I know we are constantly talking about the rep we have within other platforms, but when does the talking turn into action? I know there is no immediate solution or some quick fix that we can do, but I think it's time we actually try to implement the stuff that we talk about. Personally, its disheartening to see stuff like this; it makes me feel like the hard work a lot of us have put into guides is worthless, and not even considered a viable source.
October 23, 2017
How to Improve?
Views: 4200 Drexler
I was watching some Smite when I came across this BS of a video.
I know we are constantly talking about the rep we have within other platforms, but when does the talking turn into action? I know there is no immediate solution or some quick fix that we can do, but I think it's time we actually try to implement the stuff that we talk about. Personally, its disheartening to see stuff like this; it makes me feel like the hard work a lot of us have put into guides is worthless, and not even considered a viable source.
I know we are constantly talking about the rep we have within other platforms, but when does the talking turn into action? I know there is no immediate solution or some quick fix that we can do, but I think it's time we actually try to implement the stuff that we talk about. Personally, its disheartening to see stuff like this; it makes me feel like the hard work a lot of us have put into guides is worthless, and not even considered a viable source.
Also those typo corrections later down in the thread don't add anything significant then clutter (and annoyances) to threads and the reply system.) in my case you can also kinda see it's late at night as I don't care too search them out or correct them.
There's plenty of people who can use some grammatical help and don't mind it, you should look into helping them out.
For the rest, having people correct you is an annoyance. No offense, Tech (seriously not trying to slam you!), but I'm of a mind that the majority of grammatical correction comments don't add anything of major value to a comment thread that's about a video game, specifically about gameplay and builds. Rather, these types of comments just gunk up the thread.
If I'm looking to read a guide, and am curious about what others have to say, I want to read about others' opinions on the builds, other ideas to add, etc. I don't want to read that the person misspelled something or used the wrong spelling for their/they're/there.
The correctness thing DOES make reading more pleasant for sticklers like me, but I can also look past these things because I feel the content of a build / guide is significantly more important than other things.
I think it would be better if these grammatical correctness posts were instead PM's.
Something like, "Hey, concerning your guide/post, I noticed a few grammatical errors that I thought I would point out, in case you were concerned about the presentation of your post". Then follow up with the corrections.
This does a few things. It calls the error to the author's attention, but also does so in a manner where it doesn't "call them out" for all to see. And of course, keeps threads less cluttered with content unrelated to guide content.
the only thing I look at with grammar corrections comments is if people added something more then a corrections. Or what I look at are the your-you're kind of corrections (even though too and to is a way better example)
Imagine if he used a truly bad build from this site, say something that had lots of down votes. A lot of his viewers wouldn't bother to double check the votes on the guide, and they would be on the bandwagon that SF is a bad site.
Standard
I still see the benefit in more people voting and commenting on builds/guides, whether or not the standard viewer pays attention to those things. Especially in cases where the build isn't good, just a downvote isn't that fair...it's better to comment with explanation so the viewer can understand why they got a downvote. That said, I don't always have time to do that myself, and I write too much.
/rant
Many of those who have comments regarding this website such as the one you saw in the video, are all made by people who are ignorant to the fact that this is a public website on which everyone can create their guides with whatever build they want. They'll look at the site, see one of these builds and immediately flag the entirety of MOBAfire as "bad".
The site doesn't necessarily need to change, those people need to change. They need to understand the idea that anyone and everyone can create a guide at any given time, and aside from possible comments, those guides won't be regulated or reviewed (unless they directly violate MOBAfire's rules). Unfortunately, due to the way many of us humans work, they don't seem to understand this fact and expect the site to make drastic changes.
What changes could work? Simple: we deny the freedom of the website, force every guide to be verified at one point or another before they're made publicly available. This is exactly what has been said before. Is this possible? Yes. Do we want it, though? Yes and no, because everyone of us wants to improve MOBAfire's reputation but nobody wants to take away the inherent freedom that these sites give to us.
And it's said humanity is the most advanced species on the planet...
My main gripe with videos like this is not the fact that someone dislikes SMITEFire for being a website where everyone can share their ideas in a guide. In fact, I believe it's a perfectly valid point to make; because everyone can make a guide on this website, readers should make sure to keep in mind who wrote a guide while reading and - if possible - check how much experience the author has playing the God they have written a guide for before taking his/her word for granted.
That said, what I dislike is the fact that instead of saying that, this Youtuber (as well as plenty of other people on platforms such as Reddit) "take the easy way out" and simply advise new players to avoid SF as a whole instead of telling them to always stay critical. I mean sure, new players can also try to look up builds of professional / highly ranked players and simply copy those instead of ever visiting this site, but does that really teach them anything about how to play?
Either way, I'll be honest and say I don't think this is an issue which will ever fully be solved, simply because so much of it relies on the attitude of the general playerbase towards us (and once you have a certain reputation, it's hard to get rid of that). The best we can do in the meantime is to make sure we have good guides to go along with the bad builds which will inevitably be posted by newer players.
This site presents everything as relevant and good buy letting everything bask on thee front near the top for at least a little bit. Bran's overarching guides should definitely be displayed in a constant area for people to see.
*functions
Coincidence or not (99% chance it's coincidence, but still), Wayne told some of us on Twitch chat the other day that
He prefaces his build search with "there might actually be some legitimately good builds on this site." That said, he admits he's looking for a bad one.
Granted, he does check out Stuke's Vamana guide first, but doesn't note, notice, or care that the build/guide hasn't been updated since April. So can the build be better at this point? Absolutely. A couple of key differences in how people build Warriors for Solo-lane have changed in the past 6 months. Note that at that point,
In any case, he then proceeds to check out a Season 1 build, makes fun of it a bit, then finds an S4 "spicy" Joust build that employs crit. He decides to use this build in his Siege game that he records, because (surprise) he's looking for the biggest effect he can get for more views on his YT channel.
He uses some lovely statements such as "handpicked by Smite's finest on SmiteFire." Then proceeds to go 16-3-7, though it absolutely has to do with matchmaking as he mentioned...the enemy
In any case, this was very clearly (and admittedly, by SoloDJ) meant to basically give SF the smackdown. There was no attempt to say, "hey, there ARE some legitimate builds/guides on the site...yeah, it can be time-consuming to find the better ones, but they're there."
Sad thing is, there's not all that much we can do about these focused attempts. We've gone over this many times already, but yes, there are some low-quality builds/guides and we can't just delete them. This site employs general freedom of speech, which basically means anyone can create a guide. It's a negative AND a positive, but people like SoloDJ WANT to focus on the negative because it gets them more views and laughs.
That said, we could just as easily go to SmiteGuru, or check out some threads on r/Smite, and find some bad builds and suggestions. But do people do that? Nope, because SF is the red-headed stepchild, or whatever.
Here ya go...
Queueing with high peopel as a newbie can be good to learn the game, however soloqueue is also needed as you will be against people above your lvl that can punish your mistakes extremely hard.
Anyways, I see this video almost as a double edged sword. You will have the people who are right there with him, egging him on, and agreeing that SF sucks, but some people may be curious and wonder onto the site searching for the good…maybe even bad guides and/or builds. I don’t know, I just kind of got mad at the title because there’s a lot of us (especially Wayne and Bran) that put a lot of effort into SF.
Negative publicity and news is always going to beat out the positive stuff. I just do what I can to promote the site...make sure my guides are up-to-snuff (in my opinion), and comment here and there on sites like r/Smite.
Yea man I feel ya. We, especially you, put in quite a bit of work into the site. It would get kinda personal after someone like SoloDoubleJ disses us like that.
In the past, I thought he was a pretty funny guy and subscribed to him. I'll be unsubbing.
But it is what it is. The whole point of our site is to help smite players become a little better by sharing ideas and expanding their minds to new build possibilities. At the end of the day, as long as people benefit, I'd say we did a good job.
Bran, if you decide to make a comment on his video defending our site, let us know before you do it so we can all go and support you.