Looking at the poll about the potential cycle refresh I feel like the design of it was handled poorly. First, and definitely the most minor issue is the requirement to have a google account to fill out the form (yes 99.99% of the internet has one but still it’s one more account). Now for the relevant stuff.
I’d like to see Yes/No/Unsure in the first question, while not super important it’d be nice.
Second question is the biggest offender, I think it should have been split into two questions, both optional and both multiple choice. One asking for reasons in favor of the refresh and one against. Developers clearly care about this game and are present on the forums so I’m sure they are aware of at least 5-7 reasons for both stances to list there. I don’t like how you are forced to just choose one, and I don’t like the assumption that a player would be either fully in favor or against the refresh. My proposed changes would allow people to decide if they want the refresh and state both reasons for and against the refresh, resulting in a weighted set of answers.
Let me give an example where the current system would completely miss the community’s stance on current issues: community in general is unhappy about how stash tabs are handled in Legacy, but only a minor set of players actively plays Legacy. Since it is not issue #1 for most of the player base, but most agree it is an issue, with the current system this option would only get votes from avid Legacy players, misrepresenting the community’s opinion.
I don’t know how popular this poll was, I don’t know if there is any merit in running it again, but these factors should be considered in future polls. Quality decisions can only be done from quality data, and the current poll in my eyes is unable to provide it.
The only reason some people are unhappy about stash tabs is because they want to keep playing their current cycle character when it goes to Legacy, so, those are the ones who will vote for that option.
Avid (or rather exclusive) Legacy players have nothing to do with this. They won’t ever face this problem, since they have no characters in Cycle to be moved over.
Exclusive Cycle players won’t also, because when a reset happens, they just completely forget about their former characters in Legacy.
So, while your example is merely anecdotal, it also doesn’t represent what you think it does.
They took all those options from feedback here on forums… I can recognize all of them from recent threads and posts since they first announced the Event/Reset. And up to this point, I’ve seen 0 exclusive Legacy Players complaining about this.
Also, the second question is not supposed to be supportive of the first one. It is only there for devs to try and think of something to ameliorate what would annoy people the most, in the case the poll results in a reset.
And you know what would lead to a misrepresentation of what’s the biggest gripe for people who do not wish for a reset? Yeah, having that second question be multiple choice…
It would be like having multiple choices vote for President, or something.
But if one really need they have to put multiple choices there, they can select the last option and type “all of the above”, or whatever they like.
If you aren’t either for or against, you don’t need to vote. The poll is to listen to both sides of the issue, not those that are on the fence, since those don’t swing the issue either way.
Nothing in how EHG has done things so far points to something like that. They have always been open with communication and have taken the community’s opinion into consideration. Even to the point of changing things they never considered changing, like LP in filters.
So unless things change drastically in the near future, I refuse to believe this notion until there is clear proof or bad intentions from them.
Some votes allow for a trickle down vote. So if your first pick doesn’t earn enough votes to become president, it goes to the second option, etc.
Not sure it applies here, but I suppose they could have made the options a “strongly agree to strongly disagree” about how impactful that aspect is to you and weighted the answers into a pie chart per issue.
Previous polls had a scale. This one hasn’t for a simple reason:
It starts with the assumption that the default state is a cycle reset. Because that’s what they announced. It’s only after community feedback that they decided to make a poll on this issue.
However, there are only 2 states: there will be a reset or there won’t be one. So if you’re not either for or against you don’t really need to vote, since you won’t change anything.
The poll only cares about people that either want or don’t want a reset and only cares about the reasons for not wanting one because those are the reasons for changing what they have stated before. The reasons for why people want a reset don’t matter. If cycle reset wins, it goes on as planned.
I would say it’s a problem if there’s nothing available representing your stance in a voting system. That means that something has gone a bit awry.
Happens often, shouldn’t though.
Not the ‘only’ but definitely a better one, very much for it.
Yes, which is the problem. ‘We’ve seen that it’s not as clear-cut as we thought, let’s make a poll but nudge it towards a direction beforehand!’ is not the way to go.
Have it a blank slate and see what people think is a better solution in my eyes at least. To get a proper representation rather then a specified outcome which only adheres to the current situation and then is for some ‘odd reason’ I’ll name it applied from then on forward while people always point back to say ‘but people voted for this!’ when it’s a different base situation afterwards.
No, that is the most standard thing there is. If you don’t care about your president or don’t like any of the choices, you don’t vote. You don’t get an option to tick “I don’t like any of them” or “I don’t care”. Because absentism is basically already saying “I don’t care enough about this to vote for it”.
There is no nudge. That is you attributing ill intent into the developers.
There are only 2 options: cycle reset or not. Which do you want? It’s not a multi-state answer. We’ll get one or the other.
They don’t want to know about people that don’t care about it. They don’t matter for this decision.
Likewise, they don’t want to know the reasons why you agree with them. They want to know the reasons why you disagree. Because the reasons why you agree with them aren’t relevant for the issue.
If there was no poll, we’d get a reset as announced.
If cycle reset wins, we’ll get a cycle reset as announced, no reasons required.
If no reset wins, then people want to know the reasons why.
So the poll isn’t “nudged”, it just contains only the relevant information.
They could also ask what we had for breakfast, the last movie we watched or other irrelevant info.
Or they could just place a textbox and ask you to make an essay on the pros and cons of a cycle reset.
Oh… wait… That’s what the forums and discord and reddit are for.
The poll only needs to have the minimum relevant information for them to either confirm their decision or change it.
You completely missed the point…
The only reason some people are unhappy about stash tabs is because they want to keep playing their current cycle character when it goes to Legacy, so, those are the ones who will vote for that option.
Avid (or rather exclusive) Legacy players have nothing to do with this. They won’t ever face this problem, since they have no characters in Cycle to be moved over.
Exclusive Cycle players won’t also, because when a reset happens, they just completely forget about their former characters in Legacy.
So, while your example is merely anecdotal, it also doesn’t represent what you think it does.
I did make a mistake by not stating clearly that my point was purely anecdotal and not reflective of reality, my bad. It still shows my point, with the current poll you will only get the answer to what number of people think which issue is the most severe. But there is absolutely zero reason to think that people who voted for #1 option would vote for #2 option as their next choice if option #1 did not exist (meaning #1 issue got fixed). With multiple choice you will get a distribution from the most agreed to the least agreed on issue. The #1 option will remain #1 simply by numbers and the #2 option will be the second most agreed on issue instead of second highest voted most severe issue. Isn’t it better?
And you know what would lead to a misrepresentation of what’s the biggest gripe for people who do not wish for a reset? Yeah, having that second question be multiple choice…
It would be like having multiple choices vote for President, or something.
And why is it bad? The decision is still made from Yes/No Q1, not reasons from Q2 and Q3. Remember that I want to have multiple choice questions both for and against the reset. Also why multiple choice for a President is bad? Multiple, and especially ranked choices, result in better democratic participation, discourage tactical voting in favour of voting for options better aligned to your views etc.
But if one really need they have to put multiple choices there, they can select the last option and type “all of the above”, or whatever they like.
Trying to quantify custom, non structured answers bunched all in one field is much harder than seeing the number of votes for each answer in a multiple choice question.
If you aren’t either for or against, you don’t need to vote. The poll is to listen to both sides of the issue, not those that are on the fence, since those don’t swing the issue either way.
I can still vote no on Q1. And provide 4 reasons against the reset and 2 reasons for the reset. Why is there a requirement to be 100% for one option, being 60-40 is fine, you still make a Yes/No decision and provide more nuanced feedback in Q2 and Q3, both being optional and multiple choice.
Because they don’t need feedback on yes. Cycle reset is the natural state since that’s what they announced. If you agree with them, then no further action is required. It’s only if you don’t agree that they want to know why.
Also, if you want to use multiple options for no, or even one that isn’t there, that’s what the last option is for.
The current state is ‘unclear if yes/no’… hence obviously… you need feedback on both sides. That’s why it even came to a poll.
‘Hey, something seems to be off so far that we might need to scratch the plans. Lets go from the basis and see the reaction’ is what is to be done. Wasn’t fully though.
There are only 2 options: cycle reset or not. Which do you want? It’s not a multi-state answer. We’ll get one or the other.
They don’t want to know about people that don’t care about it. They don’t matter for this decision.
Sure, I will admit adding Unsure to Q1 is not helpful. But what damage there is in asking the reasons for and against the reset? It clearly sparked a debate and just relying on seen posts online is not very scientific. It’s much better to quantify community’s opinion in a poll rather than relying on instincts.
Or they could just place a textbox and ask you to make an essay on the pros and cons of a cycle reset.
Bad practice, with enough scale it’s very difficult to quantify the answers, hence multi choice questions.
No, the current state is: “The event will have a cycle reset”.
Then people starting voicing their opinions against and EHG decided to make a poll to see if the number of people against it is actually relevant.
So the questions are basically:
-Do you agree with us?
-Do you disagree with us and why?
They don’t need to know why you agree with them. Agreeing with them means nothing changes. You don’t need a reason to maintain the current state, just a reason to change it.
There isn’t one, but there’s also no clear benefit. Why would they make a bigger poll when studies have shown that the bigger a poll is, the less people actually answer it?
These types of polls are for making decisions on single points and should be as simple as possible.
That was obviously hyperbole, as clearly seen in the next sentence I wrote: “Oh… wait… That’s what the forums and discord and reddit are for.”
The poll didn’t really address my issues so I selected I didn’t like the reset when it’s more nuanced than that. But assuming it’s reset or no reset then no reset is my choice as it seems too little. too late if it’s to give a fresh economy.
And it will not be pretty if another massive economy exploit pops up and they handle it as poorly as they have the first two times.
And how are they different?
I mean, what are the actual implications if people choose to vote “blank” (or what you it call there)?
I’m asking out of legit curiosity, because from time to time (read, roughly every 4 years near elections), a rumor is generally spread, here in Brazil, that if the majority of voters go vote “blank”, then the authorities are obliged to run new elections with new candidates, since the majority of people did not want any of those. They say 50%+1 blank votes are needed for that to happen.
Turns out this is a complete lie. People who vote blank counts the same as absent voters. They all go together as “invalid votes” and influence nothing. Even if 90% vote blank.
Ironically, the ones that seem to be more interested in spreading such rumors are the far-right politicians, for some “unknown” reasons.
So, I’ve always wondered if something like this currently happens anywhere around the globe.
