AC Feedback Response

[sodder]

Response to the Feedback Post

Hello again everybody! Thank you so much for your feedback on our last post. We read through every comment we received and we greatly appreciate not only that you took the time to respond, but that so many of you went into extreme detail both on the issues you were having with our current Activity Check system and what you would like to see changed from it. We did our best to incorporate as much of this as possible in our proposed changes to AC that you can see below and we hope that it can reach a happy medium that both makes people feel rewarded for their efforts in activity, but is also simple enough or everyone to not feel like they’re doing a lot of extra work when they submit their forms each month.

There were some really great questions raised in the post. We’ll do our best to address the most common ones here and if there is any further confusion with the newer, simplified proposed AC, we will answer those in the comments below.

Some people asked why we switched from a 1:1 ratio in our points system to having log comments worth slightly more points than network comments. While this may have seemed random, this was not something we did out of nowhere, and we apologize for having not brought that forward from the start. We had had many people come to our mod team stating that they were frustrated that their log comments were worth the same as their network comments when the vast majority of the time, their log comments were much, much longer. Word Count based rewards systems are not only a nightmare for most players to calculate, but are also a nightmare for the mods who have to check activity, and it is much simpler if it is split up by log and network categories instead. In many other games, this is common practice in activity checks, whether through rewarding more points for log comments or requiring less log comments for base activity than network comments, and we felt that following that pattern was the easiest way to solve these frustrations that were being brought to us. While we understand a 1:1 ratio is the absolute easiest for people to calculate as all you have to do is count the comments you’ve done, we don’t feel it’s fair to ignore the equal number of players who were frustrated with the old system by completely reverting back to it. This is why we hope that the proposed AC below will help satisfy all of our players.

Some people were confused on what qualifies a log comment, particularly in the cases of when network comments turn into action comments. For simplicities sake, log comments are any comments on any post that involves IC face to face interaction, and network comments are any comments on any post that involves IC interaction over Deer Feed. How this would apply to network comments that become action comments is entirely up to the player calculating their points; if you would like to split them into 1 point for each network comment and then 3 points for each action comment, you are welcome to do so, or you could simply keep it 1 point for each comment within the network post if that is easier for you to do.

We also had people ask why inbox threads no longer counted for AC. Originally we wanted to only allow inbox threads to count towards base AC to try and encourage people to branch out into the main game, and overall, the higher use of the communities rather than inboxes looks better to potential players as it shows that our communities are active. However, many of you have pointed out that it doesn’t make sense to not allow inbox threads when we allow closed logs to count for base AC. We realized this was definitely a glaring fault in our original logic, and because of this, we are going to return to allowing inbox threads for one proof of base AC.

Cross-canon points were brought up a few times. While we understand some people are frustrated with the way the new form has you calculate the cross-canon points by listing the characters you’re claiming them for and calculating them separately, this is overall easier for the activity checker to make sure that it’s being added on correctly. While we want to make AC as simple as possible, that includes making the process of double-checking as easy as possible on the mods, which is why we’ve made the standardized form overall. We appreciate your understanding.

As for the 3 comment minimum for proofs, as stated in the last post, this is to ensure people do not abandon threads. The only exception to this is when logs/network threads that are from the previous AC month are wrapped up in less than 3 comments in the current month. These straggler comments can be collected for points so long as the proof is marked "END".

Those were the main questions that were brought forward that we felt weren’t resolved by our proposed simplified AC and we hope that this fully answers them. Once again, if there is any remaining confusion, please feel free to leave questions below.

Proposed Changes to AC

This is our proposed new format for the activity requirements. Please read it over carefully and feel free to provide feedback below.

Notable changes:

➟ Base AC has been made points based. We felt that this simplified the issue with spillover points the easiest and would hopefully simplify how bonus points were calculated. From now on, in order to pass activity, characters must earn 30 points from a minimum of 2 proofs of activity. While we know this is an increase from the 20 points we used as the minimum in the old activity check, given that people are now able to earn more points through open posts and log comments, we wanted to find a balance when switching to the point based system, and we feel this was the best way to do so.

➟ We are proposing getting rid of horror points. No one would lose their currently earned horror points, they would simply merge with regular points from here on out. This means if you have earned 300 regular points and 200 horror points in the course of the game, you would now simply have 500 points. Please vote on this here!

➟ The FAQ is shorter. We tried to answer the most important questions we could think of, but please let us know if you would like anything further clarified on the official activity check page.

➟ The standardized form has changed. We tried to simplify the form so that it would make calculating points as easy as possible. Log comments and network comments were separated so that all you have to do is add up the number of comments in each and then multiply them by their respective point values. We hope that this is much clearer for our players overall.

We believe that this new AC looks much simpler, cleaner, and hopefully clearer. Please let us know what you think and thank you all so much for bearing with us through this process.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[sodder]

[danzan]

Great work on the page, mods! It looks a lot cleaner than it did before. :) I just have a few suggestions/questions:

"Comment proofs should show interaction with at least 2 characters."

Maybe this can be re-worded to "Threads for base AC should show your character interacting with at least 2 different characters."?? NGL the first time I read it I understood it as "2 characters must be interacting in your threads" and I was like "but... my char and someone else's char will be interacting... that's two... why do I have to specify this"

Test Drive: - 1 point per comment, 10 points for a top-level (new characters only)

Does this mean existing players can no longer claim points from the TDM, or is "new characters only" only applicable to the "10 pts/tlvl" bit?

[sodder]

We can definitely reword that to make it more clear.

TDM comments can be claimed for a point, only new characters can collect on top-levels. We'll clear up the wording on that as well.

[danzan]

So all TDM comments (besides toplevels for newbies) are worth 1 pt regardless of whether it's a network/log thread?

[sodder]

Woops, that was my (Simcha) bad - I meant to put the 1/3 network/log rule in there and must have just forgot the log part. They're counted the same as the network/logs!

[danzan]

No worries! :D I'm grateful for the clarification either way.

Thanks for all the hard work mods!!!

[justbeingknife]

Hey, so if the points do get combined, will the reward prices simply combine, aka if you needed 100 RP and 100 HP the price would now be 200 points?

[sodder]

Yes, that's how we planned on going forward with it. We may recalculate a few points if the combination of RP and HP seems to make the points unfair in some way, but for the most part, it will just be a combination of the current separated prices.