Suggestions

Just wanted to address one thing (and apparently just touch on a few other things): [quote name="Gargouille" date="2024-03-24 17:57:11" ] [*][b]Submission turnouts are at a drastic decline. [/b]We're seeing less and less submissions as the years pass. [/quote] As a note: this is not entirely true. I remembered low turnouts in prior years as well and decided to do some searching. As a note, MistJam 2014's skin submission thread had around the same number of pages than the other festivals cited as being more of a "normal" rate in the 2023/2024 festival year, at only 14 pages— and, while that might seem obvious, being that the site was newer and the playerbase lower, other festivals in that year were hovering between 20-30 pages. It was the festival cycle with the largest skin turnout— possibly because everyone was new to the site and very excited about this cool new thing. (I guess what I'm learning is that MistJam is surprisingly unpopular to submit skins for— I didn't really notice because I always love all the MistJam skins.) The search feature is pretty inconsistent, so I'm not going by any timeline and am instead noting some pre-2020 festivals that got skin submissions threads that only got to under 20 pages, as 13-16 seems to be norm in 2024: • Wavecrest was also only ~18 pages in 2014. • Rockbreaker's was ~13 pages in 2018. • Flameforger's was ~16 pages in 2016. • Rockbreaker's was ~15 pages in 2017. • MistJam was ~16 pages in 2015. (I'm actually unsure MistJam has ever reached over 20) • MistJam reached all of ~19 pages in 2017! Wow! The highest yet! • Trickmurk had ~19 in 2014. • Crystalline had ~19 in 2014 as well. • Rockbreaker's had ~13 in 2019. • MistJam had ~14 in 2018. • Crystalline had ~16 in 2019 AND in 2020. • Brightshine had ~17 in 2017. …There are many more than this; I stopped counting once it became apparent that there were enough to support this being a valid part of the range in earlier years. And, again, this isn't in any order because the site search function for forums is a [i]nightmare[/i]. But anyway! While there may have been a dip in the largest output numbers, I do think it's misleading to use the words "drastic decline" when it's just one festival that only got to 10 and most seem to still be in ranges that we've seen in the past. MistJam and Rockbreaker's seem to be the most consistently low overall, but Rockbreaker's has reached over 20 multiple times, having some absolutely wild fluctuations— obviously, there was the mentioned incentivizing this year, but it also got record highs at the beginning of the site, surprisingly enough! (Obviously, if other fests in the cycles hit under-13 as well, that might be more cause for alarm; I just think it's too early to say.) Also of note is that there were lots more low-twenties than I expected that I couldn't count on the under-20 side of things. 30+ is [i]extremely[/i] rare and seems mostly relegated to the first festival cycle. It looks like there's always been a pretty wide range of submissions numbers— the outliers are 30+ and the now-10, which is the lowest I've seen in my checking but is only one festival in this current cycle, for a festival that gets a [i]consistently[/i] lower-than-all-the-others turnout despite the large flight and the apparent popularity of the aesthetic. While I'm not necessarily opposed to changes in festivals if the devs think it's the way to go, I think the idea that this is necessary because there's a consistent decline is not provably accurate based on the huge range we've always had. The first year had submission page highs for most elements in the 30s, and then… MistJam with 14, Wavecrest with 18. I also do want to note that lower numbers of skin submissions get more pose repeats, which people seem to really have a problem with— but that's not something the site itself can address. If there aren't enough submissions* then how can there be variety? (Obviously opinions are going to vary for specific instances, but when there are less skins, then some don't meet the standards set by the contest in the first place, then there's a much smaller pool to choose from. If all the qualifying skins, for instance, were Wildclaw F, and all the other skins were unsuitable for some reason [which didn't happen, I'm just using it as an example] then it's more likely all the winning skins would be Wildclaw F. If the [i]only[/i] submission to a festival was somehow a Bogsneak M filled-in colorblock with no shadows, I think it's far more likely that we just wouldn't get skins that year, and that's also fine.) * While people cage themselves into specific aesthetics I do feel from past skins we've gotten there's a larger amount of variance in what the site accepts than people give them credit for— to the point where both the site and skinmakers have gotten backlash for it in the past, which… is another thing that might be affecting both people's willingness to submit unique designs that the site can't really address other than saying "don't harass the skinmakers." I have definitely seen skinmakers get backlashed (offsite, so the site couldn't really do anything about it) and go "well, okay, I'll just never submit a fest skin again," even though they'd won. Anyway, with all these edits, I probably won't be participating too much in this conversation— I just wanted to bring up some points that other people could potentially jump off of that I feel often get overlooked in suggestions about skin contests overall. But for my final note: while this wouldn't help the festival cycle, I would still love site skins being brought back with no set limitation on style (i.e. fest skins, Coli skins)— I do miss the days we had purchasable or otherwise obtainable from the site skins (I understand why Swipp's were retired but still miss the general concept), and while it wouldn't help with most of the points made here, it would at least be a way to offer some more skins in more styles for more dragons (and users!) without the time-limited money-gathering pressure of a fest. [emoji=ridgeback happy size=1]