Bashy Posted:

If scoops were 2x what they were for Styles, Threads, etc, I’d still be doing forums. If forums were 1 scoop for every 20 upvotes, instead of 5, I’d still be doing forums. Why? Because I’m good at doing forums. I got close last time on ItemBuildr, but I haven’t figured that out yet. Why did I do that? It doesn’t give any scoops yet (does it?)

I respect your ability to write and to win, but the hostile tone is unnecessary. If anybody’s trolling here, it’s you.

plk Posted:

good, constructive post

I’ve floated the idea of making buildr score increases and decreases work on a bell curve relative to a minimum and maximum ie: if you’re at a median level of buildr score and you have a decent week (75% recieving positive vote scores, 25% being voted off) you can get 2 points. If you’re at a high score (say 30+) if your week isn’t perfect or nearly so, (only 5% voted off, or even 0%), your score goes down. Thus, the standard for performance and quality according to votes increases depending on how high your score is, making it especially difficult to keep increasing week after week once you hit a certain point. In a perfect world, this would be calculated by the median or mean score for all players with a score over a given amount (say, maybe, 10?)

There’s a bit more to it but this is the basic idea, does it make sense?

I’d just like to weigh in here. I actually think this thread is on its way to becoming quite constructive, so I’ll just say this:

I fully agree that there are a lot of submissions to look through, and we definitely need to play with the buildr score algorithm. It’s far too simplistic and permissive, with no foreseeable end in sight. It also throws Domination completely out of whack.

As with any site changes, we’ll have to approach with caution because it will affect some people negatively. But, short of setting a hard cap, it should become incrementally difficult to earn submission privileges as your score climbs. Reward the good posters, but don’t make it ridiculously easy to take the shotgun approach.

That said, let me add a word about Bashy, plk and other recent forumbuildr leaders: As an admin, I can see who’s posting what in forumbuildr apps. And while Bashy and plk post a hell of a lot of ideas in the hopes that one will win, they’re pretty much all gold — all of them. People have claimed they’re appealing to the “lowest common denominator,” but blame the LCD for voting them up. They’ve got plenty of more cerebral ideas too, they just don’t tend to do as well.

Gaming the system? Dunno about that. It’s a strategy, it’s legitimate, it works, and it’s resulted in great forums lately. Last year, people were complaining that there were too many avatars to choose from, and that became a competitive nightmare.

So while I agree we could stand to play with our numbers a bit, let’s not turn this into an ego war. Save that sweet, sweet venom for your Angry Replies.

Jalapeno Bootyhole Posted:

As with any site changes, we’ll have to approach with caution because it will affect some people negatively. But, short of setting a hard cap, it should become incrementally difficult to earn submission privileges as your score climbs. Reward the good posters, but don’t make it ridiculously easy to take the shotgun approach.

Ya this I argee with to. As far as dom goes, it is a pretty big advantage when you can submit 3-6 times as many submissions as the more average player and rake in the chocolate scoops.

As far as gaming the system, I have a 34 Buildr score, which is I believe #12, and I also contribute to the mbum of Forum Ideas.

I don’t do it for the chocolate, because Forum Ideas typically net me far, far fewer chocolates than the other categories. Unlike Bashy and plk, I’m not very good at Forum Ideas, and of my 16 Forum idea submissions, I think that the highest is at +8? I routinely do well in the other categories though, in defense of those who might claim I’m trying to flood somewhere for an unfair advantage.

I’m just trying to get the peen or to contribute in an aspect I haven’t gotten the chance too yet. Does the fact that I used 16 of my 41 submissions in Forum Idea mean that I’m trying to game the system? Far from it. It’s just participating in an area of the game.

Heaven forbid people participate in ways that gives them the best possible advantage they can.

Am I supposed to feel bad for being good at Itembuildr too? I’ve gotten a free something like 35 chocos this week from Itembuildr, in addition to 100 from Buildr. Shame on me? I’m also not utilizing pistachio streaks, which in my personal opinion, are much more broken than chocos are. You have to have some creativity for chocos; pistachs are just mindless and free.

It’s all in the perception of the player. I feel like pistach looping is cheap, you guys seem to think Forum Ideas are cheap.

I don’t support making it harder for good players to get more points, I’d just rather see the points less directly tied to number of submissions, and more possibility for changing around of rank. Prior to two weeks ago, I’d gotten 2 points every week for 16 weeks. That’s too regular for a skill-based leaderboard, especially when my number of contributions ranged very widely.

What if we could make every 10 buildr points = 1 extra submission, and then have the number of items submitted every week directly be the number of points you get?

Shii Posted:

I don’t do it for the chocolate, because Forum Ideas typically net me far, far fewer chocolates than the other categories. Unlike Bashy and plk, I’m not very good at Forum Ideas, and of my 16 Forum idea submissions, I think that the highest is at +8? I routinely do well in the other categories though, in defense of those who might claim I’m trying to flood somewhere for an unfair advantage.

This is so very true. Forum ideas are my weakness, too; I’ve only ever had one even come close to winning. Just to share observations, I’ve been submitting one forum constantly for the last few weeks; Sunday, I will net about 2-3 scoops if my forum doesn’t get downvoted -5 three minutes later. Every day after that, 1-2 scoops a day.

In contrast, when I accidentally posted a couple of thread titles to this persona instead of my multi, I ended up with 10 scoops in one day, and neither idea actually made it onto the finished forum.

Basically, what Jalapeno says about the LCD is also true. You can put up all the clever and intellectual jokes you want (I try, anyway), but it seems the ones that usually get through the most involve @insult_gay, @sex_toy, and @male reproductive organ.

I agree that there is huge abuse potential for the chocolate scoops and I personally try my hardest with this alt to make it my best and it is the only one that I gamble every day and focus energy into scoop attaining. That being said, out of my 5 dom playing chars, he is in a three way tie for the lowest amount of medals.

Dom is currently won by Pistachio and Vanilla scoops combined with Klan bumaults, if plk or Bashy topped the Medals last year I’d be more prone to agreeing that chocolate was broken, but also I’ve seen some people who have negative Buildr scores which implies that if you get terribly downvoted, your score can go down and as such they are doing well in Buildr because they are clever.

I try my damndest and still have only one of the e-peens for contributing the most of one section despite the fact that I also try to flood the sections for the sole purpose of getting those peens. It was a sheer stroke of luck that one of my 3 submissions this week is winning for best forum, I guess I was clever for once since all others rarely break 10 upvotes, the other 2 I have are at 9 and -5 right now. (yay, I don’t have to see Bashy or plk when I check Forumbuildr next week).

Would I want to be in the same bracket as plk? Hell no, but I can’t really compete with the top players anyways, even if I pull off 100 chocolate scoops in a single week out of sheer luck, last week I nuked the guy ahead of me with an alt only to see them recover 150 scoops in under an hour in 2 batches of 70 or so. Chocolate cannot possibly compete with that and it also removes the strategic element of sitting behind the top player to avoid being bumholed since if you go to bed, you might sneak to the front and get blasted by guys who just nuke first place since they aren’t trying.

Now, if plk and Bashy join the Grey Goose Mafiosi, THEN we’d have a reason to start complaining Log in to see images! Dunatis edited this message on 03/27/2009 1:54PM