Challenges 2011 - What do YOU want to see?

[Sydian]

Seems like a few other sections are doing this, and since Challenges is the most interactive section I moderate, I figured I'd get some feedback from you guys. Feedback that's not coming from the CI&D, of course. But in 2010, we as challengers have gotten our own forum and made a name for ourselves in the community, much like how there are hackers and competitive battlers and such. But there are some things that I as a moderator feel weren't handled the way they should have been, and there can be improvements, so I would like some feedback from regulars (and non-regulars, as well! even other staff members, whoever happens to be reading this, feel free to pitch in with suggestions).

Now, I can't guarantee that everything suggested in here be carried out, but I will put my thoughts into everything that's given to me and take it into consideration.

I do have plans for the section already, though. Although it's minor, I'm going to edit thread titles and add prefixes. Might not seem like a lot, but for some of us (and mainly me since it looks cluttery in my eyes) it just looks a lot more organized, and gives people an idea of what games are included in a challenge (even though most are going to be listed misc because they cover all games).

Note: If you were going to suggest an index thread, hold your horses on that. The reasons that we do not have an index thread is because this is a relatively small forum with roughly three pages. A lot of challenges tend to just fall right out of the forum without any notice, so when these threads are still listed on the index, it creates a greater chance of thread revival, which would be annoying. And I also don't find it hard to sift through 2-3 pages of challenges to find a suitable one to participate in. Even if there were 5 pages, there still won't be an index thread. I have to look through approved, unapproved, and deleted challenges guys, so when all you see is just the approved ones, it's really not that bad. You're probably only looking at a page and a half of challenges as opposed to my 2-3. But I just wanted my point across as to why there's no index, so please, don't suggest it. That is something that will not happen during my time.

Thanks for reading, and throw in ideas. Just please keep this argument and spam free. If you don't like someone's idea, don't tell them it's stupid. Like I said, I'm taking into consideration everything that is suggested, even if it's one or two things.

 

[myrrhman]

Why is an index such a bad thing? If you don't use it stupid as "OMG GUIZ SYD APPROVED THIS CHALLENGE 4 MONTHS AGO LETS DO IT" and instead think "I am looking for a challenge in which this and this and this happen. Oh, there's something really similar to it that was created but lost popularity. It's been done, and I shouldn't try to revive it." then it could be a very valuable tool. I'm sure you get very similar requests that you reject over and over, that can be in the index too. The CI&D is good, but I imagined it as more of a workshop for challenges. Not a place for people to say "has this been done?"

 

[Sydian]

Why is an index such a bad thing? If you don't use it stupid as "OMG GUIZ SYD APPROVED THIS CHALLENGE 4 MONTHS AGO LETS DO IT" and instead think "I am looking for a challenge in which this and this and this happen. Oh, there's something really similar to it that was created but lost popularity. It's been done, and I shouldn't try to revive it." then it could be a very valuable tool.

That's the thing. You'd be surprised at how many people lack the common sense to check the date on a thread they post in. And although this section doesn't peel back into the depths of dead threads like others do, I have had to lock revived challenges before. Depends on what you have your forum options set to when looking at threads, I suppose. But don't get me wrong, I think about having an index all the time, mainly to reduce the "has this been done?" in the CI&D, but the amount of revivals that might come along with it bother me. Cause I'm not going to notice every time a challenge goes a month without someone posting, because the way I have everything set, after a certain amount of time, I don't even see those threads anymore. I'm not gunna remember them.

I'm sure you get very similar requests that you reject over and over, that can be in the index too. The CI&D is good, but I imagined it as more of a workshop for challenges. Not a place for people to say "has this been done?"

Oddly enough, most of the unapproved challenges are either monotypes (which I don't know how someone can miss that, I mean, there's a big thread for it that has never left the first page of this section) or it's just the challenger not partaking. It's rarely duplicates. Or it's just things that don't belong/make no sense. I see some crazy stuff, I tell ya.

The CI&D is good, but I imagined it as more of a workshop for challenges. Not a place for people to say "has this been done?"

It's normally not. You have to consider that sometimes, people that aren't familiar or are new with the section come in and ask...without taking a gander around, of course. It's their own fault if they can't look around to see if there's not a current challenge for their idea. But this brings me to say the CI&D is something I wanted to work on too. As a nameless person pointed out, it seems to get a little trollolol at times, and we want to eliminate that at all costs. I don't mind if we get off-topic in posts, so long as that you have something related to challenges in it (and no, posting CHALLENGES doesn't count, but that's my bad for condoning it, as it was also an old writer's lounge thing, however I feel the need to say that there are more mature people in the writer's lounge than in CI&D usually).

Something I forgot to mention in the first post also. I was considering having a guide to making a challenge thread. Like I said, I see some strange things come through for approval and it's a literal wtf when I see how some of these challenges are set up. Disorganized, incomplete rule sets, etc. It's a mess. Anyone like this idea?

 

[altariaking]

A leaderboard thing? Idk, it could have usernames of members participating in challenges, and then challenges they are doing or have completed.

 

[Sydian]

A troll leaderboard thing? Idk, it could have usernames of members participating in challenges, and then challenges they are doing or have completed

Interesting, but most people just list that stuff in their signatures or bios on their profiles. And most challenge threads list the participants. It just sounds like a cluttery sticky. Even S&M doesn't have a leaderboard or anything (to my knowledge).

For a second, I thought you meant having a list of trolls in the forum, lmao.

 

[Weavile05]

I don't see anything wrong with the way the Challenges are now. What kind of problems are we having besides the weird threads anyway?

EDIT: Speaking of threads being approved, have you seen the one I sent in yet? Sorry if it sounds like I'm rushing you or something, It's just been a little while since I submitted it, and wanted to make sure if it got denied or something.

And what you said earlier about the guide for making Challenge threads, that seems like a good idea.

 

[champagnepapi]

How about some community competitions?
For example, you could be given a deadline to complete a nuzlocke and post a screen of your Hall of Fame team or us challengers could compete in speed runs via livestream.
Just to give the forum a little more "Pizzaz".

 

[Sydian]

EDIT: Speaking of threads being approved, have you seen the one I sent in yet? Sorry if it sounds like I'm rushing you or something, It's just been a little while since I submitted it, and wanted to make sure if it got denied or something.

Unapproved because I didn't see your sign up.

How about some community competitions?
For example, you could be given a deadline to complete a nuzlocke and post a screen of your Hall of Fame team or us challengers could compete in speed runs via livestream.
Just to give the forum a little more "Pizzaz".

I like these ideas. Granted, I wouldn't be hosting probably because I'm not a nuzlocke kinda guy and I play through the games relatively slow, but I mean, there are other competitions that could come about. But I like this idea, and I guess an emblem can be given to winners and participants, if I can manage to get an admin to upload them for me. And we could have these during special events on the calendar, like how VG has Thanksgiving events, Christmas events, etc. There's a group at my college that actually likes to do this thing where we raise a team that follows a certain "theme" which would be good for certain times of the year (ie. raising a Christmas-y Pokemon team). Though they normally battle. And I reckon you could Wi-Fi battle them, or just raise them to show them off (like me, I don't have Wi-Fi to battle) or complete a challenge of your choice with them. This is definitely something I'd like to see though.

 

[Tribal Ebony]

Well, duh, i suppose everybody would like to see a challenging challeng! I am mainly looking for a fun activity which involves many hard challenges and tasks to complete.

 

[Sydian]

Well, duh, i suppose everybody would like to see a challenging challeng! I am mainly looking for a fun activity which involves many hard challenges and tasks to complete.

Um, the section already has that though. Look around.

 

[Everlark]

Okay, I signed on here to see what you guys are seeing. And I see at least 6 pages, so that's my bad for thinking you guys saw at least 2-3. However, when I looked at page 2, if anyone posts in those, they would be revived. So technically, there is one page of active challenges. Obviously we want that to change. But since it's one page of active challenges, having an index would be useless because you see all the active ones right there on page one. I know eventually more challenges will get added, but it honestly never gets too much past two pages, and three is pushing it. I just don't see it necessary for an index in such a small section.

I hope I've made myself clear on the index thing.

 

[649]

I like the idea of having a challenge hall of fame.

But how would one organize it?

like:

Ultimate Monotype Challenge
649 - Rock​

or like:

649
Ultimate Monotype Challenge - Rock​

And I want to make pokemon hacks more involved. The complete ones, like Brown, Ruby Destiny: ROL, Flora Sky, etc. But this is mainly up to the challenger. Still, its a suggestion of mine.

 

[myrrhman]

Oh good lord am I really quoting 7 people right now?

A troll leaderboard thing? Idk, it could have usernames of members participating in challenges, and then challenges they are doing or have completed.

I sort of like this idea, but it seems too hard to pull off. Unless there's a way for multiple people to edit one person's post, without being a mod.

What we could possibly do is have it to where you can only get on the "roster" if you've completed like 3 or more challenges that are hosted by someone other than you. Because I know that I've seen so many people say "I'm doing this challenge with these Pokemon" and then never say anything again. Why not complete one challenge? Well, I mean I think that the people that are going to want to be on that board will probably be doing a lot of challenges. The people who complete like 1 monotype probably won't care.

Something I forgot to mention in the first post also. I was considering having a guide to making a challenge thread. Like I said, I see some strange things come through for approval and it's a literal wtf when I see how some of these challenges are set up. Disorganized, incomplete rule sets, etc. It's a mess. Anyone like this idea?

Absolutely. I'd be willing to help you write it if you'd like.

How about some community competitions?
For example, you could be given a deadline to complete a nuzlocke and post a screen of your Hall of Fame team or us challengers could compete in speed runs via livestream.
Just to give the forum a little more "Pizzaz".

THIS IDEA = VERY YES! I actually did something similar with redsabre. We were both doing a challenge, with teamviewer up, so we could see each others screens. Needless to say, I beat his time by a whoooooole bunch. Want more competition.

But I like this idea, and I guess an emblem can be given to winners and participants, if I can manage to get an admin to upload them for me. And we could have these during special events on the calendar, like how VG has Thanksgiving events, Christmas events, etc.

I could use some more emblems.

And that sounds like a good way to bring more people to the challenge section.

Well, duh, i suppose everybody would like to see a challenging challeng! I am mainly looking for a fun activity which involves many hard challenges and tasks to complete.

I actually would like to see someone make a really hard challenge. I've done UMC's, I've done Nuzlockes, I've done Scramble. They're all good, and have challenging moments, but I want a really tough one (but not like 6 Magikarp run). I really think the most challenging challenge for me is "play through FireRed" because I'm not used to it as much as RBY

Okay, I signed on here to see what you guys are seeing. And I see at least 6 pages, so that's my bad for thinking you guys saw at least 2-3.

I have 2 pages, but when I click on the second page, the only things that come up are the stickies. Weird.

I like the idea of having a challenge hall of fame.

But how would one organize it?

like:

Ultimate Monotype Challenge
649 - Rock​

or like:

649
Ultimate Monotype Challenge - Rock​

And I want to make pokemon hacks more involved. The complete ones, like Brown, Ruby Destiny: ROL, Flora Sky, etc. But this is mainly up to the challenger. Still, its a suggestion of mine.

I would like to see this happen. Pretty sure someone else that I quoted said this, but included current challenges that people are doing.

Honestly, both have their strengths and weaknesses. If you do it the top way, some people that want to be the first to complete a challenge (I wanted to be the first to complete the ultimate trio challenge, but I think PorygonZ beat me to it) can see challenges that don't have any winners yet. However, I really like the idea of the second example, if anyone is like "I wonder what Myrrhman is up to, they can easily see, rather than having to sift through all the challenges I've ever done, looking for the ones I'm still doing.

_______________________________________________________________________________________
Oh thank god that's over.

 

[jdthebud]

I was wondering how to get some of the hacks involved. mostly the challengers focus on the main games, so...

And the guide is a great idea. I would't be the one to do it, though.

 

[649]

for my idea, Its champions only. Look at how cluttered the UMC thread is already. This is a hall of fame, so only champions get on there.

 

[myrrhman]

I was wondering how to get some of the hacks involved. mostly the challengers focus on the main games, so...

And the guide is a great idea. I would't be the one to do it, though.

Most of the hacks are applicable, though they don't get their own category. I'm not very familiar with hacks, but if you did like a shinygold water monotype during your UMC, it counts for the Johto leg.

for my idea, Its champions only. Look at how cluttered the UMC thread is already. This is a hall of fame, so only champions get on there.

I guess what I invisioned would need two different thingies. One would be a giant list of accomplishments, and the other would be more for like following people doing challenges, if that makes sense.

Going back to tribal ebony's post, I remember a challenge that was called like the triple trigen ultimate master challenge (or something like that). On D/P/Pt (I think), you chose three Pokemon, which had to be from three different generations, and beat the game, but afterwards you had to beat the battle frontier. That was really challenging because the battle frontier is really hard, you couldn't overlevel, and I had never beaten it before. I still have the survival challenge on my list of challenges to beat, but other than that, I don't see any really tough ones out there. What I'm trying to say is that I can take any Pokemon team, grind them enough, and they'll be good enough to beat whomever I need to. We need to think of challenges that don't just modify the team.

 

[560cool.]

Sorry, I didn't read through the whole thing. /lazy

I would see enforcing the rules about trolls and complaints a bit more. Remember the death of the Anime Challenge and the first Random Pokemon Challenge thread ? It happened due to trolls and complaints. Maybe because people didn't see the rule, or because they want to be annoying. We don't want trolls here. Who does ?

 

[Sydian]

Yeah, I never use the quote buttons, I just grab what I need and paste it in quote tags. Dunno if using multi-quote is faster, but eh.

I like the idea of having a challenge hall of fame.

But how would one organize it?

like:
Ultimate Monotype Challenge
649 - Rock

or like:
649
Ultimate Monotype Challenge - Rock

And I want to make pokemon hacks more involved. The complete ones, like Brown, Ruby Destiny: ROL, Flora Sky, etc. But this is mainly up to the challenger. Still, its a suggestion of mine.

The thing with the leaderboard is that I feel like it'd be an unnecessary sticky. This section has three right now (but obviously this one will get locked and unstuck in January at some point, so technically two) and then when an event comes around, that would be a sticky. I hate having too many stickies because it gets cluttery. Anyone remember what Metal/Color and Advanced Generation looked like? Eeee. Don't want that. lol

I was wondering how to get some of the hacks involved. mostly the challengers focus on the main games, so...

And the guide is a great idea. I would't be the one to do it, though.

That being said, I've wondered why no one has posted any challenges for hacks. There's tons of hacks out there, so the prefix when making a thread is just "hack," but no one has posted any. Which...I find odd, because before I decided "well, I need a clear statement on allowing hacks," there used to be quite a few challenges for hacks come through. And I always thought it was weird that I never approved them, but I was talking to Manipulation about them and we both kinda just came to "well, they're still games, people apparently wanna do challenges on them, what's the big deal?" But ever since the rule, I literally haven't seen one challenge for a hack come through. Very strange. I mean really, feel free to make one.

Absolutely. I'd be willing to help you write it if you'd like.

Awesome then. :) And see, that right there would be a sticky. So that's three (excluding this since it'll be gone) and four when an event is up. I just don't want too many stickies. They really irk me. v_v

I would see enforcing the rules about trolls and complaints a bit more. Remember the death of the Anime Challenge and the first Random Pokemon Challenge thread ? It happened due to trolls and complaints. Maybe because people didn't see the rule, or because they want to be annoying. We don't want trolls here. Who does ?

I do. I want to see an army of trolls kthx. YES. That was ridiculous. I should add that as a rule to the main forum for challenges that assign teams/types/etc like that. Speaking of the rules thread, it's really ugly. I should decorate it up...just for aesthetic pleasure. Minor, but eh. I didn't get to make it because I was on vacation, so Went just threw it together. The GPGD rule thread has pink and blue and links to everything and ffff.

But the trolls/complaints thing, all I can say is that I can't personally monitor every challenge, but what I can do is make sure I at least keep myself up to date on the challenges that assign. You know, read over them every once in a while to make sure things are going smoothly.

Going back to tribal ebony's post, I remember a challenge that was called like the triple trigen ultimate master challenge (or something like that). On D/P/Pt (I think), you chose three Pokemon, which had to be from three different generations, and beat the game, but afterwards you had to beat the battle frontier. That was really challenging because the battle frontier is really hard, you couldn't overlevel, and I had never beaten it before. I still have the survival challenge on my list of challenges to beat, but other than that, I don't see any really tough ones out there. What I'm trying to say is that I can take any Pokemon team, grind them enough, and they'll be good enough to beat whomever I need to. We need to think of challenges that don't just modify the team.

Pretty much. @_@ While I love a good creative challenge, we do need more "challenge" element. After all, it's supposed to be a challenge. But even then, I do think we've done a good job of keeping a good variety. Some are more challenging than others, and I like that not all of them are complex. There's the simplicity of just using a team comprised of the same type and there's the more difficult nuzlockes and randoms where you don't really know what you can end up with. But another step in the hardcore direction would be fine, cause I imagine some of us just need more challenge element in our gaming lives.

 

[jdthebud]

Pretty much. @_@ While I love a good creative challenge, we do need more "challenge" element. After all, it's supposed to be a challenge. But even then, I do think we've done a good job of keeping a good variety. Some are more challenging than others, and I like that not all of them are complex. There's the simplicity of just using a team comprised of the same type and there's the more difficult nuzlockes and randoms where you don't really know what you can end up with. But another step in the hardcore direction would be fine, cause I imagine some of us just need more challenge element in our gaming lives.

So far making the challenges more difficult has really been up to individuals doing something like a Fighting monotype on HG/SS (Lance and Red are SO hard with that, even if you have good members, if you are underleveled) or a random challenge with NFE pokemon included. Stuff like that. If there is a challenge that is hard from the start without requiring the members participating to get creative, I'm not sure how it would do. My focus in doing this stuff is having fun for the most part. If you need to make it more of a challenge, you can make it more difficult yourself, and I like that there is flexibility for the most part in these challenges for that to happen.

That being said, I haven't done many of the harder challenges yet, such as the Nuzlocke, or doing any with NFE pokemon.

 

[Weavile05]

So far making the challenges more difficult has really been up to individuals doing something like a Fighting monotype on HG/SS (Lance and Red are SO hard with that, even if you have good members, if you are underleveled) or a random challenge with NFE pokemon included. Stuff like that. If there is a challenge that is hard from the start without requiring the members participating to get creative, I'm not sure how it would do. My focus in doing this stuff is having fun for the most part. If you need to make it more of a challenge, you can make it more difficult yourself, and I like that there is flexibility for the most part in these challenges for that to happen.

That being said, I haven't done many of the harder challenges yet, such as the Nuzlocke, or doing any with NFE pokemon.

He Brings up a very good point. If you just want it to be a little bit harder, then you can make choices to make it not very hard, or Vice-versa. Some Crazy hard challenge that only a few people have the guts to try will end up with only a few participants.