2021 4th Wall Feedback/Discussion post!

[imepro]

4th Wall as an event is pretty experimental and this year we've thrown in more experimental stuff. We'd love to hear people's opinions on things that are concerns/things that can be changed, as well as any relevant discussions/+1s and -1s and opinions on those opinions in general.

We might not respond to everything quickly but we will be reading every comment! We expect our players to be kind and courteous to each other as well as to the gamerunners and event mods; if you have complaint against a specific person, game, etc, please instead email the head mod team at imeeji.p @ gmail. Thank you!

Comments

[bondkeeper]

my suggestion for next 4th wall is definitely to bring in the other two combo units

I only remember one was sentai villains

[sancrimony]

i don't remember sentai villains at all but i do remember

[breaks out box]

cowboys and circus.

[caniscorde]

simplest solution going forward: hard cutoff for numbers for X teams, add new team for each additional set of people after that, priority to new players as always

solution for literally right now: i dunno

put us in the thunderdome or smth

[worthathousand]

this makes me wonder if like

it would actually be worthwhile to do 4th wall placements instead of just letting people place themselves

both to ensure that everyone has "equal access" as units get added and to ensure that, well, if we're making it so that each unit is capped, ideally there should be a good dynamic.

obvious drawback here is the increased workload on the mod end. :T

[rollplayinghouse]

I have not been paying enough attention to have thoughts on anything except my one immediate consideration which is: how to score my game

Scoring last time seemed to work well and IN GENERAL feel like having both cumulative and average wins helps balance "any amount you can do contributes to a cumulative win" / "if you can't go hard you're pulling down the average" and on the flip side "units with more people playing have a major advantage for cumulative score" / "one person alone with a high score can win on average." HOWEVER it occurred to me that in the case of fourth wall, cumulative-score wins are especially skewed in favor of units with more people. (which applies to all the 4th wall units)

Practically I think I can just take a look at how the scores come out and see what seems fair (maybe awarding more average wins or adding a unit size balance factor in there somewhere) but since this is a consideration for any individually-scored game I figured I'd toss it in here.

[sancrimony]

(first of all sorry for not thinking about this ahead of time and talking to you about it rip)

i'm thinking that irt scoring your game it might be best to score 4th wall units separately from the main units, and then reward all 4th wall units points based off their efforts. how that would actually work out is not something i have thought of yet but i'm sending this idea out into the ether before i DO think about it in more solid hard numbers terms so that the concept itself can get commentary before i produce [a fully formed scoring mechanic out of the thin air]

[lionhurt]

I understand size is an issue bc just, units being unmanageable to plan things with but regarding specifically scoring: you could just grade their performance off Games rather than Lives & Games next year. It feels like it would even the scales out, in terms of grading since a unit with more people to do lives with doesn't get an advantage.

Live points would still happen and be given out, but just for buying things rather than towards 4th wall scoring. Would that be feasible? Bearing in mind this solution still overlooks the issue of units being too large. I think the only real cure for that is subdivisions or adding new units.

The remaining units that haven't been combo'd are:

Bad End = Dead End
Heart Soldier Senshi
BARiTONES
Avante.

So we could get two more units out of that without breaking the 4th wall pattern, tho I know we've also been waiting on cowboys and circus forever.

[sancrimony]

that's also a pretty solid idea for next year :|a

I'm a little sad to go that way just because:
- it's been exciting to see people go hard with making Lives
- Lives are a big enough focus in the game that highlighting it as a competitive point imo is a solid way to get that encouraged
- making it Games-only puts a lot more burden on gamerunners/mods to Provide Games so that people can engage with it

but there's also definitely something to be said about going super hard = 4th wall is an Overwhelming Event so there's definitely merit beyond evening the scales. (I feel like it would be an overwhelming event regardless tho so there's also that.)

THIS WEEK ON MOELLE TYPES TOO MUCH AND TAKES THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY

[rolebreaker]

Okay I guess I am here to have the controversial(??) opinion of "YOU-kai is too big and needs to get Solomon'd in half"

1. my MAJOR concern is just the unmanageability of 20+ people on a single team. I know I am not actually YOU-kai so my opinions/perceptions of this are second hand at best, BUT from the outside looking in it seems like there's been some issues with organizing things and players getting overwhelmed. All I know is that I'm overwhelmed by teams of nine sometimes, so a team of 20+ just seems like an absolute nightmare! Of course when it comes right down to it the opinion of people who are actually on YOU-kai should matter more than mine wrt the manageability issues, but I just... I'm concerned. Y'all okay over there? Please remember to drink water.

2. Actually Pertinent to Me is the points issue. NORMALLY this would not be an issue at all since usually competition is not a factor in imeeji outside of games, however (whew bare with me here I'm actually going to bullet-point this section I"m sorry but it's totally unreadable to me without bullet points)

• The 4th wall units have been made to compete with each other on an IC level. Not only that, it is a literal life-or-death situation for them.
  • This is a great IC push to participate in lives/games/etc!! I like it a lot actually it was a good idea, it gave me GREAT incentive to push Ras out of his comfort zone!
    • I will say also on a personal level it starts to become a little disheartening when it feels like the IC reason I am pushing him out of his comfort zone doesn't actually matter at all though. Like, it won't stop me because it's funny for him to struggle so much, but it is a LIIIITTLE bit feelsbadman.gif
    • AND I KNOW THERE ARE TWO WINNERS (i think? right?) but ras is a competitive asshole and THIS IS COMPLETELY MY OWN FAULT I HAVE DONE THIS TO MYSELF I SHOULD NOT PLAY COMPETITIVE ASSHOLES ON TEAM GAMES I KNOW THIS I'M SORRYYYY
  • BUT... that IC incentive is not going to last if a major factor in this competition is the fact that one of the teams will just consistently outnumber the others. At some point it's going to feel like an uphill, unwinnable battle, if not for sea.Di then for the other units. It may also remove any real incentive for YOU-kai too.
• "YOU-kai can't keep this level of activity up and sooner or later people will slow down/fall off" this is true, but it also applies to the other units. This point also applies to "there's people on YOU-kai who don't care about the points stuff/who aren't going to be tagging all that much anyways". In the end YOU-kai is literally just [every other 4th wall team but TWICE that], so these factors just kind of cancel out.

3. Concerns? Solutions?

• FIRST OF ALL I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST YOU-KAI they're a joy and I've loved all of my threads with them so far and honestly they have rightfully earned all the points that they have now. I really... do not want to "punish" them for something that was ultimately out of their own control, I just think it would be helpful for everyone to split the team.


• I know that "we could just average the points" was suggested as a solution, but that does put more pressure on the people who are playing that don't want to engage with/worry about the points system and I absolutely don't want to stress anyone out more than they're already probably stressed out even just reading all this. Hi, I know, this is all a lot and I'm sorry for any anxiety I might be causing with these concerns I just want to find a good solution for everyone.


• If we DO end up splitting the team into two I think mmmaybe it should be done on a volunteer basis? Just so that no one's getting shifted around against their will.
  
  • Also if we do end up splitting the team maybe we should have 3-out-of-5 winners?
  • Also also if we do split I vote for the secondary team name to be "Y'ALL-kai" thank you for your time
• ALTERNATIVELY, MAYBE SUB-UNITS? I DON'T KNOW HOW WE CAN GO ABOUT THAT BUT I CAN JUST SEE YOUJI GETTING EXCITED ABOUT THE IDEA FROM HERE

Anyways ultimately even if we don't do anything I'm still gonna have fun in 4th wall. I'll just have to murder Mitsuru for all his points--- (joking) (okay maybe a little bit serious)

Re: THIS WEEK ON MOELLE TYPES TOO MUCH AND TAKES THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY

[rolebreaker]

also i'm sorry that most of this is just.... concerns and not solutions, but i felt like i wasn't able to bring up my concerns properly in the discord chan and now we're here

Re: THIS WEEK ON MOELLE TYPES TOO MUCH AND TAKES THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY

[bondkeeper]

SOLOMON'D IN HALF

Re: THIS WEEK ON MOELLE TYPES TOO MUCH AND TAKES THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY

[sancrimony]

SOLOMON'D IN HALF

Re: THIS WEEK ON MOELLE TYPES TOO MUCH AND TAKES THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY

[sancrimony]

I READ IT ALL! OK HELLO

this is the current consideration that we're thinking abt - splitting the units in two on a volunteer basis - and we're also down to change the premise to 3 out of 5 or otherwise something like a consolation/disclaimer for losers :Ua

irt the IC reason that feels like it doesn't matter as much, could you elaborate? I'm not 100% sure I follow - is it because you're planning on apping him later or is it because YOU-kai is like, a superbig unit?

[neigh_sayer]

???? I'm only like half caught up but just going on the gist of concerns I've seen here and in chat tangently ??? Some solutions:

-I ASSUME there's no one concerned about winning oocly since this is supposed to be a fast and loose event with no obligation, but if ppl are worried about their characters IC reactions (like oh nooo my mother/lover/uncle is ker-dead or whatever), maybe a host to slap on a disclaimer to the effect of "Don't worry, better luck next time" or something that implies they'll have another chance to stop being dead some day to lessen the ic blow.

-for team size as someone on you-kai that has not played all week and has NO IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING i'm totally fine lol, just vibing. That said, if people do come to yall, just maybe pop into the team chans to get a quick check up? If everyone's cool, all good, if not, can hash out problems privately in team chat.

-that's all i got THE EVENT'S ONLY LIKE, A MONTH, RIGHT? I don't think there's too much to sweat over personally, a+ having a fun time can't wait to commit some arson.

[sancrimony]

in general beyond "YOU-kai is a really big unit and that's overwhelming some players on the unit" I believe all the problems are pretty negotiable/"we can work out a solution it'll be no big" so yeah, not too much to sweat over I think

irt the disclaimer I think that's a good idea! irt unit size we definitely want to make sure people can keep just vibing as they like so we're just doing thinkythoughts to figure out how to come to a happy middle between "this is an overwhelming size" and "but also we want to keep vibing. it is important to vibe"

excited to see you commit arson. thank you for your username also I just want you to know I shrieked when I saw it

[tradesecret]

Hihi! Just speaking personally, last year the concept of the highest point earners getting their life back and thus going home wasn't A Thing, and while I think it's great to give 4th wallers an IC reason to engage with the community, it feels a little limiting to say that if your character ends up on the bottom two teams their apping option to game proper would be as an audition because they couldn't go back home.

If apping in without any memory of 4th wall as a completely fresh character was still an option, that wasn't made clear.

I think a hard cut off would be helpful for maintaining number balance and would balance out points passively earned through wins/losses but even in saying that, there's no guarantee everyone who fills the slots will be equally active, so that could still lead to some disparity in point earnings at least in terms of Lives.

So idk. Maybe the point of contention is the premise? YOU-kai turned into a perfect storm of players who go OOCly hard, playing characters who are primarily kids who do not want to be dead and adults who do not want kids to be dead (plus some adults who are just living their best lives). So. Short of the premise changing, YOU-kai might continue with this pace.

I think it's also worth noting that we are also literally 3 days into the event. The hype for playing could settle. And players who haven't had a chance to get things going during the weekday might become more active this weekend or the coming weeks. Other units could theoretically catch up, too.

Ultimately I think a 4th wall event should be a "no harm, no foul" way for people to try new characters and especially for non-ecats RPers to get their feet wet with our style/games so maybe a little less pressure would be more helpful all around.

[sancrimony]

sorry about the first bit! It IS an option but that was not made clear and that is our bad; we'll adjust the information pages to more clearly note that :|b

atm I'm considering something like a subdividing of units for "scored" and "unscored" for the middle ground of "people can do shit no harm no foul" and also "people who are looking to go hard will be matched up with likeminded people on the unit" though that's just a preliminary idea and not a hard consideration, just ideas floating into the ether

it IS also strongly possible that the idea of creating competition with 4th wall units as a general premise may have been a mistake or otherwise something that might be better to not repeat next time. make 4th wall chill again 2023

[rollplayinghouse]

Oh my other random 2 cents is that as someone who was on Dance Macabre last time when it was 26 people, IT WASN'T... THE BEST THING... but I wouldn't say it was unmanageable, so just the fact of a unit being 20+ people doesn't necessarily make it unmanageable, especially if most people are playing sporadically/dropping off.

It was a pretty different situation without the overall running points competition and without any precedent though; the only reason DanMac really even had to coordinate was GM game. Seto coordinated a lot of that and made some decent DanMac CR and I was... relatively fine to do that and still play Glory I think? It's possible I'm seeing things in rosy-colored hindsight.

[bondkeeper]

bouncing off this as one of the people previously on danmac who did like 4 tags and then didn't actually exist, I have no idea how actually manageable it was or not cuz I didn't exist, but I did go into it with an extremely different mindsight compared to the current 4th wall (which is also in large part a matter of character difference. my danmac was chill, Harpy is not)

I do think I am probably the person most people are referring to here when they mention it being stressful for some yk players bc I did in fact get extremely stressed earlier over trying to coordinate the entire unit (also bc of rl stress contributing to me being a basketcase). when I was on danmac I implicitly understood that I wasn't gonna tag literally all of danmac and didn't try, so I WENT BACKWARDS AND UNLEARNED KNOWLEDGE I ALREADY HAD and made the attempt with yk when I already knew it isn't in any way actually expected by the structure of the 4th wall or by any other players to have cr or coordinate with Every Member of your 4th wall unit. so I think that is on me way more than it is a failing of how this 4th wall was put together, and if I had maintained the mindset of "these are relaxed groups and not Real Units" it would not have been nearly as bad. I don't think anyone else has gotten as wound up about it as I did either so I assume most other people are smarter than me this week

the other concerns about scoring and so on with the unit sizes are still good points to address though

[crossmyheartandhope]

Some random thoughts, in no particular order:

I don't think massive units are that bad, with the caveats that:
- It gets a lot harder when stuff has to be coordinated/actually agreed on, like in a warroom game/when the unit has to actively work together for a goal (ie, points goal)
- It is in fact a little disconcerting to have people show up late like, "Oh we're on the same team?? I have literally not threaded with you at all." It's not that big a deal, just a very different experience from the regular team experience
- Probably having the numbers even would be more ideal, whether that's via placement or whathaveyou :|a
- I would actually really like more units for next time (or in general, tbh) because coyboys and circus W H E N ;;

Point competition does also make things a bit harder to juggle than last year, I think. With the side note that I did not in fact app a 4th waller last year, it seems like folks were more free to just kind of poke around and do whatever? Whereas with this setup, any character with a certain type of personality kind of has to go hard, just because of how the premise is arranged.

...idk if I actually had a point here, I was just rambling. Anyway, I am having fun, and I super appreciate all the work that you guys have put into this. o/

[bondsofsuffering]

Also random thoughts in no particular order!

-I'm not too concerned about the group coord but also, I'm very much going hands off with that because I have plenty on my plate as is becaaaaause

-When it comes to 4th wall, it seems to me that it is a pretty loose affair and fucking around or ducking in and out as desired or, in fact, going in hard are all viable ways to play? So while we do have players who "go hard" on activities in YOU-kai I don't think there's any problem with people playing in accordance with whatever style suits them. I've made comments about dying but they're pretty tongue in cheek, I am taking on about what I expect to be able to handle and all players should be making sure they are pacing themselves as needed, just, in general

-Unit size itself I can see how it could be a problem just as far as number crunching goes! So if there are people who are playing "unscored" and a set number of people per team who can actually play "scored" I think that's fine. I just don't think that there's any way to perfectly balance "people who want to be on each unit who all have the same energy levels and desire to actually generate big points For The Team"

[agentgymstudent]

The 'win or be dead' incentive is a good reason to engage with lives, its true, but it does have some feelsbadman vibes especially against a massive team and just. Energy levels. Like there's IC levels and OOC levels and short time frame with death means needing to go hard for some characters constantly and its hard.

There is also another problem: It doesn't give much incentive for Regulars to engage and may even dissuade some because any alliance is assigning death to other units. Not game death, real death. Especially with canonmates and old unitmates. There is a lot of 4th wall unit engagement and far less anyone else.

Maybe another potential motive could lean into the guest stars being here to get some attention and drama and the old grand time of betting. Regular teams can make bets on which guest team does best and gets a prize of some sort. Encouraging them to connect and interact with guest teams and guest teams who want better for Regulars can go hard. And if people want to mess around, not so feelsbadman vibes.

[sancrimony]

I think the betting is a really good idea!

irt 4th wall unit engagement and far less anyone else—while I definitely agree that integration could be a lot better, I'll confess that at the time of conceiving of 4th wall stuff there wasn't really much thought about how to get mainstay idols to be invested in 4th wall units, or rather, there was a bit of thought on whether or not it would be a burden for mainstay idols to be made to invest in 4th wall units beyond whatever organic relationships they make (which would be encouraged via lives/games).

the reasoning was the following:
1) 4th wall in general tends to result in mainstay players taking hiatuses because they want to focus on fucking around with their 4th wall characters
2) we are, this year, expected to experience a particularly strong burnout / people are going to look at a high-engagement thing like 4th wall and want to take a hiatus
3) we have especially just had a very busy month and a half
4) the 4th wall shenanigans most expected to blow up/be a big deal are going to be castmate/old unitmate shenanigans + whoever is crazy and on fire enough to be crazy and also on fire, both of which don't exactly need an incentive

this isn't to say this the Correct way of thinking so much as we didn't actually expect people would be wanting more integration so much as be overwhelmed/glad to fuck around with whatever but not necessarily wanting to be made to do More Things beyond lives/games, but this is an interesting perspective to have and a similar one was expressed upthread as well! it turns out the problem we anticipated was the opposite of what happened....... wowee.....

[worldlyafflictions]

For chaos reasons, what if hiatus-ing main production characters could go to an audience box for the duration of 4th wall (where they get to participate in Constallation-like mechanics)

((Is this a serious suggestion, who knows))

[sancrimony]

mote



do you know how much i want to do this

at this point the problem i feel might just be [ possibly it's too late / complicated to implement something like that at this point in time ]

I'm building a time machine. I'm going back in time

[unbr8kable]

Something I have noticed is how fast time is going during this event. Honestly this seems much more stressful than point scoring, since by not playing for a couple IRL days it is suddenly days later IC, when usually it might be an IC evening has passed. It makes it difficult to figure out what your character(s) have been doing all this time and tougher to jump back in or backtag since time has already progressed quite a bit, as well as adds stress that you/r character is missing things, even as each post becomes smaller as players are busy (or burnt out) during the week.

TL;DR, is it possible to encourage people to not move time forward if there is not good reason to? I know that usually the problem with time dilation is the other way around, and I realize that in quarantine life going outside once feels like a major event for the day, but especially for what is meant to be a limited time event, for it to ICly be happening over so much time seems a little overwhelming both in and out of character.

I mention this not only because it feels like the year milestone for starting players is going to come and go a lot faster than players may be ready for, but also because of that,

[crossmyheartandhope]

Seconding all of this. As someone whose character is ICly invested in doing at least one live a day, please can we slow the days down,

[unbr8kable]

so with 4th wall scoring being based on team totals when we decided whether or not we wanted to be scored or not, and being based on team averages now, will the time period to decide if we want to play as scored be extended or are we now where we are at? Thinking about how to allot my stamina points for the rest of the month and that seemed relevant...

[imepro]

(not sure if mora already answered this in discord after you posted this question but) You can change whenever! we'll want to know before the event ends (June 5th) but any time up to that is fine :|b