Incentive to get people to play, player created missions

[Kissy My]

Optimism for the day....
Just to let people know.... they DO read the suggestions/comments..
Who knows what or where it will lead ... but let's keep hope that something will improve..

Does SV have any plans in the works for mission makers/player created missions? a few suggestions and concerns have been made, but there hasn't been any SV feedback.

A: We’ve taken note of the feedback shared by our Missions community and have been collaborating internally to come up with ideas that address some of the concerns mission creators are currently facing.

With that said, we are still in the process of finalizing these ideas and working through the logistics of how they would be implemented into SmallVerse. Our goal is to ensure that any changes introduced remain fair, balanced, and require minimal adjustments after release.

[Kissy My]

One of my strange hobbies, kind of out of habit... cause in my work career, i was in charge of gathering data and industry trends etc ..
so i spend time looking at different aspects of missions... amounts of plays, comments, styles, newly added, recent being created in the mission panel..

Is SV aware that there are a LOT less missions being created???
That several of their mission makers are barely or not playing?

interesting ... but, not surprising ...

[Rotting Corpse]

I've skimmed through this, so don't take what I'm adding to this incredibly seriously. What I'm looking to touch on is the concept of the mission creators getting gold as payment for their missions.

There was a time EARLY in the closed beta where mission makers would receive 5000 gold for getting their mission approved. Gold was scarce as hell with no store, so it was kind of a necessity if they wanted players to continue creating. There were pros and cons to this (even with a super small group of players!) but there were issues in its own right. That period, however, I feel was the GOLDEN ERA of missions/mission making. Not necessarily because we were being paid to make quality missions (though it didn't hurt), but there was an announcement made weekly after XP reset for new missions released. It wasn't huge, but I know it made me feel seen when I finally had a mission meet the standards.

I don't think a 5K payout is necessarily feasible for the current economy, but I'm not big on the business/numbers aspect of the game (aka: please correct me if I'm speaking nonsense). I think what helped our plays back then was partly a smaller community, but also the game/staff itself ACKNOWLEDGING OUR WORK. This could be revisited with the featured missions page and some other modifications to the missions panel.

[Kissy My]

mission creators getting gold as payment for their missions.

My original post wasn't about mission creators getting gold... but players... even the 2 gold per mission might be enough to incentivize ppl, because it will add up at least a little.
even if they included a cap ...

OP
players get 5 gold when they complete an approved mission.

5 gold + 100 plays = 500 gold

2 gold + 100 plays = 200 gold

ACKNOWLEDGMENT would deff be nice .. but sadly one of the biggest things i have noticed in this game is the lack of staff events or interactions.. pr is deff not their strong suit

[Aribella Lafonte]

Is SV aware that there are a LOT less missions being created???
That several of their mission makers are barely or not playing?

interesting ... but, not surprising ...

I don't think a 5K payout is necessarily feasible for the current economy, but I'm not big on the business/numbers aspect of the game (aka: please correct me if I'm speaking nonsense). I think what helped our plays back then was partly a smaller community, but also the game/staff itself ACKNOWLEDGING OUR WORK. This could be revisited with the featured missions page and some other modifications to the missions panel.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT would deff be nice .. but sadly one of the biggest things i have noticed in this game is the lack of staff events or interactions.. pr is deff not their strong suit

Mission Creation/Staff Acknowledgement

I have to comment on this, Kissy, to take you back to that time at the very beginning of the game when there was the gold incentive. This of course was for the mission creator and not the player. But Rotting has a point to there being more missions being created (hence incentive) and it did in fact have some cons to go with it, more to be honest. Back then, there was such a need to test to make sure that the functionality of missions was working on all aspects of it (CMP, interactions, payout) and the store wasn’t released yet to buy things and there was very little way to earn the gold necessary to create one, that we were given gold in the beginning (stimulus if you will) and then earned an additional gold amount for each mission that was created and approved. This was only to get the game started. This incentive led quite a few people to create missions, for some, mission after mission in order to get it. Were some of those really that great, no, (a con) that some were just cranked out barely meeting guidelines in order to get that incentive. And another con that came of that was that some of these same mission creators never created another mission after that once the incentive was no longer given, so it became more about the gold than the actual desire and passion to create a mission.

As far as the number of missions being created of recent after the incentive gold era (let’s say in the past 12 months) I really don’t see much difference. Before the forums were released, a member of staff would periodically post on discord the newly approved missions. Since more players use discord vs forums, (modern age) they were seen by more players. Since that has stopped and that announcement has been moved to forums, here;

https://www.smallverse.app/forum/thr...ions#post10185

And sadly, they don’t always keep up on them on a timely basis, i.e, every week, biweekly so all at once you will see a huge post of them and then the next, very little. But overall, I myself don’t see the difference vs how many were created from the time of them posting them on discord. For those created by mission creators (ignoring Staff’s messy schedule), they are about the same if not more over the past few months. I’ve perhaps seen less missions from the few mission makers that crank them out like crazy, but they are still creating them. I have also seen a lot of newer, less known mission makers on panel so I can’t say everyone in the mission community is discouraged or not playing/creating missions as of recent. Some, definitely.

Public Relations/Community Involvement/Player Morale

For events and PR work by Staff. Speaking of their past efforts of this; In the very beginning there was more effort with this. On preview they got everyone together to build excitement for the game’s launch by meeting up in Town Center (much like old SW Meet N Greets). Then to appeal to players that enjoyed games/competitions they would have a gaming event (much like the player created games) where participants could win a prize. That was great, however, it failed to be an activity that would interest other players outside the competitive/gaming community and there really wasn’t any event for them, unless it was a couple of painting/sculpting contests but not really an event to get everyone together. Perhaps a better solution to the game events would have been Friday Night Foodfight etc. As far as Staff/Player interactions that would have done well at community events, much like OG SW, it was swapped for hanging out or randomly dropping in player owned spaces so that in itself created its own issues/concerns that again didn’t involve the entire player community to get everyone together. It led to the speculation that Staff was playing favorites. Now, we are here today with them maybe showing up in a public space (rarely) and the monthly Q&A to answer our questions vs once again, have a community event to answer players questions, build excitement of what is to come and to promote the game (much like Battle Monkey and Vince were appointed to do on SW.

Can Staff do better PR work, most definitely, but it should be carried out in much the way SW Staff used to. Personally, I think they need to get it together (be smart and professional about it) and help us as players feel like we are all included and being listened to to help us get involved and improve the overall morale. For mission makers and the game overall.

Gold Incentives

As far as the gold incentive for players; I feel that while it provides a little bonus to play a mission, I really don’t believe it will fix the problem of a more balanced mission panel so the lesser played missions gain more plays or acknowledgement. Mission players will continue to play the same missions they want to play on panel, in the very front and continue to ignore everything in the back. It benefits the player, not the mission maker at all. Unless of course one is a mission maker on the first 10 or less pages on the approved panel.

Since you ARE a mission maker and whose missions are more to the back of panel, I would assume that you would want more plays and so (sigh) I am confused if you are trying to advocate for missions (all missions) to gain plays (benefits creators) or are you more so trying to advocate as a mission player to increase their rewards? I am ONLY trying to understand how getting gold will help/improve missions from how they are in their current state. For the missions themselves and their creators. Genuinely confused here. What do you think the outcome of this will be for missions/creators if this pushes through. How is it going to help? Hopefully I have made myself clear enough to what I am asking. I think a BIG CONCERN with the mission community is that our missions (hard work) is not seen by players for a more balanced number of plays and that ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that Rotting brought up.

[Kissy My]

Pointing out... once again...
My original post had nothing to do with gold for mission makers... it was only to encourage plays.. with very small amounts of gold...

as for the gold incentives in the beginning for mission makers, i wasnt here... but that is common..
While i would personally love if my missions made gold, that has nothing to do with the context of my post.

this > more players use discord vs forums, (modern age) made me LOL ... well, the "modern age" is absolutely stagnant, other then sales and art aka ..
that comment wasn't necessary to this topic.. but... ooookay
also LMAO @ your little swipes... whose missions are more to the back of panel

How getting gold will help/improve missions from how they are in their current state.
How? it's pretty simple, even a no-brainer .... because people want gold, even in small amounts and quite a few would put in the work, which would involve playing missions.

Ari, I know you go to incredible great lengths to make it seem as if my ideas are completely self serving..
Sorry, but thats just not the case... my missions do fairly well in plays... especially considering how the playership has dropped quite a bit.
I just feel absolutely sad that I come across so many really good missions not get the plays they deserve.

Do my missions have 100s and 100s or even 1000s like you sv og mission makers?
No, not even close... but people have lots more selections and more competitions then they did when you all were making missions in the beginning.
Options were limited back then, so they played the same missions over and over and over.... especially the ones with guides....
and while I would love to have more gold, who wouldnt? to be straight... I don't need it.. I have a pretty healthy credit card LOL

[Rotting Corpse]

Pointing out... once again...
My original post had nothing to do with gold for mission makers... it was only to encourage plays.. with very small amounts of gold...

Fair enough, I did get a bit caught up in some of the discussion where people were debating cost of mission making. That's on me, there. I lost sight of the forest through the trees. Oops!

The gist of my message seems to have been picked up, though (yippee!), that more acknowledgement + adjustments to have a featured missions panel would be a solid way to promote more plays to some missions. It's not a cure all by any means, but it may be easier to justify to staff than introducing a gold reward for mission plays.

With the review of the mission panel to do what I mentioned previously, that can later be worked on further if there's a continued lack, such as introducing a gold reward, just like you said!

[Kissy My]

I think we can all agree.. that a featured missions would be a great addition ...
as long as they rotate periodically...

and my comment wasn't directed at you... someone has the impression that everything i do or say is for self serving reasons .. its just a little game we play LMAO

[Aribella Lafonte]

Pointing out... once again...
My original post had nothing to do with gold for mission makers... it was only to encourage plays.. with very small amounts of gold...

My comment going back to the gold incentive had nothing to do with gold for mission makers but was referencing to the quantity of missions created. That time period not only included gold (not my point) but also in turn because of it, gave players the incentive to want to create missions so there was an influx of them created at that time. You did mention that there are less missions being created in more recent months.

And my question was directed to how this solution would help those missions further back on panel get plays when those to the front of panel are the ones that players will continue to go to out of habit. It had nothing to do about gold. It had everything to do with mission plays (which in turn benefits the creator) if you can get players to look at missions beyond page 10.Even giving a gold pay out, I don’t see this changing how missions are being played, it’ll still be those in front of panel getting all of the plays. I also wanted to know if you were taking on a perspective as mission maker, player or both to help identify with you and suggestion’s reasoning. (For understanding) I’m sorry that I had the mere audacity to ask.

also LMAO @ your little swipes... whose missions are more to the back of panel

Swipes? There is obviously some sort of misunderstanding or misinterpretation here. If you are implying any sort of sarcasm or hidden insult, that was definitely not my intentions nor did it exist. It just meant LITERALLY that your missions (and mine as well) show further back on the approved panel than the first several pages (using 10 as an example) that contain the missions that have the highest averages for mission plays (5,000- 10,000+) compared to those further on panel. The missions that are further on panel are the ones needing more plays. FYI: Missions seem to be towards the front of panel based on their time of creation. For example, a mission created at the beginning of game release will be on the first couple of pages vs missions created several months or a year later (which includes your and my missions) …………… Clearly, my AuDHD problem-solving skills/predicting possible outcomes/thought processing is not easily understood to your way of processing/understanding of things (they conflict and are like oil &water) so there is clear misinterpretation/misunderstanding. Let’s try to leave out taking things personally or as a personal attack, they are simply not there and if anything is taken as such, it is solely on behalf of your own personal interpretations. To be clear, furthermore, I will no longer tolerate any more direct or indirect comments referring to me as being a certain “someone” and referring back to an older post that involved a misinterpretation of a definition of similar words (but not the same; objective vs motivation) and I ask for you to stop. Enough is enough, drop it and move on. Any further comments relating to such will be reported.

I was trying to get you to relate and understand other commenters on this thread about the concerns of the mission panel (relating to you wanting to encourage mission plays) and why comments are going beyond a gold payout to suggest other solutions as well since this is more of a common concern among us vs just giving the solution to gold payouts as your thread suggests.

This is a forum and regardless of the threads initial idea, anyone has the freedom to comment on the topic whether they agree or disagree and offer their own suggestions/solutions related to that topic.I really don’t know why it’s such a horrible thing to offer our own concerns/solutions. It always circles back around to only your idea/solution. It really is rather discouraging to having a constructive, mature conversation. 😐

There is nothing wrong with anyone commenting on a possible better, additional or different solution to try to get the same outcome.

Fair enough, I did get a bit caught up in some of the discussion where people were debating cost of mission making. That's on me, there. I lost sight of the forest through the trees. Oops!

The cost of mission making has been brought up many times on this thread and other places, so if the subject is brought up, it is understandable and expected that someone (you) might have a reply to it. So … if it’s brought up, I think it automatically comes into the conversation and open for discussion. If one doesn’t want to have it mentioned if it’s not relevant, then don’t bring it up in the first place. 😉

The gist of my message seems to have been picked up, though (yippee!), that more acknowledgement + adjustments to have a featured missions panel would be a solid way to promote more plays to some missions. It's not a cure all by any means, but it may be easier to justify to staff than introducing a gold reward for mission plays.

I totally agree with you. I think this will stand having a better benefit for us all and will be easier to do.

[Jess Diamond]

I like the idea however when adding a payout for certain things, it can affect other aspects of the game such as events as they look at the economy and adjust the rewards accordingly which has gotten a lot of backlash in the past.

I think a 100 or 150 gold payout for completing 100 missions could be good since it's only a small amount but once you hit that benchmark it makes you realise how many missions you've done. I also believe people would hit that quite frequently since there are people who max out their missions for levels and people who mission for tokens.
I don't hear too many complaints about earning gold but with prices always changing, I think this could be the extra way of earning to satisfy the players - possibly to be implemented when the player base starts to struggle.

I'm definitely interested in hearing how the SV Team responds to this suggestion

[Aribella Lafonte]

I think a 100 or 150 gold payout for completing 100 missions could be good since it's only a small amount but once you hit that benchmark it makes you realise how many missions you've done. I also believe people would hit that quite frequently since there are people who max out their missions for levels and people who mission for tokens.

How this is worded, I really like this, whether it’s a suggestion or just a compromise on a gold cap, it goes over well. It can easily be transformed into an actual method of execution for Kissy’s suggestion. It sells itself better (to me anyway) and is a better way of executing things to have the same goal vs just issuing that “incentive “ as a gold reward for completing each and every mission that someone plays. Stating it in such a way doesn’t use the overall gold amount as a calculation, but more so, AN ACHIEVEMENT which furthermore could give players the incentive to go out there and play more missions. This would get them focused more on achieving a goal much more like earning their levels to wear a special pair of wings over the xp/token/gold payout for each and every single mission they do.

SUGGESTIONS:

To address the issue of acknowledgment and increase plays on missions that are very good that don’t get the attention;

• Perhaps players can be rewarded a small amount of gold for each player created featured mission they do (which can be on a periodic rotation) for the individual gold payout amounts.
  
  (just an additional thought; don’t come at me with flaming torches)
• Perhaps players can periodically nominate a mission for Staff’s consideration (player’s aren’t making the final decision but taking part in offering their suggestions on what missions that they think are worthy - community involvement) on the featured panel (again to be cycled out periodically) much like SW had a period of time for players to submit their suggestions on considering inactive player’s missions to be added to the approved panel when everything went to a flat payout system. This can be done by filling out a similar form to the ones we fill out when submitting a mission for approval providing the mission title, creator’s name, space url and including why they think that mission should be featured. (Not a vote and not something that will become a popularity contest) This can include mission creators submitting their own missions as well (old and new) so there is equal opportunity and to make sure that there’s not some awesome mission out there that is going to fall in between the cracks. Any recent/current missions that Staff themselves would like to add or any mission contest winning missions can also be put on the featured panel as well during the cycle duration.

——————————————
To address the issue newer missions not being seen and ignored for missions in the front of the mission panel;

• Perhaps even give that small amount of gold reward after playing a newer player created mission for that mission’s new status for maybe a period of a month to help establish some plays and get players looking past the front of the mission panel (explore deeper into the pages) Idk if this can be implemented, but I am at least going to throw it out there.

———————————-
And then … to give incentive to play more missions overall and reward players for an achievement

• Give players a larger sum of gold (using caution for a balanced economy) for reaching a certain number of plays milestone (achievement) 100, 250, 500 plays ie.

————————————-

For clarification, these suggestions are not to be in addition to players getting gold for each mission they play, but to be instead of as a better or different way of execution for the same goal. That way, there isn’t too much gold being dispersed to affect the economy.

I just feel that we not only need to encourage players to play missions or more missions for that matter, (all missions) but that we really need to address the much bigger issue of the unbalanced number of plays of missions that aren’t being seen/acknowledged of their existence on the mission panel. Players need to go out to explore, even if we need to shine a beacon of light on them in order to get them to do it. I don’t think just the simple suggestion of a gold payout (for every mission) is going to fix that problem. It is kind of the large elephant in the room at this point and from a mission creator’s perspective, I guess that that is why I can’t fathom or understand to why this isn’t being taken in account aside from possibly having player created featured missions available again and why I am struggling so much with Kissy to why this problem didn’t automatically become part of the equation/suggestion or any additional suggestion for its solution (to give me my own peace of mind since I am one whose missions are personally affected) so they didn’t continue to be hidden among the vast number of missions that have been created over the past year and a half. That and the issue has already been mentioned umpteen million times over the past 6 months. 😔😭 It really needs to be on the top priority of things being fixed (as far as plays). I hope this makes sense, to somebody at least.

At least this way, it draws more attention to missions that deserve to be looked at more while giving a gold reward and incentive to play more missions and still letting players choose if they want to play the same missions they always play that may or may not include gold in their payout or go for the big shebang of getting a bigger payout by completing more missions OR just go for only those missions that include a gold reward. The choice is still there. At least it’s more balanced and offers an alternative to implementing payout tiers that is probably not a possibility at this point to fixing the problem. Giving out gold to play a mission is a simple suggestion, but sadly, there is so much more involved to really fully and thoroughly address the problem from the multiple aspects it involves.

[Kissy My]

LOL.. so someone changes the amount... 100 or 150 gold payout for completing 100 missions ...
and suddenly its a better idea...

While I love the idea of ... player created featured missions ... from experience... that isnt "inclusive" .. its clearly and obviously selective ...
and no matter who makes the selection ... there will be some favoritism..

[Aribella Lafonte]

LOL.. so someone changes the amount... 100 or 150 gold payout for completing 100 missions ...
and suddenly its a better idea...

There’s that mocking LOL, LMAO again, nothing behind that at all …. can we please respond to each other without that. I’m not loling at you .. just sayin’.

Anyway, what is suggested by me, or twist on Jess’ comment, is that the players wouldn’t receive the amount for each mission nor it being a gold cap. It would be rewarded as an achievement for playing so many missions, an achievement panel to pop up much like we got as mission makers after our missions got so many plays, just the other way around and with the gold to be rewarded that way. The idea behind it is to pat the player on the back for a job well done and to give them some incentive to go out and play more missions, willingly. Not just do 2-3 and call it a day. Hence, missions will get more plays.

I think we can all agree.. that a featured missions would be a great addition ...
as long as they rotate periodically...

While I love the idea of ... player created featured missions ... from experience... that isnt "inclusive" .. its clearly and obviously selective ...
and no matter who makes the selection ... there will be some favoritism..

With all due respect, make up your mind. We all agreed that we like going back to featured missions, and then on the same page, you go and contradict yourself. Btw, you can have where people can apply “hey, that’s really a good mission” without any favoritism behind it. More often than not, it’s players saying this and it’s not missions created by their friend. It IS possible. What you saw on SW, you really need to let go …….




So, what it is really coming across as, is that there is no sense of compromise and working together within our community trying to find a reasonable way to implement your suggestion. And you definitely scoff at anything that I try to suggest in order to help. Just where exactly do we go from here? How is staff going to figure this out? Seriously.

It’s coming out as a stalemate being able to do something like this and having everyone being on the same page to support it. The affect on the economy is a major concern and then there’s question on what would remain fair and balanced. I’m throwing my hands up at this point. Nothing will fix this, the entire approved mission panel is a mess.

A flat gold mission reward for every mission will go over the exact way the flat rate token reward system is right now. We saw how that helped things …

I’ll just go back under my bridge or something. I give up.