Ok, so I will get my bias out front first- I really dislike the whole leaderboard concept, it pits friends against each other and fosters all kinds of, in my humble opinion, bad behavior as people jockey for position.

If this is the way the site is going to deal with introducing Exclusive Pets, I for one probably will stop participating in these festivals, even with this one I am finding it hard to get excited about it, and really the whole planting these is exactly the kind of thing I would normally be all over.

Anyway, I don't necessarily want to say the leaderboards should be gotten rid of entirely, but can we have a more workable, more egalitarian way of getting these pets? A way that ANYONE (newbies or not) can work toward getting the pets they want, not just a top 4 (or ten, or whatever the top of the leaderboard offers).

What I mean is something like this- instead of a leaderboard, you have a series of things you need to do to get points, and at a certain number of points you get a prize. So if you release x number of a pet, you get a certain number of points. If you nurture x number of eggs, you get points for that too. Clobber all the named in the zone, and get some points. Do all the things on the list (which could be easy for simpler prizes and more involved for bigger prizes) and slowly work your way toward a goal of getting the bigger prizes.

This could even be done in teams rather than individually, if old timers want to help out newbies or something. There could be lots of ways this could work, fostering team work and community, rather than dividing players even more into haves and have-nots, like the current leader boards will tend to do.


Honestly I would rather see EVERYONE able to get the exclusive pets like this and have them "devalued" than the way only certain people can get them from the contests, and the only other alternative is very random drops from things like the seed packets etc. The whole random random random thing is starting to really bug me. There is little chance for most to legitimately work toward a goal of getting something specific, because the ways to get them are either stacked in favor of old timers, or just plain too random to be worth the extreme amount of over production necessary to farm what you want.

I mean, how many seed bags do I need to open to get an exclusive out of one? And even then, I'm not likely to get the ONE exclusive I want, am I? Since you can't trade seeds either once the packets are open, this whole thing has just left a really bad taste in my mouth, personally. I love the whole concept of planting seeds and nurturing them into eggs, but the seed packets and fertilizer bags really piss me off... but I guess that is another discussion, lol.

For this thread, I would just like to suggest that some kind of point system or something that ANYONE can follow to get the pets they want, or some way of making it possible for anyone to EARN through hard work the pets they want, would be a better option than this. For the purposes of making the site money, there could be things you could buy with diamonds that would help to boost your point totals that might help with all that, but I honestly hope that there are more, less cut throat ways of getting exclusive pets in the future.

I don't know of any good compromise to come to, because no MMORPG would be notorious without its competition and gamble features.

I get what you mean about the random thing. I know that gardening should be the alternative to competitions (or competitions are the alternative to random chance of getting seeds), but I have already seen schisms in some chats. The top 4% of leaderboards look very much like haves/have nots, and regardless of how much work/work ethic each player has put in, there's a considerable amount of salty drama that made me lose respect for several players, even some longtime standing ones.

I literally have lost a lot of respect for several players in this festival alone.

Very disappointed. :(

I honestly thought this contest lineup was better than the Fall Festival Mojo circumstances. I feel like I'm wrong. I think users will always have certain issues with competition until admins find the perfect model with the perfect blend.

Either way, I can just say that I support any change. The social repercussions are hitting a little too close to home, because it's driving some sensitive people up walls, people who want to play friendsies on the board feel betrayal for some reason, and I just... IDK. It's all a sticky situation from my view. :(



Edit: I sound very opinionated here, sorry lol.
I have no doubt there may be ways to tweak the leaderboards by next year, and there are parts of the community that still seem nice (friendliness in region chat).

The other suggestions (team leaderboards, prize differentiation, newbie boards) seem to have their pros and cons. Though I also think it's hard to satisfy everyone. x:

edit: What I said was already said in another thread :)

As far as randomness and seedbags goes, perhaps they could make it so you could trade in say, 15 seedbags for the seed you want. Instead of trying your luck. (As an alternative)

@Flute,
I haven't been paying attention to the leaderboards since the first few days. Has it been that bad? Hmm, I have been attributing almost all actions to the nature of the contest rather than to the people themselves, but not sure how bad it was that you would even lose respect for respect for people. D:

But if people are playing friendsies on the leader board and then feeling betrayed, that sounds very strange. As if there is a distortion between expectations and reality. If so, perhaps there should be a notice clarifying that it is a game/competition and like if you were playing a board game with friends, you don't just stop trying to win because someone asks you to.

I do want to add that there are also easy ways to avoid this possible trigger. Like some friends and I in the beginning divy'd up what we wanted so we weren't competing amongst each other. Additionally, we helped each other out. And did give and takes here and there in lots of ways making the festival experience more fun.

I think it's generally just how people in the community regard each other. Right now, because many players have an unsaid thing that everyone's generally "friendly" to each other, sometimes competition just stirs up the wrong thing in one another.

The main shtick that I noticed is that there was one player that smack-talked another, and then I happened to hear a lot of back-smack talk from several players to another player in private. This was the only incident of it that I've heard, but it caused a lot of stress to the affected player. (Of course, said player had friends to cheer her up, but it doesn't change the fact that there was a LOT said behind the scenes.)

Maybe not playing friendsies, but there are people who are "worried" about taking another person's spot, if it isn't already friendly competition.

The back-smack talk that I've been hearing is probably my fault, since I have every right to exit a chatroom that discusses that sort of thing. But its nonetheless disturbing and "disgusting" (as another user has put it to me) to see what goes on, from suspecting that one player is doing something fishy to win the boards, or grieving about an insult that sparks a negative motivation to take leaderboards.

ah wow, that sounds much worse than I was imagining. Didn't realize Sylestia had a behind the scenes community. ^.^''' Hope people were able to reconcile and move on; learn from it. Sounds unlucky that you got caught up in it all as well.

We will most likely make all leaderboards like this in the future anonymous until the contest is over. Just as the Eggling Auction is.