reiella

Why don't people use Request? I mean, I thought that was the channel intended for group forming.

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"Mathematically feasible" and "going to happen" are two different stories.

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Okay, let me run the numbers then.

Assume 30% of all people playing the mission architect are "insane" - they play random arcs and give them random ratings. The average rating from an insane person is 2.5 stars.

If 70% of the other people play an arc and rate it 5 stars, the arc will have an aggregate rating of (30% * 2.5) + (70% * 5), or 4.25.

If "anything over 4" is sufficient for Dev's Choice, this is fine. If "4.5 and up" is sufficient, it isn't.

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Number will be higher than 2.5 for average actually. I would normally say 3, but since it is technically possible to vote a 0, however, it's not as common or easy to do as the other votes, I'd prolly put the average at 2.75 to account for that.

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Last night, I was doing this really good story arc. It was challenging and had good story telling. It gave me the feel that it was a mini-TF.

However, when we finished the TF, I 5-starred it because it was genuinely well written, had proper grammar, was a good challenge and basically just felt better than at least 80% of the stuff the developers came up with.

And someone in the team was griping about how this story arc we did was a waste of his time because he took in a small haul of just slightly over 200 tickets.

The ticket system rewards farming. We are not going to see the end of it. Even if we nerf the ticket system, the only ones who will still suffer are the well written arcs.

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To that person, I suggest solo more. The ticket reward system doesn't feel right currently. You get alot more rewards solo than you do in a group, which I don't think is right.

I've gotten the feedback replay of doom myself in the real world.

More a matter of confusion. Silly Domino's website keeps trying to give me a free phone, it's annoying me. So I put a comment in the feedback box one time. Seems that feedback only goes to the store. So the store manager was like 'wtf, are our drivers trying to peddle phones?' and called me pretty confused. I felt bad, but oh well I got over it and presumably so did the store manager once they realized what happened.

Really though, it's easy to ignore. My response to someone arguing with me on it would be ~ "That's cool, you need to convey that better with the tools that are available." Of course, my initial assumption from reading is that it's someone perhaps sharing their paradigm [albiet defensively], but that's a great opportunity for colloboration to result in fixing the problem you found within their vision.

Really though, just ignore it, it's just text. Worst case you pop a spammer out of your global ignore list .

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One thing, I should note, I dont' really put what I voted in my comment. Sure, the author can find out if their arc doesn't have that much traffic, but frankly, I doubt many will care that heavily.

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But, OMG, someone might say something mean!

The whole thing baffles me.

[/ QUOTE ]You have a strong, confident, self-secure ego. Not every one does. Some of us are very sensitive to negative responses, and are very reluctant to repeat experiences that might produce them. You know the nerdy looking kid who sits by him/herself at lunchtime, reading a book (or whatever the modern equivalent act is)? The one no one talks to, who never tries to talk to anyone else? That guy/gal is not doing it out of any conscious choice. They are truly afraid of getting a negative response, and staying isolated is actually less painful than taking the risk of being hurt. Note, not "less painful than getting hurt", but "less painful than even taking the risk of getting hurt."

The anonymity of online communications allows us to actually speak up and make ourselves heard. And some of us actually have some very valuable things to contribute. Yeah, some of us are sphincters, too, but no more or less than the confidant ones.

You make us face the risk again, we're more likely to just shut up again.

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That would be me. Although, I was cool, I had magic the gathering cards to play with in school.

Here's a fun tidbit though, that does suck in the real world to realize. Self-reclusion does foster the poor-socialization. It is a cyclic condition, yes there are outside catalyst events, but the avoidance of social interaction makes the 'loner' more alone, and easier to target. Which is why the challenge is really to get them to open up and try to socialize.

All in all, not really a situation that applies here in the specific though. The general premise does, yes. Although I would be more inclined to go with "It's not worth the risk of possibly getting into an argument with a peer explaining what they did wrong."

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SO I tried that but it didn't wotk for me. Any other suggestions?

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I don't know . What do you mean it didn't work for you though?

You hit edit, the changes were reflected on first try, or you hit edit, the changes weren't reflected and never would be reflected, regardless of how many times you close the interface and re-enter?

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I may be the target of your wrath, MrCaptainMan, and I'm sorry. But the thing is, there are only two Portal Corp maps, they're both the same size, and in fact they're both the same map except for which end you start at.

The story makes so much SENSE to be taking place at Portal Corp, a regular tech map wouldn't quite match. I'd love to have a small one, just like I'd love to have smaller outdoors maps

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Looking at your arcs, I don't think it was yours, I did them on test. I guess i was maybe unlucky with playing three in a row that used it lol.

And I'm not immune from it either. The last mission in my arc uses a giant cargo ship map, largely empty except for 18 chained boss fights (they're essential, story-wise - honestly!). if the player doesn't realise that the happen in sequence from front to back (I do point it out in the briefing), he's in for some apparently pointless wandering lol.

I don't mind Huge Map Syndrome if the maps are linear, and there;s stuff to do on the way. Even patrols or non-req objectives, anything with some flavour text will do to break up the monotony.

Eco.

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You're able to get the spawn locations to be ordered with the cargo maps? Nice, pretty much, I can not get anything [specifically] to routinely spawn in the last room. Which is pretty annoying to me , but I've just accepted it.

Just want to add a thank ya to some of the other comments, was considering adding some really empty 'busy time' staged components to try to make the large map out of portal corp more interesting. Have decided against it, since well frankly I remember why I had it set the way I did to begin with.

Will wait for specific comments saying my map is boring .

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SO I wanted to edit one of my arcs that was already published so I pushed the edit button, modified, and then republished.
The problem is that when it republishes the changes I have made do not appear. I repeated the process to make sure I'm not totally stupid (yes that is debatable) but the same thing happened.

Am I missing something simple or is this a known issue?

Please help as I am considering rebuilding the entire arc.
Thank you in advance, Bashful Banshee.

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There's a bit of lag between hitting publish, and the mission server's copy updating.

What I do, republish, go back into the editor, check the data, if it's not there, hit the red x at the top right and repeat until the updates I made are reflected.

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The problem is sometimes your story just CALLS for one of these maps. You could use a generic, but it would feel strange, and would lack the atmosphere that would turn an above average mission into an exceptional one.

I've got an arc up that's a SINGLE mission, not that much of a chore -- that one mission has multiple bosses, multiple objectives, and a big fight at the end. Plenty of stuff to be contained in the Green Fog Office Map, despite it being 7 floors (two of which are tiny). So you get your money's worth and it's not too sparsely loaded with stuff to do.

And I STILL got pegged with a 1 star rating from someone last night who told me "ur map is too long make it less floors". I CAN'T make it less floors, it's a unique map! Agh.

Don't get me wrong, these should be used sparingly, but they DO have a useful purpose.

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The trick, of course, as others mentioned here, is to make it interesting if you have to use the big map.

My current use of the Portal map is an escort mission, and an optional boss. Of course, I didn't think the Portal map itself was too big [maybe a medium], but having to re-evaluate that now having read this thread.

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Because if you're sending honest, constructive criticism, too many people don't know how to accept that. When "Interesting idea, but spelling and grammar errors made it difficult to read. Work on those, it'll be a better mission." gets a reply "[censored] yu just caus i cant spell dosnt make it a bad mish", I'm sorely tempted to go back and reduce my rating, and reduces the chance of me sending any kind of feedback to anyone.


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Oddly enough, they agreed with you though. .

That's the point you were trying to make . The mission wasn't bad. The grammar was holding it back though.

That said, *shrug*. You're just as liking as an critic doing the same goofiness in posting the feedback.

To be fair though, if you're not willing to defend your content, you maybe shouldn't put it out there.

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The mission clues keep reappearing despite what I try to do locally and remotely. I'm trying to fiugure this out. Some of them are left over from the first story overhaul.


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This is a problem I encounter with editing a live mission. After you republish, wait a bit, go back into the editor with that mission, verify that the changed occured. If it did not, close the editor, wait, and go back in. The change should be reflected then.

Do not make any updates to your arc if you last update isn't reflected though, you will overwrite your previous update doing that.

And a sidenote, just because something is 'optional' doesn't make it effectively optional. Without spawn controls, you may literally have to walk past the optional AV .

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Hmm...maybe color the maps different colors to indicate where each type is?

Also let's keep in mind that it may be coming out in the middle because the map itself says you can't place that particular event in the back. Many people simply aren't looking at the map specs to see what can and cannot be placed where.

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They'd need to fix the map preview too. Still quite a few maps that don't really show you the map setup [and when you have divergent elevator pathes, as is prone to happen with tech labs, it's not clear].

That, and, Random should still be an option. I think just consistancy would be a better goal .

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You can pull out individual members of existing groups and put them in a custom group on the villain groups page.

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Point of clarity, you can pull out some/most individuals members. There are a few that you can't, right now, I'm lamenting not being able to add Pets/Robotics to one of my groups.

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Where's the Portal Corp map?

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Unique Maps, Tech I think.

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I simply fail to understand why people have a hard time being honest and straight-forward unless it's in anonymity.

IMHO, anonymity has a tendency to make people more likely to act like sphincters.

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Because 4chan is the greatest bastion of truth on the internet.

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It's a failure to realize what four minions with mez powers are capable of. My Brute, with mez protection up, has gotten chain-held numerous times running missions solo.

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Ah, that ya, coupled with that we don't have the ability to constrain to 1/per group like the devs do with Malta Sappers. And frankly our custom groups may not have that much diversity to avoid it happening alot anyway.

Hologram near the datastream

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So I can't give my custom critters guns without allowing them to shoot through mez. That sucks.

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Actually you can't give them ANY set that appears as a blaster set without them attacking through mez. To put it more simply...you can't give them any ranged set except for Dark Blast and Rad Blast without them attacking through hold. Of course if you give them a Def set with Mez protection then yeah......control losses out big time in MA.

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Blah . Well perhaps for the ones with overlap at least, you can use the Assault powersets for damage? Not optimal admittantly, but it's another source of ranged damage that's not Blasters.

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it is really simple to click unpublish, edit the local copy, then republish.

I really wish that publishing it ran a great risk that people would play it. I have 2 published arcs - one has been played once (and rated 4 stars) and the other never played.

And I put Test in the title if it isn't finished.

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Hmm, mine has about 19 plays so far, admittantly, I know 7 of them explicitly [and only comment amongst the remainder].

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Bad Thing #1: Giving Force Field set to an EB.
Bad Thing #2: Giving Force Field set to an EB.
Bad Thing #3: Giving Force Field set to an EB who appears in the arc three times!

Seriously, spending the entire fight either in Detention or having Force Bolt spammed at you is just going to lead to your players Rage-quitting and giving you a low rating.

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This almost sounds like a canon story-arc redside .

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What's the deal with 90% of MA content stacking mez to the ROOF? I hate mez, it aint fun, it aint challengeing, it's just damned annoying and it gets 1 stared.

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I'm hard pressed to think of any 40+ group that doesn't utilize alot of crowd control.

Arachnoids maybe. Some of the praetorian sub-factions.

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If i have to go through the damn portal corp map one more time to find one glowie and a boss right at the end, im going to scream.

There are smaller maps to choose from! Save the big ones for missions that have lots of objectives!

Sheesh.

Eco.

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I think that's a problem with the tech lab tilesets in general. They're alot larger than the apartment counterparts.

Of course, when I was using Apartment-City of Heroes, Small Random,I somehow got a 7 floor apartment map... That was annoying since it was an escort mission [and I, a MM ].

A published mission that's not in a good state to be release may still get rated, although admittantly, you can just republish to start over, it still had some poor exposure.

Also, frankly, it's alot easier to edit local copies than it is to edit published copies [I am getting annoyed at small touch ups not refreshing on the mission server unless I republish, go back into architect hit x, then go back into architect again for the changes to actually be reflected ].

Of course, I didn't follow that guideline myself instead just putting my arc out earlier since if I'm going to be bugging my friends to help critic it, at least give them something out of it.

[ add / edit ] Point of clarity, friends who have just started playing CoH, and still aren't level cap. It benefits me too for them to get XP .

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I second that suggestion.

I have been playing a bunch of arcs, most of them bad, and have been giving feedback. I tend to be direct, one of my comments was "The writing needs a lot of work, use capital letters when appropriate, improve your spelling and avoid LEET speak. The last boss was fun to fight."

I have now recieved 5 tells from the mission creator telling me (among other things) "If U R so smrt then you make a story."

I find that anonymous feedback tends to let people be more honest with what they say in a critique. While it is nice to know who is being critical of your arc, it takes a mature person to recieve that criticism in the proper context. Assuming that the criticism was offered in a resonable way. There are simply too many adolescents (socially, not physically) on this game for me to risk writing honest feedback if I am going to be swamped with tells telling me off.

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Then ignore them. You offered your help and advice, they didn't want it. Just like when folks give worthless or indistinct feedback, it's better to just ignore it and move on.

Me, personally, I get frustrated at my inability to write well. So I might not find your remark so useful. I'd much perfer some specific comments on what can be improved and how. Which really isn't any critic or players "job", but it allows for me to actually improve on something that I already know is lacking .