JUNE FEEDBACK POST.

[etrayamods]

Hello, Etrayans! We're now three months into the game! While Etraya was originally meant to be a smaller-scale game, we are very excited about the growth it has gone through, and all the players who have joined us! However, we've also noticed that some players may be struggling to engage with the game given the pacing. As we're a low/no AC game, with a massive boon of players who have joined us (and have been maxing out our ten players per app round limit over the last two application rounds), we wanted to get your feedback on the pacing of our mission logs, if we should be adding logs in between them, what you, the players, would like for us to add to the game to make it easier to engage with, and engage with between mission logs. This is a shared game, and we want to ensure our players are having fun and finding things to engage with! Please feel free to leave any feedback on this post; if there's feedback you agree with, feel free to +1 it! This post is unscreened, and comments are open. We're going to plan on putting one of these posts up every three months or so, to see where we're at! Thank you, Etraya Mods

Comments

[waytodie]

Hey, mods!

Just wanted to drop a line and say: You guys are awesome and I love the space you've created for us to play in! AC stresses me out sometimes and can really suck the fun out of a game for me when I have to do a bunch of math just to be sure I pass, so the way you guys have it set up is excellent, IMO! I love a permanent AC page that I can drop things on at any time tbh.

I think you've done an excellent job of building in plenty of hooks in events to play with as well. I like the missions for more meaty-plotty things, and I also like the mingles for CR-building!

That said, I did feel a bit overwhelmed when we had both in one month? So I think my only suggestion would be maybe do one bigger, plotty mission thing one month, and do a chiller, more CR-building/connecting thing (like the "mandatory" coffee dates!) that's more optional another. In a sort of alternating schedule, rather than ending up feeling almost like we have 2 events in a month. That might not work with how your overall bigger/meta plot is worked out, but my 2 cents~

Other than that lil preference, I just think you guys are excellent at letting players influence things. The winners of the maze "choosing" the next event was a really cool touch! I LOVE seeing stuff like that, more of it in the future would be super fun!

~Kayla

[stresstokens]

First off -- I'm really enjoying the game! I've really loved the past two events which I thought were creative and a lot of fun with lots to engage with, and I think y'all have attracted some really terrific writers. I'm a fan of event-heavy games, so it's really been my cup of tea. I do agree with the other commenter who mentioned staggering lighter and heavier events. I also think that the events lasting as long as they do is nice because there's less pressure to get to them day one, but having one event log encompass most of the month might be discouraging folks from doing their own thing throughout the month -- maybe that sort of thing could be scattered too?

I'm not totally sure how to accomplish this, but something that could encourage smaller logs/more activity from the players outside of the big event logs are things that can foster more of an idea of what people's everyday lifestyles are like, and how they might intersect. Maybe establishing a place where characters have to attend, like a training arena or attending lessons or something that provides a hook and some sort of routine could help with that? Just some food for thought. Thanks for all your hard work!

[agoddessonce]

I've had a lot of fun with the game and have been really pleasantly surprised that it got as big as it did, so suddenly!

I think it'd be nice to have some kind of setting in the game that would encourage more blind or group interactions maybe (since people don't really gather in any single place, I don't think), with a particular purpose. idk like... maybe making more points or investigating something about the points, a place to exchange their points or something...

I'm guilty of requesting a building that might not really be conducive to that (the x-mansion lol) and I know characters are going to be naturally suspicious and cautious, so there has to be some kind of draw to make people want to gather there and not stay in the places they got from their own world in between events! the scavenger hunt was a fun idea, maybe something like that but with a result or prize to share when you find things or do certain tasks? idk if I'm making sense 🥲

also, when things are less hectic for me, I'd like to run a small mingle log to open the X-Mansion pool for a summer open-to-everyone mingle haha. if that's ok!! ❤️

[accelerate]

The mod team has been so warm and encouraging, and I've really enjoyed my first month in game!

re: PCs choosing missions—
I agree with Kayla re: it being cool that characters got to choose the next mission. I think this would be a great mechanic to include if the mods feel it's appropriate and something that they can support. I'd love to see more of that as I think it could have some fun IC consequences if it becomes ICly known that PCs are choosing the missions, and it's not just Aurora pulling the strings.

re: events—
Is it possible to break missions up over two or so months? (I say "or so" because I imagine some mission ideas could span three.) I'm unsure how feasible it is, so I'm spitballing here. Using the labyrinth as an example, we could've split it up over two months, with the first month being about entering and the second month being its exit.

Splitting missions up could allow for more player involvement/impact and make the missions feel like they have a bigger footprint. At the moment, they feel like they exist in their own bubble and it currently lacks a ripple effect to play with. (For example, what if Character A did something that destroyed a portion of the labyrinth and it couldn't regenerate itself? That would be something a lot of us could play with in the second month and prove to be a further obstacle.) I play a character who would accidentally and intentionally press the button that says "Do not press" and I know I'd love that to have a wider consequence beyond it existing between my thread partner and me. (I appreciated knowing Beebo could destroy buildings in Etraya for the plushie event. I'd love to see more opportunities for ripple effects!)

re: IC "downtime"—
I know I've brought in a player location that I haven't had capacity to do much with, so I think it'd be great if we could have some downtime to be able to explore Etraya and let characters interact without the high stakes of missions being involved. (It might also allow for player plots and player-driven activities. I know I'd love to run a few plots once I'm more settled!)

I think with the current pace of the game, allowing for some breathing room will let the missions feel less like they're being stacked with us having to "rush" through threads or feeling like we're "late" to logs, and I think it'd let more opportunities for interaction and impact to occur.

Others have covered this eloquently, so I won't go into detail about my thoughts.

re: IC knowledge re: missions—
I'd also like to say that I think alternating between mission and mingle every month can also be switched up so PCs don't grow accustomed to "Oh, it's the second month, it's mission time!" if appropriate/suitable for the mods' calendar.

*

I hope some of this is helpful. Thanks for giving us an opportunity to provide some feedback! ♥

[mostdangerousbird]

I'm not new but I'm newly back from a multi-week absence, and I'm working at catching back up. I just want to echo that it does feel a bit daunting to hit the ground running when you're a few weeks late to the plot, and the solution might not be mod-based but player-based. Just a few more posts a month would do a lot to give space for everyone to feel like there's something fresh to tag into rather than stress about tagging into something after everyone's already worked out what they're doing - it does help.

To that end, I'll be doing a post this weekend. :) No idea what it is, of course.