So, first off: I liked a fair bit of the Battle of the Bands concept. It was at least a little bit different without requiring too much extra staff work.

That being said, it essentially boiled down to a HA + blurb of text contest, similar to Morostide, Epicon, etc.

So why were Custom Wears allowed? Or not at least segregated? That was one of the key promises of Custom Wears, way back at the beginning.. that they wouldn't be "pay to win" for things like HA contests. But looking at the majority of the finalist this time around, I guess that's off the table now.

Or was it just forgotten about, like so many other things? Why does the user base have to remind you of your design goals, promises, and policies, Subeta?

Edit: And just to be clear, I debated making this thread for a bit because I actually liked several of the finalist, CW-users included. BUT that doesn't change the overall statement or precedent from contests past. This isn't at any one entrant, CWs or no.

I don't think anyone thought that far ahead tbh.

A lot of aspects of the event (not just the BotB) were rushed or broken. Prizes will be out in a few weeeks according to the closing newspost.

Idk, based on the amount of art/items it is obvious thought and prep went into the event, but the unevenness and with what you just pointed out (I didn't even think about it) it just feels like not enough was planned.

I thought about it, but not until after the contest actually started. I might have made a thread asking for clarification had I thought of it earlier. It was a stupid oversight that shouldn't have happened, because it already happened once and it was "fixed" at the last minute by having 2 separate contests.

I think it should just be added to the rules of any upcoming HA contests - no CWs allowed, or CWs are grounds for automatic disqualification.

I don't think CWs should be banned from HA contests. They should have their own category. Not creating one was an oversight imo.

I enjoyed Peka-Boo because of the new foods and mainly because of the social interaction in the BotB event forum. The overall event left a lot to be desired and it felt like a one-off to me.

Subeta doesn't really seem to care about established precedents imo. Nearly anything can be changed, for the better or worse.

I used CWs in my band HA entry for the simple reason that I use CWs practically all the time. I do agree they should have a catergory for non-CWs and one for CWs. But CWs definitely should not be just across the board disallowed.

Why are CWs still such a huge deal to people lmao. There's really no advantage to people who use them? You get some extra clothes but that is it. Literally what is bothering so many people pls explain.

I think it made more sense to have them segregated in cosplays (Epicon) than this, but I can see where people come from with this complaint.

It would probably have been a bit more complicated to narrow things down (it's a CW band if one of the members wear as much as one CW?), so maybe a CW limit per HA could've been put in place instead of categories or something... I'm not sure. Plus we'd have 2-3 finalists (at most) of each section in each music style? Seems like too much narrowing to me :/

When it comes down to BotB, I think the most important was to pick a theme and stay true to the theme (instead of trying to replicate a certain look as close as possible; you didn't -have- to cosplay a band, ideas were key), so I don't see it as too much of an advantage in this particular situation. It's hard to say how much of a precedent this is, as BotB might just never happen again... and staff is known to deal with CW matters in a case-by-case way.

tl;dr, I didn't really mind it this time because I didn't see it as much as an HA contest, but I get the concern. Something could have been done to address it.

[edit] also makes a great point about the (darn) game and its scores.

I don't think that is what anyone is talking about on this topic. When CWs were introduced, the staff kept stating that they would be kept out of official competitions or at least given some kind of special category.

I don't think its too much to ask why that didn't happen for what was essentially a group HA contest.

Normally I would agree, but I think this was different enough from the usual HA contests we have.

Street Team was a major part of it, and the primary method for scoring points. That made it more of a skill-based competition, and CWs don't really factor into that. I think the top two bands' scores prove that much:

Horns and Roses: 251 fans and 350,161 total points (1,395 points on average) Granny Smiths: 344 fans and 345,064 points (1,003 points on average)

Horns and Roses used CWs, while Granny Smiths didn't (I don't think?), but Horns and Roses won with fewer fans because they were able to score more points on average. CWs can't influence game scores.

It is rather annoying that the staff DID say that CWs would be kept out of official contests, but don't hold true on that promise. Not everyone can buy CSC, so whether one person thinks its an advantage or not is irrelevant. They do have more options to run with than a user who has no CWs.

On why some users don't want CWs in contests; You're pitting people who can spend the bucks on custom made outfits against those who used what was the closest official item to make their outfit.

Think of in real life those who drop hundreds of bucks on a cosplay put together by someone else and then go and enter the contests and beat everyone else who hand made their own outfits.

It ends up being, congrats I guess. You bought yourself the win instead of working towards it.

[Quote=spiero]Street Team was a major part of it, and the primary method for scoring points. That made it more of a skill-based competition, and CWs don't really factor into that. I think the top two bands' scores prove that much:

Horns and Roses: 251 fans and 350,161 total points (1,395 points on average) Granny Smiths: 344 fans and 345,064 points (1,003 points on average)[/quote]

True, but in order to get to that stage, your band had to be a finalist, which were chosen by staff. That is the part that was an HA Competition.

I understand why CWs were filtered out back at EPICon, if you happened to own a tribute CW for the character you were trying to cosplay, you'd obviously have a massive advantage there. But for a band contest, I really don't think it makes that much of a difference. There are very few CW instruments, the only ones I can think of actually got (or already had) regular site item counterparts. As for the outfits themselves, you can make a kickass outfit with site items. You can make a fugly outfit with CWs. I don't honestly see why it's a big deal, since whether or not you have access to CWs doesn't change your HA making ability.

As for "well staff said blah blah blah years ago," that was...years ago. Like, staff can change their minds? They were willing to compromise for EPICon, where the CWs you own actually does affect how close your cosplay is to the original. But for this, I don't see any real reason to rule them out.

Except literally anyone has a chance to win if you've got a good costume.

Also if I want to break it down even more, that's... a really odd logic to use because nobody else made your HA. You made it. You used items made by other users, but... others used items made by staff?? No matter who it is in the end, user made items or not, you're still the one who put it together the best or the worst.

I fail to see how avatars with CWs and avatars without CWs make a huge difference in a contest like this. I get it with EPICon, because as said, if you own a tribute CW for the character you're cosplaying, you have a huge advantage over someone who doesn't have access to it. It makes total sense to have two separate categories if that's the nature of the competition. But this wasn't EPICon, and this wasn't about cosplaying or dressing up as a character from a TV show/movie/book/video game/etc. Part of this contest was about how well made you and your band mates' avatars were, and you can definitely decent make avatars without custom wearables. Staff based their decision for finalists off of how well made/cohesive your avatars were and how creative/interesting/what have you your band name/description/theme were, not whether you had custom wearables or not.

Why stop there. Why not make it so that people can only use items that everyone owns for contests like this. How dare people use a SecondSkin when I am so adamantly looking for one. How dare that one person use a multimillion sP item that I don't own.

... This wasn't an HA contest.

Hm, I can see why this is a contested issue, but I have to agree with others that say CWs didn't make or break a band.

Sure, the initial picking of bands was done based on the avatars and the blurb, but you can make just as cohesive an outfit without touching a single cw... sure, in some instances it might be harder to make it visually appealing, but it can be done. In fact, it looks like half of the finalist bands didn't use a single cw? (I could be wrong though, not an expert on cws lol) And for the most part, the others that did, used it sparingly (I think there's a cw fawn makeup on one of the avs in Cerv!dae and Tempest Sky has very few, it's hard to notice tbh).

I don't think a band's support in the second phase can be attributed to what they wore. You can't really compare epicon to this as that was a cosplay that was solely based on avatar votes. Besides, going into this, it was obvious to me from the get-go that the bands that were going to gather the most support would stem from punk/rock, because that's the most popular music category??

And if we're going to nitpick cws, I think we should nitpick why contests, giveaways, raffles, etc. were allowed in the first place. Not saying they worked and bands won solely because of that, because no one knows that, but if they can influence any one user one way or another (when it was supposed to be about the bands themselves), then why even allow them? That left more of a sour taste in my mouth rather than the inclusion of cws in the band images. ;s

My group got into the finals without CWs. Some of the band members even had default facial features. I think what really sold a band was the cleverness of the band idea (which is why the Granny Smiths got so many followers--it was a hilarious concept), rather than how the HAs were put together. While it was sort of a group HA contest, I feel like as long as the HAs were unique and consistent with the band theme, they did well.

Sure, staff said that they would be separate--and for the Epicon cosplay contest, it was definitely a good thing they were separate--but I guess I didn't feel like CWs really gave a band advantage in reaching the finals, and I don't have a problem with them being included in this case.

I do agree with that the giveaways and contests were potentially more problematic.

CSC can be bought with sP and I pretty much think sP is still a virtual currency taking nothing but your time.

That being said, I don't get why it is upsetting to allow CWs in this competition. Yes, some groups were heavily clothed with this feature (and a lot of them LOST, by the way). This is different from Epicon, it requires skills to work as a group, to unify your HAs and reflect the theme of your band. If you're making a crap HA that comes out of nowhere you'll not be choosen; cw or not :/ Blaming everything on CWs is totally childish. I can understand the frustration because hell, I am! We did not get a FAQ! We did not get correct guidelines! That's my major issue with this whole event, and Street Team of course.

How the first cut was choosen? I have no idea, I'm no judge. An HA contest? Peharps. A lot of people were picked, some of them without CWs, and others with a little to no-CW. My HA was 100% made with site items and I'm sorry but it kicked asses. I think that you had to make a coherent thing to be picked. But like I said: No valuable guidelines, no FAQ and a lot of confusion ~

I feel the only thing unfair about BotBs was the fact that there was only ONE way to make points, via one game a lot of people did not enjoy. And staff basically said if you don't like the game then, oh well.

That was bullshit, and that 100% ruined this entire event for me and I can't wait for the prizes to be awarded so I can cough up a ridiculous amount of sP/csc for the prizes I won't be receiving from this stupid event.

The fact that CWs were allowed, and the fact that a CW heavyband won doesn't bother me. That stupid game did.