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[FEEDBACK] Infestation Arc Day 1

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Astro

Astro

Radio Bob Approved
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Nov 15, 2021
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Infestation ARC FEEDBACK

The Creative Team is pushing forward an arc to test how far we can really go with the server and narrative. This means making radical decisions or changes that may or may not settle well with players. However, we're not perfect and we're always looking to improve.​


We want to know officially-

1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?

2. What do you like about it?

3. What do you hate about it?

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?

5. Any closing thoughts or words?

We thank you for any and all feedback you may provide below! We look forward to going through each given post.

Also, you do not need to follow the above format, but we would prefer if the above questions are answered in your provided responses/posts for an easier time keeping track of your feedback and knowing exactly what your thoughts are on each point we ask of you.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
Well, I was there before, during the stuff at the theatre, thought it was neat.

2. What do you like about it?
Another Arc is always fun.

3. What do you hate about it?
I fear something, which will be explained in #4.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
Talking about THIS Arc? Make the arc have ACTUAL consequences. If we look at the debt arc, some people probably DONT EVEN KNOW that we're in it, save for MOC and CWU (plus maybe a few others.) The Debt has NO EFFECT on the population of the server. Joe Average doesn't even know we're in debt.
I want arcs to effect everyone. Have this shit actually start to effect people, so that EVERYONE knows its happening. Don't let the arc die down after a day, and go nowhere, because everyone forgets its happening, because it doesn't effect them.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
Please read #4.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
First impression was really nice; OCIN being disabled and OTA/CPs being given some leeway to act on their own to take control back was a cool touch. Also the fog and music played was pretty slick.

2. What do you like about it?
1. Atmosphere, propping, effects and sound
2. OCIN status lost, allowing rebels/fake cops to mingle amongst the population

3. What do you hate about it?
It fell off extremely quick. Performance was horrible halfway through and many folks reported issues regarding FPS and ping. Doing the first 30 minutes, action happened through and through, though as the lag intensified, a lot slowed down and it became steadily more and more stale. For OTA, it was primarily just boring Statue RP because we weren't allowed to continue pushing into certain areas, which I can understand. Cops should also heed the slums and sewers more during this time, as dangers such as rebels and xens just lurking around any corner. Multiple sewer and CZ sweeps just seem to harm this event more than it helps, given how people are made constantly worry about 2-3 CPs randomly running in there because all restrictions are lifted during Code Black, which naturally spark tensions and possibly prompt sweeps, which fuck things up even more.

Over all, the event could have been more balanced around all factions. I saw that Citizens were mostly shepherded into RBs and crowded into lockdowns. That's no fun. Give them some type of involvement.

Also, if you announce a server restart to improve performance and hint at continuing the event, please either follow through with it or make people aware that it isn't happening, as to prevent folks from waiting for something that'll never come.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
1. More overall faction involvement
2. Better communication in regards to event continuity/interruptions
3. Setting clearer outlines/goals for all factions as to not make it stale for one side

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
Harambe lives on
 
ramen said:
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
Well, I was there before, during the stuff at the theatre, thought it was neat.

2. What do you like about it?
Another Arc is always fun.

3. What do you hate about it?
I fear something, which will be explained in #4.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
Talking about THIS Arc? Make the arc have ACTUAL consequences. If we look at the debt arc, some people probably DONT EVEN KNOW that we're in it, save for MOC and CWU (plus maybe a few others.) The Debt has NO EFFECT on the population of the server. Joe Average doesn't even know we're in debt.
I want arcs to effect everyone. Have this shit actually start to effect people, so that EVERYONE knows its happening. Don't let the arc die down after a day, and go nowhere, because everyone forgets its happening, because it doesn't effect them.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
Please read #4.
Click to expand...

raise the stakes.​
 
Give us some helldiver vibes man DROP THEM BUGS IN! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH o7
I want the nexus to give civilians guns and send them into a death trap (slums) filled with anything you can imagine. Its PK if they dont return even when they try to steal it. FUCK IT we go in baby. Also we gotta do some missions inside there. Whoever comes out alive can slap Orwell
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
I liked the idea of the infestation spreading around and the OCIN going down so that we all had to organize each other with radios and command (Overwatch Forces)

2. What do you like about it?
The fact that OCIN is down, making everything more mysterious and hard to decrypt along of course being deployed

3. What do you hate about it?
It was rather laggy in my opinion, waited an eternety for a restart which never happened

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
N/A

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
Super cool roleplay but for the role I played (APF) I expected to get some action, but roleplay is more important and it was given and recieved, super cool!!!!
​
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
It's a cool new concept, albeit from a CWU perspective, a bit of a pain in the ass.

2. What do you like about it?
I like the fog, the presence of danger around every corner now, and I *do* enjoy having things to do now, other than jabber on about debt, I do enjoy infestation control, so it's something I find personally enjoyable.

3. What do you hate about it?
It's a bit of a cluster fuck I can't lie, not entirely from the GMs perspective, but from the SC (shocker) Ever since the introduction of City-241 (Zone 1) into the GOI terminals, they've stocked several different chemicals, which is nice, so that should things like this happen, we don't get forced into constantly producing chemicals and stuff. Which is arduous, and given infestation's growth rate recently, would have been a gargantuan bother.
Saying that, I don't see why the issue of us having advanced chemicals came around, they've been sat in there every since, and they've been added by *someone* this lead to an argument mid-rp (irritatingly) about whether or not we can use them, which delayed what was a very fun high pressure moment, ruining it IMO. In addition to this, the CWU is already struggling to sort the debt, which I'm constantly reminded shouldn't be a CWU only effort, and yet tumbleweeds are seen elsewhere in terms of involvement, meaning we've been the only ones actually doing anything about it, to then have what very well seemed at the time, like an unbeatable infestation come seemingly out of nowhere (I can't confirm this) seems irritating, distracting us from the expos and outlands trips we're supposed to be doing to help us beat the debt. (This kicked off mid shift into a GM's trip to the outlands which was very cool) resulting in us having to cut tail and run back. This is compounded by the CWU's current state of LOAs and burnout resignations, which have only hampered us further (not their fault obviously)

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
I would like to see discussion with the lead and co-leads of a faction when these sorts of things happen, if we were able to coordinate more effectively, this would have negated basically everything bad I've said about this arc so far. I'm unsure if it was a lead-only conversation, but I, as Co-lead of CWU, was completely left in the dark, despite being the one active on the server at the time.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?

All being said, it's a cool arc, just surrounded in the usual Willard controversy, don't let my doom posting dishearten you, the actual arc itself is great.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?

I'm going to be absolutely real with you, I just don't think an infestation event was really what we needed to be cooking all this time. We've had so many of them that its really, REALLY, hard to get excited about it again. This could be a me problem, granted, but I struggle to stay engaged with infestation stuff at this point.

That being said, its not like it can't be good, I just feel like there is a bit of a foot-shot going on when you have it be framed around more Xen infestation. I just have to emphasize I really think there needs to be way more to this than what I have heard so far. Which is big zombies and a spore that controls the already controlled hosts of Headcrabs. Or just 'tons of zombies' in general.

The stakes are also raised to 100 right out of the gate which leads to consistency issues. For example, sure, you can say that going outside is essentially lethal, but that is never going to stop people from doing it. Hence it gets kind of awkward RP'ing this as a big deal (As presented) when right out the gate, maskless people are just wandering around outside in blueshirts.

2. What do you like about it?

As usual, Willard has good propping, and decent technical stuff. My performance wasn't too bad but I def could see it being a problem if it were to ever heat up. It's nice for an alternative framing to be put over the city, though that is slightly mitigated by just how much action there was even prior to this starting. Still, the atmosphere provided was pretty good. Also cool for OTA to be a bit more involved, so I can RP being scared of them more.

3. What do you hate about it?

Infestation. Xen. That does alot of heavy lifting for my personal distaste for this as a concept. Beyond that, I definitely felt like there wasn't much to entirely DO during my time with it. I wandered with someone else, and we got up to our own crap, but it took a solid two hours for anything to happen as a direct result of the event in my shoes. Otherwise, it was like a cloudy day. (Tbf It was a struggle for me to get invested so its not like I am throwing myself into all this with ease.)

I also have an issue with some of the logic presented. Such as it apparently starting to snow and become bone-chilling cold cause the spores/dust is so thick. That was a pretty hard pill to swallow and, far as I could tell, nobody really paid it any mind.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?

No xen stuff. Not even a little bit. If its a spore, plant or any kind of non-sentient creature, It needs no part in anything going forward for a while.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?

There is potential within this and I dont mean to totally shit on the whole thing outright. I know its a pain in the ass to do stuff like this for CT, so if nothing else, the effort is appreciated. I hope that it becomes something I can enjoy outright in time.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
The confusion and escalation of the situation was quite nice. I like the idea of a crisis occuring within the City that the players can directly tackle and resolve through intuition and self-organisation.

2. What do you like about it?
- The control of information that occured during the situation. Nobody knew anything and the lack of reliable radio communications made it better, albeit, it was a pain in the ass since CWU was in the middle of switching the frequency on the day.

3. What do you hate about it?
- The blinding block of text that appeared right at the start of the event. I was in the middle of gathering ores in a pool of acid from the asteroid event, and I am surprised that OTA had the patience not to pull the trigger on me due to how long it took me to get back to the City. I couldn't even properly clear the event of the props which I spawned in.
- Highly subjective, but the lack of foresight and planning(?) on behalf of the organisers. This mostly pretains to what @Purple Knight discussed in his feedback. Another example would be the CWU sinking all their available resources into fabricating radios for CivPros before being OOCly asked whether we can organise something for the population to participate in.
- As a returning player after being away for four days off. I misinterpreted the brown fog as smog rather than spores.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
- Avoid overlapping events unless you are prepared to integrate a proper transition into the next event.
- Take better consideration how certain problems can have subsequent impact on the behaviour of players and events on the server.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
Please attempt something similar again with new ideas and adjustments. Since it has a lot of potential.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
Cool idea with a lot of potential, but should be refined.

2. What do you like about it?
The complete breakdown of order on the streets, the atmosphere (mapping, effects, music, event messages, etc etc) were all pretty cool, even if laggy. The idea of an actually threatening infestation is also pretty cool, considering how dirty the last few were done by CWU.

3. What do you hate about it?
I have to admit that the experience for citizens (aka 70% of the server overall) was pretty boring. In typical Willard fashion, we were herded up, put in buildings and given nothing to do. It sucks because the initial outbreak of the infestation was done pretty cool - we all hid in the RDT, only to see a zombie stumbling through the doors and all Hell broke loose. Unfortunately, aside from guiding stragglers, I did nothing and sit in a building.

I will not mention performance because that's largely out of the admins' hands because source is a piece of shit engine.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
Citizen participation. It isn't hard to get people involved, you can do it in a lot of different but efficient ways. Conscript them for infestation cleaning workshifts. Draft them to fight the infestation's creatures, get them to go through hoops to find the materials necessary to create solution, encourage them to make barricades on the street, get them to study the infestation's reactions, etc etc. The sky's the limit now that OCIN is gone.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
As I said, the idea is cool. I like it. It has potential. I24 having to fight an infestation entirely on their own while everything is going down the shitter is fun. It's a change of pace! But it needs refining - especially in the citizen department. I also hope that the creative team has actually bothered to ensure that CWU don't kill it in less than a week and that the infestation has some effects on the city after it's gone.
 
flork said:
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?
First impression was really nice; OCIN being disabled and OTA/CPs being given some leeway to act on their own to take control back was a cool touch. Also the fog and music played was pretty slick.

2. What do you like about it?
1. Atmosphere, propping, effects and sound
2. OCIN status lost, allowing rebels/fake cops to mingle amongst the population

3. What do you hate about it?
It fell off extremely quick. Performance was horrible halfway through and many folks reported issues regarding FPS and ping. Doing the first 30 minutes, action happened through and through, though as the lag intensified, a lot slowed down and it became steadily more and more stale. For OTA, it was primarily just boring Statue RP because we weren't allowed to continue pushing into certain areas, which I can understand. Cops should also heed the slums and sewers more during this time, as dangers such as rebels and xens just lurking around any corner. Multiple sewer and CZ sweeps just seem to harm this event more than it helps, given how people are made constantly worry about 2-3 CPs randomly running in there because all restrictions are lifted during Code Black, which naturally spark tensions and possibly prompt sweeps, which fuck things up even more.

Over all, the event could have been more balanced around all factions. I saw that Citizens were mostly shepherded into RBs and crowded into lockdowns. That's no fun. Give them some type of involvement.

Also, if you announce a server restart to improve performance and hint at continuing the event, please either follow through with it or make people aware that it isn't happening, as to prevent folks from waiting for something that'll never come.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?
1. More overall faction involvement
2. Better communication in regards to event continuity/interruptions
3. Setting clearer outlines/goals for all factions as to not make it stale for one side

5. Any closing thoughts or words?
Harambe lives on
Click to expand...
Complete outsider here, But if we're in code black and there are "Fake" cops the rebels should be wreaking havoc on the City 24 CPs and OTA like theres never been such an advantageous position for them to have and as far as in C24 goes they could take this de-stabilization as a chance to hit the combine with everything they have the same way they did in retail.


Someone should put out a call to arms or call to action taking advantage of the chaos to increase attacks bombings... if OCIN and OW AI is down you should have a hard time knowing if the guy next to you on patrol is XRAY-2 or its some rebel using a dead units gear to lure you into a position where you can be killed or robbed like It should be full on anxiety mode for the CPs.

Good to see the CT Team cranking out Arcs good job boys and girls!
 
I think it would've been cooler to have regular citizens wear medical masks to cover the fucking raining infestation spores that basically make it snow.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?

The Arc itself seemed insignificant to me, I don't know. I believe it doesn't have many consequences against players or to the City, back in the Antlion Arc people were getting PK'd all around, so risks were supposed to be taken and people actually had to care about their character's life, other than just rushing inside an infestation with no fear of full-death, this could be implemented for an actual Arc feeling.

2. What do you like about it?

A new arc is always good.

3. What do you hate about it?

Too caring for players, seems like a lullaby. Raise the stakes and get the event much more risky, increase the PK thresholds and make consequences happen if people fail to do their specified duties.

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?

Get all the players involved, somehow. Antlion Arc had the citizens involved, them hiding and defending themselves, them escaping and evacuating themselves while CPs were dealing with HVTs and so, the more players involved with an arc, the more fun it is.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?

I trust CT and NT to make this Arc better in the following days, make it a high-risk arc.
 
1. What are your first impressions or thoughts?: The Infestation Hungers for more real-estate, if not treated it'll consume the district.

2. What do you like about it? The Physical Storytelling aspect of and over-arcing issue.

3. What do you hate about it? Nothing

4. What do you believe can be improved for the next Arc when one arrives again?: We should have Infestation threats that spawn if people get too close, such as undead.

5. Any closing thoughts or words?: Yes, I thank the CWU for their kind donation of a Infestation Control Tank to the Rebellion.
 
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