Concerns about the Voting System (Probably gonna fall on Deaf Ears)

[Kage360]

DISCLAIMER: Now before we begin I don't want anyone to think I am Complaining about the current vote (Extinction at the time I'm writing this), I'm not asking to impliment the rules I suggest immediately, I'm not gonna ask that despite my personal feelings and frustrations, nor do I think it would be the right decision to disqualify a certain creature or two in the 11th hour of the Extinction Vote's Round 1, I will not name names but it will be pretty obvious that I will be talking about certain creature submissions and their authors, I ask you not to send hate towards them or harass them as I do not want that, I have also spoken with many other Submission Authors/Artists about these topics and for the most part they agree with or partly agree with some of the problems

I'm going to split this into 3 parts
1.  The Problems
2.  Potential Solutions
3.  Notes and Messages to Devs/Community

The Problems
1.  Content Creators - While Content Creators (CC for short) are part of the community and Fully Deserve to participate in the votes, whether they are Streamers, YouTubers, Mod Creators, etc. they do present an issue of Influence on their followings when they submit their own creatures for the vote, many tend to vote for the person over the creature, even when the CC asks their following not to do just that
2.  Multiple Submissions from the same Author in a single vote - Now I don't bash on the ideas of the creatures submitted any new creature for the game is good for everyone, however multiple submissions from the same person presents an issue, say if one author submits 3-4 ideas and they're all popular enough to make it into the top 10 then that leaves 3-4 others who have worked hard on their only submitted creature left out, and makes things unfair
3.  Timing of Creature Submissions - Community Crunches usually come in around 8pm EST and that's when Creature Submission Voting usually starts, this presents problems for other who are in different time zones making them late to submit their ideas by an hour to a whole day later, for the most part many who submit their ideas late end up getting left behind because most voters will concentrate on the top 10-15 creatures
4.  Comment Downvoting - Downvoting is a problem that many abuse whenever someone makes a comment either good or bad about the creature, sometimes an author is just trying to make an announcement to help out those confused on how to vote and it will get downvoted by people who hate the creature, downvoting just further plays into the Hate and Toxicity that the votes bring
5.  Disadvantaged Creatures - By Disadvantaged creatures I'm talking about Spiders, Snakes, Roaches, Worms, Creatures in the same classification as previous winners, ETC. these ideas tend to be looked down upon by the most vocal part community and these creatures recieve hatred and toxicity to try and bring them down
6.  Repeat Submissions - A lot of talk has been going around about seeing repeat submissions always in the top 10 and it seems to be very split down the middle with the community and no one can decide on a solution to the issue
Potential Solutions
1.  Content Creators - CCs should be allowed to make an alternative account and register it with Wildcard so they know who they are and don't ban them, this would allow them to post their own submissions and remain Anonymous to the Community so there is no Influence on their supporters, I'd like to think CCs would also have the Courtesy of using alternative accounts to advertise their creature on the social media platforms of their choice that way the can remain completely Anonymous this way they give Submission Authors with little to no following a fair chance
2.  Multiple Submissions from the same Author in a single vote - Now I don't believe you should be limited to just 1 creature to submit, I do believe to give everyone a fair chance only the more popular creature (if more than 1 is in top 10) should be allowed to advance to the 2nd round, any creatures below the creature(s) that is disqualified to advance shoulde be bumped up a ranking to give others a chance to participate in the 2nd round
3.  Timing of Creature Submissions - Creature submissions should have a 3 day grace period to be submitted before round 1 voting begins that way every who has submitted has a decent shot at making it up to the top 10, during this grace period voters will not be able to see the submissions, and the Authors will be able to only see their own submission(s) for editting reasons
4.  Comment Downvoting - Downvotes should just be removed entirely that way it can't be abused or further promote toxicity
5.  Disadvantage Creatures - Now this is a tricky solution but I have a few ideas and not all of them are entirely mine either but some come from other Creature Submission Authors, the 1st idea is to give the most popular creatures that consistantly come in 2nd or 3rd across multiple votes should get the Carchar Treatment as that particular pandora's box was opened when the devs brought in the Carchar, however I know not everyone would be a fan of this idea so the 2nd idea is for the Devs at the end of the votes of all the ASA maps will announce a Developer's Choice from every top 10, that way a 2nd creature from every top 10 can be brought into each map, these 2nd set of creatures do not have to be introduced immediatley as the maps launch they can be introduced later when the devs have the time to do so, and the third idea is to announce a series of votes further down the line that are themed around certain Classifications of creatures such as Arachnids/Snakes/Mammals/Dinosaurs/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Communtiy Custom Creatures, this can also be extended to a shoulder pet/water/flyer/land/non-tamable/non-ridable vote
6.  Repeat Submissions - this is not the perfect solution as both sides of the conversation have points to their arguments, but here is my take a certain creature should skip a vote only if it makes it into the top 10 in the previous vote, this can shake up the top 10 every vote and make Submission Authors be more strategic about what votes they enter
Notes and Messages to Devs/Community
- Time Between the Votes is too short for Authors/Artists to really prepare their Submission(s) for the next one even when a vote is skipped this makes them unprepared and at a disadvantaged and the downtime between votes should be extended, Devs also need to Communicate when and what map the vote will be at the same time they announce the winner of a vote
- While I don't expect this to change voters need to remind themselves that each creature submission had a lot of time and effort spent by real people, so hating on an Author or Creature just because you don't like it is not an excuse to call them horrible things and drag down their submission(s)
- There is a difference between constructuve and pointless critism, before commenting things that many submission Authors hear a lot like "I don't think it fits the Map", "This is basically just another >Insert existing creature here<", or "this is not a very good concept" these comments do not help the Submisson Author at all as their is no reasons behind why people say this and it gets the author like myself discouraged or defensive and then the author becomes the bad guy, there needs to be reasons behind your comments to be constructive and help the author improve upon their submission(s), now granted their are some people who say these things just because they don't like the creature, and some authors may take actual constructive critism as insults or get defensive, but for the most part this needs to improve

That is all I have to say and I hope everyone who reads this will share it around, I also hope the Devs will see this and actually use some of these solutions to make the voting system more fair and less toxic, I wrote this up on behalf myself of several other submission authors who feel these changes can help improve the system, I will not name them for their protection from hate, please have a good day and treat others fairly.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Kage360

[RaephClark]

I think in terms of disadvantaged creatures, a possible solution could be to create Creature Submissions that focus on a certain group or theme. For example, a vote solely for invertebrates, or insects, or snakes, or in general creepy crawlies. Not only would it help these particular creatures shine, but also help reduce the number of submissions to feature the ones meant for that Creature Submission alone. 

Here are a few ideas I had in mind for themed submissions:

-Invertebrates

-Creepy Crawlies (Halloween themed!)

-Flyers

-Shoulder Pets

-Aquatics

-Fish

-Birds

-Mammals

-Marsupials

-Sauropods

-Theropods

-Raptors

-Ceratopsians

-Synapsids

-Amphibians

-Reptiles

-Fantasy

-Future Speculative Creatures

The list could go on and on!

What do you all think?

[FadeTheWitness]

4 hours ago, Kage360 said:

DISCLAIMER: Now before we begin I don't want anyone to think I am Complaining about the current vote (Extinction at the time I'm writing this), I'm not asking to impliment the rules I suggest immediately, I'm not gonna ask that despite my personal feelings and frustrations, nor do I think it would be the right decision to disqualify a certain creature or two in the 11th hour of the Extinction Vote's Round 1, I will not name names but it will be pretty obvious that I will be talking about certain creature submissions and their authors, I ask you not to send hate towards them or harass them as I do not want that, I have also spoken with many other Submission Authors/Artists about these topics and for the most part they agree with or partly agree with some of the problems

I'm going to split this into 3 parts
1.  The Problems
2.  Potential Solutions
3.  Notes and Messages to Devs/Community

The Problems
1.  Content Creators - While Content Creators (CC for short) are part of the community and Fully Deserve to participate in the votes, whether they are Streamers, YouTubers, Mod Creators, etc. they do present an issue of Influence on their followings when they submit their own creatures for the vote, many tend to vote for the person over the creature, even when the CC asks their following not to do just that
2.  Multiple Submissions from the same Author in a single vote - Now I don't bash on the ideas of the creatures submitted any new creature for the game is good for everyone, however multiple submissions from the same person presents an issue, say if one author submits 3-4 ideas and they're all popular enough to make it into the top 10 then that leaves 3-4 others who have worked hard on their only submitted creature left out, and makes things unfair
3.  Timing of Creature Submissions - Community Crunches usually come in around 8pm EST and that's when Creature Submission Voting usually starts, this presents problems for other who are in different time zones making them late to submit their ideas by an hour to a whole day later, for the most part many who submit their ideas late end up getting left behind because most voters will concentrate on the top 10-15 creatures
4.  Comment Downvoting - Downvoting is a problem that many abuse whenever someone makes a comment either good or bad about the creature, sometimes an author is just trying to make an announcement to help out those confused on how to vote and it will get downvoted by people who hate the creature, downvoting just further plays into the Hate and Toxicity that the votes bring
5.  Disadvantaged Creatures - By Disadvantaged creatures I'm talking about Spiders, Snakes, Roaches, Worms, Creatures in the same classification as previous winners, ETC. these ideas tend to be looked down upon by the most vocal part community and these creatures recieve hatred and toxicity to try and bring them down
6.  Repeat Submissions - A lot of talk has been going around about seeing repeat submissions always in the top 10 and it seems to be very split down the middle with the community and no one can decide on a solution to the issue
Potential Solutions
1.  Content Creators - CCs should be allowed to make an alternative account and register it with Wildcard so they know who they are and don't ban them, this would allow them to post their own submissions and remain Anonymous to the Community so there is no Influence on their supporters, I'd like to think CCs would also have the Courtesy of using alternative accounts to advertise their creature on the social media platforms of their choice that way the can remain completely Anonymous this way they give Submission Authors with little to no following a fair chance
2.  Multiple Submissions from the same Author in a single vote - Now I don't believe you should be limited to just 1 creature to submit, I do believe to give everyone a fair chance only the more popular creature (if more than 1 is in top 10) should be allowed to advance to the 2nd round, any creatures below the creature(s) that is disqualified to advance shoulde be bumped up a ranking to give others a chance to participate in the 2nd round
3.  Timing of Creature Submissions - Creature submissions should have a 3 day grace period to be submitted before round 1 voting begins that way every who has submitted has a decent shot at making it up to the top 10, during this grace period voters will not be able to see the submissions, and the Authors will be able to only see their own submission(s) for editting reasons
4.  Comment Downvoting - Downvotes should just be removed entirely that way it can't be abused or further promote toxicity
5.  Disadvantage Creatures - Now this is a tricky solution but I have a few ideas and not all of them are entirely mine either but some come from other Creature Submission Authors, the 1st idea is to give the most popular creatures that consistantly come in 2nd or 3rd across multiple votes should get the Carchar Treatment as that particular pandora's box was opened when the devs brought in the Carchar, however I know not everyone would be a fan of this idea so the 2nd idea is for the Devs at the end of the votes of all the ASA maps will announce a Developer's Choice from every top 10, that way a 2nd creature from every top 10 can be brought into each map, these 2nd set of creatures do not have to be introduced immediatley as the maps launch they can be introduced later when the devs have the time to do so, and the third idea is to announce a series of votes further down the line that are themed around certain Classifications of creatures such as Arachnids/Snakes/Mammals/Dinosaurs/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Communtiy Custom Creatures, this can also be extended to a shoulder pet/water/flyer/land/non-tamable/non-ridable vote
6.  Repeat Submissions - this is not the perfect solution as both sides of the conversation have points to their arguments, but here is my take a certain creature should skip a vote only if it makes it into the top 10 in the previous vote, this can shake up the top 10 every vote and make Submission Authors be more strategic about what votes they enter
Notes and Messages to Devs/Community
- Time Between the Votes is too short for Authors/Artists to really prepare their Submission(s) for the next one even when a vote is skipped this makes them unprepared and at a disadvantaged and the downtime between votes should be extended, Devs also need to Communicate when and what map the vote will be at the same time they announce the winner of a vote
- While I don't expect this to change voters need to remind themselves that each creature submission had a lot of time and effort spent by real people, so hating on an Author or Creature just because you don't like it is not an excuse to call them horrible things and drag down their submission(s)
- There is a difference between constructuve and pointless critism, before commenting things that many submission Authors hear a lot like "I don't think it fits the Map", "This is basically just another >Insert existing creature here<", or "this is not a very good concept" these comments do not help the Submisson Author at all as their is no reasons behind why people say this and it gets the author like myself discouraged or defensive and then the author becomes the bad guy, there needs to be reasons behind your comments to be constructive and help the author improve upon their submission(s), now granted their are some people who say these things just because they don't like the creature, and some authors may take actual constructive critism as insults or get defensive, but for the most part this needs to improve

That is all I have to say and I hope everyone who reads this will share it around, I also hope the Devs will see this and actually use some of these solutions to make the voting system more fair and less toxic, I wrote this up on behalf myself of several other submission authors who feel these changes can help improve the system, I will not name them for their protection from hate, please have a good day and treat others fairly.

This really and truly needs to be listened to by the staff at wildcard.

[ashgcy]

Honestly I think the biggest issue of the votes is the complete lack of "easy access" information on the finalists in round 2.

Put it simply, it seems no one can be bothered to read for like 15 minutes which hurts the chances of pretty much every submission because people love to just assume "Oh it's just exactly like this existing creature from what I briefly looked at for 2 seconds".

Including pictures of the finalists, or links that actually work, or just a brief description of how the creature would actually be implemented in game (to avoid the "oh it doesn't share mechanics though" argument) would improve things soooo much


Also, only point I don't particularly agree on is the multiple submissions. To a point, it makes sense, but with how hit or miss the voting process is to getting into the top 10, if someone is lucky enough to get things into the top 10, I say that's just how it goes. At the end of the day, it's a competition about creature design, and if creature designs are being voted into the top 10 (without outside influences) there's nothing wrong with that

Edited September 11, 2023 by ashgcy

[RaephClark]

5 hours ago, ashgcy said:

Honestly I think the biggest issue of the votes is the complete lack of "easy access" information on the finalists in round 2.

Put it simply, it seems no one can be bothered to read for like 15 minutes which hurts the chances of pretty much every submission because people love to just assume "Oh it's just exactly like this existing creature from what I briefly looked at for 2 seconds".

Including pictures of the finalists, or links that actually work, or just a brief description of how the creature would actually be implemented in game (to avoid the "oh it doesn't share mechanics though" argument) would improve things soooo much

This is definitely something we need. Visualization and information are key for submissions since not everyone knows what a Maevia or Gorgonops or the scientific name for a creature is. Unless people actually take the time to research what’s being voted on, voters will either just go with whoever asked them to vote and completely landslide the others, and/or voters will target specific creatures and put them at the bottom constantly, making it significantly harder for them to receive a higher vote. I wish there was a better system they could use, but ultimately I don’t know any other online voting systems that could be better. 

[Freyn]

I certainly think there needs to be tweaks to the system, but perhaps disagree on why / how. Regarding specific points:

1. I agree there's an issue here, as it potentially results in designs getting through on name rather than actual strength. The issue I have though is that I don't think there's any way to solve this, for starters how is it decided who's an influencer/creator? If the cut off is say, 5000 YT subscribers, then does 4999 creep under, does 4750 etc, but also at this stage a lot of submitters have their own (albeit smaller) followings too so any additional design from them is more likely to gain traction. 

As far as a solution, I do think anonymity on the posts would help... but only if comments and/or editing were disabled, because all it takes is a single "Good idea I'll change it" and the cat's out of the bag. There's also of course external social promotion, and while I wish an honour system would be enough, it wouldn't, and there's no effective way to police it.

2. This is my strongest disagreement I think, similar to the above, if someone submits two designs that are strong and upvoted, and one gets removed, then it means another is getting through not on it's own merits, but by default. If the rules were changed I wouldn't be outraged at all of course, I just don't feel it's a big issue. An additional point though is that many of these are made via groups of people, and there's nothing to stop different member submitting them to bypass it anyway.

3. I strongly agree here. While no timezone is going to be perfect for everyone, the issue can be minimised, currently the submissions begin when the Crunch is posted, and that's 2am European time or in some cases even later. Timing has probably one of the largest impacts on success rate, with top10 rarely featuring creatures posted after the first 30minutes, and this can cut a lot of people out of the running before it's even begun.

4. Sad as it makes me... this just seems to be an internet comment section thing in general

5. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure what can be done. While the 'disadvantage' is certainly higher for buggish creatures than others, there's a lot of other subgroups that receive dismissive treatment - Theropods, anything resembling a modern animal, water creatures for examples. RaephClark's response to this has merit but I'll respond to that a bit further down. Developers choice to solve THIS particular aspect doesn't feel right, the implication being they'd have to use it to save creatures with a phobia or alternative perceived dislike.

6. This is another issue I think is hard to solve. A limitation would force a bit more thought into it than trying to wedge a creature in anywhere, it's admirable people want a creature in the game to the extent they don't really care where or what form, but a well thought out design is better for everyone. The problem I have is what if you decide to skip a map, and someone else submits it, are you now blocked for future? If different designs count then it's easy to bypass, or again, group submissions. A repeat top 3 placement in second round getting added would be nice, but is extra work. Perhaps announce "We will also be adding this at a later date" without a timeframe, or use the developers choice idea for this.

 

Overall I think no single change would have any effect, but a collective adjustment could. If possible (I have no idea the limitations of the forum or any other system potentially used) I would go with...

a) A more limited submissions period, say ~3 days, during which NOTHING is visible. Designs are submitted, edited etc as normal, and then at the end of the period all appear at the same time and no more can be added. Do it at a more well rounded time so that no one demographic has such impacting effect.

b) As this would produce an overwhelming number of submissions to look at, present it as a thumbnail gallery rather than list of titles. We are in theory voting for a creature over a design anyway, and paleolontological names are going to be meaningless for many posters.

c) Hide submitter names. It's a minimal effect, because external socials exist, but it will reduce it.

 

A completely different alternative, would be remove designs altogether and simply suggest a single piece of art, and extremely short ~20 word description of the creature, e.g "Large ceratopsian with 5 horns" or "Biggest Hadrosaur known to exist". Why? Because we are in theory voting for the creature, and Wildcard frequently change both the visual design AND the functional one, so this boils it down to the most important part.

 

6 hours ago, RaephClark said:

I think in terms of disadvantaged creatures, a possible solution could be to create Creature Submissions that focus on a certain group or theme. For example, a vote solely for invertebrates, or insects, or snakes, or in general creepy crawlies. Not only would it help these particular creatures shine, but also help reduce the number of submissions to feature the ones meant for that Creature Submission alone. 

I like the idea of more focused submissions, but I don't think creature groups is the way. I think creature niche, and/or location are better options. e.g, "Caves need more variety, please submit something to fill them out" or "A new late game resource is coming, please submit something you think would appropriately gather this". Although it would likely be completely ignored and we'd get a Tarbosaurus trying to wedge into a cave, or Cockroach gathering metal

 

Finally, I absolutely agree that a single image should be included on the final voting page, so that at minimum everyone can see WHAT the creature is. It's 2023 and attention spans are an all-time low, so linking to threads with long-winded paleo names is unlikely to have much hope.

 

[Gecko1611]

This is probably the best take I have seen so far on the Creature Votes. Here are a couple points I'd like to make:

- Your idea for Content Creators should also include other popular and influential members of the ARK community, such as well-known mod creators.

- As for the different time periods conflicting with submission time, maybe a scheduled post option could be added. I dont know how difficult this would be to implement, but if it was coded in, it would be very helpful.

- Another issue for the creature votes is the map theme. Yi Qi won for Abberation and it didn't entirely fit the map like some other submissions would have. Instead of doing votes for each map, perhaps they could just do 6 or more Creature Votes and then take the winners of each of those votes. The community could then vote for each creature which map they would prefer it to be on.

Obviously, this would also bring up the issue of people making their submissions map themed, because how would they know whether to give their creature Extinction themed abilities or Abberation themed abilities. For this reason, they could submit multiple ability ideas for each of the different maps it could be voted on. Or perhaps other members could submit their own ideas on the creature for different maps.

[Kage360]

7 hours ago, Freyn said:

I certainly think there needs to be tweaks to the system, but perhaps disagree on why / how. Regarding specific points:

1. I agree there's an issue here, as it potentially results in designs getting through on name rather than actual strength. The issue I have though is that I don't think there's any way to solve this, for starters how is it decided who's an influencer/creator? If the cut off is say, 5000 YT subscribers, then does 4999 creep under, does 4750 etc, but also at this stage a lot of submitters have their own (albeit smaller) followings too so any additional design from them is more likely to gain traction. 

As far as a solution, I do think anonymity on the posts would help... but only if comments and/or editing were disabled, because all it takes is a single "Good idea I'll change it" and the cat's out of the bag. There's also of course external social promotion, and while I wish an honour system would be enough, it wouldn't, and there's no effective way to police it.

2. This is my strongest disagreement I think, similar to the above, if someone submits two designs that are strong and upvoted, and one gets removed, then it means another is getting through not on it's own merits, but by default. If the rules were changed I wouldn't be outraged at all of course, I just don't feel it's a big issue. An additional point though is that many of these are made via groups of people, and there's nothing to stop different member submitting them to bypass it anyway.

3. I strongly agree here. While no timezone is going to be perfect for everyone, the issue can be minimised, currently the submissions begin when the Crunch is posted, and that's 2am European time or in some cases even later. Timing has probably one of the largest impacts on success rate, with top10 rarely featuring creatures posted after the first 30minutes, and this can cut a lot of people out of the running before it's even begun.

4. Sad as it makes me... this just seems to be an internet comment section thing in general

5. I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure what can be done. While the 'disadvantage' is certainly higher for buggish creatures than others, there's a lot of other subgroups that receive dismissive treatment - Theropods, anything resembling a modern animal, water creatures for examples. RaephClark's response to this has merit but I'll respond to that a bit further down. Developers choice to solve THIS particular aspect doesn't feel right, the implication being they'd have to use it to save creatures with a phobia or alternative perceived dislike.

6. This is another issue I think is hard to solve. A limitation would force a bit more thought into it than trying to wedge a creature in anywhere, it's admirable people want a creature in the game to the extent they don't really care where or what form, but a well thought out design is better for everyone. The problem I have is what if you decide to skip a map, and someone else submits it, are you now blocked for future? If different designs count then it's easy to bypass, or again, group submissions. A repeat top 3 placement in second round getting added would be nice, but is extra work. Perhaps announce "We will also be adding this at a later date" without a timeframe, or use the developers choice idea for this.

 

Overall I think no single change would have any effect, but a collective adjustment could. If possible (I have no idea the limitations of the forum or any other system potentially used) I would go with...

a) A more limited submissions period, say ~3 days, during which NOTHING is visible. Designs are submitted, edited etc as normal, and then at the end of the period all appear at the same time and no more can be added. Do it at a more well rounded time so that no one demographic has such impacting effect.

b) As this would produce an overwhelming number of submissions to look at, present it as a thumbnail gallery rather than list of titles. We are in theory voting for a creature over a design anyway, and paleolontological names are going to be meaningless for many posters.

c) Hide submitter names. It's a minimal effect, because external socials exist, but it will reduce it.

 

A completely different alternative, would be remove designs altogether and simply suggest a single piece of art, and extremely short ~20 word description of the creature, e.g "Large ceratopsian with 5 horns" or "Biggest Hadrosaur known to exist". Why? Because we are in theory voting for the creature, and Wildcard frequently change both the visual design AND the functional one, so this boils it down to the most important part.

 

I like the idea of more focused submissions, but I don't think creature groups is the way. I think creature niche, and/or location are better options. e.g, "Caves need more variety, please submit something to fill them out" or "A new late game resource is coming, please submit something you think would appropriately gather this". Although it would likely be completely ignored and we'd get a Tarbosaurus trying to wedge into a cave, or Cockroach gathering metal

 

Finally, I absolutely agree that a single image should be included on the final voting page, so that at minimum everyone can see WHAT the creature is. It's 2023 and attention spans are an all-time low, so linking to threads with long-winded paleo names is unlikely to have much hope.

 

they aren't all perfect solutions but I think it's a step in the right direction

regarding 2 though if that's how you see it then might as well just limit each author to just 1 submission per vote, but the idea of only 1 making it to the 2nd round is purely in the interest of fairness for all

[SuperDooM]

This is a complex issue, Kage raises some great points and fair points about it.
I'm not 100% agreeing with each point though, but maybe more like 90% lol
The only point I'm not sure about is the multiple submissions for a single author.
Plainly put: A good idea is a good idea. And sometimes a single mind has many good ideas. If someone puts the hard work in filling in their design for unique creatures, they should still be able to do it. Kage mentions how a CC can use an anon account to make their post, but any author can do the same thing to make multiple submission. This only creates a new problem where a good designer might not be able to take proper credit for their work if it wins, and any other random troll can attempt appropriate the credit. Seems like there's no way around this problem without just overcomplicating it. So multiple subs "should" be fine.
I don't want quality intellectual works to be systematically suppressed, because in the end, we the community are the ones who miss out on new opportunities.

The only way I see it being really problematic is when mixing multiple subs with the issue of the author being a popular content creator.
It's true a CC can easily blow the competition out of the water with their followers, stunting the intended fairness of the vote.
I don't even want to try submitting a design again myself, I saw how most creature wins were from someone who had followers, or had so many upvotes by the time I got the chance to submit my creation that I knew there was no way to catch up to them - which ties in to your point about how there isn't enough time for submissions to get in before voting starts too. The 3 day "grace period" for subs is a good simple solution, I like that. Though maybe we can still let people see the subs, just not vote yet.

I also agree with disabling downvotes. It's redundant and unnecessary, and seeing those numbers can be quite discouraging. We only need upvotes or nothing.

I'm not sure what to do about "disadvantaged creatures". This is a community attitude issue. I can only think of fixing this by breaking the subs down into categories and having multiple winners, one per category. But the Devs might end up with too many new community creatures to make.

Repeat submissions... this I'm not sure about either. If a creature design is great and almost wins, maybe it should get another chance? There's only so many new dinosaurs to add in the game if we're basing it on actual real life discoveries. Maybe a limit of 2 or 3 repeat vote subs would be ok? If it doesn't make the cut after a couple chances then it should be moved aside.

Here's a few more points of my own to throw in the bag.
I think there should be 3 winners per vote. But not necessarily the "top 3".
One should obviously be the top voted.
One should be "Developers Choice", where the Devs have their own internal vote on which one they like best, or just "Game Designers Choice". I imagine there's probably a lot of great ideas people propose and the Devs are like "AW COME ON!! That's such a good idea! Why isn't anyone voting for this?? We should make it anyway."  lol
If they told us they like an idea anyway and are going to make it, that might encourage people to submit more ideas or make even better submission designs, knowing there's a slightly higher chance of winning. It's their game, I think they should get a choice too. I want them to be allowed to do this.
And a third winner... maybe something like "Dev-Nominations", where the Devs pick the top handful that they like, and the community re-votes on that batch. So it's like we work together and interact a bit more as a community to design cool creatures.
I suspect some people won't like the idea of the Devs picking their favorites, and what some of their choices might imply. But I think my 3 votes type proposition is a fair compromise for everything. IF we choose to solve anything with multiple winners anyway.

One thing I want to add is how much "homework" it feels like I'm doing when trying to look at as many submissions as I can. There's too many to get a clear picture of what options there are when browsing the submissions in the forum page by page with a non-standardization of the descriptions.
I propose a browsing page be created that has a thumbnail image and the creature name of every submission.
It's standard procedure on the internet nowadays to absorb a higher amount of info about a post with a clear thumbnail image.
One page to rule them all, one page the find them. One page to bring them all and in the Arkness bind them!

Thank you @EvilKage360 for bringing up this subject! All of the points you note are good points of discussion. Even the ones I don't agree with. Maybe someone has more ideas to help put all of this together.
I'm open to counter-points to my own ideas here. I have no idea if I'm really right about anything. I'd like to see some YouTuber's cover the topic too!

[Eli]

We discussed issue 2 at length and ultimately had to ask ourselves : is our creature submission event supposed to focus on the creature or the person who submits the creature, to which the answer echoes what a few users in this thread have already stated. If a user's submissions prove popular enough with the community that multiples of them manage to make it into the top 10, then that just means that by their merit they provided multiple creatures that the community would like to see.

In regards to disabling downvotes, it is unfortunately tied to how posts gain upvotes. The system in place only asks our end on what user groups can rank topics/answers, and does not distinguish between ranking them up or down.

[Kage360]

31 minutes ago, Eli said:

We discussed issue 2 at length and ultimately had to ask ourselves : is our creature submission event supposed to focus on the creature or the person who submits the creature, to which the answer echoes what a few users in this thread have already stated. If a user's submissions prove popular enough with the community that multiples of them manage to make it into the top 10, then that just means that by their merit they provided multiple creatures that the community would like to see.

I'm still not convinced of this reasoning, I am highly against it, as I think it sets a dangerous and extremely unfair precedent for future votes, if the idea of allowing multiple submissions to be submitted but only one can move on to round 2 is too iffy for you guys then I suggest limiting author's to one creature per vote to avoid it all together, I can in no way stand by that reasoning, however I feel issue 1 screwed over 11th place more than anything, while issue 2 screwed over 12th place

[RaephClark]

12 hours ago, Freyn said:

I like the idea of more focused submissions, but I don't think creature groups is the way. I think creature niche, and/or location are better options. e.g, "Caves need more variety, please submit something to fill them out" or "A new late game resource is coming, please submit something you think would appropriately gather this". Although it would likely be completely ignored and we'd get a Tarbosaurus trying to wedge into a cave, or Cockroach gathering metal

Creature niches and locations are good options to in terms of themed submissions, though I still believe creature groups as themes are still viable since it’ll still have a focus for everyone instead of everyone scrambling for a random creature.
 

If we did an Invertebrate Theme for example, creatures like the Maevia, Yingi, Manipulator, the one roly-poly unicycle creature, and many more would have a better chance to shine and be recognized, and it could be for any of the maps really as the current submissions just focus on specific maps as a whole. Plus it could weed out the more toxic side of the community, or those who don’t really care or are afraid of certain invertebrates (I have nothing against those who have fears, just giving them a chance to not participate in something if they don’t want to). 

4 hours ago, Eli said:

We discussed issue 2 at length and ultimately had to ask ourselves : is our creature submission event supposed to focus on the creature or the person who submits the creature, to which the answer echoes what a few users in this thread have already stated. If a user's submissions prove popular enough with the community that multiples of them manage to make it into the top 10, then that just means that by their merit they provided multiple creatures that the community would like to see.

In terms of voting multiple times, I do agree that if the community likes it, then there should be no issue. On the other hand, it does put off another potential person from making it to the Top 10, especially if they worked hard on refining and making their submission as interesting as possible for the community.  So in that case, it may make sense to allow the 11th place submitter to participate in the vote, as long as another person has actually submitted two or more creatures that have made it to the Top 10. 

To add to this, another thing that could be done if one submitter had two creatures make it to the Top 10 is that the two creatures could be placed as one candidate while allowing the 11th place submitter to participate as the 10th. And if the submitter with two creatures wins, another short vote should be held to decide which of the two should win. 
 

4 hours ago, Eli said:

In regards to disabling downvotes, it is unfortunately tied to how posts gain upvotes. The system in place only asks our end on what user groups can rank topics/answers, and does not distinguish between ranking them up or down.

I don’t know how it fully works, but if a comment in a submission receives downvotes, does that affect the submission as a whole? Because part of the source of downvotes is the negative and sometimes even destructive comments towards a submission, to which supporters of the creature downvote those who make such comments on those submissions. It hurts to see others be massacred by comments such as these, and thus I think it needs to be addressed community-wide that destructive criticism and behavior is not okay. I know a few people who have tried to help defend the community from situations that either hurt submissions or throws off the balance of others. There were even cases where these people were wrongly punished by certain mods or whoever just because they stood up for something. A community is meant to build everyone up, not tear people down. I know everywhere on the internet is unfortunately that way, but everyone should be treated fairly, even those higher up in the pyramid. (Sorry I went rambling on about this topic, but I’m just saying how I feel).

 

On a separate topic…I know for one particular vote, the Carcharodontosaurus was able to miraculously be added thanks to the community voting for it several times as it made it into the Top 10 (I think always in second?) I’ve seen numerous creatures make it to the Top 10 multiple times that people absolutely loved, especially the Maevia, Giagantophis, Acinonyx/Miracinonyx, Yingi, Gorgonops, Giant Bison, etc. I know it probably wouldn’t be possible to give every one of these creatures that same treatment as the Carchar, but could there be some sort of “Creature DLC” that could be added in the future to include these wonderful creatures? Heck it would be cool to even have Wildcard collaborate with the originators of these submissions so they can at least be rewarded somehow for their hard work making these creatures the best they could be! Wishful thinking I know, but with the Community Crunches not including much news except for the Creature Submissions, I think it’s worth trying at least once, right?

[Kaiarra]

5 hours ago, SuperDooM said:

Here's a few more points of my own to throw in the bag.
I think there should be 3 winners per vote. But not necessarily the "top 3".
One should obviously be the top voted.
One should be "Developers Choice", where the Devs have their own internal vote on which one they like best, or just "Game Designers Choice". I imagine there's probably a lot of great ideas people propose and the Devs are like "AW COME ON!! That's such a good idea! Why isn't anyone voting for this?? We should make it anyway."  lol
If they told us they like an idea anyway and are going to make it, that might encourage people to submit more ideas or make even better submission designs, knowing there's a slightly higher chance of winning. It's their game, I think they should get a choice too. I want them to be allowed to do this.
And a third winner... maybe something like "Dev-Nominations", where the Devs pick the top handful that they like, and the community re-votes on that batch. So it's like we work together and interact a bit more as a community to design cool creatures.
I suspect some people won't like the idea of the Devs picking their favorites, and what some of their choices might imply. But I think my 3 votes type proposition is a fair compromise for everything. IF we choose to solve anything with multiple winners anyway.

I really like this idea, though personally I would have:
winner 1: the creature that wins round one
winner 2: the creature that wins after 9 rounds of ranked choice voting
winner 3 (optional): 'devs choice' pick from the other 8

....Not that I see it happening as it double/triples the amount of work for the devs

As for the original post:
1. I don't think people with large ark YT/mod followings should be able to submit (garuga, depths, syntac, nexxuz, etc). Edmon wouldn't have stood a chance at top 10 if it hadn't been 'advertised', and this entire fiasco was very unfair towards the Yingi creator. If a big CC wants to submit require them to do it anonymously (and if they're caught secretly promoting it remove the entry)
2. I think people should be allowed to have multiple submissions in round 1, BUT only the most popular one will be pushed into round 2
3. Grace period would be great
4. The downvote trolls suck, but already assumed it can't be fixed without rewriting the entire forum code
5. This ones hard - only solution I can see is breaking up later votes into categories so we can get some creatures in that normally get overlooked or stuggle due to phobias (spiders/bugs, snakes, shoulder pets, small herbivores, etc)
6. I have zero issue with repeat submissions

Edited September 12, 2023 by Kaiarra

[WitheringSoul113001]

19 hours ago, Freyn said:

a) A more limited submissions period, say ~3 days, during which NOTHING is visible. Designs are submitted, edited etc as normal, and then at the end of the period all appear at the same time and no more can be added. Do it at a more well rounded time so that no one demographic has such impacting effect.

I agree with Freyn for this portion the most, as this would honestly be best for the submissions but at the same time, I feel 3 days is too much, maybe 24 hours but the same concept, so you submit it, nobody can see it till after the 24h, but still allow people to post after that 24h limit

that way we the readers dont have 100s of submissions to read over because there was 3 days of subs we couldnt read automatically

two things I would like to see however, start merging submissions again, it gives everyone thats behind a chance to get higher up like before, rather than there being say 10 koolasuchus on one page or in total, there should be 1 koolasuchus in total, it dramatically helps the other submitters out

i dont think that its fair for people to only win once, you arent really "winning" you get the satisfaction knowing your creature is coming into the game but your hard work on developing a concept is not guaranteed so that satisfaction can be lost as easily. So I feel like if you have won already you should be able to submit a creature again, maybe no more than 3 more creatures in total but point stands 

[Sovira]

15 hours ago, Eli said:

We discussed issue 2 at length and ultimately had to ask ourselves : is our creature submission event supposed to focus on the creature or the person who submits the creature, to which the answer echoes what a few users in this thread have already stated. If a user's submissions prove popular enough with the community that multiples of them manage to make it into the top 10, then that just means that by their merit they provided multiple creatures that the community would like to see.

In regards to disabling downvotes, it is unfortunately tied to how posts gain upvotes. The system in place only asks our end on what user groups can rank topics/answers, and does not distinguish between ranking them up or down.

I wanted to toss an idea out there that could be a compromise for this but it might be not be the best idea for sure, and I could see some disagreements with it! 

The idea was that you could maybe limit it to at least 2 getting in there, which honestly may not really have to, I see 3 making it in at once as highly unlikely but I could be wrong! But in the case of 2 making it in, it didn't count it against the total, so there would ultimately be 11 (it wouldn't kick the 10th place out)! 

Now I do see flaws with this like, I'm sure it would make the ranked-choice selection rounds more difficult, maybe putting strain on how it counts up in the end but I genuinely have no idea how far that goes, so just wanted to throw this out there!

[ashgcy]

On 9/12/2023 at 4:18 AM, Eli said:

We discussed issue 2 at length and ultimately had to ask ourselves : is our creature submission event supposed to focus on the creature or the person who submits the creature, to which the answer echoes what a few users in this thread have already stated. If a user's submissions prove popular enough with the community that multiples of them manage to make it into the top 10, then that just means that by their merit they provided multiple creatures that the community would like to see.

In regards to disabling downvotes, it is unfortunately tied to how posts gain upvotes. The system in place only asks our end on what user groups can rank topics/answers, and does not distinguish between ranking them up or down.

I think a really good system for the votes would be, during the RankedVote stage, two winners were chosen.

Of course this would mean more work for the team to implement, but it could help with a lot of the false comments from angry voters saying "rigged!" because they don't understand the vote process.
-----
The first winner would be the same as how it currently works. The design that the average amount of people would be the "most okay with". Since, to my knowledge, that's how RankedVote works, it averages out the choices until you get the one most people would be mostly happy with.

The second winner would be whoever was on top in Round 1 of the RankedVote. Whatever wins in Round 1 is the one that the most people across the board liked the most. 

-----

To use an example, in Aberration, in Round 1 I believe Maevia had the most votes, so that would count as it winning. Then after the results were averaged out, Yi qi (now Yi ling) was the winner. Giving the two winners

In the case of the final winner being the same as the Round 1 winner, it could either be a case of letting whoever was 2nd place in Round 1 be the additional creature, or using discretion say it'd be the only winner.

Both of these creatures won fair and square, one with a majority, one with an average. Adding both in wouldn't be pitying one or the other.
 

I really think this system would vastly improve the voting process and help reduce all that "OH MY GOD RIGGED BECAUSE MY FAVOURITE LOST" type response

Edited September 14, 2023 by ashgcy

[RaephClark]

On 9/13/2023 at 11:53 PM, ashgcy said:

I think a really good system for the votes would be, during the RankedVote stage, two winners were chosen.

Of course this would mean more work for the team to implement, but it could help with a lot of the false comments from angry voters saying "rigged!" because they don't understand the vote process.
-----
The first winner would be the same as how it currently works. The design that the average amount of people would be the "most okay with". Since, to my knowledge, that's how RankedVote works, it averages out the choices until you get the one most people would be mostly happy with.

The second winner would be whoever was on top in Round 1 of the RankedVote. Whatever wins in Round 1 is the one that the most people across the board liked the most. 

-----

To use an example, in Aberration, in Round 1 I believe Maevia had the most votes, so that would count as it winning. Then after the results were averaged out, Yi qi (now Yi ling) was the winner. Giving the two winners

In the case of the final winner being the same as the Round 1 winner, it could either be a case of letting whoever was 2nd place in Round 1 be the additional creature, or using discretion say it'd be the only winner.

Both of these creatures won fair and square, one with a majority, one with an average. Adding both in wouldn't be pitying one or the other.
 

I really think this system would vastly improve the voting process and help reduce all that "OH MY GOD RIGGED BECAUSE MY FAVOURITE LOST" type response

I do like this system here. I think it gives the community hope for the creatures they came up with or voted for too. And even if it’s more work, more people would be inclined to buy the game if they see their favorite make it in!