so people forfeiting rhg battles.. is anyone else really bothered by this?
its so cheap because the other animator has to work hard to make his project, and thats worth what? he could just submit an incomplete fight and it'd be the same as him spending months on it and completing it. of course they win either way, but i dont think the winner cares about that. in fact i would even consider them the victim of their opponent forfeiting. they wanna see how their rhg was animated in the other person's animation.
anyways, its unfair for someone to just forfeit. and then they can just blame it on a hectic schedule which i know is often the case, but you cant just find another time to work on it?
and then its not even a REAL loss and their record doesnt actually suffer for it, it just shows forfeit.

im not criticizing anyone who ever forfeited because ive done it before myself. but i think the community needs to stop forfeiting so much.
im tired of going in the Battle Zone forums and seeing a shitload of forfeit battles that i can't have the pleasure of voting on.

its just a huge problem. if it didnt happen so much i wouldnt have an issue with it. i guess the point im trying to make is that forfeiting is stupid in a system like rhg. the forfeited doesnt lose anything. the worst they have is a forfeit on their rhg page, which people dont seem to look at as an actual loss. the winner loses his/her time and efforts and whats the most he/she gets? won by forfeit on their rhg page, which isnt rewarding.
so one of two things could happen
1. everyone stops forfeiting so much
2. the forfeited actually loses something by rhg rules

what the rule should be and what the forfeited loses? i dont know. they should have some kind of punishment though. nothing serious or personal like a ban, certainly not. but perhaps they should post a link to the winner's animation on their rhg record. thats the least extreme i can think of, but its something
so whats everyone think

Just don't battle people who never finish their fights :p This way the amount of forfeits someone has effects them worse than a loss does. A loss isn't really a bad thing, but forfeiting tells future people that they might not get a proper match.

I feel bad. Winning by forfeit is too easy. That victory is just empty. Nothing. Just an empty victory. I'm not proud.

Quote from Flox

the winner loses his/her time and efforts and whats the most he/she gets? won by forfeit on their rhg page, which isnt rewarding.

You also get practice, experience and one more stick fight to add to your portfolio

I mean no offense by this but if the competition is the only aspect of rhg that you're capable of deriving satisfaction from then I honestly pity you. It blows my mind that someone else failing to finish their little stick fight animation is enough to ruin the time and effort you spent on your own work.

Quote from Devour

Just don't battle people who never finish their fights :p

By that time it's too late because you've already battled them.

Quote from Flox

he could just submit an incomplete fight and it'd be the same as him spending months on it and completing it. of course they win either way

No he can't. There was a time back in 2012 when people were just submitting incompletes in order to attain a win. I and the admins kindly pointed out that it is actually a rule that you have to finish for it to be considered a legit entry. It just wasn't an enforced rule.

Back in my mod days, I made guidelines as can be seen here about incompletes being just as similar as a forfeit in and of itself and oversaw that section and even made a thread to showcase all the battles that were defeated by forfeits in an attempt to promote these kinds of victims.

I even got a not-so-known rule approved by Stone (seen in the first link above) that a win by forfeit only grants you 1.5 a score instead of just a point. This theoretically incentivizes wins by forfeits and shames the forfeiters in turn. Sadly, it just seems like no mod these days actually cares about RHGs now; the ones that do have left for greener pastures (Dojo) and the other mods don't really give a shit about RHG as much as they'd like, mostly because of the belief that the system itself is whack: A Stick competition based purely fights is sometimes seen as pointless when the avenue of animation can go so much more.

I have crafted so many other RHG-related projects, but the sourness of noobs seeing me unable to animate and the lack of support from the mods (I had stepped down by then) has ran this campaign cold. But the biggest factor I feel is the dwindling presence of the man behind it all, Stone. Not saying its his fault, it was just a circumstantial issue. So many things were happening at the time; the site was in disarray, the RHG section wasn't the only one plagued by spamming newbs, and Stone was busy with life. It couldn't be helped.

Quote from Flox

but i dont think the winner cares about that. in fact i would even consider them the victim of their opponent forfeiting. they wanna see how their rhg was animated in the other person's animation.
anyways, its unfair for someone to just forfeit. and then they can just blame it on a hectic schedule which i know is often the case, but you cant just find another time to work on it?
and then its not even a REAL loss and their record doesnt actually suffer for it, it just shows forfeit.

Read about my FAQ. I address all this. I mention that the RHG is merely a platform for motivation. But a win shouldn't be the core motivation. It's, to finish. To finish makes you 100% automatically better than the other guy and that's what should matter. If you finish and the other guy hasn't, there is nothing stopping you from making a thread on your own. But it seems that these users don't really take that notion seriously. They are addicted to false glory from cheap wins. Plus, there are no veteran animators to help back up this kind of culture.

Quote from Flox

I'm not criticizing anyone who ever forfeited because ive done it before myself. but i think the community needs to stop forfeiting so much.
im tired of going in the Battle Zone forums and seeing a shitload of forfeit battles that i can't have the pleasure of voting on.

This starts with you. Not just to not forfeit by yourself, but to admonish the community for doing so, coming up with your own ideas (as I have) to generate interest in animating sticks fighting, and encourage people that winning doesn't matter. It starts with you, then it starts with the guy you battled with, then everyone else. This isn't a problem that's just going to go away in one day. I've done my best enforcing rules that should be enforced further and answering questions about it. But without mod or user backup, it's all for naught.

Quote from Flox

its just a huge problem. if it didnt happen so much i wouldnt have an issue with it. i guess the point im trying to make is that forfeiting is stupid in a system like rhg. the forfeited doesnt lose anything. the worst they have is a forfeit on their rhg page, which people dont seem to look at as an actual loss. the winner loses his/her time and efforts and whats the most he/she gets? won by forfeit on their rhg page, which isnt rewarding.
so one of two things could happen
1. everyone stops forfeiting so much
2. the forfeited actually loses something by rhg rules

what the rule should be and what the forfeited loses? i dont know. they should have some kind of punishment though. nothing serious or personal like a ban, certainly not. but perhaps they should post a link to the winner's animation on their rhg record. thats the least extreme i can think of, but its something
so whats everyone think

Hey, you have a better idea, we'd like to hear it. Not being condescending, just legit asking you the consumer. As I've said, I have already manufactured and approved the 1.5 win rule against forfeits. The problem is, if you go ahead and ask every mod right now if they give a shit about this rule, they probably won't. RHG is an archaic system, but that is not the only problem. It also lies in the community in general, which I would rather not go into as it spans far beyond the scope of this.

But here is the gist of it:

Back in FA, there was always a need to show off because the site needed activity to pay the bills. The community was more closely-knit and mentoring was almost a given fact. Noobs who forfeited or weren't up to snuff on their own, were lambasted and shunned. This mindset was able to produce a ton of adequately animated battles of which newbies these days call "awesome fights" when back then they were just normal fights (exceptions of course to the godlike ones like terky and the greats).

In Stickpage, because the site's revenue is all set and attraction comes in the form of prize-infused competitions (as can be seen in the events running right now), the site can survive on its own without 'awesome RHG battles'. Not to mention, when other sites started popping up that didn't adhere to this site's *ahem* draconian values, most of the veterans that had helped FA in the past and would have helped bolster this site's newbs, simply didn't. Quality decreased. And the mods at the time were also left without previous knowledge of how RHG was culturally (not our faults btw, its a social issue---for example only relegating RHG as a meager section to a forum that pretty much stood on its own). This allowed Noobs to dictate the standards until the standards just sunk so low: Noob clans were popping up everywhere, going inactive and unproductive in a span of 3 months average.

I actually sat down and reviewed a clan's history from the day it was made and all 50 pages (note that I have 20 posts per page so its actually 100+ pages) were nothing but frustrating chatter. The only thing being made was those stupid entry anims and maybe an interactive character sheet for show.

So because the average new guy that comes here will see that forfeits are normal because they are common, they will also follow suit, further degrading the quality of RHG battles.

Quote from Devour

Just don't battle people who never finish their fights :p This way the amount of forfeits someone has effects them worse than a loss does. A loss isn't really a bad thing, but forfeiting tells future people that they might not get a proper match.

^Case in point for a Mod who doesn't understand or see the point of RHGs. I bet the RHG section is so foreign to him, he doesn't even go there (as globals aren't really responsible and can pick places to be).

Quote from Exile

You also get practice, experience and one more stick fight to add to your portfolio

I mean no offense by this but if the competition is the only aspect of rhg that you're capable of deriving satisfaction from then I honestly pity you. It blows my mind that someone else failing to finish their little stick fight animation is enough to ruin the time and effort you spent on your own work.

^And another who is a firm believer of animating anything, and not just battling sticks. See, to Exile, the pride of winning an RHG is lost on him because SP never had shit like this before Stone came along.

I am not admonishing these 2 mods' behaviors, just pointing out the culture clash as it happens.

Further encasing this pt is the lack of green mods in the RHG Section. There simply wasnt enough onus to give a fuck as per higher ups.

Can you not speak for me? I'm capable of understanding why someone would feel proud after winning a competition, I'm just saying I think it's a bad thing when someone gets caught up in it to the point where it's literally the only reason they animate

When there is already a system specifically centred around stickman animation, which is inarguably the main focus of the site, and which has potential to be useful to the animators, regardless of their level, in helping them develop their skills greatly, I think it would only be fair if there are productive rules and regulations governing them and that these rules and regulations are strictly enforced. I believe that's what Hewitt meant.

Quote from Exile

You also get practice, experience and one more stick fight to add to your portfolio

I mean no offense by this but if the competition is the only aspect of rhg that you're capable of deriving satisfaction from then I honestly pity you. It blows my mind that someone else failing to finish their little stick fight animation is enough to ruin the time and effort you spent on your own work.

ok well even if i make an awesome animation and ive gotten a lot of experience from it its not satisfying when it doesnt have something to compete with (which for me, outweighs the satisfaction of improvement)


@ Hewitt
alright, while you mentioned a lot of stuff that i didnt know of that countered a lot of my points, the win-by-forfeit animation doesnt have to be unfinished.
it could be a halfassed anim where once the animator found out their opponent forfeited they just rushed the ending, which im sure happens sometimes.
although i guess you cant punish that in any kind of way, you can kinda tell when this happens.
still im happy to see theres a system that punishes forfeits and people who dont finish because of forfeits. thats the most i can ask for

Quote from Exile

Can you not speak for me? I'm capable of understanding why someone would feel proud after winning a competition, I'm just saying I think it's a bad thing when someone gets caught up in it to the point where it's literally the only reason they animate

I will not speak for you. But you have mentioned such commentary in the past, perhaps in a slightly altered context.

Quote from S.A.

When there is already a system specifically centred around stickman animation, which is inarguably the main focus of the site, and which has potential to be useful to the animators, regardless of their level, in helping them develop their skills greatly, I think it would only be fair if there are productive rules and regulations governing them and that these rules and regulations are strictly enforced. I believe that's what Hewitt meant.

Well. The rules are to enforce fairness. To make sure nobody cheats the other guy.

Nobody can tell you to be more productive. Motivation and Productivity are not things you can control and enforce. Trust like that is gained as an intangible benefit as a result of camaraderie and successful endeavor. I want to make fights with this guy. I trust this guy to deliver with me. We are willing to dedicate the hours to make all this work.

Quote from Flox

ok well even if i make an awesome animation and ive gotten a lot of experience from it its not satisfying when it doesnt have something to compete with (which for me, outweighs the satisfaction of improvement)

@ Hewitt
alright, while you mentioned a lot of stuff that i didnt know of that countered a lot of my points, the win-by-forfeit animation doesnt have to be unfinished.
it could be a halfassed anim where once the animator found out their opponent forfeited they just rushed the ending, which im sure happens sometimes.
although i guess you cant punish that in any kind of way, you can kinda tell when this happens.
still im happy to see theres a system that punishes forfeits and people who dont finish because of forfeits. thats the most i can ask for

Yes. If only someone actually still cares to enforce them.

Think of it this way:
1) Your opponent is a giant pussy with an attention span shorter than his dick.
2) You're so awesome at stick fights that your opponent realises your amazing skill is simply too much to be opposed.

But of course one of those is bullshit.

Quote from S.A.

I believe that's what Hewitt meant too.

Missed a word there, my bad.

Quote from Hewitt

Well. The rules are to enforce fairness. To make sure nobody cheats the other guy.

Nobody can tell you to be more productive. Motivation and Productivity are not things you can control and enforce. Trust like that is gained as an intangible benefit as a result of camaraderie and successful endeavor. I want to make fights with this guy. I trust this guy to deliver with me. We are willing to dedicate the hours to make all this work.

Actually, I had used the word 'productive' to mean 'beneficial to the RHG system'.

Quote from Charry

Think of it this way:
1) Your opponent is a giant pussy with an attention span shorter than his dick.
2) You're so awesome at stick fights that your opponent realises your amazing skill is simply too much to be opposed.

But of course one of those is bullshit.

Think of it this way: You offer nothing helpful to the conversation.