minimalist_NA

First, my tone wouldn't have been so condescending if someone hadn't started with the "soothing egos" and comparisons to conspiracy theories and UFO sightings, so let's just agree to an I-won't-if-you-won't arrangement here.

Second, your standard of evidence is inconsistent because several people (off the top of my head, Witch_Engine and the person who posted just above you) have stated exactly the observations (downvotes in a rapid timeframe, no progress on the badge for people playing your arcs) you are apparently demanding for "proof", but which you have dismissed in the same post as "anecdotal", since ultimately it's based on a person's experiences. And it shouldn't matter whether it's one hour or five minutes, in neither case is there enough time to play through all the arcs on the first couple of pages.

So what I'm saying is I have no idea what can possibly satisfy you if you are neither going to read what people are telling you, nor accept it as valid because it's "anecdotal" even though it's exactly what you asked for. And I am really, really trying hard not to be condescending here, you are just sending very confused signals.


Let me summarize this thread as succinctly as possible:

This happens to all five-star arcs, regardless of merit.

It is only a few votes at a time, indicating 0- or 1-star ratings.

This only happens when the arcs hit the top pages.

In many cases (only really detectable when the player happens to be on at the same time) this happens within a rapid time frame.

In cases where this could be determined, this is never accompanied by progress on the "people completing your arcs" badge.

In the most egregious examples, this has happened in arcs with few to no 3-star votes, and the majority of votes are 5 stars. Given that the few down-votes pretty much have to be 0 or 1 star to have such an extreme effect, this makes it difficult to attribute this to "differing tastes" since you would expect a more uniform distribution of ratings (more 3- and 4-star ratings).

Once the arcs are off the front pages, the ratings return to 4- and 5-stars.

This pattern holds even for arcs with a huge amount of word-of-mouth (there are several arcs, like Coral Horn, that have made it to 999+ votes and exhibited this exact pattern). Again, if it was down to taste, these arcs would continue to accrue poor ratings, preventing them from ever again hitting the front pages -- but they've done it repeatedly.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly (and the one you keep ignoring), people have openly admitted to doing exactly this.

(Related to the above are the very public and unfortunate recriminations over certain aggressively-promoted arcs, leading to a string of 1-star wars. These incidents are detailed elsewhere in these forums.)

At any rate, given that you yourself admit to there being a large population of "dillweeds" in this game, I don't see how it's so outlandish that certain dillweeds would do exactly this. Whether it's in a misguided attempt to push up a friend's arc, or just a generally-directed griefing for giggles, it doesn't much make a difference, functionally. It's pretty apparently deliberate.

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There are numerous explanations for getting a sudden slew of 0 or 1 stars when on the front page. A team might have done your arc

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Except, as people keep telling you, the 1-star ratings come too fast to have reasonably allowed for completion of the arc, and are never accompanied by progress on the "X people have completed your arcs" badge bar.

This happens to all arcs on the first few pages, regardless of quality, challenge level, custom vs. in-game mobs, author, votes from SG-mates (i.e. undeserving) vs. legitimately earned votes by word of mouth, etc. And it happens in obvious spurts, with the first couple of pages enjoying a relative stasis for a day or two, when suddenly, within the space of an hour or two, the whole landscape changes.

There are "numerous explanations", yes, but those of us familiar with the scientific method tend to winnow down those possibilities by excluding ones that don't fit the available evidence.

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When you're further down in the list, people tend to be looking there for arcs that sound like content they want to play. If your arc is good, then odds are you'll mostly get high ratings then. On the front page, especially high up on it, you have the impatient, radio mission PuG crowd who are likely to choose your mission just because it's the first one they see.

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So your view is that an impatient radio mission PUG would rather check out several arcs in a row, sample them, and then once they find them unsatisfactory, go through all the trouble of 1-starring, quitting, disbanding, and reforming the entire team just to find the perfect "XP MISH". Rather than sticking it out and getting what xp they can, or abandoning any pretense of caring about the story and just heading straight for the Comm Officer farms.

Somewhere, William of Ockham is crying.

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The thing is, a few posters claiming they are going to grief arcs can only do so much damage, as they can only vote once. Every time your arc gets knocked off the front page, if it's due to griefing, it's a different bunch of griefers.

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And heaven knows there can't possibly be two groups of griefers in this game! Why, the chances must be astronomical!

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However, as I said, believe what you will.

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Likewise. It's also best to acquaint oneself with the evidence at hand, but at least you're not claiming your opinion to be fact anymore so I'll take whatever middle ground I can meet you on, cheers

If people are looking for something a bit "different", these are a couple of arcs I enjoyed recently, as they were a bit of a departure from the norm:

"A European Vacation: The Faceless Threat" by @Kelp Plankton (ID 78549)

and

"Blight" by @Witch Engine (ID 140423)


Each of those arcs has one mission that pushes the MA pretty far (and from what they've told me, is a pain-and-a-half to do). "European Vacation" uses it to launch the arc in an amusing fashion, and "Blight" uses it to great effect, in a pretty unsettling manner.

I also like the custom villain group in "European Vacation", it gives me a chuckle.

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Actually, it doesn't even take griefing to knock it out. Odds are, any HoF arc is there due to barely having a 4.5 rating. Depending on how it rounds, someone rating the arc 3-star, just because he legitimately thinks it's not a great arc, will knock it down to 4.4. A 2-star will definitely take it out.

The problem may be griefers, but it's also just as likely the flawed system of averaging the ratings.

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I don't get nearly the number of plays that Footsteps does, so I get to see the phenomenon in slow-mo, and it really does seem as if there is a genuine problem of "Phantom 1-Starrers". I'll get enough 4 and 5 votes to hit page 2 (and even page 1, briefly) when you sort by rating. Then when I sign on a few hours later or the next day, it'll be down to a 4-star average (probably on page 200+), and no tickets waiting to be collected.

I've talked to other people in the same boat, and they've noticed the same thing.

Either there are some people with impossibly high standards who will only play whatever hits the highest pages, or there are some complete and total dinks out there downvoting arcs in order to get theirs into a higher position.

It's a shame, because there are arcs other than Footsteps that were getting the votes and the ratings to hit HoF. Quest For the Coral Horn was one; I think last night that was approaching 700 plays and was on page 1. It's now at 999+ and in 4-star territory. Maybe 300 votes is a bit much to attribute to griefers, and there were legit downvotes, but it's still kind of frustrating.

Heh, I'd noticed a bit of an uptick in plays for "One Million Eyes" lately and wondered where they were coming from. Vermain and Megajoule, thanks for the kind words.

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If I have only one complaint, it's that the humor and the tragedy are sometimes too much all at once to the point where I'm not sure which I should care about the most. You'll see what I mean on the AV fight in the final mission.

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That's a fair point. I think, for me, it's a bit of a defense mechanism. I'm always kind of leery of veering a bit too far into melodrama, so I feel that when things get really dark and serious they need to be offset with a bit of humor. I think the key, with the final AV mission, is to keep in mind that the Users are overenthusiastic kids, with all the awkwardness of teenagerhood -- goofy, wide-eyed, taking most of their cues of how superheroes "should" act from reruns of the 1970's Freedom Phalanx cartoon -- yet their hearts are absolutely in the right place. They're a bit of comic relief to both leaven the dark mood and provide closure to the underlying, more serious theme of the arc.

That said, I do kind of regret that one or two of the bios are a bit mean-spirited in their humor (now that I think of it), and one of the characters is a little too "meta". But the latter still makes me laugh so I can't let it go.

I also wonder now whether the hostage dialog should be a little more serious; but part of what I was trying to convey was that the kids, innocent (and addled by fandom) as they are, don't quite grasp the danger they're in. It's something I'll think about, but like I say, my aversion to over-seriousness is kind of a block.

...'Course, with my other arc I went the other way, and what was initially a humorous, dumb parody of Jonny Quest turned into something a little more pathos-laden. I never said I was consistent!

That's a very interesting idea, Aliana, I may have to test a few maps to see if I can do that. Unfortunately it's an abandoned-warehouse map, and those are always pretty generous with the "Back" spawn points. But on the other hand, it would allow me to assign dialog specifically to one character (the 'boss'), which is a big advantage given the structure of the mission.

Thanks! And thanks, Destructor, for your response too. Hopefully it'll get resolved soon!

So I have an arc (shameless plug! "One Million Eyes", Arc ID # 71933) that has been getting a lot of really kind, favorable reviews. However, one recurring comment is that the ambush of allies in the final mission is broken.

Essentially, 2 of every 3 critters in the ambush remain at the spawn point and don't do anything.

This ambush is necessary for two reasons: to give people help with the final AV/EB if they need it, and it's thematically perfect. So I can't do without it. And I can't seem to get it to spawn any closer to the AV, even though they're both set to "Back" placement.

So one workaround I've found is to pull the AV into the hallway. This seems to bring it close enough to trigger the entire friendly ambush's aggro range, or it brings it close enough so that the pathing isn't all wonky. Whatever the case, it works.

But, it's a bit of an imposition on the player, who may not necessarily be the "pulling" type, or appreciate having to put in the extra effort (especially if they can easily handle the AV alone).

So, is there any way around this? Commenters have recommended that I "fix" it, but I've tried various things and nothing seems to work. It doesn't seem to be dependent on factors such as powersets (I thought some of the allies might be switching on their toggles and then 'forgetting' to move), and as I said placement doesn't seem to make a difference.

Thanks in advance!

I know, seriously! Statesman wouldn't give me a pony, so I'm packing up and leaving. GOD, why must those devs be so rude?

ps: what

I haven't done the first TF, but I've done the last 3. They took us about 6 hours each, and none of us were familiar with them. Just have some people with Recall Friend handy. And if you have a mission outside the Shard while you're in the Chantry, just remember that falling is the fastest travel power of all.

And don't tolerate any dilly-dallying.

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Auxiliary Power Pools - levels 40 up -------cool
Kheldians - level 50--------------------------kinda cool
Council - all levels----------------------------so sad
Striga Isle - levels 20 - 30-------------------eh
Mission Customization - all levels-----------yawn
Global Chat - all levels----------------------worthless

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Oh okay. Thanks for letting us know, champ. Always good to know there's only One True Opinion around here.

Time travel could practically be en entire CoV-sized expansion unto itself. Imagine making a Silver Age version of Paragon in its glory days: art deco, neon and 50s-60s modernist architecture. No war walls, no rubble, just the occasional incursion of bizarre, Kirbyesque villains from a time when comic-book villainy was more fanciful and less painfully "modern/realistic" for the '00s (evil corporations and posthuman eco-hippies are fine as far as they go, but some of us want more pure four-color adventure).

Let's have mole people! Mad scientists with weird rays that bring coffee tables and armoires to life! Villains with goofy costumes and concepts staging improbable world-dominating schemes!

... And then you can have the players explore the seamy political underside, with the Might For Right Act and all the Cold War maneuvering.

So much potential here.

Much appreciated, Statesman! This system looks fantastic.

The concise version of my question is this: How much will a level 50 character be able to take advantage of this system?

The rambling, more detailed version: My main is a character I always envisioned as an investigative type, who favors subtlety over combat. However, it's the character I really care about and am invested in, so I play him constantly and will be hitting level 50 soon. I realize I'll be missing a lot of opportunities to use these skills in lower level missions, and I'm okay with that. However, I'd like to know how easy it will be to build these skills at level 50 (given that one way of imrpoving these skills is apparently through 'wisdom' and enhancements gained in missions)? Can one spend enough time in the library/university to reach an equivalent skill level as one who had done a mix of research and missions?

Also, is there an "endgame" application of the SSOCS? The investigative equivalent of a Hamidon raid?

Thanks!