pet site critter hoarder

Oh, and obligatory (obvious) disclaimer: Nothing about these choices or discussion implies any fault to the skin artists. This is entirely about the developers' selection choices, trends, and methods of incentivizing work done by outside, non-paid creators.

1. Fest themes are too limited. Add/allow more variety & creativity.

Many people have noticed that there is a distinct lack of variety in the selected skins. Flights are stovepiped into an extremely limited expression of their respective themes that allows no interpretation. Excellent skins that appear to a casual observer to wonderfully represent a flight are discarded in favor of repeat ideas where one skin looks largely the same as another within the same fest, let alone across the years.

This does little to encourage creativity and expression, and for repeat fest artists, they may struggle to come up with new ideas. I have seen artists re-submit the same art, merely warped to fit a new pose - and sure enough, the same art won twice.

It's important that flights are recognizable, but allowed interpretations are far too narrow. They also make each flight an aesthetic monolith that fails to represent what attracts players, and also fails to give the flight's dragons any diversity. These limited concepts also result in some flights naturally having more variety, while others are forced into the unfortunate (and unfair) corner of rinse & repeat forever.

2. Criteria is unclear. Explain why losing entries missed the mark.

How many times have you hoped for an incredible skin to win, only to find that it got rejected and wonder why? Especially when the theme was on point and it was a gorgeous entry? I know I've stopped even looking at entries, simply because my favorites, which I find are excellent representatives of the fest flight, somehow never win.

Perhaps you are that artist with an excellent fest reject. Or perhaps you are new and learning the ropes, and you did your best to follow the criteria, but it wasn't enough somehow. Was your skin rejected because you need more practice? Was the theme wrong, somehow? Or did you miss a technical criteria and you don't know it? Maybe you feel like you are shouting into the void and you have no idea what direction to go to try again.

Developers owe it to their playerbase to explain why they chose what they did, and why they rejected what they rejected. Skin criteria, especially for fests, is ambiguous and subjective. This creates a lot of uncertainty, which dissuades artists from even trying.

Developers need to publish a follow-up critique/analysis of rejected skins. It doesn't need to be enormously detailed. But it should identify which of the necessary elements formed the basis of rejection, in the name of growing the skills of skin-makers:

Skill/execution

Theme

Technical submission criteria

The brief analysis should say specifically what was missed in the above categories, with an example from that reject skin, if applicable. Importantly, it should also mention 1-2 elements that were done well. Every entry deserves a bit of feel-good recognition! This will help new and future artists learn and improve, and remove much of the ambiguity from the contests. It will also build goodwill among artists and non-artists when they are allowed to understand why their hard work/favorites didn't pay off.

3. Repeat winners take up slots from new people. Cap number of repeats.

Many people find repeat winners fest after fest after fest to be discouraging. This is especially true when skins that are just as good get rejected in favor of a repeat winner.

Now, some kind of balance must be struck between the interests of the playerbase (getting pretty skins) and the interests of the artists (getting a fair chance of winning). So getting rid of repeats entirely isn't the answer, but restricting the number of repeats in a row can help to free up opportunities for new people, boost confidence, and provide encouragement to people previously too discouraged to enter.

That's not to say repeat winners can't/shouldn't enter every fest. But once their cap is reached, their entries should be de-prioritized in favor of other eligible entries for one or two fests. If non-repeat skins meet criteria well enough (perhaps with allowances for imperfect theme/skill/technical issues - see #1 above), they should be prioritized. And, of course, if there are too few entries, or they fail criteria so drastically, then a repeat skin can be selected even above the cap.

But otherwise, taking a break from a repeat artist for a single fest or two before allowing another run of repeats demonstrates that the developers are interested in fairness and have instituted visible measures to keep things fair and open up opportunities.

The cap might be anywhere from 2-4 fests in a row, whatever is sensible. This doesn't bar repeat winners from repeatedly winning again; it merely gives them a brief break and frees a slot for someone else.

4. Prizes haven't kept pace with economy. Give more gems to winners/runner-ups.

Making skins is hard and time-consuming, often representing hours of work. Winners only get 2,000g, something that's free for FR to provide but only represents $20 worth of currency exclusive to on-site use ... which means that it's less value than actual $20. Artists get more if they lose and sell their skins themselves.

Essentially, there's no real incentive to enter. And prizes for honorable mentions are not mentioned, for some reason.

If the gem prize was at least comparable to what an artist might earn on average for skin sales, that would be a huge incentive.

5. Not enough winning opportunities. Select more winners.

(Consider this independently from the player cost for buying fest skins; i.e. don't let the possibility of paying more to buy more fest skins influence your choice. General fest updates will be discussed in a future post.)

There are presently only 20 skins per fest. That's only 20 winners out of a playerbase of thousands, only 20 skins to cover something like 58 poses ... assuming winning poses aren't doubles or triples, which has happened. That's less than half the number of site breeds, and the number of breeds keeps climbing.

Between repeat winners and excellent skins that miss a slot, increasing the number of winning skins could not only spread the love to deserving artists, but also increase breed/pose coverage.

6. Not enough prizes. Add more/more variety.

In addition to gems, winners get a vista, a copy of their skin, and a 5-skin multi-copy-pack (good for only half a run of one skin).

Of course, when you have the vista, you have the vista. Additional vista copies are pointless. And 5 copies of one future skin only go so far.

Some users have suggested new vistas, even flight-themed vistas, new every month, to encourage participation. A full run (10 copies) of a skin blueprint is also a much-needed update, as this encourages new skin art and the development of skin artists.

Additionally, prizes for honorable mentions need to be increased. More than the winners, it's the honorable mentions who need (and deserve) a 5- or 10-copy blueprint to print their skins that didn't win.

Some users suggest contest-exclusive familiars or apparel. This might or might not breed resentment. For ideas that might be more fair:

Fest currency

A set of that fest's fams/apparel/scenes/etc.

A prismatic token

Achievements: for entering, honorable mention, and winning

While it might be a little much to reward ALL entrants with too much, something small, like the cost of one fest skin, would allow an artist to at least receive one free fest skin of their choice and be properly acknowledged for the time spent on the contest.

7. Just advertise the skin fests better.

Fest advertisements are buried at the very bottom of posts about something else entirely. They're forgettable if seen, and easy to miss otherwise. A dedicated advertisement post would help, and/or a permanent reminder (with dates!) somewhere on the sidebars of the site.

8. Fest themes are TOO open. Provide a specific palette/concept to guide entries.

In contrast to finding themes too restrictive, some players have trouble coming up with ideas without more guidance. Developers could announce more specific thematic criteria (palette, general concept, specific items) that skin submissions should include.

This has several connotations. It could result in skins being too same-y, but as long as the window is open wide enough for creative interpretation, it might also result in more interesting collections.

If the theme is revealed at the fest announcement (with the start of the previous fest), it means artists have only ~a month to work on submissions. On one hand, this could level the playing field (no more submissions prepared months in advance/everyone has the same time), but some will find the timeframe to be too short/feel too rushed.

Perhaps a compromise could be to introduce the specificity as a "challenge theme." Something like half of submissions could be chosen from this theme, and there could be a small bonus to "challenge" winners (~100g and/or a different "challenge" vista). It would be enough to reward challenge seekers with a bit extra ... and also to provide more guidance in a way that suggests a reasonable chance of winning.

Of course, the reality is probably that more than one approach is the most effective method: Less-restrictive themes + feedback + prize revamp + fairness efforts + better advertisement. The current framework is clearly not working. If skin submissions continue to decline, then FR will be forced to cut the number of winners or accept skins that don't meet criteria.