45 replies to this topic

[dparadise]

Hi all,

 

Gee, it's so quiet here, I think crickets and spiders are nestling themselves here lol.

 

 

I'd like to take the time to run something by you all, and would like as much participation as I could get. And, as the topic suggests, it's about how the current voting system for the BBA is experienced.

 

Currently, the way I've experienced it over the past almost 2 years, I can see very good titles/covers bust, and in my belief any title should keep a fair chance throughout the whole week. This happens mainly due to so called/so experienced cut offs. 

 

For example: If your cover, for whatever reason, doesn't get a vote in the first day, you are out. Not exactly fair, as there's studio voting, anti-voting etc. 

 

How on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday come more cutoffs, no clue. 

 

But I have experienced the following on the weekend:

On Saturday you vote for the top100, that will slowly cut down to top50 throughout the day. 

And on Sunday we only vote for the top50 covers that are left over. 

 

But what happens to all those creative and nice covers that didn't make the cutoff, due to rivalry, or whatever reason? They are out, try again next week. 

 

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not against the way people vote, but I am against the cut offs mainly. I do believe there should be some cutoffs, but this could use a change.

 

1. I believe throughout the entire week, at the minimum of Friday, ALL movies should remain in the

running. 

 

2. Cutoff for top100 narrowing on Saturday might be slightly too steep, as well the cutoff for top50 on Sundays.

 

Certain cutoffs are needed, for example per amount of votes. Like if on Wednesday you don't get 3 votes out of 10 ballot shows, you are out. That would equal a 30% vote for example. But this also keeps it a little more fair for everyone, instead of 'first day no vote, busted and try better next week'. 

 

I'd like to hear your views on it, and like to hear your suggestions.

[JennyLove]

The current system of BBA seems rather a studio event not an individual one. Can make a nice unique one but if dont have the studio, have not much chance. Sad to see really good ones voted out by random ones, but thats the system now.

Widening the cutoff at first seems a good idea, but may just lengthen the fail. Think, the rewards below 10 are bad. A really nice unique title one cost diamonds, it not return the price if out of 10.
Maybe if the reward system would be better.

Would really see more unique ones for better chances but they still can cost diamonds. Maybe if some film points can be earned as some mission rewards like the room scents, and can be spend for titles, backgrounds and others.
Or if we can make some surgery and choose clothes (just we forced to sell all in temples) from our collections in some sandbox for free just for the movie cover setup.

To avoid out by anti votes, and other biased factors, dont know the technical possibilities, but maybe voting across servers should be fun. Random server votes another random server anonym movies, only movies against movies without any tactics and intervention. But know it sounds weird
 

[Bluefire]

I really hadn't realised this was happening.  Always wondered why it was easier to find a film for my studio at the weekend than the rest of the week, and why, if my film had a bad start it never picked up, but I guess that answers those concerns lol!

 

Why are the logistics not known.  It should be more transparent.  If there is a pattern of being knocked out of the voting, why is it not clearly advertised, and Id love to know if anyone actually knows what the actual facts are?  I think we all should be aware!

 

I personally always create my entry with a fully designed cover and made up name, along with no more than about 5% of the game population.  The random titles and most of the random covers are not that great most of the time, and dont really deserve to win, but like Jenny points out, wheres the incentive for more people to be more creative.

 

Id love to see the films that have had notes and diamonds spent on them be the ones to get the higher % of views, as those have had the work and money put into them.  Work wise, also possibly, look at the number of fans for that individual film, rather than number of films made.  After all, Spielberg wouldnt win best picture or 'Some rotten flesh of the upper finger' with 4,000 fans just because he made 21 films that week, while Joe Bloggs spent millions on just one blockboster with a winning title and cover and 20,000 fans!

 

I understand the need to do more films, but perhaps give more weight to the individual film based on spend and fans too!!!

[jancan]

you can say what ever you want i make my titles to but it all comes down to this diamond spending that is how you get the top 10 sure one might get up to top 10 but every week the winners are from spending diamonds to vote for your self or just studio members  sad to say but that is not a true win .  just spend and you will get number one      have a good time making  you films  and just enjoy  it  the big spenders will win week after week 

[VanessaVixx]

that's the way it works. the more diamonds you spend on votes for your own film, get's you up the ranking. that way you just buy your way into top10 or even buy the win. 

i think everyone should have a chance on winning, not just big diamond spenders. makes the whole Big Bang Awards an unfair thing in my eyes. it should be not only about bbe want us to give them more diamonds. 

maybe it would help, if we can't vote for our own film anymore. that way we have to vote for others at least. of course someone could still buy votes for studio members, but at least not for them selfs. 

[EVE12]

Jan and Vanessa are right.  The Big Diamond Spenders always win.  They are buying votes!  Why can't we have a system of voting based on merit or popularity?

[CaitlinCumgusher]

Bluefire...

 

If you are not planning on using the title 'Some rotten flesh of the upper finger', I might have to steal it, just to see how it would go in the awards...lol

[Bluefire]

Caitlin, please take it, its all yours lol!   It just came out of my fingers onto the keyboard as I typed!

I much prefer to see the well thought out fun titles and interesting looking covers.  It would be great if the game made it more possible for everyone to be more creative!!!

[Andrea6969]

I don't like the BBA voting system the way it is at all. Every week there are bought wins by refreshes of some players who only vote for themselves or for studio mates, not the way I'd like to win. I never refresh them (ok, yes, a few months back I did literally two times in one week to not even support set up titles for refreshes) and prefer a earned #182 for example over a bought top 10 position. So I even told my studio to never refresh the ballots for me.

 

The refresh option on the voting is a huge mistake and should be removed. (Yes, I know the devs aren't going to remove a diamond spending option but it's My opinion).

Or it should be either lowered to just one possible refresh per vote or the diamond prize risen to at least 299 diamonds (devs, feel free to add a few 0's to that ) per refresh.

 

And I agree that the elimination shouldn't start at least before half way through the week. Keep all in the voting at least Monday and Tuesday, then lower like Wednesday top 250, Thursday top 200, Friday top 150, Saturday top 100, Sunday top 50.

 

Not fair that cheap covers made without any effort get better results than custom covers just because they are in a studio that is into diamond spending on ballots while the other isn't. So not just the amount of made three-star covers but also the creativity should have influence of how often they get shown.

 

The way it is, I still like to be creative and do a custom cover per week just for fun but I don't care much about to vote for any covers at all and take the ballot missions only if they suit my general strategy and vote for one of the two covers I get.

 

[Savannah]

Each week I have been making a custom title and cover, like most of you - sometimes they do alright, usually they bust due to the reason that dp stated in the beginning. It is beyond annoying to see generic covers and titles win most weeks. As it's been mentioned, yes, it's due to studio voting, diamond refreshes, and the "Vote for the Worst" tactic. Still, I would like to see a change made, although I'm not able to really voice what I think that change should look like (just woke up - need coffee).

 

Something that I would like to see implemented --- if I refresh my ballot options a few times (or 15), I should *not* be shown the same film cover again and again! The films should be cycled through completely before showing a film for the 2nd time.

 

Anyway, I'll just sit back, drink my coffee, and let my cute film die in the 200s again this week. 

[JennyLove]

And what if... Scores would be sum with weights. With the 'normal' votes the votes from own studio count more less, the own votes count the most less. So studio voting and supporting happy devs with buying votes still would count, but not as much as a nice cover gets from others.

Reward system is not good now. The rewards from BBA would be calculated from the collected scores, not (just) the final rank (or both together), so the goal would be not just fight for the top10-3, but for just scores and its rewards too. A good one would collect nice rewards despite of out of 10-3.

Or (and) two BBA with a paralell one, the other one like audience favorite, where the studio and own votes not count, just the others, with two rankings. The best result with rewards would count, so if sy buys the one, others would still clean win the other.

To reduce antivotes some cycle would be fine as Savannah said, dont get how some films show up significantly more frequent than others (with the assumed same percentage).

And of course, expand the drop out cutoff

[CaptC]

Everyone knows you are playing a freemium game, right?

 

My biggest complaint about the movie balloting system is it is unknown. But it also completely appropriate for the game developers to leave it up to the players to figure out the mechanics.

 

If you don't like the apparent first day cutoff, the appropriate studio response is to focus effort on the first day after reset, to get your movies voted for. 

 

I am in favor of changing the current cut down scheme to something understandable and easy:  If your movie can't get someone to vote for it during the last 24 hours, it is removed from the balloting. Not arbitrary limits on number of movies on certain days. Just an open competition between titles that garner votes regularly.

[Asstomic]

I'm going to be very blunt. The current voting system is shit. I wasn't even aware off the early cutoff, but it makes it even more shit.

 

There are possible fixes that would make BBA participation & voting much better :

- first, get rid of the "from your studio" info ; it just promotes nepotism and voting like a drone

- make custom titles accessible with notes (at a high premium, exact amount depending on your level ; i.e I'm 260+ now, custom title should be ~10 mil) - keep the diamond option for those who'd rather save notes and don't mind spending.

- give custom-titled films 2x exposure (yes you read it right, double!)

- remove vote refresh or make it 10x more expensive

- boost the rewards (top 100 = 10sp, top 50 = 20sp, top 10 = 50sp, podium = 100/150/200sp)

 

Of course, I realize this would cut into diamond expenses, so it'll probably never happen. What will likely happen instead is nothing will change, eventually nobody will give a rats' ass about BBA & voting anymore and it will cut into diamond expenses anyway.

[CaptC]

Almost every time this subject comes up, many of the suggestions simply fly in the face of the way humans work.

 

Most of the time, I see that people want to reduce the effect of money, yet they want to increase the rewards. Humans don't work that way. Increasing the rewards will just make money more interested in chasing them. The way to remove the money interests are to *remove* the rewards, not increase them. But completely aside from the effects on the game's revenue stream, who wants to compete in a contest without rewards? 

 

Soaking the rich always seems to be proposed ... but humans don't work that way, either. The players with budgets aren't really the issue, but now you will price them out. The players with effectively unlimited budgets are still going to buy what they want.

 

Game balance is best achieved by keeping the rewards that can be purchased within reasonable range of what motivated players can do without spending. Yes that means money can buy first place in the BBAs. You know you are playing a freemium game, right? It is completely and utterly legitimate for the game to work that way. It is the very business model of every single freemium game.

 

The 'player is in your studio' tag was specifically added at player request. Again, removing it flies in the face of how humans work. Players WANT to vote for their fellow studio mates.

[Asstomic]

That's all nice and dandy, CaptC, but instead of lecturing us on human psychology, why don't you come up with suggestions to improve the currently awful system?

 

Right now voting is 95% studio circle jerk, 5% rewarding creativity. How do you propose to fix that?

 

As for players WANTING to vote for their fellow studio mates (as an aside, I'll always vote for a creative title from another studio over a generated one from my own studio - but hey, maybe I'm not human), that's not a reason to make it easy for them to do so. The truth is, BBE is milking that by providing a refresh button that costs diamonds.

[Savannah]

I'll always vote for a creative title from another studio over a generated one from my own studio

 

100% agreed. You earn my vote based on your effort. It's just a damned shame that a lot of those players who *do* put in the effort are left by the wayside after a bad roll in the 1st day of new BBA.

[CaptC]

I made a proposal, Asstomic. Give me transparency and require titles to garner votes to stay in the competition. I am sorry you missed it, I posted it not very long ago.

 

> Right now voting is 95% studio circle jerk, 5% rewarding creativity. How do you propose to fix that?

 

You want the BBAs to be about creativity? There is only one way for that to happen. Someone has to pay disinterested people to judge the submitted movie covers.

 

There are no such competitions, anywhere, where the populace is allowed to vote for itself. There is that thing, "the way humans act", rearing it's ugly head again. If people can vote for themselves, or for their friends, they will... and now you have criteria other than creativity dominating the action again.

 

(What, you think the Oscars or the Emmys are about CREATIVITY? About QUALITY? Money and genre and studio influence/prestige and "who knows who" and "who blows who" and who won last year and a million other things, all matter at least as much as movie quality. If you think the Oscar voters affiliated with Disney aren't voting for Disney's films first, you just aren't paying attention.)

 

So how would I fix it? Tell me how it works, so I can compete more accurately.

 

Fix it so the most creative titles win? Not possible if players are voting. It is a waste of time and energy to try to get humans to act outside their own self interest.

[jancan]

not fixing it so only titles that are made and are fun not sick like bba  grandpa and grandpa  ones  fix it so no one can vote for their own films  o and one more  the dad ones  that is just  nasty  .      i do think it is ok to refresh  one time  if you do not like  the film titles .

                                                                                      

                                                                                                       just my thoughts .  have a nice day  

[Andrea6969]

The 'player is in your studio' tag was specifically added at player request. Again, removing it flies in the face of how humans work. Players WANT to vote for their fellow studio mates.

Ya ya, and even the refresh was a request of former players a very long time ago, when diamonds likely had less effect in the game in general, resp. the original idea was to just ignore two random covers: https://forum.uk.big...r-movie/?p=2661

The way they implemented this with unlimited refreshes is bullshit.

 

Players who are into mass-refreshing wanted to even make a temple competition out of it. A pathetic idea https://forum.uk.big...-and-the-bba/ 

I hope that never gets in the game.

 

We are players just like all others then and now so how about our player request to make it a fair single player competition and keep the studio stuff out of it?

[CaptC]

The earlier suggestion has been made to the developers.  I will be passing along the suggestions in this topic as well. Your views will be presented fairly.

 

I do have opinions about what they should implement, but the actual decision is not mine.