New Beta Feature: Scythe Complete Bonuses!
Now, when you Scythe Complete enough cubes in the same cell, you earn up to 5,000 points once the golden completion announcement appears in chat.
- Scythe Complete 50-99 cubes on a cell for 2,500 bonus points.
- Scythe Complete 100 cubes on a cell for 5,000 bonus points.
This message is mostly for our Scythes, but other interested parties are welcome to read along! Why? Because it concerns something we know most of you like… bonuses! In this case, a totally new form of bonus. Edit (4/11/2017): After observing SC patterns for a month, we have added an additional (lower) tier for the bonus and have updated this post accordingly.
Ever since introducing the Scythe Complete function on Eyewire, we’ve been aware that unless you’re specifically focused on earning that set of badges (or you just loooooove painting cells purple), going on a Scythe Complete mission has cost you your place on the leaderboard. For a long time, we’ve tried to develop a system for bestowing points based on Scythe Complete efforts, something similar to how we give you points for reaping a cube. Now, the moment has come!
Each time that a cell is fully completed and you get that bright yellow chat announcement, you have the possibility of earning a 2,500 or 5,000 point bonus for your Scythe Complete participation.
How it works:
- You, a Scythe, see a rather turquoise-looking cell. Or maybe a cell that’s only the palest of purples. You review branches on that cell until you’ve given your SC vote to at least 100 cubes, independently from how many cubes you’ve reaped.
- When the cell is ready to be checked, an admin goes over it (minimally, if all cubes have already been SC-locked). Once any lingering issues are addressed, and any erroneous SC votes have been removed and adjusted (we’re working on providing you with feedback, stay tuned!), the admin completes the whole cell.
- If you still have 100 SCs across the completed cell, then about 5-10 minutes after the completion announcement, you get that nice 5k. If you have 50 to 99 SCs across the completed cell, you’ll earn 2,500 points.
Things you might be wondering:
What happens if I use Scythe Complete to just lock some cubes out of play, like with a big merger?
This is why we’re only giving you the 5k bonus for each cell after it’s finished; in that scenario, the only SC votes that should be on the cell are there for saying “these cubes are good” and not for performing alternate functions. So in terms of guesstimating your SC votes on a cell, just think in terms of what you’ve counted as “good.”
Why aren’t there more tiers? Doesn’t this mean I lose the incentive after SCing 100 cubes?
There are only two tiers because we want to a) encourage as many Scythes as possible to SC, and b) minimize SC votes that are given just to obtain the bonus. If we gave higher bonuses for SCing several hundred cubes, it would be unlikely but still feasible for a pair of Scythes to mass-complete all available cells without leaving opportunities for other Scythes to do the same. We still encourage anyone who already SCs whole cells to continue doing so, as long as you stay in communication with fellow Scythes about which cells you’re on and use the complete parents/children function with some awareness for what others may be doing. We have formalized a 50-cube tier to account for how some Scythes find it easier to complete that many on cells where other Scythes have already gone above and beyond.
What happens if I know I’ve SC’d 50-100 cubes, but based on later activity on the cell I lose some of those votes?
We suggest treating the tier numbers as a baseline, not an absolute goal. Given the nature of Scythe Completing, it is entirely possible that 100 SC votes at the beginning will have become 90 at the end. If you do closer to 150, you’ll give yourself an automatic buffer.
Speaking of guesstimating, it would be way easier to track my SC votes on a cell if I had some kind of real-time total that went up or down…
There are two reasons we’re calling this a beta feature. The first is that we are going to build you that sort of tracking mechanism, but it’s not ready yet. We’d still like to have the bonuses going on a trial run in the meantime. (And you’ll probably also wind up with a way to learn how many completion bonuses you got since you last logged in, so that you never have to wonder if you really got that many TB retros.)
I think 5,000 points is nice, but it’s too much/too little for the amount of work involved.
Luckily, that’s the second reason why we’re calling this a beta feature! So far, we have seen a positive response to 5k, but just as we have slightly modified the bonus threshold(s), if consensus shifts then we may eventually change the bonus itself.
What if a cell is too small to even give 100 SC votes?
Most cells are still at least 50 cubes or larger, so you can get the half-size bonus on those.
—
That’s the plan for now! Keep your eyes peeled for the next cell finishing up, and 5,000 points can be yours!