MobaFire's Scouting System

[quote=jhoijhoi]^lol. I used to get scout requests when I was a frequent reviewer, as part of my reviewing system offered a +scout point if the guide scored over 9/10 according to my criteria. But I don't get scout requests anymore. I don't think many people really know how the scout system works. I don't know whether other scouts get messages like that, but I do know that if you're a scout or above and know who -scouted you, you are likely to PM the scout to ask what to change in order to get the -scout point removed. Which is an unfair system in the first place, as it gives scouts an advantage.[/quote]

[quote=utopus]Pulling a psiguard right here. and looking at the flipside of things While scouts get an 'advantage', in that their vote is more noticeable, can't it be justified that these -scout votes can be viewed as a wake-up call for MOBAfire's guide readers? A scout spends [i]months[/i] and [i]years[/i] reading, posting, and contributing to this website. Don't you think they have earned the right to have their own opinions and thoughts on a guide at least stand out from that of a brand new account? I'd think the scout system is almost kind of like MOBAfire's own celebrity system. I mean, if John Smith said that [[ravenous hydra]] + AD malphite solotop is a thing, it would not (and probably should not) bring as much attention as if a big time celebrity, like Dyrus, or Nientonsoh saying that Hydra + Malphite is a thing. EDIT: Sorry jai. Misread what u said :< Failure to psiguard[/quote]

[quote=GrandmasterD]I still think that the scout system should be pulled away from the actual content of the guide because the voting system already works with that. A scout should be safe to assume that a guide with 80%+ rating contains information that is correct. I know it isn't a guarantee but it will apply to the majority of the guides. The scout system should stop being a "fix" for the (terrible) top-rated guides and rather focus on showing people which guide among the good ones is the best. Additionally, what's the point of having four guides about the same champions scouted? Currently it feels like a second, more exclusive, voting system that doesn't require additional explanation. The way information is written down is very important, I don't upvote all guides which contain the necessary information but rather upvote those which explain all necessary information properly. [i]I take [[Doran's Ring]] because of the mana regen, health, ap and mana on kill.[/i] is [b]not[/b] an explanation! It's simply stating the stats of the item, and yes, I am paraphrasing and not making up an extreme example. Thís is what I think the scouting system should be focusing on, but since it doesn't; I feel obligated to downvote and sometimes even downscout these kind of guides even though the actual information is correct.[/quote]

[quote=SOAC Bas][quote=GrandmasterD] I still think that the scout system should be pulled away from the actual content of the guide because the voting system already works with that. A scout should be safe to assume that a guide with 80%+ rating contains information that is correct. I know it isn't a guarantee but it will apply to the majority of the guides. The scout system should stop being a "fix" for the (terrible) top-rated guides and rather focus on showing people which guide among the good ones is the best. Additionally, what's the point of having four guides about the same champions scouted? Currently it feels like a second, more exclusive, voting system that doesn't require additional explanation. The way information is written down is very important, I don't upvote all guides which contain the necessary information but rather upvote those which explain all necessary information properly. [i]I take [[Doran's Ring]] because of the mana regen, health, ap and mana on kill.[/i] is [b]not[/b] an explanation! It's simply stating the stats of the item, and yes, I am paraphrasing and not making up an extreme example. Thís is what I think the scouting system should be focusing on, but since it doesn't; I feel obligated to downvote and sometimes even downscout these kind of guides even though the actual information is correct. [/quote] Let's clarify you don't mean which one is the best, but which one the scouts feel is the best. I think the term scouted is misleading and confusing. Approved and Tested would be much better. I feel that if you want to do this system, that a scout should go and test a build, the build order, and some of the tips that a guide leaves behind. To downrank or down vote, or -scout (Man I hate that word) a guide without actually testing it seems a bit lazy.[/quote]

[quote=Jack Rubino]Writing down some thoughts. I know im a kind of "new" user here (i signed up almost 1 year ago if im right) and that my thoughts might don't get considered as the older users' ones but i feel that i kinda have to write what i think about that scout system. The scout system should, as everyone know or should know, reward the most well written, well explained, well coded and well made guides. There are a lots of guides i can tell that are very good, that's indeed, but i can't really say that all of them really deserve the +scout point. I don't want to blame anyone of course so i wont tell the names, but most of guides i can't say they really deserve many scout points, or any at all. Let's take for example a guide that is well coded, explains some standard and basic things and has a good build, there may be a few or even none that can compare that guide, but its not anything of super amazing. Its a very good guide indeed, might even be the top but it dosent mean that it has to be the best ever and the most really well written/in-depth or well explained. To explain better what im trying to say lets take for example a champion, an adc, Draven for example. [i]"Draven build: [[Bloodthirster]] [[berserker's greaves]] [[statikk shiv]] [[infinity edge]] [[last whisper]]/[[The black cleaver]] [[guardian angel]] and you may replace boots with a [[zephyr]] when full build and replace [[guardian angel]] with a [[frozen mallet]] while its passive is on cd Draven gets countered by this champ because of that factor Draven counters that champ because of that factor"[/i] Here is an usual draven's build and by who he gets countered. Many people can agree with the author, say the build is good and even the coding/guide, but the author didnt really say anything that everyone else already knew. A good coding and standards informations (like he gets countered by this champion cuz of the range and/or for that skill, so you should wait for ganks or your support should work out on this) are not something that give the "OMG THIS HELPED ME SO MUCH I NEVER THOUGHT AT THIS AND I COULD USE THAT FOR THAT CAUSE I DIDNT KNOW AND MAYBE I SHOULD ACT LIKE THAT CAUSE THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO DO IT" reaction, a thing that the guide should do. Adding more in depth infos, using the best coding to make the life easier to the reader, using images/videos to show tips and tricks for that champ and a good in depth analysis of any aspect of that champion, about his skills, about the masteries, about the runes, about the role about his potential in some specific situations, how to react to that situation, you might do that in that moment, THE "MATCH UPS" (is a thing i always love and smile at when i look at a guide, both of experienced or unexperienced writers/player, because it means they are caring about other people out there who are gonna read this, they are caring about the THING they are doing, putting effort to even write how to play againist such champions, how hard they can be to beat, which items are better in that situation and even make videos/put replays of the author nailing it and showing how to do certain things) and even the warding. Someone might think "what the fuck should we care about the warding? there are plenty of guides around here, i wont spend time to talk about warding on a champ guide" that might be true, but the word "Guide" is meant to "GUIDE" both experienced/unexperienced people to how to do certain things, and surely putting even more details into your guide would only make it even more good, amazing at the eyes and at the brain, to read and to look at, just making you deserve something Really Really special like a scout point. Because for me the scout should reward the best and really good guide among the bests, 'cause if its just a normal pretty good guide, normal votes are enough. About how scout voting should work, my thoughts are to make it public, there is no logic reason to keep that thing private, no worries about troll votes because they can be stopped by c2v and troll votes would exist on scouts even if they are private, cause people will anyway downvote and explain why on normal comments on bad guides, so the authors may get mad and do that. Putting away the thread about friendships that scout and above rank people's could have, that might influence the +/- scout points(or just giving +scout even if its not a guide who deserve a scout point, and this "problem" could be fixed by just making the scout point & who give it pubblic), scouts should get a kind of "Comment to Scout Vote"( c2s or c2sv maybe?) because its really important to know your guide is going to be doomed/shine and in what you made such huge mistakes/great work with an in depth analysis on that so the author will be able to evade/do that again and maybe get better at it. Scout points can both doom or make your guide shine, its really important to know why you got either + or - scout. Obliviously on trolls and well known impossible builds/guide is needed a simple comment by anyway user, not a scout vote(unless it is raising too muc for unknown reasons and has in it wrong informations). TL;DR idk if it can be resumed for good, but it should be like that: scout votes should be public and forced to have a comment with good analysis and scout votes should be reserved to the ones who really deserve it.[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf][quote=Jack Rubino] The scout system should, as everyone know or should know, reward the most well written, well explained, well coded and well made guides. [/quote] That's more or less what the vote system already does though. :S[/quote]

[quote=sirell][quote=SOAC Bas] Let's clarify you don't mean which one is the best, but which one the scouts feel is the best. I think the term scouted is misleading and confusing. Approved and Tested would be much better. I feel that if you want to do this system, that a scout should go and test a build, the build order, and some of the tips that a guide leaves behind. To downrank or down vote, or -scout (Man I hate that word) a guide without actually testing it seems a bit lazy. [/quote] I'd have to disagree with this. For one thing, not all the scouts own the champion in question but, from experience and just from theorycrafting, even with just research into what other high tier players have done with success, I don't think having to test a build yourself is necessary. I mean, I could ask Vyn or Khazem or throatslasher or Lasty to test a build for me in a competitive environment and that would validate the guide for me better than I could validate for myself. I really don't trust experience gained from Gold/Silver (where I am playing).[/quote]

[quote=SOAC Bas][quote=sirell] [quote=SOAC Bas] Let's clarify you don't mean which one is the best, but which one the scouts feel is the best. I think the term scouted is misleading and confusing. Approved and Tested would be much better. I feel that if you want to do this system, that a scout should go and test a build, the build order, and some of the tips that a guide leaves behind. To downrank or down vote, or -scout (Man I hate that word) a guide without actually testing it seems a bit lazy. [/quote] I'd have to disagree with this. For one thing, not all the scouts own the champion in question but, from experience and just from theorycrafting, even with just research into what other high tier players have done with success, I don't think having to test a build yourself is necessary. I mean, I could ask Vyn or Khazem or throatslasher or Lasty to test a build for me in a competitive environment and that would validate the guide for me better than I could validate for myself. I really don't trust experience gained from Gold/Silver (where I am playing). [/quote] You shouldn't "scout" a champion you don't own. There is no logic behind a player approving a guide he has never tested nor could even look at it go that makes sense with that champ. We all know pro players rarely try anything outside of the box in games we can see. A simple blanket statement like this guide is bad because it wouldn't work for specific encounters is a bad way to do things. I play certain champs a specific way because they work better for me and the way that I play them. Does that mean that a guide I write or build is wrong? When it might be correct if you tried it out. Example: We had a well respected guide writer write a Malzahar guide. They pointed out specific functions that they felt were necessary and the way to play. It was voted up and approved by many players. Until several players such as myself who had well over 200 games played with Malz read it. We noticed several issues with the build, and noted that several of their must haves were not must haves but rather options depending on champs. Yet on the scouting system it was getting pluses because the player was respected, and a scout who had not tested the build, nor played the champ that often assumed the person was correct. This is a bad way to do things. Only a player who had tried the build and regularly played Malz would have noticed the issues, and pointed it out which is exactly what happened. In the end, if a player is going to scout a guide they should at least have some experience with the champ in question as well as have tested the actual build to make sure it works. If they don't the scouting system becomes nothing more than a contest of favoritism and who writes best. Final example: IF i wrote a teemo guide, and included Hurricane. It would get so many negative votes, by players who simply assume I have no clue what I am talking about. It would get -scouting from several players that I know simply because they don't like the idea. However, every player that has tried it that way has come away exctied about it's possiblity. I run a specific teemo build every time. It is efficient and works well. However, if a player actually has to test it and player 10-15 games before voting on it than you would see a more accurate representation of what is felt.[/quote]

[quote=Bioalchemist]yeah i completely agree you shouldn't scout a guide on a champ you don't own or rarely play. shit i don't vote on guides if i don't know the champ well. scout points imo are worth more than your typical vote and should be treated as such. also i have seen this theorycrafting excuse so many times on mobafire. and while i agree blatantly stupid item choices or rune choices don't need to be tested...things that COULD work even if they are not what the vast majority go with should be tested. if there was no experimentation things like AP yi (when it worked) or AP rengar (when it worked) or AP tryn (when it worked) would never have been discovered. and one more point. gold/silver play is actually far more relevant to the majority of mobafire users and LoL player base in general. plat/diamond is the minority. though in that regard things that work at the diamond level SHOULD work at the silver level however matches definitely do not proceed/behave the same at the silver level as they do diamond. for instance i have had a ranked game where my bot lane fed 30 kills..YES 30. i don't think that happens in diamond elo so a diamond level player may not be able to relate to a match like that while a silver player could relate.[/quote]

[quote=XeresAce][quote = sirell]I actually get the feeling that about 80% of the people who use guides don't actually look past the cheatsheet.[/quote] Can I just drop in to confirm this? I have not read a full guide in so, so long... I just skim through the cheat sheet while in the loading screen LOL. The only time I would read a guide is if it actually provided something that wasn't blatantly obvious. A rengar guide teaching me how to triple Q or a lee guide teaching me how to Q>ward>kick contains stuff I want to know. If the guide states things like "Dorans blade gives you sustain, health and attack damage which is why you take two cause lee needs sustain, some health and ad to duel early" I won't even bother reading further xD[/quote]