Give us back the Forum Badges

Sweagen·Jul 22, 2014·5 votes·580 views

Hey, so... I'm sure anyone who frequented the old boards was aware, you were given Forum Badges, near your username, that showed the ranks you achieved in previous seasons 1, 2, and 3. Of course, this isn't yet present on the new boards, and I can think of some reasons why.

However, there are benefits to having forum badges:

People who achieved these ranks can feel proud to display both their time as a member (getting badges in season 1 or 2 for instance) and their achievements throughout the seasons and 2. Topics about game balance have more credibility when someone has a higher rank (sorry, but this is 100% truth)

Anyways, hoping that Riot can eventually give everyone some pretty forum badges in the future, I know these boards are a recent addition.

-Sweagen

15 Comments

GranspearZXJul 22, 20142 votes

Topics about game balance have more credibility when someone has a higher rank (sorry, but this is 100% truth)

I'm sorry. There was something **crazy **in my ear for a second there.

I absolutely agree with the first; at the very least, I think Riot could add badges to a user's profile (Not entirely sure where you'd display them on the forums themselves, as the nature of viewing the boards would make, say, someone with S1-4 badges pretty cluttered. Maybe under your summoner icon when you mouseover someone's name?) But #2 is just laughable. A badge means you know how to play the game, not how to design one.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 22, 20141 votes

A badge means you know how to play the game, not how to design one.

Little of A little of B imho. A silver who's researched the game and really thought about it can have better design capacity than a natural in high plat, yes, that's perfectly possible. But someone who's gotten to plat has to know the game in some form or fashion to get there, just enough to break it maybe, but something nonethless. I think a higher rank gives you more 'assumed credibility' but by no means guarantees you're right, and by that same regard a lower rank doesn't guarantee you're wrong.

Honestly, I like knowing someone's rank during game play discussions because they may very well have be having different problems, metas and overall strategy than me.

GranspearZXJul 22, 20142 votes

"Assumed credibility". I can agree with that, yeah. 100% though... nah.

It's akin to saying "I've read 100 books; I can totally be an author!" Not to take anything away from the achievement, of course, but there's a significant overestimation inherent in that statement.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 22, 20141 votes

I agree, there's never any substitute for direct experience. I think this is just a case by case thing more than anything.

Hyrum GraffJul 22, 20142 votes

It's akin to saying "I've read 100 books; I can totally be an author!"

I actually like this example a lot.

A Plat has read 100 books - a bronze has only read 10 books. Are either qualified to be an author? We can't really tell. But if I had to pick one to write a story for my publishing company from those facts alone, I'd choose the guy who read 100 books.

DaenJul 24, 20141 votes

In that analogy, what if those 10 books are Harry Potter + 3 others? I know that's not the point, but rank doesn't necessarily mean knowledge of game design.

I could be the most mechanically proficient player in the world but complain constantly about x champion being OP or y system being broken without any real substantiated evidence to back it up. I'd probably be Diamond, but my opinion on game design is effectively meaningless. On the other side, I could have completely awful mechanics but have a deep understanding of the underlying mechanics of the game and be Bronze.

Stratifying based on rank is akin to saying that x champion is overpowered because they have a 53% win rate. Where is this champion played most? By whom? What sorts of matchups does the champion excel in? Where are the strengths of the champion centered and how is the counterplay designed?

Rank is not a valid metric for measuring the validity of someone's opinion. It takes into account an end result without assuming any other factors, which statistically speaking is completely and totally irrelevant.

Hyrum GraffJul 24, 20141 votes

In that analogy, what if those 10 books are Harry Potter + 3 others?

I'm not really sure what that means.

I could be the most mechanically proficient player in the world but complain constantly about x champion being OP or y system being broken without any real substantiated evidence to back it up. I'd probably be Diamond, but my opinion on game design is effectively meaningless. On the other side, I could have completely awful mechanics but have a deep understanding of the underlying mechanics of the game and be Bronze.

Stratifying based on rank is akin to saying that x champion is overpowered because they have a 53% win rate. Where is this champion played most? By whom? What sorts of matchups does the champion excel in? Where are the strengths of the champion centered and how is the counterplay designed?

Rank is not a valid metric for measuring the validity of someone's opinion. It takes into account an end result without assuming any other factors, which statistically speaking is completely and totally irrelevant.

I think you're kind of sidestepping the point. Let's go back to the book analogy, because I like it a lot:

I'm not going to pick my author based on the number of books they've read. I'm going to talk to their publishers, look at their writing samples, and conduct interviews. Similarly, I shouldn't be deciding the validity of someone's opinion based only on their rank. I'm not arguing that I should.

I am arguing that it is something of an indicator. If I've read 100 books, I may not know much about writing books, but I certainly know about books. By the same token, if I'm a diamond level adc, it's highly unlikely that I am clueless about marksman itemization. Is it possible that I am clueless, and I just make up for it with godlike mechanics? Of course. But it's not likely. Does that mean I know anything about how to change adc itemization? Not really. Butt I am probably qualified to talk about current itemization choices.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 22, 20141 votes

I agree, and this has actually been a heavily requested feature, along with discussions of showing adjucators, wrenchman and the like. It's usually come down to a matter of priorities, gota make sure the Boards won't fall apart before getting shiny badges you know? :P

CaliLegendJul 22, 20142 votes

Seems like its partly implemented already, its just the season 3 badges that aren't showing. When I mouse over my name on posts it shows the S2 plat badge but not the S3 diamond one. It could just be like when new badges are added and they just need to resynch account names with ranks.

Hyrum GraffJul 24, 20141 votes

adjucators, wrenchman and the like

I still don't know what these are. edit: I mean, what they mean. I've seen them around, ofc.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 24, 20141 votes

I'll be honest I'm not 100% sure on these but from what I understand:

Wrenchman are players who have helped out enough with comp and network troubles to be noticed and title-fied.
Adjucators are people who are all around helpful people. Posting guides, helping out bug reports and what not.
Emissaries are community representatives within the forums.
Huntsmen are players who have recruited enough people, and I believe there was a limited amount of titles to be handed out.

I have no idea how Riot is going to continue with those with the Boards and all though. I would like to think everyone would keep their titles because they had to earn the titles somehow, and the Beta team just hasn't gotten around to implementing a title system yet, but I simply don't know for sure. Would probably make for a good question actually.....

DaenJul 24, 20141 votes

This is nitpicking, but I know for a fact those roles do keep their titles on the Boards in the mouseover. If you hover over a Rioter's name it shows their job title in light blue text; the same happens for Adjudicators. It's just that they are so absurdly rare and so inconvenient to identify that you never see them.

I'm hoping that Tamat's post on the moderation thread a few days ago about player moderation approaches this topic in some way. Adjudicators, the Council, and Emissaries are, to my knowledge, completely unsupported roles. Wrenchmen and Huntsmen are useful to Riot with the services they provide, but it would appear the other three aren't. Even so, Wrenchmen and Huntsmen are so uncommon to see that they are almost a non-factor from the player perspective.

Sir ArmaMalumJul 24, 20141 votes

Ah okay, yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to check myself and I know it was a requested feature not too far back from an adjucator or two, didn't realize they had added it in already.

Honestly I'm surprised that support for these groups hasn't been a major priority in the CB. (Well, of course, it may have been and still be I just have no proof from this end)

DaenJul 24, 20141 votes

The only reason I know is that I happened to mouse over a random person at some point and saw their Adjudicator title. :P

A while back I had a lengthy discussion with multiple people from different player roles as a sort of research project. It would seem that it's been years since Adjudicators, Emissaries, and the Council have had support or any ability to do anything useful. This isn't just a CB thing, it's a history-of-the-game thing.

Hyrum GraffJul 22, 20141 votes

Badges are something that:

The forum team intended to add in. They're just not top priority right now.
If you reaaaaaallly want your badge before they get around to it, they have the ability to manually give people their old badges - just make a post about it. (source)