Dance Groups!

June 23, 2025 8:25 pm

Get ready to revolutionize your Masquerade experience! I'm excited to announce our brand new Dance Groups system - a new way to dance, chat in the forums, and collect those sweet sweet dances with your fellow Subetans!

🤖 How It Works

Join a dance group and let the 🤖 Auto Dancing Machine do the work! Every 5 minutes, the robot automatically pairs up two participants who haven't danced yet, ensuring everyone gets equal opportunities for tokens - even when you're offline 🫨!

Dance Groups are regular forum threads at their core, but with a special live chat component that refreshes automatically (like the shoutbox). It's still just forum posts under the hood - but with real-time events to keep the conversation going.

These dances are on a separate timer from the legacy site so you're only increasing the tokens you're bringing in 😉

Fair pairing system ensures everyone gets their turn
Real-time group chat to connect with fellow dancers
Participate in up to 3 dance groups (5 for Gold members!)
Groups need at least 10 people to keep things exciting

🎯 The Goal

This system is designed to help everyone participate in Masquerade events, especially those who can only pop online for a few minutes at a time. You can still collect tokens and stay connected with your group even with a busy schedule, which I know is where most of us are these days.

We're also hoping that seeing those familiar avatars in your dance groups reminds you to say hi to friends and feel a little like you're hanging out together. The social connections are what make these events special! Leave that profile comment, say hi to your online friends!

✨ Special NPC Guests

Dancing NPCs may join your groups and bring magical powers:

⚡ Speed Boost: Reduces machine intervals from 5 to 4 minutes
👥 Group Dance: Enables threesome dancing with 3 participants
🍀 Lucky Charm: Reduces breakdown chances and improves repairs

NPCs will activate their powers when paired, and they might even leave to join other groups - so you'll need to experience different groups to see all the abilities!

🔧 Machine Maintenance

Sometimes the Auto Dancing Machine breaks down and needs fixing! When this happens, group members work together to repair it. Don't worry - it's just a simple button click, but it keeps groups active. The bigger the group, the more people will be needed to fix the 🤖.

🖌️ User Popover Improvements

Speaking of seeing friends - we've made some exciting improvements to user popovers based on your feedback! You can now:

Choose between hover or click activation at your popover settings
Customize your popover background color on the same page - this is how other users will see your popover!

Just a little bit of personalization 🎨

🎯 How to Join

Ready to start dancing? Here's how:

Visit the Masquerade Forum on Kumos
Look for topics marked with ♪ Dance Group
Join an existing group or create your own!

This system is currently in testing phase, so timing and features may be adjusted based on your feedback.

June 25, 2025, 10:12 pm by

Is it possible to have a link to our dance groups bc I cannot seem to find mine after joining

June 25, 2025, 8:32 pm by

Can we fight Boudewijn in the Arena? He's really cheesing me off.

June 25, 2025, 6:21 pm by

The dueling was more fun when there was a chance at a trinket bag with a win...but getting a win and no trinkets? No reason to duel...

June 25, 2025, 5:21 pm by

Love this feature! Not sure if this has been brought up, but the bot repairs on smaller groups. We have a group that only has like 6 members but still requires 4 people to repair the bot, which is over half the group. Maybe some sort of repair scaling for smaller groups?

June 25, 2025, 4:48 pm by

This is such a great idea. Unsure how fairly the bot pairs dances though. I'm in a group where everyone had 6-10 dances each aside from 3 people, who all only have one. Weird.

June 25, 2025, 3:44 pm by

If this has been brought up a apologize, but it seems like the 'main pages' for the Dance Groups might have a bug in the creators original forum-like post at the top. If the person has a "dance with ___" in their post it seems like I can invite them to dance infinitely with zero cool down. It even says 'you have 0 min until you can dance again' I haven't confirmed if the other player receives every single request however.

In addition like the post below me, I have noticed the robot not breaking today as well, but they did once earlier this morning. It might be from you guys changing things for all I know.

I LOVE the Dance Groups. they are fun and are making feel a lot more comfortable on the new site. I don't mind Kumos personally, I like them both for different reasons and I am patient with the bugs- I like seeing the process!

June 25, 2025, 3:25 pm by

Hey there. Love the new mechanic with the dance machine robot. Yesterday the robot was breaking a bit too much, but today it seems more durable... I'd say... today it feels like, it hasn't broke at all... hard to tell because my notificacions are a bit too much right now. I hope this gimmick don't get removed or something, I think it's kinda nice having to group togheter to fix it, and prevents a bit too many idle... I know it is about idle dancing but a bit of intereaction is good, you know what could happen with automated stuff, it could create a bit too much of lounge and steam tokens and unmotivate people to play, I dunno. On another note, the duelist (forgot his name) that appears when you enter the ballroom, has show his face to me zero times at the subeta legacy site, but, now that the kumos site has a ballroom it pop ups a bit TOO MUCH. Besides an achievement there isn't anything else with him, so, I think it could be toned down a bit. I enjoy enter the ballroom and peek my avatar and the other dancer avatar thogheter and how they fix, not even for the duelist, but now... I kind of being pushed to not to or else I could went into a 15 minutes ban e_e Great stuff to have the NPCs showing into the fun, besides, it's kinda funny when it read "an anon dancer asks you out" and near to that, there is the wizard avatar XDDD

June 25, 2025, 2:53 pm by

First all machines break repeatedly, now after having been absent for a few hours, not a single one broke! I'm getting a lot of pairings - I think a tad too many! On the other hand, I only found a single Mystery dance upon return!

June 25, 2025, 2:53 pm by

So, I have been testing and at least for me, the option "Accept X dances" seem to always get me a duel. The option "Accept & view Ballroom" very often gets me a duel. The option "Accept dance" sometimes gets me duels. I don't know if it is just my luck tough.

June 25, 2025, 2:36 pm by

overall, i do enjoy this new auto-dancing thing. but the duels need either an option to decline or overall be (temporarily?) disabled. he pops up far, far too often (i seem to be getting him for just about every dance offer i try to accept on kumos, which is really annoying and inconvenient) and doesn't seem to be rewarding people properly for their wins, from what i can see, and i do feel that the 'shame timer' is.. a bit questionable. it needs to be shortened, as it goes against the whole 'letting even busier people participate more' idea that seems to be the intent behind it.

June 25, 2025, 2:33 pm by

I keep getting B too every time I try to accept dances and it’s a little annoying. What is dueling him supposed fo do???

June 25, 2025, 2:14 pm by

About the new dance floor: I like the people being in different positions rather than just lined up along the sides watching you, BUT the one directly behind the dancers has got to go. Lots of people like to take screenshots of their HA with their partner, and having someone smaller right in the middle is like a photobomb every time.

June 25, 2025, 1:45 pm by

I also keep getting the dueler, & he takes all the dances, then fines me 15 minutes. I have won once or twice, there is no bag of trinkets like prior years.

June 25, 2025, 1:23 pm by

Noticed an odd thing. I'm in three groups-30 people, 44 people, and 50 people, and the 50 people one has almost double the dances of the other two. Not complaining, but it does seem disproportionate

June 25, 2025, 1:21 pm by

Okay, I tried again and here's what I noticed! Got through two whole dances without getting B. I like the ballroom size being bigger and the HA's seeming smaller on it. Really emphasizes the grandeur of the whole thing. However, the flipped HA's are distorted - too skinny - and they don't drop the foreground and background items like the should, so frames, etc. are still in the picture.

When I got B, I won! However, it wasn't due to what I was choosing; he acted like I'd chosen a different weapon for his dialogue all three times. But it did let me go to the dance floor when I won, which was good. I did not get a bag of trinkets for a prize as is customary, however.

June 25, 2025, 1:02 pm by

Got a Boudewijn duel and he'll only tie me - like 15+ attempts and he just picks whatever weapon I pick

June 25, 2025, 12:56 pm by

Well, looks like I'm not the only one having problems with the duellist, I wish I could just block him from appearing as he takes all dances if I lose, and seems to give nothing in return if I win, and also appears every time. It is quite annoying.

June 25, 2025, 12:51 pm by

Okay, so I've also gotten B every time I've opened a dance in Kumos. Once I lost and once I won, but both times it acted like I lost. I guess it's just the machine dances that open there? I guess it's fair to lose them since they've built up because I've only had a limited amount of time to be on Subeta the past couple days due to work, but gosh I'd be mad if it started happening with the ones I've asked people for and where they've asked me. So I hope some dances continue to stay off Kumos for now.

Also would like to request Jack Cardale as an NPC dance partner!

June 25, 2025, 12:46 pm by

I'm in, I just can't do anything.

June 25, 2025, 11:30 am by

I'm having the same issue as the other users below. Where I'm getting the duelist every time, be it for 1 or 10 dances. I also didn't get a reward for winning.

I also had a problem where after accidentally leaving the page during a duel, it seems I automatically lost, including losing all my dances. It also doesn't make much sense to me that if you lose to this guy once, he can take 10+ dances away at once and not just one.

Aside from that though, I love this idea!

June 25, 2025, 11:27 am by

Dancing group feedback:

I like the idea of the groups, where are people you want to interact, the live group chat and Machine maintenance^-^ (it fits the theme of steampunk/cyberpunk - it will fun also with some mini games or with buying items from Steamworks Menagerie)
Too many auto dancing invitations - I have joined 2 dancing groups today and I got so many of them O.o (+ there is normal mode dancing + mystery dance). It makes little bit overwhelmed. -> It would be better (for me) if there were more people in a group and auto dancing timer were longer, so ther will be less of them

June 25, 2025, 11:04 am by

Yeah hopefully they read through and make some adjustments, I love the autodancing feature and don’t mind the repairs even at all, just needs some tweaking.

Thank you! It’s a book very close to my heart, I’m still deciding between a few illustrations from my edition I’ve had since I was 2 to get tattooed next year 🩵

June 25, 2025, 10:57 am by

I agree. It would be nice for the timer to be a shorter length of time. It's nice to have the ability to accept ten invites at once, though. That would be a good element of this to keep once the bugs get ironed out.

Oh! That is a neat reference to the velveteen rabbit on your profile... err... should I say the velveteen kanis?

June 25, 2025, 10:51 am by

I agree, and I wouldn’t even mind the timer that much if it was 5 minutes instead of 15, that’s way too long. Especially if you have a job/family/school and therefore limited time to do the event. It’s my third time in a row almost of losing and I’m now losing my mind already lol. They also should make it clear if you actually get a reward for winning or not.

June 25, 2025, 10:38 am by

That's understandable. I don't love the new format, either. It would be great to have the option to turn down the duels and not be penalized. The group dance feature is great, especially for those of us who are busy, but Boudewijn is really putting a damper on the party. The "shame timer" might also better be called something else... some players here are still pretty young, and it's not great for the site to reinforce the idea of "shame" considering that.

I'm hopeful that staff reads these comments and can make some adjustments while these features are still in the testing phase.

June 25, 2025, 10:33 am by

I also don’t think I’ve gotten any rewards for beating him unless it’s just trinkets now instead of bags so I haven’t noticed them in the pile of trinkets in my inventory. It’s starting to really, really annoy me 💀

June 25, 2025, 10:19 am by

I haven’t even done bulk dance accepting and I get him every other time. It’s honestly ruining this for me.

June 25, 2025, 10:13 am by

Yeah, Boudewijn is driving me nuts with these constant challenges. It was cool on the main site where it was a random, once-in-a-while event where if you won, you got a bag of trinkets and if you lost, you were relieved of just a few. Now, it seems so hard to win a duel we are essentially forced into and if we win, I don't think there's a bag of trinkets anymore. The "shame timer" for losing would be fine if it was more like five minutes instead of fifteen. Right now, it won't even let me accept invites I have because of that.

June 25, 2025, 9:54 am by

would also definitely appreciate an option to decline the duel.

June 25, 2025, 9:07 am by

I wish there was an option to decline the duel, I keep getting them every time I bulk accept my dances now and I'm not really interested, especially since the feature lags a lot for me and is slow to complete.

Otherwise I really enjoy the automated dance system, it helps a lot when I no longer have time to participate in events as much as I used to in the past.

June 25, 2025, 8:41 am by

Just adding to the missing trinkets after winning the duel! I also appreciate the high risk/reward with the 15 minute cooldown on dancing, it would be nice to be able to decline the duel though!

June 25, 2025, 7:31 am by

I'm not sure I'm 100% understanding how the auto dancing actually works. I see it does eventually randomly pair me and I see the events in my notices on both here and Kumos... but seems I can only accept one of the events to get my tokens but not any of the others?

June 25, 2025, 7:20 am by

Is this supposed to actually work now, or...?

June 25, 2025, 6:49 am by

3 more challenges that I won and didn't get my bag of trinkets in my inventory

June 25, 2025, 6:32 am by

Last night my first duel was with "Reginald", not Boudewijn?? LOL Also am confused on why there is no option NOT to duel. I haven't done duels in forever because I really don't need the extra trinkets - I am only doing the dance groups for the experience of something new. And the dance shame cooldown kind of messes with the whole group dance to get more dances thing, if you can't accept dances because you are on a duel-time-out!!

June 25, 2025, 6:08 am by

I like the lore reason with not being able to accept dances for a bit after losing a duel, but 15 minutes is a bit excessive? I think 5 minutes would be less frustrating.

June 25, 2025, 5:39 am by

I also have problem with getting trinkets after winning against Boudewijn

June 25, 2025, 5:32 am by

I am not getting my bags of trinkets when Boudewijn challenges me :(

June 25, 2025, 3:40 am by

I seem to be getting duels every time I finish accepting my dances on Kumos (I do them one by one).

June 25, 2025, 2:17 am by

I received tokens for accepting multiple dances at once, but not Boudewin's Bag of Trinkets for winning. Why do we have to click "next" with him, instead of only choosing the weapon for the next turn?

June 25, 2025, 1:31 am by

Anyone else getting challenged by Boudewijn every single dance? I clicked "Accept All" to accept 4 dances, but I feel like I lost the tokens for every single one because of Boudewijn.....is that how it's meant to go? :(

June 25, 2025, 12:41 am by

More feedback: Boudewijn challenged me to a duel in Kumos. I wasn't given an option to decline the duel:

Round 1: I picked the weapon on the right; Boudewijn picked the center weapon. Score: me 1, Boudewijn 0. Rounds 2-5, we tied. Four times in a row! Round 6: I picked the weapon on the left; Boudewijn picked the center weapon. Score: me 1, Boudewijn 1.

Even though the score was tied, Boudewijn ended the duel with the take-my-trinkets-I'll-find-another-dance message. But no trinkets appeared in my inventory.

This was very buggy: (1) The option not to duel is gone. (2) The duel ended prematurely. (3) No reward was given even though Boudewijn conceded.

June 24, 2025, 11:37 pm by

I'm not doing any more machine repairs my fingers r tired and I have to go to town tomarrow

June 24, 2025, 10:25 pm by

"💭✨ Masquerade Memories - The ballroom seeks stories! Please respond to: "How are you enjoying the masquerade so far?" (2 responses needed)" Answer this where???? Also yeah, agreed that the strain on the system seems a bit much. I can't get the normal dance invites to work anymore on legacy subeta, guessing it's a more high-traffic time.

June 24, 2025, 10:16 pm by

"Choose between hover or click activation at your popover settings"

I don't think this is working properly? When you announced this via forums (the day before this post), I changed my preference to click instead of hover, then fixed the popover window colors. The next day I went to do my quests and noticed the popovers were back on hover, so I fixed it again. And then today, it was like that again, and yeah. The saved preferences aren't sticking for me, and I'm not clearing cache or anything. Using desktop, firefox 140.0.

June 24, 2025, 9:24 pm by

Auto Dancing Machine Repair has started in 'Funky Town Revarie'! It needs 12 people to participate. Click here to help!

I can't, I already opted in ages ago, I am the only one... Is this event coming in as a reminder?

June 24, 2025, 9:16 pm by

Questing has become almost impossible - every move mega slow - the dance groups traffic seem to be too hard on the system.

Why is every dance group link opening in a new window?

June 24, 2025, 9:06 pm by

The Auto Dancing Machine has paired you with Sarenrae! Click here to dance!

This all of a sudden leads to Kumos - can't use that. However, if a legacy invitation comes in, it'll respond to the normal accept button.

June 24, 2025, 7:09 pm by

To everyone struggling to accept all of the dances: You can accept one dance, and then just refresh the tab from there. It will accept each dance in turn, without having to do a bunch of pointing and clicking and closing new tabs.

June 24, 2025, 6:42 pm by

I would really love if there was some kind of auto-accept or bulk accept for dances - I logged off for a couple hours and then opening Subeta again, I had to individually go through every auto-pairing to accept and it's.... tedious. :(

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