Live Feedback: Issue 14: Badges
By
BigBrotherMidas,
Posted on: 2009-04-16 13:56 in Developers' Corner
It is very discouraging to now have many badges that are completely dependant on the actions of other players. As of right now, it can be very difficult to get an arc played once, let alone 250 times. The same factors apply to the badges for earning stars.
It is currently impossible to earn any Hall of Fame badges because there are no Hall of Fame MArcs, and there is some evidence that if a HoF MArc drops its standing before you complete it, then there is no credit towards these badges. This will continue to be difficult as the rating system to determine Hall of Fame is too easily exploitable.
Developer's Choice is not realistically earnable. Bughunter was bad enough. Why add another badge completely dependant on the whim of developers?
Hall of Fame and the Recognized series of badges are fundamentally flawed and damaging to the system as a whole. I have already gotten two messages to the effect of "I gave you 5 stars, please do the same for me on Arc #XXXX." I have also sorted by Rating looking for a good arc and ended up playing completely incomprehensible stories that were toward the top of the 5 star ranking and I highly suspect that star farming was at fault.
We already have an overwhelming number of arcs available, and sorting the good from the bad is hard enough. These badges encourage people to try to scam the system and artificially boost bad arcs to the top. While anonymous peer review is a lousy way to determine the good from the bad, I know there's not really another way to rate arcs, but these badges are making an already weak system outright useless.
I'd also like to add my thumbs-down about Dev's Choice. If this is to stay in the game, there should be a minimum number per month. Otherwise, I fully expect that this badge will be functionally retired by the time I15 is in open beta.
The "Virtual Victor" series of badges have ridiculously high numbers. Remember, this is "Test mode", where we're supposed to be preparing our arcs for publication. It has the steepest growth rate of all the AE badges (powers of 10, except for the 5th badge where it's "only" a multiplier of 5). Given the limit of 3 arcs plus perhaps a couple extra for Hall of Fame or Dev Choice, the idea that you'd test that much within the lifetime of the game is ridiculous.
If those numbers were for "Mission Victors" in published AE arcs, I'd still say the progression was too steep, but at least the idea of a badge to keep playing more and more arcs has some merit. But the numbers for defeats in test mode is screaming "for farmers only"
---
I'm not opposed to a dev's choice system and badge, though the system described by Moderator08 of a thread for recommendation and such needs to go into place soon. (Of course that's easier to say now that I have an arc that got dev's choice.)
However, the recognized and "have your arcs run" and hall of fame problems are exacerbated by the problems with the browser, and the problem is more there. I got marked dev's choice late, and so have very clearly seen what happened before and after I got marked. Before, I did a lot of networking to get people running the arc and giving some feedback...and finally managed to earn Writer (including a number of runs by myself) and the first recognized badge. Once I got marked as dev choice, the ratings skyrocketed, and in a few hours I got Bard, and less than a day later I got the second, third, and fourth recognized badge (and possibly the fifth, except it's bugged). Clearly recognition should have some reward, but the impact is just too strong.
Hall of Fame should have the same effect...except both the numbers are way too high for "normal" networking and publicity, and once it hits, it's too easily griefed away (not only griefing the author of the arc, but anyone who would like to get badges for running HoF arcs).
Clearly these aren't purely badge issues...but they greatly affect badges.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
Badges that are earned by a whole account should get their own tab on the badge listing. They should not be mixed with badges earned by specific character actions. This goes for the MA badges, and some pre-existing stuff like Vet badges and Pocket D VIP. (I say "Tab" meaning something like the way SG Badges have their own button.)
Any MA badge related to running missions in test mode should be tracked account-wide. Since mission writing is done by global, not a single character, mission testing should be treated as part of writing. This would encourage testing with more characters, since they would all contribute to the same badge, instead of focusing testing on one to finish that one character's high badge. (Badges on each character do not encourage spreading around testing when those badges are so high.)
I still don't understand why a "special recognition" such as Hall of Fame or Dev Choice needs to also get involved in the Badge Chasing mini-game. They'd be fine rewards without also giving out badges.
50K kills in test mode is a bit high for the epic, given that the ONLY way to get this badge, does not allow you to get a single drop, influence/infamy, or actuall spendy tickets.
And I dont know if this part belongs in here or not, but i think the badge counter for damage taken, influence, and healing, should still count in AE arcs. I totally understand the reasoning behind not allowing other badge progressions.
The requirements for some test badges versus some live badges MUST HAVE been switched around. That's the only possible or logical explanation I can think of for the numbers being so high on test. Why on Earth would any toon spend that much time on test as opposed to playing people's live arcs...??
@.MIDAS
BIG BROTHER MIDAS, Ice/Ice Dominator, 1314 Badges
* Any toon you see with Midas in the name is probably me
*
[ QUOTE ]
Number of overflow tickets a player must earn to obtain the Virtual Ticket Taker line of badges: 10, 50, 100, 250 and 1000.
[/ QUOTE ]
And here is my fourth time correcting this patch note: Overflow tickets is the Windfall line of badges.
And here is my second correction to this grouping of notes: This should not be in the patch notes altogether. This was originally a note during Beta indicating a change in some of the badges. This is not a complete list of badges, and this set of notes makes no sense without that context. Intra-beta notes never get published because they lack that context. That's the way it's always been, but was ignored this Issue.
Whoever is taking over the patch notes, whether it's Ghost Falcon or EMpulse or Nivienne, you please, please need to do this:
Read the player comments to the patch notes thread.
Get the players to vet the Release Notes before going to Open Beta and again before going to Live.
Any questions of clarifications of a note posted in a patch thread should be passed to the right Dev and be responded to in the thread (no more PMing for right info!).
This was done very well and became standard operating procedure in Issues 9-13. This was a complete failure in Issue 14 when it was clear that no one was reading the player's corrections, emendations, or questions to patch notes threads.
Part of the problem is that moderators have become lax in letting patch note threads become comment and discussion and lobbying ("I don't see anything about Waist Capes!") instead of a discussion and clarification of the notes themselves. The only recourse to get patch notes to have the right info is to PM certain rednames about certain problems... and that shouldn't be the case. Just posting in the patch notes thread should be enough to get the dev/mod assigned to publish patch notes to read it and respond accordingly.
IOW, your patch note process used to have a high degree of responsiveness, and thus, accuracy. This has slipped up this issue.
Sorry for the grumpdump.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
Subjective Feedback: Any arcs that make it to "Hall of Fame" status should become locked as a "Hall of Fame" arc. I understand the concerns that writers can completely edit the HoF arc and make it different once it hit that status, but an option is to make the situation for HoF the same as Developer's Choice missions. Lock the HoF arc and open up a new publishing slot for the writer. If the writer wants to make any changes, he would need to contact a Dev to manually update it.
Right now, it is virtually impossible for any arc to actually stay a HoF arc. It's too easy for griefers to grief it. That makes earning HoF-related badges extremely difficult to do.
Subjective Feedback: The "Virtual" line of badges need to be made account-wide instead of character-specific. Anything that's related to publishing missions should be account-wide. Since you can only publish three arcs, there's only so many times you can test your arcs before everything's more-or-less finalized. The "Virtual" series of badges, especially "Virtual Slayer," seems to be encouraging grinding just for the sake of grinding. Imagine trying to get "Virtual Slayer" on a few alts?
Subjective Feedback: "Early Bird" is easy to get and should be character-specific, not account-wide. Doing so would encourage players to play more untested arcs, which in turn will spread word-of-mouth some more.
Play my MA arcs!
Tracking Down Jack Ketch - ArcID #2701
Cat War! - ArcID #2788
I really have to agree with just about everything that's been posted to this point. While it may have been intended, the numbers are not very even.
Given the number of glowies and destructables in created MA arcs, I've found it ridiculously easy to get the 5th tier badges on these, whereas (as already stated) the test lines are unrealistically high. How about this for a measuring stick: it takes half as many tickets collected to earn the final ticket badge than virtual defeats. With each enemy having a chance (30%? 50% even?) to drop tickets somewhere in the range of 4-30 for one (just an estimate of what i've seen minion thru boss)... do the math. Even if it's just 5 tickets for every 3 enemies, that puts you at 15,000 enemies needed to gain said badge. Basically 70% less than virtual victor. And that's being conservative with the numbers.
We're talking as bad (or worse) than the illusionist decoys, and I'm sure everyone here knows what I'm talking about. In other words, there's nothing wrong with a badge that takes some time to acquire over normal play, but one that almost *must* be farmed in order to complete is bad for the game. Badgers will still attempt to get it, but won't enjoy the time they're spending.
This is all "subjective feedback" of course, but I suspect it's very widely echoed.
"Begin with the End in mind" - Covey
Arc #1270 The Death of Xason Mushu
Arc #15364 Frostfire's Plea
[ QUOTE ]
It is very discouraging to now have many badges that are completely dependant on the actions of other players. As of right now, it can be very difficult to get an arc played once, let alone 250 times. The same factors apply to the badges for earning stars.
[/ QUOTE ]I don't know if it's still true, but last I checked when you play your own published arc, you get credit towards the Bard series of badges. I've got no idea whether it's intended, but as the series is account-wide, that fact makes it not so hard to get.
The badges for HoF, DC, and earning stars are still dependent on the whims of others, of course.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
well if you think about it if you use the same toon to test with
after about 6 month of playing and testing you should get close, badges were not designed to get overnight
a bigger problem is the chicken and the egg, the dev set really high numbers needed for any badge, and when the players start farming to get the badges, they act like it is all our fault
if they were reasonable numbers we mostly would not farm(some will allways)
Fluffy Bunny 1 Person SG
Rabid Bunny 1 Person VG
Both on Pinnacle
Hobbit's Hole 1 Person SG
Spider's Web 1 Person VG
Both on Freedom
The problem is, unless you get hall of fame (which griefers seem to be actively blocking) or Dev Choice, you get to have three arcs up. So once you've debugged those three arcs...where does the more testing come in?
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
[ QUOTE ]
The problem is, unless you get hall of fame (which griefers seem to be actively blocking) or Dev Choice, you get to have three arcs up. So once you've debugged those three arcs...where does the more testing come in?
[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe the devs expect people to stand around broadcasting "Willing to help you test your arcs!"
To which I would raise 2 issues...
1) that compares this setup giving badges to "testing" an unfinished but published arc that would be worth real tickets.
2) given the way I've tested some of my own arcs - hopping in and out quickly and rewriting a while - I imagine it'd be pretty boring for a teammate to wait for me to re-compile my arc for their test.
Early Bird badge has to be looked into. It's not Account-wise, at least not for me.
I earned the badge, and I did end up getting it when I logged into some of my characters, but after a while, no more characters of mine got the badge.
Makes me wonder if there was indeed a timer for when you have to log in your characters or if it's just a random bug that I got on my account.
[ QUOTE ]
Early Bird badge has to be looked into. It's not Account-wise, at least not for me.
I earned the badge, and I did end up getting it when I logged into some of my characters, but after a while, no more characters of mine got the badge.
Makes me wonder if there was indeed a timer for when you have to log in your characters or if it's just a random bug that I got on my account.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes this happened to me as well... must be a timer on the badge... kinda wish I knew that I had to log in all my toons in that time limit.
[ QUOTE ]
Hall of Fame and the Recognized series of badges are fundamentally flawed and damaging to the system as a whole. I have already gotten two messages to the effect of "I gave you 5 stars, please do the same for me on Arc #XXXX." I have also sorted by Rating looking for a good arc and ended up playing completely incomprehensible stories that were toward the top of the 5 star ranking and I highly suspect that star farming was at fault.
We already have an overwhelming number of arcs available, and sorting the good from the bad is hard enough. These badges encourage people to try to scam the system and artificially boost bad arcs to the top. While anonymous peer review is a lousy way to determine the good from the bad, I know there's not really another way to rate arcs, but these badges are making an already weak system outright useless.
I'd also like to add my thumbs-down about Dev's Choice. If this is to stay in the game, there should be a minimum number per month. Otherwise, I fully expect that this badge will be functionally retired by the time I15 is in open beta.
[/ QUOTE ]
i completely agree with this, hall of fame and the badges for getting people to give you stars was a complete falicy. as for dev choice, the badge itself shouldnt exist or be "special" like the bug hunter so a majority of the people dont try to spam devs with asks for the dev choice although 90% of them will be ignored anyhow. the dev choice arc suggestion thread is a good idea, but it needs to be implemented for it to work. until then ill need to get my badger to try to run dev choice arcs for the badges, which i think is also a ridiculous line of badges as well as the hall of fame line for running said arcs. it is extremely annoying to me to try to repeatedly run dev choice arcs, those said line of badges should not be more than 50, and running hall of fame line of badges be no more than 25, especially since hall of fame arcs CAN lose the rating which happens around 99% of the time, partially because real critiquing poeple run the arcs and wonder how in the world they got such high ratings.
Use the following topic to discuss Live Feedback: Issue 14:Badges.
To see a list of badges please visit this thread: Badges in Issue 14: Architect
Badges
<ul type="square">[*] Badges earned through Mission Architect that are granted to all characters on the same account will state this in their badge description.[*] Number of required kills for the final badge in the Virtual Victor line of badges while in test mode: 50000.[*] Number of story arcs a player must play in order to earn the Gamer line of badges: 1, 10, 25, 50 and 100.[*] Number of tickets a player must earn to obtain the Ticket Taker line of badges: 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000 and 25000.[*] Number of times a player must play an author's content in order to earn the Author line of badges: 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250.[*] Number of clickable mission objectives a player must interact with to earn the Poor Impulse Control badge: 10, 25, 50, 100 and 250.[*] Number of overflow tickets a player must earn to obtain the Virtual Ticket Taker line of badges: 10, 50, 100, 250 and 1000.[*] Number of non-required mission objectives required to earn the Workaholic line of badges: 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100.[*] Number of rescue/kidnappings required for the Extractor/Kidnapper line of badges: 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50.[*] Number of destructible objects required for the Destructive line of badges: 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50.[*] Number of custom enemy defeats required for the Eliminator line of badges: 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 5000.[*] The Energized badge now requires 500 inspirations.[/list]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feedback is important to our development process, there are two types of feedback and both are helpful although some give us more insight and are more easily adapted into game changes.
Objective Feedback: Objective feedback is based upon what you as a user see or experience that other users may also see and experience. This feedback usually can be replicated easily as it involves facts and unbiased opinions. Example: When using the base editor items are sometimes getting caught in columns or pillars.
Subjective Feedback: Subjective feedback is based upon how you feel or experience the game as yourself. This experience may not necessarily be replicated because it is based on feeling and emotion. Subjective feedback is important to us but it is usually helpful if more information is present to describe what and why you feel the way you do. Example: I like the way the graphics look on my shield animation it gives me the feeling of being truly super-powered.
Are you reporting a bug from Issue 14? Please use the Issue 14: Architect: BUGS! thread to report bugs, there is a format in the OP that you can follow to help you in your reporting.