Okay, so we've had a couple fests now where there were leaderboards. Pretty much each time it's kind of the same. I see a lot of hurt feelings, some saltiness, and the general awkwardness from having to compete against close friends when everyone wants the same things.

So then I thought.. instead of basically making every leaderboard be a cutthroat free for all against one another.. how interesting would it be to be able to compete in teams, working together *with* a group of your friends instead of constantly having to work against them.

Basic structure suggestions:

Basic descriptions of the leaderboards and ability to form teams would ideally go up prior to the leaderboard opening to give people time to find those with like minded goals to work with, and for friends to decide what they want to work towards.

Group size of 4-8 people?

Winning teams: Everyone wins the prize from the slot (MVP potentially get a little something extra? Something small so as not to cause inner team bickering?)

Collective effort goes towards goal together.

A team, once formed, should be permanent for that particular leaderboard round to prevent any sort of hinky things from happening such as disbanding over disagreements.

Potentially able to be a member of multiple teams on different types of board, so that different boards can be pursued by one person, should not everyone in their team like both X and Y that they want to pursue? [May not work depending on factors. Might need to be careful to not have one person become multiple teams ace-in-the-hole for the same exact board or such).

My Pros for this:
-Less "every man for himself", more teamwork, which in turn could be loads more fun
-Leaderboards would feel less "personal" because people are not in direct competition with their friends
-Could be a good way to get to know new people and include newbies in festivals

My Cons for this:
-People getting left out would be a big thing - can definitely see that causing drama and problems within friendships
-Newbies would struggle to take part, a team of brand new players wouldn't stand a chance
-Current overachievers could easily team up with other overachievers and work round the clock to get to their goals - could potentially be virtually impossible to overtake and sweep up good prizes.
-How would we control the influx of exclusive pets? These new leaderboards have meant the exclusive pets (now without the wheel) have stayed pretty exclusive as there are only 5 per leaderboard. In teams a lot more would need to be handed out.

Overall I think a team event style leaderboard would be a great idea - but teams would have to be randomised from people who actively play/choose to take part, otherwise the teams would be biased and could cause even more issues.

Good thoughts Zelly :)

I really like this idea. I don't always get to be on during the festivals and it would be cool if someone who has a lot of obligations that happen to occur on the dates of the fest to have a shot at a prize. ^^

How would prizes work? Say there are 8 people in the team that won.. does that mean eight 3v prizes? Seems way to excessive.

I also see an issue with a select few, very active and "rich" players easily taking over any prize they wanted with little to no hope for anyone else.

Imo, for this style of leaderboard.. there wouldn't *be* a 3 vis slot. What place you got on the board wouldn't matter so much. #1 team and #3 team would be getting the same exact thing, to avoid some of the very things brought up in this thread. If you got on the winning slots, you'd get a 2 vis.

Hm, I'm wondering how would you deal with newbies who want to join in your teams? If you take them, it would be hard for your team to win the prize but if you don't take them, I guess they would feel alienated.

Luga, if we're being super honest here.. a newbie has really poor chances at any leaderboard, joint or solo.

Look at this fest right now for instance. Does a newbie stand the same chance at the release board as a veteran player with gold to spend? Not really.

Could they whip together a team of all Aeridini on the spot? Hmm.. do they even have gear for their current pet yet? Do they have a third team slot? Do they know what stats do yet?

They could make a run for the nurture board just fine, assuming they don't need to devote some of their fest time to things like actually advancing in the game (third team slot, unlocking mission slots, learning to make money, understanding how a fest even works, etc, etc). The newer you are, simply put, the harder every leaderboard is.

I don't think there really is any way to make a leaderboard newbie friendly. That doesn't mean that say, in the future, if a joint nurture leaderboard popped up, that a group of dedicated newbies couldn't pool together and take that board all on their own if they had enough collective ambition, though.

If Lavelle's suggestion of randomized teams were used (I am a bit apprehensive as to how you would avoid getting inactive players signing up for it and dropping off the face of the planet the next day.. maybe it would need a failsafe that if someone didn't log in for x consecutive days they are bumped from the group to make room for a more active player who is trying to join late? I don't know how this would work much), then you could potentially use ID number to say place 1-2 newer players in with a group of older ID numbers to give newbies more of a chance to get in a group.

IMO, nurturing is the hardest competition. Top players basically nurture almost all eggs for the species they want (especially fables). On top of that, there are also some players who breed a lot of their pets and releasing the eggs immediately after they've nurtured them so they can get more points than other players. Newbies wouldn't stand a chance against them.

I know newbies won't have chances but at least they don't have to feel alienated. How would you feel if you try to join 30 teams and all of them refuse you? I think no one would welcome newbies to join their teams except they are your friends and you don't care about winning.

I don't really like the idea of randomizing the teams, basically because I have a really bad luck. It wouldn't be funny to team up with fairly inactive players at the beginning of the festival. :p

Quite short of giving every single person on the site the same prize, and patting them on the back for it while you're at it, there is never going to be a 'perfect' or 'entirely fair' system where every single person has the identical odds of winning as everyone else. People have different internet speeds, different personal commitments outside of the game, and different attention spans for that matter.

That said, if 30 teams turn you down, there's going to be 30 other people who got turned down for those 30 teams. It's not like volleyball where you only have two choices to get into. Make a new team, would be the answer there. Get people to join your own team if you get turned away.

I think most players would have given up and leave this site before that. Also, it doesn't make sense to make a new team in game you know you aren't going to win or have nearly zero chance to win.

Btw, I wonder if Krin can make all players have same battle team designed by Krin or Fai during festival so new players don't have disadvantage fighting festival bosses. Also, if they decide to hold a nurturing competition again later, it would be great if they can decrease the point of players who release the egg or hatchling by 1 per egg/hatchling so the contest is fair for all players. I bet waiting 8 days until your eggs reach adolescent won't hurt your purse.