(no subject)

[kyriakosmods]

Hello Kyriakos!

This is a mini-discussion post, much like the Cats one that we had recently — however, instead of Cats, we want to cover game pacing. We've received and heard many complaints about how fast the game is going, and we want to know what you think.

Specifically, what are your thoughts on game pacing? What are your thoughts on our current OOC days to IC day schedule? Is there something that could be done to help slow it down a little bit if you think it's too fast? Do games happen too often, so much that you can barely keep up with the memories and skills that your characters are receiving? Is there something else that you'd like to say about the pacing of the game that we may not have mentioned here? Let us know!

If there's anything that we could do to remedy this, we want to do it! So please let us know your opinions.

Comments

[menially]

my teeny tiny comments shall go here

I do think there's very little time between games right now, which makes any sort of fallout ridiculous + for teams that are winning constantly, we're plowing through multiple memories without much of a chance to play anything out with them.

I also think that, especially after a heavy game, trauma or not, iit wouldn't be out of hand to add one more OOC day to an IC day, just for the sake of giving characters time to breathe and muns to sort threads out before being tossed somewhere else the next IC day.

[turnaboutashes]

+1 this comment! Especially about time between games because I reeeeeally feel like we've been squeezing them together lately. I see some games on the calendar in the upcoming weeks that are scheduled only one day apart, too. One day between games isn't. . . really enough time for the winners to make shard posts and thread out their memories, so I'd really like it if we spread out games just a little bit more than that.

on that note, the introduction of the ooc no-games week is AWESOME thank you so much for implementing it, because I appreciate the break from games where people can thread out normal stuff and fallout ;w;/

[secretbooty]

Re: The last thing, that's why we've started putting no games weeks in place immediately after trauma games—but we could also say "yo slow it down a little" to go along with that so that people don't spend their no games week crunched for trauma fallout time.

Part of why I like having trauma games emailed to us is because I can toss in a no games week once I know when the game is going to happen, along with a bunch of other reasons.

[experiencepoints]

I definitely agree there's not enough time between games. But I don't think one more OOC day to IC day would solve the matter, since the problem is OOC time between the games, lengthening the IC time doesn't help things on that front. An extra OOC day to IC day would be nice for non-game-related slowdown, though, I would also like that.

Debs already covered the whole no games week bit though!

[velveteened]

+1 to all of this

though i wouldn't be against one more ooc day to ic just...being a thing in general and not just after heavy games

[barrette]

+1! requiring more time between games would really help with slowing the game's pace down.

[grandstanding]

+1 to this. There have been months where there have been two games nearly every week and it feels like a bit of a crush. It'd be nice to have more of a mix where there are periods with fewer games, though I don't know how this could be managed, since I know it's a matter of people scheduling things when they can run them.

[acemedium]

I wonder if having a system where the frequent winners like goatchampions occasionally receive something else as a reward other than memories might help? I find that some teams are more prone to winning than others, so even slowing down an OOC pace might not fix that inbalance.

[clocksandroses]

I'd like to see at least two, but preferably three OOC days between each game! My personal preference is to only have one game per week period, but I appreciate that Kyriakos has ALL OF THE STRENGTH OF A RAGING FIRE (and a mix of timezones)—one per week likely wouldn't work for most people.

I think I'd also like to see no games weeks just used as no games weeks :|a rather than always being used as a tool for trauma breathing space!

Aaaannnnnd finally I WILL ADMIT IT; I often feel like Kyr skips through time periods way too fast. I know there's no real way to regulate this, though, outside of tapping people when big jumps happen. :(a I do wonder if encouraging people to aim more towards four ooc days per one ic day could help, rather than shooting for three and sometimes ending up landing on two.

[experiencepoints]

I don't think two days is enough, at our current rate of things happening I'd prefer at least three days between games, though that's just my personal preference. (Once a week would actually be very nice for me, too, but yeah, most of Kyr would not like that as much.)

Right now, though, I don't believe there is a way to use no games weeks as anything but truama breathing space- with the current pace of games, we have to have more space after trauma games for the fallout and breathing room. This might change once we slow down a bit, since that seems to be where the post is headed, but right now I think it's best where it is.

I definitely agree with the last part, though.

[grandstanding]

I'd like to see more of a mix, with some weeks having one game and some weeks having two, to balance it out. But I have no idea how that could be really done without making it a rule and that's too restrictive really.

Basically I agree!

[murimurimuri]

I'd also like one game per week, but yeah... I think making those second games loser games would help, though.

I feel like you gotta be careful with the no games weeks, though, because unless there's something interesting to thread they basically become 'concentrate on your other rps week'. But like others have said, CR-building stuff could fill the void pretty nicely.

[acemedium]

Re: the pacing, I don't find it's too fast, but kind of uneven in that sometimes it speeds up a lot but then slows down a lot. It's hard to gauge rate of memories because some teams win often (and I can see how that can be overwhelming) while other teams don't, and meanwhile, Cats have their own system of regains that can easily overtake teams. Personally I don't find memory regain too fast, but neither of my teams have long winning streaks!

I would shy away from slowing things down too much, because I find stretches between games can cause things to drag. On the other hand, I definitely appreciate no games week, esp close after trauma games, I think it does wonders for fallout. On the other other hand, (I HAVE THREE HANDS) there isn't much to do aside from play games, react to games/memories, and fallout. I think, if you guys intend to break up the games more (which could work in pacing wise), there needs to be more to do in between games! Mini-events or events or something along those lines.

[clocksandroses]

+1!

Though I would like to add that if there are mini-events or events, they absolutely should not all be SCHEDULED FOR X TIME FINISHED FOR X TIME SORRY IF YOU MISS IT deals! It'd be really neat to see more low-key, long-running stuff that players can get involved in on a more casual basis. (This would require some initiative from players and poking from the mods to get off the ground, but Kyr as a whole seems super engaged so I don't think this would be too much of an issue.)

+1

[saburai]

I agree with the concerns about slowing down! No-games weeks that aren't situated after trauma games are just....weeks with nothing to do in-game, so they just drag on. I like the idea with events to help cover the time, though!

[beeseeingyou]

I HAVE LITTLE TO ADD TO THIS that has not already been mentioned (like extra OOC day(s) between games and maybe changing up the number of games per week so it isn't like 2 per week every week) but w/ regards to memory regain pacing, what would be the impact of maybe reducing the number of teams winning memories per game? That might help reduce the rate at which memories are being regained.

[clocksandroses]

I'd be all for this!

My one concern is that it might make it harder for the teams who already don't win often :|a We do have the loser tier system, which helps somewhat, but maybe if we switched from that to actual loser games?

[beeseeingyou]

ALSO THAT REMINDS ME a second question, does Kyr have anything like "loser games"? In effect, games run specifically for teams that have been having losing/memoryless streaks lately? I remember this was a mechanic in a previous teamgame where there'd be like (IIRC) games that only losing-streak teams could play in or win (tho other teams might be involved in helping somehow, or if they competed as teams as well they wouldn't necessarily win memories but just bonus items or that sort of thing). It generally helped with both allowing gamerunners more chances to run games + helping to balance memory regain trends a bit more between teams.

[fairweatherfriend]

I have a thing that probably wouldn't work, but I'd like to bring up! I think part of the problem is that games are mostly scheduled for EST, with the rare occasional PST. So Americans in the EST timezone get lots of games, while those who adhere to a different schedule miss a lot - I remember I had a stretch where I missed two months worth of bi-weekly games, including trauma games, because they were scheduled 3am, or mid-work day, for myself as an Australian.

I'm wondering if it would be better to perform some sort of timezone lock over a game lock? One EST game a week, and one moontime/eurotime game? That way there's chances for every timezone to get one game, without the overwhelming flood for the majority of the Americans and the huge dearth for the other timezones. There's already not a lot of games for us, and halving the games leaves us even fewer chances to make one.

[clocksandroses]

I'D LIKE THIS VERY MUCH :'D

though I would also like it if eurotime got some games specifically for eurotime, too! the best time for me to attend games is 11am EST, which iirc isn't such a good time for moontimers?

[naturen]

I know this isn't going to be a popular idea, but I've wondered for a while if it would help to move trauma games to once every other month instead of once a month. I think that by doing that, not only would it create more time for characters to recover, but more slots for games for varying timezones, events in general, and recoup time for players that take special time out just to play in them. It could also mean being able to do something else with no game weeks, though I don't have any ideas as to what.

I'm also going to take this reply to say that I think spacing out games and/or making something besides shards a prize are fine ideas. Not just for variety and spacing, but because I always think "Oh, man, those players who have more than one character on teams that win are having to write up a ton of shards per week!" So I'm all for creating a change to dial back on the shards--maybe the winners can pick whether they get a shard or a little prize?

[unguilded]

On one hand I do like trauma but I lean more toward +1 this BECAUSE both from an IC and OOC standpoint things can get stressful and buildup without enough ... time? Or circumstances between trauma games to fix things. So I see characters getting into bad places occasionally without a proper recovery and thus players losing drive or stressing about the next game whether they play in it or not (since not all issues stem from being in a game).

[deadrising]

AS A RUNNER...

- The most frustrating thing to me is that I am required to plan games months in advance. This is absolutely annoying as hell because oftentimes I think up a game, I want to run it in a week or two! Not in two months, when I have either forgotten why I wanted to run it or my schedule may have changed drastically. (This is the reason I had to cancel my last game: two months before when I claimed it, I had no idea that I would have a job. And then I did! But...) If we could have one or two game dates specifically reserved for pinchhitting in either weird timezones or even like, middle of the week games, I would be SO HAPPY.

Slots like that could also serve, if no one picks them up, to allow breathing room in between games that get big attendance -- like weekend games and games by popular Echoes/game runners. And if they did get picked up then they could be run for moontimers perhaps, or eurotime people, or even people idk, who work butts hours in the US and can only RP from midnight-5am EST (like me when I work evening shift).

- I would also like to switch to loser games instead of loser tier! Oftentimes when I run a game I have to think of some crackshot reason to award a loser team a prize that doesn't come off as "Jo felt bad for you and I am obligated." I do think that even with loser tier, it hasn't really stopped teams that dominate from being tank-y, and it hasn't even really helped people who lose frequently feel more inspired to sort of step into a competitive role. Some people aren't competitive, and that's ok! Loser games aren't about competition.

It also gives me the ability to run cute games with Jo, which is why I initially apped her -- to run games about cooperation and friendliness, instead of competition. /o/ Loser games means we can do cute things like sleepovers and drunken party games and all those things that I personally think make characters able to handle breakneck gaming pace a lot better. (It also gives people a breather from games where they have to think super hard and/or pour their full concentration into it.)

[deadrising]

Oh no i had a few more things

- Please don't punish people who win frequently by giving them something other than shards. That's like a slap on the wrist for characters who put a lot of stock in how much their team wins, and also kind of a slap on the wrist for players who put a lot of effort into trying to win games. There just has to be a better way to fix the system than limiting the amount of shards someone can win in a month.

(I can also say that I think it has a lot to do with the types of Echoes we have in the game + the types of characters who generally show up to the games being run. We run a lot of nice games in the middle of trauma games and the winners of those nice games are generally the nice people. Generally, not always.)

EDIT: I would actually be okay with getting something other than shards if it was very significant and worthwhile to my characters ICly. But it would have to be something equivalent to a piece of someone's soul, not just like...a fun cute thing that we take home and forget about.

- I would prefer trauma games to not be spread out any more than they already are. Once a month I think is fine -- though heart games might need to be labeled as the "trauma game" for the month if what happens last time happens again?

[whoslaughingmeow]

I think that there aren't necessarily too many games, but sometimes the spacing of the games can be very close together? Sometimes teams get shards, do a team post the following day, then the very next day get shards in another game. Right now is a good example. Henwen won in both the last games, did one team post, so obviously we won't do another.. it's unlikely, but conceivably we could end up with three shards before the next team post, since the next two games are so close together.

So, maybe rather than cutting the number of games (since so much of kyr's engagement and arcs are based on memories), pace them differently? I think there should at least be like, 3 game-less days between games, so you don't get shard pile up if there's a cluster of games and teams take multiple wins. I'm not totally sure how slots work now (by week, I assume?)

Maybe it should be by month, with a requirement on how many days there are between games? Just an idea.

[whoslaughingmeow]

A FEW OTHER NOTES, since I'm just thinking.

LOSER TIER GAMES seem fine, and having like 2 of those a month would definitely help break up the just ocean of shards some teams seem to get. I mean, ideally, getting shards more than once a week just seems like.. a lot.. especially if a character gets a sig neg or something, it's not even enough time to process it or thread out fallout.

Trauma games I'm pretty okay with the '1 a month' pacing, but (and here's where I get weird, sorry) maybe there should be a bit of a variable timeframe, on them? I don't know the mod process for trauma games (if it's posted somewhere I've very sorry I'm so dumb) but I presume the mods at least get a summary of it, so maybe a bit more time between trauma games, if the last one was something with a lot of IC fallout? Like the haunt's last game.

Meanwhile something like Nafuna's last trauma game, or trauma prom (I mean not counting the 3 day no heals thing) were PvE rather than PVP. I think another trauma game like 3 weeks after a game like that is fine, meanwhile something like Haunt's probably needs a little more time after it, just for the whole IC fallout? And maybe slowing the pace down a little after those games would help too, instead of jumping right into other games and such.

[killerfields]

okay i hardly weigh in on stuff like this, forgive me if i just repeat things or say things that step on toes -

But, uh. Just my two cents on the loser games thing - I'd be all for it? Like, hearing that it might be a thing has given me an idea for an Echo that exclusively runs moontime games and loser games, in fact. I'd even love playing in them with Mr. Winsalot Fudou here, just to add to participation, even if I know for a fact he wouldn't get shards.

On the topic of trauma games too, maybe it'd help if there's a certain amount of days between each one? Because the "one a month" rule, I'm realizing, doesn't really stop them from being too close together. Like... You could have one at the end of a month, and then another just a week later.
Maybe try and find a way to make sure there's at least two weeks or more between trauma games?

Or maybe find a way to space out PvE trauma and PvP trauma - perhaps have them switch every month? something like "oh, january was a pvp month, so february has to be a pve month"?

[witchesandscores]

Unless I've missed one looking at the games claim community and the calender, there have been 0 cases of any NPC runners doing trauma games within a week of each other over the last six months? The average is over a month. The only case you can argue is August, where players ran their hearts, and I don't know if NPC runners can be held responsible for player content.

[anarchydemocracy]

OK SO AS SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN BOTH ON THE WINNINGEST TEAMS AND THE LEAST WINNINGEST TEAMS

the speed of the game seems to mostly depend on how much you're winning, because holy shit when there's like almost 3 games a week and you win all of them what is going on

Like, so, okay, this month has seemed to have picked up the pace, but that's because we're having a bunch of trauma/trauma-ish games all at once and I agree that's definitely hard to settle down during. The speed that IC days go, though, for the most part seems fine to me...though we do tend to have periods where each IC day has a game on it, and when I was on Ratatoskr and we won every game it definitely made it hard as shit to actually play with any shards. Barghest even had a few streaks and that sucked, too.

But now I find myself getting kind of bored when there's not games? Because Ometotchtli and Henwen don't win, so I barely have any shards to play with. So definitely, the 'pace of the game' depends a lot on how often you win, and some teams just...don't win often for a variety of reasons, so a general slow down isn't the best solution there especially since for most of those teams it's already an issue of just not being around for things. For Henwen it's mostly just been because they're new, but in Ometotchtli's case it's definitely a turn-out issue (because of availability, mostly), bundled with the fact that since they're not social (...also mostly because of availability), they get smashed in popularity contests (and Alectryon and Vanara seem to be in this same boat), which I feel like we've had quite a lot of lately? Or games that at least incorporate that in some form. I MEAN OK I'M TOTALLY GUILTY OF THAT it was literally my last game but that brings me to my next point!!!

I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE THAT WE HAVE A MILLION GAMES ALL THE TIME. I love playing in games and we have so many different kinds happening all the time THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE!!! probably. I don't...really love running them, but I do love seeing people play and enjoy my games! And having so many games means either A.) there's a lot to play in, or B.) if I am unable to make some games there are plenty of others soon enough

because, like, personally speaking at least, the general EST scheduling of games is inconvenient (I either straight up can't make them or they're at the time of day I'm generally actually doing life things so if I can make them I'm unable to focus at all) in terms of me actually making them. And that's because most of our gamerunners are EST, which is okay! You gotta run when you can without dying horribly, but the way gamescheduling currently works means there's...not really slots for other timezones. So currently, there being like a ton of games means WELL I'LL MAKE AND ACTUALLY PLAY IN AT LEAST ONE A WEEK, PROBABLY

But okay so other people have mentioned loser games which is a great idea. Because as a runner, I actually reaaaaally dislike loser tier. I am constantly saddened every time a team actually did well (or was lucky) enough to win, but ACTUALLY THIS OTHER TEAM'S GOTTA WIN SORRY. And since you can only have one per game (since two would be even worse), we've often gotten situations where like 3 teams are in loser tier and so one team goes like 4-5 games without shards (vanara :<). Loser games are also good for people who wanna play games but don't want to win a million shards at once, since if their teams aren't losers then they can still participate but don't get anything. Turnout might be low for these kinds of games but low turnout in general is easy to design games around so yeee.

So here's my suggestion for game scheduling: a maximum of three games a week, with one being a loser tier game (if applicable), one being an American timezone game, and the other being europe times or the gmt+8-11 range (though it STILL FEELS KIND OF UNFAIR TO LUMP BOTH OF THOSE TIME RANGES INTO ONE CATEGORY). That way we have roughly the same amount of games (+1 I guess but we generally have 3 within a 7 day period anyway), but it spreads out both wins and attendance.

Also, like Pan said right above me, full trauma games should be like, 'one a month AND at least x weeks apart'.

ALSO ALSO, just in regards to game scheduling and what types of games people would like to see I think we should have another discussion post for that sometime soon? Or maybe just a poll for 'availability' and 'YO WHAT DO YOU WANNA DO DO YOU WANT MORE KISSES OR MORE STABBINGS DO YOU HAVE REALLY COOL GAME IDEAS BUT NOT WANT TO ENGAGE IN THE SUFFERING THAT IS RUNNING' instead of a formal discussion post W/E W/E

[beeseeingyou]

SECONDING GAME IDEAS DISCUSSION POST TBH

Also with regards on how 'pace' can be relative, I totally agree! It's def. contingent on multiple factors, something like rate of game winning + character's sociability levels + player availability to actually get out and play = pace. But if the "rate of game winning" could be slowed down in general, I think we could also compensate for it with more non-game stuff (events, etc) to play with? It looks like there's been discussion on that front (and there's a new OOC comm post for it too).

[witchesandscores]

I'd like to bring up a point.

Both myself and Re booked our game - the upcoming trauma - weeks before Haunts, because this is the only time we would be able OOCly to run a game of length and intensity. In fact, we had moderator permission to book even further ahead than the two months rule allowed. There's not that many times you can take a full week off.

I realize that some people are burned out on trauma and pvp, and that's fine! But using Haunt and our games as an example of how my game is too close with the apparent implications that it shouldn't have been booked and that I shouldn't run it, or even as a justification that the entire trauma game process needs to slow when we haven't even run it yet, is intensely disheartening. I might be the only one here, but having your game used as a living example of something wrong makes me feel awful.

[acemedium]

That definitely wasn't my intention! You guys booked waaaay in advance and overall there's nothing wrong with the timing. (Considering Halloween and all) I think it's just because things piled and spiraled in ways people didn't expect, in terms of fallout, for the last few months. Plus the unexpected trauma from regular games, it ends up being a snowball of trauma, and now that we're approaching the big one, people are feeling it.

Regardless, I don't think anyone is trying to point fingers or imply that you're in the wrong - I definitely am not - but when I bring up trauma game timing, I more mean for the future. It's difficult to predict how games will go and I don't think anyone could anticipate how things have played out up until here, so I've been using past and present examples to try to explain my perspective and suggestions on how to minimize burnout / balance things out.

If it came off as discouraging or accusatory at all I'm very sorry, because that wasn't my intention at all.