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Old 10-25-2020, 05:52 PM   #1
Lil'twick
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Adventure Word Counts

Recently, one of the discussions on Discord has talked about lowering the word count required for rewards when it comes to acquiring rewards. The ZAs have come together and talked about a change like this, and we ultimately have decided that it would harm the state of Fizzy Bubbles for both updates and updators. While the 250-word count limit is no hard enforcement for posts, we have that incentive in place for people who do wish to go above and beyond in their role play.

We feel that systems such as bond can easily be abused and farmed if the word count is lowered, and worry that it would confuse both the updator and updated ends. We want to make sure that every adventure goes as smoothly as possible for both parties involved, and that there is enough clarity that there are no misconceptions in place. We do understand that sometimes it is hard to hit that 250-word limit but want to remind people that they should prioritize their way of role-playing and storytelling over optional reward systems.

In the process of reaching this decision, we asked ourselves a series of questions that we can summarize in these bullet points.

*Should we reduce the word count limit for rewards? Should it be at 200 or something lower?
*Should the word count limits be reduced for all rewards or just Pokedollars?
*Is lowering the word count beneficial for updatees short on time? Or is it more harmful to updators as they have less to work with?
*Should lowering word count only apply for responding to updates or updating as well?

In answering these questions, we decided that it wouldn't be beneficial in the long run for FB.
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Old 10-25-2020, 06:41 PM   #2
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Ok so...

250 words isn't "above and beyond", it's the expected norm. 250 words is a relatively long post that a number of members have expressed is too high and leads to basically irrelevant bloating because it feels necessary to hit 250 words, not to mention such posts being basically the only source of income. You say it's about "prioritising your way of RPing", but the bottom line is that you're frankly punished for not hitting the 250 word mark. I understand there needs to be enough for the updator to work with, but you can get that from 150-200. Get 50 quid for every 50 words, starting at say, 100 quid for 100 words, and shift Bond to an end-of-adventure thing with longer RP posts rewarding more Bond than a bunch of quickfires. The main gist here is that the system isn't flexible to different styles, and that the while the rewards seem optional, fundamentally this is the only reliable source of income for players other than updating, and the players falling short on 250 words are not the ones who'll be pushing for updator rewards.
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Old 10-25-2020, 06:49 PM   #3
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Another alternative, that may admittedly be a little harder to track with links, but maybe one could claim bond and money for every 250 words across posts? That way if people want to move a little faster or short form, but ultimately end up writing as much, it could still be rewarded on an equal level?
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Old 10-25-2020, 06:49 PM   #4
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Having spent the majority of my time in Fizzy Bubbles between 2006 and 2014, returning several months ago and finding this whole new reward system for updater/updatee alike was incredibly welcoming where something like this wasn't really in place beyond Staff Rewards in the past. I don't mean to get all 'back in myyy day' or anything but I can't actually see any issues with this system and think that it encourages people to spend more time with their writing.

I understand that every so often, we all may find ourselves padding out our writing but I've found that I spend more time with my character and my Pokémon when I'm ensuring I write 250+ words so I feel like I've actually 'earned' the reward and genuinely bonded with the 'mon in question. If you can't achieve that, try it in two sittings or come back to it when you're feeling more like roleplaying in circumstances that require you to write that many words.

All in all I'm happy with the system how it is so obviously I'm more than fine with sticking to the status quo - appreciate you guys considering this on behalf of the community, though!
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Old 10-25-2020, 06:52 PM   #5
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I don't know if this is just me, but I always felt like 250 words was exceptionally reasonable. There are times my wordcount for a reply, be it to a zone, a raid, an event, or what have you, has hit the quadruple digits. Yes, there have also been times I've found myself having to add on more to make it to 250, but they've been the exception rather than the rule. I get that people have their own different styles when it comes to RPing, so my personal experience is by no means something everyone else should automatically identify with but by and large, as far as a minimum wordcount to qualify for rewards, I really feel like 250 is perfectly reasonable.
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Old 10-25-2020, 07:53 PM   #6
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I'm fine with the 250 word limit reward count for adventures, that is. Hitting that limit while adventuring in a zone doesn't strike me as difficult when you have so much to work with. That being said, I think the 250 word limit might be a bit too high for raid rewards. I've found it much more difficult to write for raids, because I feel there just isn't as much to work with in my opinion. I know that some users create very complex and detailed storylines for raids, but I just really struggle with writing for them. I strive for that 250 word limit, but I definitely wish it was a bit lower, even just to 200 words. I also think that lowering the raid word count for rewards might also incentive more users to RP in raids.

Also, also, I do like IronThunder's incremental rewards system. It always struck me as odd that a 250 word post nets the same monetary gain as a 1250 word post.

Last edited by SpinyShell; 10-25-2020 at 08:03 PM.
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Old 10-25-2020, 08:21 PM   #7
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Incremental rewards are very much a slippery slope. While rewarding better writing isn't necessarily bad, it allows for purposefully fluffing to hit high reward counts. There's also the fact that some people, just by style of writing, regularly break quadruple digits and would end up owning the market. If there was incremental rewards at all, there would have to be a hard cap.
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Old 10-25-2020, 08:26 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sneaze View Post
Incremental rewards are very much a slippery slope. While rewarding better writing isn't necessarily bad, it allows for purposefully fluffing to hit high reward counts. There's also the fact that some people, just by style of writing, regularly break quadruple digits and would end up owning the market. If there was incremental rewards at all, there would have to be a hard cap.
To further compound this, it will also have the reverse effect of implementing a system as this would do. It would further push people to make even larger word posts to the point where they hit massive burnout. While it's a good enough idea on paper, there are a lot of little things that make it worse than what we currently have in practice.
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Old 10-25-2020, 08:32 PM   #9
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The only instance in which I would have to try particularly hard for the 250 word mark is with battle updates, as those are rather necessarily short. While even then, certain situations allow me to weasel out of that particular rock and a hard place trap, there are nonetheless situations where I know I'm fluffing up my post because what there is for me to work with doesn't make for 250 words when it comes to battles. So my vote will be such that any changes we make should:

A: center around battle oriented replies/updates primarily,

and B: Involve a simple lower threshold for simplicity's sake as a starting point.
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Old 10-25-2020, 09:44 PM   #10
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I'll weigh in here. 250 words is fine, usually. But when there's a battle scene, or very interactive dialogue, 250 is bloating and adds nothing. Iron's absolutely correct that it's only nominally optional to hit 250.
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Old 10-25-2020, 10:00 PM   #11
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Personally I don't have a problem with the current 250-wordcount since I've never had any issue meeting it, but I think the fact there are people who do find it difficult/decry wordcount as a poor measure of "quality" in the first place shouldn't be dismissed. I don't like to see anyone feel alienated in FB and we should absolutely allow for different writing styles to flourish. (On a sidenote I really don't like how "majority rule" seems to simply squash any opposition if most find the status quo satisfactory, when there are individuals who may or may not be vocal about grievances - as with the "Eggs vs. Breeding" debate.)

I still say we should try to work towards a compromise, even if we just start by implementing monetary reward tiers lower than 250: 50 = $50, 100 = $100, 150 = $150, 200 = $200 (to simplify my suggestion and as Enigma brought up on Discord rather than dealing with uneven numbers/fussing over exact wordcount). $250 max payout can still be the hard cap to avoid potential drawbacks raised of overly "fluffing" and "burnout".

Last edited by lilboocorsola; 10-25-2020 at 11:20 PM.
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Old 10-26-2020, 12:25 AM   #12
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I think an incremental system that caps at $250 at 250 words could work. My main worry, from experiences in the past, is that as a updator not having enough content to fully formulate an update around. I feel that 150 is scraping by at best, but still enough to work past and have an enjoyable adventure. It also makes more sense for things such as battles that are fast-paced.

I think a proposal of $150 for 150, $200 for 200, and $250 for 250 is fine. Nothing lower than that, since it starts to get to a slippery slope of rewarding for minimal effort and not be enough content for a updatee/updator, and nothing higher to prevent the system from being gamed. As for Bond and FC, I am a firm believer that stays at 250. Both are something that needs the effort to be put into it to be earned, and I'll be honest I kind of wish we could do another revisitation of bond. But that's a topic for a different thread.

The biggest thing I want to point out though is that if something like this is implemented, rapid-fire updates will not become standard. That is something to work with your updator about doing. We don't want rapid-fire to be the standard since that will massively burn out the updator base.
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Old 10-26-2020, 03:38 AM   #13
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I ultimately don't think the current system is broken enough that it needs fixing and attempting to fix it will probably make micromanaging numbers more pronounced, which I've grown to loathe. Despite understanding where the argument comes from, like I said on Discord, I don't think this is something that needs changing at the moment.
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Old 10-26-2020, 08:46 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lilboocorsola View Post
[COLOR="LightBlue"][SIZE="1"]Personally I don't have a problem with the current 250-wordcount since I've never had any issue meeting it, but I think the fact there are people who do find it difficult/decry wordcount as a poor measure of "quality" in the first place shouldn't be dismissed. I don't like to see anyone feel alienated in FB and we should absolutely allow for different writing styles to flourish.
Just a note: I actually do agree with you Yuki here but there are a number of points I wanted to make respectfully and this gives me a good way to talk about them.

Something that I've wanted to say for a while now is that the word count requirement for claiming rewards was never truly meant to be a requirement for quality of writing. The truth of the matter is, word count has basically no real relation to quality of writing. It was about effort inherently, and in maybe a bit of a short-sighted way considering we had recently come from a version of the game that was very effort unbalanced (requiring lots of effort in RPing and very low effort otherwise).

The truth of the matter is that some people have different writing styles, but I have seen some disparaging remarks that I do not believe were actually meant to be about the quality of people's writing who are more wordy. There's only so much talk about padding until you start to wonder whether these are not just personal opinions and rather remarks.

Quote:
(On a sidenote I really don't like how "majority rule" seems to simply squash any opposition if most find the status quo satisfactory, when there are individuals who may or may not be vocal about grievances - as with the "Eggs vs. Breeding" debate.)
Speaking from personal experience here, its a very difficult balance to make. Ideally most of the time you have a lot of consensus and a general idea that things are okay even if people don't get what they want, but in practice this is rarely the case. When you're moderating and making choices on a game like this, its inevitable that you cannot always compromise, nor should you always. Some people will genuinely never settle for anything less than exactly what they want, and what they want can genuinely not be best for the community as a whole. Some very, very bad decisions have been made in an attempt to appeal to absolutely everyone possible, such as the Casino event.

I will actually stand and defend with the other mods and ZAs here. I don't strongly lean either way on this issue: I am personally okay with both outcomes if either comes to pass. It is very easy to take a decision that goes against what someone wants as them not taking it into consideration. It is very hard to be final about something in a way that people will accept and not get hard feelings about.

I can go on and on about this but I won't. Some things aren't worth bringing up anymore.
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Old 10-26-2020, 09:29 AM   #15
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I think $1 for every word up to $250, at which point a cap is in place could work.

Speaking as someone who does not update here, but for those concerned smaller updates won't give much to work with...well, that's on the updatee right? As the saying goes "trash in, trash out". Not to say all posts under 250 words are trash, but if an updatee puts forth minimal effort (as in fewer words, and those that are there aren't good), then they can expect a lackluster adventure or one that is actually dragged out longer because it takes more time to get to the point due to smaller posts. Not sure if/how this would penalize updaters though.
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Old 10-26-2020, 02:25 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sneaze View Post
Incremental rewards are very much a slippery slope. While rewarding better writing isn't necessarily bad, it allows for purposefully fluffing to hit high reward counts. There's also the fact that some people, just by style of writing, regularly break quadruple digits and would end up owning the market. If there was incremental rewards at all, there would have to be a hard cap.
Then just have a point at which it stops, say 500 words. Purposefully fluffing to hit word counts is the issue I have with 250, and if people can be arsed to crank out drivel for some extra pokedollars then frankly there's better things to do than argue. The real issue with a scaling system is having to re-address Bond, because that seems to be the problem part people are concerned about. I don't think anyone gives a second shit if people bloat for an extra 50 quid.

I understand needing a minimum cap to try and push for some semblance of quality, but 250 is about 100 words too high. I can see why people think it might lead to a quality drop, so it would probably need to scale up some degree too, but ultimately having to crank out an extra 100 words of drivel is a motivation killer and has stalled at least three of my adventures to the point where the zone closed before I actually gathered up the motivation to push out the bullshit. There needs to be something because frankly, not everyone is up to cranking out 250 words and it's just going to drive people away.
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Old 10-27-2020, 08:25 PM   #17
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Just do $1 per word, give updaters the right to dump you if you're obviously doing the bear minimum and lock Bons behind the current 250.

Also just a reminder that you don't actually need any of the rewards from reaching this limit even as things stand. It honestly makes your updaters life easier if you don't have a bunch of unnatural moves.

Plus even if you decide that you absolutely need Bond/Money there's plenty of ways to use the player to player market to make money and or buy gummi.
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Old 11-12-2020, 06:01 PM   #18
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The ZAs have discussed the word count limit for rewards for adventures, and have decided to keep it as is. We went over a few different proposals and found that all of them overall made the game state worse in one way or another. We still do want to help out people in terms of gaining currency, and instead opted to work on cash rewards in adventures. We will be having more frequent, and larger, cash rewards throughout a player's adventure. As for bond, that system as a whole will be worked on somewhat soon. FC gain will still remaining the same for updaters.
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