Squidboards Suggestion Thread

[Aori]

Ah hey, i'm curious! Is the current map thing broken? A lot of people other than me were wondering about it, so I thought I'd bring it up.

 

[Warchamp7]

Ah hey, i'm curious! Is the current map thing broken? A lot of people other than me were wondering about it, so I thought I'd bring it up.

Thanks for the heads up, I didn't even notice! I'll look into fixing it

 

[Aori]

Thanks for the heads up, I didn't even notice! I'll look into fixing it

I'm glad I could help!
Oh, While i'm saying things though, for the lighter themes of squidboards some parts of the theme are still black, making it hard to see on certain color combos (i.e. dark blue). It could be just my eyes, though. Some examples of this include the top bar with news, forums, shoutbox (when you're on something the background of the bar is still black) and the bar below it with "mark forum as read", etc.

There's also the dropdown for the user control panel that's dark in comparison to the rest of the theme too.
I don't know if this can be fixed (I mostly use dark theme anyways, but I have to use lighter themes in the day or it hurts my eyes) but I thought i'd bring it up :0

 

[LaVa_Squid]

Hi! I think you should add better interface for new users, for example a "guided" visit so that new users get to know this wonderful website!

 

[Aori]

Sorry for this, but it's more of a complaint and question than a suggestion. May I know why the section that's for casual conversation does not count towards post count? I understand if it would raise the count too fast, but it still doesn't make too much sense to me? It's still posting, and it kind of weirds me out to see my post count not go up when I want to just play games and talk casually to people over actually talk about the game.

I mean don't get me wrong - I love splatoon, but right now my interest in it is kinda hindering due to the lack of things to do so I've mostly been in the Inkopolis Plaza. Unless it raises the count and I haven't realized, then i'm sorry for complaining.

Again, I can see why the forum doesn't count towards post count, but I think it could disorient a few people like myself that expect posting anywhere on a forum to give points to your post count. On most other forums I'm on every other section counts, after all, forum games or general discussion. It makes the people that joined the forum just to socialize with people feel less left out.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude or anything, that was not my intention. I just wanted to bring it up and see if I can get some input on why this is the case only on squidboards- whither it be what I expect or not.

 

[Warchamp7]

The social threads tend to be (and are intended to be) very active and ongoing discussion, and it can become very easy to amass a lot of posts very quickly just by participating.

With post count generally being an indicator of activity and participation over time, 200 total posts across other sections of the site, and 200 posts in social threads represent two very different things.

However, that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself and I'm willing to reevaluate it

 

[Cdr. Sigma Skye]

A little something for the Source Machinima Directors and Animators, ready? Their own subforum!

I'd like for animators like Ryevan Bloo, Poool157, and many others like them to join this forum if they haven't yet. As well as the project subforums for the Directors/Creators.

Here's how this works. If they haven't registered yet, during the process, there will be a tick asking if they do source animations with Splatoon assets? Once verified, they must perform a brief survey, to gain access to the Source Machinima section of the forums. The Survey only has questions that the animator must demonstrate honesty when asked, for example: "Do you prefer to use ik rigs when animating your model?", or "How often do you put your ideas to writing before animating?"

It's those little things that define the kind of Machinima you do, and at what level.

 

[Aori]

The social threads tend to be (and are intended to be) very active and ongoing discussion, and it can become very easy to amass a lot of posts very quickly just by participating.

With post count generally being an indicator of activity and participation over time, 200 total posts across other sections of the site, and 200 posts in social threads represent two very different things.

However, that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself and I'm willing to reevaluate it

That makes sense.

I just thought it'd be a good idea to make everything count so that people that most mostly in the inkopolis plaza section don't feel like they're not contributing to the forum at all- then again if that's not an issue and it's just me feeling a bit strange about the post count not going up it's truly not necessary and I can get over it. If anything, perhaps an indicator that posts in inkopolis plaza won't count towards your post count would be a good idea? That way nobody gets concerned when posting there and think something's wrong with their internet or anything.

 

[Box]

So I've been away for a while and it seems like the Splatoon community, perhaps especially people with interest in competitive side, has moved away from Squidboards. I'm wondering if there's any interest in changing that situation.

I feel like I used to be able to use these forums as a way of reaching out to the community. It seems now that the interest and level of activity of this place is too low for it to really be useful. And while I support the community's shift to Discord, I still think there's utility in having a proper forum. I'm not sure if it's really possible to bring activity back to the forum, but there might be some easy changes that would facilitate repopulation if it ever became possible.

This is sort of a multi-layered issue so I don't have one grand solution for you. But if there's mutual interest, I think I can be of some help.

 

[Warchamp7]

So I've been away for a while and it seems like the Splatoon community, perhaps especially people with interest in competitive side, has moved away from Squidboards. I'm wondering if there's any interest in changing that situation.

I feel like I used to be able to use these forums as a way of reaching out to the community. It seems now that the interest and level of activity of this place is too low for it to really be useful. And while I support the community's shift to Discord, I still think there's utility in having a proper forum. I'm not sure if it's really possible to bring activity back to the forum, but there might be some easy changes that would facilitate repopulation if it ever became possible.

This is sort of a multi-layered issue so I don't have one grand solution for you. But if there's mutual interest, I think I can be of some help.

Discord is an amazing platform and fantastic for chatting with others, but you are correct that it is terrible for anything you want to have permanence and for real discussion.

Ultimately, we can't force people to use Squidboards, but I am always willing to listen to suggestions for what people would like from the site in order to serve the community better.

 

[Warchamp7]

Following our recent update, I'd love to hear ideas and feedback from the community!

 

[Dragonuto]

I only have one thing to post at this moment in time. But I'll expand more tommorrow. Maybe take some time to archive important threads, remove extremely old and dead threads from the forum and keep everything clean. I understand this could take a while. But it could be a first step towards a cleaner board. :)

 

[Amarae]

Hey, so besides the previously mentioned lagg issue (Which I'm still not certain wether that's just me or not really) I want to say that something I've observed is that people will show up, get approved, and never come back ever again. User retention here seems pretty minimal, which is funny because I suspect this is at least partially due to the fact that there is so little discussion or interaction otherwise going on and there might actually be if there were enough people sticking around to engage that. Furthermore, it seems as though Squidboards is in competition with discord. Why have a casual thread here (Which casual threads are huge in most other forums I have been part of) when you have access to the IRC that is discord? It would probably work is SBs was a more centric element of the Splatoon community and perhaps it once was, but right now as it would seem that's far from the case. I think a peice of the solution is to be able to host threads that merit the kind of slow deliberance that a forum requires over the immediacy of a discord server. The kind of threads that I often see being populated (Besides casual chat threads) on other forums are ones where a paragraphs long answers are a standard within its pages, where it becomes more viable to answer and contemplate at length over short quips like you would in IRC. As for what kind of threads about Splatoon you could make to that end, well I'm not entirely sure at the moment, but it's something to thing about.

As an aside, I didn't realise until very recently that there is real-time chat function on this site(Also quite laggy fr me btw) so giving that more visibility perhaps might help as well, but maybe it's just me.

I saw that someone else had mentioned more weekly poll threads on Twitter, and I think I agree but also you might be able to go further. Weekly community events have often been kind of a hit. Every weekend perhaps host a session of private battles casual turf wars, single weapon clashes, or perhaps even training events for newer players to hook up with high level players and team and get direct pointers. Events like these and more would be easier to keep visible in a forum format, but the place would naturally need to be populated with willing participants to make that a reality.


Somewhat unrelated but,
Something I've been meaning to get ahold of SBs staff privately also is the visible relationship between it and the subreddit and the discord communities. Presently I am working on a compiliation of the larger/more active discord servers to place as an announcement on our subreddit to bring visibility to those places as we draw nearer to the influx of people who will be joining/returning for the Testfire/Launch of Splatoon 2. Including Squidsboards into this announcement post may yet yield results on its own, and though I know not what more we could do at this time I'm very interested in further improving the relationships with the various communities and the subreddit/sudbreddit discord(Where I am also a moderator) to help bridge the evident gap that exists between them. Currently, I am limited with what I can do as I am only one person, and my standing within most communities is fairly limited, but I have made increasing efforts to be involved with these communities and lead by example with the kind of friendly interactions I hope to inspire in others. Mechanically, I am doing all I have the authority to do that I am aware of to close this gap as staff but cooperation with the other community leaders is paramount.

 

[Afrohawk]

I love all the ideas you posted about Amarae. The retention part is extremely important. Part of the issue with Squidboards is that people want to use it but they don't have a reason to use anything outside of Twitter/Discord. Since that information is fast and easily accessible, but also easy to miss, people tend to be glued to those channels to get whatever scraps of info they can. Of course, that information is often pretty shallow unless it's in a pastebin / twitlonger because of Twitter constraints and the quick nature of Discord. If Squidboards can fill in the gap with more meaningful conversation and information more people would flock to this site and stick around for it.

I also love the idea of more community events. The "one weapon" event sound fantastic and my mind was racing with the possibilities just on that alone. But I also think these should be events, not tournaments. Amarae didn't mention tournaments and this particular mention isn't directed at them. I've just seen events like these warp into tournaments and they don't really work out for casual players or those just looking to take a break and have a good time. As fun as tournaments can be, they're rather intimidating and once you're out you're stuck spectating. It's also no fun for players who just want to jump in and play, not scramble for a team. Events would attract players like that.

As for the threads you mention, I can think of a few at the moment. Things like discussing the meta in detail (what it is currently, why it works, potential counters), the best map / mode combos, changes coming to Splatoon 2 and how they'll affect players (i.e. how the roller change could help / hurt players), and things of that nature. Like Amarae said, the best way to start these would be with a pretty lengthy, informed response but also one that could be edited with information / good ideas by fellow posters if they're relevant. It'd be as simple as quoting them and adding the info to the bottom, almost like a spotlight for their ideas.

The idea for expanding Twitter usage also sounds really sound. Promoting a really popular thread or comment would be a great idea, especially since a lot of players use Twitter. It wouldn't have to be daily, maybe every few days or every week. Just enough to get people to say "Hey check this out!" to get them to, well, check it out.

Other minor things:

• Is there a way to see the previous posts when using "More Options" for posting? Honestly all "More Options" does is give me the option to watch a thread so I'm not even sure it's really needed but for those who might click and use that I think it'd be cool to see the rest of the thread. Honestly not even that necessary, didn't even notice that it didn't do much until I started writing this.
• Is it possible to link to Twitter? Right now you have options to link your user profile to Facebook, which is a fine option but most likely never used. Since Twitter is so common I think that's probably a better alternative.

Unfortunately the biggest hurdle isn't improving the site but convincing people to actually use it. There's tons of potential here but the lack of instant gratification probably turns a lot of people off. So I think the best way to get people back into is to go big all at once. Start big threads and highlight 'em on Twitter, start up some events to get the momentum rolling, and keep adding more to what you have. I think probably the best time to do all that would be right after the Testfire. You can ride the excitement and momentum of playing the new game toward more user involvement. I think a thread after the Testfire talking about the changes and the Dualies would be fantastic.

The end of the day a lot of people want to use Squidboards. Twitter and Discord are nice but when it comes to finding information, deep discussion, and community events, it's so hard to use those platforms to do it. And using those platforms to do so just makes it so much harder for newer players to find past and future events, information, and friends. I hope Squidboards can become a place that can provide all that and more.

 

[OzGuy]

Sort events by region/country?

 

[Cyndane]

Make it where we can set custom post colors in our preferences like at SB.

 

[dendroidking]

Got a suggestion for the forum? Want tor recommend someone for moderator? Think you know a good site feature? Let us know here! We'll check this out from time to time and see what can be done - improvements will happen incrementally but they will happen!

I think its so good right now, pink, green and black ==> so kute :p

 

[Vinyl.]

Can we have a competitive subforum going for Splatoon 2 asap?

 

[ZEROrevive]

I didn't realize this thread existed. Also surprised this little thing is missing, but......Can we have a section on our user profiles where we can place our Nintendo Switch Friend code in? We have a place to put our Wii U NNID's, but not that one.

 

[Warchamp7]

I didn't realize this thread existed. Also surprised this little thing is missing, but......Can we have a section on our user profiles where we can place our Nintendo Switch Friend code in? We have a place to put our Wii U NNID's, but not that one.

Nice catch, added :)