I'm fully in agreement here. I don't want people coming after my arcs if I leave negative feedback and accidentally offend them.
Shortspark: 50 Fire/Fire tanker
Emberblast: 50 Fire/Fire blaster
Jessie Inferno: 50 Fire/SD scrapper
a wizard: 50 Rad/Sonic defender
The Nemesis Plothole: 50 StJ/Reg scrapper
Jessie Inferno: 50 Fire/SD scrapper
a wizard: 50 Rad/Sonic defender
The Nemesis Plothole: 50 StJ/Reg scrapper
I prefer it being non-anonymous. It breeds a more civil behavior.
Craft your inventions in AE!!
Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
Wow, I was just coming here to the forums to write about how frustrating it is to receive a one star and no feedback, just an anonymous, unexplained critique.
I put countless hours into my project "The Adamastor's Tale", and I did it for fun. I wanted it to be a story that I think would be interesting to read and explore. Pohsyb rated it five star, but then someone came on last night and gave it a one star and they left no feedback or anything, and I'm left wondering "what didn't work and what could I do to fix this?" I think that parts of it might be too difficult, but I just don't know. I appreciate critique and would like to know if there is something I could fix to make it more user friendly, or if they just didn't like it, or what the deal was.
I think that anonymous stars without feedback are pretty worthless. The Architect has no clue why he got the rating. Also, users don't see the feedback, and so they don't know why something is rated by other users the way that it is. I'd like the Devs to change their rating system to require a feedback entry if you are leaving a star so that the authors who put a lot of work into their projects can at least have some clue as to why a user rated the way they did. It would also be great to have a user feature that allows users to see feedback and know why something was rated the way that it was.
For me the question of 'Why' something gets rated is probably more important for me to know than the rating itself.
Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)
I've found, by contrast, that my balance-related commentary is often met with, "Well, other people thought it was just fine."
Indeed, the more stars the arc has, the more likely it seems that the author isn't willing to listen.
I agree that if you want feedback, the commentary is overwhelmingly more useful than stars.
I also agree that non-anonymous commentary results in greater civility.
But I also think that non-anonymous commentary discourages leaving any comment whatsoever.
I do think that the single unified rating is vastly less useful than a system that had at least two ratings -- story and gameplay.
I just had to abandon an arc that had a nicely done set of custom villains (nice power picks, good costuming, etc.) and functional if extremely minimal writing, but after four deaths -- three of them at the hands of the unannounced elite boss at the end, despite coming prepared with full trays of inspirations -- I threw in the towel and decided I'd accumulated enough debt. The icing on the cake was seeing a big ambush spawn as I faceplanted the last time. If I could, I'd offer three stars for the construction and one star for gameplay.
Would it be better for me to leave feedback for the author, so they could improve? Sure. Am I going to get into a potential argument over it by doing so non-anonymously? No.
I do think it would be extremely useful if authors could datamine their missions for things like "how many times was this arc started without being finished" and "how many deaths".
I've found myself dealing with some stinker missions/arcs that, under it all, have the beginings of something great. But because I feel I have to give it a low rating, I don't want to attach my name to that rating in any way.
In the end, I've given the lower ratings if I feel I must, and skipped the comments and feedback. I don't want someone coming after my arcs and giving them low ratings as payback for being honest with them.
A few times, rather than give a low rating and not explaining why, I've not even rated them. Lame, I know, but there's no good solution at the moment.
"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
Just remember, feedback is suppose to help the authors. If they don't agree with you that is fine. Just like movie critics.
If they cannot handle the feedback, then maybe they should not make arcs. I'll admit my weakness is grammer, spelling, and typos. But the majority of my content gets by in MS Word. But it cannot catch everything and neither do I.
Feel Free to give me all the feedback you want on my arcs(Even PM me if you need to). I have on occassion asked for more information from a few people. Most had no p roblem giving me the assist. I have one arc, where the story seems to missing something, not sure what. But I have only had one feedback on it.
Just remember if it gets too bad you can always post notes, and /ignore the user. If it goes far enough there is always the /petition. I would hope that people would not push others to that point, but we are talking about the Internet here.
@Blood Beret(2)Twitter
I am a bad speeler, use poorer grammar, and am a frequent typoist.
MA ArcID: 1197
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
[ QUOTE ]
I prefer it being non-anonymous. It breeds a more civil behavior.
[/ QUOTE ]
Anonymous comments might encourage more detailed criticism. While anonymous comments might also bruise some egos, right now if I think your arc's a stinker I can one star it in total anonymity, which is in many ways worse than if I told you privately what I thought of its flaws.
@Mindshadow
Here is a little rule i try to follow. And it works okay. Maybe you folks should adopt it too. It seems like it will eventually help the community as a whole.
If i rate something 4-5 stars, no comment. It is good. No need for me to pick it apart. Unless i find something i NEED to comment on. If i play a whole arc, and enjoy it, but the last boss is an unannounced EB/AV i might comment on it.
3 stars or less and i want to leave a comment. Tell them why i liked it, and why i didn't. Make sure you leave the why you DID like it in there as well. Adding in good with bad makes it easier to stomach for the person being critisized, i have found. Also they know what they should not try to fix.
But also, include a small note saying something like "Make a few changes and get back to me so i can try it again and 5-star it!"
I dunno. It just seems to go down easier. Instead of some faceless player tearing into their arc, they get a friend who wants to see the arc improved to 5-star level.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems to work wonders. And i LOVE when i receive comments like this too. Gives me a nice comment to work from, AND hope of getting those extra stars down the way.
i prefer when poeple leave comments on my arcs, i would rather have SOME feedback than none at all so i can know what i need to improve upon, if needed. one of my arcs got a few low ratings with feedback and i fixed it to compensate. i will never hunt another player down to 1 star their arcs for giving me a bad rating. i give ratings based on how good their story is, not how they rated my arc.
[ QUOTE ]
I prefer it being non-anonymous. It breeds a more civil behavior.
[/ QUOTE ]
Also makes it easier to get further information on the feedback as well. I'm firmly in the "not anonymous" category. Someone's acting like a crap-head to you, just copy it and report them. Enough people like that get smacked down, the others like that won't be so ready to mouth off.
Dec out.
[ QUOTE ]
i prefer when poeple leave comments on my arcs, i would rather have SOME feedback than none at all so i can know what i need to improve upon, if needed. one of my arcs got a few low ratings with feedback and i fixed it to compensate. i will never hunt another player down to 1 star their arcs for giving me a bad rating. i give ratings based on how good their story is, not how they rated my arc.
[/ QUOTE ]
Absolutely, I'm not arrogant enough to believe that my arcs are perfect by any means, I certainly want to know what works and doesn't for the people who play them. Just because it works for me and my SG doesn't mean it will work for everyone; if it's nice and challenging for a mostly-melee team but it absolutely destroys a team of squishies then something is wrong, and I'd like to know what that is so I can modify things.
I've aimed for "challenging" with my arcs, and avoiding "brutal". I'm trying to have an arc that will challenge a good team without destroying an average team. So far both of my published arcs seem to meet that criteria, I've solo'd both with a blaster, tanker and scrapper.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
I think right now in the MA there's a major disconnect between those who have been involved in critique of creative things and those who haven't in both critiquing and receiving. I'm not exactly sure how to resolve this disconnect, though.
Dec out.
There is no need to resolve the critique skills of people. An honest response is what matters. Yes, movies have critics and the writers et al know who they are. But before it gets to critics it goes to test audiences, and they fill out their forms and leave anonymous feedback and walk out of the theater. They have an option to participate in Q&A, but it is an option and that dialog is not connnected directly to their anonymous responses.
If people want critical review and tuning and a dialog with their critics, they should take it to friends and review areas. If people can't take and don't want critique they can wallow in their mediocrity and decide whether they ever want better ratings.
Kudos to those who can handle both sides well.
The simple truth is there are a large number of reviews not being given because the feedback structure is non-anonymous.
[ QUOTE ]
I think right now in the MA there's a major disconnect between those who have been involved in critique of creative things and those who haven't in both critiquing and receiving. I'm not exactly sure how to resolve this disconnect, though.
[/ QUOTE ]
To be fair, you need to solve it on both ends, hence not really feasible.
People will be jerks, and that's ok.
Let's Dance!
I keep hoping the jerks will get bored with being jerks in MA and go find something new to be jerky at.
But past empirical evidence makes Magic 8 Ball point to "Not likely". 
Dec out.
I'm for anonymous feedback. I never leave feedback, just one star if I think it's horrible. 3 star if it needs improvement, and 5 if I love it.
If the feedback were anonymous, I'd tell the person what I didn't like. As such, I will just continue to one star and three star peoples missions which aren't perfect.
So far, I love the feedback system. Of the 17 people who left feedback, 14 were positive, 2 were negative -- and the other was absolutely crucial because it was so out of whack (telling me that my EB were all over the place!) that I knew a patch had screwed something up so I could fix it before others ran into multiple EBs when there was only supposed to be one.
And it also gave me the opportunity to play the arcs of people who tried mine - most of which were tremendous fun! 
I'm getting tired of spineless twits who are scared to leave feedback. Makes me wonder how they handle real life communications.
I haven't gotten much feedback on my bank mission, but the feedback on my Spiderling mission has been great! I've made the Spiderlings more individualistic based on feedback. Never would have thought of it without that feedback.
If making feedback anonymous would get me more, than I would be OK with that.
I've come to the realization that I am generally not willing to leave negative, non-anonymous feedback on architect missions.
Authors are naturally defensive when you critique anything that is not a totally factual problem (anything of the nature of "X did not spawn", typos, etc.). I am not particularly keen on retaliatory low-stars, nor am I interested in simply being told that I'm wrong in my opinions; I want to leave feedback and move on. Most people are not genuinely looking for criticism. For those who are, there's the feedback; for those who aren't, you can ignore it.
Even stars aren't anonymous, especially if the author is online -- they'll get your global tell of feedback right along with a message of how many tickets they earned, and tickets = stars times 5.
On the specific gripes, I don't want to argue with any more authors about their mission balance. I've turned my difficulty down to Heroic for my lower-level toons running MA, and down to level 2 even for my 50s (who were running Invincible in normal PvE), in recognition of the fact that MA custom critters are tougher and that most players don't really understand how to balance. I want to inform authors when I see problems, but I also don't want to get into arguments about it. (I recognize that my taste may be divergent, and for me, good writing is not enough to overcome gameplay issues. For instance, there's a cleverly-written dev's choice arc that is stuffed full of the equivalent of sappers, which I enjoyed reading but loathed playing.)
Similarly, I'd like to offer feedback to the terrible writers who are nevertheless trying. I played a mission that had good ideas but whose author has a writing style like a bad porn fan-fic writer -- you know, never use a period when eight ellipses will do, have lots of OH exclamations, and mix capital letters for emphasis. But again, I want to leave the feedback and not get into a discussion.
I'd really like an anonymous option for feedback. For the moment, I've switched to just leaving stars, no comments.
This is not so much about backlash (although that's a concern, too), as the simple social contract: I'd like to say something negative without having to deal with a confrontation.