Round 17

'fascinating'

Oven earns silver imo to Oaki's gold, but they're both brilliant

I think if you're only going to have one live challenge, switching it with the jigsaw might have been a good idea to make the FIC feel special. Just because you had the two puzzles and people knew the major test of strength was coming doesn't mean it has to be the FIC. I really liked it thematically though of having 3 of the same challenge. my 2 cents

That is all very very fair. When we designed this, opening and closing with the Test of Strengths felt rather thematic. And the fact that there had two of them already and some had scores, and you could possibly predict that there was going to be a third and maybe could plan around that seemed like something worth trying. I don't think we expected that they wouldn't have seen it coming and wouldn't have considered trying to do something to give themselves a better chance. Additionally, we knew that there was the item to take somebody out of immunity contention, we didn't foresee that somebody would save that for the challenge right before it expired. You would think that if you're concerned that somebody is going to go on an immunity run and might have an idol, that you'd take a shot at them and force them to burn their idol long before you can't actually touch them if they do have one. The fact of the matter is, this kind of endless run to the end doesn't traditionally happen, so the frustration around it is also a little unprecedented too. Understable however. We designed much of the game on what now seem to be bad assumptions that people would be able to predict and plan and would make moves to actually change their position with active control of their situations. Sometimes shit doesn't work how it was intended or hoped for. And sometimes people end up exceptionally upset by it all. And I think in this particular situation, us mods have also run into quite a lot of complaints which are emotionally charged, not unfairly, that make the year and a half we put into this game hoping to make something enjoyable and interesting feel wasted. And with all sorts of life things, we've been a little more sensitive to it than perhaps we should have been. But it's hard not to when it's rounds and rounds in a row of that from multiple angles.

i think you guys ran a great game and no game is without its flaws, it's just sometimes easier to say "here's what I'd do different," than "hey, that was cool."

So here's some cool things:
including the minor, moderate, and major tests of strength thematically
the banners, the theme, the forum is amazing
the swaps were great, forcing players to think on their feet and try to navigate
the multi vote outs made things interesting and prevented players from stagnating (I don't really like Joe, okay)
redemple temple was well done, i like the lives concept that might get stolen
the rupees thing was new and kind of exciting to see play out
the way you handled item interactions was well done considering everyone wanted to use them to do kooky things
the fact you guys were always here and available to help and answer questions 

In hindsight, i'd change a couple things but that's not really against you since there were a lot of fringe case things happening. But i think overall this was a fun game (to watch, at least) especially in a rough time so thanks for making it a reality.

Like I've said before, this game is about what would be expected in a bastard game. This game was designed for players to feel the way they have. Their reactions were by definition expected going into this, and apart from Sidon I don't think anyone has gone over the line of constructive criticism. (At least in public, obviously I have no way of seeing what has been said in private.)

This has been one of the least toxic sets of players I've seen in a long time, which is particularly impressive considering it's a bastard game.