So, there are some players who pretty consistently get their designs picked in the theme design contests. To be clear, I'm probably counted if not as one of those people, then something close to it; this isn't someone who doesn't get their designs picked being salty and saying the people who get picked don't deserve it- I have a decent track record for my own theme designs getting picked, I know designing takes time and effort, and the people who get multiple themes picked per fest do do good work!- but just that I'd like to see more names, new names I haven't seen get their themes picked... getting picked?

Like, as much as I'm thrilled to get my designs picked, it kinda makes me feel like maybe there should be some kind of limit to how many designs can get picked from one person per fest/ per year.
A) it feels like kind of a lot when someone gets 3+ designs picked in a fest, B) if you're a person who collects their own themes, having many themes to collect in one fest can get stressful (I had three designs picked once and oh man, that was exhausting), and C) there are a lot of good designers out there who haven't gotten any of their designs picked who become more and more discouraged as fests pass and they see the same few names getting picked again and again

(Especially when there are so many of good designs for a species in the thread and Krin and Fai choose to species-swap a design someone did for a completely different species for that theme slot instead? That one has always baffled me I'm gonna be honest?)

Maybe something like if a player has two designs picked in Fest1, they can only have a max of one design picked in Fest2? Or maybe just a cap of 6 designs per player per year as a maximum or something? Or if they got 2 picked in Fest1 yearY, then max 1 for Fest1 yearZ?

So if Krin and Fai had like, three designs from one person that were in top place for getting picked, they choose which runner-up was closest to winning out and go with that instead for one of them?

It'd be interesting to see other people's thoughts/opinions on this (especially other people who get their designs picked pretty consistently- what are their opinions on this matter? I don't know!), or other ideas, but it's just something I've been ruminating on for like, a year now

This is one of those things that might have a lot of colliding opinions, but honestly I really do agree. I'm always super happy for those who get picked and I done even care if I get picked, but there are so many good designs for every fest!

I think that having a few picked per fest is fine, maybe you really nailed the designs right, and maybe you'd never gotten picked before! I think there should be a yearly cap of some kind though because there are other designers who do a great job.

I agree with the theme swaps on species thing, I think its a super cool idea but I find it hard to believe that the runners up for that species weren't at least equal to the swap. I know player input/voting would probably end badly but I wish players could have some input on stuff as I think Krin and Fai probably have specific taste in themes and like others have said before, some designers just fit their theme taste really well.

I know people will always complain and personally I love the themes this fest and last fest but some people have said that themes sometimes feel similar in colors to past themes and stuff as well. It makes sense because, I mean, they are similar in color schemes to designs that have already been chosen so they'd have an aesthetic advantage. I think Krin and Fai do an amazing job of picking themes but if one person is winning multiple times a year against other talented people then maybe there needs to be more variety in how themes are picked.

I don't know lol I'm just kinda rambling, but I do this this is an important topic to bring up even though some people may disagree. I think there are plenty of great themes every fest and I feel like if the theme choosing is real close, then designers who haven't gotten a theme that year should be priority! It's not like there a huge gap in talent with every design, there are so many lovely ones! Just want to restate that the winners do deserve it even if they get multiple themes picked!!! Like you did amazing and I don't want to come across as saying otherwise, but there should be more room for others in future fests if possible.

Okay thats all lol sorry for so much text! :b

Edit: Whenever I post stuff on my phone it removes all my goshdarn apostrophes idk why I promise I can write stuff properly ;w;

I sort of agree, it can be very discouraging to newer players/players who just don't win.

However, my agreement comes from the idea that the themes tend to be very similar, not just because they all have to adhere to a theme, because quite frankly, a theme like 'winter' can have a TON of variety (as can any of the themes we get), but also because so many times the same people get picked over and over and over again.

Which, is great, they have gorgeous themes. But, so do other people who don't get picked. I think that if there were, at least, a soft requirement for more people to be picked then we would see more variety in themes as well, both in individual years and over the years. (we do get variety, but sometimes themes from year to year can start looking very similar)

By 'soft requirement' I mean that if there are multiple 'good designs' for a particular species, then someone who already has a design picked should be shuffled to the back of the list. However, if there aren't enough 'good designs' for that species, then someone who has a good design but was already picked should be selected again, rather than species swap or pick a design that doesn't fit the theme.

@FierePepr

I don't know if this could be the issue, but I know that Gryff's chat has a huge issue with 'Smart Quotes'. You might check to see if smart quotes is on in your phone and disable them and see if that helps (sorry, I can't help you turn them off, as I don't have a phone and I don't know how to disable them)

"It'd be interesting to see other people's thoughts/opinions on this (especially other people who get their designs picked pretty consistently- what are their opinions on this matter? I don't know!), or other ideas, but it's just something I've been ruminating on for like, a year now"

I usually don't reply to these threads because people will see me as biased but since you asked about people who've had designs picked more than once I decided to go ahead and say something. Personally I disagree with any limitations on designs getting picked. I wouldn't want a good design skipped because of a limit. I think it also takes away some of the joy from people who like designing. Krin and Fai don't look at any names of who designed what when picking things out which I think is impartial enough.

These threads come up occasionally and I cringe a bit when I see them because of how unkind things got some years ago regarding this. It made me afraid to even mention designs getting picked.

Edit: I also forgot to mention that every time this comes up that Krin and Fai have turned it down.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=95556&page=1#4 Author: Savynn Time Posted: 12/29/2020 at 6:12 PM "It'd be interesting to see other people's thoughts/opinions on this (especially other people who get their designs picked pretty consistently- what are their opinions on this matter? I don't know!), or other ideas, but it's just something I've been ruminating on for like, a year now" I usually don't reply to these threads because people will see me as biased but since you asked about people who've had designs picked more than once I decided to go ahead and say something. Personally I disagree with any limitations on designs getting picked. I wouldn't want a good design skipped because of a limit. I think it also takes away some of the joy from people who like designing. Krin and Fai don't look at any names of who designed what when picking things out which I think is impartial enough. These threads come up occasionally and I cringe a bit when I see them because of how unkind things got some years ago regarding this. It made me afraid to even mention designs getting picked. Edit: I also forgot to mention that every time this comes up that Krin and Fai have turned it down.

This sums up how I feel pretty well. Like Savynn, as someone who has had designs chosen on a rather regular basis, I'm going to appear biased. But here's my two cents: I really don't see a huge problem in the way Krin and Fai choose designs the way they do now.

Themed picks are not the only reason for why I design, but I will admit the contests are a significant driving factor. Being forced to think of themes loosely following a seasonal concept has absolutely made me design more often, and with a far wider range of colors than my usual comfort zone. I feel that imposing any sort of limit would be restrictive and demotivating. Of course I can't speak for those who haven't gotten any chosen; I personally would hate to have a restriction on my entries as a designer.

One of my concerns with the "yearly quota" idea is that as fests go on, people who realize they've reached their quota aren't going to want or be able to submit in contests later in the year. If I've had, say, 3 spring and 3 summer themes, I probably won't bother submitting any fall or winter contests if I know for an absolute fact they aren't going to be chosen. The available entries to choose from are much fewer, and I think it would be better if there's a wider variety of designs for potential themes. If there aren't any, the admins usually design their own, which can take their time away from other components of the festival that they should address.

I don't always agree with the decisions of themes. Yet I don't think it's right to get angry at a someone for entering good designs, or if the admins happen to like them. When I was new and didn't have any of my first entries chosen, I looked through the submissions of players whose names showed up often on the list. Seeing others' successes were not disappointing, I saw them as examples I could follow and try to analyze in order to improve my own. Sometimes, there are a few fantastic designs that aren't picked, but I've rarely seen someone with many consistently good entries skipped over for multiple festivals. There are some cases where I disagree with their picks. For example, my own Arctic Expedition design, originally a Luffox entry, was species-swapped to Sylvorpa, and had almost half the hexes altered. Still, I'd assume that the reasoning behind this was more because they liked the original concept but liked other Luffs better - not a "hey this design is by this player, we should pick it!" type of mentality.

I feel that leaving theme decisions to site administrators without imposing restrictions on whose they can choose - as it is now - is be the fairest way of selecting designs. I worry that player input will be biased and lead to a more negative atmosphere. The themed contests are contests at their core, with the admins as judges. It's kind of like selecting a sports team: a coach should choose people who have performed better in the tryouts, not prioritize someone solely because they haven't played on the team before.

I absolutely don't agree with imposing an overall theme limit per year for players, but I don't see the harm in them limiting the amount of designs a person can have selected during a single fest (which I agreed can look somewhat biased and discouraging to newer players or even those who have been designing themes for a while to see someone nearly single-handedly win repeatedly.)
Having a larger pool of players to choose from would encourage some more variety in the themes that are selected. Personally I've only had one theme picked out of the 3 total fests I've entered in (lol) and don't pay much attention to the theme contests in general, but I've definitely seen the same faces get picked again and again. Ultimately I don't personally think the admins have much of a system in place for selecting themes and I think at the end of the day the selections do come down to their own personal preferences.

@FierePepr sometimes sylestia just eats apostrophes, its a weird quirk that has to do with... something that I can't remember in the programming.
And I can see how there would be conflicting opinions, but I definitely felt it was still something worthy of, if not any form of implementation, then at least some kind of discussion.

@Jemadar yeah, we know that Krin and Fai basically get it down to a shortlist of themes and then pick from there, so it'd be nice if people who get onto a species' shortlist who don't already have a theme or two picked for a fest were more likely to be picked

@Savynn The thing is, there are always loads of good designs- just looking at the player-made fest theme pick threads and all of them usually have like, five picks for each species. So it wouldn't be a matter of picking a 'bad' design over a 'good' one because a designer already had two picked, but rather just an extra consideration when going through the 'which of these will we go with for the finalised themes' shortlists
If there were some kind of a cap of picks per fest, I'm not sure how that would put a damper on the joy of the designing process? Any of the designs could still get picked, after all (excluding in the case the 'maybe a yearly cap of six?' we have in amongst all the other speculations on what kind of cap might work), and when you go into a theme design contest does anyone really go in expecting to have more than one design- maybe two if they're lucky- picked if they actually do get anything selected?
I wasn't aware this topic had actually been brought up before- I've never noticed any threads about it? Entirely possible we missed seeing them, or they might have just been from the early years of the site before I joined? If you think any might have had relevant points brought up in them, we'd be happy to go look and read?


@Skor A 'yearly cap' was only one of several thoughts about ways to do it that we put forth, rather than the only one, and the potential downfall of that idea that you outlined is a very good point against it.
But that downfall doesn't really extend to if it was a cap on the amount per fest, whatever a cap like that may be. A person could still get any of their designs chosen in a fest, there would just be a limit on how many for any given fest (and hey, there's already a limit on prizes from the contests, at two).

Overall, the people that get picks do get chosen for a reason, and certainly less experienced designers can pick up knowledge and ideas on how to improve their own theme submissions by looking at/ asking about how they do their work, definite agree.
But, gosh, there are always so many good entries that, to use the coach-picking-team analogy (but badly), it isn't a case of a coach picking a newbie player over an experienced one because the newbie hasn't gotten a turn, but rather, a coach looking at their shortlists of extremely good players and picking ones that aren't already playing two spots on the field (I don't know how to make sports analogies whoops... hmm... maybe... all the different players have a 'team' of max 22 submissions and this coach makes a shortlist for each of the positions? This is a very silly attempt at doing an analogy and I should stop)

(Species swaps though... what about them? if they chose a different one over that design for that species, well, it's always possible the person could submit it again next time that fest rolls around? And there are good designs that were, well, specifically made for that species it got swapped onto?? I can't claim to know the thought processes behind Krin and Fai choosing to do Species Design Swaps, I only know it confuses me personally)

(you know what might be kinda interesting? Getting to see the shortlists for the theme picks for a fest (or just a single shortlist), with Krin and Fai's thoughts on why they went with one thing over another. It'd be interesting to see the actual thought processes that go into them. Or maybe it's just an "I'm feeling like a green lupora for this fest" kinda thing? I wonder how many of the people who do get discouraged by never getting themes picked but who do good designs make it onto those but lose out by a hair?)

Ah, okay, I don't have a mobile phone, and I never noticed that issue (but I don't post on the forums that much either), I just knew that on Gryffs, the chat hates Smart Quotes, and will frustrate players no end, because all that shows up is 'null' when they try to post things with those quotes in them. So they have to turn them off.



I don't even think it has to be a true 'limit' but rather more of a 'okay, we have 10 good ones for Nephs, but only 1 good one for Lighira, One of the good ones for Nephs is also by the one good one for the LIgh, so lets see about picking one of the other 9 good ones for the Neph'.

Basically, if they have multiple species that there only seems to be one 'good' design, then that design is picked no matter what. But, in the cases of having multiple good designs for a species, it would just mean that if one of those designs was by someone who already had a design picked, they would look at the other designs and pick from those.

People could still get multiple designs picked, but there would hopefully still be more variety in the designs picked.


Alternatively, or in conjunction even, perhaps the theme contests could get a bit 'tighter' by Fai and Krin, instead of just going 'okay, this has to be 'winter' themed', giving specific prompts for the species, based upon what they would be looking for.

It doesn't have to be 'Okay, I want a Red and Green Ornament Neph' but more like the forum game where we were told 'this pet has a Green G1'.

So, it could simply be a list of the species, where it would look something like:

Griffi - Winter Storm
Neph - C1 = #004523 (I do not know what color that is... just picked numbers :P)
Lupora - M3 = Red (thus allowing any shade of red to be used, but it has to be a red)

and so on. It could either be a theme, such as winter storm, or having to design around a specific color.

I know I found the forum game like that very fun, and honestly, I no longer find the theme design contests fun because I doubt I would get picked, and trying to come up with good themes to use, for me at least, is hard.

This could also help newer people get picked, because if Fai and Krin want a 'green lupora' then they will know that from the onset and be able to incorporate green into their design.

It might also cut down on the species swaps as well.

Taking away joy was referring to the yearly limit idea which you then further discussed with Skor.

Regarding the previous times this has brought up, there's been a lot of drama in the past regarding this. I hate bringing this thread out but it very clearly states both Krin and Fai's opinions on the matter. I remember other places this has been brought up and Krin has made it clear many times that while it looks much like a competition to us that it's not to be considered a contest but merely a way to help make the process for choosing themes easier on them. I skipped to one of Krin's replies.

https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=17499#7

This has always been an extremely contentious issue, and I stand by my response on the thread Sav linked in the post above mine

What is more unfair? Banning people from even competing because they have consistently good designs? Or that some people don't win. (Which there will ALWAYS be people who don't win, especially as the player population rises and more people submit designs.)

Themed pets are chosen based on what the admins feel are the best designs. They don't go "let me see what Xavion, Ley, Sav, Scath, and all the other previous winners posted first and ignore everyone else!" From what I've glimpsed of the process, they take a handful of designs they like at a glance from across all of the pages, then narrow down the selection from there. (It was years ago, but I saw a google doc with about 9 or so lupora designs that were contending for themed picks, but only 2 could be selected for the fest.)

As I mentioned the last time this came up, there's also an issue of some players only submitting designs for certain species. I've had a lot of themed pets selected, yes, but most often it's the Lunemara, Morrko, and other species that have consistently fewer submissions. If a player only designs the popular species - Nixi, Nephs, etc, then of course they're less likely to win because there's a much larger pool of designs the admins are having to choose from.

Often I'm sure it's a hard call for the admins to make, but outright banning certain players from even participating is no way to go about it. Themed pets should be chosen based on the design itself - not the designer and discriminating past victors would be just as bad as playing favoratism towards past winner. (Which, as I mentioned, is not a part of how the admins choose the themes.)