Discussion: Issue 14: Mission Architect - FAQ
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2009-02-26 13:02 in Developers' Corner
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But that means you're going to one star it based on 20% of the arc. If the rest of it is good, wouldn't that maybe deserve better than 1? Similarly, what if this gets explained after? If you're going to one star for something that would be explained or shown to be relevant the second you leave, doesn't that show the problem in the system?
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No, that shows a problem in the arc. If it gets better later, the creator needs to start me off with enough information to get me past that first ugly part. They don't have to reveal the entire mcguffin, just give me enough to keep me going. If they don't, they have not done their job well.
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And my point with the reviewer is that someone who leaves after 20 minutes has only seen the start of the movie, so how can they truly rate the movie?
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And I see that I failed to communicate that I agree, they cannot rate the whole movie. But, provided they give their reasons, they can rate it to the extent of why they walked out. Their reasons may be valid for me, too, and thus would prevent me from seeing the movie, at least until I had more information.
An arc rating of 1 star and a comment of "Quit after finding the third Fusionette that I had to lead out." would be a perfectly valid "review", explaining exactly why I quit without finishing it, and giving you enough information to decide whether you want to go in and see if there's more to it or not.
(Poor Fusionette. Scapegoat for the entire NPC following AI in the game, when she's actually not bad. She's just programmed that way.)
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I agree with you on the comments, I definitely want that. Seems a little unfair that if I mark an arc down for, say, writing a novel in every single text box (Which is a bad thing IMO), I want to be able to tell them that this is the reason 
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Can we get a redname comment on whether we'll be able to leave comments? Oddballica and I have discovered a "comment" interest, here.
Sorry to break the discussion, here, but I want to make a big thank you to Positron and the rest of the dev team for the recently increased open communication with the community. This sort of free communication really makes it feel like our concerns are heard and appreciated and that we're not just giving you job security. There's lots of people here that have real interest in keeping this game alive and growing, and it says a lot that you're willing to take our feedback and work it into making a great product even better.
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Louise Fiero, 50 Merc/Traps MM
Various assorted alts
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I didn't see this question answered...will we be able to use some of the more "specialty" maps such as the Freaks/Trolls rave warehouses, Frostfire's ice warehouse, DE overgrowth, etc...?
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Will running MA missions grant prestige? If so, will it be just for defeating enemies, or will there also be the prestige grant at mission completion?
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Positron, I am a little concerned about the possible rate griefing involved with being able to rate an arc that hasn't been played. Especially when there are badges involved in rating unrated arcs or ones that don't have many ratings. A lot of people will probably get their badges simply by going down the line of unrated arcs, slapping a 1 star rating on them, and getting their badge in the process.
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Well, given that in order to rate an arc, you'd have to have played it, and there'd be a minimum amount of time TO play an arc, a time limit between ratings would probably make sense (say, ten minutes.)
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Will running MA missions grant prestige? If so, will it be just for defeating enemies, or will there also be the prestige grant at mission completion?
[/ QUOTE ]based off of what we been told i'd say yes and the former
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Re: Badges, and why they don't count
This Mission Architect primary purpose is for telling stories. We do not want people to spend days making a great story only to find it shuffled into a list of missions with titles like "Get your Rikti Monkey badge here", "10 badges in 5 minutes", "Down on the AV Farm", etc. etc.
That said there are a lot of badges available to earn in Mission Architect. A good chunk of them are only in "test mode", so if you REALLY just want to farm those badges, you don't need to publish the mission (actually you CAN'T publish the mission) in order to earn it.
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Okay that's fair. That being the case can you and/or Synapse look into some of the outstanding badging issues?
The big one I can think of is the glitchy distinction between Marcone and Family Bosses. Although it would be really nice if Paragon Protectors spawned in Nerva.
"Steady as a mountain, attack like fire, still as a wood, swift as the wind.
In heaven and earth I alone am to be revered."
- Motto on the war banner of Takeda Shingen (1521-1573)
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When people play your arcs, tickets earned that way go into a pool.
You can then claim tickets out of that pool onto any character.
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This needs to be the way that reward merits work :/
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-- Is there a better interface for editing mission text in the Mission Creator than the "ID Card" screen or the "Supergroup" screen? (Font size, color, etc., at it's best, to be able to reproduce the same effects as on Meg Mason's dialogs.) That would be most awesome.
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They've said that the files will be saved on your computer as text files, so you can edit them offline.
"I do so love taking a nice, well thought out character and putting them through hell. It's like tossing a Faberge Egg onto the stage during a Gallagher concert." - me
@Palador / @Rabid Unicorn
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And you can't publish a mission that can't be "beaten". It might be hard, but the error checking makes sure that whatever you make is possible to complete.
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Not that I don't believe you, but once this goes to Open Beta, I intend to attack the MA with hammer, drill, and demon posessed rubber duckies until I prove you wrong. It's one of the aspects of MA that I've been planning to go after as soon as I can.
I figure it will take me one day, at most. By then, I'll have either broken it, or been distracted by some shiny new toy in the MA and be trying to break that instead.
"I do so love taking a nice, well thought out character and putting them through hell. It's like tossing a Faberge Egg onto the stage during a Gallagher concert." - me
@Palador / @Rabid Unicorn
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And you can't publish a mission that can't be "beaten". It might be hard, but the error checking makes sure that whatever you make is possible to complete.
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Not that I don't believe you, but once this goes to Open Beta, I intend to attack the MA with hammer, drill, and demon posessed rubber duckies until I prove you wrong. It's one of the aspects of MA that I've been planning to go after as soon as I can.
I figure it will take me one day, at most. By then, I'll have either broken it, or been distracted by some shiny new toy in the MA and be trying to break that instead.
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I think it could be very easy to create a mission that players can't succeed in. Three AVs, one item the player has to protect in the middle of them, said item might be able to be set in terms of HP, have the AVs aggro on the item as soon as the player enters the map / gets within 'range' (preferably a long way away). Or a 'Prevent From Escaping' mission where you put the door near the mob that shouldn't be allowed to escape.
Can't be beaten and easy to fail are close equivalents.
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As for ratings: I don't believe that players should be allowed to rate an arc without playing through all of it. Ordinary-seeming arcs might have a killer ending and the reality is that a player's work should be evaluated on the whole, not on the "I didn't like the uniform of the boss in the first mission so I quit".
However, to avoid players having to play through every mission to rate it - that's unreasonable punishment - at least one more measurement criteria can be added: drop out rate (or completion rate, which is the inverse of drop out rate). After a reasonable number (say: 50) of players have started an MA arc, the proportion of players who have dropped out prior to completing it (or the proportion of players who have successfully completed it) is shown. An arc with a high drop out rate / low completion rate is a big warning sign to players that the content might not be up to scratch.
Now, if an arc has a low completion rate but a high rating, it tells players 1) the arc might not be for everyone, 2) it might have been artificially boosted by friends, and / or 3) it might have a great final mission.
The flaw with weighting the rating of those who quit early is that if there are enough of them then they still will be a problem. It could work both ways - quit the first mission but rate it a 5. If enough people do that, it could make MA mission ratings meaningless.
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When people play your arcs, tickets earned that way go into a pool.
You can then claim tickets out of that pool onto any character.
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This needs to be the way that reward merits work :/
[/ QUOTE ]Good news, reward merits ALREADY work this way!
From my understanding, for both tickets or merits, if you complete anything on a specific character (such as completing certain content, completing arcs, etc) then you get the ticket or merit on that specific character.
If you do something not specific to any given character (such as people playing an arc you published which gets you tickets, or the 60 month veteran reward which gets you 5 reward merits) You can claim that reward on any character you want.
I'd actually say the system we currently have for merits is a bit superior, even, because with tickets we can only claim them on one character, and then those tickets are gone. For merits we can (probably maybe most-likely) claim them on as many characters as we want.
So yay! It already works the same way!
For those so (un)inspired.....is there a way to use enemy groups created by other players in your own arc, is there a way to stop others from doing this if it is possible, is there going to be a "customer review" system so people can explain their ratings of certain missions on the COH website or in-game?
13
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For those so (un)inspired.....is there a way to use enemy groups created by other players in your own arc, is there a way to stop others from doing this if it is possible, is there going to be a "customer review" system so people can explain their ratings of certain missions on the COH website or in-game?
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For the first two, I think it's been said that custom enemies/groups will be saved to the hard drive, like all other arc data, so if you wish to share a group with someone else, you can simply send them the appropriate files. This would prevent others from easily ripping off your creations as well, as they wouldn't have immediate access to the data.
As for reviews, I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I believe I read that after you play an arc, you then have the option to send a message to the creator with your comments and suggestions.
Also, it wouldn't surprise me if another forum category is created to discuss aspects of the Architect or particular arcs, so that may be another place to post a review.
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One worry I just thought of. What's to keep the mission player from getting 4 deep into a compelling arc, only to find that the creator placed 10 AVs in the last mob, meant to be an incredibly fun challenge for a full team, but nigh impossible for the solo-er.
Or heck, simultaneous glowies.
Is there a warning before getting into the TF mode that you're going to need a sizeable team, or is that up to the creator to warn ((OOC)) style in the intro text?
Liberty
My 50s:
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Villain: Beast Infection (Corr), Sweet Zombie Jesus (MM), Milk Weasel (Stalker), Orgullo (MM), Agent Eris (Crab)
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However, to avoid players having to play through every mission to rate it - that's unreasonable punishment - at least one more measurement criteria can be added: drop out rate (or completion rate, which is the inverse of drop out rate). After a reasonable number (say: 50) of players have started an MA arc, the proportion of players who have dropped out prior to completing it (or the proportion of players who have successfully completed it) is shown. An arc with a high drop out rate / low completion rate is a big warning sign to players that the content might not be up to scratch.
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This is a very good idea.
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Now, if an arc has a low completion rate but a high rating, it tells players 1) the arc might not be for everyone, 2) it might have been artificially boosted by friends, and / or 3) it might have a great final mission.
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Excellent explaination. This allows for those arcs that are created to present the ultimate challenge (and hopefully are thusly described in the mission text as such, IE: Meat Grinder) or are similar to the Hess TF where the final mission is spectacular.
I am not comfortable at all with a system that allows players to rate content without even attempting it. There is nothing there to stop someone from 5 starring their own and friends' arcs and randomly 1, 2, 3, and 4 starring a bunch of other stuff to avoid being flagged as a griefer.
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And you can't publish a mission that can't be "beaten". It might be hard, but the error checking makes sure that whatever you make is possible to complete.
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Not that I don't believe you, but once this goes to Open Beta, I intend to attack the MA with hammer, drill, and demon posessed rubber duckies until I prove you wrong. It's one of the aspects of MA that I've been planning to go after as soon as I can.
I figure it will take me one day, at most. By then, I'll have either broken it, or been distracted by some shiny new toy in the MA and be trying to break that instead.
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I think it could be very easy to create a mission that players can't succeed in. Three AVs, one item the player has to protect in the middle of them, said item might be able to be set in terms of HP, have the AVs aggro on the item as soon as the player enters the map / gets within 'range' (preferably a long way away). Or a 'Prevent From Escaping' mission where you put the door near the mob that shouldn't be allowed to escape.
Can't be beaten and easy to fail are close equivalents.
[/ QUOTE ]I'm quite certain it will be possible to make a mission where you're guaranteed to fail. Making a mission that cannot be completed, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
How about this for "rating" poor arcs:
If you don't complete it, you can't rate it. However, each published arc also keeps track of the total number of times started (and perhaps also number of times completed), and displays this on the GUI in the list of MA arcs. If you see an arc with few or no ratings but a large number of times started, that should indicate that it probably isn't worth the attempt.
This doesn't do much to help those first people who try the arc, but such is the risk that you take when you play untested player-created material
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How about this for "rating" poor arcs:
If you don't complete it, you can't rate it. However, each published arc also keeps track of the total number of times started (and perhaps also number of times completed), and displays this on the GUI in the list of MA arcs. If you see an arc with few or no ratings but a large number of times started, that should indicate that it probably isn't worth the attempt.
This doesn't do much to help those first people who try the arc, but such is the risk that you take when you play untested player-created material
[/ QUOTE ]But if people are trying to troll a specific arc or content creator, wouldn't this just make it much, MUCH easier?
Get a bunch of people to just start the arc, drop it, and repeat again and again. Something even a single person could do, actually, no SG needed. You'll give the arc a huge amount of starts but very few completes/ratings. If people are looking at those stats as a guide to how good an arc is, then it's an easy troll. If people DON'T care about those stats, then it's a pointless suggestion.
The devs are at least thinking about ratings trolls, have lots of datamining hooks, and have said in the past that they'll be keeping an eye out for rating trolls. This idea just makes it easier for anyone to do, and makes the potential problem a whole lot worse. IMO.
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How about this for "rating" poor arcs:
If you don't complete it, you can't rate it. However, each published arc also keeps track of the total number of times started (and perhaps also number of times completed), and displays this on the GUI in the list of MA arcs. If you see an arc with few or no ratings but a large number of times started, that should indicate that it probably isn't worth the attempt.
This doesn't do much to help those first people who try the arc, but such is the risk that you take when you play untested player-created material
[/ QUOTE ]But if people are trying to troll a specific arc or content creator, wouldn't this just make it much, MUCH easier?
Get a bunch of people to just start the arc, drop it, and repeat again and again. Something even a single person could do, actually, no SG needed. You'll give the arc a huge amount of starts but very few completes/ratings. If people are looking at those stats as a guide to how good an arc is, then it's an easy troll. If people DON'T care about those stats, then it's a pointless suggestion.
The devs are at least thinking about ratings trolls, have lots of datamining hooks, and have said in the past that they'll be keeping an eye out for rating trolls. This idea just makes it easier for anyone to do, and makes the potential problem a whole lot worse. IMO.
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It doesn't have to be a count of the number of times it was started. It could be a distinct count of the number of accounts which started it.
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Most things for MA are account based. I assume some badges are Account Based like Vet badges. including Hall of Fame and Devs Choice.
Can an arc be both HoF and Devs Choice?
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MA ArcID: 1197
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
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So my head is bubbling over with ideas, as I am sure everyone else is too! One of my ideas involves exploring an abandoned base whose defenses are still active! Will gun turrets be available as placable mobs? Both the pop up kind as well as the larger ones? What about proximity bombs?
In the lgtf there is a map with "defeated" mobs lying about near the door....will that be an option? Would be a nice story telling flavor! 
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Total agreement.
Traps would add a TON of flavor; and the 'defeated' bodies would be a great touch as well ><b
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Will the MA affect Defeat badges? If I make a mission with the Cabal, can a villian earn the defeat cabal badge?
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No, No.
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Sorry pohsyb, but you just killed any interest I had in the MA.
It was the perfect opportunity to fix several mistakes and oversights re: Defeat Badges, but now? Meh. No real interest in it. That's not to say I don't recognize and appreciate the fact that a LOT of work has went into it, but two steps forward, one back IMO.
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If we are able to make maps just to get badges easily, what is the point of badges in the first place?
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Not getting into it again, but you still have to defeat <x> number for them. There's no difference between beating 1000 monkies on Monkey Island or defeating 1000 monkies in a MA map, you've still beaten 1000 monkies. The point of them is to show that you have beaten <x> number, the badge makes no distinction on how, when, why, or where you defeated them.
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For me personally, I would rather they DO count towards defeat badges, would make life so much easier if I could say stick BP Masks and Ghosts in a mish Kill 2 "birds" with one stone. I do hope they rethink this part and make the baddies count toward defeat badges.
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I have a question, if this is public knowledge or if something devs want to comment on.
I understand that missions are cross-faction. Will the players be able to see anything about the person who made it?
Of course, for maximum exposure I intend to make a mission that either heroes or villains can do without feeling like they're playing for the wrong team, but I'd rather create it on a villain character since it's the one I'll be playing the most and be getting architect badges and unlocks with. So will people be able to see that a Night Widow made the mission they're about to do, and skip over it because they think it's not a mission intended for heroes? Is there any sort of short summary we can put to note that the arc is intended for both heroes and villains?
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Or, alternatively, could we perhaps use the Hero and Villain tags that a large proportion of the game's missions now have for this purpose? Is that exactly why they were instituted to begin with? It does serve as pondering fuel. MA mishes could then be flagged hero, villain, or neither, depending on content, and only people of the appropriate flag could play them. If this isn't the plan, I kind of think it should be.