SAO-RPG Staff Team feedback

[Erroneous 0]

2 hours ago, Shark said:

to address that, we had one but it is against the hosting company's policy and slowed down the site since it takes up memory and slows down the site to snail speed. 

Skype is free and doesn't take up any memory on the site.

 

2 hours ago, Baldur said:

How long ago was that? IPS now hosts the chats themselves for this reason.

 

2 hours ago, Shark said:

this was using the phpBB software but it's not the software company but where the website is hosted. I believe the IPS one cost more money though.

 

2 hours ago, Baldur said:

That could be, but IPS now has a chat function that they host all the traffic on their side cause they noticed that website hosts were banning the feature.

 

1 hour ago, Shark said:

Good to know, I'll bring that up with Erron

This has nothing to do with the forum software used by this site, it's the webspace hosting company's Terms of Agreement that disallow any and all chat software. Same goes for hosting torrents or being used as a proxy server.

[Takneil 0]

I thought I would throw my bit in here since it seems to be what all the cool kids are doing these days. 

Now I have read through all of these and one thing I've been noticing is that we are focusing on errors in rules, staff, balancing and mechanics. While all concerns and complaints are warranted to some degree most of what is being said should be kept away from this topic. The question was... "What are your thoughts about the current team". This would entail subjects such as staff and the mistakes they have made, but everything else mentioned should really be made in a different place as it strays from what Shark is asking. 

My personal thoughts on the current staff team?

They are Human.

The title Staff does not make a member of the community a god and as far my memory serves it has never meant such on SAO-RP, now I have only been here off and on for little over a year. so that leaves plenty of time for when I wasn't around, but for the time that I was. Staff was always generous and kind to me when I had extremely noobish/repetitive questions. Sure, it took them a while to get back to me. But don't say they ignore you, remember that staff not only have to help you. they have to help the entire site while dealing with Real Life and In Character issues as well. From what I recall many people tend to assume members of staff have all the time in the world, I'll be the first to tell you that is completely untrue. Tristan and Zero, these two names of Staff you keep throwing out as if they are the sole problem. Excluding a select few... Tristan and Zero are the kindest members of site I know, when I completely forgot to log my energy in one of my quests. Tristan swiftly gave me a response on how to manage it and Zero guided me so i wouldn't have to restart from scratch. No rule bending, no special treatment. They helped me, as staff apparently are too lazy to do?. 

As for chat. I only recently joined the sao skype chat, of course I left it but that was due to community issues. not staff. (Yeah that's right, you guys aren't little angels either. :P ) When I was among chat there were many, many. Times where there were people who spoke very crudely and un PG-13 like, though most of the time that was kept in call. While it didn't happen from time to time in chat People who weren't staff rushed to shush them and barrage them with 'Language!' or of the like before staff could even notice it's there. 

To get to the point because I've already dug my self a perfectly snug hole to die in for defending the current staff, what I'm saying is They are Human. Not beings who were made to completely dedicate their entire life to SAO-RP, Tristan has a job, Zero has college and a perfectly Broken laptop so he has a phone. Now I would love to defend other staff but it seems right now the current complaints are focused at these two, again among the kindest people I know who do their best when they have little time to do anything. 

So now you all realize there is a member on the other side of the fence, please put me in my coffin so I may prove this final point. The community of SAO RP is ruthless, while it once upon of time was a friendly and warm environment to be in it has only become what we as the community has made of it. A place where players bully staff into altering rules because it doesn't suit them and when staff attempt to change this it suddenly becomes switched all around. So I beg you, send me all the hate in the world. And in return I will respond with a big smile, because I know which side the grass is greener on. The side that is fertilized with all this BS. 

To answer Shark's question: No, Staff team should not be changed.

Love Taki <3

[Baldur 0]

1 hour ago, Takneil said:

I thought I would throw my bit in here since it seems to be what all the cool kids are doing these days. 

Now I have read through all of these and one thing I've been noticing is that we are focusing on errors in rules, staff, balancing and mechanics. While all concerns and complaints are warranted to some degree most of what is being said should be kept away from this topic. The question was... "What are your thoughts about the current team". This would entail subjects such as staff and the mistakes they have made, but everything else mentioned should really be made in a different place as it strays from what Shark is asking. 

My personal thoughts on the current staff team?

They are Human.

The title Staff does not make a member of the community a god and as far my memory serves it has never meant such on SAO-RP, now I have only been here off and on for little over a year. so that leaves plenty of time for when I wasn't around, but for the time that I was. Staff was always generous and kind to me when I had extremely noobish/repetitive questions. Sure, it took them a while to get back to me. But don't say they ignore you, remember that staff not only have to help you. they have to help the entire site while dealing with Real Life and In Character issues as well. From what I recall many people tend to assume members of staff have all the time in the world, I'll be the first to tell you that is completely untrue. Tristan and Zero, these two names of Staff you keep throwing out as if they are the sole problem. Excluding a select few... Tristan and Zero are the kindest members of site I know, when I completely forgot to log my energy in one of my quests. Tristan swiftly gave me a response on how to manage it and Zero guided me so i wouldn't have to restart from scratch. No rule bending, no special treatment. They helped me, as staff apparently are too lazy to do?. 

<snip>

So now you all realize there is a member on the other side of the fence, please put me in my coffin so I may prove this final point. The community of SAO RP is ruthless, while it once upon of time was a friendly and warm environment to be in it has only become what we as the community has made of it. A place where players bully staff into altering rules because it doesn't suit them and when staff attempt to change this it suddenly becomes switched all around. So I beg you, send me all the hate in the world. And in return I will respond with a big smile, because I know which side the grass is greener on. The side that is fertilized with all this BS. 

While I applaud you for standing up against the overwhelming majority, what you're asking us to do here is not to judge staff based on their performance.

Now I will be the first one to say that real life should come first. Without a doubt. 100%

But you are incapable, or unwilling, to do the job that the site requires of you, good judgement says you step down.

I don't think anyone here is asking that staff be on 24/7 to reply to questions as soon as we ask them, but we're saying unless you're one of the staff's close friends they never get back to you.

Not a day or later. Silence.

As to your comments about balance and the like not being issues for this thread, I would have to respectfully disagree. Zero and Tristan are directly responsible for those, both the creation and maintenance. Dozens of players have bought these imbalances and issues to the attention of staff with suggestions and solutions, and are met with silence until something can be shown to be so abusable that it would ruin the entire site if it were allowed to continue. So no, we aren't blaming them for not being perfect, or gods, we're blaming them for being willfully ignorant and obstinate in the face of evidence. And also for knowing that certain things are broken and just deciding to ignore them.

And example? I, as a merchant, am the least useful crafting profession in the game. "But wait!" you say, "There's the appraisal system!" And I, too, thought this was true. Then I ran the numbers. You have less than 1/2 a percent chance to reveal a unique power. And then out of that 1/2 percent, you have an even smaller chance of getting a cohearant unique enchantment. When I brought this up to Zero, with an easy suggestion that would increase the chance to a mere ~5%, you know what I was told? 'That skill isn't meant to be able to unlock unique enhancement. We put it there to encourage merchants to level up their rank.' The only, single thing that the merchant class hangs on, is merely there to use your daily craft attempts to level up your skill. So that you can do nothing.

Would that this were the only example.

However, hopefully with this player council, we can begin to see some changes.

[Shark 0]

1 hour ago, Takneil said:

I thought I would throw my bit in here since it seems to be what all the cool kids are doing these days. 

Now I have read through all of these and one thing I've been noticing is that we are focusing on errors in rules, staff, balancing and mechanics. While all concerns and complaints are warranted to some degree most of what is being said should be kept away from this topic. The question was... "What are your thoughts about the current team". This would entail subjects such as staff and the mistakes they have made, but everything else mentioned should really be made in a different place as it strays from what Shark is asking. 

My personal thoughts on the current staff team?

They are Human.

The title Staff does not make a member of the community a god and as far my memory serves it has never meant such on SAO-RP, now I have only been here off and on for little over a year. so that leaves plenty of time for when I wasn't around, but for the time that I was. Staff was always generous and kind to me when I had extremely noobish/repetitive questions. Sure, it took them a while to get back to me. But don't say they ignore you, remember that staff not only have to help you. they have to help the entire site while dealing with Real Life and In Character issues as well. From what I recall many people tend to assume members of staff have all the time in the world, I'll be the first to tell you that is completely untrue. Tristan and Zero, these two names of Staff you keep throwing out as if they are the sole problem. Excluding a select few... Tristan and Zero are the kindest members of site I know, when I completely forgot to log my energy in one of my quests. Tristan swiftly gave me a response on how to manage it and Zero guided me so i wouldn't have to restart from scratch. No rule bending, no special treatment. They helped me, as staff apparently are too lazy to do?. 

As for chat. I only recently joined the sao skype chat, of course I left it but that was due to community issues. not staff. (Yeah that's right, you guys aren't little angels either. :P ) When I was among chat there were many, many. Times where there were people who spoke very crudely and un PG-13 like, though most of the time that was kept in call. While it didn't happen from time to time in chat People who weren't staff rushed to shush them and barrage them with 'Language!' or of the like before staff could even notice it's there. 

To get to the point because I've already dug my self a perfectly snug hole to die in for defending the current staff, what I'm saying is They are Human. Not beings who were made to completely dedicate their entire life to SAO-RP, Tristan has a job, Zero has college and a perfectly Broken laptop so he has a phone. Now I would love to defend other staff but it seems right now the current complaints are focused at these two, again among the kindest people I know who do their best when they have little time to do anything. 

So now you all realize there is a member on the other side of the fence, please put me in my coffin so I may prove this final point. The community of SAO RP is ruthless, while it once upon of time was a friendly and warm environment to be in it has only become what we as the community has made of it. A place where players bully staff into altering rules because it doesn't suit them and when staff attempt to change this it suddenly becomes switched all around. So I beg you, send me all the hate in the world. And in return I will respond with a big smile, because I know which side the grass is greener on. The side that is fertilized with all this BS. 

To answer Shark's question: No, Staff team should not be changed.

Love Taki <3

Thank you for the positive feedback. It's nice to see that there are people who views staff like this. I can attest for a fact that everything brought up has been in discussion for quite sometime now. With topics that players complain about, as staff, it's not like we can fix everything at light speed. If we do that, then there is bound to be more mistakes since it would be seen as a band-aid which only brings more complaints. 

I have created a new committee for the very purpose to get player voices heard and problems solved as efficient as possible. I can't wait to see how it pans out.

[Ssendom 0]

17 hours ago, Takao said:

The whole situation with Ssendom and killing the players was an absolute PR mess too. It seems liked staff was willing to go to any lengths to save him, eventually stretching and bending the wording of a skill into some ridiculously convoluted manner that involves pausing damage in the middle of dealing damage for him to heal, and then resuming damage. Battle healing procs on the healing player's turn, the regen enhancement procs on the healing player's turn, first aid procs on the first aid user's turn, holy blessing procs on the healing player's turn. No other form of healing does that, except for the one that conveniently saved a staff member's life. Additionally, it's a nightmare to calculate. (damage - mitigation - 0.75% of damage = hp + 0.25%(of max) - remaining 0.25% of damage = final HP)

Takao, I would like to note that most of staff were actually trying to KEEP me dead. I was truly the only one who brought up exactly how the skill was worded, and I FORCED the staff to regard the situation to exactly how they decided to deal with the entire "vulturing" issue when joining an OP. They decided to deal with the rule AS IS, then fix it after my death. I found the skill and caused the staff to deal with the way the skill was typed AS IS, and then they could fix it after wards. It isn't the staff's fault on how the situation was handled at that precise moment. It was the staff's fault in not pre-planning situations BEFORE it would arise.

And I would also like to point out, that I didn't start making my complaint about the skill that I owned. Mind you, I used 5 different pieces of information of ABSOLUTE FACT. Where as the PST's and GM's were saying things along the lines of "I don't like how the skill was written, thus he should stay dead." Which means that these staff members are absolutely incompetent in their jobs and should promptly be removed from staff since they're not generating facts, simply using their bias on me being a staff member to keep me dead.

Furthermore, going back on the situation regarding the whole calculating of damage. That was the only way the skill would be correctly inputted due to how the skill was written and the facts used from Canon situations of multiple facets. Which Shark had pointed out.

Not trying to call you out on anything, but I would agree that the entire situation was a mess. And I promptly apologized to the people who were affected because of it.
[Continuing On]

19 hours ago, Opal said:

I believe as part of Staff, you should give Uniques to players who wish to attempt the Quest first. It is selfish to create a unique that fits your build and then take that unique as your own because you are staff and you already have the knowledge of how to obtain it. That's a little underhanded, and for building a community for other people, you have selfishly given yourself a power because of meta gaming which is to believed against the rules. But who reads those when everything is so poorly written and unreadable in the first place?

I can't lie and say that I have not benefited from being staff and getting the Unique that I happened to be apart of. But my way of obtaining as such is through friendships and the like. (I know I am not the one directly being talked about here. But I feel like I should comment.) This also ties in with what Takao said:

17 hours ago, Takao said:

I really hate to bring up the unique skills again, but its such a major point in all of this that I can't help it. The entire ordeal was so sketchy and so shady. The only time you could inquire about a rumour is when Zero decided to get on the account, and the only time Zero decided to get on the account was in the middle of the night when all his friends were online. Then they were all getting their uniques by the morning. I can't read their private messages so I don't know exactly what happened or if it was truly malicious, but it sure does seem like it. Tristan even managed to get his unique skill, a tanking unique skill pursued by somebody with laughable damage output, by challenging the unique NPC to a one-hit duel. That's just so convenient it hurts. Then, much later, I found out that unique weapons automatically tier up and normal weapons don't? Like... what benefit does that give? The gap between regular weapons and unique weapons is already vast, why does that gap continue to widen? Another point that I want to make(and already has been made) is that Tristan, a GM, has literally been made invincible-- and not by his own devices. Surely he's put in work and to that I cannot discredit him, but that's not what makes him broken. Achilles, by design, is terrible. Not only does it mimic parry in terms of brokenness but its also passive and has no drawbacks whatsoever despite him having put literally no work into it. Then there's holy blessing, which is something that activates automatically no matter what. The site seems like its been balanced around him and his build. This entire situation isn't benefiting the community, its putting a select few people on pedestals. It feels like the GMs intention was to make a few people the main characters of the site and everybody else is just there to ogle at them.

I happen to be friends with Zero. But I will give it to him he never mentioned anything to anyone before getting on the account (I don't even want to get on the topic about the activity of that account.) I will say that I was online by opportunity, and got my skill as such even though I was staff. If people are mad at me at this, I apologize. Following that up, I think the unique items scaling automatically is kinda weird ultimately. (A lot of these issues is why I have decided I am killing off Dom at a future event and will be moving on to a new character that I am currently working on.)

In those two quotes posted by Opal and Takao, I would like to apologize if anything in this seems like I am attacking or being judgemental. I feel as though I need to put what is crawling around in my head as I read this thread, and if anything I have done has enraged anyone I apologize. (While at the same time, I don't have enough time to really care that much because of the issues I deal with in my life though.)

@Nikodemus_Blackwood Still I apologize man.

 

All in all. If people really wanna complain about the fact I was brought back to life. I'll have you know, almost all of staff was heavily against me being staff. The ones that weren't did their own information searching and found out that I am right on all accounts. Don't like me saying this? Honestly, tough. Suck it up and get over it. I don't like the fact my name is being thrown around for a reason that is actually heavily incorrect. Wanna get mad at me being honest? Fine, I might be a slight bit Toxic as Lessa has said. But I have noticed that there is a slight attack on me in some of the posts stated, be it intentional or not.

I feel like the staff team needs work, mostly in fact of the bias against someone being staff. They would change a rule to save a high leveled player, but the second that person is staff, they're extreme on trying to demonstrate (Fairness) when in fact they're being outright unfair by ignoring the system they made.

 

I am done ranting now, sorry if I upset you. But I'm not sorry for saying it.

 

Edit: Quick edit. I would also like to point out, if anyone understand how reading works. That the skill hasn't been editted even before the situation occurred. The skill mode says "When you drop below 25% hp. You heal 25% hp. You can use this only once per thread." I would like to bote, that it doesn't state on your turn anywhere in that skill. It is simply a triggered action and can only be saved by it once per thread. While all the enchancements and skills Takao mentioned, all say on your turn in their reading. And why the math is convoluded is a canon situation in that hp drains when you take damage, not just changing instantly. So before people continue saying that the staff went to strides and other ways of lawyering to get me to stay alive, I would like to inform you of how absolutely appauling it is that you don't read the rules. I'll take the scrutiny of attacking new players, I deserve that. But I would like to state, that I followed the rules of the site also to the fact that Canon reigns supreme on this site. Get your facts straight before using me as your argument.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Ssendom

[Tristan Delaney 0]

13 hours ago, Lee said:

I actually, in all honesty do not have a problem with the majority of characters that have Unique Skills as, in the anime and in pretty much anything, game or otherwise, you have to be strong in order to get something special and all the people that have unique skills fit that bill. NOW, the problem is the skills themselves. They are supposed to give you an edge, not a full blown hack to the system. Take a look at the anime and the two main unique skills it brings up.  Duel Wielding and Divine Blade. You get an extra sword with one and you get to attack with a shield(basically). I hear that their was massive favoritism involved in the distribution of the skills and their might have been but, all in all, would the outcome really have been much different otherwise? 

Posting. Dear god how I actually HATE this aspect of the forum. I hate that this has happened to everyone at some point or another. They post a topic and either it starts going and so long as it gets done in the day or two and you are set or, and this is the kicker, people forget and it gets pushed back into the annals of oblivion. It would be good if there were more sub-forums to keep things from getting too lost. Have main pinned threads for the towns. Then have threads for different areas and within these you would have the topics that people would make their topics in. And have a single topic for quests that everyone can go to in order to post their quests instead of a clusterfuck of more topics. The last idea may or may not seem logical and I don't know but the mass of new topics daily and having to constantly remind people that there is a topic they need to post back too every-time it gets pushed back past the third or fourth page means there is something wrong.

  Reveal hidden contents

Town of Beginnings [Safe Town]
Earning A Living[Quest]
-Field of Beginnings
--{Topic 3}
--{Topic 1}
--{Topic 2}

 

I think that there is also something that needs to be done with people who leave topics while others are in it. I think that not only should they be able to be booted out but they should not get anything from the topic at all. No items, no col, no SP. If you don't put in the work, you shouldn't get anything. The whole sudden change to SP being a players level is also something that I don't understand or like. I don't understand why this was done or who's idea it was but I didn't see anything wrong with the post count system. Nothing really changed for the better. The people that were high level were still high level and the reverse was true for the starting players as they had to go through topic after topic after topic in order to really try and do a quest for a mere 2-3 more points, if that. 

As it has already been stated, something needs to be done with the rules overall. Not saying that it is all bad, it is just that I have seen a lot of players with stats that they shouldn't have and that it is a major problem. I can link to a site I was on that had structure and understandable rules that were easy to follow. 

I don't have a real problem with the current mods though I do feel that, for the most part and everyone seems to feel this way, that they aren't really ever 'there'. I think that there needs to be basic jobs for all mods but for the most part, the responsibilities need to be rationed out. Because whatever the roles are, they don't really go beyond 'if you see it, do something if you feel like it.'

And the one last thing. Why is Skype Chat still a thing? Why not just have a quick chat on the site? The chat is more for just talking and bulls*itting around so why not just put that on the site anyway? I personally am not a fan of skype and to login to show that I have missed 2435 messages and not being able to do anything until it goes through said cluster is annoying and time wasting, this along with all the problems that have already been stated about the skype chat in the first place. At least with a quick chat on the site, everything would already be set.

Just jumping in to explain some stuff.

Erron changed sub forums because it left the site less fragmented which gives the site better Search Engine Optimisation. He's the one to consult on that.

The level system was changed for 2 reasons. The first is that during the site shift from IPB3 to 4, several users got huge jumps in level due to posts, Calrex for one gained thousands of post count from somewhere no one could figure. Thus many users had levels not representative of what they actually should of had. Secondly it was to discourage to an extent spammy RPing of small posts since post count mattered and to lean more into what is effectively an 'XP' system, so doing quests gets you to high levels quicker.

Topic creators can indeed choose not to give rewards to a user in a topic who say did a single post then nothing else, or quit half way through without sensible reasoning, like say mid quest is bad but mid long party thingy is fine. If users are unsure, consult staff.

Also making notes based on stuff written here for future work. Already currently working on a small patch releasing hopefully tomorrow and there are plans for bigger reviews and how to approach it underway.

[Ace9 0]

Wow. SAO-RPG has become a battleground. I have had several unpleasant experiences with old staff such as Saix, and that old bunch, but I have never had any unpleasant experiences with any of the current staff. Although I know what they did was wrong, finding a system that would be fair for everyone is rather hard and time consuming. Sometimes, without even thinking about it, our brain does a bit of work for the staff member. The brain is automatically wired to do something that provides the person with a reward. Everything in life that you do, comes with a reward, or one that you would wish wound come out as the outcome. Think about it. You may help someone just to get the pleasure of a thank you. You may bully some underclassman just to get the feeling your ontop. You train for a race so you can win. So, although it could have been intentional, there is a good chance it was just how it turned out. I'm not fighting for either side here. I honestly just want SAO to be a fun place for it's members to have fun in a relaxed environment. 

 

I will always love SAO for what it is meant to be. What it was. What it is today. What it will become. I do not blame anybody for anything (Well, besides Saix for being an a**). Everyone on this site is awesome. I just hope tensions can die down soon....