You’re an absolute delight, who brings great feedback as always, so thank you! Answering these in the order they were received:
1. Candidly, not only are we aware that DC18s for the rest of the game would be miserable for the players, it would also be pretty miserable for the mod team. It’s definitely not sustainable, as you mentioned yourself; even for one mission, it was a lot to deal with. The difficulty spike was always intended to manifest in different ways with Wonderland as the Spiders Georg of missions, as it were.
2. Pulling back the curtain a bit, the Suffering Dice were meant to be our nod to a similar mechanic in the TAZ Balance arc of the same name (although it sounds like you might be aware of this already). As in that arc, they aren’t really meant to be optional; Wonderland exacts its toll, and in order to succeed you have to make sacrifices. In fact, working with that kind of modifier in part 2 was part of the reason for the DC18s in the first place: everything is more difficult, here is a handy IC mechanic for characters to make random but personally significant sacrifices in order to increase their likelihood of success. So in that sense you’re not wrong.
We do feel, though, that the way those things were meant to tie together got lost in translation quite a bit. Paying homage to something in the original work is all well and good, but it also has to make sense internally, whereas it sounds like to some it felt a bit gratuitous. This is one aspect of our overall concern regarding internal logic and linearity between logs and between missions. We want things to flow together more seamlessly than that!
So, while we don’t have any intention of using a Suffering Dice-like mechanic in the future, we’re definitely going to keep this in mind going forward. It’s important to look at mechanics from all angles to ensure that they make sense from a player perspective and from an IC perspective, not just from a mod perspective.
3. This is an interesting point, and one that we’ve been thinking about as people gain more diverse path actions. Where we’ve run into issues has largely been in group rolls with a number of characters providing relevant path actions that improve the likelihood of success. This is awesome and exactly how the game should be played, but sometimes we do run into a situation where 8 characters are in one party and they all have a relevant path action, which could conceivably give a +16. Especially when it comes to highly plot-contingent rolls, we really can’t give that much of a buff and still have it be randomized; at some point it stops being RNG. At the same time we agree, it sucks to say “here’s my path action” and not get anything out of it. How we’ve been working it thus far is by using our collective best judgment in setting a cap on buffs per roll. The downside of this is that it really has to be on a case-by-case basis, depending on plot relevance and other factors. We’re happy to hear further input on this matter, though, because we do recognize that it’s a concern.
4. You are kind, and we do sometimes need the reminder! In fairness to us, modding for y’all is an incredibly rewarding experience, and we’re grateful and very honored to be able to make this game the best it can be for everyone. Thank you for everything that you do!
no subject
1. Candidly, not only are we aware that DC18s for the rest of the game would be miserable for the players, it would also be pretty miserable for the mod team. It’s definitely not sustainable, as you mentioned yourself; even for one mission, it was a lot to deal with. The difficulty spike was always intended to manifest in different ways with Wonderland as the Spiders Georg of missions, as it were.
2. Pulling back the curtain a bit, the Suffering Dice were meant to be our nod to a similar mechanic in the TAZ Balance arc of the same name (although it sounds like you might be aware of this already). As in that arc, they aren’t really meant to be optional; Wonderland exacts its toll, and in order to succeed you have to make sacrifices. In fact, working with that kind of modifier in part 2 was part of the reason for the DC18s in the first place: everything is more difficult, here is a handy IC mechanic for characters to make random but personally significant sacrifices in order to increase their likelihood of success. So in that sense you’re not wrong.
We do feel, though, that the way those things were meant to tie together got lost in translation quite a bit. Paying homage to something in the original work is all well and good, but it also has to make sense internally, whereas it sounds like to some it felt a bit gratuitous. This is one aspect of our overall concern regarding internal logic and linearity between logs and between missions. We want things to flow together more seamlessly than that!
So, while we don’t have any intention of using a Suffering Dice-like mechanic in the future, we’re definitely going to keep this in mind going forward. It’s important to look at mechanics from all angles to ensure that they make sense from a player perspective and from an IC perspective, not just from a mod perspective.
3. This is an interesting point, and one that we’ve been thinking about as people gain more diverse path actions. Where we’ve run into issues has largely been in group rolls with a number of characters providing relevant path actions that improve the likelihood of success. This is awesome and exactly how the game should be played, but sometimes we do run into a situation where 8 characters are in one party and they all have a relevant path action, which could conceivably give a +16. Especially when it comes to highly plot-contingent rolls, we really can’t give that much of a buff and still have it be randomized; at some point it stops being RNG. At the same time we agree, it sucks to say “here’s my path action” and not get anything out of it. How we’ve been working it thus far is by using our collective best judgment in setting a cap on buffs per roll. The downside of this is that it really has to be on a case-by-case basis, depending on plot relevance and other factors. We’re happy to hear further input on this matter, though, because we do recognize that it’s a concern.
4. You are kind, and we do sometimes need the reminder! In fairness to us, modding for y’all is an incredibly rewarding experience, and we’re grateful and very honored to be able to make this game the best it can be for everyone. Thank you for everything that you do!