Batch Submission Updates

[HammyMcSquirrel]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

Would it be too drastic of a compromise to allow people to ask a judge if a song they want to step is already in a private queue on a case-by-case basis? The only information needed would be the song title and possibly the song artist. With the potential of overlap in stepping files being more uncommon because of our diverse selection in songs, the same logic can also apply to the chance of a file in the private queue being exposed if we're allowed the chance to confirm.

I think the peace of mind would go a long way if people knew they had that option. I'm sure a lot of step artists have a different mentality towards stepping a fresh song for FFR vs a different take on an existing song in the game. In my case, even if a file I made ended up being the same if it were a V2/[Another] compared to a first release, I would rather put the time towards a different file. Not to sound as if I don't appreciate alternate takes on stepfiles in game, I just generally have more interest in contributing new songs to the game than more stepfiles.

As far as the surprise aspect of new files for tournaments, I can only speak for myself as someone who wouldn't be bothered by knowing a song name beforehand. If there was a list of songs and someone said, "Some of these might be in the next official tournament." I would actually see a potential of more hype because hearing the song would allow me to speculate on what kind of difficulty, division, etc it would be for and therefore make me pay more attention for its release. I feel that a big part of the tournament is the fact that it's a new stepfile for everyone. As long as people aren't being exposed to the stepfile itself beforehand, I don't see the system becoming less adequate.

I don't think anyone wants to remove the private queue entirely, but it's worth exploring a middle ground here.

[psychoangel691]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

Would it be too drastic of a compromise to allow people to ask a judge if a song they want to step is already in a private queue on a case-by-case basis? The only information needed would be the song title and possibly the song artist. With the potential of overlap in stepping files being more uncommon because of our diverse selection in songs, the same logic can also apply to the chance of a file in the private queue being exposed if we're allowed the chance to confirm.

I think the peace of mind would go a long way if people knew they had that option. I'm sure a lot of step artists have a different mentality towards stepping a fresh song for FFR vs a different take on an existing song in the game. In my case, even if a file I made ended up being the same if it were a V2/[Another] compared to a first release, I would rather put the time towards a different file. Not to sound as if I don't appreciate alternate takes on stepfiles in game, I just generally have more interest in contributing new songs to the game than more stepfiles.

As far as the surprise aspect of new files for tournaments, I can only speak for myself as someone who wouldn't be bothered by knowing a song name beforehand. If there was a list of songs and someone said, "Some of these might be in the next official tournament." I would actually see a potential of more hype because hearing the song would allow me to speculate on what kind of difficulty, division, etc it would be for and therefore make me pay more attention for its release. I feel that a big part of the tournament is the fact that it's a new stepfile for everyone. As long as people aren't being exposed to the stepfile itself beforehand, I don't see the system becoming less adequate.

I don't think anyone wants to remove the private queue entirely, but it's worth exploring a middle ground here.

I don't see how it's not already a middle ground that the private batches are for specific events, everything else is public. There's more info now than ever and I'm going to keep saying that. None of you guys knew what was being send to the emails in batches of old, it seems incredibly silly to be upset that we may privatize one or two batches in a year for event purposes.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

It used to be that the pool of steppers who could actually get things into FFR was so small I could just ask what people were stepping or post on the forums that I was stepping a certain song and that alone would make me reasonably sure there would be no conflicts. For example to this day I have the folder of music that bmah sent me that he was holding for stepping and I don't touch anything that's in there, at least not without telling him.

I'm going to echo trumaestro's sentiments in response to the first bolded point here:

I would also point out that the pool of suitable music for FFR has grown a lot. We no longer have 4 files of the newest cornandbeans song in one batch or a 3-way "race" to get a Trisection v2 in queue. We have permission from -hundreds- of artists and Creative Commons licensing allows for countless more.

I don't speak from recent experience, but I think that nowadays you'd either have to step "VSRG meta" songs, or tread on someone's niche like :VS: to risk encountering this problem. But with so much music to choose from, shouldn't this conflict be getting more unlikely?

Additionally, I'd like to add that having some ability to see someone charting a file in question is not much of a solution given the history of how batches grow and how users respond to submission cutoffs. The Official Tournament batch is a fantastic example - the number of files in the batch nearly doubled in a one week period before the batch's closure, on a batch that was open at the start of January. This alone showcases the fact that "collisions" would not be prevented because users will commit to making a file last minute, put the effort into making the file, then submit -- users are not going to throw away their last minute efforts to put something in game.

We're also open to accepting multiple versions of a chart that are within reasonably close difficulty, so this is less of an issue than people realize.

As the judging in FFR has gotten less strict and the number of steppers submitting has grown, I've found the odds of collisions has grown a lot - I still don't feel great about what happened with Aggressor, for example - and with that in mind I find being able to see everything is nice. More than a few times with the old Batch Search Engine, I heard a song that I was considering stepping then searched it only to find there was already a submission for it, and each time that happened I appreciated that functionality stopped me from investing hours into something that was already envisioned by someone else.
Yes there are solutions like adding in multiple difficulty tags or [Another] but even then I personally prefer not to step on anyone else's toes, and I imagine I'm not the only one who feels that way.

The situation that happened with Aggressor was absolutely under no circumstance a collision in the way that everyone is concerned about: DarkZtar's chart for Aggressor very literally got lost within the batch system, likely as a result of changeovers in management/transitioning. There have also been numerous files that have gotten lost in this same way -- Koi no Subou Flag was one, The Day The Sun Exploded was another. This was as a result of poor management on my part back when I was handling the responsibilities of game management. Things like this literally can't happen now.

It bears repeating that any collisions that could have occurred only would have occurred in literally any other system. Public submission threads only occurred when enough files had been packaged up to create a batch, and the utilization of multiple emails both predated and coexisted with the public system -- meaning there were plenty of other opportunities for collisions that could have existed, but no one mentioned it. To put simply, users have always accepted the risk.

I don't think anyone's trying to be argumentative here...people are merely stating a concern. no one wants to spend the time to step a file only to find out it's rejected because the same song is already in queue. it's not like it's a really big issue. one solution could be for there to be a search function in the batch; when you search for a song, it tells you whether or not it's been sent by another user.

As stated earlier, files will not simply be rejected simply because the same song is queue. In situations where two charts are basically the same interpretation, it is absolutely sensible to simply pick the one that is higher quality in the similar interpretation. Anything beyond that is risk that had existed in the past that users accepted in the process of submitting files.

Adding a search function won't solve issues, particularly if users submit files where the metadata is incorrect (this wouldn't be done maliciously, it's a common accident). While not the most relevant given that one was a full version and the other was a cut, the Chaos Time songs were a good showcasing of this -- one of the files submitted had proper metadata, and the other did not, meaning neither of these users would have been able to spot one another's file being in a batch.

Would it be too drastic of a compromise to allow people to ask a judge if a song they want to step is already in a private queue on a case-by-case basis? [...]

This has the potential to absolutely inundate game management with more than they need to deal with as it is. It shouldn't be their responsibility to have to check private batches over and over again because users have (historically unnecessary) concerns about it.

I'm finding it rather peculiar that people are bringing up some of these things now and not really appreciating the fact that this entire system has basically organized everything into a centralized position. The hyper fixation over seeing information that simply doesn't need to be seen, and historically -wasn't seen, is somewhat disheartening to both the development of the system and the ideas put together to make the process more streamlined, all in the name to gain information for no seemingly good reason (or at least, any reason that was ever available in the first place).

The benefits of the change to the system to keep content well organized without potentially exposing more than necessary far outweigh everyone needing to have access to things that traditionally they weren't able to see. The only thing this affects is tournament content - which is something that game management has wanted hidden for quite some time. It previously wasn't possible without having to aggravate logistics by doing things like sending people private messages for reviews on their charts -- but by posting things publicly, it was always exposed for people to see, especially when tournament-specific batches occurred.

[HammyMcSquirrel]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

It seems there's some misinterpretation on concerns being expressed over the private queue with the batch system as a whole within this thread. The new batch system truly is wonderful and I've spoke in favor of it as a single entity. Due to how myself and others have looked at it, I had hoped that by expressing some possible alternatives we could see if the way it has been done isn't necessarily the best way.

I don't see how it's not already a middle ground that the private batches are for specific events, everything else is public. There's more info now than ever and I'm going to keep saying that. None of you guys knew what was being send to the emails in batches of old, it seems incredibly silly to be upset that we may privatize one or two batches in a year for event purposes.

I've just been focusing on the private queue aspect. What I mean is a compromise between the two ends that have been talked about here. One end being our current system, the other being what a few of us have brought up in this thread; being able to know if there's a conflict within a private queue with what we'd like to step. An example of middle ground would be having the song title/artist not be private but everything else regarding the stepfile/stepfile artist would be.

This has the potential to absolutely inundate game management with more than they need to deal with as it is. It shouldn't be their responsibility to have to check private batches over and over again because users have (historically unnecessary) concerns about it.

Then in the interest of keeping it simple, I can just state my example above as a question. Would having the song title/artist not be private but the rest remain private be an idea to explore? Everyone knows what's on its way to the game but the gameplay aspect remains a surprise. Shouldn't song artists coming to the game be given as much publicity as often as we can and as soon as we can anyways?

Again, I highly approve of this new system overall. I don't mean for my questioning to mean it all becomes unappreciated. Just trying to throw in some new ideas!

[psychoangel691]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

Putting the song title/artist just defeats the purpose of privatizing the thing in the first place. I honestly don't think that having a private batch for the OT is a problem and I'm going to stick by it in this case. Every other batch you guys have every bit of information available to you. The only other time it would be used would be for a stepcon because those submission are anonymous but the songs are also assigned so, it's pretty irrelevant.

[Velocity]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

It should also be noted that there is a search feature in the batch system, and if you search for a song title that would be unique enough and is also private it will display +1 private submissions, even if you can't see the submission itself.

[HammyMcSquirrel]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

Putting the song title/artist just defeats the purpose of privatizing the thing in the first place. I honestly don't think that having a private batch for the OT is a problem and I'm going to stick by it in this case. Every other batch you guys have every bit of information available to you. The only other time it would be used would be for a stepcon because those submission are anonymous but the songs are also assigned so, it's pretty irrelevant.

I can't agree entirely as things stand right now. However, I do believe that if a large amount of people within this community do not see an issue with how it is, then there is no further need for me to bring forward any other suggestions. I really appreciate having the chance for the conversation, though!

It should also be noted that there is a search feature in the batch system, and if you search for a song title that would be unique enough and is also private it will display +1 private submissions, even if you can't see the submission itself.

That's... almost essentially what I was hoping for in a compromise. Sounds great, thanks!

[psychoangel691]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

It should also be noted that there is a search feature in the batch system, and if you search for a song title that would be unique enough and is also private it will display +1 private submissions, even if you can't see the submission itself.

You know this is just going to get a bunch of people going in searching names now just so they can go "I know what one of the songs is :P"


But yeah, overall while the thread may have had some complaints I was getting several DMs in support of the privatized feature which was why I said I'm sticking by it. I think it's a pretty far reach to be that concerned about collisions in a single batch that it would be used for.

[Velocity]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

You know this is just going to get a bunch of people going in searching names now just so they can go "I know what one of the songs is :P"

Then they play the game of who stepped it and was it accepted

[inDheart]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

full disclosure i submitted none of the private submissions

i know, you were all waiting to hear that

also tbh the discussion is premature, save it for when staff hires another jae

[psychoangel691]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

full disclosure i submitted none of the private submissions

i know, you were all waiting to hear that

also tbh the discussion is premature, save it for when staff hires another jae

holy hell you have no idea how hard I just laughed

[mi40]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

i just saw this

'- The Song Title or Author contains "Venetian Snares". Have you considered another song maybe?

- Seriously we have a lot of VS files.'

looool

[ositzxz369]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

not as much as The Flashbulb

[Wiosna]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

not as much as The Flashbulb

never change, friend

[mi40]

Re: Batch Submission Updates

im boycotting xi and terminal 11 !!!!