Brawl #1 - Suggestions & Feedback

[Tom Bombadil]

That wasn't a misunderstanding: if I compete I'll obviously vote my own submission; if I don't compete, I tend to vote submission that I know who made them...I don't know why, maybe because if I know the author, I can judge a submission even considering who made it, despite I am supposed not to do that...

[OdinVanguard]

I'd say the one thing I dislike is the lack of teamwork needed. I mean, obviously people can and should ask their teammates for help/advice/etc. on their tasks, but what if there was a way to force them to work together, something like a team task where each person must contribute different parts? Just a thought

Some team positions are easier to link than others, but this would be cool.
I.e. Make one round a card submission effort on the part of the whole team.
E.g. Making a card
-Card designer - builds main card mechanics
-Artist - Makes artwork for card
-Writer - Writes a background story for the card
-Forum Expert - A little trickier to fit in... maybe writes an analysis of the metagame impact / balance etc. Or maybe design a wiki article for it, etc.
-Boss man - erm... maybe make a promotion banner or something?
-Off Topicer - ... ok I got nothing on this one... but 5/6 isn't bad

...Of course I'm a little biased in the example since I'm a card designer, but you could shift the focus around any role really.

[furballdn]

To be honest, I somehow missed root's mentioning of himself (blame college). In all reality, he should have been disqualified for that.
We choose to make voting anonymous to reduce bias. We may change it in Brawl 2, I dont know.

I find it quite strict to be in danger of disqualifying just because you mentioned yourself by mistake. Furthermore, the whole anonymous voting just doesn't work. I have already spoiled a few entries and I can spoil many more without being told whose work is each one. It is just so obvious in some cases. Because of the above, I would prefer to see the creator's name revealed rather than all these hypocrisy of not knowing the creator of an entry when we actually know him/her...

+1. It's not that hard to recognize the writing style of a certain person, or art style for that matter. I'm sure people can recognize my writing too.

Some are recognizable and some aren't. They're anonymous for a reason. Vote for which you feel is the best.

[Naesala]

I'd say the one thing I dislike is the lack of teamwork needed. I mean, obviously people can and should ask their teammates for help/advice/etc. on their tasks, but what if there was a way to force them to work together, something like a team task where each person must contribute different parts? Just a thought

Some team positions are easier to link than others, but this would be cool.
I.e. Make one round a card submission effort on the part of the whole team.
E.g. Making a card
-Card designer - builds main card mechanics
-Artist - Makes artwork for card
-Writer - Writes a background story for the card
-Forum Expert - A little trickier to fit in... maybe writes an analysis of the metagame impact / balance etc. Or maybe design a wiki article for it, etc.
-Boss man - erm... maybe make a promotion banner or something?
-Off Topicer - ... ok I got nothing on this one... but 5/6 isn't bad

...Of course I'm a little biased in the example since I'm a card designer, but you could shift the focus around any role really.

Card designer is the easiest example of a collab work, and as is we only have 3 roles that could reall support it (2 kind of can) based on your example.

[RootRanger]

" Because the voting is to be anonymous to lower bias, self advertising is grounds for automatically losing a round. " I had hoped this would imply putting your name on your work as self advertisement. You aren't disqualified for that round because we missed it.

Ok, this clears things up. I view advertising as saying "Vote for submission 7; it's the best," while you see advertising as saying "Root." I respect our differences and concede to your position as brawlmaster. However, I find it a bit silly that you blame me for having a different opinion on the matter of what counts as advertising, especially when you can easily fix what you see to be a problem. You can just remove the word "Root" if you think the advertising affects from it are too severe and invading. And people make mistakes; you forgot to do this, and my votes are just rushing in because of it. But why you're blaming me for something you forgot to do is beyond me.

Nevertheless, I'll make sure I don't give any hint whatsoever that the work is mine in my future entries.

[UTAlan]

Just to clear things up: Inadvertently giving away which one is your submission will not automatically get you disqualified. We will take them on a case by case basis and as long as it didn't screw up the voting too badly or be found to have been intentional, you should be okay.

But yes, any effort to not reveal who submitted which entry is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Naesala]

" Because the voting is to be anonymous to lower bias, self advertising is grounds for automatically losing a round. " I had hoped this would imply putting your name on your work as self advertisement. You aren't disqualified for that round because we missed it.

Ok, this clears things up. I view advertising as saying "Vote for submission 7; it's the best," while you see advertising as saying "Root." I respect our differences and concede to your position as brawlmaster. However, I find it a bit silly that you blame me for having a different opinion on the matter of what counts as advertising, especially when you can easily fix what you see to be a problem. You can just remove the word "Root" if you think the advertising affects from it are too severe and invading. And people make mistakes; you forgot to do this, and my votes are just rushing in because of it. But why you're blaming me for something you forgot to do is beyond me.

Nevertheless, I'll make sure I don't give any hint whatsoever that the work is mine in my future entries.

I feel like you're taking what I'm saying a lot harsher than I intend...I'm not blaming you for having a different opinion, i'm clarifying the intent of the rule. I'm not penalizing or even being upset -especially- because I missed to error. I'm not blaming you for anything, why do you feel that I am? I'm just explaining the rule..

[drolly]

Now that the first three rounds are over, I figure it's time to give some feedback midway through the event. First of all, it's always fun looking through the submissions and admiring the surprisingly high quality overall. It looks like the event is running smoothly and the organizers are doing a great job - well, I'm not talking about the necessary update of the standings. However, here are some suggestions from a non-participant who enjoys casting his seven votes every week:

Teams. To put it blandly, I'm glad that there are only six teams. If I had to look through 12 submissions for each task, it would take me far too long until I'm able to cast an educated vote. Chances are that voters won't even look at all submissions, what would be a pity even with the order being randomized every time. As of now I need around 10 to 15 minutes per category until I feel able to click on the submit button; especially the Forum Expert stuff takes long to digest. With a whole week available to do this, this is reasonable in my opinion, but looking at 84 single entries would be too much for me. Furthermore, I'd prefer if the team names were not derived from the 12 elements. Unlike in War, the element doesn't have any influence on what the team produces. Name them after their Boss or let them choose their own creative name, for example based on the names of in-game cards (Holy Abyss Devourers vs Psionic Leaf Queens, anyone?).

Voting. Even with only six teams around, I think it would be sometimes nice to have two votes for each category. It has happened quite a lot of times that I wasn't able to decide which of two entries was the "better" one and it was a pity to ditch the other one. It would also make voting easier for participants as they can vote for their teams' submission and for another one they like so that they don't have to choose between "abandoning" and "favouring" their team - like I did in War propaganda. But I'm not sure whether this could imbalance the voting, so feel free to argue against this suggestion.

Anonymity. Keep it as you like; true anonymity will never be possible, but I have to say that I usually don't figure out the authors when I don't actively try to do it (with some obvious exceptions, of course) so I prefer the current system. However, it would be great for the voters if the names behind each submission could be revealed as soon as voting is finished, as it is cumbersome to figure them out via the results table, the voting poll and the member lists (and impossible if there has been a tie). Or do you plan to release this information after the whole event is over?

That said, I'm looking forward to the next submissions, rounds and the second edition of this wonderfully refreshing event.

[Naesala]

Spoiler for Hidden:

Now that the first three rounds are over, I figure it's time to give some feedback midway through the event. First of all, it's always fun looking through the submissions and admiring the surprisingly high quality overall. It looks like the event is running smoothly and the organizers are doing a great job - well, I'm not talking about the necessary update of the standings. However, here are some suggestions from a non-participant who enjoys casting his seven votes every week:

Teams. To put it blandly, I'm glad that there are only six teams. If I had to look through 12 submissions for each task, it would take me far too long until I'm able to cast an educated vote. Chances are that voters won't even look at all submissions, what would be a pity even with the order being randomized every time. As of now I need around 10 to 15 minutes per category until I feel able to click on the submit button; especially the Forum Expert stuff takes long to digest. With a whole week available to do this, this is reasonable in my opinion, but looking at 84 single entries would be too much for me. Furthermore, I'd prefer if the team names were not derived from the 12 elements. Unlike in War, the element doesn't have any influence on what the team produces. Name them after their Boss or let them choose their own creative name, for example based on the names of in-game cards (Holy Abyss Devourers vs Psionic Leaf Queens, anyone?).

Voting. Even with only six teams around, I think it would be sometimes nice to have two votes for each category. It has happened quite a lot of times that I wasn't able to decide which of two entries was the "better" one and it was a pity to ditch the other one. It would also make voting easier for participants as they can vote for their teams' submission and for another one they like so that they don't have to choose between "abandoning" and "favouring" their team - like I did in War propaganda. But I'm not sure whether this could imbalance the voting, so feel free to argue against this suggestion.

Anonymity. Keep it as you like; true anonymity will never be possible, but I have to say that I usually don't figure out the authors when I don't actively try to do it (with some obvious exceptions, of course) so I prefer the current system. However, it would be great for the voters if the names behind each submission could be revealed as soon as voting is finished, as it is cumbersome to figure them out via the results table, the voting poll and the member lists (and impossible if there has been a tie). Or do you plan to release this information after the whole event is over?

That said, I'm looking forward to the next submissions, rounds and the second edition of this wonderfully refreshing event.

Thanks for the feedback, every bit helps. I'll get to the standings soon, I promise! You may flog me until I do. With regards to anonymity, as soon as the voting round is over members are free to post their submissions in the relevant threads (90% sure we said that in the rules somewhere). So, as of now, Round 1+2 things can go out, and Round 3 stuff soon. We'll consider the other suggestions!

[furballdn]

Discussions in chat about problems and solutions.

RNG teams. It would be unfair if all the "good" people ended up in one team. Next brawl should have a bidding system where team leaders can use negative points to bid on players. This way, the team who gets vrt will start out with a negative score, a handicap. It'd also make it more like war and serve as a balancing factor.

Objectivity. One vote per person is not great for objectivity. Either increase vote count (this should definitely be done) and/or make players in teams unable to vote. Only outsiders can.

Voting. Like any other competition, this suffers from players voting not as the rules say so. Too often I've seen a good deck or good writing passed over just because another one was flashier and more colorful but not necessarily better.

Curb stomp. In war, even a team in first place can drop down to last and a last place team can rise up to first with RNG. It's not like that in brawl. Once a team has a large advantage, it becomes nearly impossible for other teams to catch up, seriously demoralizing the other players.

[Naesala]

Discussions in chat about problems and solutions.

RNG teams. It would be unfair if all the "good" people ended up in one team. Next brawl should have a bidding system where team leaders can use negative points to bid on players. This way, the team who gets vrt will start out with a negative score, a handicap. It'd also make it more like war and serve as a balancing factor.

Objectivity. One vote per person is not great for objectivity. Either increase vote count (this should definitely be done) and/or make players in teams unable to vote. Only outsiders can.

Voting. Like any other competition, this suffers from players voting not as the rules say so. Too often I've seen a good deck or good writing passed over just because another one was flashier and more colorful but not necessarily better.

Curb stomp. In war, even a team in first place can drop down to last and a last place team can rise up to first with RNG. It's not like that in brawl. Once a team has a large advantage, it becomes nearly impossible for other teams to catch up, seriously demoralizing the other players.

All good suggestions, thank you. I'll see what I can do about it next brawl. For cerain, we will do something about team balancing and Objectivity.

[ARTHANASIOS]

 The amount of voters during round 4 shows that most people don't even care to vote for their team anymore. And the voting unfairness keeps going strong... Can you please explain me how on earth Aether wond almost every submission again? Were their submissions better? Better submissions my [censored]! I am seriously doubting the fair-play of this contest and I am seriously believing something doesn't goes well. Some people always vote for Aether subs, like they know from before which submissions are theirs. But we have anonymity... Anonymity my [censored]!
 I sound rude right now, but I seriously don't care. Do you know how it feels like making half of your team submissions because the rest of your team members have abandoned the Brawling, never giving up until the final moment, always trying your best and your reward being just more and more unfairness.
 If the results are fair, then tell me, how on earth I have seen some of the best submissions losing terribly and some of the worst Team Aether - Nyan Sharks submissions gaining first place.
 Let's be a little objective here. My Form Expert one was the Catapult Damage Calculator, which is indeed a useful tool since catapult-based decks are a very common example of deck, was the ONLY SUBMISSION WITH ITS TOOL TRULY CREATED! How the community rewards my effort of actually making the tool? 6 votes? Losing from submission #2 by 7 votes?!?! Can you please use any fricking reasonable arguments to explain this? Same goes with BOSS#1. Please explain me how a videogame loses by a music file and a 'rule the world' pic...
 Unfortunately, Forum Brawl is a joke. No offence to the organizers, but this is a joke trolling competition. I won't even try to do anything for final round. gg...