Xyzyx

Aett is never wrong, but does occasionally leave scraps for the rest of us.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!

The Blessing of the Zephyr set (for a travel power) also provides 4 points of KB protection.

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if it is easy for me to give a bad arc a low rating it is ALSO easy for someone to give the same bad arc a good rating

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That is correct. Under the current system all arcs are innocent until proven guilty, but if the arc is lousy, people will know it soon enough. The only way to keep a lousy arc on top would be to have an unending stream of shills who are willing to continue to vote the bad arc out of well-deserved anonymity. If we do it no-finish-no-vote, all you need is one shill.

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At least in the previous proposal we prevent easy ratings ganking and someone at least has to play through the crap arc in order to 'boost' it out of the zero rating level.

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Yes, someone would have to play it. ONCE. You would decrease ratings ganking by making it harder to do, but at the same time you'd camouflage crappy arcs that had found their one shill and decrease the chances that anyone could vote it down by making it harder to do.

I recently played a MA arc in which every mob was a /Ninjitsu Elite Boss. Playing solo, I was ganked by three invisible EBs as soon as I entered the mish. Mind you, this wasn't marked as a "challenge" arc, it was just an unadulterated player-killer. Should I have had to slog through five missions worth of EBs to have my say? What about the cargo ship arc full of bosses that were generated by hitting Random in the costume generator, and in which the Mission Text was "a"? I appreciate the sentiment to try to curb griefing (I've been ratings-griefed myself), but in my opinion forcing players to complete crap arcs to vote is not the way to do it.

Thanks for the review! Glad you enjoyed the arc.

Spawn points (for enemies and items): Wish we had more control over this.

The contents of the collection: Were not included due to space constraints (each individual item would need to be its own objective). If you're curious, the entire collection with descriptions IS included in my arc 64511, The Wrecking Ball.

The Defeat All: This mission could easily be dropped altogether, but I included it so the arc would have more of a following-the-breadcrumbs feel and so new characters would gather enough XP to approximately hit level 5 by the end. As far as the kidnapping, there are clues in the Mission Success popup and the Return Success dialog, but some spoken dialog might be a good place to say it out loud for the benefit of anyone not reading everything. I'll see if I can find a place to include it organically, since I'm verrrry close to my size limit.

Soloability: Depending on your AT, you might want to hook up with more police before tackling tough mobs in the last mish.

Thanks again for the feedback!

By the same token, all a crappy arc needs is one friend/SG mate/significant other/second account to rate it ANYthing, and it's permanently out of the zero-star ghetto, since under the proposed no-finish-no-vote system, there's no way to vote it down again except by suffering through it, which most people won't do.

Except that leaves "excellent but unadvertised" arcs in the same bin as "terrible crap that 600 people have already played and abandoned".

Under that system, I don't want to be the author of the "excellent but unadvertised" arc, and I don't want to be player #601 of the "terrible crap" arc. We need to do something, but I don't think this suggestion is it.

Fortunately, they can still find a use for your prestige.

Remember when they were demons and devils in D&D?

Same here. Some missions are immediately obvious garbage, and I shouldn't have to play through five missions to rate it accordingly and try to warn off the next guy.

I'd rather see a "bad" story than no story; sometimes there are glimmers of promise in otherwise limp or uninteresting material. If a mission has no story at all, you're better off playing a radio mission.

I'll throw my hat in:

Arc Name: Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal
Arc ID: 55669
Morality: Heroic
Difficulty Level: Easy to Medium (Solo and Team friendly)
Synopsis: Help Paragon City's Finest combat a new Hellion threat!
Estimated Time to Play: 30-45 minutes

Watch the video trailer here.

Notes: I created this arc as an alternative to doing the initial contacts' missions (or simply running the sewers) for the first five levels. Solo or teamed, these missions will generally take a new character to level 5 or 6.

Feedback is welcomed. Thanks!

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Not to mention they now have level 50 characters with no influence, no enhancements and no salvage/recipes.

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How is that a problem? They can always beg for it, or jump on the forums and ask for a nice influence starter package for 50s as the NEXT veteran award.

Yeah, I suggested something similar a couple years ago. I got shouted down, oddly, which I attribute to the overall decline in empathy among humans. Still in support.

I'd do it like this:
Hellion Earth

Granted, it won't work in all venues, but it'll look cool in the mission window.

I think this thread is giving me a good idea of where we're coming from as a group. Given that only a small percentage of the playerbase uses the forums, we may not be entirely representative, but that's fine. Telling stories for the benefit of other storytellers is motivation enough, hopefully with enough action to please the click-through crowd at least some of the time.

Correct. No vote counts as no vote and doesn't impact ratings. You have to click 1 star twice to vote zero and torpedo someone's arc (deservedly or not).

In the MA, I just open the window once and move it to the side so I can check out each new enemy type as I encounter it. But see, Zombra made it even easier than that, people!

What about "get xpees lol"? Or "a"? What cryptic messages are they trying to convey?

This is a good practice...I try to use the enter and exit text to dovetail the story together, since they're visible to everyone. Ditto for dialog.

I was expecting more replies like JKwervo's, but perhaps on the forums in a Mission Architect thread, I am preaching to the choir.

It's encouraging to see that I'm not alone!

Very slick. You have your FRAPS frame rate in there for a few frames, but otherwise very well done!

I right-click on everything: enemies, allies, objects. I also read everything. As such, I try to make sure my arcs include descriptions, clues, and souvenirs, and am disappointed when I'm playing an arc that doesn't include much in the way of background.

How important is all the "wordy" stuff to you?

Try one of the captive animations that creates a pillar of light...easy to see from a distance, more so at night.

Try opening the mission to edit and then republishing. If you had a map or an animation or whatever that was invalidated by a recent patch, the system automatically defaults to another one, without telling you, so it looks like there are no errors. In spite of this, it won't play unless you republish.