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Reformatting Skin & Champion Concepts

Angeluslight··9 votes·2,109 views

Now that the Boards have officially taken the place of the original Forums, the only thing we can do right now is try to get this place feeling more like home.

Regarding the Skins & Champion concepts section, I find this style of forum vastly inappropriate for such a place of creativity. We had a pretty solid system going on in which the community was a rather solid place to nurture and exchange help in each others' works. Now it has been severely blighted by the current system in place. It even seems and feels rather hostile.

  • First off, the ability to up/downvote a thread without actually clicking into it really violates the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" ideal. With the original forums, one had to click into a post and would have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the post to vote. This necessarily got the reader to actually read through the thread. For the most part now, threads get downvoted hard with little to no feedback whatsoever. It's a very harsh thing for someone to spend time on a concept, hours even, and have it sink so fast without a chance to grow and improve due to people that don't even take so much as a minute to read it. This new style very clearly favors posts with pictures that are displayed on the front page of the entire thread list over those that lack them. This gives concepts an even more unfair advantage over others. Granted posts with pictures have always been more successful on the original forum, but it wasn't flaunted until one actually clicked, leaving the title to be the fair, even-leveled attention-grabber.

Riot, please change the voting system for Skin and Champion concepts to that similar to the original thread as well as getting rid of the pictures displayed out front. I'm sure the getting rid of the pictures idea may get some heat, but it's about fairness for those that cannot draw or find a fitting picture for their concept. No one can deny the bias that is so clear when looking at the list of concepts.

  • Helpfullness - Part of what made the original Skin and Champion Concepts a thriving community is that a handful of participants would create threads for the sole purpose of helping other players with their own projects. This ranged from reviewing champion concepts to help with their kits to creating lore for those who do not find narrative writing their strong suit. The new style of the forums does not accommodate such threads aimed to help others and sink just as fast as new concepts that do not take off with upvotes immediately. And with many concepts themselves not floating well because of my previous point, these helpful threads will most likely fizzle out and cease to exist. What would be the point of one if only a few concept succeed and are the only ones seen?
  • Separation - Skin concepts and champion concepts have always been kept together on the same page in the original forum. It wasn't a problem there, but it's a sizable problem here on the Boards. Skin concepts have always been faster at getting upvotes over champion concepts every single time. Reason being it's a short description and/or picture to explain the idea; ideas often self-explanatory in the title alone. Here in the Boards, they trample over most champion concepts in the "Best" section.

Needless to say, I think we should separate Skin Concepts and Champion Concepts in two different sections. It's a simple change and it doesn't really harm anything. It would allow champion concepts to thrive more, if anything. Not to mention that, if pictures are taken off the front page of the champion concepts, they, by all means, should remain on the skin concepts page.

  • Visibility - With everything explained and proposed above, I think there should be some changes to the sections in which readers filter through: "Best, Hot, New, Recent."

In the original forum, threads rotated quite evenly due to the ability for one to "bump" a post. In the Boards, bumping a post is only effective in the "Recent" subdivision on the Concepts Board. That's only one section out of 4, and the previous 3 sound far more appealing. This imbalance is further imposed as the "Best" and "Hot" threads receive the most attention, thus finding themselves in those sections as well as "Recent." That's a looot of attention. In the original forums, everyone had the same chances of being noticed and could bump their posts effectively to gradually pick up as attention is very hard to get for champion concepts.

That being said, the "New" section is the place where threads are determined to sink or swim right off the bat, for the very most part. You can navigate there now and see the list of concepts that have sank far down due to lack of views, replies, votes. Many doomed by a single downvote that encourages other downvotes without people even giving those threads a chance. Even if a post does get upvoted and find themselves included in the "Hot" section, things can quickly turn around on them, and those threads sink far with each downvote and lack of any comments. It's a constant struggle in which a concept can be made or broken any minute.

Bumping threads isn't nearly as efficient anymore and there are too many types of bias in these elements for threads to have a true chance to develop and grow. I propose, along with all the other suggestions mentioned in this post, that you please format the Concepts Board to either a single page like the original format to give everyone a fair chance to get noticed, or change it to a dual page with the original format and a "hot" section. This would enable bumps to have the same value as before, and threads that are popular will still be noticed as before, both with efforts of those threads' supporters and the original posters' own bumps. This idea, of course, would be split between Skin and Champion concepts as I suggested before, so each the Skin and the Champion sections have their own "original" and "hot" sections.

Edit: I'd also like to tack on a request for larger character limits. Preferably, I'd like there to be no limit to them, but at the very least they should be extended by a generous amount.

Rioters and fellow community, please give your opinions, support, and/or suggestions.

26 Comments

Raptamei3 votes

This is actually a problem with the forum as a whole. It is so easy for people to downvote random (or all) new threads for the lulz. Remember those downvote bots? Now you can do it yourself in 10 seconds.

I made a thread about this on day one and got, of course, downvoted into the abyss.

Angeluslight1 votes

Oh it definitely is a problem over the entire forums, no doubt. However, this goes deeper than just the voting system and into the hospitality, or lack thereof, for a specific section meant to inspire and promote creativity.

I don't know about downvote bots, but that does sound pretty lame. Although with the way things are now, downvotes are extra heavy as they literally take your post downward into the abyss. The forums shouldn't be a competition. Successful threads were just as successful in the original forums. But now the ones that are not as successful get buried, and fast.

Rockman2 votes

[deleted]

Angeluslight1 votes

You could say there are a bunch of places of there it comes from. All in all, people follow the crowd and will generally assume a downvoted concept is bad. With the original forum, one did not see the amount of votes, nor submit their own vote, until they clicked the thread and scrolled down. That temped them to read through it for themselves.

Obviously I don't need to tell you, considering you were a regular on that forum. I'm just saying that toxicity is everywhere, but at least it wasn't due to so many people with hair-trigger clicks on the voting button. We're literally competing for space to get views rather than just views like it once was. People can downvote a thread above them just so theirs can be bumped up a slot or two. It's sad.

Flintfall2 votes

I agree with most of your points, though if I may be nitpicky:

While pictures help immensely, I've seen concepts with no pictures get a solid amount of upvotes (albeit not enough to reach the best page). If you remove pictures Skin & Champion Concepts becomes a huge wall of text/lines, which (to me) would be annoying.

I'd go to say right now Skin & Champion Concepts is very healthy in terms of people helping each other out. It isn't nearly to the extent I'd like but imo I've gotten amazing feedback on my concepts.

I totally agree that Skin concepts can drown out Champion concepts, it's really sad to look at the best page and find around 5~ champion concepts :(

On the concept of the 'killer downvote', I've definitely seen concepts go from 0 to 9 (this was during less traffic, that may change now, but I think quality posts will get their recognition). Of course, I've also seen concepts go 0 then drop into oblivion, I wouldn't go so far as to say that concepts are doomed the second they go 0.

Also, I'm sure you remember a few people on the old forums who would spam worthless concepts and repeatedly bump them. The new voting system helps a lot in that regard, and the option to still view bumping wise is available.

For me, I think Skins & Champion concepts is alright as it is, if we were to change things (let's not jump the gun), we should think things through.

Dunno, that's ol' putsy me though :P

Angeluslight3 votes

Pictures displayed next to thread links aren't inherently a bad idea, but it's quite obvious of the influence they possess in the Concepts forum. It creates a balance issue for threads to succeed. I'm not saying it's impossible for a thread to do well without one, but as you said,

I've seen concepts with no pictures get a solid amount of upvotes (albeit not enough to reach the best page).

As for feedback, quite a lot of threads go without. And review threads seem to sink pretty fast.

As for downvotes, they're still a struggle to deal with that wasn't nearly as harsh in the original forum. I'm not saying threads can't come back from going down to 0, but it's not an easy task. Even if a concept does succeed, the amount of downvotes still depreciates the actual amount of genuine upvotes, much more so than in the original forum.

Concept spamming wasn't all that bad of a problem in the original forum as it wouldn't necessarily stop others from being viewed. Eventually, such concepts would stop due to a few downvotes or lack of feedback, considering any concepts that lacked finesse obviously didn't have much commitment behind them and would fade away. When it comes to the Boards, there seems to be no shortage of many new champion concepts being pitched, well-constructed or otherwise.

Although bumping still exists, it's not nearly as viable as it once was with the other sections aside from "Recent" in the mix. In the end, it's a constant struggle between getting attention while being subjected to the very hostile downvoter that may even just downvote other concepts to put theirs in an advantage in the "Hot" or "Best" sections.

Don't forget that the "Hot" and "Recent" sections themselves are tied closely together in that they are receiving a lot of attention. Bumping against concepts that take up space in more than one subdivision makes it harder to get noticed.

The fact that many posts have gotten severely set back, or virtually destroyed at worst, without any feedback, or even downvoted in just minutes after being posted (too short of a time to have read through) says there definitely needs to be some changes. This isn't an environment where a concept has a chance to thrive and evolve. Newcomers to the forum might even find themselves very intimidated, discouraged, or deterred away. It's no longer the easygoing forum it once was. It's a constant tripping over each other for attention further divided by multiple sections.

Flintfall1 votes

I very much agree that new concepters/concepts are definitely at risk with everyone coming to the boards.

One thing discussed in another thread is an incubation time (similar to reddit) where votes are not visible outside of the thread. Do you think that would help champion concepts reach a more level playing field? I think a longer incubation time would help with random downvotes.

With pictures I get a more vibrant, lively feel to the boards. I personally think that a loss of thumbnails would make the boards more competetive, but also suck a lot of fun from the front pages. I don't really feel inspired looking a diamond in the rough when a simple thumbnail can tell me someone went the extra mile.

Getting a picture for your concept isn't too hard. Let's assume you can't find a picture that accurately fits your champ's description. You could go for a picture of their weapon, a picture of where they came from, a visual setup for the lore, a potential skin idea, do an album of specifc characteristics that could make up your champion concept, and the list goes on.

I'm biased to the sensationalism of champion concepts, one of the things that turned me off about the old champion concept forum is that people took concepts as a science rather than an art. Not to mention no pictures alienates the champion concept board from the others, making it feel less welcoming.

I'm entering full rant mode at this point, I hope I don't come off as abrasive. I'm on mobile/very sleepy, so I can't edit as freely.

I love the passion and excitement people put into concepts, and how caring this community can be. In the end we all want to accentuate that, we want build each other up allow for a more creative environment.

We have different principles for achieving this, so in order to tie this up I'd like to ask how the ideal champion concept forum would look to you.

Angeluslight2 votes

Part of the major problem I address in my post is the very fact that votes are displayed as well as cast-able on the list of threads rather than inside each one of them. It's part of the "don't judge a book by it's cover" issue and create the "follow the leader" problem by skewing first-impressions, whether it is positive or negative. The first and main factor one should judge a concept is through the concept itself.

I'm not saying the entire Boards should get rid of thumbnails, but as stated above, they cause a problem with Champion Concepts. For Skin Concepts, it's perfect because that's all about visuals.

The problem with your picture suggestions is that they are still very unbalanced due to the fact that a picture of a weapon or background is not going to really trump a picture of a champion or similar figure to the champion idea. Not everyone will be satisfied having to settle on a picture soley for the sake of their thread surviving, and I'm not so sure a thread of all random/anime/weapon pics would make the Concept forum that much appealing. I could be wrong about the appealing part, but there's still the imbalance.

Champion concepts are a science, so-to-speak. They're also an art, too, sure. Combining those two were how threads became successful. Pictures still existed and were influential in maintaining attention, but everyone was at an even ground with the title of their threads being the first thing a forum-goer sees. They got a sense of creativity that caught their attention rather than seeing a bunch of copy and paste pictures from Google or something.

I wouldn't say I take your arguments as abrasive, but definitely biased as you said yourself:

I'm biased to the sensationalism of champion concepts

The sensationalism should come from within, not a flashy display of pictures. I'm sure many will agree that concepts should earn their success by the amount of effort put into the concept itself to make it unique, appealing, balanced, and workable into the game.

Right now, it feels (for the most part) like concepts are walking on a runway with a very limited chance of staying on it.

Not to be too nit-picky, but the very definition of sensationalism is: "the use of exciting or shocking stories or language at the expense of accuracy, in order to provoke public interest or excitement."

I'm not saying you actually meant that, but that is where things seem to be at with the current Champion Concept forum.

Angeluslight1 votes

I missed the last question about what I think the ideal Champion Concept Forum would look like. My last response was at 4AM when I woke up to get ready for work.

So, in short, it would be pretty much the original concept forum. Nothing was wrong with it. It wasn't so hectic-feeling and threads didn't step over each other so much. There weren't sections divided up based on popularity; it was based on maintaining commitment more-so than running with what's trending. The only change from the original forum I would say is the separation of skin and champion concepts so they have their own pages.

Elphrihaim2 votes

Ideal champion concept forum:

The old one, but separated for Champion and Skin concepts.

Angeluslight1 votes

More or less what I was going for, but I couldn't agree more.

Angeluslight1 votes

I saw your comment on the Megathread about your concept being deleted. Seriously...? Over formatting, and without a warning? Exactly what rule did that violate?

Bourmegar1 votes

soon EU will also join and then the mess is Complete, so I fully agree here. everything just gets blowns away of the stream of Threads.

Angeluslight1 votes

Well, not so much as threads since everything posted on a forum is a thread or in one. But everything is subject to toxicity and laziness for those that do not want to read and just follow the crowd of visible votes without even opening the thread to read it. It's one giant competition now. That's not how a forum, a place where people are supposed to be heard and be able to discuss things, should be conducted.

Bourmegar2 votes

I fully agree there.

Its also that concepts that i make never get attention while others do mainly because of the art and title they have. Ppl should just stop judging the book's cover.

Angeluslight1 votes

Exactly. All was fair in the way the original Skin and Champion Concepts forum. The object was to work on and pitch an idea and wait for feedback. After an appropriate amount of time and sinking past the first page, one could just bump their post and cast the line of patience in hope of comments and votes. It was balanced and review threads, skin concepts, and champion concepts could all co-exist.

Such is not the case at all now. It's a hostile race to the top or practically die trying now. In the original forum, the upset was getting lots of views with no comments/votes. Now, it's all about worrying if your concept will get upvoted and stay afloat or get downvoted to the abyss. And with very little to virtually no feedback in the process.

Rockman1 votes

[deleted]

Angeluslight1 votes

Noooooo, no, no. I agree, as one can plainly see the upset over the GD.

That's why my suggestions remain more true to the original style forum. What's the use of having different "options" if one is absolutely going to dominate over the other? My "original" and "hot" sections are a compromise between the two styles of threads, but maintain the efficiency and fairness that the "new" and "recent" sections lack.

Edit: For all intents and purposes, I strongly prefer having the same 1-page system we had before, without these "hot," "recent," "new," etc. sections.

Raptamei1 votes

One, bumps don't do anything on leddit.

Two, I already quit the champion design contests because there's no point in designing a champion when there is literally no way short of a direct search to find it again after a week. You lose the entire "library" feeling.

The MCCC is dead, the MTG contest disappeared before a single new post was made, the CCC exists but is pointless because it's ten pages down. Sorry, not wasting my time, I'm out. summoner 12

Angeluslight3 votes

Bumps work, but just not on this part of the Boards or any part without a "Recent" section. I was just testing it out to see if it may have had any possible effect in the "Hot" tab. It doesn't really, so I stopped. No harm in trying, especially when trying to get something fixed.

I've certainly seen a handful of types of threads disappear, including review threads, contests, lore writing, etc. It's a constant struggle to get concepts noticed and hold their own. It's an enormous popularity contest to get into tabs other than "recent" there; no longer the equal ground where everyone can progress. And don't get me started on the trolling, especially with the votes...

It's all so ridiculous, I know. I'm sorry you've decided to quit partaking in the creation. It's messed up to see Riot take a good thing and destroy it. I'm still holding out a bit for the small sliver of hope that this all changes with the massive amount of negative feedback.

C'mon...what's the use of having a community if you're going to discourage everything they try to do, Riot?

Elphrihaim1 votes

No

The concept wasn't deleted

I was formatting the concept, and saw a huge, glaring flaw with the formatting

So I made a thread about the fact that "Formatting breaks really easily"

It got deleted 12 hours after I had posted it. TWELVE HOURS.

Either a) mods are slacking or b) somebody reported the post long after it existed or c) both.

What the hell is the point of a "Boards Feedback" section if you make a single thread for it anyway? You might as well delete the section and sticky the thread in every subforum instead. ._.'

Angeluslight1 votes

Ah, alright. Who knows then. I've seen some complaints about some really oppressive moderation in regards to deletions, but yeah...

I feel like the Boards were created strictly with Riot's staff's convenience only. For example, I just can't see how anyone would think the ability to vote without entering a thread is a good idea, especially in a community where there's not really a shortage of toxicity.

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