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Post by Renathan on Jan 28, 2020 21:28:03 GMT -6
I did state a bit ago that there were going to be custom stats changes coming up soonish; and now it is time.The Soft Release of the new way that Custom Stats are to be done has been released today; as such the threads were cleaned out and Archived. Everyone that had been in the threads had either been addressed, accepted/rejected, and/or PM'd so no one was ignored.When doing your Custom Stats, ALWAYS check This Thread FIRST. I have noticed quite a few people having difficulty knowing which moves were restricted and which are not; the list is there, it also tells you how to make custom stats. In fact; you'll see at the bottom of the thread the new protocol for Move/Ability SWAPS. Yes, that's right. I literally went over the entire site and looked at Every Custom Move/Ability swap ever (and made a gigantic list) to create the new protocol. This soft release means that if we see this new protocol having loopholes; that we have the right to change it at any time to fix that. The site's balancing is the most important thing. Then when creating your custom stats use that above thread and either Post Here for Normal Requests and Post HERE for Restricted Requests or Questions. Note: Restricted Requests are going back to, you know, actually being restricted. You may not have more than 10% of your customs (ON ANY and ALL of your accounts) having restricted moves/abilities (that were not already on the species/breed stats of course) while asking for another one- you'll get an auto no. There also must be a lot of sense made. Spirit was originally VERY restrictive with these, and they got out of hand once he disappeared. This is being tightened back up now. In addition, if you try to hide your customs to circumvent any of the rules in any way, you'll be banned from asking for restricted moves/abilities. Restricted Moves/Abilities were a privilege from spirit that he rarely accepted, and now that he's gone, it needed to be revitalized to work more smoothly. If your stat swaps do not follow the swap protocol, they will not be accepted. A No is a No. If you have an old custom that doesn't follow the rules, it's grandfathered in- no changes needed since it was accepted under the old rules. Also Note: Custom Stats changes are usually allowed if the parent was never trained or if there is a good reason, but will NEVER be allowed again if the parent has been bred. This causes too much trouble with offspring. The Biggest change: DO NOT message any moderator about custom stats/changes anymore.
This is all being done in public on these threads. The reason for this is because, as has been addressed before-
1. The absolutely high levels of aggression shown to moderators about stats has been ridiculous for some time now.
2. Spirit is gone, so things need to be tightened up and have protocols that can be followed by all mods/members without issue for fairness and sanity now that we don't have just one person 'running the whole system.'
3. With things being done in public, this allows for ease of getting stats archived more quickly.
4. You now have the tools (in the swaps protocol) to be able to make swaps and have more of an understanding about what is acceptable vs what is not.
IF you have a current open discussion with moderators about a custom that was in the process of being done (I have archived which ones were which) you can continue AT THAT MOD'S DISCRETION. Otherwise you have to do the above like everyone else for sanity's sake.- Regarding Unregistered Custom Requests you are still allowed to ask a moderator to help you find some stuff if lost. We may not be able to find those lost custom parents, but this doesn't count for the whole Custom Stats change above. - Reminder on Addons! Remember; If you have a custom with addons, those addons on that custom are ATTACHED PERMANENTLY to whatever Added Move/Ability they 'rendered'. That means that OFFSPRING of those customs ONLY inherit those abilities if they also have whatever Addon GAVE those moves/abilities. This was changed a long time ago on V2. Examples: If your Equillion has a 'fluffy coat' that gives Thick Fur; then the offspring ONLY inherits Thick Fur if they also have the 'fluffy coat'. If your estharne has flame body due to it's 'fire mane', then the offspring ONLY inherits Flame Body if they also have the 'fire mane'. In situations where half of an addon is inherited for some reason (the offspring has half of a fire mane) they can still get the added move/ability (flame body). I've seen a couple of these lately, so I wanted to put up a reminder of this change. Now here's an example of what the Addon Rule DOESN'T EFFECT: You have a regular LE Tainted Equillion. It has breathe fire and flame body, cool! You breed it to a regular LE Pure Equillion. The offspring you picked is a recolored pure equillion. You want it to have breathe fire and flame body? Cool, it can have them if you switch for them. These were in the base stats of the parents, and can be mixed and matched. They aren't attached to any addons! |
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Post by Xentus on Jan 28, 2020 22:40:44 GMT -6
I feel like the rules on swaps were much needed, thank you for putting your time and energy into adding those in! They seem like a lot to take in at first glance, but are quite specific and I can appreciate that.
I think there should be a little selective leniency with restricted moves/abilities, at least to some extent. My mindset is more in line with certain add-ons primarily. I propose the following idea; hard restrictions and soft restrictions:
Hard restrictions should be moves/abilities that are so for a real good reason - they're combat strong and shouldn't be widely available. Or don't fall in line with the ideals of the labs, like telepathy. Additionally, there's usually no physical tie to them. There's no physical feature that could grant the move Time Stop, for example. A user can have no more than 10% of their customs with hard restrictions. These ones have to be explained and explained well.
Soft restrictions should fall on strong combat moves/abilities that do have a physical tie. Or maybe they're restricted because they only make sense when a certain add-on is present, and not necessarily that they're strong. Double headed, for example, should be reserved for customs with extra heads. It falls in line with add-ons granting a move/ability that makes sense for that add-on. These restrictions probably shouldn't be limited as harshly as hard ones. They're also a little more self explanatory. The thing has flame body because its literally on fire? Yup, that makes sense.
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Post by Renathan on Jan 28, 2020 22:46:17 GMT -6
The reason why Restrictions are the way they are and why they haven't been touched by us (changed, added, etc.) regardless of power is because they were left in the form spirit provided them from what I understand. We've been very reluctant to change how he saw the world (IE: if he thought something needed to be on the restricted list even for reasons I don't personally agree with or see why we haven't removed them).
The Restrictions System was one of the only concrete things that spirit left us in regards to the stats system. His 'system' (if he even had one really) for accepting swaps was... Nebulous at best and was not written down in any detail anywhere, thus the clarifications made.
I hope that makes sense and clarifies as to why there has been a change* to the 'Swaps' but no change to the list of Restricted Moves/Abilities.
*'Change' here used loosely; really it was finally defined at all in any proportion.
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EDIT: If there was to be a change like the above (I don't know if it would be accepted) It'd have to be gone over with the team, which would take an additional time. It would also be the first time we've actually done any real changes to the Restricted List itself; which could be opening a can of worms.
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Post by Xentus on Jan 28, 2020 23:19:50 GMT -6
Thanks for explaining that. I understand the sentiment, but I can't help but to challenge it a bit given the new limit. The limit itself umbrellas all the restricted things under one label without taking into consideration the reason why they're restricted in the first place. And we don't have Spirit to tell us why, so I feel like the restriction types that I proposed helps kinda fill that gap. I hope it would be taken into consideration
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Post by Renathan on Jan 28, 2020 23:29:46 GMT -6
I sent it to the other mods, but I raise another issue (I actually regard each new change with the idea of 'how can I break this?'):
User A really wants to have an army of customs with Enigmatic. They find out that every custom that gets a super magical orb on them are allowed to have Enigmatic due to this rule! Now they can have an army of Enigmatic customs just because 'the last one to get a super magical orb got it so it's not fair for mine/this one not to!' which is... Bad.
User B really wants to have an army of characters with Rainbow. They find out that any custom with a rainbow on them gets to have it due to this rule! Now we can't tell them that they can't, since that rule exists, and they have an army of customs with Rainbow.
User C already has a ton of customs with Restricted Moves/Abilties. User D has been terrified of years for asking for any restricted move/ability because exercises that felt like 'fairness' in the past were few and far between. User C continues to get infinite amounts of restricted moves/abilities due to this rule since they know 'what makes a certain move/ability make sense and the mods can't argue with it for fairness sake'.
Honestly, I personally think that this idea for a change, while really inventive and a pretty neat Idea I would have liked to have been introduced originally, really just allows possible loopholes and disregards the whole point of being restricted.
EDIT: Restricted moves/abilites are already required to make sense to be considered (if at all possible).
-
As a past member, I always felt like everything was super unfair and hidden from users, and that what got accepted/denied stats-wise really depended on which mod got to you, and which mod had a bad day that day. I understand what that is like.
Now as a mod/with that perspective I am trying to alleviate this issue by showing what the actual rules are so that the users have information (and also removing the 'Which Mod Got to you first' feeling with ACTUAL regulations that are meant to put the user at ease) while dealing with the added issues of Incredibly Negative intermod/interuser interactions as of late and Balancing issues.
I hope that everyone understands that sentiment and realizes that none of this is meant to be anti-anyone, user or mod alike. The Climate of the site has changed over the years and this has necessitated a new point of view to have to be taken (the 'How do I break this?' and 'How do I keep super negative interactions at a minimum?' point of view in example).
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Post by Darky on Jan 29, 2020 0:45:25 GMT -6
Firstly, I really like Xen's idea for Hard- and Soft Restrictions and agree that the list, while something concrete made by Spirit, doesn't necessarily reflect the usefulness of those moves/abilities themselves. If there was to be an example given, then I'd use Float - my guess is he restricted it because it comes with an Immunity, but it also comes with two Weaknesses, which technically makes it an overall negative ability. That's also not addressing the factor a few other abilities could grant Immunities as well, such as Sand Swim which likewise isn't reliant on a physical appearance factor, but comes with 1 Immunity and 1 Weakness, making it net-worth better than Float. My counter-argument for the degree of Spirit's reasoning is simply that the list of restricted moves/abilities has been added to in the past, but never changed even though the moves or abilities themselves may have been tweaked throughout the years, thus making some of their usefulness not quite as game breaking. And more over, a lot more moves and abilities have been added that are on par with combat usefulness to most of that list, but not added to it since they came after Spirit had left the site or didn't pay attention to them.
Which somewhat brings me to my second point, related to this one:
"Any of the following* can be switched out for one another: Pack Instincts, Survival Instincts, Eidolon Endeavor, Wind Avatar, Diurnal Spirit, Loosen Feathers, Danger Sense, Natural Antivenom, Hardy, Nightvision, Gleam, Intimidate, Lifeless, Commanding Presence, Refined Senses, Mechanical Mind, Super Luck, Empathic Link, Loosen Fur, Iron Will, Complex Thought, Wind Avatar, Bloodthirsty, Keen Senses, Frenzy, Commanding Presence."
To say I somewhat strongly disagree on the ability to swap some of these would be an understatement x3; And I say this with full confidence because I got to see and even participate in helping figure out how some move swaps worked in the far past. In its conception this idea is good, because it gives a distinctive list of what can and can't work within a specific framework. However, the general guideline had always been that the ability swapped should be of a similar effect or at least field of function. For example: swapping Lifeless for Diurnal Spirit doesn't make sense, because one is specifically about the body of the creature being dead and the other has to do with improved vision. There's no real bridge between those two concepts. I feel this list should perhaps be changed into sub-lists of its own, to separate the 'vision'-based, 'mind'-based and 'body'-based abilities into their own swappable categories. As to how it related to the point above, I've seen this a few times in present customs and feel the need to emphasise - the way Survival Instincts/Eidolon Endeavour is being treated at the moment should be looked into. It's a pretty major combat boost to the creature having it and it's being listed as on par with something like Pack Instincts? I understand there has been an age-old rule of thumb with the Dweller-class of abilities being categorized similarly due to their naming and nature, but despite the fact both of these abilities are 'Instinct' they are not at all even in the same category of usefulness. If anything, the first change to restricted to my mind should be to add Survival Instincts/Eidolon Endeavour as a new limited ability, since its as useful if not more so than some of the more hard-coded ones on there (such as Impermiable, which is similar in concept).
- - - -
"Any of the following can be switched out for one another: Plains Runner, Magical Touch, Natural Antivenom, Cave Crawler, Desert Dwelling, City Dweller, Forest Dweller, Jungle Dweller, Tundra-Dwelling."
I was curious, why the added Magical Touch on this one?
- - - -
"Any of the ABOVE (the line marked with *) can be swapped FOR the following: Uncontrollable Rage, Circuitry Problem, Pacifism, Sloth, Blind, Deaf. BUT these CANNOT be swapped for the above(marked with *)."
This may be my morning brain needing to wake up, but the sentence is a little confusing x3; I think I understand it now, but perhaps the end could just be changed to "but not vice-versa."?
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Post by Renathan on Jan 29, 2020 0:56:56 GMT -6
Darky I actually agree that some of the Restrictions are not something I agree with. I've never understood why Float is restricted, but I don't know if it is my place to question spirit's... Weird Restricted list. I don't want y'all to think I agree with all of the restricted list personally, but right now I have to take the stance of questioning the validity of needed changes. As to why certain abilities can be swapped for each other (Including Magical Touch) is because this is based on what has been allowed over the years and what has precedence. I created an absolutely TREMENDOUS list of every single swap ever and those have been allowed in the past. It's not something I can really control that these have been allowed over the years. I thought I'd made it clear that this is what caused this protocol to be formulated- it's not willy/nilly or my decision, just based off of what has been allowed.- I am sure that as time goes on, there will be changes to the swap system. But right now it's based on what has been allowed before.
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Post by Renathan on Jan 29, 2020 0:57:37 GMT -6
I can totally fix the vice-versa thing right away though. :3
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Post by Xentus on Jan 29, 2020 1:16:05 GMT -6
So with these scenarios in accordance with my idea..
Scenarios like with User A would be dependent on whether or not the desired move/ability is soft or hard restricted. Additionally, even soft restricted items can still limited per person. And/or still need to be explained. In this case, if Enigmatic is soft restricted and allowed from super magic orbs as an add-on, then sure, someone who has customs with super magic add-on orbs can go through the process of getting that approved. Up to the limit like everyone else though.
Scenarios like with User B would need to have clarity on the grandfathering in of old customs I suppose? Or the follows the above scenario's explanation in that limits still apply. Or both. If in this case Rainbow from rainbow colored customs is enough to be the reason for having Rainbow, then it is in accordance with the rules. Up to the limit. So while not every one of their rainbow customs can have Rainbow, some can but. Also still a win for them because army of rainbow customs?
Scenarios like with Users C and D... I feel like this is mostly user side. As long as the rules are clear, concise, and transparent on the hows and why who has whats (such as grandfathered customs and what determines the approval/refusal of restricted requests), nobody should end up feeling like that. A 'power player' with tons of customs has to follow the rules and follow the instructions like anyone else. Someone with their precious few still follows the rules and instructions.
Regardless of how restricted items are ruled, if someone's goal is to have them for the sake of having them, they're much better off breeding for them. Or if they really want to have bunch of custom with those sweet, sweet restricteds, they can buy a bunch of customs and have that 10% be their precious lucky ones while the rest are fodder. But! The most frequent case is that someone has an interesting idea for a character/pet/custom, but it involves the need for a restricted item. I believe a more flexible system would leave everyone happier and more satisfied than a rigid one. It might not be a perfect system, but it is an idea.
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Post by Renathan on Jan 29, 2020 1:23:21 GMT -6
AH I see now, so you are meaning; even the 'soft' ones would be up to the 10% limit like everyone else? I am trying to make sure I know what you are talking about. Because if it's all up to the 10%, I have seen mods accept plenty of 'flame body' for a literal body of fire addon before. I was using the enigmatic and rainbow as an example, not specifically meaning those specific ones BTW.
The C and D are part of the reason why the 10% thing has been implemented, and is also the reason why there has been any attempt made at being entirely transparent. I would love to be entirely transparent, but have found over time that it is impossible to do it completely. x3 Trust me, I'd love to.
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The reason why the system is becoming more rigid is literally because members are not happy no matter what is done. Any time anyone tells anyone no over anything a huge argument is 'invited' to explode. This has become a huge issue. We've tried the flexibility thing, and it doesn't work with the current climate.
EDIT: If I had my way regardless of having to be 'gentle' with changes, I would have changed the Restricted System and the stats of half of the species, and done a 100% redo of the entire move/abilties/battle and training systems. We can't do every change that everyone wants, alas. :c
-shrug- We may wind up implementing some version of a hard/soft restriction list. We may wind up changing some of the swap rules. I have no idea At this moment because the rest of the mod team is presumably asleep. Give them time to look at this. This decision was NOT made lightly though, it's been worked on for quite a bit of time now. Thus the soft release; so that changes can be made.
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Post by Xentus on Jan 29, 2020 1:48:56 GMT -6
Not exactly that. As I envision it, soft restricted things would ideally be something with a physical tie, more simple to explain why you should have it on your custom, and you can have more of them than hard restricted. I'm not sure what would be a good ratio honestly. 20%? Up to *a* limit, though I'm not one to say to what limit that may be. It could also be separate from hard restricted items, so you could have 20% of your customs with soft restricted items, as well as 10% of your customs with hard restricted items. So if a person has 10 customs, one can have a hard restricted thing, and two others with soft restricted things.
But, it doesn't have to be a separate count. Still using these ratios, 20% of your customs can have restricted things, but no more than 10% of them be hard restricted things. So there's the choice between 2 with softs and none with hard, or 1 soft and 1 hard out of 10 customs. I could probably word that better but it's late and I'm not sure how to better put it.
I know its going to be impossible to please everybody, no matter what is done. Being told no can be rough, especially when you may feel you have a compelling argument for something. Knowing there are clear limits and rules can help with someone accepting being told no as well. Sooo in still pressing hard/soft restrictions, they would allow mods to say 'yes/no, this is/isnt in line with this type of restricted thing', as well as 'no, you have too many already'.
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Post by Renathan on Jan 29, 2020 1:57:47 GMT -6
Not exactly that. As I envision it, soft restricted things would ideally be something with a physical tie, more simple to explain why you should have it on your custom, and you can have more of them than hard restricted. I'm not sure what would be a good ratio honestly. 20%? Up to *a* limit, though I'm not one to say to what limit that may be. It could also be separate from hard restricted items, so you could have 20% of your customs with soft restricted items, as well as 10% of your customs with hard restricted items. So if a person has 10 customs, one can have a hard restricted thing, and two others with soft restricted things.
But, it doesn't have to be a separate count. Still using these ratios, 20% of your customs can have restricted things, but no more than 10% of them be hard restricted things. So there's the choice between 2 with softs and none with hard, or 1 soft and 1 hard out of 10 customs. I could probably word that better but it's late and I'm not sure how to better put it.
I know its going to be impossible to please everybody, no matter what is done. Being told no can be rough, especially when you may feel you have a compelling argument for something. Knowing there are clear limits and rules can help with someone accepting being told no as well. Sooo in still pressing hard/soft restrictions, they would allow mods to say 'yes/no, this is/isnt in line with this type of restricted thing', as well as 'no, you have too many already'. AH this makes sense to me now. I get what you are saying now more concretely. This is something I could see being accepted, though I'll see what the other mods thing. I don't know if the ratio will be the suggested of course, but it doesn't sound too rough though still; Making this change will open a can of worms, and I'm concerned about that. what Darky said earlier about certain moves/abilities being stronger than others* will be one of the first things questioned (which will mean a REALLY BIG OVERHAUL OF THE SYSTEM that I don't like the idea of at this moment) and it might put us into a corner; If we made THIS change why can't we make THAT* change? *Plus, using grandfathered customs, if we changed the restricted list now to have more moves/abilities on there, it would throw off the balance heavily and put some people waaay over the limit that otherwise would have never asked for that many 'restricted' moves/abilities and others not... That's a concern as well. (There's a lot of things to think about, but I think I'm done responding tonight and will get back on this tomorrow. Honestly, I was already hecka stressed about doing this update anyway because I knew it was gonna be a nightmare.) |
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Post by Twilight-Claw on Jan 29, 2020 7:47:23 GMT -6
Ahh, I was wondering about something I am not sure about when it comes to this rule of the restricted section;
Do any of the #00 - Fleashop VSC (FVSC) also count towards that limit as well? (I mean with adding up on how many customs you own) Since we can’t pick and choose the stats/abilities/moves as they were decided already by the ones selling them/discussed to be that way for every single one of that type getting sold. And while they are customs, they are also seen as VSC in a way right?
In this part of the rules it doesn’t state them, so they might be counted towards the custom limit more. But I just want to make extra sure whether it is, or is not seen as such. ^^;
(Might be seen as a dumb question, but I’d rather ask and know whether they’d be seen as ‘fodder’ customs to get towards the right limit of 10% when one wants more customs with restricted abilities/moves, or if they don’t count, and you don’t need to count them up with your normal customs.)
Two others that come to mind when I read the rules are with these ones.
1. Is with the abilities not mentioned on the ALL STATS SWAPS never allowed to be swapped?
2. I’m assuming with physical moves they can only ever be switched with other physical moves or an elemental spear or elemental burst attack with the way it is written? (And scratch attacks for a elemental scratch attack, bite for elemental bite etc.)
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Jan 29, 2020 11:57:26 GMT -6
I actually quite like this update! I know telling people no is really rough on the staff, and I'm sorry to hear you guys have been having so much trouble with it. :C I ultimately think that these new rules will do a lot more good than bad in the long run, having more concrete rules set down. I also GREATLY agree with the idea of negotiating these things being publicly viewable- it seems like a good way to make sure conversations stay civil. Of course, I... don't have the spare money to buy customs, so I suppose my words don't mean too much. ;u; Still, it all sounds like a good idea to me.
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Post by Darky on Jan 29, 2020 12:22:37 GMT -6
"As to why certain abilities can be swapped for each other (Including Magical Touch) is because this is based on what has been allowed over the years and what has precedence. I created an absolutely TREMENDOUS list of every single swap ever and those have been allowed in the past. It's not something I can really control that these have been allowed over the years. I thought I'd made it clear that this is what caused this protocol to be formulated- it's not willy/nilly or my decision, just based off of what has been allowed."
To go back to my previous point of having been party to some aspects of custom and offspring approval back in the day I can say with strong certainty that different eras of stat master has produced different approaches to leniency to the point that when one takes into account the approaches of more recent couple of years (pre- and post-Tapa moves, I don't just mean 'recent' as in right now, but taking into account all the way back to when Skylark was stat master among others, for example) there would be severely conflicting data that would inevitably falsify results. For example, if I was to use the rules that were put in place at the beginning of v.2 then swapping Pack Instinct with Survival Instinct would have absolutely been denied. Even before this update went live it was allowed, thus, there's two different precedences that can't co-exist within the same system and yet they do.
Because it is quite impossible to go back and have all the behind the scenes knowledges of previous stat masters, to understand their reasoning one way or another, a cold hard calculation of data wouldn't really serve us, since it doesn't account for human error at the time. Instead, I'd suggest specific cases be taken on basis of reason and balance, as they come up, not at all at once (because the system is quite big and it would take immense amount of people power to sort through every possible conflict). I would make my case that Survival/Eidolon be in the restricted list, but also that it doesn't have to be necessarily limited to only being an add-on move. If something has Lifeless, for example, then it makes conceptually sense that Eidolon Endeavour could be something it can swap for.
Thus, I'd present a more refined concept of the previous vision/body/mind idea (because it is not morning and brain work now):
- Any of the following can be switched out for one another (vision-based): Diurnal Spirit, Danger Sense, Nightvision, Keen Senses, Refined Senses.
- Any of the following can be switched out for one another (body-based): Survival Instincts/Eidolon Endeavor, Wind Avatar, Loosen Feathers/Fur, Gleam, Lifeless, Natural Antivenom.
- Any of the following can be switched out for one another (mind-based): Pack Instincts, Hardy, Intimidate, Commanding Presence, Mechanical Mind, Super Luck, Empathic Link, Iron Will, Complex Thought, Bloodthirsty, Frenzy.
(Btw, a few in the current listing in the thread seem to be repeating)
This way, the swapping system follows the same principles as the add-ons system, where the add-on move has to make sense with the visual of the add-on itself. In the swap system, the swap would make more sense with what it is swapped with. I would even argue these would be pretty generous even so, all things considered, since back in the day the move/ability effectiveness itself was also taken into account when deciding (Gleam being somewhat lacklustre in efficiency compared to something like Natural Antivenom, for example), so it's not so hard-line as it used to be, but it still has a simple understandable structure.
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