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Old 10-26-2020, 11:08 AM   #1
Emi
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Pumpkaboo Adventures and Rewards: A Discussion Moving Forward

Hey everyone! This is a discussion I've brought up a few times that should happen, and figured it was probably best to finally bite the bullet and bring it up myself. My apologies if the mods or the ZAs already had plans to do this.

The principle reason why I am doing this is because of a general consensus that I've seen, both through people directly stating it and through the number of suggestions that have been made for different features, and most importantly, shops for various reasons. For a while, and this is my personal take on the situation, the consistent theme has been that when there is some manner of discomfort with the speed of progression in FB, the solution is to introduce a shop. For myself, who generally believes that the core conceit of FB is adventuring, this has made myself rather uncomfortable. But I do think despite that it is a good idea to have suggestions on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to FB.

I'm going to bring up a number of topics and my own, personal, recommendations on what to do, but those are not meant to be the focal point of the discussion, but rather the topics themselves...I think I'm falling a bit too much into mod speak lol.

What should the relationship between adventure size and adventure rewards be?

During the time where myself, Marion Ette, and Ex-Admiral Insane were mods, we did actually attempt to try and codify some general guidelines for adventure length, and even the idea that zones might be explicitly defined to cater towards certain length adventures. That's around here, somewhere, but to paraphrase and summarize: the idea was that there could be short, medium, and long length adventures. Unfortunately, I'm not actually sure anyone has an idea on what the average length of an adventure in FB truly is, even amongst updators. So while I think the general consensus is that adventures should reward more the longer they take, we don't actually know what constitutes a "long" adventure.

This is one of those questions that I imagine is being answered in the Updator's Guide that has been in production since the beginning of time, but I do think some community discussion on this is good. How much should rewards vary with the length of the adventure? How much should the length of an adventure actually vary?

I don't have anything personally to say here, because this is more a discussion of general guidelines that don't really exist and probably something that might demand some kind of data collection over the last few years.

How much of a factor should time play on Adventure Rewards?

This is something that I've brought up at least a couple of times. Even if adventures are the same length (let's say 10 updates) one adventure might go on for much longer than the other, for a number of reasons. The updatee may not reply regularly, the updator might not update regularly, or both. This is something that has been noted fairly regularly when talking about how much of a focus adventures should have in FB: that progression for someone might be halted if none of their adventures are moving.

I am personally of the opinion that in the event that an updator is notably tardy, the updatee should gain some sort of compensatory bonus for the extra time. If both adventures are the same length, same general difficulty and structure, and both pay the same rewards despite one going one for much longer thanks to an updator, I don't believe that's particularly fair, and rather notably, is a great way to actually lose enthusiasm for adventuring. I know the platonic ideal is that no one is motivated by rewards to adventure, but that will never be the case.

Should adventures be more generous?

Another thing to talk about is the actual amount of rewards adventures give. A lot of the concerns about FB becoming a shop simulator I think are actually inherently rooted in this problem rather than often with the actual shops. It may be that adventures simply do not allow progression at a good rate, and may need to be adjusted to make things fair. Ultimately, most of the updators currently updating we're also part of TessFB, including all of our ZAs and mods (with maybe the exception of TKF, I'm not sure on that). TessFB was notably very, very tight fisted with rewards, and I would personally like to move away from that, and I'm not sure how much that previous culture bleeds into our own.

I do think adventures should be more generous. I believe in our current state, the ideal balance is not actually met. Adventures and shops are both currently vital to use for progression, in a way that I'm not sure is a good thing. Ideally, shops are only supplemental to progression with adventures being the primary source of progression, because FB is inherently a game whose core conceit is adventure focused RP.

Memakyu and Self-Interest

This is another topic that has been bounced around a few times. Breeding is very popular in Fizzy Bubbles because its often a guaranteed way to get a Pokemon you want, compared to eggs and to a certain extent, adventuring. I do not believe currently there are any written down guidelines towards how to use Memakyu as an updator. There were some informal proclamations made a few times that updators should generally consider a person's Memakyu when deciding on adventure rewards. But to what extent? As a mod, there was a hesitancy to say strongly in one direction due to the desire to want to preserve updator choice.

In addition, a related topic has to come with specific adventure rewards. For example, currently, the best way to get something like a Mega Stone / Z-Crystal is...the Watt Shop. This isn't to rain on Raids, but it is basically because there have never been strong guidelines on how to distribute these as rewards in adventures. Similar situations have happened in the past with topics such as Shadow Pokemon.

What I personally feel is two-fold: the first is that we should never mandate the use of Memakyu for updators. I still very strongly believe in the idea that updators have full rights to choose regardless of Memakyu the rewards that fit the adventure the best.

BUT, I do think it is a good idea to finally break the taboo of people asking for specific rewards, until the caveat that we actually do need a way of doing it. To outline how I think it should go is that we should make it clear that an updatee and an updator can in fact discuss rewards in a respectful manner to each other. It should also be made clear that an updator is the only with the ultimate choice: they do not have to say yes to a request, that requests should be respectful, and ideally, made as early as possible. While I may sympathize with a person who may not like a perceived reward, I do not personally feel completely comfortable with the idea that is a viable way of dealing with it.

What should be given as rewards for an adventure?

As this is just a broad discussion point I think I can just lead with my own personal thoughts: basically anything that is currently obtainable in FB, with some stricter guidelines on specific rewards. Levels, Eggs, TMs, TRs, Mega Stones, Z-Crystals, Evolution Items, Wishing Pieces, Pokeballs, Rare Candies, and Pokemon of all sorts. There are stuff that I think will likely need oversight for: I am for some Custom Items being given as rewards, as often many of them just sit and never see the light of day again, and I'm for Shiny and Shadow Pokemon as rewards for adventures, but I do believe that those should be ZA approved, and in particular for the latter, might be restricted to specific length adventures.

There are some things that I would like to see in adventures but likely cannot be done in a satisfactory way, such as Move Tutors. If you spend six months and a whole adventure to learn two or three MT moves, that's not worth it.

How should adventure rewards be distributed?

This is probably the final topic unless I remember things that I don't know I've forgotten, and this is something that has come up in the past as well. Currently, adventures are very back-loaded: you get all of your rewards, with the exception potentially of levels, at the very end of your adventure. You do get Pokedollars and Bond throughout, but there is currently some fairly decent criticism of that system so I'm not sure that is satisfactory.

I think personally we should change this line of thinking. It would be a good incentive to adventure should rewards gradually be sprinkled through an adventure, especially one that is meant to be very long, or that is taking a while. Obviously that brings into question of "what rewards should be gradually given" and the practical part of my brain would initially say that fairly minor ones, like berries and such and maybe up to TMs should the adventure make room for it. This is I think at least a fairly controversial point though.




All right, this post is already fucking massive enough as it is and I'm personally getting tired of hearing myself speak so have at ye. Nothing here, to remind, should be taken as "let's definitely do this." While I may think strongly on a certain option, the point is to discuss various options and the legitimacy of the questions themselves.
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Old 10-26-2020, 11:48 AM   #2
myahoo
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Here’s the original post about adventure length vs rewards. I’ll post more/give more thoughts when I can get to my computer.

---

Alright, so I'm gonna preface this by saying that I originally "learned" to update during Tess Era and that I haven't actually updated an adventure to completion yet. I've done updating for Phantom Isle, which I was assigned to, and Cortoza, which I chose. I'm contributing here and not elsewhere because 1. this conversation's still beginning and 2. I don't really feel like I have much to contribute to the other conversations that hasn't already been tread.


What should the relationship between adventure size and adventure rewards be?
I definitely agree that longer adventures should give out greater rewards and shorter adventures fewer, but I would also be absolutely interested in trial-running ME's proposal from back then. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if anyone really knows how fast they move an adventure along? Unless they track the updates like I do or someone actually goes through various adventures to average it out.


How much of a factor should time play on Adventure Rewards?
Honestly, I think it's fair if the updatee is compensated for updator delays if the updator didn't drop a message/tell people that they'll be busy/taking a break/RL is kicking their ass/etc. As in, for the two adventures I'm trying to finally wrap up after like years, I'm definitely planning to give them extras for being patient with me and pulling through all my random-ass absences.


Should adventures be more generous?
So, like I said above, I started updating under Tess Era, which means I'm still very nervous about giving "excessive" rewards. And also have no idea how to uh match effort to reward because you kinda...got left to your own devices after getting assigned a zone. Or, at least, I did.

I think I do have to agree with Emi about adventures being more generous, even if it's only from my very limited perspective of mostly events with a few incomplete adventures. Granted, most of those adventures were from TessB, but in my 3-year, 52-post CG adventure (which likely would've gone on longer if I hadn't taken about a year off and consisted of...about 2/3 separate adventures and 2 trial challenges), I ended up with 2 badges, 1 capture, 6 TMs, $500, 1 item, and 34 levels. Which, now that it's all together like that, is...making me wonder what the average total rewards are for other people.

...I think I'll leave my two cents on this one there for now.


Memakyu and Self-Interest
Honestly, I would've loved to be able to ask my updatees what they wanted out of an adventure when they posted an intro, even if they stated an aim in their post or just said "surprise me". Why I didn't, I guess, ties back to the whole TessB-"if you ever say what you want, then you'll never get it", along with, I guess, the impression I got that updators have to kinda figure things out on their own?

I mean, I dunno if people remember, but Mask did this for me back when I wanted to introduce my second character and 1. it was absolutely amazing of him to do that and 2. just because I knew what I was going to end up with didn't make the adventure any less fun or interesting. It might be kinda cliché of me to say this, but FB has always kinda been about the journey for me, not the end, though I dunno how many people would agree with me on that.

...which, now that I think about it, kinda contradicts what I said up there doesn't it. But, I guess for me, I want to be generous when I update (which is probably more on me right now than anything) and enjoy the adventure when I reply.


What should be given as rewards for an adventure?
I basically agree with the list Emi posted for this question and admit that it'd be nice to get a greater variety of things at higher likelihoods through adventures instead of shops. There's some things that I plan to get through shops because of order reasons and things I'd like to get through adventures for RP/character development/struggle reasons, so I'm prioritizing order at the moment, which is why I'm not using my second adventure slot.

I'm willing to believe that Custom Items and Shiny/Shadow Pokémon might need ZA approval, but would also like to point out that needing approval might just end up leaving those options by the wayside as too much hassle.


How should adventure rewards be distributed?
While I was looking over my CG adventure to collate rewards, I noticed that most/all of my rewards were given out basically upon completion of a task. Levels after battles, items at the 'end' of the adventure, TMs after the trials. I'm not sure that there's any better way to distribute rewards without making it...I guess, break narrative immersion? Even one of my item rewards from an adventure had me going "huh...", but maybe that's just me.

---

And I'm gonna wrap up there because this is probably the most I've ever talked in here, like ever.

Last edited by myahoo; 10-26-2020 at 02:08 PM. Reason: actually answering
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Old 10-27-2020, 07:53 AM   #3
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I get the intent of this post and appreciate you making it Emi, but I think some of the sweeping statements about rewards being unbalanced due to a ‘culture bleed’ are a bit unfair.

Talking both personally and based on discussion with other updaters I can say that there’s a tonne of thought into the rewards that go into adventures and ensuring they are distributed at regular intervals and worth the time that goes into them.

There aren’t many hard and fast rules when it comes to rewards – what they are and how they are given is down to the updater’s discretion, which is why they have been seeing a gradual increase in value and frequency over the years. I got to experience this first hand upon returning, and it’s something I welcomed and quickly adapted to as an updater.

There’s still certainly some element of restraint to ensure that rewards feel well earnt and story appropriate, and it’s ultimately up to the updater to ensure they are striking this balance.

It is no secret that back-loading has been an issue in the past, largely because updaters often struggle to see an adventure through from start to finish which can leave updatees emptyhanded – but it’s something I have seen updaters trying to curb, having levels earned more regularly and having Pokemon/items given early or in the middle of an adventure. That being said, it does make sense for some rewards to be saved until the conclusion of an adventure, that’s how rewards work in any old RPGs and video games.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Emi View Post
I am personally of the opinion that in the event that an updator is notably tardy, the updatee should gain some sort of compensatory bonus for the extra time. If both adventures are the same length, same general difficulty and structure, and both pay the same rewards despite one going one for much longer thanks to an updator, I don't believe that's particularly fair, and rather notably, is a great way to actually lose enthusiasm for adventuring.
I get this is a pain point but I’m not a fan of the solution, it feels like a compensation package – if your adventure has been sporadic and plot didn’t really get that far I don’t think a payout is going to fix the underlying issue. I feel the rewards should be based on effort and effort alone. Your adventure might be sat in limbo but you can’t exactly claim you deserve more from it when you haven’t put in the same amount of hours as someone with a faster paced adventure. I think it’s better we focus on the root of the issue, ensuring updatees are moving at a satisfying pace / picked up if their updater leaves, than the symptom.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Emi View Post
BUT, I do think it is a good idea to finally break the taboo of people asking for specific rewards, until the caveat that we actually do need a way of doing it. To outline how I think it should go is that we should make it clear that an updatee and an updator can in fact discuss rewards in a respectful manner to each other. It should also be made clear that an updator is the only with the ultimate choice: they do not have to say yes to a request, that requests should be respectful, and ideally, made as early as possible. While I may sympathize with a person who may not like a perceived reward, I do not personally feel completely comfortable with the idea that is a viable way of dealing with it.
You of course strive to give people what they want but I loathe the idea of updatees making direct requests and setting expectations like that right off the bat. I’d frankly rather not update if the game steers too much in that direction, and adventures become about fulfilling the updatees' wants in as plain terms as necessary.

From an updatee perspective, I already feel the Memakyu breaks the illusion / takes some of the surprise out of adventures and I know I’m not alone in this. That being said, I think you're onto something when it comes to talking more generally about what we're looking for in adventures whether that be specifying the length (in regards to Marion's proposal), broader objectives or preferred genres.

I like the way Myahoo and SpinyShell approached this recently in New Fizz, both entering an appropriate location to find what they were looking for and making it clear in character that this is what they were hoping for. Both have received these rewards since – Custom Pokeballs and a new Pokemon, respectively – and I think it’s fine to go about requests with this etiquette.

Something which hasn’t really been mentioned is that effort comes down to more than just word count and post frequency – there’s the less tangible factors like creativity and strategy in the face of certain situations. This is another reason why it’s hard to discuss rewards with someone on the offset, there needs to be some flexibility.

---

I'd like to go into more detail on this, particularly the questions raised – but much of what I was going to say has been covered in the updater guide, which has been fully drafted for a few weeks and is undergoing some internal review, granted it’s obviously a busy month for the mods.

I feel the responsibility ultimately falls on the updaters to ensure that updatees are having a fulfilling experience in their adventures and I do feel that’s the primary objective of most updaters. I can talk from personal experience that in the adventures I’ve been updating and participating in, there has been some form of reward around every 2-3 updates which have included everything from levels and Pokemon to custom items to Z-Crystals so I'm not sure if several of these points have been addressed already in the past few years. I'd like to know if there's any particular examples of unbalance that came to mind in drawing this post up, as I’m not across what every updater is doing in FB.

Please note these are my personal opinions on the matter and I’m not speaking for the wider ZA team. I guess the crux of what I'm saying is that while agree it’s good to be less reliant on shops and that zones could be doing more to help with that, I do think there's already a some effort being made to address these issues - without going as far as turning zones into vending machines / shoppifying them too.
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Last edited by Emp; 10-27-2020 at 12:14 PM.
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Old 10-27-2020, 12:42 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Emp View Post
I get the intent of this post and appreciate you making it Emi, but I think some of the sweeping statements about rewards being unbalanced due to a ‘culture bleed’ are a bit unfair.
I'm extremely curious about what exactly you're talking about here, because I think you read some intent to my words that was not actually there. If you can elaborate that would be great, but I want to make clear here than my intent is not to denigrate any current updator: I was in fact a mod, and these topics unfortunately sat at a pretty intense backburner behind other topics.

Quote:
Talking both personally and based on discussion with other updaters I can say that there’s a tonne of thought into the rewards that go into adventures and ensuring they are distributed at regular intervals and worth the time that goes into them.
I think that has always been true, because it's very rare that people start an adventure thinking they are going to be miserly with rewards. But we all work under different assumptions and past experiences, especially given the history of FB, and it is good to stand and examine this.

Quote:
There aren’t many hard and fast rules when it comes to rewards – what they are and how they are given is down to the updater’s discretion, which is why they have been seeing a gradual increase in value and frequency over the years. I got to experience this first hand upon returning, and it’s something I welcomed and quickly adapted to as an updater.

There’s still certainly some element of restraint to ensure that rewards feel well earnt and story appropriate, and it’s ultimately up to the updater to ensure they are striking this balance.
If a conclusion is come to, it's not going to fall outside of the realm of a guideline. I agree there should be no hard and fast rules, in fact I think you might find that's more of what I'm arguing against.

This is something that never actually got dutifully addressed as a mod. There were always other problems to tackle, such as elections, difficulties in getting together as a large group, some activity problems on the part of myself and others.

Quote:
It is no secret that back-loading has been an issue in the past, largely because updaters often struggle to see an adventure through from start to finish which can leave updatees emptyhanded – but it’s something I have seen updaters trying to curb, having levels earned more regularly and having Pokemon/items given early or in the middle of an adventure. That being said, it does make sense for some rewards to be saved until the conclusion of an adventure, that’s how rewards work in any old RPGs and video games.
What I personally would like to see is a more explicit understanding that this should ideally be the path forward. Again, we don't actually disagree here that some rewards should be saved until the end. I do think it's great this has been moving on the updator side of things, but it will of course always help both new updators to be clear on the matter.

Quote:
I get this is a pain point but I’m not a fan of the solution, it feels like a compensation package – if your adventure has been sporadic and plot didn’t really get that far I don’t think a payout is going to fix the underlying issue. I feel the rewards should be based on effort and effort alone. Your adventure might be sat in limbo but you can’t exactly claim you deserve more from it when you haven’t put in the same amount of hours as someone with a faster paced adventure. I think it’s better we focus on the root of the issue, ensuring updatees are moving at a satisfying pace / picked up if their updater leaves, than the symptom.
I think a key misunderstanding here is that I'm not suggesting this as the only solution to the problem. Not that I think this is a problem that can be fully cured in the first place, you can't make updators perfectly consistent at their job because we're all human and have important lives outside of FB. But I do think that the symptom is bad enough it warrants this. We should both focus on the problem and alleviate the symptom. Ideally, this doesn't actually come up too often because our efforts to fix the problem have worked, but I do think that understanding this time difference that can happen is important.

Also to make another point here because I want to state that this isn't a problem I've personally experienced in FB and am groaning about. If anything, I am more inconsistent at replying than my updators have ever been. So there is no personal pain here.

Quote:
You of course strive to give people what they want but I loathe the idea of updatees making direct requests and setting expectations like that right off the bat. I’d frankly rather not update if the game steers too much in that direction, and adventures become about fulfilling the updatees' wants in as plain terms as necessary.

From an updatee perspective, I already feel the Memekyu breaks the illusion / takes some of the surprise out of adventures and I know I’m not alone in this. That being said, I think you're onto something when it comes to talking more generally about what we're looking for in adventures whether that be specifying the length (in regards to Marion's proposal), broader objectives or preferred genres.

I like the way Myahoo and SpinyShell approached this recently in New Fizz, both entering an appropriate location to find what they were looking for and making it clear in character that this is what they were hoping for. Both have received these rewards since – Custom Pokeballs and a new Pokemon, respectively – and I think it’s fine to go about requests with this etiquette.
I don't personally think that the first and third paragraphs are all that contradictory, because I said that we should actually have a way of doing it. It doesn't need to be what I suggested rather minimally, but I do think it should exist in some form. I'm open to other ideas on this, because again the point is to put different things on the table. I think as a community we're mostly capable of fairness, respect, and understanding but it may be that I'm getting too uncomfy, and that's fine.

If this is something that can solved via RP in character, I think that's actually fine too.

Quote:
Something which hasn’t really been mentioned is that effort comes down to more than just word count and post frequency – there’s the less tangible factors like creativity and strategy in the face of certain situations. This is another reason why it’s hard to discuss rewards with someone on the offset, there needs to be some flexibility.
Mmm, I understand that. I do think that the offset is the best time to do so however, to avoid...really strong hard feelings. I don't think it's a great idea to talk about it later in an adventure, because that conversation usually takes the place of "No wait I don't want this" and as understandable as that is, that's not a great place to come from.

---

Quote:
I'd like to go into more detail on this, particularly the questions raised – but much of what I was going to say has been covered in the updater guide, which has been fully drafted for a few weeks and is undergoing some internal review, granted it’s obviously a busy month for the mods.
Speaking for myself uh...it would be great to actually see answers though? By the time I left the position, an updater guide was always one of the great "We'll do this, eventually" tasks, in part because it was given to EAI to work on and EAI suddenly vanished, so of course I actually wasn't aware this was going on, and it wasn't mention in other places where I've brought up these separate points before. So while I'm very happy and enthusiastic that this is happening now, great!, I do think it would be good to see some kind of answers. I know from experience how even with the best of intentions, stuff can be delayed through no one's fault and I'd rather not have a conversation stall and die on "Please wait for the Updater's Guide."

Quote:
I feel the responsibility ultimately falls on the updaters to ensure that updatees are having a fulfilling experience in their adventures and I do feel that’s the primary objective of most updaters. I can talk from personal experience that in the adventures I’ve been updating and participating in, there has been some form of reward around every 2-3 updates which have included everything from levels and Pokemon to custom items to Z-Crystals so I'm not sure if several of these points have been addressed already in the past few years. I'd like to know if there's any particular examples of unbalance that came to mind in drawing this post up, as I’m not across what every updater is doing in FB.
I think it would be good to reiterate that it's great that it has been handled on a more individual basis, but I would also like it to not be so. I would like there to be good guidelines, stuff that says "This is something you can definitely do. Here are some examples." Stuff that, understandably, might actually be said in the near future, but do not actually exist right now.

Most of my concerns about unbalance are actually concerns shop wise rather than strictly adventure wise, I think that's also something that got miscommunicated in the post. But instead of being...well a cranky old bird and saying we should burn down the Hatchery or something I thought about adventures, something we haven't had many guidelines about in terms of rewards, which has been both a good thing (a lot of updater and ZA freedom in this regard) and a bad thing (people thought we still had banned Shadow Pokemon from getting earned in adventures).

Quote:
Please note these are my personal opinions on the matter and I’m not speaking for the wider ZA team. I guess the crux of what I'm saying is that while agree it’s good to be less reliant on shops and that zones could be doing more to help with that, I do think there's already a some effort being made to address these issues - without going as far as turning zones into vending machines / shoppifying them too.
I don't think personally anything I had suggesting does what you're saying here. Shops in zones is not a particularly elegant solution to any problem. To a certain extent I don't even believe its possible for that to be the case, part of the design of shops is...to be low-effort, which adventures inherently aren't.
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