FEEDBACK POST 2025

[expiationmods]

Generalized feedback post! Please let us know your thoughts / concerns / ideas here, if you have any!

Poll #32755

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 34

View Respondents

What would you like to see more of in Expiation?

View Answers

sci-fi elements
8 (23.5%)

horror elements
19 (55.9%)

fantasy elements
17 (50.0%)

npc interactions
12 (35.3%)

morality choices
29 (85.3%)

crime / punishment themes
28 (82.4%)

environmental changes
19 (55.9%)

action events
7 (20.6%)

OTHER: please specify in the comments!
1 (2.9%)

Comments

[cactusy]

HEY I'M VERY STUPID and forgot what journal I was logged into, so I answered with the mod journal from a different game entirely - I cleared my answers, but can't seem to delete the response completely!

[expiationmods]

Hello! That's fine. Thank you for letting us know!

[endcaller]

Re: Environmental Changes

I am neutral on changes that happen as part of planned events but I think changes triggered by player characters could very cool. New discoveries, the AI reacting to weird Chosen behavior, exploration. Are there parts of the world map we haven't seen yet? Etc!

[expiationmods]

That was the intent when I (Elise) wrote it! If it changes after an event, it changes because of character actions from said event... if that makes sense.

[chimericalclaw]

Hello I finally managed to get some thoughts together so here I am, I hope some of this is helpful?

First off, I'm always interested in opportunities to make characters face consequences for things they can usually avoid, and I've definitely had no complaints so far on that end! And when I say consequences I'm also including things like setting/game effects in addition to more personal "secrets being revealed" type situations, even if they might just be temporary or small-scale. So a big thank you for making my first months in the game so much fun.

I think it would also be really interesting to have an event or two that might actively encourage characters to commit crimes for some (guaranteed?) tangible benefit and really make them examine/question their moral compass. Less in a "supernaturally compelled" way, though I do love those too, and more of a "character actively makes this choice and can't blame it on anyone but themselves" way? I don't know if that's been done much before or at all, but just throwing it out there as a potential.

Regarding NPCs, one aspect I'm familiar with from the other side as an NPC-playing mod previously is that I know it's easy to burn out if you end up having so many players coming to you for threads and meetings, so I just want to express that as much as I would love to get threads with them and the like, I think it's important to mitigate that potential for burnout somehow? Things like "we can only do x amount of npc threads per month" or sometimes giving summaries instead of direct dialogue back and forth helped the team I was on in the past, I think. But I am def looking forward to whatever NPC interactions might look like in the future 👍

Regarding event timing, I actually like the way things are set up now, especially with OKC being at the start of the event months? That way there's an even split of time for the more casual network threads and other non-event ideas while also giving the event a proper amount of space to breathe, so to speak? But maybe that's just me, idk. I think the sentencing timing change might be a decent thought, but I'm not attached to it either way.

Oh oh oh wait, I did have another idea come to me just now. Maybe there could be the potential for public sentencing?? Just as an option for somebody who might want their character to get publicly shamed, potentially also by NPC crowds or something? Again, just brainstorming and throwing it out there.

ANYWAY yeah I think that's it. Thanks again for all your hard work! Looking forward to many more months in Expi. 💖

[expiationmods]

I've responded to this so many times in my head and then realized I never typed it out because I've been laid out for half the month-- (hi it's Elise LMAO)

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your feedback! A lot of it is pretty on par with what we'd like to do for the game as well, so player's sort of responses like this helps give us confidence to these choices. This is why we wanted to do the poll -- because while we have our own idea on what we'd like to do, we've always wanted our players to feel like they have a say. And they do!

As for NPCs, thankfully we don't include those every month, and each mod has a different mod. The most you'll see around is Jerry, who I'd like to get back out to be interactive during Sentencing months. Generally on off months, he won't be around, but there have been times where we've had one or two threads where characters have wanted to confront him. Mostly the mention of more NPC interaction was for these sorts of examples, since... we haven't utilized any of them for a few months.

The reason why we brought up the schedule change is because there have been comments among some players, so we wanted to bring it up to the game at large! Even if we don't make these changes immediately, we wanted players to know that we're flexible on that sort of front as well.

Thank you so much for your feedback though!! We really do appreciate the ideas and your time in commenting.

[chimericalclaw]

LMAO I've been there, no worries. And understood on each point! I'm just glad if anything I said was put together enough to help any. I have been on the other end where it's been like pulling teeth to get players to say anything about what they do or don't like in a game LKFSDJKLS... so yeah. Thanks for getting back to me!

[expiationmods]

It's no problem, I always like to respond to player comments to the best of my abilities so maybe they might not feel like they took their time to throw it into the void.

If you ever have any other feedback or anything, we're always all ears!

[sinningtree]

I was told I could vote for everything, so I did. I do not really have the energy to elaborate on environmental changes, but the short version is: I think a mix of temporary and permanent ones would be interesting. Sometimes environmental changes strain the characters/playerbase in a way that is difficult to keep up long term without fatigue. Things that been be changed back or repaired within a month (or a set time like over the course of a 3 month arc, for example) can be fun in their own ways though, if players are aware that opportunity is included into the framework of the event.

NPC interaction I am typically very neutral on, but I voted for it because I think it should be an option sometimes for players who do want to see more of that.

Lastly, this came up on plurk and a few of us were discussing how much we liked the nature of the February event. Not the valentine's theme aspect so much as the opportunity to throw complete strangers at one another without context or need for a common ground. A lot of events feel like they really require established CR to get excited about, so we'd love to see more opportunities to essentially shackle two strangers (or characters who aren't speaking for reasons) together and encourage new CR opportunities.

I know mingles and between-event posts are typically Player Run but it would be nice to see more of those, and if there are ways for the mod team to help facilitate them in some way (like Richard's training programs) to encourage engagement it might help people to branch out more too.

[expiationmods]

Thank you for your input! It means a lot to us for you to take the time to type all this out.

Mingles are definitely something that the mod team is trying to consider how to better facilitate. We've noticed that outside of events, things have been a little quiet for the past few months, and we're trying to brainstorm on ways to change that without adding too much extra workload on us. And we do love us some RNG and forced CR! We're going to be working on ways to implement that back into things, as well.

[sinningtree]

Personally, I'm thinking more in terms of player created mingles being announced by the mods in an official capacity so they reach more eyes than the mods being the ones to create them. Or, if someone has an idea for something they could brainstorm with the mod team to make it more engaging or relevant to current events etc. I know in previous games I've been in mingles seem to get more attention when posted by the mod account even if it was written up and run by a player.

Logically, I know that second one depends on players actually coming to the mods with their ideas, so you can't really do much more than remind everyone it's an option, just some thoughts.

[expiationmods]

We would be all for it! In the past, we've advertised mingles every now and then, but we can start doing it more consistently if it helps engagement. Also, if players come to us for mingles to post that are already written, we can also do that. In this case, we're definitely willing and want to encourage this in any way we can.