New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements

Looking at all this discussion, we can conclude that people are just tired of seeing FTX in this post, and at least for one year we need a new PC. I don't think it's going to make FAF feels very bad. It just looks like another presidential re-election in Uganda. Probably, we even should limit the term that PC can not be elected for more than 2 years for example

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You guys got some weird chaos theory of elections. It's like the 2nd time in this thread a dude has said ideas don't matter just get a new dude because being new is some inherent quality.

This post is deleted!

I’m fairly certain only a vote will tell this, Wesh. Ftx, penguin, myself have our supporters and those against.

The only thing I know for sure is that people really dislike reading this much back and forth in text...

I wish ftx would be open to a voice discussion, at least for the sake of resolving issues, but you saw his response.

I think we should have a debate like in presidential election on twitch. I think it's a good idea for people to get to know the candidates better, to know who they're voting for. I am sure that these beautiful letters with promises were not read by all interested people, and most of the players do not know what is happening at all. In fact, I vote for promises on paper, and I'd like to get to know and hear the guys better. The format of the debate may be different, but I think faflive, Jagget or farms will ask questions and the candidates will answer how they are going to solve them. And viewers can vote "mass" in the chat, which answer is better. I apologize if someone has already voiced this idea and I repeat

@wesh said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

Looking at all this discussion, we can conclude that people are just tired of seeing FTX in this post,

And where do you see that? There are just as many supporters for ftx as there are people disagreeing with him.

@morax said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

I wish ftx would be open to a voice discussion, at least for the sake of resolving issues, but you saw his response.

So we're running with the characterization that FtX is scared of arguing then? Lol, alright.

This thread is evidence enough that people here cannot be trusted to maintain an unstructured discussion, me included since I get lost in every weed trying to refute statements that aren't even relevant.

Debates are only any good at determining who is good at debating which is fine if that is what the job is. Seem like massive overkill for a faf pc.

By the way, i don't know who made a News update, but it seems Inspektor Kot message isn't an application for PC.

@ftxcommando said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

@morax said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

I wish ftx would be open to a voice discussion, at least for the sake of resolving issues, but you saw his response.

So we're running with the characterization that FtX is scared of arguing then? Lol, alright.

This thread is evidence enough that people here cannot be trusted to maintain an unstructured discussion, me included since I get lost in every weed trying to refute statements that aren't even relevant.

No, I think you just think it’s a waste time and I’m disappointed the person who proclaims to be “approachable” refuses to actually talk when it likely matters most.

This election reminds me of one that just happened where people didn't like mean tweets so they wanted a different person.

Just because you think ftx is mean has no bearing on what others think of him. I do not instantly take things as a directed personal attack so I often do not find malace in ftx's posts, maybe others should grow a little.

@veteranashe Many people grow over it and learn to know him, I did.
I and some others fear however, that there are also people who just leave or stop participating.

So what about splittting the role like this:

  • Competitive Councillor (Tournaments + Money, Map-Pools and Settings for Competitive TMM, High Level Casts)
  • Player Councillor (Communication focused and general health of the FAF community, including but not limited to New Player experience, collecting Feedback from a wider audience than just top players, finding Trainers, maybe Casual TMM, and in general being a nice guy that encourages participation and has a feeling for pain points.
    Hes the kind of guy that would carefully read the "why i would have left FAF thread" for example. Doesnt really need to much other than being around and being helpful, and is expected to know whats going on in all the other parts of FAF, be it councillors or devs).

Why does anything have to change? All that change will do is mess up what we have going now and their is no real downside to what we have going now.

So here's my problem with this split idea:

First, training is part of "competitive FAF" and I don't understand why the management of said team would fall under the dude that seems to be getting elected to run polls and be a nice guy. The person responsible for trainer management should be a player that has a coherent vision on how to improve players as well as an understanding of reducing the massive quantity of noise in the game to drive home the point of focusing on the fundamentals for new players.

Second, splitting management of anything like matchmaker seems like a complete recipe for disaster as people with entirely different visions of what the end product are keep smashing into each other in PMs and then carrying out said argument into developer circles to get their idea implemented over the other guy's. You elect me as "competitive councillor" and penguin as "player councillor" and I say this whole notion of a matchmaker queue with 4 billion options is a terrible idea for user experience and should never get integrated. How do we settle that?

So what does this leave us with? It leaves us with a "competitive councillor" that has control over any real levers of change in the current PC sphere and a new PC that is entirely neutered and relies on hopefully getting people to do things because a poll they made said X or Y. It doesn't help that part of the reason that the PC position gives the illusion of only caring about top players is because these are the people that care enough to actually help implement some sort of change or policy. Covering FAF events, talking about the best implementation of something for the game, helping reach out to improve lower rated players, hosting tournaments, or doing frankly anything related to community volunteering is highly correlated with people that have invested the time into getting a decent skill. So in the end the PC position is always going to converge into the toxic elitist echochamber narrative because that's just the reality of who wants to give back to the community broadly speaking. Even FAF developers themselves are bare minimum 1000 or 1200 rated and they probably have the lowest mean rating of all FAF contributive teams.

Now, does that mean polling to gather input is bad? No. But it also doesn't mean it's the solution to every problem. Nor does it mean you need a Council position entirely devoted to it, particularly when there is no real authority to give out to the role that makes any sense.

@ftxcommando You make some valid points, but you did not address:

  1. New player joining experience: first weeks
  2. New player retention: first months
    <-- This is where I am deeply worried about your performance.

With Starcraft 2 out of active development, this might be the highest level RTS that is currently actively maintained. We have a responsibility to do this well.

Please just throw some ideas out, I feel many people value your contributions - but are afraid you do more damage than good. Would a split position really not work? Would you have another idea?

I have an absolutely inconsequential impact on player retention and anyone thinking otherwise is absolutely delusional. Player retention is resolved through major structural adjustments, things like removing steamlink or creating a matchmaker queue that impacts global rating to stop new players getting kicked from their first game or making navigating the client more intuitive. No one 2 months into FAF gives an iota of a shit about anything being written here. We have done user group tests on new players to see where new players face issues on the client. Absolutely nothing talked about so far in this thread has even touched one of those issues.

If "many people" think I do more damage than good then they are first, off their gourd, and second, better replace me with someone that isn't a "net negative" for FAF.

A split position would not work. My idea is what currently exists. If people want to assist me in FAF communication then by all means they can volunteer. I see zero issues with the current situation that would require adjusting the role.

@FtXCommando

I said nothing about who should be Player Councillour in my post. you are creating a horror-scenario out of it. The most important point seems to not have come through:

  • With the split, the primary purpose of the Player Councillor is not to ACT or DECIDE, but to LISTEN, COMMUNICATE and basically have good social skills. Most general conflicts are caused by misunderstandings. The player councillor would recognize this and therefore be able to facilitate constructive discussions and if necessary de-escalation.

You are the kind of guy that NEEDS to be judgemental to do your job. Because if you don't judge, you cannot act. The player councillor could look at FAF from a completely different viewpoint andi think that could be very valuable.

As it stands, we don't need to do this exact split, but we need SOME split. The current amount of responsibilities that are piled on this position is absolutly ridicoulous. The list of stuff you do is laughably out of any reasonable bounds. We are talking about work that is supposed to be done by volunteers in their free time here. This is not a critique of you, its a critique of the position, you are doing a great job DESPITE the job description.

katharsas said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

to LISTEN, COMMUNICATE

We already have a councilor role for this?

@spikeynoob said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

Why does anything have to change? All that change will do is mess up what we have going now and their is no real downside to what we have going now.

Why do you think it will be messed up, specifically? I’m really unsure how to comment on this as it’s vague.

For instance, why would a new PC mess up the legend of stars tournament from happening?

Why would a new PC mess up the ladder and tmm pools?