parhelia_0000 wrote:Christen57 wrote:parhelia_0000 wrote:You have to understand that it's not just PENMASTER or myself who feel that custom cards format should just be deleted. A lot of people on DuelingBook who talk on public chat and/or Main Menu statuses want custom cards gone because of how it attracts negativity in many angles.
Neither public chat nor main menu should be used for requesting the removal of any duelingbook feature to begin with. That's what the Suggestions section of this forum is for, and any requests of the sort that do get posted to the public chat or main menu, instead of Suggestions, should be ignored and not taken into account.It's not about whether or not we can include diversity just to maintain the website for a long term anymore. It's about breaking the chain of toxicity with custom cards by deleting the format for good.
As stated earlier, any format will attract some negativity. This isn't exclusive to customs, but I think these formats, including customs, attract far more positivity and creativity, than negativity. We just don't see as many people talking about how positive they find the custom format to be because, well, they're just too busy enjoying the custom format, while the much louder and more negative voices are the ones we might hear the most — talking about how negative they find the custom format — giving us the impression that these small groups of loud voices represent the will entire custom card community when they don't.
Extreme toxicity should be handled by punishing/freezing the toxic user(s) in question, not by removing an entire format that so many people including myself have grown to genuinely enjoy. Duelingnetwork was filled with just as much toxicity as duelingbook's customs, if not more, back when duelingnetwork was still around. Some people were leaving duelingbook to go join 4chan because duelingnetwork was getting so toxic that it was starting to make even 4chan look good, and that was all without customs.
It's like that saying: "The loudest are usually the haters"... or... was it "the haters are usually the loudest"?If the community cannot be promised a healthier custom card format where we don't have to worry about trolls anymore, then perhaps the community does not deserve to have the custom cards format in the first place.
Again, it's the individual toxic users, and users intentionally spreading said toxicity, who don't deserve the custom cards format, not the entire community. Punish those extremely toxic users if necessary, not the toxic users + the good ones.
Also, it's spelled Xteven, not XSteven.
From the looks of it, I'm suspecting the admins won't be punishing CrystalMusic, Chaosprince, Aroma Girl or Ari Bellamy anytime soon given how the admins don't see broken cards and/or their toxicity as rule-breaking. If that's the case, then perhaps it's better for the admins to focus their attention towards the toxicity within the Advanced format and get rid of custom card format altogether, rather than keep custom cards alive and try to keep the burning train going.
Okay, I'm not sure about Chaosprince and Aroma Girl specifically, but I know that CrystalMusic's already been warned by Genexwrecker (and possibly by other judges as well) that further toxicity/harassment won't be tolerated, and I looked at a few of Ari Bellamy's cards since he/she seems to have made them public. That user's cards seemed somewhat balanced and have decent problem-solving card text for the most part. I even saw him/her dueling in the custom format earlier today. His/her cards were pretty strong, with her strongest card I saw being a 3000 atk monster that can attack directly, but I was expecting his/her cards to be far more broken, or at least as broken as yours were, and they weren't. https://www.duelingbook.com/replay?id=36063094
So I would say (at least for now) that, out of CrystalMusic, Chaosprince, Aroma Girl, and Ari Bellamy, Ari Bellamy is the least problematic, and least toxic, of the 4.
Eventually push will have to come with shove. Admins need to acknowledge sooner or later that custom cards' toxicity will become uncontrollable, and that the downfall of custom cards will be inevitable, whether it be toxic players ruining the format beyond recovery to the point where almost everyone (if not literally everyone) wants custom cards gone, or admins taking action now to break the chain of toxicity by ridding DB of the custom cards format. Need proof? Watch the following videos made by dzeeff and you'll see my point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpvZLLFZ4nA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IcyDyQK0O0
Neither of these youtube videos prove that the custom format as a whole should be removed, only that there happen to be quite a few terrible customs out there with little to no problem-solving card text, 9999 atk/def monsters, effects written in all caps, and so on.
Christen, I understand that you have good intentions for the custom card community; however, you have to understand sooner or later that you're fighting a losing battle. You have evidence all around you that custom cards will never be truly balanced, toxic players will eventually drive the entire custom card format to the ground (if they haven't already done so), and eventually the community in its majority will want the format gone.
Toxic players will eventually drive the custom format to the ground? The community in it's majority will want the format gone? I'd rather wait until those toxic players actually drive the custom format to the ground, and until that majority actually starts wanting the format gone, before deciding whether or not the custom format should really go. Until then, I haven't seen either of these prophecies of yours come true yet (which still gives me hope), nor do I see either of them coming true any time soon, so I'm not going to worry about that yet.
Take it however you'd like, but honestly I don't see any redeeming qualities of custom card format at this point.
Well I do, and so does Lil Oldman, Wek, CustomWalker, james123, KTeknis, and many others, including those people who were in your duel I mentioned earlier — those opponents and your teamate who you locked out of playing the game. Those 3 still saw redeeming qualities in customs too, which is why they didn't bother making any broken locking-out stuff like what you made.
Besides, people also tend to use the custom format to try testing out cards that'll be officially released to the OCG/TCG at some point but just haven't yet been added to duelingbook. I saw this happen with the Floowandereeze archetype. That archetype wasn't yet on duelingbook, so people created it as customs to test them until Xteven added them to duelingbook officially. It isn't right to punish these people who are only using customs to test soon-to-be-released cards.
If you still don't believe that custom cards needs to be deleted, please watch this replay. This just proves that you cannot reason with people who refuse to learn. https://www.duelingbook.com/replay?id=37528-36059412
If this replay doesn't prove that custom cards needs to be shut down, I don't know what will. 'Cause as long as there's no one policing the custom card pool, we'll always have to dread of these toxic players who ruin the entire format for the rest of us. It's better off that we shut it down for good.
If people stubbornly refuse to learn, you avoid them until they do. Wek and Lil Oldman told you this already. The only issue I'm seeing here is you keep cherrypicking and focusing only on the few duels here and there where people use extremely broken cards but ignoring the many duels where that's not the case. In other words, you're letting your Confirmation Bias get the better of you. Confirmation Bias is, in this case, you looking only at the duels with extremely broken customs to support your view that this is what the entire custom format has become, but ignore the duels with the far less broken customs since those contradict your point instead of supporting it. If all you look for is the toxicity, then the toxicity is all you'll find.
This is my open letter to Xteven, Genexwrecker and other administrators:
I don't know what was going through your mind when you created the custom card format in DB, but troglyte, PENMASTER and I believe that the format has created more negativity than positivity in the game.
I don't know why you're trying to drag troglyte and PENMASTER into this. So far, troglyte simply said customs were "gay," prefers rush duels, and is only against custom rush cards specifically. He hasn't yet said anything about actually agreeing with you that customs should be shut down outright. PENMASTER suggested deleting customs but has since come forward and admitted he was joking when he said that, so he isn't serious about wanting customs shut down either.
We're seeing too many incidents time and again where people bring in broken cards that ruin the format for others, forcing people like me to make broken cards just to be able to survive that format or just lose. Attempts were made to balance the format by many others, to no avail. The majority of custom card servers never make it through the first few months for this very reason.
It's not just a small handful of people who ruin the custom card format for the rest of us anymore. Now, the toxicity has spread throughout, with more and more people creating broken custom cards to the point where custom card format can be renamed "broken card format." It's turned from a fair competition of fair and balanced games into "who can create the most ridiculous, broken card" contest.
The same thing can be said about advanced format. People bring in broken and unfun cards like Mystic Mine, and bring decks that spam multiple boss monsters with omni-negates and whatnot, that ruin the format for others, forcing people like me to resort to trying out cheap strategies myself just to be able to survive that format. Attempts were made to balance advanced as well, with that also being to no avail, as discords servers trying these also failed to make it through the first few months.
Advanced format's been feeling like broken card format too to many people, turning games into "who can make the most broken board turn 1". What you keep complaining about isn't exclusive to customs.
On behalf of the rest of DB community that want this platform to thrive and survive as a healthier Yugioh website, I am strongly urging the admins, including Xteven, to strongly consider shutting down the custom card format and purging any and all custom cards that have been made thus far in the game.
Don't give us that "On behalf of the rest of DB community" crap. You're the only one so far who feels this strongly about what you believe in. I explained why troglyte and PENMASTER don't count (at least not until they openly state they do agree with what you're saying) and I explained why the random users in public chat and main menu don't count either.
As for Dzeeff, it turns out that he's also not entirely on board with doing away with the custom card format. Yes, you did link me to these two videos made by him:
but those videos were from December 2018 and February 2019 respectively. Since then, Dzeeff made a new video in September 2019 continuing to review custom cards, and this time, he reviews cards he finds to be much better designed then the cards he reviewed in those older videos you linked to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3ShhV5zkAE
So, it makes no sense for him to continue reviewing customs (especially when, this time, he's expressing far more positivity than before) if he truly believed that the custom format was pointless and was in agreement that it should be shut down. All he said about the custom format anyway was something along the lines of how he was going to take a break from reviewing customs since too many people were sending him so many cards and overwhelming him with requests to review each one, not that he was in any sort of agreement that the format should be shut down. The fact that he took the time to make this new video about better-designed customs shows that he still has hope in the custom format like myself and Lil Oldman do.
We feel that it is best for the admins to focus their attention towards formats that are official, rather than try to create other formats that will only serve as places where people can spread toxicity and hate towards others.
The recent replay that I've posted above should serve as proof that toxic players ruining the custom cards for others has also soured my relationship with the custom card format. As much as I'd love to see the custom cards remain on the website, I must take the need of others' mental health and enjoyment of the game into consideration. Yugioh should be a game where people can have fun, and unfortunately, custom card format does not do any good to contribute to such cause. Please consider.
Thank you,
parhelia_0000
I would argue that advanced format tends to be just as frustrating, if not more, than custom format. In custom format, if someone's being a scumbag, you can simply quit and find another opponent. In advanced format however, you have to spend minutes, possibly hours, waiting for a judge to arrive to deal with the toxic player as you can't simply quit then or else you lose rating/exp. I often try to make it a habit to avoid rated while there are no active judges online, and only go in rated while at least 1 judge is online so if I do run into such players, I can be sure a judge will come and deal with them in a timely manner so I'm not stuck waiting for one.
The admins will be doing themselves a favor by deleting the custom cards format. No more having to deal with CrystalMusic in the custom card format, no more arguments about card balance, no more having to complain about players who use custom cards as an excuse to attack others, etc.
You send me a private message saying "I've decided to quit Yugioh as it's not enjoyable for me anymore." Yet you continue to request for the custom format's deletion so you can avoid running into toxic players on this site? That makes no sense. If you're quitting duelingbook entirely at this point, you're already going to not be running into those players you dislike so much anymore anyways, so at this point, there's really no longer any need (assuming there was even any need to begin with) for the admins to do what you asked which is shutting down customs as you're not sticking around anyways to enjoy the removal of the custom format should the admins actually shut it down, and if you intend to leave the forum as well never to return, you aren't going to have to worry about "reliving" any more locked thread recreations either since, again, you won't be around to enjoy me "respecting your wish for this".
