Best Of

(For added difficulty, and I think Tet raised this already: Keep reverting policy based on public outcry, and that sends the signal that you will revert policy when there is public outcry, which tends to lead to more public outcry. If players are responsible and only start crying out in legit cases - that's fine. But what tends to also happen is you'll see the beginnings of the 'squeaky wheel gets the grease' effect. Which is another form of bad. That's why another public policy 'best practice' is to be slow to revert policy, i.e. extenuating circumstances, extreme hardship)). As my dog likes to often say, it's 'ruff'.

I feel some type of way about this. Shifting the finish line when 75% of the race is over with is bad.

I think this is a legit case to feel frustrated with and speak up about. You may not have directly called this specific case a public outcry, but it does feel implied.

Also, is now a good time to point out that the system is still cheesable? You just ignore sect for the first 11 months of the year instead of ignoring it for the last 11 months.

Edit: It's actually technically easier, because you don't have to fight every once in a while to remain active while you wait on the year to end, you just don't fight at all in Sect until the end.

Fine, let's take this point by point.


Clearly. It is not a competitive sport, though, and not as rigidly structured as most other competitions. Half the people in this thread could not have told you the end-of-year structure. The end-of-year reset is not even explained in a help scroll, as far as I can see.


I heard the points that have been raised, and they have some merit. Despite accusations of contrarianism, I do understand the complaints being made and I'm not trying to dismiss them. Ultimately, though, I disagree with some points and the conclusions being made, and I will make my own points and try to demonstrate why your points lack appropriate context.


"Operating as it was intended to" is an interesting assertion and really gets to the heart of the matter. The ratings accuracy system has been in place for two and a half years. Clearly, it has never been intended that someone could be active for only half a season, or coast on early wins. And yet, that is what has happened in a slightly spectacular fashion. 16 duels feels like something you have to try at. With all respect to Mjoll, it feels like gaming the system. It was not "operating as intended", and I think we all know that.


Clearly the season was broken. "The season should have been ended or reset early" is basically full admission to that point. How best to address that problem then? Ending the season early is one option, but it is not the only option and it is an acutely poor option. If you give the #1 duelist the fame line for the truncated season, you've just rewarded the bad behavior while acknowledging it was bad. If you don't, well, we're right back where we started, aren't we?


Or maybe I'm not ignoring the things you want me to ignore, I'm making my own valid points instead, and I'm not interested in being shouted down by some overly loud clique talking unicorn about me.

You're making the argument because it's contrary, and you can't post without being contrary. Evidence is in every discussion you've ever participated in. Without even ever hearing your opinion on the rule changes, we all called that you would post in a similar manner 3 hours before you posted. You're just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.

Boy, I'm not touching half of that with a ten-foot pole. Hilarious take, though.

When there is something that is wrong with Sect (like the top combatant being startlingly reclusive), changes should happen.

Again, no one is arguing otherwise. What people are arguing is the timing and how it was handled (with no prior warning). I'm not sure why some of you are so keen on ignoring these facts in favour of pushing arguments that no one else is having.

Clearly, something should be changed because the whole season seems like a bit of a gaff if the top duelist fought only 16 spars this year. No one here even seem to disagree that a change needed to be made. I'm making the argument that changing it this season is reasonable because, while Sect is indeed a competition, it is also implicitly more fluid than a major league sport. Sect is embedded in Aetolia, which receives semi-regular balance changes. Several new classes were even released this season. I feel for the people burned by changes, but I also recognize that the admin are just trying to incentivize good competition. Frankly, climbing the leaderboard for the first 6 months and then just coasting is not good competition.

So you agree that it's a competitive sector of Aetolia, then? And that the points we've raised are, in fact, valid? And that the timing of the change was awful because it unduly impacted people and skewed the results after nine months of operating as it was intended to? And that the season should have either been ended and reset to necessitate the change or the change should have waited for the new season? Or are you just arguing to argue again and not really paying attention to what's being said?

You can't just say "so you agree that" and then post a bunch of stuff you wished I had said.