"Veteran" Status Discussion

[Mike Weedmark]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

Because SM and FFR are not in any way the same. Quadding Disregard doesn't mean you're not still a newbie at FFR, right? -_-;;

I don't see any reason good SM players shouldn't be able to get Vet in a few hours, or even minutes. This is the kind of complaint that makes it obvious that people are still thinking vet is about being committed to the FFR community or something. Your sign-up time means nothing. Your post count means nothing. Skill is everything. People don't need to earn your friendship to deserve to become vet. It's a game-related reward and should be unlocked with skilled gameplay. It's almost like... the people who want a time requirement or a post-count requirement are looking for excuses to keep people on the forums because they're afraid of being alone or something lol. Like Vet should be a reward for spending three months or a year or three years getting to know them and to hell with being good at the game or anything.

The only thing I see wrong with a concrete period of time a person must be a member is that it has no meaning whatsoever in how much experience they have. And though some people argue being a Veteran *is* the amount of time you "served" or whatever else... that's bullshit. You can't measure how long someone has "served" as an FFR player by how long ago they made their account. They are not forced to log in every day, or even check back on the site ever again after making their account.

This might be the single best paragraph I've read on the forums. Zero kinda gets it.

Imo, anyone who has more than 3 year member length, should have easily been able to attain 3 billion points in their time here. I see the 3year/3bill as a fairly well-rounded system. People who've been here for 7 years that haven't managed to get 3 billion points (which isn't a,lot when you think about it), aren't so much veterans of the game as they are veterans of 'clicking the sign-up button and waiting'.

This is true, but is also kind of an understatement. You can get 3bn with like a month of serious play, and anyone who only has 3bn after 7 years... sorry, but you're not a vet. You just aren't, lol. This thing should be at least a little bit exclusive, and playing 4 games a month for 7 years just isn't deserving.

[XCV]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

Problem with this is that some random SM god could come out of nowhere and get veteran within a day of being a member on FFR.

I fail to see how that's a problem, other than the fact that it may tick off a few noobs.

[yo man im awesome]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I don't see how you guys could get 3 billion within a month. It takes me a month just to get 1 Billion, and that's like a summer month. It takes me at least 3 school months for 1 Billion. But does that make me ineligable for veteran? No.

[rushyrulz]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I fail to see where you guys are coming from thinking that there should be the possibility to walk in off the street having experience in stepmania and get a title instantly that others had to wait 3 years for..

FFR Veteran shouldn't be a measure of skill it should be a measure of dedication. Which is why I think justin_ator's suggestion works best. 5 years and 1 billion points down to 1 year and 10 billion points.

Some of you guys are treating veteran status like some kind of skill token and that's most definitely not what it is. It should require dedication and effort just like every other title you can get on FFR.

[Frank Munoz]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I don't see any reason good SM players shouldn't be able to get Vet in a few hours, or even minutes. This is the kind of complaint that makes it obvious that people are still thinking vet is about being committed to the FFR community or something. Your sign-up time means nothing. Your post count means nothing. Skill is everything. People don't need to earn your friendship to deserve to become vet. It's a game-related reward and should be unlocked with skilled gameplay. It's almost like... the people who want a time requirement or a post-count requirement are looking for excuses to keep people on the forums because they're afraid of being alone or something lol. Like Vet should be a reward for spending three months or a year or three years getting to know them and to hell with being good at the game or anything.

You misunderstand; veteran status is not an indication of skill. As of now, veteran status is more of, "I was here before the site went down", more or less.
If anyone were able to acquire a blue name, access to an inactive board, and the ability to change that ,"FFR player", under your name into something else in less than a day it would disrupt the Veteran status purpose and be abused. Veteran status would no longer be a small award, it would become a gift.
Achieving Veteran status is something to cherish. It is not much, but you must be proud to be known as a Veteran; even if you suck at the game.
If you want Veteran status just to have it then you do not deserve it.

Now, if anyone wants to be recognized as an FFR pro, then Veteran status is not for any of you.
How about you speak with true skill: aaa's/fc's/TIER POINTS.
You should not need a title to feel that you are good at this game.

[rushyrulz]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

ITT: People without veteran status complain about the current requirements so they argue for requirements that will include them instead of trying to come up with a reasonable solution.

Sure we could use a little more variety in determining veteran status, but in no way should it be an easy task that requires participating in one aspect of the site. Either drill that one aspect into the ground or find a balance between multiple parts of FFR, social included.

[yo man im awesome]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

One thing I just want to get out, regardless of relevance:

I don't think ANYBODY is bad at this game. At all. People who've played the game longer, or are just better just HAVE to think everybody below them, or below a certain point sucks, when in truth, they're actually great at the game. Another thing I hate seeing is when someone who's really good at the game (better than me) has a minor skill drop, or just doesn't do as well as they could've on a song, immediately thinks they're terrible. You are NOT terrible. It's not easy to become incredible at this game, but it doesn't take much to know that you're not bad at it.

/rant


Anyway, Frank explained things really well. When I finally acheived Veteran status, I was off the wall. But if the requirements were different or less demanding, I wouldn't have been so happy about it. It took me 4 years to achieve 3 Billion GTS, and I'm happy I stuck with this game.

[SocoNhydro420]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I agree that veteran status should be based off of how long you have been with ffr/how much you have contributed. The definition of "veteran" fits well with this.

However, i want to see a new status that is based entirely off of skill.

That way both good players and not-so-good players-that-been-with-the-site-for-100-years can both get a title of recognition.

That is all.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I don't understand what's the point of arguing about it. A veteran status indicates that you've been with the community for a respectable amount of time. The 3 billion points stops people from just sitting on a three year account with nothing only to get that status.

Just leave it be. There's no need for it to get changed. If anything, the length of time required to get Veteran status should be pushed upward.

For the record: I was a pretty active member of the FFR community who was able to get onto FFR when I had spare time, and I'm only sitting at 13 billion points with an account that's roughly three and a half years old. Not everyone has the time to sit at their computer and play FFR enough to boost themselves to a rate of 10m/1y, etc.

[qqwref]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

ITT: People without veteran status complain about the current requirements so they argue for requirements that will include them instead of trying to come up with a reasonable solution.

And what about the people who already have it, but think it would be unrealistically hard to achieve for a new player?

3 years is a really long time - if you started an account now it would take until 2014 to get veteran status, and the site might be dead by then. As of right now, it hasn't even been 3 years since that long downtime. I think a lot of new players will hear about requirements like that and just give up on the idea of ever becoming a veteran.

I do like the idea of a combined GTS and time requirement, but I think it should go all the way to time=0. We could have something like 15bil + no time, or 10bil + a year, or 3bil + 3 years, or 1bil + 5 years. So that way anyone could get it, but you'd have to spend more time playing the game if you weren't an older member.

[rushyrulz]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I'm still behind my proposition that an account should have to wait at least one year before getting veteran. It takes the average player a year to get to the 10 billion you were suggesting anyhow. I suppose if someone could rack up 15 billion points before a year is up they could get veteran, but that's a rare exception.

[Mike Weedmark]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I think a lot of people are throwing the 3 year timespan around too lightly. FFR is a video game. I'm trying to imagine buying any other video game, and finding out that there are elements designed into it that can only be unlocked when a "wait, because wait" requirement of THREE YEARS is met.

I'm not especially attached to the vet title or most of the things that come with it. I just want the game to be self-contained. No "you've been here a long-ass time so you get new songs two weeks early." No "you can't look at the ranks of other users of interest because lol."

You could get rid of vet entirely, change the conditions, whatever. I just don't want sitting on my ass to be a requirement to unlock things that are relevant to playing the game. I mean, I don't mind doing a little bit of ass-sitting, patience is also a skill, after all. But once again... video game. Three years is an obscenely disproportionally high condition for the ability to do basic things like check ranks.

[Zageron]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

If you: are drafted; fly into a war zone; kill 100 enemies; and then leave; all within 24 hours, you are not a war veteran. You might be good at what you do, but you are not a veteran.

[justin_ator]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

Veteran simply denotes experience, not skill. Experience. It's gained over time. We can't call Veteran status simply sit on the site status, or whore the game status. It has to be a combination. In addition to what Zageron posted, someone who was in all the wars and just sat around in the camp during them all is not a veteran either. You can be there but if you didn't EXPERIENCE anything other than chilling wherever the war was, you didn't do anything to be known as a Vet anyway. That's why this should remain a combination of the two factors. I like the idea of one year 10bil points down to like 6 years on the site with 1bil because it signifies that people have at least a decent level of knowledge about things on the site because they are ACTIVE. If you know someone made an account in 2004, but they have 200 mil points, they either really suck and play Free Space all day, or they aren't very GAME-ACTIVE. A veteran should be somewhat of a combination of the two.

EDIT: rushy I appreciate you trying to credit me with that idea but I wasn't the first one to state it. =]

[hi19hi19]

Re: "Veteran" Status Discussion

I think a lot of people are throwing the 3 year timespan around too lightly. FFR is a video game. I'm trying to imagine buying any other video game, and finding out that there are elements designed into it that can only be unlocked when a "wait, because wait" requirement of THREE YEARS is met.

I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of games that have yearly or rarer events-
Perhaps you've heard of a relatively unsuccessful game series called Pokemon, but they hold events (i.e. the Fateful Encounter Celebi event) many years after a game comes out. Last I checked about 23 million people bought Pokemon Silver or Gold, games which were TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT until Nintendo held their event years later.

I think you need to learn a bit of patience >_>