28 replies to this topic

[Amberson]

It’s great that the devs listened to the community and restored the BBAs to their previous form by getting rid of the higher exposure from film trophies. But maybe the time has come to go even further and actually improve them...

The first thing the BBAs need in my opinion is more transparency. Players should know how many time was their cover shown to others, not just the total amount of votes it got. It would be great if the data was actually made public and accessible after the competition has ended - at least in regard to the last edition, although some historical archive of past results would be even better. I would also like to know more about the voting mechanism. Are the pairings really completely random or does the game pair covers with certain common elements like it seems it does (if so, it needs to stop doing that)? Are the covers being shown to the voters randomly at different times of the day or is there some hidden logic to that too?

Another and perhaps even more important thing I suggest is to expand the initial time period during which the first selection of covers that advance further is being made from 24 to 48 hours. Don't frustrate the players who did their homework by shooting all the weekly films and being creative with their covers by letting them bomb on the first day simply because their cover was shown to the wrong sample of people or paired with strong alternatives. That’s just bad for the morale and off putting in the long run. You don’t want players to quit the game because of this.

It might be also worth considering to allow every player to have a one free refresh during the initial voting period on every pairing showed in case both of the options suck (see the example below) and are not worthy of a vote. At the same time, the refresh option should maybe be taken away altogether during at least the final voting day, when only the Top 50 covers remain in the run (at least from my observations). The majority of players would probably not miss the “From your studio" text either, even if it’s removal won’t really stop studio voting...

I would also suggest to improve the rewards for players who finish 11th-20th. Instead of giving them the same rewards as everyone else in the Top 100, give them 10 diamonds and 5 skill points. You can even increase this group to Top 25, 30 or 50. Staying in the competition till the last day (when only the best 50 covers are still eligible to receive votes) would become more valued and there would be more to compete for besides the Top 10. Especially for the players who end up high regularly, but often not high enough to actually crack the Top 10 (= the most active and passionate core players in the game).

 

Edited by Amberson, 29 January 2018 - 15:25 PM.

[CaptC]

I can get on board with most of that, except I STRONGLY disagree with: The majority of players would probably not miss the “From your studio" text either

 

For the longest time, I didn't know the game showed the 'from your studio' text. It was horrible. I did a lot of work to figure out my studio's covers, so I could vote for them via preference. As a convenience, the 'from your studio' text simply makes the game much more enjoyable for me. In fact, I want it to say 'from your studio (nameoftheplayer)', because we have a custom of telling the studio when we vote for a studio mate, and that will save me a lookup step.

 

But I will make a more general statement, from personal observation: The BBA is better thought of as a popularity contest. It is not strictly an artistic competition. I will use myself as an example. I do take into account the quality of the cover when I vote. But it's far from the highest priority. This is a competitive game, and skills are at stake, and that matters more to me. Simple as that.

 

I think I am pretty typical in the way I vote. It goes something like this:

 

- If a cover is from a studio mate, I vote for my studio mate. Every time, no matter how ugly. I consider quality of the cover only if both covers are from my studio.

- If I recognize a player, and I don't like that player, I vote for the other cover.

- If I recognize a player, and I DO like that player, I vote for them.

- If I have studio mates doing well in the BBA this week (and somebody almost always is doing well), I vote for the **ugliest** cover, the one least likely to be a threat to my studio mates

- Only in the case of getting through all of the above do I make my choice strictly to reward the quality of the cover

 

Now, granted. A hugely funny, memorable cover may get me to ignore my normal criteria. But... gotta be really, really good.

 

The player with the most number of BBAs that I know, is just hugely social. Lots of people recognize her covers, and vote for her. She makes good covers, but she wins because she has support from players inside an active studio AND people outside her studio like her and vote for her.

 

Note carefully that I agree that the BBA could be better. But I am also saying, no matter how the voting process works, people are going to find a way to benefit their studio-mates and their friends. I don't think this is a failure of the game. I think it is just people being people. And I think it WOULD be a failure of the game not to recognize that, by removing convenience features like 'In Your Studio'.

[CaptC]

I think the single biggest failure of the BBA is that it is all but impossible to figure out who won. You CAN go through the movies of each of the top few players after the fact... but looking through movies lists is horrible, and there is a week's worth of new movies you have to go through before you can even start to find the movie that player submitted for the previous week.

 

Second biggest failure is that it is COMPLETELY impossible to tell how many votes each player receives, unless that player recorded the number from their rewards notice and they report it to you.

 

So I am wholeheartedly in favor of having some kind of summary information.

 

I would even be in favor of it not being in game. A summary report automatically generated for each server and posted to the appropriate forum would be fantastic.

[Amberson]

I said in the past when others suggested to get rid of the "From your studio" that I don’t consider it to be the biggest problem, since if you want to vote for studio members regardless of everything else, you are able to do so even without it... I am now pretty familiar with many of the avatars even outside my studio (with some of them more so, actually), so if you have a stable core team of active people, it’s not hard to recognize their covers as long as the face of the avatar is visible... It’s also possible to let others know in advance about your cover or if you’re really motivated, you can even do screenshots of all the participating covers from your studio, splice it together in one image and send it out to all your members. In other words, who wants to vote for teammates will find ways to do so.

At the same time, a question could be asked why make it easier for these kind of voters? Because what you said in your post CaptC perfectly illustrates the problem with studio voting and actually provides a pretty good answer why the same cover can get zero votes one week and 173 votes two weeks later. If my cover gets shown to people who vote for ugly covers just because they were made by someone from their studio and I'm unlucky enough that it happens multiple times throughout the first day, then I’m screwed. Given the fact that the initial voting period is short and the number of times a cover can be shown during this time is limited (I would estimate that it tends to appear less than 10 times), it’s very possible that every now and then nice covers with maximal exposure will flop.

You might be right that this a competitive game, but if it gets too competitive to the point that the constant chase for free skill points by a handful of most competitive players overshadows everything else and their over-competitiveness starts to spoil the gaming experience for others with different play-styles and goals, then you might eventually just end up with half-dead servers... So it's desirable to try to balance some of the negative side-effects that the competitiveness generates.

I’m all for more transparency, but the lack of a summary information is not the biggest flaw of the BBAs. In my opinion, the biggest failure lies in a voting system that allows the same covers to receive 0 votes one week and 173 votes two weeks later. That's ridiculous. What’s even more ridiculous is that I almost flopped again the week between when I submitted a different cover. It was only at the end of day when it received the needed votes to stay in the competition. But because it did, it was able to finish 18th in the end with 125 votes. So thin is the line between an utter failure and success right now... The easiest way to fix this is to prolong the initial voting phase so that there’s enough time for good covers to receive votes regardless of players who care about other things than what they actually vote for.

Edited by Amberson, 29 January 2018 - 18:49 PM.

[Amberson]

I can get on board with most of that, except I STRONGLY disagree with: The majority of players would probably not miss the “From your studio" text either
 
For the longest time, I didn't know the game showed the 'from your studio' text. It was horrible. I did a lot of work to figure out my studio's covers, so I could vote for them via preference. As a convenience, the 'from your studio' text simply makes the game much more enjoyable for me. In fact, I want it to say 'from your studio (nameoftheplayer)', because we have a custom of telling the studio when we vote for a studio mate, and that will save me a lookup step.

Do you "strongly disagree" with the actual statement (about the preferences of the majority) or just with the removal of the notification text? Remember, you're not the typical representative of an average player. As I understand it, you and your studio are the minority - high level, high stat, super active, super competitive, diamond buying group of best players from best studios that are always on the hunt for more skill points and glory... Well, most of the players don't play like this, so their viewpoints on certain things might be different. We don't know for sure, since no actual survey was conducted, but I know some people on this forum have already stated in the past that they would like to see the notification text removed.

You could say that the studio with the most active membership (which is usually also the strongest studio) is the one that has most to gain from the notification, so it's in the interest of all the other players from less active studios for it to disappear. A counter-argument could be made that the most active and most motivated studios will be able to continue the practice of blind studio voting even without the notification, while some of the smallr studios will be much less effective in recognizing the covers from their members without the hint. But I don't really believe that it would lead to a bigger dominance of the best studios in the BBAs. Either things stay the same or the biggest studios become a bit less successful. One way or another, there's no reason to make it easier for them to win the coveted skill points. I don't think that mindless hunt for skill points was supposed to be the purpose of this particular competition. And if it turned out that way unintentionally, then corrective measures should be taken.

Fortunately, at least on UK2 the most prominent players from the best studio actually put effort in their covers. If it's different on NU1 or UK1, then it must suck.

[CaptC]

I like knowing that I am voting for a studio member, and I don't want it to be harder for me to do so. Simple as that.

 

Lots of us put time and diamonds into our covers. I do, too. That is simple pride, as much as anything. Bad looking covers don't win on either UK1 or NU1. Quality does matter - never said it didn't. I just said 'artistic merit' is not my highest priority. Loyalty is - and I don't understand why loyalty should NOT matter. I don't consider the way I vote to be a problem. I am not embarrassed or ashamed. It IS a valid reason to vote, and I am far from alone.

 

We simply prioritize differently, Amberson. That's OK, reasonable people can disagree. I am perfectly happy if we can come up with ways to encourage voting for the prettiest cover, but not at the cost of discouraging votes for teammates.

 

(BTW, the design priority for the BBA is almost certainly not to find the best cover. It is to encourage us to spend diamonds. If you want to spend diamonds on a great cover, or someone wants to spend diamonds chasing a studio-mate's cover, the developers are equally happy.)

[CaptC]

The easiest way to fix this is to prolong the initial voting phase so that there’s enough time for good covers to receive votes regardless of players who care about other things than what they actually vote for.

 

I would have no problems with that whatsoever... except that it means we will see ugly covers longer. But I would put up with ugly covers if we think that will encourage fairness.

 

I like your idea of a free retry in that case, so you can ignore the ugliest covers. But... that lets me keep looking for studio mates for free, regardless of the quality of the first covers. Another alternative might be a 'none of the above' option -- but that means I don't ever have to vote for anyone OTHER than a studio member, so that might be counter-productive in the long run.

 

Going to be hard to escape unintended consequences. Perhaps requiring a vote and diamonds for a re-roll is already fairest?

[CaitlinCumgusher]

 

- If I recognize a player, and I don't like that player, I vote for the other cover.

Hmmm, wait til you get the predicament I had, 2 players who I promised I would never vote for, both appeared in my options at the same time, best use of 5 diamonds ever

[BigBadWolf]

I remember a year or so ago there was a massive discussion on the big bang awards

The system was at that point "open for discussion for improvement"

One of the greatest improvements was the addition of the "from your studio" indicator

after all, why would you NOT want to vote for one of your teammates?

 

The use of diamonds to influence the result has always been there, it always will.

And you'll find studios with mostly diamond players will almost always be prominent in the top 10 results 

 

I think the complete lack of transparency in the voting system and process is something that could be improved

I'm not a fan of the awards as they are at the moment - the way the vote system functions - the rewards relative to for the outlay of diamonds used in creation of the titles when the likelihood of winning is considered, just to name a few areas.

 

What I would like to see in addition to a refresh votes for 5 diamonds, is a refresh to a title from your studio for 49 diamonds.

This way,if you choose to vote for your studio, your not sitting there clicking refresh and loading in half the titles entered on the server into cache until the from your studio text appears above your title selections. - its irritating and such a waste of game time.

 

I note Amberson would like to make it harder for you to vote for your studio, but i cant agree with this outlook as I feel supporting your team is what its all about.  Sure, If the vote system was changed to allow for anonymous scaled grading of a covers aesthetic value then I could agree that the ability to buy a vote with diamonds would contradict the process, but the aesthetic quality of the covers has never been the thing that decides the winner in bba since they introduced diamonds in the voting process.

[Amberson]

I note Amberson would like to make it harder for you to vote for your studio, but i cant agree with this outlook as I feel supporting your team is what its all about.

It’s just one of several suggestions. A one that was never listed as the one with the most importance and highest priority in my original post. But since CaptC put a lot of attention to it in his reply and made certain assertions that I didn’t necessarily agree with, I rolled ball and provided a different perspective. After all, the point of this thread is to find the best ways to make the BBAs better.

Personally, I don’t need the notification. I know the avatars of the most active members of my studio whose covers I’m most likely to see during the week. I’ll take it into account if they’re up against a similarly good or even slightly better alternatives. Very rarely is the other option significantly better, simply because the people we talk about don't produce lazy covers that can't even get the basic elements right. Other members from my studio will get my vote also if their covers don’t suck. If they do suck they won’t get it, regardless of the notification. I won’t vote for a crappy cover from someone who I have never even spoken to just because at that particular time they happen to be in the same studio. Think of it in a way how would you yourself want others to vote when your cover appears as one of the voting options. Maybe the highly competitive studios can get far simply by their members voting for each other, but I can’t rely on this kind of massive support from my own teammates, even though we have now firmly settled at the edge of the Top 10. And if this was the basic prevailing modus operandi of the contest (fortunately, it isn’t), then me and most other participants would always find ourselves on the side of the losers, while a handful of people from the same studios would always win. Even if I then joined the winning side, it wouldn’t have much meaning for me to succeed under these kind of conditions.

Not to say I don’t strategize at all. If I don’t particularly like the cover that’s first at the moment (even though it’s not bad), or want others (including myself, if I’m in the running for the top spots) to still have a chance at a better placement, I might vote for the alternative. Sometimes, I might also get annoyed when the same cover appears constantly as a voting option and thus vote against it. But the voted for alternative is never outright bad. It might by similar or slightly worst, but I don’t vote for bad covers unless both of the options suck.

[Amberson]

Lots of us put time and diamonds into our covers. I do, too. That is simple pride, as much as anything. Bad looking covers don't win on either UK1 or NU1. Quality does matter - never said it didn't.

Nice to hear that. It would be a shame if out of all the participating covers, it was the bad ones that won regularly... However, I didn’t say this was the actual problem that needs to be addressed. The specific issue I mentioned that’s also partly connected with studio voting was the premature elimination of nice covers and long endurance of bad covers.

(BTW, the design priority for the BBA is almost certainly not to find the best cover. It is to encourage us to spend diamonds. If you want to spend diamonds on a great cover, or someone wants to spend diamonds chasing a studio-mate's cover, the developers are equally happy.)

It could be said that this whole game and everything in it exists only so that people will spend real money to buy diamonds. But if it becomes too obvious and restricting for the players who don't buy diamonds, then why should they continue playing? I’m sure the spenders are not the majority. They might pay for the game to keep on running, but without all the others, it would be a dead and boring platform that would soon drive away even the spenders. So even if the casuals and non-spenders don’t pay for anything, they are essential to the business model. Not only by their sheer presence but also for promoting the game through recommendations to other people.

As I see it, the BBAs are the only part of the game that offers a somewhat equal playing field for everyone to compete in. Due to how the game is designed, it’s impossible for newbies to catch up with or get ahead of the veterans in anything else, as long as the veterans keep on playing. It’s much more likely that the veterans will keep on increasing their lead because of all the snowballing features that are part of the game (temples, trophies, the ever-increasing ability to just buy certain things like refinements, conventions and most recently even party tickets). So it’s actually not in the devs interest to turn off players who enjoy the moviemaking aspect instead of glory hunting, studio competition etc. If they were clever, they would have not only tried to make the BBAs better but they would have also increased the moviemaking options long time ago to make this aspect of the game more entertaining. How many times have people already asked for new fonts, font colors, backgrounds, borders, poses...? And all we got were two lousy new font types and a black font color...

I would have no problems with that whatsoever... except that it means we will see ugly covers longer. But I would put up with ugly covers if we think that will encourage fairness.

We already see ugly covers longer than we should now, all while nice covers keep on bombing for no apparent reason.

I like your idea of a free retry in that case, so you can ignore the ugliest covers. But... that lets me keep looking for studio mates for free, regardless of the quality of the first covers. Another alternative might be a 'none of the above' option -- but that means I don't ever have to vote for anyone OTHER than a studio member, so that might be counter-productive in the long run.

Going to be hard to escape unintended consequences.

If you look at it this way, more transparency in the form of a final summary information might be also counter-productive, because it will just put a target on winners or (regular) Top 10 finishers outside the highly competitive studios. The logic being: "They took our precious skill points last week, so we must take extra care to not let it happen again by finding out what they submitted this week and then voting against it every time it appears". Or if the final information shows that the vote count differences at the top are very small like I already suspect them to be, it might motivate the dominant studios to strategize even more (by voting for ugly covers, investing in rerolls etc.) to achieve the coveted result.

Maybe the only solution to this would then be to get rid of the skill point rewards altogether? Perhaps the players who already buy diamonds in bulks won’t be then so motivated to win, if all they would get apart from the good feeling was a bunch of diamonds they don’t need and the superstar/legend titles? I welcome the skill point rewards, but it’s not my main motivation to do good in the BBAs.

Edited by Amberson, 30 January 2018 - 14:40 PM.

[Amberson]

Hmmm, wait til you get the predicament I had, 2 players who I promised I would never vote for, both appeared in my options at the same time, best use of 5 diamonds ever

Is that because of some mutual strife? I keep hearing stories like this about bad blood between different players and I’m kind of baffled by it. I’ve been playing this game for a long enough time to be considered a veteran, I even had my fair share of successes, but I never got into a personal conflict with anyone. It’s not impossible to imagine petty grudges being held against highly ranked players that others want to see dethroned, but why would the more regular players find themselves in this kind of situation? Is it because of your recent successes in the BBAs? Did someone write you something bad in reaction to that?

Consider all of the questions above rhetorical, if you don’t want talk about any of this.

[CaptC]

Hmmm, wait til you get the predicament I had, 2 players who I promised I would never vote for, both appeared in my options at the same time, best use of 5 diamonds ever

 

I held my nose and rolled a die. I am a game store owner. There is always a die in one of my pockets.  

[CaptC]

Is that because of some mutual strife? I keep hearing stories like this about bad blood between different players and I’m kind of baffled by it. I’ve been playing this game for a long enough time to be considered a veteran, I even had my fair share of successes, but I never got into a personal conflict with anyone. It’s not impossible to imagine petty grudges being held against highly ranked players that others want to see dethroned, but why would the more regular players find themselves in this kind of situation? Is it because of your recent successes in the BBAs? Did someone write you something bad in reaction to that?

Consider all of the questions above rhetorical, if you don’t want talk about any of this.

 

A studio boss has to communicate with other studios. Sometimes that ends up badly. Not too surprising, since the heads of studios tend to be prickly and a little competitive. 

 

Yes, I resemble that remark. 

 

An example from an early point in my career:  We were locked in a series of give and take duels with another studio, but neither of us were particularly strong. We both were having inactivity problems, a fair number of zombies. I hadn't had any contact with the other studio boss, but I sent him a note asking if it wouldn't make sense to merge. The other boss took offense, no reply other than dueling me - and I was not his match, so he murdered me. I sent him another joking note that he didn't have to be rude about it, but that I still thought merger would be worth talking about. Another duel, no reply. 

 

Kind of annoyed me that he didn't have the decency to jot down even a quick note. How long does it take to send a "Thanks but no thanks" note?  So I sent a recruitment offer to every active player he had, the ones who had signed in for the latest fight between our studios.

 

He communicated then, all right! (With a vile message full of insults, threats and profanity.) I replied the next time a fellow studio boss sent a note, maybe a conversation would be better than a condescending duel. And we left it at that.

 

I probably should have been the bigger player and avoided antagonizing him... (even though he arguably started it.) Regardless, while I fully agree that I share responsibility for the mutual dislike -- we weren't going to be sending Christmas cards, or voting for each others movies, ever. 

[RodHardon]

BBA is really not fair - I think you should NOT be able to vote your own film or even a film made at your own studio. It gives unfair advantage to big studios, when you have 30 people to vote for you. Small studios don't have such resources.

 

And another thing, you should have more than 2 films to choose from, it would give everyone a better chance to get voted. For example I have made over 200 films and only once I have seen my own film in the voting, even though I do a lot of missions that give voting tickets.

[Amberson]

Here's another proposal... As was already explained in this thread before, the amount of covers that are eligible to receive votes gets progressively trimmed throughout the week. On Saturday, it's still possible to vote only for the 100 most popular covers and on Sunday this number is further reduced to the top 50 covers. This increases the influence of big active studios on the vote as well as the effectiveness of coordinated efforts aimed at getting studio affiliated covers to the top positions. However, within a wider competition it would be harder for any group of players to overrun the top positions through studio voting (either for their own covers or against their biggest competition) during the last two days. Thus the results would to a greater degree reflect actual quality and the general tastes of the voters.

At the same time, keeping the competition wider throughout the weekend doesn't disallow studio voting in general (in fact it allows more people to be able to vote for their teammates) nor diamond spending (for refreshes), it only keeps these tactics in check and mitigates some of the negative consequences associated with too much influence concentrated in the hands of a minority group of players at the expense of other contestants.

[Analis]

This increases the (...) effectiveness of coordinated efforts aimed at getting studio affiliated covers to the top positions.

 

 

While I understand a score like that is frustrating...

I can see no reason why it should not be ok to consider the BBAs a team effort, much like the temple.

There's the difference that only a few team members actually get a bigger reward at the end of the week. But then again it works in a backscratch manner. One week it will be these who win more, another week it will be those. So chasing ballots can very easily be seen as a continuous team effort - just with highly varying results. I cannot think of a single thing wrong with that, voting for your teammate, the one who has your back in a studio fight, the one who laughs with your weakass jokes, the one who will also vote for your face when it pops up. That's just... normal. It also has actually very little to do with being in a big or a small studio. Both of us are in a top 10 studio with 30ish members, active missions boosters, and one energy trophy each. On that front we're perfectly evenly matched. So it clearly has way more to do with ideology and activity. And everyone is actually free to set their own priorities and timespending in this game, so that's not something we can debate about.

 

It makes perfect sense to approach a thing like the BBAs in a teamwork kind of way.

The fact that one studio is particularly good at that, isn't necessarily the game's fault or that studio's fault though.

 

(...) keeping the competition wider throughout the weekend (...) mitigates some of the negative consequences,

associated with too much influence concentrated in the hands of a minority group of players at the expense of other contestants.

 

Do you mean with this...

for instance having 200 votable covers on saturday and 100 on sunday?

[Amberson]

I’m just gonna repeat myself here... Studio voting is completely legitimate and within the game rules, as is buying diamonds for real money and using them to buy conventions and other things including a better result in the BBAs. Just like the latter can be annoying for other players, excessive studio voting can be annoying too. Any form of dominance tends to suck the fun and enjoyment of the game for the non-dominating people. To make it more fun again for everyone, it can be helpful to look at what aspects of the game enable the dominance instead of promoting competitiveness and take counter-measures to deal with it.

Yes, I propose to expand the number of covers that are still eligible to receive votes during the weekend. But I would maybe go even further beyond what you suggested and keep as much as 200 covers still running on Sunday. Simply because the effects of studio voting are already quite visible when there are only 100 covers left to choose from.

BTW, my cover is not 10th anymore like in your screenshot from yesterday, but it has dropped to 24th in the meantime... And just to clarify, my studio is 10th only in the glory rankings, but it's not really the 10th strongest or most active studio on the server. We don't hold any trophy over extend time periods and most of the time lose them in the very next fight. But even if we actually were the 10th best studio, it wouldn't matter because the gap even between the first and second studio is huge. Your studio simply doesn't have any competition. It's the collection of players who were the best in their former studios that work together like a fine-tuned machine. While that's certainly admirable, it's no fun to get steamrolled by the machine on the last day or two of voting. It's also no fun to see the Top 10 to be comprised exclusively or almost exclusively of covers from one studio every week, especially when while some of them can be really good, others are frankly not that great... As I said, studio voting is within the rules, but given how things are, it shouldn't really surprise you if some folks feel like the contest is rigged (not my word, but I heard it being thrown around).

I don't play on other servers, but as I understand from what CaptC and others said in the past, the situation there is similar with one or two studios dominating the game, including the BBAs...

Edited by Amberson, 25 March 2018 - 11:48 AM.

[Eileendover]

I'd personally rather see the from your studio thing gone. If it must stay then there should also be one for friends who may not be in your studio. Maybe a different color? I know myself, I often do tribute to friends/studio mates or parodies of some known thing in which I change my appearance for the shoot. I know others who do similar things. It would be easy for friends to miss those if they are going by how you looked 2 weeks ago, lol

[Eileendover]

I agree about the pairing thing, Amber, and lol @ your examples. There's so many things in that pic that I won't vote for unless I know it's a friend or studio mate. Even then I will be asking myself why that was their entry. It does seem to happen too often to be coincidence. I think there's an algorithm there that needs to be surgically removed.