Event HMD | Powerdown & Malicant Plot | June 16th - July 13th

[ironwood]

As before, and for anyone who may have missed it, at the end of every mod-run event in Tu Shanshu, we try to toss up an open dialogue post so that the events can be discussed. This is mostly to see if everybody's as happy as possible with the direction the game is going, whether or not the events could be considered a hit or a miss, that sort of thing.

This particular HMD covers the Meta Power Reduction & Malicant joint event.

What are we looking for?
Feedback of all sorts! Did you like what happened? Did the event run too fast, or too slow? Were you able to feel like your character contributed or made a impact on the event? Would you like to make more of a difference? Has there been too much 'downtime' for the characters, do you have any suggestions to make about future events, etc etc? Did the event run long enough for you? Would you like to see more NPC-driven events, or less? Did you feel that there was enough for combatants and non-combatants alike to participate in?

OBVIOUSLY if you have more comments, questions or concerns than those listed above you can add those as well! This is pretty much just a general list.

Do we already have a focus?
In part, yes. We've identified the following issues with the event and would love to foster discussion on these points:

> Team Structure
There were some players that had multiple characters assigned to a team and others that volunteered and did not make the final teams. This was an oversight on Alex's part and she apologises! That said, do you have any suggestions on how we could avoid such an oversight in the future? Should we limit sign-ups to one character per player?

> Multiple Options
Each team was asked to pick only one option per clue set regardless of their characters' proclivities towards exploring multiple options. This was to reduce administrative workload and tie-in with the reduction of powers. Do you have any suggestions as to how we could make taking multiple options feasible for any future event structured in this way?

Note: Alex here! One option considered and taken off the table would be preparing all of the possible branches off the options and clues before the event starts. This is because I found creating the sets during the event really allowed me to adapt the scenarios to suit the actions of each team in a really organic fashion. In summary, it let the characters further influence the event rather than being stuck on rails (see: swizard). I'd really prefer to find a solution that allowed mid-event creation of the clues without sacrificing the multiple options, tbqh.

> Outcomes
The pre-event survey concluded that players were okay with getting dead-ends for their characters actions and so this was included. Two teams had a major impact on the health of the turtle and a variety had other impacts that lessened Malicant's grip on Keeliai. Do you think we should have included more largescale impacts? Less? More impacts in general? More complete dead ends?

We'd like to emphasize that any and all feedback is welcomed and encouraged! These are merely some areas that we've identified as concerns from our standpoint and would like to hear your thoughts on.

Do we have a form?
Yes, in fact! This time, we're offering a quick text form to help provide some structure to the feedback received. This form addresses some of the concerns we noted on a mod level and tries to give as much freedom as possible to anyone that chooses to use it. Please note that you do NOT have to use this form! It's provided as an option only. :3

<b>Did you have characters involved? Via teams or the independent investigations?</b> (Especially optional for anon feedback; we respect your right to remain anon.) <b>What did you like about this event?</b> <b>What didn't work out so hot?</b> <b>What would you like to see in the future?</b> <b>Do you have feedback specific to the team portion of the event?</b> <b>Do you have feedback specific to the independent investigations portion of the event?</b> <b>Would you like to share any other thoughts, suggestions, or opinions about the event or game?</b>

Please remember, ANON IS ON for this and IP LOGGING IS OFF so if you have anything you'd like to say but maybe you're more comfortable putting it forth anon that is a-okay! You can also feel free to PM us at this journal, or to toss a private plurk at either of the mod accounts (those being vonnerdyce or reignsdown) if that suits your fancy. Any and all comments are welcome, and though participation in this meme isn't required it's definitely encouraged if you're up for it.

Thanks again, guys, and happy turtling!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Power Reduction -

That may have been the intention but it didn't quite work. Using Rockslide for an example, he requires super strength to move a massive rock body. Cutting him off from the powers made him effectively a garden statue. There was also the mental and mood incapacitation both IC and OOC. As has been stated by myself and others, we joined a game advertising no power loss and no nerfing. Having a multi-week powerloss event with no opt out was a severe blow to motivation. The fact that there's still a cap is only helping to eat away at the motivation. It makes it feel less like the players have impacted the plot that way.

Outcomes-

The 'medium' impacts were not sufficient, no. Especially because there really isn't any visible IC or OOC impact. Just a blurb and nothing really changed. A general impression has been given that players can't even follow up on any of the loose plot threads until whenever the next metaplot event is so it makes them matter less. A more sufficient spread would have been
GOOD: 8
MEDIUM: 5
BAD: 2
Bad ends being available doesn't mean they should be so frequent.

NPCs-

I really didn't see there being a point to Evandau and Eshai being sitting ducks. Big deal, they still have a castle and an army and were pretty untouchable by any players that may have wanted to try anything against them. The enemies having access to that just makes it a little more unfair and makes it seem both OOCly and ICly pointless to have the characters brought in if they get nerfed out just as easily as everyone else.

This is immediately raising a concern. The PSD being used again? Are they being whisked away again afterwards? I really hope that doesn't mean we're getting another power loss or some other major negative thing dropped on our heads. I also don't see how some characters having powers back would be a deus ex machina. The machines were limited and it would have helped to balance out the general unfair feeling that the enemy being fully powered when everyone was supposed to be down to 0.

Theme -

It may have been the intent but it wasn't something advertised. Things are getting a bit too dark. As was mentioned above, the darker themes and events are becoming a bit too oppressive. It lends towards the feeling that players and characters can't really have much effect on things. I appreciate the bits of effect we've been able to have which are a welcome change from what I'm used to from other games but I came into a more light hearted and 'fun' game that's dragging more towards 'grim and gritty'. It's like what I mentioned in my initial comments, as if the game suddenly started shifting towards a smut-based theme or something like that. I'd also like to note, it's very unlikely that the majority of people went digging through other characters' threads in the Emperor's audience. Especially not if those threads happened before someone joined. Also, I don't really think IC threads are the best place to put the OOC nature of a metaplot without some companion pieces in the OOC.

Mod Tone-

It does better explain your point of view but it doesn't really address the concern.

[ironwood]

Power Reduction
There appears to be a misunderstanding here then, because it was clarified directly with Santo's player that he would not be rendered inoperable as a result of the power reduction. This discussion occurred in a plurk on the Victor player's timeline and the relevant passage was:

The Quagganator:
He would retain sufficient strength to move his body

PIMPSLIDE:
So that's okay even if it's still above baseline human?

The Quagganator:
technically, yes; though that extra strength would be dedicated to moving his body. if he tried to move himself and say, a ten tonne truck, that wouldn't work so hot

As you can see, it was directly clarified that he could still move about with strength sufficient to operate, just not lift ten tonne trucks (et al).

Outcomes:
We'll definitely consider changing up the spread in the future based on this feedback. Meanwhile, we are going to be allowing some follow-up on the threads, but have asked players to hold off as a matter of giving the mods time to recharge on providing plot details. Between fifteen teams and a number of independent investigations, we exhausted a lot of our "queue" ideas for things that characters could do. Once we've recharged a bit, we'll be able to provide details about follow-ups.

NPCs:
The intent was to allow characters with the perogative access to these NPCs if they desired. No player expressed direct interest for the duration of the event. The option was, however, made. We will try to communicate this more clearly for future events.

The PSDs are likely to come into play during landfall events, where Tu Vishan's power has long been established as being insufficient to sustain powers on land. They could be redistributed to the characters for these events, which is why they were gathered up in the first place.

Theme:
We've received some additional feedback regarding updating the premise of the game to reflect the tonal change. This should, we hope, assist in elaborating the current state of the game to new players in greater detail than we currently have out there. Would this assist in addressing some of your concern for incoming members?

[angermanaging]

Re: theme, I had no idea the game was intended to go in a darker direction either. I know I don't spend as much time digging into previous audiences and events as much as I should, but this came as a bit of a surprise. Rewriting some of the profile intro should help that, I think?

I do have a general question-- how much further into horror is it intended to go? Basically, how dark is 'darker'? I wouldn't consider the Malicant event too much of a deviation from standard fantasy novel levels, but straight up horror is definitely not my bag and I'd like to know in advance.

[ironwood]

The game itself has horror elements, but that will never be the intended core of it. Tu Shanshu's theme is that of strife -- war has been referred to repeatedly and that's the theme we're currently planning to go with. We consider that to be a 'dark' theme, but not horror.

Hopefully that answers your question? Let us know if further information is needed.

[angermanaging]

Ah, okay, phew! I definitely understood while apping that there would be horror elements, but I've liked the extent to which they've been incorporated so far, wherein you leave most of the severity of the effect up to the players individually.

War is certainly a dark theme but not one that will impact every character the same way (uniformly negative / deconstructive) as a horror game would, so I'm relieved, lol. That's all I wanted to know!

[(Anonymous)]

Power Reduction -

But he still was inoperable for the remainder of the event. Player choice or not, it was the result of the power nerfing. Regardless, such a massive change for such an extended amount of time is something I really feel should have included an opt out for players that didn't want such a big change from the game they signed up for.

NPCs -

I believe no one asked because there didn't seem to be a point in doing so. It wasn't really made clear there was an option to do it and as I mentioned, they still had their palace and army which made it exceptionally pointless.

Will the PSDs be available at all outside that? Unless they are, it still comes off as 'all powerful NPCs take away things, haha players can't do anything!'.

Theme -

It would but it doesn't address that my concern was over current players and not incoming members.

[angermanaging]

I'm just going to jump in quickly here to clear up that I wasn't dissatisfied with the way the PSDs were implemented at all. As the player more or less directly responsible for their existence, I was actually thrilled to see that they would be used again later, and frankly don't see what the point to keeping them around would be past the event anyway given that the depowering event is over. There was a short cool down in which everyone regains their powers in stages, but there's not really a reason to use them after the threat left.

Having them show up later would be awesome and way more far-reaching in terms of players affecting plot relevant details than keeping them around while everyone has their powers, imo. Their original function failed (to return power to Tu Vishan) so outside from restoring characters' abilities, they don't have much use. The mods weren't intending to include them at all and more or less only did so because I pursued that line of investigation ICly.

idk, just my two cents here, but I wanted to make sure it was clear that I wasn't dissatisfied with it, myself.

[ironwood]

Power reduction:
Would you please clarify as to how he was inoperable? The character was specified as still being able to move, communicate, interact with and participate in the events that occurred. It was our understanding that the player chose to use the nerfing to the extent he did to facilitate a reason for a hiatus, which we had no issue with.

The game-wide power loss was not opt-out, because at its core Tu Shanshu is a plot driven game. Setting the plot up to affect some characters but not all negates the effect of the atmosphere we are attempting to convey. We apologize if this is inconvenient for you, and we understand and are taking into account that the event may have ran too long for some people's tastes and will be taking a closer look at any future power loss events, but in order to maintain the integrity of the game itself, wide-scale events are meant to affect the entirety of the game populace. We appreciate the investment players put into their characters and the game itself and regret that we can't in all cases both maintain the progression of the plot, and answer every concern.

Four weeks of power loss out of a planned run-time of roughly thirty months is a very small amount, and we do hope that anyone primarily interested in us as a non-nerfing game would be willing to work with us towards the plot and vision that everyone signed up for upon application to the game despite the roadbump it presented.

NPCS;
There are actually several plots in the works to allow characters to infiltrate the palace, and such things have also occurred in the past. It's our goal to be as open and flexible as possible when it comes to accommodating player plans as relative to our NPCs (ie: during the last landfall we made it abundantly clear that the Emperor could be kidnapped during her visit to Atamsichar, in case anyone wanted that as an available option, and we've consistently said throughout the game's play time that none of the NPCs are infallible and/or indestructible).

But unfortunately, as we are equally fallible, it's very difficult to think up and detail every possible thing or angle that players might want to try or go forward with, which is why we very strongly encourage the use of our plot page. In a game of this size and speed, we effectively need people to come to us with the ideas rather than us coming up with every available contingency, and we have had success in the past creating fun, interactive things for characters to do outside of the direct scope of our influence.

The PSDs will be held in reserve for usage as dictated by plot, but if, say, a character wanted to orchestrate their theft, we'd definitely be willing to organize that, which I believe might help to mitigate the 'haha players can't do anything!' aspect of your concern.

Theme:
The theme of the game has always been very clearly stated on our information page, that we are a plot-driven game with science fiction/horror/fantasy elements, that there are consequences for IC actions (on both an individual and a grander scale) and we have always made the knowledge that characters are here for a fight available, though perhaps, by your comments, not as clearly as we should have. If our current players are unhappy with the direction, we are willing and available to work with them to try and find a middle ground, but there are only so few ways to portray a possible war that don't unnecessarily make light of it or diminish the overall effect.