 Equal Rights For Small Hoods 

[WussyPuss]

That sounds like a question for round 3 of Developer's Question Time

only if I can copy and paste it

[daz258]

You think easier in say 4 person hood? One person make mistake or has life emergency and 25% your participants have gone.

In <5 person hood everyone does 320 and still no way achieve all horseshoes.

I'm more concerned you feel your effort more than the effort of small hoods. They different efforts but still efforts,

And why you concerned what prizes small hoods get for prizes for winning? It change value of your prize if I win 2 planks? You already got extra horseshoes. Horseshoes you can all get without having to do 320's each.

I appreciate the % use, being a numbers man. But no matter how large your hood is, in champions league if one member doesn't participate your chances of winning are dramatically reduced. Be it a 5 person hood, or a 20 person hood.

I'm not dismissing the efforts of smaller hoods, if I insinuated that anywhere that was not my intention. I do however demand a premium on the higher risk the larger hoods carry into derby. So many more members risk losing if one player drops the ball; as such they are worthy of a greater reward.

[PerkyCox]

I appreciate the % use, being a numbers man. But no matter how large your hood is, in champions league if one member doesn't participate your chances of winning are dramatically reduced. Be it a 5 person hood, or a 20 person hood.

I'm not dismissing the efforts of smaller hoods, if I insinuated that anywhere that was not my intention. I do however demand a premium on the higher risk the larger hoods carry into derby. So many more members risk losing if one player drops the ball; as such they are worthy of a greater reward.

I have not seen any dismissal of small NHs or their efforts in your posts. I think you and I are looking at it from a 4000-foot theoretical level, while others are looking it from their place on the ground in small-NH derbies.

I don't agree that that risk of failure is greater for a large NH in the derby than a small NH, and that therefore the larger NH should be more richly rewarded because more people would fail if one drops the ball.

It seems to me to be exactly the other way around: in a large NH derby, if one or 2 players don't complete their tasks for whatever reason, the NH may not place, but it is unlikely they will finish in the bottom 3 spots and be relegated from the CL because that NH has multiple players who can pick up the slack by buying an extra task with diamonds. So in a 30-person derby, if 2 players do 7 instead of 9 tasks, you have 28 other derbyers who can buy the extra task and cover that 2-task deficit AND MORE.

In a small NH derby, one player doing less than 9 tasks could be the difference between 12th place (safety) and 15th (relegation). In a 2 person derby, if one player does 7 of 9 tasks the best the other derbyers can do is make up 1 task with diamonds, So in my view there is MORE risk of failure in the smaller NH's derby than in the larger NH's derby chiefly because there are fewer players to pick up the slack by buying that 10th task.

I respect you Daz. I think your belief about the correctness of your position is held in good faith, born of your experience in your business career. I could even see the logic of it if the derby was about mitigating risk, and so those NHs that mitigated or avoided the risk of failure "best" win. But the derby is NOT about mitigating or compensating for risks: it's about piling up the derby points doing pixel tasks and picking up pixel prizes along the way.

The derby is a wild crazy ride against unseen, unknown, and unknowable opponents -- sometimes easy and sometimes hard, sometimes hotly contested and sometimes laughably one-sided, and this varies unpredictably from week to week.

I just don't see risk as a factor here at all, and I don't think there should be ANY discrepancy between the number of horseshoes or quality of cup prizes any NH that participates in the derby receives as a reward for that participation.

If it is important that SC runs a fair derby regardless of NH size (and it obviously is because SC matches NHs based on the number of players opted into each week's derby), then why is it NOT ALSO important to have the same fairness between NHs with respect to numbers of horseshoes and cup prizes, regardless of NH size?

Why does SC go to all the trouble every week to appropriately match NHs against "same strength" NHs (in terms of members opted in and without regard to total numbers of all neighbors), and then build a system that intentionally disadvantages small NHs, making it impossible for them to earn all the horseshoes? I just do not get this!!

Daz, I am not picking on you. I just don't get the rationale for the discrepancy. Is it a balance thing? Is it an algorithm thing? Is it a soft-power "get the into bigger NHs thing? (And why would that be a thing?)

I appreciate your position and your willingness to discuss and defend it. I do agree with you on one major point you made in an earlier post. While I respect you and your opinions, on this particular issue, we have a difference of opinion, and so we will just have to agree to POLITELY disagree.

[CacheCowQueen]

Yes I do, because it's about more than just Diamonds spent.

As I have said previously, it's very easy to get just 1 or 2 players to complete all of their high point tasks.

It's terribly difficult for a hood of say 20+ players to do that. Several players have to be diligently trash the task board around the clock, players have to make sacrifices and complete more tasks they don't necessarily love doing, all while carrying the risk that real life will get in the way a small proportion (say 1 to 3) of the participants on that given week and really hurt their score; making it impossible to win despite the other 20 players completing all 9 tasks + a 10th paid for task.

I'm more concerned that the majority here consider that to be immaterial and unworthy of greater reward

Edit: Sorry to spoil the party, I'm usually on the same side as most of you guys! Just not on this occasion.

We seem to be forgetting we are not talking about winning neighborhoods not getting their bonus prizes. We are simply talking about small hoods mathematically not being able to reach all horseshoes and the nice deco that comes with it. I am currently in a 4 person derby. Last week there were only 3 of us. We all three had very high respectable scores but the top 3 hoods all had perfect scores. 3200 pts. Even the winning hoods did not get all the horseshoes at 10,000 (3200x3=9600). They put in every bit as much work as most of the big hoods. I'm happy they received their winning bonus items but we all deserved to earn all horseshoes. Perhaps it could be adjusted to a % sliding scale based on the number of players.

You can have a larger hood only giving a halfhearted attempt at derby, lose miserably and still get their horseshoes. How is that right, when you have 3 perfect scores and not be allowed to get access to the nicer prizes that come with it.

edit: I forgot to mention the winning derby prizes should however be a little more kicking than they are. After all no matter the size of your hood... you worked exceptionally hard to make top 3... you earned it.

[daz258]

Why does SC go to all the trouble every week to appropriately match NHs against "same strength" NHs (in terms of members opted in and without regard to total numbers of all neighbors), and then build a system that intentionally disadvantages small NHs, making it impossible for them to earn all the horseshoes? I just do not get this!!

Neither do I, while I do appreciate the game giving bigger rewards to bigger hoods; it's been executed in a poor manner. I do not like how it is impossible for smaller hoods to never reach all the horseshoes. They can see the 9 horseshoes right in front of them every week knowing it's absolutely impossible to reach them, that's oppressive. Being punished for being small and being rewarded for being large are two different things.

Games need to reward behavior they want players to adhere too, not punish them for choosing a different path. Clash of Clans makes similar mistakes too. I forever battled for League Perks there to encourage players into higher leagues; never happened during my Clash career - just stuck with town hall penalties instead.

Daz, I am not picking on you. I just don't get the rationale for the discrepancy. Is it a balance thing? Is it an algorithm thing? Is it a soft-power "get the into bigger NHs thing? (And why would that be a thing?

I appreciate your position and your willingness to discuss and defend it. I do agree with you on one major point you made in an earlier post. While I respect you and your opinions, on this particular issue, we have a difference of opinion, and so we will just have to agree to POLITELY disagree.

Always enjoy your debates Perky, for or against.

I will admit sometimes I get a bit blind with my business like thinking in here; I am guilty of doing that with the trade thread too.

[WussyPuss]

All is good when we can have a proper discussion without personal attacks and nastiness

[SmallChange]

Just had to address that part I bolded: how on earth were they going to make hoods have a 10 player minimum? Oops, sorry, you can't create a new hood, because you're 1 player and the minimum is 10. Like, that's an awful idea on their part, glad that never came to fruition.

DERBY not NH. You would have needed 10 in your NH to participate in the Derby.

All is good when we can have a proper discussion without personal attacks and nastiness

Definitely. I don't want to fall out with any of you here because of a few bleddy pixels. I'm quite happy to have a robust debate about the 'issue' though. It's pixels, not personal

I need coffee before replying in full. I had ticked so many of your comments to reply to it would have looked like War & Peace plus Author's Notes.

[WussyPuss]

DERBY not NH. You would have needed 10 in your NH to participate in the Derby.






Definitely. I don't want to fall out with any of you here because of a few bleddy pixels. I'm quite happy to have a robust debate about the 'issue' though. It's pixels, not personal

I need coffee before replying in full. I had ticked so many of your comments to reply to it would have looked like War & Peace plus Author's Notes.

And I need another beer, I look forward to your war and peace - piece in my morning

[daz258]

All is good when we can have a proper discussion without personal attacks and nastiness

Yep, robust but respectful; that's how awesome you guys are.

And beer o'clock sounds great right about now.

[Elfriede]

........... We all three had very high respectable scores but the top 3 hoods all had perfect scores. 3200 pts.

Even the winning hoods did not get all the horseshoes at 10,000 (3200x3=9600).. .........

in my opinion this is unfair.


If it is possible to play alone or in very small hoods, it must be possible to reach all horseshoes => without doing 10 derby tasks