Donation Contest Consolation Prize (Full Version)

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RobynJoanne -> Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/30/2024 18:27:21)

This year has been one of the most successful Donation Contests we've ever seen. We absolutely obliterated the original community reward goals and even reached two new stretch goals in the process. That is definitely worth celebrating, and I eagerly anticipate the Fungibushi House. However, I also feel a bitter aftertaste with the knowledge of what this cost. A lot of the Z-Tokens donated in Donation Contests are re-donations from people who received donations themselves. The primary source of an absolutely massive amount of Z-Tokens is the top donators. Even disregarding re-donations that we cannot possibly know the full extent of, the top 7 donators donated 33.54 million Z-Tokens on their own. They singlehandedly brought us to the top community reward goals.

Yet, of the top 7, only the top 5 have the top reward of a Golden Dev Ticket. This is not to say that the top 5 have stolen from the last 2, as the top 5 simply donated more, a lot more in some cases. However, there is a substantial gap between ranks 7 and 8. The difference between ranks 7 and 8 is more than the amount ranks 4 and 5 donated last year for Golden Dev Tickets themselves. Rank 6 donated more than all but the top donator of last year. If there's such a thing as "earning" the Golden Dev Ticket, I think it's safe to say that ranks 6 and 7 more than earned it. But, as things are, ranks 6 and 7 have nothing to show for their outsized contribution to the community.

Thus, I ask that the devs provide a consolation prize to rank 6 Demon Lord Aegon and 7 AANGZUKO. My idea is that they should similarly get their own Golden Dev Ticket for a Weapon or a Shield. Then, because the top 5 ranks contributed so much and to not take away from their own contribution, the top 5 get both a Weapon and a Shield, perhaps with a set aesthetic if that would save time. As an owner of the full Wingweaver/Wishweaver set, I'll freely state that I do not want a repeat of that. Thus, I request a caveat for these extra 7 items: they must be available to the public. This way, the extra work will be something that benefits everyone, unlike Wishweaver. Others have their own ideas for consolation prizes that I'll let them personally explain in this thread.

This request is not something I make lightly. It's extra dev work. It sets a poor precedent for future events if people get consolation prizes when they miss the ranking that was decided previously. However, these are extenuating circumstances. Ranks 6 and 7 donated far, far more than almost anyone else has ever donated. We also have a specific comparison point here because these Golden Dev Tickets are almost the exact same between last year's and this year's. I would not support other donators getting the items they barely missed because it'd be unfair to everyone in previous years who had done the same and gotten nothing for it. Donation Contest items are different enough between years that they cannot really be compared, but these Golden Dev Tickets are so similar that they're almost interchangeable. Ranks 6 and 7 reasonably could and should have expected to receive Golden Dev Tickets for the amount they donated. AANGZUKO did not donate at all on the last day and was 2nd by a very wide margin on the penultimate day. Yes, people have been burned enough times by the last day of the Donation Contests for something like this to be expected, but Golden Dev Tickets from the Donation Contests only has one prior occurrence, and according to that precedent, AANGZUKO should have been safe. Ultimately, I strongly believe that Demon Lord Aegon and AANGZUKO deserve something for their incredible contribution to the community, and I consider the lack of any reward for their disproportionately greater part in this event is and will remain a stain if not remedied.



ming shuen -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/30/2024 19:29:29)

+ 1 to this idea. ANGZUKO and Aegon deserves something for their efforts.

If items with new skins is too much work, something much easier can be done - like an elemental clone of an item (but with no updates in art).



xiProZombiEz -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/30/2024 21:19:16)

i completely support this idea also, even if it ment having some extra "small" or "filler" releases that would be a-okay



Weeum -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/30/2024 22:31:57)

I would also like to voice my support. That's a tremendous amount of real, tangible money that was put out which indirectly benefits everyone playing. I'm personally fine with eating an extra lite week of release content to make room for them to receive, frankly, deserved compensation.

I also agree that all dev ticket items should be public simply for the material reason that those items will continue paying dividends and powering the game into the future.



Telcontar Arvedui I -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/30/2024 23:33:00)

I agree with the general idea, and will quote the main points of what I've written in the other thread:
quote:

.... perhaps 6th and 7th can get any Weapon reskin but not Shields, or any Shield reskin but not Weapons, thereby limiting their choices. Also, the reskin would simply be a different-coloured elemental variant, so less time required to source and implement new art. There might be other avenues or steps that can also be taken to reduce dev workload, but my gist is to provide a consolation prize for their outstanding performance, while taking the least amount of dev time possible with such a measure.



aq DarkKnight -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/30/2024 23:46:15)

I fully agree with RobynJoanne's idea. I consider that an epic commemorative Giftmaster plaque immortalizing The Seven superheroes(those who donated over a million plus tokens, and excuse me for using The Boys reference), placing greater emphasis on their valiant efforts in leading us to reach unprecedented new heights and surpassing beyond all community reward goals, along with dozens of other names who help them, to be the greatest consolation prize ever— like the one found in the Neko town center—a permanent memorial for The Seven for all posterity to show for all they have done as gratitude.



Strange Doctor -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 1:03:18)

Yeah it's crucial to address this to maintain the integrity of future events and show that every effort, especially those of this magnitude, is valued and rewarded appropriately.



Sir Cloud -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 5:16:12)

quote:

I ask that the devs provide a consolation prize to rank 6 Demon Lord Aegon and 7 AANGZUKO. My idea is that they should similarly get their own Golden Dev Ticket for a Weapon or a Shield.

If the Poster's idea is actually considered by Staff and implemented I'd like to also request that myself and Ninjazard from last year's Donation Contest (#52 and #51 respectively) be likewise rewarded the Armor prize from 2023, thanks. I was only off by a little over 6k Tokens back then and according to RobynJoanne, "because the top 5 ranks contributed so much" this year it only makes since to follow suit for other close tier rankings in all these contests then. I mean "so much" is a rather loaded and quantitatively "SUBJECTIVE" expression to consider afterall. If we go down that proverbial rabbit hole, where will it end if we keep making exceptions to the Contest after-the-fact, right? Plus, we all knew over 2 months ago that ONLY the Top 5 would be rewarded with the Developer Tickets. Those were the CONTEST RULES as posted here by Hollow. And in Contests, the participant must assume the risks in order to reap the rewards. And yes, that includes the Top 5,6 and 7 rankings this year, regardless of how much they spent.

I do, however, think the Staff has already expressed their intentions to create many types of consolation prizes for the community with regards to generosity this year through stretch goal incentives and even afterwards upon breaking the donations record. This is something the entire, active AQ player base of Contest participants was a part of too.

Also, if extending the Developer Rewards to players 6 and 7 (whose difference in their relative donation-gap was over 1.06 Million Tokens) then please kindly consider rewarding the following players in this event with their respective tier Rewards as well:

#51 - #58 should get top 50 rewards too since they are close in donations* (#51 missed by only 2,850 Tokens)
#101 -#106 should get top 100 rewards too since they are close in donations* (#101 missed by only 550 Tokens)
#201 - #216 should get top 200 rewards too since they are close in donations* (#201 missed by only 125 Tokens)

* "close in donations", denotes a subjective opinion again of course

Thanks Staff for making this a worthy Contest to participate in and for your valued and careful considerations with regards to this matter. :)



rai0kakashi -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 5:52:01)

+1 on what Sir Cloud said.



ming shuen -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:02:10)

Response to @Cloud
Hmm. Based on your post, I assume that you:
- Highly disapprove, and / or
- Are concerned that this suggestion from Jeanne can potentially come to pass, and are trying to stop it and / or
- Are trying to spin the thread off to a tangent, so that you, who narrowly missed the top 50 cut, also gets some benefit, while including others so that your ideas gain traction

I also noticed that you compared top #7 against top 5, while for others, you compared top #51 against top #50, top #101 against top #100 etc. There is a bit of difference there. Anyway, I addressed some of your concerns in the paragraphs below.

“What about others? What about precedent?” [For Devs & Players consideration]
Jeanne’s idea, or a variant thereof, can potentially come to pass if and only if the players who made the top 5 cut approve. The rest of the players are hence unaffected. With regards to the other ranks, i.e. 51 to 100, if any of the players in the top 50 disapproves with sharing Wingweaver / Warwolf, then nothing happens.

This neatly solves all precedent concerns

“Generosity from the Community”
I would like to emphasize that among those who suggested the Top #6 and Top #7 gain a consolation prize, none of us are gaining a personal benefit. The community suggested this for them, based solely on altruistic reasons, based solely on generosity and/or overall game experience improvement

ANGZUKO & Aegon donated more than 5.5 million combined, and a notable number of us gained 20k tokens from them alone. Based on the forums and discord interactions from yesterday, them getting something in return is a very popular idea. If the concerns is about dev workload, something mild like an elemental clone with no changes in art can also be executed

Concluding Sentiments
If the Top #5 players approve, just execute Jeanne's idea or a variant thereof. It can be done with minimal dev workload and without raising precedent concerns



Branl -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:04:43)

I certainly wouldn't mind getting an extra chance to reskin a cool new item for the community, presuming compensation tickets are on the table. The concerns of players regarding the precedent set I think are valid, but I also get why people want compensation tickets.
Additionally, releasing these additional tickets to the public could help assuage fears of this eating up dev time for the sake of a few players.
But, specifically for Demon Lord Aegon and AANGZUKO, they were also competing for a public or private ticket. So if this is on the table, I think their ticket should also be public or private. The additional top 5 Golden Dev Ticket, if, provided, should only be eligible for public release.

quote:

Also, if extending the Developer Rewards to players 6 and 7 (whose difference in their relative donation-gap was over 1.06 Million Tokens) then please kindly consider rewarding the following players in this event with their respective tier Rewards as well:

#51 - #58 should get top 50 rewards too since they are close in donations* (#51 missed by only 2,850 Tokens)
#101 -#106 should get top 100 rewards too since they are close in donations* (#101 missed by only 550 Tokens)
#201 - #216 should get top 200 rewards too since they are close in donations* (#201 missed by only 125 Tokens)



If this is at all possible, I'd fully support it! I know a lot of players that get bummed by missing the cutoff point by a scant few, and I think this can help motivate players to donate in earnest.



Sir Cloud -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:21:09)

quote:

missing the cutoff point by a scant few

So can you quantify "a scant few". Just how much is that? What qualifies for integrity in these Events prior to them starting or is this just a wait until it's all done (like RobynJoanne suggests) then we'll revise everything to fit "a scant few" difference between the tiers type-of-thing? [8D]

Then don't forget to add in my Armor Reward from last year and for Ninjazard too. We were both just a scant few from #50.

If we're concerned about being fair to all the players who gave "so much", definitely don't forget to go back and give both #6 (starwolf) and #7 (Kiana the real Pixie) a Developer Ticket since they were both within just 700k of Top 5 compared to the 1.06 Million difference between this year's #6 and #7, xD

Cheers!



Branl -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:25:00)

quote:


Then don't forget to add in my Armor Reward from last year and for Ninjazard too. We were both just a scant few from #50.


Sadly, I think the cutoff point would have to be this year and potentially contests from now on. Having to go back to the past to attempt to rectify every close shave would be a logistical nightmare and previous contests are settled issues.



Red Blood -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:28:33)

I'd support a few extra tickets for if people are extra generous but if everyone wants prizes we should honestly just swap to a Donate x to obtain x from the set outside the tickets themselves.



Sir Cloud -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:32:34)

quote:

previous contests are settled issues.

And this too should have been a "settled issue" 2 months ago when Hollow posted the RULES for the current Donation Drive:
http://forums2.battleon.com/f/fb.asp?m=22417038



Dardiel -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:45:17)

I think it's nice how many players are asking for others to get bonuses, I'm glad the spirit of the donation contest is with so many people. Since I came top 5 I feel my opinion is pretty inherently biased, but I support 6 & 7 getting their own tickets; I would be very happy to get both a weapon and shield ticket for being "original top 5" but am not expecting to get both, regardless of the result I do intend for any/all of my ticket(s) to be public.

I do wonder if the logic of "there is a noticeable dip from Xth place to Yth place" could be used for future contests (and potentially this one, since rewards haven't gone out yet; but only if it expands the reward tiers) to have more flexible tiering, so that people are more likely to get the rewards they aimed for and it's less likely for snipers to sneak into the minimum threshold for a tier, but I could imagine it being much more difficult for a player to try and figure out what tier they're even in without an update to the leaderboard page.



RobynJoanne -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 6:55:35)

@Cloud
Respectfully, no, I refuse to entertain the concept of giving access to the other items to people who missed out on other tiers of Donation Contest sets. As I outlined in my original post, this set of circumstances is sufficiently different enough from the other tiers that I believe it deserves special attention.
To reiterate:
1) The existence of Golden Dev Tickets from Donation Contests has only had a single prior occurrence: last summer's Donation Contest. In that Donation Contest, the top 5 donated 1.3+ million Z-Tokens each, and 6th place donated less than half the amount that 5th place had. Because of this, I argue that AANGZUKO who donated 2.2 million by the second to last day this year could reasonably expect to have their place in the top 5 locked in even without donating on the last day. For other tiers, because we have had so many years of experience, we all know that the placements are not remotely close to secure until the last moments of the last day. For the top 5 of last year, however, the placements had already been secured by the beginning of the last week, multiple days before the end of the contest.
2) Demon Lord Aegon and AANGZUKO donated a substantially greater amount than almost anyone else has ever done. I believe it is self-evident how different a donation of 200,000 Z-Tokens and a donation of 2,000,000 Z-Tokens is. The sheer magnitude of the donations played a significant role in getting the community the goal rewards that we have unlocked. At the very least, before considering re-donations, without Demon Lord Aegon's and AANGZUKO's donations, we would not have reached the final 50 million stretch goal. Their role is certainly substantially greater than that when one includes re-donations.
3) Giving more Golden Dev Ticket opportunities makes it possible to give consolation prizes without minimizing the rewards the top 5 earned. For Donation Contest set items, this is very much not the case. If those outside the tiers also gain the prizes, what could be given to those who had earned their place that could justify this change? For people with the Donation Contest set Armors, what else is there? There's nothing remotely comparable, so it's unfair to them. That is why I requested that the top 5 gain an additional reskin opportunity, which is almost equivalent in value to what they earned.
4) The workload involved with something that is so recent and rare is far smaller than would be necessary to give consolation prizes to all those who missed out on prizes in every previous year. Again, the Golden Dev Tickets part of the Donation Contests is a recent phenomenon, and this specific scenario has not happened before. There are only a handful of people involved if the devs do decide to implement a consolation prize.

I also ask that you do not twist my words. I never once pointed out the gap between the ranks this year because that was not and was never my argument.



Sapphire -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 7:02:02)

Agree with Jeanne. Someone who donated 3.3 million tokens gets the same reward as someone who donated 300k? There's nothing wrong with saying Thank You via an item.

I don't think, however, that the top 5 should get 2 items if the extra work would become a chore.

I think simply enough that #6 and #7 should get a CCustom reskin/clone of something. So that means no custom art. It's simply an elemental variant with a near-similar art as the original....*if* it makes things much simpler.



I do not agree with Cloud's sentiment. That's just how the cards fell with sniping, and many of us have been there. I got #51 2 fall dono's ago. I accept that fate. I do think this *is* an extenuating circumstance, and if done, it should be stated that there is zero guarantee for it to happen again if a similar scenario takes place. There is a massive difference between this and the sniping outlined here.



CH4OT1C! -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 7:52:04)

I don't like making exceptions. Once you make one, especially with vague parameters, it encourages others to argue why they should be included too. However, in this case I agree with @RobynJoanne, there should be an exception made here. I did some quick sums: assuming that the tokens were purchased from the most expensive (i.e. efficient) package, and incorporating the +35% bonus, this year's #6 and #7 conservatively spent:

quote:

300,000 * 1.35 / 300 = 1350 tokens per $
3,384,100 / 1350 = $2506.74
2,322,300/ 1350 = $1720.22


Even considering that perhaps 200,000 to 300,000 of their respective donation totals came from the contest itself, this is an incredible amount of money to spend to receive the same reward as someone that spent 1/10th of the amount. Nobody predicted that there would be such an intense fight for the top 5 before this contest. For context, last year, the top 7 collectively donated 14,786,775 tokens. This year, that total is 33,539,100, a 127% increase. The other tiers were not significantly different: Top 50 is 14,500 lower (~4%), Top 100 was 4450 (~8%) lower and Top 200 was 1000 tokens higher 1125 tokens higher (~16%). Based on these completely unprecedented circumstances, I think it would be reasonable to make an exception specifically for positions 6 and 7. I'm not fond of @RobynJoanne's solution simply because of the extra work this would present, but a recolour of an existing item, or a more restricted version of the Dev Ticket given to the Top 5 would act as good ways to make the distinction.



Sapphire -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 8:42:09)

Essentially this is just like a War Reward. They can choose the item, and perhaps the name of it. It's a functional clone, and the art is essentially the same but is a recolored version.

I think Chaotic outlined why they should get something. This isn't about sniping. It's about contribution.



Rainy Day -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 9:51:51)

G'day all.

I read many of your comments and I understand a consolation prize maybe in order for the people who donated more but not reached top 5.

But was this the case many donos before? I wonder how many close calls happened, regardless of how many tokens where donated.

All who took part knew, getting top 5, regardless of how much they donated, will only received special rewards. They donated and was top once before the contest ended. They knew the risk of sniping. They got sniped and others donated more to get top 5. They should have donated more accordingly to prevent this.

They knew giving more will allow more players to get tokens but was that their real intent when gunning for TOP 5, especially when others took their place. They in turn spend more. So the argument of contribution goes out the window.

As one of the first top five for new special prizes from last year, I solely disagree giving a special prize reserved for top 5, such as weapon or shield clones or custom art. Maybe, they could received a recognition plaque for all to see, as I mentioned. This gives them recognition and title could be a good idea as well.

Deviating from the RULES and making exceptions for a competitive competition with 300+ players who paid real money is making it unfair competition. Going this route, you have to make exception for future for similar situations. But I wonder if the AQ devs will do that? They make some funny exceptions e.g. Wind weaver and wish weaver sets, where Gwen's idea had more support but other set idea was followed thought with before the comp was finished. In turn, Hollow apologised. Then made an exception to compensate. But never again where the words.

My point is, where will AQ devs draw the line of making exceptions to the RULES! that were set from the beginning and followed for many years from the start of donos.

Never cater to exceptions when RULES state top 5 gets special prizes. Giving similar clones with custom art is same as winning top 5.

Maybe we should look at TOP 50, 1OO AND 200 places and see how close players came. We should make exceptions as well.

All gunning for TOP 5 knew they had to spend tokens to get there.

If a company can't follow the set RULES, then why bother making and setting rules.

"Rules. Without them we'd live with the animals"

TLDR - Don't make exceptions for competitive integrity and offer alternative praise via plaque and title. All knew what they got in to and spend more money to get TOP 5, when their place shifted from out of TOP 5.



KhalJJ -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 9:56:58)

Fundamentally this is the situation that such a donation drive is designed to create. It's a fomo bid-war.

The point is to generate excitement, and revenue. I don't necessarily agree with it as is, but if you changed it to entirely benchmarked, it would change fundamentally and I expect the total donations would drop substantially.

I agree with RobynJoanne's and many other's sentiments, that #6 and #7 deserve some extra recognition, given their outsized contributions.

I would however oppose the suggested weapon+shield for top 5, this feels like asking for far too much, with respect to dev time. Suddenly their workload from the "top 5" would more than double. Of course, if staff are completely fine with this I would fully support it but that seems unlikely to me.

Because of this, I would support Sapphire's suggestion of a re-named, re-element copy of an item for #6+7, w/o custom art, on the assumption this is relatively easy to do. Additionally, it probably should be something "less" than top 5 simply to avoid potential feelings of unrest in any top 5 (although if they are all ok with this then of course that is solved).

On Cloud's points, I would say that there is some truth, to some of this - most importantly, if consolation prizes for #6+7 were to be given, I would state very clearly this is not going to guarantee any such treatment in the future. Staff have been nicely clear in comms about this contest rewards, both in-game and out, but I think it'd be cool, not negative, if they just dropped extra bonus rewards in this way.

On his points re: past contests, none of these address the main point of RobynJoanne's, of a comparatively outsized contributions of the magnitude we saw from #1-7. I empathise though with the pain of coming #51, and re-iterate that this format of contest is designed to create such feelings, hence I'm loosely opposed to it.




Grace Xisthrith -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 9:59:29)

Quick message agreeing with and supporting Jeanne's initial post, I'm sure I agree with some others, I simply didn't read the rest. Also, a quick mention agreeing and emphasizing that if 2 new custom art items are not feasible from a dev time perspective, there are surely other less art intensive options that can be a secondary prize, and hopefully would be less dev time intensive



Rainy Day -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 10:00:49)

You must admit, they payed for more tokens to get higher places once they went down right? They wanted to get top 5 and so they gave more. Not contribution but for their sake to get an item and special prize.



Sapphire -> RE: Donation Contest Consolation Prize (8/31/2024 10:42:56)

If a job/company is worth it's salt, there is a mutual relationship between the employer and employee such that, both understand and recognize each other's value. The employer uses the employee to a means to be more profitable, where as the employee uses the employer to create income. Emploiyers should be recognizing hard workers for their efforts not only through promotions and raises, but even via other means of recognition. This could be in the form of gifts. Many companies have accounts specifically for recognition activities of some kind. SOme of this can be for everyone (like an office party) or it could be individual stuff.

Also, the sports/Olympics analogy I don't think applies here. The argument stems from the idea of a race, or a winner and there being a close finish. This isn't about sniping. It isn't about the close finish (which it actually wasn't close)

If you read Chaotic's post, and others who've alluded to this, it's about their outsized contributions.

If we are looking at the difference between #25 vs #26 , the difference is 7,950 tokens. A very quick 5k donation made 2x would have sniped this. In fact, likely, #25 sniped #26 to get to #25.

If we are looking at the difference between #50 vs #51, we are looking at a difference of 3400. A single 5k donation swaps these two.

If you notice, nobody is advocating for #26 to get the #25 prize nor #51 getting the #50 prize.

In other words, that 200 meter dash participant who was in 4th place in your olympic example is .1 seconds behind. Nobody would advocate for them to get a bronze also. SAme thing here.

It's because it's not about that.


What people are recognizing, and many here are not, is the contribution that $6 and #7 gave to the total goal, as well as the amount of tokens they likely purchased in order to be competitive. These two players BOUGHT the lion's share of this and donated 5,706,400 tokens. For perspective, #8 through #22 matches this number combined. Their attempt to get top 5 caused 1-5 to donate more. The top 7 is largely why we met the stretch goal, as well.

Look,

I made 200k tokens via donations alone during this entire event, 100k on the last day. it allowed me to use about 70k of my own. That's it. 70k.

The top 5 race was a huge boon to the company because these tokens were not redonations. They were 100% via purchases. And likely, nearly every player received extra tokens from the top 7 because they were battling it out.

So not only did everyone prosper...the players, AQ, etc, but people are advocating for giving these two players an item..not for missing out via being sniped... but rather for contributing so much as a percentage of the total. It's like saying thank you for your generous purchases, so here's something for you.

There's zero wrong with that. It IS warranted, and it doesn't mean that staff put themselves in a predicament that they must do this from now on.



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