MA option: "Force completion for ratings"
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2009-04-16 18:28 in Suggestions and Ideas
Or just put rate weighting for non-completion.
Spoofing the rating system is an issue, but forcing people to do anything is not the solution.
They can do things on the back end to weaken or nullify such ratings. They don't have to allow people to "reverse-grief" by forcing them to play through content. If such a change were implemented I would immediately quit any arc I found myself on with it enabled. Even worse if I were in a bad mood, I'd play through until the end and 1star the arc for using that option to serve as a warning to others.
This solution would do more to kill the rating system than anything that's going on now.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Arguments to whether it's a good suggestion or not aside, what reason would there be for the author to not choose this option? And if there's no reason not to do it, why not just force it for all arcs?
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
How about not letting people submit ratings 'til the arc is done?
They could leave, submit comments, or report the arc to Devs. But you can't Rate it 'til you beat it.
-Rachel-
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How about not letting people submit ratings 'til the arc is done?
They could leave, submit comments, or report the arc to Devs. But you can't Rate it 'til you beat it.
-Rachel-
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If they did this, they would probably also need to put in an "attempts" tally alongside the "ratings" tally". That way, if you see 1 rating and 108 attempts, you know it's obviously doing something to turn people away (be it difficulty or something else).
I think that'd be good to have, too. Yes. =-3
-Rachel-
That is why flagging your mission for this rating system would be optional. You wouldn't be FORCING players to play through all arcs before they rate... just your arc.
You wouldn't get caught playing an 'force play' arc as it would say if it was that right on the mission select.
The attempts suggestion is notable, but then that could lead to 'attempt griefing' where someone just joins and quits an arc a bunch of times so it looks like nobody can actually finish the arc.
I do agree with a back-end rating nullifying system that gives ratings diminished effects based on how far in the arc you got. Heck, make it a % of total missions completed.
Finish 4/6 missions in an arc, your rating counts 4/5 its weight. Finish 0/3, your rating counts 0/3.
Regardless, the current system needs protections of one form or another.
Honestly, I really wouldn't like that. I don't team, it's just not what I do. I can't handle random people relying on me. But, if I'm on Mission 3 of 4, and I've really enjoyed them so far, when I get to an elite boss I can't beat. I want to give them a good grade, they've deserved it and they shouldn't be punished because of my misanthropic nature.
This works for me.
I never rate an arc I didn't finish anyway. (Except...yesterday I ran into a bug in a 4th mish for the second day in a row that kept me from completing it. I still liked it but didn't want to run it for a 3rd time.)
So if you make a horrible arc, you'll end up with zero ratings. That's a red flag to anyone that looks at it right there. If it's been up for 3 weeks and has no ratings, I would avoid it. Not foolproof, but nothing is.
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Allow players to have an option on their stories to "Force play-through for rating"
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I don't like it.
If I'm playing an arc and it completely sucks, I should be able to quit and provide an appropriately low rating. This prevents other players from falling into the same trap.
This change would increase the amount of time players waste on bad arcs.
Would I use it? Sure, all my arcs would force completion, so that you can't just 0-star me because I didn't like your forum suggestion.
It's a good suggestion because it helps to deter "ratings griefers" but a bad suggestion because it reduces the number of low ratings that truly bad arcs receive.
So, I'm mixed, but overall I don't like it. (mainly because wasted time is far more of a concern to me than arc ratings)
That being said, the ratings system is a bit of a joke and definitely needs to be improved...
And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?
I could say... put like put several EBs with extreme annoying powers set(sets that will pretty much screw over most builds) to ambush you every time you try to fight one.... and no-one would be able to rate my lowly for it until they completed it?
There was one arc I did where the author thought it would be fun if I had to fight an EB who would hit instant healing.... and then blackstar me.... since that was not my idea of fun I rated it down.... but your idea would make it impossible unless the author actually gave a damn about your feedback (and in a world full of griefing Sg's I don't think it would be hard to imagine an author like that).
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And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?
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Which is why they would add a separate enumerator for "attempts". If, when selecting the arc, you see a very bad ratio of attempts to ratings (~1:10), you'd be able to figure that, hey, this is a really hard arc. It also forces/encourages designers to make sure that the challenges are appropriate. If the arc is too hard, they won't get ratings. If it's bad, they won't get good ratings. That means that, in order to get a large number of good ratings (which is currently really easy), you've got to write a good arc that strike an appropriate balance of difficulty (which is part of what I consider when rating anyways).
Ive rated two arcs one star so far.
One had a bunch of random costumed villains and didn't make any sense, the other one featured all enemies including minions with Tactics running. I felt that one lacked a certain sense of game balance as my SR scrapper lay on the floor again. 
In neither case did I have any desire to play through the rest of the stories, but did wish to leave my vote.
I do think it would be fine if my vote only counted as 1/5 or whatever, ie was weighted for completion.
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And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?
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Which is why they would add a separate enumerator for "attempts". If, when selecting the arc, you see a very bad ratio of attempts to ratings (~1:10), you'd be able to figure that, hey, this is a really hard arc. It also forces/encourages designers to make sure that the challenges are appropriate. If the arc is too hard, they won't get ratings. If it's bad, they won't get good ratings. That means that, in order to get a large number of good ratings (which is currently really easy), you've got to write a good arc that strike an appropriate balance of difficulty (which is part of what I consider when rating anyways).
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But where would this arc with a high number of stars but a "low" attempt/completions rating fall on the Search tool we use to acceess MA content? Would it still be in the upper range because it got 5 stars from the few people who completed it? If so, then it still "rewards" a bad arc with a higher placement in the list than an arc that properly got low ratings in stars for being "uncompleteable" that was not marked as "must play thru to completion".
And frankly, while I understand the issue that people can go out and hunt for arcs to deliberately "grief" with low ratings, an arc that is so poorly written that it can't be completed without "forcing" completion - then it really needs to be rated accordingly.
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
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the other one featured all enemies including minions with Tactics running
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Last I checked, the custom critters couldn't get access to pool powers or the VEAT powers. It was probably a different +tohit buff, so I'm not doubting that it was pretty much impossible to dodge anything.
/unsigned
It doesn't take an entire arc to know if you're doing something fun or not.
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And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?
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Which is why they would add a separate enumerator for "attempts". If, when selecting the arc, you see a very bad ratio of attempts to ratings (~1:10), you'd be able to figure that, hey, this is a really hard arc. It also forces/encourages designers to make sure that the challenges are appropriate. If the arc is too hard, they won't get ratings. If it's bad, they won't get good ratings. That means that, in order to get a large number of good ratings (which is currently really easy), you've got to write a good arc that strike an appropriate balance of difficulty (which is part of what I consider when rating anyways).
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WAAAh! BUT THEN PEOPLE CAN JUST CLICK MY ARC AND QUIT AND THEY WOULD GRIEF ME THAT WAY!!!!!1111!!!! NOBODY WOULD PLAY AN ARC WITH 20000 ATTEMPTS AND 20 SUCESSES!
Don't mean to be super snarky (only midly snarky).... but the way I see it following your logic it would just be opening one can of worms to close another. People will just grief another way, so then someone else will come asking that we do something else to prevent them from being griefed that way.
For my second point: what Astra said.
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And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?
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Which is why they would add a separate enumerator for "attempts". If, when selecting the arc, you see a very bad ratio of attempts to ratings (~1:10), you'd be able to figure that, hey, this is a really hard arc. It also forces/encourages designers to make sure that the challenges are appropriate. If the arc is too hard, they won't get ratings. If it's bad, they won't get good ratings. That means that, in order to get a large number of good ratings (which is currently really easy), you've got to write a good arc that strike an appropriate balance of difficulty (which is part of what I consider when rating anyways).
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WAAAh! BUT THEN PEOPLE CAN JUST CLICK MY ARC AND QUIT AND THEY WOULD GRIEF ME THAT WAY!!!!!1111!!!! NOBODY WOULD PLAY AN ARC WITH 20000 ATTEMPTS AND 20 SUCESSES!
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Unless it's got a high rating. If you saw 20000 attempts and 20 ratings, but it's still got a 5. That's a pretty good earmark that, hey, it might be a tough arc, but it's obviously a good one. It's still significantly better than the current system because now it's possible just to join and rate, which skews the system pretty heavily. There is no system involving ratings that is completely immune to griefing or exploitation.
Personally, I'm significantly more in favor of mitigating the exploitation than I am the griefing. Exploitation creates a glut of incredibly low quality but highly rated arcs. Griefing creates a glut of quality arcs that are lower than they should be. Really, the entire debate focuses on who you would rather protect. Players are negatively affected by exploitation because it makes it nearly impossible to find good arcs except by word of mouth. Creators are negatively affected by griefing because it prevents their work from being seen by a larger populous (not that it's going to be visible thanks to all of the exploitation).
Making it harder to rate at all makes the ratings matter all that much more. Yes, it's going to make it harder for you to hire someone/beg a friend to get your 5 star train going, but it's also going to make it one hell of a lot harder for griefers to go on 1 starring sprees. At least with a complete-before-rating system, you get the chance to address any immediate concerns that the player might have before they metaphorically castrate your work.
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Unless it's got a high rating. If you saw 20000 attempts and 20 ratings, but it's still got a 5. That's a pretty good earmark that, hey, it might be a tough arc, but it's obviously a good one. It's still significantly better than the current system because now it's possible just to join and rate, which skews the system pretty heavily. There is no system involving ratings that is completely immune to griefing or exploitation.
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Now lets look at the flip side of you guys griefing sg argument. Lets say that someone's sg gives their arc 5 stars each when it is at said levels of impossibility (extreme av's, extreme ambushes, etc.) with a [censored] story to boot.... Unless the player finishes it by your idea there would be no way to lower the rating to what it rightly deserves. So the flip side of your argument is that it would still have high ratings.... but it would suck and people would think it would be good. Except that now they could lower the rating justly while you seem to be against that. The suggestion also allows me to essentially reedit my idea to w/e I want without literally any repercussions whatsoever short of people actually finishing it (and I'm sure I can make it pretty damn impossible) and rating it lowly or it getting taken down by the mods. But again you seem to be allright with that.
And no I don't want to protect the exploiters (what interpreted you of suggesting) rather I think that for the sake of most (ie: the non-griefers and the people playing the arcs) should have precedence over the few (the people who create the arcs).
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Now lets look at the flip side of you guys griefing sg argument. Lets say that someone's sg gives their arc 5 stars each when it is at said levels of impossibility (extreme av's, extreme ambushes, etc.) with a [censored] story to boot....
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First off, I'm not sure if whatever term you're using that is censored is supposed to mean that it has a good or a bad story. I'm going to assume now that you mean it's got a bad story, because that assumes the absolute worst case. What that situation requires is for said SG to actually finish the arc on multiple occasions. If it really is impossible, they're not going to (hence, impossible), which means they can't inflate their rating.
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Unless the player finishes it by your idea there would be no way to lower the rating to what it rightly deserves. So the flip side of your argument is that it would still have high ratings.... but it would suck and people would think it would be good.
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So how is that any better than a player who has only seen a portion of the arc being able to rate the arc in its entirety?
The other point that I have been consistently making and many people have been ignoring is that there would be a second factor that players would be able to incorporate. The number of attempts would be listed right next to the number of ratings. If the numbers are incredibly disparate, that's a warning right there.
If that's too complicated for you, think of it this way: there would be a second rating that simply records how many people who attempted the arc completed it. Looking at that gives you a pretty good estimate on how hard the arc is supposed to be.
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Except that now they could lower the rating justly while you seem to be against that.
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And just like I said, I realize that it's going to impede people down rating because of difficulty. I readily admit that. Which is why the attempts number is there. You're already voting that this one is too hard and I don't want to complete it by leaving.
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The suggestion also allows me to essentially reedit my idea to w/e I want without literally any repercussions whatsoever short of people actually finishing it (and I'm sure I can make it pretty damn impossible) and rating it lowly or it getting taken down by the mods. But again you seem to be allright with that.
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Once again, how is that any different than how it is now, aside from the fact that you can't uprate and then make it more difficult or downrate and then make it easier? If someone sees that their arc isn't getting any ratings, they're going to change it so they can. You're acting as if the system I'm suggesting would create these new situations.
They won't because the problems you mention already exist.
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And no I don't want to protect the exploiters (what interpreted you of suggesting) rather I think that for the sake of most (ie: the non-griefers and the people playing the arcs) should have precedence over the few (the people who create the arcs).
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That's my entire point. By making it so that ratings are exclusive to those who have completed the arc, people who artificially manipulate the ratings can't do so, which is good for the players. It's also good for the player because there is, functionally, a difficulty voting system (albeit binary). If you finish it, you're voting "can be finished, difficulty bearable". If you don't, you're voting "can't be finished, difficulty unbearable".
How is that not universally good for players? It's preventing bad arcs from getting wrongly uprated. That's great for players. It more properly ensures that only the arcs that actually deserve 5 stars get them. It's also great for players because now there is an obvious marker that gives them a general notion of how hard the rest of the player base believes the arc is, which is infinitely better than any arbitrary difficulty assignment that the creator might give it.
What you seem to be arguing for is post-selection rights. The person who selects the arc should have the unobstructed right to rate that arc however they feel no matter how much they have actually done with said arc.
I take the opposite view. I believe in pre-selection rights. The player who is currently looking for an arc to play should have the right to know that the rating is as trustworthy as can be. By making it harder to give the quality rating (0-5 stars), it ensures that the player can expect the rating to be more worthwhile. By allowing the player to see how many players have failed to complete the arc, it ensures that the player has a general knowledge of the overall success rate of the arc.
So, here I pose a question to you:
Is it more important to protect the rights of the player pre-selection or post-selection? Answer that definitively.
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I like the rating system the way it is. I find it useful. If I'm scrunching up my nose within the first mission and going "Ick," I want to be able to quit and rate it. I don't think it's my responsibility as a player to suffer through an unfun experience in order to provide feedback, of which rating is a type. "So bad I didn't want to complete it" seems like a fine reason to one-star something.
I get where the OP is going, but I would have to vote 'nay' on this one. You would be trading one form of 'griefing' (one star without playing or comment) for another form (quitting arcs just to raise the attempts vs completion ratio).
It also would make it difficult to let the creator know if they need to work on the arc to get it better, where they need improvement, etc (for example, I was in an arc that I couldn't complete due to the custom mob type but I gave a 4 star for the story line, and a constructive feedback message; I wouldn't be able to do that under the OP's suggested system because almost guaranteed most people would turn this option on to 'force' players to experience the whole shebang)
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The addition of more play data might be helpful to some, but analyzing rating vs. the attempts to completion ratio as a way to divinate arc quality would probably be more arcane and subjective than most of the playerbase has any use for. We can't even reach consensus on what the 1-to-5 star ratings mean; this would just produce another metric of dubious use, ignored by many, obsessed over by some.
We need some kind of anti-griefing fix, but IMO having to complete an arc in order to rate it isn't the one. I walked into a random AE mission the other day in which every enemy was an EB running Ninjitsu; I was power-ganked by three of them in the foyer. There was no disclaimer on the mish ("This is asinine") or any other indication that it was just a player-killer. I one-starred it and left. Although I hadn't finished the arc, in just a few seconds I felt had a handle on what the author was about, and rated the mission accordingly. As-is, my rating might help warn off other players who don't want their play time wasted by content-free garbage like this. As a tiny blip in the number of people who left without finishing? Not likely.
Arc 55669 - Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal (video trailer)
Arc 64511 - The Wrecking Ball
Arc 1745 - The Trouble With Trimbles
Arc 302901 - HappyCorpse
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I like the rating system the way it is. I find it useful. If I'm scrunching up my nose within the first mission and going "Ick," I want to be able to quit and rate it. I don't think it's my responsibility as a player to suffer through an unfun experience in order to provide feedback, of which rating is a type. "So bad I didn't want to complete it" seems like a fine reason to one-star something.
[/ QUOTE ] Every single letter you typed in this post is 100% true.
Allow players to have an option on their stories to "Force play-through for rating"
Arcs with this setting on would have to be completed entirely before anybody is allowed to rate it at all. Arcs created with this option would have this flag visible on the arc select screen to let players know that that arc's rating was made up of only players who experienced the whole thing.
This flag would be added to the search filters, allowing you to display only missions with this flag (or missions without it).
Once a mission is marked with this option (flagged for play through or not flagged) you would not be able to change it without unpublishing and re-publishing the mission.
Reasoning:
Reduced ratings griefing. A player with a bone to pick with you would have to take the time to play through your entire arc(s) in order to do their damage to your ratings just to spite you. As a result, low ratings more likely be the result of people actually not liking your mission rather than just the player.
Reduced rating padding. A brand new mission wouldn't instantly jump to a bunch of 5 star ratings just because your SG signs on and all 5 stars it real quick. It would require a concious effort for your SG mates to actually play through before they could give you that 5 star. This would reduce the number of "5 stars because your my buddy" ratings that would inflate mediocre/bad arcs.
What you are left is an arc whose rating better reflects its actual quality than the number of people who like/dislike the author.
"But what if I come across a really awful arc that is literally unplayable. Do I have to suffer through it to give it the 1 star it deserves?"
Really awful arcs that are unplayable with this flag would remain at 0 ratings. If you saw an arc with 0 ratings but has been published for 3 months, you can be sure its one of those "unplayable" missions.
Of course this would all be an optional flag. Those who wanted the original rating system to apply, they would simply not set the flag.
The existence or non existence of this flag would not affect an arc's chances for DC.
As it stands now, 1 rating griefer can pull your arc's rating down single handedly. A SG seeking blood can completely trash an arc's rating beyond repair.
I personally would rather have fewer raw ratings if I knew the ratings that WERE on my arc were genuine play-throughs. I'd happily take the reduction in 3,4,5 star ticket rewards for the protection against 1 or 2 star griefers.
This would also promote a bit more feedback as "revenge rating" would be more difficult for someone who reacts to a negative comment on their own arc by 1 starring every single one of yours.