Post by Zerori and Zriracha on Apr 7, 2021 1:20:45 GMT -5
I personally just want the auto-grader for XP back. How it returns is not particularly a problem to me! Zeni is nice but I find using the auto-grader Zeni is a bit underwhelming for how great it is.
That's my 2 cents because I like instant-gratification.
Again, not good with long drawn out paragraphs so:
I’m for the low XPPW bonus, mostly on the fact that off the top of my head I can’t think of a different way to achieve it, and I vote for 0.2. The purpose I had in mind was to just give those who naturally write longer posts an edge to stay competitive, without overshadowing the ‘main’ way of getting XP (posts), or providing a large temptation for padding and whatnot.
I’m very against reducing gains from actual posts. The purpose of my suggestion was to help boost the gains of longer writers so they don’t get ‘left behind’ and have a chance to actually be on top, not negatively affect others who aren’t as comfortable writing for as long.
There really isn't much for me to say aside from what has been said before. But I'll just give my quick general opinions.
I think that a hybrid between the two is a nice compromise for the system. Although personally, I think a reduced rate would be better for the post system as it helps those that post more and gives those that
The current issue I have with the system is that, yeah, like other people said more geared towards those that post fast. I don't have the energy to rapid-fire posts like many others can, and in addition to this my writing style generally just has me taking more time writing my posts which is another reason that I can't post as frequently. I feel that having something to reward those that post a bit more would be better, perhaps an incentive to write more than the bare minimum 200 words that are required.
As stated by some of the previous people, penalizing people for doing one on one threads is just not a good idea to be blunt. While it might not affect the site plot as a whole, certain one on one threads can affect a character's development which is just as important in my personal opinion. So to reduced the gains just because it doesn't affect the site as a whole seems a bit counterintuitive and something that I'm personally heavily against.
I don't have a fully formed or informed opinion about adding xp per word because I didn't get a chance to rp enough on the previous site, so that's a change I would have to see implemented before I could say how I felt about it. Others that have dealt with it have their own opinions so I'll defer to them as I'd be guessing. I don't like the idea of it, but that isn't helpful feedback.
That being said, I don't feel that longer posts need to be rewarded as much as the system scaled back or changed so speed posting and completing as many threads as fast as possible at once isn't rewarded so highly it is the "meta" to keep up only 3 weeks in. It isn't just posting a lot of smaller posts quickly but also completing as many threads as possible on top of being in so many at a time. 20% per completion is far from negligible, and when you are in that many threads as once it stacks up fast. I know it's been said a lot from mods about how many threads were left dead on previous iterations, but there are quite a few threads that feel rushed to finish to get that bonus. I've had a few threads where people exited rather suddenly as if to make sure the thread was completed at what felt like awkward spots, and one of those cases the person was pushing me to exit and let them turn the thread in to get it graded asap.
edit:
Removed my mention of subjective/quality grading as I saw mention in discord about it not being part of current plans so was a moot point. Also removed my chink of words about not at all liking lowering gains for 1v1 threads as it ended up sounding more like a rant than a suggestion or feedback which wasn't my intent. Oops. I will simply state that I hate everything about nerfing 1v1 threads as I personally dislike larger group threads from what I've experienced of them so far and much prefer more intimate threads with 2 people.
Personally, I’m quite against bringing back XPPW, even at a drastically reduced rate that has no bearing on quality. I don’t believe people would pad, but as Cassidy brought up previously, I don’t think it has a measurable enough impact to make a meaningful difference in the gains for slower posters. Additionally, not every slower poster makes large enough posts to take advantage of the bonus.
Malus could be explored a bit further when looking to make gains more consistent site-wide. I’m not really sure what changes could be made beyond the ones that already have, but perhaps something like reducing the XP interval between single and double malus could help.
Missed this while I was alseep but I feel as though I should probably throw in my own thoughts on the matter.
First of all, I want to clarify that, in my opinion, I think the current system for XP distribution is fine. Considering how far people have come in only three weeks, I think the current gains are acceptable. I'm not entirely sure what the nature of this feedback you received is---too much gain, not enough gain, having to wait for gains---so I will be making my assessment based on what points Nashua has put in front of me. I'll be going through them one by one below.
A flat, site-wide XPPW value is added to everyone at a value of 0.2 or 0.3, around there, (we're undecided and would like feedback) and so everyone will be very slightly gaining XP per word from each of their post to give benefit for those who go above and beyond in their efforts.
Autograding is fine for the most part. We already have it for Zenni gains; we're just switching the currencies around, essentially. But I need to be perfectly clear that whatever value you choose has to be static. The issue people had last time around was the fact that people within the same Malus tier (either they didn't have Malus or were in it) had vastly different modifiers, from 0.7 to 1.0 for people not in Malus. Should this modifier stay static, it accomplishes two things: 1) everyone is on the same playing field, 2) those who tend to write more get rewarded for their efforts.
The first issue here is that people will be getting vastly less XP per word than the current system up to a certain point. Right now, people writing the bare minimum of 200 words will receive 300 XP in a 1v1 thread. Under these two XPPW values, you would have to write 900-1500 words to gain the same amount of XP. I assume that is by design; reduce gains while having the benefit of instant XP reward instead of waiting.
The second issue is how would Malus then work? As far as I'm aware, the XPPW cannot go below 0.1, so if the XPPW is baseline 0.2, you would only be able to go down for 0.1 for Malus... and that's it, and all that's doing is effectively jusy cutting gains in half, which is probably no big deal to anyone. You wouldn't be able to go lower for Double/Triple Malus.
I would also like to take the time to address a point some people have made, past or present, though please bare in mind I am not disparaging anyone here. XPPW was never meant to take into account 'quality'. None of us here, myself included, are any sort of professional writers and thus none of us are in any sort of position to judge the quality of anyone else's posts. Nashua has made the point clear: "Rewarding effort". Quantity may not equal quality, but it does equal effort. Why? Because 800 words of fluff is still 800 words of someone putting in the effort of thinking what to write and jotting it down on paper. Padding may be an issue but that is precisely why we have systems such as Malus and Anti-Grind in place. However, that's for the staff to decide. There is no perfect system.
People will still earn flat XP on each of their posts. The rate may either remain the same, or be slightly reduced from 300/400/500 to something like 250/350/450 or 200/300/400. We are undecided and would like feedback.
If anything, the current values should remain the same. No one likes seeing themselves nerfed (as evident by every WoW player in existence at one time or another, RIP Survival Hunter). However, again, I have no idea if the feedback has anything to do with people getting too much XP so I will take this at face value. If we do indeed need a nerf, then I'm fine with it.
Thread completion bonuses will remain. XP earned through the autograder will not be taken into account when the completion bonus is applied, it will be calculated the same as it has been, because including word counts would be ridiculously tedious for us and make threads take ten times longer to be graded.
This does confuse me a little. Currently, Completion Bonus is calculated as 10% of the amount of XP was gain per post based on the number of participants (e.g. 10% of 6 posts at 300 XP each = 180 bonus XP). If we're moving to autograder, how would this work? Would the XP per participant remain in place but act as a bonus ontop of gains? Then, for 1v1 threads, would that extra 300 XP give a 10% bonus for a final 330 XP upon completion?
Zeni would be shifted over to something awarded on thread completion, as we're not sure we'd be able to have two autograders running separate systems at once. If anyone does know how to do this, we would appreciate the help!
As the MonetarySystem and WordCounter plugins stand, that is impossible to do. You would need to essentially duplicate every field and value of both systems in order to have two separate currency systems going at two separate rates applied by two separate inputs. Unless anyone here has an immense amount of knowledge about JavaScript and can be able to do this, or even have to overhaul the entire plugin, it's not gonna happen.
But as explained above, it would be easy enough to switch around Zenni and XP so that Zenni works through grading and XP works through autograding. I'm fine with either way.
For my own opinion on the matter, I'm perfectly fine with how the system works right now. However, I must admit that I have some form of bias. Having been around as long as I have, most of the RP sites I have frequented have had no plugins; it was the early days of the internet and forum RPing in general, back then. Everything was done manually.
The only thing I would want out of this is, while admitting to bias once more, people getting more gains for their effort over people putting in the minimum. People are worried about incentivizing padding or promoting mass WC grinding but, right now, we're incentivizing and promoting doing the bare minimum for posts because anything more than that rewards us with nothing other than the satisfaction that we can type more. Between the two evils of "padding" and "minimalism", I know which I would choose.
But again, that's my opinion on the matter based a little on my own bias of someone who likes to write.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Last Edit: Apr 7, 2021 6:21:39 GMT -5 by Saizomaru
I have not been around here for long so I am not exactly sure how much my word weighs on this. While I do personally enjoy the system itself I can tell there are flaws, too. I would lie if I said I only have interaction in mind, of course, progress is something that's very fascinating due to its very RPG roots. But of course we have the course where we are treating this like a game: there are features, bugs and outright shortcuts. Much like everyone else here has stated in a different form or matter.
But I feel like both systems are really flawed in the end that we could end up discussing it all night long. I do not have anything against having XPPW, personally. I'll still roleplay as I am doing. I feel like if you really wanted to keep the Flat XP per post, you'd need to take in account for something: time.
You could fix the problems for Flat XP per Post if you took in consideration how many X posts an user is doing in Y amount of time and the Z word length of those posts. You could say we need some kind of 'cooldown malus'? It takes nothing to write 200 words for anyone in here I believe. If we have a member really abusing this, then he could be put through the Cooldown Malus.
Much like Saizomaru said, you'd need to have some JavaScript knowledge to make this an automatic process in conjunction. Especially if you want to keep the Zeni autograder, too. But I do not believe it's necessary to really go on with a total overhaul of an already existing plugin to do so; for trust me, it is never easy to understand and change somebody else's code. Much else if you don't have the source code. Then you'd have to take in consideration reverse engineering, assembly and etc.
Even if you manage to get your hands on the source code you may want to replace deprecated code (I doubt ProBoards would remove compatibility but deprecated code is usually not as performing as new one) or they weren't even careful in making their code understandable for others who would want to edit it.
If I remember correctly, none of those plugins really give any source code. Or allow you to edit it from the admin panel. I could be wrong, but the overhaul itself is not possible, in that case. If you really want to accomplish an extra function, then you'd have to add a third component (a new plugin/script that works off what we already have). If you're interested about the nerdy answer, just click the spoiler but I don't think anyone will care unless they like coding or would like to actually try their hand at this.
You'd do so by making CURRENCY X (which is given by autograder at the moment here under the form of Zeni) something the user cannot see but is stored in the ProBoards User Key (these plugins work by just storing numbers in your accounts). So far, no changes or no edits to the existing plugin. Let's just say I take Zeni, rename it into CURRENCY X and make it hidden from your profiles.
Each plugin, when you create a new one, allows you to create a new Key for your site. It can be global or private, but the latter is all that's needed to do so. You can create an XP and a Zeni key from this.
Then you code that the new script takes CURRENCY X stored in a profile and all it takes is basically elaborate it through two different lines of code (or one if you want to grade XP and Zeni in the same way) and then store it into the respective new Keys that are XP and Zeni.
Then I just do some HTML code to make the forum display those new XP and Zeni Keys from my third component.
I admit however I don't want staff members having to copy entire threads into their docs or into a Create Post window to check how many words a thread really is long. I feel like this website works well because there's an active staff body and I don't think making their job any heavier would be a wise idea. At least you'd want to have a staff-only view of how many words in total have been written into one thread by each account (again, more nerd coding stuff).
Ultimately I will say that I do not mind XPPW. I just wanted to offer some insight on a possible solution for both Flat XP per Post and the autograder(s) matter.
I'm harshly against cutting gains on 1 on 1 threads. Not only will this make people feel more obligated to join 3 person threads just to get just rewards, but also probably lead to more irritation over slower posting. People who post more slowly and also enjoy 1 on 1s instead of constantly being in group threads will also needlessly suffer.
Why are you against cutting 1 on 1 gains because you don't want people to feel obligated to join 3 person threads just to get rewards, but okay with people feeling obligated to write a certain amount of words just to keep up?
Nashua has made the point clear: "Rewarding effort". Quantity may not equal quality, but it does equal effort. Why? Because 800 words of fluff is still 800 words of someone putting in the effort of thinking what to write and jotting it down on paper. Padding may be an issue but that is precisely why we have systems such as Malus and Anti-Grind in place. However, that's for the staff to decide. There is no perfect system.
This is kind of my point in a nutshell. Post length does not mean effort. If we need to dredge past examples from our other iterations, we can find a plethora. Putting down 800 words doesn't necessarily mean you're thinking with the same amount of effort that someone putting down 500 words does. It just doesn't. Want me to describe a table to you that I cribbed and reworded from an ikea review? Do you want to read that for 300 words in my reply to you, or would you rather read something for 100 words that matters to your character? Which has more effort involved?
To the idea of rewarding thoughtful writers vs fast grindy posters, I disagree. I'm posting at about the same tempo I did on other sites, and in about the same number of threads, and I've already gained plenty. The fact is, if you create an XPPW, you won't be rewarding the slow-but-long-post writers, you'll be rewarding the fastest gainers who will simply pad posts. We've seen it before. There are literally years of evidence.
A flat rate even as small as 0.3 would absolutely mean a return to people creating internal word targets. The grinders will regularly make 1000 word posts. People will feel compelled to grind. This has all happened before. A smaller rate just means they'll feel compelled to grind harder. Posts won't be increased in quality, but it will allow the grinders to expend a little bit of extra time writing filler so that they can overcome maluses intended to slow them down and keep the site healthy.
The most active, the most frequent posters, will always be at the top of the site. XPPW will just give them that more of an edge. For those who aren't as active posting in other threads, who appreciate more slow RP, just be prepared not to be as strong as some people, because that's just the reality of the site in any format. Most people aren't going to be among the strongest in a fair system that measures any kind of participatory output.
But there are things staff can do to help those who can't post as much keep up or catch up -- this includes LMB and SMM, in different forms. So far, we've yet to even institute an LMB. It usually works in conjunction with SMM, and helps those who post less frequently keep within range. LMB would be a much better solution to helping those who can't post as often.
For those who want this just for the sake of some kind of ethereal compromise, I'd ask to hold back from that urge. The site is very young, the staff worked very hard on it. Three weeks is an eyeblink and it's much too soon to have any kind of change, even the ones like 1-1's gain ratio which I think are probably going to be needed (but that's a topic for another thread, in the future).
This is the first time that any kind of iteration has not had a wordcounter, and so far, from my judgment, it's working incredibly well. Do the most frequent posters gain the most? Yeah, but they always have. Except now, they can't control how much more they can gain, by dumping out a huge amount of words and copy-pasting the other thread particpant's posts after running them through a thesaurus. Is that the kind of site we want to return to, where people have anxiety about hitting 1000 word targets, etc? Do we want people working with robots (the autograder), or people working with people?
Post length does mean effort, however. If person A writes 200 words and Person B writes 800, the person who wrote 800 put more effort in. There is nothing to look into here, it's just what happened. And yet the person who wrote the 200 will move on and write two more posts in the same time it took Person B to finish their own, and at the end they receive the same reward for the thread yet person A will end up excelling due to the way the current system works, as they have more posts under their belt in other threads.
I feel that keeping the XPPW low, to a 0.2/0.3 degree, is actually a deterrent to grinding or filling posts. It's small enough an amount that those who don't normally write as much yet attempt to pad will find themselves either burning out or realising the effort they put in isn't worth it, as it takes a lot extra to push past one's comfort zone. Meanwhile, those who naturally write longer posts will reap rewards because they're used to writing in that fashion.
I'm harshly against cutting gains on 1 on 1 threads. Not only will this make people feel more obligated to join 3 person threads just to get just rewards, but also probably lead to more irritation over slower posting. People who post more slowly and also enjoy 1 on 1s instead of constantly being in group threads will also needlessly suffer.
Why are you against cutting 1 on 1 gains because you don't want people to feel obligated to join 3 person threads just to get rewards, but okay with people feeling obligated to write a certain amount of words just to keep up?
And why are you okay with cutting 1 on 1 gains if that then has correlation to 'needing a certain amount of words to keep up' despite the proposed suggestion being a rather small bonus for consistent longer posting and not just a way to easily grind?
Post length does mean effort, however. If person A writes 200 words and Person B writes 800, the person who wrote 800 put more effort in. There is nothing to look into here, it's just what happened. And yet the person who wrote the 200 will move on and write two more posts in the same time it took Person B to finish their own, and at the end they receive the same reward for the thread yet person A will end up excelling due to the way the current system works, as they have more posts under their belt in other threads.
I feel that keeping the XPPW low, to a 0.2/0.3 degree, is actually a deterrent to grinding or filling posts. It's small enough an amount that those who don't normally write as much yet attempt to pad will find themselves either burning out or realising the effort they put in isn't worth it, as it takes a lot extra to push past one's comfort zone. Meanwhile, those who naturally write longer posts will reap rewards because they're used to writing in that fashion.
To demonstrate why I disagree, here's a 300-word post I absolutely created but spent absolutely no effort on whatsoever:
Onnio looked at the tough sword in his hands and felt proud.
He walked over to the window and reflected on his dangerous surroundings. He had always loved dusty Planet Plant with its burnt, broad buildings. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel proud about being a Saiyan.
Then he saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the figure of Dolando . Dolando was a tempermental brute with strong legs and pineapple arms.
Onnio gulped. He glanced at his own reflection. He was a sly-fighting saiyan with skinny legs and taut arms. His friends saw him as this, but his secret was that he could transform into a mammoth monkey. Once, he had even brought a baby saibadog back from the brink of death.
But not even a sly person who had once brought a baby saibadog back from the brink of death, was prepared for what Dolando had in store today.
The sun shone like the scales of a rampaging saiba monster, making Onnio grumpy.
As Onnio stepped outside and Dolando came closer, he could see the easy glint in his eye.
"I am here because I want revenge," Dolando bellowed, in a dangerous tone. He slammed his fist against Onnio's chest, with the force of 6071 kangaroo. "I frigging hate you, Onnio ."
Onnio looked back, even more grumpy and still fingering the tough sword. "Dolando, I am the greatest Saiyan," he replied.
They looked at each other with angry feelings, like two scary, stale saiba cat fighting at a very powerful battle, which had saiba-jazz music playing in the background and two skillful uncles flying to the beat.
Onnio regarded Dolando's strong legs and lean arms. He held out his hand. "Let's not fight," he whispered, gently.
"Hmph," pondered Dolando.
"Please?" begged Onnio with puppy dog eyes.
Dolando looked gleefully, his body blushing like a blaster.
Then Dolando came inside for a nice drink of saiyan beer.
THE END
I can make a 3,000 or 10,000 word post within the same amount of effort and time involved (nothing). Do people use robots to puff their words up? I don't know. I think they have in the past, as a kind of library of content to draw on. People have absolutely copypasted other people's posts in the past, regularly, to buff their gains. But my point is, post length doesn't equal effort and XPPW doesn't reward effort either. It rewards grinders and people who target WC rather than trying to make a good post.
You shouldn't be writing longer posts because you expect some kind of reward. You should be writing longer posts because it fits the situation, your style, or you just want to.
Why are you against cutting 1 on 1 gains because you don't want people to feel obligated to join 3 person threads just to get rewards, but okay with people feeling obligated to write a certain amount of words just to keep up?
And why are you okay with cutting 1 on 1 gains if that then has correlation to 'needing a certain amount of words to keep up' despite the proposed suggestion being a rather small bonus for consistent longer posting and not just a way to easily grind?
Because rewarding multiple participants involves others, while making longer posts does not. 1-1 threads require much less effort to maintain (collectively) and can be used by grinders to game. By participating in exclusively (or mostly) 1-1 threads, a grinder can control the pacing.
For a grinder, even a 0.3 XPPW would be nice. For 1000 words of fluff they could have double the gains of the bottom. For two thousand, they could have triple. It would give someone in malus or double-malus the ability to grind through the malus by putting out words. We have many examples of people doing this. It will absolutely happen if any amount of XPPW is implemented.
Whether or not my opinion on the XPPW side of it is wrong or not is up to you, but regardless of that punishing the most popular format of RP because that can maybe stop a grinder is stupid. What happens when a grinder has two friends and they word to grind away on a three-person thread? Do we nerf gains again for those? And then four?
People writing longer posts because it's their style is the reason I put the suggestion up in the first place. No one should be punished for having a longer style of writing, and I do say punished because the fact of the matter is that XP is as a valuable resource and they receive less of it in comparison for more and/or the same amount of work.
Not to mention your claims, which to me seem to be... pretty straw manned. And if those did happen, I'd expect there to be comeuppance. But this isn't about punishment or the possibility of cheating, whatsoever. If that example did happen, I stand by rewarding it. People here do tend to try and put effort into their posts, and while the quality of the posts varies with one's capability as a writer, the fact remains the same that they did put effort in. Which is the whole point. People may claim otherwise, which is fair, but that's how I see it
Hey guys, I'm going to lock this thread for now, as I feel it's mostly just going to be people going back and forth without their opinions changing much at this point. That being said, all this feedback has been very helpful to us, and we've crafted a system based on this one using all of your suggestions that we think is a solid compromise. Stay tuned for details on that later today!