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The Long March: Chapter 0 Feedback Thread

Gr4Ss

Gr4Ss

Lawnmower
ENG
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Mar 10, 2020
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Feel free to provide your feedback on the thread. We'll take it along as we plan Chapter 1.

Please note that Chapter 0 was rather long as it was meant to bridge between the server and the actual TLM event series. Although it had a clear goal of how/when/where we wanted to get the group, the paths there were very fluid and ad-hoc. We'll be taking a more structured approach going forward as we get into TLM proper.

The important details that have already been given on C24:
  1. The event is moving into C24
  2. We'll be starting it off with a day of passive before getting into the event proper.
  3. There will be sign-ups for new players to join in on it. Existing character from TLM:C0 do not need to apply.

Particularly keen on everyone's opinion on the following:
  1. What you liked and disliked about the 'active' events
  2. What you liked and disliked about the in-between passive.
    1. Do you think this is a good addition to the 'active' events?
  3. Anything else you'd like to see in Chapter 1
 
What I liked and disliked about the active events

The active events were considerably better than the average Willard one, I will admit. Albeit the bar is very low after both of the Alps bunker shitshows, I believe that most of the active events were satisfactory enough. They felt balanced and logical enough. The recent OTA fights (the first hardpoint attack, the taking of it and the THETA fight) were all very well done.

I think the only event I would criticize is the one where we got to Theta. A lot of it was standing around in the bunker with minimal engagement with both OTA and Race-X. It could have been better and more interesting.

What I liked and disliked about the in-between passive

I'm grateful for the fact that TLM gives us a lot of windows to passive. I think it's a better good than it is an evil. A lot of the interactions I've had with the other rebels, be it in my group or not, were notable and fun. Characters like Cross, Plywood, Earnshaw, etc are all a joy to roleplay with outside of big events.

The main issue I have is that people will inevitably try to contribute to the story or an objective, but more often than not they could not because of the TLM GMs not being one. This was predominantly a problem in Part 1 / gm_Marsh. I made a ticket to open a locker in one of the bunkers, no one answered and it was dismissed 4 hours later. Same for the radio @Kappatalist picked up in it.

Some of the wackier ideas the select people had, namely the crab, were also a bit ridiculous. It's handled, though, so I won't dwell on it too much.

I think that passive is a good addition to the events and should remain a significant part of it. Events have more weight if people have the opportunity to roleplay how their characters are affected by said events.

Anything else you'd like to see in Chapter 1

I would like to see the C24 fight be tackled in a way that's interesting. Use a large version of it, preferably V1, and have the battle last for days if not weeks. It should be different from typical S2K, it should be one of the great accomplishments of the rebellion and an impactful event for everyone to remember. Making everyone S2M, allowing them to char dev in the middle of the wartorn street. Essentially, the point: Make the C24 uprising feel like an actual urban battle, not just a S2Kfest where all the victor needs to do is hold a choke and stomp through their opponents.
 
No more wacky energy men, pet headcrabs and talking frogs, for the love of all things holy.

That is all. Keep up the good events.
 
There was a bit too much time spent on passive, but the GMs did try their best to keep us busy with mini-events a lot of the time. The GM response time has gotten better since Marsh and people have been using their freedom to make some wild moves.

As an event character in the Earthquakes, I felt that most of the Earthquake players were not really present or knew what they were doing. I kept being referred to by others like my own Lieutenant as if my Recruit knew anything about what was going on. I know that the event's conclusion made it sound like the overall group failed to establish relations with the Earthquakes, but I don't recall a point at which I knew we had the contact and the resources to.

I think the issue is that not too many of the GMs/staff knew the story or the set-pieces of the map to the point where they could identify what was permitted to be interacted with and so on, so we often had to wait for certain people like Robert before we did anything vital in THETA. We definitely needed more staff members in the know and/or permitted to let players investigate something while they GMed instead of always bugging the main story people while they're occupied.

Furthermore, we struggled to make sense of the potentially discoverable plot elements either because people were not around or not many could/would share information. It felt like we were missing the bigger picture most of the time. Also, the appearance of traders made less and less sense after we left Marsh, since a lot of people blew their money by that point. There weren't really tradeables or other goods to make such transactions worthwhile when we were showered with stuff like ammo. The supplies we were often given were not necessarily the things we needed too (Ever since the loss of the fabricator for instance, we kept being given some crafting materials but I never saw a single bottle of the normal white chemicals, and creating it from scratch is a specific and tedious process.) We also kept going through sudden delays and change of plans, which meant that some days felt like padding.

I dislike S2K but I think it's worked out pretty well in this instance, mostly against NPCs (and they weren't afraid to give us more than 5 at a time, which is fun). I love the character development that many were going through, even if I found it annoying that others were playing very much like a video game character, making decisions I don't think anyone would under any circumstance. The impact of the GRIX machine and the alien with the staff was lessened by the fact that nobody could understand what he was saying outside of Bishop. It made sense during the roleplay but it did just end up happening while we stood around clueless. Even so, I did enjoy interacting with all the story-based characters whenever I got the chance to. It let me learn plenty about the ongoing situation even if I couldn't make that much sense of it. I wish there were more worldbuilding-related props and such we could make use of, but the set-pieces were on-point.
 
More or less in agreement with both posts by Nora and MCG.

In comparison to the last several months of V2, this event chain has been amazing. I don't think I've ever had a dull moment with the dozen or so interesting characters I routinely interact with, completely in contrast to how dead the city was feeling at times before TLM. I feel like there's still a lot more room for passive especially in the wake of the combat to come, and I hope we can see more of what we've had.

In regards to the events they've been alright, to good. I think yesterdays attack both outside and within the bunker can be considered by far the best. The map was interesting, unlike the marsh base, with a fairly consistent progresion even if I didn't really partake in that too much myself. My only pick at it is that there wasn't really much time to passive immediately after the attack yesterday, I think an hour or two more would've been nice as so much had happened both from the attack and player actions immediately beforehand that it needed some time for us to deal with, it felt a little bit rushed (Watching @Felix try to write a /me whilst slowly drowning). Though I figure that would probably have pushed the leaving event until today, although I wouldn't have much cared if we simply off-screened that part since it was mostly just us walking/driving to the train.

Edit:

Also, after some conversation with other people I really think some scale needs to be introduced to the overarching event that is the attack on C24.

It doesn't need to play a part on our little mission that TLM is showing; but we're only 40 guys. ICly it makes no sense that we're doing this alone in the city, it should come amidst a general Uprising as many more groups like ours are headed towards the City, throwing themselves at the walls from outside or starting an Uprising from within. Even if it were only just some flavour text, some /event about distant fighting, it'd make a lot more sense from an in-character perspective.
 
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Roleplay wise, its all been pretty good.
Where the event has struggled has largely been on the planning and execution side of staff, in my eyes.

Swamp
The entire swamp section of this was pretty rough honestly. It was an exploration period that lasted a whole week where there wouldn't have been enough to explore, even if you took out the sprinters, to last a day. The active events themselves were incredibly basic, borderline below average.

Initial arrival to the hidden bunker saw a bunch of us get instantly downed via a random headcrab shell. I dont mind this too much, but its the kind of critical injury that you basically just have to ignore, since to RP it would be crippling. There were some other defenses and fights, most of which utilized OTA NPC's which I simply don't like because it creates this extremely strange fluctuation in OTA potency IC. Its bad enough Hunters are treated like pin-cushions.

There really wasn't any even too noteworthy in the swamp save for the finale which...I honestly didn't find that great either. The timer was neat, but on my end of things, I just stood around covering before eventually being instantly killed by a random artillery shell. In truth this happened three times during the swamp so maybe just exceptionally bad luck. It was a neat enough spectacle, but it wasn't able to keep up with the raw amount of people present.

The biggest failing of the swamp was easily the lack of consistency. The trains condition fluctuated regularly, as did the objectives presented to us. The entire thing felt like it was in a miserable state of starting and stopping like an engine undergoing extreme misfires. In the end, It really didn't feel like there was any reason we even stayed at the swamp In character, as it only served to cost us nearly all of our equipment.

The Train Passive
Not much to complain about here. Generally speaking, the RP of things has been good across the board, even excellent at times. However, not always.
It's already been discussed on discord briefly, and it is unfortunate to have to say it, but Ghost Jon and his band of xen animals were...rough. Its not the characters or players fault, I just think it has to be said that most people find this to vary from distracting, to outright immersion breaking. Having a literal ghost walking around is already strange, but talking headcrabs and Xenian gods taking the form of a chumtoad is far and away too much goofiness to be taken seriously. Ideally we'll have less of that going forward.

Theta
The opening event I feel was pretty weak. Even below average. While the propping was really good, so much so I didn't know much of it was props at all, there was remarkably little to actually do. Thermal scopes ensured exploration was almost entirely discouraged and the general 'nearness' the OTA checkpoint had with our objective further discouraged it. Once we got inside, there was some basic shooting, but I never saw any of it.

The machine is something I'm not particularly interested in, although from a technical perspective the voices were a neat setpiece. I have no idea what they were, who they were nor have I heard anyone talk about them IC since...so I'm not sure if that was intentional or just a bit of a misfire in terms of information.

I wont comment much on the final event of Theta, since my character was wounded and did not have much active participation in it. I hear it was good, however, and I had no issues with the general idea of it.


Overall

If there is one really glaring flaw all of these events have had, since we left I24, its that nothing we've done has actually led to any real progress for the resistance. The Combine bias at the alps ensured we lost everything before we left it, and there just hasn't been much of a 'recovery' of that progress at all. It almost feels like there is both an IC and OOC disconnect in the state of things.

Currently, the resistance is on a train bound for City Twenty-four. In no reality are we winning the fight as we are...we have one half-track from 1940 with us (ICly probably not actually that, but same difference.) and absolutely no heavy weapons to speak of. We don't even have hefty stores of ammo to spare, nor utlities such as armor or grenades. This is a pretty big problem as it means only two things are left to be done:

1. Staff asspulls an extended amount of equipment for us last minute in order to make this fight even remotely possible.
2. They don't, and we all die extremely quickly.

I feel like everyone, both IC and OOC were expecting there to be an asspull in the end and thus weren't too bothered by it, but it seems a missed opportunity that none of our efforts across the Alps, swamp or theta bunkers actually mattered at all. Would have been nice for us to actually 'collect' our arsenal a little bit as we moved along, rather than mostly just lose everything along the way...the complete opposite of what should have happened.


What I'd like to see in Chapter 1:

I'd like to see room for passive still be available. I suppose having the event setup almost as a Battlefield One operation, where there are distinct lines that form between both sides, so that we don't have this turn into random chaos with no through-line or objectives. Even still, it should probably be an event on the longer side, with active and passive events both, so that the S2k doesn't become stale and troublesome.

I'd also like to see the focus actually be on the Combine. Less Xen and Race-X shit. Obviously that's a factor which is unavoidable at this point, but it'd be nice for the Combine to maintain itself as the primary antagonist at least for this one event, given its the cumulation of everything.
 
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Obviously not the right place to ask this but the times I've asked have been met with varying responses or a complete lack thereof.

Will the loyalists get a chance to roleplay at all in this event? Presuming you're going to C24 (where the loyalist characters are), there's a great opportunity there.
 
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