Deck center Protest !

Freedom to the people !!
this is getting silly guys, come on, i'm a senior member, all of you know me and i'm one of the so called loyal members and so are many others.

We shouldn't be counted as apprentice when regarding the deck center, we have the right to post in it for god's sake, numbers doesn't count, reality counts, and the reality says we're good members !

so u should make exceptions for old members imo !

as for the new members, why depriving them until they get a dorm, just prevent them from posting there until they have 20-30 posts, i don't think some body will actually waste his time posting if he isn't serious with this academy.

That said, i'm waiting some discussion over this from you admins

I agree with the number of posts as opposed to rank. I'm not as interested in scaling the ranks of the academy as I am interacting with the people of the academy, themselves. DGA is really a great place either way, but I think I'd prefer for it to be post-based.

*sniped*

My thoughts on the deck center conundrum:

This isn't pojo, and it shouldn't be treated as such or have the potential to be treated as such. Have the person practice a bit or have their presence known on the forum before they can post their decks (though it's obviously obligatory at the moment), and maybe they'll even find their own fixes and whatnot. It's not like the deck center was a totally pivotal part of DGA before, and a good number of the people who post decks there are established members to begin with (Half of them in January, pre-revamp, were such people).

However, obviously with the mass rank reset there are people who are left in the dust without being able to take advantage of the deck center. Which is why this thread exists.

Duh.

So, King's notion to make the privilege post-based is a good idea, though obviously with a minimum post count to gain privileges comes the possibility of spamming to get to that point (which isn't a huge issue here, really, but I'm very touchy about that stuff going on). Maybe it could also have to do with something like "Has to have been active in DGA for a week" or something like that as well/instead. I dunno.

Anyways, I'm rambling, but overall I do think there should be change in the way it's all set up. King is on the right track, though, in that there should definitely be some sort of prerequisite to being able to post decks.

I have an Idea for the deck center, will post it in the admins discussion right now, will be back with an answer verry soon cuz the admind discussion is pretty active lately.

As I stated in a previous thread, I think the main reason for people to scale the dorm system should be to get better. I understand that the site hasn't been completely brought forward into the new system and there are still several aspects yet to be implemented. But that aside, I don't feel that the denial of access to the "Deck Center" is necessarily the ideal thing to hold over the heads of new members to persuade them to climb the dorms. I personally feel a more adequate thing to hold over their heads would be access to Tournaments such as YCS DGA and the like, as well as participation in the contests such as Create a Card and Card of the Week.

If the goal of this website is to be a duel academy, and thusly improve the skills of our fellow players through a community based on dueling (deck testing), then certainly one of the most important skills a new player can learn is how to build decks correctly. The best ways for players to learn how to improve their deck isn't necessarily a trial and error process through actually dueling; yes that's certainly part of it, but sometimes it takes a more analytical approach to how the deck is actually constructed. How many times on DN do you play someone using an Extra Deck with less than 15 cards in it? Or not understanding a certain card interaction and basing their entire deck idea on this misinterpretation? If these sort of things aren't pointed out in a discussion on the deck itself (such as in the Deck Center) often times issues such as these are never truly addressed. If players fail to have someone point out their mistakes here and there, they often times fail to improve upon these shortcomings; this will result in having members truly incapable of ascending past the first dorm.

Posting is somewhat a reasonable alternative, but simply lifting it is a bad idea. People would then come, get a deck fix, and leave. There have been many times when the first post someone makes on the forum is in the deck center. If we were to ban them from tourneys and competitions instead, the ONLY way to get to Archer is by duel arena. The reason for all the variety in ways to rank up is...wait for it...to make it easy to rank up. Lol. Besides all of that, it's just obscenely easy to make it to Archer. If we limited it soley to ranking up by duel arena, and soley by dueling other apprentices, and soley duel arena and not tag team or shadow, it would take a max of 4 days to make it to Archer if you maxed your duel limit every day. Four. Simple. Days. Is that really what you're all complaining about? But it's NOT just limited to that is it? There's a TON of ways to rank up, and there will soon be even more. It only takes 10 won duels against the lowest ranked people on the academy. Not hard AT ALL

Actually, if they were only playing Freshman, and they lost every duel because of a flaw with their deck, it would take them twenty duels, which would take seven days.

That would be using your limitation of duel arena-only, apprentice-only dueling, with no tag or shadow duels. Although, if they shadow dueled and lost, it would take longer.

EDIT:

Also, Harper, ten won duels. And if you're saying that means it only takes ten matches, you're saying that takes ten matches in a row. That means you have to win 20/20-30 duels. Which is hard to do without some kind of idea to deck-building. For the sake of people who truly need help, I can see modifying the rule to a post-based system. A seven-day time-based system would be even worse than the rank-based, because at the very worst, if you duel every day, it will take you seven days to hit Archer. So if we make that a concrete time-frame, we punish new members with more skill, who manage to win their matches more frequently.

If it is to be edited, I think it needs to be post-based, and nothing more. Otherwise, it should stay exactly as it is. Maybe take away some tournament opportunities like DGA YCS and the like, which should be exclusive to active, loyal DGA members.

Personally, I have no problem with the deck center being restricted as it is. I believe I could be pointed as the perfect example for someone who has enough drive and determination to grind through the ranks needed. It did only take me four days to reach what was Black Rose from Freshman, and then only another eleven to reach the EXP needed for what would have been Archfiend (Which changed to Wizard when I hit 246 EXP!).

So, personally, I don't see why anyone would complain about the rank-requirement, with the exception of someone like King, who is less active. However, Funch, you've been quite active recently, and you easily could have been Archer if you cared overly-much. There's not reason at all you that couldn't have been Archer yet, and protesting the arena over your own lack of care is somewhat petty.

4 days of not having access to arguably the most important part of the site is enough to make new members quit. It's not like DGA is the ONLY duel academy on the web, let alone the most active one. There are only 6 Archlords, 0 Warriors, 0 Wizards, 7 Archers, and more than 15 full pages filled with Apprentices. Granted, most of the apprentices have been inactive for incredibly long amounts of time well before the site was re-vamped (the accounts of very old members could probably be deleted tbh), but still, the new system has been in place for about 3 solid weeks now and only 7 people have made it out of Apprentice and gained access to the deck center. Four days is the minimum but believe it or not arena matches aren't the easiest to come by, and this is why so many members are still rather far away from meeting this goal.

I repeat: this is a duel academy, not pojo or tcgplayer. If you're a newbie to the forum and want to get help on your deck here, then get active, possibly ask other members when you're dueling them, and learn that way. The ones who want to be here will do just that, and the noobs who expected they could just post their deck and have a bunch of pros fix it on their whims, only to have the guy never make any dent in the forum (I say "dent" with a good connotation) won't have that happen.

I'm pretty sure the "Academy" part of DGA's name is about teaching and learning (Unless it's a red herring or something ), and the best way to do that is by experience and actual effort.

I managed to get three Arena matches every day I sought them out. o.o Sometimes, I cut out a little early to go play League of Legends, or something like that, but I've never actually been unable to find three matches in a single day. In three weeks, if it were that hard, you'd think I'd have had a problem with it. I also found it incredibly easy to find a tag duel, which requires four people. If tag duels can be found, why the hell wouldn't normal Arena duels be found?

Currently there is literally no teaching or learning. Dueling in and of itself doesn't teach you anything. Think of it like completing math problems you already know how to solve, by repeating similar questions over and over again you're not learning anything, you're simply repeating what you know over and over again. Dueling with a bad deck against 20 people here isn't going to magically make your deck any better. Posting it up in a discussion thread and having people critique it and make suggestions will actually improve your build and your over all knowledge of the game, whether it's by improving your card rulings knowledge or by widening your pool of knowledge of existing cards and combos. Yes there will be the rare members who post a deck, get it fixed, then leave, but looking at the old members, it appears that there were many more members that left the academy after having their first deck threads locked over this silly rule.

Why not just open up a poll and see what the members think?

I think the deck center should be open to:

1) All members
2) All members in dorms Archer and above
3) All members with a post count above N.
4) Something else (state in a post below)

NotSoGallantGallade wrote:

I repeat: this is a duel academy, not pojo or tcgplayer. If you're a newbie to the forum and want to get help on your deck here, then get active, possibly ask other members when you're dueling them, and learn that way. The ones who want to be here will do just that, and the noobs who expected they could just post their deck and have a bunch of pros fix it on their whims, only to have the guy never make any dent in the forum (I say "dent" with a good connotation) won't have that happen.

I'm pretty sure the "Academy" part of DGA's name is about teaching and learning (Unless it's a red herring or something ), and the best way to do that is by experience and actual effort.

This explains things rather well. The first test of skill in DGA is commitment and experience. Once you have a bit of experience under your belt and proven yourself to be active, you get your first rank. The next test is knowledge. On Archer level, you now have full access to the experience of the best members in the form of deck center and Archer Leader, as well as help from regular members and reading articles and experience that you had before. Upon reaching Wizard level, the final test is a combination of raw experience, knowledge, and skill. That's the reason it is what it is. For those discouraged by waiting max 4 days...so? Like gallade said, there are more ways to learn besides raw fixes, and on top of that, we don't need inactive people. If they want to put forth 0 effort to learn, that's kind of their problem. Besides any of this, i'm not banning you from helping a new member so bad that they can't even win a single duel against another apprentice. i'm not even banning you from helping each other...in private. i myself have given thoughts on decks to dga people that ask on dn pms. plus if someone that bad came to DGA and continually wanted to improve, he will improve. as far as deck building knowledge goes, there's a difference between having a good build and knowing why it's a good build and how to use it, which is where articles come in. i'm almost finished with an article describing just that.

I'm not saying i won't consider the post count at all, but please realize we're not just doing this to be mean to active members.

Exactly, Harper. We have more ways of learning on this Academy other than getting your deck fixed up for free. Teachers and fellow experienced users write Articles for the sole purpose of giving knowledge to the players, especially the ones that could learn from it.

I don't really want to see post-based access to the Deck Center. I'm honestly fine with the current rule of Archer+ only.

Like I said, there are multiple ways of learning. Use the resources you have as an Apprentice and you should be fine. If you're not happy with what you have, work hard, do some Arena dueling, and get yourself into the Archer rank. It's not difficult.

If this was so easy for everyone, more than 13 people excluding admins/mods/teachers would have access to the Deck Center. The point is it's been 3 weeks, hardly anyone has gone to the next dorm, and the reason is because people have other stuff to do. I might be idle on this site for a few hours a day, but most of my time is spent doing homework for my 6 graduate level courses, grading homework assignments of my calculus students, and doing other real life things (believe it or not I have one outside of school X_X) and for myself and most other people on this site, getting 100 experience worth of duels isn't an easy thing to do. This is why this thread was even made in the first place. I say you implement something where some sort of minimum post count can gain you access to the Deck Center as an alternative to the 100 experience so if people are more capable of getting the duels done than posts they should gain access and vice versa.

To be fair, people having obligations in their real lives is not the concern of DGA. If you can't devote time to dueling in the arena, that's no one's fault but your own. Not everyone is in a position where they're doing graduate/post-graduate work; very few people are. The system shouldn't be changed to accommodate the few that are, because it's a personal choice.

Of the people that are not in a position that they may use the deck center, how many of them are doing graduate-level classes? Xanatos isn't, and he's not Archer. Neither is his brother Sephirothzx. Dragonslayer9800 also isn't busy with upper-level college classes, Bronnco has told me that he doesn't care and is lazy, NotSoGallantGallade is in high school, but he doesn't arena duel too much even when he's on. Bakura Normal was sick for a while, but he's been hanging around. There are multiple other examples of this - It's not because the system is bad; it's due to at least some partial lack of care that people are not getting into Archer.

Nurse Emiko worked her way into Archer just a few days ago, doing an arena duel every few days. Pufka arena dueled her way in shortly after myself, before her promotion to Archlord. VioletSk227, Sir Alex Lucard, and myself all dueled our way into what was then Black Rose less than a week after the new system's implementation. NoUserName was gone for a while, but he managed to make his way in, too. Yangaud did it after just a few days as well.

The difference between the first paragraph of people and the second? Desire to work our way up. It wasn't difficult, and even with the case of NoUserName, plenty of time was spent off-site, but the system worked.

EDIT: @SirFunchalot - Thanks for that negative rep above, bro. Was definitely looking for angry ignorance to win the day.

RyuheiAoi wrote:

The system shouldn't be changed to accommodate the few that are, because it's a personal choice.

ONLY SEVEN PEOPLE HAVE MADE IT TO ARCHER. The "few" you truly speak of includes yourself and the other people who have made it to archer. If you look at the list of online people, if you exclude admins and moderators and other staff, even if you include the Archlords, only roughly 1/4 members can access the Deck Center. The minority is the people who have oodles of time to get their arena matches done, not the people who have other things to do.

Naos and NoUserName don't have "Oodles of time," as you so put it. And yet, they managed it. Bronnco has had time, and has been lazy. NotSoGallantGallade has had time, but does other things like his Nuzlocke Emerald version. There are other examples of people with time, but lack of care.

And again, those of us that made it aren't from the system being flawed. We made it because we cared enough to go power through that Freshman/Apprentice rank. In fact, I am more than qualified for Wizard, in terms of experience. I'm about 25% of the way for EXP to Warrior. There are people with as much time as me, and far less care, which is why they aren't on my level as well.

Those that seek to get higher, will. Those that seek to improve, will. Those that don't, won't. And that is the truth of the matter.

EDIT: Also, it's eight. Pufka made it to Archer before her promotion to Archlord. So there's the seven with our color group, and her.

The truth is considerably less than 25% of the total population of the forum has access to the Deck Center and it's getting close to a month since the system was implemented. If you think excluding a huge majority of the forum from a crucial aspect of the site because for whatever reason they haven't dueled enough people is okay, then that's your view point, but personally I don't think a decision like this should be made by one person whom is completely unaffected by this decision (you have literally nothing to gain from a new policy being implemented so why should you care?)

As for your inflammatory comment regarding me supposedly giving you negative reputation, I'd simply like to point out that I did not give you the negative rep, someone else did, not like that should set you off anyway.

Whether I am affected by the decision or not doesn't matter. In this case, it actually makes me an unbiased third party, rather than being biased in the decision like all the Apprentices that are demanding exception be made for them, or that the system become more lenient by changing to a system for which the fulfillment would already be met. I had no problem with the Deck Center being unavailable to me when I was a Freshman as well. So yes, while I have nothing to gain from the system changing, I also have nothing to lose, whereas you and the others would have everything to gain.

Honestly, it's not as crucial as you make it sound. Yes, I will agree that the Deck Center is important, but it is not the cornerstone of the academy. If you want it so badly, you could easily be dueling, rather than sitting here complaining. I find it funny that you don't have enough time to duel, given you have all that graduate work, but you have enough time to analyze and write six posts in this topic, and a seventh post in another, on this very subject.

In regards to the other aspect of your post, my comment was not inflammatory. It was stating a fact - and yes, I say fact. Your negative reputation given on the statistics page of your profile went from nine (observed less than three hours ago) to ten (observed moments after I was given a negative reputation vote). Should I take it that was extreme coincidence? And if so, do you mind revealing who you gave a negative reputation vote to? I am sure someone must have been deserving of it in your eyes.

I'm not going to get into a flame war with you, grow up.

I suggest a moderator clean up this thread and possibly lock the topic altogether. This should be discussed in the staff section and any possible solutions should go up for a vote where the majority decision wins. Whether that decision is only up to the staff or is also available for regular members to vote in I personally don't care. I think points from both sides have been stated here and the staff shall be able to make an educated enough decision on how they wish to handle the matter.

Agreed. We are discussing this in the staff forum and this is starting to get a little too argumentative. Locked.

We're coming close to a decision on this, but i would like everyone's honest opinion first, so i opened a poll. please vote

Would the post minimum still allow for people who have moved into the Archer Dorm to have access even if they do not have a high enough post count?

harper, i think u should fix the question in the poll, it's about the deck center not about arena
and if the post limit thing doesn't work out, can u make exceptions for old members who have already shown their devotion to DGA but don't have time to duel the time being ? that would be cool

Funch: I don't see why people who are Archer wouldn't already have the minimum post count. It wouldn't be that big, max 40. But sure, if for some reason they don't
King: yeah, fixed it. Now vote, but I didn't open it to keep posting, I needed it to e unlocked so you could vote