acatalepsy_ooc | GAME HMD #1

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game hmd.

Hi, everyone! After receiving feedback and constructive suggestions from our playerbase, we have decided to institute a regular Game HMD. This is intended to give the modteam feedback about the game. We also plan on posting a Game HMD at the end of every world jump, to gain specific feedback about the world itself.

That doesn’t mean your criticism has to be focused on the world jump! If you see something about Acatalepsy that needs improvement that doesn’t necessarily have to do with our world jump, you can leave it here.

Please note, this is not the space to leave private player complaints -- comments here are going to be screened temporarily and will be made public to the entirety of the game. If you have a complaint that you want to remain private with the modteam, please visit our mod contact. Those comments remain screened permanently and will remain private.

Here are a few points the modteam would really love feedback on! This is not an exhaustive list, so if we don't mention it here and you want to talk to us about it, please do!

(1) Game Mechanics: We know the group mechanic in the very beginning of Akvos was not a popular mechanic. Our intention was to prevent the regularity of "oh no, we arrived in a new world again!" and to encourage new CR among different people. This had the opposite effect for a lot of people, and had a jarring start to Acatalepsy with our new players.

However, we would really love suggestions on the mechanics themselves -- such as the world interactions, the plotting posts, the structure of the logs, etc. Additionally, if you have any suggestions for "fun mechanics" on the world jump logs, we would really love to hear that too!

Do you like logs for the worlds, or would you like network posts instead? We like to try new things, and while this new thing wasn't necessarily a success, we want to keep experimenting and making Acatalepsy a great game for some time to come.

(2) Player Interactions/Engagement: In a similar line with Game Mechanics, we would love to hear suggestions on how to better serve the playerbase in terms of interaction and engagement. What would make threading in Acatalepsy more engaging? What about the current game structure is exciting, or frustrating, to you? Do you find yourself being able to interact with the world jumps, or do you struggle with how to get involved?

(3) The World: What about Akvos did you like, or not like? What would you suggest we had done differently? Additionally, if you were present during El Minha (World #1) and Struxta (World #2), what did you like or not like about those worlds? What do you like or dislike about them in comparison to Akvos?

(4) Pacing: Our worlds last roughly six to eight weeks incorporating two bigger "events" in that time. Akvos ran a bit longer than that! How many events/logs per event is enough? Do you want more, or less?

(5) The Game Writ-Large: We have a lot of plans going into 2019 with the new mod-team, including a world directory and ensuring all the lists/setting pages are up to date! They are already really hard at work. What else would you like to see Acatalepsy incorporate? What are we missing? What would you like to see?

Again, this isn’t an exhaustive list! This is simply what Dai and Chelsea got together, thought about, and really wanted feedback on. If you know of anything else, please drop a line and let us know! We really want to hear from you. :)

Thanks again, and here's to the next World Jump!

- Acatamods.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi mods! I hope you are doing well this weekend. This is Robyn and I just had a couple of things I wanted to talk about re: pacing of this past event in comparison to the only other world hop I was in, Struxta. I hope I don't come off as unfair or too harsh but if I do at all I will gladly amend my statements! I don't want it to sound like I'm beating you all up at any point because I really honestly do love the game and all the cr I have. I largely think it's very well-organized and you all have been nothing but totally open and transparent re: feedback and utilization, which I appreciate having been in games where that's been an issue. That being said, here's my thoughts!

1) Character suitability: This is kind of a character specific issue so idk if it's something that is helpful necessarily, but as someone who plays a character that is unique in the sense of being pretty difficult to utilize in an underwater setting, the pacing was particularly hard for me to adjust to. I feel as if the underwater tunnel exploration prior to the world hop was great! And I would've loved to do it...but A2 was landlocked for the duration of that event. And then landlocked in Akvos for the most part. This wouldn't be a problem if we hadn't just had a full month or so of slower, SOL related activity, followed by the month prior to the big fallout/battle in Akvos where we were all split up, which by nature, was also kind of slow-paced and more informational/exploratory. As a result, to me it felt like a good two to three months of SOL simply because of my character's physical limitations, which made it much harder to engage in the setting. I'm not the sort of person that expects every event to be tailored to my character or even to be tailored to every character, and I'm capable of making my own fun so to speak, but it was just really frustrating to be pushed out of a lot of the more interesting parts of Akvos and the exploration parts simply because if those limitations. If I had any suggestion at all, I guess it would be to make the part one of world hops more tightly focused? Compared to Struxta, the open-world, do what you want aspect of Akvos combined with the overall lack of very concrete goals and the odd sort of bare bones of the setting made it feel incomplete and frustrating. I admittedly personally work better with concrete objectives, as does my character, so I'm fine with admitting this might've just been a me problem lol.

2) The split up! I don't have an issue with being split up in theory, but the timing of it was really weird and didn't do the world of Akvos any favors. It was also kind of a head scratcher that the CR meme went up right before it, so everyone made plans with new and existing CR only to have it kind of thrown out of whack by the randomized splitting up. My suggestion here is not to forgo randomized teams like this entirely, but to maybe plan them a little better. Part 2 would've been a good time to do it, or perhaps to have slotted the CR meme after the randomized split ups so people could've at least had clear plans with new cr. I know for a fact it threw off a lot of the newer players and may have contributed to the steady stream of newbie drops.

3) The pacing: I'm just gonna be blunt and say Akvos was way way too long imo, especially coupled with the flagging interest in it right from the get go. I greatly preferred the tighter, more streamlined pace of Struxta. I liked being able to sign up for teams with really clear and focused for the second half of Struxta as well. I also think that the world jump should've happened earlier, such as after the first round of new applicants, rather than the second.

I'm also a little thrown at the implementation of the King and Queen's whole beef. By the time we were asked to sign up for a side, the characters had spent a good two months with the Queen and her ilk, and so ICly there seemed like little reason to jump ship to the King. This is a little ambitious I realize, but it would've been great if the team split up implementation used at the beginning of Akvos, had instead perhaps been splitting us in groups between the Queen and the King. This would've helped a lot with giving real emotional investment in one or the other side and given the characters a bigger, more personal reason to choose one over the other. As it was I ended up feeling a little lost and emotionally disconnected from the plot as a whole. It didn't seem as if we were given enough information to care about either side. It also feels like there was honestly way too much going on with Akvos as a whole, with the King/Queen, the Princess, the two separate factions, the coins at the very beginning, the Rifts, etc...so it was difficult for me at least to focus on one or two things. I think this may have been in response to the SOL in the months prior? I'm not sure. Correct me if I'm wrong!

I hope this isn't a big angry ramble on my part because I don't intend it to be at all. The idea of an underwater world is really, really creative and I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in a game before. I loved the second part of the event and that Astoria's character-granted powers played a big part in them, as I play a character who again, is a dumb metal person and would not have learned of her powers on her own. I really loved the dream hopping aspects of the Rift as well. The above is just stuff I think might've improved it or future events.

Thank you for reading all this! I'm happy to clarify if anything I said was super confusing bc I feel like I rambled a lot lol.

Thank you for the comment! First and foremost, we are focus on character inclusivity. Our main priority is that every character can have fun in Acatalepsy, regardless of who they are or what their motivations may be. The fun part about Acatalepsy is that magic tends to govern all character action -- so while everyone was underwater, everyone could breathe, no one would short-circuit, etc. We apologize if your character felt landlocked and unable to participate due to the setting; we should have made it explicitly clear that all characters would be able to move through the water with minimal restrictions.

We agree, we should have timed the team mechanic better. Our goal was to foster new CR, not to prevent folks from tagging new things. We’re definitely going to consider timing when/if we use it again in the future. Thank you for explaining your specific experience with the mechanic.

The length of Akvos was decided based on mod availability and the holiday season. We agree that it ran a bit too long, and we’re going to stick to a shorter world jump cycle.

We are currently brainstorming with the new members of the modteam on ways to rework our NPC interactions and plots. Several suggestions have been brought up by our playerbase. We are going to propose several solutions down below, once we work through the nitty-gritty! Our worlds aren’t always meant to have a clear “yes or no” answer to them, and some of them are likely going to fail. However, we also don’t want players to feel as if they’re stuck with “one option” due to the writing of the plots.

Thank you especially for providing cross-examples between Struxta and Akvos! Hearing what worked in Struxta is helpful in deciding how to proceed in the future, and we deeply appreciate the work you put into this comment. You did not sound angry or upset whatsoever, and we appreciate the feedback. :)

Finally, we are going to be posting our suggested solutions in a subheading below -- please don’t take this solution as anything finalized! If you have further ideas, please let us know.

Edited 2019-01-20 04:14 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your response! I'll hang tight for proposed solutions and I look forward to the TDM/next world jump. If I can think of any other ideas or suggestions I'll be sure to let you all know.

Thanks again for being so receptive to feedback; it makes me really hopeful that whatever direction you all take the game in, it'll be great.

GAME HMD #1

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