ICC, Medals, and Spotlight Survey!

What's this? Multiple non-regular announcements in one month? Yep, we're breaking from tradition for a few important announcements. A lot of SA's systems have been working more or less the same way for years, and staff are in the process of adjusting a lot of them to make things better in the new year. The power upgrade system was recently revamped to be easier to understand, kinder to members, and also easier for staff to handle.

Now, staff are turning our attention elsewhere, and we want your feedback. We've picked out three areas that we think could use attention: The Medals system, the Spotlights, and the ICC itself. How do you feel about these areas? Do you want to see changes? What changes do you want to see?

The initial survey is mostly like/neutral/dislike, and is simple multiple choice. Every section has a short answer question where you can throw in your ideas or thoughts, but every question is optional. This is intended to let the staff get an idea of what the players want, and depending on how the results come back, you can expect a less formal second round, where we'll solicit more feedback from players.

You can fill out the survey here. It should only take ten minutes at the most, but most people will go through it much faster.

We've already had a great turnout for the survey, and gotten some great feedback. The survey will remain open for at least a few more days, but primarily to get feedback itself. We've almost met the number of people who regularly vote in spotlights, and we're looking for further and more specific feedback based on the results we've gotten.

That said, we're going to move to phase two of this - a discussion round table!

You can find the discussion here, which explains the general results of the survey along with other information. We're looking for feedback on a fair bit, and anyone is free to drop in or out of the discussion to throw in their two cents!

We've had quite a bit of discussion on the round table! It will continue to be open for questions and discussions, but we're now moving onto Round Two of the survey, based on feedback from the round table.

You can find the survey here.

Introduction: Based on feedback from our first survey, as well as our round table discussion, we're back to help clarify exactly what members want! We have three sections (ICC, Medals, and Spotlight), and we're looking for your honest feedback on what you'd like to see in the future. This survey is anonymous and has no mandatory questions, so feel free to skip a question if you do not feel it's relevant to you. Please take this survey even if you already participated in the first one, as the questions are different.

We want to start things off by thanking everyone for their feedback. While SA runs a yearly survey, that survey is much more general and less directed, so this was an experiment for us. The responses helped give us an idea of what player priorities are, helping the staff work out exactly what we should be doing to make things appeal to players.

Since we've had no survey responses in almost a full week, we've looked over the results and are starting to move forward. This post will outline the results in general terms, and explain how we'll be moving forward.

Canon ICC:

The response was overwhelmingly in favor of more canon ICC. A whopping 85% wanted more canon ICC, with the majority of respondents indicating they enjoyed ICC more when it was canon. However, we had several people indicate they would prefer the non-canon to stay as is, so the second round of questioning focused on how people would spend their time in the ICC.

The results came out in favor of people wanting both, and that's what we're doing! Void ICC will remain an option as it currently stands, and will go side by side with Canon ICC.

The staff are currently working on how exactly we'll be implementing canon ICC. There will be some rule changes and adjustments to accommodate for the different environment, as well as a clear setting (something requested by several people). We'll be posting more details on what you can look forward to mid-month.

Medals:

The initial survey indicated that most people simply don't care about the medal system. Almost half the respondents indicated they'd never claimed any medals at all, and most people supported the proposed achievement system.

However, the results of the second survey were far less clear. While people felt strongly about an automatic achievement system being a positive thing, once things were clearly explained, people were split between the two systems, with the respondents leaning primarily to leaving medals as they were.

Considering the mixed results, the decision was made to leave medals as they currently stand.

Spotlights:

The initial response to a unified spotlight was mixed, but comments helped highlight major issues. People wished there were more nominations, had issues with the plot spotlight, felt there were too many winners/spotlights, and had issues with the nomination system in general. Based on that feedback, the second survey focused on two specific areas.

The majority of people supported the removal of the Plot Spotlight, and as a result it will be removed. Beyond the obvious results of this, we also believe this should ease several other problems. Plot Spotlight was almost universally seen as the hardest to nominate for, and dropping to two categories (member and character) will both make it easier to nominate and result in fewer winners.

The second question focused on the removal of nomination reasons. While several people mentioned making them optionally, functionally this would be the same thing as removal. People would still be capable of writing in their reasons, but it would not be part of the form, and the voting thread would not link back to the nominations for people to see reasons (which might not have existed). The results came out in favor of leaving reasons as they are. Several people highlighted that they enjoyed reading the reasons for each nomination, and with plot spotlight being removed we think people will find that nomination reasons are easier to handle.

All these changes have been converted over, so if you see any remnants (FAQs, rules posts, etc) mentioning the plot spotlight as an ongoing thing, please send @Romi a message!

Everything Else:

We have plenty to look at moving forward. Right now the staff team is going to turn its attention to the ICC, but you can expect to see changes being made based on survey suggestions throughout the rest of 2017 and into 2018!