Brand Programs FAQ
Common questions about earning, the quality gate, reactions, and Tune-In progression. Phrased for community members who want to understand what's going on, but useful for brand admins who want to anticipate member questions.
Phase 2 + 2.5 update (May 2026): new mechanics added. See questions on Activity Score, Weekly Bounty, Universal Formula, and "Lifetime Engagement" vs "Activity Score".
Why didn't my message earn?
The most common reason is the quality gate. Every message is scored on five signals (structural quality, slop level, self-similarity, cross-similarity, and behavioral pattern), then adjusted by three context heuristics:
- H1 — Anchor. If your message has none of: a reply, a
@mention, a channel mention, an*.rsnc.networklink, or a content-word in common with the channel's recent topic — your composite score drops by 30 points. This is the single largest penalty in the gate, and it kills "drive-by" posts that don't reference any ongoing conversation. - H3 — Chain. If your message is too similar to recent qualifying messages in the channel ("I agree", "Same!", "💯 this"), you get a penalty up to 30. Reply chains of agreement no longer farm reliably.
- H4 — Dead channel. In servers with 100+ members, if the channel hasn't had a qualifying message in 30 minutes, the composite drops by 10. (At Tune-In L90, the
dawn_patrolunlock event explicitly rewards this — but only if the message itself passes the quality gate.)
So the most likely answer to "why didn't my message earn?" is: it had no anchor (no reply, no mention, no link, no topic overlap), and the H1 penalty pushed it under threshold.
Why didn't my reaction count toward my friend's Popular Content?
The reaction_threshold event went through a major tightening in Phase 1:
- Credibility filter. Only reactors with
credScore ≥ 40count. Brand-new accounts and accounts that haven't earned recently have low credScore. - Burst-window collapse. Reactions arriving within 30 seconds of the first reaction on a message all collectively count as one reactor — this kills "five friends pile-on" farming.
- Default threshold raised from 3 to 5 distinct credible reactors.
So if you and four friends all reacted to one message at the same time, that's recorded as one effective reactor — and you'd need four more distinct, credible, time-spread reactors before the threshold is met.
What does Tune-In actually unlock?
Each Tune-In level milestone (every 10 levels) unlocks a new event type:
| Level | Unlocks |
|---|---|
| L0 | thread_starter (your created threads with 2+ posters) |
| L10 | stage_host (Stages you host with 3+ attendees) |
| L20 | deep_reply (replies to messages with 3+ reactors) |
| L30 | conversation_starter (your messages with 3+ distinct repliers in 1h) |
| L40 | voice_sustained (60+ continuous voice minutes) |
| L50 | mentor_reach (replies to new members) |
| L60 | traffic_director (you're @mentioned by 5+ distinct users in 24h) |
| L70 | resonance_beacon (your link posts with 3+ reactors, must pass quality) |
| L80 | answered_question (you answer a question that gets endorsed) |
| L90 | dawn_patrol (first quality message after 8h channel silence) |
These are additive: at L40 you can earn from thread_starter, stage_host, deep_reply, conversation_starter, AND voice_sustained — none of the lower unlocks go away. They stack alongside the four core events (quality, gm_checkin, reaction_threshold, social_link) which are available at every tune level and grow in payout as you climb.
Can I farm by replying to lots of messages?
No. The deep_reply (L20) event only fires when the parent message already had 3 distinct reactors at the time you replied. That gates you to a smaller set of "endorsed" parents. On top of that, deep_reply is capped at 5 claims/day, and you can only claim once per parent message. Replying to 20 messages in a row gives you at most 5 claims, and only if 5 of those parents had been pre-endorsed.
The same shape applies across the unlock events: every one of them requires a social witness — another member or set of members validating the activity. There is no Phase 1 unlock event that's solo-farmable.
Why is gm_checkin worth less than it used to be?
The Phase 1 rebalance set tier 0 (Tune L0) at 10 RSNC, 1/day — that's the new floor for the daily check-in. Previous values were paying members ~25 RSNC/day at L0 just for typing "gm", which was overpaying by the standards of the rest of the program. The new tier 0 is honest about gm_checkin being a small ritual reward.
The good news: as you climb the Tune-In ladder, gm_checkin grows. At L60 it's 22 RSNC × 3/day = 66 RSNC/day, and at L90 it's 40 × 3 = 120/day. So progression does mean more, just not at L0 where everyone starts.
Why did my weekly cap shrink?
If you were at a high tune level under the previous economy, your quality event probably had a 300/week cap that you almost certainly never hit. The "cap" was a vanity number — the boost from your tune-charge-multiplier inflated it to look impressive but the gate produced fewer claims than that anyway.
The Phase 1 ladder replaces the unreachable 300/week with a tight, binding cap that scales by tier: 50/week at L0 to 120/week at L90. At L90 you can earn 9,000 RSNC/week from quality alone — but the cap is a real cap, not a boost-inflated ceiling no one approaches. The actual change in your weekly RSNC will depend on whether you were previously hitting the gate often. Most active L40+ members earn more total under the new system because of the unlock events stacking on top of the core ladder.
What's the fastest way to earn?
Sustained, anchored participation across multiple event types beats burst-posting one event. A few patterns that pay well:
- Replies to active threads.
quality(every reply that anchors and passes the gate), plusdeep_replyif the parent had 3+ reactors, plusmentor_reachif the parent author is a new member — three events from one well-placed reply. - Hosting + sustaining voice.
stage_hostis 120 RSNC weekly, andvoice_sustainedadds 48 RSNC up to 3×/week. Voice is one of the highest RSNC-per-hour activities in the program. - Answering questions — at L80, every well-received answer fires
answered_question(90 RSNC, 2/day cap). Combine with thequalityreward on the same message.
There is no "spam route" anymore. The fastest way to earn is to actually contribute to conversations the community is having.
Is it OK to ask for likes/reactions?
Asking is fine. Asking systematically (DM'ing five friends asking them to react to every message) gets caught by the burst-window and credibility filters in Phase 1. If your friends all react within 30 seconds of each other, they collectively count as one reactor toward reaction_threshold. If your friends have low credScore (because they haven't earned recently), they don't count at all.
Organic asks in conversation — "anyone else seeing this?" — are fine. Coordinated reaction-pile-ons get filtered to one effective reactor regardless of how many people you coordinate.
How do I know what tier I'm currently on?
Run /cooldowns in Discord. The header shows your current tune level, and each event listed is followed by a (Tier N) badge — that's the supersession tier you currently qualify for on that event. Below the active events you'll see a 🔒 Upcoming Unlocks section listing which unlock events you'll get next, with the tune levels they require.
What if my server has a different program than Resonance Official?
Each brand defines its own program. The Phase 1 ladder described in these docs is the Resonance Official reference — other brands are free to adopt it wholesale, modify it, or design completely different programs. If you're earning in a non-Resonance-Official server, ask the brand admin which program they're running. Many brands will be migrating to the Phase 1 structure on their own timeline.
The /cooldowns command always reflects the active program for the brand whose server you're in, so the tiers, unlock events, and reward values you see are correct for that specific brand.
Phase 2 + 2.5 questions (May 2026)
What is Activity Score and how do I see mine?
Activity Score (AS) is a per-event-family weekly velocity stat added in Phase 2. Every qualifying action you take adds to the AS bucket for its event family (messaging, replying, reactions, etc). Higher AS = bigger BASE on every future reward via the universal formula. See your current AS, weekly progress, and the +X% reward boost it gives you in /cooldowns — rebuilt as a Quest Hub with full AS breakdown.
AS rolls over 25% week-to-week at Mon 00:00 UTC, so a slow week doesn't reset you to zero — you keep a quarter of last week's score.
Per-family weekly caps prevent within-week farming. Once you hit a family cap, no more AS for that family until next week. Ten families have caps; two are uncapped (Quality Message + First Message in Channel — both already heavily gated by the quality gate).
How does the Weekly Bounty work?
Every Monday at 00:00 UTC, the brand pays out a Weekly Bounty from a per-brand pool to top contributors of the prior week. Your share is computed from your Activity Score relative to other members. Show up consistently across the week (not just one big day) and your bounty share grows.
The bounty payout is excluded from the +6% Signal subscription multiplier — anti-farm against subscribe-then-cancel exploitation of the Mon cron.
For Resonance Official the bounty pool is set at 5% of the brand's weekly emission. The first payout fires Mon May 11 00:00 UTC for activity logged this week.
Why do my per-claim RSNC numbers look different from yesterday?
If you're in a brand that's opted into Phase 2.5's universal reward formula, the per-claim base is now computed as:
base = legacyReward × (1 + level / EVENT_DIVISOR) × (1 + min(AS / 500, 0.5)) × localMultiplier
In plain terms: higher Tune-In level → bigger base. Higher Activity Score → bigger base, capped at +50%. Per-event local-multiplier still tunable. Then the rest of the stack (role multiplier, streak, server, Signal subscription) applies on top.
Net effect: sustained, broad participation pays better than the legacy formula. One-off spikes pay slightly less. No values were silently nerfed — same hard work pays more, and the math is now legible in a single chain instead of five compounding multipliers.
Resonance Official is on the universal formula since 2026-05-07.
What's the difference between "Lifetime Engagement" and "Activity Score"?
They're two separate stats that share a similar idea (engagement-based scoring) but operate at different timescales:
- "Activity Score" in
/cooldownsis the Phase 2 per-week per-family velocity — resets weekly with 25% rollover, drives the universal reward formula. - "Lifetime Engagement" in
/milestonesis a lifetime composite computed at runtime from your total messages × 1.5 + voice minutes × 10 + reactions × 7.5 + streak/lifetime bonuses. This is the milestone unlock criterion (Echo → Resonat) that's been around since Phase 1 — it never resets.
Two different numbers in two different places — both valid, both tracked, but for different purposes. The labels were renamed in May 2026 to avoid confusion.
Was Activity Score reset for everyone today?
Yes — all 215 users with AS data got their week_as_by_family and week_activity_score zeroed at the Soneium Score Season 10 kickoff (2026-05-07). The 34 in-flight engagement-bounty rows that hadn't fired yet were also cleared. Everyone starts S10 at AS=0; the first qualifying event of the week re-seeds the ISO week and accumulates from there.
The reset is by design — to give everyone a clean velocity slate for the new season. Lifetime Engagement (the milestone composite) was not reset; your per-message / per-reaction / per-streak history all carries forward.
Can I farm AS by reacting to the same post 500 times?
No. The bot tracks a per-(server, reactor, message) dedup key with 24h TTL. Toggle on/off any number of times → counts as one reaction. Same applies to repeated emoji additions on the same message. If you really want to grind the Reaction Given family, you need 50 different messages from different people. See "Spam-gating quick reference" in the Brand Programs README for full mechanics.