POST-MISSION ASSESSMENT
Hello, Ophelia! With the completion of Mission: Hanabira, we'd like to once again open up a discussion on game observations. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, after every mission, we like to give the mods and players the opportunity to talk with each other about things we've noticed during the past mission -- what worked, what didn't work, and what we'd like to see going forward.Please note that any changes we decide to make will not be implemented until the next mission or later!
ASSESSMENT RULESWe don't have many rules when it comes to post-mission assessments, so please follow what few we do have: - PLEASE DON'T SPEAK FOR OTHERS. Only speak for yourself -- in other words, try to refrain from "others have said" or "some of us agree" types of statements. If you are uncomfortable leaving us crit with your name attached or in a public forum, you may always contact us on our Mod Contact page (anonymous is enabled).
- BE RESPECTFUL. The mod team is anonymous, but we promise we're people behind the journal! We put a lot of collective time and effort into running the game, and it's something we are very invested in, just the same as you. Please treat us with the same level of respect you would grant any other player in the game. On that note, respect any players giving their opinions as well. You are welcome to express disagreement, but do so in a civil manner. We will do our utmost to extend the same courtesy to you, as we believe no one should feel intimidated to share their thoughts on this post. As always, let's all be kind to each other!
MOD OBSERVATIONSBelow are a few bumps in the road we noticed during Mission: Hanabira, as well as some potential ways to smooth them out. We may or may not make changes about these points, but we want to be transparent about what we have seen and experienced ourselves during this first mission. - BOUNTY BOARD. As stated in the recent updates post, we have noticed that it can be somewhat of a struggle reaching the 10 comment requirement for the white, green, and blue bounties, particularly because the bounties for this mission were geared more toward slice-of-life. The mod team is currently discussing lowering the requirement for these bounties to 5 comments or adjusting the requirement on individual bounties as needed, depending on their genre. Let us know your thoughts!
(Bonus behind the scenes history: our original motivation for making the bounties 10 comments across the board was to resolve some inflation concerns we had with Season 1's reward bank; the more "coins" someone stacked up, the less special the system and rewards became, and we wanted a way to ensure the bounty rewards maintained their value by being something that players have to work for. We see now we might have gone a little overboard, and this is why we're considering adjustments!)
Regardless of what we decide for lower-level bounties, purple, orange, and spec bounties will remain at the 10 comment requirement. Our reasoning for this is that higher-level bounties have higher-level rewards, so they should have higher-level requirements.
- EXPLORATION. We noticed there seemed to have been some confusion on both ends about exploration groups! Should we utilize this again, we plan to be more clear on what we expect from players and what they can expect from us; exploration groups were meant to be a chance for players to take initiative and get specific questions answered rather than simply sign up and get clues like in the search system of Season 1. Our response length and content generally depended on character actions; the more specific your character's actions were, the more likely it was that we would be able to give you a good response, because we were able to tell what you were looking for. We apologize if this was unclear or made anyone unhappy! In the future, if we use this system again, we will try to be as upfront as possible about this.
We'd also like to take the time to explain why we don't answer follow-up questions: we aren't trying to be stingy with plot information, we promise! The fact of the matter is we have fewer plot mods than we used to and the time we can dedicate to the game is limited. We would genuinely love if we could answer all of your follow-up questions, but at the moment, we're just trying to keep the game moving forward! Because we don't answer follow-ups, we try to give all the information needed from the get-go in our responses; every exploration response we gave was relevant to the plot, no matter how small or large it was.
Players from Season 1: did you prefer the search system? Did you like the exploration system? New players: what did you think about the exploration system? Would you prefer to do without it entirely, or did you like it? Let us know!
- SOLUTIONS. While we attempted to legitimize several solutions to the mission, we know several players felt railroaded into the empress marriage due to evidence pointing in its direction. We now realize that when the marriage solution gained OOC traction, we should have switched gears and focused more on legitimizing the other workable solutions we had in mind to strengthen their arguments. We want to give players freedom to do whatever they want with the plot -- if players had chosen to kill the entire Mountain Clan, for example, we wouldn't have stopped you! -- but we also don't want to leave you without any hints or any ideas at all, so it's a difficult balance to strike and sometimes we miss the mark. All we can do now is try to do things better next time and hope that it didn't impact anyone's fun too badly. We're going to try our best to strike the right balance in future missions, so please bear with us.
We also noticed that the way we chose to determine the mission solution might have been confusing or unfun for players. So we're asking: was the argument post unclear, too much work, or otherwise not fun for you? Would you have preferred a simple poll to determine the winning idea with the guarantee of the empresses' agreement, assuming it was a viable idea? To explain our ~secret~ algorithm: we determined whether the idea was successful by taking the number of characters currently not on hiatus and stating that 70% of that number would be passing; from there, each character was assigned a point value based on whether their argument was good, whether they were a Negotiator, whether they were royalty (as the empresses would recognize and respect royal diplomacy), and whether they had a good reputation in Hanabira (determined by bounty submissions).
We wanted it to feel like characters actually had to work to win so it would be more fun when they actually did, but it was a completely new idea, so we understand the way we went about it may have been a misstep. Let us know how you felt about it!
DESIRED FEEDBACKIn addition to our observations above, we'd like to hear players' feedback on a few smaller mechanics. These aren't so much things we've observed, but things we're curious to see how you feel about! You don't have to answer every question, but these are the types of things we're looking for feedback on: - DOSSIERS. For those of you who were here in S1, we changed the dossier around a little -- did you notice? ;) We'd like to ask all players how the dossier format is working for you: is there any information you would find more helpful? Is there any formatting that could be changed? Did you find yourself going back to reference the dossier, and if not, is there anything we could change to make it a more valuable resource?
- FUTURE MISSIONS. Is there any genre or topic you would like to see in a future mission? Anything you wouldn't like to see for awhile? You can also leave mission or location suggestions on the suggestions page.
- OOC NOTES. We typically leave OOC notes at the end of logs, and we have begun experimenting with an additional "upcoming events" section as well, since the logs go out bi-weekly. Do you find these notes helpful? Have the upcoming events and quicklinks been useful? Did you utilize them or just stick to the calendar and navigation pages? Is there anything else that might be helpful to add?
IN CLOSINGWe always encourage plain and transparent communication between mods and players, and we hope you all take the opportunity to let us know your thoughts on how this mission went! No matter if you would like to see things tweaked or to stay the same, we won't know unless you tell us. However, there are a few topics that we would prefer not to receive feedback on at this time, as the mechanics are very new and we would like to give them more time to settle: - ACTIVITY CHECK/HIATUSES. The mods spent a long time debating over the new AC and so far there's only been one true AC, so we'd like to give it a real go and give everyone time to adjust first! We know this is a strange adjustment for players carrying over from Season 1 and we hope you understand.
- APPLICATION SCHEDULE. As stated on the recent updates post, we decided to lower the required amount of slots for an app cycle to 6. (Although current players can always apply for a second character between missions regardless of open slots, as they already have a space in the game.) However, we still want to see the 'only open between missions' scheduling through for a bit before taking any feedback on it, though if you have any thoughts about the content of the application itself, please let us know!
- GAME CAPS. This includes player caps, cast caps, and how many characters one player is allowed. Like the above items, we're still feeling out our new mechanics and would like to give them time to settle in before taking feedback. Although the cast cap is not new, we don't have any intention of changing it any time soon, since it's been in place for a long while and we haven't run into any problems; if it's not broken, don't fix it!
- SPECIALIZATION SYSTEM. Spec assignments, spec powers, using the bounty board to level up, etc. Everyone's very low level at the moment, which means we haven't had much of a chance to fully utilize this system. Hopefully in the upcoming missions we'll get a chance! Fingers crossed. :)
Thank you in advance for respecting our limitations and not asking for restructuring of any of these mechanics at this time! As we grow into S2, we may ask for feedback on these topics (or others!) if we notice any problems with them, but we'd like to see them in action first.
Thank you for taking the time to read our assessment! We are happy to discuss any feedback or suggestions you may have, explain our reasoning for choosing certain game mechanics, or just chat about our future plans for the game. We know that we can appear ~mysterious~, but we love to talk about Futurology and want our game environment to be as open as possible, so don't be shy if you have something to say! |
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axiology2018-03-10 06:47 pm
this is so long i'm sorry i wanted to be thorough
I think that's important to talk about because this was a direct result of things you guys implemented like the Bounty Board and the Explorations; sometimes in past missions, I was left feeling like either the CYA elements didn't ultimately impact the big picture or like I'd have to reach out to the mods directly if I wanted to interact with anything too directly. These set-ups eliminated that need, which was really nice because I have social anxiety related to contacting anonymous mods EVEN THOUGH Y'ALL ARE ALWAYS VERY SWEET.
Anyway. What I'm getting at here is on the whole this mission was super solid and I'm really really hyped for the new season. A great opener, really.
I spent a lot of time this mission utilizing the BOUNTY BOARD, and I found it a really fun way to engage in the game mechanics. I really appreciated the way it wound up tying into the effectiveness of our arguments at the end by gaining a "rep" among the Hanabira nobility, so thank you a bunch for that. It was a really nice encouragement to continue pursuing the special bounties, and made me feel better about the fact that they can't be used as plot AC (i.e., they still have a strong associated reward, even if they can't be our plot thread). I liked the variable element (Rey getting an ogre tooth necklace) on the ogre bounty a lot. I agree that lower level bounties should have lower requirements, but I could see a strong argument for 7 instead of 5 so they were still higher than a regular AC thread. The bounty board is probably my favorite new feature; as someone who was at times left with individual plot logs on previous missions not having prompts I was necessarily interested in, it's nice to have a mission-long alternative.
Personally, I think we just need time to feel out the EXPLORATION system and figure out OOCly how to guide our questions to best elicit information. I also think the limited number & deadline made it so some people rushed to get their questions in instead of thinking as much on them as possible because it required coordinating with other players. I don't have a good solution for that, but it's a factor to consider in fine-tuning. I preferred it to the search system from S1. I also, personally, had no problem with the fact that some searches didn't turn up anything ground-breaking and new; that's the way the cookie crumbles when there's so many of them.
That said, I think the explorations are a great vehicle to give room to alternate SOLUTIONS (which I agree felt coerced towards marriage). Those were definitely the place I was looking for something to give us a stronger sense of political climate, but a lot of them felt sort of dead-ended instead unless they were hints about marriage-related pieces. I think the argument post's set-up was really awesome and effective; it was super fun for me personally. This is because I didn't mind that my character didn't have a legitimate suggestion that was better than the marriage (Rey is naive and romantic and inexperienced; this is IC for her, and did not stymie my involvement in contradicting the option). I think the perceived lack of valid alternatives just translated to un-fun in the argument, but the set-up/system itself was really stellar. I definitely felt like we had to work to win, and in that way, I was super engaged in this.
Regarding the DOSSIERS, I felt like this one gave a strong concept of general tone/cultural setting, but I often found myself wishing there were more specifics about common log location (i.e., Doro's Castle). Not necessarily like a floor plan, but maybe more specifics of places PCs are likely to spend a lot of time.
OOC NOTES were really helpful and spared me clicks back to the calendar, yes!
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Thanks so much for your feedback. It's greatly appreciated. We had a good time watching Rey in Hanabira, and we're glad you had fun, too! We're definitely going to take everything you said about the solutions into account. We also hadn't thought about the locations that way, but now that you've mentioned it, we're going to make sure to be more detailed about locations in the upcoming mission, so look out for that!
And please, never feel anxious about contacting us! We're always happy to hear from you. If you think of anything else that you forgot to mention in your comment, just let us know.
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I vastly preferred this to the search system, which I was extremely disinterested by. I felt like this could be tailored more to the characters themselves, rather than something that feels a little random. I think making it clear how to set up a question/the process of exploration would smooth over the need for follow-up questions. As it is, I would be very pleased if such a system returned. I think I only used it on the initial log, but it was nice, especially when meshed with things like being able to do interrogations down the line for the skirmishes.
Solutions
I liked the overall system, but the lack of clarity regarding what the percentage was in terms of involvement expected from players really made me a little quietly stressed about whether we would meet the correct quota in the long term. After putting a lot into the plot, the concern that they might not actually meet the quota in the end worried me.
So, in the future, I would like some more transparency over the numbers of what's expected. I personally don't see any point in keeping that a secret.
As for people feeling railroaded: I wish there had been hints pointing toward things other than marriage, as I had Veronica come to that independent of anything that the mods had provided (sans the dossier). It was just a natural progression of thought from her from her IC interactions, which is why she was able to argue in favor of it. The problem was that I felt that other players' characters couldn't produce other well-developed arguments based on the world information provided, which I believe led to people feeling even more railroaded.
Another way of helping would be to put up clearer sign posts for arguments needing to be determined. Veronica's was done well ahead of time because of IC circumstances and because I knew it was heading that way IC, but she's the type to take initiative. Perhaps more structure to give people more room to explore those ideas would help.
Dossier
I frequently referred to this dossier, and I have to agree with Tifa: more about locations would help a lot. I was personally uncertain about the state of technology in this world, as it felt like it varied from place to place, but I wasn't entirely certain on the why.
I'm not sure if this is included in the dossier, but I felt like the items post wasn't entirely necessary. It felt like a thing that would just cause more work for the moderators in the long term in developing a mission, and I didn't refer to it very often. This my own experience, though, as I don't tend to track the minutia of items or try to get my characters loaded in terms of whatever they want.
Future Missions
I would like to see another zombie mission! Woodhurst is just one way of doing a zombie mission, so having another one would be fun.
I've also thought about how like, it'd be interesting to see worlds that were "saved" but then messed up by the timeline merging, so places could be returned to because they have a whole new problem.
I also love dystopian stuff, where the world is stepford great but also extremely messed up. I love post-apocalyptic settings, survival things, etc.
Overall, I'd like to play a lot of variance morality and I think what I've listed can lead to less simple answers. I really like the idea of exploring worlds that were messed up by fixing the timeline, without having a return to the Zymandis stuff (since that was unpopular).
OOC Notes
I think these are great!
Closing Notes
I loved this mission overall! I liked the idea of it, and there was a lot to do for all different types of characters. There were some places where I felt that there could have been more ambiguity or variance in responses, rather than everything streamlined (like with the interrogations—there was no variance in that), but I assume that has to do with the lack of plot mods.
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Also +1 for dystopia and +1 for zombies.
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Regarding the arguments post, our reasoning behind keeping the algorithm a secret was to encourage participation rather than cause any stress, and we're sorry that caused you undue anxiety! If we do another post like that in the future, we'll try to strike a balance between giving no information at all about what's expected and giving it all away, since we understand that being completely in the dark about it was probably worrisome.
We are currently discussing if an items post is necessary in future dossiers, and we're not quite sure what the right solution is. On the one hand, you're right that it is extra work for the mods, but on the other hand, it cuts down on players asking us if such-and-such item can be reasonably found. Right now, we're not sure what the future holds for items posts, but your opinion has been taken into consideration!
If there's anything else you'd like to add, don't hesitate to let us know. Thanks again!
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Like blue items would include "weapons" maybe with a list of weapon types (katana, longbow, etc.) and green would have "antiques" like masks or tea sets or whatever, but white would include "writing tools" (stationary, etc.).
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i def want to keep the mechanic around but admittedly im not sure what a good balance is for it ... but going more general might be a good start for white items, with more specifics for the blue/green/purple
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Also yay for the next mission.
Thanks, guys!
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+1 "fixed" verses hecked up by timeline merge
+1 to morally complicated missions! my favorite missions have always been the ones where there is no clear right answer/no answer without serious consequences
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BOUNTY
→ as someone who prefers to interact with the plot/setting through bounties, i'd personally love to see more on that front. while fun ones like sake tasting/planting rice are definitely great ( and necessary! ), i think i was hoping that they could have a mix of slice-of-life style bounties and plot-relevant bounties. i loved how the characters doing the bounties ultimately affected the empresses' decisions, though!! ( that said, thank you for lowering the comment requirement for the white / green / blue bounties! )
EXPLORATION
→ while i liked the table top rpg-style approach, one thing i noticed was that that the current system makes threading anything exploration-related... unnecessary? difficult? i did like that not every search was important/ended in a "success", but it felt as though a lot of the efforts and results were handwaved / summarized into a network post. while i appreciated the flexibility, i think i would prefer more interactivity. at the risk of sounding blunt, the exploration submissions felt like i was handwaving things i could be actually doing.
+) something i thought of is having characters thread out exploration as a bounty-type exploration with limited sign-up slots ( maybe with a total comment count requirement should 2+ characters would want to participate ), with some preliminary and post-submission information provided by the mods ( what was the setting they were searching in / what could they investigate, and what did their searches yield them once the thread has been turned in? ). basically, the current exploration system, except some level of interaction with the setting is required before the information is distributed. while not every submission nets plot-important information, it could turn up some cool information about the setting that wasn't previously available in a log ( or cool items! ).
... but i'm also aware that this would create even more work for you guys. i just wanted to get some kind of barebones idea out there in the hopes that you can take it and find a system that could work better! c:
SOLUTIONS
→ i liked the IC discussions — it's one thing to have a character's motivations summarized by the player, but seeing IC reactions to theories, solutions, and the discussion around it was really cool! while it got heated, it felt fresher than "everyone argues over the network". i wasn't directly participating in it, but i still had the opportunity to thread things that were tangentially related to it.
→ on the flip side, i think the actual arguments for nama and youmi were missing a lot of that. we did just have a really big IC discussion and having a second one would be too much, but i felt similar about the arguments & the exploration submissions: they were cool to see in theory ( especially the empresses' reactions to each argument! ), but i wish there were more things i could thread that are directly related to it.
+) all of the above sums up to: i'd love more chances to thread plot-related things, vs "my character would be doing x"!
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i think it's the first time i've ever written a comment this long at a mission feedback post... i genuinely loved navigating through the opening hype & hanabira, even if political missions aren't my favorite genre. thank you, as always, for everything that you do!! ♥
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This comment also made me realize; it'd be nice, like we had an incentive workshop, if we could have a bounties workshop about like "ideas for purple bounties" or something. I didn't take advantage of it because I felt like I needed some examples of what would be appropriate.
+1 To comment on purple bounties.
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We already workshop purple bounties with players on the mod suggestions page when a player decides to create one, so a dedicated workshop page would be a bit redundant; however, we'll be asking the players who submitted purple bounties if they wouldn't mind us using their correspondence as an example, so hopefully that will help!
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But also re: workshopping I was imagining talking between players would be nice for brainstorming what purple bounties might look like for a given mission, if that makes sense. Maybe a subthread on the dossier? Again just trying to assess and narrow down why it felt like it was too broad for my bounty-loving ass to engage with so obv take this with a grain of salt and just as information not demands.
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With regards to bounties, we completely agree with you! Plot-related bounties are something we attempt to put in every mission, but it just didn't work this time. Rest assured, this will not be the case for every mission. We plan to have more plot-related bounties in our next mission, so don't worry!
As for explorations, we want to stress that players are more than welcome to thread out their exploration once they've been given their results. Just because it's not in the exploration thread doesn't mean it's disallowed at all! We actually encourage it. We totally understand where you're coming from with your suggestion, although we worry about that being disadvantageous for players who may be slower taggers, as they wouldn't get plot information as quickly. We'll still take it under advisement, though, and consider it for the future!
For the arguments post, the reason we weren't able to thread it out is the reason we can't answer follow-up questions on explorations, unfortunately: plot mod shortage. Our time is very lacking, and we unfortunately don't have anyone around who is available to do NPC threads like that at the moment! We do plan to have a couple time-limited NPC threads coming up, but that's the best we can do right now. We completely understand that it's more fun to have an interactive thread rather than the summaries we do now, so hopefully this will change in the future! We just wanted to give our reasoning so you can understand that it's not so much a creative choice but a logistical one.
Thanks so much for your feedback. If you have anything else to add, please let us know!
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that's great to hear re: bounties! for arguments, i completely understand — the last thing i want to do is create more work for you guys, and i think what we have right now was a really cool, solid mechanic ( characters having to work to get their solution accepted ), and i'm excited to watch it change & grow. c:
for exploration! as someone who tends to be a slower tagger, i don't end up threading out explorations because playing something with a pre-determined conclusion isn't a priority for me. there are only so many threads i can reasonably take on at a given time, and re-hashing/discussing what already happened is a lot less fun than threading something out and then getting the results for it ( or really, some kind of variation that lets us prioritize actually threading something like this out ). i was trying to strike that balance with a total comment count instead of an individual comment count, since that would encourage larger group threads / make them less daunting, while still getting plot information out ... at least in time for the next log to drop.
i'm being a little more persistent about explorations because it's one of my favorite things about rp, but i've had similar roadblocks with season 1's CYOA. i think the lack of plot related bounties made this a lot more apparent than before, though ( since it only upped the importance of the explorations, while creating less of a reason for me to actively thread these out, etc ). so! i hope you're able to strike a balance you're happy with re: logistics vs creativity, and thanks for hearing me out! c:
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I was one of the players who felt the heat about the amount of comments it took to complete a bounty, and while I think a lot of the more action-y bounties should be 10+ (after all, it probably takes that many comments to gain momentum so they actually reach a conclusion instead of petering off and people getting credit for handwaving), but slice of life bounties it can be very hard to drag them out that long if there's not a secondary driving action. (Which, admittedly, is a player thing- some people had really emotional conversations come out of the sake drinking one, but that's not always gonna be the case.)
tl;dr I definitely think bounties with higher rewards should have 10+ comments, but perhaps 5+ for simpler, "cuter" SOL bounties.
EXPLORATION
Definitely agreeing with Tifa that the time crunch was a bit taxing and kept me from really thinking of things, but I do like the idea and think it just needs a little bit of tweaking! I thought the group thing was a good idea, but it was really unwieldy to thread out. The only thing I can suggest to fix that, however, is to let people pick ONE "NPC" to ask a question of and everyone gets their question answered, and then they take that information and thread getting it/offering it out. One of the higher points of ALASTAIR is when people got bits of information and shared it and then people gave the information they got.
It's basically the same thing here, but with less focus on organizing groups.
To summarize my rambling point, say you have an NPC fisherman, an NPC mother, and an NPC baker. A player can choose ONE of these three to direct a single question to and to describe how they approach the NPC. It's... essentially what was already done, but with less focus on groups, because... again that was unwieldy to thread and I never finished a single one, which is sad, and might have had an effect on my overall understanding of the plot.
SOLUTIONS
I agree with Tifa that explorations are a GREAT way of introducing solutions, but the problem here was just a single solution gained a lot of traction really fast and had a lot of support, and while there's no way to predict where the wind is going to blow and what players will latch onto, the lack of a perceived alternate plan with any real evidence was a bit discouraging, and while I LOVE the arguments post in theory and definitely want to see more of it... what it felt like in this particular instance was a lot of people with a lot of evidence shouting down people with less evidence who were mostly just against arranged marriage. It didn't really matter if the other ideas were good or not- no one had any way of arguing against something that seemed very obvious, so it became pointless to contribute or argue.
And one of the ways this can be improved is by....
SPECIALIZATIONS
This event as advertised as being very Negotiator-friendly, and that's awesome! I like missions tailored to specializations, like Woodhurst was tailored to a very fighter/science crowd. But I think what could really help (and certainly give the mods the right amount of structure you need- because I know that SOME structure is needed) is to lay groundwork for solutions that work best for certain specializations.
This ties into what Tifa mentioned about having time to ask more detailed questions- characters will often ask about things that pertain to their wheelhouse or will pursue leads that relate to what they, personally, are good at.
Obviously, you can't put a bunch of specialization-specific solutions into every mission- especially when you have missions like this that skew heavily diplomatic and missions like Woodhurst that skew heavily inventor- but it's a good thought when laying groundwork for possible scenarios, AND will help us figure out how to use our specializations to help with missions.
DOSSIERS
The new dossiers are super cute and I love them.
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As for the explorations, we are definitely going to keep this in mind; we agree that sharing information is an important part of plot-heavy games, and we understand doing so can get a little complex when groups are involved. Our reasoning for encouraging groups was to encourage CR and to put less strain on the mods answering questions, but having a "one question" rule seems like a good solution to both concerns!
Regarding solutions and specializations, we hear you, and we will be making adjustments going forward. For specializations in particular, we are planning on making each mission different enough so that everyone will get their time in the sun, so to speak, regardless of their specialization or abilities.
Again, thank you for your feedback! Please let us know if there's anything else you'd like to add.
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Everyone else seems to have covered anything else, and, honestly, you guys addressed all my concerns in the initial address as something you're working on, and I really appreciate that. It made me feel super comfortable to know that my concerns were already being looked into without me having to say anything. Seriously, you guys, keep up the good work! I'm in this game for the long haul, and your excellent modwork and your awesome missions are why.
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Bounty Boards- I was fine with the extra comment requirement and think it makes sense that some bounties be worth more than others. I also liked that there was variety to pull from -- so there could be choices for all character types, so I hope that continues! I think my only issue was I was a little confused about special bounties initially and what might qualify as one. I saw some people submit some after the fact, but it was a little confusing to me at first.
Exploration - I liked it because it gave some guidance for how to move the plot along/get some answers/intell. Again, a little confusing at first about what was expected/needed from the groups, but I think since this was the first go out that might be why.
Solutions - I definitely felt lost during the initial solution thread. It was a little overwhelming and so I didn’t get involved in that aspect even though I felt like maybe my character would have tried contributing more. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I can be helpful with an alternative. I did enjoy the process of the argument post one that became a little clearer and it worked out better in terms of not leaving me feeling overwhelmed and like I could contribute. My main problem (especially now that I know the algorithm) is it left some pressure on whether we would succeed at all. Had I known, for example, that submitting bounties were a part of it, I would have submitted my proof of Jason’s bounty earlier. Instead I had waited on it since I knew we had until the end of the mission to submit bounties. My own fault, I know. So, while I do like how the algorithm added an extra element/challenge to the mix the fact that how we could get a win or not was a ‘secret’ was a little unhelpful. I know the CHARACTERS wouldn’t know whether their arguments would work or not, but as an OOC thing it might have been helpful to know for strategic purposes.
Dossiers- I am new, so I don’t know what was here before, but I liked this information drop as I think it helped a lot! I referred to it often the first half of the mission while I was still learning my way around and thought it was a great feature both IC/OOC!
Future Missions - Super hightech/alien worlds might be fun, just cause it would be SO OUT of my character’s wheel house. Or, on the other hand, a world with a more mythological/godly bent (maybe not even necessarily gods anyone would be familiar with). I also liked how this world set a number of characters at a disadvantage (ie being male) so I think that could be fun to play with on future worlds. Something that would make certain characters stand out/be at odds with the culture.
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+1 liking the social dynamics of hanabira's matriarchy
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Special bounties are any of the bounties located under the special bounties tab, just for clarification! You said you figured it out, but in case you or anyone else is still confused, we wanted to make sure we cleared it up for everyone. We're glad you liked the content!
We hear you on the algorithm being a secret! Like we said to Alison, we're going to try to strike a better balance between 'total secret' and 'giving it all away' if we try it again; we'd like to keep some element of surprise, but we understand the stress of thinking that a plot you worked hard on might not succeed. We were a little stressed about it, too!
Judging by what you've said, you should hopefully be pleased by our next mission, so look out for that. :) Let us know if you've got anything else to add, and thanks again for your feedback!
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my only request at this point based on crit parameters of this post is that there be a wider variety of spec bounties. there were only two this month and they were largely negotiator and bruiser targeted, from my perspective. beyond that, not every character can/will do every prompt. having 3-5 potential spec bounties per mission would make it easier for everyone to find a prompt that works for their character.
SOLUTIONS.
i honestly can't say much about the nuts and bolts of the solutions process because i was sick/on hiatus; the most i can say on that count is that the setup of the argument post was very confusing and chaotic to me as well as seeming like too many cooks in the kitchen. what did worry me a little, and this could easily be different in future missions but i wanted to bring it up, was that the solution/arguments post was SUPER negotiator-focused. which was a bummer! one of the really exciting things about s2 to me was seeing how different specializations fit into missions, and on this mission it was kind of "negotiators plus other specializations who are negotiating also." i hope this diversifies in future!
OOC NOTES.
please don't get rid of ooc notes on logs i need them to live they're so helpful
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while i completely understand that some systems haven't had a chance to kick in/show what works and what doesn't yet (ie ac, spec stuff, apps, etc), it was very disheartening to come to this post and see that the mod team is not taking feedback/input on those systems, period. it feels like a conversational shutdown--and i'm sure it wasn't meant that way! but it does read that way to me.
again, i understand that this is not a good time to reevaluate/change those systems since they haven't been in play long. however, to keep from shutting down those conversations overall, i would love it if the attitude towards feedback that will not be immediately implemented was changed in the future. for example, in this case, something like "while we will not be considering any changes to these systems right now, we will be reevaluating them during [x month's] state of the game." that way the subject is not entirely shut down but at the same time players are aware that any crit put forward is not going to be immediately acted upon. additionally, they know when the main conversation about issues with such systems will take place.
thank you for your consideration on this subject!
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Still, thank you for bringing this up to us; we definitely don't mean to make anyone feel shut down or afraid to share their opinions. We'll keep this in mind in the future.
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and finally because I can't remember everything I want to say even in two comments - re future missions, I know I submitted something back in season one regarding a mission in a dystopia/deteriorating world a la mistborn, and I am still super interested in that! I think the mechanics of that kind of world could be very interesting. however since that's mad specific, something about a divergent timeline where the division is whether a revolution against a dictator succeeds or fails could be very interesting, especially in a fantasy dystopia setting. basically political stuff in dystopia would be super fun! I swear I am done commenting now.
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Some missions during S1 had locations pages, which I found very helpful -- I realize this is more work for mods, but if you have the time, I'd like to see them make a return! I also enjoyed the small "profiles" that Nama and Youmi received via magitek in their feature logs, so if this could be incorporated into the dossier, that would be neat too.
FUTURE MISSION.
please dinosaurs
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If I can make one comment, however--I feel like simply opening applications at a certain time would cause a massive frenzy for a very limited amount of slots. I don't expect applications to remain open for more than a couple minutes at best, under those conditions, and since they'll only be open between missions, I imagine it would be very frustrating to miss getting a slot by a couple seconds, should someone experience a DW error or somesuch. Instead, I think it might be better to go back to the queue system, except with the understanding that new/returning player apps will only be processed when 6 slots are available? It'd be functionally equivalent to the current system, but with less pressure for new or returning players? If that makes sense.
BOUNTIES/ARGUMENTS:
I was also one of the people who felt a bit overwhelmed by the 10-comment count on the bounties, and think you guys are right on track with taking it down to 5. With the specialization bounties, I totally understand making players work harder to get rewards for them, but for the white and green bounties, it felt like a lot of effort for not a lot of of apparent reward, and I gave up on submitting any of them relatively early on so that I didn't get left behind on ic movement toward the primary objectives of the mission (e.g. plotting explorations/the various discussions on the network).
I wanted to feel like I was contributing to the mission, rather than simply racking up comment counts on slice-of-life threads, which was why I felt really disappointed when arguments came around and Ginko wasn't referenced at all in the Empresses' response to the argument he signed onto; I'd participated in both explorations as well as the player plot to meet with Nama in the first place, but I didn't have any bounty threads that were long enough, so finding out that bounties were part of the "secret" criteria for mission success was a big bummer for me.
While a poll with guaranteed success would've been kind of boring, I do agree with Jay's comment that the formal arguments felt a bit like a rehash of what was said in the IC Discussion thread on the penultimate log, so I'm not entirely sure what a good way to handle that would be. :|a i think the solution proposals post was more or less sufficient tbh! When it was initially proposed, people already mentioned their characters' arguments for why they thought the marriage was a good idea, so just having a couple Main Ideas and people icly +1ing them seems like a happy medium there, and the mods can decide mission success/failure based on who votes for what, maybe?
SOLUTIONS:
I also agree that the marriage solution felt a bit railroaded, mostly because all the narrative clues led to it, so the characters who weren't interested in the idea basically had no basis on which to argue for any other solution. I think part of what happened was that the marriage started to look like a foregone conclusion fairly early, so the more it was discussed and defended icly, the less appealing it became to look into alternative solutions that were unlikely to ultimately be chosen, especially when there was no evidence toward looking elsewhere.
I really like Chris' idea of trying to work specializations into solution possibilities! I definitely felt a little left out this mission, because it was Negotiator-centric with some options for Bruisers (the ronin and rebels) and Sentinels (first aid + defense with said ronin/rebels), with the only aspect of the mission playing to the Inventors was the bounty with the imps, which seemed otherwise irrelevant to either of the mission objectives. I totally understand that not every mission is going to be aimed at every specialization, but I think it could definitely help with having legitimate alternate angles by which players can approach solutions. We could even have some kind of multi-faceted or multi-stage solutions, where solving an initial hurdle "unlocks" access to the final solution.
For example in this mission, the imps bounty could potentially have been reworked to fit into the central conflict instead of serving as a side-story--if one of the two countries was having a water shortage problem due to the territory dispute, for instance, and the Inventors could rig up something mutually beneficial for both countries, thus paving the way to the Negotiators to discuss the marriage as a permanent solution to future such disputes.
DOSSIERS: The new dossiers were really cute!! I love the format of them. I really enjoyed the neat little details about the planet, in particular, as well as the information about the society and culture of Hanabira. I do agree that I would've liked more information on the particular locations the characters could go to, though, like we had previously with Leramzen and Woodhurst (though if I remember correctly, there was a separate locations post?? That would work just fine, too!)
OOC NOTES: KEEP THESE i love them, they make my life 5000% easier
EXPLORATIONS: I'm a little torn on this, because I really like the CYA system, especially as it was implemented in S1 in Perdition's Rest and Woodhurst, but the limited number of slots made it a massive rush for people to buddy up and post something under one of the exploration subthreads before they ran out of slots (in the first Hanabira log, for example, there were a LARGE number of people interested in the huntress, but not enough slots to go around without having something like a 6-7 person thread)
I also agree with Jay and Chris that after we got the information, there was little point in threading out finding that information. :|a Chris' idea of having an NPC for each character to ask a question to might be a workable solution? Alternatively, if we combined the search and exploration approaches to have characters get something out of participating in the CYA, even if it's not a plot detail? Like maybe some kind of trinket that seems useless but will later turn out to help get access to some plot-important location or something?
FUTURE MISSIONS: I always wanted to see another mission like Zeta-12. I just barely missed getting to be part of it when I first apped in, and it looked really cute and fun. I especially liked the aspect of it where their individual success or failure in getting their squidge ready for Squidge Society was based on their individual choices and actions throughout the mission.
Also +1ing the stepford dystopia idea
As for other ideas, I would love to see something set in an urban fantasy type setting (with or without a masquerade for supernatural creatures), as well as something more high fantasy a la elves and dragons and bards and whatnot. I think something where they had to pose as part of the local populace like in Woodhurst would be really fun! I'd love something like infiltrating a boarding school where the characters have to pretend to be students or teachers, for ex, or playing with a mechanic like in The Quiet Place, where characters can't speak out loud or make noise. The big appeal of futuro to me is the variable genres and settings, so I definitely want to utilize that as much as possible.
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+100000 urban fantasy!!!
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I love the idea of having to infiltrate for a mission and the challenge of not blowing cover. Especially if it was some kind of mission that would have the different age groups (ala your boarding school suggestion) being able to go at it from different angles.
I wasn't here for the Zeta-12 stuff, but based on several mentions of it that sounds fun.
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To clarify a bit about the role of bounties in the scoring algorithm, those who didn't complete a bounty were still important to the overall score! Those who completed bounties were simply given an extra "point" due to the IC reputation that came along with it. We certainly didn't mean to make it seem like anyone's participation wasn't important, though, so we'll take this under advisement for next time.
Regarding your comments on the solutions and exploration subjects, thank you for bringing up some interesting solutions! Our time limitations mean that we can't be as detailed as you've laid out, but we'll keep your suggestions in mind and see what we can incorporate. Again, thank you for your feedback, and please let us know if there's anything else you'd like to add.
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Exploration: While I did like the system in general, I do look forward to seeing the extra clarity in the future! One thing I did experience, however, was the fact that since most locations only had five slots available there was a lot of pressure to make rather large groups to submit. Obviously, working with other players is great, but when it comes to playing characters that ICly aren't the type to want to team up I feel like there's a certain OOC pressure to not like, be rude/greedy and take up one of the few slots with a single character's exploration submission. Admittedly, this could all just be in my head! The easiest solution if other people feel this way would be to up the number of slots, but I can see how that would potentially pile on mod work, so obviously low priority, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.
Solutions: Thanks in advance for the future work on balancing a variety of hints and potential solution clues. Even though Hayame made a bunch of new friends (lol), I really did enjoy the IC debate mechanic in the decision making log! Congrats on all that math calculating the success/fail in the argument presentation log- I had no particular feeling on knowing the formula beforehand or not, but I can see how some people would want to know.
Dossiers: Very shiny, good work on those! I will second some others though and ask for maybe a touch more information on locations? That could just as easily go in log information too, either way!
Items List: Admittedly, I found this kind of clunky. I can understand the desire to want to head off questions about items availability, but I feel like it could be accomplished in a way that may be easier on both mods and players. Like, the post was a masterpiece of organization, but it seems like it must have taken a lot of coding and thought to do for something that I think most people do not keep track of quite that close. I keep track of significant items for my char., but things like "broken sword", "wooden toys", "wood bundle" and such as that, I feel like most players can be counted on to handwave responsibly. With missions like Hanabira where there seems to be a certain period or cultural information I think it could be easier to just spell that out, perhaps in a "items that could be found in Edo period Japan are in general available in Hanabira" sort of style, with specific item listing limited to items one wouldn't expect to normally find? Just a suggestion.
Future Missions: Seconding some others in saying that I would love a short, Zeta-12-esque mission at some point. Very fun and easy, maybe around a busy holiday season? For more serious missions, I would love to see a mission planet that is just SO BIZARRE. We've mostly been dealing with humanoid races that have what could generally be called human values, but I think it would be a riot if we went to a world that was just VERY not human. I'm talking like "ten feet tall aliens with sixteen legs and the entire world is designed for their anatomy and also they think the sound of sneezing is a challenge to a duel" kind of weird. Maybe???
OOC Notes: Found these helpful! Would like to see it continued.
Applications: I realize we're not at a point to critique the system, but I just wanted to ask when we might find out information about how applications are going to go down when they next open. Like, will it be a free-for-all race for potentially only six spots from a specific set app-opening time, will there be a reserve system, will queue be back? That kind of information.
I really enjoyed the Hanabira mission as a whole, and most everything not mentioned here, so thanks again!! Sorry for the word vomit.
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Regarding applications, we will be announcing how this will be handled along with April's calendar. We're still figuring out the details, but rest assured we will try to make it as fair as possible! Again, thank you for your input and please let us know if there is anything else you'd like to add.
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I'll just slide in here belatedly with another random future mission suggestion since I was thinking about it-
A more thriller style mission, where perhaps the guild is sent to a planet that serves as a seal/prison for some sort of powerful spiritual entity. The seal keeping the thing contained is weakening and the guild has to do something (re-energize the sealing stones? find the broken sigil? recomplete the ritual?) to plug the hole... but things are complicated when the ancient being begins influencing the guild members, possessing those with cracks in their hearts to accomplish their goal... ~freedom~
Dun dun dun...
ALRIGHT I'LL SEE MYSELF OUT NOW, thanks again mods see ya!
rolls in late with discount bottled frappuccino
I want to open by saying that I am intensely grateful for how accessible you guys have made yourselves. I can't speak for other people, but since I play a character on the extremist/reactionary spectrum, there is nothing better than a mod team willing to roll with the punches even in small ways. I was absolutely not expecting to get to cause as much trouble ICly as I did (for fear of derailment) -- so thank you! This is the most fun I've had playing a villain in a very long time.
I really enjoyed the EXPLORATION system. I didn't make much use of the Search system in season one because Kylo was less accessible as a character, and I never really felt like I knew where to start, so I don't think it is fair for me to compare the two. I agree with Tifa about the deadlines/rush point, though I unfortunately also don't have a great solution for that, but it made it easy to stay involved so I really hope it sticks around!
I didn't make use of the BOUNTY BOARD this mission because the rewards didn't appeal to me, but after seeing how it ended up tying in passive rep gain with the Hanabirans, I kind of regret it! But that is ok -- I don't think I am required to know the passive effects of everything up front, and I think its a great idea and keeps the spontaneity of things alive. :) I think your instincts are correct and it might be wise to reduce the comment count for the smaller rewards. I tagged around a LOT this mission and I can still think of some of my more involved threads that never reached that comment count for one reason or another.
I think the SOLUTIONS system is excellent, and would like to give it another chance next mission. You are correct that it felt good to see character's IC work factor into success. I agree with everyone else that the system felt coerced into marriage (from an IC perspective, if the political aspect had not factored in, Kylo would not have gone for it and I think I might have been more frustrated OOCly), but I am also willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and attribute that to trying out a new system.
I see that you are considering adding more to the DOSSIERS in terms of locations and that would have honestly been my only suggestion regarding those. Thank you!
OOC NOTES are always helpful. More information is always better.
As for FUTURE MISSIONS, I am all about conflict and peril, so I am gonna +1 dystopia, and also +1 dinosaurs because dinosaurs.
For context, Zeta-12 and Perdition's Rest were my favorite missions from Season 1, especially since Zeta-12 really forced my character out of their comfort zone because they had to care for something other than themselves in order to succeed. Perdition's Rest was great because it involved a lot of deception and second-guessing moral quandaries ICly.
I think that's all I had to contribute...if I think of more, I'll add a subcomment!
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takes your frappuccino