Build a snowman event
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Okay. That doesn't really change the fact that staff should give us more info on the stats of the event. We can speculate all day, but that won't change anything or give us answers. I already understand all of what you are saying. But tbh it doesn't really matter if staff doesn't give us answers.
I would be dead from the shock if staff ever gave us the kind of answers and stats you're looking for. Hopefully this event doesn't make Subeta look too bad to newer players like yourself. Survival/Pandemic is coming up soon and that's always very cool. c:
So I had no idea about the MB glitch. I also didn't participate much in total though due to a heavy schedule and being on Team Sibling (which quickly became the obvious last place team).
That said...
- I am totally curious as to how points were calculated. Not like... super mad or demanding. I am just legit curious. That's my stats mind wanting to know about the weighting that may or may not have happened.
- Given what the "secret" prize was (Aqua Potion), I am really A-Okay with the results of this. The main prizes I wanted were either available to everyone (participation) or easy enough to buy. I would have liked the title or a trophy, but eh. Won't cry over those. (Though, participation trophies would be nice!). It the prize had been something else that no one not on the winning team could get, then yeah, I could see the sour grapes being really rotten over this all. But the aqua potion WILL be available to everyone... so really, non-winners are just missing out on the title and trophy, which isn't horrible I guess.
- I have to say... I don't know what everyone was expecting from this? Like... based on past Subeta, this event went pretty "par for the course." There was a glitch of some sort that effected outcomes to some extent that was not addressed properly by staff, and the community is now aggravated and at one another's throats. That's pretty much Subeta summed up in one sentence. Any team event turns the community against itself... which is why community events (such as the quest-a-thon) are really better for us. Why can't we all just fight some fictitious group? That would really unite us more. Or, if we have to have teams, let it be something that could not possibly have a glitched issue (which is kind of asking more than Subeta can provide right now, tbqh).
I dunno, I really liked the snowmen growing before our eyes, and the different teams with NPC were nice. Definitely think staff response to the glitch was poor, but I also do not know how far-reaching the glitch was. Like, how many people really used it? I would be curious to know, since I do not think as many people knew as some make it sound... not that ignorance makes this okay. A glitch is a glitch and abuse is abuse. The rules should be reinforced for this, regardless of an event happening. Even if the scores are not changed, those responsible really should be reprimanded in some way. Not doing anything only makes this seem 'okay' for the future, and that's not something we want on Subeta. Period.
Also, I was totally mad at myself at the start of this. I had some 35k snowballs after last year (thanks to the whole 'Oh, we will add a mass add feature soon' which never happened). But, when a year passed and they were still pretty useless, I fragged them all. I mean, yay for a shit ton of crystals, but it might have been nice to get rid of them this way. XD Then again, my team likely would still have lost soooo... maybe my breaking that hoarding habit was actually a good thing. lol
This. Just this.
I'm also curious about scoring mainly because I always wonder about Subeta's mathematics skills!
I think its been proven multiple times that events should fall under 1 of 2 categories.
- Everyone is on the same team (quest-a-thon)
- There are no teams (how most plots are)
Teams just bring out the worst in people.
1 refresh every 30 seconds isn't going to cripple their servers. autobuyers are straight up against the rules though.
Looking at the maths, using an autorefresher would get you a total of ~12k snowballs assuming you started like, right as the event started and ended right as the event ended, for a total of around 60m sp.
Assuming that on top of that you vended and restocked or whatever, one could assume someone would add an additional 1k per day onto their total, for a grand total of ~17k points. Most likely, the totals were weighted, and the teams that ended up winning had less total people but more dedicated people overall.
The subeta staff isn't obligated to release the team formulas for this event, y'all are getting real twisted over a forum title, trophy, and pet recolor potion, and like, honestly, I am 100% sure this is going to dissuade the staff from doing fun events like this in the future, despite the fact that these kinda user v user events have happened in the past (literally any restock war).
Okay, I’m going to go through and answer a few things.
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We didn’t award trophies to everyone after because it wasn’t what we said at first. On our first news post announcing the prizes and what not, it said only the winning team gets one. I appreciate the feedback here that in future events, you guys would all like one just to show off that hey you might not have won, but you put in the effort! This is something we’re going to keep in mind for the future. :)
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The scores were averaged and multiplied by 1000, just to move the decimal point over. I like the idea that people have posted of just not showing scores until the end in future things. We sort of soft tested this by not showing scores the first day. We showed you guys the scores almost the entire time, we didn’t edit them at the end or do anything to them once we put them up on the second day. :) When people asked in the news or forums if we’d be using different numbers etc, I specifically say the scores you saw on the page were the numbers we were using for the final.
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As far as how many were on teams, we wanted to try something new with a. not letting people join up during the event and b. not letting people know how many were on teams. I think it worked really well for during the event, because it was an issue last year with people joining mid-way to the team they thought had the best chance. For those curious for numbers on each team: 566 people had no team, 870 for Mischief, 623 for siblings, 566 for bffs, 1669 for nature, and 548 for stick together. We didn’t post this in the final because honestly, it’s not that important. We didn’t want people to get upset with WOW MY TEAM HAD SO MUCH DEADWEIGHT, WAY2GO. We just wanted people to join the NPCs they liked, make some friends, and have fun!
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As far as “cheating”, every single team had people use the MB. Every single team had people use auto-refreshers. It was not just Stick Together that used the Mystery Box in the way people were afraid was a glitch. As Grace stated, we didn’t feel it was cheating/exploitation. I misspoke that night saying it wasn’t a glitch, when technically it was (sorry about that ! I know you were like TOTALLY A GLITCH THO). I want to reiterate that if you guys see something you feel is a glitch/cheating/etc, you need to make a P&B thread or ticket. I found out about it close to midnight and let Grace know, but you could see on the Mischief thread that people were discussing it for far longer than just 5 minutes. Some people from the team told me they didn’t feel comfortable doing a thread about it (because then everyone would start using it), which is when you should do a ticket.
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We’ve learned a few things from this event just like we did from the snowball event (aka don't do a top 10% tier prize). We wanted people to make friends, really feel like they were actually doing things (example: every snowman was a user suggestion), and be working together as a team rather than individually try to be the best. I’m glad a lot of people made friends and are going to continue chatting with their teammates. That's really all I wanted from this event, was for people to have fun making friends and interacting with different NPCs. :)
why is it the responsibility of the people who know it's wrong and not do it to file a ticket/bug thread, but not the people who know it's wrong and still exploited it anyway to? even if every team did, it's not okay to have an advantage come out because of a glitch. teams most likely didn't benefit from it equally.
It was not just Stick Together that used the Mystery Box in the way people were afraid was a glitch.
It would have been mathematically improbable that it was just one team, which is why I was annoyed by people singling out a team. So glad to have a confirmation!
I would never have guessed these numbers from the forums, felt like Mischief was the most numerous.
I think that's a very fair and reasoned response, . :) I appreciate you breaking all the points down and particularly detailing the team numbers and formula. Wow, BFFs were a lot bigger than I thought!
I really would like to have some indicator of where we sit on the standings in future events, y'know, maybe 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th would work. But I still think you'd have a lot of problems lower down the chain with people getting discouraged, teams not moving throughout the event etc. I dunno, it's not an easy one to solve. With no indicator it feels like you're just donating into a void, it doesn't feel palpable.
the problem here is that you're assuming it gave one team an advantage and we have looked at the numbers and it did not.
and it's the responsibility of anyone who knows about a glitch to report it, whether they take advantage of it or not. we can't fix something we don't know about.
Also , when I mention that I want more communication from staff, this is exactly the right level of communication, in both the time you took to answer (within 24 hours) and the quality of the answer.
This is the kind of attitude I want Subeta to aim for, and for this, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Whilst I love how inclusive Subeta is, I really wish feedback for future events wasn't based predominantly on 'what is most complained about/who can complain most', if the top 10% got awarded and 80-90% complained, it doesn't make it an unsuccessful event. Tall poppy syndrome shouldn't dictate the site.
This isn't finger-pointing towards any behaviour for this event, but rather something I hope will be considered for future events.
We can't all be winners - it's nice to have rare things on the site - that's what makes people work hard. It's nice to have something to work towards, not everything can get handed on a silver platter, if everyone has it then nothing is special.
Sometimes it's nice to have events where people who worked extra hard are awarded.
2025 Stalacbite, Focused (7)
Thank you for the update and for providing some of the stats. I'm confident that we can all learn from this event.
That being said... You wouldn't happen to know what the breakdown is for snowball popularity? I'm curious...
thought a lot of people would join Nature for the wearable (it was the easiest to use). I know people were pretty vocal on the poll thread and the news post about joining Mischief and Nature! Mischief just felt the biggest because their thread was by far the most active.
BFF put up a good fight! I was hoping a lot of people would go for my favorite nerds, ngl. And yeah, we're considering doing trophies and things in the future for further along than just first. :) I was team sibling and even though we were losing practically the whole time, we basically made our own goals to achieve rather than giving up. I think that was pretty great. I think the NPCs helped cheer some people on, too.
How is rapid clicking a button to get infinite cheap goods (500sp versus the 5k+ many people were buying items for from user shops) not considered a cheat/exploitation though?
It's one thing to use the Mbox, getting one item at a time, but it's another to get many items from rapid clicking the button, which is what people say they were able to do?
I guess that's the part that I really don't understand/am concerned about.