Originally Posted by Bless

If you want to be taught, you want to be taught by the best, not some staff member from the forums, even if it's basics. You don't recruit the same team to to run two completely different things. That's common sense.

The question remains, what do you lose?

Originally Posted by sir

You don't hire a Nobelist to teach a kid how to count to ten. Instead, you get a person who knows bits of everything to give primary education. Toribash isn't any different, a white belt player who downloaded the game 10 minutes ago needs to know how to move his Tori, not to learn aikido grabbing glitch tricks. You don't need a player who's got rank 1 and is the best esport guy around but someone who can explain how to use forum without getting infracted, join a clan and make a texture.

The latest HS recruitment drive mentions that their duty isn't only forum related but also includes spending time in beginner rooms, so people who want to focus on the game side are welcome. Haven't seen your application there though, do you argue for the sake of arguing now or just dislike HS because they're not called TA? Join the team, make it better.



Adding TA while also having HS means adding yet another staff group. We already have some weird separation within the clan team, I don't see any single reason to have to staff groups which share same purpose of helping beginners. There better be a bit of separation within one currently existing group with some people being focused on serversitting and others monitoring forums / steam discussions.

Originally Posted by Bless

You also don't hire a geography teacher to teach art, it's just not what they do. You can tell them what to say etc. but they can never help past that.

If you want retention rates you want the players to make a bond, you don't give someone a blitz lesson and then just throw them into public servers, you carry through to a point where they can handle themselves.

I applied to join, then pulled my application as it seemed that some people were refusing to do anything to help the community unless they held a staff position. Something I thought was stupid, but apparently is a harsh reality. Which actually strengthens my points. Add 'yet another' staff group, and more people may be inclined to help. I don't understand where this point of the name comes from, they are completely different groups with completely different agendas.

Originally Posted by sir

So you're saying current help squad members don't know how to play the game? The fact that they don't spend 10 hours per day playing doesn't mean that they can't assist new players.


That is what Unibash did, not TAs. Their job didn't include giving full gameplay lessons, they simply spectated in beginner rooms and answered basic questions.


HelpSquad is a staff group, if people refuse to join because they don't get ingame admin - sorry, but they won't get it even if we bring back ToriAgents. Special permissions are a tool to do the job, not a reward; and now there is no significant need in having beginner helpers' group even with a halfop.


Also I would really like to know what was the TAs' agenda in your opinion, because from what I remember it was the same as the current task of HS.

Originally Posted by Bless

I'm saying, they were not all recruited for their in game ability, I'm saying there are better ingame candidates that could be turned away for their lack of forum activity. Maybe a just an optimization of Unibash is necessary, I don't know, but something needs to happen to deal with in game retention rates. And Forum Based staff occasionally sitting in rooms and answering basic questions is not enough. An individual unit is needed to develop the grassroots, participation level of the game.

And how do you know who is joining for the perks and who is joining for the sheer want to help the community. Anyone can write a fancy few paragraphs explaining how they love the community and what to give back, but who says it is true? Sounds like more assumptions to me.

The ToriAgents agenda was the same as the Help Squads ingame agenda now, yes that is true. But that was their only job, they didn't have the included agenda of forums business to worry about, meaning they were the right people for their specific job, and their specific job only. Call it what you want, organise it how you want, but an individual unit to deal with the new members of the ingame community is absolutely necessary.

Originally Posted by Smaguris

First of all, you can do this by checking it yourself, but I can assure that every HS member (the only exception being Butler) has ~10 000 qi. Say what you want but that is more than enough to teach anyone basics of Toribash even if they don't play as much nowadays.

As a HS member I can assure you that no beginner wants to be guided and taught how to do what, and generally it is hard to start a conversation with them in the first place. Beginners have a lot of questions and we can guide them to various threads that can further expand on points like game mechanics, learning, etc., but the way a game is set up we can't really guide them and show them moves and such unless it's a one-on-one situation. HS do have enough knowledge to answer every beginner question and that is enough in terms of beginner supervision.

If you want Unibash back that's whole another conversation, but ToriAgents wouldn't change anything whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Bless

I have around 10 beginners added on discord who individually came to me and asked me for help in game and to teach them in the past week or two. Maybe this means unibash, yes. But Unibash isn't around either so that's a pretty poor excuse.

Originally Posted by Bless

Call it what you want, organise it how you want, but an individual unit to deal with the new members of the ingame community is absolutely necessary.

Originally Posted by Smaguris

EDIT: Also telling me that 10 000 qi mean nothing in terms of beginner teaching is complete bullshit and you know it yourself. Point me to one 5th dan+ that doesn't have beginner knowledge because I really don't know what you're on about anymore