Discussion Forum by Lank
October 26th, 2007 11:56 PMI was meditating on the nature of the SFØ Task tonight. I realized that from an objective viewpoint, the word "task" may connote a job or duty that has been assigned or imposed upon us. This is of course a misnomer, as SFØ players voluntarily choose from a variety of "tasks" and complete them (or not) at their leisure.
Wouldn't it be neat to have the option to have a task assigned to you? You could free yourself from the burden of choosing from and endless list by clicking on the
Random Task Generator!
The Random Task Generator would appear at the top of the main "TASKS" page. When clicked, it would randomly select a task from those that you are able to do and direct you to the page for said task, giving you the option of signing up for it.
It's a great tool for those who want less control over their destiny and/or who like a hot infusion of randomness. What a great way to explore a rabbit hole that you might not have crawled into otherwise!
After you've been assigned, you proceed as you would with a normal task. You could certainly opt not to sign up for your random task, but that sting you would feel is your sense of duty - to do your assignment!
What do you think? Discuss.
3 vote(s)
Terms
(none yet)14 comment(s)
If one of the PTB's would please subtract 20 points from my score (for this task posting), I'd apprec...
WAIT! Do my eyes deceive me, or did the point value for this task just go down to 5? Talk about instant gratification!
(Never mind what I was saying a second ago...)
Ask and you shall receive…
That's as instant as gratification if I ever saw it…
Not like that instant oatmeal B.S. you gots to boil water first!!!
So one question for the various voting, super-voting, and tiered voting systems, is whether levels should stay. One option is to do away with levels altogether, of course. Another is to leave them as-is - no task has built-in points, but you still need a certain number of points to do a certain task. Or, the levels could be more separate from points. For example, maybe people need to do four or five level three tasks before you can do a level four task.
One problem that such solutions consider is the clever pun / good story well told / wacky hijinx (but not quite right) completion of some tasks. Should some of those tasks that are so funny, thoughtful, or just-plain well-written get more points than a task where someone actually did an amazing, if poorly documented, thing?
Why not give players at certain levels the ability to Super Vote?!? Then they would just naturally give more score to epic completions
i do not think levels should go though…
It is one of the exciting things about the game…
you get to unlock things as you go.
Sean - levels are good as is. I agree with Spar that one of the enticements of advancement is having more tasks available to you. Get more votes, and you're awarded the opportunity to do more difficult tasks. Level alone (rather than points) would indicate the "difficulty" of a particular task.
Spar - my problem with a system in which only higher-level players get increased voting power (such as the old voting system, frankly), is that players cast votes arbitrarily - and that's good! No one is obligated to vote for a great completion, no matter how much their vote is worth. I think that everyone on here has the cognitive power to discern whether a task is well-completed enough to deserve a vote, whether they're a veteran or they've just signed up.
Don't get me wrong on the arbitrary thing - I don't think only having limited votes (making them much more precious) is the answer, because sometimes this means really good tasks don't get the recognition they deserve because - oops! I'm out of votes! When I look back at I.E. completions there are many that I think deserve more recognition than they got. The current voting system has remedied that. Now it's time for the next step...
VOTES ONLY!
I just wanted to encourage the administrators to be very careful before changing the points system. I think it works pretty well now (though I've never known anything else), providing incentives for both exceptional completions (through votes) and completing more tasks (through base points), allowing people to stay involved through small tasks, and giving a greater reward for greater accomplishments. I feel like it's often hard to see what incentives you'll end up giving people in a voting system, and to predict what the results will be. (Hmm, I should see if I can do some statistical analysis on the choices people made in the different eras...)
I think that not having points for tasks would make small tasks fewer and farther between. If you're reliant on votes, you're reliant on people seeing your task and voting on it...and I think you'll get more variance, more points due to random effects like being the first to complete a task, or how long it was on the praxis front page. The same, I think, goes for the different voting levels (including the super vote, to some extent)--because people will choose one of those with some randomness (I could see a lot of borderline cases if I have to make that decision), it makes the points you get more random, more based on chance...and that feels like a disincentive to do something (something great as well, but especially something small).
I also don't want to feel obligated to vote for something just because it was technically completed; I like reserving my (albeit unlimited) votes for completions that I really like for some reason...but if there were no base score, and a completion only received points for votes, I think I'd feel like I had to vote for anything that just passed technical muster.
Anyway, I think having base scores is nice, because it gives you an indicator for how easy or hard a task is, and for hard tasks gives a reward for extra difficulty. It helps that extra difficulty feel more real, and I think encourages you to take it seriously. The small tasks which are done in an epic way are well rewarded by the votes they receive. I feel very motivated to make my completions good already; I love seeing that people like what I did, I also see good completions getting lots of points from votes. I don't think you need to remove base scores to have that.
While I'm here, a couple of other comments...I love the epic amazing tasks--they're things that SF0 was made for, things that remind us just how weird and wonderful the world is, because we can make it that way! But I also like the small tasks, the little tidbits of strangeness that you do that move you along. I feel like some people would like to see the little tasks disappear (or tasks which meet the requirement and have something interesting, but aren't spectacular works of long effort). Honestly, I'd like to make sure they stay. I just completed a couple of smaller tasks, while I'm in the middle of plotting some bigger ones, because it's a good way to make sure I stay involved and keep doing things. I know they're not amazing, and I don't expect to get a lot of vote points for them. But they were still fun to do, and I'm glad they were there.
Finally, I like points and I like the levels. It's a psychological motivation effect--that you feel like you accomplish something every time you complete a task, even though they don't really matter. I know it's just a trick of the way our minds work, really--but it's a darned effective one. I think they're a great way to reward people who want to look at points, but not harm those people who want to enjoy themselves and their tasks without worrying about it.
Oh...that said, I do think that the levels would feel more like levels if you really did have to progress through lesser tasks (I felt like I was able to jump up pretty quickly after one task got me a lot of votes...which I enjoyed, certainly--I don't need levels to feel like levels, if that makes sense). But that could easily get frustrating, as the number of lower level tasks you want to do is certainly fewer than the expanse of all possible level tasks (especially once I hit level 4, I felt like just about every task I wanted to do at the moment was open to me)
Wow--only here for a few months, and already I seem to be an SF0 conservative (well, at least in regards to the points system). I suppose I'd better stop rambling and go find a change to support...
They sure do."players cast votes arbitrarily"
points = metrics
metrics = progress
progress = one of many ways players get hooked by the game
in a sense: points = fun
votes only = high arbitrariness
tasks getting noticed=votes
busy praxis = less notice
votes only = stacked against new players
don't get me wrong, I am also saying
votes = good
I like the way the system is now, it lets users get their feet wet with the liquid love that is SF0, most of my tasks have been luke warm at best but I'm looking forward to the new age so I can kick it up a notch
This proof was un-submitted - any comments before this one are from before the un-submit.
I like the idea of randomly assigned tasks. In theory, it would increase the adventure potential of tasking. It would keep us from completing tasks that we would have normally completed without SFØ.
But then there are all those tasks that I just have no damn interest in doing. So no, I cannot support the random task. I cannot run the risk of having to do anything inside a corporate office.
But that task would be so much more daring if it wasn't your own office!
If people would find such a thing useful, it's hard to see a drawback. (Except the admin time spent coding it up, I guess.)
In the months that I've been playing, my tasking is so overwhelmingly far behind my ideas for tasking, it is hard to imagine regularly choosing to spend time on anything other than a task that I or friends really, really want to do. But, perhaps that will change in time.
As an occasional experiment in randomness, it could be fun. I've certainly enjoyed the lack of choice and time deadlines that come with an ongoing war of escalating dares, even though I'd hate to see all tasks take that form.
I agree with Loki, there is nothing adverse about this suggestion, but in my opinion it wouldn't enhance the playing experience any either. HOWEVER, If you fancy adding a little mystery to your tasking, I challenge you to take up the as yet untouched Random task perception generator task. ; P
So I am not the only one who thought this should be worth (SF)Ø points?!?!