🎁 Mysterious Melody 2024!
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Just made some changes to the way that the reset script works. From my developer notes:
I&;ve made significant changes to the calculateDistribution method to handle non-contributing users. Here are the key changes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Early Identification of Contributors:</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Added explicit identification of contributors and non-contributors at the start</li>
<li>Contributors are users who gave at least one non-Melody item to the pool</li>
<li>Non-contributors are users who gave no items</li>
</ul>
<ol start="2">
<li>Modified Distribution Logic:</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Non-contributors now only receive one Melody item (if available)</li>
<li>All remaining items are distributed only among contributors</li>
<li>Removed the code that was distributing remaining Melody items to all users</li>
<li>Modified all distribution loops to only consider contributors</li>
</ul>
<ol start="3">
<li>Improved Logging:</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Added logging to show number of contributors and non-contributors</li>
<li>Updated log messages to be more specific about contributor status</li>
<li>Added clarity in logs when distributing items to contributors vs non-contributors</li>
</ul>
<ol start="4">
<li>Safety Checks:</li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Added check for Melody&;s existence before giving leftover items</li>
<li>Improved handling of empty Melody items for non-contributors</li>
</ul>
<p>These changes ensure that:</p>
<ol>
<li>Users who didn&;t contribute get at most one item from Melody</li>
<li>All other items are distributed only among users who contributed</li>
<li>The distribution remains fair among contributors</li>
<li>The system maintains transparency through detailed logging
In addition, you can no longer join a group from 11:30PM to midnight, while Melody prepares for resetting the groups. We actually had a 4.7% rate of users who donated zero items up until about 11:30, when I assume people got into groups with not enough time to actually send items, that shot us up to a 7% rate.
I'll continue tweaking, but remember the reset only happens once a day so there is only so much room for tweaking before we have to wait and see what happens ;)
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Good change! Doesn’t make sense for people who don’t participate to get items
all good changes, thanks for putting in all the work on this! it is only day 2 of MM and i'm having so much fun already!!
🚨 OH, QUICK NOTE 🚨
i’ve been thinking about why there might be a gap between the stats i saw coming in yesterday and how things felt for y’all at the end of the day.
part of this (as mentioned earlier, i implemented user shops entirely for this!) involved getting a better understanding of the “user price” of items. as discussed in this thread on npc agents and historical prices, we’re now able to analyze shop purchases over time to calculate more accurate pricing.
in the past, we updated these values sparingly (sometimes only after multiple purchases) because i was worried about it being gamed. but with years of shop history now, that’s almost impossible, and we can even consider features like alerting you if you’re pricing an item way below market value.
right now, there’s a background script running to update every item’s “user price” based on this new data. in many cases, it’s drastically lowering the value of items to reflect their actual prices in user shops today. for example, i just watched it adjust 200 items, and many dropped from 5–10 million sP to around 20–40k—that’s what they’re actually worth in shops rn, but the old values weren’t being updated properly as prices fell.
so, if you pulled an item from your vault thinking it was “worth” 5 million sP, but it showed up as lower when distributed, that’s likely because the script adjusted its value during the day. this won’t apply to every item, but given the swings i’m seeing, it might explain a chunk of the discrepancies.
this process should smooth out over the next week or so as the script finishes running on all items. it’s a heavy task (digging through years of history for each item), so it’s running slowly during off-peak times to avoid bogging down the database.
[edit]
i just watched this item update from ~4 million to 50k
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I'm so confused my group didn't reset and I didn't get any items
[Item=Pink Bellflowers]
i'm /so/ excited for mm to return but i'm not a very big fan of the new format. it feels very cold and impersonal because i think what made mm so fun was getting to send things to each other immediately and being able to 'communicate' what types of gifts your mm could send and being able to send thank you items etc. it was interactive and i liked being able to narrow down what my mm might want because it made buying and sending gifts more exciting. the immediate gratification of sending things back and forth made the site a lot more lively and kept me online because i enjoy sending a lot of gifts. i don't get the fuzzy feeling from the new format. i'm probably not communicating this as well as i should be and i hope i don't sound entitled or ungrateful. i hope it makes sense anyhow. thank you so much for bringing it back though!
I think the people who don't put in anything should maybe get a message like "we've noticed your lack of generosity, so you aren't included in the item split but Melody at least has taken pity on you"... and then they get ONE gift from Melody worth like 1k or less. Or maybe cheap coal from Darkheart?
i&;m /so/ excited for mm to return but i&;m not a very big fan of the new format. it feels very cold and impersonal because i think what made mm so fun was getting to send things to each other immediately and being able to &;communicate&; what types of gifts your mm could send and being able to send thank you items etc. it was interactive and i liked being able to narrow down what my mm might want because it made buying and sending gifts more exciting. the immediate gratification of sending things back and forth made the site a lot more lively and kept me online because i enjoy sending a lot of gifts. i don&;t get the fuzzy feeling from the new format. i&;m probably not communicating this as well as i should be and i hope i don&;t sound entitled or ungrateful. i hope it makes sense anyhow. thank you so much for bringing it back though!
i totally get where you’re coming from! i can’t take anything away from your experience, and it’s clear how much you loved the old format. that said, the feedback we got from that version showed that a lot of people ended up paired with folks who didn’t participate at all, which left them feeling pretty bummed. while we didn’t collect much data back then, what we did see showed participation dropping steadily throughout the month.
i hear you loud and clear about wanting more ways to connect or personalize things within your group. here’s what i’m working on to bring some of that energy back: 1. 🎭 unmask: this will let you reveal yourself to your group if you choose, and anyone else who unmasks will be visible to you too! 2. 💖 react: you’ll be able to send reactions to your group throughout the day. i’m building this using the dropdown system (and the new reactions on kumos) so you can express yourself without fully giving away who you are. these reactions will show up in a little chat for everyone to see.
your feedback is super valuable, and you’re absolutely right—it’s missing that human touch rn. most people didn’t seem to get it from the old feature either, but i think these tweaks could help bring back some of that warmth and interactivity you’re looking for. 🙏
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I love this updated feature!! I don't know how many years it's been since I last participated in the old MM, but I really like the way this new one works. It feels like less pressure to give one random person the perfect gifts, and more like fun finding things that anyone might be able to enjoy and feel happy to recieve. I don't know why the pressure levels feel different but they do and I appreciate it lol! Also very happy too see you plan on implementing reactions and the option to unmask! I honestly can't sing my praises loud enough haha. And I know there might be some hiccups in the algorithm as it's very new but that doesn't worry me, I'm sure itll all be worked out :)
I, personally, don't intend to participate in the new system as it currently operates; I would find ambiguous expectations, irreversible commitment, and opaque reputation score to be a pretty unpleasant combination even if I totally trusted that it would basically work out in practice.
However, if there were an option to sign up for groups with suggested budgets—even order-of-magnitude or otherwise huge ranges—that would resolve all my issues and I would go for it. (And of course you could retain free-for-all groups for people who prefer ambiguity to numbers in gift-giving.)
So far both of my groups have been great and everyone fully contributed! It gives me the warm fuzzies to see enthusiasm for gift giving.
I agree with the sentiment that this feels like a lot less pressure than the old format. I know you're not supposed to feel bad for not giving enough, but I always did. I pretty much never participated in MM because it felt like too much pressure to give perfect gifts. The item limit and random distribution helps a lot to lift that pressure.
Can we get a link to the news page under Melody's College? I worry that I'll forget to participate if the link in the announcement gets buried by the news toward the end of the month.
I was kinda confused as it mentioned blue border was our items..and mistakenly thought i got 2 of mine back. I checked my inventory and saw the new items. is there a way once the prize pool has been revealed, to have another sub section of just the items we are receiving? i was confused because there is a border around the CI's that i thought was given back to me..turned out it was just the CI'S border. and since its early yet, its not showing a 2nd border..so i thought instead of highlighting w/ 2nd border of what we get back..it would be easier to comprehend what we are getting and what else was in the prize pool.
im glad i didnt get my items back though. i really do love the ability to cheerfully give!
I enjoyed my first new MM! I didn't receive any of my own items I contributed which was good, and I ended up getting 7 items in total. Can't wait to see what the next one brings!!
Unsure if it's been noted yet or is intended to be a feature, but the Mysterious Melody achievement isn't updating. I'd love if it were possible it be tied to the new one so it can be earned. :D Having a blast so far regardless! I got two wishlist items. ^^
I got two of my own items back today
Can’t view my results today. I clicked the link in the notification and was led to Kumos, but only getting a blank page (with the header ect.) But judging from the timeline of my inventory items, I didn’t get nice items haha. But it’s ok, hope the others liked the items I added. Happy MM!
Tbh I don’t like the fact that we can see how many presents the others contributed. Wish it was anonymous. I saw that one of the group didn’t join (when I last checked), and that felt kinda meh.
I'm too sleepy to formulate full sentences tonight, though I do have some thoughts and will try to come back in the next couple days to share them!
Wanted to post before I forget though, to mention that I got three of the five items I put into the pool back today. Prices ranged from 1mil to unbuyable from user shops, in case that's relevant info, and I received 7 items total (3 were my own, 4 were not).
Chiming in on the wish to have a permanent link on the news page and/or on Melody's page.
My group all had donated 5 items early in the day. I got a nice mixture of 8 (?) presents in varying price ranges - some more, some less, than mine. None from my WL, but also none, that I gave myself.
Also haven't had a purchase from Melody ever since I posted about her last ones - she may be annoyed with me now :-)
New problem today: I have lost the ability to scroll on Kumos/the MM page. I can only see the second row (10 pieces) of presents and I cannot sroll down any further :-(
Today went much better for me! My whole group fully participated and I got 7 items in the end.
Any chance of being able to, like, click a button finalizing our choices, and then if everyone gifts 5 items and clicks that, then it could go ahead and reset? My group today is already maxed out, Melody included, and it'd be nice to not have to wait all day for it to reset.