re_alignment_ooc | Alignment Adjustment Changes

It’s almost time for the Alignment Adjustment!

As there were some concerns voiced after the previous AA, the mods have been working to solidify the process on our end while taking into account some of the suggestions that were made. Below are some of the changes that will be happening in this coming Adjustment, as well as more information about how the system works.

While these changes will be reflected in this next AA, we’re always looking for suggestions to improve for future AAs. If you have any ideas that we haven’t touched on, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

What the Alignment Adjustment is

As there was some confusion about this, we’d like to clarify how the Alignment Adjustment works IN game and what it means for your characters.

Cybertron in this realm is a new world, its final design only distantly conceptualized. Having been made to finish building it, the Firstforged are irrevocably tied to Cybertron in various ways... and by extension so are their refugees. Because of this, the stronger an alignment becomes between a Firstforged and a character, the more the Firstforged expect that character to invest in the world and contribute to it--likely in the same ways that caused them to get the stronger alignment to begin with. For instance, If Prima finds himself aligning heavily to a character because they’ve organized people to gather supplies from the Junk Pile, then he’ll encourage them to continue the effort and possibly expand it. A lasting Junk-Pile-scavenging-leadership-legacy helps both clean up Cybertron and provide for its populace, which is good for them and for the world.

However, the Firstforged do not have control over how strong/weak a connection becomes. They have noticed that the Refugees who perform tasks which parallel their own work tend to align better with them, but in the end it is out of their hands. The only thing the Firstforged control is who they take on as Initiates, which can be based on alignment but instead tends to be based on what they need and who shows interest.

There is a bonus to strong alignments. Characters who perform actions in accordance with the Firstforged’s ideals will find themselves able to draw on the Firstforged’s power as their alignment grows, in order to better complete their tasks.

There is also a negative to strong alignments. The further one goes down the path, the more they will be expected to keep following it, and the more they become tied to the world as well. They will find themselves wanting to stay and see Cybertron to its completion, or at the least will find it more and more difficult to think on going home. Some strongly-aligned Refugees may also find it physically painful to be away from their sector of the Haven for too long, or to perform an action that goes against the nature of their alignment. As characters reach these levels in game, more information will be given on this aspect of it, and it will change depending on which alignment each character has.

Which brings us to...

How Alignments Change

Every action that a character takes affects their alignment in some small way.

Most of these ways are not noticeable. Going for a morning walk, for instance, won’t cause any monumental differences in your character’s glyph. Going for a morning walk while reading the Complete Works of Shakespeare, on the other hand, might get you a library card from Alpha Trion.

In general, taking actions that correspond to a particular Firstforged’s nature is the best way to gain an alignment with them. Actions that directly affect Cybertron itself or its populace will produce stronger results. For instance, while a character might gain some alignment with Alpha Trion by reading that Shakespeare in the morning, they’ll gain more alignment by spreading Shakespeare to the masses or starting a book exchange club.

Positive encounters with a Firstforged are also good ways to get an alignment with them...say, by donating your Shakespeare to Alpha Trion when you are done reading it, or helping to sort the Shakespeare collection in his library.

However, you can have a negative encounter with one Firstforged that causes a positive impact on another one! If you make Megatronus Prime sit through one of Shakespeare’s plays, for example, that will greatly impress Alpha Trion even if it makes Megatronus angry (unless it is MacBeth, which for some reason Megatronus seems to enjoy.)

Negative actions can also result in a positive alignment. If you begin spending so much time reading that you start to seclude yourself or get obsessed with the material, then you are still aligned with Alpha Trion’s modus operandi and may find more magenta in your Glyph.

Although it isn’t possible to list out every way that a character might gain or lose alignments, checking the Firstforged bios (http://re-alignedmods.dreamwidth.org/385.html#thirteen) on the Settings pages is a good way to get a general idea of what actions will do what. You are also welcome to contact any of the FF players to come up with ideas or plots!

If your character isn’t the sort to be buddying up to any of the Firstforged though, don’t worry. There are actions that have different effects, and it is possible to become aligned to individuals who have not yet shown themselves...

How the AA works behind the scenes

After each Activity Check, the mods carefully go over every activity summary and look at their Firstforged’s own interactions. Depending on what we see in the summaries and in game, we each give out pluses and minuses to a Firstforged’s relationships with a character based on their actions from that round. Starting from this AA forward, we’re going to be working to make sure that the amount of pluses/minuses is roughly the same for every Firstforged, just to keep us progressing at the same rate (though since A3 has been extra generous with his in the past, he’ll be giving out less for the next little while). We compile this information in a large, complex spreadsheet which we use to track progress over time.

Using the spreadsheet, we can keep track of every character’s amount of alignment with EVERY Firstforged, so when something major changes we know who that character is on good terms with and who they aren’t.

Most changes do not have a visible impact. We’re aware that this is one of the biggest causes for alarm when the AA comes out, so some fixes to that are outlined below. However, your character may not see any differences in their glyph during some Alignment Adjustments. This is normal. Progression is meant to be slow, so that each character can determine their fate and chose their actions in whatever way is natural to them. Progression will also be slower in months where you may need to take a hiatus, or have less activity overall.

This brings us onward to what’s going to be different:

Incremental Adjustments

Previously, the system was tailored to not show adjustments until a major growth had happened. We acknowledge that this was problematic, as it’s good to be able to see which direction your character is heading in order to make future plots!

As such, we will be showing all affects on each character’s Glyphs for their primary and secondary alignments (which will be explained more, below.) There will still likely be months where no visible change has taken place, but this should be occurring less frequently than before.

Primary/Secondary Alignments

In addition to the incremental adjustments above, we will be including a ‘secondary alignment’ that will be visible for characters who have a strong affinity to more than one Firstforged.

Your primary alignment is to the Firstforged that you arrive with (or swap to). This is the alignment that is strongest with your character, and also the alignment that forms your base Glyph.

If you gain a certain amount of alignment with another Firstforged, however, this ‘secondary alignment’ will begin showing via a colored glow around the outside of your base glyph. It will increase/decrease with brightness in the same way that your base Glyph does.

In the event that your secondary alignment significantly overtakes your primary alignment, the two will swap and the base Glyph will change to the new alignment with the old alignment providing the secondary color around it.

Alignments other than your Primary and your Secondary will not be shown, allowing us to leave some of the mystery in the game as to how the other Firstforged feel about your character. However, if a third Firstforged starts to get a stronger alignment to them, its possible they will supplant the secondary alignment and you’ll see a color change. There is a lot that can happen, and a lot more for us to show this way.

Images of the various stages of Glyphs will be available in the coming Alignment Adjustment.

Tiers

Also to assist in confusion about the way the AA works, we’d like to de-mystify the Tiers we use.

Though we will not be divulging the full details of the system (since we like to keep some things a secret for the cast to explore), we can show a character’s advancement during each alignment adjustment so you can track their progress from the beginning.

A character will generally gain alignment slowly for a few AC rounds, until a threshold point is reached. This point is the same point for all characters, and it unlocks the first ‘Tier’ of alignment advancement--which is generally when they receive an alignment bonus in the form of a small power.

After this, the process repeats. Characters slowly build up alignment towards Tiers, and when new Tiers are reached new stuff happens. It is possible to reach the first Tier with both your Primary and Secondary alignment, but higher Tiers are reserved solely for the primary alignment. Tier advancement is incredibly slow, and on average a character might reach a new Tier every 4 alignment adjustments: roughly eight months.

Bear in mind that reaching new Tiers, while unlocking powers, does not always constitute as a ‘reward.’ The stronger an alignment grows, the harder it becomes to move away from it, and the more Unicron’s minions will be wanting to see you gone. There are some events, additionally, where keeping your alignment options open can result in a better outcome.

In other words, while Tiers are nice, they aren’t the end-all, be-all of the game. If you’re playing your character as your character, there will be some who benefit from Tiers and others who benefit from remaining untied...

And there will, of course, be times when the only option is to get Re-Aligned.

~~~

As previously stated, more information of the different appearances of the Glyphs will be coming in the Alignment Adjustment itself, so stay tuned for that.

Otherwise, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to let us know so we can address them or factor them into the next AA.

Thank you for your feedback!