Forum Brawl #4 - Suggestions and Feedback

[russianspy1234]

Something to remember:
A brawler that consistently places 1 rank lower than the best brawler is overpriced at an auction cost of 1.

No necessarily.  A brawler can provide input that boosts the performance of other tasks even if they don't place well in their own.

Does that mean they are worth at least 1, or does that mean lacking a brawler is worth a negative cost?
The in task contributions of being consistently 1 rank less than the best is a deficit greater than the auction range. If we include the difference in out of task contributions, the gap only grows larger. My point wasn't that no brawler is better than a 2nd place brawler. My point is/was that we cannot assume the current auction system merely needs small "tweaks".

You said a brawler that is always one less than the best is worth less than 1.  I was saying that if say, a writer of a team that was bought for 5 points, never wins their own task, hell lets say they get last place in each round, but in the secret section / titanpad their input contributed to great improvement of every other task, including some wins, they should be considered well worth their cost.  I say this from the experience of last brawl, where on our team the roles got so blurred that I often forgot who was which because we were all commenting and finetuning each other.

[OldTrees]

Does that mean they are worth at least 1, or does that mean lacking a brawler is worth a negative cost?
The in task contributions of being consistently 1 rank less than the best is a deficit greater than the auction range. If we include the difference in out of task contributions, the gap only grows larger. My point wasn't that no brawler is better than a 2nd place brawler. My point is/was that we cannot assume the current auction system merely needs small "tweaks".

What does it need, then?
Does it even need anything in the first place?

Many brains are better than just one. While I can notice and measure the problem, I don't know auctions systems well enough to evaluate the problem or construct a better system. So I am hoping we can solve together what we can't separately.

Something to remember:
A brawler that consistently places 1 rank lower than the best brawler is overpriced at an auction cost of 1.

No necessarily.  A brawler can provide input that boosts the performance of other tasks even if they don't place well in their own.

Does that mean they are worth at least 1, or does that mean lacking a brawler is worth a negative cost?
The in task contributions of being consistently 1 rank less than the best is a deficit greater than the auction range. If we include the difference in out of task contributions, the gap only grows larger. My point wasn't that no brawler is better than a 2nd place brawler. My point is/was that we cannot assume the current auction system merely needs small "tweaks".

You said a brawler that is always one less than the best is worth less than 1.  I was saying that if say, a writer of a team that was bought for 5 points, never wins their own task, hell lets say they get last place in each round, but in the secret section / titanpad their input contributed to great improvement of every other task, including some wins, they should be considered well worth their cost.  I say this from the experience of last brawl, where on our team the roles got so blurred that I often forgot who was which because we were all commenting and finetuning each other.

You are saying Brawler B is better than no brawler + 5 points.
I am saying Brawler B + 9 points is worse than Brawler B +1 place per round.
Both statements are consistent. Both were demonstrated last brawl. I dispute neither. Yet they describe why the auction might need more than a mere "tweak".

[ARTHANASIOS]

 Rob's suggestions are interesting but they must be heavily discussed with Nae before being applied. However, russianspy1234 should absolutely not be upset at all. He is, after all, an Original BOSS's replacement (a Writer in role, but he practically was called to fill in Captain Scibra's absence) such he is NOT going to cost anything at all. Same goes with the rest of the teams; if dawn to dusk, ddevans96, Fippe94 or Vangelios leave their respectve teams, they will be replaced FOR FREE. However, a removed boss can't vote for his/her team's submissions (I'm evil).
 As for the remaining replacements (majofa,terroking), as well as any future replacements, I have to discuss it with Nae...

[russianspy1234]

Does that mean they are worth at least 1, or does that mean lacking a brawler is worth a negative cost?
The in task contributions of being consistently 1 rank less than the best is a deficit greater than the auction range. If we include the difference in out of task contributions, the gap only grows larger. My point wasn't that no brawler is better than a 2nd place brawler. My point is/was that we cannot assume the current auction system merely needs small "tweaks".

What does it need, then?
Does it even need anything in the first place?

Many brains are better than just one. While I can notice and measure the problem, I don't know auctions systems well enough to evaluate the problem or construct a better system. So I am hoping we can solve together what we can't separately.

Something to remember:
A brawler that consistently places 1 rank lower than the best brawler is overpriced at an auction cost of 1.

No necessarily.  A brawler can provide input that boosts the performance of other tasks even if they don't place well in their own.

Does that mean they are worth at least 1, or does that mean lacking a brawler is worth a negative cost?
The in task contributions of being consistently 1 rank less than the best is a deficit greater than the auction range. If we include the difference in out of task contributions, the gap only grows larger. My point wasn't that no brawler is better than a 2nd place brawler. My point is/was that we cannot assume the current auction system merely needs small "tweaks".

You said a brawler that is always one less than the best is worth less than 1.  I was saying that if say, a writer of a team that was bought for 5 points, never wins their own task, hell lets say they get last place in each round, but in the secret section / titanpad their input contributed to great improvement of every other task, including some wins, they should be considered well worth their cost.  I say this from the experience of last brawl, where on our team the roles got so blurred that I often forgot who was which because we were all commenting and finetuning each other.

You are saying Brawler B is better than no brawler + 5 points.
I am saying Brawler B + 9 points is worse than Brawler B +1 place per round.
Both statements are consistent. Both were demonstrated last brawl. I dispute neither. Yet they describe why the auction might need more than a mere "tweak".

If brawler B propels to first place two different tasks, neither of which are the one they were bought for?

Rob's suggestions are interesting but they must be heavily discussed with Nae before being applied. However, russianspy1234 should absolutely not be upset at all. He is, after all, an Original BOSS's replacement (a Writer in role, but he practically was called to fill in Captain Scibra's absence) such he is NOT going to cost anything at all. Same goes with the rest of the teams; if dawn to dusk, ddevans96, Fippe94 or Vangelios leave their respectve teams, they will be replaced FOR FREE. However, a removed boss can't vote for his/her team's submissions (I'm evil).
 As for the remaining replacements (majofa,terroking), as well as any future replacements, I have to discuss it with Nae...

Guess my argument came across a little more impassioned than I had intended, thank you.  I kind of figured anything discussed here wouldn't apply to this Brawl and was for the future as I don't think it would really be fair to charge people with a rule change retroactively when that charge would have affected their decision.  For the future though, I stick with my statement that the disadvantages that come with needing a replacement are enough and an additional point charge isn't needed.  The system as is is pretty difficult to game, and almost impossible to game in a way that isn't obvious cheating (like creating sock puppet accounts, buying them for 1 point, and having them drop out).

[ARTHANASIOS]

The average price for a Brawler in this F.Brawl's Auction process was 3.26 points iirc. So, if I've understood Rob's suggestion correctly, subs have to cost 3 brawl points. It is not a big amount if you think about it, especially the self-voting you're losing due to inactivity.
Still, nothing is going to change without Nae's permission...

[OldTrees]

You are saying Brawler B is better than no brawler + 5 points.
I am saying Brawler B + 9 points is worse than Brawler B +1 place per round.
Both statements are consistent. Both were demonstrated last brawl. I dispute neither. Yet they describe why the auction might need more than a mere "tweak".

If brawler B propels to first place two different tasks, neither of which are the one they were bought for?

Brawler B + 9 points < Brawler B +1 place per round.
X + 9 points < X + 1 place per round.
+9 points < +1 place per round.
Changing the value of Brawler B has no effect on the inequality that I was pointing out.

[Naesala]

The average price for a Brawler in this F.Brawl's Auction process was 3.26 points iirc. So, if I've understood Rob's suggestion correctly, subs have to cost 3 brawl points. It is not a big amount if you think about it, especially the self-voting you're losing due to inactivity.
Still, nothing is going to change without Nae's permission...

If there is reason to believe it would be a good idea, it will be implemented in Brawl 5. We don't change the rules mid-brawl unless there are grievous reasons.

[Treldon]

First timer's insight

Though it was probably suggested before, I will mention it: giving 2 votes for people for tasks and adding the explanation requirement isn't a good long term solution. Unless a task happens to have 2 super-duper awesome submissions not sent by one's team, people will almost always give one of their votes to their own team. And unless they truly have something to add - in which case they will do anyway - the explanation requirement is only a chore.

Therefore I would propose giving people - or at least participants - only one vote, and making the explanations optional.
Furthermore, if non-participants had 2 votes compared to participants' single ones, it would give the 'crowd' more power and more reason to vote.
(Probably)

As for the tasks, I enjoyed them. If at all possible dropping roles should be avoided at all cost - not having Artist would have made the competition that much flatter.

I would also like to see combined tasks for more than 2 roles, and/or perhaps more disconnected roles. For example a CD-Writer task would be interesting (Design a card fitting into - but not yet present - in one of the ancient mythologies and write its epos featuring at least 2 other characters of the same mythology).

It would also be interesting to mix up roles and tasks, so that people would have to create submissions in types they are less used to (for example Artist would have to write poems, FE would draw, OT sculpt, etc), but still connected to their area. A sculpture depictinga PvP event would really be something 

[OldTrees]

First timer's insight

Though it was probably suggested before, I will mention it: giving 2 votes for people for tasks and adding the explanation requirement isn't a good long term solution. Unless a task happens to have 2 super-duper awesome submissions not sent by one's team, people will almost always give one of their votes to their own team. And unless they truly have something to add - in which case they will do anyway - the explanation requirement is only a chore.

Therefore I would propose giving people - or at least participants - only one vote, and making the explanations optional.
Furthermore, if non-participants had 2 votes compared to participants' single ones, it would give the 'crowd' more power and more reason to vote.
(Probably)

The current system is almost identical to your idea's intent. If every brawler voted for their team + 1 other submission then the same team votes cancel out and you have Brawlers getting 1 non team vote vs non Brawler's 2 votes. However the current system also allows for when a brawler feels like the other teams deserve both their votes.

Explanations are a chore. But so far they seem to avoid some of Brawl 3's "disagreements".

[andretimpa]

The tasks, submissions and involvement of the brawlers has been very good this time. What was a bit of a failure imo is how the rest of the community gave very little feedback compared to the past editions (I only remember OT, Kryz and Chap as voters that participated in most rounds).

As a brawler voting as a whole felt like a huge chore. Not because of the explanations, but because of the sheer volume of things we had to go through to give fair votes. Because of that, in every round I didn't looked forward for the voting part, and that is considering I was very invested in the event.

[AD TienzuStorm]

I have to agree with andretimpa, voting was a bit tedious and time consuming, I've been holding off of voting for this round for that very reason.

Although, without spoilers, I can't think of an easier method of doing it.. maybe have a separate topic for each task? Like, a Boss Round X topic and a CD Round X topic, etc.

I don't know, but overall, I loved brawl, it was the first forum event I participated in, and certainly not the last now!

[Naesala]

I would love to here ideas on how to reduce the tedium of voting. In multiple teams a majority of voters didnt, due to inactivity or laziness I'm not sure. I would also be more than happy for a new voting system that made it easier for me to count votes (The tables helped a -lot- though, this year. Thanks again.) Feedback for this part very welcome.