Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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We've been asking for too much dev too often

6. Only ask for development threads if the submission is severely overpowered or an item located within the submission is found on the Restricted Items List.

Just saw (and remembered) this. Took a look at a few recent subs that I'd reviewed. I've been handing out way too much dev, and I'm far from the only one. Just sharing this moment of introspection lol.
 
Hand in hand with this is a reticence to add things to the restricted mats list I can't fathom.

Things on that list is better than hand wavy dev requirements and challenges can be fun.

I made a topic about making dev more fun and including more groups but Lis and Cira nuked it and I moved on from factory.

/Me runs away
 
Jorus Merrill said:
I've been handing out way too much dev, and I'm far from the only one.
I've wondered if I've been doing this myself from time to time, just because I know I can get caught up in little details rather than viewing the larger, overall picture.

Are there are certain areas where you feel this seems to be happening a lot?
 

ADM. Reshmar

Directorate Officer Fleet Admiral SJC 3rd Fleet
I think things like Development for ships over 1km are not needed. You already have to be a major faction to use them, that should be restriction enough. I can see development for ships over 2km.

Also the massive requirement for flagships seems too much to me for what you get. With the current system you can get a 3km ship with 100 posts of development that pretty much equals a flagship. having to have 7 writers is a chore in itself. Why not change the requirement to something with less posts and make it where each of the 7 writers have to equally participate. Like a Dom, each of the 7 are required to post 20 times. This brings the post count down to something more reasonable and promotes participation for major factions.

Also I wish we could revisit the 8km flagship limit. Let people have some big ships if they do the work. And make minor factions and characters be able to have 500 meter ships so they can have full strength frigates. anyway just some things I have been considering. I agree Development needs something but post count is still the best way to gauge the work done vs what is needed.

[member="Gir Quee"]
[member="Raziel"]
[member="Jorus Merrill"]
 
Gir Quee said:
Are there are certain areas where you feel this seems to be happening a lot?
Ships. We've been consistently nickel-and-dime-ing people (+10 for an extra squadron! +10 for a 0.5 drive! +10 for molecular shields! +20 for a two-point defense bump!) to the point where we've been expecting 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 posts of dev.
 
[member="Jorus Merrill"], it's an area that I'd like to see changed as well (mostly to get rough consistency). As you've mentioned in the Type 3 Keldabe submission, there hasn't been a lot of consistency when we start getting to really advanced and high-powered starships.

I think that part of that was the relative rarity of such ships in the past, but from what I'm hearing in various chats, we're probably going to see a lot more of them. I think it would probably be a good idea to figure out some rough guide to judge such ships or ask development before we see the flood of them coming in as people finish development for them. To clarify, I'm not talking a ship that is only minorly different from a template example. I'm talking about about ships like the Wyrrlok or several of the newer Mandalorian designs which are exceptionally powerful compared to our baseline standards.

I can understand criticism that my own personal system that I'm playing with is nickel-and-diming people. I am open to suggestions that would improve it or make it obsolete. The intent when I formed it was to devise a method that judged really overpowered ships in a consistent manner. This was particularly driven by the concerns that I was hearing in some chats that the Mandalorians were being given special treatment (To be clear, I'm not saying that the Mandalorians have been getting special treatment, but that perception is present in some members's minds). I think that the presence of a standardized system helps fight not only conscious and unconscious bias when judging, but the public perception of it occurring as well.

But it's clearly not an ideal solution.

I'd like to see ideas or suggestions on how we can not overload people with dev for ships while having more consistency in our judging.
 
[member="Gir Quee"]

I wasn't aware you had a system like that; I didn't intend my remarks as personal criticism.

I agree about the need for standardization. However, I have trouble imagining that in any functional way without another complete overhaul of starship stats, which is far more trouble than it's worth. I also have serious trouble imagining standardization being fair: there are just too many factors involved in judging a starship. Normally, ships have been eyeballed, but that always ends up generating a variety of personal standards, which leads to public perception issues.

The simplest way to approach standardization might be a point buy system based off the example ships. Each class has 3-4 example ships, and from what I've seen, we all tend to judge in relation to those examples. So here's one way we could jury-rig a consistent system:

5 posts of dev = 1 point
1 point can be:
  • +1 to armament or defense
  • -1 to speed or maneuver
  • one advanced component

The problem is that then we're nickel-and-dime-ing people again, plus advanced components can't possibly be defined in a consistent way, plus systems like this are extremely vulnerable to edge cases and exploits and apparent inconsistencies, plus it's not consistent with the judging rule at the top of the thread.

Another possible solution, and here's where the rule I cited comes into play:

  • Ask for no dev threads.
  • If a submission is significantly stronger than average, ask for 20-30 posts.
  • If a submission is incredibly unbalanced, have it nerfed.
Doing it this way would be consistent with the rule that we haven't been following. It would stop huge disparities. However, it would also cause issues when people show up with 200 posts and ask (in good faith) for really really nice ships, because that's what people have always done.

Simplest way to keep the rule:
  • Continue eyeballing subs and judging on gut feeling.
  • Stop asking for so much dev. Wean yourself off the need to demand that people work as much for your toys as you feel you worked for yours. Accept lots of dev when people do it voluntarily, but stop asking for anything over 30-40 posts, and save that for extreme cases.
That would be consistent with the rule, and would go a long way toward solving the very serious public image issues the Factory has right now. I'm not sure it's clearly understood that the Factory's current dev requirements are much higher than they've ever been, and that we're running into the same public perception trouble that the Codex did a year or two ago. That perception affects our ability to do our jobs.

Whether or not we make formal reforms in this direction, I'll be judging according to the rule from now on.
 

ADM. Reshmar

Directorate Officer Fleet Admiral SJC 3rd Fleet
[member="Jorus Merrill"] what do you consider unbalanced? that is an issue we have when judging starships. I mean that is what this is about, development on starships. It seems development on other things is not questioned where 80% of the dev for starships is often argued with.

Starship's have gotten out of hand and I know I am not innocent in propagating some of that. I have been in too many tech wars on other sites and I know I tend to try to stay on par with everyone which then pushes them to go further and then I just do it again and make things to counter. I have seen this destroyer sites once the tech gets to the point where fleeting is useless and just becomes a series of people posting misses and minor damage.

a certain few ate going to continue to keep making ships that are over powered and role play then like they are untouchable. I have decided I am done with all that. per some of our conversations I am going to water down my future tech so to speak. Make ships that make sense to me not ships that fit the example specs.

that being said, it still comes down to what we consider over powered and unbalanced. each of us are different. That in itself is an issue because one may let something past that another wont then it is that person being prejudice against the submitter in their eyes.

so I propose we change the way we look at stuff. for instance

Hyperdrives - have nothing to do with a battle. So no development for sub class 1 within reason. let class .75 and class .5 just go. All it really affects is when we use a hyperlane type map.

stealth - on starships stealth tech is almost a basic system to a point. Why not just make cloaking devices need development and let the rest slide on starships. I understand it on personnel armor but really Modern day ships have some type of stealth standard.

Hanger Capacity - it really does not matter to a point if a ship can carry fighters. so no dev for hangers on things like heavy cruisers within reason.

gun count - it doesnt not matter, we base things on the armament rating, ships can have 1000 weapons but if the armament is 16 t is 16. think of it like this, of that 1000 weapons it may only be able to fire half in one arc. so with in reason do not worry about the gun count and the weapons and just look at the armament rating.

Defense - this matters more to me than anything since it sets up how tough a ship is in the end.

speed and maneuvering - forget dev on this just limit people to realistic ratings.

people are going to continue to mini max ships. use that examples as gospel and push it as far as they can.

I think the key is to limit fleet sizes and ship composition in fleets to realistic levels for role play. most of the battles in star wars besides a couple big examples were most of the time one to 3 destroyers vs smaller ships with fighters. I have made it very clear I do not like big battles. they lag things down and never get completed. Omega was cool but it was DMed and people knew if they did not accelerate the hit calling they would just not do anything.

I hate doing solo dev, most people do. and trying to find someone to help is not as easy for some as it is for others. I understand people hate doing dev, especially for starships. I have no idea how to fix the dev issue but I agree we ask for too much.
 
[member="Jorus Merrill"], your point system example seems pretty similar to what I've been working with. I would agree that it can't be used to replace actual judging, given that there is a lot of subjective thought involved in it as well. I do find that it's useful for me though when I have submitter's point to past judgements of mine when referencing what they think they should get with their own submissions.



Jorus Merrill said:
That would be consistent with the rule, and would go a long way toward solving the very serious public image issues the Factory has right now. I'm not sure it's clearly understood that the Factory's current dev requirements are much higher than they've ever been, and that we're running into the same public perception trouble that the Codex did a year or two ago. That perception affects our ability to do our jobs.
Please educate me on this because I'm not familiar with it. Part of it is probably because I run in different OOC circles. But I would like to know more about it so that I'm at least not contributing to the problem.

I imagine that another part of this is because I've not been here as long as you to see the broad changes in factory development thread expectations. I would be interested to see how expectations have changed and to see where we should be heading with them.



Jorus Merrill said:
6. Only ask for development threads if the submission is severely overpowered or an item located within the submission is found on the Restricted Items List.
I do not see anything in Rule #6 or the rest of the FJ Uniform Code of Conduct that addresses the amount of development needed for OP items. If we do have set expectations (whether by tradition or formal adoption) for what constitutes the amount of development, that's great, but it's hard for me to follow something that I don't know exists.
 
Just popping in to say that I think all the points [member="Reshmar"] laid out could be very practical.

[member="Gir Quee"], I'd like to address your post in more depth but don't have the time at the moment. In short: you're right that we don't have any firm guidelines on how much dev to assign for OP items, but I have a hard time believing we're supposed to jump from zero to sixty (heh). Also in briefest terms: it wasn't that long ago that 10-15 posts was a respectable ship dev thread, and if someone put in 40, that was considered extremely respectable. When the Dark Blade got subbed with 200ish or whatever, that was considered Factory-breaking audacity, and we collectively decided that the OS had earned their overgunned ship.

Those numbers have skyrocketed in the last year, year and a half. Now we're at a point where I know of several people who are working on fifty to a hundred posts of dev backlog for two or three subs. They literally spend all their time doing dev threads. I'm fairly sure I can lump you and Resh into that group, the amount of ship-related dev you do. Do you really want to spend such a huge fraction of your time doing more and more dev? Should we really be asking that of people?

As for the public image issues, it's kind of awkward to talk about, but yeah, I move in a lot of different OOC circles, always have. I keep my fingers in a lot of pies, and everywhere I turn, people are telling me the Factory asks for way too much dev these days, very inconsistently. Part of that is just normal whining and part of it, I think, has some foundation. One example: yesterday, someone compared our current standards (or lack thereof) to the time that a former FJ nickle-and-dimed a totally vanilla sword for 25 posts. On second chance, the sword got through with zero dev and a quiet apology from the factory admin on behalf of the FJs. We really don't want to leave a sour taste in people's mouths any more than we already do. I can name half a dozen former FJs/RPJs/Admins who avoid or actively boycott the Factory over issues like the ones we're discussing. I spend a non-negligible amount of time arguing with many of my friends and acquaintainces in defense of the Factory under Spencer and the 3.0 ship system.

It's just all kind of out of hand, y'know?
 
[member="Jorus Merrill"], I can understand and get behind that. I realize that we're probably never going to be 100% consistent on things that we're judging subjectively, but as long as we have a rough method to our madness, I'm happy.



Jorus Merrill said:
Just popping in to say that I think all the points Reshmar laid out could be very practical.

Is this something we want to potentially make more formal then?

[member="Reshmar"]
 
Raziel said:
Hand in hand with this is a reticence to add things to the restricted mats list I can't fathom.
Things on that list is better than hand wavy dev requirements and challenges can be fun.
I made a topic about making dev more fun and including more groups but Lis and Cira nuked it and I moved on from factory.
/Me runs away
No. We agreed on group dev ideas, we were not in favor of adding a dozen materials to the restricted materials list.

And I completely agree that the post amount we ask for has been largely inflated.
 
For example a ship that wants to be faster than normal with heavier than normal guns? Ten or so posts is fine. That includes minor/mass production.
 

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