About Gameplay+ and the value of brevity

DeathBurst·Oct 16, 2018·23 votes·11,799 views

Seriously, I love the idea of Gameplay+, but people need to understand that a 10-pages long OP does not mean they have good arguments to defend their opinion.

Making a huge ass list of bad (or simply weak) arguments does not make a compelling case. It's just tiring to read, and muddies the conversation. I could elaborate, but... you see the irony, don't you?

And the problem is, Moderators insist on argued posts, not simple opinion, to encourage discussions (and that's a good thing), but people just take that as meaning long posts. No guys, a good idea, a good argument, can be expressed simply, and you shouldn't need 10 pages for that. Go to the heart of the matter, and don't lose yourself in the meaningless details.

And this is something that Moderation should emphasize. It's not just the posters' fault, it's also that Moderation communicated badly about it.

19 Comments

ModThe DjinnOct 16, 20188 votes

It's not just the posters' fault, it's also that Moderation communicated badly about it.

Definitely possible. I'll make sure we re-evaluate this. Gameplay+ may take a little while to get perfect, and we appreciate the patience while we do so.

DeathBurstOct 16, 20183 votes

Yeah, no worries, this comes from a place of constructive feedback, not from blaming.

And as I said in the OP, it's a GOOD thing you ask for posts with actual arguments inside. But you should make it clear that a good argument and a long argument are not the same thing.

And that will get more people to read a post if it is short and to the point, but even more importantly, it will get more Rioters to read it. They are busy and don't have much time to read everything we post on the Boards, so making concise posts is even more important if we want Rioters to get involved.

ModKnightsKemplarOct 16, 20182 votes

Djinn beat me here, but I'll add my thoughts since I am one of the mods regularly stepping into the submissions to look at things.

This is definitely something that a lot of submissions get wrong. Now, we will approve a long thread that has substance, and that's how some of these novellas make it through. I do consider it a negative thing, though, to be frank.

On the other side, we do have a lot of submissions that obviously took a long time to put together and then are denied. The authors of those threads are understandably frustrated; if you're reading this and you are one of those authors, take our friend DeathBurs7's suggestion seriously.

Here is a thread that we approved that was rather short. Now, I do think some of that space could be better used to outline the problem and describe why "Impact" is a great solution, but it's a thread that has good potential to start an interesting conversation. That's why we approved it.

For a perfect balance, I think making an outline of your thread would be a good start. Give yourself a clear logical pathway to follow, and don't deviate from it in the post. Waste no sentences. If you include phrases like "but this is beside the point" or "here's just a section where I rant," then you're off to a bad start. Don't do those things on G+. Gameplay still exists for a reason.

DeathBurstOct 16, 20181 votes

Good suggestions here :)

But maybe this is information that should be more readily available in the guideline post in GP+, and not only in my humble thread here ;)

ModKnightsKemplarOct 16, 20181 votes

Yeah, we'll look into it.

It's about time we revised the guidelines and clarified the direction a bit.

NepgearDesuOct 16, 20181 votes

I'd question the fact that a select few stamp arguments as relevant or fallacious by their publication, or absence thereof, in the GP+ section. If you let me simplify, it is the exertion of a prejudice: that a few elite or chosen ones have knowledge that regular people do not possess, and that the former have the right to choose what's right for the latter. (from the guidelines thread: "Downvotes are, arguably, intended to filter out content that doesn't foster meaningful discussion; however, the approval process will serve this purpose instead, removing the need for downvotes." That's unilaterally removing power from regular users and giving it whole to a small group, by the way.)

If anything, I'd suggest a feature for said select few to push forward what they deem of interest. Once published, the interesting thread would be stamped "approved", and could be put at the top of the boards for about a day, more if it collects upvotes and comments, less if most people downvote or won't care. This would be the equivalent to a popular vote on an issue that our moderators feel is a compelling case, even though I'm unsure whether they wouldn't drown under push requests. Also, I have no idea how feasible it is.

As a somehow related note: I can't for the life of me find any post in the GP+ section beside the one I linked, whichever button I click. Edit: Ah! Now it works.

ModThe DjinnOct 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}If anything, I'd suggest a feature for said select few to push forward what they deem of interest. Once published, the interesting thread would be stamped "approved", and could be put at the top of the boards for about a day, more if it collects upvotes and comments, less if most people downvote or won't care. This would be the equivalent to a popular vote on an issue that our moderators feel is a compelling case, even though I'm unsure whether they wouldn't drown under push requests. Also, I have no idea how feasible it is.

Unfortunately, that's not super feasible given our current technology. Even the current structure of Gameplay+ required some custom functionality, and this sort of suggestion, while interesting, isn't within reach at the moment.

NepgearDesuOct 17, 20181 votes

Alternatively, pinning a regular post to the top of the boards for some time could perhaps do the trick. This would still require quite some work on your part, though, if only to judge whether it should stay at the top for a few more hours or be taken down to oblivion.

DeathBurstOct 16, 20181 votes

That's not what I'm talking about. Make your own thread if you want to complain about the Gameplay+ approval system.
I won't go into much details (see point 1), but I disagree. Moderators are not deciding what's good and bad, they are just deciding what's (hopefully) constructive or useless, and that's relatively objective. If you ask me, they should just have removed the upvotes too.

NepgearDesuOct 17, 20181 votes

You stated in the first line of your opening post that not every thread that goes through the approval process of the Gameplay+ board is supported by sufficient arguments. If they were published still, then it means that at least the reviewers deemed them constructive or useful, even when you personally believe they weren't for the most part (or maybe two pages of bad / weak arguments are useful to prove a point, but that really isn't my belief). I thus affirm that criteria such as usefulness or contribution to constructive arguments, if not entirely subjective, at least vary from one individual to the other.

As for the matter of your opening post, and to keep it short: I disagree. So I'll elaborate a little. If I want to complain about Duskblade of Draktharr being too this or that, I will need to actually provide arguments. Without thinking too much about it, I'd pick some such as "it's too good for its cost", "it boasts too many useful effects", "it becomes a mandatory item on some champions". None of these points is a given, and they all require a rather thorough analysis if you don't want to be faced with "proofs or fake" comments. (this much AD costs X, this much lethality Y, Duskblade costs Z gold less than it should to only be effective; analysis of the actual costs and usefulness of the passives; hinting at a number of characters that were changed because of their buying Duskblade; etc.)

Supporting a claim with arguments is a good thing, if said arguments are well thought-out. Of course watering it down with borderline uninteresting points is harming the discussion, but that isn't a reason to scrap all manners of detailed arguments altogether. When someone makes a claim, I usually like them providing detailed and pertinent clues to support it, be it Conqueror's effectiveness, climate change being caused by human activities, Emmanuel Macron owning offshore bank accounts or Starbucks contributing to fair trade (pell-mell and just to name a few). Just a few lines won't be enough, that's what French parties do all the time and it has definitely brought the public debate down into the abyss.

DeathBurstOct 17, 20181 votes

You stated in the first line of your opening post that not every thread that goes through the approval process of the Gameplay+ board is supported by sufficient arguments.

No, that's not what I stated. What I stated is that many posts are far too talkative and could be made more concise and more efficient. That doesn't mean they are not constructive or that they are useless in their present form.

Supporting a claim with arguments is a good thing, if said arguments are well thought-out. Of course watering it down with borderline uninteresting points is harming the discussion, but that isn't a reason to scrap all manners of detailed arguments altogether.

That's not what "brevity" or "concise" mean by any stretch. Look at your sketch of an argumentation about Duskblade, it's 3 lines long. Even with all the details written out, it would be barely longer than a couple paragraphs. If you go through an exhaustive history of every single change and make a 3-page-long post, that won't be more useful than your couple paragraphs, except it will be less readable. THAT's what I mean.

PaffWasTakenOct 16, 20181 votes

This is actually something that I really hated about the boards mentality as a whole:

If someone shares a brief opinion that is very very popular, it'll get refuted either way by the minority of persons who dosen't agree with it by saying things like "you can't make your point viable without development"

For example, if someone in the gameplay boards say "Graves is overpowered and unfun to play against, he definitely needs to be severely nerfed to bring him back in an healthy state" he'll definitely get a lot of people who agrees with him; its short, its efficient, and reflect perfectly his opinion, one that a lot of people share. On the other hand, some Graves mains can just come and say "lol you have no proof about what you say and you don't have anything elaborate to justify any changes made to our beloved champion", thus making the deliberation seemingly useless.

On the other hand, if he DOES make a long and elaborate post about it, it makes it a lot harder to read and less and less people are able to tell if they agree with his opinion since they have to agree with a page long of content.

TL;DR, a brief post of about 3-5 lines with 100 upvotes talks a lot more and has a lot more impact than another one with ten times more characters only gaining 20-ish upvotes. Yet, the former type of posts seems to not be impactful enought in the eyes of the dev or to people with opposing opinions, and THAT really is a shame

Silent GravityOct 17, 20182 votes

That brief theoretical post is just complaining, and even if many people agree with it or disagree with it, there's nothing there to discuss.

You could talk about "overpowered" and discuss cooldowns, ability base damages and scaling, ease of item builds, sustain, utility, safety in the jg, mobility or a variety of other things. That would allow people to discuss the impact of each part, and the viability of proposed changes.

You could talk about "unfun to play against" and discuss windows of power, effective range, easy waveclear, or whatever aspect you find uninteractive or frustrating to deal with. This would allow people to give advice about working around his strengths, or just discussing if the problem exists or not.

You could talk about "needed nerfs" , but that would really have to focus on comparisons to champions that fill a similar role, so you'd need to talk about many of the things already listed above.

You could talk about a "healthy state" for Graves, but if you want discussion, you'd have to elaborate as to what you mean. What CDs, ranges, waveclear, jg pathing, etcetera that you mean by healthy state. You have to give people something to talk about.

DeathBurstOct 17, 20181 votes

Silent Gravity is right. There is a difference between brevity, a good argument expressed in a concise manner, and having no argument at all. "Graves is OP" is not an argument at all, it's just your conclusion. And the fact that people agree means very little. People have been known to agree with wrong things very often.

TahngarthorOct 21, 20181 votes

I get that saying words just for the sake of saying words doesn't mean you have a good post, but what bugs me is that a good post might be rejected just because the subject matter isn't a popular topic. Honestly, lack of popularity itself in my opinion is all the more reason to bring out such discussions.

DeathBurstOct 21, 20181 votes

I'm not part of Moderation, but I highly doubt "popularity" is part of the criterion they evaluate...

TahngarthorOct 21, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I'm not part of Moderation, but I highly doubt "popularity" is part of the criterion they evaluate...

I was basically told this:

"We don't automatically reject posts that don't cater to a wide audience, but we have to draw the line somewhere."\ Which kind of reads to me like "we don't reject less popular topics, but we reject less popular topics."

DeathBurstOct 21, 20181 votes

What was your topic?