45 replies to this topic

[jasmine45]

Okay, so I am seeing a lot of passionate opinions and some interesting suggestions.  Bluefire, completely agree with transparency.  It would be nice to know how the process works.  It also requires no changes made to the game by just letting us know how things work instead of us guessing and chewing each other out over what may not be true. 

I’m going to propose a convoluted way to do film voting.  In the interest of rewarding creativity and culling the nepotism (only slightly because it can never be eliminated).  Short version: an awards academy narrows the field at the start of the week, leaving a smaller collection of quality films for the whole populace to vote on.

Let’s make an Academy.  We start with say ten people selected from all different studios, make sure we get a mix of top, mid and lower studios.  They get first look at all the films made that week.  Let them weed out the field a little.  They get to vote on anything except from their own studio.  Because they cannot vote for themselves – give them an incentive to being on the board, a reward.  After the academy narrows the field, the remaining films get voted on by everyone.  Let the academy members rotate each week. 

[Tasha]

Maybe It's about time films were spit into 2 sections, One for BBE titles the other for those who take the time, effort & imagination to come up with their own titles. How easy this would be to implement I've no idea, but might be worth thinking about.

    Tasha xx

[Eileendover]

Here's a suggestion that goes hand in hand with the new apartment decorating. Make available for a small amount of notes or diamonds (small enough anyone could manage) a poster frame for the apartment which would be on the main part of the wall. In this poster frame would always be displayed the star's current BBA submission. Also be sure any bugs are fixed concerning the viewing of apartments in both duels and just looking at a star. Basically, this is a way to promote your film without a big investment or without spamming and getting on people's nerves, lol This wouldn't effect things in a huge way, I am sure but it would be a nice way to personalize your pad and maybe have it have some effect on your gameplay.

 

The rest to me is mentality. It's only going to change if people change the way they think and do, which isn't likely. Ideally,, a dynamite cover should get the vote, hands down and forget everything else. I still think it would help to remove the 'from your studio' text entirely and possibly even the chance to reroll the ballot for diamonds

[CaptC]

I like that decoration suggestion a lot. 

 

(The rest, not so much.  LOL)

[Eileendover]

On cuts specifically, I think awareness would help. I would bet a lot of people have no idea that their cover can *stop being up for votes because it was ruled out at some point. When a cover is cut, the player should get a notification by mail that their cover is no longer being voted on. Maybe from there, we should consider if it would be a good idea to let them choose another from that week's batch.

 

And on the 'from your studio' thing, would it not be more appropriate to put studio name there instead? If 30 people from a studio can see a notice that the cover is from their studio, it's only right that everyone else can when it's from there too. Yes, that goes to down-voting and hopefully turns a lot of people off, but that's where we are.

Ultimately no one can tell you how to vote when the ballot pops up on your screen. If you want it to be about the best cover., choose the best cover. End of story. If enough people do that, it can turn the tide.

[Asstomic]

A fairly simple idea: automatically qualify all custom-titled movies to make the initial (monday) cut, even if they don't receive a vote on that fateful first day of voting.

 

Solves DP's original concern (the monday cut) while giving a slight reward to custom titles (and enticing others to do so as well).

I'm also assuming it would be a fairly trivial change to implement (i.e. it would only impact the server-side filter mechanic on the monday cut).

[uliana]

Something I'd like to see is a separation in the rankings for male and female films, since they are never directly pitted against each other. This would mean two winners a week, of course - one male and one female. 

[dparadise]

Hey all,

 

I've seen quite some activity, also some nice suggestions.

 

Indeed, the issue is not with the biased voting, can't stop it entirely. It's totally understandable, human nature when someone is competitive, but normal and almost impossible to rule out.

 

Even removing the 'from your studio' tag, won't entirely stop it. Most people know what their studio sends in, or know how the toons look. Cutting out the recycling of the 2 titles basically gives the same outcome, people vote for the ugliest cover lol.

 

I did see a very good point from Jenny early on. If it would be possible, heck I don't know, maybe a good challenge for the devs, but Cross-Server voting really got my vote as best idea. Nobody on a different server cares who wins. It's basically blind voting. And you can always vote for what you consider the nicest cover.

 

Also the male-female seperation might be an idea, as well as random cover/custom cover seperation. But this will bring a lot of rankings out there.

 

Transparency is very important, as well as extending the cutoff from day 1 to day 2 for example. If your awesome cover shows 1 or 2 times in that day, and people have to chose you over their own or from their studio, good luck to even survive the first day. 

[Bluefire]

Some great ideas coming out, for me, especially the idea of keeping custom titles/covers in the BBAs longer, after all, those are the ones that have had time and resources put into them and therefore deserve a better chance!  That also suggests having a separate competition for custom films to those random ones would make it much fairer on those who do put effort into the BBAs.

 

Another thought - Scrap the refresh altogether, but instead give the voter more covers to choose from.  Maybe have 10 films, and for the game to get an opportunity to get some money back, allow the voter to have one vote for FREE, but then additional votes say upto 5 or 6 others from those 10, at 5 diamonds or example each?  Perhaps even placing them, thus giving points rather than just a single vote?

 

Brilliant idea to have your film hanging on your apartment wall by the way!!!

[CaitlinCumgusher]

Hey Bluefire,

 

Well that was a complete flop, tried your funny title and a really bad cover to see what happens

 

 

Not sure who gave it 4 votes though

[CaptC]

So, success then?

 

There are some players who "always pick the left one". Bet there are at least four of them on your server.  LOL

[jancan]

i am skipping all vote missions  this time around  it's all just a set up  anyway  i know it's not going to help bba  make changes  but i must take a stand .

[jasmine45]

So a few of us have mentioned that crap covers seem to make it to the top ranks often and I think this is due to the anti-voting.

If we removed the weekly standings for at least the first few days people would have no incentive to vote for random ugly covers.

We could then show the full server rankings on the third day of the week. In the first three days you would be allowed to see where your studio mates rank.

[Mynx]

It's nice to see more people speaking up about the BBA system. There was a time I wanted to push for #1, but no matter what I did to my cover or my title, I never got it. It's a reason why these free games are known for being pay to win because you have to spend your real money to get anywhere to the top. If they do a cross server voting, I might give it another try that way I know people aren't buying diamonds to spend on refreshing to look for specific covers to vote for. 

[Amberson]

You still fared better than some of my custom covers that didn't make the initial cut, Caitlin.   Like this one that flopped with 1 vote... only to receive 51 votes and finish in the Top 100 on the retry.

 

 

 

And this is my favorite gem of an example – the same cover bombing with 0 votes the first time around, while two weeks later reaching 6th place with 173 votes.

 

 

 

 

That's why I've been repeatedly calling for the reform of the elimination process of covers. Either prolong the initial voting phase from 1 to 2-3 days and also let more covers stay in the competition during the weekend (to make it harder to influence the results through studio voting or diamonds for refreshes)... or don't make any cuts at all.

 

Right now, only the Top 100 covers are left in the running after the daily reset after Friday. Then throughout Saturday, there's another cut that brings the competition down to Top 75 covers and finally on Sunday it's just the Top 50 battling it out. So if on Sunday your cover is somewhere in there and you're a trust fund player stacked with diamonds... or if one studio has 10 active covers eligible to receive votes... then it's way easier for the individual/studio to influence the results then if there were still 200 covers in the rotation. In reality, the situation is even worse, because diamond investments can be combined with studio voting to achieve the desired result.

[Amberson]

Btw, since there's now also a solo Temple competition, maybe it's worth to revisit one of my previous proposals that would similarly split the BBAs into two separate races...

 

So I was thinking about how to bolster the individual aspect in the BBAs while also keeping the team competition going on. And here’s a new idea... How about splitting the current competition into two separate races? The main race would be an individual one. It would be based upon quality and its aim would be to select the best and most popular covers. This could be achieved through the implementation of my previous suggestions... Though what would be arguably even more effective would be to ban studio voting altogether.

However, in order to promote team effort and motivate people to engage in voting as much as possible, a new separate race with its own prizes would be introduced. Winners of this competition would be determined based upon quantity in the form of their overall voting effort. The more voting missions you do throughout the week, the more points your studio gets. It would basically be a permanent second Temple with the aim of doing ballot missions. An added bonus to this would be the extra incentive for the hundreds of smaller studios with only a few members to band together into bigger units with full and active rosters.

[jancan]

looking at this weeks bba only one custom made film in the top 50  today  bbe is always thinking of ways to milk us out of diamonds but remains clueless  to the fact of diamonds spent  from us making   funny film titles   WAKE UP BBE  i my self make my film titles every week  about the only thing i spend diamonds on  but getting a little tired  of seeing the same people win week after week with a stupid title we have seen a 1000 times. keep your grandma , grandpa and dad  films  off the list they had their fun  now it's our turn for  sex films 

                                                                                                   just my thoughts thanks for letting me vent  .

                                                                                                                                                                            hugs for all  

[Andrea6969]

looking at this weeks bba only one custom made film in the top 50  today  bbe is always thinking of ways to milk us out of diamonds but remains clueless  to the fact of diamonds spent  from us making   funny film titles   WAKE UP BBE  i my self make my film titles every week  about the only thing i spend diamonds on  but getting a little tired  of seeing the same people win week after week with a stupid title we have seen a 1000 times. keep your grandma , grandpa and dad  films  off the list they had their fun  now it's our turn for  sex films 

                                                                                                   just my thoughts thanks for letting me vent  .

                                                                                                                                                                            hugs for all  

I see currently at least six custom made titles in the top 50. Still should be much more.

 

But also two awful auto-generated covers in top 10 with covered faces by the title resp. layout. That's ridiculous and obviously a combination of studio allegiance and anti-votes.

 

I really don't like to vote for any auto-generated covers anymore but have no choice when I get two of them and I refuse to refresh the ballots.

The ballots should always show at least one custom made title. Maybe total five voting options instead two so the boring ones get still their fair chance.

 

And I'm kinda running out of design options for the covers. There aren't enough and I could do so much better if it would let me...

I think it's about time for a few new layouts, backgrounds, borders, supporting actors and fonts.

Also a reminder of the old suggestion to put other players (studio-mates and friend list) as supporting actor there. It could work alike the batteries with preliminary request so we still can avoid to land on unwanted covers. Their toons would come in their current "Film Cover" outfit - or if they don't have one,  in their current equipped outfit. And they'd cost a few more diamonds ~25 to use so BBE will be happy too.^^

[jancan]

today  only 3 good self maid film titles in top 50  as i say  all bba  maid titles that are so boring  take the top every week  

[Andrea6969]

today  only 3 good self maid film titles in top 50  as i say  all bba  maid titles that are so boring  take the top every week  

There are currently at least 7 self maid film titles in top 50, including yours and mine. Depends on what you consider as "good" lol, the tastes vary on that too.

The mass refresher studios have of course their prayers, taxi and mommies in top 10. They always vote for their own covers only, no matter how they look and all they read is the "From your Studio" tag, but surely no titles. So nothing will change as long as BBE let them.

We made suggestions how to change that, appeal to their rationality on voting, but I'm afraid we gonna have to deal with how it is and take proudly our rank ... well, anything between 15 and 680. Still better than a bought win.