Aura_Familia

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less than 20 hours to 50 is nothing spectacular or even impressive.

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It is when it's roughly a factor of 10x faster than anything you've experienced before.

Look, I think how the devs approached this whole thing was the pinnacle of stupidity, but your stance on it, posted far and wide across the boards here, is ludicrous in the opposite direction. Getting to 50 in under 20 hours is spectactular and impressive exactly because it's not something the general playerbase either knows how to do or wants to futz with learning how you do it. This is "easy" to do in the same sense that beating the STF and RSF is "easy" for the general playerbase.

Even if you just have to haul your butt to PI/GV and ask for a PL in broadcast, it was still vastly more accessable to wander into the MA in Atlas/Mercy. You didn't need a SK, and it was easy to find people who wouldn't charge for the "service" of having a farmable map on hand.

It's obvious that not everyone finds access to PLing easy, because we saw how many people did it with the MA, and yet when easy MA PLing went away the volume of PLing clearly took a dive alongside it. If PLing was as accessable as you seem to claim, everyone would still be doing it.

The devs freaked out because everyone and their dog could PL to 50 in sub 20 hours. Not because it had never been done before (or since).

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Yup, as I said doing it that fast IN THE MA was the key issue.

And still is. Just not as fast as the rightfully removed meow and rikti misshes.

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Just have to point out.... as you noted with your 50's none of them even came close to the leveling speed you proposed in your example.

So based on your experience with the game, if you were leveling this theoretical character and you reached Level 40 in 6 hours or something, wouldn't you, looking at what the range of normal leveling speeds you have had previously think that it was odd you were able to do it at less than 1/10th of your previous fastest?

I mean, I believe that Tribal wants a challange. But his experience with game and his knowledge of its mechanics makes it hard to believe that the leveling speed of the characters is question wasn't well outside the range of his normal experience.

I just don't see how someone can level eight 50's and have the quickest one come in at 175 hours, and then would even have to wonder if leveling to 50 in 12 hours was abnormal. I could see it if you said, 50 in 100 hours, but a 50 in 12 hours would seem to fall so far outside what could be considered normal through previous experience and just plain common sense, that it is hard to believe that someone would think, "oh I guess they just decided to make leveling completely trivial in this patch."

While they have made it easier to level, the idea that the intent of MA was to make it even easier by a factor of 10 just doesn't ring true. Especially since the "we don't want people farming it" was already out there before release. Add it up and the case for "I didn't know that was too fast" seems kind of weak.

IMO.

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less than 20 hours to 50 is nothing spectacular or even impressive.

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People have been doing it for years. Literally. Especially for pvp. The issue is that it's now taking place in the precious snowflake known as the MA.

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I'm not saying I am in favor of you getting your account banned. I'm only saying that from what I've seen you had to be going pedal to the metal to get a character deleted, so I can only infer you had to be in full-frenzy mass PL mode to get your account banned. If you weren't farming that map heavily then I'd say you have good grounds to appeal the punishment and get it overturned.

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So, if someone created a character and sped their way to 50 through normal content, say Task Forces, and got from 1 to 50 in say 12 hours, wouldn't that be pedal to the metal? Should those characters also get deleted?

This is the underlying problem with that rationale.

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Exactly. If your SOLE metric is time... then you're simply trying to cover bad game design. You create something that specifically allows your players to do things you don't want them to, (level quicly) and instead of making changes to your product, you put some threat to those that might use your product to it's fullest and retroactively ban accounts for doing just that.

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Sadly enough, no matter how often I try to explain this point to people, they simply assume I am a dirty exploiting PLer who did it.

Me and my whole army of 8 50s over 5 years. Where I have seen average leveling time through normal solo play on the lowest difficulty drop from 600 hours to 175.

The devs have made leveling easier and now are complaining people are doing it too fast. It boggles my mind.

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qft. This idea that it takes long, at all, to level through the REGULAR non-MA content is pure idiocy.

This game isn't hard in anyway shape or form.

In another thread someone was SHOCKED, shocked I say, that it takes folks 4-5 weeks (and I know folks who have done it faster) at most to lvl a 50. A month is not long at all.

I don't know what game they are playing that they think it's hard to level. This isn't WoW folks.

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I haven't read through this entire thread, but I'll chime in with my current favorite suggestion to improve the rating system: weighted voting. The more missions in an arc you complete the more your vote counts. That way "drive by downraters" will still happen but their votes won't be nearly as impactful.

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I could live with that.

Of course I don't think it's better than my original suggestion for the star rating system.

It has to do with FIRE for those who haven't seen it.

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I'm waiting for them to hit rpers next.

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Everytime someone makes a crude sexual remark in character, the global of that person is given a three day ban. Ha ha.

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Ummm, I didn't mean it sexually. So basically your global is the one getting the ban right?

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That's already been dealt with: the 1500 per mission limit.

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You think that actually stops ticket farming?

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Nope, but I don't think ANYTHING whatsoever they have done will stop farming.

Exploiting sure, they can ban those folks. Farming, errrm, NO. Unless they want to ban anyone who has ever stepped into a demon map, nemesis/freakshow wasted city map.

Just pointing out that they already made an attempt. Even if it was half-[censored].

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The question therein lies: Does Mr. Samoa elevate me far above my own level or hurl Arcanaville down into the fetid muck that I so obviously occupy...?

Or was his statement so very -broad- that he merely puts posters at and above my quality into one category and those of lesser 'quality' (as ephemeral and personal a qualifier as can be had) into another. Which leads to me and Arcanaville being within the same Strata solely on the basis of having more positive qualities (the gulf between us set aside) than Razoras and others?

-Rachel-

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See I just thought he was coming on to both of you at once.

But maybe that's just me.

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From what's been going on the last few days, it's obvious that Customer Services does NOT know it at all, let alone see it. EDIT: The pages and pages of farm arcs in the MA which are [censored] obvious but then they have idiocy like the stuff that has been stating all over the forums.


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It is increasingly obvious that the sole criteria for dev action seems to be leveling speed. It looks like it has nothing to do with exploits, abuse, risk or anything else. But if you level fast enough to trip whatever trigger the devs put in place, you get hammered. Those using some discretion seem to be OK.

I have yet to hear of anyone receiving any kind of warning or punishment for ticket farming, for example.

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That's already been dealt with: the 1500 per mission limit.

I'm waiting for them to hit rpers next.

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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?

Look, you can say "maybe six people in a row just hated your arc" all you want. You can ignore the fact that people only hate that arc when it's at 5 stars. But when you get a low rating on ALL THREE OF YOUR ARCS, none of which are highly visible or heavily played, overnight, I find it hard to believe that someone just decided, "Hey, I really want to play an arc by this person. Oh, this one's crap, I'll try another...that one's crap too...." Generally when you play an arc by someone and it's total crap, you don't go out of your way to play another arc by them, right?

All this arguing about "how we are supposed to rate" doesn't solve anything, it won't change anyone's mind, and it's obfuscating the real issue, that some people are spiteful jerks.

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That IS griefing. Doesn't mean the star system isn't crap. . .

Actually, yeah it does, with how easy it is to grief it, among many other reasons.

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1 star is for whatever criteria the "reader" determines.

See the last paragraph of Arcana's post.

And in my case 0 stars would be lowest rating.

EDIT: As an aside, what I just posted is EXACTLY why I don't think the ratings system is a good one, and why authors needs to realize EVERYONE has different criteria for what is "crap" and what is "good" and everything in between.

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Oh pish posh.

Look, there's crap and there's, as Col. Tigh says, craaaaaaaahhhhhhpp.

You can say "it was the worst thing ever; I had all these guys doing 1 mission out of 5 for me" but that STILL puts it better then the mission where nothing makes sense, there's no story, every mob is custom and overpowered, and there are as many 'hidden' objectives can be crammed in there.

I refuse to believe that any arc that took that kind of work is worthy of being rated the same as the real crap that's out there.

You ask me we toss around 1 stars far too often, and 5's just as badly. But given the criteria for the Hall of Fame, I understand a little grade padding at the high end.

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See I don't understand any grade padding at the high end.

That right there is ANOTHER reason why the star system fails. Folks should be giving arcs what THEY feel it ACTUALLY deserves. Not cause the feel bad that so and so, or their friend, or whatever deserves "a little help in getting HOF"

Honestly the 4th slot should NEVER have been linked to the whim of the playerbase. Period.

And crap for me, AGAIN, FOR ME, is 0 stars.

The star rating system can die in FIRE.

Wait till issue 15, see what it offers then decide for yourself if you want to come back.

Issue 14 will have settled down mostly by then.

Currently there are just too many changes, bugs, and issues with the MA for authors AND readers/users (the inherent issues with the star rating system AND the fact that MA's search is basically useless, until some of the announced improvements in issue 15 go through) that I would not recommend it.

Ignore the forums. Both the rah rah folks and doom doom folks.

When it takes this long to get through to someone . . .

You just know that they were never looking for feedback in the first place. They should have just posted their "suggestion" (and I use that term more loosely than a what a $2 [censored] is in vegas) on their computer and left it there since it's such a precious snowflake.

And lo and behold it is about "play my way"

newsflash OP, I don't think a demon from the 9th circle of hell would want to team with you, and they are familiar with torture.

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Just because they haven't done it yet doesn't mean they don't agree with him. They did put the stupid merit caps in to stop repeated runs of SF/TFs after all.

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Good to see folks are fighting against ideas that will lead to the death of the MA.

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It's a good story, which I would not mind as a novel. Putting me there to watch someone else be the hero is an issue for me personally.

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Isn't the army of EB's all in a single Mission? But the 1 star rating is what gets slapped on the entire arc, right?

And seriously, how does an arc that generates this much discussion deserve the same rating we would give a typo ridden, misbalanced, uninspired romp through some 12-year olds mental backyard?

1 star is the worst of the worst, not a developed story we didnt' care for.

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1 star is for whatever criteria the "reader" determines.

See the last paragraph of Arcana's post.

And in my case 0 stars would be lowest rating.

EDIT: As an aside, what I just posted is EXACTLY why I don't think the ratings system is a good one, and why authors needs to realize EVERYONE has different criteria for what is "crap" and what is "good" and everything in between.

Glad to see the intelligent players are exposing the complete and utter nonsense of the "you know it when you see it policy".

From what's been going on the last few days, it's obvious that Customer Services does NOT know it at all, let alone see it. EDIT: The pages and pages of farm arcs in the MA which are [censored] obvious but then they have idiocy like the stuff that has been stating all over the forums.

Interesting to know now that making a challenge missh is also against the rules.

Each day it's being made easier and easier for me whether I'll be staying with this game when renewal comes up.

EDIT: Also newsflash (though it's been said repeatedly), because it seems to have been missed by the "brain" squad posting in this thread: You level HALF AS SLOW when you are level pacted. Know how a feature works before you comment and make an [censored] of yourselves people.

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And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).

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Well, first of all he exaggerated that ...

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I did no such thing. I rescued a single one of the EBs and then spent the rest of the mission walking around the map and watching him free his contemporaries and defeat the big villains all on his own.

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Played it and didn't rate it. Sorry but I have to agree with this.

My rating for something like this would be a 2 at most.

I have a serious issue with the gameplay being taken away from the control of the player, NO MATTER what the story is.

It's a good story, which I would not mind as a novel. Putting me there to watch someone else be the hero is an issue for me personally.

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QR

Yay, more nerfherding disguised by semantics.

I'mma go play That Other Game, their forums are friendlier.

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rotfl.

You CAN'T be [censored] serious!

Did you see their forums when they announced the delay of the release? LOL

This thread speaks for itself why this is a bad idea.

Sorry Aett.

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Because, if they do hit the reward cap, whatever that may be set to, it really hurts them more than it hurts someone who plays a smaller amount of time.

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Yes. That sounds like a problem to me.

A daily reward cap would hurt farmers, but it would also hurt people who just play the game a lot, and it would especially hurt the people who really like the MA and who use it a lot. People have already created characters and formed teams dedicated to leveling up only in the MA. Why should they be punished?

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worst idea ever, for all the reasons stated in this thread.

But with the current atmosphere would not be surprised if it gets implemented, and then the devs are left wondering "how come there are less folks running MA missions?"

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so... I've got this funny feeling she's not going to give you the satisfaction of posting in this thread.

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I really shouldn't. However, just this once: here you go. Hopefully I didn't blink during that one.

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LOL!

That is all.

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ya but a pillbox isnt in taskforce

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huh?

you do know that as of issue 14 that pool Cs can drop from bosses now, right?

It's in the freaking patch notes.

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Let me say this again. This whole "people were wrongfully banned!" claim is total BS. Because you're just outright lying about what's going on, for the benefit of newcomers to this thread or the game, let me redirect the conversation.

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um, no, it actually did happen. In their datamining or whatever, they misinterpreted some level pacted toons as exploiting MA due to going from level 1 to 50 in a short time. Some toons were deleted and some temp bans handed out that should not have been. These were appealed, reviewed, fixed, etc. It's been fixed, but that doesn't make it 'not have happened'. Of course, some people went berserk on the forums about it. Annoyingly, it seems most of the loudest screamers were doing their complaining 'on behalf of others' - i.e. screaming just for the sake of screaming and making a ruckus.

Also, some screaming was undoubtedly coming from people who had toons deleted appropriately.

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LOL leave it to T-boy to post without knowing what the hell he's talking about.

Nice of you to explain, but it's usual for him. LOL.

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Oh, by the way, for people who aren't familiar with Slax, this is his second or third "I'm leaving!" troll post that I know of. He's not any more leaving than I am.

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I'm allowed to change my mind Tony, although this time I doubt that I will. Thanks for keeping track though, always good to know I have an obsessed fan or two still out there. Since I'm not a registered democrat I'm not even called a "flip-flopper" for it either.

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lol nice.

I'm seriously leaning on being gone also. OSHA Academy was basically the only thing keeping me here.

I haven't logged on in the last two weeks. i've been playing other things and having fun.

And this is coming from me, who once said "I've spent this long in game there is nothing can be done that would drive me away." Luckily I've been paying month to month.

Remains to be seen if I'll stay or not.

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QR, and didn't read the whole thread yet...

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Some people finish an arc and don't want to rate it. Maybe they're just "playing through" or what have you. I'm one of those. I didn't realize until later that whenever I completed an arc and failed to rate it, the individual was getting a 0 star rating.

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Now that I know this, I will always rate an arc that I play... though I am of the opinion that one must/should finish an arc before giving it a rating.

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This is incorrect. If you just quit it doesn't rate.

you need to click 1 TWICE for it to become a zero, as per one of the devs.

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While, after reading HA's review and processing it internally, I have a hard time turning that critique into a 1-star rating, I have to defend HA's right to give that rating. The critique was pretty specific in its complaints. And while some of those complaints may have no valid answer (who's seriously going to explain time travel in 1000 characters or less?) some of them were pretty damning (if you only have to free one EB and never fire a power again, something went wrong in your play balancing).


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Yes and No.

We all have the 'right' to rate as we please, but I would say that something should be done to avoid baseless 1 stars, and I'm sorry but from what's been described as 'problems' to me suggest that this is at the very least a 2, if not a 3 star arc and that's jsut reading the critique and not the counter points.

Geekboy at least tried to explain some kind of time travel. That amount of thought puts him way past a lot of the junk out there that's just a bunch of hellians and skulls to kill for quick xp.

He can give it whatever he wants but I'm coming around A Lot to the idea taht lowest ratings should be dropped over time (and highest as well) because one or two really bad scores can skew data without justification.

I do stat's as a hobby, and as part of being a math teacher. If I have 20 ratings all 4's and 5's and I get one 1 rating, that 1 rating pushes me down to nearly a 4.0 rating. Now based on all the other data, I should haev something like a 4.5. In other words, the 'average' is not reflective of the data set.

In statisitcs there are formulas to determine outliers. They're not that complicated and we use them all the the time to get a good read on what numbers are telling us. Rather then letting one or two anomolus data points skew our measures of center we just toss out the data that is SOOOOO far from the norm as to be unlikely to be valid.

In other words, if 20 people give a 4 or a 5 and one person gives a 1, then it's probable, statistically speaking, that the single 1 star rating is not a valid data point.

Now if we have 10 5's and 10 1's, that's a TOTALLY different ball of wax, and in taht case, the standard deviation for the data will be substantially higher and suggest that the 1's ARE indeed valid data points. Part of the trick in stat's is that you don't toss the potentially invalid data totally, you just leave them out of the average until you have more data to either confirm that there is a downward trend, or to confirm that they are invalid.

In other words, you get 10 reviews. 9 5's and 1 1. The one is likely an outlier so the average is 5 (not counting the 1). Then you get 5 more reviews all 1. Now that implies that the 1 is in deed a valid data point, so you reinclude that 1 in the average, and then you recalculate.

It's not that hard and I've only had first year stats.

Mr. O

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Problem is many think that 5 should only be reserved for near godhood perfect arcs. With most stuff averaging a 3. If the person REALLY feels it wasn't good then 1 in that instance to them is perfectly valid. Remember, 1 is NOT the lowest rating in this system. (And yet another flaw of why the system needs to die in FIRE btw).