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jigokuooc2022-04-25 05:28 pm
jigokumods) wrote in jigokuooc2022-04-25 05:28 pm
how we doin?
MOD FEEDBACK POST!
As promised, we're posting a feedback post to gather info on how our players are doing with the game thus far! We figure two months is enough time for everyone to have a feel for things, though obviously we're all still interested in growth and improvement!
For an idea of the kind of things we'd like feedback on;Story, events, and how the plot has been handled. Structure, when events, tdm, and substories are posted. Posting flow and the like. Rewards, AC, and housekeeping stuff Player ideas for substories or events!
You are by no means required to offer feedback, of course, and compliments are appreciated as well, either way, we're open to ideas on how to polish things!
AS A REMINDER this is a normal AC month, so if you haven't done your AC yet, please do so!. We will not be posting any warning posts or anything of that sort, so please be sure to get it in before the end of the month!
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I've been really enjoying my time in the game. One thing that has been making the plot so incredibly engaging to me is the way you guys do not shy away from giving it out bit by bit and allowing for surprises.
I feel like a lot of games have moved to a format of a single plotline having one plotting post that outlines every step of the way ahead of time, and while there are good reasons for that as well, I've been loving the change-up.
The Night Parade catastrophe felt so fresh and urgent and fun for me because we had the chance to thread lead-ins for the event without knowing what was coming either ICly or OOCly. It's been great to have my character react to plot beats as they come and to then have new developments cast those threads in a different light again... The way everything is reframed again and again as the plot moves along rocks. Thank you so much!
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2. That said, I'm wondering if there's a compromise that can be made re: the real-time aspect so players can plan a little to pace ourselves. I don't think we need the details of the whole plot for the month outlined right from the start, but maybe an idea at the start of when mod-posted plot things will go up and what scale the individual things will be? Something like--
APRIL START
- April event (large, general)
A WEEK INTO APRIL
- faction leader announcements (small, faction-specific)
HALFWAY THROUGH APRIL
- faction leader followup (small, faction-specific)
- inter-faction engagement (medium, general)
APR 23 TDM
- April followup events (large, general)
--as a rough example? Not something that forces mods to get all the dates on the calendar in advance since you guys have mentioned you need some scheduling flex to coordinate this stuff, and not something that spoils players in advance (especially since it seems like we're at least somewhat affecting plot outcomes in real time?), but just enough that players know to go, all right, now I know to go only x amount of crazy in the first big April post if I want to have the energy to participate in the later stuff.
3. I know this makes more work for you guys, but is it possible to just label headers for the individual things in the event/TDM posts as something like...PLOT EVENT, SUBSTORY, and GEN so it's easier to figure out what's applicable for rewards and what points they're worth? I know I've had trouble calculating that through March/April in a few different ways, which is a shame because I really, really like the rewards system and how it encourages higher participation and activity.
4. For player substory/event ideas, it might be fun to have a general screened submission post we can comment to any time, so mods have a rolling general pool of things to pick from!
I hope these are useful suggestions! I'm having a good time here regardless ଘ(੭´꒳`)°* ੈ‧₊˚
+1
Also, the labelling on the posts for the rewards and the screened submission post would be cool too! Mostly because I'm a dummy so taking the guesswork out of AC/rewards stuff is always good for me lmao.
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That being said, this IS a good idea and we're going to talk it over as a team.
Also, with regards to labeling, that was our bad, and why we're counting anything to do with the Night Parade and the assassination, including all fallout thereof, for 2 points, since we did not label things. We made certain to label things in this TDM to make sure people knew what was going to be worth the double points.
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Perhaps you'll include the labels for OOC plotting posts as well? That way, players can always remind themselves while doing OOC plotting (just scroll up and read!).
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I have been having so much fun in this game so far! I have really enjoyed the plot and all the surprises and I am especially enjoying how easy it is to feel engaged and actually like... contributing to things. I'm usually a pretty background, quiet type of player so this character has been a lot in a setting/story like this but I have only praise for the experience. I really like how everyone has to put work in and dig around and find the information and share it and I love how rewarding that has felt because y'all already know how many questions I ask lmao...
I'm just a fan of worldbuilding and will always enjoy more details and more nuggets of lore when they get dropped so I am looking forward to seeing what developments are revealed in the future!
The pacing has been great and that's coming from a chronically slow tagger and I felt like I had plenty of time to explore most of what I was hoping to touch on between the next thing popping up without feeling like there was so much happening that I was missing something somewhere. I really like the variety of angles to choose from to follow and how much the handling of the plot encourages collaboration OOCly and ICly.
Keep up the excellent work I'm very excited!
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That being said, we are also extremely grateful we have players willing to grab the ball and run with it. Y'all are fantastic.
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The active week-by-week plot developments have been a blast, and the different forms of events and subplots mixed in with various mini-faction-based events have kept everything fast-paced and exciting. I especially like that it feels like you can pick and choose what parts you can participate in while still not feeling left out if you skip over something. And the overall encouragement of player involvement and seeing them have active results within the plot of the game has been a blast.
I do agree with Wei Wuxian's player on some things, though. I think stating in each event whether something would count as PLOT EVENT, SUBSTORY, and GEN will make it easier for players to sort out which threads could be appropriately submitted for rewards without too much confusion. I also think that perhaps there could be a timeline with the monthly overviews of the plotting posts. I don't believe details of the game's happenings need to be explained so much as just a general timeline of the overall monthly events may help with plotting between the players.
For example, my admittedly overenthusiastic mini-event post a few weeks back mainly was because I had no idea of the extent of the underground closures and couldn't find information about it anywhere in the event post or any of OOC posts. So when I saw active network posts with the game's OCs asking to start working on the underground, I took that as a signal that the sewers were now open for some fun. Perhaps if we have a general play-by-play of significant events, available locations, and what days they may become available (whether in the form of an event calendar or even perhaps just an OOC explanation at the end of network and event posts), it will help ease the communication barrier-forming on some fronts?
Also, a big +1 for a player plot submission post to make communication easier for any significant player-run events. It would help to have a place to contact the mods with such specific ideas before any major posts are made. That way, we can ensure it doesn't interfere with the game's central plot, especially since so much of the game is open to player interpretation.
Thank you guys so much for everything you've been doing, and I look forward to what's to come!
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My one note off the top of my head that hasn't been covered yet would be that having some way to passively track a plot point a character wants to keep engaged with that might change over time would be really, really helpful. This has actually come up in a couple of ways for me, but the easiest example is Lan Wangji's talking to ghosts and spirits -- he was encouraged ICly by the Daitengu to go get ghost gossip, he would ICly be inclined to very active about trying to communicate with the dead in general since it's his job back home, and the spiritual environment of the city has been changing day by day, so I've had reason to want to keep checking back on it! But as a player I feel like there's only so many times I can ask "okay but are there ghosts we can get commentary from now, in this specific situation though?" without starting to get annoying/waste everyone's time. I can also foresee a future when I'll be gone for a week and come back without realizing that that was when the brief got updated... it's always a bit feels bad when your character would ICly be on the ball of something and you aren't raising your hand at the right times OOC to know when opportunity knocks.
(And then if I ever don't ask and assume "he'll be trying as usual but as usual it'll go nowhere," it will be the one time there are ghosts, I just know it.)
I don't know what the best way to address this would be, since I doubt you want to go "WINK WINK ASK IN THREE DAYS" or otherwise be super leading about potential plot directions to follow lol. Maybe a post where we can leave toplevels of "these are issues my character is going to ICly keep coming back to, please give us a heads up if they change"? I'm a bit fried tonight so I welcome people having brighter ideas than this for handling the issue if it's something others see as a nice-to-have.
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Personally, I have mixed feelings on how the plot info was dispensed this month. From the perspective of a former mod, I think it's smart to wait for players to come to you for what they need for their threads rather than to put effort into providing info they might not actually use. From the perspective of a player in the game, I found keeping up with the plot reveals in the player questions to be a little distracting from threading. It also gave me the impression that the plot info overall was disorganized and incomplete which put me off of participating in it until after the dust had settled. While I don't mind hanging back until everything's smoothed over and fallen into place, I do think that it's important to decide on what the full scope of the event will be in advance, communicate it in the plot post, and stick to it. This also might help prevent some potential burnout on the mod side of things, too.
Going ahead, I also think it's important to include impending faction orders with the plot event post or the monthly outline/overview that others have mentioned. Plotwise, it's perfectly sensible for Tenkohime and Toraguma to quickly go into a turf war but in terms of logistics, I felt like it was a bit too much plot development on top of an event that already had a lot going on in it. I felt like that would have been easier to plan for if had been mentioned on the plot post so players could pace themselves accordingly.
All that said, I am having fun here and as others have mentioned, I like the worldbuilding and lore. Marking the prompts as plot relevant is a good idea to help clear up the confusion. Also on the note of the AC/Rewards, I think that the mod team should take some time when they can to outline the rank/influence system in a way that clearly communicates iC and OOC expectations so players know what they're spending their points for if they choose to go that route.
Thank you guys for the work and creativity you're putting in! It's very much appreciated and I'm looking forward to seeing how the game continues to develop.
adding onto this!
- Story/Events: I liked the structure of the initial event post. There was a variety of things to do, the flow of events leading up to the chaos of the assassination was great. I really liked the personalized engagement that the sumo matches, the fortunes, and the Tamamo partner cards offered as well as how the rewards are handled. The personal touches catered to each character's efforts is very lovely and makes it feel they have a personal impact on the setting. I also like that we're able to give pertinent info that might logically impact a reward. I do like how responsive and open to player ideas that the mod team is and that's something I definitely want to encourage. I just think that approaching it with a bit more organization is needed to avoid the problem of there being too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. What I mean by scope of an event isn't the amount of details but more like clearly communicating to the playerbase what their options of interacting with the given content is that way things don't become too crowded and hectic. For example, I think clearer directions for players to follow with regard to things their characters can do would cut down on the necessity of them asking a bunch of specific questions that wind up sending the plot scattering and spiralling off into different directions and becoming overwhelming to keep track of.
- Plot/Substories: I think that the turf war might have been less overwhelming on top of such a plot heavy event if it had been implemented into substories next month instead. Having the faction orders be to prepare for the turf war would've given players and characters a little more breathing room this month, I think, and it would give a convenient plot thread to weave through the substory month (like the plot-focused substory thread that was initially put up after the game's opening) to lead back into the next event month. I think this might even things out into a more relaxed pace while keeping the game's plot moving forward.
- Rewards/AC: I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been brought up. My only additional suggestion here is giving more context for Tenkohime's cash bonuses that way it's easier for players to understand how much money characters are getting and what they're able to do with it in the setting. Just a rough estimate of how much yen they're getting compared to how much things cost in the setting would help, I think.
- Housekeeping: I remember bringing up a worldbuilding submission list on the FAQ for players to submit the locations they create and I still think this would be immensely helpful for facilitating CR. It'd also be helpful for incoming players to have a list of specific locations they can send their characters to so they can start more easily.
- Structure: I also think that a regular CR meme posted to the OOC comm would be helpful for players who aren't on Plurk or on Discord to plot. This would also give players an opportunity to clarify whether they're more focused on plot development or character development and make it a little easier for them to connect with one another.
I also wanted to link you this resource. Overall, I think you guys are doing a good job but I think the admin guides here have some really helpful, sound advice that might help the game run more smoothly in the future. (There's also some character type guides that I think might help with the NPCs and plotting as well.) It's up to you whether you want to use it and no hard feelings if you don't! I just wanted to pass it along since it's helped me in the past and it seems like not many folks in the community are aware of it.
Anyway, I hope this helps you out! Like I said, I'm enjoying the game and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. :)
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One suggestion just for organizational purposes I have, especially if players will be posting logs that will count for points, is to maybe have a tag like !event so that we can easily go through which logs counted for points later down the line. I think this will come as the game gets older bc it's still brand new, but I would also love more details about daily life in the world itself down the line -- just things like availability of technology (is the internet still a thing here?) or other unique things that we could play around with. Thanks for all your hard work! I look forward to playing here for a good long time.
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Rewards and Capping Power Scaling: I'll preface this one: This is something that might be best left up to individual player preferences and dictated purely by the playerbase. Like a lot of stuff in RP, maybe I'm overthinking this as a system and players just need to be cool with self regulating.
I feel like before the game gets too far along, it might be wise to consider a Cap/Limit on how many powers a single character can amass. It's really a shame when the struggle inherent to a setting is almost entirely placed on new characters, while older characters are lavished with earned bonuses. Honestly, I love the depowered starting state of the game! I also love getting some powers back and feeling rewarded for playing!
My concern is that, as the months go on, older users might start to drastically "out scale" new people coming in. That feels like it could cause some friction with new/old players over time. Nobody wants new players to feel like they're playing catch up/can't get involved because older players have earned all the influence.
I find the current cost of reward upgrades very fair and rewarding. The system as it is is enough of a challenge that it doesn't feel too easy, but also doesn't turn threading into something to grind. I don't really see anybody rushing to get every possible power their character can have, which I think speaks well to the attitude of this playerbase. The Faction Rank Up is also super tempting to go for and a great incentive to not *always* go for straight up power rewards.
All that said, maybe if there was an upper limit on straight power regains. The game might be able to long-term retain it's current (and what I find delightful!!) scrappiness, where everybody needs to be more creative because there's very clear limitations present. Not saying power gains are bad in any way (I've already grabbed two for Ydris, after all!), just that they might creep out of hand as the game continues and people keep adding on and on. Maybe something like a limit of five major upgrades and then you can swap out powers, like they're equip slots. Idk, maybe that's getting a bit too "gamified", but it came to my mind as an option mods might want to chew over. The game is still in an early stage, so gauging how things will evolve is definitely a tricky prospect!
Plot Questions: Admittedly, this is an element of the game I find very frustrating. Main plot might just not be my thing, it seems like others are really enjoy it so far!
Thinking constructively, I'm wondering if something can be done to clarify what plot avenues have/have not been exhausted? If discovery is intended as a core interaction point, maybe there is a way that the plot prompts could better highlight what should be the main focus of questions/IC pursuit?
With the initial assassination plot, it felt like questions often led to dead ends or immediately ran up against plot contrivances to keep players away from discovering too much too quickly (ex. no talking to the deceased, very little investigating allowed of the body, the underground is immediately blocked off...) I'm the kind of player that finds it really difficult to intuit when more questions could be useful versus just more busywork for the Mods. For the plot so far, I've mostly been left with an annoyed, indecisive feeling over if more questions need to be asked or if the well has run dry already. Nobody wants to feel like they are just one "correct" question away from making a break through.
I've inevitably talked myself out of further questioning over plot, since I absolutely hate to feel like I'm engaging in "That Guy who wants to WIN" rp behavior by trying to solve or fix a plot that isn't *meant* to be solved or fixed.
I'm not sure what could help this disconnected feeling of wanting to be a respectful player who isn't overstepping and wanting to make discoveries/engage with the main plot. The overall feeling the plot gives me at present, which is heavily influence by being a Sutoku Alliance member, is "I can't know what is going on yet, so what I'm doing won't make a difference here, so I'll just wait until the next reveal". Basically, I'm anticipating that the plot will be more like a prewritten script of events than something I'm actually supposed to have my character interact with or try to influence directly. I can't actually tell if that's how the plot is intended to be or if that's just the *impression* I'm getting, because I already feel discouraged and unsure on how to interact with the plot on it's own terms.
If this kind of personal experience feedback isn't useful to mods, I totally get that! Not everybody can be catered to/vibe with every element of a game. Jigoku-cho has a LOT to enjoy, even if the plot isn't something that speaks to a player/works for their character. I feel like I evidence this pretty well by easily finding avenues of play while this current plot isn't working for me personally. The fact that the plot ICly makes Ydris so angry is it's own kind of enjoyable conflict that I am absolutely having fun with!
The game is so far a blast, the players are amazing, the mods are responsive, and I feel very enthusiastic about being here despite some all-told minor discontent. I can definitely only speak for myself and I respect the judgement of moderation if such feedback is boiled down to being just one player's opinion.
Thank you very much for being open to what players have to say! It's great to see Mods that are open to player feedback. Your effort is clear and SO appreciated!
+1
I think Pine's suggestion of 5 slots seems good! Maybe you can swap them once a month by taking a soak in the Sanzu, idk. To give players something else to do with their points, possibly you could also make item regains not just be limited to items from home- so players could give their characters a gachapon machine or a similar novelty while continuing to play their characters as financially struggling (something the community enjoys, is my impression?). These are mostly suggestions though, and you're free to implement something else instead or not at all.
My other comments will come in a separate post... if I get around to it... but overall I appreciate the mod team's efforts so far and I'm optimistic that the experience will get better as we all figure out a good way of doing things.
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basically, there's always going to be a lot of just regular threads, and as much as i love doing them it always feels a little bit like a waste since they don't technically "contribute" to any gains. i'm also worried it might eventually incentivize people to only tag during events or other plot-related things, which--while definitely great for making sure everyone gets a piece of the pie, so to speak--isn't always super conducive to building character relations and development.
to that end, i think a decent compromise would be to make regular/non-plot-related threads worth half a point; that way you're still rewarded more for actually engaging with the plot, but you'd need to amass more of them. if you're worried it'll still upset the balance of the game with regards to rewards, you could make the length requirement longer than what's asked of for plot-related threads too, though i don't know how necessary that would actually be.
anyways, again, i've been having a really good time here! thank you so much for the game and for being willing to take into account everyone's feedback.