Event feedback - Dreary Futures: Redocking

[Dreamix]

Firstly. Consider that this is just my personal opinion. I have joined in the event as off-duty, explored what was there to explore (which was not very much), chatted idly with other off-duty/non-sec/non-command people, and then, after realizing this will not involve my character in any way, I have ghosted and watched the rest of the event.

Secondly. Apologies to all staff and anyone involved in setting up and managing this event, but... I think it was bad and disappointing, for a lot of reasons.

Thirdly. I am not expecting anything to change just because I wrote a post on the forum. If some people had their fun, that's fine, good on them. But I have talked to two other regulars that also had similar thoughts, and also, from watching conversations on the discord, supposedly we have a history of bloody events like this one. So there's that. I was kinda expecting someone else to create a thread like this one, that I could comment on.

 

1. The map was just too simple and underdeveloped. Pretty much just a single long and straight hallway, from the SFA ship, to the Intrepid. With some small and short maintenance tunnels, that didn't even connect up to the other tunnels. The hallways were two tiles wide for some reason, which guarantees people bunching up, both for light roleplay before the combat (could be seen around the armory), and during combat as well (in front of the Intrepid).
    
2. The map was also not really functional in the first place. The only cryo pod that I have seen, to leave the round and free up a slot, was in the intrepid... Which obviously could not be used after the combat started. I have seen people ghost in their seats in the HUGE bar/restaurant area to watch the action. Why was it so huge in the first place? There can only be so many people in a single open room before it all gets too chaotic to really roleplay with someone else. Also the medbay was really tiny, for some reason.
    
3. It involved pretty much only security, command, and medical. And also anyone who somehow was given a gun (I have seen at least one off-duty sec officer get a gun, while there was a ton of on-duty crew who did not get one). What was everyone else supposed to do, then? Operations, engineering, science, service, off-duty people. Also anyone who does not fight.
    
4. Anyone else? Left out of the event almost completely, and left to do nothing but stand idly, chair-rp, or do bar things in the bar. I have seen someone on the discord say that some off-duty people were just standing there and watching the fight as bullets fly past by them - yeah, they were, because there was nothing else to do, and just cowering in fear is not really fun roleplay. I have also seen people try to barricade up the bar/restaurant area, which was really pointless, and also there was nothing to actually barricade it with in the first place.
    
5. Also, they couldn't even do their normal jobs, because they were robbed of those, as the map did not accommodate them. Like in the previous event, science wanted to do an expedition, and command grounded them, and it was considered and received really really bad - and now, pretty much everyone was not able to conduct their normal round-to-round business, so shouldn't it be even worse?
    
6. What was the impact of this event? I might have not seen or understood it, but pretty much, the event had no impact on anything. SFA and FSF or whatever died, but no one cares about those. Two crewmembers died, but no one is going to mourn over them for a longer period of time. What kind of post-event roleplay did it generate? I have seen people hold a ceremony or whatever for those who died, or ask in round what is going to happen to the commander's corapt, but like, that's about it. The only real lasting impact of the event, was to allow security characters to have some canon frags, upping their kill count of nameless grunts. Anything else could have been a result of a normal non-canon round (like some chars hating on each other for their decisions, like leaving someone else to die in a merc round).

 

What went wrong? Was the map supposed to be more developed, but someone has ran out of time? Was the crew expected to solve the situation differently, somehow?
Was the population expected to be smaller? This could've worked better, if there was less crew, I think.
Or maybe it is by design, that only security/command/medical was supposed to be involved in this event? If yes, that is kinda sad and disappointing.

 

How could at least some of these issues be solved? Honestly, I don't really know!

One suggestion I have, is to maybe have events only on the Horizon, so people who are not involved in combat, can practice their normal jobs somehow, or at least be in a familiar environment. This map could have been an away site, that security and medical would leave to, leaving everyone else to do their normal round stuff - like the last event, where engineering went to repair the ship, while everyone else was doing what they usually do.

Alternatively, how about remapping the horizon, so it is a static map (and not a moving ship), and around the horizon there is an actual station/shipyard/outpost. I think that would be very cool, and people could freely travel between the normal horizon stuff, and the even stuff, without having to waste minutes waiting on and around the intrepid.

 

Link to this event in the calendar:

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Dreamix

[DatSamTho]

(To preface this, I am writing this pretty late, and I am fairly tired, so expect spelling mistakes, and me repeating stuff)

I have always found the complaint that "The event only included sec and command" is valid, but also looking at it from the organisation side of things really damn hard to resolve. And I mean- it's not only for events, the same thing has been said for a lot of antags in general. Speaking honestly, I think it's unavoidable, to a point. There's only so much you can do for an event to involve everyone, if you don't want it to end up being a speech by high ranking person from X on-ship, or people going around and asking you to sign a petition, or somethig like that. A lot of roles, aside from sec and command simply. . . don't exactly have a reason to interact with the event roles, during mid-high intensity events.

One of the best arcs, when it came to crew involvement, was probably the Tajran Raskara arc, but that was a pretty unique idea, and not really something you can repeat, and not to mention that it required a lot of dev commitment, seeing as it was carried out during extended rounds as well.

tl;dr: Mid-high intensity events most of the time involve shit going bad, and sec and command are the ones that handle shit going bad. It's a hard problem to fix, unless our devs give us a lot of effort.

[Dreamix]

1 hour ago, tomkiel said:

[...]

tl;dr: Mid-high intensity events most of the time involve shit going bad, and sec and command are the ones that handle shit going bad. It's a hard problem to fix, unless our devs give us a lot of effort.

Basically, the problem, IMO, in this event specifically, was that other crew had nothing to do.

If it all happened on horizon: Science could get an expedition going, before the fighting event begins. Mining could probably depart and come back at any time, even during code red. A gardener could grow plants. Cooks could cook for people, operations could do whatever they usually are doing, and off-duty crew could lounge in any of the million lounges that we have. Etc, etc. And combat could spill into any of the mentioned areas, potentially involving these people.

Engaging only a part of the crew is fine, if the crew can do something else, or at the very least do what they usually do during normal rounds.

[Marlon P.]

Good rundown. I observed it too to see if i wanted to play for and noticed the same thing that you did. I don't like sec or medplay so I just watched for a bit more then left. I agree with your solutions. Horizon focus is good.

[SilverSZ]

I think the criticism of the Map is pretty accurate. It's something the lore team has already noted for future events.

As for people being left out, that is often the nature of events and including everyone, especially for more hostile events such as this can be very difficult. Though I do agree that letting people be on the Horizon would have aided this, again.

I however have to say that I think the final point about event impact is incorrect. The FSF and their ship are currently serving as the Horizons security escort into a dangerous region of space, and the deaths of their two commanding officers will have a dramatic effect on this relationship going forward. I think it's premature to say the event had no effect on anything without having seen the rest of the arc and what occurs as a result of the event. There are more events to come and each outcome will have impacts down the road for the next event. 

Overall though, other than the point on impact I think this criticism is pretty solid. The lore team is still experimenting with how best to run events and do things in our new setting so I can say we do take note of these things and try and improve in the future. The away map idea actually came about because of the issues we have had in previous events getting the Intrepid to leave in a reasonable time, for example.

 

[Kintsugi]

8 hours ago, Dreamix said:

The map was just too simple and underdeveloped. Pretty much just a single long and straight hallway, from the SFA ship, to the Intrepid. With some small and short maintenance tunnels, that didn't even connect up to the other tunnels. The hallways were two tiles wide for some reason, which guarantees people bunching up, both for light roleplay before the combat (could be seen around the armory), and during combat as well (in front of the Intrepid).

8 hours ago, Dreamix said:

The map was also not really functional in the first place. The only cryo pod that I have seen, to leave the round and free up a slot, was in the intrepid... Which obviously could not be used after the combat started. I have seen people ghost in their seats in the HUGE bar/restaurant area to watch the action. Why was it so huge in the first place? There can only be so many people in a single open room before it all gets too chaotic to really roleplay with someone else. Also the medbay was really tiny, for some reason.

I don't really think this is fair. While the hallways should have been wider, this map was a one-off made as a set piece for the event. It will never be returning and it's just not a good idea to pour a massive amount of effort into a map that appears once in the course of an event (This leads to burnout!). Mapping is actually quite difficult, and having done a fair amount of it myself at this point I can totally understand why this map was the way it was.

8 hours ago, Dreamix said:

It involved pretty much only security, command, and medical. And also anyone who somehow was given a gun (I have seen at least one off-duty sec officer get a gun, while there was a ton of on-duty crew who did not get one). What was everyone else supposed to do, then? Operations, engineering, science, service, off-duty people. Also anyone who does not fight.
 

Anyone else? Left out of the event almost completely, and left to do nothing but stand idly, chair-rp, or do bar things in the bar. I have seen someone on the discord say that some off-duty people were just standing there and watching the fight as bullets fly past by them - yeah, they were, because there was nothing else to do, and just cowering in fear is not really fun roleplay. I have also seen people try to barricade up the bar/restaurant area, which was really pointless, and also there was nothing to actually barricade it with in the first place.
 

Also, they couldn't even do their normal jobs, because they were robbed of those, as the map did not accommodate them. Like in the previous event, science wanted to do an expedition, and command grounded them, and it was considered and received really really bad - and now, pretty much everyone was not able to conduct their normal round-to-round business, so shouldn't it be even worse?

This is a common complaint that comes up with events in general, and the only way to really change this is to make it so you don't actually have a job at all (having everyone on the same footing means nobody is in charge or the de facto solver-of-the-problem). If an event is going to be dangerous, obviously departments that deal with conflicts are going to have the most gameplay. If an event is about a fight, and you don't want to fight or be around that fight - tough luck, I guess? Not every event is going to be able to engage everybody, unless it is a truly Earth-shattering event. However, this had plenty of opportunities for people to be involved - you could have joined up with the militia (let me point out the militia was pretty huge), created barricades, helped move wounded, etc. As for science not being able to do an expedition... Good? The point of an event round is that there's an event going on. Doing your normal job is something you can do literally every round - why turn up to an event in the first place if you just want to ignore it and pretend it's a normal round?

Let me point out that this was the second event of the arc, and a medium-scale event - it was an exposition event. Not a grand finale.

8 hours ago, Dreamix said:

What was the impact of this event? I might have not seen or understood it, but pretty much, the event had no impact on anything. SFA and FSF or whatever died, but no one cares about those. Two crewmembers died, but no one is going to mourn over them for a longer period of time. What kind of post-event roleplay did it generate? I have seen people hold a ceremony or whatever for those who died, or ask in round what is going to happen to the commander's corapt, but like, that's about it. The only real lasting impact of the event, was to allow security characters to have some canon frags, upping their kill count of nameless grunts. Anything else could have been a result of a normal non-canon round (like some chars hating on each other for their decisions, like leaving someone else to die in a merc round)

This is completely wrong. This event will have major repercussions for the arc itself - the commanding officer and executive officer of the ship that the Horizon just shelled out, what, 85K credits to hire for protection while en route to explore a potentially economy-saving phoron deposit have just been assassinated, and the SFA is in active conflict with the Horizon. This event was big for the arc and will have consequences. There has been plenty of buzz IC about what's going to happen next, and the SFA prisoner is even being held aboard the Horizon, and has been spawned in the brig in subsequent rounds. Frankly, this is a very premature complaint to be making - as an event volunteer, I can tell you for sure that this has been a big deal for the event-runners, and this last event is not just pointless filler. Remember, this event was just two days ago, and you're complaining nothing has come out of it. These things take time, you know. When KotW was ongoing and the Clandestine exploded, the aftermath wasn't clear to us just two days later.

8 hours ago, Dreamix said:

One suggestion I have, is to maybe have events only on the Horizon, so people who are not involved in combat, can practice their normal jobs somehow, or at least be in a familiar environment. This map could have been an away site, that security and medical would leave to, leaving everyone else to do their normal round stuff - like the last event, where engineering went to repair the ship, while everyone else was doing what they usually do.

History has demonstrated that events where you travel from the ship to the site of the event are slow-going and even less engaging than the alternative. This is something I hope we really avoid doing - while it may have been a decent idea to map the event map around the Horizon, it isn't exactly strictly necessary. I wouldn't have minded it, though.

8 hours ago, Dreamix said:

Firstly. Consider that this is just my personal opinion. I have joined in the event as off-duty, explored what was there to explore (which was not very much), chatted idly with other off-duty/non-sec/non-command people, and then, after realizing this will not involve my character in any way, I have ghosted and watched the rest of the event.

Generally speaking, to me it seems like the fact you didn't enjoy the event was the summation of your own choices. I don't mean to sound rude - but you did spawn as a character who had no job to do, and then left the event prematurely because you could not find a way to engage yourself. It's odd to me that you feel it is important that people be able to do their normal jobs during an event - an event is a special thing. You're supposed to engage yourself with the event, not play normally as if it's not going on. Your points aren't completely invalid, but I think you're being rather unfair to the team that's running them - like I said, this is the Horizon's first real arc and it's only the second event in the arc. It's not going to be perfect - the positives seem to outweigh the negatives so far, and I think things are getting off to a good, interesting start.

Edited August 10, 2022 by DanseMacabre

[WickedCybs]

Points one and two are the biggest thing I think. I of course mean no offense at all here. The map though, it was definitely too simple and undeveloped for what the event was, making roleplay harder and things just a lot harder than it had to be. Two tile wide hallways aren't conductive to getting things going, but that's a commonly acknowledged point already.

19 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

I don't really think this is fair. While the hallways should have been wider, this map was a one-off made as a set piece for the event. It will never be returning and it's just not a good idea to pour a massive amount of effort into a map that appears once in the course of an event (This leads to burnout!). Mapping is actually quite difficult, and having done a fair amount of it myself at this point I can totally understand why this map was the way it was.

I believe It's totally fair. It's a key aspect of the event in the end, even if the map is a one-off we are having people in it. Why would it not be held to the same standards as the Horizon or anything else? I don't really think we've had one like this before, where it was just a series of hallways with some rooms from other maps put in. It didn't seem like much of a station, just a more artificial setpiece that wasn't designed for what was happening in it. Considering these events are usually prepared for a while in advance, I don't think It's a bad idea to pour effort into them, even a lot of effort. Which isn't to say the event map used for this event didn't have effort put in, I'm only saying It's not a bad thing to pour effort into these overall. 

As someone who does map as well, it definitely could have been different and it would have been better for it. if places like the Golden Deep's hotel, the Casino, the beach or the Clandestine had the same issues, I don't think people would have talked about them as much as they did. The map is extremely important to any event.

Edited August 10, 2022 by WickedCybs

[Boggle08]

From what I understand, the map was assembled on short notice. It used a lot of preconfigured assets, but I personally felt like it got the job done, with one heavy asterisk: It was extremely fragile and light on engineering related subsystems in places where it would have been important. The scariest thing about the map was the lack of emergency shutter and vent coverage, and while full reinforced windows are more durable on paper, all you need to do is break the one and you've vented the compartment. We almost had that happen, when one of the SFA characters accidentally blasted a window, partially venting the area. With no emergency shutter to catch it, an admin had to fly over and quickly replace it and the atmos that leaked out.

Some more open spaces would be nice, but I think it's equally important to consider the durability of the map, whether or not we want it to break, and either reinforcing it with better materials or putting additional effort into the engineering subsystems of that location. Especially if ballistics are involved.

[niennab]

I don't agree with the feedback of having no events off of the station. Although the map was rough, I think that events off station means that the characters and the players need to think differently from what they are used to. However my criticism of the map was that it had the look and feeling as though it was made without enough time placed on the mapper.

Any maps made can be reused in the future so I would hate to see the event team go by the methodology of 'its just for a one off' as well. Decorations can always be tweaked to suit different factions. Moreover any places that aren't the Horizon are a great way to show the different ways a station might be laid out or constructed based on the lore/wealth of any place.

[Sparky_hotdog]

1 hour ago, niennab said:

I don't agree with the feedback of having no events off of the station. Although the map was rough, I think that events off station means that the characters and the players need to think differently from what they are used to. However my criticism of the map was that it had the look and feeling as though it was made without enough time placed on the mapper.

Ditto this. In fact one of the things I really liked about the event was that it was off ship, for a multitude of reasons. By not having the event take place in the same place with the same stuff as any other round, the crew have to adapt quickly on their feet. While I ended up cryoing fairly early on, as a member of security I was pleasantly surprised at the opportunity to use something other than the standard laser rifle/carbine combo we typically have in the armoury. However, I can't speak for how other players or departments found the lack of equipment, obviously.

I do feel there was an oversight on an IC level regarding why the crew were there. It was supposedly shore leave, yet there was only really one place for relaxing crew to go (the bar, which got way too crowded very fast) and even that (I believe) required a member of the crew to man. I understand that event volunteers are limited, but I do think future shore leave events could benefit from a few volunteers playing the crew of wherever we've docked with, and with there being more for crew to do with their time off.

Failing that, there should be something for everyone to do relating to their jobs. And while it has been mentioned before many many times that basically every event has the issue of not involving non-command/security characters, at least most events on the Horizon allow folks to carry on with their business. Engineering still do their normal set up, science can still do science, etc. Again I like the event not being on the Horizon, but even on extended rounds folks like doing their jobs rather than 2 hours of constant small talk RP, and the same can probably be assumed for events like this. That or just make everyone be off duty crew (which would make a lot more IC sense to me)

1 hour ago, niennab said:

Any maps made can be reused in the future so I would hate to see the event team go by the methodology of 'its just for a one off' as well. Decorations can always be tweaked to suit different factions. Moreover any places that aren't the Horizon are a great way to show the different ways a station might be laid out or constructed based on the lore/wealth of any place.

Also ditto this. Given I believe the Odyssey was some kind of SCC/NT/Biesel fuelling station, it wouldn't be unreasonable that the station is a standard design, so the map could have been designed to be reused in future events, under different names. Obviously mapping is still hard regardless of whether the map is throwaway or not, but making a new one-and-done map every few events seems far more impractical to me than building a few decent reusable ones.