-Bat Puppy Akira Crow Dove

Can you imagine being an actual mycenian during this event? XDDD

Just rapidfire, every 15 minutes going from cured to stone to cured to stone ckdjfkdf

Healers flailing salve as fast as their hands can squish it up. ROFLROFL

Edit: This is Hoax. The one who can never remember to sign a message for the life of them! x);

HippieFlip Not to be a pester! Do you mind explaining real quick why you say we’ll probably only be able to reasonably get 250 points? I’d be interested to hear your opinion!

- Hoax

Hoax
Hippie can correct me if I’m wrong, but I do agree that at the present state of the game, 250 points is a reasonable estimate.

With how quickly we’re flipping back and forth between cursing and curing, there’s no way for anyone to advance their Stoneskin to Stage 2 or 3. That blocks off all achievement points related to curing Stage 2 or 3 Stoneskins.

Likewise, you also have to take into account that not everyone will have the time available to hit that upper limit achievements (the heal 200/infect 300). So yeah, that sounds about right.

Yanno, considering the general chaoticness of the event so far, with how much balancing and the speed of the flipping between cursed and cured, could we just have the NPCs distribute a few Stage 2 and 3 curses every once in a while?

I just can’t feasibly see the curse progressing in the intended way at the current state, so why not leave it to the NPCs lol.

I’m currently already at 50 points, but on the healing side that’s about to slow way down for me since the bar jumps so much for how many you have to get. And things have slowed down on the constant, almost immediate, ping-ponging back and forth though right now it’s possibly more just because there are fewer people actively searching for targets to curse/cure than the game actually being balanced out. We’ll see once people start waking up and getting more active again.

I think finishing the infect 300 will end up being a lot more reasonable than it first seems, but I really hope a few of us can at least make it to stage 2 or 3. If things can stay somewhat balanced with plenty of victims to choose for either side I think the random button is what is really going to end up being the main barrier to those achievements since that completely removes any ability/option to avoid some players to let them simmer in the curses influences to make those even available to the lucky few that could cure them.

**Edit -
“Yanno, considering the general chaoticness of the event so far, with how much balancing and the speed of the flipping between cursed and cured, could we just have the NPCs distribute a few Stage 2 and 3 curses every once in a while?

I just can’t feasibly see the curse progressing in the intended way at the current state, so why not leave it to the NPCs lol.”

That actually sounds like that could be reasonable. It’d be great if we could stay infected long enough to get it the way intended. I still think maybe give it another day yet to see how things go. Though at this point the question becomes could anyone actually cure stage 2 or 3? I haven’t seen any moss yet. I’ve made a few stage 2 salves but haven’t gotten any of the moss to make a 3 yet.

Hina

I have 2x moss and 4x water so it’s definitely possible!

I just want to generally remind everyone that we are still working on balancing things out. This could include Stage 2 and 3 of the Curse. It could also include shop prices. It’s not a coincidence that we set the shop to open a week into the event - we knew that adjustments may need to be made.

We aim to have prizes be achievable through reasonable effort when we design events. With our usual collection events, we have that formula down to a T after years of running them. Something new takes a little more tweaking, which is what we’re seeing here.

Anyway, for now, I would suggest trying not to get too hung up on the minutiae - ie, how many points you expect to earn over the course of the event, the price of the prizes, etc. We’re less than 24 hours into a two week long event. Things will even out!

YES!! I LOVE THIS EVENT CONCEPT!!

Granted, I haven’t played very MANY of the past events, but in general I’m very much enjoying the interactivity of the whole players vs players mechanic!! It feels less like being in cubicles next to your friend, and more like playing battleship! >D

I’m excited to see how it goes!! It’s also just really neat to see some new formulas being worked out!! Gotta keep it SPICY!

Ersatz Thanks for explaining a little!! I think I see what you mean, now!! With the rapid turnover making it difficult for people to become 2s and 3s, it essentially barrier blocks the points that would be available if we could heal some 2s and 3s!!

I wonder if the curse will develop a resistance to some of the cures. |D Just like bIoLoGY!

Jitters while waiting for the timer to run down!

- H oax

Hyasynthetic -SPLASHES STONE CURSE ON YOU JUST SECONDS BEFORE GETTING CURED- >DDDD

HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE COMING!!

< 33333 !!

-Hhhh OAX

Swan HONESTLY, YEAH, BIG SAME!!! < 333

There are some very responsive people handling this event!! Who are very accustomed to balancing prize pools, with years of site and site-culture relevant experience!

They got this! They’re active, they’re listening to user concerns, and they seem PLENTY willing to help work out any kinks that come up!!

They’ll take care of their userbase!! :3c

- Hoax

Hoax
I’m pretty sure I would just wither away, my body exhausted being in a healed/sick rapid cycle, rip

Hi everyone! I’m stopping by to summarize the adjustments we made yesterday as well as our plans for today:
Yesterday we:

• Added the bell to the timer
• Reduced the amount of Little Brown Mushrooms the Healing Salve required from 2 to 1 (we did this very shortly after the event started)
• Adjusted the curse/forage timer several times. We ended up with the curse timer at 15 minutes and the forage timer at 14 minutes
• Created a 15 minute period of time after a pet is are cursed or healed in which they cannot be targeted
• Automated mass cure/mass infect if the population gets too close to being all cured or all infected

Yesterday’s changes focused on slowing the wild swings between the population being almost all cured or all infected and took up pretty much the entirety of glitch’s day.

Today now that we’ve hopefully gotten that on track, we’re letting the event run without adjustments (unless something goes horribly wrong :‘D) to accumulate some data in order to determine how best to alter the Stage 2 and Stage 3 progressions and achievements. We will work on implementing changes to that once glitch gets home from work tonight.

If adjustments are needed to the shop prices, that will be done in a few days/closer to the shop release since the more data we have on that, the better!

Thank you all for your patience and understanding! <3 I’ll be putting a change log in the first post so you don’t have to hunt around through this thread.

What about, instead of it being in 24 hours, after you infect, say 50 players, you advance to stage 2. If you get cured, you either stay at that stage when you get infected again like you keep all your ingredients and salves, or you have to infect five players to go back to being stage 2. Then infecting 75 more gets you up to stage 3.

So it’s more like we level up, rather than hope to stay cursed for the required 24 hours

Thank you, Myla!! Great work!! Much appreciated!!

Akira HONESTLY wouldn’t even blame you!! XDDD
I CAN’T HELP but imagine it becoming a little bit like throwing snowballs at each other, except it’s just crumbly curse dirt caked with skin dmsksksmdm

*Hoax

Thanks for the clarification Myla! A different message would definitely clear up the confusion imo, so I appreciate it being looked into.

Edit: I’m wondering now if things are dependent on if I’m healed or cursed. Right now I’ve noticed I’ll pick a user to infect, get an invalid error, try to pick another user, then get the invalid error again. The user who I tried to infect the first time around shows back up as an option after that.

I’m glad the shop prices will be adjusted, but I am definitely not a fan of having a points cap in a timer event. One of the main incentives for putting all the effort of being tied to the ding in events like these is the ability to gather enough points to maybe get almost as many items as you can use for your characters. I’ve never once felt like I had enough points in any MC event to get everything I wanted. Which does usually sour the fun of it somewhat. But knowing ahead of time that I likely won’t at all only adds to an already frustrating event.

Also, what happens if someone reaches the points cap before the end of the event? Or worse, if we’re all sitting around at the end waiting for stage 2/3 for a week with no reason to heal/infect anymore. >.>;

And.. I am almost certain I’ve been getting the ‘invalid selection’ on people who haven’t been healed - they disappear from the random selection when I refresh the page and come back a few refreshes later. <.<

With how small MC is, having an event that focuses on ruining the feeling of community is, honestly, not great. The communities for these types of games on steam seem pretty toxic and mean-spirited. MC used to have such a kind and close-knit community. Now even during events, chat still mainly dead/empty, and I can’t remember the last time this game actually felt like it had a community outside my own friend circle (and most of them are basically gone from MC by now). Events intended to pit people against each other are only going to make things worse. I can see it already with people going out of their way to do the opposite of what people put in their names, or getting upset that they’re being turned/healed - some of it might be the random button but some of it definitely is not. For someone who’s not mean-spirited, it’s really stressful trying to figure out who to heal/infect. So far the only solution Arin and I have found is to refresh the page until either of us or a staff member shows up. :/ Being able to pick a specific person, like in other events, would be a lot better. So far, the only fun part of this event for me has been keeping a tally with Arin on who’s managed to nom the most admins. >.>

While I love a good low stakes competitive game, I do get how that sort of play-style isn’t for everyone.

With that said, I’m hugely enjoying this event with the narrative gameplay and two distinct roles we switch between.

I’d be hella down for this event type to return as a cooperative event. Something in the lines of an NPC raid boss where people would switch between DPS and healer roles using these same mechanics. owo

I kind of agree with the idea of the Curse Stages being cumulative, and/or based on how many people you infect instead of having to try and stay cursed for 24 hours. We’re switching sides so quickly it does seem like we may not get anyone to stage two or three at this rate. I think this may be the longest I’ve remained cursed so far and it’s only been 35 minutes.

Edit: And now I’ve been cured again.

What about, instead of it being in 24 hours, after you infect, say 50 players, you advance to stage 2. If you get cured, you either stay at that stage when you get infected again like you keep all your ingredients and salves, or you have to infect five players to go back to being stage 2. Then infecting 75 more gets you up to stage 3.

So it’s more like we level up, rather than hope to stay cursed for the required 24 hours
BittyKitty

I rather dislike the idea of starting on stage 2/3 in any capacity. It’d make the healing team’s job significantly more difficult since they’d need to gather two or three times as many materials while the infected get double or triple the infects. Plus it’d make things a lot harder for latecomers to the event since they won’t be able to cure the earlier stage victims with the presumably large stash of brown mushrooms they end up getting after only stage 2/3 victims are around. I’d much prefer the timer be shortened, which does seem to be what’s likely to be adjusted after they get some data.

With how small MC is, having an event that focuses on ruining the feeling of community is, honestly, not great. The communities for these types of games on steam seem pretty toxic and mean-spirited. MC used to have such a kind and close-knit community. Now even during events, chat still mainly dead/empty, and I can’t remember the last time this game actually felt like it had a community outside my own friend circle (and most of them are basically gone from MC by now). Events intended to pit people against each other are only going to make things worse. I can see it already with people going out of their way to do the opposite of what people put in their names, or getting upset that they’re being turned/healed - some of it might be the random button but some of it definitely is not. For someone who’s not mean-spirited, it’s really stressful trying to figure out who to heal/infect. So far the only solution Arin and I have found is to refresh the page until either of us or a staff member shows up. :/ Being able to pick a specific person, like in other events, would be a lot better. So far, the only fun part of this event for me has been keeping a tally with Arin on who’s managed to nom the most admins. >.>
Ashlar

The chat is always dead, event or not. There are mini-events that revive it temporarily though, namely Hour of Productivity. I do wish there was a bit more community-driven events, like the Icy Soul quest, since we were gently nudged towards making new friends and roleplay together some.

The event isn’t intended to pit people against each other, per say. A lot of people have been taking this as a team versus team game, and that just isn’t how the game works. Infected versus Humans is a game where in the end, no matter what side you started on, every player is a winner. Always. Because as one side gets more and more players converted to it, they’re able to curse/cure more and more, and it always tips to one side or the other. That’s why they had to automate mass cures and curses, to keep the game going. The fun in the game is to do what you can for the team you are currently on, not to try and stay on one team to claim a non-existent victory for your chosen side. In this game, you are a turncoat, and so is everyone else. Going at it with that frame of reference in mind takes a lot of stress off as far as wanting to be on one side or the other goes, though it’s fine enough to have one side in particular you’re rooting for. (Personally always a fan of the ‘everyone died’ ending. Ah, tragedies. So compelling.)

For the people who are going out of their way to do the opposite of what people want, I’m assuming most of them are probably from people hitting the random button. Handing the burden of who to potentially do harm to off to randomness helps to reduce stress in hitting the button to harm someone, so those with anxieties about that are hitting random and accidentally booping folk with a preferred team quite often. (since those choosing otherwise leave them alone) If everyone who isn’t picking randomly grabs the people who don’t want a specific team, then all random has to pick from are said players who want to be on a specific team. I assume this is why you switched to selecting admins, though grabbing anyone without a preferred team in the name should work just as well.

There are, however, some agents of chaos who’d do the opposite of what’s requested. While kind of rude, they aren’t really doing anything wrong. As mentioned, you’re supposed to swap teams in Humans vs Zombies quite often. It’s part of the game, and we shouldn’t be getting too attached to one side like we kind of are at the moment. But that’s not entirely our fault, this site is meant to be focused on roleplay and community after all, and this is a decidedly PvP game akin more to a free-for-all than a team-based game. Along with this, the addition of stage 2 and stage 3 infected gives incentive to being infected for as long as possible to have that boosted infect rate so you can earn your achievements as fast as possible. The healers, meanwhile, are incentivized to heal those later stage infected as well as the stage 1 infected. While they’re mass-curing now, eventually it should get to a point where they only want to heal stage 2-3 infected and we end up with a constant struggle of everyone being infected and mass-cured, fighting the automated system to reach the later stages. This conflicts with how the game’s meant to play out since instead of being glad about the madness of constant switching, we’re predisposed towards wanting to stay infected for long periods of time to reach the higher stages of infection.

This is the first truly PvP minigame the staff’ve made, there are bound to be a lot of issues at first. But as far as their choice goes, this is probably one of the better ones, since as mentioned it’s more of a free-for-all than a team-based game. Everyone is an agent of chaos, more or less, and out of this we could spin some fun stories about this horrible curse that keeps pushing back and stone-ifying Mycenians despite our best efforts to cure it. I’d actually love to see a graph of how many infected/uninfected there are over time throughout the course of the event when this is all over. It’d be interesting to see how fast it spreads for roleplay reasons.

So there’s a lot I’d like changed about the event, and I’ll go over that in the next post, but as far as ruining the community goes…meh? We’re doing a poor job as a whole of knowing what to make of this new game, and a lot of people want to see the later tier infections, which is fair given we simply haven’t, and it probably has cool stone art. But the mods have mentioned they’re looking into the data to change how that part of the game works, so for now we should really just ignore that since nobody is going to make it to tier 2 at the moment. Nobody should really have a favorite side anyways, despite the incentives otherwise. So kind of our own fault for upsetting ourselves.

At any rate, feel free to add me to the list of people you’re okay with cursing/curing. While I prefer to remain on the petrified team for lore reasons, I don’t really mind either way. I could always get re-cursed later.