Lazarus
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Posts
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Quote:Rather fitting considering that the trailers all looked like a SyFy Original Movie.Originally Posted by Deacon_NA
...is getting savaged in reviews. I don't mean like "this movie doesn't quite deliver on its promise" but rather more like comparing it to a lesser SyFy channel Saturday original movie. -
The problem is that the math being used is TOO simple.
It's just the raw average. It does not take into account modes or standard deviations. Nor does it take into account the number of ratings when doing the sort. Instead an arc with a 4.48 average and 10 votes gets placed dozens of pages ahead of an arc with a 4.47 average and 200 votes.
If they'd add options to sort the arcs by the amounts of each rating it received then arcs that have a large amount of 5-star votes but are being bogged down by a small number of 1-star votes would be able to rise to the top again. -
Quote:Except that is not what is happening and it has been demonstrated time and time again since AE was in beta. The lower ratings have more weight than the higher ratings, which is why a single 1-star can knock an arc with 100-ratings and a 5-star average off of page three and send it falling hundreds of pages. For those of us who do monitor our ratings and tickets from them the evidence is right there when an arc gets a new rating, bumps up to the 5-star region, then the very next rating it gets knocks it right back down.Originally Posted by Bad_Dog
A- The system has a script that is calculating the average other than just using standard mathematical rounding and the rating, then, is an accurate reflection of the way the system is intended to work.
After doing the math above I am inclined to believe that everyone is getting 1 and 2 stars all the time but they are being offset by the number of 4 and 5 stars we get. No one person comes along and kicked a 5 star arc to a 4. It must be that you were getting 1's, 2's and 3's along the way to 100 plays. If you you are on the border between rounding up or down between 4 and 5 even a 4 rating would kick you down.
B- Those with 100 plays and see their arcs moving between 4 and 5 stars is not the result of ONE 1-star rating but evidence that there has been many. Like stated above, assuming your arc received nothing but 3,4,5 stars and averaged out to a exactly 4-stars. The fact is that with 100 ratings, it would have taken "ratings assassins" 19 one-star ratings to move a 4 to round down to a 3.
C- Or, this is just that way your arc rates with players.
I really, really doubt that we have hundreds of arcs sitting right on 4.94 all of the time for this to be possible. If only the Devs would allow us to mouseover the rating and see the true average, or better yet the number of each rank of star ratings. I got a feeling they don't want to though for two reasons: they just simply don't want to place an resources on the issue and two if we really could see the raw numbers it'd give our arguments much more merit if they turn out to prove our accusations. -
Changes made to "Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together)":
* Replaced the "Challenging" tag with "Solo-Friendly".
* Revised mission 1 to fell like less of a dungeon crawl against the Rularuu and fit the spirit of the arc better. -
I was waiting for Paladin to do give his feedback on the arc he was actually supposed to play (though I really appreciate him playing the preceding arc in the series) but since people are already posting feedback on the next arc of the week I might as well provide my response to the feedback now.
Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together)
Some of the criticism for mission 1 are very reasonable and I'm considering ways to make that mission have some more punch. After all we're fully expecting to see the Nagans so having them all holed up at the back of a large map may not be such a good idea after all.
Mission 2 works just fine as far as I'm concerned, there will be no changes.
Mission 3 is right where I want it. If some people cannot understand that it is a deliberate bait-and-switch to set up later events in the arc then that's their problem. I won't be any nicer in saying that.
I very much disagree that mission 4 is filler and it seems that only one person really complained that it was so that will be disregarded.
Mission 5 is right about where I want it as well. If some people cannot read the objectives that tell them to meet up with the two allies, and run right past them when they both spawn in the first room and you should be unable to miss them, well there is nothing I can really do to help that.
I have however removed the Challenging tag and changed it to Solo-Friendly after reviewing all the comments concerning it. The arc is no longer as tough as it originally was and I like where it is now on the difficulty scale.
For those who don't get the whole thing with Aeon's clones ranging from Minion to Boss, you probably never ran the Statesman Task Force. If you had then you should have made the connection, especially after receiving the clue at the end of mission 3. These clones are the prototypes for the Elite Boss clones that Aeon uses in the STF.
Why do I not use the EBs from the STF here as well? Because they don't scale below level 45, have really annoying powersets and tier-9 powers, plus I personally don't enjoy fighting multiple EBs back to back myself much. I also find it more amusing to beat up a bunch of weak Aeon clones as well.
I will look into toning down Iron Samurai's damage output a bit. The problem is that I have to make sure he is balanced across two other arcs as well, I'd prefer not to have to make multiple copies of him and balance each one for separate arcs.
Thank you all for playing! -
It's always suspicious when your arc get bumped up from page 400-something to page 3, only for the very next rating to give no tickets, no comment, and send you all the way back down to the where you were before, if not even lower.
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It might be ratings griefers who are too dumb to know that you don't have to leave a comment for a rating to count. Would make sense if they're dumb enough to try and ratings grief a DC arc anyway.
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Quote:Have him betray after you click the glowie.Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
I also ran into this bug. I wanted an escort to be led to a glowie then betray. While I did manage to be able to lead him to a glowie, he would never betray.
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The final mission has changed a bunch since you reviewed it.
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I have decided that in order not to clutter up this thread anymore between reviews I won't be replying to this thread anymore until this week is finished and the next arc is chosen.
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Quote:Typically higher-level arcs are balanced on either a Corruptor or Dominator on +0/x1 or +0/x2, as well as on Brutes at +2/x4 to +3/x2. That tends to give me a decent idea of where things lie.Originally Posted by Dalghryn
Since my level 50 Martial Arts/Super Reflex scrapper is obviously overpowered, can you suggest the AT and level area you're referring to when you talk about balancing your arc? Not that I have time to re-run it, but I may try to make time.
In the mean time, I'll play through the final mission before offering a final opinion about difficulty.
Lowbie arcs are handled differently. "Unfair Trade" for example was balanced at +0/x1 on a level 7 AR/Traps Corruptor with no enhancements. -
Quote:Then turn up your difficulty, the arc wasn't designed to bust your balls on +0/x1 anyhow and that's the way it should be. AE authors should strive to keep the baseline difficulty of their arcs close to that of the normal game unless they're actually designing a "challenge" arc. The only reason I even put the "challenging" flag on this time because Rularuu (and my customs) as a step above many of the other mobs in this game.Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
thats what i was figuring, but from what i could tell i could have run through with a corr with little difficulty as aeon is one of the easiest EBs out there IMO lol
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Quote:Just double-checked, but "Broken Guard Bot" is still set to Go Nowhere and Do Nothing. Must be bugged, again.Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
in mish 2 technically there was that 1 assault bot which the baddies were attacking, so i was guessing it was a combat ally but it was not set to follow
With that build there is little that can give you trouble aside from a horde of AVs. My arcs are balanced more with squishies in mind.Quote:Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
for that run i was using a dark/stone brute, but i could run it with any of the other villain ATs, i have like 19 toons at lvl 50 i could run the arc with, im sure with a corr it might be slightly more difficult at parts -
Quote:Mission 3 is supposed to be a bait and switch. It will make more sense when you get to mission 5.Originally Posted by Dalghryn
First semi criticism here... I understand it really wasn't Dr. Aeon. That's pretty much par for the course with him and good use of continuity. I'm not certain it still wouldn't be appropriate to notch him up a bit. Running a level 50 martial artist, I could have toasted him on even level without the help of my five lady friends. With them, not only was the red text warning not necessary, but "friends" would have given me time to nap.
With the Nagans, and/or with friends, an EB would be doable, and challenging. If the player chooses to scale up, that's his/her call, but would do so with fair knowledge of the potential consequences thanks to the warning.
Understanding I may be jumping the gun since I have two more missions to go, but I'd run Dr. Aeon(?) as an EB.
Any lower than boss-rank and he will die too fast to be of any real use.Quote:Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
mish 1: this mish was alright except the iron samurai guy i felt was a little too powerful for that mish, as running on a x1 diff he was kill stealing all over the place, i think he would be better as a lieutenant rank, otherwise this mish was very interesting with the use of rularuu
Um, what allies? There are no allies for mission 2.Quote:Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
mish 2: no real complaints about this mish, was fairly solid and the allies didnt detract too much from the experience
Sounds like you just plain don't like allies. As for them making it too easy, your mileage will vary. Personally I rarely have any allies left alive by the time I reach the end of that map.Quote:Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
mish 5: this mish was fairly straightforward as well, but i felt it had too many allies, and was kind of meh for a final mish, i really love that map though, but the amount of allies kind of detracted from the experience too much (especially the mm ally which the pets just kept getting in the way)
Could you please state what Archetype and powers you used? For every person who says an arc is too easy there seems to be another who ragequits because it was too hard. Without that info it's hard to make any sort of judgment on actual difficulty. -
I think Fred summed up my thoughts on "Another Nemesis Plot?" very nicely, and much better than I had myself.
Quote:Like I said earlier, the Midnighters don't really deal with the future and prognostication at all as far as the game lore shows. The only bit of time traveling they have done so far is to prevent Requiem from messing up the past. The future is the domain of the Menders and Oroboros.Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
the midnighters on the other hand are magic and could have forseen that nemesis was trying to do something and they are there to try to save the world type of thing
Quote:Originally Posted by Dalghryn
That said, about the only nit I have to pick thus far is I think there should have been some notice that this was a continuation in the arc description (I'm going by recall here, so if there WAS notice, feel free to slap me).I highlighted the relevant bit.Quote:Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
Description: A group of aliens may have bit off more than they can chew when an experiment with stolen portal technology threatens the stability of the Universe itself, allowing the soldiers of Rularuu free access to our dimension. (Follows arc #3326, "The Portal Bandits")
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Looking at this thread, I'm wondering if you lot would have any interest in my blog site, which has a mostly science/tech/engineering theme. It hasn't been up for more than a week so far but I'm rapidly adding content as I go.
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I recommend anything with Malta and/or Rularuu in it. You're going to want to crank it up to +4 as well for maximum return.
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Quote:Like I said: stick with Red. Red is what the Devs use in canon arcs to indicate such hazards and it works well to keep going with that as the standard. Warning text in a color that is unreadable for most people is counter-productive anyhow.Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
i can change the purple text on the dialogue, as i just wanted it to stand out and make sure that poeple were aware that there was a dangerous enemy there
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I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Quote:Yeah, where's the Star Trek Original Series connection?Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
I came in here expecting to find a story about an away team member in a red shirt that *didn't* die.
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Quote:Maybe your time is worthless but I consider mine to have worth, especially when I'm taking a gamble on an arc I haven't played before.Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
You make it sound like TIME IS MONEY, DAMMIT! WHY AM I WASTING MY PRECIOUS TIME ON THIS???
You really need to quit your assumption that only good criticism can be constructive. I offered a lot of suggestions for improvements but you glossed over them and are only pointing out negative things I said.Quote:Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
One of the reasons you are spending your time on it is precisely to offer constructive criticism aimed at improving it. We're supposed to be helping, not just listing what's wrong with the arc and signing off with a 'C minus, try harder next time'
Let's call if Conservation of Drama: don't waste the reader/watcher/players time on irrelevant details. Tuck them away into little easter egg clues and such, but don't put them front and center in the way of the main plotline.Quote:Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
You're not flying around the city, so talking about what you would have found annoying if you were is surely irrelevant?
I did, but you're ignoring them in order to whine about my negative criticism.Quote:Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
You're a really talented MAuthor yourself, give us some more cool ideas, Laz.
The word you want is FORESHADOW. Lampshade Hanging is a totally different concept.Quote:Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
you need to lampshade them earlier in the arc.
This whole conversation only reminds me why I generally ignore you on the forums and in the MA Finder channel. Which I will continue to do so, assuming that I don't leave the club altogether. Which would be a shame as I see a lot of promise in it, but not if it's going to be treated as the Cafe of Sensitive Egos. -
Quote:That as well! Let's say you have a new arc and it's gotten 10 ratings and sitting at 5-stars. A single 1-star rating can totally nuke that and since each subsequent rating of less than 5-stars makes the average worse over time the climb back up to 5-stars becomes increasingly difficult. This is why we have such a huge percentage of arcs stuck in the 4-star range, plus the sorting does not take the number of votes into account either so arcs with 3 votes and a 5-star average are listed dozens of pages ahead of arcs with hundreds of votes and a 4-star average. Like/Dislike would put them on a much more even footing.Originally Posted by FredrikSvanberg
Not to mention that the 1-star griefing will be much more difficult when a single dislike-vote doesn't cancel out 7 like-votes, or whatever the rate is. With a like/dislike system each vote carries the same weight. It's a whole lot more fair than the current system.
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Quote:Comedy has different constraints. A silly arc like "Two Chicks At Once" is flagged as a comedy so Recluse and the other Arachnos characters acting silly and out of character works because it's supposed to be absurd within the confines of the plot.Originally Posted by Ramification TM
D-baggy elitist reviews of my work aren't what I'm looking for. Like the story I was going to submit makes Statesman out to be a bit crazy. Why? Because it's a comedy and it's damned funny. Am I going to be totally stomped because it goes against the lore?
I pointed out that Recluse seemed oddly out of character in "Another Nemesis Plot?" because it was supposed to be a serious story. When the plot is supposed to be serious you expect the canon characters to be portrayed as accurately as possible, you expect the author to do their homework.
You and I obviously have very different thought processes and grade on different criteria. You focus on one detail, I look at the entire whole. If enough parts seem out of place to me I begin to question the entirety of it.Quote:Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
My personal tastes are much more based on immediate fun than getting pedantic about lore or whatever. Mission 2 of Another Nemesis Plot? is a great example. Laz viewed the map cjoice as a negative since it didn't make sense to him that a robot factory should be there. This didn't even cross my mind; rather, I thought stuff like 'Ooh, what's this? I like this, it's nice and self-contained. And look, rubble! Yay! I like rubble!' and so for me, the mission was a success.
I also felt that mission 2 was a bit of a waste of time for the player and the plot as well. Missions 2 and 3 could very easily have been rolled together, given a longer briefing/debriefing, and it would have made little difference to the plot as well. If this were not in the AE building and I had to travel to all of these missions I would have found it rather annoying that I went all this way to kill two enemies in a single room, click one terminal, and then be off. It didn't feel like a mission, it felt like padding, and on top of that it didn't tell us anything really significant to the plot. All it told us was that Nemesis is still using steam power for his knockoffs of Council and Malta robots, not exactly a big revelation there.
My biggest issue though was all the new custom Automatons in the 5th mission which never appeared in the previous 4 missions. Why did we have all this build up with the Council and Malta knockoffs only for the final mission to have 3 5th Column Mechs and a ton of these androids that came out of nowhere? They should have been introduced much earlier, if not have the entire arc be about them instead. -
Quote:That idea has been brought forward many times but the Devs never want to even comment on it. I also think that a simple Like/Dislike system like that used on YouTube would be much better. They also originally had star ratings but it was heavily abused and became quite inaccurate as, like with AE here, no two people use the same criteria for 5-star, 4-star, and so on.Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
I was thinking about something slightly off-topic, but still slightly relevant to this. I think it would be helpful to change the ratings into a like/dislike system, but leave the star ratings. 1 and 2 stars would convert to dislike, and 3-5 stars would convert to like. Then the star rating would be based on the percentage of likes to dislikes. Something like 90% like for a 5 star, I was thinking about figuring out some calculations before posting it on its own though.
Another site that uses a similar system is places like Fallout Nexus and such, which are websites for hosting game mods. There ratings come in the form of "I Endorse This Mod" or "I Do Not Endorse This Mod". It's very simple and works very well, especially as not everyone will like everything about a mod and a 5-star system would quickly degenerate into nitpicking like it does with AE arcs.
I also believe that you should be required to at least finish the first mission of the arc before being able to rate it. That would cut down on much of the Run By Griefing. If an arc is so horrible that no one even wants to finish the first mission then the lack of ratings will cause it to sink to the bottom. Also the author of a horrible arc can't as easily have their friends just 5-star it if they have to actually play it first. -
Quote:I didn't say "this arc sucks and you should feel bad and never write one again!" I said that it needs work and pointed out I feel it needs it badly. Unless BubbaWheat wants to correct me; the purpose of this club is to discuss arcs, not heap unconditional praise upon each other.Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
this MA Club is supposed to be encouraging.