FFA Reform

Drought is fine by me. I'm interested in more people exploring normal battles, which are also much more interesting to ref (no Protect, Protect, Sub, Sub, Thunderbolt, Sub, Calm Mind). It seems like people only do FFAs supplemented by evolution battles and the occasional Gym/Dojo battle.

But I don't want to say again that time is not equal to effort, especially when that time is spent doing other stuff on your computer...Also, you have to win all of those 10 hypothetical battles, AND find someone to ref them, AND have an opponent for them.

Yep. It's not a right to be in an FFA x amount of times per week. And not limiting FFAs as much won't necessarily fix this 'problem'. Most refs ref their FFAs the same time on different days. I know ST's always start around 6-8 PM Central.

 

That's why you give it an ungodly amount of TMs. I'm writing Near a Kangaskhan (40k characters) for a Beldum with 40k of TMs on it. Story Deals are essentially cash for mons, you just need cash.

Concerning FFAs: They're fine where they're at. URPG really isn't experiencing inflation at the moment, so there's no need to taper off the money supply.

 

Not always, I've done a story deal and got a Mon that wasn't from the mart. I've also gotten someone to do a story deal for me in return for a Pokemon not from the mart. Besides, not all of them have money, or time to get it. I know several people who will do story deals for a mart Pokemon because they either don't have the money, or they don't want to spend the money.

NOW on topic xD -

I have to agree that I don't do anything in FFAs I just send a Pokemon and do something more productive in the mean time. Even though I like that we have so many FFAs going on (just for the money), to satisfy people, maybe it would be good that each ref could only ref like three FFAs a week (Because one a week is indeed way to restricted)

Honestly though, no one ever complained before about the money, or at least not that I've heard of. The only reason I think people want it changed is because ST likes to ref huge FFAs (which is cool), but in turn would give something like 13k or whatever was stated above.

 

Easy money reduces the challenge of the URPG.

Also, for those suggesting 3 FFAs per week per ref, that is basically what it is already with ST, and frankly it's ridiculous like that.

 

He does more than 3 a week.

Then just restrict the amount of people and/or make them not be able to be done successively (three a day, three in three days consecutively), there are much better solutions than just restricting them to one a week.

Also tell him to time them better cause he tends to do them at pretty crappy times for some people. :banghead:

 

Okay, I see what you mean there, but since there is more people in the FFA its only natural that more money will be made the higher place you get.

People have different time zones so I am sure someone will always think that, but if I was a ref doing FFAs, I'd do 'em whenever I wanted xD.

But yeah, he does them way more than 3 times a week.

 

3 a week from one ref is still way too much. Let's say an average FFA is 20 Pokemon (pretty good number, if anything, I'm understating from like 28). Let's also say your average place is 10th. That means you average 5000 an FFA. Now, lets look at a conversation with the ref of an FFA in which I got 1st out of 32 Pokemon. Please pardon our love-hate relationship, good thing this is only one of our more mild sessions. :bheart: ;-)


Session Start (DoIPutNameHere:TigerInTheArk): Sat May 15 16:42:55 2010 -0500
[16:43] Zoa: bronozng, genderless, levitate
[17:09] Zoa: use substitute
Session Close (TigerInTheArk): Sat May 15 17:27:34 2010 -0500


Session Start (DoIPutNameHere:TigerInTheArk): Sat May 15 17:34:31 2010 -0500
[17:34] Zoa: are speed modifying moves allowed
[17:34] Zoa: i didnt see rules
[17:36] Zoa: use ROCK POLISH if im allowed to, otherwise use CALM MIND
[18:06] Zoa: use CALM MIND
[18:44] Zoa: did you forget
[18:44] Zoa: my sp atk and sp def boost
[18:45] Zoa: hey you forgot my SP ATK and SP DEF boost from CALM MIND, btw im using CALM MIND again
[19:10] *** Creating conference...
Session Close (TigerInTheArk): Sat May 15 19:10:20 2010 -0500


Session Start (DoIPutNameHere:TigerInTheArk): Sat May 15 19:10:27 2010 -0500
[19:24] Zoa: iron fence
[19:57] Zoa: grass knot marshtomp
[20:11] Zoa: rain dance
[20:17] Zoa: is encore allowed
[20:19] Zoa: charge beam on togekiss 2
[20:21] TigerInTheArk: No
[20:21] TigerInTheArk: It's not
[20:21] Zoa: k
[20:21] TigerInTheArk: SO HA
[20:21] Zoa: I JUST WANTED TO KNOW IF WOBBY COULD HELP US GOSH
[20:28] Zoa: kingdra should of broke the sub
[20:28] Zoa: with rain boost h pump
[20:28] Zoa: and then aura sphere hits it
[20:28] Zoa: oh nvm
[20:29] Zoa: what about charge beam damage
[20:29] Zoa: where is it
[20:30] Zoa: HELLO
[20:31] Zoa: use charge beam on the paralyzed one
[20:32] Zoa: but before that, i used charge beam on the non prz one
[20:36] Zoa: charge beam on prz togekiss
[20:41] Zoa: how about you use
[20:41] Zoa: spatk+3
[20:42] Zoa: ya god damn newb
[20:42] Zoa: and spe instead of spd
[20:42] TigerInTheArk: NO
[20:42] TigerInTheArk: BITCH
[20:42] Zoa: use charge beam on the prz kiss
[20:49] Zoa: extrasensory
[20:49] Zoa: on prz kiss
[20:52] Zoa: confuse ray on togekiss
[20:54] Zoa: use extrasensory on togekiss
[20:59] Zoa: toxic on wobby
[21:01] Zoa: use heal block on wobby
[21:01] Zoa: (lucario my partner)
[21:03] Zoa: TACKLE WOBBUFFET
[21:05] Zoa: earthquake on
[21:05] Zoa: lu
[21:05] Zoa: car
[21:05] Zoa: io
Session Close (TigerInTheArk): Sat May 15 21:10:45 2010 -0500

The bolded parts are where I chose a move, the first one is my Pokemon choice, though. There are 19 bolded selections. If it took me 19 choices to get 1st out of 32, how many on average does it take to get 10th out of 20? I'd guess around 7, but let's just half my 1st/32 of 19 and say 10 (rounded up). THAT MEANS YOU CALLED ONLY 10 MOVES AND GOT 5000 FOR IT AND IM BEING VERY GENEROUS TO THE OPPOSING SIDE WITH THIS ESTIMATE. Take this and multiply it by 3 and you called 30 moves to get 15000. So you get about 500 for every move called? Compare this to a normal battle. If we're going to keep this high payment the same, at least keep it limited to 1 FFA per week per ref. :|

Yeah, but like little skill/effort/strategy involved regardless.

 

A limit on the amount of FFAs that can be reffed is a better, and pretty much already complete idea.

Payout reform is something that I'm against, because if we limit the amount of FFAs that will happen, then it will even out anyway.

As far as skill goes for an FFA, teamwork, luck and backstabbing are very important in determining who wins or not. No strategy is perfect for any battle, and FFAs are based a lot on flaky agreements and complete luck.

That is where I think the charm of an FFA comes from, because it really doesn't take skill, and it really isn't competitive, its just a fun distraction from the actual single battles. The system works well now, and will continue to work well (if they just stop having so many of them all the time).

 

Interesting, indeed, very interesting... ah yes, Interesting, indeed, very interesting... ah yes, Interesting, indeed, very interesting... This is interesting, I shall indeed believe that this reform plot shall interestingly work.

 

FFAs aren't just calling moves, you should know that.

And FFAs are not normal battles anyway, so I don't see your point. Lots of FFAs have been reffed recently by ONE or TWO refs *cough* ST *cough* usually they aren't reffed even near the same amount of times normal battles are reffed so it pretty much evens out as far as I'm concerned.

I am fine with limiting them I guess, but 1 is way too restricting in Tori Amos' opinion. Maybe we should just limit ST because his stupid ass 26-33 man FFAs everyday are starting to make FFAs a little stale...especially when they are ALWAYS reffed by him.

 

I read the first page, sorry if I reiterate something.

I think a good starting point would be something along the lines of 2-3 FFAs per Ref per Week, but FFA's are maximum 12 competitors. This would reduce the overall payout of FFAs, without reducing the rate at which the Ref's effort is rewarded. Anyway, just an idea. If it helps get more traditional battles going, I'm all for it.

 

Agreed on Auto-Taunt. Though, Intimidate isn't because of laziness, it's to give an equal chance for both physical and special attackers, and I don't see how the "Every turn a Pokemon dies" is lazy. It promotes strategy (KO a mon for full restore).

What Pidge is suggesting here, I don't quite like it. I'm not comfortable to changing the price money. Quite frankly, the referee is doing alot of work and if he is still getting paid lesser, that'd be a little unfair. How about we stick to the alternate solution and limit each referee to 2 FFAs per week?

 

This would be good.

 

I agree, something needs to be done about FFAs. I think one of the main problems has been the transition from PE2K to BMG- we had never had 30 person FFAs on AIM when URPG was PE2K only, maybe only after an event in a time when PE2K was much more active. When we moved to BMG, we didn't adjust the pay, as I don't think anyone anticipated this happening.

As for solutions, I don't think we should restrict who can and cannot ref FFAs- this will just lead to unhappiness amongst the refs. I think that we should modify the pay for AIM FFAs, (note: maybe we could keep the payment the same for Forum FFAs, as they are larger and more of an event) as well as limiting refs in the number of FFAs they can ref per week. The limit on number of FFAs per week will be especially important over the summer, when the refs who can refs FFAs will be most active.

Also people who are whining about cash, why don't you just get a position? That has been the major source of income in URPG for ages, and you're just proving why we need to change FFAs- people are using the massive amounts of money as a source of income.

Also Ataro, I think that Leman was talking about a rule where maybe a Pokemon is rolled each turn and it gets KOed.

 

I'd have to agree with this, I was just thinking about the exact same thing a few days ago. ;0

I think we should reduce the payment for FFAs as Pidge suggested, but not ban the amount of FFAs that can be done weekly. I'm pretty sure the reason that FFAs used to pay so much is because they used to be SPECIAL events which were things that happened on a very rare occasion, thus they had more pay than the average battle. However, obviously FFAs aren't so special anymore as there are very commonly 2-3 of them per day, so it doesn't make sense to keep giving them special payment when they clearly aren't special!

/special

 

:\
I was in a FFA last night. It started around 7 my time. I lost at around 10 or so, and probably ended an hour later. I haven't gotten the results yet, but I'm guessing I made somewhere around maybe 8k or so (literally just a guess). I could make a lot more then 8k doing regular battles with people on AIM in 3 hours. Don't tell me I have to find a ref and I have to win all of those, I could make 8k from 16 losses (and I don't think I would lose all of those) which could easily happen in 3 hours time. As far as finding a ref, refs are willing to ref multiple battles in a row like that sometimes. And if there wasn't a FFA going on, there'd be more refs available to ref these single battles, and it would be the same problem, "People are making too much money in single battles!".
If you limit FFAs, you're gonna see a lot more refs willing to do this since they want the money they would have been getting from an FFA.
And if that happens, a lot more people miss out. Those refs would be occupied reffing while other players wouldn't be able to find refs for their battles. In a FFA, you only need one ref to a battle for a large amount of people. If you show up on time, no one gets left out.

In a FFA, especially if you're on a team with someone, there's a lot more then just sending a pokemon and choosing moves. You have to analyze all of your opponents, and decide the most effective move to use during that turn (and if you're with a team, that can mean a long discussion about what move would work best cooperatively). You have to change strategies, break alliances, and sometimes just go with the best option. It's not that easy. It doesn't matter -why- a FFA takes so long, be it spam, or a slow ref, it still DOES. You can't solve those problems, if FFAs were inherently faster maybe I'd understand. But they do take a long time, and the money earned definitely reflects the time spent. There's always going to be people spamming, and you can't tell a ref not to have a life outside of URPG.

Also, not everyone is able to participate in every FFA. Every one I'm in, I see some of the same people, but I also see different people. If you limit FFAs, these people may not get to participate in FFAs due to their schedule. Some people don't have enough time to spend all evening on the computer making a small amount of virtual cash (I didn't want to spend my entire evening doing it, that's for sure). If there are less FFAs, people that aren't on the time will likely miss them. And making a post before starting one doesn't help that either
Reducing the amount of cash doesn't help eihter. If you get rid of the motivation, you're gonna see a big drop in interest.

Also, offtopic: I thought you weren't allowed to trade a pokemon for a pokemon that has a ton of TMs on it? thought those trades got canceled.

 

"Yes, time is spent in an FFA, but most of it is spent waiting or insulting Near."

I hate you. .-.

Generally High Level Story mons are valued at the minimum character count, + 2 story deals are permitted per month.

 

Just an off-topic note to start with:

To the people saying 'URPG would fail without the National Park', bear in mind the Park's only been in place for about a year, I think. URPG's been open for, what, 10 years? Stories were always the main way to catch Pokemon, and to me will always be the 'true' way to catch mons (as daft as that sounds). Also, don't get your hopes up to get easy mons from the Park any longer - it's currently being debated on how to reform it on Pe2k.

Back to the topic at hand:

I think the thread's shown that the only real offender here is ST - everyone seems to be complaining about his 30+ FFAs, so why not direct it at him first before accusing the whole of URPG. I rarely ref FFAs, so a limit wouldn't affect me a huge deal, but imo, when we start seeing BMG'ers running around crushing the most experienced Pe2k URPGers under their feet like bugs, then we can say money's being given away too easily.

EDIT: On the point of effort, you're assuming the fact that FFAs take no strategy whatsoever, which isn't true, unless you team with the entire FFA like SOME people we know. You're still putting effort in to achieve the higher positions by strategising, just like a regular battle.

And I see the point that derian is bringing up, regardless of what you say about time being irrelevant, or however you put it.

 

Half the FFA =/= The Entire FFA, if your talking about me >.>

 

You've even admitted to teaming with everyone before.