1000) getting minimum point earnings too, because length is no indication of the effort put into the piece. Just because I can write 2000 words in the time it takes another to write and refine a drabble shouldn't mean my stuff is worth more just by virtue of wordcount.

So true drabbles/poems etc should get a better weighting.

[the-404-error.livejournal.com]

firaga_casters is typically pretty quiet, but we've been brainstorming some ideas, so hopefully that'll change soon. It seems like this is sort of a comm-wide team comm problem, though.

Interestingly, I went through all of the team comms, and we have the highest number of "comments received," so we could be interpreted as the least quiet despite not being merged with anyone else. Even when disregarding the 70+ comment tarot post, we're still second behind the monks. D: Poor team comms.

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I don't know, honestly. I could definitely see merging some of the teams as a good idea...but, then, like with the Soldiers and Dragoons: I didn't necessarily feel like the alliance was all that helpful overall because the members still weren't all that active (actually, it seemed like the Soldiers picked up activity towards the end and the Dragoons sort of slowed down...and I don't know if that was just because members were busy IRL or if people lost interest or what. I know there were even quite a few members who never bothered to add the other team comm in those teams, so in the end I'm not entirely sure how beneficial it was in the long run). I like Z's idea more of merging or having an alliance with a team that participates a lot with one of the quieter ones...because, as shown with the alliance for the Dragoons and Soldiers, merging two quiet teams isn't necessarily all that beneficial in the long run.

Unfortunately, it does all boil down to traits. I hate saying it...but when I think of the traits people tend to use when sorting Soldier, Dragoon, and White Mage applications, they don't exactly relate well to team playing-- which might also explain why some of those members aren't super active. For Soldiers I see people getting stamped because they remind people of Squall, Cloud, or Lightning...or for Dragoons because they remind people of Kain...and even for White Mages they *have* to be reserved like Yuna or they tend to go into another class: regardless of the fact that there are other characters in those classes who *don't* fall into those personality archetypes. I think that's where the Soldiers recently have benefitted, because there's more versatility in the class overall (applicants who remind people of Tidus can get stamped into Soldier, and I think they'd be more likely to participate because of that in general). Unfortunately, there's no easy way to fix that...other than to ask people to consider the character classes as a WHOLE instead of focusing in on one or two popular characters that might happen to fit that archetype: because, in reality, people tend to only vote what they know. I've just found that if you stick all reserved or introverted people on certain teams, you're probably going to find those teams not super active regardless of the really good efforts of one or two of their members. :)

I also think that MWS could benefit from a point overhaul in some way. Not that I want to take away points from my icon posts or anything, lolz! Still, it seems like something about the point system could be worked on in a way: like when people submit fan fic things to challenges and then they don't place but they'll get 30 points for submitting to the challenge, but no points at all for de-anoning and posting at MWS (while considering the word count for the longer challenges, they probably would have gotten more points just for submitting to MWS instead of the challenge itself). Maybe we could do an obligatory "20 points for de-anoning" or something, just to encourage people to post there? I do know that there are a few members who won't de-anon after a challenge because it just doesn't seem worth it overall, so I think it might be beneficial to them if they have some little incentive and receive positive feedback too. ...Although, in all honesty, I also know MWS is where some people make up points for their teams (like Yin, for example. She can't enter most of the graphic challenges, so she likes writing fan fics there to help get some points up for White Mages...and Z does a great amount of them for her team as well!), so I hope that it won't be too drastic of a change. I am glad to see that the points for fan art will be overhauled though! ♥

[glacialphoenix]

Still, it seems like something about the point system could be worked on in a way: like when people submit fan fic things to challenges and then they don't place but they'll get 30 points for submitting to the challenge, but no points at all for de-anoning and posting at MWS (while considering the word count for the longer challenges, they probably would have gotten more points just for submitting to MWS instead of the challenge itself).

Regarding this: about the point discrepancy, I'm not sure if it's best put under MWS or UA, because it's an issue of points given for a particular challenge - if I'm reading you right? Unless you're suggesting a decrease in points given for certain things in MWS...

But about the incentive: noted, thanks! <3 Will keep that one in mind.

[chacusha]

Regarding personality being linked to participation -- the personality may be part of the problem but I'm more of the opinion that it's a time/motivation issue not a personality issue. The Dragoon team was actually one of the strongest teams at the beginning -- they only had 5 members but they ALL participated, which is pretty impressive. The problem was that they permanently lost two members, one of which was their mod and then they stopped getting members for a while. Imagine if the same thing had happened to the Black Mages or Thieves -- that would be a pretty significant blow.

I'm not sure what's up with Soldiers and White Mages. For some members, I think they came for the stamp and don't plan on being active. :/ But there are a handful of people on both teams who do participate pretty regularly, even if the team comms themselves are pretty quiet. If we do alliances next game, I'll do the comm-linking (so that will help White Mages) and I'll be pairing both Soldiers and White Mages with active teams (Thieves and Monks respectively).

(while considering the word count for the longer challenges, they probably would have gotten more points just for submitting to MWS instead of the challenge itself)

Actually, for fic, I purposely set the participation points so that this doesn't happen. If you submit an entry that's within the word count limit, you'll get more points for submitting it to a contest than you would for submitting it to MWS. But of course I think getting some bonus points for de-anoning might be a nice idea.

[glacialphoenix]

1. About stamping applications - I'm inclined to keep a 'least favourite' question rather than a 'most favourite' question, because I've noticed that if anything, people here seem to protective of the friendly atmosphere within the community. A lot of that comes from accepting that other people have different opinions than yours, and tolerating, if not accepting, those opinions.

And I personally feel it's easier to be cheerful and happy and enthusiastic about something you like, and be friendly about it, precisely because you like it. It's how you act about something you don't like or disagree with that demonstrates your spirit of openness and willingness to work with those who don't share your opinions, and I think that's vital to a landcomm like this one.

I hope I don't sound too cynical with that. ^^;

2) On stamping teams: I think some classes suffer from... how shall I say this - lack of definition? I mean, we all have a damned good idea of what the textbook Thief, White Mage and Black Mage archetypes are like, but the differentiation between Thieves and Monks can be a little hard sometimes and I think Soldiers and Dragoons even more. I don't know if the people from those teams feel that way, so you should ask them, but from the sorting guide in ff_classchange:

Soldiers: "The default class. Well-rounded, a mix of calm and enthusiasm, not particularly outgoing but not especially withdrawn either. Proactive with a strong sense of leadership."

I'm not sure if this is beneficial for sorting because I think once you define something as 'the default class', it's very easy to vote someone who's got too short an application, or is difficult to place, into 'the default class'. This is not in any way meant to say that the people here don't put thought into voting, because I know they do; this is not meant to say that the Soldiers didn't put enough thought into their application, either. I'm just using the Soldier description as an example because I think it's the class that suffers most from lack of clear, defining archetypes.

3) Alliances: Judging from the participation and points so far - we're probably going to need alliances next game, I'm guessing? Although we definitely need to mix those up a bit more. Ideally we'd have six separate teams, but participation levels differ so much between teams that I don't think we have much choice at the moment.

4) moogle_workshop: [starts noting down revamping ideas] Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

[zerrat.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I think that discourse on contentious topics like that one can be interesting and helpful.

On a level, I do agree. People have a right to their opinions - but the way in which an opinion/dislike is presented is critical. This does give us an opportunity to perhaps see a different side of the applicant than would otherwise be seen (or would be seen too late).

the differentiation between Thieves and Monks can be a little hard sometimes

Completely agreed here. There is often a very fine line between the two classes. Same with the dragoons and soldiers.

[chacusha]

(This is a late reply, sorry!)

2) Regarding the team descriptions, I agree the Soldiers is least well-defined, and I kind of want to scrap that definition and put in something new. Any thoughts? I do think they have a "type" (and to me it's different from a Dragoon) but sometimes articulating it is kind of difficult. Alternatively, I might just do away with the personality descriptions and just describe the class and give a list of characters of that class and let people decide for themselves what personality they associate with each class?

[the-404-error.livejournal.com]

I didn't have enough time to completely respond to this earlier, so here we go. *cracks knuckles*

I agree with what many have said above regarding the teams and personalities. I do think that affects it to a degree, especially since the thieves have been the most active while the soldiers/dragoons the least so. Anyone who describes themselves as extremely extroverted tends to get sorted into the thieves (or sometimes monks*), while the least social tend to be associated with dragoons and soldiers.

*This is the exception to it, then, as I'd expect more monks to be active in this case. I also personally find it difficult to define a monk when voting, as it's an extremely varied job class. I tend to think of Yang and Josef first, who are on a completely different wavelength from Zell and Snow. There are also a couple active dragoons and white mages, so I don't think it can be entirely blamed on the personality factor as part of it also seems to be the ill luck of ending up with the "hurray, I want a pretty stamp!" people in some cases. There could be a revamped job class info post explaining how each group has at least a couple more extroverted members, but I'm not sure if it would do any good.

... but, whether or not groups should be merged or changed should be left up to them, and since it isn't a problem in our case, I won't say anymore.

I personally like the favorite/least favorite questions on the application. It may not be as useful as other information in some cases, but if someone basically writes a love letter to a character, it does show more of their values. People also tend to automatically welcome people who share their favorites, which gives the community a better image in general. "I totally fan over [x] as well! I'm not longer alone, hurray, I love you already!" Conversely, going on a massive rant about how they wish [x] character would gruesomely die and all their fans are idiots gives a very clear idea of how they'll interact with others. (I've heard similar comments a lot in other branches of the FF fandom, and so far the one member who wasn't accepted was turned away on similar grounds.)

The only one I voted to remove is the "relate to" one. Yes, I can see how it could help, but I think it could also bias the application? If someone states that they relate to Tifa, Yang, and Prishe, it might bias it towards getting them sent off the monk training grounds even if the rest of their application may be inclined towards something else. On the other hand, it will probably make them happy and may increase participation, but eh...

I like alliances now, but I do think we'll benefit from altering them a bit. At the moment I'd vote Thieves/Soldiers Black Mages/Dragoons, as that combines the most active with the least active? That does leave the Monks/White Mages in a bit of middle-limbo, though hopefully the other combinations would balance it out.

Question out of curiosity: What is Vagrant Story's connection to FF? Just the Ivalice setting or...?

[chacusha]

I mostly disagree about the personality determining participation thing (my example on Dragoons is above). But I do agree merging should only happen if the teams themselves would be okay with that.

I like the favorites/least favorites too -- I think it works nicely also as an introduction to the person and their FF fandom interests. :)

At the moment I'd vote Thieves/Soldiers Black Mages/Dragoons, as that combines the most active with the least active?
Yep those are the combinations I came up with too. Thieves+Soldiers = Team Protagonists; Black Mages+Dragoons = Team Stoicism; White Mages+Monks = Team Cheerful Healing.

What is Vagrant Story's connection to FF? Just the Ivalice setting or...?
Yeah I believe it's just the Ivalice setting. Word of god states that Vagrant Story falls within the timeline shared by FFT, FFTA, and FFXII, making it part of the Ivalice Alliance. References/connections to Vagrant Story were added to FFXII as a way of bringing Vagrant Story into the collection of games. More info here.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Re: Sorting--

I'm just repeating what people have said, but. Yeah. I think most sortings go all right, but the main problem is, if someone doesn't talk a lot, they automatically get tossed into soldier or dragoon. Not saying that all the soldiers and dragoons are there by mistake; some people I clearly see as one of them. But still. But I guess it's not so much the app's fault as people themselves...

Class setup I feel about the same problem as everyone else, too -- the more enthusiastic people just generally end up in monks or thieves, because we tend to be more enthusiastic. XD; But I do get what you're saying, too -- it's kinda because we happened to get some high-participation players that we're winning, because it's the same few people winning every challenge... Maybe with a new round and scorewipe, things will go better. And going off on a tangent, but maybe if we have different varieties of challenges, we'll get different types of participation. Because, I mean, short fics and long fics are different, but they're still fics, period. And icons and wallpapers are differnet, but they're still graphics.

Also, I'm slightly concerned about the different number of people in each team. It's not making too much of a difference right now, because it's not like the bigger teams have full participation, but theoretically speaking, even if it's just voting or a small minigame, a bigger team would get like 15-20 more points every time. (Which, granted, isn't much, but that's a bit of a problem too, I think.)

Re: Questions in the app--

I feel the dichotomies are okay, but some of them are maybe not exactly opposites? Like confident and modest, I think I've mentioned (and a few other people) on the app that you can really be both. It's arrogance and modesty that's more different. Things like that.

I don't think the description of how you work in teams is that useful, not because it's not a good question, but because almost everyone gave the same answer. >.>; It's practically all "Well, I work well enough, I'd prefer not to lead, but I can". Sure, there are a few that are different, but on the whole, it's probably not worth asking.

The general FFs questions -- I don't feel a lot of them add to the app, buuuuuut I think they should be there, even if only because we can hear the people just... talk about what they like and don't. And make friends based on interests. Because, I mean, it's a FF comm. If they don't seem interested at all in FFs, then, well. Uh. Yeah.

Re: Communities--

I actually find Ultima a bit over-powered? :\ I know it's mainly supposed to be about contests, and I do them, but I think like people have mentioned, the contests are heavily fandom-based, which... well, okay. Makes sense, because it's a FF comm. XD; But I guess the problem is we have too few people. The same people win the same types of contests aaaaaall the time.

Point of reference, in the previous landcomm I was in, challenges were something like 10 points for submitting and 40-50 points for winning. And that's with like 30-40 submissions each challenge. And their minigame-type activities were worth some 15-20 points. I think this makes it fairer so that non-fandomy-non-contesty people could actually contribute. :\ Instead of feeling like, "Whoppee, I got 15 points in a minigame. Greeeeaaaat. Now let's see the other team get 500 points in a contest."

Mysti's told me the challenges are scaled with Moogle, which makes sense, but maybe still make them slightly less? And scale minigames up more? Because at this point, aside from the egg hunt, none of the minigames scores even mattered much.

Plus, if we scale up minigame scores, we can differentiate them also based on how time-consuming they'd be. So we could give less for a luck-based thing, or a continuous thing like my chocobo game, and give more for harder ones like the song-guessing which was giving everyone headaches. (That's a looooooot of songs they either have to know already, or a lot of soundtracks they're going to have to listen to over and over again. And since it's instrumental with no lyrics, it's even harder.)

(Comment too long, rest on next comment.)

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Re: Calendar--

I loved it. XD;;; I think with mods posting reminders, the other team members might not need it as much, but I really really needed it. (And whenever I forgot to check it, Z ends up posting reminders and I go OOPS I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO THAT. *coughs*)

Re: Alliance--

I thoroughly enjoyed my alliance, but I'm still kinda on the fence about the whole thing. This time, team thonk was great because both teams were really pushing hard, but I can imagine it being highly frustrating if your allied team isn't doing anything. :\ But we really don't have enough people to really do much without alliances, I think...

[chacusha]

I feel the dichotomies are okay, but some of them are maybe not exactly opposites? Like confident and modest, I think I've mentioned (and a few other people) on the app that you can really be both. It's arrogance and modesty that's more different. Things like that.

I was waiting for someone to bring this up, actually, since I noticed people being like, "Wait... what?" on the apps. I'm torn. I agree, it's a bit of a false dichotomy. The thing is I don't want either end to have negative connotations, thus "Arrogant vs. Modest" doesn't really work, and "Confident vs. Self-conscious" I guess kind of works. But the more I think about it, the more I think almost ALL people are confident at times AND self-conscious at others. Or maybe I'm projecting my personality on people, but there are definitely situations when I'm confident (read: arrogant as all get-out) and situations when my self-consciousness is crippling. It's a very situational thing, I think.

So perhaps that one is just a bad dichotomy in general. It reminds me of those damn MBTI types and why I have issues with them. I'm actually more inclined to take this dichotomy out entirely rather than try to change it or insert a word with negative connotations.


Mysti's told me the challenges are scaled with Moogle, which makes sense, but maybe still make them slightly less? And scale minigames up more? Because at this point, aside from the egg hunt, none of the minigames scores even mattered much.

Yeah, that's the issue. As I mentioned above, I purposely set the participation points so that you can't earn more points by submitting to MW rather than UA. With participation points so high, the awards have to be boosted too. Not sure if I should change the participation point policy, or if we should just boost minigames to compensate (I was actually surprised that in the other poll most people said that they thought the amount of points in FFMG appropriate -- I was definitely expecting more people to say "too low"). I'm also totally okay with toning down the NUMBER of contests in UA so as to make the amount of points earnable there slightly less.

[roax.livejournal.com]

I feel like such a bad mod. I totally forgot we have a calendar >_> Maybe it will help me in next round.

About sorting -- I think the classes fits and I did think about asking if you have ever considered to change them somehow but I have no idea how we could change them. Anyways, I really like job class system but sometimes I feel we have too many teams. Sure, we have alliances now too but I don't know...I am indecisive with stuff like that. I also have no idea what teams we could actually remove. I think everyone got used to their own teams so I'd feel guilty with picking any team to remove. I will okay with whatever you decide.

"Is 50 points a good amount for referring someone to the comm?" -- It seems I was only one of a few who think that. I don't know, maybe it's because I only received 25 points even if i referred. my friends, lol *selfish* But honestly, it's such an easy way to get ahead of another team. I don't think any of our members do it but logically -- if you see your team losing, you can just make someone join, refer you, you get points, they are never active. I never thought it was a lot until i actually started to sort applications. It's especially a lot compared to how we get only 5 points for voting. It's harder to vote than to refer someone. Sorry for honestly, it seems no one really wants it to change but i thought i could add my 2 cents.

"Are there any communities you consider particularly over- or under-powered? (Please comment with details)" -- lol do I even have to answer this? I am not active on fanwork community so I have no idea what the situation with Monks is but from what I have heard, they got most points from his fics lol. Soldiers and Dragoons are definitely under-powered. Although I am glad to have Dragoons like thedrowned, laifan and stormloire. We might not the the most active team but at least we're trying. Just look at how we got 200+ points in last week of the game. Well my point is, maybe Soldiers are really the most under-powered team. I usually see only Breyzy working really hard on earning points though. Oh and tjemd4 of course! I am sorry if i forgot someone, i don't mean to hurt anyone but that's why how I see it.

Alliance system was okay. It was fun to interact with Soldiers even though neither of our communities are actually... active haha. It's definitely helpful when we have so many teams with not so many members. Maybe we just weren't match as we should this round which is why Soldiers/Dragoons are totally behind but it's because we couldn't predict it i guess? I think it was helpful either way.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I think the main reason we(? well, I, anyway XD;) thought 50 points is fine is because no one really did it that often. But, yeah, I see your point. I think most of us are too honest to just-make-people-join, but you're definitely right about how exploitable that is...

Part 1 of a really lengthy, hopefully-not-pointless comment! XD

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

In regards to what has been talked about in discussions here and in the poll...I think my biggest thought here is that there are a few teams that are severely underpowered in comparison to other teams. I think there are a lot of different reasons for that: sometimes I honestly just think it boils down to perhaps certain comms being really lucky and getting some really multi-talented members. Case in point: not everyone is great at graphics, and not everyone is great with creative writing...some teams perhaps have active members who perhaps only really feel comfortable participating in a few areas of the comm (for instance, I have no skill whatsoever with graphics beyond REALLY basic things...I tend to steer clear of those challenges beyond voting on them, and I know that is the case with at least one other White Mage member too--if it wasn't for fic challenges or posting stories on MWS, it's rather upsetting to admit but I wouldn't probably be getting many points whatsoever). And with the teams that don't have more than a handful of active members at a time...I think things like that becomes all that more apparent--which really isn't to say that those teams are "bad ones" or anything of the sort, and I wouldn't want to say that they're inactive either (as, truthfully, on all three of the "more inactive" teams I can still list members who have been great at participating in things whenever they can or who vote a lot).

...And I don't really think Breyzy meant to say that personality was a huge mitigating factor in regards to inactivity either: rather, I do think it is a bit harder initially to perhaps get quieter people who are sorted into the same group to perhaps feel comfortable enough to be more active in things. Many of the members who were initially stamped into Team White Mage mention not being really sure of what to do at first in the comm because this is the first time they've been in one like ff_land...and I can imagine that hesitancy perhaps being a bit harder to get past at first, even when you do have people being encouraging it can be a little hard for me at times, I know. Alliances can be pretty helpful in that regard, and I can see having more quieter teams "teaming up" with some of the more outspoken ones perhaps being encouraging/beneficial in a way at least to newer members. I hope that makes sense!

Unfortunately too, team activity also boils down to luck again: sometimes you do get the impression that some members only apply for stamp-getting...and I think sometimes certain teams perhaps were unlucky enough to get many members who fit that category more than other ones did. And when that happens, there isn't really much a mod can do to convince people who really don't intend to ever participate to change their minds: I do at least bi-weekly Mod Posts over at our team's comm, and I know that both the Soldier and Dragoon mods have done an EXCELLENT job trying to keep their members notified of what's happening in the comm with regular posts as well in that regard (as I can see those posts on my f-list because of Breyzy). You can't really change people's minds if they don't want to do something, and there are quite a few people who do still participate in what they can from time to time because of those posts.

The White Mages have always been very polite and supportive of one another when we do talk in the comm, but usually that is relegated to when members are up to posting introductory posts there. I have tried to post some discussion threads with my update posts sometimes, but I think I really just have either a bad habit of picking topics no one cares about or I do them at times when people aren't around since they tend not to get responses. XD And that also happens to be an issue with activity too, I think: people can only do what they are able to do in a given time frame.

Part 2 of lengthy comment XD

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

Even members who are interested in maintaining activity for their teams might not be able to do it constantly. While we weren't one of the more talkative teams, White Mage activity was usually rather steady for the members that we did have actively participating in things...I only really started to notice a decrease in that activity in the last two point tallying times we had for this first game. I think a lot of that stemmed from people simply being busy (as I did have members who apologized for not being able to do certain things due to real life issues, and especially considering that schools are often testing around this time I think that had a pretty big influence over activity as well--as they're still doing that now in some areas)...and the cyber attacks on LJ certainly probably didn't help many teams either. As was stated earlier, Dragoons were one of the more active teams in the beginning rounds...but due to the circumstances that happened mid-way through the game, that unfortunately changed. I honestly think that can happen to ANY team really: and sometimes it's a lot more noticeable with the teams that perhaps only do have a few active members when less of those few members are able to post for varying reasons as much (the Soldiers have started to pick up somewhat in terms of activity since more of the members have been able to have time to perhaps post things for challenges or post in MWS now, which is also somewhat noticeable as a shift in the opposite direction since many of them were initially perhaps too busy at first even if they did wish to participate).

Due to the real life issues both Breyzy and myself have been having in regards to our family, and the fact that I've been working a lot...I've been lucky to be able to get on the computer for an hour or more at a time, so I can definitely understand how hard time constraints can be. Dragoons, Soldiers, and White Mages still do have members who ARE interested in participating when they can and do amazing when they are able to do so, and I definitely do think those members should be recognized as such even if the team as a whole doesn't have as many participating members. Hopefully with the new game, there will be more new members or less schedule conflicts that will help that along too.

As I said before with the alliance issues...teaming up a more outgoing team with a quieter one seems like a good balance in a way that could be encouraging to some members. I don't really think the alliance between the Black Mages and White Mages had as much of an impact as it perhaps could have because we weren't able to see or respond to the other teams' posts so there was still a "separate" feeling there...but I could see a dialogue between those two teams being rather interesting and productive in a way--as there was some dialogue and encouragement between both the Dragoons and Soldiers throughout their alliance.

I do think that all of the team mods have done a fantastic job with their responsibilities when they are able to have the time to do so...and the members of all of the teams who have been able to participate (even if it is just to vote on something) have been amazing, and I hope that even more of that will come to light in the upcoming game! ♥ ...I can't really think of anything else to say here that hasn't already been pretty well addressed by others, truthfully. :D

Re: Part 2 of lengthy comment XD

[chacusha]

I think you've summed it up nicely. I do think it's a luck issue -- people vary in the skills they have, the amount of time they have available to dedicate to activities, their experience, and their enthusiasm. It's really a very random thing. Getting some more members into FF Land might help even things out a bit (or we might get teams that are even MORE lopsided, but I hope that doesn't happen D: ...And if it does, we can deal with that at a later time...).

I'm hoping rearranged alliances will help things too. And if we decide not to do alliances or if the alliances aren't really helping, I'd be willing to help out the smaller teams... Maybe I could just pop in to comment on things or something, or give my points to the 6th place team (this doesn't really work with alliances, though, because the 6th place team isn't necessarily the alliance that needs the most help, but if we don't do alliances, I'd definitely send my points to 6th place, whichever team that happens to be!).

[glacialphoenix]

So I was talking to Ari, and we sort of stumbled across some things that might help in sorting, especially with the Thief-Monk issue that seems to be brought up a lot:

Part of the problem may be that the current stamping application veers towards traits and dichotomies, whereas the difference between classes may turn up more in scenario-based questions? It may also help to break ties if it seems very difficult to choose between two classes for a particular applicant, because some traits are extremely general and can apply across classes, like 'intelligent', or 'optimistic', or 'helpful'. The Spider-man decision is something along that line, but it's still an 'either/or' question - would it help to expand it into something more general?

[arivess.livejournal.com]

Yeah. To add a little to this, I was thinking mostly how like, for example, the DO YOU PRESS THE BIG RED BUTTON dealie. Pressing it is both thiefy and monky, but to me, it feels more like, monks do it because "HEY IT'S A BUTTON! WHY NOT?" whereas thieves do it more because "I WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENS IF I DO."

[etsplanations.livejournal.com]

Instead of limiting question selection to the main app itself, I would like to see scenario questions being posted as comments in response to apps, especially to break any tie-breakers that a voter is mulling over :) Rather than mull over tough tie-breakers based on the app alone, I think voters should occasionally initiate questions to the applicant if they feel that there are points they'd like to clarify within the app itself, or throw out interesting tie-breakers such as the Big Red Button question Ari mentioned when it comes to sorting between Thieves and Monks.

[chacusha]

Hm... I will think about it. It might be something that needs to be voted on between Game 2 & 3.