Suggestion Invasion Criteria and Feedback

[Ugoto Chivaro]

I am of the opinion that Invasion Criteria and Invasion Feedback need to be re-implemented. I believe this is better for the long-term health of the faction game and the website at large.

• If there is no set criteria for invasion judgements, then nobody actually knows what to measure their work in an invasion against
• If no feedback is provided after invasions are judged, then nobody can adjust their work to be better prepared for the next one

I believe that if you have a game where the victory conditions are a black box that cannot be publicly described or inspected, then you have a game whose results will feel arbitrary even if they aren't. If people feel that way and come to conclude that nothing they do matters, then eventually they are going to stop playing the game. The game ends for good when enough people stop playing. We want the game to continue as long as possible. The game is (or should be) fun.

I do not believe invasion judgements as they are currently taking place are arbitrary. However, I also don't know and have no way of finding out.

Perhaps this is a contentious subject. Please remain civil with your reply. I am just a little guy and it is also my birthday.

 

[Lily Decoria]

Hard disagree.

People will only see the results and explanations as reason to target site staff as being biased and unfair even more than now.

 

[Sela Basran]

Ugoto Chivaro Happy birthday, muffin <3

 

[Ronhar Tane]

On one hand I get where you're coming from, but on the other I've heard the stories about how people have acted toward the mods who gave out those decisions. Not saying I disagree, but I do think it would take serious thought into implementing it in a way that wouldn't result in a salt crusade against the people judging

And a very happy birthday to you!

 

[Aurelian of Vandemar]

Definitely favour the older system where one gets the criteria of:

• Participation
• Tension
• Story

And a small summary on each of the criteria. Plus an addition if there was drama. It is definitely worth putting that out there, especially with all the salt-related announcements.

I get the protection for staff, but the judging can still happen anonymously and posted by one of the admins. They are either way being tagged and that way no individual will really be attacked. And if, I think the consequences for the individual who does are at this time very obvious and straight forward.

 

[Meya Liefi]

I have no preference on this subject, and only been in one invasion, but I'm extremely bored rn and have ideas I thought would be fun to post! Possibly bad ideas thooooo!

• Post rulings from an anonymous staff controlled account. This is to protect who was involved.
• Introduce rules around behaviours after rulings.

 

[Soundwave]

Why we did away with them still makes no sense to me.

You can't improve without critique. This is literally how we improve ourselves as writers and as individuals.

If the issue is with your narrative focus, then steps can be taken to figure out better ways to coordinate a better narrative on either side. If the issue is with OOC salt, then the problem people can be identified and have their behavior corrected. It is up to the factions to be able to correct and work on solutions to prevent repeat offenses.

The idea of 'You need to work on something, but we won't tell you what to work on.' is probably the thing that will piss people off more than actually losing. Because you get people who are going to lose, and lose and all you're doing is burning writers out rather than giving them a chance to improve themselves.

The argument being made of people targeting site staff for bias/hate is beyond me. Just issue temp bans and the behavior will correct itself. Alternatively have an anonymous staff account issue the rulings with provided breakdowns.

It is not that complicated to have a work around for the reasons that they were taken away to begin with. And to be honest it seems to be creating more issues than having public rulings ever did.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

I get what you are saying, but I'm also not a staff member who has to deal with the fallout.

I will say, though, that one of the things I really valued about this community when I came here was that everybody, even staff, was held to a standard and everything was transparent. I think we have drifted a little from that lately. I dunno if this would help or just create more issues.

What I really wanted to say is Happy Birthday!!!

 

[Taiia Locke]

I am of the opinion that Invasion Criteria and Invasion Feedback need to be re-implemented. I believe this is better for the long-term health of the faction game and the website at large.

• If there is no set criteria for invasion judgements, then nobody actually knows what to measure their work in an invasion against
• If no feedback is provided after invasions are judged, then nobody can adjust their work to be better prepared for the next one

I believe that if you have a game where the victory conditions are a black box that cannot be publicly described or inspected, then you have a game whose results will feel arbitrary even if they aren't. If people feel that way and come to conclude that nothing they do matters, then eventually they are going to stop playing the game. The game ends for good when enough people stop playing. We want the game to continue as long as possible. The game is (or should be) fun.

I do not believe invasion judgements as they are currently taking place are arbitrary. However, I also don't know and have no way of finding out.

Perhaps this is a contentious subject. Please remain civil with your reply. I am just a little guy and it is also my birthday.

We used to have invasion feedback, but unfortunately, some people took the map game a little too seriously and even threatened judges IRL. So this is probably not going to happen. A case of a group of people ruining it for everyone else.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Bad actors ruined how invasion decisions were presented for everyone else, but I personally have no stake in either position whether it’s kept as is or if the old way is brought back.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

even threatened judges IRL.

Oh my gosh this is terrible

 

[Taiia Locke]

Oh my gosh this is terrible

It most definitely was. Especially for the ones targeted. So I would be very surprised if site staff reverses this.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

It most definitely was. Especially for the ones targeted. So I would be very surprised if site staff reverses this.

I totally get it. I didn't even know this happened. In that case I think its probably wise to just stay as is.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

I personally appreciated the invasion feedback we used to receive, especially when the judges highlighted things they enjoyed. Another potential option could be to clarify the judging criteria in general, so faction members and staff understand what's being assessed and can keep that in mind while writing invasions.

And if the concern is that writers will try to "game the system," I mean, that already happens. People try to hit the beats they assume judges might be looking for. Clear criteria would give everyone the same information to work with.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Hard disagree.

People will only see the results and explanations as reason to target site staff as being biased and unfair even more than now.

This is almost exactly why we got rid of them.

Not so much because people targeted staff - RPJs were always kept anonymous, so only the admin announcing it was known - but because it didn't achieve anything.

I remember writing these long-ass summaries, to be met with the winners smugly congratulating themselves for doing such a great job, and the losers nit-picking every little thing.
Then what would happen is that people would see the summaries and try to clone what they think would work, so we had a spate of melodramatic character sacrifices because they saw that worked in our summary. We couldn't move for dramatic sacrifices of (30 posts) characters.

Ultimately, the big thing is that the losers still hated losing, and complained to us that "why didn't you mention X? I disagree about Y!" and it just got exhausting. The only 'learning' going on was aping the summary next time and then complaining when that didn't work.

The short answer is...no. We will not be doing this again, because it had no point. People here get very into it, and can't understand how you could possibly ajudge them the loser! Time to go mald in a Discord backroom about how biased staff is. I mean, they sometimes do that without a summary, but I can't help that.

 

[Joy]

We used to have invasion feedback, but unfortunately, some people took the map game a little too seriously and even threatened judges IRL. So this is probably not going to happen. A case of a group of people ruining it for everyone else.

I would be surprised if these people were still allowed to roleplay on this website. I don't think it's a good point to make because it implies that there are people currently active on this website who would engage in this type of behaviour. I don't think there are.

The idea of 'You need to work on something, but we won't tell you what to work on.' is probably the thing that will piss people off more than actually losing. Because you get people who are going to lose, and lose and all you're doing is burning writers out rather than giving them a chance to improve themselves.

I agree with this.

I believe that if you have a game where the victory conditions are a black box that cannot be publicly described or inspected, then you have a game whose results will feel arbitrary even if they aren't. If people feel that way and come to conclude that nothing they do matters, then eventually they are going to stop playing the game. The game ends for good when enough people stop playing. We want the game to continue as long as possible. The game is (or should be) fun.

I stopped playing Chaos for three weeks at the beginning of this year because of this. After deleting all of my sub-accounts I came back because the game is fun and I have friends here. Invasions have not felt fun. Being told to "make a good story" isn't a satisfactory answer when I have inquired into what goes into a decision for who wins an invasion.

The vagueness I know has contributed to the demise of at least two former major factions.

 

[Mellifluous Magenta]

The system gaming that happened under the older system was getting repetitive because the meta strategies got cloned again and again. Imo it started resulting in invasions that all read and felt the same. I'd rather not return to that. I like having invasions where new things happen and people innovate rather than trying to follow a script.

 

[Jonyna Si]

Ultimately, the big thing is that the losers still hated losing, and complained to us that "why didn't you mention X? I disagree about Y!" and it just got exhausting. The only 'learning' going on was aping the summary next time and then complaining when that didn't work.

It's something I've been thinking about a lot in the last few months, but does that not say something about the foundational premise of invasions?

Chaos is such a PvP driven site, and maybe it's time we rework invasions to emphasize coordination between factions instead of focusing on two factions trying to 'beat' the other.

I wasn't there for the heyday of invasion seasons, but in the three years I've been here, I feel like I've heard more of people talking about how invasions don't work fundamentally than I have people saying they work as intended.

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The system gaming that happened under the older system was getting repetitive because the meta strategies got cloned again and again. Imo it started resulting in invasions that all read and felt the same. I'd rather not return to that. I like having invasions where new things happen and people innovate rather than trying to follow a script.

But on the flip side, that's like telling a student to write a detailed book report when they're only allowed to read the synopsis and have to guess at everything else. Oh, and most of their grade depends on how well they understand the book they weren't allowed to read.

I get what you're saying, but that lack of guidance can also hold back people who do want to improve. And, like anything else on Chaos, wouldn't people eventually grow tired of repeating the same things and naturally start seeking out new experiences?

But, seems like admin already made their feelings about this clear, so it does seem a little like a moot point at any rate.

 

[Aether Verd]

Bad eggs ruined the old system

A lot of the bad eggs are still in the bunch

If re-instated, bad eggs will ruin the system

We can't have nice things