Original Post
Community Outreach
Hey,
Something that's been on my mind for a while and that I've been meaning to do is having a conversation with the community about what you all would like and what changes you would want to happen.
We can also address any questions or concerns you might have or general things you want to say to our team to improve our communication.
I feel throughout the years the divide between the players and staff has gotten greater and would like to see the connection between us be improved.
This thread is going to, for a while at least, act as a basis for improving community-staff interaction.
Some things that I personally want to improve on and hope will happen:
- Communication
- Game activity
- Game enjoyability
- Events
Along with anything else that might be brought up in this thread.
Let me explain what I mean by improving communication:
There is a giant divide between staff and players.
I understand how frustrated the community might be with staff over things like not being informed about the clan system change and about prizes on events.
We're staff of this game for the players and we’d like to make this more obvious and visible through our actions, and to make sure everyone feels included.
We get a lot of feedback in the form of backlash and banter.
I want to change that and focus our discussions on what the game needs more.
The staff team will listen to any suggestion brought up and try our best to respond to everything.
Regarding game activity:
We all know that the Toribash has been losing players for a while now.
However, there are usually way more beginners online than there are people on the forums if that is any consolation.
This is why we are planning to move even more events client-side soon.
There have already been some very successful ingame events:
- Free Run Frenzy
- Hole In The Wall
These events have gotten amazing participation from everyone, and we want to do more events like this.
We believe that other events whether competitive, art-related, single-player, etc, will benefit greatly by being advertised and run in the game client.
Our main focus will be events focused on beginners, which will hopefully keep beginner retention up.
There are also some plans to make new items which are accessible to and aimed at beginners.
I'm interested in knowing what the community thinks about this.
For the time being, there will still be events held on the forums but as soon as we can get some dev work done to bring everything to the game client, we'll do that.
Regarding game enjoyability:
This is something that we need your input on, this is your game, and you're playing it.
- What kind of changes do you want to see?
There have been some ideas which could change up the meta a little bit in mods like ABD,TK,JF, and particularly lenshu.
If anyone remembers LesDuncan and what he was doing with TPL, it's sort of similar to the martial arts community now, in the way they've hosted fightnight events and they make new mods.
LesDuncan made a version of ABD in which lifting was still viable, however there are walls and a ceiling that prevented it from being a huge difficulty.
This mod is not perfect, but I would like to see what you all think about it.
In particular, what (if anything) would be required for you to consider it a competitive mod?
About Lenshu:
I believe Kane and fl0w have done an exceptionally good job on their winpoint lenshu mod.
When I mention TPL, this is the kind of mod that I'm imagining.
The running issue has been fixed, and a new feature like winpoints were added.
The communities reception on this event has always been good and in a competitive scene most people prefer this mod to normal lenshu3ng.
I'd like to ask everyone a question: when you play the game does it still feel rewarding?
Do you have anything you want to do in the game still, do you want more purpose?
There are ideas like a free battlepass, just quests for rewards.
Another one that we've had is automated tourneys with different rewards, starts at 10 people in the lobby, could be more TC than usual, or rewards from magicalsack(like an automated etourney but with worse rewards) but like stated previously, we're unsure what we should do.
My vision would be making adjustments to every competitively played mod and hosting events in them.
Just with slight adjustments, the way we play these mods is changed and it makes it more fun.
Regarding events:
Historically, prizes for events have rarely been amazing, and I know that there have been players complaining about prizes not being the best and I agree.
There has been a huge lack of competitive events, excluding clan league and WC, there haven't been any competitive multiplayer events hosted in a while.
There are some events that we're working on right now, and would like to get out soon, I'd just like to see what people have to say about TPL.
Summary:
In conclusion, the things that I want to work on are:
- Staff-Player interaction, keeping the community updated and asking for what the community wants
- More client-side events
- Working on different versions of the main 5 mods, seeing if there's any way to improve the competitive mod-list
- Better prizes and events, more frequent events
- Making the game more fun, adding new features to hopefully improve retention, new goals and a sense of purpose
- Any new content that is possible to do
I want to have a constructive discussion about these topics and address any questions or concerns you might have about anything not mentioned in this thread.
The OP will be updated if there's anything to update, and I hope this discussion will stick around for a while.
Thank you to everyone who spent their time on reading.
And if you want a shiai token, feel free to take this survey or spread it around in your circles
MS survey for the dueling community, feel free to take it for an ST. input is immensely appreciated.
Something that's been on my mind for a while and that I've been meaning to do is having a conversation with the community about what you all would like and what changes you would want to happen.
We can also address any questions or concerns you might have or general things you want to say to our team to improve our communication.
I feel throughout the years the divide between the players and staff has gotten greater and would like to see the connection between us be improved.
This thread is going to, for a while at least, act as a basis for improving community-staff interaction.
Some things that I personally want to improve on and hope will happen:
- Communication
- Game activity
- Game enjoyability
- Events
Along with anything else that might be brought up in this thread.
Let me explain what I mean by improving communication:
There is a giant divide between staff and players.
I understand how frustrated the community might be with staff over things like not being informed about the clan system change and about prizes on events.
We're staff of this game for the players and we’d like to make this more obvious and visible through our actions, and to make sure everyone feels included.
We get a lot of feedback in the form of backlash and banter.
I want to change that and focus our discussions on what the game needs more.
The staff team will listen to any suggestion brought up and try our best to respond to everything.
Regarding game activity:
We all know that the Toribash has been losing players for a while now.
However, there are usually way more beginners online than there are people on the forums if that is any consolation.
This is why we are planning to move even more events client-side soon.
There have already been some very successful ingame events:
- Free Run Frenzy
- Hole In The Wall
These events have gotten amazing participation from everyone, and we want to do more events like this.
We believe that other events whether competitive, art-related, single-player, etc, will benefit greatly by being advertised and run in the game client.
Our main focus will be events focused on beginners, which will hopefully keep beginner retention up.
There are also some plans to make new items which are accessible to and aimed at beginners.
I'm interested in knowing what the community thinks about this.
For the time being, there will still be events held on the forums but as soon as we can get some dev work done to bring everything to the game client, we'll do that.
Regarding game enjoyability:
This is something that we need your input on, this is your game, and you're playing it.
- What kind of changes do you want to see?
There have been some ideas which could change up the meta a little bit in mods like ABD,TK,JF, and particularly lenshu.
If anyone remembers LesDuncan and what he was doing with TPL, it's sort of similar to the martial arts community now, in the way they've hosted fightnight events and they make new mods.
LesDuncan made a version of ABD in which lifting was still viable, however there are walls and a ceiling that prevented it from being a huge difficulty.
This mod is not perfect, but I would like to see what you all think about it.
In particular, what (if anything) would be required for you to consider it a competitive mod?
About Lenshu:
I believe Kane and fl0w have done an exceptionally good job on their winpoint lenshu mod.
When I mention TPL, this is the kind of mod that I'm imagining.
The running issue has been fixed, and a new feature like winpoints were added.
The communities reception on this event has always been good and in a competitive scene most people prefer this mod to normal lenshu3ng.
I'd like to ask everyone a question: when you play the game does it still feel rewarding?
Do you have anything you want to do in the game still, do you want more purpose?
There are ideas like a free battlepass, just quests for rewards.
Another one that we've had is automated tourneys with different rewards, starts at 10 people in the lobby, could be more TC than usual, or rewards from magicalsack(like an automated etourney but with worse rewards) but like stated previously, we're unsure what we should do.
My vision would be making adjustments to every competitively played mod and hosting events in them.
Just with slight adjustments, the way we play these mods is changed and it makes it more fun.
Regarding events:
Historically, prizes for events have rarely been amazing, and I know that there have been players complaining about prizes not being the best and I agree.
There has been a huge lack of competitive events, excluding clan league and WC, there haven't been any competitive multiplayer events hosted in a while.
There are some events that we're working on right now, and would like to get out soon, I'd just like to see what people have to say about TPL.
Summary:
In conclusion, the things that I want to work on are:
- Staff-Player interaction, keeping the community updated and asking for what the community wants
- More client-side events
- Working on different versions of the main 5 mods, seeing if there's any way to improve the competitive mod-list
- Better prizes and events, more frequent events
- Making the game more fun, adding new features to hopefully improve retention, new goals and a sense of purpose
- Any new content that is possible to do
I want to have a constructive discussion about these topics and address any questions or concerns you might have about anything not mentioned in this thread.
The OP will be updated if there's anything to update, and I hope this discussion will stick around for a while.
Thank you to everyone who spent their time on reading.
And if you want a shiai token, feel free to take this survey or spread it around in your circles
MS survey for the dueling community, feel free to take it for an ST. input is immensely appreciated.
Last edited by ancient; Feb 4, 2022 at 07:12 PM.
My true thoughts on what we can do to help the game is INGAME EVENTS. And I’m not talking about ES events, I mean stuff like CL and EO and more things along these lines that will get EVERYONE into it. CL bought this game back severely and half the clans were dead. Why not stoke the fire of competition more often rather than making it an event every couple months. It keeps the people wanting to do more to improve so they can show their ass and try to win REAL prizes. Not a measly 20k tc or something not worth. A bigger prize means more interest, I mean you could afford dump some tc, you got none in circulation rn. I also have one more idea and I’m being dead serious.
Let’s just unban some people who meant something skill wise. Why not listen to the ones who have so much to say for once and give it a shot. I’d be interested to see how they handle the freedom the have again, if they’re remotely interested.
Let’s just unban some people who meant something skill wise. Why not listen to the ones who have so much to say for once and give it a shot. I’d be interested to see how they handle the freedom the have again, if they’re remotely interested.
Last edited by nine; Feb 4, 2022 at 11:03 PM.
Ily <3
Events:
The following quotes are not mine, they belong to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, but they will sure lead you to the point I'm trying to say regarding this topic:
"Through the 1960's, every next mission from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo went from one astronauts two to three, every next mission was more ambitious than the previous one, it went a little farther it stayed a little longer they brought more cargo they did more things, this kept an interest level of the press and the public, they could talk about new things each time. After we stopped going to the moon and then introduced the shuttle program which from my view was boldly going where hundreds have gone before, each next mission was not more ambitious than the previous one, so the public had nothing to look forward to, and if the shuttle launch preempted your daily soap operas you would complain to the TV station."
So, you want to avoid stagnation, if you're actually looking to make events that will be hype for the public then make that the natural state of everything you do. Don't say "oh we got the moon! we're done. Let's just keep going to the moon and don't do anything more." Well that gets old fast believe it or not.
"Whatever are your ambitious always have something more ambitious than the previous ones, that will stimulate evermore innovation and creativity in the people who support it."
The best events Toribash ever had are those that are new, unique, competitive and fun. TPL, OFL and EO, those are 3 examples of events that went super popular for couple of reasons, new, unique, competitive and fun.
An event idea of something that's never been done before will get very high percentage of eyeballs focused on it, instead of repeatedly hosting the same events over and over.
In terms of event prizes, raise it a little! 3k TC for completing a task in an event isn't enough at all, and don't assume all players are beginners so 3k would look big in their eyes. If it's not worth getting then most people wouldn't even participate.
Events Funding:
The Event Squad should fund and promote new events made by the people. Staff should always ask for people opinions and ideas for new events.
Sometimes a player could have a brilliant idea for an event but does not have TC or decent prizes to offer to make an event. That takes foresight and courage as a leader as an admin to say I will make sure we fund this because this is the RNA of our game and maybe one day this will bring more new people to the game, and can certainly be as new ideas for Toribash Youtube content makers or Instagram reels which also would bring more new people to the game, that's what has to happen.
The following quotes are not mine, they belong to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, but they will sure lead you to the point I'm trying to say regarding this topic:
"Through the 1960's, every next mission from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo went from one astronauts two to three, every next mission was more ambitious than the previous one, it went a little farther it stayed a little longer they brought more cargo they did more things, this kept an interest level of the press and the public, they could talk about new things each time. After we stopped going to the moon and then introduced the shuttle program which from my view was boldly going where hundreds have gone before, each next mission was not more ambitious than the previous one, so the public had nothing to look forward to, and if the shuttle launch preempted your daily soap operas you would complain to the TV station."
So, you want to avoid stagnation, if you're actually looking to make events that will be hype for the public then make that the natural state of everything you do. Don't say "oh we got the moon! we're done. Let's just keep going to the moon and don't do anything more." Well that gets old fast believe it or not.
"Whatever are your ambitious always have something more ambitious than the previous ones, that will stimulate evermore innovation and creativity in the people who support it."
The best events Toribash ever had are those that are new, unique, competitive and fun. TPL, OFL and EO, those are 3 examples of events that went super popular for couple of reasons, new, unique, competitive and fun.
An event idea of something that's never been done before will get very high percentage of eyeballs focused on it, instead of repeatedly hosting the same events over and over.
In terms of event prizes, raise it a little! 3k TC for completing a task in an event isn't enough at all, and don't assume all players are beginners so 3k would look big in their eyes. If it's not worth getting then most people wouldn't even participate.
Events Funding:
The Event Squad should fund and promote new events made by the people. Staff should always ask for people opinions and ideas for new events.
Sometimes a player could have a brilliant idea for an event but does not have TC or decent prizes to offer to make an event. That takes foresight and courage as a leader as an admin to say I will make sure we fund this because this is the RNA of our game and maybe one day this will bring more new people to the game, and can certainly be as new ideas for Toribash Youtube content makers or Instagram reels which also would bring more new people to the game, that's what has to happen.
the world is as beautiful as what you make it out to be
What I consider to be the biggest issue in Toribash, is the neglect for the game and refusal to do anything new. Radical changes absolutely need to happen to every area of the game, modmaker being one of the most problematic ones IN MY OPINION due to how incredibly outdated it is. But there's other blatant issues such as how staff don't care about the competitive scene, at least when it comes to actually doing events. Sponsoring Kane/Fl0w's Endurance Onslaught was an amazing call though.
The neglect for replaymaking as a whole is also BEYOND flagrant. The closest thing we get to that nowadays is some "parkour" event which is actually just a race for the finish line, which really doesn't say much when we talk about replaymaking. There's absolutely no support for ukebashing, sparring, tricking, parkouring, MMA, nothing. Where is SP Cup? Why don't we do more events catering towards replaymakers? They're a huge part of the community, and I'd argue they love the game more than most, so why is there nearly no support being shown? I understand that judging replays may be subjective, but still, at least there'd be something.
Nobody wants to wait in a lobby for 1 hour, flipping a coin, just to be awarded with a neptune left leg trail (ETourneys). While there may be an argument to be made about this being supportive towards "competitive players", I would like to state that this is completely false. The real competitive players would like to play for real prizes even if that means risking what they already have (duelers). And even if we went the complete opposite way and talked about casual players, if ETourneys and all that stuff are supposed to cater towards them with the purpose of giving them a place to hang out, what will that do for the game in the long run? The huge emphasis on these minuscule repetitive "events" baffles me. It's almost as if there's no care about whether people actually play the game or not.
I also find that areas like the stock folder and the Torilegends are totally mishandled by those responsible, not intentionally though. It's just that deciding who is currently good or important would take people who actually are active in the game currently, which is definitely not what happens. This leads to issues like the latest stock change, where for the first time EVER in the history of Toribash, a player got 5 of his own replays put in there. This is something that used to be absolutely frowned upon, I vividly remember Millie saying the only way you'd get into stock with more than 1 replay is if you were an absolutely amazing player such as Swexx, where are those values now?
Now, I know this whole Torilegend thing is kind of subjective, so please take this next segment with a grain of salt.
It's 2022 and we still haven't acknowledged the absolute prodigy that is Flash, why doesn't he have that damn yellow name and crown? The man has been deserving it for years. Same can be said about Mocucha, arguably the most important content creator Toribash has EVER had. It also applies for Shoddy, the man who truly pushed realism to what we currently consider to be "the limit", single handedly defined a generation yet there is close to no recognition to be seen.
I wholeheartedly believe this is in no way malicious, as most of the people in charge just don't really care about the niches that are realism and whatnot, but that's exactly the issue. If you don't care about music, you don't become a music critic.
The neglect for replaymaking as a whole is also BEYOND flagrant. The closest thing we get to that nowadays is some "parkour" event which is actually just a race for the finish line, which really doesn't say much when we talk about replaymaking. There's absolutely no support for ukebashing, sparring, tricking, parkouring, MMA, nothing. Where is SP Cup? Why don't we do more events catering towards replaymakers? They're a huge part of the community, and I'd argue they love the game more than most, so why is there nearly no support being shown? I understand that judging replays may be subjective, but still, at least there'd be something.
Nobody wants to wait in a lobby for 1 hour, flipping a coin, just to be awarded with a neptune left leg trail (ETourneys). While there may be an argument to be made about this being supportive towards "competitive players", I would like to state that this is completely false. The real competitive players would like to play for real prizes even if that means risking what they already have (duelers). And even if we went the complete opposite way and talked about casual players, if ETourneys and all that stuff are supposed to cater towards them with the purpose of giving them a place to hang out, what will that do for the game in the long run? The huge emphasis on these minuscule repetitive "events" baffles me. It's almost as if there's no care about whether people actually play the game or not.
I also find that areas like the stock folder and the Torilegends are totally mishandled by those responsible, not intentionally though. It's just that deciding who is currently good or important would take people who actually are active in the game currently, which is definitely not what happens. This leads to issues like the latest stock change, where for the first time EVER in the history of Toribash, a player got 5 of his own replays put in there. This is something that used to be absolutely frowned upon, I vividly remember Millie saying the only way you'd get into stock with more than 1 replay is if you were an absolutely amazing player such as Swexx, where are those values now?
Now, I know this whole Torilegend thing is kind of subjective, so please take this next segment with a grain of salt.
It's 2022 and we still haven't acknowledged the absolute prodigy that is Flash, why doesn't he have that damn yellow name and crown? The man has been deserving it for years. Same can be said about Mocucha, arguably the most important content creator Toribash has EVER had. It also applies for Shoddy, the man who truly pushed realism to what we currently consider to be "the limit", single handedly defined a generation yet there is close to no recognition to be seen.
I wholeheartedly believe this is in no way malicious, as most of the people in charge just don't really care about the niches that are realism and whatnot, but that's exactly the issue. If you don't care about music, you don't become a music critic.
fimmy toribsah discorD DECAPgo be on fire somewhere elseₜₕₑ fᵢᵣetᵣยck listener
Originally Posted by iris
What I consider to be the biggest issue in Toribash, is the neglect for the game and refusal to do anything new. Radical changes absolutely need to happen to every area of the game, modmaker being one of the most problematic ones IN MY OPINION due to how incredibly outdated it is. But there's other blatant issues such as how staff don't care about the competitive scene, at least when it comes to actually doing events. Sponsoring Kane/Fl0w's Endurance Onslaught was an amazing call though.
The neglect for replaymaking as a whole is also BEYOND flagrant. The closest thing we get to that nowadays is some "parkour" event which is actually just a race for the finish line, which really doesn't say much when we talk about replaymaking. There's absolutely no support for ukebashing, sparring, tricking, parkouring, MMA, nothing. Where is SP Cup? Why don't we do more events catering towards replaymakers? They're a huge part of the community, and I'd argue they love the game more than most, so why is there nearly no support being shown? I understand that judging replays may be subjective, but still, at least there'd be something.
Nobody wants to wait in a lobby for 1 hour, flipping a coin, just to be awarded with a neptune left leg trail (ETourneys). While there may be an argument to be made about this being supportive towards "competitive players", I would like to state that this is completely false. The real competitive players would like to play for real prizes even if that means risking what they already have (duelers). And even if we went the complete opposite way and talked about casual players, if ETourneys and all that stuff are supposed to cater towards them with the purpose of giving them a place to hang out, what will that do for the game in the long run? The huge emphasis on these minuscule repetitive "events" baffles me. It's almost as if there's no care about whether people actually play the game or not.
I also find that areas like the stock folder and the Torilegends are totally mishandled by those responsible, not intentionally though. It's just that deciding who is currently good or important would take people who actually are active in the game currently, which is definitely not what happens. This leads to issues like the latest stock change, where for the first time EVER in the history of Toribash, a player got 5 of his own replays put in there. This is something that used to be absolutely frowned upon, I vividly remember Millie saying the only way you'd get into stock with more than 1 replay is if you were an absolutely amazing player such as Swexx, where are those values now?
Now, I know this whole Torilegend thing is kind of subjective, so please take this next segment with a grain of salt.
It's 2022 and we still haven't acknowledged the absolute prodigy that is Flash, why doesn't he have that damn yellow name and crown? The man has been deserving it for years. Same can be said about Mocucha, arguably the most important content creator Toribash has EVER had. It also applies for Shoddy, the man who truly pushed realism to what we currently consider to be "the limit", single handedly defined a generation yet there is close to no recognition to be seen.
I wholeheartedly believe this is in no way malicious, as most of the people in charge just don't really care about the niches that are realism and whatnot, but that's exactly the issue. If you don't care about music, you don't become a music critic.
While you make some good points, definitely, that's all directed towards already experienced and long-time players. Nothing wrong with it, but I think old players don't really care as much about things like rewards and events and whatnot, they're just in it for the community for the most part. What TB needs to focus on (in my opinion) is making the experience better for new players, cause that's where TB fails on every front. You could rework replay making events, etourneys, and everything inbetween, but that wouldn't benefit any new player cause they could never compete in such events. There needs to be more focus on making beginner experience WAY more enjoyable and implementing things that make people want to stick around after their first 10-100 games. Currently there is absolutely nothing catering towards that category, while experienced players always get events that might be not perfect, but are bound to be somewhat entertaining if you're good at the game.
Once you can maitain a good influx of new players, then you can start thinking about making it more enjoyable for the whole community, but as it stands, it's a dying game and something needs to be done to bring in new players rathen than keeping old timers entertained IMO.
