OK I’ve hidden quite a bit in my drop downs as with this post I’m back on top waffling form and for a good deal just kick sand all over the line between on and off topic but anyway here goes…
Rules I have for viewing humanity.
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Never underestimate how scummy some people can get. To anyone who either lives in the UK or ever plans to visit London I strongly recommend that they visit the Tower of London to see the sort of torture devices people not only dreamt up but were quite happy to inflict on each other just a few hundred years ago. Evolution is not that fast, the machinery of the human brain that allowed people to do stuff like that is pretty much the same now as it was then and that the “civility” of societies today is fragile as demonstrated by tyrannical regimes of the last century turning people on each other.
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Never underestimate how utterly awesome and brilliant some people can be. As coronavirus wreaks havoc around the world so many awesome people are working and volunteering to help in the response to it. Honestly I am struggling to think of how to do justice to this so shall leave it there but this is far from the only example.
In the end whatever trait you want to try and characterise or think people are like there’s a whole bunch of people on the total other side of that characteristic such that it is useless to try summarise humanity in any one way however much people like to try to do so - the diversity is always bigger than they realise.
It’s been a familiar theme that people have questioned whether the internet is bad for society however it is nothing more than a tool that acts as a mirror for humanity. Whereas before people could walk around ignorantly believing all people are one way or another the internet challenges those perceptions and shows just the total spectrum of humanity from those doing awesome things with Just Giving pages to the scumbags trolling and cyberbullying others. The personalities and individuals doing both these things would still be acting within their nature internet or not just that with the internet the rest of us can’t pretend what we don’t like doesn’t happen when it does. Even before the panic buying we are witnessing around this crisis the signs of what ills our societies have been there but unfortunately we lack the leadership to tackle them.
It is perhaps unfortunate that recent political leaders have not been particularly wary about poking at the fragile rules of civility by pointing blame for social ills at specific groups to turn people against each other that if that is going on in real life I’m not too surprised people are turning against other members of the E&P playing community.
Fear of not looking to be wrong vs actually finding what is right
Whilst I can’t speak for other countries but unfortunately where I am this is a product of the education system, the BS promises we tell our kids and behaviour of our political/media classes. We tell our kids that if they want to succeed they have to really well in their exams to then go to a decent uni and what not.
Our education system is not set up to teach them how to think but to regurgitate information they may or may not understand in ways that they can’t be seen to be wrong so as to get the marks for that question. With such an emphasis on perfectionism we create individuals who are more terrified of being seen to be wrong than they are of actually interested in being right. Rather than admit they don’t know they would rather pretend they do. But everyone makes mistakes and if they’d rather cover them up than learn from them they cannot grow to be any better.
Unfortunately this mindset of must always be right permeates through our society such that debate these days have become competitions to see who can own the other rather than an attempt to discover a more fundamental truth. Any political leadership acknowledges its made a mistake and changes its approach to something is accused in the media of weak leadership or making an embarrassing U-turn whereas pigheadedly pursuing dumba##ery is supposedly strong. Why strong leadership is seen as better than wise leadership is baffling but usually the first is often the sign of the lack of the other for a wise leader would realise the branch that cannot bend will inevitably break and that water from a spring remains flexible in the path it takes but always winds up getting to the sea at some point.
As such in a society that encourages and values BSing over pretty much all else sadly it is a rare person who still has the humility to be able to hold up their hand at some point and say they got it wrong and learn something from it. There is also the sad irony that those able to do so are so much more qualified to lead people than those that aren’t however they are unlikely ever to be voted into those positions that matter.
Anyhu as I run the risk of my waffle in those drop downs at the strengths and ills of people in general and the community might be considered as going off topic I’m gonna make a handbrake turn back into the race with:
How a must-have hero is damaging to the players community
This section has become so familiar to many players by now that most probably skip it at the top of each hero guide it appears in but honestly its the most important point. Far too many people, especially newbies (for which this point goes out to) assume they’re naturally gonna get that hero that looks awesome in the beta beat - after all you’ve got a few HOTM before that took you on average 50ish pulls before and so you’re quite happy to chase that awesome new hero…
However as any big spender in this game will tell you in this game that even with the better HOTM odds you will eventually hit a streak in which a particular HOTM that absolutely refuses to drop. It’s happened a number of times with me I can tell you - the one that stick most in my mind was Miki that took me more than 400 pulls to land. Whilst I have spoken before in this thread that the likes of an uber all-round brilliant centralising hero is bad for the game meta it is also bad socially for the community as the idea of a “must-have” hero puts pressure on people to spend to try and get it and unfortunately that means a lot of people will spend all they can and lose out by not getting it and that person could very well be you despite however much you want that hero.
Just as I started this post saying how there are so many people out there who are scumbags but there are also so many awesome people as well, the same goes for how much self control people have. Many out there are disciplined enough to ensure they never spend outside of a budget (or spend at all - shout out to you F2Pers) but at the other end of the spectrum there are those who have self-control issues either temporarily going through a bad time that’s knocked them out of a right frame of mind or it may be pathological as the result of a mental health issue. The game has absolutely no protections to ensure these people won’t totally self-destruct themselves rage-pulling past what they can afford for a “must-have” hero. If we are actually a community we should be trying to look out for all of our fellow players which includes ensuring that heroes are not so “must-have” that a vulnerable player would be tempted into self-destructing going for it as SGG certainly doesn’t care so long as the money rolls in.
(An aside: I’m sure most alliance leaders who’ve been going for quite awhile have had a player at some point they could tell had self control issues - who probably then burned out later after bad pulls at an event or whatever - would be interesting to know if having realised that you attempted to try to advise them to find another game before they crashed and burnt or whether you let them get on with it happy to have the additional body against Titans for awhile however I guess the question is more rhetorical as even if some did do the later it’d be difficult admitting it publicly that you knew how it might end for them yet said nothing that we’re unlikely to get an accurate picture)
One day that could be you but maybe you have more self-control than that and will stop yourself before bankrupting yourself but whilst you won’t have had it that bad you certainly won’t feel great knowing that you blew everything you had been saving and budgeting to try get this particular hero to try be more competitive whilst the vast majority of the top 1000 players will have landed that hero for less than you spent further widening the gap you hoped to close (though in reality you and they both having it wouldn’t close it - just maintain what it already was) as you can be sure that those top players will also have been saving up for that hero.
So yeah whilst earlier in this thread I explained that when judging a hero that I believed:
But that whilst they should provide a measurable improvement for any player that anything too OP not just undermines the value of previous heroes and damages the game’s meta it also has the potential to damage the community. So whilst a player may be begging for an uber hero to not be re-balance properly as they’re fantasising what they’ll be able to do with it as a community minded beta tester I also need to consider the implications for that exact same player in the scenario that they wind up not getting that hero with what they can safe budget for both in terms can they remain competitive in the game without the hero they so wanted and not to provide too great a temptation for them to do something stupid they can’t take back.