and yet it is still a deciding factor, you will seldom see anyone with 3 or less +1s actually get accepted.
this is especially made difficult for anyone that hasn’t grinded 500 hours on XO to get known by every role player to get exposure to their app since the way the forums inherently work, older apps can and will sink to the bottom of the page
there are several instances as of recent of apps that very likely only got accepted because of a +1 that came in a week over the last comment on the thread, bumping it and prompting like 3 more people to comment
it is objectively a flawed system, but there is not really any definitive way to solve it unless you make applications private, which just makes it a pain in the ass for councils
tbf 3 replies on an app is like… basically guaranteed if you play and interact with people in the game.
And by interact I don’t mean talk on the radio like three times the entire round, I mean actually RP with people around you consistently.
It’s essentially the bare minimum- If someone RPs so little that they don’t get 3 replies, it’s indicative of them being too new to the game, or foreshadows them being entirely unremarkable in a WL role- In which case, should they get the WL?
I suppose it’s more indicative of how much a player interacts with the community overall in general, rather than anything specific like RP.
I think overall however, that having a low number of replies may not necessarily be the causative agent behind those apps being denied- Imo (personal, and potentially wrong belief), it’s simply because applicants with little community recognition will in turn have little recognition amongst the council. Councilors are players, after all- And if they see or don’t remember much about how a player acts in-game, they’re unlikely to accept an applicant- Instead, they’re more likely to ask them to play a bit more before applying, and/or play a bit more so they can vet the player.
As such, imo the no. of replies isn’t really why the apps get denied, the low replies are simply a symptom of the root issue (no one really knows who this person is), which means the councilors aren’t sure if this person is actually suitable, and therefore is denied until they play more.
So ultimately, I think even if you had low community ‘support’ (low replies), if enough councilors know enough about you to form a solid judgement on whether you’re a good fit, you will pass. It’s just that if the councilors think good of you, it’s likely other community members will think so too, and therefore you’d probably get a bunch of replies from them on the app.
Here’s the mini problem with the “interact with councilors.” Firstly, you have to hope to God you are in the same time zone as them. Two, you have to hope they don’t have anything else going on, be it IRL problems, coding, admin PMS, mentor PMS, or anything else. Three, if they are playing Marine, you have to remember their name and be a fruit fly and interact with them nonstop. Or pray to God they aren’t a predator playing that said round.
The only time you’d have to jump through hoops is when you explicitly ask someone to give feedback or when they ask for it on an app- But even then like half the time it’s just people observing you or shadowing you.
Regarding availability- I don’t think that really matters a whole lot, there’s enough councillors such that your TZ is guaranteed to overlap with a few of them.
I won’t deny that it’s easier if you DO go out of your way though- The people who I’ve seen ask councilors to give feedback and pointers generally do much better. But frankly, those kinds of people are serious enough about the WL that they probably would’ve gotten in anyways.
I would argue that ‘being a fruit fly’ is probably counterproductive- No one likes to be effectively harassed out of nowhere by someone desperate for the WL. It’s always better to consensually arrange for a shadowing arrangement or something in DMs.
Regardless, asking for help on the discord (which doesn’t require timezones) and properly following their feedback & advice is basically a guaranteed entry from what I’ve seen (of course, you’ll need to be an active player and meet the minimum competence/hours and whatever)
Funnily enough, the fax responder WL is the most difficult to get. By the time your applications gets processed you will forget it exists.
And If you want to be a fax responder, you need to subject yourself to the torture of playing Military Police for around 75 hours. I swear to god like a third of all MPs are people farming hours for fax responder (me included).
Yeah on a scale of hard to get, the fact that Fax Responder requires 75 MP hours means I am never getting that shit.
Ive played MP a total of like… a combined 30 hours for the over 6 years ive played CM. It’d take me like 15 years of playing CM to get 75, and by then, SS13 is hopefully ported by AI into a fully immersed VR game so I can yell at people as SL. Or SKYNET has taken over and im dead.
It’s actually the same for me, but with command roles. I already have my 210 CL hours, 80 MP and the bare minimum of the Combat Correspondent gaming.
I just can’t bring myself to play any command roles, besides the occasional ASO round. I would rather play a round as a W-Y Communications Executive or CL instead.
This is another super important way to get into a whitelist— just repeated apps as the councillors get to know you and you get feedback. People start rooting for you if you’re persistent and nice.
I played a lot of CL during old era CM. There was a lot of RP and admin shenanigans back then, but I just can’t get into new gen CL. You have to be lucky with good players on AND it not being a 0:40 wipe on either side.
90% of COs I dunno what their PFC toons name was -so I don’t like em. The G’s who maintained a name through their rank climbs I respect - everyone else I don’t. For Real, why after making a WL crap on everyone who lifted them to that rank. Some of the “only CO/XO” types like Mueller I’ll never respect cuz they’d have been fragged in the 60s