Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-25396609-20160302042815/@comment-27447621-20160310020720

Phantomlink959 wrote:

Everyone is competing on a level playing field. it is up to each individual to do their best. those with more experience and skill are naturally going to do better.

The best way to improve is to keep practicing between contests, and take advice to heart. Everyone would be on a level playing field if everyone knew the rules. I didn't know the characters would be graded quite so heavily on Background, as I mentioned before. Spirited did, so she loaded that category (which I feel that she would've done anyway, but...). Mine, as you accurately pointed out, was bare, because I didn't give it much thought because I didn't know it was that important.

And I know that Improving is good, but I look at my character and I look at Cyrania and Spirited and I got utterly demolished!  Now, say you're a first timer, who's coming into this tentatively, not really sure of him/herself, and you see that your character has 35 points while another has 95 points. A lot of people would call it quits right there (I won't, but I personally know people who would) with lines like "I'm just terrible at this" "Everyone's so much better than me" and "This is stupid". Don't tell me those people don't exist, because they do. Heck, Phantom, You saw ACWeapons decline from competing because he didn't win when he tried to compete his first time!

I'm not saying "Give Alle and me 20 extra points because we're new so we can beat Cyrania" or anything, but I think we either need to release the Grading Rubric on the intro to the page so people know how their ideas are to be graded or give first-time a small boost (maybe not quite so large a boost, but just so they can get their bearings). Is that so unreasonable?