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takamagahara2017-08-13 09:22 pm
State of the Game
- Overhaul FAQ page and incorporate comments into main FAQ area
- Combine Monthly Announcement with Event Announcement
- We've made some background coding changes to the God/Shinki spreadsheets to streamline list maintenance -- from now on if you have an update for god/shinki pairings, you only need to comment once on EITHER the god or shinki info post, not on both. In the near future, we will have all three sheets (God Info, Shinki Info, and God/Shinki pairings) linked off of one page where those updates will happen.
- Look forward to some plot developments over the next few months!
How do you prefer to interact with game metaplot?
Through monthly events
30 (66.7%)
Through missions or prayers
10 (22.2%)
Through independent investigation by characters
5 (11.1%)
What kind of event do you enjoy the most or want to see more of? Pick your favorite one or two.
Events involving action or combat (like the Zombie Parade)
19 (42.2%)
Events involving celebrating festivals or interacting with the "supernatural side" of earthly festivals (like the Tanabata and Obon events)
18 (40.0%)
Events involving a change to characters' everyday environment (like the Mischievous Spirits event)
24 (53.3%)
Events involving characters investigating a mystery (like the high school demon event)
10 (22.2%)
Events involving metaplot development (such as the worldwide temple appearances & Amaterasu's temple burning down)
34 (75.6%)
Other - explain in comment
0 (0.0%)
What parts of the world/setting/mechanics would you most like more information on?
How much detail do you prefer to have in setting information, from 1 (most detailed) to 5 (just the basics)?
1: There's no such thing as tl;dr - I want an official answer for everything.
7 (15.6%)
2: When in question: more details.
20 (44.4%)
3: I want lots of detail for setting elements that come up frequently, but I don't want details on everything.
15 (33.3%)
4: When in question: fewer details.
1 (2.2%)
5: I just want the most important information.
2 (4.4%)
What long-term goal are you most interested in pursuing for your character?
Character development or CR development (social interactions, memory regains, etc)
28 (62.2%)
Investigating metaplot and uncovering new information
12 (26.7%)
God of Fortune or Hafuri status
5 (11.1%)
Other - explain in comment
0 (0.0%)
How would you describe your characters' current opinion of Heavenly authority (Amaterasu, Suijin, Fuujin, Raijin)? This is IC opinion: there's no wrong answer!
Trusts and wants to support them
10 (22.2%)
Doesn't consider them hostile but doesn't trust them
30 (66.7%)
Considers them hostile, to be avoided or deceived
1 (2.2%)
Wants them to be overthrown
1 (2.2%)
Other - explain in comment
3 (6.7%)
If there's anything else you'd like to see going forward, either on the OOC or IC side, please comment and let us know!
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Leo doesn't consider Amateratsu hostile and would like to help her. He doesn't trust the others, however, and honestly expects one of them to be behind everything. He doesn't think most of them deserve to be gods, though, as they refuse to acknowledge the humanity of the people they're bringing in and expect everyone to obey them simply because that's how it's always been.
Fushimi, on the other hand, thinks they're a pack of morons and incompetent fools who are a danger to themselves and the rest of the world and should probably be overthrown and replaced with people who know what the hell they're doing.
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Maps! I know that a full map of the Far Shore probably isn’t feasible (the game’s been going on for so long and people have their own ideas about where everything is by now), but I’d love to get some better idea of what the place looks like. Is it all wilderness with scattered temples? Are there roads? Paved, unpaved? Cars? Horses? Are there any public buildings, other than the main meeting hall and the library? How big is the place? Are the distances static, or do things shift? Are abandoned temples common, and if so, are there any signs in them as to which gods used to live there? (Also does this mean that prior to the new arrivals, gods could vanish and not have their temples vanish too?) What’s required to establish a temple in the Near Shore? Are gods/shinki told how to do this when they arrive?
When new arrivals land, what do they experience their first 24 hours? What does the network device/phone look like? We know that shinki don’t get full when they eat, don’t shit, and don’t have heartbeats – are there any other oddities that somebody would notice (like, for instance, can shinki now run on telephone wires like in the show)? What specifically are they told about their powers, their current status as a dead person, about ayakashi, about blight? Can you link to the brochure here? What about what gods are told, about all these things and about their shinki’s deaths? There’s been a lot of information added to the FAQ over the past year and a half, both in the God/Shinki guides and in the FAQ itself that I really feel should be combined. It’s easy for information in the FAQ comments to be overlooked.
And one thing not about the FAQ, but related to general game housekeeping:
Plot summaries. I appreciate that there are mod update posts with events for the month! But I’d also really like it if players were encouraged to post summaries (or links) to their own activities for the month, for any events that other people might have been aware of. I’d really like to know if there’s a beach party planned, or if a couple shounen heroes got into a fight two days ago and wrecked part of the forest. We can’t all read every log and BBS post, so this is a good way to keep track of things your character would be aware of IC. This would also help add flavor to the setting (like, a new arrival might not know that Amaterasu’s temple is being rebuilt after burning down, or they might wonder why some of the gold-and-white shinki have those sword scars). Providing a weekly/monthly tagged plot summary post would allow new players to get an idea of what the Far Shore currently looks like.
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Most of the metaplot we've been given so far has been through monthly events, which I think is why it's the most popular answer for question #1. That said, the plot events we've had have never really felt very impactful, in my opinion. Looking back on events like the cherry blossom fire, Amaterasu's temple fire, the highschool demon and followup event, the worldwide temples, etc., all of these had very minor player input at best. Some of them didn't have any real player input besides characters choosing to investigate something about it independently, and the ones I can think of that did have player input involved were mostly just deciding who got to beat x boss or save y NPC at the end. So far it hasn't really felt like players can change the outcome of these events, we just kinda show up at the end and maybe get some info or favours from an NPC after. Even if the plot has a very interesting story to tell, it's pretty boring to end up railroaded if there's not much opportunity for real player influence.
That said, I feel like the mission system was implemented to fix this and certainly has the potential to do so, but in it's current state it doesn't quite work out. The mission system is basically a method to streamline the distribution of plot info/investigation and other in-game rewards (new powers/spells, enchanted items, soulless shinki, NPC favour, etc.). I ended up voting for the third option in the poll (independent investigation by characters), but with some small tweaks the mission system could basically be an easier way to do that anyway, so I think the game's metaplot could really benefit from working on the mission system some more.
The main problems that I think are preventing the mission system from really taking off are the follower/EXP requirements (which has been brought up before) and the lack of more plot-relevant or current options.
Regarding the follower/EXP requirements, I strongly believe these should be removed from most of the missions completely and only used for things that should be more heavily limited, such as private one-on-one interactions with major NPCs or the gaining of useful powers like shinki spells or enchanted objects. To give some perspective, I've been here for 15 months now and I'm only at 12k followers—17k if I include the 5k points total I've spent on regains. Even if I'd never spent any points I'd still be short of the 20k required for some of the missions despite consistently meeting AC for over a year. I know there are players here who tag quick and rack up points super fast, but with the game's low AC requirements and generally lax pace it doesn't make sense to me to consider this the standard.
Right now the only way for newer players to get involved with these high-cost missions is to team up with a player that does meet that requirement. I do think encouraging players to make groups for these missions is a good thing, but it would be better to require a certain number of participants in a mission so people could team up with anyone rather than just the limited number of characters who are over the prereq. That would also ensure that plot info gained is being distributed more evenly rather than being accumulated by those limited characters. The only requirement for metaplot missions should be knowledge that the plot thread exists to be pursued.
For the currently available missions, I'd really like to see more options to explore the metaplot threads we've been given. I know it's possible to have characters investigate on their own terms, but it just seems weird to me to have options exist in missions at the same time when it should really be one or the other, especially with the current system that has follower/EXP requirements. Like, if I wanted Add to independently investigate the masked Ayakashi, would I be barred from plot information because that also exists as a mission with no slots available and a prereq above my follower count?
Taking advantage of the mission system would make it much easier for the mods to keep track of where plot info is going and what characters are looking into, too, which is why I think it'd be such a great thing to put more emphasis on. Plot information could be introduced or hinted at it events, allowing characters to find out about something without being forced to get too heavily involved if it doesn't interest them. Afterwards, a mission could be introduced to the list for characters to investigate some aspect of that plot. Completing these missions should open up opportunities for more missions on the same plot, which should be open to any character that knows the relevant info rather than just those who completed the preceding mission.
There are also some missions that I feel shouldn't have a slot limit or deadline, namely "A mission for training" that I was surprised to notice had the original mission removed. It seems kinda weird to me that this should be limited at all since it's literally just a mission to show that your shinki character is studying a spell and putting work into it. Not really related to metaplot stuff, but I think anyone should be able to take a mission for spell-learning if they already have a spell to learn ICly or someone to teach them.
ANYWAY wow this is long I'm sorry I ramble so much. I could still go into more detail since I've been thinking about this way too much lately, or if anyone has any other thoughts on the topic. I'm basically just dumping my opinions here so they're out there rather than just in my head. The mission system is cool and I want to see it succeed and be something more useful ok.
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But apart from that, I agree on everything else. Especially with the prayer requirements. Maybe if they relied on a grand total of followers/exp rather than current total?
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I think changing the follower/EXP requirements to a total including points spent on regains and the like would also be a good move. The current system discourages spending points at all if you want to keep up with the higher-tier prayers/missions, which is kind of a bummer if you have goals for your character that require regains. Even if we remove/lower the requirements on plot missions the problem would still exist for prayers/other missions, and it should be easy to figure out what the follower/EXP totals are since everything is recorded on the regains page. It'd just be a matter of adding an extra column to the follower/EXP totals and putting in the points that've been spent by current characters.
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I understand the importance of having a regularly-scheduled time and place for new gods and shinki to both learn about the world and start to be trained on their powers. Having nearly the exact same prompts every month, however, limits how much involvement established characters can have - I imagine many people's characters have a small set of activities they'd be drawn to during the training, which can make it hard to come up with different things to do each time. While it's a good place to meet new people, then, it's not a very exciting one to tag unless the newbies are doing off the wall things.
Would it be possible to get different prompts for each section of the training log every month? Like, maybe one month all the refreshments provided are super spicy for some reason, and god training features a seminar on how to gain followers. Then next month, refreshments are a maid cafe (with PC staff), and focus is placed on figuring out how far away your shinki can get but still come when invoked. That would provide the basics for the newbies and keep the focus on them, but might also inspire more variety from the established cast.
...that got long. Thanks for reading and considering this!
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WHICH RELATEDLY LEADS TO...
The library! I know that a lot of spellbooks are in there, and while before, during the goblin librarian era, it was left up to the mods to RNG a character's chances of finding a particular book.... Now that PCs have stepped up to help clean the library up so that it's some semblance of organized, would that have changed? Would that mean the various books that people received during the "Dropped Books" segment from some months back would be more easily available? Do the PCs who are helping have more to do? Will it become a more PC run sort of thing?
As Chikusa is helping out there himself, I have a lot of questions, and it'd be good to have the library more solidified for what is possible with it!
He's also totally breaking down that magic-protected door once he learns the magic, don't test him