LuckyDucky: forum

I agree, it was great. 

I bet someone would bid a good 635m for it in the AH if you put it in there.

bump

You have no idea what you are talking about here.

You have never been in Slinkys. You have no firsthand knowledge of what happens inside the faction, yet you are confidently repeating the claim that a handful of people are making “squillions at the expense of unknowing noobs.”

That is a serious accusation, and you have provided absolutely nothing to support it.

For context, DivineSp4rk was kicked from Slinkys and was upset about being removed. Afterward, they became very publicly critical of me and the faction. I did not feel like it was important to discredit Divine or anything, because I was far more focused on accepting feedback and finding ways to improve Slinkys. 

Read that conversation for yourself.

Does that look like someone who had just discovered they were being exploited by some secret cache-farming operation?

No.

The disagreement at the time was about being removed from the faction. Does that prove everything they said afterward was motivated by vengeance? Of course not. But it absolutely provides context for why their later claims should not simply be repeated as unquestioned fact.

And to be clear, that does not mean every criticism Divine later made was worthless.

There were things we could improve. We listened to some of that criticism, made changes, and Slinkys is better because of it. I have no problem admitting when we get something wrong.

Divine also had plenty of positive things to say about WIT afterward, while being very critical of Slinkys. They then stopped playing not long afterward. I have no idea why they quit, and I am not going to pretend I do. But I also do not think one disgruntled former member’s version of events should become unquestioned fact simply because it was repeated enough times.

I am proud of my team and what we accomplish week after week. I am proud of watching our members grow from new players into significantly stronger ones.

If you ever start your own faction, you will quickly learn two things:

People will disagree with decisions you make, and running a faction is not free.

In my case, I would be financially better off as an individual player if I had never started Slinkys. I have put far more into building this faction than I have personally gained from leading it.

But I also probably would not still be playing Torn if I had never started Slinkys.

I enjoy helping newer players. I enjoy watching them develop. I enjoy building something alongside a group of people who want to be here.

What I have a problem with is watching criticism slowly turn into mythology.

We have owned mistakes. We have made changes. We have continued trying to make Slinkys better.

Meanwhile, people who have never been part of Slinkys repeat increasingly extreme claims about what supposedly happens here as though they witnessed it themselves.

You included.

Your evidence appears to be an accusation you saw somebody else make.

Despite everything that happened afterward, I do not regret having Divine in Slinkys, and I do not need to pretend they were some terrible person to defend what I have built. We had a disagreement. They left unhappy. They later had plenty to say about us.

Some of it had merit.

Some of it did not.

But “I disagree with how Slinkys operates” and “half a dozen big players are making squillions at the expense of unknowing noobs” are two completely different statements.

Especially when I have personally lost money leading Slinkys.

So show me the evidence.

Show me where I am making “squillions” off my members.

My numbers are not some closely guarded secret from the people actually inside this faction, and quite a few of our members make more than I do during war.

If your evidence is simply that somebody who left Slinkys angry later said bad things about us, then you are proving my original point:

You are riding the wave of someone else’s opinion and presenting it as your own knowledge.

If you are going to make an accusation that strong, please bring something stronger than hearsay.

Bump

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Bumpy waters

Always other options to travel, where you don’t lose nerve and energy :) Just thinking how the yacht can be used as more than just a small happy add to your PI. 

So many people have access to a very expensive option to our PI, for what, a little bit more happy?

What if it also provided another option for travel. 
It would be extremely slow, like 3x slow per trip. However, you can carry 3x more items?

You shouldn’t be able to use business class travel to make it faster, so it’s not meta breaking, but there is niche utility in it. 

That’s new to me, did not know the codes expire and reset on new day. Thanks for the feedback 

So I got the numbers, used it on the safe and it didn’t work. Is it possible that they provide the wrong number?

Thank you for your feedback and your willingness to discuss things that could be improved. I wish you well as you charter your new adventure with WIT.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share feedback, even when it was critical. It's never as enjoyable as reading praise, but criticism is often what pushes us to improve. Sometimes you need to get hit in the face to find out how strong your jaw really is.

First, I want to clarify one point. The OP was removed because they repeatedly trained during active chains, despite being asked not to. That issue was addressed separately from the concerns raised in this discussion. During our 10k chain, training with chain xanax affected payouts, which is why their pay was reduced. During our 25k chain, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and considered that it may have simply been natural energy. We also don’t have a standard if we don’t hold people to a standard. Could I have given more warnings, absolutely. 

Regardless, that wasn't the root issue being discussed here.

The bigger conversation is about our direction and their experience as a faction.

Something can clearly be improved. 

My vision was to use our war profits to create a self sustaining system. Those profits funded our faction chains, competitions, activity challenges, armory costs, and free training xanax for high-performing members, admittingly very difficult for a 25K chain.
The goal was never to maximize profit for its own sake, it was to reinvest those earnings into perks that help everyone grow stronger.

Developing newer players isn't easy, and it certainly isn't cheap. I believed this model gave us the best opportunity to keep investing in our members while continuing to improve as a faction. Watching our perks grow and being able to offer more to our members felt like proof that we were moving in the right direction.

Where I fell short was assuming that because the system was working financially on the checkbook, and those profits were being redistributed through payouts, perks, and items, it was also working for everyone personally.

I was blinded by our own success.

As our chains became larger and easier to complete, I focused on what we were accomplishing and the momentum we were building. I saw the perks increasing, the efficiency of our chains improving, and our ability to offer more benefits to members. What I didn't fully appreciate was the personal energy suck many of you were paying to make that happen.

I understand how draining the energy commitment can be, especially with a 25K.  After the costs of both wars and chains, it's understandable that some members felt the rewards didn't justify the investment. That's valid feedback, and it's something I should have recognized sooner.

Going forward, I think adjusting the goals and shifting more of the financial rewards toward members at both the lower and higher ends of war performance is the right direction. We can still invest in the faction while making participation feel more rewarding for everyone.

I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together and what this team has proven it's capable of accomplishing. But being proud of our success doesn't mean we shouldn't be willing to change when something isn't working for the people who make that success possible.

We'll be taking this feedback seriously and looking at how we balance growth, rewards, and member enjoyment going forward. The goal has always been to build a stronger faction, not just on paper, but one that people genuinely enjoy being part of.

Thank you to everyone who spoke up. Even when it's difficult to hear, it's how we get better.

Fair point

The problem with your logic is that all war points were earned in the first 2k hits or so. Heck the war was long over before the 25k was completed. So we are not mooching off that aspect either. 

We do provide the Xanax for the duration of the chain.
So they do not incur those costs. 

The majority of our chain does not directly support the war.
They are completed around war timeframe certainly, but we are not leveraging the chain as a way to directly support the war. 
For brevity, 
We hit our war goal long before this planned chain was complete. 



 

Absolutely, I think sharing your experience is a good thing. It is a text-based game, after all.

We do our best to communicate expectations before each war, and we're transparent about how our wars are run and how chain and war payouts are distributed. I don't feel you've misrepresented your experience.

I can understand how an overdose would make it feel like reaching the chain goal was out of reach. From our perspective, though, many members who overdosed still managed to reach the requirement. There was one with 2 ODs that nearly made the goal. 

I can also understand why being removed after putting in so many hits was disappointing. That wasn't an easy decision to make.

One of the biggest factors, though, was how energy was being used during our chains. Our expectation is that the energy available during a chain is used to help complete that chain whenever possible. While Xanax provides a significant amount of energy, you chose to spend a portion of your natural energy training instead. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to play that way, everyone is free to enjoy the game however they like. I do have to think about the pressure that adds to everyone else. During large chains, those choices mean other members have to contribute more to make up the difference. The overdose itself wasn't the issue; it was simply an unfortunate part of running large chains.

That wasn't something we looked at in isolation or based on a single chain. It became part of the overall picture when deciding whether your approach aligned with what we expect during major faction efforts and the standards we want to maintain as a team.

I genuinely appreciate everything you contributed while you were with us, and I still believe you'll continue to become a great player. WIT has a great group of people, and I hope it's a better fit for the way you enjoy playing the game. I wish you nothing but the best there.

On the surface, I can understand why you're frustrated and why making this public felt like the right decision. After putting in a lot of effort and making so many hits, it's understandable to feel disappointed with the outcome.

That said, you'll likely come to realize that most factions don't pay members for large chains. Running large chains comes with significant costs. We supplied the Xanax you used for those hits at no cost, along with medical items, temporary weapons, and other resources. On top of that, we still paid you for your chain hits, even though many factions wouldn't have.

You also participated in relatively few actual war hits, which reduced the amount you could have earned through war performance. Beyond direct payouts, we invest heavily in our members through competitions, growth incentives, and maintaining a well-stocked armory.

To put things into perspective, roughly 90% of our faction income goes straight back to the players who contribute to wars and chains. The remaining 10% is reinvested into faction-wide events, competitions, and other benefits for everyone. We aren't sitting on massive profits, we put the overwhelming majority of what we earn back into the people who make the faction successful.

It's clear you're unhappy about being removed from the faction. As I mentioned in our conversations, I have no doubt you'll continue to grow into a strong player, and I genuinely look forward to seeing your progress, even if you've had some choice words about Slinkys. I wish you the best moving forward.

EDIT: There was a lot of really great contributions in this forum. Thank you for helping us become more aware of how we can improve, your observations are valid. We have made some changes based on your feedback to get after it! 

Thanks for the recruitment ad!

When I was a new player, I felt completely lost. That's why I created this faction, to provide guidance and mentorship to promising new players.

We enjoy helping new players by giving them the information, resources, and support they need to level up and become more effective.
That includes your claim that I provided med-kits, Xanax, armor, and weapons to you.  

That is my secret sauce, and I am ok with providing that information free of charge. 

Creating another account before fully deleting your old one is considered having a multi-account. Ask me how I know.
When I brought this up with you, you responded by cursing me out, so I blocked you. 

You're an active player with a lot of potential, but holding onto resentment or publicly attacking us isn't going to help you move forward.

I genuinely hope you go on to accomplish great things. Best of luck.

Unless the perk changed, it was my understanding that it does reduce the status effect, not the duration.