IMPORTANT: Get-Together 2021 Feedback

[Bay]

- Wasn't fond of the SWC prompt, as evidenced by the fact that I had literally no ideas for it until the day of the deadline. I felt pretty locked into a mood, and after the fact with reading the other entries I felt that I often just. Knew exactly where the vibe was going, and I wasn't as engaged with the story because of that. Mood is everything in short pieces, you know? Last year's more tangible prompt of "home" felt like it allowed a broader range of interpretations in terms of tone.

So a little explanation on this year's prompts. When the judges were planning out the event, GP suggested we should have the prompts be based off an emotion or emotions, and then I suggested "contentment" and "frustration". We also thought about having the prompt related to this year's GT theme but we weren't sure of a prompt that would fit that. Totally understandable that emotion based prompts is probably not for everyone, though I'm happy that there was a good turnout despite all that. But yeah, next year's prompt hopefully should be either based off something more tangible or whatever theme GT will be.

 

[gimmepie]

Just want to say that I'm taking the Fortune Cup feedback on board and will keep it in mind should I host the event next year (and for the Fortune Championship happening soon where applicable). This was the first time I'd done this event, it's been Dragon's baby in the past, so I'm glad it went as well as it did and I'm looking forward to putting the feedback to use to make future versions even better.

 

[Mewtwolover]

the ability for participants to be able to just spam battles with members of the same team.

This can be eliminated by changing Fortune cup into a single or double-elimination tournament like the name implies.

I think no matter the number of teams there are, there should be some way to manually sort to EOs into fairly even teams first, to avoid the problem where all the EOs are RNG'd into one team.

That would be good. However, I'll stay away from teams and focus only to event organizing from now on so there wont be any need to sort me into a team.

Participated mainly to Baton Pass, it was fun challenge. Only issue I noticed was lack of knowledge about emulators, flash carts etc. technical things related to the challenge, there were the no trading ban which could've been easy to avoid and someone had to ask that are flash carts allowed. I helped in the latter case by explaining that both flash carts and emulators use the same SAV files so allowing flash carts wont cause problems. In the future, I suggest having a cohost who has enough knowledge about those things if the EO themself don't have enough knowledge.

In general, every EO did really good job. 🙂

 

[Hyzenthlay]

I think this year went incredibly well, possibly one of the best GT's yet, at least among the ones I've participated in! I was lacking quite a bit of motivation due to personal life but seeing how active and dedicated my team was inspired me - thanks all! Glad I pushed myself and tried something I've never done before with the SWC, too. I agree the themes did make for predictable story directions but I still enjoyed them and it was very much in my comfort zone, haha.

My feedback has already been said in better words so I'll express agreement in a few bullet points:

• Agreed that events requiring payed games (especially where decent progress is required) should earn less points since they can make or break a team's victory. I've no issue with these events being hosted in future--it's great to see the entries and people having fun--but as someone who'd love to enter, yet can't due to finances, it does seem a bit unfair. And it seems the members who have advanced the furthest are more likely to win, so perhaps restrict designs a bit to make it fairer on new players? I'd also suggest making it clear what people are being marked on (I don't believe ACNH or FFXIV had these apart from "match your team's theme", correct me if I'm wrong).
  
  
• Shoutout to all the EOs for doing brilliantly with their events, lots of talent shown across the GT! From my observation they were all a success, with the Baton Pass challenge being especially popular for its first run!
  
  
• Okay, not to diss on Caelum, but it did feel like there were only two teams competing this GT, so I think going back to just two works best. Agreed, 3+ is way more fun in theory, but I don't like to see an entire team demotivated like Caelum was. :c
  
  
• 100% agreed on pingable roles for events and a calendar for members to compare time zones, and including deadline dates/times with every update!
  
  
• Assigning a team lead or two could be a lot of pressure (especially in the event of an inactive team), and it can be hard to decide who's best for the role early on, but I agree there should be select members who can pin messages and notify other team members when needed.
  
  
• Thank you to the members across all teams for your participation this year! It's always lovely to see new and old members alike come together and share in the team spirit. <3
  
  
• Finally, thank you to the managers for all your hard work planning the GT long before it started--we couldn't have all this fun without you!

 

[Inky]

Most of the feedback I'd give has already been said but I'll throw in my 3AM incoherent two cents anyway

To start, I really enjoyed this years get together, and I'm glad I got more actively involved in participating this year, I had a lot of fun!

I would probably be inclined to agree that two teams may be a better choice for the next GT, but can also see that you could still end up with one much more active team - which in this case would comparatively be even worse for morale. I'd also tend to agree that more teams is more fun. I do like the suggestion of splitting event organisers (I'd throw PC staff & moderoids into this hat too) evenly across the teams - but still randomly obviously - just as like a safety net for if one team does have more inactive users. I do think Caelum was probably just bad luck (maybe we should have done some reshuffling earlier in the GT?? who knows). I wouldn't write off three teams entirely, but it definitely needs some thinking about when planning starts for next year. Team reps could work but I suppose there is a risk of putting too much on one person. We could always trial all of this during the next birthday event, if there's one planned??

I agree pretty much with everything Juno said re: paid games, I don't think we should cancel events that not everyone can participate in. Sure it sucks if you can't take part in everything, but the whole idea of the GT is to bring the community together, so surely it makes sense to have events that cater to different niches within the community? I don't really have anything else to add on this that hasn't already been said, but I don't want to see events like the FFXIV or AC ones canned going forwards. Maybe rework the points scoring, sure, or make them a little more open (I like the suggestion for example of not limiting the AC decorating contest to one game) but otherwise I see no issue with them.

Pingable roles were great and I agree we should have more of them going forwards. I guess all I really have to say otherwise is reiterating a big thank you to Bella and Zach for taking on Among Us, and I also wanna acknowledge the Trivia from April & Ash which was great as per usual (even if I didn't know many answers :femme2:).

I look forward to doing it all again next year!

 

[Arcaneum]

Just coming in to say thank you everyone for the feedback so far! We are currently compiling this and discussing it so we have a foundation for next year's Get-Together.

The new event feedback (Baton Pass, FF14, etc.) has been particularly helpful, as we can hopefully polish these off for the next one (if running of course)!