The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[Farfadillis]

[Obligatory reminder that I really believe public RP bonus would fix a lot of issues once we get used to the downsides, which are Not Actually That Bad]

I want to say I more or less agree with everything Kelssek has said, and that his observations shouldn't be taken as offensive: simply put, most of us are, consciously or not, following our incentives. As it stands, our incentives tell us to eke out a few novellas here and there to do well. It's not necessarily true that writing a lot of good stuff is super beneficial—for all we know it's possible that most hosts already apply some version of Vil's proposal when grading—but it is true that many players believe they have to write a lot and write well. Nobody is at fault for following this incentive, but sometimes you can find yourself in a situation where nobody is at fault, but the sum of everyone's decision makes for a very unpleasant situation!

I'm kinda struggling to put this simply, so here's me having another go at it: bad situations can be emergent phenomenons from lots of people trying their best. It happens, and it might be happening here. The way I see it, there are two options:

1) Coordination. We all collectively agree to not overexert ourselves.
2) Changing incentives. We start grading RPs in such a way that overexerting yourself is not rewarding and make everyone know that RPs are being graded in such a way.

I personally feel like most of the other problems will mostly disappear if we get rid of this one. To that effect, I do think that public RP bonus is one way to go, though not the only one. Just making "hey, we're really not that fussed if you write a thousand fewer words, won't be docking many points, if any at all" public policy would go a long, long way, really.

Also, I wanna point out that RP bonus itself needn't become less important: it's just the grading we're talking about here. No need to worry about fossilizing the top ranks if we do things the right way.

[Legalese]

I think this is your intent by the way you put the timeline, but to be clear: Ban, are you planning to set a preliminary host bid deadline to go with the opening of sign-ups? If the aim is for a mid-August BoF (which I support), that'd almost be necessary, and I agree with Baker Park that it can help with the timing certainty.

I'd also suggest that if a mid/late August BoF is desired, sign-ups should open roughly four weeks out, given likely bid and vote time. That'd be just about two weeks from now -- not far off your timeline, but coming up soon ish.

[Milchama]

Important note on post length. I could not tell you which WC this was but when Casari hosted his WC the RP bonus was "does it have 500 words?" If yes, full points. If no, not full points.

I remember liking that WC and thought the RP bonus was really useful because it made it very easy to understand what you were doing and what needed to be in an RP. So I do want to say it's been done before to just have an objective word count. I also know that Casari's systems, like all his systems (RIP Casaran Method), was not adopted afterwards people went back to the more generic/common place "RP bonus is based on quality + quantity" generic standard.

I also could be getting the word count wrong, somebody can look at the bid if they want.

[Savojarna]

I would be against an objective word count like that, because it seems unfair considering that a) it's very possible to write a great RP with fewer than 500 words (especially those that get creative with formats and write e.g. poetry), but perhaps more importantly b) there's a very real effect where RP's (or all texts, for that matter) get worse when someone tries to reach a word limit. I'd rather read someone describe the goals of their matchup nicely in 250 words, than have them tack on 250 more words of "MyNation will play the world number 1 next, The Holy Empire, which is holy, and the best team in the world, so it will be really difficult for us. We hope that our striker can score" etc.

Things I have mentioned on Discord and/or would like to see otherwise:

1) RP Bonus transparency, in one way or another, needs to be more prevalent not just because of how it affects RPers themselves, but also how it makes hosting more accessible. When I first hosted things (without a co-host) I had no clue how to properly set up a bonus scale, or grade RP's, which led to tournaments that had really weird results since they saw almost all the top teams fail early (because I set RP bonus way too high) and earned me significant criticism in at least one case. That wasn't fun for me because I felt I was a poor host for it, but it also wasn't fun for the participants who were thrown completely random results their way. Having some sort of public scale, be that in a guide we can link somewhere, or by virtue of publishing scales (NOT necessarily individual scores!), can prevent that as well as making the expectations more clear.

1b) If I will bid for anything soon (which is unsure since I'm moving places twice in the near future) I will make it part of my host bid to explain my guidelines along the line of this:

RP Bonus:
a) Scale: I will grade RP's on a scale from 0 to 10, which will then be scaled in such a way that an unranked nation, should they consistently reach top marks, will be level with the top nation (assuming they do not RP at all) by the final matchday. RP bonus will not decay from matchday to matchday.
b) Length: RP bonus prioritises quality over quantity. Length and effort will be rewarded to the extent that they add to the RP: Where length adds more detail and atmosphere, it will be rewarded; where it bolsters word counts only, it will be ignored.
c) Expectations and examples: A good-quality roleplay of ca. 300 words would be graded with 7.5 to 8 points; a good-quality RP of 500 words would be graded with 9 points. A good RP of 1000 words would be reaching 10 points; a mediocre RP of 1000 words would be graded with perhaps 7 or 8 points.

I would welcome the inclusion of such descriptions in bids (adjust numbers etc as intended) and will probably reward them in the future when it comes to host bids.

2) Regarding timing: I think that timing should to a large extent happen somewhat organically (we don't need to wait for the WC to begin/end to do other tournaments, for the most part; especially with 48h scorination, I think most things can handle a little bit of overlap especially if there is not any expectation of daily large-scale RP for them). However I do very much welcome the idea of CBP to set more hard deadlines and also a bit shorter timeframes. Especially for long-ongoing things like IFCF, I think it's perfectly fine to see their timeframes shorten a little bit and have people adjust their effort to it. I can only speak for myself, but I would not mind trimming my league a bit if that means shorter cycles. However, I enjoy doing my league the way it is now, so I am not actually trimming it as of now since the timeframe allows for the effort that goes into it, if that makes sense.

3) I do think that we should keep domestic and international football coupled as much as possible, just because it's the same playerbase. Personally I'd like that coupling to be 2 ICFC to 1 WC, but that is in the end a preference I'm willing to let go if that is desired by the community.

4) Extending the WC seems almost unavoidable given the charts displayed by Audio. If it's true that the number of nations has massively increased, keeping the number of spots at 32 for no reason other than "this is what FIFA currently does" seems a bit wrong especially in a situation where FIFA is actually changing their rules. This is especially true given we don't have the type of countries like San Marino for whom a single win is a massive success, but much more teams that could actually contend to some extent in a WC. We don't have to (and should not) copy the dumb 16x3 format, but 8x6 or 12x4 are both perfectly fine in my opinion. I'd personally suggest 8x6 with the group winners going directly to RO16 and the group runners-up and third placed teams going to a RO24, but that's just An Idea (TM).

4b) Yes, that would make the CoH a bit smaller, but in a world where the CoH regularly has 64 participants, taking at most 16 away from that and putting them into the WC is not really a bad thing, is it? That just makes the CoH a less bloated tournament, a situation we primarily have because the NSWC is too small for the amount of (high-quality) nations that exist in NS Sports. I don't think that it will risk the death of the CoH.

5) Changing the KPB formula in a way that making a WC has less influence on your results is a good idea. Making the WC currently, in my opinion, gives too big a boost compared to a strong CoH participation, and that's part of why it takes long to climb since a) you're shut out from the real juicy points for your first few editions, and b) once you reach the WC-adjacent areas, it contributes to some weird bubbling where you get bounced up a lot by having the luck to make it to a WC (i.e. be paired with an underperforming top seed or have Maggie on your side in crucial matchups) and then drop again if you only make the CoH at some point. That's kinda frustrating because it makes not qualifying this huge deflating experience. I found it kind of underwhelming to realise that even if I won the CoH with a perfect record, I would at most gain one spot or hold my position in the KPB's. I think that the higher end of the CoH should be rewarded more to prevent this up and down in the 30-60 area.

5b) I support the idea of non-degrading BOF points with the previously mentioned reasoning of it being a one-off bonus anyway.

[Sarzonia]

[Obligatory reminder that I really believe public RP bonus would fix a lot of issues once we get used to the downsides, which are Not Actually That Bad]

NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO.

I specifically used your and Krytenia's AOCAF as an example of why I oppose public RP bonus because of the effects it has on RPers.

I personally have a major objection to having my RP score released for public consumption. It feels like an invasion of privacy at best and an attack at worst.

There's a reason federal law prohibits disclosing grades in academia.

[Tumbra]

NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO.

I specifically used your and Krytenia's AOCAF as an example of why I oppose public RP bonus because of the effects it has on RPers.

I personally have a major objection to having my RP score released for public consumption. It feels like an invasion of privacy at best and an attack at worst.

There's a reason federal law prohibits disclosing grades in academia.

This...isn't...academia...? It's a hobby to many of us. It's not meant to be stressful, which some people apparently are upon realising that roleplay lengths have ballooned out of proportion or something.

If you have an issue with your score being released in a competition with host bonuses, I am sure a decent, unbiased host would be alright with not releasing your score to other people. If we're going to combat the supposed problem of "RP anxiety," then being transparent is the way to go.

[Osarius]

I don't see any problem with public RP bonus. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we're probably grading other people's RPs in our heads anyway.

[Banija]

I think this is your intent by the way you put the timeline, but to be clear: Ban, are you planning to set a preliminary host bid deadline to go with the opening of sign-ups? If the aim is for a mid-August BoF (which I support), that'd almost be necessary, and I agree with Baker Park that it can help with the timing certainty.

I'd also suggest that if a mid/late August BoF is desired, sign-ups should open roughly four weeks out, given likely bid and vote time. That'd be just about two weeks from now -- not far off your timeline, but coming up soon ish.

I do plan on setting a preliminary host bid deadline. I did it last tourney, and I think it's an effective way to keep things on track And thinking about it, you may have a point that week 1 of August may be a little bit late to open signups if we want a mid August BoF.

Given that, let me rethink that first week of August timeframe. I guess I'll try to think more of a back end host bid deadline date/vote deadline date, so we can go from there.

[Graintfjall]

but it is true that many players believe they have to write a lot and write well.

And I maintain we still don't have any evidence for this. As a counterexample, the most highly praised RP I saw during the last cycle was Brenecia's "eaten by a bear" RP. That was, from memory, not particularly long, probably not 500 words. Yet everyone loved it and was chortling away about its merits.

To that effect, I do think that public RP bonus is one way to go, though not the only one.

I would hate that. I'd hope at minimum players could opt out of having their grades made public.

[Kelssek]

Let's not forget that while the focus has shifted to RP bonus and how it should be handled, the starting point was how to reduce feelings of burnout, stress and anxiety, and increase the pace of WC cycles/stop the gradual slowdown, in order to make it easier and faster for new nations to progress and have a realistic chance of qualifying for the finals (i.e. top 40) within 9-12 months. And also have more chances to do so, more often.

[Sarzonia]

This...isn't...academia...?

I'm WELL aware of that. Thanks for the condescension.

Your call for transparency can easily be sorted by having the hosts reveal to anyone who asks what their individual RP score is. As for making something public, they can either specify generally what scale they use and give an idea of what they look for in roleplays.

Saying something like Sarzonia got a 1.2 out of a 5 for this particular RP is absolutely beyond the pale. It would only serve to make me feel bad if I expended considerable effort to write a RP and it got graded poorly.

[Eshialand]

This...isn't...academia...?

I'm WELL aware of that. Thanks for the condescension.

Your call for transparency can easily be sorted by having the hosts reveal to anyone who asks what their individual RP score is. As for making something public, they can either specify generally what scale they use and give an idea of what they look for in roleplays.

Saying something like Sarzonia got a 1.2 out of a 5 for this particular RP is absolutely beyond the pale. It would only serve to make me feel bad if I expended considerable effort to write a RP and it got graded poorly.

This.

I put a lot of work into my RPs, so I'd rather not know what my "grades" are. I agree that nations should be able to request their own RP bonuses, but I'd much rather not have public RP bonuses.

[PotatoFarmers]

Stares at the ongoing heated debate

Well sorry for interrupting the scheduled broadcast, but while I was settling some other matters, I realised I never properly tabluated the WC88/CoH80 prediction winners. So here is a late congratulations to the winners:

1st: TJUN-ia, getting the finalists and the final results correct; and one of the 2 losing semifinalists correctly. They scored 27 points.
2nd: Reçueçn, correctly predicting Turori to win, but predicted THE to lose in the semis incorrectly. They scored 22 points.
Tied 3rd: Sylestone & Ko-oren. Both predicted 2/4 semifinalists, but predicted Turori to lose in the semis, and THE to progress. They scored 14 points.

Spare me, who are these people?

1st: "Don't see this", who correctly predicted Graintfjall to win the CoH. They scored 48 points.
2nd: Llama, who correctly predicted Graintfjall to reach the finals (but didn't predict them to win). They scored 38 points (but got more correct results overall).
3rd: "Eff U Anaia", who got a distant 29 points.

The results can be found in the below links:
https://challonge.com/NSSWC88/predictions
https://challonge.com/NSSCoH80/predictions

[Strike]

I will add for no particular reason that there is precedence for RP Bonus to be released. The title here says WC31 though it may be using incomplete data so don't take the rankings seriously as its grabbed from a file not the actual original post - though i did redact some names at the lower half of the list. The premise was that a nations actual RP bonus was given a random modifier (small but random enough that they could switch from one tier to another but not 2 tiers) were grouped into tiers then listed alphabetically within the tier to give a rough idea of where their RP sat in comparison to the rest.

Code: Select all

 [color=teal][b]World Cup xXxI [/color]::[color=teal] Vilita National - Unofficial Media Rankings[/color][/b]
 NATION NAME          Grade
-----------------------------
 Alasdair I Frosticus   A
 Az-cz                  A
 Bazalonia              A
 Casari                 A
 Errinundera            A
 Spaam                  A
 Tessan                 A
 The Archregimancy      A
 Turori                 A
 Tynelia                A
 Vilita                 A
 Ariddia                B+
 Quakmybush             B+
 Raging Penguins        B+
 Schiavonia             B+
 Bedistan               B
 Cuation                B
 Elves Security Forces  B
 Jeruselem              B
 Milchama               B
 New Montreal States    B
 The Islands of Qutar   B
 Wentland               B
 Anastasiania           C+
 Aurendia               C+
 Commerce Heights       C+
 Demot                  C+
 Lisburn Mateys         C+
 Qazox                  C+
 Rejistania             C+
 Ropa-Topia             C+
 Assegai Developments   C
 Backwardistan          C
 Commerce Heights JSY   C
 Geisenfried            C
 Krytenia               C
 Liverpool England      C
 Oliverry               C
 Spindomia              C
 Spruitland             C
 Squornshelous          C
 Starblaydia            C
 The Lowland Clans      C
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D+
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 D
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
 Nation                 F
etc.


That said, for the modern day, I would support some more clear guidelines to be set with either example posts or target numbers "IE: 1000 words of Good Quality" with a bar set such that more active participants can earn an equivalent max bonus without feeling they need to over-exert. I would also support nations being allowed to ask ONE TIME during a WCQ to the hosts whether they were achieving Max Bonus or not.

[Tikariot]

When originally thinking about it I did not think it relevant, but the more I thought, the more I came to the conclusion that it actually perfectly encapsulates the situation we have right now.

As some may know, I've been writing CD reviews for 20+ years and back in the 80s with vinyl having its limitations, albums were around 35-40 minutes often times while now with CDs you get the range from 35-80 minutes. Many very highly rated classics are from the vinyl area, so are fairly short, but there also are modern classics that are considerably longer. Now as a reviewer I have learned a long time ago to separate quality from quantity as some albums will leave you wanting more while others have unnecessary fat to trim and I believe that this also applies to the RPs - a lot.

There, too, I sometimes get the feeling that bands feel the need to throw as much as they can onto a CD to win over the listener (or in our case here the judge) while that clearly is not the case. I've lost count where I told bands that sometimes less is more, because while there is a chance that if you throw more at the listener you will have a greater chance to also have more quality, but more often you don't.

By publishing the review I do make my "RP bonus" public and let's just say that you get the whole gamut of reactions of some taking it well, some seeing it as an incentive to do better and some - well, some are just not good at criticism and some of them take it very personal. That being said, making the bonus public can have some serious downsides and personal repercussions towards the judge(s), so I would approach with severe caution on this one. Which is why I support Osarius' idea on Discord of publishing medians and averages without mentioning particular nations/RPs a lot (maybe he can post that here as well) and also giving out the RP bonus to the writer in question upon request, but not publicly.

So this is where the judges are more in the responsibility to see through all that than necessarily the writer. So if it can be made clear what constitutes a great, good, mediocre RP, with maybe one longer and one shorter example for both it could give a clearer idea of what is considered either of the three, especially also with two examples of differing lengths to portray that short can also reach full bonus. Also give concrete examples of what constitutes good/average/whatever RPs for people to be able to read them and give a visible example of expectations. This might/should be able to get rid of at least most perceptions of "they write a lot, I have to as well", which is wrong and approaches things from the wrong end.

[Osarius]

Which is why I support Osarius' idea on Discord of publishing medians and averages without mentioning particular nations/RPs a lot (maybe he can post that here as well) and also giving out the RP bonus to the writer in question upon request, but not publicly.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

Only the host would be able to see the grades behind the scenes, but everyone else can get an idea of how well everyone is being graded, and if that's not enough, I suppose asking the host for your specific RP bonus value would resolve any remaining questions.

Using this, in combination with some sort of RP rubric by host maybe would do a lot to dispel the notion that you're playing catchup. I wouldn't know for sure though, it's not something that affects me personally. But if we're concerned about public RP bonus, this seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

The way RPs are graded will always vary from host to host so there will likely never be a universal standard of "this is a good RP", "this is a max bonus RP" and so on. It's also a bit much to ask for examples (because how else do you provide examples without using things already written?) and a rubric might not necessarily make things easier to gauge for some people (if a host says "I'll give 50% based on how funny it was" for example, how do you know what's funny?).

However, if hosts are divulging information like the above, we can maybe make a better judgment on what is expected, based on what was submitted on any given matchday. If twenty people RP, and only five people write long form RPs, but you see in the data that sixty percent of people got 80% of max bonus or better, maybe it's a little easier to say to yourself "mine was probably ok then". Or maybe the data suggests that eight people got max bonus, so you're thinking "oh I don't need to do long form RP to get max bonus" and so on.

Obviously the only way to be sure is to ask the host, but everyone suggesting that should probably note that it's not that simple for some people.

[Farfadillis]

but it is true that many players believe they have to write a lot and write well.

And I maintain we still don't have any evidence for this. As a counterexample, the most highly praised RP I saw during the last cycle was Brenecia's "eaten by a bear" RP. That was, from memory, not particularly long, probably not 500 words. Yet everyone loved it and was chortling away about its merits.

If you want evidence for modern WCs having much more, much longer RPs, I imagine you probably have that. You were around for when RPs were shorter and fewer (I think? I don't know your user timeline by heart). To be honest, I personally have only really noticed this effect on the IFCF end of things, but most/all veterans seem to agree that it happened on the WC end at some point, too. If you want evidence of burn-out, you need only go back to the discussion about 2MD scorinations and you'll notice plenty of people worried about it. There's also been plenty of people saying "Hey, the long IFCF breaks sure made us go nuts with our leagues, huh? Funny how that happens", so there's that. If you want hard data and numbers, though, I'm afraid we probably don't have any, though I'd argue it's not necessary seeing as most people seem to be on the same page here? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, that's just my reading of things.

To that effect, I do think that public RP bonus is one way to go, though not the only one.

I would hate that. I'd hope at minimum players could opt out of having their grades made public.

I realize reading your post and Sarz's that my hosting AOCAF Cup 60 might've inadvertently made people associate "public RP bonus" with my specific brand of public RP bonus and not, say, Ethane's. Truth is, I think most iterations of it have the potential to be very beneficial. Opt-in, opt-out, Os' data analysis version, you name it. Nowadays, if I were to bid for the World Cup, I'd probably go with opt-out instead of full-on public RP bonus, for what it's worth.

[Strike]

publishing medians and averages without mentioning particular nations/RPs

I don't think that solves the issue of RP escalation however? All it does is show you the amount of bonus nations got?

Without having a 1:1 correlation of "This is approx what you have to do to gain max bonus" then there is always going to be the possibility of the "In order to be competitive and get max bonus i need to have the longest, best RP of anyone in my group/the cup/etc"

Just saying how much RP bonus is being given out across an anonymous swath of nations doesn't do... anything... to avoid that? Unless I'm misinterpreting something here

[Graintfjall]

And I maintain we still don't have any evidence for this. As a counterexample, the most highly praised RP I saw during the last cycle was Brenecia's "eaten by a bear" RP. That was, from memory, not particularly long, probably not 500 words. Yet everyone loved it and was chortling away about its merits.

If you want evidence for modern WCs having much more, much longer RPs, I imagine you probably have that. You were around for when RPs were shorter and fewer (I think? I don't know your user timeline by heart).

What I'm disputing is that "many players believe they have to" write more, or that we have any real proof of that being a widespread belief that is detrimental to this community. I'm not disputing that RP threads are bigger. But in terms of my user timeline, my first connection to NS was on a dial-up modem! On the old Jolt forums which were down 50% of the time and where whenever I was on I felt lucky just to be able to submit something and have it register before they crashed. (No "save draft" function, either.) From what I hear the pre-Jolt forums were even worse. We had to rely on imageshack or photobucket for image hosting, compared to the ease and ubiquity of modern hosting services, too. Nowadays we (nearly) all have regular internet access much more readily. I can check NS on my phone! And, at the risk of mentioning the thing we never mention, many though of course not all of us have endured radically different life situations over the last 18 months, with limited opportunities for RL socializing and often working or studying from home meaning more time spent online, etc. You'd have to disaggregate all of those factors influencing why there is more RPing now and why longer RPs are posted now before assuming it's solely on account of peer pressure.

(And if it is, then it's wholly misplaced. Nephara is probably the most successful modern NS football nation: their RPs are rarely "10000 words". Cassadaigua may be the most successful NS Sport nation of all; another person who does not write "novellas". Valanora is probably the most successful NS football nation in history, yet is known much more for regular RPing than for particular RP length. All may have written at greater length on occasion but for the most part I'd associate them with short, punchy RPs with good humor or references to other users or some degree of interactivity. They seem to have plenty of success.)

[Tikariot]

publishing medians and averages without mentioning particular nations/RPs

I don't think that solves the issue of RP escalation however? All it does is show you the amount of bonus nations got?

Without having a 1:1 correlation of "This is approx what you have to do to gain max bonus" then there is always going to be the possibility of the "In order to be competitive and get max bonus i need to have the longest, best RP of anyone in my group/the cup/etc"

Just saying how much RP bonus is being given out across an anonymous swath of nations doesn't do... anything... to avoid that? Unless I'm misinterpreting something here

Well, it wasn't aimed at de-escalation, but rather at finding a way to avoid a fully public RP bonus and still give more concrete pointers as Os explained. I don't think there is any effective way to really fully get rid of the perception of the "need more".

[Farfadillis]

If you want evidence for modern WCs having much more, much longer RPs, I imagine you probably have that. You were around for when RPs were shorter and fewer (I think? I don't know your user timeline by heart).

What I'm disputing is that "many players believe they have to" write more, or that we have any real proof of that being a widespread belief that is detrimental to this community. I'm not disputing that RP threads are bigger. But in terms of my user timeline, my first connection to NS was on a dial-up modem! On the old Jolt forums which were down 50% of the time and where whenever I was on I felt lucky just to be able to submit something and have it register before they crashed. (No "save draft" function, either.) From what I hear the pre-Jolt forums were even worse. We had to rely on imageshack or photobucket for image hosting, compared to the ease and ubiquity of modern hosting services, too. Nowadays we (nearly) all have regular internet access much more readily. I can check NS on my phone! And, at the risk of mentioning the thing we never mention, many though of course not all of us have endured radically different life situations over the last 18 months, with limited opportunities for RL socializing and often working or studying from home meaning more time spent online, etc. You'd have to disaggregate all of those factors influencing why there is more RPing now and why longer RPs are posted now before assuming it's solely on account of peer pressure.

(And if it is, then it's wholly misplaced. Nephara is probably the most successful modern NS football nation: their RPs are rarely "10000 words". Cassadaigua may be the most successful NS Sport nation of all; another person who does not write "novellas". Valanora is probably the most successful NS football nation in history, yet is known much more for regular RPing than for particular RP length. All may have written at greater length on occasion but for the most part I'd associate them with short, punchy RPs with good humor or references to other users or some degree of interactivity. They seem to have plenty of success.)

I'm afraid that if we consider every possible counterhypothesis we'll never get everything done. Your alternative explanation does not, to me, seem particularly plausible, but I realize this kind of thing is sort of subjective and most of the time we won't be able to distinguish between mutually incompatible hypotheses... besides implementing the actual proposals, of course, which I imagine is not a very convincing idea to you.

Regarding what's in brackets, I mostly agree that it is at least somewhat misplaced—I hinted at it in my first post—but I also don't think it changes the problem itself.

publishing medians and averages without mentioning particular nations/RPs

I don't think that solves the issue of RP escalation however? All it does is show you the amount of bonus nations got?

Without having a 1:1 correlation of "This is approx what you have to do to gain max bonus" then there is always going to be the possibility of the "In order to be competitive and get max bonus i need to have the longest, best RP of anyone in my group/the cup/etc"

Just saying how much RP bonus is being given out across an anonymous swath of nations doesn't do... anything... to avoid that? Unless I'm misinterpreting something here

I believe the reasoning is that if the hosts are already grading somewhat generously, then the distribution of scores will drive the point home that no, you really don't have to eke out another five hundred words*.

*: I'm being facetious here; please don't accuse me of thinking this is literally how everyone's thinking process goes.

Also, as an aside, I think we might be focusing too much on length here. I personally find quality to be more taxing than quantity in terms of effort. It's probably a matter of how naturally good writing comes to you, but I kind of want to think I'm not alone in this?

[Tumbra]

Also, an aside, I think we might be focusing too much on length here. I personally find quality to be more taxing than quantity in terms of effort. It's probably a matter of how naturally good writing comes to you, but I kind of want to think I'm not alone in this?

Thank you. Some of us are just naturally inclined to writing longer RPs, or have to deal with word limits in our daily lives and simply do not want to deal with that crap here.

[Strike]

Also, an aside, I think we might be focusing too much on length here. I personally find quality to be more taxing than quantity in terms of effort. It's probably a matter of how naturally good writing comes to you, but I kind of want to think I'm not alone in this?

Thank you. Some of us are just naturally inclined to writing longer RPs, or have to deal with word limits in our daily lives and simply do not want to deal with that crap here.

But again and this is a very important distinction

To my knowledge, there hasn't been ANY or at least very little discussion proposing an actual cap / word limit of what you are permitted to write. The only discussion that has talked about Word counts is in the form of "Where you attain the maximum RP Bonus".

There have been tournaments run in the past that have had actual caps where you were not permitted to write over a certain amount, and if you did your RP Bonus would actually go down. That - as far as I can tell - has been proposed by no one.

What has been proposed is making it more clear as to what the length/quality of post that would attain the maximum bonus is. Because that exists in every cup. And the nations who write the longest/best RPs in many cases could have written half as much OR written half as well and Still gotten the maximum bonus. And for me, this is where I think the greatest confusion lies.

I think Some folks might be conflating the idea of "Max Bonus" with "The best/most long/quality" RP. RP Bonus is generally not a ranking. The best RP doesn't get the top score with the second best getting the second top score. As it exists today - already - in the World Cup and likely IFCF and countless other tournaments there is a maximum Bonus you gain on a given day. Plenty of users achieve that maximum bonus... and still keep writing undeterred MD after MD after MD. That number changes from cup to cup, grading system to grading system.

If the hosts were to make more transparent and/or provide specific examples or even feedback as to the length/quality/type of posts that are achieving maximum bonus - that wouldn't change the way RP Bonus is scored/graded. It would just define it for those writing. So the user could continue to write another 1500 words of exquisite quality after they've already achieved the point of earning max bonus for an RP - like we currently do today - or the user could choose to take the information provided by the hosts as to what a max RP looks like and decide to shorten it up / provide a little less detail. It's entirely up to the user and nobody would be forcing any limitation on them at that point.

The fact that the Max Bonus RP is defined IS NOT the same as a word limit. Its just defining a system that already exists to be more transparent so users can make informed decisions when they are writing and relieve some of the so-called escalation stress. Nothing more.

[Kelssek]

A lot of the suggestions people are bringing up have in fact been used or proposed at various times. Echoing Strike, I suspect the kind of "truncated high end" stuff I have been advocating is how many hosts already do things.

In terms of evidence, if you recall the straw poll I ran 13 months ago, 43% of respondents agree or strongly agree with the statement "I am anxious that I'm not as good a roleplayer as others" (47% disagree). Of the 1/3 who said they felt burnout, the plurality response as to why was "lack of ideas". So it is something a significant minority do perceive, rightly or wrongly.

That said, while the response to the poll was that 2MDs/48hrs has become an accepted way to run WCQs, this doesn't actually speed up the cycle, which is where all this controversy started (and has re-started). Some people want to have more World Cups and IFCFs more often, and others feel like the existing pace is already too much.

[Squornshelan Remnant States]

Feeling reasonably caught up on the major points of discussion, and so will add my two cents.

Lacking hosting experience and with admitted ignorance of the finer details of scorination formulas, my main takeaway from the discussion so far is that there are two separate issues on people's minds. The first is a widespread feeling of burnout over the perception of an ever increasing obligation of quantity of RP. The second is the perception that it is too difficult and slow a process for a new nation to reach a point of competitiveness.

I think that these issues are not entirely unrelated, after all some degree of burnout is to be expected from a new user who feels that they have to write more than they have time to for nearly two irl years just to have a chance to qualify. These are not two parts of a single issue though, and there is not any one solution that will address both problems. On the contrary, I tend to think that most solutions I have seen proposed for either problem would actively exacerbate the other. (the simplest example being, more frequent cups = more burnout, less frequent cups = even slower to earn rank) I am also not convinced that the standard (read: the requirement to earn maximum RP bonus) of RP is actually as high as some people fear that it is. The absence of publication of RP bonuses and variation in grading criteria from host to host makes it very difficult to be certain exactly what is expected from RPers. I do wholeheartedly agree that greater transparency about grading criteria would be of great benefit to the community.

I am very leery of general publication of RP bonus though. What could be more discouraging to a user, especially a new user still finding their way in this community, than to learn that their contributions are not valued? Taking criticism is difficult, especially public criticism. Publishing more general statistics about the distributions of RP bonuses might be helpful.

I am also intrigued by the proposed alterations to how rank is calculated, though I think there's a limit to how much we can buff CoH weighting. Very often, a nation's first World Cup qualification will result in a Group Stage exit with very few points earned. It takes a lot away from the excitement of that first qualification when you begin to worry that your rank may actually suffer for it, and that you might have been better off in the Cup of Harmony. The proposal to extend the duration of BoF points seems like a good one though. I don't think we can ever eliminate the 40th to 100th place meat grinder entirely, but we can at least help give a little boost to the new nations to not spend over a year irl being irrelevant.

I have other thoughts but I think I've begun rambling and have slightly lost the plot so I'm going to leave it at that for now.