5 star bandits just as bad?? Maybe a new system?

Ive seen a lotta posts about *My arc got hit by one star after playing it for 2 mins.. some never even made it through the door. I can definatly understand frustration for getting hit like that. Or getting 1 star just cause they didnt like the power set/mob types. Im sure tons of people would one star carnies and knives of artims outta spite.

But after playing some 5 star arcs, ive seen the exact opposite problem. tons of ratings, all 5 stars and basically a medicore arc, Or just doesnt live up to what its advertised as.

say, Arc vrs trolls, challenging, great stroy, fun for all your freinds. then i play it and as a lowbie blaster i was able to basically do the whole arc with ZERO risk. guess the desinger forgot about ranged attackers and at my lvl maybe they didnt have all there protections, maybe its just a flaw in the mobs, but a single troller would just eat these guys for lunch.. Now i didnt rate this arc as i wanna test it with a couple more at's and lvls just to see if it changes. Im gonna send the person feed back too and give him an opertunity to rework it. I did think the story was a grreat idea, and implemented well, outisde of some nit pick things like the way clues were handled.

This got me thinking. Why isnt 3 stars the norm? An arc that does what its advertised, maybe the story is average, the mission kinda fun.. over all worth doing. 3 stars, Story or challenge that goes above and beyond the normal, 4 stars. An arc that goes far into story, humorous, a major challenge for the most experianced people.. 5 stars.

Now to me it should be directly related to what the mission description is too. If an arc is said to be a major challenge for purple IO'd 50's and someone joins it with a mid 20's team and gets slaughtered by the first mob.. well to me that shouldnt be one stared. On the flip side, some 3 mission arc that is advertised as a deep story of back stabing and trechery that has 3 lines of dialoge and basically open maps shoulldnt be getting 5 stars.. (like many ive seen)

I guess what im saying is i think people need to be a bit more honest to the story's desricption and does it live up to what is advertised.

take into consiteration the balance, story depth, and lastly was it just fun.

Id love to see the rating system changed to 4 catagories vrs the one.

Does the arc live up to as advertised.

Is the arc a challenge

Was the arc fun

Was the story griping


To me these are 4 easy questions that if you just played an arc you could do with out much thinking and i think people would get much better feed back to how there arc is being perceived by people.

If tons of people say its too hard but getting good porps on the story, maybe you wanna scale it back. If your getting lame story, but fun mission, Maybe you would do something is change the title to help people find what they are looking for.


Anyways, I guess what im saying, for the sake of the community/players/builders, I think the ratings need to be revamped a bit, Or atleast pleast not just 5 star everything just to be nice. its just as bad as giving everyone one star to be a jerk. It may not be greifing the builders, But it sure is greifing the players. Maybe im living in a dream world, But for 5 stars i guess i was just expecting more.

One last thing on rating change, I really think all published arcs should have a two week wait on ratings, Or perhaps have a two week temporary rating. this would give arcs time to get fleshed out, ideas, changes made before the true rating hits.

Maybe i just have higher expectations, or expect better testing from many.. But it just seams many are just out for the badge, or to say they are HOF or 5 star when really its just not.

On a side note.. Anyone have some 5 Star arcs i can go see that are truely on par with dev material and i can really enjoy, not feel like im beta testing someones material? Over 10k arcs.. and it seams like over 1000 are all 5 stars.. and really its just not the case. Maybe over time it will sort itself out. But till then can someone point me in the right direction for some fun/story/enjoyable missions.

Perhaps as community service I'll play and rate arcs that have only 1 rating.

The problem is, the rating system is nothing more than an opinion. Someone's opinion of the Arc might be a 5 star opinion, whereas the next guy might think it a 2 star Arc, and you might consider it a 4 star arc.

It's the same as movie critics and any other type of review process. It isn't a hard and concrete system. No review system ever will be because of its very nature.

Even with the questions you propose, they come down to the opinions of the person answering them. For example, I might answer:

Does the arc live up to as advertised: Yes

Is the arc a challenge: Yes

Was the arc fun: Yes

Was the story griping: Yes

I felt it was challenging. But maybe I have a weak-slotted character or am just a bad or inexperienced player with my character.

I thought it did as advertised.

I found it fun, and with a gripping story.


You might answer:

Does the arc live up to as advertised: No

Is the arc a challenge: No

Was the arc fun: Yes

Was the story griping: No


You didn't feel it did as advertised. Maybe the way it was written gave you an expectation of X and it delivered somewhere between W and X.

You didn't find it a challenge. Maybe you are a superb player, easily able to chain your attacks, watch your pulls, and are slotted well.

You found it fun, but felt the story was just so-so.

So, I fail to see how altering the rating system will change anything. Our opinions still vary based upon personal expectations, likes and dislikes, knowing our characters in combat, et cetera. Mine still gives the eqivilent of 5 stars, yours probably about 2 stars. A huge difference in opinion.

The only way to stop the issues some are having with it is to remove it entirely and not let us rate a story.

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Perhaps as community service I'll play and rate arcs that have only 1 rating.

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Ive been rethinking the whole thing too, playing lower stuff.. and mostly asking around for good ones.