We Should Talk About The Title Scene

The following thread/poll is meant to provoke meaningful, productive, and civil discussion about whether or not the community is happy with the way the titles work. And about what we can do to address concerns with them, if there are any. This is not an attempt for me or any other individual user to state that they are deserving of a title. And this is not a thread meant to call attention to or insult person or group of people.

This section of my post following the bolded words above is representative of my opinion and my opinion alone, unless others choose to comment in agreement with me on one or more of these points.

I personally feel there are a plethora of issues with achievements in general with accolades, championships, distinctions, and so on work here at AFW. And I feel like these issues have been ongoing throughout the entirety of my time here since joining the site, and likely before that as well. It would be constructive to delve into immediate resolutions right away, but I feel that logically, the first step to resolving any issue is first recognizing that there is one to begin with. And that's the first thing I'd like to assess.  

I would like to list out what I feel are some current issues. It doesn't encompass everything, but they are things that I feel should be immediate concerns with championships.

- It's not what you know, it's who you know. Based on years of interaction with many others on this site, myself, and I believe many others subscribe to the notion that when it comes to many of the belts, getting a championship or championship opportunity generally comes down to who certain users and title holders are friendly with. That the criteria for who earns a title or title match is less about wholesome qualities of roleplaying (good writing, stories, compelling characters, logic, etc) and more about things tied exclusively to subjectivity. Things like: who it is that one or two specific users like at the time. This has resulted in situations where certain championships are held by, or passed back and forth between the same set small users, or even characters, for vast amounts of time. This denies other users who are likely just as qualified, chances to have their characters compete for such accolades.

-No established rules/pre-requisites. If someone can point me to any rules regarding titles, please do so. First and foremost, I want to make it clear that I understand enforcing certain rules on this matter would become difficult. But I think it's a worse situation when there are no rules that are established among everyone. I think that there are certainly some things that make sense to enforce and establish with users when it comes to this matter. Things like no user having multiple titles on their character roster at any given time, the age of an account before a user's character is ready to challenge for a championship, the number of matches a character has fought before they can compete for an accolade, a title holder needing to defend their championship within a reasonable real life time frame or be forced to vacate it (maybe 2 months with advanced notice), and so on. I feel that these criteria and many others, are things that should be made clear. I feel that having any criteria at all, and making those conditions public knowledge is important.

-The number available and the diversity. This site has a fair number of relatively active users. And I feel the number, as well as the diversity titles is disproportionate to the number of people that regularly participate in the forum. I want to stress that I don't feel that regularly posting in the forum should not make a user or their character immediately eligible, not by itself. But I believe most people on this site would feel it would be fair, productive, and helpful for their characters to have more options to pursue than just the current collection of belts. I also feel that for a roleplaying forum, the diversity of titles is rather low. I believe that the entirety of the belts should reflect more than just the standard belts that you find in most every pro wrestling company, and belts about sex. Regional/country championships, submission wrestling championship, a couples championship, cruiserweight championship for tension, a belt championship designated to the single worst wrestler, or a belt denoting the wrestler that's most popular with the fans (maybe determined by polls on the site), and so on. I feel that the addition of any of these or other ideas would help the title scene by making it more diverse and giving more users and their characters goals to aspire to, goals that would make for good storytelling telling and offer more representation.

This post is likely already long enough. So I'll stop here for now and ask that others chime in. If you have any pertinent opinions to share, or if you feel the need to refute any of mine, please do so. Like I said before, at the top of this post, this thread is to remain one for civil discussion about change.

I swear there are about 4 other threads we can merge this with.

Edit: You have valid points but your last one where there is a ton of titles is a bit much... We barely have enough people who stay active for main titles.

I know I'm pretty new here but while it's true that some people are inactive with main titles, vacating them could be a good idea. Maybe if two months is too short then three? Then give the person who was vacated another shot if they become more active later on.

And I don't see the harm in adding a title to tension. After all, I feel there are a few people who've never had titles that deserve one. I mean can another title actually hurt anything?

I agree wholeheartedly with the "Its not what you know, it's who you know."

The title scene is too small and should be expanded. I know i've become unpopular on the site for voicing this opinion on multiple occasions but it needs to be said.

Winner3 wrote: That the criteria for who earns a title or title match is less about wholesome qualities of roleplaying (good writing, stories, compelling characters, logic, etc) and more about things tied exclusively to subjectivity.

I for the most part, agree with you. But what is good writing? What makes a story compelling? People in academia debate what qualifies as good or bad writing constantly, and I feel as if I am personally woefully unqualified to say who is a superior writer, one way or another. Even then, writing can not be consistent within a match, let alone across several matches. It is odd to me that you don't like subjectivity, and then want to rely on something totally subjective.

Winner3 wrote:Things like: who it is that one or two specific users like at the time. This has resulted in situations where certain championships are held by, or passed back and forth between the same set small users, or even characters, for vast amounts of time

There is something I agree with here, and something I don't agree with here. Yes, it is super annoying when the title gets passed between one or two people, and maybe there should be something in place to ensure that once you win the belt, you can't get it back unless it has changed hands twice. But on the other hand, if I am giving the belt to someone, I would like to have a relationship and some level of trust with them. Let's say I have a belt, and someone I have worked with before. That means that a) I have some faith that they won't up and leave (which has happened before) and b) I know how they write, and I know how to make a good story line with them. The vast amounts of time part of your quote really stuck out to me. If I am giving the belt to someone, I am not going to give it to someone who has only spent a small amount of time on the site, whose characters have only a few matches. It would not be fair to people who have been here for years, and who have had multiple story lines, etc.

Winner3 wrote:Things like no user having multiple titles on their character roster at any given time, the age of an account before a user's character is ready to challenge for a championship, the number of matches a character has fought before they can compete for an accolade, a title holder needing to defend their championship within a reasonable real life time frame or be forced to vacate it (maybe 2 months with advanced notice), and so on.

Some of these rules seem reasonable, others not so much. The defense thing makes sense to me, but I don't want this to be like a video game where you must engage in a certain number of matches before you 'level up'. You mentioned previously that you wanted good story lines, good matches, etc., but this seems to easy to game, just like swapping it with your pals does. But I agree with you, if there are rules, everyone should know them.

Winner3 wrote:Regional/country championships, submission wrestling championship, a couples championship, cruiserweight championship for tension, a belt championship designated to the single worst wrestler, or a belt denoting the wrestler that's most popular with the fans (maybe determined by polls on the site), and so on.

For your other points, I sort of agreed, but this one, I am totally against. We already have too many belts as it is. There are lots of cool belts (Entropy, 24/7) that are nice in theory, and awesome sometimes in practice, but other times they feel just meh. Like, the 24/7 champion should be a new person basically every week. When the volatility of the belt slows down, it feels like just another belt. And there are other belts which no one gives two craps about (we had to ask someone to claim the tension hentai belt, and there are very few posters who could even be in contention for either of the tag belts). What is to stop the submission champ belt from being like that? Hell, what is to stop the softcore belt from being like that? This may be just me, but I would genuinely not care if Eka wore the Southeastern belt. Maybe we should consolidate a few belts, even.

But I don't mean to pick on you or anything.

"Like, the 24/7 champion should be a new person basically every week. When the volatility of the belt slows down, it feels like just another belt." - Lukas

This is when the vacating should take place. So we might not need a new belt if one or two of these went around faster, but some of these are almost nonexistent.

Also, consolidate is a bad idea to me. I don't need a belt any time soon (Why should I, I'm new) but some people on here are very deserving but aren't even noticed.

M.J.Caboose14 wrote:"Like, the 24/7 champion should be a new person basically every week. When the volatility of the belt slows down, it feels like just another belt." - Lukas

This is when the vacating should take place. So we might not need a new belt if one or two of these went around faster, but some of these are almost nonexistent.

I agree with you. The thing is, the 24/7 belt should change hands very frequently, and the other belts should be traded with less frequency.

Just gonna duck in briefly on this, because the last one of these just turned into certain people laying into one another, and in my mind, one particular poster being outright bullied.

The idea of rotating titles is one I've liked for a long while. Not rotating holders (no outright stripping them), but when maybe a few reigns of a particular belt are done, they are momentarily benched for a fresh, brand new one.

So let's say, purely for example sake, the next time the kawaii belt and friction hentai changes hands, they are benched. In its place, come two new belts. They have a short run, then one gets replaced with the returning kawaii belt. Etc.Etc. Keeps interest for the belts fresh, new holders/rp'ers eligible, and new stories happening. Akin to what WWE does with Hardcore, European, Intercontental etcetc.

Also,

Lobo wrote:I swear there are about 4 other threads we can merge this with.

Suggests its a common/popular issue, no?

yet it stays with people forever. i see the 24/7 and entropy as the IC or USA title. at MOST maybe a month to two months if you are an ACTIVE user.

LtLukas wrote:When the volatility of the belt slows down, it feels like just another belt. And there are other belts which no one gives two craps about (we had to ask someone to claim the tension hentai belt, and there are very few posters who could even be in contention for either of the tag belts). What is to stop the submission champ belt from being like that?

If no one seems to care about a belt, maybe it would be a decent idea to retire it and try a new idea? At the very least scorn's idea of rotating belts seems interesting. There could always be more events or what not to take its place, after all is the point of this stuff not to have fun and get people engaged?