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Failure of the Envoy System
Silvanus
The Sparrowhawk
We are here, once again, to talk about the failure of the Envoy system.
Estarra has gone with and added Shackles to Celestines, when every single Envoy besides the Celestine/Kelly voted no to it. Not a single reason was brought up to why Celestines needed more hindering to go on top of Inquisition. A skill that has been complained about since the beginning of Lusternia (note, two skills actually, shackles and Inquisition) was given to another guild and buffed their already annoying skill, a skill that didn't need buffing at all.
What's the point of having Envoys if we are just going to ignore what the Envoys say? You choose us to be the voice for our guilds, you asked us to comment on other reports, weighing in on the options. What's the point of even commenting if we are just going to be ignored?
It is situations like this which has led us to where we are today. There is a reason why the Overhaul system has to be done, there is a reason why all of this has to be redone, there is a reason why people think combat is annoying here. It is because decisions like this, where the Envoy or the community is ignored, and you go ahead with your plan anyways.
Where is the plan for the Nihilists? A guild's skills will be completely destroyed once the Overhaul is done with, and I am left to fend for myself on what the Nihilist direction should take. Not a single person has attempted to communicate with me (outside of Saesh, thank god for one reasonable person who is now gone) on what should be done. I was never once contacted for what the Pacts should be replaced with, yet Estarra specifically mentioning talking to Kelly about the Pacts. She also mentioned that she will weigh their opinions on both the Nihilist and the Celestine envoy to replace it with, yet I was never once contacted, and my comment was completely ignored in the report.
2014/04/19 01:38:01 - Leolamins drained 2000000 power to raise Silvanus as a Vernal Ascendant.
2014/07/23 05:01:29 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Munsia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:07 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Arimisia as a Vernal Ascendant.
2015/05/24 06:03:58 - Silvanus drained 2000000 power to raise Lavinya as a Vernal Ascendant.
4
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
No matter how many people you get on board with an idea, if it doesn't agree with the admin's, then you're out of luck. Even if you present evidence and get both sides of the partisanship to agree.
On top of this, I really dislike the implication that the primary envoy's position carries the most weight. Want to know why? Because the primary envoy can be also be wrong
Not even mentioning that the primary envoy didn't even say anything and instead deferred it all to Kelly, lol, who the admin have personally known to be quite reasonable.
Only Celest's input was listened to.
Rofl come on.
If you can't trust us to not "gang up" on other orgs without sufficient reason, @Estarra , then what is the point of having us as Envoys. We were chosen as Envoys because we are A. intimately familiar with combat and B. because we are all mature enough to make fair and reasonable advice and decisions. Not just Kelly.
Celestines have hindering. Not the best in the game, but this is balanced by inquisition's nature and the best defences in the game.
And again, words mean nothing. You gotta give to receive. And all I've been seeing are gains.
Gonna call it now, no report will ever come out of Celest that even tries to address either inquisition or true heal. Buff trains from here on out. The depressing part is that we can't really do anything about it.
Anyway, we've always taken envoy input as advice but ultimately we must rely on our own judgment, whether you agree with it or not and even if it goes against the popular opinions. That's how it has always been. Anyway, I don't think anyone was ignored and I appreciate that some envoys had different opinions. We did adjust shackles for inquisition which I think was a good compromise.
I apologize if you think we didn't listen or treat you with well. This isn't the first unpopular decision we've made and won't be our last but I still believe it was the correct one.
Why have envoys at all if you're going to do what you want, when you want, regardless of balance issues? Further, where exactly is shackles in the Celestine RP? Every other power "makes sense", and the only real way to justify RP-wise this is giving it to Raziela because she shackles (albeit with her hair) fae. Celestines don't need shackles. They do fine enough as it is.
What's next, Celestians get a 50 dmp divine buff if they're merian?
Shackles are on Japhiel who I believe would rather restrain those he passes judgment on rather than something more violent. It makes RP sense to me!
This is a pretty clear cut instance of the standard operating procedure being ignored in a a way that provides a BIG benefit to one guild, in the absence of anything like it happening to anyone else.
Props to whoever dug up Talkan.
One of the things about the Overhaul that I have found the most admirable and the most fun working on is the fact that there is communication. Before and during and after every phase of the overhaul, we have plenty of headsup about the upcoming changes, and plenty of space to discuss it. But more importantly, no matter which direction or which decision was made, the admin, every one of them, was actively engaging and talking to us. Not just to envoys, but to the whole community. They were putting their ideas on the board, and even if they went along with it despite misgivings from us, there were reasons, there were discussions and there was back-and-forth.
This has never really happened in the envoy system, now that I think about it. In the envoy system, the discussions were only EVER between envoys. Once in a blue moon, I'd see a report where the admin sometimes commented, giving information, and even more rarely, sometimes suggestions and pointers as to what was possible, what was not. True, most envoy reports are from the envoys, so the admin have nothing to comment on, nothing to discuss, no ideas to convey. However, I do feel that is far less than optimal.
My opinion is that communication is always the most important tool. Even in envoy reports, and especially in envoy reports.
This particular, specific circumstance that spawned this thread, however, was an envoy report that effectively came from the admin. Yet, during this whole process, we heard the arguments of everyone except the people who came up with it. There was no discussion with the primary "envoy" as it was - it wasn't the Saoirse or Kelly, the primary envoy was the admin. That, @Estarra, is the number one reason why this change being pushed through resulted in so much dis-satisfaction.
An unpopular decision is not necessarily wrong.
An unpopular decision is not necessarily right either.
What is important is the feeling that we have been engaged, that the ideas have been presented, and the arguments heard, and on top of all of that, a decision was made. If it was against all forms of popular feedback, then grumblings would remain, but at the very least, we would know we have been considered. Such is not the case here. Estarra, the problem is that you said this: But the envoys involved do not feel they have been giving advice, but that they have been ignored without being listened to. I, for one, would love to hear the motivation behind the admin reason of pushing through this change despite the opinions against it. In fact, I'm sure all the envoys have felt this way before, there were many past reports that were rejected or even approved that we would love to have had a short statement of reasoning from the admin.
And this, Estarra, is the "failure" of the envoy system - the part where despite it being a system of communication, it does not seem to provide any such thing from the admin. We aren't asking to be treated like customers, with a warm blanket and a towel and a cup of hot steaming coffee everytime we make a report and wait on the admin to service us with a manicure. We aren't asking for a 2000-word essay explaining and justifying every decision with references to past precedents and law books. We aren't trying to put the admin on trial.
We just want some communication. A feeling of being taken seriously, and not laughed at, sniggered at. Some kind of reasoning from the admin, some kind of explanation for some of the "unpopular" decisions. A large part of unpopular decisions being accepted is that the reasonings for it are made clear - none of that happened this time round, and it has been a persistent problem in the envoy system. I think it is worth the effort to look into, and change the way the admins operate in the envoy system to improve this.
As a member of this community and as an envoy, I sincerely hope you'll give this some consideration - and if you do not, at least respond and give us some explanation why.
We asked for envoy input on what we thought were a good set of replacements, not trying to ‘match’ what was replaced but going beyond that to give them a dynamic and useful set of options. We listened the envoys and also got input from admin who were recently pvp players (and non-celest btw) as well as a very credible source who I trust that knows coding, combat and the Celestines. I was also concerned that there was such a huge disparity between how the Celestines viewed their skills and how non-Celest envoys viewed Celestine skills that I wanted to give the Celest envoys the benefit of the doubt that they knew their own combat. In the end, it was decided that the concerns regarding Inquisition were valid and therefore addressing that concern would ameliorate any potential imbalance. Even though we knew it would be unpopular with some envoys, it was ultimately our view that the changes would not be unbalanced (with Inquisition being addressed).
That’s all there is to it. I frankly find it hard to always be available for the type of communication that some people may want or go into great detail with every decision (especially when peppered with demands to justify every point). That’s a failure of mine, of course, but I will see if we can find an admin who can better fit that role.
Secondly, as for the Envoy system, I have repeatedly mentioned its flawed design which somehow allows a group of hand-picked players to have the power and somehow responsibility to decide what is 'balanced' and what needs changing for abilities to all players game-wide. Why is it we are to trust in the apparent wisdom of 1 person to hopefully represent and 'defend' our class? Most envoys in history (even current ones) would admit they know squat about combat and were just picked as a placeholder for the job (With many that just go inactive). This is a reason the evnoys have always been seen as a hostile aggressive battlefield, where apparently we are sending in a 'champion' to fight the 'attacks' of other envoys on our skills. It's a flawed concept, where we are only getting 1/10th of the playerbase's perspective, voice and insight onto abilities that affects us all.
I approached Estarra a few months ago about this very concept actually, and mentioned how Lusternia currently is the only IRE game that still utilized this out-dated idea of 'skill balancing'. Each of the other IRE games (Not sure on MKO), now utilize a system wherein anyone (fitting a certain criteria of playtime and transcendent skills) can submit a 'report' for a skill, with suggestions for changes or new abilities. In some, like Achaea, a player could make a report for any skill in the game, naturally the report being considered more if it is for their own class. Players could also choose to support, comment or reject a report in some games. These reports were later reviewed (admittedly in some games with input from high ranking combatants) and the changes then made accordingly. The new report system turned out to be a huge success, and players felt like they were actually being heard.
Envoys also are supposed to talk to the people they represent. I know Janalon always asked my advice, and possibly other Nekotai members' advice for all of her reports, and asked for suggestions, feedbacks and incorporated them into her reports. I have also made an effort to do the same with people like Athree, Tarkenton and other Nekotai. Perhaps if your envoy never did ask for your advice, you might want to look in a mirror and consider why instead of coming to the forums with your baseless accusations and whining.
The other IREs have their versions of classleads or liaisons or envoys or whatever they call it, and that's fine. Those systems certainly do have their advantages over ours, and if we were to change it to something similar, I won't be too concerned. However, they also have their disadvantages, like the need for filtering through a lot of content all the time - they also don't do their updates every month the way we do, quite a few only do it once in a few months, or at the arbitrary decision of the admin because of the immense amount of work that goes into it. I personally think that having a monthly system where progress is consistently made to change things can have a positive effect the other systems are missing out on. To try and pass those off as the be-all and end-all is simply (yet another) fallacy.
I think the Lusternian envoy system could do with improvements. And I'm glad Estarra replied and communicated her stance and her perspective. There may still be improvements to be made, or discussed, and this thread might still have a purpose. However, we don't need people who have less than a working grasp of the system or a delusional idea of how things should be to mess up this conversation.
My name is Baelor, Estarra has appointed me to work as the admin liason with the envoys.
Unless you're part of the envoy system I very much doubt you'll be seeing much of me about, possibly on a few topics as we go through the overhaul, so to that end I thought it best to introduce myself here for everyone to avoid any confusion.
If anyone has questions about the envoy system and is unable to speak to one of our hard working team members, or needs to ask for an admin related matter, feel free to message me either here or on the forums.
Thanks!
That said, I do think a mistake is being made in addressing only the Celestines and not both the Celestines and the Nihilists. This game has been brilliantly designed with parity. Every city has an opposite, every guild has an opposite in that city. I think the mistake has been trying to treat every change as something that is self contained as opposed to something that is intractably linked to two organizations and setting a precedent for other organizations. This doesn't mean every change to the Celestine's must also be followed with a change to the Nihilists, but I think it needs to be viewed in the context of both the Nihilists and the Celestines.
However, I am not saying that this necessarily isn't true. We just don't really have insight into the administrative process. Ultimately, this is probably a good thing, nobody is happy when they find out how the sausage is made. However, I think a comment regarding if this is or isn't the case would be useful, and if changes are not looked at how they would balance a certain organization against their opposite, I would be interested in learning why that is.
2015/12/09 23:54:29 - Pejat drained 2000000 power to raise Davos as a Vernal Ascendant.
You use 80,000,000 of your divine essence. You gain BeauteousThought as a supernumerary power.