Aloyzo's Arsenal Discussion Thread

This is what it sounded like to me. Maybe I misunderstood.

 

This is what I meant.

 

Eh. I don't want to be overly criticising and demanding, but... can we go back to voting from your shortlist, Flax? And no, it's not because of the fact my item won, in fact, after these few months I feel kinda bad it won. It shouldn't.

But here's the deal: You're picking items that are, at least in your eyes, best submissions. Something you probably wouldn't have any problem with when that thing got to the game. Especially now that you posted your criteria we know how do you roll with picking.

So why not have people, you know, folks that are going to play the game and wish they had new stuff to use, vote on what do they want to see in the game? So that the process looks like this:

1. You pick a shortlist and after consulting it with Jon you let it go public and start the voting thread.
   
2. We vote for an item from that shortlist to get to the game.

This gets rid of a few problems:

• You don't need to make an important decision and then shield all the neutral-negative or straight-forward negative comments. I mean, you still kinda do need to make a decision, but it's a decision you've been making, which can be apparent when you watch the AA video.
• We, players, can be more engaged into the contest, thus making the game slightly more alive. The forums and the game have lately been going through the difficult period - namely everything seems to be less active, more trolls in world chat and bots on forums (speaking of, I can volunteer to deal with them every time they appear - please notice me senpai).
• More people will be happy. After all, we vote for an item. I think removing the names of players making said item would help the vote, making it less of a popularity contest (as well as just listing what each item has in the first post of the thread) and more of a "pick what you'd want the most in the game" contest. If I were to vote on something from the last AA, it would probably be the Robo-Plasma Cutter, simply because... uh, there are some... less available cards, and it would be cool if we could make them more available in bigger amounts.

Again, I don't want to be overly negative. I love the contest, the fact that we can make an item, let our creativity out and have our items be a part of CH. And to this moment I'm extremely happy my item is in the game. A feeling that can't be described, honestly. But at the same time, it leaves something to be desired when you look at all the submissions, especially the approved ones, and think how many new possibilities could have opened if that thing got to the game.

 

There are benefits to doing a community poll and there are also disadvantages and complications. Blue Manchu is not opposed to doing said polls from time to time, but the baseline Aloyzo's Arsenal one-pick-per-month will continue to be made by Blue Manchu.

You could easily say the same thing about the Card Ideas thread, or the Smithy. I think it's an issue of managing expectations. As long as AA gets the same kind of attention it's been getting, it'll always be a ~1% success rate for submissions, and there will obviously be cool items left by the wayside. Even with a poll there's no way around that. We would have to add a dozen items a month if we wanted to make sure all the cool things got to the game, and AA simply isn't that. Sorry =)

 

Nobody expects you to accept more than one item from the vote, honestly.

But even one item is enough! I agree Healing Beacon is a nice thing... sometimes. It's only used by vampires and even that's because they can have a major token to spend. And EVEN THEN they use it mainly to get a cantrip to start the next round first.

Now, compare that to a Flaring Laser. It's an attack that's not found on many weapons in big amounts, and even then, it's on items that take two major tokens. Having it for a major and a minor would mean us being able to equip, at most, 12 of them! Imagine that attack vs Parries, that are present literally everywhere. It wouldn't deal TOO MUCH damage, but it would royally screw one of the most annoying cards in the game.

Note how I said "one". There would still be countless step attacking warriors, burffffting mages, cano spammers, etc. But that one weapon would probably be playable on a "Scar of the Hero" level. It would be viable, not OP and would provide a new twist to watch out for. And, potentially, a new deck for me to try.

 

Personally I always saw polls to be more of a guideline than a "this item got the most votes so it wins".
I think that it shows which items the community thinks is the best out of Flax's selected items, giving each player multiple votes (2 or 3) would get the top few submissions in the communities eyes across even more. - and nobody comment on how Flax could miss a good item because the maximum of 10 poll options is enough, and if an item is not selected then its for a reason.

To sum it up:
I think that polls should be guidelines and nothing more, Flax doesnt have to follow them but it will get our ideas across and I think making a poll each AA is a good idea, but it should not define the winning item (especially if the difference between the winning and losing item could be and was last time, 1 vote).

 

Yeah, I think I like it that way more than my own one.

 

I want to incite riots in the streets, but in the absence of a serious injustice, I will settle for a minor one.

Meltdown, Drained Battery, and Battery Explosion appear on items by proxy as laser malfunction cards.
I doubt that they would have been included in that category were they not tested enough, let alone still be a part of said set.
They offer an alternative to the cycling issue that typically crops up with most drawbacks and hold the potential to be serious inconveniences, but not necessarily crippling. Even if someone were to be otherwise unaffected by a particular malfunction (like not having any laser cards in hand to discard via Drained Battery), the card still behaves as a dead draw. BLACK CARDS MATTER! LEGALIZE AND REGULATE RECREATIONAL MALFUNCTIOUANNA!

AND ANOTHER THING, particularly unstable radioactive items should be able to have reactor meltdowns if they cannot have regular meltdowns. Here's a ****ty photoshop.

Every like is another rioter.

 

@BlackVoidDeath, Flax said .. what, around the time of the first AA? .. that people clicking "Like" on AA submissions gives him an idea of what we'd like to see in the game and could actually help sway some; this is the one way we can give commentary in his presence on current items. (Clearly, though, some things get liked just because they're awesome, game inclusion thrown to the wind.)

 

The problem with "likes" is, and this is my personal experience and I could be on my own in this, but I just "like" AA items because they look cool and/or have some references to other games or CH itself - they could be severely OP but I would still "like" it.
Making a poll clearly states to the player "chose the items that are not op but have a good design and ideas".

 

A poll where Blue Manchu asks for our opinions and then ignores them? I love it.

I mean, assuming the goal is to transform the forums into a bloodbath whereby to summon Ba'al the Childeater.

 

I would ignore too, if they'd be like your two latest AA submissions

 

They may ignore it, they may not.
I think a poll would also calm some of @Dieben 's riots (and bring about new ones when the top voted item doesnt get selected)

 

No, I can always find something new to be angry about.

 

I cant find the info anywhere, but when will AA7 and MM13 be released?

 

Around V-Day.

 

Isnt that when AA8 will go up?

 

I say scrap the contest altogether. It seems to be causing more mayhem than good now.

 

I really like the contest and hope it continues indefinitely.

I also like reading whiny comments of contestants who doesn't seem to understand that the winning item is entirely chosen based on Flaxative's subjective decision. (or try to spoon-feed Flaxative why their item was better than the winning entry)

Also, everyone should have a good grasp by now what makes a winning item in Flaxative's book.

 

Yes, traditionally I have opened the contests midmonth when the build with the previous winner(s) goes live.

Interesting.

Interesting.

For some reason some people decided to take the submission discussion thread off-topic with high level criticism of the contest itself; you can read my response there if you care to. Frankly I'm not at all convinced that the disappointment of a few individuals is grounds for canceling an event that engages over a hundred amateur designers every month and that adds free fun stuff to the game.