Mod Announcement: Exposure Effects and the Data App

[snowblindmods]

The event ends with a surprising lack of something: there is no paralysis in the morning, no mysterious injection. Instead, the effects characters suffered from fade but do not vanish. All effects are now at level one. And, well--they don't go away. At least, not easily. The Exposure Effects have begun. It's dangerous to stay for too long in a place like Norfinbury. Every other month, characters will be expected to choose either a new effect or to level up an old effect. These can be combined as much as you'd like--in theory, someone could be level three in all six, if they were in Norfinbury long enough. But all hope is not lost! As explained on the exposure effects page, bonus activity can be used to lower and eliminate these effects. Of course, they're constantly threatening to come back...

...Of course, some of you aren't having quite this many issues. For some of you, the progression is much slower. Anyone with their beacon on will only have to add an additional effect or level every four months. Whatever the beacon is for, at least in this one instance it's doing something useful.

Please come to us with any issues you're having with this game mechanic. Once we see how the game is actually handling it, we may adjust the numbers/how often the effects grow worse if people are having difficulties.

Additionally, on night 051, due to the efforts of Jim, Quark, and Hiro, the Data app appears on everyone's tablets. This app collects found SD card information. While it has all information found before it was unlocked, any new information will only be added with the permission of whoever found the SD card. Additionally, the SD cards of anyone who drops from the game will be automatically added to the Data app. Note this only gathers information and files in SD cards. It doesn't collect programs or non-digital findings. If we forgot any old SD card data, let us know and we'll add it!

Comments

QUESTIONS

[snowblindmods]

[coleader]

so, just to clarify. if you don't make bonus AC, the effects will keep building up until they're level three in all of them?

[snowblindmods]

Correct, at the rate of one additional effect/level every other month.

EDIT: I just wanted to let you know I accidentally left out an important part of the game mechanic involving beacons, so if you check again you'll see how those alter the situation.

[warriorscribe]

This counts as a general AC question too: Do backtags (tags from threads started in previous months, but made in the current month) count for reported activity of any kind?

EDIT: ALSO, can threads be doubled up? Say, if you make AC with two threads of 15 comments each, do the extra ten go towards bonus AC?

[snowblindmods]

1) Backtags will count as long as the initial thread is within the previous month. You can't backtag extremely old threads, but the previous month is fine.

2) You can put the extra ten toward bonus AC, yes.

[warriorscribe]

I see, thank you!

[snowblindmods]

Just to further clarify, any bonus comments in your initial AC will count toward your bonus comment count but will not count toward your extra thread limit. If you had one longer AC thread, you could submit that and four additional threads for your bonus, if necessary.

EDIT: I just wanted to let you know I accidentally left out an important part of the game mechanic involving beacons, so if you check again you'll see how those alter the situation.

[warriorscribe]

Thank you very much! (and lmao I was there for the plurk but thank you all the same) <3

[rattlingthestars]

Just to make sure I've got this right: if you make bonus AC every month your character doesn't build up any? And since they're at level 1 now the first opportunity to be completely symptom free for current characters will be during december's AC?

[snowblindmods]

If you make bonus AC every month your character will not build up anything unless you want them to (since you CAN remove the effects but you don't HAVE to). Incidentally, if you make bonus AC for, say, December, but you don't want to use the level one removal until February, you can do that.

The first opportunity to be completely symptom-free will be November's AC! Even though that's a month where nothing is being added, you can still remove symptoms.

[rattlingthestars]

Good to know, thank you!

[snowblindmods]

I just wanted to let you know I accidentally left out an important part of the game mechanic involving beacons, so if you check again you'll see how those alter the situation.

[deus_ex_phs]

"To remove level one effects, you need 20 extra comments in one month. At least five comments must be cross-canon, and the comments must be in no more than four threads."

Just for clarification, is this an extra four threads on top of the four threads we can use for meeting AC, or does this mean that the four threads we provide for AC must add up to 40 comments total from your character? (And so forth for the other tiers of reducing exposure effects.)

[snowblindmods]

This is on top of the four threads you can use to meet AC. You can use extra comments from your normal AC, but you may use no more than four extra threads to meet the additional count.

[deus_ex_phs]

Alright, thanks! o/

[snowblindmods]

I just wanted to let you know I accidentally left out an important part of the game mechanic involving beacons, so if you check again you'll see how those alter the situation.

Re: QUESTIONS

[deus_ex_phs]

Another question!

Does death affect this at all? What about dropping, then getting re-apped by the same player? What if the player re-apping has forgotten what all levels they used to have? (I'm assuming that a character that gets dropped and then apped by a different player gets to start from a completely blank slate.)

[snowblindmods]

Death does not alter this. Dropping and reapping later will reset the character to having no effects at all. (And, yes, a new player apping a dropped character also starts with no effects.)

[deus_ex_phs]

MORE QUESTIONS OMG

When will the new effect or level upgrade take effect? When AC goes up? Or after AC has ended?

If a player submits enough bonus AC to downgrade an effect (or remove it), does this mean they won't have an effect/level added? Basically, is it possible for a player who is active enough to keep their character from ever feeling the effects of exposure? Or is there a window of time where the character will feel an effect before it's removed courtesy of bonus AC?

[snowblindmods]

When AC has ended. If you're active enough, you can remove effects before they effect your character.

EDIT: I just wanted to let you know I accidentally left out an important part of the game mechanic involving beacons, so if you check again you'll see how those alter the situation.

[deus_ex_phs]

Got it. Thanks again for answering all these questions!

Re: QUESTIONS

[0thingsonmymind]

so say a character has level one in something and it comes time to up the level on that. would you need the bonus ac for removing level 2 or just removing level one? or would you just sort of 'buy off' a level one in some effect they don't already have?

[snowblindmods]

Just removing level one.

[0thingsonmymind]

okies~

[heroproceeding]

So, I know logistically, there are a total of SIX different exposure effects. Meaning that even if you don't make bonus activity to negate things for a while, you're still kind of in the clear of hitting any second tiers for a while given you're willing to apply all the effects to your character. But it's also possible that for some people, it might feel character breaking to do that or make them generally uncomfortable.

It also kind of seems like this ups the AC level to forty comments/month now, especially if you aren't as keen on wanting their exposure level to go up. With the many of the players as active as they are, it might seem like a non-issue to some. For others who might not be as heavily active, one could argue that the beacon app being in play would help alleviate that (see: later event). But what about characters who ICly wouldn't turn that on?

For the record, I do like the addition of the exposure effects as a game mechanic. I think given the premise and setting, it's fitting and understandable. I'm just really not feeling that if you aren't making double AC, it's almost like you're getting punished for it. I don't think that was your intention at all and I don't mean to imply it that way in any shape or form. But it just feels kinda harsh. And that's not even getting into touching on the tier two and three removal requirements.

edit: wow, I'm an idiot and thought there were only four for some reason.

[snowblindmods]

After some discussion, we've come up with some potential ideas that we wanted to run by you guys before committing to anything. Our ideas were to add an additional physical effect for people to choose if they want, to allow people to collect comments over as large a period of time as they want (instead of needing all comments in one month, you could earn them little by little), and to change the comment requirements from 20-40-60 to 10-20-30. Let us know what you think of these potential changes!

Concerns

[swatsflies]

Getting 20 extra comments is doable, but I'm not sure about 60 extra, especially with how small the game is.
Any way that the 60 can be split up? Like almost a bank system. Someone could get 40 extra comments one ac, and then next 20, and then they can add it up to knock down a level three if needed?

EDIT: I was told it's split between months. OKAY NEVER MIND ABOUT THE ABOVE ISSUE. Sorry, I'm groggy and didn't read that right. That's my bad.


Also, winter is upon us. We're approaching the Holiday season and end of semester/finals. Games tend to slow down, or people vanish at the end of November and most of December. It might have been better to introduce this mechanic starting next month or at least grant some leeway just for this time.

Making it clear that I do like this game mechanic and I am excited to see it put to use. I just know that it's much harder to make AC or get threads around this time of year. Thank you for your hard work putting all of this together.

[snowblindmods]

After some discussion, we've come up with some potential ideas that we wanted to run by you guys before committing to anything. Our ideas were to add an additional physical effect for people to choose if they want, to allow people to collect comments over as large a period of time as they want (instead of needing all comments in one month, you could earn them little by little), and to change the comment requirements from 20-40-60 to 10-20-30. Let us know what you think of these potential changes!

[swatsflies]

Sorry that it's taken a while to get back to you guys. Thank you for taking the time to discuss this and actually coming back to us. It's pretty awesome and I really do appreciate it.

I do like the lowered numbers and I do like the idea about being able to collect extra comments.

But, I do worry it'll be more work for you guys. I'm assuming ac forms will be changed slightly to include extra threads and the amount and we as players will keep a tally some where on our own accounts? Or will there be a post for us to tag in with "X amount of extra comments for this month"?

I'm also going to have just point to Fossil and Jodie, because they have brought up points I haven't thought of.

OH! And you guys responded to them while I was responding. Sorry I didn't see that and thank you!

[armoured]

Just to echo what's been said above me, but I'm also a little concerned about this new mechanic. I like the idea of this game mechanic, and am also okay with the idea of an AC reward system, but this particular method seems almost like it punishes people for making AC.

If a character makes standard AC, their symptoms will gradually worsen, which could cause some characters to become unplayable due to the levels of paranoia/etc that they're experiencing. This seems an unfair progression for someone who is actually making AC.

Would it be possible to structure it in a slightly different way so as not to penalise people who are only able to make standard AC in a month? For example, keep the reward system to lower the symptoms, but allow the worsening of it to be at player choice. So someone who makes standard AC could choose to keep their symptoms consistent or increase them.

[heroproceeding]

^ I would be more willing to go along with a player choice system like this. The players here would honestly pretty reliable with this kind of thing, I think.

[snowblindmods]

After some discussion, we've come up with some potential ideas that we wanted to run by you guys before committing to anything. Our ideas were to add an additional physical effect for people to choose if they want, to allow people to collect comments over as large a period of time as they want (instead of needing all comments in one month, you could earn them little by little), and to change the comment requirements from 20-40-60 to 10-20-30. Let us know what you think of these potential changes!

[armoured]

Personally, my concerns weren't so much with the amount of activity being required in order to drop a level, but more that the level increased or an extra issue was added if only standard AC was achieved. Although I do think the new comments are probably more achievable on a wider scale, it still effectively seems to increase the AC by ten comments if you don't want further issues - unless I'm misunderstanding, in which case I apologise. EDIT TO ADD because I forgot to say, I do like the idea of a physical effect thrown in there too.

[snowblindmods]

We're still discussing options, but I wanted to explain where we're coming from as far as trying to compromise. Without spoiling, this mechanic not being optional is so plot-relevant removing it would mean we would have to rewrite a huge chunk of the game plot.

[armoured]

Thank you for getting back to me and explaining stuff, it's really appreciated. I certainly don't want to cause more work for you guys or force a rewrite, so I do understand if the mechanic remains in place as is after discussion.

[snowblindmods]

We've come up with a potential alternative to the AC system and posted a poll on plurk about it; please let us know what you think!

[heroproceeding]

I'm with Fossil on this. Even with the lowering of the comment requirements, it's still additional activity you would now be required to make in order for your character not to suffer additional effects. It wouldn't be as bad with that count, but it's still not like there's any reward for this. Unless you count being able to play your character without being consistently affected by these effects? But that's honestly something that I feel should be a choice from the get-go. It would have been different if this was a system that had been around since the beginning of the game and people signed on knowing that, but Snowblind's been around for five months now and I don't think many people signed up expecting something like this change to occur.

I also understand that you're trying to bend things a bit in our favor with the addition of what's essentially a "bank" for your comments. But in the end, wouldn't that just overcomplicate things both for modwork as well as player work instead?

That would mean both mods and players making sure the same threads aren't used for that additional AC and players keeping track of their comment bank. And would players have to check in with mods about their comment bank every AC period on top of that, stating "This is what I've saved up so far"? How would this be streamlined?

Perhaps people would be more willing to do this if there was an actual reward to it. But it just seems like more busywork than a fun, new mechanic. Especially for players who really don't like how much these effects have the potential to change their character too much, I feel like this is something you'd be sweating over rather than enjoying. And this is on top of keeping track of character movements, item claims, and reacting to monster rolls.

I understand the emphasis of these effects, especially given the nature of the game, and I'm not adverse to the implementation of they, themselves, in some way. It's not the concept I'm against at all. It's part of what this game is advertised to be: a psychological horror game. And the playerbase went in knowing that and wanting that. I would even like to see an additional physical effect! I'm just not really crazy about this being a forced mechanic.

[snowblindmods]

We're still discussing options, but I wanted to explain where we're coming from as far as trying to compromise. Without spoiling, this mechanic not being optional is so plot-relevant removing it would mean we would have to rewrite a huge chunk of the game plot.

[heroproceeding]

I see. With that in mind, removing it would make it tricky then, wouldn't it. From that standing, I could definitely see your hesitance and I can respect that.

[snowblindmods]

We've come up with a potential alternative to the AC system and posted a poll on plurk about it; please let us know what you think!