anonrerising | Spooky Spite

What is the dom scene like in your flight? Do you like it? Is it active? Is it organized? Every flight is different, so I am curious what other's thoughts and experiences are.

Shadow - it's reasonably active (we have both conquest and profit pushes, place a few times a year), it's organized (never seen significant or long-term organizational problems). Worst thing is everyone else thinking that dom in Shadow doesn't exist or it's "bad", and sending everyone who isn't into dom here, so it's not as active as I'd expect from our size and it's a bit same-y at times as it sometimes feel that the same people with same likes and dislikes are everywhere.

Echoing this. We might not be a dom powerhouse but I feel like we're pretty organized and tackle things well when we're pushing. Also we have some very solid snipers who keep a decent amount of fodder supply for trainers going.

Water: Highly organized. I adore my dom leads, and feel we are lucky to have them all. We battle hard, but if anyone wants help, they just need to ask. Everything is decided by vote as well.

Light - very very organized, people are helpful and encouraging. This year we conquested less and profit pushed more since, well, dom battle, but usually conquests a few times an year and ends up passively in top 3 11-12 times a year. Dom team is very professional and transparency is very high. There’s also a number of dom-adjacent programs to help newer players get started and get resources they need.

Casual Nature DOM participant: seems pretty ok? I've never been in any other flights but theres lots of programs to help people get started. I'd say its organized well enough. I like it here. I only wish things were a bit more exciting at times.

My experience with Nature Dom is that it's friendly and reliable, but set in its ways and somewhat risk-averse—both from the leadership side of things and in the general community.
(E.g. The leadership wants massive amounts of lead-time for even solo conquest pushes; the general community wants to do "more" for dom but can be a bit naive about the increased level of effort required to make it happen. I suspect the latter is kind of a widespread problem, though, rather than just being a Nature thing, lmao.)

On the positive side, the overall Nature community is welcoming and encouraging, which makes it very easy to get involved as a newcomer, and that's great! Maybe it would help if there was more of an effort to specifically funnel people towards Dom activities, rather than simply having the resources waiting for them passively??

I'd say overall, it's a good flight for "medium" Dom energy, great for dipping your toes in the water with its many programs and slow but steady pacing.

Also Nature, the casualness of it is a good fit for me, but I also feel like it's too relaxed for other types of players.

I'm in Light and it's very organized, our leads are very professional while also listening to people who haven't been in dom before. I've seen several people who've never run an event be encouraged to try, and both times I've seen it it's become a big success. Our Merc ordering is also much more streamlined than other flights + our spreadsheet is better.
Infinite sugar to Lightdom!

It lowkey drives me nuts when people say "we're organized and friendly to newbies and we push hard when we want to!" because it's the equivalent of putting "I love travel, music, and reading" in your Tinder profile.

For anyone who cares about dom in Flight Rising, I HIGHLY recommend doing a flight vacation, even if you're in what is currently considered a strong dom flight. I have a strong feeling that part of the reason a lot of people say bland things about their flight's dom scene is because they don't know what it's like elsewhere... and given how people protect the secrecy of dom programs and the exclusivity of dom discords, how would you? Getting to see how different flights operate is one of the best things I did to learn more about dom and finally figure out where I want to be.

At this point, especially now that it's been a few years for the impact of hibdens to be felt, the dom scene has matured enough and there's been enough cross pollination that there's essentially a well established method of doing dom and certain things you just have to have to be competitive. In order to identify which flights are doing BEST at dom, you have to look beyond the basics.

These are things I would expect EVERY competent dom team to have. If a flight doesn't have even one of these things, I would question what their deal is.

1) Well-developed and clear resources which explain the dom mechanic as well as how that flight's dom programs work. The resources should be up to date and be organized in such a way they are easy to make sense of and peruse. Thought should be put towards graphic design (no walls of text please) and how things are explained because there are a lot of concepts to explain. No part of the resources should be exclusive to Discord. It should be extremely clear where people should ask if they have any questions. The resources should be revised regularly for accuracy and clarity.

3) At least two non-festival first placements. It costs less than 20 million treasure to "buy" first place for a flight with a public buy. This is frankly a pittance in the scale dom banks operate in so unless a dom team is particularly disorganized this should happen regularly. Dom benefits aren't particularly great but it can sting when you get the lair discount only a couple times a year. If a dom team cannot (or won't) organize regular PBs (or otherwise secure first placements for their flight) there is a problem as this should be something relatively easy to pull off.

4) Regular non-conquest pushes or other pushes (eg: joint pushes, team vs team pushes, etc). One of the main reasons profit pushes are important in the grand scheme of things is because they provide the support for less frequent conquest pushes and even less frequent battles. They help the flight raise money and keep up the morale of the dom community, and give opportunities for the community to come together regularly so connections can be made. It's hard to get a sense for what a flight's rhythm is like without actually being there, which is why it's important to experience different flights.

5) New programs developed and executed on a regular basis. The dom scene is completely player driven, which means it will stagnate unless new things happen. New things almost never come from staff (last was the hibden mechanic) so it is up to us to come up with new ways to have fun with dom. It is challenging, given the constraints, but doable. Ice (the IvS star badge program), Water, Wind (the W/W team vs team push), and Plague (double dom) immediately come to mind as innovative flights that seem to keep trying different things and most importantly have orgs that seem to want to try different things. Ice and Water in particular have multiple orgs between them who are interested in data analysis and making decisions based on that, which I think is important as it keeps the game interesting.

6) Letting the flight lead dom decision making and aiming to increase transparency whenever possible. Dom orgs do not actually have authority over their flight, they are merely stewards of communal resources. Therefore, they should get flight input as much as possible when making decisions about what to do with those resources. In my flight, I get the sense that the orgs have a good pulse on what the flight members want to do. I've never seen anyone complain that we push too little, and there haven't been any pushes with lackluster participation rates, so it seems like there's a good balance. This isn't something that's easy to determine unless you have experience with at least a couple flights.

7) Easy of entry to dom responsibilities. It should not be difficult for a competent person who's been around for a while to execute their own dom program with org/bank support. If the current team has a tight grip on who is allowed to do dom programs, it's a bad sign. It means that new blood can't change anything about how the team does things. Most flights are pretty good about letting people jump in and contribute, and take on responsibility (within reason, obviously some level of screening is appropriate) but if you really want to get involved and keep finding yourself shut out, or if you don't see any variation in who runs fundraisers, festival events, etc. you might try a different flight.

Hope this is helpful in evaluating your flight and whether you're happy there. It's always okay to take a vacation and see how things are different elsewhere. Maybe you can even bring new ideas back to your home flight and make things better! Cross pollination is good!

hoo boy, this is the most passive aggressive / entitled karen post I've seen this week.

"Hope this is helpful in evaluating your flight and whether you're happy there" - do you think that people are incapable of realizing whether they are happy themselves?

"Maybe you can even bring new ideas back to your home flight and make things better!" - assumes that there's only one good way to do things, which is a straight way to stagnation and same-mess.

You question others what their "deal" is? Frankly, I question what is your deal if you think those are normal things to say even on anon. Tell me what flight you're from as this kind of way too serious behaviour is what makes dom unfun for me and I wouldn't want to touch it - and you personally - with a twenty foot pole.

nayrt

tbh I think you're reaching a bit and trying to find things to be upset about. I didn't read any passive aggressiveness in their post and thought it was interesting as someone who is fairly casual in dom & wouldn't know what to ask other flights about their dom culture.

This is nitpicky but: "do you think that people are incapable of realizing whether they are happy themselves?"

I'm literally in a spot where I don't know if I'm happy in my flight. I like it, my lore is based in it, but I want to do more in dom and don't know/am overwhelmed trying to figure out how to do that. I want a change of pace. I don't want to risk hating a new flight for 6 months until I can change again. It's complicated.

swear to god there's so much more misreading going on around here than there used to be

NAYRT

what's unfun for you is a treasure trove of information for someone else. literally none of this was unacceptable to say and is a thorough breakdown of things an experienced dom-focused player believes should be paid attention to when deciding flights based on dom participation. we literally came off the heels of fire flight's entire goddamn disaster, going through all of arcane vs. light battle's mess, and so much more that is making information like this so much more difficult to access from outside of the flights themselves. players are more anxious than ever before if their dom is really doing right by them, so this kind of guideline is genuinely beneficial as a starting point for the reader to think about and decide what parts of the guideline are applicable to the experience they want.

"Hope this is helpful in evaluating your flight and whether you're happy there" is literally wishing people well in deciding if their flight is the dom experience they really want. "Maybe you can even bring new ideas back to your home flight and make things better!" is also fantastic, because growth requires outside perspectives, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what you think it is; to let your flight just keep doing the exact same things over and over is what stagnation really is. no dom org is going to do everything word for word the same way, and throughout FR's entire existence, flights have adopted other flight's dom ideas and changed them to fit their needs. this is not a new concept!

throughout these paragraphs, they're not DOMINEERING the reader and forcing them to abide by their word, they're giving ADVICE for people who are WANTING to break into dom. whether that advice is unsolicited or extreme is up to the individual reader, not just you.

jesus christ what is with anons these days and fighting ghosts.

I'm in Arcane and while I don't plan on moving flights any time soon (pink galaxy aesthetic has a vice grip on me lmao), I do sorta wish our Dom stuff were better organized and active. I've only briefly participated in Dom but i kinda want to get into it more. But our flight pushes very rarely from what I've seen

Here's what I've gathered...

- In general, the folks that lead the team are very nice and happy to answer questions. They're really sweet people and I appreciate that about them!

- getting started for the first time was disorienting for me and in my experience, the guidelines and how-to-participate sections of some threads can be a bit vague. Reading through them in their entirety usually still requires follow up questions to understand them and participate correctly.

- As far as I know, artists who make banners, badges, etc for Dom related threads in Arcane do not get compensated (this does not include our art-for-fodder efforts. I just mean like the thread decor assets and Dom Badges and stuff). It's all considered a donation. I've heard other flights compensate their artists, but please correct me if I'm wrong? I myself am an artist and I've never participated in doing art for Arcane dom bc I don't work for free

- otherwise from what I've seen we rarely push so I tend to wonder if most arcanites just aren't motivated to join in and/or interested in Dom in general (not a bad thing! Just a thing)

- I also know that the ratio of inactive to active users probably does have some effect on our ability to place when pushing, due to being such a big fligjt, but I'm not a scientist so idk how much influence that really has. (I'm not one to shout "but the algorithm!!" every time we come last in Dom either lol, but figured it was worth mentioning)

- lastly (and the main reason I haven't participated more), it seems to me that the usual Dom participants in our flight are rather clique-y. I wanted to get involved to make friends and was met with a general sense of disinterest from the veterans and folks who do it slightly more often but then theyd all be super excited to talk to each other. I've also seen this happen to other Dom newbies while lurking. It was a bit like the friend groups had already formed and there wasn't much need for me to be there sooooooo I peaced out

And that's the sparkly space tea

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da

+1. op anon spoke the truth and anon hated it. the list consist of pretty basic things and i personally found them useful, even as someone who kinda knows what the 'red flags' in dom org (or just any online community org in general) are.

also, saying that 'we're organized and friendly to newbies and we push hard when we want to!' is the equivalent of putting 'I love travel, music, and reading' in your Tinder profile is funny as fuck. so true bestie, so true.

Thanks so much for your comment! I feel very strongly about improving the dom scene because it's one of the biggest hobbies going on in my life rn and it's just such a unique thing (with a unique community) even compared to other games that exist.

The problems with Fire flight (and Lightning flight in ancient history lol) made it clear to me that people just don't know how other flights operate! And I didn't know either until I first switched. I was fine with my dom scene but when I switched to a stronger dom flight I realized they were operating on a completely different level. I would love to see people be more (constructively) critical of how their flights operate so the whole dom scene improves for everyone!

I really feel like since Earth's ascendance in 2018 (the first year they overtook Light for number of annual placements IIRC) the scene has become more stagnant... it's a tossup whether an upcoming battle is going to be a noflip or a decent competition, and battles are so expensive now that they don't happen often and it sucks to spend all that time and energy preparing for what turns out to be a noflip.

Apart from all these more tangible factors I listed, it's like dating: even if everything looks good on paper you still need to feel the right vibe from the other people there and gel with how they operate. This is why I encouraged people to take vacations. Six months is a long time but if you care about FR dom being a hobby in your life longterm I think it's worth taking the time to find a group you really like.

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AYRT Haha wtf this is a completely wild response to my earnest attempt to offer advice.

I would say I want to avoid you with a ten foot pole as well but I think it's more likely than not that if we were having this conversation in person, or even in a not anonymous space, then we'd get along just fine so uhhh I'm just gonna step back and hope you do too cuz reading malice into innocuous posts on the internet is just not a fun way to live (seriously out of the whole thing you picked my "hope this helps" line? lol come on).

Get your ass back on Twitter and stay there. God damn

NYART

They're not entitled or karen like at all, though? They're just listing traits of successful Dom programs, because it *is* hard to evaluate without having seen how other flights run things and therefore super easy to say "oh well we're really organized etc!" when... there's no actual yardstick for comparison!

Hi, this is OP. I appreciate you taking the time to write all of this out. This is very thorough and has many things to think about, I can tell you've spent a lot of time researching and thinking about what makes Dom tick!

AYRT Thanks, I'm really glad I could help! I am for real passionate about dom and love talking about it.

PART TWO

Alrighty, so these are more specific things that not all flights will necessarily have, but if a lot of these are missing, then your flight most likely has some room to improve. All flights have areas where they could improve their efficiency and try new things, but at this point most of the dom teams have the basics down and what really separates a great team from a good team is whether they're continuing to build programs that improve their operations. Maybe you can be the one in your flight to spearhead a new program??

Fundraisers - Obviously you need to keep the cash flow going to fund PBs, raffles, battles, and other fun stuff. Most flights will have at least a couple ongoing fundraisers with a couple new ones popping up every other month. Good signs include regular introduction of new fundraisers (it shows the orgs are trying new things and care about improving) and at least some fundraisers that raise at least 5 million treasure. (If most of the fundraisers make only say, 3 mil treasure or less there is a problem—some of the best fundraisers I've seen have easily hit over 15 mil so it's very doable).

Fodder Supply Chain - Buying fodder during a battle is expensive for the average FR player because they usually have to exalt at a loss (plus they might not have a lot of storage space for fodder). The dom bank should cover these losses (and make it easy and quick to find out how to do so), but there should ideally be some method of fodder distribution so that trainers can focus on training. Most flights could improve their internal exalting numbers and improving the fodder distribution system is a great way to help with this.

Attendant Support - Wrangling attendants is an often overlooked but critical part of dom competence. It's good to have as many people as possible in your flight who are comfortable attending. Even encouraging people to dip their feet in once briefly is great because it means they might be more willing to jump in in the heat of your next battle when all hands are needed on deck. They should be familiar with raffle recording too. During battles, OOFers can be fickle and may not send to the flight with fewer or slower attendants. It is also important to avoid burning out attendants, which happens when you have too few and they get too many floods. Orgs should always have an eye on recruiting more attendants and then making sure those people feel like they know what they're doing.

Quality Raffles - This is partially subjective (for example, some raffles are more UMA heavy than others) but there are some small clues that reveal how organized a raffle is. For example, how are the prizes organized? Does the sprite show up on the third post after the treasure genes? Is there good variety in the prizes? Are the prizes generous (to be frank, how much money was spent on putting on a good raffle)?

Organized Graphics - From what I've observed flights all have different ways of handling this. What matters most is that graphics are planned for ahead of time and are delivered on time and that a variety of artists contribute each time (to avoid burnout).

Calendar - It should be easy to find (on the forums, not Discord) some place where upcoming dom plans are listed. You should know where to find information on the next push. This helps with morale because it gives people something to look forward to. If you don't have an upcoming push (and you just finished one in the last month or two) then you are probably not in one of the more dom active flights.

Organized/Regular Communication - There should be a place in the forums where all the important dom info and links are gathered. Dom is a complex thing with many moving parts so it should be easy for even experienced members of your flight to find the threads/pinglists/contact info/whatever they need. In addition, there should be regular updates on what's going on in the flight's dom scene: are there new fundraisers? calls to help with something? a new poll for a push? Orgs should let flight members know what's going on even when there isn't a big conquest push or battle.

IF Raffles - This is another area where flights differ, but IF raffles should be generous and should happen at least some other time during the year than a flight's fest. This comes back to the question of what are a flight's orgs doing with the communal funds? It's a nice gesture to be generous to the flight's own members using the funds they all helped raise and one of the ways this happens is through IF raffles.

Polls - Orgs may decide to poll for different reasons but this is an important one, obviously. Even if it's not polls specifically there should be identifiable ways that orgs seek input from the flight (and not just the people in Discord) and then actually act on that input (because of course it's possible to get input and then just ignore it lol).

Diffusion of Power - Basically I mean that it should be clear how people can join the dom team (some teams require applications), or take on responsibility for a program. This is a little harder to judge sometimes but if the existing dom team seems reluctant to bring new people in or let new people help with fundraisers or take on other tasks where they're entrusted with even small amounts of communal resources, I would personally be suspicious. If a dom team requires applications there should be other ways flight members can get involved, otherwise you have a situation where the job requires 3-5 years of experience but there's no way to get that experience.

WITH BONUS:
Anything that allows newbies/casual players/players returning from a hiatus/players with fewer resources to get involved more easily is a good thing for not only the cold, hard numbers of a flight's dom program but also its morale. This includes not just fodder supply and clear communication but also stuff like:

Attending funds - Maybe it's not the case anymore but I have heard of flights where the bank doesn't readily provide funds for attending, or attendants have to front the cost. This obviously creates a barrier to entry in an area where you want as many people as possible.

Newbie program - This isn't strictly necessary but I have seen programs that send out welcome messages or assign mentors to newbies who want them, which is just a nice thing that helps people feel more invested in the community and comfortable asking questions.

Level 25 rental - Like with attending, you want as many people as possible familiar with training. The heat of the battle is not the optimal time for someone to learn how a Mire Flyer works. I have even seen programs that just give out free level 25s to people who don't have them, which seems like a great way to beef up that internal leveling.

Hibden/lair expansion assistance - One way to prepare for battles (and also just do something nice to help your flight members) is to help them expand their storage space. People are very generous on FR so these programs tend to do well from what I've seen.

As a former dom lead I wish I could give this a gold star.

I will also add, please don't hesitate to talk to the dom leaders in your flight if you want to volunteer for something or if you think up something fun you want to run! Dom leads love it when someone wants to join in on a program or has an idea for the flight.

Does anyone know what it's like in Earth, Lightning, Ice and Plague now? Interested in joining one of these.