Season DICE Feedback Thread

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Season DICE Feedback Thread

Hello everybody. I am opening up a Feedback thread for people to put their thoughts in about Season DICE.
I will be doing my regular positives and negatives post later on this evening.

DICE was extremely different than some of our previous seasons so I am doubly interested in feedback so I encourage people to say their thoughts on what was good, bad, or just needs a little tweaking.

[Yuni Shingyouji]

Hello! This is Hatsune Mystio, the princess of Deceit and Despair! I'm here to review the latest season; Season DICE!

Season: DICE was hosted by Seadrias. The game lasted around 3 weeks total, and had a total of 15 players outside of the Mastermind. The game's premise was for players to complete quests received from a mysterious entity named X to obtain objects called DICE, which powered up characters to their choosing. Players ranked up by receiving more DICE, and eventually reached A rank for a final free for all to determine who was the best A rank and become S rank.

Premise

Season DICE had a very complex premise that was extremely open. Season DICE could best be described as a sandbox game with lots to do. The thing about Season DICE was that, although super complex, it was limited to how you wanted to be. For example, let's say you only wanted to solve the plot of the game. Suddenly, the game becomes a whole lot simpler and smooth. If you are focused on pure combat, there is a lot of options for you to grow as a combat character, but the premise of it all is very simple.

The season literally had a little bit of something for everyone, those who didn't enjoy the season or where lost simply were too focused on the things they didn't like rather then limiting themselves on things they did like.

Layout

The city was extremely large, and had much to explore. Unfortunately, I did not explore or investigate a single object as this was not something I was interested in this season. This did not cause too much issues for me though, which made the season much more enjoyable.

Each building had a labyrinth of places to explore, there was various secret areas to explore, many NPCs to interact with, and many buildings to enter. This season was truly large and vast and Sea did an amazing job in the layout.

Murdering

Murdering was a minor thing this season, the benefit from doing so was to acquire DICE from the player you murdered. I felt the desire to murder was outstanding, it wasn't necessary and benefited a lot. However, not many players decided to go through with it. This is fine, as it truly shows the priorities of the players.

Trials were handled in a unique and excellently executed fashion. There was a designated prosecute, and a defendant on who had the most votes, to make sure the players were sure on their vote.

The only problem I found was with investigations, as investigation was rather difficult with the use of various DICE powers. I felt the evidence was far too hard to tie to people, or in some cases, simply didn't exist.

However, due to the realism of DICE and the information provided to the defendant, I felt that this was handled nicely.

Plot

The plot of DICE was extremely simple, yet complex. It was executed very nicely, with various NPCs to talk to and many items to discover. The plot was left unsolved by any single player, however, I do feel that not enough people truly tried.

The only thing about the plot I did not enjoy was the separation from B and A rank players at the end. Not because I was B, but because of the separation of information, and players not able to trade information (AKA Poke to Ravan).

Characters

Characters in this game felt unique and well executed. There was many NPCs to interact with and many bosses to defeat to obtain special Golden Dice. I felt this was executed much better then anything I could ever imagine.

This is my first season with NPCs, and I have to say I enjoyed it.

Super Powers

Super powers were balanced in this season due to them not interfering too much with murder.

Super powers (SHSL) gave minor boosts to characters in either combat, stats, or investigation. These boosts did not break anything in the game to my knowledge.

Players also got to customize a 6th stat that helped them immensely and created unique abilities for them to use in combat. This gave them unique skills with different cooldowns and was extremely balanced.

Conclusion

Season: DICE made a huge and positive impact on my life. I'm glad I got to play it, and thank Sea from the bottom of my heart for hosting it. The game was long, filled with roleplay, and had a great community. I'm glad I was there, and glad to give the final score.

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Time for me to post my own thoughts and feelings. Lets start with an overview

Overview
As a note, since I am considered the winner of DICE, please remember that I am more biased to favor the game since I managed to come out on top. I am attempting to temper my opinion to balance that but just keep that in mind.

DICE was a major departure from the regular format of the murder mystery games we play in an attempt to be more combat/stat focused. The stat system being a heavy focus of the game and the inability to reference DICE in trial proved to shift the games primary purpose and "meat" away from trials and more towards general Actions and gameplay. Personally, I view this change as being well handled and used to make a fun and interesting game. I felt there were some minor issues, but none that I felt were hugely game breaking. DICE has been an excellent game even if its harder to call it a Murder Mystery and can't wait to see more of this style of game, hopefully they mastermind it well as you have.


Positives

I roll to be Awesome: The DICE and Stats: The DICE mechanic is fun to play with and gives everyone the prospect of bettering their character and growing stronger in any of the fields. The numbers seemed to be balanced and even players who were lower on the DICE count had a reasonable chance of winning through taking advantage of strengths and weaknesses. None of the stats felt immediately better than all the rest nor any one stat significantly worse. The 6th stat was further fun in allowing more customization for our characters, always a good thing. While the inherent randomness of DICE is off putting to some I feel it just adds a layer of tension and depth since you have to work with what you get, which won't be set in stone. The stat system was surprising deep for what was originally a "murder mystery" game and it worked great.

Avrak 4.0: The City of Avrak and the Map: The map was interesting and I never felt at a loss for new places to go. While in the same breath it was easy to get lost early on and the quantity of things to investigate was slightly overwhelming, I never felt that way. This was probably since I played a character who simply didn't care to investigate the secrets of his city and I just walked around the city. It felt like an elaborate board for the game to play out on and it suited its purpose.

You mean the NPCs DON'T kill me?: The Cast of DICE: Most NPCs in C's prior seasons have been majorly separated from the players and only been hinted at and their interaction with the players is extremely limited or set events. Specifically the plot murders by NPCs that resulted in ridiculous trials. This time in DICE the NPCs, that I spoke to, all had different and interesting personalities. It also gave a sense of the world moving around us since events weren't JUST the players doing things. The NPCs were funner and more enjoyable to interact with than any other NPCs in prior games to me. It was fun talking with them and, in Adell's case, seeing how they reacted when I yelled "FIGHT ME."

SHENANIGANS GALORE: The Quest System: Basically you got to push players in specific directions and have us all attempting to do different things every day, and alot of the time these quests overlap. This results in players either working together or flat out fighting each other. I ended up punching Kleara when she had to jump into a fight, ironically I had a quest to hit a bystander and she a quest to get punched. Alot of quests came up about the cultists and all the players met different cultists and had differing interactions. So whats so great about the Quest System? Exactly as told, it pushed every player to move and act and become a part of the world. Adell had quests to challenge lots of people so Adell ended up actually meeting alot of the games characters through yelling and violence. Quests pushed character development AND helped immerse us into the world. Some of us had battle quests others plot quests. It was fun and helped push the game forward at a steady pace. There was less a time limit more a worry that whoever completes the most quests would be the strongest and win.

Final Fantasy Syndrome: Final Boss GOD: Wasn't possible to win, but getting to choose to team up with the big bad and fight god was just fun. A little choice that probably didn't have THAT much impact on the end result, but very fun. Its also nice to not get nuked after making the one non good guy choice.


Negatives

ALL RISE....AND GO HOME: Murder and Trials: Trials felt kind of.... pointless early on since we didn't really have any impactful trials. Yeah Keima killed 4 police officers, but I had trouble caring since there was no impact and unlike when Von died I had no motivation to react. That said it was important to the world that there was a trial, but it just felt... weaker than it should have been. It got better for the murder of Light since a player was the victim, but the trials just felt tacked on to me.

Game Balance: I don't really know where to put this so I am putting it in the negatives since I can't for sure say it either way. The game FELT kind of imbalanced in favor of certain things, but it FELT like it should have been that way. That said I have to say this since the game obviously have things better than others. Clairvoyance is never going to win over Time Pause. Guns did ALOT of friggin damage, but were tough to obtain so that is forgiven. The imbalance felt right, but its weird and I don't know if its good so I put it down here.

[King V]

Here is what I experienced from a mastermind's perspective.

Season DICE was a LOT of work. In my opinion, it was over 5 times as much work as a normal season, with about 3 times as much work preparing for it. People simply rolling dice took a good minute and a half's worth of time to edit their profiles and calculate their dice points. Then add calculating combat stats for battles and people using skills that mess with stats or updating stats in the middle of a battle and the work escalates to enormous levels. I had to come up with around 40 unique quests every day, balance dice rewards for players who were ahead or behind, then keep track of the time per player for every day. Most of the plot twists I came up with (i.e. Erald causing a riot, martial law, cultists appearing, etc) were made during the actual season since I couldn't predict what players would do. It was the same deal with forged abilities and unique skills based on 6th stats, most were come up with off the top of my head. Actual combat was a lot worse. I calculated percentages off the top of my head to speed things up (40 damage, 24% evasion, passive block 30% with weapon, reduce damage by 17% due to defense, apply attack speed so next attack is 5 seconds decreased by 35% +3 seconds due to power strike, etc, etc), then recorded them in my battle document, and finally converted the damage into a rough estimate to give the player a sense of how wounded they were. If 2 or more battles were happening at the same time I essentially had to put everything else on hold or make long pauses in the battles. Additionally, due to how the map is made, it's difficult to track people, so as the mastermind I could not always keep up with everyone's location at all times. All in all, a tremendous amount of work.

I definitely think the fights were the most interesting parts of the season, since I didn't actually know how they would turn out until near the end. My stat formula definitely needed some balancing (I buffed endurance by 33% in the middle of the game and people were still getting 1hko'ed), and there were some equipment issues, but overall I feel like the balance was fine. Obviously there would be some unfairness between people with large differences in dice, but I think I curbed the escalating of acquiring dice to a good amount, and gave people who were behind enough quests so that they could catch up (except for certain people who canceled their quests).

In regard to NPCs, the plot, and shenanigans, all I can say is I tried my best to get in character and everything seemed to work out fine.

I think the biggest flaw in this season was how people who were behind stayed behind, and people who got ahead stayed ahead. The risk/reward factor was very, very high in this season, and people who took risks and got lucky succeeded. Quests were my main catchup mechanic, and when phase 2 started I got rid of quests due to how much work it was, which just made people who were behind fall behind even further. I put in Godspawn NPCs to compensate, but it didn't seem like people were all too interested in fighting them.

Overall, for this season I have no real opinion. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, which is good, but managing all the fights and such has left me exhausted, so I can't really say how well it went. However, I was PAINFULLY aware of all the negatives. Every time I sat down to rebalance things (which was extremely often) I could almost feel all of the negative comments pricking me in the back of my head, so I'm glad to see that people ended up enjoying it despite my intense paranoia.

[Deleted]

Alright The Positives? and my experience ~

The map was large but it suited the game it was great it was kinda tiring to post dots every floor in a building though I wish I had explored the map so that I would know a quicker way to the hospital since I took the long away to try and save my life after ayame injected me with a syringe, the battle system was good but you need to improve.

I liked dice but didn't enjoy it sure I had cops as an army but they turned out to be useless I couldn't use them against godspawn I tried to raid the black market to loot the weapon store but couldn't I understand why as to allow players to buy weapons.

I've had bad quests asking me to find people's homes to burn them the police database couldn't help me with that, the only way to find the player's homes are either by going to the apartment looking at the list of people living there and their room number without having the receptionists see me (and I'm a police chief =/) or waiting outside people's houses waiting for someone to enter their house then ask sea I saw this person where did he go but it turns out the best method to actually know where is a person is by looking a head which is cheating ofc but then again sea is a busy man isn't he.

In the manga X gives people sudden quests too I wonder if sea gave sudden quests I don't think so we only got daily quests also I've canceled 7 quests they were not right they were crappy(only some of these 7 quests did actually reflect my desires but I was incapable of doing them as some of them would've taken me 2 days so I didn't want to miss the next days quests which turned out to be baby quests which gave only 3 dice as a reward =/) ofc I later on asked X for quests with more dice but never got any .

I liked that burning homes quest (hence the lighter) but that quest came at a time I didn't know how to get people's room numbers.

Pretty much most of the quests didn't reflect my desires that's how the quests system work in dice manga X gives quests on people's desires.

My title is kira which means killer not hero a justice lover.

I myself was surprised when I turned out to be the chief of police as I chose detective as my occupation and sea has been addressing me to other players "you see chief light yagami bla bla bla"

I hate it that I since day 2 I think during the meteor shower when actually dice was falling an A ranker npc appeared and KO'ed me just as I was trying to get a dice, also having kleara be protected by an A ranker npc where an A ranker npc run straight towards me from the school to the city square(how would she even know that ) and KO me in one hit, sure kleara was afk but it was just not fair even afk players automatically fight back who try to attack them right (you said that in skype "players have the order to kill anyone who gets close to them" if i remember correctly)

It's not my fault players are afk so you make them invincible.

Lastly no offence but you're a level 4 mastermind right highest level mehs....as I was talking with the white cults you had them say one and the same thing ask the same question over and over and over again "what are you doing here?" "But what are you doing here?" "Alright but what are you doing here" I clearly answered them again and again telling them "why off course I came here to join you" there should be some kind of ritual or something but instead you keep on asking the same question =/
I won't say what this indicates though, I don't care if you reply telling me how hard it was to you masterminding I don't care if people don't like this, this is my feedback.