sparks_of_pain
YES! THIS!
It would already help if... two characters in one pic gave AT LEAST the same amount of points as drawing them separately. If not even more points, considering they're interacting!

SimonStardust

I mean, fair enough. I'm not a huge fan of polish either so there's that. 

The fact that quality is almost punished in favor of quality just hurts. Like, what if I made a fully lined drawing with a full scene and full colouring that took me so long, but objectively I'm getting punished for it? The system does need to be changed. More than 1 *actually decently done* character in an attack should just get the point value they would've gotten if drawn individually. I have no idea why it's not like that. I've already said this, but the way the system is right now just leads to point farming, not good art. And I really feel like it shouldn't be that way.

8-Bit_ten
Glad to know I'm not the only one thinking that way. <3
I mean... I don't have anything against people who like to do quick sketches. But if I'm spending more extra time and energy on an attack to make the other person more happy... I don't want to feel like I'm being punished for it point-wise. This is honestly what usually demotivates me every time mid-artfight.

SimonStardust
I totally agree with you. I spent a large amount of time on a character who was polished, had a background, fully shaded, and was a full body. I was proud of that thing but I only got 95.5 points. Compared to another attack that had no background, was not polished, was fully shaded, had full body, but had two characters in it. I got 112 points.
I feel I should have been rewarded more for the piece I spent more time on than the one with more characters.
Art fight please find some way to help with this.

sparks_of_pain
You would have to keep track of your time yourself of course. And with smth like a slider you could choose the amount of hours the pic took you. Yeah, I know that people would just exploit such a system. (Then again... foul players will always find something to exploit. And... you couldn't actually exploit it too often in a row, because after three 10+ hour pictures on three consecutive days, the whole thing starts to lose its credibility. xD) Dunno, I just want something that acknowledges the time I spend on my attacks. More than just that - excuse me - rubbish "polished" button which literally doesn't even feel like it adds anything.

SimonStardust
Yeah, but how would that system even be put into place? There's quite literally no way to measure that, unlike the rating systems already in place. 
I do agree with the general sentiment though, I prefer quality over quantity and the fact that the system disagrees with me just encourages point farming by drawing one of those mass attacks where each character is 3 pixels big.

sparks_of_pain
We're all going to stick with the official previously proposed themes with this one 

I might throw in my team suggestions as well. ^^

High Class vs Street Rats (could be done in a kinda Victorian setting)
Glass vs Steel (manmade substances used for building)
Forest vs Desert OR Mountains vs Grasslands (different kinds of vegetation)
Butterflies vs Moths (day and night, but with insects x,D)
Volcano vs Hurricane/Tornado (natural catastrophes)
Toxic vs Radioactive (these could both kill you... and I love the aesthetics!)
Wanderlust vs Homebody (might need better phrasing, but basically Travel vs Home)
instead of Heart vs Soul (which doesn't really make sense to me) I'd suggest changing it to Heart vs Mind


And a few joke ones:

Doctors vs Pharmacists (everyone working in either of these fields will KNOW why xDDD)
Skunks vs Raccoons (trash animals! <3)
Egg vs Hen (what came first? xD)



Btw anyone else feeling like the point rating system rewards quantity instead of quality? Like... if I draw a couple on a pic I get fewer points than I would've gotten if I just drew each character on a separate attack? I find that sad, as it encourages quickly producing meaningless headshot after headshot instead of taking your time and thinking about the other person's characters and how you could make them interact.

Also, the system NEVER considers how much time you spend on an attack. I drew an attack last year that gave me 530 points, but it was merely me scribbling multiple characters onto the pic without a decent background, so it took me 2 hours max. On the contrary this year I drew an attack with full background, many details and more than one layer of shading. It took me 10+ hours. Points calculated: 339. Disappointing and discouraging.
I feel like it could be easily solved by a multiplier. Eg everything under an hour wouldn't get a multiplier, then 1 hour gives you x1.1, two hours give you x1.2, ten hours give you x2 and so on. I tried applying this system to my attacks and finally got the amount of points that felt justified for the work put into each.

RizlieYeszza

I think it's really hard to come up with a theme, I'm going to leave that to the higher ups to be honest. I don't have the mental capacity to create a theme that wouldn't be EXTREMELY skewed.

VibeCat
As someone who loves both, Art VS Science would be a very biased idea so I don't think higher ups would consider that, even if that they reconsider, they might change team Art into another contrasting term. Also Past VS Future is a thing both before and after Artfight.net (the exact theme before the site exist, Steampunk VS Cyberpunk after the site exist). Comedy is already a proposed team alongside its opponent Tragedy. Knights is already a proposed team alongside its opponent Dragons. Other ideas look cool though

Lotussmilk  Lovely_flower 
I often check BOTH the points and the ratio of during the fight daily. They might have like... over 40 millions of points so far but I don't think Seafoam can get ahead lol (sorry). Final ratio before the event ends is 49.65 for Seafoam, 50.35 for Stardust. This is more balanced than the ratio for 2023, however less balanced than 2022. Note that battle ratio doesn't only counts points but also attacks. Works similarly to an individual participants statistic ratio. The boost amount you can get from posting the same amount of points of the attack with the highest amount of points last year is approximately 0.1% to 0.05%+ of the total points of this year. Some of the Seafoam members in mainstream social medias have some of the best mass attacks honestly, but considering that Stardust leads through the entire fight, I'm not sure if it's possible for them to win (I hope those people got shout out for the next newspost though!). But I might be wrong, let's just see the fate this (it's Sunday noon in my area as I'm typing this) or next week. Don't bash on me for starting a "#StardustSweep" campaign on Game Jolt, thought. XD
sparks_of_pain
Imbalance is already a thing when it comes to choosing a theme. Last year I've already seen my team losing as more people join the opponent team. And this year before the fight starts, there's already a lot more of people in Stardust compared to Seafoam that I ended up thinking this year might be just filled with friendly fires. Pros is like what you said, more balanced battles and there's a limited switch feature during the fight if you prefer the team you're opposing. Cons can be the site crashing if this is really implemented, as a lot of participants will race to get their desired teams. Even though higher ups do not really consider this, you can suggest your idea at Trello

[Extra replies for those spoken by several users here]

Regarding made-up themes: As I already said, I love hearing your ideas but make sure that it contradicts one another, while having at least 1 general theme in common, and doesn't sound too similar. One theme example of a complete opposite theme while having one similarity is "Cats VS Dogs". While it might sound basic and I prefer a more complex term I made myself ("Feline VS Canine"), it actually is quite opposing, while both being animal species themselves. Several themes can have more differences, like Modern can be opposed by Vintage, Fantasy can be opposed by Reality (yes this is a former proposed theme). Some of the themes feel too similar though. And for the love of God, probably try to check the history of Art Fight and see what already exist before reconsidering checking it (/nm). I heard from one of the comments that the higher-ups try to avoid similar themes with the previous ones. 

Next theme implications: Some of the themes people love in common is Comedy VS Tragedy. So I hope next year would be that imo. But I've seen some people also liking Heroes VS Villains and Creation VS Destruction, and guess what? I'm rooting for Creation VS Destruction too, my fellas.

For those who have missed some of my yapping points in the newspost, here's some things to keep in mind so far;

• Contrasting Themes, Past Themes + Proposed for 2024 Themes
• Regarding Friendly Fires Points

VibeCat
Myth VS science would be fun tho

Or in other words, belief vs logic

I don't think seafoam is gonna win though ToT

tbh, kind of niece but a lot of the splatfests in splatoon 1/splatoon 2 (which have 2 teams) could all be good contenders for art fight teams. some of my favorites are:

• dogs vs cats  
• art vs science (i feel like art would win on an art platform, though)
• past vs future
• early bird vs night owl
• rock vs pop
• action vs comedy
• retro vs modern
• pancakes vs waffles
• salsa vs guacamole 
• knight vs wizard

anyway yeah! thanks if you read all of that lol.

I think it would be cool either of these themes:
- Cool VS warm
- Fantasy VS Fiction 
- Ghosts movies VS Slashers movies
- Unicorn VS Pegasus
- Band instruments VS orchestra instruments (not sure how they are called)
- Dinosaurs VS prehistoric mammals/reptiles

If any has any suggestion or idea you can always add more :D

sparks_of_pain
Tbh I no longer know who made the original idea;-;