Aura_Familia

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Not to rain on the parade here, but this may actually not be so bad. If the griefers are indescrimnate, it will allow more arcs to get seen. As long as they grief most good arcs, then we are ok.

I personally think that they should add rules like,
1) You Must complete the arc to rate it
2) category of the number of times played, vs number of times quit

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I could deal with 1 if 2 were there. I could immediately see what to avoid.

Ofcourse you realize that it's possible to grief in yet another way right?

I'll say again they need to get rid of the star system.

There are WAY better systems that have been proposed by some very intelligent posters all throughout our fourms.

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I think that if there was an ability to place arcs into actual, search-able categories some of the ratings problems might become less visible. If I were able to narrow down the arcs by clicking on the "heroic" category and the "mystery" subcategory, then that is going to narrow down the arcs I see a great deal. A side effect would be that, despite the ratings given, a player would be able to read the descriptions on missions which would normally be buried in the backwaters of the MA system.

If the rating system remains after I15 hits in its current form, or even a modified form, there should be a better way to mitigate the problems it brings. Right now it's easier to find arcs via word of mouth or their ratings, and only then the player is able to read the arc's description.

Er, I think I went a bit off topic there...

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I absolutely agree here. We need some kind of browse structure and categorization. When I click on the MA interface, I honestly don't want to see a list of Devs Choice, etc... I'd much rather see a list of categories I can browse through to find what I want.

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THIS a 100x yes.

As an aside, half of the Dev's Choice arcs are unimpressive.

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You, liking l&o, might give them 5 stars. I hate the stuff, give it 0 or 1 star. I am not griefing, but I very much did not like the offering.

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I was thinking the same thing, but from a different perspective. I was at a friend's house last night and she made potato salad. I don't like potato salad, but everyone else did and really liked it. The fact that I didn't eat it or wouldn't have enjoyed it didn't make the potato salad bad.

That's what separates a good reviewer from a bad one. Do you think that Roger Ebert honestly likes every movie he gives a thumbs up? He rates things based on whether it accomplished what it set out to do.

At first I assumed HA's review was entirely due to some pre-existing grudge against me (though there are still likely to be some issues there), but I've come to realize that he's just a victim of being extremely myopic. He has a narrow vision of what is good and (thankfully) very few of the arcs out there are going to fit into that.

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Actually I think whether you like something DOES go into it.

Oh, and we aren't Roger Ebert here. Unlike him, we aren't being paid.

EDIT: That said I don't think HA's point was off. I'll play it when I get home.

LOL, pwnz has spilled into the rest of the forums?

I approve.

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The rating system is terrible. They need to remove the ability from players to downrate an arc at all. Either give it a "thumbs up" or no rating at all. You'll be able to see if there are a significant number of people that liked the arc, not some average that can be heavily skewed by a few griefers.

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..thats a horrible idea. Making it so that only good ratings are allowed means sorting the crap from the diamonds would be absolutely impossible.

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verily so. I can see a bunch of folks 5 starring a farming mission.

I can see it, cause guess what, THAT IS EXACTLY what had been happening prior to the removal of many arcs. So much so that I just stopped taking the 5 or 4 star ratings seriously at all. They are not/were not/will not be a good judge of what is or isn't a good arc.

so reverse griefing in THAT way would be even easier with the suggestion you quoted.

I say the star system die in fire, like the Dev's choice and HOF badges and think of:

1. New ways to give good writers acclaim.
2. New ways to make it easier for folks to find arcs that they would think are great and good quality. (Some of this is happening with Issue 15)
3. New ways to see the idiocy (plenty of it in the MA still) and avoid it.
4. New ways to get the 4th or more mission slot for authors that HAS NOTHING to do with the whim of he playerbase.

Do all these and the devs are golden.

Also as the poster above mentioned, I can't believe that they actually went ahead with a star system and thought that it was a good idea, after:
1. Numerous folks in beta said it wasn't a good idea and pointed out why (as an aside I'm sensing a DISTURBING patten here with that and the last few closed betas, but I won't get into that right here, as I could write novel about how much THAT pisses me off)
2. The fact that the forums had the same idiotic system that they had to get RID of for the SAME REASONS!

/em boggle.

That is all.

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Wealth decay is the devil.

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Don't open any 401K statements you might get in the mail.

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That wasn't decay.

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More like a shotgun blast to the face in equivalency for what's happened to some 401K statements.

Not seeing the issue at all. Just set it to only show things that exist and in the right level range.

/unsigned.

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Thematically, I can accept Tankers holding back on the lesser foes; minions, LTs...IF they were able to open up on the Bosses, EBs AVs and GMs.


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Now this idea has merit, actually. That's pretty much how all of the "Comic-Book Tanks" operate.

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Oh hai.

I agree 100%.

That's pretty much the original idea behind Fury; that Tankers hold back at the begining of a fight and cut loose as it wears on.

And it was the idea behind my Tanker Domination proposal, executed differently of course. You'd save your big hits for the last encounter on a mission.

And I've also suggested Tankers could get a flat damage increase against just Bosses and up. That's quite possible, technically speaking.

I was inspired by Supe's little speech here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoJ2Bd41zsw

Which, as you said, is something that could speak to the Tanker's concept.

Many people here shot down the concept(Tankers holding back against everyone but the big guy), and any execution of it suggested by me. And the devs, of course, ignored me and the idea.

I still think is a viable hook for Tankers being able to be heavy hitters, some of the time.

So yeah, it's nothing new.
Glad you like it, though.



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Not surprising, as most don't want to have their tankers to "play" that way.

it's once again down to the "feel" issue. Aka, see the epic argument going on in the I5 dom buffs thread, related to /psi.

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I would tell Castle to quit mainlining cocaine and then ask where the scrapper mitigation buff was.

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Werd.

anyone who thinks that this would happen in any reality (with tanks getting such high a buff while NOT giving up ANYTHING), has

a) never seen Castle post
b) needs to stop mainlining the cocaine themselves.

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If this happened everything would revert back to how it was before MA came out. No exploitative farming, no more bannings.

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...no more people playing MArcs...

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That. Or at least greatly reduced amount. LOL MArc authors think that 4th slot is hard to get now, lol, imagine if they took out all rewards from the MA.

LOL, MA indeed.

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Is it me or I can I just buy recipes cheap, craft them and repost the crafted items, and make TONS of cash?! I'm used to playing the market on Eve Online where you NEVER see opportunities this obvious. Usually if it looks too good to be true, you forgot to move a decimal. But I really think this looks to be the case here. Am I missing something or are consumers just really stupid in this game?

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it's noobs. . . that is all.

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Used to be that if someone was a level 50, you could count on a certain level of skill and teamwork, because they had worked hard through all the zones, and knew what to do.

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You have to define 'level of skill'. I don't die very often and when I do hit 50 it will have been through my skill and my hard work soloing, but any mechanic that may involve teaming I will have no experience in. However, I also avoid PUGs, always have in any MMO. When I have grouped, it is to Mal a new MM to teach them about bodyguarding or some tactic they aren't familiar with.

Skill is relative to an individual experience. I will only have had experience with one char at 50 so my overall knowledge of other classes will be next to nil.

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Since the MA I've encountered lvl 50's that don't know how to slot enhancements or even where to get them.

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Or even get out of AP...that is just a travesty....

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Or how to identify a level trainer on your zone map, thinking Lady Liberty is the only place in the game to level up.

Or that it's probably not a good idea to dedicate 8 power choices towards all four travel powers on one build.

Or wait by the door at each mission, unsure of whether or not to stay with the team due to incessant door camp farming.

I've seen all those idiosyncracies become much more common since i14.

And this says nothing of a players awareness of nuances like... say the team status icon tray or how to access and make use of the global friends list or what a safeguard/mayhem mission is... *sigh*

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Well at least it's easy to know who to avoid teaming with.

Then again I just tell the person step by step how to do those things. If they still don't get it, i tell them "read the [censored] MANUAL!!!!", but nicer.

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The lesson here is that communication is key for running a team effectively.

I've had experiences like that in CoH, actually. It's never fun, but often I've found I can wrest control of the team away from the leader just simply by continually asking, over and over what the plan is. Eventually they either kick me (which is fine with me, if they'd rather kick me than talk to me then that's totally fine, I'll go do something else), or they answer me. Once they actually start talking it's pretty easy to stick a paddle in the water and help direct a little.

Something I've found over the years and years I've played the game is that very often the people who complain about the players on their team are actually crappy players themselves who don't know how to lead effectively. With the right guidance and motivation anyone can become a decent player on a team and a standard that I try very hard to always apply to myself is the idea that if my team sucks, then I'm not doing my job.

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I've often found, that people who brag about their leadership skills and rational virtues, in game are in fact crappy leaders.

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Very often they can be, yes. There have been occasions where I've been an absolutely terrible leader, failing to understand the individual playstyles of my team, the way they've built their character and their individual comfort levels, leading to whipe after whipe after whipe. None of us are perfect.

EDIT - What I can say, though, is that it's not the standard. It's happened int eh past and it'll happen again, but ultimately it's neither the standard for me, nor is it the usual. What it is, however, is still my fault. And it does no one any favours to come to the forums and whine and piss and cry about how the players on my team all sucked when it's so completely obvious to anyone paying attention that there was something I could have done about it.

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Kudos to you friend.I was just checking to see if, like some people i have met, you were just taking any opportunity to "suck your own d***" You have earned my respect.

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ummm, wouldn't doing that cause a stiff neck?

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If someone wants to cheat themselves out of the game experience though that is their prerogative.

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Players define their own enjoyable game experience, nobody else.
Not you, not the devs.

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There's a difference between telling someone how they should play, and a bunch of vets sitting around talking about whether or not it's a good idea for a newbie to PL their first character to 50. I sort of see this as the latter.

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I . . . agree, reluctantly.

If a newbie asked me if they should I would say, play the game regularly at least once.

Especially if it's a character that's tougher to play for a newb (read: no mez prot, no defensive shields, etc).

However, I would still say "it's up to you to play how you want. It's your game."

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/shrug... that's the thrust, really. There's not much else to it.

I get a kick out of this debate, ever time I see it because it's invariably carried out by all participants as though there's somethign to be decided, or as though the discussion will resolve something. As though somehow if we can come to a concensus then all of a sudden people will change their behaviour.

"Really? A bunch of people I do'nt know had a discussion on an internet forum that I never read? They what? They decided that newbies shouldn't powerlevel?! Well, [censored].... that ruins my fun. I guess I'll go play Halo."

I mean, seriously...

However, in all fairness I hope they never stop happening, I love these argument threads.

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LOL, no kidding.

The words "I can haz intenet nerdrage noa?" for some reason always pop into my head when I read various "forums". I use that term loosely.

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I think this wouldn't remove ALL the 'griefing' (using that term loosely). And an 'olympic' style voting system too would be cool.. i.e. a certain percentage of the votes fixed (5%) would be automatically discounted both good and bad. Losing a small number of votes Best and Worst. That would give you a better idea of what people 'really' think about the mission.

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I think a weighted system might be good, where a vote from someone that hasn't finished the first mission counts for less than a person who completes the first mission, which in turn counts for less than someone who has completed the second mission, etc.

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This is actually a good variation on an idea I've been against.

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The official word on this from the devs is, I believe............roll another toon. And when that one gets done, roll another. Do the same old content, over, and over, and over, and over..........well you get the idea.

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The amusing thing about this kind of criticism is that the critic invariably points to WoW or Everquest or some such and says "See, they have an end game." It's amusing because the "end game" in those games involves running the same 2-3 high level dungeons over and over and over and over with the SAME character. The measure of status of a guild is "we have end-game dungeons X, Y, and Z on farm".

Apparently, running through the mid levels ten times is repetitive where killing Onyxia for the twenty-fifth time is not...

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Actually in WoW, its run the same dungeon over and over for a CHANCE out of 15, or 25 to get a piece of loot that you may or may not be able to slot.

Then again I think the point is all mmo's are a grind.

And the sky is blue.

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After you have fully purpled 10 characters on Blueside, fully purple 10 characters on Redside...

And then take a break, play a different MMO for a while. Go on a road trip. Adopt a puppy.

Then after a while... Come back and do it again.

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WIN!

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Just a big THANKS to Mids for all the hard work he has done over the years working on the hero planner.

Glad to know the planner will be in capable hands going forward.

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That problem pre-dates AE teams.

Not sure why everyone is suddenly under the impression that farming is new and only existed since the implementation of player mission. Get real, guys/gals.

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It's a question, I think, less of it having existed rather the fact that the sheer numbers of instances of this problem have in fact skyrocketed since the MA. It's the population explosion of clueless unskilled high level players that people are discussing now. No one is claiming they never existed prior. They just weren't epidemic before.

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Thank you, and to those like you, that understand what i am talking about. It's not that i have no idea how to cope with the problem, sure, i could just team with SG mates, avoid Atlas Park, not do any PUGs, but sometimes, SG mates or friends are not around and you feel like playing. Used to be, a high level player, even a PUG, had a certain respect and unspoken fail safe knowledge you knew you could rely on. Not any more.

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LOL, again some folks must have been playing a different game than me all these years.

EDIT: Being 50 and having vet rewards has always meant jack shite for whether you are a good player or not.

I've seen lvl 1-20 noobs pre and post AE who know/figure out the game better than a lot of 50s I know.

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Pretty much my entire COH career, was that case. I could depend on looking at a 50 and seeing a player who actually had played the game. In times past the exceptions to that were extremely rare.

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lol. you MUST have been playing a different game than me the last few years.

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If someone wants to cheat themselves out of the game experience though that is their prerogative.

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Players define their own enjoyable game experience, nobody else.
Not you, not the devs.

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There's a difference between telling someone how they should play, and a bunch of vets sitting around talking about whether or not it's a good idea for a newbie to PL their first character to 50. I sort of see this as the latter.

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I . . . agree, reluctantly.

If a newbie asked me if they should I would say, play the game regularly at least once.

Especially if it's a character that's tougher to play for a newb (read: no mez prot, no defensive shields, etc).

However, I would still say "it's up to you to play how you want. It's your game."

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Ah powerleveling. The topic that spawned a thousand flame wars back in the day.

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LOL, back in the day?

Are you new, or have not been paying attention the last couple of weeks?

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If someone wants to cheat themselves out of the game experience though that is their prerogative.

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Players define their own enjoyable game experience, nobody else.
Not you, not the devs.

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No kidding. I completely agree.

Also pretty foolish to tell a vet who has done the content on multiple 50s that they are cheating themselves out of a game experienced they have already [censored] experienced.

Newbies on the other hand (as in just logged in) is a different story.

Even with that said, as long as they are not using an exploit (which btw is up to the devs to determine, not some snowflakes on the fourms) then i couldn't give a rats [censored] what newbs do.

If I end up teaming with them and i discover they have turned into NOOBs, there is an option for me to exercise that doesn't need me crying and moaning about farming and pling on the forums: the kick and quit button.

tl;dr: As long as they aren't breaking the devs rules, let em play however the hell they want.

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Eh, I pretty much ignore the morality slider. I play any arc that sounds like fun with whatever character I happen to be on at the time. It is sometimes fun for me to rationalize why my character would be doing something out of character for them.

I also rate arcs based on text, enemies, well thought out plot, and most importantly, the amount of fun I had on it.

I'm not going to downrate an otherwise good arc because it had my uber-evil sadistic brute curing cancer or something. But it seems I'm in the minority on this one. I've found a number of arcs in the one star category that, by my criteria, deserved much higher ratings. I've found a couple that I 5-starred that way.

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This. I don't think I've changed what the default is on the slider while searching for arcs. I just play what sounds fun. Pretty easy to tell what's meant for a vill and a hero.

he made the game A LOT more fun. Especially when inventions came out.

Will be missed.

But glad it's being continued as a program.

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