Forums → News and Feedback → [Official] Town Meeting: Point System

@JACKinbigletters; You haven't been around in the earlier years. You can go back to the older parts of the forums and see what kinds of threads there were. About half of it was before my time as moderator, but the site still had AP for the years after. They weren't that bad, but it wouldn't be as civil or peaceful as it is now. The worst behavior I've seen that has stopped since the removal of forum points is MASS necrobumps of threads like "What is your favorite movie?" "What is your favorite anime?" "What is your favorite video game?" 'What is your favorite character?" with hundreds of one to two word posts across multiple threads. The worst was one guy who brought back 400 threads. That's 20 forum pages. It really screws up the Tavern, Video Games, and Popular Media forums especially because those have a lot of "What is your favorite...?", vs. threads, and hypothetical situation threads that are seen as quick points for people who don't care about the forums and just find those threads and post to them because they think it's okay to just post some one or two word answer instead of having to create more thoughtful replies. And sometimes, it's the same question but a different thread and they just copy and paste their answer into three different threads that cover the same topic but are from different time periods. That is not an easy problem to fix unless threads are autolocked after a certain amount of inactivity, but that doesn't stop people from bringing back threads that are right before the autolock because people do that, too. I would not enjoy going back to the days of having to warn people not to spam up the forums or seeing the nonstop complaints about so-and-so spamming for points because they got knocked down lower on the leaderboard, because everyone denies that they're spamming even when presented with evidence of losing hundreds to thousands of points during the great spam purge of 2011. And the 'friends' who fight about who deleted who's comments because their points were lower? Not even real friends, just people using other people for points. It's a really sticky mess that's not worth the trouble.

Sigh. I have an hour and a half to kill so I might as well type this from my phone. Not sure yet but I might break it up into multiple posts if this gets too long. Depends on how much I feel like typing.

Let's start with the general questions that Ferret posed:
What would make you want to earn points?
For the most part I don't actually care about earning points. I come to the community to have fun and post my opinions on subjects. I am weird that way though so let me ask the question of why the average user would want points. I believe that the average user would just like to be recognized for what they do. Right now for the most part a user is only recognized for achieving stuff in game. This means that users that make good comments on games, post good ideas in the forums, help with bugs, etc are not getting noticeable credit for this therefore they might not do it. There are also other reasons people would want points. Mainly what comes to mind is unlocking something for earning X points. They would want that thing and therefore be willing to do whatever it takes to get the points needed to get said thing. So I guess that leads into the next question.
What things could points be used to unlock?
First off I want to mention what should not be locked in anyway. I believe that anyone should still be able to play any game, go to the forums, and comment how they do now. I think what would be best for unlocks is armatars through ranks. People could see themselves rising in rank and for each rank they get to get a new armatars or set of armatars, like how it was with AP. There could alsobe bigger unlocks for certain jumps in rank, maybe premium content or access to betas but iI will expand on that later. Basically people need to see theory are moving up and should know what they will unlock at the next rank.
What would make this the greatest ranking system ever
Not being able to spam your way to the top aka making it as fair as possible. How to do this I am not exactly sure. We would need to figure out how many points quests and other things would give, punishments, etc which is a tricky task. It would take lots of time to figure out this numbers to make it as balanced as possible and sadly no system is perfect. Just being able to show people's achievements from across the whole website would make it great in my opinion.

OK. I have said a lot here, plus I hate typing this on my phone. I'll go into each part of what Ferret suggested next post. Just wanted to get my general thought out there as fast as possible.

OK, back to my thoughts:

General Ideas
- Points Leader-boards on the side of the homepage.
I like this idea personally so a +1 to it. I think that the leader board on the front page like before should show the top 10 users. Maybe though if you are logged in at the bottom it will say what number you are and how many points you are away from the person that is ahead of you. That way people know what they need to do to move up.
- Point system should be unlimited, not limited.
I also agree with this idea +1, but don't know how it would be possible if the points were purely based on quests. Unlimited in my opinion is nicer because there is less chance of a tie. Again I don't know how unlimited would work with only quests. Also I don't believe unlimited points means there would be more spam. I think it just means you would have to try a bit harder to make it spam proof.
- Point system should retain the legacy name "Armor Points."
I would like to hear some other ideas for names before giving it an official name. Also it depends on how close it is to the old AP system.
- Create a spendable point system, allowing people to purchase unlocks as with currency.
NO!!! First off that would mess up the rankings unless you had two totals going, one where it is the total number of points and the other where it is spendable points. Two, I don't see a benefit to it really. People would just want to find ways to spam to get what would be free money.
- Spendable Point System & Infinite Points will cause spam / bad idea.
Yes spendable points would cause spam I think but I don't think infinite points would.
- The system should be crafted so new users are able to reach the top.
I like the idea here but I don't think it would be fair to older member so no. Members that stick with the site should be rewarded for it in having a higher rank.
Gaining Point Ideas:
-Gaining Points through Merits
Yes +1, merits are a fair way to gain points.
- Gaining Points through posting on the forums.
Yes, but only if the point value is EXTREMELY low compared to most everything else or else we will have tons of spam.
-Points for Merits/Comments/Posts may be abused.
Yes for comments and posts, no for merits. How do you abuse the merit system? Seems hard to me.
-Some sort of website mini game like the AFD Coinerator to accrue points.
Interesting idea, I would want to know more how it would work before saying if I like it or not.
-Gain points (or Armatar?) for completing sets of Quests.
I like this idea +1. It shows that you stuck with the game long enough to get all the quests instead of just getting the easy ones and moving on.
-Separate point systems for different aspects of the site.
Seems a bit too complicated and could get pretty messy. It would be good however to be able to see the breakdown of how people would use the site so I will give it a +1
- Give points for reviews.
If the review is good and well done yes. Sorta like how merits are given out for good comments/reviews on games. I am fine with this, +1
Point Unlocks Ideas:
- Points unlocking exclusive Armatars
Yes, +1. Maybe even if you get high enough you get to use custom armatars???
- Points ranked-based system (Serf, Prince, etc...)
Yes, +1. Ranks make people feel like they are making progress.
-- Ranks displayed next to names in forums.
Yes, +1. Maybe not only put their rank but also their overall position. For example, right under the armatar you could put for me a king logo and then 543 for my position/point rank on the site.
-- Combining unlocked Armatars with current ranks.
Sure, +1. I have no problems with this idea if I understand it correctly.
-- Display badge to show what rank you are.
Yes, +1. See above.
- Exclusive Forum unlocked after so many points.
No, all users should be able to get to the forum.
- Allow users to unlock uploading their own Armatar
Yep +1, said I would like that above. You would need to make the rank pretty high though so bots cannot get to it.
-Access to Beta Testing games.
Isn't that up to the maker of the game?
- Unlock of premium content in some games.
Again, isn't that up to the maker but maybe if you completed all the quests for the games you can get some premium content? Just an idea.


Well I think that is everything.

- Create a spendable point system, allowing people to purchase unlocks as with currency.
NO!!! First off that would mess up the rankings unless you had two totals going, one where it is the total number of points and the other where it is spendable points. Two, I don't see a benefit to it really. People would just want to find ways to spam to get what would be free money.

@Gantic @Ferret That you for the enlightenment, you are right, I haven't been here very long and can only go on what I've experienced myself, which has been a good experience in itself. Yes I can see that that could send this site back into the dark ages once again but I have faith in our community here. I believe that we wouldn't tolerate such heinous behavior, well I wouldn't. Although, I have noticed a revival in the form games due to posts there counting as posts again. It's like a flood to be honest... While I have your attention, very involved Mod and Admin, I've been toying with the idea of splitting away the RPG's and them from the count to 100, you're banned, the ^

Gah everything was deleted.... Give me a second....

Gah ran out of edit time, sorry for the double post.

@Gantic @Ferret That you for the enlightenment, you are right, I haven't been here very long and can only go on what I've experienced myself, which has been a good experience in itself. Yes I can see that that could send this site back into the dark ages once again but I have faith in our community here. I believe that we wouldn't tolerate such heinous behavior, well I wouldn't. Although, I have noticed a revival in the form games due to posts there counting as posts again. It's like a flood to be honest... While I have your attention, very involved Mod and Admin, I've been toying with the idea of splitting away the RPG's and them from the count to 100, you're banned, the ^ < v game and those games, giving RPG's another forum to roam free and not become submerged in the torrent of forum games. This would give new OP's a chance to try new RPG's and for them to get noticed before they get swept under the tide. However, I also believe that this could be a bad idea due to, 1) segregation is rarely a good thing, 2) I don't think there are enough RPG's to warrant a new forum for themselves, 3) the RPG's would loose out on new players, think of how many times someone's seen a RPG title and went, "that sounds interesting..." and tried it out. If we split up the RPG's then we'll cut the amount of new players to said RPG's. I know I've killed the idea for a new forum but one cannot be biased on such things.

Gah everything was deleted.... Give me a second.... It's different from the OP but there isn't much I can do there...

uhh hello? first off, of course the point system and the coin system will be separate. and second, you really think they are going to make posts worth 1 point/coin? look at all the people who has misused that idea.

I do not know what to say :/ You guys can figure it out xD But what i would love to see is APD coin generator thing for points :3 Like a daily reward, or you can use couns and get points. **** i love luck so much, i would do anything for it.

@JACKinbigletters: It's not a matter of having faith in the community of not tolerating it. Nobody who cares about the community will tolerate it, but there will also be those who don't really care about the community and want points. They mess up the natural flow of the community.

Take "Count to 100" for example: Anyone who cares about the count doesn't tolerate "spilping". Yet, some people looking for the quest just don't read the OP (even when it says right in the title not to read the OP!) and mess with the rhythm of the count.

Scale that up from one thread to all forums and we'll have regular a problems. The upside was maybe two or three new regular Forum Game posters (but we'll have to see if they're still here in six months) over the countless others that have counted and stopped.

And when the post in the forum quest was freshly released, there were a lot of extremely irrelevant threads and posts all in the wrong places just to get those points. Plus, I really enjoy a drama free community. We haven't had a lot of real drama in a long time.

Re: Forum RPG forum. This was suggested before, but there really weren't that many active RPGs or activity in the Forum Games forum to warrant that. Might change now, but that's up to the admins. If they need an opinion of a mod who frequents that forum, I'd lean toward maybe.

@Gantic

Plus, I really enjoy a drama free community.

If we had a rank before, will it still be the same now? and would our last completed quests be counted for the points when the whole thing is completed?

If we had a rank before, will it still be the same now?

Thanks everybody, this thread is closed as far as changes to the main post from this point forward. I will leave it open though in case there still wants to be discussion.

Speaking to a RPG board, I have talked to Boppins a bit about the notion of an invisible forum so RPG makers could have a "Choose your own adventure" style without clogging up the main board. That may happen in the future, though it's not exactly what you mean I believe.

an invisible forum

@MattEmAngel Voting on what, an invisible forum? I think us getting feedback from you guys is important, we should be doing it more. Maybe we do a Town Meeting on the forums in general and see what people would like to see done and I can consolidate the data and pass it on to the team.

The EDIT button has turned out fine so far. We also put some things in place to prevent its abuse. I can tell you these are a few things we've been discussing...

- Invisible forum so people can create Forum Games with many posts that link together if they wish.
- Upgraded dice graphics.
- Tagging Forum Threads
- Alpha Posts that stick to the top of a thread.

Since forums aren't our primary focus right now, what is happening is a lot of these are being done on Feature Friday because we love you guys.