New Ranking System

Posts : 1729

Consider this opening the topic for discussion. I'm at work, so I can't really get into it right now.

That said, I was one eval away from S rank, and I just had that snatched from under my feet.

You better fucking believe I mad.

Age : 37 Posts : 2201

I honestly thought it'd be enough to get used to a new eval system. I played nice then. It's not a bad thing. But the old rank up system was just fiiiiiiine. I feel like with this new one it will be super quick to begin rank ups, and then super sloooooooooooooooooooooow.

Oh well,

New Ranking System Anigif_enhanced-28513-1429829386-2

New Ranking System Anigif_enhanced-28513-1429829386-2

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

My 2nd character went from lacking 4 points to Chuunin (with two topics pending for eval) to nothing... All on a single night Sad

FML

Age : 33 Posts : 718

To the people worried about having been reduced to "nothing" in terms of rank up progress, I think you guys should be allowed to count everything you've done since your last rank up.

You still might not be as close to ranking up as you otherwise would have been, but it'd only be fair for the stuff you've done since your last rank up to count. Of course, I'm not staff so I can't say for sure you'd be allowed to do this. But I can't see Alex getting butthurt over the idea.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Posts : 1729

Why The New Ranking System Is Bullshit
A dissertation by BK-201

The Massive Upscale in Effort
Given y'all chucklefucks deleted the old Ranking System, I'm going by memory here, but I recall the rank requirements for S-rank being more-or-less 240 MP and some 300EXP. I don't really know, because you wankers deleted it. Moving on; under the eval system, with good scoring, that worked out to roughly 12 socials and maybe about 10 missions, give or take.

Under the new ranking system; socials are thrown completely under the bus, but I'll get to why that's bullshit in a minute. Missions and fights are the sole contributors, and fun times, they reset every rank. So from C to S, you will need to get in 28 total fights, and a bare-bones minimum of; forty fucking eight missions. Forty. Fucking. Eight. I was one eval away from S-rank under the old system, and that's a cumulative total of 38 topics. Social AND mission. Even assuming my missions since I hit A+ are counted towards it, that'd still put me a bare minimum of 14 fucking evals from S-rank.

Do you comprehend that? Can you even begin to understand? I, someone who've held this character for two years, across 38 topics, still fall some fucking 14 topics short of qualifying for the next rank. Do you realize how daunting that's going to look to newer members?

And now, my next point.
Socials Get Thrown Under The Fucking Bus
Seriously. Just, what's even the fucking point of doing socials under this system, besides getting some additional funds for buying jutsu? They are rendered completely worthless for ranking up. And do you realize the fucking scale of socials-to-missions most people do? Under this new system, I doubt there's a damned single person on the entire site who actually merits their rank, because people have always done more socials than missions. With this bullshit, people are going to have to try and turn every god damned topic into a mission if they don't wanna be stuck as perma-genin.
"Leading" Missions vs "Successful" Missions
Really, what fuckery is this? What qualifies as "leading" for a mission? Say two A-rank shinobi tackle an A-rank mission together- does one of them get the "leading" credit, and the other just gets the shaft?
Seriously, Forty Fucking Eight Topics
Like, Jesus Fucking Cock-Suckling Christ. Do you have any fucking idea how much work and effort that is? There are five S-rank Ninja on-site (Not including never-active Kages), and not a singled damned one of them would meet those requirements, even if you just straight counted every Social they did as an equivalent rank mission.

Age : 37 Posts : 2201

^ What he said, minus maybe three fucks or so.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

BK-201 wrote:

Why The New Ranking System Is Bullshit
A dissertation by BK-201

The Massive Upscale in Effort
Given y'all chucklefucks deleted the old Ranking System, I'm going by memory here, but I recall the rank requirements for S-rank being more-or-less 240 MP and some 300EXP. I don't really know, because you wankers deleted it. Moving on; under the eval system, with good scoring, that worked out to roughly 12 socials and maybe about 10 missions, give or take.

Under the new ranking system; socials are thrown completely under the bus, but I'll get to why that's bullshit in a minute. Missions and fights are the sole contributors, and fun times, they reset every rank. So from C to S, you will need to get in 28 total fights, and a bare-bones minimum of; forty fucking eight missions. Forty. Fucking. Eight. I was one eval away from S-rank under the old system, and that's a cumulative total of 38 topics. Social AND mission. Even assuming my missions since I hit A+ are counted towards it, that'd still put me a bare minimum of 14 fucking evals from S-rank.

Do you comprehend that? Can you even begin to understand? I, someone who've held this character for two years, across 38 topics, still fall some fucking 14 topics short of qualifying for the next rank. Do you realize how daunting that's going to look to newer members?

And now, my next point.
Socials Get Thrown Under The Fucking Bus
Seriously. Just, what's even the fucking point of doing socials under this system, besides getting some additional funds for buying jutsu? They are rendered completely worthless for ranking up. And do you realize the fucking scale of socials-to-missions most people do? Under this new system, I doubt there's a damned single person on the entire site who actually merits their rank, because people have always done more socials than missions. With this bullshit, people are going to have to try and turn every god damned topic into a mission if they don't wanna be stuck as perma-genin.
"Leading" Missions vs "Successful" Missions
Really, what fuckery is this? What qualifies as "leading" for a mission? Say two A-rank shinobi tackle an A-rank mission together- does one of them get the "leading" credit, and the other just gets the shaft?
Seriously, Forty Fucking Eight Topics
Like, Jesus Fucking Cock-Suckling Christ. Do you have any fucking idea how much work and effort that is? There are five S-rank Ninja on-site (Not including never-active Kages), and not a singled damned one of them would meet those requirements, even if you just straight counted every Social they did as an equivalent rank mission.

Well... Actually... I did more than 48 topics if you count my endless socials as missions Razz

Age : 33 Posts : 718

Quote :: The Massive Upscale in Effort
Given y'all chucklefucks deleted the old Ranking System, I'm going by memory here, but I recall the rank requirements for S-rank being more-or-less 240 MP and some 300EXP. I don't really know, because you wankers deleted it. Moving on; under the eval system, with good scoring, that worked out to roughly 12 socials and maybe about 10 missions, give or take.

Under the new ranking system; socials are thrown completely under the bus, but I'll get to why that's bullshit in a minute. Missions and fights are the sole contributors, and fun times, they reset every rank. So from C to S, you will need to get in 28 total fights, and a bare-bones minimum of; forty fucking eight missions. Forty. Fucking. Eight. I was one eval away from S-rank under the old system, and that's a cumulative total of 38 topics. Social AND mission. Even assuming my missions since I hit A+ are counted towards it, that'd still put me a bare minimum of 14 fucking evals from S-rank.

Do you comprehend that? Can you even begin to understand? I, someone who've held this character for two years, across 38 topics, still fall some fucking 14 topics short of qualifying for the next rank. Do you realize how daunting that's going to look to newer members?

And now, my next point.

Yup, it's a lot harder to rank up at later ranks now. That's intentional, I know because I was part of the initial creation of this idea. Getting to S-rank is supposed to be a daunting task and the rank should only be available to those who have truly spent a great deal of work, time, and effort into their characters.

Bringing up the total number of missions between C-rank to S-rank doesn't really give a fair perspective on the system. Yes, you need to complete 48 missions to go from bottom to top, however all the individual rank gaps in between seem a lot more realistic and reasonable for the ranks you're getting. The early ranks are pretty easy, but as you go on the difficulty for each rank up actually becomes tangible and meaningful.

You also bring up how you need 14 more topics to rank up if you count "all" the threads since your last rank up. You do realize that means you've only completed 1 mission since your last rank up, right? But despite this, in the old system you were almost at your next rank up already? That's ridiculous by itself to the extreme opposite of how unreasonable this system might seem. 1 mission as an A+ and you're already a stones throw from a rank up? Thats insane. It's the same for me at B rank which means there was practically no increase in difficulty to rank up as you increase through the ranks.

If you think the rank up system standards should be lower, please put forth your best suggestion for what they should be changed to. But I beg of you, please don't try to act like one or two missions is all a character should have to complete in order to rank up from a Master Jonin to a Sennin. That's obscenely easy and leaves no room for any real character growth IC-wise between the ranks unless you intentionally hold off on ranking up.

Quote :: Socials Get Thrown Under The Fucking Bus
Seriously. Just, what's even the fucking point of doing socials under this system, besides getting some additional funds for buying jutsu? They are rendered completely worthless for ranking up. And do you realize the fucking scale of socials-to-missions most people do? Under this new system, I doubt there's a damned single person on the entire site who actually merits their rank, because people have always done more socials than missions. With this bullshit, people are going to have to try and turn every god damned topic into a mission if they don't wanna be stuck as perma-genin.

To say socials are rendered useless for ranking up is an exaggeration. You can still advance towards ranking up by having battles/spars. Not all missions, even high ranked ones, necessarily include battles. The perma-genin comment is an extreme exaggeration as it only takes 3 missions and one fight to get to Exp. Genin and another 5 missions plus some more fights to hit Chunin. A total of 8 missions to reach chunin is not that bad at all.

Yes, the scale of socials to missions is currently very social heavy, but the system before didn't exactly encourage you to do many missions. You needed one or two for each rank up and maybe three or four if you score badly on evals. Will this change lead to people doing more missions? Of course, and it only makes sense that a shinobi needs to do more missions to increase his/her rank. But I doubt it's going to turn every thread into a mission. The only people who will respond that way are the people who only care about ranking up. I don't know about you, but I'm here to rp. Ranking up is part of that, but it's hardly the only thing that motivates me to sit down and write a post. Socials are fun, so I don't think this kind of system will spell the death/end of them.

I will also admit that socials aren't very useful for ranking up now. But lets be honest, you don't get promoted at work for that cool conversation you had about astrophysics with your girl friend at a coffee shop down the street from your workplace. Socials SHOULDN'T have a huge impact on your ability to rank up.

Quote :: "Leading" Missions vs "Successful" Missions
Really, what fuckery is this? What qualifies as "leading" for a mission? Say two A-rank shinobi tackle an A-rank mission together- does one of them get the "leading" credit, and the other just gets the shaft?

In the example you gave, it could go a number of different ways:

-If neither of the two A-ranks are taking on a leadership role and are simply acting as partners, it wouldn't count for either of them as having "led" the mission. It's a good thing you don't need to lead every single one of your missions for each rank up, huh?

-If one of them takes the lead over the other, obviously that person gets the point towards led missions. The players would have to establish which of them is the leader IC and pick one at the start of the mission assuming they don't just agree to be partners instead like in the above example. I don't think we are going to make it a competition to see which one was more of a leader between the two rpers if the "leader" is unstated because that would be a mess to grade. It would also make each mission a competition between allies to see who can be more bossy which isn't really in anyone's best interest.

-If both of them take leadership roles over NPCs, they could both get the point towards the led missions. One nice thing about this system is that it doesn't require you interact with other players at all in order to rank up. It was discussed during is creation that NPCs could be used to get your leadership points. Thankfully, this means that two people can both get credit for leading a single mission. I hope that alleviates some of your concern.

I'll also make a note about the whole "Successful Missions" since you kind of mention them but don't really talk about them. If I remember right, the original idea put forth didn't require that you actually succeed in all the missions for each rank up. So you could fail 2 missions and only succeed in one and still rank up out of genin for example. The whole concept being that even if you fail, you still gain experiences and can learn from that failure. That idea kind of didn't make it to the final product, sadly.

Quote :: Seriously, Forty Fucking Eight Topics
Like, Jesus Fucking Cock-Suckling Christ. Do you have any fucking idea how much work and effort that is? There are five S-rank Ninja on-site (Not including never-active Kages), and not a singled damned one of them would meet those requirements, even if you just straight counted every Social they did as an equivalent rank mission.

Yeah, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who actually meets these new standards. Those who already ranked up to S-rank have it lucky that they got there before this new system was implemented. They never had to put in the same amount of work their future peers will have to log in order to reach the same rank. But depending on activity, it will take anywhere between one to three years for someone to go from C-rank to S-rank. Personally, I don't really see this as being all that much of a bad thing. Granted, I have an obvious bias since I helped make the prototype for this system.

You can feel free to direct all your hatred towards me, because I think I came up with the idea of making rank ups based on number of missions completed rather than points gained from said missions. My original suggestion required even MORE effort and missions completed. This is honestly toned down a lot from what I put forth. But I believe that this change is for the best in the long run. That being said, I don't think it's perfect and am definitely an advocate of the idea that the numbers could use some tweaking. Perhaps it is still asking too much from players even after being toned down. But if you ask me, it isn't asking too much by a particularly large margin even though it does as a TON more than the old system did.

One improvement I can think of is allowing excess missions to overflow into your next rank up requirement instead of restarting. For example, lets say I did my 10 missions to rank up to B+ but I wasn't a leader in any of them. If I do two more non-leadership missions and three leadership missions, when I rank up I already start with 5 missions towards my A rank.

Posts : 1729

I had so many other things I could have said, but you know what? I have been working on and developing my character for nearly 3 years. A large portion of his end-game story occurs at his S-rank.

Go fuck yourself.

Age : 33 Posts : 718

I can only say two things to that, really.

1. I realize that there is now a wrench thrown into your plans and it's understandable that you're upset. But please don't take it out on the system. You mentioned having a lot more that you could say so I'm guessing that means you have more concerns surrounding the system aside from the ways in which is personally screws you over. I'd like to hear them, even if I'd ultimately just have to agree to disagree with your stance on the matter.

2. If you really are just one eval away from ranking up in the old system, then perhaps Alex would be willing to work with you on that. It's worth asking if nothing else. I imagine EVERYONE is at least a little upset because things pretty much got harder to rank up across the entire board. Perhaps we could establish a grace period or something in which people can still apply for rank ups under the old system for a month since no one other than people with access to the staff section had any idea of just how much harder ranking up was going to become with this update. That way no single person is seen as getting special treatment. I assure you that I don't take pleasure in the idea that the system wrecks peoples current plot plans and if possible, I'd like to help resolve any such instances with a little losses as possible. If you're willing to try and appeal for some kind of compromise, let me know and I'll advocate for you on your behalf.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

BK-201 wrote:: I had so many other things I could have said, but you know what? I have been working on and developing my character for nearly 3 years. A large portion of his end-game story occurs at his S-rank.

Go fuck yourself.

Okay so it is clear that this person is very frustrated (and, honestly, I can't blame him, my own character has been bumped down 2 ranks overnight), before we jump to name calling and banning and all the usual BS that follows each and every FA topic I suggest for Travis' case to be treated as a separate case:

He just very recently completed an S rank event mission which will put him at one mission needed to achieve S rank, it's safe to say that he has went through a lot and it's really not fair in any way you put it to bump him back down to needing to complete 14 missions with no compensation, just because Staff decided to blow some winds of change.

Seeing how it's just his individual case (bumping someone down to needing 14 missions is just cruel, any way you put it), can we maybe consider some sort of satisfaction to him, maybe either leave the one mission requirement needed for him to rank up or proportionally reduce his amount of missions and spars and stuff like that needed to rank up to what he already has compared to the old system?

I know that there will be many genin who will be dissapointed by this but they have a far leaner bump down to compensate, I've been bumped down two entire ranks and I have like what... 7-10 missions to do to catch back up with it? But that's just because I was really bad at having my topics evaluated in time (I'm sure there's my fault in there somewhere...) and the gap between A rank to S is by far the greatest and Travis had that gap almost covered.

Honestly, out of all the Greek figures RPing should remind you of Sisyphus the least...

Age : 37 Posts : 2201

Mugen wrote:: Those who already ranked up to S-rank have it lucky that they got there before this new system was implemented. They never had to put in the same amount of work their future peers will have to log in order to reach the same rank.

New Ranking System Anigif_enhanced-19255-1427865763-18

I'm sorry, I just can't help but feel you just took a dump on my S-rank before wiping yourself with it as well.

Posts : 760

He was mainly talking to people like myself, Heida-chan-san-chan-sama-chan.

Age : 28 Posts : 3145

Yay yet another excuse for leaving this site added to the list. While I understand the reasoning behind making it harder to rank up, I feel like whoever put this system together did not listen. People who were asking for a harder rank up system were not asking for the old one to be thrown completely out, but for it to be tweaked to make the required exp/mp points larger.

Smh.

Thanks yet again, staff, for making something that no one asked for or agreed to.

And I will refrain myself from taking shots at particular people, but let's just say, that with the exception of Ruka (& Amy), no one who has ever been on staff has come close with their character/s to actually reaching S Rank or even A Rank, based on this system. So not sure what exactly inspired this new idea. Some sort of idealistic vision of members that can write 24/7, perhaps.

Age : 31 Posts : 1490

*Casually slinks his way out of a longer than intended hiatus.*

3 - Things.
1. Firstly, as aforementioned I've been on a longer than intended hiatus so I was in no way part of the conceptualizations for this system nor any help with the implementation.

2. Bringing up a point and then failing to re-address said point when someone makes a counter argument, does absolutely nothing productive to the discussion. Yes, I'm looking at you Travis. Ignoring that the entire tone of this topic started with hostility, you'd be surprised how much easier these discussions would go if you had simply said, "Why were these changes made?" or "Can someone explain to me the reasons behind these changes, as I am one post away from the next rank up and reasonably upset? "

3. As Mugen suggested, everyone will be given a certain grace period as per their progress with the previous ranking system, to be decided after a brief staff discussion.

Age : 37 Posts : 2201

Alright, then I have a question or two.

1) Why exactly was this made? What prompted such a huge change?

2) And why are we supposed to simply swallow the bitter pill without complaining?

When huge things like this are changed then I'd really appreciate it if staff could open up an FA thread that is meant for questions and concerns. Otherwise, it feels a bit like you guys are simply making all the calls and have no damn intentions of talking it over but instead wait for enraged people to make threads that you can then growl over because the language or discussion got out of hand.

Age : 31 Posts : 1490

Alright, see now questions can be managed, angry rants, little bit more difficult to discuss in a healthy manner. As far as it goes I will answer to the best of my knowledge.

1. Unless I am mistaken, the initial concept for the system change was inspired by a concept of my own which deals with the obtainment of Specialties and Special Characteristics in a rather off the wall manner. I won't bore you to death by going into detail about it in this specific topic (although one will come soon™), but we ran into a grind when we struggled with the application of ranks to my concept. That being said, the initial draft of this system or what eventually became the newly implemented system spawned from this. That being said, I never intended for it to be implemented in a standalone fashion without a few other changes accompanying it.

That being said, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus as I should be accountable for all changes implemented in my absence that spawned from my ideas. I believe the rest of staff acted with their best judgement and with the tools they were able. The changes were made and naturally as with all humans it was done with flaws and of course it is difficult predict entirely how each person on the site would react in response.

The reason why I always prompt for questions is because it allows for an attempt at the ignorance on both sides rather than unilateral illumination that a more rant-y post might provide.

2. Largely, with every new system a blow-back should be expected, and following a reasonable amount of discussion changes should be made in response to that in some fashion. Now, that does not mean that every complain will result in an alteration to a system or mechanic, but it does mean they should be considered, but highlight the word reasonable discussion, as I pointed out, the discussion was abandoned by it's initiator as soon as someone responded with counter points. Without effort to conclude or resolve a discussion how can you expect accurate changes to be made ?

I do agree with you Heida, a discussion topic should have been made with such a large change, much like the one done with the eval system, but it's rather difficult to go back and change the past, so the only thing we can do now is make an effort to contain the damage.

Age : 28 Posts : 3145

Or you could revert to the old system? No one has yet to say they like the change.

With the evaluation system at least, the opinion was more or less split into "Hate it", "Like it" & "Will give it a shot". I don't see that here.

Age : 33 Posts : 718

MsMoney wrote:

Mugen wrote:: Those who already ranked up to S-rank have it lucky that they got there before this new system was implemented. They never had to put in the same amount of work their future peers will have to log in order to reach the same rank.

I'm sorry, I just can't help but feel you just took a dump on my S-rank before wiping yourself with it as well.

bby, pls, u no I didn' meen it leik dat.

For reals though, I was just admitting to BK that the total amount of work to reach x rank had increased and that anyone who ranked up on the old system was fortunate enough to have done so while requirements were less demanding. That doesn't mean you didn't work hard to get where you are nor did I intend to communicate such a thing. I apologize if I came off in a bad way.

lifeanddeath wrote:: Alright, see now questions can be managed, angry rants, little bit more difficult to discuss in a healthy manner. As far as it goes I will answer to the best of my knowledge.

1. Unless I am mistaken, the initial concept for the system change was inspired by a concept of my own which deals with the obtainment of Specialties and Special Characteristics in a rather off the wall manner. I won't bore you to death by going into detail about it in this specific topic (although one will come soon™), but we ran into a grind when we struggled with the application of ranks to my concept. That being said, the initial draft of this system or what eventually became the newly implemented system spawned from this. That being said, I never intended for it to be implemented in a standalone fashion without a few other changes accompanying it.

That being said, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus as I should be accountable for all changes implemented in my absence that spawned from my ideas. I believe the rest of staff acted with their best judgement and with the tools they were able. The changes were made and naturally as with all humans it was done with flaws and of course it is difficult predict entirely how each person on the site would react in response.

The reason why I always prompt for questions is because it allows for an attempt at the ignorance on both sides rather than unilateral illumination that a more rant-y post might provide.

2. Largely, with every new system a blow-back should be expected, and following a reasonable amount of discussion changes should be made in response to that in some fashion. Now, that does not mean that every complain will result in an alteration to a system or mechanic, but it does mean they should be considered, but highlight the word reasonable discussion, as I pointed out, the discussion was abandoned by it's initiator as soon as someone responded with counter points. Without effort to conclude or resolve a discussion how can you expect accurate changes to be made ?

I do agree with you Heida, a discussion topic should have been made with such a large change, much like the one done with the eval system, but it's rather difficult to go back and change the past, so the only thing we can do now is make an effort to contain the damage.

1. Damnit Trey! I was already taking the blame for this one! Fighting over who's responsible for this poorly received update aside, I do believe you are mistaken. Or perhaps I think your answer doesn't quite answer Heida's question directly. The whole reason why this was brought up was because of how the Evaluation Discussion thread was going. Most people seemed to agree that it was too easy to rank up even though they liked the new way evals were being done and this system was made in response to those concerns. It would address the ease of rank ups without any need to rebalance the way points are distributed from evals. I don't fully remember all the details myself, maybe it was Trey who suggested the type of new system(goal oriented) based on this SC related idea? I'm not sure. All I remember with confidence is that the changes were prototyped out and discussed by staff as a direct result of the Eval discussion. Hopefully that accurately answers the "why" for how this came about.

2. I'm not sure why you got the idea that no one was allowed to complain about this @Heida. I think the message was that complaints should be tempered against the spiteful tone that some individuals were taking. It looks to me like staff is being rather receptive and open to peoples concerns about the matter as evident by Ruka's support of BK's unfair situation and Trey's execution of the grace period.

Trey covered pretty much anything else I could say including the not about having an open discussion. Besides I'm not staff anymore so I don't have authority to represent them anyways v.v

Quote :: Or you could revert to the old system? No one has yet to say they like the change.

With the evaluation system at least, the opinion was more or less split into "Hate it", "Like it" & "Will give it a shot". I don't see that here.

Assuming the old system material wasn't just deleted without being saved, that is certainly a possibility.

However the fact that everyone hates a change isn't always good enough reason to undo it. So lets focus less on how "liked" the system is, and more on what's wrong with it and any problems/flaws it has so they can be addressed. You've yet to really voice what it is about this update that you particularly have a problem with. Your previous post and this one kind of boil down to preferring the previous system and that's fine. I, myself, can think of a few reasons why the previous system would be preferable. There was some mention of concerns you had about activity expectations being unrealistic as well. But these concerns weren't really fleshed out in a way that could help move the discussion forward.

Would you mind expressing exactly what aspects of the change you're uncomfortable with and why?

Age : 30 Posts : 1637

Firstly, when I made the updates post, I hadn't really considered that some people might be getting super close to the rank ups, but I definitely didn't want to imply that everybody's progress was reset. Anything you've done since your past rank up would definitely count, and I'm even willing to say that for people that have done more than needed (most likely to occur for lower ranks) can use those toward ranking up as well.

TL;DR version: new rank up methods did not cause a count reset.

Also, like Mugen said, this is reduced from his original concept, because the rough draft's numbers were too high. We also did discuss that the numbers might still be too high, but we didn't want to struggle with the numbers for too long because the fix just needed to be implemented. I already knew that there would be criticism, and I was going to use that to adjust the numbers to something more workable, but still appropriate. As was emphasized when the new Eval system was released, no system that's in its first few weeks of being released is stuck exactly as-is. The eval system is going to be changed to add more leniency to when people can post (the amount of threads won't change unless we get a good-sized eval team, but right now the eval team is essentially just Ruka with me helping out when I can, but I was gone for two.5 weeks so that didn't help at all).

This system isn't perfect and everybody that was involved in the discussion knew it wasn't, but it's not possible to make something perfect when only a handful of people actually enter the thread with enough questions/criticisms to help polish it.

Now, to address everybody's points specifically:

The Massive Upscale in Effort - Yes, there IS a massive upscale in effort. The intent was to increase the effort required to rank up since the eval system changes made it too easy, which was something expressed by non-staff members in the discussion thread. As for deleting it, the moment it was done I wanted to shoot myself in the foot for doing it late at night while I was tired. But even if we were to go back to the point system, the numbers would have to be raised.

Socials Get Thrown Under The Fucking Bus - One of the problems with the old system is the fact that socials had too much influence on rank-ups. Like Mugen said, socials shouldn't have that much of an impact on ranking up.

Mugen Kousen wrote:: But lets be honest, you don't get promoted at work for that cool conversation you had about astrophysics with your girl friend at a coffee shop down the street from your workplace.

"Leading" Missions vs "Successful" Missions - I'll just point to what Mugen said, as I have nothing to add to that.

Seriously, Forty Fucking Eight Topics - I plan to re-balance the numbers for the higher ranks anyway, but I doubt Genin/Chuunin numbers will change at all.

Why exactly was this made? What prompted such a huge change? - After the eval system was changed, some concerns were raised about how quickly people were ranking up. That said, as Trey pointed out, with what he was working on, the method by which people rank up would have to change regardless. However, since the eval system made ranking up ridiculously easy, and people just coming in wouldn't have to do much to rank up, I didn't want to wait, nor did I want to simply adjust the numbers since the system would have to change again later on. I wanted to change it to a point where ranking up wouldn't suffer such a huge "balance" change every single the time changes were made to other things on the site, such as the eval system or the points system.

And why are we supposed to simply swallow the bitter pill without complaining? - That was my fault for not creating a Q&A thread after putting the system up. I put it up, looked at some things that needed to be modded so I could get work done on them ASAP, and went to sleep. But I didn't expect people to just take it and not raise any concerns.

Basically, I dun goofed. But that's why I'm going to try and talk about it here instead of waiting for it to escalate (I just woke up a little while ago).

Chris wrote:: Or you could revert to the old system? No one has yet to say they like the change.

With the evaluation system at least, the opinion was more or less split into "Hate it", "Like it" & "Will give it a shot". I don't see that here.

It's barely been 12 hours since the system was posted, so of course there aren't a whole lot of posts yet. A system isn't going to just be deleted or reverted after only a few people have commented. While the criticisms/questions/concerns of the people that have posted so far are taken into consideration for how the system is going to be tweaked, it's not going to persuade me to remove it altogether - not yet. So until the discussion has involved more than these members (not that their posts aren't valid, but it'd be the equivalent of doing what one person wants without even waiting to hear what the others in the group have to say), nothing else aside from what I mentioned is going to happen.

(Mugen, why you gotta post as soon as I finish my post Sad

)

Age : 29 Posts : 614

Trey... I do not mean this in an offensive manner, but I feel like this should be discussed, now that it's actually pertinent to the conversation.

None of the Admins are ever around, with the slight exception of Alex. You and Adam constantly take 'hiatuses', returning for upwards of a week at most before falling off the map again with no notice to the community you're supposed to be running- as administrators. The only currently active eval mod that I really see around, is Reggie. And Ruka for evaluations. Those are crap numbers for any site's staff. It is restricting communication between members and staff. You've taken the initiative now and made a post, but how long can we really expect this stay to last?

You, Trey, acknowledged this as a variation from your original planning for the concept. Why was nobody notified beforehand that the system would be undergoing such a drastic change? Why was no public conversation created to converse about the mission requirements and what would be preferred? (Not saying the preferred number would have been the exact final one, but maybe something closer to what people might actually prefer and see as logical? Also, we may have been able to flesh out some of the errors we're experiencing with Travis right now.

I'm just saying, the site's growth has been stunted, and activity among some of the site's most longtime standing members are also now abandoning us. This is one this that is most likely not going to be helpful in bringing back member desire to roleplay, or help us gain new members either now or when the Boruto series launches. I think we all want the site to succeed, so when we see things that derail us, as it will derail others, it upsets us, and without reason. If there's no desire to maintain our interest here, we minus well kill the site now.

We need more mods, more active admins, and better communication. That's my bit of sense. I can't really complain about my current rank position, since I was only nearing Chuunin. I, must say though, I personally lost a bit of my interest upon seeing this new system. I can't say I'm an invaluable member of the site, but I can say that I've been here long enough to understand how member fallout works.

I just feel like we keep talking about making important changes, but when we do, they're either drastic and unannounced, or they don't happen and fall to the wayside.

Alex, I also think it should be acknowledged that everyone commenting on this thread, is almost the entirety of the site's active members. If we're the one's claiming we dislike it, I don't see why you wouldn't try to implement more immediate change. It's not like we're seeing an uptake of active members, or an increase in posting by the members we do have.. Now kinda just seems like a horrible time for this change.

Merp.

Age : 28 Posts : 3145

Mugen wrote:: Would you mind expressing exactly what aspects of the change you're uncomfortable with and why?

Hope this helps

Skype Log:

Age : 37 Posts : 2201

@Mugen In regards to my 2nd question with the bitter pill, yeah that was a lil bit of a bitter question as well. x) I admit that. But truly, it was in reference towards the whole 'we need FA threads that staff makes so we know they care" statement below.

Okay so, things I dislike.

1. So, if I understand correctly there were some concerns raised that ranking up was too easy. Or not difficult enough at least. Changing the entire system based on that seems very extreme. Why exactly was it impossible to simply raise the numbers needed for each rank? The old system was pretty good - larger numbers would have solved it for the most part? I just want to know why we are suddenly bombarded with a HUGE change like this.

2.

Mugen wrote:: Yup, it's a lot harder to rank up at later ranks now. That's intentional, I know because I was part of the initial creation of this idea. Getting to S-rank is supposed to be a daunting task and the rank should only be available to those who have truly spent a great deal of work, time, and effort into their characters.

There's a fine line of things being more difficult or a LOT more difficult to work towards. I don't really like the idea that it will be A LOT more difficult to rank up. Like honestly, I am here to RP and have fun, but a part of that IS to rank up and have my char older and wiser and more skilled and whatnot. I feel just a bit of a decreased liking towards RP when I KNOW that I must base a lot of my RP-ing around missions that will have to have battles and spars in order for me to rank up.

And that leads to point number 3:

3.

Mugen wrote:: To say socials are rendered useless for ranking up is an exaggeration. You can still advance towards ranking up by having battles/spars. Not all missions, even high ranked ones, necessarily include battles.

I'm sorry, but as a person that HATES spars with passion, and finds them utterly mundane and boring - I really want to just argue this point and say right now that I do not consider spars/battles as socials. No no no. Those things just aren't for everybody, we are all different RP'rs with our strong sides and weak sides and I feel that with this system I am sort of forced into doing all the things I dislike the most: Spars and missions. Naturally I don't hate missions or anything, but they are pretty .... stiff many times. You have to be careful of many factors so that you will get a decent grade and have it approved to really be successful.

And that leads to the last point:

4.

Mugen wrote:: I will also admit that socials aren't very useful for ranking up now. But lets be honest, you don't get promoted at work for that cool conversation you had about astrophysics with your girl friend at a coffee shop down the street from your workplace. Socials SHOULDN'T have a huge impact on your ability to rank up.

Pardon me, sir, but socials ARE very important for rank ups. I can take on missions without making any sort of character growth whatsoever, just like I can do the same with socials. But I can also make HUGE character growth through socials just like some missions. They both have the potential of making my characters better, stronger, smarter and wiser. I do not agree with the sort of thinking that puts social threads at the bottom of the food chain like they do not matter and like thy cannot get your character to grow mentally and physically.

Which is exactly what I feel like this new system is doing. Also I agree with Brett, I do not like when changes are made without any sort of conversation or 'preparing'.

@Alex

1.

Alex wrote:: This system isn't perfect and everybody that was involved in the discussion knew it wasn't, but it's not possible to make something perfect when only a handful of people actually enter the thread with enough questions/criticisms to help polish it.

I do not agree with the working methods of making a system that you KNOW is not perfect and possibly flawed especially since the other admin in charge was not there to read it over and comment on it.

2.

Alex wrote:: As for deleting it, the moment it was done I wanted to shoot myself in the foot for doing it late at night while I was tired. But even if we were to go back to the point system, the numbers would have to be raised.

Don't say that. Don't use the "I was tired when I was doing it" excuse. I mean, we all know how it is and such but that IS the reason why big things shouldn't be done WHILE being tired.

3. See point 4 above. Socials matter.

4. I will say again, I do not agree on such a huge and sudden change after a LITTLE bit of a talk about rank ups being too easy. But that being said, you sort of (even if I do not like it or agree with it) explained point 1 from above about why this was done, so meh.

Age : 28 Posts : 1797

Hey look, it's me again! First let me just preface this by saying, I'm neutral about this whole topic. I can see why it was implemented, and I can also see why this would be incredibly frustrating to most members. I'm not siding with anyone where, so please don't attack me for my simple opinion. kthx. Moving on....

This System Was Introduced Way Too Suddenly
One of the main gripes I see about this whole thing is that it came out of absolutely nowhere. I'll have to agree with Chris here, this was all rather sudden. Especially for something as inherently radical as this. There should have been some forewarning or FA topic to kinda gauge public opinion about this issue before it was brought forth. You don't want to do a 180 overhaul without first seeing if it'll piss off 90% of the member base. However, at the same time it's unfair to say that 90% of the member base actually hates this idea. For one, we've only seen the opinion of maybe five really vocal members, most of whom have high-ranking characters, so the impact to them is greatest. However I imagine the newbies and lower ranked characters are pretty happy that they only have to do a little more work to get to their next rank. Regardless, the point I'm making is that this was way too sudden. From experience, I can understand why it was put out so quickly, but perhaps a similar approach to the eval update would have been nice. Ya' know, where members were allowed to offer their two cents and if enough people agreed the changes could be made. I feel like this is a much bigger overhaul than the eval system update, and should definitely have warranted a feedback topic the moment it was introduced.

Scale Down The Requirements
For the most part, I'm in favor of a system driven by missions instead of social topics. Not only does it make way more sense, but it encourages members to RP missions. I agree with Mugen here, doing a couple missions to reach S-rank is really not a challenge. It's far too easy to get to God level as it is, and worst yet, if I recall correctly, you didn't even have to do A-rank or S-rank missions. You could go from Genin to Sennin doing only C-rank missions. Requiring members to take missions closer to their rank is definitely a plus in my book. HOWEVER, and I cannot overstate that word enough, HOWEVER: 48 mission topics is completely absurd. I remember suggesting a similar idea to Trey many moons ago. It went something like this: "Members need only do X number of missions to rank up, and perhaps a Y value of EXP on top of that." (I really, really hate the concept of mission points by the way) But, let me make this clear, this suggestion was to go along with a system where Ranks would NOT be the dominant method of power-scaling. For such a system to really work, Ranks would have to be nothing more than an honorary title, a bragging right, a simple medal you wear across your sleeve to intimidate opponents. It would not be a measure of your character's strength, as it currently is on US. But because they still are, I cannot get behind this notion of 48 mission topics to get to S-rank. Not just because that number is ridiculously high, but also because missions are fucking boooooooring. If this system came with an overhaul of missions, a change to how they were done, or even something as simple as a few extra default missions to add some variety, then I could get behind this idea. If missions were more fun to do, then yeah, this idea could actually work out really well. But let's face it, nobody likes doing missions. With this new system, you're forcing members to do MORE of the things they hate, and LESS of the things they love. Idk, I'd be pretty tempted to leave a site that made me do a bunch of shit I dislike doing. Hell it's the entire reason I hate playing MMOs. If you expect us to grind to a higher rank, then at least ask us to buy your bullshit Shinobi Cash™ so we can at get some EXP potions to make this grind go by a little quicker.

You're Making Progress Way Too Difficult
To be perfectly clear, I thought ranking up was at a fair difficulty, but I haven't read the other topic in the FA so I won't comment too much on that issue. However, if we want to encourage fighting and killing on this site, then ranking up shouldn't be a nightmare. Losing a character you spent months, perhaps even years, on is incredibly demoralizing. I know the general consensus is "it happens, move on", but that's a lot easier said than done. It always sucks when your hard work is washed down the drain, and it can take weeks or even months to get back into the groove with RPing after it. Now, if the staff was aiming to perpetuate the state of low-combat, high-social that US has been fond of for far too long, then they failed at doing that as well. For one, Missions aren't social topics, so it's kinda obvious why that may not have been the best idea to focus the system around. But more importantly, the new system encourages people to risk their character's lives. You're making it more difficult to rank up, while at the same time making it easier for your character to die. Idk, to me that seems absurd. If you want to encourage non-scripted combat, then I'd suggest making it easier to rank up instead of more difficult. Or at least offering a better reward than 25% EXP in the form of funds to your new character.

Also, keep in mind that you're essentially doubling member's workload. Not only do they have to do soooo much more work, but they have to do work that they don't particularly enjoy doing, and in the very end, the pay-off is exactly the same. Imagine working 30h/week and getting paid $30k annually for a job you enjoy doing. Now imagine your boss wants you to work 45h/week, but you're still getting paid $30k annually and it's a job you don't particularly like. That's basically what this system is asking members to do. If the pay-off was a little bit better (I can't imagine how you'd accomplish that) then I think it'd be fair. But at this point the system is just making everything more tedious and less fun, and I doubt anyone wants that.

My Suggestions
Now I know I've been mostly critical of the system, but I won't end my rant without at least one suggestion. If you wish to keep this new ranking system (and not revert back to the old one), then I suggest either reducing the rank-up requirements, or making missions more fun to do (I recommend creating a topic to ask members what they'd like to see changed). If you could do both, that would be even better, but I understand that can be difficult and time consuming.

EDIT: Since it takes me an hour to write one of these, a lot of you have posted already, so my feedback with the above seems to be addressed already. I kept everything as-is though, since I don't feel like going my rant with a fine tooth comb.