Howdy.

Been keeping this idea to myself for a while. But I think it's too good to remain unshared.

Imagine I'm planning to host an OHB to celebrate someone's burfday. Me and a group are willing to draw a thing for this person. But other people would rather make a song. So, in order for the battle to be more inclusive, I'd opt to feature both the allgear and the visuall formats!!

There are lots of other scenarios you can imagine.

If this sounds feasible and interesting to you, I'd be curious to hear what you think should be the limitations and requirements of hosting these kind of battles.

In the scenario you're describing, what advantages do you think this approach would have over just hosting two separate battles?

an interesting idea! though i will pose a small counterpoint that multi-hosting is an existing function now, so you could simply host two simultaneous XHBs. you can only go up to three hostings, but it could still cover most use cases (insofar as it's hard to imagine such a large xhb as to have 4+ formats)

but yeah, not saying that to totally shoot down the idea, just a thought since it's doable within our current battle system

Hmm, hosting one battle is easier than hosting two. And a single battle with two formats could make things more optimized than two battles. Especially if the battle is meant to serve the same purpose two would, with a broad bitpack that applies to both.

(and aren't we supposed to not have two battles simultaneously? that would require extra time to announce results and one battle group would have to wait)

Maybe you have one person who wants the remix badge and another who wants the s3xmodit one. So you host a single battle that helps both instead of worrying about two battles.

Also, if the host is creative, they could come up with battles that serve two specific formats. For example, "spc vs. sgen". Or something else.

People with different format interests would partake together more. They could learn more about formats they don't usually battle with while still doing their thing.

For special events like a burfday or an anniversary, I think there could be something special about voting for a 50 seconds entry, then voting for an image next. It would be this bigger and festive multi-format event that would gather more people.

aw hail nah, we getting major XHBs /j

tbh
i can't feasibly think how tf this could be implemented
lik it sounds cool on paper, but, lik
...how do you boonloss?

if this is, say, an OHB and 1 person submits allgear, and 2 more with visual, do i boonsave?

also
can 1 person submit to multiple formats?

if so, how could one boonloss?
bcuz there's no way we are gonna allow 1 person to submit 5 seperate entries to a 2HB and make the battle boonsave, hail nah

and about that example you stated
...why not just do 2 back to back batols?
??

also,
how could you possibly vort with a visual against allgear?
like allgear is music, and music can't just last a single frame, so it's already longer than visual, and depending who you ask, that can easily fuck up visuals (this is subjective tho, take it with a pack of salt)

also also
would entries also have format scores along the usual overall scores, like in majors?

its not a terrible idea, it's just something my brain can't fully understand having

:r

"if this is, say, an OHB and 1 person submits allgear, and 2 more with visual, do i boonsave?"

The OHB rule is that we boonsave with 3 entries, right? So, if 1 person submits allgear and 2 more submits visuall, that's still 3 entries with a legitimate top 3 ranking. So, it should still boonsave imo.

Unless it's settled that a multi-format battle should require more entries than usual to boonsave.

"Can 1 person submit to multiple formats?" hmm, if we are thinking about the "don't submit boonsave entries" rule, maybe people should be limited to submitting to only 1 format.

"and about that example you stated ...why not just do 2 back to back batols?"

Which example? If it's the remix + s3xmodit one, what if the host doesn't have time to host two back to back ones? Also, a multi-format battle would save time slots for other hosts.

"also,
how could you possibly vort with a visual against allgear?
like allgear is music, and music can't just last a single frame, so it's already longer than visual, and depending who you ask, that can easily fuck up visuals (this is subjective tho, take it with a pack of salt)"

But you know we have multi-format majors. So, a muli-format XHB wouldn't feel that out of place in that regard.

"would entries also have format scores along the usual overall scores, like in majors?"

You mean like format trophies? Personally, I don't think so. It should be limited to just the typical top 3 XHB awards and the tincans.

my gut says something like this would carry steeper requirements in terms of boonsave threshold, boon cost, and possibly level / badge count

after all the idea behind 2HBs or 4HBs costing more is that they are larger events that take up more time and energy, so they carry more responsibility and more ensuring that people are actually gonna show up and do your thing. you proactively want it to do well so you prepare well

i do think people ought to be able to submit things to multiple formats - and i assume that the code would be easier to write as such since it would resemble what majors look like, where you are also able to submit to multiple formats

i also suspect this would be hard to implement regardless 😅 but i do see the potential for battles that are slightly different than what's achievable by simul-hosting two separate battles

until then though i think there's plenty of potential in the multi-host! you can approximate most of these ideas, even the "versus" one, this way; it's just a little less neat. and nobody's really tried, yet.

Perhaps people should be allowed to submit to multiple formats for the sake of consistency, sure. Maybe badge count would be affected, as you say. Possibly to prevent quick badge hoarding. Although even if someone submits to multiple formats in 1 hour, there's no guarantee they'll badge in all of them if it's perceived that what they sent was low effort.

And yeah, no clue how difficult it would be to implement. Glad you see the potential, though!

this mostly seems to me as a way of avoiding boonloss while still hosting rare formats.
which isn't bad per se. but also a little weird?

I cld technically host any format + allgear/visuall, making sure my battle gets 3 entries and then I'll submit to , idk mariopaint which is the second format.

now we have the issue srb2er described, how do you vote on things that different if you only have one voting cat? majors work different since they have format rankings and different voting cats, so the results are more diverse and split up. an xhb only has one dimensional results, so if you add a "weak" format together with a "strong" one like allgear you'll end up with an odd shift in competition. if botbrs are allowed to submit to several formats, this wldnt be the case but if you have to decide, then why wld you choose something that is harder to compete in? if the goal of the battle is to score well and higher than others.
xhbs are meant to be vortable on the same common ground. being the same format ensures that. having two completely different formats makes it more difficult.

I am not totally against this, because I see the potential as well, I just have my doubts regarding how important or needed this wld actually be while you cld also just host two xhbs back to back, at the same time or request a major battle for your idea.

like, is it worth it implementing a big feature like this if it is then used by maybe 5 people a few times per year? while a very similar effect can be achieved with the current system?

for the moneys: I think it is easiest to treat these as "extensions" of normal xhbs, so every added format to an xhb is +400(?) boons for example and then you need to boonsave every format you add to get the deposit of these formats back.

Here's my few thoughts (some for, some against):
1. Simple is usually better. My favorite restaurants usually have the simplest menus. For some, adding the choice between multiple formats could be a barrier to creativity, since they aren't forced into a single format. I think the great thing about XHBs is it takes away the stress of choosing a format, a theme/prompt, and time. I could also see people starting on one format, then second-guessing halfway through and switching to the other.

2. XHB cover art would be amazing. For a long time I've thought it would be really cool if people could submit cover art to XHBs. Even if multi-format XHBs aren't fully implemented, I'd love if there was the option to host any format (like usual) + cover art (mixbattle, chipbattle, etc.) for an extra boon cost. This could make majors feel less special, but I get bored of seeing all the XHBs look the same, and I think more art = more better.

3. More inclusive battles for non-musicians. This kind of goes with the above thought: I like the idea of multi-format XHBs the best when it comes to mixing music battles with visual battles. I really enjoy seeing visual art on this site and I think that could be a great way to open up the community more to visual artists. For example, I have a few friends that make pixel art who i could probably convince to join if battles for it were more common.

4. Voting is hard. Others already mentioned the aspect of comparing different formats so I'll address the technical side. Already voting can be hard for certain formats (like musescore taking forever to load, or gameboy having a bunch of different filetypes and lsdj versions). Requiring that someone has required playback tools for other formats they didn't submit to might make things more complicated. Or I guess they could just not vote on those lol

In conclusion, it's a cool idea, but I personally think it brings more complications than it's worth... except in the case of cover art please implement that!

@Prestune I love your XHB cover art idea! I feel like including a cover art alongside your entry should be optional, since there's already a lot of time pressure (especially for OHBs). But I think it would be really cool and could be used for mixed audio + visual battles as well!

"Simple is usually better. My favorite restaurants usually have the simplest menus."

Look, I'm not saying multi-format XHBs would replace single-format XHBs. If they cost more and require more people to boonsave, as already discussed, that would be very unlikely. Mostly, I think they'd be hosted for special events, like a burfday or an anniversary. Maybe they'd be as common as 2HBs and 4HBs are.

Considering your restaurant analogy, not all restaurants are for everyone. And that's ok.

"For some, adding the choice between multiple formats could be a barrier to creativity, since they aren't forced into a single format. I think the great thing about XHBs is it takes away the stress of choosing a format, a theme/prompt, and time. I could also see people starting on one format, then second-guessing halfway through and switching to the other."

There are people who already have to choose between the NSF battle that starts earlier or the s3xmodit one that starts later. So, you see, nobody can avoid making choices as things currently are. Battling is all about choices! "Should I use this lead or this other one?"

And hey, if someone switches to another format halfway, they're doing what they ultimately think works best for them. Nothing wrong with that. There are people who already start their entries with only 15 minutes left anyway.

Already voting can be hard for certain formats (like musescore taking forever to load, or gameboy having a bunch of different filetypes and lsdj versions). Requiring that someone has required playback tools for other formats they didn't submit to might make things more complicated. Or I guess they could just not vote on those lol

True, voting can already take extra time for those formats in single-format battles. So, as you can see, the problem won't go away if multi-format XHBs aren't a thing. The problem is here to stay either way.

If someone is having trouble voting for a format, people can provide a render. This has already been the solution multiple and multiple times.

@Tex Yeah you're right my worry only really applies if it was to become widespread. I was mainly pondering about the "principle" of XHBs might be, and if having other options would change it. For special occasions I'm sure it would be fun.

@Surfcroc I was imagining it as you still have one submission and choose between whatever format and cover art. My hope is that visual artists might become more active by making cover art for music XHBs. I guess there could be some weird scenarios if only cover art gets submitted, but I'm envisioning this used more in XHBs like Damifortune's huge Fallgear series with lots of entries.

i like the cover art idea too but ultimately think it wld work better as a dedicated xhb on top of the regular one. if you have an xhb series and want a cover art along with it, for example to create a playlist with that cover art or to have some artwork to add to ur music yt upload, it wld be awesome if the "battle_art" formats wld be available for xhb hosting (or visuall cld be used as well). then, the musically AND visually talented people cld easily do both.
I feel that it's an odd limit if someone wants to participate in both but can't because only format is open per botbr

Oh yeah, I was imagining something completely different then! The cover art would be more like optional "metadata" you could attach to your entry to spice it up (kind of like the gifs on dami and blower's collabs), then the winning entry would have it's cover art (if it has one) featured as the battle art for the given XHB. This way it could be like a "song and/or image" format. Though now that I think about it, your ideas make much more sense!

I kinda agree with Prestune on this one, I think simple might be better.

Although we didn’t really hear you out when we started talking about why exactly it’d be an issue. Could you maybe give some examples of how this could be implemented or what kind of battles would be hosted like this? Your imagining of this might be much different than what we were envisioning.