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Do you own a Negaverse officer? If so, how long have you played your officer? No
If you don't have an officer, are you questing one? How long have you been questing? No


What do you like about the Negaverse faction?

The specialization branches. While I agree that some organizational modifications should occur, they are brand new. There will be kinks to be worked out. But, I love that a Negaverse officer doesn't have to be dedicated to killing. There are other ways to fight for their cause that are just as badass, and areas like Infiltration allow that to be possible. Without this, you get corrupted characters that just don't make sense running around--people who aren't killers, who are poor fighters, etc.

I actually like fourth stage characters, even though they're not limited to the Negaverse faction. I love the reward to the player base, and I think the only problem with them would be granting them powers that are needed to keep a faction running. Don't give fourth stage characters anything that 2 or 3 generals couldn't do together, or anything that would completely cripple a faction. A fourth stage character's player should be able to make plenty of important plots on their own if they desire. It should be a bonus for being dedicated, not a requirement to take up a moderator role. If a unique, important fourth-stage power must be used, THEN make it an NPC--a full non-player one, that can be used by all staff members, that way there is no loss if a staff member quits.

Unlike a lot of people here, I haven't been around a while. I like the anti-hero setup, but I can understand where having had it for too long could get tiring. That being said, change in faction policy is not uncommon on a historical scale in military-organizations. There's plenty of room to slowly leave this, or re-enter it, or even have diversification and internal distrust. I think the Negaverse, as its develops, offers a very interesting dynamic we don't often get to see in RPs. So, I look forwards to see where it does go, and hope to see it stay orderly, but become a very fluidly changing group that allows players to constantly adapt.

What do you dislike about the Negaverse faction?

I think what a lot of people have said can be summed up in one phrase: Lack of Consequence and Lack of Free Ability to Create Consequence.

Honestly, I would say a lot of this can be blamed on lack of players wanting to interact. I've seen lots of plot threads that ask for very dangerous scenarios on either side that people aren't signing up for. This may be attributed to player fear, or just lack of knowledge that leads to the uncertainty of the consequence and therefore hesitation. But, you really don't need a high-ranking character to make good plot.

But there is a lot handwaving, and while it may be most publicly noticeable in Moderator-run characters, I have seen it everywhere.

What would you like to see added to this faction?

Very specific, enforced consequences for actions that are very clearly listed. Let people have their Negaverse character steal civilian starseeds, even if it's against the rules. Then have the character ICly punished for it. Disobeying your own faction rules can and should be readily available plot.

I saw the idea of Captains/Generals taking on more responsibilities mentioned. Maybe, letting these groups dish out the punishments listed should be a main theme. With a small guide on main offenses and the punishments received, players would be able to talk with one another on getting a Captain or a General to punish their disobedient character. No need for sending in plot devices; people can self moderate the constantly repeated plots. It could be more player moderated, without having to harass the few people that own higher-ranking characters. It's got to get old for both parties.

The list could be as simple as this:

Taking a Civilian Starseed -- 4 months monitored probation (must be accompanied during all patrols). Offending Generals/Captains stripped of standing responsibility and retain a temporary lieutenant rank. Circumstantial events may receive a reduced sentence through an appeals process to a General or General King/Queen.

And perhaps these lists and punishments can differ slightly from specialization branch to specialization branch based on the specific build of the General King/Queen who presides over that division. It seems like, with such power, each General King/Queen may have their own goals. Now that Beryl is gone, and there is no one single power (that I know of), slightly differing opinions, ideals and practices reflecting on specialization groups could be REALLY interesting.

If demotions can occur, these would be awesome. It's a great way to cause drama and IC consequences without causing death of a character. Even if it's player-request only, knowing the option is available and if/when this is likely to occur would be really nice.


What would you like to never see become a part of this faction?

Mirroring Chibi Negas

Required RPs for those who have characters of rank--I saw it mentioned, and I am completely and utterly against this. The moment you start requiring anything, you create a handholding scenario and then buzzkill. Rather, just allow more openings for IC responsibility as ranks increase. If they really want it, players can take care of the rest together.

If you do not have an officer and are not questing one, is there anything that we could add to this faction that would make you want one? Cookies

Do you own a Negaverse officer? If so, how long have you played your officer? Yes. Lieutenant Amethyst whom I won in the Hunger Games mini event in late March this year
If you don't have an officer, are you questing one? How long have you been questing? N/A


What do you like about the Negaverse faction?
Military theme
I really like how this faction was conceived with a military theme in mind as that opens up a lot of RP potential based on how the faction is organized and works as a unit subsequently towards its goals. It offers a different RP flavour to what the shop already has compared to the other factions that are available.

Specialization/Branches
I personally think that branches should be a RP flavour thing rather than mandatory the way it is now so perhaps it can be made into an optional role a Negaverse agent could choose to go into but doesn't have to if they don't wish to eventually? In my mind, it makes sense for an organization to be subdivided into different branches in order to better utilize each and every individual's strengths, yet at the same time it sort of stifles RP for people with characters who may not seem to fit into any of the divisions at all and has to forcibly pick one of the divisions just because they have to. It will also be good if players are given the option to suggest more divisions or even start up their own as part of a career progress path of sorts for their Negaverse character perhaps? =3

What makes the Negaverse who they are
I really can't say enough about how much I love what we already have with personal youmas, the Rift, the teleportation ability and the progression of weapons from toys to wicked badass ones. It offers a different focus from the magic-based Senshis and allows them to stand against the Senshis given what they already have with the magic at their disposal.

What do you dislike about the Negaverse faction?
Seeming lack of an overarching purpose
I get the bit about needing to collect energy to feed the youmas and possibly fuel the Rift's continued existence. But ultimately, I find myself wondering as to what exactly the Negaverse's role is overall and how they are expected to accomplish it. Fight, kill or corrupt the Senshis and Knights, take over Earth eventually, but what exactly are we doing to get ourselves there? What milestones have we achieved or are we working on achieving so that we will get there eventually?

Anti-hero role
Like most of the people who have already posted before me, I feel that the Negaverse should shed its anti-hero role and go back to what it used to be previously as the true villains that Senshis and Knights should learn to fear and respect. It is absolutely fine in my books to try to confuse or deceive the Senshis/Knights and the general public that they are just the misunderstood good guys. Bring starseed yanking back, let the Negaverse go back to being a force to be reckoned with and a true threat that the Order needs to actively work on lest it becomes a huge problem that threatens even their very own existence ultimately. Give the Order a reason to fight them for the foes that they were meant to be perceived as from the very beginning.

DMC alliance
Given what I've read about the history of the bad blood between the Blood Moon Court and the Negaverse followed by how the DMC was eventually formed, it um seems to defy logic how the Negaverse will be so willing to bury the hatchet and be all buddy buddy with the DMCs which drew its origin from some of the members of the Blood Moon Court to begin with? Besides, it will be interesting to see how both factions work with regards to their own priorities despite serving Chaos at the same time. ^^

Corrupt senshis being relegated to sidekick role
For a Senshi who has been corrupted to use their powers to serve the Negaverse directly, I will think that they will be regarded as prized recruits to add on to the Negaverse's growing arsenal against the threat that Senshis and Knights pose to them as a whole rather than be kicked aside and regarded as unimportant, especially after taking into consideration how much work a player has to go through to get one of them through questing or bribes and such. ^^;

What would you like to see added to this faction?
Organization of information
It will be great if everything that is currently available can be located in one place in the Information subforum or at least crosslinked from the main thread for the Negaverse in there at the moment to the ones located in other subforums for easy referencing.

IC orientation information
Again reiterating what some of the others have brought up, it will be good to know in general just what was covered in the orientation that all new recruits receive so everyone is on the same page and knows once and for all what important information their newly corrupted Lieutenant is privy to right from the start. It will be good to also cover just how certain things like crystal communicators work so people can work that into their RPs if they choose to?

Possible consequences/punishments for RP fodder
I think that part of the reason why people do not so much as plot for their officers to be caught for misbehaving is because noone knows about the IC consequences that could happen? I mean... it will be helpful to know what exactly we might be getting our muses into so we can plot with regards to how far we want to go and then have our characters face the music subsequently for the purpose of character development. ^^;

Expansion/diversification of the roles of Captains and Generals
It will be great if the Captains and Generals could be given more specific roles as to what their responsibilities could entail so players could draw from that information for more RP fodder like training their own teams, going out on missions together and stuff. Make the Negaverse rp-ing experience more military-like in general the way the faction is meant to be.

A NPC to guide the faction
Use a NPC to guide the direction of the faction while giving the players with 3rd and/or 4th stage characters free rein over some plots to work towards that? This way, even if someone drops their character due to RL and other issues, the overarching direction of the faction doesn't disappear with that player's character as well.

Plot consequences - bulletin board?
Make it known to all the Negaverse through a bulletin board kind of system of certain important events that have occurred as a result of various plots like the recent creation of Bazzite youma as a result of Benitoite's attempt to promote him. Important events like these will therefore be known to all agents who can then react accordingly. The current news flash system will work perfectly for this purpose too.

Rift access for Lieutenants
It seems kind of strange that the Rift is a safe haven for the Negaverse but Lieutenants cannot access it directly unless they hitch a ride in with a Captain or General. How about making it known that there are portals at various fixed locations of the city via which they could go to Negaspace? Besides, these could also be used as a possible infiltration route for Order characters into the Riftspace itself?

What would you like to never see become a part of this faction? No chibis

If you do not have an officer and are not questing one, is there anything that we could add to this faction that would make you want one? N/A

Do you own a Negaverse officer? If so, how long have you played your officer? No, I don't have one.
If you don't have an officer, are you questing one? How long have you been questing? Not questing one either.

What do you like about the Negaverse faction?

The Negaverse is a classic sailormoon faction, and a lot of the things I like about the faction, that I hope would be kept, are as follows:
1) Mineral Names - I like sticking to the classic sailormoon stuff, so I love that the Negas have always had the Blahblahite names -- never change, you rock-obsessed faction.

2) Youma - another classic, and something I think is very necessary -- using youma as a killable intermediary between factions helps relieve some tension (on one side, at least) of the problem where two factions are supposed to kill each other, but OOCly, can never succeed at killing each other. At least there are youma to be killed.

3) Goal of Unsealing Metallia - I love that the Negaverse has a clear goal they're working towards. It's the one thing that gives this faction direction where other factions lack it; they have something they're working on doing, and concrete things they can proactively do (now that energy gathering is returned) to actually further that goal.

What do you dislike about the Negaverse faction?

Maybe it's a funny thing to say, but my personal feeling is that the two biggest problems the Negaverse, and the game at large, has always faced have been these:
1) The Negaverse are "physical" fighters who do all their battle with weapons, while the Senshi are magical fighters who have supernatural, energy-based attacks.
2) First stage Negaversers start out with silly lulz toy weapons.

I'm not really sure why these decisions were initially made (since they don't seem to line up with sailormoon canon), but I think they've done harm to both the functionality of gameplay as well as the evolution of later faction enhancements across the board. The ripples from these two decisions have had repercussions that have really just deepened some of the other game problems facing every faction to date. As a result, when I talk about the things I dislike in the faction, I'll probably keep coming back to these first two quite a bit -- that's why I'll start with those, and otherwise I'll try to focus on things that could maybe be changed/improved in the later sections.

I'm personally a very visual/numeral person, so I made a chart a while ago, to help myself understand some of the things I had trouble working around with various factions. In some cases, clear information wasn't available (or no one's reached that rank yet, such as S4 knights or corrupted senshi), so I had to use my best judgment, but the basic concepts are all here.

-----> So, first off, physical vs. magical. There's an old gaming trope which suggests that warriors are linear, wizards are quadratic, and I think a lot of people tend to have a sense that that's true, and a lot of effort seems to have been made to balance against it. "Senshi have magic, and all my character has is this bullwhip?" The problem is that, even at their first stage, treating the Negaversers as if they aren't a magical class is utterly untrue. At every stage they have phenomenal magical abilities, even compared to the supposedly 'more magical' senshi.

At Lieutenant stage, a Nega's weapon is said to be able to "bruise or potentially concuss an opponent." But compare this to what a senshi is allowed: "can dust youma but against another powered individual is not lethal under any circumstances." Because senshi magic is carefully regulated, a stage 1 senshi attack is often no more powerful than a Nega hitting someone with their weapon anyway. (While you could argue that not all Negas choose s1 weapons that can do that much damage, the same is true for senshi -- some senshi choose s1 magic that isn't offense-based at all.) But the Negas are an incredibly magical class, and saying that they're the non-magical faction just because they prefer swords to energy beams is kind of ridiculous. Here are some of the other magical things Negaversers can do:

1) Reach into someone's chest and magically rip out their life force.
2) Non-lethally sap someone's life force.
3) Teleport their weapon through space back to their own hand. In fact, at Captain stage (a stage at which "spiked boomerang" and "a massive two-handed sheet of steel with the ability to deeply cut with a powerful swing" are listed as acceptable and reasonable weapons), a captain can not only attack with her weapon at any time and for as long as she likes, she can also throw her weapon at opponents and magically recall it back to her twice, which means she can not only engage a senshi hand to hand, having brought a sword to a fistfight, for as long as she likes, she can also throw a sword at her opponent up to three times before she's down to nothing but her fists (and even then she can attempt to retrieve her weapon manually), whereas a senshi at the same level has an attack that is "still not lethal" and can only be cast twice. At General stage, they can not only have explicitly lethal weapons (which they can use fulltime in combat), but with weapons recall, they can throw very lethal and often magically enhanced swords at an opponent up to six times before they even have to start digging into their virtually unlimited bank of teleports to start fetching their sword instead. Eternal senshi aren't allowed anywhere close to this.
4) Use super-strength, speed, stamina, and healing rates.
5) Teleport to literally anywhere they have ever been.
6) Awaken other faction members (senshi cannot awaken anyone, and knights can only awaken themselves)
7) Upgrade other faction members (senshi cannot upgrade anyone, and knights can only upgrade themselves)
cool Turn an opponent to their side, even against their will.
9) Get magical powers for their weapons.

How is this not a magical class? The problem is, because of the perception that the senshi are more powerful and the Negas more limited, they've actually been built such that the senshi have a linear progression, and the Negaverse has a quadratic one. The Negaverse has been given a vast amount of very powerful "auxiliary" abilities to compensate for the misperception that the senshi are "more powerful" than they are, which simply isn't true, because the senshi are already being heavily capped and regulated in order to make sure they are on a linear progression and not a quadratic one. In fact, the enhancements Negas gain stage by stage are so severe that even if you took away teleportation (by far the most powerful ability in the game) completely, they would still be decisively more powerful than any Order class at every single stage.

Further, by making the Negas close-range fighters (with the exception of occasional higher-stage Negas who have ranged weapons), every battle thread with a Nega is automatically going to become a close-range combat, otherwise it would be seen as unfair and unsporting on a player's part to have their Order character prevent the Nega character from being able to do anything combat-wise. But in close range, Negas have the clear advantage, and all they really need to do regardless is wait out/dodge a senshi's only two uses of their attack before they can move in for the kill against an unarmed opponent. At close range, Negas can not only attack with their weapon on an unlimited basis (against either an opponent with no weapons at all, or one whose weapons are explicitly less lethal than a Nega's), they can also rip out a person's starseed (or, at higher stages, corrupt them), and it's my understanding that Negas are intended to be slightly more physically advantaged than Order characters (true at stage 3 if nothing else).

What this has all led to is a faction that seems to have been overbalanced: the Negaverse's lack of ranged magical attacks can be compensated for by giving Negas weapons and limiting senshi attacks to a few uses, or by limiting the effectiveness of senshi attacks, or by giving Negas other combat devices like youma, or teleportation, or unlimited access to their safe haven, or stronger physical attributes, or the ability to steal starseeds or corrupt people by force, or etc., but you can't say all of those things are only to balance out senshi attacks, because senshi attacks are really not that powerful.

-----> To my second point, I really don't understand why lieutenants have usually useless, silly, toy weapons at their first stage. It seems to me that management has long been pushing for a more serious, more severe/coordinated, more militarized faction, but they send their new recruits out onto the field with badminton shuttlecocks and Pikachu plushies, and then wonder why characters might have trouble taking pride in or having faith in their organization. The first stage weapons are tonally out of step with the rest of the game, and I'd hate to see them kept if the only reasoning is a sort of "well, everyone before this had to slog through the first stage of embarrassing children's weapons, new people should have to do it too." The Negaverse has long been overpowered, but nonetheless has long had trouble gaining numbers, so I feel like making this faction more appealing/sustainable may require addressing some things about the faction's basic setup, not just adding things to it or changing its future direction a little.

What would you like to see added to/changed about this faction?*

* N/B: I changed the wording of this question a bit because I'm really trying to focus on constructive feedback here, and the survey doesn't allow for a space where I can suggest alterations to anything that currently stands, just spaces where I can gripe about what I dislike without a space to say what things I might want to see done about them -- which I think is a difficulty some other people may have been having, too.

Housekeeping -- I'd really, really love to see a more structured approach to housekeeping tasks beyond just the frontpage. New updates are frequently rolled out in their own threads, and then never incorporated back into the faction info page, and sometimes separate temporary Q&A threads are also posted, and are never incorporated into the info page either. I'd like to see new info be added to the info page at the same time as its "rollout" thread goes up, and then a grace period of 2 weeks (or whatever time amount) for new-thing-Q&A threads before those will be locked and their answers added to the main faction info pae as well. The faction threads also don't always line up -- here's an example of info conflict: Generals "Are equal in power to the Eternal level of senshi, though you are physically faster and stronger. " versus an eternal senshi being "equal to a General in agility and speed, weaker than them in physical strength."

Training Division/no specializations @ lieutenant stage -- I'd like to see Nega breakdowns that make more sense, and are more in line with the power levels of each rank. Right now, the highest ranks of the Negaverse have all the best combat abilities, but seem to be doing the most time not fighting -- they're training people, doing paperwork, awakening and upgrading, etc. This doesn't make much sense, since you're giving bazookas to people who now mostly have desk jobs, and sending your front line soldiers off to war with foam swords and Nerf arrows. Why are the highest ranks doing so much more desk work? I'd love to see S4s and S3s choose aides-de-camp to do some of their non-combat work for them. I'd love to see a Training division added to the Negaverse. I'd love to see divisions being generally not something a Nega chooses till stage 2, to make their division missions more concrete, and more of a transition into a new sort of work and new story types from what they were doing at stage 1, so their new stage is different and offers new plot opportunities. And I'd even -- honestly -- love to see options for officers in non-combat-centered divisions to level up their characters based on other story reqs than battles, perhaps division-specific ones.

False/Corrupted Memories -- One of my favorite things in canon is how they handle side changes and corruption -- so often, characters find that their memories are corrupted/warped by Chaos to give characters motivation to serve Chaos -- they remember things, but their memories have been altered, twisted. I'd love to see this offered for Negas/corrupted senshi, rather than just not remembering things -- it gives players the chance to give their characters specific and personal motivations, and to have their character learn about their past self, whether truthfully or not.

Provide an explanation for Nega awakenings -- Now that Negas have been established as corrupted knights, what's the reasoning behind why Negas can choose to corrupt just anyone, but they somehow always turn out to have been a knight in a past life? Why are Negas special knights that can awaken other knights, but can't awaken themselves, when regular knights are the opposite? I feel like there's some disconnect between the two factions that I'd love more information on.

Nix or limit teleportation -- Teleportation is an incredibly powerful ability, and right now, the count of how often it can be done in battle seems really, really high to me. I'd love to see teleportation limited to, say 1 teleport per hour for Captains (i.e. just enough to flee a battle), 2 teleports for Generals, and 3 teleports for General-Kings/Queens, at most, which IMO is already a lot of teleportation in a battle. The problem is that -- as with a lot of things with Negas -- even if you say OOCly that people shouldn't abuse the abilities they're allowed to have, ICly, characters still have to react to those characters as though they could abuse those abilities. If (as a senshi) I can see that a Nega can teleport willy-nilly, and might wrench a starseed out of my chest any time they get too close to me, etc., I have to react as though this character is vastly more powerful than me, otherwise I look like an idiot. IC limits are important, not just OOC ones, because they define how characters may react to things IC.

Make Nega uniforms more uniform -- I know this one sounds really silly, but on top of everything else, senshi run around with very, very explicit markers of their stage ranks (supers are easily identified by their skirt stripes, eternals by their buttwings), but the ostensible military faction has no such stiff requirements for their uniforms that would make it easy for a senshi to know what rank of opponent they're facing down. Furthermore, the new uniform regs for Negas expand their theme to both "business" as well as "military," which is yet another unfair advantage to the faction -- no other faction has the option of a costume which looks like it might be something a normal person might wear on a particular day. No other faction can blend in with civilians. Please return the military theme to the military faction, and set specific "markers" for stage ranks.

Don't offset for faction size by making individual members more powerful -- I don't know if there's a concern that Negas have to be more powerful individually because they're a smaller faction, but for me, I don't think that's the right answer to balance out the discrepancy. Senshi are more numerous, but most threads are one-on-one, where full-scale army numbers don't mean a thing, so it's unfair to balance that way. IMO, the place this needs to be balanced is in big group ORPs, and I always assumed that was what youma, especially Greater Youma, were for -- they're brought out in rare big battles, and can be used there to provide some diceroll balance to offset the greater number of Order PCs. I'd rather see that setup to balance out number differentials, if possible.

What would you like to never see become a part of this faction? Travel to space.

If you do not have an officer and are not questing one, is there anything that we could add to this faction that would make you want one? Currently, I don't intend to add any characters to my roster, so I'd have to say no.

Sorry this is so long! I tried to mostly cover topics I didn't think other people had touched on, and I hope my feedback was geared towards identifying things in the faction structure that create RP challenges, currently, as well as suggestions for changes that might help out. I really, really appreciate the opportunity to give feedback, and I hope it wasn't too babbly and long-winded.